[Loser]

I was trying to code my own Civ-style game a while back (pretty simple, really), and my approach to the 'Leader' issue was to have the game periodically generate Exceptional Individuals.

They were to carry bonuses and penalties and occasionally special abilities. They could be assigned to any unit, could add their bonuses to a whole stack if that unit had a HQ component (units were to have components like SMAC), and several of them could be assigned to a city.

The idea was that at certain populations, new slots for Exceptional Individuals would open up. Any city could have a Governor, but only one with 10 people could have a Lieutenant Governor. Two Lieutenant Governors at 20, three at thirty, and so on.

Also, as they performed jobs (Urban Garrison, Frontier Garrison, Land Development, City Management, Assault, Defense, whatever) an Exceptional Individual had a chance at improving his abilities in that job and a smaller chance at randomly picking up other bonuses.

Exceptional Individuals would also have varying level of potential. Some would never go too far, some would be Destined for Greatness.

In this way an exceptional Individual with strong Policing ability (keeps the populace from acting up) could be assigned to a City Garrison unit in a major Metropolis. He might then spontaneously develop a bonus to Research, and at that point the player would do well to move him from the unit to which he is assigned to a Lieutenant Governor position, where that Research Bonus will actually have some effect.

In this example of a Research bonus, it would be in the players best interest to move Exceptional Individuals with similar bonuses to cities already strong in that area. This would add to the specialization of cities (University town), and give a new incentive to adding population to a city.

One great risk with Exceptional Individuals would be that if you left them alone too long on patrol, or left them in charge of a city too far from your capitol, with overly cooperative Lieutenants, they might leave you. When an Exceptional Individual leave a player's employ it can either immediately join another faction (more SMAC influence here), or it can start its own. When an Exceptional Individual starts its own faction, its faction bonuses and penalties would be determined by that individual, and that individual would be the new head of that faction. Whole faction had the ability to join other factions, their leaders returning to the sate of an Exceptional Individual in employment.

Anyway, change cities to worlds, units to ships and bases, and maybe units, and you have something that would fit into SE V. But I hear that Generals in Medieval Total War work about that way, and you can marry your daughters to them, to boot.

Of course, I'd bet that the feature set for SE V is pretty much finalized, but this was a fun post to write.

On the other hand, can you imagine having a high-potential Exceptional Individual whose bonuses lie in Fighter Combat.... doom, doom, doom...

[edit: by "pretty simple really" I mean that I didn't get very far at all, not on the coding anyway]

[ June 20, 2003, 13:53: Message edited by: Loser ]