Curremt Character/Dynasty Model

[Paul Crocker]

I like the idea of characters becoming "real" people. Since I usually don't have much of an interest in characters, this might be a unique feature to bring people like me into that part of the game. It could be made optional so that players aren't forced into having characters from "our" world - but could be used for people like me that like parallels to the real world (I often use the "real" maps in civ, FE European map. They don't hold as much mystery as a new map, but they have a lot more character IMHO since they DO parallel something that I'm personally familiar with). my $.02

[roquijad]

Jinnai: First, I'm glad about char's independence. Second, about chars becaming "real people", you're right about the "how close should Clash be to real history" issue. I was blind to the fact that some players may not want their games to recreate history. I guess I'm more like Paul in game terms looking for similarity to world history.... It could be an option for the player, but I'm not sure about it... This is so similar to the wonders of the world topic that they could be treated together. I remember I read (I guess it was in the social model) that wonders shouldn't be as specific as "the pyramids" or "great wall", but abstract "great buildings" that give attractivness to the cities where they are built in. But, players like me would prefer to really build pyramids because much of the fun is playing a game where you can recreate history. One could think of an "historic option" in which wonders and chars are from world history and an "abstract option" where wonders and chars are, well, abstract. If we can find further elements to be included in the "historic option" then it'd be worth implementing.

Anyway, back into the chars topic, I think chars should stand for themselves as an attractive feature in the game even for those who don't care much about individual persons. I believe the key for achieving this is exactly char's independence. Being the ruler, you must deal with internal and external problems. All of these problems come from a group of people making nasty things to you. These groups could be an entire enemy civ or an ethnic minority within your nation, for example. If one of your options is, for instance, getting their leader killed, you have an obvious value in playing with chars and all types of players would like the char model in clash. I understand you have these type of interactions included in the model, so my proposal here is to EXCLUDE from the game the option of HIRING chars. I feel some players don't like chars because you have one more variable to control and it's one of a specific and local nature. But, letting chars to be independent in their behavior and having them in the game only as group of peoples gather together, you put chars in their right and natural position: someone you have to bargain with and someone who is on behalf of a civ, group, guerrilla or whatever. Being on behalf of a wider community, chars become really important and the need to implement diplomatic actions or bribery or murder toward them becomes a key factor. The thing is, in a word, isolated local chars don't sell, leaders do.

Rodrigo

[Paul Crocker]

It would be relatively easy to set the game to have a "historical" option and an "abstract" one - it's just a matter of having 2 text files for the names. You'll have to pardon me on this one: I'm having trouble fathoming how it could be even remotely interesting to build a WW as an abstract "building". Picture this...Romans build large stone buildings with sloping sides and a pointy top...makes one unhappy citizen happy. I'm being a bit sarcastic, but it still seems pretty boring Or maybe I'm just lacking in imagination! All the more reason to have 2 options.

[Lord God Jinnai]

First off I'd like to know why char shouldn't be hired. I planned on using them for govenors and advisors, etc. The others such as merchants and stuff would be basically contracted with for certain period of time. But if there's no hiring how could i then appoint govs? or how could the dynasty system work since it is based on people who were hired by you?

As for the char names well we'll see what happens. Its unimportant right now, but if we put it in it wouldn't be to hard to impliment and have and on/off switch. And paul, I believe u could give a name to ur wonder if u wanted to and in the case u porb did it would be a massive tomb or something and the effects wouldn't ness be like u said but would be more appropriate to the actual wonder.

[Paul Crocker]

I realize that it's minor, but the point that I was trying to make is that I (along with at least a small contingent of players) actually enjoy seeing REAL world names for places, people and things in this genre of games. I know that I can give the building a name, but the point is that I'd like to see REAL names. That's probably why role playing games never turned me on much...I don't get all geeked out over finding the "Blue Sword of Jangar" in the "Temple of Ashur" (or whatever it is that you D&D fans search for)

[roquijad]

About real and abstract wonders & chars, maybe we've reached a point where we need other opinions. For sure Paul and I like real names and LGJ just don't care much. What do others think? I think it's not difficult to implement and "historic option", but it's expensive on the research side, looking for world chars. More opinions needed! anything you can do about it?

About not hiring chars, I meant you shouldn't spend time hiring chars and commanding them. I don't see why this would lead to the exclusion of dinasties. If you need a guy as gobvernor in a province, you don't need to have a specific char for that. The char only becomes interesting if he/she turns into a rebel warlord or some other form of anti-ruler. So, in game terms, you manage cities and provinces like if there were gobvernors, viceroys or whatever, but never seeing them. BUT, if for some reason, a group of people with an anti-ruler policy grows enough, then you can see a particular char, that could be an actual member of your office. Then you can take actions against him and/or his people.
In other words, you can have chars all around the game but invisible to the player. Entire dinasties can be going on within your civ, but you only see them when they're strong enough. Their strenght can serve you (if you ally wiht them) or can threat you, if they're anti-ruler.

Rodrigo

[Kanzid Stonebreath]

Picture this...Romans build large stone buildings with sloping sides and a pointy top...makes one unhappy citizen happy.

No this is not what you will be told instead you will be told someting like.

The Roman people have built a massive temple to honour the gods there is much rejoycing across the realm

[Mark_Everson]

Personally, I'm for Both characters the player controls, and those they don't, and every shade in-between! On the historical/non question, I think we need to support both points of view. Needless to say, we'll probably do the latter first because it's easier

[roquijad]

About abstract wonders, I'd like to add that I find interesting the option of customizing their effects. You can build an abstract wonder and decide what's the effect of it. Options could include:
-Religion related happiness
-National Pride (good for army morale, FE)
-"General" happiness (as hanging gardens)
-Diplomatic respect from other civs (like a wonderful palace)

All wonders should also be attractive for people in the migration model and for trade, since the city where the wonder is built in is greatly visited.
In another view of WW, some important events happening in a city could be recorded in such a way that the city holds an special attractivness for some people. Think in the holy land, where people have gone through centuries just because some events took place there like Christ's birth. Such cities could be marked as having a "wonder" since you earn something for having it in your civ.

Anyway, who's in charge of the wonders issue? Because maybe the char model forum is not the place to put this ideas.

Rodrigo

[Mark_Everson]

Rodrigo:

There is a very short thread on wonders here. There have been little bits about wonders, and whether or not we should have them, in several places. If you are interested in writing up a proposal, Go For It. As LGJ suggests, you should probably do a search on wonders if you're interested in undertaking a wonder proposal.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Now back to the correct subject

About not hiring chars, I meant you shouldn't spend time hiring chars and commanding them. I don't see why this would lead to the exclusion of dinasties. If you need a guy as gobvernor in a province, you don't need to have a specific char for that. The char only becomes interesting if he/she turns into a rebel warlord or some other

That's the point of hiring them. And the factor for the loyalty attib. Nameless chars/chars u don't place as govenors won't ever rebel themselves (population might), but they prob won't be as good of a province as they could be (the ruler wouldn't be very smart or anything (just a below average joe). When placing him as gov you take risk of him revolting and if a dynasty is formed, and position is inherited, that the successors won't do as good, sometimes worse than your nameless char). There will be more to it than just that. I'd like an optional option (hehe nice wording) to convey with them and order/suggest they do stuff and based on what type of char they are they'd react diff.
As for advisors, it would be similar, only on a civ level, not province. The more loyal they were, the better they'd help/work for u and low loyalty ones could be bribed and/or give u false statements. The advisors would prob be completly optional but a general advisor (nameless) would always be there no matter what. Again u take chances with them and have to interact with them and they could even start revolts of their own against u. So when u say there's no real interaction well i really must say atleast the way i'd like it, you're wrong.

In other words, you can have chars all around the game but invisible to the player. Entire dinasties can be going on within your civ, but you only see them when they're

I kinda like that idea for dynasty's but if every char had the potential to make a dynasty, it would eat up a lot of computing time IMO, esp if u were like me and put characters on max. However any dynasty under ur control u'd always know about.

While I'm on the subject of Dynasty's, theres a way i can think of of implimenting one for ruling family. I've played a game called Gheghas Khan II and u have to play the game cross-generational so to make it more realistic ur stating char everntually grows old and dies. Well if u have a son (only sons in thsi game) who's a general (ie 10 yrs of age and u've doned him the title) u can have a successor to the throne and ur empire continues. If u don't, its game over, but u can still see how the AI plays the game for ur country as a new ruler. I would make it easier to continue though since this is only a span of a couple hundred years, not thousands. Basically if u had another child (male and female could become rulers, depending on society), and the original inheriter died (ie first born) then it could go to a sibling and if the current inheriter is too young, a regency is put in place. For game sake we'll prob say all ruling family regency's will be playable as if it were actual ruler. When the time comes to ascend the throne, we could impliment a % chance that a rebellion starts from the regent who didn't want to give up the throne, but u'd still be in charge of ur civ (well most of it ). Anyway let me know how this sounds.

[Paul Crocker]

Kanzid: You've made my point - having a faceless, nameless temple is boring to me - building the Parthenon is more exciting. I KNOW that it's just my opinion, but it should be pretty easy to allow for customized text files (or however we format it) to allow for this type of feature. There seems to be a fairly diverse opinion on this subject - that's why it would be smart to account for BOTH sides of the discussion (Real and Abstract). See my post in the "Script Editor" Thread to continue the discussion if need be. I'll step down from my soap box now and return the floor to LGJ (sorry for the distraction, LGJ!)

[roquijad]

LGJ: Alright, I guess we don't need to exclude the option of hiring chars from the game. Just two questions:
1) How many chars you think a player will have in his/her game at any given time?
2) What about chars death? If my governor dies I need to replace it. If the game advances at rates of, let's say, 50 years per turn, my chars will die every turn! How are you handling this?

About your proposal for the ruling family, it sounds good to me. The prob of regent trying to keep power to himself should be treated within chars attrb. I mean the regent should be a char and depending on his attrb, you determine how he acts.

I posted somewhere (I don't remeber at what forum) that in some cases when you want to make profound changes in govt and a rovolution is needed, the player could be able to change sides, leaving his control of the ruler (AI takes control) and becaming other char, a revolutionary in some province. I think this can be linked with regency or other forms of for-the-moment govts: The player could leave his ruling char and became the regent, terminating a dinasty. Or, the player may want to play another dinasty (at a province level, FE) that seeks ruling. In that way the player is still the "driving force" of the civ, but makes the game more consistent, since unlikely a fundamentalist ruler would change govt style into a democracy.... These actions may imply losing control of the civ for a while, which may be interesting.... or not? What do yo think?

[Mark_Everson]

Rodrigo:

You should go back and look over the previous character threads, your point about character lifespan is answered. We can't just go in circles on the same issues . Either go to the web page and look at the links, or follow the trail back from the top post of each thread

BTW I Personally will probably use Very Few characters that are relatively extreme since I have the same issue as you about not wanting to spend a lot of time dragging characters around! LGJ and I just prefer a different style, but hopefuly we can accomodate both of us.

[roquijad]

ooooops! I don't mean to ask already discused topics... I guess you'll have to be patient with me on that. I've made an effort to read as much as possible but there's so much info around!...

Rodrigo