Ancient Civs Proposals

[freethink]

I realize there are other threads dedicated to proposing new civilizations out there, but this thread is specifically about Ancient Civ proposals, (by ancient I roughly mean those founded before 400 AD) but roughly speaking I am talking more bronze age civilizations.

I wonder with the new map specifically about two (or three) very old civilizations

• The Olmecs
• The Minoans
• Norte Chico (though I think Krieger has a very detailed post about this)

There is a strong historical argument for their inclusion, as these civilizations were not only distinct but were essentially the parents of the in game civs that came after them. That being said I want to think about the gameplay argument. How can they be fun even while they are isolated?

For the Minoans I imagine a civ based on trade, maybe even on a unique civilian unit that can generate income like a merchant.

The Olmecs will be criticized because they need to feel different from the Maya even though they existed long before the Maya came into being. One thing to consider that the Olemec trade network spread throughout Mexico. I wonder if the Olmec could have an exploration game, where they generate gold simply for discovering new resources with scouts (if scouts survive the barbarians). I also think it would be cool if there could be a culture game as well because the Olmecs invented the "Feathered Serpent" Perhaps a game goal could be to have a high culture (higher than what would be expected) but the player can not lower the research slider below 30% to artificially do this. Also maybe there could be a goal about surviving the Maya conquest/conquest.

For Norte chico all I think about is Ancient Peru's reliance on the sea, not sure how to include them, but Krieger's post is a great start.

 

[venusinfurs77]

i can't see the minoans ever being enjoyable to play, too small of an area and scope

 

[Krieger-FS]

Since I was mentioned, I'm shamelessly necroing the thread containing suggestions for Andean (and other Native American) civs. IMO, Norte Chico/Caral could be an interesting puzzle civ, with all the pros and cons associate with those. Additionally, given the periodization for ancient civilizations here, I'd also consider Moche/Chimú and Xiongnu as potential and interesting additions.

 

[Steb]

The Olmecs will be criticized because they need to feel different from the Maya even though they existed long before the Maya came into being. One thing to consider that the Olemec trade network spread throughout Mexico. I wonder if the Olmec could have an exploration game, where they generate gold simply for discovering new resources with scouts (if scouts survive the barbarians). I also think it would be cool if there could be a culture game as well because the Olmecs invented the "Feathered Serpent" Perhaps a game goal could be to have a high culture (higher than what would be expected) but the player can not lower the research slider below 30% to artificially do this. Also maybe there could be a goal about surviving the Maya conquest/conquest.

I actually made an Olmec civ in a modmod a while ago:

I designed and implemented the Olmec civilization as part of the Civilization Reborn modmod. I assume it will be merged into the modmod sometime soon. For reference, here are the civilization details:

The Olmecs
Spawn in southeast Veracruz (1E of the stone tile) in 1600 BC

• Starting techs: Tanning, Mining and Agriculture

Leader: Tezcatlipoca

• Favorite civic: Despotism

UB: Colossal Head, replaces Monument, +1 artist slot
UU: Blowgunner, replaces Scout, can attack
UP: The Power of Nixtamal: excess food provides an equivalent amount of commerce
UHV:

1. Mother Culture of Mesoamerica: Build 4 culture-producing buildings by 400 BC
2. The Long Count Begins: Discover two of Writing, Arithmetic and Calendar by 400 BC
3. A Magnetite Artifact: Be the first to discover Compass

Other:

• Stability hit starting in 400 BC, so that they collapse and leave ruins
• Changed first Danibaan spawn date to 400 BC and removed the corresponding Holkan spawn (otherwise they just spawn next to the Olmec capital and sit there doing nothing)
• Core = 2 tiles, the spawn tile and the stone tile
• Historical area = some tiles in central Mexico and Guatemala (we see Olmec influence from the Valley of Mexico to the Maya areas)
• Pagan URV2: settle three great artists
• Colors:
  • Primary: yellowish jade green
  • Secondary color: orange
• Symbol: the face of a colossal head
• City names: since we don't know any Olmec city names, I had to get creative. I approximately translated "La Venta" (The Sale) and "Tres Zapotes" (Three Sapotes) into Totontepec Mixe, a language of the Mixe-Zoque family, thought to have included the Olmecs' language. This gave "Je Taa'c" and "Toojc Yuctsoo'c" respectively. I chose Totontepec Mixe because I was able to find a fairly comprehensive Spanish-Mixe dictionary.

Some older comments I made before implementation:

Comments:

We don't have any idea what the Olmecs called themselves or their cities, let alone their leaders. I propose Tezcatlipoca as a leader name. It is the name of an Aztec jaguar god that is hypothesized to have originated with the Olmecs, and since jaguars were important in Olmec art, I think it fits. Tezcatlipoca's preferred civic represents the fact that the Olmecs must have had a centralized elite to be able to build large monuments in their main sites.

The colossal head is an obvious UB, but it's tricky to find interesting effects for yet another monument replacement... We mostly know about the Olmecs from their art, so why not an artist slot.

Finding a good UU was hard, since we have almost no knowledge of Olmec warfare. From what I gather (e.g. from this source), their military was mostly defensive, to protect trade caravans. Thus one idea I had was a worker that could defend, but that is kind of lame. There is evidence that they invented the sling, so I went with that. I thought about using the name 'werejaguar', a common motif in Olmec art, but it is unrelated to warfare and redundant with the Aztec jaguar UU.

I'm happy with the UP idea. It sounds like a joke, but it seems that the invention of the tortilla really might be part of what allowed the Olmecs to develop complex states. The tortilla is highly portable, allowing travel on longer distances for military and trading purposes. If you want a more serious sounding name, it could be the Power of Nixtamalization (although then the link with the trade network is less obvious).

The 1st UHV goal offers some flexibility, allowing a concentration of culture buildings in the capital or spreading them out over 2-3 cities. The number of buildings will surely need to be adjusted. The 2nd goal represents their role as forerunners of several well-known Mesoamerican technologies, including the zero, the long count calendar and writing. The 3rd goal uses the very speculative fact that the Olmecs may have invented the magnetic compass 1000 years before the Chinese, as suggested by a magnetic needle artifact. I think it's a very cool goal, but may not work in-game since it requires the player to discover many techs, but somebody should try it. It also ends up similar in practice to the Maya goal of discovering the Europeans first, so other ideas are welcome.

The 2nd goal also has some overlap with other civs' goals. I think the Maya goal of discovering Calendar should be changed. I've been thinking that it's an underwhelming goal for what is probably the most impressive pre-Columbian civilization. A science goal would still be appropriate, though I'm not sure what. Maybe compare them to the rest of the world? Like "Have more technologies than the average civilization in year X".

It also overlaps with the Norte Chico goal of discovering Calendar and Writing. I think both these technologies are more closely associated with Mesoamerican than Andean civs, so I would change the Norte Chico goal to something else. Reading up about them, I learned that they may be unique as a civilization in having developed out of sea-based staple foods. This is known as the "maritime foundation of Andean civilization" theory and it is still debated, but it would be cool to represent it. Thus the replacement goal could be to acquire X seafood resources (depending on what's actually available around the city) by some early date. Cotton can be thrown into the goal too (it was used for fishing nets), implicitly requiring calendar. The maritime foundation hypothesis might also provide a more inspired UU: an upgraded workboat that can create whaling boats from the get-go, and/or create multiple improvements, and/or is built faster (with cotton?)

I don't think my design was amazing, and the Olmec game was perhaps a bit uneventful since you never get to interact with any civilizations. It therefore needs to be a puzzle type of game, and the puzzle I made — build a few buildings and discover some techs — wasn't particularly interesting. The 3rd UHV I had — be first to discover Compass — is cool but seemed absolutely impossible to achieve.

That said, I do think the Olmecs deserve to be in the game to give a sense that things have been happening in Mesoamerica far before the Mayas and Teotihuacan arise. Maybe there's something cool to be done now that the map is larger and rubber is a resource. An exploration goal might be interesting, though I'm not sure it fits well — as far as we know the Olmecs never went far out of their home region in the Campeche Bay.

 

[Hickman888]

The two ancient civilizations I would most love to see are the ancient Kingdoms of Israel/Judah, and the Sumerian city states. I’ll gladly share my thoughts on what their gameplay could look like, but I’m waiting until after we get the new map, because the area is already getting two new civilizations, and we need to see how everybody interacts with one another.

Though I thought I remember reading somewhere that ancient Israel/Judah isn’t going to be considered being added to the mod. I don’t know if that’s true, or just applies to the old map, or what.

 

[Dracosolon]

Back in 2017:

Let me very quickly specifically joss the following civs: Venice, Papal State, ancient Judah.

For Sumer I'm wondering how much space there is for it with Babylon around. Maybe both civilizations could be mutually exclusive: Babylon is the default but doesn't spawn if the human player picks Sumer. Whichever civilization doesn't exist might also be represented by Barbarian spawns.

 

[Hickman888]

Back in 2017:


For Sumer I'm wondering how much space there is for it with Babylon around. Maybe both civilizations could be mutually exclusive: Babylon is the default but doesn't spawn if the human player picks Sumer. Whichever civilization doesn't exist might also be represented by Barbarian spawns.

My idea with Sumer would be that the Babylon spawn gets pushed back, so that Sumer spawns in the area first. If the Sumerian player is human, the Babylon spawn can be prevented by having shaky stability or better (like the Khmer and Thai situation, currently). If they are AI, Sumer would automatically collapse (like the Harappans) right before the Babylon spawn, and their city would turn into a hamlet.

 

[IrishDragon]

i can't see the minoans ever being enjoyable to play, too small of an area and scope

I think they can work. For the player, it's ahistorical but have a goal to control all the islands of the Med by a certain date (or just the eastern part with Sicily, Cyprus and Crete). Have another goal focused on trade. I've suggested in a different thread a UU that creates a Minoan trade post in other cities to make permanent trade route with Knossos, but it could be something that works like a corporation too, open X trade routes or spread X amount by X date. Or just a goal related to trading resources or gold acquisition. With the Hittites and Assyria coming there's lots of opportunities for diplomacy in the region (wondering if an Indy Troy is a possibility too). You'd have to eventually deal with Greeks which presents its own challenge, and possibly barbarians. Another idea I posted was having captured cites along the Mediterranean generate barbarians at Crete to represent the Sea Peoples and late bronze age collapse, mainly as a way of getting rid of AI Minoans. But it could also give the player a unique challenge of trying to keep the region peaceful and prosperous, if it's not too punishing

 

[freethink]

I think they can work. For the player, it's ahistorical but have a goal to control all the islands of the Med by a certain date (or just the eastern part with Sicily, Cyprus and Crete). Have another goal focused on trade. I've suggested in a different thread a UU that creates a Minoan trade post in other cities to make permanent trade route with Knossos, but it could be something that works like a corporation too, open X trade routes or spread X amount by X date. Or just a goal related to trading resources or gold acquisition. With the Hittites and Assyria coming there's lots of opportunities for diplomacy in the region (wondering if an Indy Troy is a possibility too). You'd have to eventually deal with Greeks which presents its own challenge, and possibly barbarians. Another idea I posted was having captured cites along the Mediterranean generate barbarians at Crete to represent the Sea Peoples and late bronze age collapse, mainly as a way of getting rid of AI Minoans. But it could also give the player a unique challenge of trying to keep the region peaceful and prosperous, if it's not too punishing

Considering all the new civs and the mycenans represented with the Greeks, I strongly disagree with an earlier poster that a Minoan play would be boring.

 

[freethink]

Leader head for a Minoan Civ, relatively new:

[LH] Ariadne

The body of this leaderhead is a converted from Mass Effect 2 and the hair is taken from the Skyrim mod "Hair packs of Fallout3". Therefore, while modifications of the models and artwork were made by me, I take no credit for both and all rights...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[freethink]

Rough Minoan Civilization Concept: (edited)

Unique Unit: Keftiu Merchant. replaces the galley available with sailing. Defense of Two, movement of 2 with no attack, establish a trade route (but this consumes the unit)-
Graphics: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/early-sailing-ships.11489/
Can be sent to another city to generate gold (consuming the unit), and more distant cities generate more gold.
Unique Power: Seashore palaces or Outward-Looking Society. The discovery of a new civ gives the capital a free Merchant, open border agreements give +1 happiness in all cities. available with sailing.
Unique Building: Minoan Avilisi (greek for courtyard) referring to Minoan palaces (which were not royal residencies)
They replace granaries, storing up to 50% of food when a city grows. Also, provide 1 extra health and 2 culture

Leader: Ariadne

[LH] Ariadne

The body of this leaderhead is a converted from Mass Effect 2 and the hair is taken from the Skyrim mod "Hair packs of Fallout3". Therefore, while modifications of the models and artwork were made by me, I take no credit for both and all rights...

forums.civfanatics.com

Three Goals:
- Be the first civilization to discover Sicily, the Golden Horn, and the Pillars of Hercules, find a tribe (goody hut) in Europe
- Sign Open border agreements with four civilizations and send a great merchant to Egypt or the Fertile Cresent
- Your Capital has the highest culture and financial output worldwide in 1,000 B.C

Spoiler Unique Unit :

Diplomatic Music :

 

[Tigranes]

Since I was mentioned, I'm shamelessly necroing the thread containing suggestions for Andean (and other Native American) civs. IMO, Norte Chico/Caral could be an interesting puzzle civ, with all the pros and cons associate with those. Additionally, given the periodization for ancient civilizations here, I'd also consider Moche/Chimú and Xiongnu as potential and interesting additions.

Very detailed ideas here, with Andean world being the number one candidate for inclusion, in my opinion. There's concept of "cradle" of civilization (and this mod is named Dawn of Civilization, mind you). Cradle of civilization is a location and a culture where civilization was developed independent of other civilizations in other locations. Scholars generally acknowledge six cradles of civilization. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, and Ancient China are believed to be the earliest in the Old World, while the Caral-Supe civilization of coastal Peru and the Olmec civilization of Mexico are believed to be the earliest in the New World. All of the cradles of civilization depended upon agriculture for sustenance (except possibly Caral-Supe which may have depended initially on marine resources). While other 5 cradles are present in DoC (Mesoamerica as later Mayans), Andes only come to life in Medieval times with Incas, who were only the very last chapter in the pre-Colombian history of the region. It's the single largest and unfortunate omission in this all- encompassing global history simulator we all love.

 

[freethink]

Very detailed ideas here, with Andean world being the number one candidate for inclusion, in my opinion. There's concept of "cradle" of civilization (and this mod is named Dawn of Civilization, mind you). Cradle of civilization is a location and a culture where civilization was developed independent of other civilizations in other locations. Scholars generally acknowledge six cradles of civilization. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, and Ancient China are believed to be the earliest in the Old World, while the Caral-Supe civilization of coastal Peru and the Olmec civilization of Mexico are believed to be the earliest in the New World. All of the cradles of civilization depended upon agriculture for sustenance (except possibly Caral-Supe which may have depended initially on marine resources). While other 5 cradles are present in DoC (Mesoamerica as later Mayans), Andes only come to life in Medieval times with Incas, who were only the very last chapter in the pre-Colombian history of the region. It's the single largest and unfortunate omission in this all- encompassing global history simulator we all love.

Besides the great suggestions from Krieger, do you think there are ways that the maritime nature of the Caral-Supe can be simulated to be different from the other cradles?

 

[1SDANi]

Besides the great suggestions from Krieger, do you think there are ways that the maritime nature of the Caral-Supe can be simulated to be different from the other cradles?

Could give them a UP that gives +1 Food (maybe also +1 Commerce) on Coasts adjacent to or worked by the Capital and make one of their UHVs require Cotton in some way and have a time limit short enough to practically require players to ignore Pottery and Beeline Calendar

 

[Tigranes]

Could give them a UP that gives +1 Food (maybe also +1 Commerce) on Coasts adjacent to or worked by the Capital and make one of their UHVs require Cotton in some way and have a time limit short enough to practically require players to ignore Pottery and Beeline Calendar

Maybe +1 food +1 commerce on the coast adjacent to any improved tile on the coast, including any city center tile while having access to the cotton resource.

 

[Gen1_]

Why not Mitanni civ ? Spawns in Wassukanni (3N 2W from Babylon) in 2000 BC. Between Hittites, Assyrie and Babylon, it would be a real challenge to survive. And in 1.18 it will the the only Mesopotamian civ to do not appear. (with Sumer)

 

[1SDANi]

Maybe +1 food +1 commerce on the coast adjacent to any improved tile on the coast, including any city center tile while having access to the cotton resource.

a civ where virtually all land-adjacent coasts are able to be 3 food w/ harbors sounds insane tho, not to mention relatively athematic what with it effectively being a OCC, the idea of requiring cotton is really good tho

 

[Tigranes]

a civ where virtually all land-adjacent coasts are able to be 3 food w/ harbors sounds insane tho, not to mention relatively athematic what with it effectively being a OCC, the idea of requiring cotton is really good tho

Not sure if the 3000 BC civ will avoid a Harrapan style collapse to get a tech for Harbor ...

 

[1SDANi]

Not sure if the 3000 BC civ will avoid a Harrapan style collapse to get a tech for Harbor ...

I was talking less about UHV or AI and more about other victories like science or conquest, which like, isn't exactly the focus of the mod, but it's still a bit jarring to see a UP be so insanely strong if used in a completely unthematic manner.

 

[Dracosolon]

Then instead of the UP make it the UB: a Harbor that's available very early and gives +1 .