I am making a civ game where players try to influence different cities to their benefit. Now I am struggeling with a decent theme. But are the best periods in history in which cities/area's were influenced by a different set of peolple without having war?
Any ideas or exaples of other games?
Ancient Greek culture was broadly adopted without the need for military dominance.
The Renaissance certainly demonstrated a considerable adoption of foreign. cultural elements.
What about a religious theme? There are numerous examples of proselytizing in the absence of military conflict (there are also, of course, numerous examples of forceful military conversions).
If you don't need a real-world setting, you could have a fictitious island where you are trying to persuade various native peoples that your deity is the real deal. Alternately, you could be trying to persuade them that you should be the big dog on the island. It's a bid for survival and every player is trying to convince the indigenous people to follow his or her leadership. The natives will reject outright physical dominance, but will loyally follow anyone that is able to demonstrate themselves as a capable leader through a balance of strength, intelligence, creativity, and bravery (these categories then become integral game elements that each player is striving to develop and keep in balance).
I like the idea of being the Big Dog on the island. That said, you could tweak that theme some as well and end up with something a little more modern or even futuristic depending on what you want.
Corporate climber.
You're climbing that corporate ladder.
Space colony politics.
Convince the others that you should be mayor/governor/political leader.
Though, I s'pose these aren't really peaceful either what with the mudslinging and backstabbing. At least there's no knives or guns coming out.
Peaceful doesn't mean no backstabbing :)
I really like cutthroat politics, and they will be presented in my game.
The theme is as follows:
Players all are a secret faction: Spain, Portugal, France, England or Holland. These factions are exploring the word, as they stumble on a chain of islands (called Atlantis?). They all try to influence the islands with their own factions, but others can influence the islands too.
Each island want different things from the newcomers. They love certain things, and hate others. Those things are: knowledge, (militairy) power, wealth, food or infrastructure. Each faction can give or take thes things to increase or decrease their influence on the island.
At the end of the game, each player gets points for the number of islands that are controlled by their secret faction, and for the amount of influence on these islands.
This theme can very easily be transformed to space, ancient history or whatever, by just changing some of the words :)
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Thank you for your input, I really like the ideas.
Ancient Greece was my first idea too, but soon after that I found out my card design would be very much like 7 wonders', so I decided to try to have some different theming.
Renaissance is a nice time for this idea, although I think the theme might be overdone.
Although religion is perfect, I really like to avoid having themes that can be insulting, like religion. Even if they are fictional, they will always be linked to real religions.
The last island idea is amazing! It solves some issues I had in the game, is quite original, and has some very creative sides. Thank you! :)
Atlantis would be great for such a thing I think.
Any other thoughts?