City families

[Lumpylo]

One of the things I really like about CotN is how you get to know your residents better. I like having households with individuals instead of just random walkers. I hope this will carry over to C4. Why not do some cool things with the residents like:

Show them getting older or sicker so you know when they're about to die.

Show them wearing more finery when they're doing better economically (I noticed in CotN that people wore jewelry or furs even when they had no jewelry or furs, which I thought was a bit odd).

Maybe have the gender of children determined at birth. It's weird to see a woman walk into a house and turn into a man, but maybe I'm just too closed-minded.

I like to be snoopy. I like to get to know the residents and follow their fortunes. I choose families and name them, and like to see how their children do. I would like for this personal aspect of city building to continue and improve.

[sitearm]

Agree!

Modeling individual character behavior so that you can "snoop" individual activity and track employment and family history is a fascinating feature. Look at the success of Sims2 where players may use family trees to track individuals and families in a neighborhood. I would like to see it included and enhanced from its treatment in COTN.

Not everyone likes this departure from the "good old days" of city building. But the "good old days" are a myth: look at the dramatic changes in CI, CII, and CIII. Evolve or fade in the game world...

One of the things I really like about CotN is how you get to know your residents better. I like having households with individuals instead of just random walkers. I hope this will carry over to C4...

[Dog of the Sun]

I holeheartedly agree 100% with both of you. Those are awesome ideas :D

[vic_4]

As long as it does not require too many comp resources.

[Rubicon]

Agree!

Modeling individual character behavior so that you can "snoop" individual activity and track employment and family history is a fascinating feature. Look at the success of Sims2 where players may use family trees to track individuals and families in a neighborhood. I would like to see it included and enhanced from its treatment in COTN.

Not everyone likes this departure from the "good old days" of city building. But the "good old days" are a myth: look at the dramatic changes in CI, CII, and CIII. Evolve or fade in the game world...
Disagree.

This is purely a personal preference, but since the name of this forum is "Suggestions", my personal preference is not to sink down to that level of minutia. I prefer to stay at the higher level of planning the city, improving the economic viability, building up the military, etc... I understand, however, that many people are attracted to that aspect of these games (Sims). I suppose the two are not mutually exclusive, though.

:confused: I really need to spend some time getting to know CotN!

[Lumpylo]

Minutia is fun!

Besides, comparing this suggestion to The Sims is a bit off the mark. In The Sims, you control people. In city building games, you can only watch them. I can't tell my stuff-shirt patricians to go and soak their heads in the bath.

I would be a politician and city planner, but seeing the people in my city and feeling like I know them would be very gratifying.

[Aumtehoutep]

I can dig that ... but gratifying ... that would be the people in my city saving up some money and buying me a new car...

New Car .... It Really Satisfies!
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Disclaimer: All opinions expressed above are correct, and should not be disputed as they emanate from one who is Righteous and devoid of fault.

[Scott7]

I suppose the two are not mutually exclusive, though.

No, they're not. I confess, I hate The Sims. Quite passionately, in fact. But there is a historical RTS game called Crusader Kings, which is different from others in that it has characters. Every ruler, every ruler's wife, every ruler's third cousin and court steward; is included in the game and has character traits.

You have no idea how much this adds to the game without detracting anything.

And the more complicated the better, I say, as long as the characters are autonomous and don't neccesarily require our attention. Ideally, all character's would have set traits and ambitions. But I'm perfectly satisfied with them just having family names.

[Thucydides]

I thought the complex personalities in Crusader Kings was a good idea. But for my taste there were far too many of them. I found it very frustrating to constantly replace and tinker with advisors, let alone try to keep track of what my heirs and rivals were up to. Perhaps if there were individual characters, but there number was limited? Anything more than seven personalities and it becomes harder and harder to manage personalities as a gameplayer, and the enjoyment (for me at least) leaches out of the idea.

[Aumtehoutep]

I've never played any of the Sims games ... in fact I never even played any of the SimCity series ...

However, I DO like hte idea of being able to watch the Families in my city develop over time. If there are going to be individuals .. they are going to have children ... whilch means families ... and it'd be great to be able to track various families over the span of the game ...

I think it would be interesting to have families immigrate from other regions. People that aren't Roman move into the city and build homes that are more like the things from thier homeland. It would add variety to the city and it would be great. What if a foreign family moves in and does well. They sell thier small home and buy some land and build a weathy class home ... or just expand and upgrade thier existing plot if possible ...

I think it would be cool to occasionally see random citizens that use build non-Roman buildings. But I think it would work best as something as entirely background fluff. I miss the way the residential sections of C3 would evolve and change on thier own ... and I think this would just add an amusing bit of random flavor to that if it returns to the game in C4.
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Disclaimer: All opinions expressed above are correct, and should not be disputed as they emanate from one who is Righteous and devoid of fault.

[Adonisgi]

At some point limitations on programming are going to kick in. If I have to choose between a population that visibly ages or additional buildings/industries/goods/services, I will definitely go with the latter as something that allows me to 'play' rather than 'observe'.

[Hanna]

I like these suggestions :)

Also hope the children and women won't have as masculine/adult facial features in Caesar IV as they do in CotN, and I really hope they won't make give workers/"poor" people those awful postures. If you're going to be working with your body (as most of them did) you *better* have a good posture or you won't last many days >_> I realise they're trying to convey attitude or something like that, but really, subtle is better.

(The way villagers were referred to as living "simple and carefree, but purposeless lives", and the jokes about that, was very annoying, but I suppose there'll be even more of that in C IV if there are any non-city/non-roman people included so I won't even suggest it.)

What I've really missed in all the games, and would like to see (but know will almost certainly never happen in a game), is the ability to influence what happens (on every level). The ultimate game, for me, would be one where you had complete freedom to create (or perhaps rather co-create) your own "civilization"/culture/people/world, but I know *that* will never happen :p