Rulers

[ajarnlance]

Will your nation ruler have a realistic life span and be replaced by another character with different traits when he dies? Or do we get one ruler who stays in place for the entire game? Will there be the chance for a ruler to gain/lose traits depending on his actions in the game?

[Pocus]

YES
NO

Or sorry, I think I should elaborate

Rulers have an age and an health. That degrades over time, and sometime you can have accidents. The more decadent your nation is, the higher the chance to get an accident (and the weirder the end message will be, you should read what some of the emperors of Rome did, this is sometime so strange you believe it's an invention...).

Once he dies, a new one appears, with new traits, and generally a good health.

A ruler can't gain a trait, for now (we have thought about it, but it won't make for release at least).

[ajarnlance]

That's great. It will make it more challenging to have to deal with different characters. Being able to develop traits might add some nice immersion to the game. A very aggressive player might get a 'war monger' trait etc... almost like developing a reputation.

By the strange behavior of Roman Emperors I can think of some good examples: Caligula sleeping with his horse or Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned! Maybe there should be a 'crazy' trait for leaders after a nation reaches a certain decadence level?