Allow us to create a custom civilization of our choice and name that civ whatever we want.
- The civ creation screen would have a number of civ traits, unique techs, and team bonuses for us to choose from, among other things necessary for making a civ
- As in any standard RPG, you wouldn’t be able to give yourself max everything or one of everything
- You would have to pick and choose stuff
- I think this would be cool
Make allowed for these game types:
- Single player maps
- Steam/MS Store multiplayer friends vs. each other, or vs. AI
Page Design:
- I’m imagining an intuitive, easy-to-use, visually pleasing tool. Enough detail to help the player customize their civ generally how they want, but not so much detail it is off-putting, highly technical, highly detailed, and cumbersome to use. When I make a character in an RPG, it’s pretty straightforward and easy-to-use. I’d want the same type of feeling from this tool, so it’s a fun experience for those who want to take the time to create a custom civ.
- You could even have it so you click a button to randomly create a civ for you. And/or have it do so after you answer two or three general preference questions (e.g., Defensive or offensive? Land or naval? etc.).
- But the crux of it for the more adventurous is outlined below…
For a more manual approach, the Civ Creation screen would have things like:
Gameplay elements
- “Choose two Unique Techs from this list of unique techs”
- “Choose two Unique Units from this list of unique units”
- “Choose one Team Bonus from this list of team bonuses”
- "How defensive of a civ will this be? [Insert slider here]. This affects how strong your civ’s walls and towers are and how quickly defensive structures such as walls and towers get built
- "How offensive of a civ will this be? [Insert slider here]
- “Do you want this civ to primarily be a cavalry, infantry, naval, archer, or siege civ?”
- “Based on the preference you just gave, the below sliders have been randomly auto-computed to give emphasis where you wanted. If you want to customize them, please adjust the slider levels, as desired. This will allow you to fine-tune your preferences for unit hitpoints vs. damage vs. defense vs. cost, etc. Note that increasing the Cavalry damage slider, for instance, may very well auto-decrease Infantry, Naval, and Archer damage sliders, and so on. Based on your choices, the game will then use an algorithm to auto-compute and distribute finalized values for every unit and building across your civ and build your civ’s unique Technology Tree.”
Visuals:
- “Choose an Architectural Style from this list of styles”
- “Choose a Wonder from this list of wonders”
- Visually, what cavalry unit set do you want to use? See thumbnails here.
- Visually, what infantry unit set do you want to use? See thumbnails here.
- Visually, what naval unit set do you want to use? See thumbnails here.
- Visually, what archery unit set do you want to use? See thumbnails here.
- Visually, what siege unit set do you want to use? See thumbnails here.
- What fabric patterns do you want for your civ? See thumbnails here.
Audio:
- "Choose a Language from this list of languages w/ audio samples
- "Choose a music anthem for your civ from this list of anthems or add your own (upload .mp3 here and trim it to 3 seconds via our tool)
And so on…
The sky is the limit with what values would be there and how the civ creation tool page(s) would be designed. I think it would be neat to let us push civ traits/capabilities a little more than we’d normally be comfortable with. For example, if we like to play defensively, let us choose traits to make our walls and towers quicker, have them be stronger, have more tower and castle firepower, have cheaper towers and castles, etc. Stack up the defensive traits more than any of the default civs already in the game, for example.
Please know, I only put all that detail in the examples so you know what I’m thinking. Obviously, the actual tool would use graphics and good user interface design to convey the info in a streamlined, intuitive, easy-to-use, and visually-pleasing way. Enough detail to help the player customize their civ generally how they want, but not so much detail it is off-putting, highly technical, highly detailed, confusing, and cumbersome to use for the average user. (Don’t worry, rushers and offensive players should get to push their capabilities a bit, too.)
Please don’t be too harsh on the examples I gave or the idea. I just thought of this like 45 minutes ago and the above is a stream of consciousness brainstorming session of an idea I would like implemented. I’d hope people getting paid to work on the game, with community help, could flesh it out appropriately and correctly, if it sounded fun or feasible.
What made me think of this? I just saw a thread talking about how some civ(s) builds walls quicker. I thought, hmm, it’d sure be cool if I could make a civ to incorporate the defensive things I want. I don’t necessarily want to play one of the pre-programmed defensive civs; and don’t necessarily want to use the unique units or unique techs of those pre-programmed civs either. I’d rather mix-and-match to create what I want in a defensive civ. And if I happen to make it a little over-powered from a defensive standpoint, awesome. I think that should be fine, as this would NOT be used in ranked or meaningful matches where egos are on the line.
It could also allow the devs (and modders, eventually?) to easily throw some interesting unique techs, unique units, architecture styles, etc. our way that don’t necessarily fit in with one of the existing civilizations, and that are serious or gameplay-realistic enough to not be meant as a cheat. They also wouldn’t have to worry too much about gameplay balance impacts of any new interesting units/techs that go in this tool.
I have a feeling only two or three people will read this due to the “tl;dr” factor. Sorry 
Regardless, for those two or three, hopefully more, what do you think? Any changes/additions you’d make?
Nice work.