Lack of immersion when it comes to nations - Suggestion

[Keymaker]

Despite the somewhat outdated graphics and improvable UI, I liked the demo and see a lot of potential in the game. What bothers me the most is the complete lack of immersion when picking/playing with a nation. The nations have no unique abilities and are completely interchangeable. It gets even worse, when you play with Rome and get the national spirit of Sparta for example.

Suggestion: I would get rid of "traditional" nations and allow players to create their "own" nation (similarly to Stellaris for example). This would increase the immersion of the game significantly. Your thoughts?

[Oaks]

I believe that there is the option to create one's own nation already in game. You can name it and select a flag and and architecture style.

[CDuque]

Are all the buildings/cities the same? It would be cool if each different nation had their own style.

[xycotta]

You can also choose your custom nation's ability.

Why should every nation have a unique trait?

I mean really, you shouldn't get to choose anything, if you begin on day one, you should start with no advantages or disadvantages. There should be triggers where you get an option of picking traits. If you have not hit a 'trait' by a certain time period you can pick from some generic traits.

This is how it would work. Every Age you have a chance to get one trait, it could be generic or a unique trait. I start a new nation with no traits and I build a few scouts, this triggers a chance for some special scouting trait if it has not been taken already. Maybe I build alot of infantry and get a chance for a trait for them. The chance to trigger it is based on actions, or maybe some chance. If by a certain point, I have not gotten a trait for a Age, I randomly get a choice from say 3 common traits.

This way, each game could be different.

[Lord Funk]

Originally posted by Ch3m:

Are all the buildings/cities the same? It would be could if each different nation had their own style.

I'm not sure if you can make each nation have their own totally unique city and tile improvement looks, but I did see some video and the "Nation Builder" being opened. I think I saw that when chosing to create a nation you could at least chose from a variety of looks. Like European style, Asian style etc (maybe not exactly those choices, but you get the picture). I can't remember who it was of all the YouTubers I've watched who had it open, or I'd rewatch it to give more details. I would have to look through all of them, find the exact time stamp, to find the specific segment.

Just try to go find some YouTubers videos from the last few days and it will save you some speculations and answer your questions in more details straight from the sources.

Edit:
Read "TehJumpingJawas" replies below for more exact and correct info.

[TehJumpingJawa]

Originally posted by Lord Funk:

Originally posted by Ch3m:

Are all the buildings/cities the same? It would be could if each different nation had their own style.

I'm not sure if you can make each nation have their own totally unique city and tile improvement looks, but I did see some video and the "Nation Builder" being opened. I think I saw that when chosing to create a nation you could at least chose from a variety of looks. Like European style, Asian style etc (maybe not exactly those choces, but you get the picture). I can't remember who it was of all the YouTubers I've watched who had it open, or I'd rewatch it to give more details. I would have to look through all of them, find the exact time stamp, to find the specific segment.

Just try to go find some YouTubers videos from the last few days and it will save you some speculations and answer your questions in more details straight from the sources.

All the Nation Builder allows you to do is:
- Change the civilisation name
- select a flag (from those already in the game.)
- select the name list to use for assigning the default names to cities & towns. (again, only from the lists already included in the game).
- select the default starting bonus.

It's absolutely barebones, and tbh pretty worthless.

The YouTube video that mentioned architectural styles when describing the nation builder's features misspoke.

[Lord Funk]

I found it for you. It was in the first episode of "Praetorian HiJynx" playthrough of Millennia. It was actually more specific choices than I remembered (not just regional). Basically all already existing nations within in the game can be chosen as the naming scheme look of your "Nation Builders" created nation.

The segment is 5 min 33 sec into the video.

Praetorian HiJynx - Let's Play Millennia Rome Gameplay Episode 1 The Stone Age
https://youtu.be/36q346fKQHQ?si=27eMlNG6yLQcuvcR&t=333

You can "Enter Nation name". The nations flag from a scroll down menu. Then chose from a another scroll down menu the naming scheme look/style of cities and from yet another scroll down menu chose the naming scheme look/style of the towns as well.

The choices I can see are.
Aztec Cities
Brazilian Cities
Chinese Cities
Egyptian Cities
French Cities
German Cities
Greek Cities
Indian Cities
Japanese Cities
Ottoman Cities
Persian Cities
Roman Cities
Russian Cities
Spanish Cities
Swedish Cities
British Cities
American Cities
Zulu Cities

I would assume pretty much the same for the towns. He does not open the "Towns" scroll down menu, but I assume it's pretty much the same choices. It's even possible that you could chose say a Japanese naming scheme look for your cities and a British naming scheme look for your towns. Mix it up a bit, but not sure.

As to why British and American Cities are not in alphabetical order while the rest are, I have no idea? Maybe those nations were added in last and someone forgot to add to sort them alphabetically. Your guess is as good as mine.

Edit:
While I was writing this, I see that "TehJumpingJawa" has also replied and says that the Cities and Town choices only affect the names, not the looks. That might be totally correct. I do not have access to the build they play, so no way for me to test it out. Actually when listening to what "Praetorian HiJynx" says he says it's just chosing settlement names, so that confirms what "TehJumpingJawa" wrote. That's all those choices seem to do. So I edited this post to match.

[TehJumpingJawa]

Again, those lists have nothing to do with the look of the cities/towns.
It's simply the name lists used for selecting each city's (and town's) initial name.

If you've still got the demo installed, you can see for yourself.

Create a new text file named "CustomNation_000.xml" with the contents:

<APlayerSetupState xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<ConfigID>example nation name</ConfigID>
<PlayerType>PT_Human</PlayerType>
<NationName>Example nation name</NationName>
<CityNameCollection>ZuluCityNames</CityNameCollection>
<TownNameCollection>ZuluTownNames</TownNameCollection>
<Flag>Flags_Aztec</Flag>
<StartupBonuses>
<StartupBonus>TECHAGE1-STARTUPBONUS-RANDOM</StartupBonus>
</StartupBonuses>
<AIDifficulty>0</AIDifficulty>
<IsCustomNation>true</IsCustomNation>
<ColorProfileIndex>-1</ColorProfileIndex>
</APlayerSetupState>

Modify the CityNameCollection/TownNameCollection entries as you see fit, then save the xml file to:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\CPromptGames\Millennia Demo\CustomNation\

The custom nation will now be selectable when setting up a Custom Game.

[Lord Funk]

Originally posted by TehJumpingJawa:

Again, those lists have nothing to do with the look of the cities/towns.
It's simply the name lists used for selecting each city's (and town's) initial name.

If you've still got the demo installed, you can see for yourself.

Create a new text file named "CustomNation_000.xml" with the contents:

<APlayerSetupState xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<ConfigID>example nation name</ConfigID>
<PlayerType>PT_Human</PlayerType>
<NationName>Example nation name</NationName>
<CityNameCollection>ZuluCityNames</CityNameCollection>
<TownNameCollection>ZuluTownNames</TownNameCollection>
<Flag>Flags_Aztec</Flag>
<StartupBonuses>
<StartupBonus>TECHAGE1-STARTUPBONUS-RANDOM</StartupBonus>
</StartupBonuses>
<AIDifficulty>0</AIDifficulty>
<IsCustomNation>true</IsCustomNation>
<ColorProfileIndex>-1</ColorProfileIndex>
</APlayerSetupState>

Modify the CityNameCollection/TownNameCollection entries as you see fit, then save the xml file to:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\CPromptGames\Millennia Demo\CustomNation

The custom nation will now be selectable when setting up a Custom Game.

Awesome reply. Thank you.

That is a bit disappointing to hear, but it is what it is I guess.

[Oaks]

I really hope it gets expanded on pretty quickly through modding or something. I want to be able to make my own nations with their own flags, not rename Brazil.

[Lord Funk]

Originally posted by Oaks:

I really hope it gets expanded on pretty quickly through modding or something. I want to be able to make my own nations with their own flags, not rename Brazil.

Agreed.

In addition, I would also like to be able to chose red for my own nation as the colour. That seems to be reserved maybe only for the barbarians right now. I like red or a more "crimson" red as the colour for my own nation/culture/civilization when I play turn based 4X games. Actually "Praetorian HiJynx" seem to have a similar taste, since he mentions that in his video as well. That he would like to have the choice of red for his nation.

Humankind added a colour mixer into their game after release. Kind of like how you can freely mix colours in paint style programs, photoshop etc. Prior to that the default red they had to chose from made shields and such on units look like cerise or pink. Now it's possible to mix the exact colour tone you want for your own empire. That's something I'd like to see in all turn based 4X games. Not just a fixed or set list of basic colour choices.

[Keymaker]

Originally posted by Oaks:

I really hope it gets expanded on pretty quickly through modding or something. I want to be able to make my own nations with their own flags, not rename Brazil.

Agreed!

[hannibal_pjv]

Originally posted by TehJumpingJawa:

Originally posted by Lord Funk:

I'm not sure if you can make each nation have their own totally unique city and tile improvement looks, but I did see some video and the "Nation Builder" being opened. I think I saw that when chosing to create a nation you could at least chose from a variety of looks. Like European style, Asian style etc (maybe not exactly those choces, but you get the picture). I can't remember who it was of all the YouTubers I've watched who had it open, or I'd rewatch it to give more details. I would have to look through all of them, find the exact time stamp, to find the specific segment.

Just try to go find some YouTubers videos from the last few days and it will save you some speculations and answer your questions in more details straight from the sources.

All the Nation Builder allows you to do is:

It's absolutely barebones, and tbh pretty worthless.

The YouTube video that mentioned architectural styles when describing the nation builder's features misspoke.

That is most likely the easiest modable parts of this game. Flag and city names… no big task to do!
Different buildings, butnifmwemhave european, asian type buildings to chose from… we are fine!

[Lucullo]

Originally posted by Lord Funk:

I ...
As to why British and American Cities are not in alphabetical order while the rest are, I have no idea? Maybe those nations were added in last and someone forgot to add to sort them alphabetically. Your guess is as good as mine.

Maybe because they internally are UK and US?

[Aluminum Elite Master]

I made the same suggestion on one thread, actually: make it a historical fiction 4X with made up names and made up lore rather than use real-world history. So yeah, like OP wrote, it would be like Stellaris but just based loosely on the history arc of the world, with factions you make up everything for and can call whatever you want.

My own longer thread said the same thing as the OP, though: having real-world names and symbols for factions that can be customized any-which-way is going to ruin immersion. There needs to be more ability to make factions that are totally fictional entities.

[Lord Funk]

Originally posted by Lucullo:

Originally posted by Lord Funk:

I ...
As to why British and American Cities are not in alphabetical order while the rest are, I have no idea? Maybe those nations were added in last and someone forgot to add to sort them alphabetically. Your guess is as good as mine.

Maybe because they internally are UK and US?

Ah, good point. I like how you thought of that.