Based on the details you've released, it seems that one of the things that you want to create in CE is a sense of ongoing history, in which previous successes and failures are remembered and commemorated. I think one interesting way to do this would be for the game to record notable events, and turn them into holidays that get celebrated in future campaigns. This could incorporate: Memorials to military defeats. Celebrations of military victories. Honoring the birthday or death day of accomplished individuals. Marking the date in which a particular scientific discovery had been made. etc. etc. etc. As one plays through the game, these holidays could serve as reminders of previous events. And holidays could impact the behavior of subjects in various ways. Some holidays could lead toward drunken debauchery, others toward religious contemplation... there's a lot that could be done here.
Just make it only recognize the important events from 3 or so last play-throughs. That way we won't get bored since the holiday will keep on changing.
Or set a limit, or even - though it'd be more complicated - have holidays you can set once you've unlocked them. So say a big military victory happened, you'd get that as something you could slot into a calendar as a holiday, which would then provide buffs when that day happened again. It'd be like a slightly bizarre inventory, basically.
Or maybe let the player choose when and what important events will be remembered as holydays, since the player is the "mayor" of the city?
That's kinda what I was getting at. Something should have to happen to open that day up to being a holiday, and you should be able - after that - to decide whether it will be a holiday or not.
I like this idea. Holidays could be a kind of perk, something you use to adjust morale, prestige, attract different kinds of attention and manage your nobility better...
No. When there's too many they start being combined into stupid compound holidays the way Lincoln's Birthday and Washington's Birthday were replaced by "Presidents' Day" (Although perhaps both could happen. Maybe the first month to reach a certain threshold number of holidays compounded together could eventually be transformed into a month-long super holiday, the way Christmas, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, St.Stephen's Day, Afflux, New Year's Eve, New Years Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Festivus have collectively mutated into "The Holiday Season")
