Peace Time Ways to Create Great Leaders

[Dr. Stiby]

I disagree with a 100% chance of getting a GL. What makes a great leader unique is the fact that you don't know when you'll get one, so you can't adjust you strategy because of a GL. Of course you can push your luck by being a big warmonger, thus increasing your chances of getting one, but you never know when it happens.
GL's through high culture wouldn't make sense, unless they'll have different options. A great painter can't form an army.
So what about differnt types of Great Leaders? A Great Cultural Leader (e.g. Michelangelo, van Gogh) can improve a civ's culture drastically.
Maybe in times of peace there will be another type of leader. Maybe this can give a civ some diplomatic advances, but this concet will be harder to work out.
One can also think about a great science leader (Einstein, Newton), this should improve your science for a couple of turns.

Just some ideas for the peaceful players among us!

[Adm.Naismith]

I've spent some posts in the past supporting the concept of Great People (early Firaxis idea, IIRC) opposing to the only military Great General we got.

We should have:
Great scientist -> science bonus
Great artist -> culture bonus
Great merchant/economist -> economic bonus
Great philosopher/religious -> happiness bonus
Great architect/engineer -> production bonus

May be also
Great explorer -> exploration/resources bonus

And about military leader I can't understand why they left out Great Admirals and Aces pilots for navy and air victories


Of course I understand that too many different leaders and too many available at the same time can confuse a player or unbalance the game too much if they are so overpowered to let someone finish three Great Wonder in a turn, so we must tune them down a bit and manage their total number.

I must point out a problem some of you seems to forget:
the Great Leaders should be a "wild card" to help a Civ who is left a bit behind to recover and keep the game interesting.

If we link new leaders only to events that can happen only to an already winning civ, we are simply enlarging the gap, hence we aren't keeping the game interest for long.

Some choices are also potential handicap for special play style, i.e. linking a Leader appearance to a defined number of cities with high culture cut that chance for "One City Victory" games.

We should link the opportunity to events that can happen also to well developed small civ, i.e. gaining a Great scientist if you spend enough money in research and have a library/citizen ratio (or university/citizen) high enough (I haven't decided any percentage at this moment, it's mostly matter for game balancing test).

It will give some use to all that statistics that Civ II used to compute for us.

It can also save some really bad kicked Civ, because a Great Religious can appear easily in a desperate nation, helping it to try to gain back some power (think about Moses for Hebrew people).

On a side note, a Great Leader shouldn't be killed the same turn it appear IMHO (I hate it when my defensive elite unit generate my only leader of a full game then it will be killed the same turn ).
Leader should be put in jail in Capital or maybe in nearest enemy city (escorted by a military unit by all the path or "teleported", I haven't decided yet).

This way you can try to save him/her or trade their freedom (pay for ransom) as often happened in history. May be you can still kill the enemy GL, but only after some turn and with bad diplomatic effects (angry).

[Dr. Stiby]

Beat you to it AN!
Well, your concepts all seem very interesting. I'd like the idea of liberating GL's. this should cause for a wide joy throuhout your entire civ. Maybe the opponent killing your GL should have disadvantages in fighting you. Like your civs soldier are so angry about their GL being killed that they fight more fierce (maybe getting an extra hitpoint?)

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Dr. Stiby
Beat you to it AN!

Yes, I'm a slow writer in english, and you have a better Lan Lag

Maybe the opponent killing your GL should have disadvantages in fighting you. Like your civs soldier are so angry about their GL being killed that they fight more fierce (maybe getting an extra hitpoint?)

I'm pondering about the effect of captured GL, but I think you'll probably end with four different alternatives and related effects:

1) your GL is captured and kept imprisoned for some turns: your people lose faith on victory and suffer worse war weariness; OTOH the longer you keep him imprisoned, the smaller the ransom you could ask.
2) your GL is killed and become a Hero or a Martire: you can draft +1 people as conscript every city per one turn, also if your government/tech usually don't make available this feature (that count as "Volunteers" joining to revenge).
3) your GL is captured but you can free him/her with your troops: you gain a small special bonus for that, e.g. a free turn of "We Love The Boss"
4) you pay the ransom to free the leader: your leader "teleport" back to your Capital or into the nearest city of yours, and became useful again, after a "recover/travel" time (e.g. he show again on the map after xx turn since his liberation).

[Solver]

The great Velociryx has a post about this, where he describes Great Artists. Look it up somehwere, it's a great one, after that Firaxis invited him to join the Beta Team for Civ 3.

[Capt Dizle]

Beta team? You crack me up.

Lots of great ideas posted here and all along. I just can't understand why the professional people who designed Civ3 couldn't have come up with some of them.

[IthacaMike]

How about each city that is in WLT*D gets a roll for a GL each time the civ discovers a new tech that no other civ has?

Mike G

[Dr. Stiby]

Originally posted by IthacaMike
How about each city that is in WLT*D gets a roll for a GL each time the civ discovers a new tech that no other civ has?

How would that make any sense? I see no link between happy people inventing something and thus getting a GL.

[rubbersoul16]

can great leaders arise from naval conflics? i have tried many times but all of them have been in vain.

[Giovanni Wine]

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith


Yes, I'm a slow writer in english, and you have a better Lan Lag



I'm pondering about the effect of captured GL, but I think you'll probably end with four different alternatives and related effects:

1) your GL is captured and kept imprisoned for some turns: your people lose faith on victory and suffer worse war weariness; OTOH the longer you keep him imprisoned, the smaller the ransom you could ask.
2) your GL is killed and become a Hero or a Martire: you can draft +1 people as conscript every city per one turn, also if your government/tech usually don't make available this feature (that count as "Volunteers" joining to revenge).
3) your GL is captured but you can free him/her with your troops: you gain a small special bonus for that, e.g. a free turn of "We Love The Boss"
4) you pay the ransom to free the leader: your leader "teleport" back to your Capital or into the nearest city of yours, and became useful again, after a "recover/travel" time (e.g. he show again on the map after xx turn since his liberation).

Adm.Naismith and Dr. Stiby
You guys have excellent ideas, I would love to see something like that in Civ3, plus e GL for every field (Culture, Science, Happiness etc...) like you stated before.

It would be great, but i think hardly realizable in Civ3, maybe in Civ4.... I don't know.... But i hope for something like this.

Saluti

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by rubbersoul16
can great leaders arise from naval conflics? i have tried many times but all of them have been in vain.

No Rubbersoul, and that's quite silly, as I pointed out into my previus post. Air battle doesn't produce an Ace, too. That's a pity: think about a World War II like wave of 3 Bombers attacking London or Berlin, with a Fighter into the packet to better defend the group!

I served into the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare Italiana) for a year (as a conscript, not as a pilot) and my nick is about an Admiral: I can't believe that Firaxis minimize the role of both!

Originally posted by Giovanni Wine
I would love to see something like that in Civ3, plus e GL for every field (Culture, Science, Happiness etc...) like you stated before.
It would be great, but i think hardly realizable in Civ3, maybe in Civ4.... I don't know.... But i hope for something like this.

Ciao Giovanni da Torino! Well, some of the concept are probably too difficult to fit in current game to hope they'll show in PTW expansion, but some are quite easy.
It really seems that they were considered for Civ III, but doesn't survive to last design cuts, made both to simplify the game development for a quicker release and for an easier playability for new gamers.

And no, I hope Firaxis start to play with a different design and project, burdening the idea of Civ 4.

I'm not sure if Rise of Nation will be a good game (I didn't liked the Microsoft's AoE serie), but at least it's trying a different approach.

[Giovanni Wine]

I served into the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare Italiana)

I didn't even noticed you are from Milano
Glad to see a " paisa' " on these boards

Saluti

[kring]

Originally posted by LordAzreal
It kinda sucks that the main way to victory is warfare (though peacemongering can be boring, there should be a definitive path that way). I mean, the game is called CIVILIZATION. The way you need to play to get anywhere in the game hardly seems civilized at all.

I'd definitely like to see at least one peacetime way of creating a leader. Maybe when a city accumulates a certain HUGE amount of culture points (that would make the Oracle much more useful BTW since the Oracle is huge on cultural value for an early game wonder). Another way might be if the total population of your civ reaches a certain milestone. There's probably a few more possibilities, but no more come to mind at the moment.

I got the concept from Zippo in a CivFanatics post. Using Zippo's suggestion, I was able to make a buildable Leader; and I did it without using the Hacked Editor.

Basically, what I did was to go into the editor, save as new bic, change General Settings Tab Battle Created Unit to something other than Leader, assign a cost and prereq. if desired. Play game. I tested it with the multi before 1.21f. The AI will use it to rush Wonders, but on a limited scale. I made it more expensive than the early Wonders, about as much as a mid or late mid Wonder with Warrior Code needed. This limited how many were built by anyone, myself included. I did not build all the Wonders using Leaders, several were built regularly both by me and the other civs; a couple were rushed both by me and the other civs.

The main use of the AI ones seemed to be Armies for much of the game.