Hi everyone!

I just thought something about the "Your story" trailer. I really like the idea of creating our own leader and not play as a histoical figure. But I think that something aslo cool, that could be add after the game is realesed could be the option to incarnate multiple leaders throught times, dynasties and ages. 

What is cool with that, is that you will have maybe more the impression to be somkind of divine spectator of the humankind history. You will be able to watch how a specific leader can influence an empire. It could bring new cool mechanic like having random trait for each leader, certain more warmonger, certain more pious, more interstead in other cultures and so on. With that, you will have to improvise to the comportement of each leader, and it will bring a bit of randomness in the game. Also, the mentality of your leader will giving you access to defenrent political choice. For exemple, certain will not be able under certain ruler, but some new will appear under this same leader. 

Also, having different leader could lead (joke) to other mechanics, specific to a family, like political weding, assassination of the actual leader so a weaker one, a brother or cousin takes his roll, and also, too many changement of leader could lead to some coup, or the loss of the trust of some citizen or vassals...

In another post on this forum, someone proposed the use of a specific calendar. It could lead you, at the end of the game, to have somekind of historical timeline where you can see all the rulers that lead your nation, each with clothes feating their times, their greatest fails and wins, and also the most important ones! For exemple in France, you could have Clovis 1er, the first king of all Francs, Charlemagne, first emperor of the Francs, Philippe Auguste II the first king of France, Napoleon first president and emperor of the French and so on. 

There are a couple problems with that. 

First is that, given that factions/ cultures change, the appearance of the leader is what will help you recognize your opponents and remain consistent in your interactions with them. Given the time scale of the game, in the ancient era when turns are 50 or a hundred years long, you would be getting a new leader every turn. This would make dealing with neighbors wildly inconsistent if their motives changed with every new leader. I could see leaders having a single motivation, or being guided by their political ideology (which I believe will be present as the 8 value system), but it would have to remain consistent through the game or else change very gradually. Also, they have designed the mechanic of customized leaders, which directly contradicts leaders changing appearances.

There are also the historical flaws with that. Not all of the in game cultures have a single leader or state - Phoenicia, Goths, Harrapans etc. There are also problems with having dynasties/ lineages, as this is not the norm of appointing an heir - the Romans, for instance, may have a leader appointed by the Senate, while modern democracies would have elections, nomadic groups like the Huns would only have leaders when forcibly united, and even dynasties can be interrupted by the lack of an heir or an early death.

A leader doesn't have to change every turn. You could play as one dynasty or linage of kings for a while, then another, then a line of dictators, and finally a series of presidents. Each of these groups of leaders could be kind of merged into a typical leader for that time period. It wouldn't be perfectly accurate, but it would be less inaccurate than having one immortal leader. This could also enable more clear dynamic relationships, so for a period of a few hundred years the "leaders" of England and France might be bitter enemies, then you move on to the next era and the new "leaders" are end up being allies. Countries behaviors have changed over time, and something like this could make it easier to tell if you are up against viking Sweden or Ikea Sweden.

Honnestly, I kind of forgot that 1 turn is usually 20 or 50 years. I also know it will make less interesting the creation leader mechanic, but I just wanted to represent a bit more those giant lineage and specific leader that forge the history of certain nations. But in deed, it won't work with every system, I didn't thought about that, but it is true that for election and democraty, the changing leader mechanic will make no sens, you will have a changement every turn since a pesident is usually elected for 5 or 7 years. But nethertheless, for dictatorship it will work better. And anyway, you could always say that a turn is just 10 years or something.

I don't think this idea correlates with "humankind" and cultures.

As others wrote, you can do little to make it feel realistic and in the end you're just choosing a flavour in which your suspension of disbelief will have to come in.

Personnally, I prefer persistent leaders, so that I can make friends and enemies, someone I can trust, someone I can distrust, someone I'll feel betrayed by. Makes it easier to get immersed, gives the soulless computing behind those other factions a face, making it more similar to how I sit behind and order around my guys.