A minor issue that came to mind with the changing cultures, is how will we differentiate and track the identity of ourselves and opponents through time? Will everybody just be named their current culture and we have to memorize who is who by color? (oof that sounded bad)

The other option is that each player names themselves, but when it comed to the AI, what would their naming convention be?

That's an interesting question. It would seem to be a bit immersion-breaking to just have Player # in the UI.

I guess there should be a flag icon or something and you have to mouse over it to see who they used to be.

I think it would be detrimental to get overly elaborate on symbols and hybridizing them to indicate progression. 

But considering that a player may pick a new civ with an entirely different playstyle than the one they had previously, I wouldn't get too caught up on who they were formerly. It won't make much difference that you were friends with your neighbors when they were sciencey pacifists if they are now aggressive conquerors. 

EaglePursuit wrote:

It won't make much difference that you were friends with your neighbors when they were sciencey pacifists if they are now aggressive conquerors. 

I think it would though, and the effect grows with each added player. We dont know what the max player count is, but if lets say it is 10, by the 4th or 5th age, it would be harder to know the journey each civ took. Neighbors, ya, easier to keep track of since you deal with them all the time. But in a game where say maybe you finally conquer your continent and you set your sights on the next, it would be good to know what journey they went through. That is something an immersive gamer would want, but a player that is mainly playing to win would want to know their history as well since we know some culture bonuses may stretch beyond just their era.

I expect that the AI should inhabit the behavior of the civ it is playing to best make use of its bonuses. Therefore each Age should act as a diplomatic reset because priorities change. Alliances and grudges are forfeited alike, and the global balance of power realigns.

Nobody is angry at Norway because their ancestors were violent raiders. No one looks to Turkey for guidance despite the Ottomans being a major regional hegemony.

So who anyone used to be is not as important as who they are now. It might be useful to find out that the Romans used to be Harappans, because now they control that geography, your concern is that you are dealing with Romans and all that it implies. You're not dealing with Harappans anymore. Your complacent trade partners are now empire-builders. It would be a mistake to still think of them as such and the AI should not behave like Harappans anymore. 

Fair points, I was about to argue that the hard cutoff/sudden change of each culture shift wouldnt make sense and feel bi polar, but really if someone went from trading/peaceful culture to warlike, there would be some ramp up time. Likewise, warlike to peace behavior would have some wind down time ending wars and whatnot. A human player would in theory do this shift much more quickly with experience as they learn to move from culture to culture and plan it out.

I think i read somewhere that they planned on having a narrative of some sort though, dont know if it was just at the end of the game, but it would kind of tell the story of your civilization. Having some access to that in the middle of the game to track what everyone was at some point may be handy for reference. 

Yes, for the sake of narrative and role-playing there should be a way to access a history of each civilization. But I don't think that part should be played by the flags symbolizing the civs. It should be its own UI window. 

It may be that they just stash this all away in the yet-to-be-seen diplomacy screen. Keep the map clean with just the current, most pertinent culture and everyone just maintains a player color through the ages.

Just took another look at the screenshots, and they at least have the icons match whatever the current culture is, so for now it appears color is the only thing that stays the same.

For the sake of argument though, let's pretend it's still in development and they plan to change it. I actually like the idea of a custom flag, and it wouldn't even need to be all that complex. First era, you just pick a color from the options that haven't been picked and that culture can access. Second era, pick a basic symbol. Third, give that symbol a color other than black. Fourth, add stipes or stars or a smaller, second symbol. Fifth, you can change your banner into a flag with your choice of shape. Sixth, um, change one of your previous choices? Actually, maybe you can always choose between adding one extra bit of complexity or changing a previous choice.

We have very specific plans for player differentiation, both AI and human. These plans include a unique icon for each player (on the screenshots you've seen, these icons changed with each culture), a unique color, and some other stuff that I'm not allowed to discuss just yet.

Dinode wrote:

Just took another look at the screenshots, and they at least have the icons match whatever the current culture is, so for now it appears color is the only thing that stays the same.

For the sake of argument though, let's pretend it's still in development and they plan to change it. I actually like the idea of a custom flag, and it wouldn't even need to be all that complex. First era, you just pick a color from the options that haven't been picked and that culture can access. Second era, pick a basic symbol. Third, give that symbol a color other than black. Fourth, add stipes or stars or a smaller, second symbol. Fifth, you can change your banner into a flag with your choice of shape. Sixth, um, change one of your previous choices? Actually, maybe you can always choose between adding one extra bit of complexity or changing a previous choice.

Flags leap to mind right away in the modern era to differentiate between political and military entities, but a cloth banner or flag is only one, and not even the historically most common, way to indicate and specify a Faction.

Icons are older, and they can be as simple as the Spartan 'Lambda' on their shields or Eye of Ra on Egyptian monuments to The Sun in Splendor that was Louis XIV's personal emblem in France.

Colors can be very specific: Taking the Spartans again, they always wore a dull red cloak - to hide any bloodstains, they said, with the implication that it woldn't be Their blood. Imperial Chinese Dynasties used Yellow or Red as Imperial Colors, Napoleon's favorite color was bright medium green, so it shows up all over Napoleonic emblems (and uniforms of his cavalry  and Guards units, and in the Italian Flag that he designed).

We could also do a lot with 'progressive' symbols. Start out with a simple horse or yak tail 'standard' or Buffalo/Cattle Skull on a pole in the nomadic Early Era, switch to an Icon on a banner carried in front of your chariot/cart/horse later, then when you get access to Indigo, madder, Kermes and other dyes add bright colors. Standards can develop into 'Eagles' like the Roman or Imperial French, and cloth Flags can be added later.

There are a bunch of 'standard' symbols that show up on flags, some of which aren't seen much any more: the Bourbon Cross on Royal French flags, the Cross of Burgundy on Spanish royal flags, the two-head Eagle on Imperial Austrian, HRE, and Russian flags, the Cross of Saint George on English and Cross of Saint Andrew on Scottish flags. All of these have the advantage that they are distinctive and easily seen from a distance, which helps both on computer screens and on 18th century smoke-filled battlefields! Add in the various tricolors, stars, crescents, and other religious symbols, and we can probably come up with iconic symbols for a majority of the proposed Factions.

Well, now we know how it works for the leader. How the avatar dresses even changes based on your achievements apparently.