Ada Plays

Slowly making progress on a Civ7 story mod.

I’ve been working on a little story mod for Civilization VII the last couple weeks. The new game is a delight, but I miss feeling more closely connected to my leader. I decided to attempt to remedy it myself by creating a more personal story.

My first playthrough was as Catherine, though that was entirely a random choice. I wanted to play as a woman, and I like Russian history, so off I went. I realized, though, that I know very little about Catherine or her period. My study of Russia focused on the Revolution and the 20th century.

I decided I would make some stories in case others found an interest in her and similarly wanted to feel closer to their leader.

Catherine is known for having had many lovers in her life. Though her critics called her all manner of unchaste names, she seems to have simply been an independent romantic. She loved love, and she was free to seek it.

I’m experimenting with adding a touch of history in the tooltips to help players understand why this event occurred. Here, a player playing as Catherine will see a general and, should the player wish, seek to befriend him.

I wanted to also work in a few different elements of the new narrative system, purely for my own enjoyment. Here, the player can choose which quest to pursue and thus which version of the story to continue.

Catherine wrote many letters, and we are fortunate to have them. Within that collection are a series of love letters she wrote to one of her companions. I think the idea of letters fits the game well, but my original idea (Catherine and Ben Franklin) turned out to be impossible with current tools and/or my current knowledge. Instead, I thought I’d create a series of letters between Catherine and this general she’s taken an interest in.

I’m very open to thoughts! Do you think the history-via-tooltips idea is helpful? Distracting? Is it too metagame to fit inside the game?

Is the story too lighthearted to fit the tone of the game? What would you like to see instead?