Characters & Dynasties IV
1.0 - Table of Contents

1.0 Table of Contents
1.1 Introduction

Characters
2.0 Traits
2.0.1 Physical
2.0.2 Social
2.1 Skills
2.2 Creation
2.3 Hiring
2.4 Other Character Info

Dynasties
3.0 Creation
3.1 Evolution
3.2 Death
3.3 Succession and Splintering
3.4 Ruling Dynasty

4.0 Offices & Professions
4.1 Offices
4.2 Professions
4.3 Contracting

5.0 Credits

1.1 - Introduction

There have been considerable discussions on characters and dynasty's on the Forum, with little clear consensus reached, although the general ideas and possibilities have been analyzed. So what you read here is not necessarily the exact system we'll use.

First off Characters and Dynasty's are two totally different things and are only placed together because they are so intertwined.

CHARACTERS

2.0 - Traits

Each character has personal traits, and when he is assigned or chooses a profession, his skills are determined (see next section on the profession thing). This will hopefully please the role-players out there as this has relations to many role-play games. All of these will be based on a number 1-20, 20 being the best. The exception to this is Alignment, which I will explain below. I think these should be hidden from the player, but instead have descriptions that rate the general levels. Character's from dynasty's I would like to add a "haze" effect for social viewing of characters, but that we'll have to wait and see.

Physical Traits Social Traits
---------------- --------------
Status Intuition
Alignment Willpower
Reputation Charisma
Education

2.0.1 - Physical Traits - These usually evolve during play somewhat and have a lot do with the character's history and perhaps his dynasty's history.

Status - Represents the social level a character is at. 1 is usually slave or serf or in modern times, a bum. 10 is a journeyman craftsperson or in modern times, a factory worker. 20 is the elite aristocracy or extremely influential people. In modern times these would be rulers of countries, superstars, CEOs of huge corporations like Microsoft. This also represents there relative wealth or potential wealth for the very near future. As the character is played, this may go up or down somewhat.

Alignment - This represents the way the characters actions are viewed by society in general as a whole. This doesn't say a character is good or bad, only the way other people in general see him/her as. This range goes from -10 though 10. -1, 0 and 1 are considered neutral and all characters start out with one of those stats. Beyond that is when people start to take notice of their actions. Also when dealing with characters with very high/low alignments they will act differently and will not do certain jobs. Once a character is no longer considered neutral, they cannot get out of that alignment bracket, though they can go up and down within it.

Reputation - This is the most volatile of all the Traits. All characters who don't come from a dynasty start off with a reputation of 1. Those that come from dynasty's start off 1 lower than their parent(s) reputation. All Radicals (explained later) will have a minimum of 10. This trait measures how well a character is know, not liked. The higher the reputation, the more he's known and the more able u are to hire him if he's outside your civ. However, higher reputations also require more lucrative offers (explained below). Reputation is increased and decreased in many ways, namely as time passes (reputation tends toward shifting 7 if no other modifiers are out there. Other things that can raise it; when the character is hired, were successful at a job, been promoted, very few in that profession. Some that could lower; fired from a office, overthrown, unsuccessful. This is by far incomplete and probably highly inaccurate, but I hope you get the idea.

2.0.2 - Social Traits - These have more to do with predisposed areas a char is good/bad in. When rolling for random generation of these numbers, these stats are what make super/stupid characters.

Intuition - This represents a character's instincts, common sense, perception and daily living knowledge. Those with high intuitions usually are able to think fast (although not ness correctly). Low intuition doesn't mean that someone's dumb, it means they might be inexperienced or somewhat mentally imbalanced. Intuition like education will probably not change that much, but if so will only go up and by not more than 2.

Willpower - This is the drive for success of a person, there ability to resist charismatic leaders (and resist being hired) and the ability to be efficient. Those with high willpower will be risk takers, adventurous or dominant in political field. Strong will powered people are harder to hire, but are also good if you manage to get one. All radicals will have a minimum of 10 for their willpower.

Charisma - This is a characters ability to sway a person, group or populace through his speaking and actions. This char is naturally gifted (or handicapped) in this area and will usually make good in politics or religion. Super charismatic people are known to cause turmoil throughout history.

Education - This is basically book knowledge and the use of it. Those of less than 5 are
considered illiterate while those of 17+ are usually considered geniuses. This stat will probably not change, but if so, will only go up and not by more than 2.

2.1 - Skills

Next come the skills. The exact level of skill in any of the listings above depends on the traits related to it (f.e. Leadership would be mainly based on Charisma, but also a bit on Status and Intuition, maybe even Willpower) and also on the exact profession the character has (see next section). So an Army Commander would have somewhat higher Leadership value than a Banker even if they had the exact same traits. I'll leave the exact connections between the traits and skills out for now. The general idea should be obvious: When a character is created he is rated in several characteristic traits, if the character is controlled by a player he can be assigned to numerous Professions so long as that character meets the minimum requirements. When this is done, the skills are determined, using the traits and the Profession as basis.

In addition we'll probably include Personality and History as suggested by Mark for flavor, although these are not skills per se.

- Administration
- Accounting
- Military Tactics
- Personal Combat
- Leadership
- Engineering
- Theory
- Diplomacy
- Persuasion
- Tinkering
- Agriculture
- Theatre
- Music
- Medicine
- Sailing
- Drawing/Painting
- Philosophy
- Electronics
- Computers
- Commerce
- Maybe something more

2.2 - Creation

Next, lets look at character creation. How a character is created is determined randomly, although with some regulating so that players can't go back to a saved game to get different kind of character. One idea we could use instead of the Point Bank is simply to average out characters over the game, so if a player gets a super character he will get a total airhead later on (or several that are below par).

As for how frequent characters are, this is something that players choose at the beginning at the game. There will be something like a sliding bar for frequency from just radicals to numerous.

Finally there are 2 basic types of characters created. "Free" characters and "Mercenary" characters. "Mercenary characters are common and there are usually 5-20 per civ depending on size and population. These characters require payment of some kind to become employed. They are usually lower in stats than free characters, but not always. Free characters are, well, free. These characters start already in your pool in a position called "General Administration" which just means they help the government out. The exception to this is with hereditary dynasties (See that section for details). Free characters are usually rarer, or are created by dynasties. Finally there is a very rare 3rd type of character generated. These are "Radicals" and cannot be controlled, only influenced, by any civ. They also always have an alignment => -5 5 <=. They also have at least 1 very high physical stat.

Finnally the character's history is put in. This includes if he was in a dynasty and which one, his culture, how civ, religion (if any). Some other aspects may be added but that's all for right now.

2.3 - Hiring

Then the alignment of the character is checked, i.e. -10 to, perhaps modified a bit by the cultural background (f.e. if the character belongs to a oppressed minority there is more chance he/she has a -1 alignment to start with). If the character has a posative alignment he becomes helps out the government in any way he can. He can easily hire this person with prob nothing more than asking if he wants a job. Note that I would like alignment to be a base, modified by culture, religion, etc.. If a character is hired his status is kept (but frozen) and is replaced by loyalty which measures how much he likes your gov. Characters consider neutral can be hired, but it may be harder to do so. Negatively aligned characters are near impossible to hire without some kind of bribery and even so there loyalty will start out very low. When hired, the player is then free to assign the character to a specific post.

Characters that fall into the Negatively aligned group can also do 2 additional things: they can act against the government(s) or they can become Radicals with even more far-reaching effects.

Then the traits of the character are determined. As said above whether the character has high/low stats is pretty random (with some restraints). When distributing the trait ratings the class the character belongs to is very important. Thus characters from the UC tend to have higher Status and Wealth rating than those from the LC in social traits.

2.4 - Other Character Info

About the longevity of characters is on the average 30 turns, and the range maybe 20 to 40. As technology improves however, so should their lifespan.

Characters will be both male and female and their really won't be much differance if any in their stats as far as determining them.

Also characters can (optional) become real people like Marco Polo, Socraties, Elvis, etc. Default will just have non-real people character names for famous people. Characters can also give their own names to popular people through scipting.

DYNASTIES

3.0 - Creation

Creation will be determined when a character dies (disappears) as to whether or not he/she creates a Dynasty. This would be determined by: a) the characters status and reputation; b) type of government; c) possible we can influence this by the History of the character; d) the character has any children. As for a) only those of high reputation and status have dynasties that are remembered (min 10 reputation). The government (b) will determine whether or not it is more likely that a dynasty would be started.

3.1 - Evolution

The offspring of the first character automatically try to follow in their fathers (mothers) footstep, even expecting (demanding) the same position he/she held. If it was a hereditary position they'd probably get it automatically (spelling potential trouble for players when the Dynasty begins to slacken). The traits/skills of the offspring (note that only one character for a Dynasty is active at a time) are calculated using the stats of the one before them. The tendency that the Dynasty slackens in time means that there would be some negative modifiers to this. Here's the numbers I've come up with based on 20. This represents the first generation after the founding character and should change as follows: the "Stay's the same" should never change in actual amount. The positive modifier will slowly erode at 1 per generation till it is only a 1 or 2. On a roll of 1 or 20 a super character/dim-witted character is created. Each new character will start with a -1 modifier to their stats which will be rolled (unless specified otherwise) with a variation of 3 (-2 - +1). On these char it will be (-7 - +5). In the case of a 1, the slacken curve is reset and on 20 it is put to its end result. If there is a 1 and 20 rolled, it evens out if more than one of them than the other is rolled, law of majority wins.

This is how the slackening curve should start out:

1-8 Stat raised
9-15 Stay's the same
16-20 Stat Lowered

3.2 - Death

In addition a dynasty dies out either through player intervention (or computer civ intervention) or when its reputation of the character born is below 5. Finally if there are no offspring when the char dies, so does the dynasty. There is an exception for the ruling dynasty. See the appopriate section.

3.3 - Succession and Splintering

There will be 0-9 offspring. tending toward 4 during pre-industial age, after that it slowly lowers to 0-4 tending toward 2. (Countries can place caps that affect dynasties as well). The reason for the high level during earlier periods is it is common for death in earlier periods and I intend to make characters just as suseptable to diseases as the rest of the population. We'll have to determine when they have kids. Earlier periods had them quite young with daughters being married sometimes at the age of 8 and sons 10. This will have to be playtested i guess. Anyway the succession is usually 1st born unless (a) char dies (b) personality conflict with parent (c) political reasons such as char wants to be an artist and runs away, daughter is married off, etc. Anyway dynasty succession can't be micromanaged. Period.

Civil wars will usually occur do to succession for the throne by two (or more) influential and powerful siblings (one being the "rightful" heir). This will usually have the other leave and form his own dynasty which will be at war with the other one. Others can happen from splitting of resources upon death, parent/child disowning there respective counterpart. How this should be implemented should have much to do with the current political situation and personalities of all involved, though beyond that I'm not sure. This should however be regulated so we don't end up with 50,000 dynasties, though to what degree I'm not sure.

Finally since this has to do with the former paragraph I'm posting it here. It's about rogue dynasties. Those are dynasties that don't support the way the current succession is or have disowned (been disowned) by their parent and took some retainers and started their own dynasty. These will probably always start out at war with other dynasty. One way to limit new dynasties from splintering effects is to give all rouge dynasties a lesser chance of continuing that current legitimate dynasties. This could be done by simply giving them a higher reputation to achieve, extra min stats for their offspring, just a certain percent chance they don't continue (I personally don't like that idea), etc. In any case their offspring would make it a legitimate dynasty for purposes of succession and other stuff. Also the player (or computer AI Civs) can recognise a rouge dynasty as legitimate, howver this will have reprocussions.

3.4 - Ruling Dynasty

The ruling dynasty is special. If dynasties are used the player starts out with this dynasty and tries to keep it going till the end of the game. All other civs have ruling dynasties also, though not cultures. The ruling dynasty can be micromanaged to some extent, but not much. Basically one can try to arrange marriages and choose a successor, though until the throne is taken the characters stats will be hidden as to keep players from just number pushing. You can also interact with your childen, spouce and close relatives.

Succession is done a little differntly. First off reputation doesn't matter. Second, if there is no heir old enough to rule a Regent will rule until the appropriate time. If that fails, a brother/sister will rule, followed by cousins, neices/nephews, anunts/uncles, remaining spouce in that order. Which ones will be randomly picked. Also, if there still is a relative alive, they can appoint a heir from another dynasty if ness. This will have negative reprocussions with everything except that dynasty so it should be a last resort. f none of these are available the dynasty is considered dead.

Just like other dynasties, rouge dynasties can form. They are less likely but still possible. Visiting and talking with your family will affect the odds, but not doing that at all leaves about a 15% chance per offspring that one will splinter off on his/her own or with other siblings. They will take a small portion of the land (from 5-10% of your civ) and you will automatically be at war with them. Also when a Regent must step down from power there will be a chance based on his personality that he won't want to.

3.5 - Other Dynasty Info

It might be possible on some (rare) occasions to switch sides (ie dynasites) with the rebel dynasty. Such a thing would have to be under certain circumstances. Namely a few reasons you couldn't have this happen would be if they were rebbelling because you've been really bad to them (hey come on, its your fault, deal with it!) Also if for the afore mentioned reaons in the last paragraph you couldn't side with the other civ.

4.0 - Offices & Professions

Dynasties can of course be of any type, it all depends on the Profession/Office of the originator. The only Office that must hold a Dynasty at all times is the ruler when the state is hereditary Monarchy or the like. In most cases a Dynasty should be associated with a certain Office, because the idea with the Dynasties is that once they decline players must pry them from their Office in order to put a better character in it. As this may be something that some players aren't interested in doing we must include the option to turn Dynasties ĉoffĈ, including having the ruler
represented by a special character.

Now that we've outlined the creation and stats of characters and dynasties the next step is to decide what to do with them. I think if we just let them wander around without a specific purpose or position we're asking for a lot of trouble. So for a character to have any effects on the game he must occupy an Office or pursue a rofession. Each character can have one of 3 occupations at any given time. These are:

- Office. Characters that are working in the government (not merely for it) are considered in an Office. Basically, these are the governmental officials. Apart from hereditary Dynasty positions characters never get an Office without assignment from the player. The AI will put all characters in a section called General Adminstration which will help the player, but not as good as specific placement (if its good placement).

- Profession. This occupation can be divided into two groups. The first is all characters that are under someone's control, but that are not part of the government. The second group are characters that are characters that are not under direct control by any player, either because no-one has offered them a job (yet), or of their own choosing.

- Radical. Radicals are a rare breed, I envision that there'll be no more than 10-12+1-2 per each player beyond the first (in multiplayer games) of these in a whole game . The radicals can never be controlled by a player, at most they can be influenced. I haven't completely figured out how these guys should work, so any suggestions are welcome. I think each of them will embrace an obscure or previously nonexistent idea (religious, philosophical or political) and take it to new heights, so to speak. This would be determined by the social/tech standings. We could use these for the creation of new religions (see Social model).

4.1 Offices

Here is a list of possible offices, not a complete one. Note that many positions only become available when civs have reached a certain advancement level, and some may become obsolete in time: Also, that some positions where known under numerous names throughout history.
Offices:
- Governor
- Minister (several types possible, Finance, Defense, Internal, Foreign, Judicial, Prime; could also be termed Chancellor or Chamberlain, even Consul or Vizier)
- General/Admiral
- Tax-collector (tax-farmer)
- Chief of police/intelligence service
- Diplomat/Ambassador
- Inspector
- Spy
- Judge
- Chaplin/Patriarch
- Various Advisors (Military, Economic, etc)
- Some independent organizations like "The Federal Reserve" or something

These types should all be familiar, the Inspector is an official whose job it is to make sure that other officials are doing their job appropriately, thus decreasing corruption and increasing administration efficiency. Inspectors can be corrupted also though. A Chaplin is someone the religious representive. There can be more than one, but only one per religion. Note that the effects of each position are yet to be decided. Also, if an Office isn't occupied by an active character (as will happen often) it's considered occupied by a ĉJohn DoeĈ with average stats (maybe a bit low), which occupies the Office until the player assigns it to an active character )and occupies it again when that character dies or is sacked).

4.2 Professions

Professions:
- Landlord/Aristocrat
- Bounty Hunter
- Class/Faction Leader
- Banker
- Scientist
- Inventor
- Philosopher
- Religious Leader
- Doctor/Healer
- Artist
- Bard/Performer
- Musician
- Psychologist
- Mercenary Leader
- Pirate Captain
- Merchant Leader
- Religious Leader/Mesiah
- Guild Leader/CEO
- Farmer
- Engineer
- Assasins/Spies
- Electrician
- Computer Specialist
- Master Craftsman (any kind)

These types should also be more or less familiar. The Landlord/Aristocrat is in most cases a powerful and influential character, which is liable to act against you if kept out of government for too long. The Class Leaders are characters that represent a class or a faction and can modify the relations of that class/faction towards the ruler, even act as a rebel leader in case of a revolt. As for the Artists and similar, some explanation is needed. Players get several benefits from employing Artists, Bards or Musicians. First, the court of a ruler with many prominent "talents" around attracts attention and gives the player a Diplomacy bonus. Secondly, each turn there is a chance that a "talent" produces a Masterpiece, which gives the player a VP bonus, and perhaps some monetary gain later on (Tourism). We could also award extra Diplomatic or Stability bonuses for Masterpieces. If it's not too complicated to implement (and if we think it's worth it) we could keep track of each Masterpiece, what type it is, where it is, who owns it, etc. thus allowed them to be stolen (looted) or exchanged through diplomacy (like the Statue of Liberty).
Masterpieces can of course be destroyed (or lost). Scientist can occasionaly come up with sudden breakthoughs in addition to simply helping out.

4.3 - Contracting

Characters not associtated directly with the government can be contracted out. Contracts last for X amount of years determined by the agreement or until certain task(s) are completed. All contracts require payments. I'm not sure whether payment should be done before, during, after or ½ and ½ deal. In the first case its easiest to impliment, but on the other ones it makes it more interesting if u can't afford to keep up the end of your bagain. A character can only have one contract per civ at a time. There will be a certain percent chance of success based on the characters traits, the toughness of the target and just weather or not the character feels like living up to it.

5.0 - Credits

One comment that perhaps belongs in a different thread, but which I feel quite strongly about (and it IS discussed in this model, which is a good thing!)

Masterpieces: I think we MUST differentiate Clash from Civ in as many ways as possible, and personally I find the concept of Masterpieces to be far superior to that of "Wonders". For one thing, it avoids the totally non-historical "race" to complete the Pyramids, Colossus, etc. The pyramids arose from the mind of Imhotep (a character?!), and weren't reproducible elsewhere. The same is true of most of the traditional wonders.

The Web Page will be updated shortly with the new Characters/Dynasty model. As before, I've done some editing of typos and grammar, so please use that as your "master" when making updates to the model. Thanks!

Education and intelligence are very different, education can easily be increased (by school or experience) and can go down when the world changes. Intelligence never changes unless the brain is damaged. I know we don't want too many stats but I think combining the two is not ideal.

2.1 - Skills

- Administration
- Accounting
- Military Tactics
- Personal Combat
- Leadership
- Engineering
- Theory
- Diplomacy
- Persuasion
- Tinkering
- Agriculture

All good though the distinction between engineering and tinkering is not obvious. Is engineering for big things like bridges and tinkering for stuff like repairing appliances?

- Theatre
- Music
- Drawing/Painting

Perhaps these could be combined into one or two skills? Perhaps stage prescence (also useful for determining polictical abilities) and art (which would also cover sculpture, etc..)

- Medicine
- Sailing

perhaps sailing could become navigation? Administration and military tactics also figure in boat control.

- Philosophy

How is this different from theory? Is theory more scientific and philosophy more religious?

- Electronics

Is this a combination of tinkering and computers?

- Computers
- Commerce

nice

4.2 Professions

Professions:
- Landlord/Aristocrat
- Bounty Hunter
- Class/Faction Leader
- Banker
- Scientist
- Inventor
- Philosopher
- Religious Leader
- Doctor/Healer
- Artist
- Bard/Performer
- Musician
- Psychologist
- Mercenary Leader
- Pirate Captain
- Merchant Leader
- Religious Leader/Mesiah
- Guild Leader/CEO
- Farmer
- Engineer
- Assasins/Spies
- Electrician
- Computer Specialist
- Master Craftsman (any kind)

All good though the distinction between engineering and tinkering is not obvious. Is engineering for big things like bridges and tinkering for stuff like repairing appliances?
Is this [electronics] a combination of tinkering and computers?
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your right on tinkering...though it changes over years to new devices...this is also what inventions mainly come from with char help. Engineering is for bridges, etc. like u said. Electronics is for well electronics, wiring, perhaps phonelines...

- Theatre
- Music
- Drawing/Painting

Perhaps these could be combined into one or two skills? Perhaps stage prescence (also useful for determining polictical abilities) and art (which would also cover sculpture, etc..)
-----
I don't really want to as we have so few fine arts skills...besides there is reason for why i have it like i do. Music is just any type of music from minstels to orchestas to rockstars and theater can be combined with music but can also be seperate for plays and motion picture.

- Medicine
- Sailing

perhaps sailing could become navigation? Administration and military tactics also figure in boat control.
-----
Navigation is good idea.

- Philosophy

How is this different from theory? Is theory more scientific and philosophy more religious?
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Man your hot today!!! Lets see you've missed one so far?

Its looking fairly complete! I think what it needs next is some examples. Esp of your view in the dynasty area. Since the other models aren't all far enough to give real details yet, I'd just make up stuff for now...

Some other details:

>
Each new character will start with a -1 modifier to their stats which will be rolled (unless specified otherwise) with a variation of 3 (-2 - +1). On these char it will be (-7 - +5).
>

I have no idea what the last sentence means. I thing you may have left something out...

>
The ruling dynasty is special. If dynasties are used the player starts out with this dynasty and tries to keep it going till the end of the game.
>

Each new character will start with a -1 modifier to their stats. Then a modifier between -2 and +2 will be apllied (for a total of -3 to +1) to their stats. In a case where a 1 or 20 is rolled in the deterioration chart, these will be modified to -7 (max 5) or +5 (min 15) respectively.

That's a rather firm pronouncement that I, for one, object to. What if I want to play dynasties for the first 2/3 of the game, but eventually want to be an American-style democracy. This really has no place for a royal family! By your definition I'd lose if I read you correctly . Besides with slackening done properly I think it should be Almost Impossible to keep a dynasty throughout the whole game without screwing yourself up Royally! Can you be more explicit about what you had in mind here?
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If you decide to allow elections in your civ you are still trying to compete to rule the civ and therefore that is how the dynasty plays out...not ness. Basically so long as the approbal rating is 51%+ you've won the election. If not...then either the game ends or perhaps you can try to regain control in the next election.

On dynasties, If you want to make it an Option to have to stick with the same dynasty then I guess its ok. I just wouldn't want to see it Required. The whole point of a meritocratic system (more likely later in the game) is that there for the most part aren't dynasties. President... not dynastic; Richest Person: Bill Gates - not dynastic wealth.

Or perhaps I'm still misunderstanding your intent...

Cya,

I haven´t found anyone discussing social history versus history as a string of important biographies.
I think there should be some decision taken on this subject because it will certainly influence alot the way the game will feel to the player.

My personal view on the subject is: personalites do leave a strong mark on history but...there is allways a but...the political and social climate has to be favourable to his course of action. This reasoning should lead to the following:
Strong militarist tendencies tend to generate militaristic characters
On the other end comercial/diplomacy oriented societies might have more varied stats character

Bottom line. Important figures pop up when good social-econmic conditions for their attainment of power exist.
No Hitler on a well off, 0 social tensions, country.
Yet strange characters should be allowed to appear know and then because there where a few strange fellows that broke through the rulling tendencies (maybe Ghandi is a good example)

From what I´ve have seen in your model, everythings there to fit this in, I just don´t know if you really have this thought up. (if it´s written somewhere and I didn´t find it I´m sorry... I did search anyway)

The character model was originally designed for, and still mainly is used for, an element of role-playing. I am bringing up this question to address a potential problem for CPU consumptionwise, that might occur later on. As it stands now the character model is independant of other models and isn't ness in order for them to run. This is fine. The thing is though the character model if it stays as is, completely independant, may cause problems with CPU consumption because characters mimic many of the ideas of some of the things in other models, FE govenor idea proposed in the social model (and used in gov model), generals, advisors, etc. The thing is however for people that want characters this goes above and beyond what they are described to do thus having the CPU have to make in essence 2 checks for the same thing, first without characters, then with the characters in them, or add another factor of the character into ints computation. What i want to do is not force players to use characters, but to have some of the stats that are used for characters help in other models to simplify them.

In order to start doing that of course, we have to define a limited number of positions for the characters inside the government. Later on, we can expand this to unofficial positions.

I believe that our list of traits and professions for the characters should be revised, because currently they are too vague.

Okay, I thought about it for a day or so. I don't really see what the problem is. Most of the places where a character goes into a model, the character's effects will be simply to modify one or a few of the effects within it. How exactly does this result in overworking the CPU?

As I have always pictured it, there are the normal characters like you talk of, and then there are things like advisers. The advisers don't really function as characters per se, they just have things in common with characters, like a picture etc. for flavor. The advisers Must Not IMO be real characters, especially in terms of trustworthiness. The advisers must be Completely trustworthy, or the players will start doubting what they say, and we will descend into micromanagement hell. Your idea to inject stats from the character model into other areas is IMO inappropriate and unnecessary. It's inappropriate because in the object oriented philosophy the character should be the ones that keep track of their stats, and only pass Essential information to the other models. It is unnecessary, because you're not going to save any CPU time by doing that anyway...

Maybe I don't get what you are saying, but I can't think of a single instance where a calculation would need to be done twice because a character was involved.

Hi axi:

I hear what u have to say about the advisors and such, but i think we should also allow people who want to have characters as advisors do so and then if they do they'd get a slight advantage if it was a good advisor as apposed to not having a character advisor. They would, however, be risking the chance of having inept and corrupt advisors, but that's their choice. No ones would then be forcing them to use characters as advisors (or anything else).

The point that I am absolutely certain on, is we always want the "generic" advisers to give the best advice we know how to give. If the player wants to have the possibility of a corrupt adviser that gives worse, or skewed advice, that's fine by me. But there is no way that I personally can justify having an adviser (of the generic type) give less than the absolute best advice we can come up with. If the advisers are no good, they will be, like the advisers in civ, completely useless. I personally am not interested in any way in dumbing down the advisers just so that we can have "smart" character advisers that perform better. So it is my position that we not only want the generic advisers to give consistent results when they are not being handled by real characters, but that they also must give the best results we can afford.

Logo:

Yeah I see what you are trying to do, and from the point of the characters model its very interesting. But I am vehemently opposed to dumbing down the advisors for the whole game just to make one part of the character model more interesting...

Well I do think u have a good point on the personalities which was originally planned in there anyway, but right now I haven't figured out much except it will be based somewhat culturally biased and dynstically biased (if u use dynasties).

I have to disagree with the your use of characters. True they can do such things, but i don't like limiting them. I want a playet to put characters wherever possible. From generals to advisors, to govenors to merchants, etc. It won't be ness, but for me and people like me it will make it much more interesting.

About ur thing with corruption i don't mind having an on/off switch so long as there is a drawback to having it off. I really want it in there because, again, it give more flavor to what can sometimes be a boring game if u have to worry about a plot to break away or overthrow u (note even with corruption on u'd still not have to worry for a characterless advisor, etc).

LGJ:

I'm willing to work with u if u can come up with a good idea that incoperates what u want and what I want. Mainly from what I see u want the player to have the best advice possible. What I want is for character advisors to have a chance at being better than ur standard advisors, but with a risk that they'll be worse and/or corrupt.

IMO it would be good if each city had a ruleing dynasty. This dynasty would be responsable for any units built in that city as far as maintinence and refitting. These units would be loyal to that dynasty and if the dynasty rebelled so would the units.

The citizens happiness might be determined by how much they like the ruleing dynasty. Replacing one dynasty with another might have adverse consequences to the populace if they were well liked (i.e they may decide to rebel instead of accepting a new dynasty).

The abilities of a dynasty would affect how well a city was run (crime rate, happiness, gold, science etc).

Two dynasties may not like each other and may go to war with each other (causing a headache to the leader of the civ and forcing loyal troops to have to go and sort it out).

During a revolution all (or some) of can be disposed and replaced with dynasties supportive of the new regime. It may be necessary to forcably remove dynasties during a revolution and prevent cities from rebelling.

The powers of the dynasties could also be dependent on the form of government. For example:

Monarchy - Dynasties are Dukes, Barons, Lords etc..
Fascism - Generals.
Democracy - Members of Parliment.

In ancient governments Dynasties might rule with an iron fist, i.e population is unhappy but cant do much about it (marshall law). In a democracy however a dynasty with a low reputation could be voted out.

One good way to control an important city may be to allow a relative of rule it. Over time however the dynasty would grow away from the crown and may become less controlable.

Alliances with other civs may include inter-marrage among foriegn dynasties. Hence if the alliance is broken one of your dynasties may break away and join the rival civ.

The citizens happiness might be determined by how much they like the ruleing dynasty. Replacing one dynasty with another might have adverse consequences to the populace if they were well liked (i.e they may decide to rebel instead of accepting a new dynasty).
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Afermative. But this shouldn't apply to just ruling class dynasties, but all dynasties.

The abilities of a dynasty would affect how well a city was run (crime rate, happiness, gold, science etc).
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Negative. This has more to do with either the player or the characters in particuler, not the dynasty itself.

Two dynasties may not like each other and may go to war with each other (causing a headache to the leader of the civ and forcing loyal troops to have to go and sort it out).
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Afermative, if its a feudalistic society with a strong head ruler (this wouldn't work in a feudal society like Japan where the Emperor was in charge of religion only. The like/dislike will be heavily dependant of personalities based on the ruling character (and perhaps spouce) and heir apparant. Lesser with other siblings and relatives, advisors, etc. I don't want to get too detailed though or we could have a nightmarish problem with the CPU.

During a revolution all (or some) of can be disposed and replaced with dynasties supportive of the new regime. It may be necessary to forcably remove dynasties during a revolution and prevent cities from rebelling.
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I have this is there under the general dynsty section somewhere. However an unsecussful removal will always lead to a war of some type, most likely civil war. (after all you know the current admin. will keep trying to remove u from power so why stay and give them a chance)?

The powers of the dynasties could also be dependent on the form of government. For example:

Monarchy - Dynasties are Dukes, Barons, Lords etc..
Fascism - Generals.
Democracy - Members of Parliment.
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Monarchy---True, though the names will vary
Fascism---Afermative, though we should allow for other types, fascism doesn't have to be military based.
Democracy---(actually that's a repulic or represntative gov. ur talking about) Anyway what u say is possible (IE English house of Lords), but can also be for simply rich people such as Kenedy's or for sybolic dynasties such as in England and Japan.

In ancient governments Dynasties might rule with an iron fist, i.e population is unhappy but cant do much about it (marshall law). In a democracy however a dynasty with a low reputation could be voted out.
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First off the former applies to modern as well as ancient. We still have China FE, and not 100 years ago many nations in Europe still had monarchies that were similar, perhaps with some restraints. On your second point I'd like to put it in, however we have to be careful for ruling dynasty. First off if the player has 50+% they stay in. If they don't they are kicked out for a term, prob 1 turn, but can be several. After that they can try to get back in. Also they can try to splinter off and form their own civ also.

One good way to control an important city may be to allow a relative of rule it. Over time however the dynasty would grow away from the crown and may become less controlable.
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That's a good idea, except it would be for provinces. Except that once the current ruler dies it will then be considered a new dynasty (or maybe when the heir apparant when he was placed dies). However the control factor shouldn't be too much higher because they are indivisuals. It will basically be measured by loyalty level, maybe with a +2 added. Also an heir apparant couldn't be done this way and any local rulers who are relatives by marrage would have a +1 added to loyalty for control, but it would end at the death of the dynasty ruler. Also these modifiers would end if they ruler of that province died.

OK the reason for the character model is 1> to add more flavor to the game by giving it a more intimate and personal touch and 2> to allow the player to take risks by choosing people to represent various posts with the knowledge that they might not be as good as the AI in general, but the possibility of being exceptionally better than the general AI.

point 1 has already has a concensus on it so there really is no need to discuss it, but point 2 right now has a wide rift in it and i cannot even continue to work on it until atleast a general consensus is reached.

Here's the problem: Mark wants the computer to use the best available AI possible for the player, reguarless of whether or not the use characters. The problem is, if the player knows that he won't get anything better out of putting a character in command, 99% of the people won't. That then defeats a fundimental point of the character model itself and thus makes it all but useless.

The parital solutions sofar: Actually only 1 has been proposed...and that is the use of personalities for characters. While this can help, it still doesn't solve the problem because the AI doesn't ness have personalities and the AI could then still in all sitautions be just as good or better than the characters.

Right now, the only way i see around this problem is to allow really good characters to "cheat" by being able to produce better odds, more stuff, etc. by simply fudging with the results because they are better, thus bending the rules around them. I don't like this idea though, because i'd perfer it would be solved without using such cheap cheats.

I stress again, that we are not AI gods! Even the Absolutely best advice our AI will probably be able to give will be significantly worse than the analysis of a decent player. So your solution on having the AI of characters range from poor to brilliant is simply unachievable... I think in fact that your suggestion probably would make the character model useless to most players, because it would result in great characters giving so-so advice that the player probably would not use anyway. This would reduce characters to window dressing, which is clearly a bad move. I am firmly convinced that arbitrary bonuses for great characters, and penalties for poor ones is the way to go. That is the industry standard, has succeeded in numerous games, and is, I believe, practically the only way to go even though you regard it as a cheat.