FinalStrigon wrote:
I've been thinking about this as I played over the weekend, as I ended up comparing it to Empire: Total War. Some indicator or system of seeing who is running your empire, but instead of picking and choosing who does this like we do now with systems and heroes, I think a system like the political cabinet in E:TW would work nice. It'd really add that extra level of depth and attatchment to our empires: the pretend scenarios in my head can only take me so far.



You start out with whatever system of government your empire starts with, and it goes from there. You can manage governors and etc., but you would have to deal with issues like corruption, people dying due to age/assassination (although I have been enjoying thinking my emperor of the UE is still sitting on his throne, 311 years after the game started, seeing his dream of conquering the galaxy come true), and so on and so forth. Like others mentions, you could get diplomacy bonuses or negatives, higher/lower approval based on if the people like the leader or not, etc.



Although, this system would need tweaked to work in Endless Space, simply because of how quickly time passes.

I remember this system, and is similar to what I was referring to in the OP about a cabinet. I think my example of Hearts of Iron III is a closer example, in reference to it needing to be tweaked for Endless Space. Though, still not a perfect example.



I wish I could explain that better since I know many of you have, probably, not played that game. But it is quite similar to your Empire example .

GrimFrame wrote:
I like the thought of an overall leader. You could have different ruler systems for each race to make them stand apart and add variety to each race. UE having the emperor who rules over all systems and adds his respective buffs based on his traits, for other races you could have a council, or warlords who would govern sects of 2-3 systems or so. Each council member or warlord adding his buffs to his systems.

I was actually thinking about this myself, you beat me to it haha. Yeah I was thinking for the UE, it says it's run by a monarch, and due to its size, corporations as well. That could, perhaps, play into it, too. (The corporations, that is.)

Skurkanas wrote:
Interesting Idea. I really liked the way Civ did it.



Did anyone play the "Fall from Heaven" mod for Civ4? They had a couple heroes that actually changed the alignment and behaviour of their faction.

So you wouldn't encounter a predictably "good" race, but a combination of racial and leader traits.



This could add a lot of flavor to the races. Maybe even have little videos of audiences with the Emperor, Sophon Council, Hissho "hissing" at you..^^

I think I played that mod, I don't recall though. But I've put many hours into the last 3 Civ games (Not so much in Civ5, since it feels so watered down to me). Yeah that's actually not a bad idea, using the Civ Leader vids concept when meeting them or talking to them.

The idea sounds really great, personally I would say that 3 basic leaders per faction that develop with game progress sound best. It would add a lot of depth to the game.

KNC wrote:
The idea sounds really great, personally I would say that 3 basic leaders per faction that develop with game progress sound best. It would add a lot of depth to the game.

You could for example personally choose which leader you wanted, to get their specific bonus. However the longer you stay with that leader the more used to them your race gets. Then if you decide to change from one leader to another you start with a disapproval rating, say to happiness, because the people are not used to that leader. In the same way you get an ownership penalty when you take a system from an enemy, as with that it would decrease with time and take longer to decrease the longer you had that single leader in power. This way you wouldn't simply be able to swap from your economist/scientist to your industrialist/warrior just because you went from peace to war. It would make this sort of diplomacy a very tactical affair.

Maclardal wrote:
What if the leader wasn't static? What if instead he grew like the heroes and had a tree he could go down. The tree would be different for each leader that you picked and stats would apply to the entire empire rather than just the system that heroes apply to.

I like this idea. Makes you feel a bit more connected to your choice of species. At the moment I'm pretty "meh" about my empire, I feel no real connection to it.

I think that's wuite a good idea, but we would need to seriously think about it some more

Suttner wrote:
I think that's wuite a good idea, but we would need to seriously think about it some more

Naturally, that's why I asked everyone to pitch in with discussion and adding their own ideas. Feel free to do the same (I'm assuming you mean the whole concept. If you were replying to a specific post, then I apologize. ^_^)



As to the other posts above this: Hmm, I'm not sure about switching them out mid game or whatever. I mean, it's not a bad idea, and I'm not shooting it down straight out. I'm just saying I'm not sure about it. Personally I think it makes more sense to make a plan when you're creating the game, and choose the leader best suited to it. Or to your gameplay style.



But, I could see how it would be useful to be able to change it at some point in the game. Though, if we went with the skill tree system that was suggested earlier, it may not be necessary.



I think it would depend on how exactly the leaders were implemented. Either way, it would be an option, there would be nothing stopping you from sticking to the leader you picked from the beginning. With that in mind, I'd say it is a viable idea, regardless of if I'd use it or not.





On another note, this would also open up more option of the create a race feature that will be implemented in the future. We could create our own leaders for our faction.



That would be a nice bit of personalization that would make me WAY more attached to my own faction.

Maclardal wrote:
You could for example personally choose which leader you wanted, to get their specific bonus. However the longer you stay with that leader the more used to them your race gets. Then if you decide to change from one leader to another you start with a disapproval rating, say to happiness, because the people are not used to that leader. In the same way you get an ownership penalty when you take a system from an enemy, as with that it would decrease with time and take longer to decrease the longer you had that single leader in power. This way you wouldn't simply be able to swap from your economist/scientist to your industrialist/warrior just because you went from peace to war. It would make this sort of diplomacy a very tactical affair.

I like this idea. You have to calculte if you leader is the right one for the next time or if another one would suit the situation more cause you know you will for example get into war with an other faction in a near future.



It could also be a posibility that some systems who are not happy with your leader will demand an other one. This would also make the approval/disapproval system in your emipre a bit more complex.

I've been thinking about this as I played over the weekend, as I ended up comparing it to Empire: Total War. Some indicator or system of seeing who is running your empire, but instead of picking and choosing who does this like we do now with systems and heroes, I think a system like the political cabinet in E:TW would work nice. It'd really add that extra level of depth and attatchment to our empires: the pretend scenarios in my head can only take me so far.



You start out with whatever system of government your empire starts with, and it goes from there. You can manage governors and etc., but you would have to deal with issues like corruption, people dying due to age/assassination (although I have been enjoying thinking my emperor of the UE is still sitting on his throne, 311 years after the game started, seeing his dream of conquering the galaxy come true), and so on and so forth. Like others mentions, you could get diplomacy bonuses or negatives, higher/lower approval based on if the people like the leader or not, etc.



Although, this system would need tweaked to work in Endless Space, simply because of how quickly time passes.

maceman wrote:
idea sounds very crusader kings II... which is an excellent trait based game

i wouldn't say that CK2 is more about family trees and attemting to get your heir desent traits where as his ideas is for skill tree like totalwar(for generals) has in its newer games.

Like the idea, though there is at least one empire example where you'd really only have one valid choice.

Interesting Idea. I really liked the way Civ did it.



Did anyone play the "Fall from Heaven" mod for Civ4? They had a couple heroes that actually changed the alignment and behaviour of their faction.

So you wouldn't encounter a predictably "good" race, but a combination of racial and leader traits.



This could add a lot of flavor to the races. Maybe even have little videos of audiences with the Emperor, Sophon Council, Hissho "hissing" at you..^^

Tikigod wrote:
Like the idea, though there is at least one empire example where you'd really only have one valid choice.

Sorry, what/who are you referring to exactly?

P.S. Sorry for the late replies, been busy this last week -.-

The problem with acquiring traits based on actions (like commanders in Rome/Medieval/Empire total war), is that they are either somewhat random in the chance that a trait is manifested from an action, or they are certain (i.e. do x to get trait y). The first system is incredibly irritating. The second system: you might as well have a points system where you pick your upgrade on level up like we have with heroes now, as players will just build 5 science buildings across 5 systems to get the 'research investor' trait, or whatever they need to tick the necessary boxes to get a trait - in which case the leader doesn't reflect your play style in his personality, but you modify your play to make certain traits materialise.

This thread is the origin of discussions about factionleaders/heroes as factionleaders.

Other threads about this have been archived:

/#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13727-suggestion-leader-of-a-faction-should-be-the-first-free-hero

/#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13820-have-your-player-self-be-a-hero-as-well



Feel free to post here about this topic here and inform yourself about the variations the threads listed above have already discussed, but don't open new suggestion threads for anything alike.

I would like to keep my personalized leader between games and continue to level them.

As far as I am concerned, the effects of such a leader-type-hero are mostly covered by the races' attributes. When the make your own race option becomes available, this will be your chance to make your own leader effectively.

This is great ide, hope it will be implemented and wont go to waste

maclardal wrote:
what if the leader wasn't static? What if instead he grew like the heroes and had a tree he could go down. The tree would be different for each leader that you picked and stats would apply to the entire empire rather than just the system that heroes apply to.

i love it!



But the Leader must be customizable so that i can fell tham I AM the Leader.