01-10-2002 22:01									#1
	May I offer an idea? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

You might have already thought of this already. I just thought I'd offer these ideas that have been bubbling in my head for the last few days. I hope you find them interesting.

1. Military leaders

Every group of units (army) would have a leader. The leader should have a name and portrait. I think this would help the player "connect" with the Candle Bre world. It would make things more real to the player.

After all, isn't a purpose of a good game like this one, to make the player almost forget that its a game. I think having leaders in the game with a face and a name would help this a lot.

The leader would also have three characteristics:
-rank
It would range from 1 to 5. In addition to a number the rank would also have a word like "general" or "centurion" to serve as a description. The higher the rank the more troops the army could hold.
-loyalty
It would range from 1 to 5. This would represent how loyal the Leader is to your faction. The lower the loyalty, the higher the probability that the army would rebel and turn against you.
-Experience
This could also range from 1 to 5, and would represent how competent the leader is to manage the size of army he has. Experience would grant the army a combat bonus.

Victorious battles would increase the level of experience.
Promotion to a higher rank would decrease the level of experience. (rationale: larger armies are harder to manage than smaller ones)
Demoting rank would increase loyalty.
Promoting rank would decrease loyalty.

The player would have total control to demote or promote a leader in rank.

The player would hire leaders in the first place in provinces with a military academy (or whatever appropriate military improvement you plan to have in CB)

Each rank would require a certain salary in gold per turn. The higher the rank, the higher the salary.

An army without a leader could defend a province and raid an enemy province. An army would require a Leader to actually conquer an enemy province.

2. Civil Leader

They would similar to military leaders except that they would be for domestic affairs. They would also have a face and name.

Their purpose would be to reduce waste and corruption.
(I think you mentionned agents that the player would hire that would reduce waste, this is similar)

They would also have three characteristics, rank, loyalty and experience.

Rank would determine how many provinces they affect.
Loyalty would determine how likely they will revolt.
Eperience would affect how much they are able tor educe corruption and waste.

Just like with military leaders, the player would hire, demote or promote civil leaders in rank.

Increasing rank would decrease experience, and vice versa.
Leaders would automatically increase in experience as the population grows.
Loyalty would increase as rank increases, and vice versa. Furthermore, certain events could cause loyalty to increase or decrease. For example, if a province were attacked, and pillaged several times, the loyalty of the leader would decrease. (rationale: having his province pillaged would make the leader think less of you as a king, he would feel that you can't adequately protect his province from enemy raids)

Civil leaders would also require salaries based on rank.

Provinces without a Civil Leader would suffer more waste and corruption.

This is just an idea I had. I thought I would "dump" it here, and see what Vel and others thouht of it. You probably already have a similar idea but I thought I would post mine anyway. I hope that is ok.

I also considered maybe having military leaders and civil grant special bonuses, but that may be too much.

	01-10-2002 22:36									#2
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Good thoughts here! And yes! Any and everybody is free to toss ideas out there for discussion....*always* a good thing to see!

Total agreement with putting faces and names with the leaders, and I like what you've written here....(as Vel makes more notes to himself) More! More!

-=Vel=-

	01-10-2002 23:41									#3
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Velociryx Good thoughts here! And yes! Any and everybody is free to toss ideas out there for discussion....*always* a good thing to see! Total agreement with putting faces and names with the leaders, and I like what you've written here....(as Vel makes more notes to himself) More! More! -=Vel=-

I am glad that you like what I wrote. I didn't know how useful this idea would be, so I hesitated a bit before posting it.

I would just add a few explanatory thoughts.

The reason why I think that military leaders (or "Generals") would be required in order to actually conquer an enemy province, is for two reasons:

1) the "realism" answer: an army needs a general when they go on a war campaign. Think of Julius Cesar when he led his legions on a lengthy campaign to conquer Gaul for the Roman empire!

2) the "gameplay" answer: requiring a leader to actually conquer enemy provinces would offer a nice balance between conquest and building. The player with the huge army would not automatically be able to immediately conquer the entire map. They would have to pay gold to hire generals to lead armies on their conquest.

Similarly for Civil Leader (or "Governors"), they would add a nice balance between conquest and consolidation. It would encourage the player to consolidate their empire in between conquests. They would be able to hire governors for the newly conquered provinces in order to reduce waste and corruption.

Note that it also gives the player a more direct way to control corruption. If a province has high corruption, the player can simply hire a Governor for the province. The player can demote or promote them to a different rank as they see fit. It would give the player a more direct control on corruption.

I think having increase rank decrease loyalty and vice versa, would give the player that cool advantage/disadvantage considerations that adds strategy. Do I promote the leader to get a better leader but maybe risk disloyalty? or do I adopt the "paranoid strategy", and keep leaders low rank to make sure they stay loyal to me but then get less capable leaders?

Some more ideas:

The leaders that I have talked about would be regular leaders that the player could hire, fire, demote and promote whenever they want.

Great leaders would work just like regular leaders except that they would have 1 positive bonus and 1 negative.

GL would come into 2 categories, military leaders and civil leaders just like the regular ones.

The positives could be things like, "+10% more food", or "cavalry attack with +10%".

The negatives could be like, "-10% productivity", "-10% defense for pikemen".

Great Leaders would appear semi-randomly, at a fixed date based on the CB backstory, or based on special events.

They would offer their services to a faction. The player could refuse or accept.

Great Leaders would only last a fixed number of turns. This would be for balance reasons, so that a player does not get these bonuses forever.

There could be "interludes" to explain the Great Leaders. When the GL first offers their services, the player could get a message like, "The Legendary Brunnus greatly admires your empire. He offers his services for 20 turns." The player could then accept of decline offer. When the GL leaves, you could get a message like, "Brunnus has decided to leave to begin a personal quest. He wishes your fine empire well."

IMPORTANT: Great Leaders would be more likely to offer their services to weak empires. This would be to help players that are struggling. If the player accepts the offer, the GL would be an opportunity to catch up.