S3rgeus's Wheel of Time Mod

S3rgeus · Mar 23, 2016

counterpoint said:
it's fine not using the glider, truly. It was just cool flavor that seemed to fit this tech well.

Though, honestly, Laws of Motion doesn't fit these unlocks terribly well, without the glider anymore. I'm sorry to say it, but Telescopes does seem to fit these unlocks quite well (with or without an innovation). Naval unit is fine enough. Envoy production boost, sure. Reveal map? very much so.

So, I suggest this tech be called Telescopes. It seemed you were considering moving Law of War elsewhere, anyways....

This sounds like a good move to me. I've shuffled around Laws of Motion and Telescopes, related to here and below!

counterpoint said:
unrelated: can we maybe consider moving the Wonder off of Channeling Circles onto something else, like, perhaps Crop Rotation (which essentially doesn't impact the tree at all). Chan Circ is now very, very full of unlocks, and seems to kind of be an uber-tech. Agreement?

Totally agree, that sounds like a good move. Done!

counterpoint said:
ok, cool. I like that one too.

yeah, and don't forget, stuff like sa'angreal (not a tech name) and ter'angreal (a tech name) would be too!

Yeah, I wish "amelae" was a word that came up more in the books. This is the best of the current options, I think. Not amazing, but decent.

I can see what you mean. Italics might help that, but even then, it is sort of a bunch of gibberish.... It "Feels" like the Old Tongue, which is good, but ultimately nobody will know what the reference is....

I don't know, I could go either way on this. It would be easier if the whole column were somehow all O.T. or something, as it'd be cohesive. As is, they do stand out a bit. They also aren't really "techs" so much as just random concepts. We haven't had any suggestions, O.T. or otherwise, that really feel like "techs" for these two....

I'm not sure what else to name them, though. Not sure we'd have anything that would truly be flavorful. I wonder if the answer is simply to get really "clinical" or technical, and dive back into a brainstorm of what might actually yield better Prestige and better Diplomatic relations.

I agree all of it the Old Tongue would probably look more cohesive. I don't think we want to do that for all of those techs though. I'd be ok going back to Untempered Glory for the Prestige one.

The delegates for diplomats one seems like there should be some Aes-Sedai-whispering flavor that we can use. It's related to Eyes and Ears as well. Could it be called Spy Network or something like that?

counterpoint said:
I think this synergizes well with my suggestion about Telescopes above. Name "Unnamed" Laws of Motion because reasons. Name "Laws of Motion" Telescopes and enjoy the decent flavor. Then as far as Telescopes on top... come up with something else... Here we are again with a Prestige thing being hard to "name" with a technological advance. Any other ideas on what to do with this kind of thing?

Unfortunately, Laws of Motion and Telescopes are very much not a flavorful way to arrive at Power-Wrought Weapons, which is their child... I wonder if we should strive for something a little more channeling-related (or something) for one of those techs? Is Foretelling too weird for former-Laws of Motion? Nobody really "rediscovers" it late in the series.

Ach! This is really tough. I feel like as it is it doesn't quite work, though, so needs a little something extra.

Yeah, the problem here seems to be that we have a set of techs that are Power-y and another set that are Science-y. The flavor pushes us to have those two types at this point in general, but prereqs between the two don't make that much sense.

It seems like if we have something Power-ish where Telescopes is now (having been moved above) could make this work - Laws of Motion feeding into Power-Wrought Weapons does make a little sense, but not Telescopes.

A channeling weave that could lead to revealing the map and some kind of envoy boost? Or maybe we could make it Tower-centric? Or is the answer to leave the flavor alone, and swap Telescopes and Greater Consensus around? Then Telescopes would lead into Ter'angreal, but Greater Consensus into Power-Wrought Weapons does make a lot more sense.

In terms of a new name for the tech-formerly-known-as-Telescopes, we could use something to do with fielding an army/invasion across an ocean? This time period in the books is where the Seanchan do that again for the corenne. (We don't want to use Corenne, I assume, since that's Seanchan specific. And Randland continent layout specific.)

Could be something direct like Shipmasters? Or Shipmastery. Or something more structural like Coordinated Navy.

Or maybe something more about glory/prestige, that could also lead to a naval unit. Famed Captaincy isn't really a tech. Celebrated Captains, also not a tech. Anything close?

counterpoint said:
right, so what stretch of time, then? That's got to be a year or less. I imagine we'd be counting turns with months, like in the uber-end of BNW. Hey, we can use the in-universe month names!

Yeah, it looks like that time period is about a year long!

counterpoint said:
We're super close! Hopefully we can get some of this flavor solid soon, and then we can do a "big picture pass" of the whole thing and check for mistakes, etc. Oh, and we can name the innovations, I suppose.

So close! Is a "big picture pass" of the tree mainly making sure we like its overall structure and, as you've mentioned, checking for mistakes?

Then we're on to uniques, right? And is uniques the final category in the design phase? I suppose we need to fill in the flavor for generic units/buildings once we've done that though.

counterpoint · Mar 23, 2016

posts getting smaller and smaller!

ooh, you just wait for the Uniques Framing Post. Lawd, lawd, you just wait.

S3rgeus said:
This sounds like a good move to me. I've shuffled around Laws of Motion and Telescopes, related to here and below!

S3rgeus said:
I agree all of it the Old Tongue would probably look more cohesive. I don't think we want to do that for all of those techs though. I'd be ok going back to Untempered Glory for the Prestige one.

yeah, obviously all O.T. isn't going to happen.

I don't like U.G. very much. It very much doesn't feel like a tech. At least the OT ones are vaguely flavorful. We may have to leave it as somewhat undecided, but I think we can do this...

I'm thinking the way to go with this one is to zero in on an actual tech, if only partially-based on flavor, that would actually lead to an increase in your nation's prestige. For the purpose of the mechanics of spreading it, Prestige really is quite a lot like Tourism - spreading word about your civ throughout the world (though not necessarily luring people to visit). I think the problem is that we've been focusing on the notion of that Prestige itself - coming up with things that mean "you're really famous," and those are simply not techs, or related to techs. So, let's look towards some things that could be seen to actually accomplish this. Again, in keeping with the *possibility* of flavor, but not necessarily actually flavorful, since the books aren't giving us much. So, things like...:

Mass Printing, Mechanical Printing, Metal Type (based on actual flavor, though not in these words) - word of your civs spreads throughout the world
Communication, Transportation
Propaganda - a little 20th century, but close
National Heroes, - a pantheon of a nation, of sorts
Sphere of Influence, Hegemony, Nationhood

any of those things working for you, or sparking any ideas?

also, incidentally, it's apparently supposed to be The Dragon's Peace, with an "'s".

S3rgeus said:
The delegates for diplomats one seems like there should be some Aes-Sedai-whispering flavor that we can use. It's related to Eyes and Ears as well. Could it be called Spy Network or something like that?

eh, see, I don't see this as having anything to do with this. The whole point is you *aren't* using E&E, and instead are option for open diplomacy. So, I say nix on the spy stuff. Similarly to above, I'd look to actual mechanisms that would create such a result.

Sphere of Influence
Sovereignty (kind of weird, I know), Nationhood, Self-Determination, Diplomatic Recognition
Balance of Power, International Law
Head of State
Embassies (actually totally historically viable - didn't really exist before the renaissance. we'd of course then need to rename the normal diplo thing)
Diplomatic Immunity

any of those on the right track?

(really didn't think that'd lead me to read up on the Peace of Westphalia!)

S3rgeus said:
Yeah, the problem here seems to be that we have a set of techs that are Power-y and another set that are Science-y. The flavor pushes us to have those two types at this point in general, but prereqs between the two don't make that much sense.

It seems like if we have something Power-ish where Telescopes is now (having been moved above) could make this work - Laws of Motion feeding into Power-Wrought Weapons does make a little sense, but not Telescopes.

A channeling weave that could lead to revealing the map and some kind of envoy boost? Or maybe we could make it Tower-centric? Or is the answer to leave the flavor alone, and swap Telescopes and Greater Consensus around? Then Telescopes would lead into Ter'angreal, but Greater Consensus into Power-Wrought Weapons does make a lot more sense.

This last thing. That's the answer, IMO. Swap Telescopes and Greater Consensus in their entirety (including unlocks). There don't appear to be any negative "direct line" consequences resulting from this swap, and as you note, G.C -> P-W Weap is quite fine, and Tel -> T'a is also quite fine with me. All opposed?

S3rgeus said:
In terms of a new name for the tech-formerly-known-as-Telescopes, we could use something to do with fielding an army/invasion across an ocean? This time period in the books is where the Seanchan do that again for the corenne. (We don't want to use Corenne, I assume, since that's Seanchan specific. And Randland continent layout specific.)

Could be something direct like Shipmasters? Or Shipmastery. Or something more structural like Coordinated Navy.

Or maybe something more about glory/prestige, that could also lead to a naval unit. Famed Captaincy isn't really a tech. Celebrated Captains, also not a tech. Anything close?

You're on the right track, I think. What if we went with something like Colonization or Colonialism? I know it's a little weird, since it actually applies to stuff that happened earlier in the tree (e.g. the Consolidation), but it also has a degree of gravitas that fits this point. It also fits both naval and prestige elements as well.And it does seem to lead very well into both of the final two diplo/culture techs. Heh, there's always Sphere of Influence if we don't use it above (which fits the Prestige thing as well)

As to your specific suggestions, the Shipmaster ones feel so much like Shipcraft. The Captain ones feel redundant to the Great Captain/Admiral notion that exists elsewhere as a mechanic.

Coordinated Navy, could work, though it's perhaps a little bland. A similar idea is Naval Levies or Naval Conscription. The Companion writes a lot (actually for almost ever coastal civ) that these civs don't have standing navies, and instead rely on levies of the nobility for such things (as well as armies), so that could be cool. This could work ok, but the issue is that it possibly fits better earlier in the tree. To that end, the opposite of it - a Coordinated Navy - does seem to be more "late game." The problem is mostly with the name itself. Something like National Navy isn't even much better.

thoughts? so close!

S3rgeus said:
Yeah, it looks like that time period is about a year long!

ok. should update... whatever summary has all that. Misc?

S3rgeus said:
So close! Is a "big picture pass" of the tree mainly making sure we like its overall structure and, as you've mentioned, checking for mistakes?

yeah, definitely. We'll vet the excel sheet against the editor's tree, check "direct line" on things, and see the general "flow" and how it all holds up. I have a feeling that we'll be changing some flavor months from now.

also, could name innovations now, too

S3rgeus said:
Then we're on to uniques, right? And is uniques the final category in the design phase? I suppose we need to fill in the flavor for generic units/buildings once we've done that though.

Yeah, I think that's it for the "big categories," and then it gets specific (actual units, etc.)

As discussed, I have a big "Framing Post" for civs and uniques that I'll drop when we're done here. It's a pretty big one (been in process for many months, during lulls in activity here). The last time I did that (Channeling, a looong time ago) I kind of scared away the civilians. Not sure who I'll scare away this time.

EDIT: should it be "Sextants" instead of singular?

EDIT 2 should we have another Polearm unit pop up in era 8 or 9? It's all the way back at era 7, the last one, and we have THREE Mounted units after that point!

(the same is mostly true for Ranged and Siege as well - we ok with that too?)

also, think there's need for any more late-game wonders?

S3rgeus · Mar 24, 2016

counterpoint said:
ooh, you just wait for the Uniques Framing Post. Lawd, lawd, you just wait.

It may take me a while to get through and reply to that much postage!

counterpoint said:
yeah, obviously all O.T. isn't going to happen.

I don't like U.G. very much. It very much doesn't feel like a tech. At least the OT ones are vaguely flavorful. We may have to leave it as somewhat undecided, but I think we can do this...

I'm thinking the way to go with this one is to zero in on an actual tech, if only partially-based on flavor, that would actually lead to an increase in your nation's prestige. For the purpose of the mechanics of spreading it, Prestige really is quite a lot like Tourism - spreading word about your civ throughout the world (though not necessarily luring people to visit). I think the problem is that we've been focusing on the notion of that Prestige itself - coming up with things that mean "you're really famous," and those are simply not techs, or related to techs. So, let's look towards some things that could be seen to actually accomplish this. Again, in keeping with the *possibility* of flavor, but not necessarily actually flavorful, since the books aren't giving us much. So, things like...:

Mass Printing, Mechanical Printing, Metal Type (based on actual flavor, though not in these words) - word of your civs spreads throughout the world
Communication, Transportation
Propaganda - a little 20th century, but close
National Heroes, - a pantheon of a nation, of sorts
Sphere of Influence, Hegemony, Nationhood

any of those things working for you, or sparking any ideas?

I like Mechanical Printing, but didn't we mention earlier than the printing press has existed in the WoT world for some time before the books, and the stuff from the academies is just an improvement? That makes me think we're too far along in the tree to use this here.

Aside from that, Hegemony seems like it could work. It's a bit negative though.

National Heroes is probably the closest? But I'm still partial to Untempered Glory, of these choices.

counterpoint said:
also, incidentally, it's apparently supposed to be The Dragon's Peace, with an "'s".

Isn't that what the tech used to say? And we're not using this flavor here anymore, right?

counterpoint said:
eh, see, I don't see this as having anything to do with this. The whole point is you *aren't* using E&E, and instead are option for open diplomacy. So, I say nix on the spy stuff. Similarly to above, I'd look to actual mechanisms that would create such a result.

Sphere of Influence
Sovereignty (kind of weird, I know), Nationhood, Self-Determination, Diplomatic Recognition
Balance of Power, International Law
Head of State
Embassies (actually totally historically viable - didn't really exist before the renaissance. we'd of course then need to rename the normal diplo thing)
Diplomatic Immunity

any of those on the right track?

Is Diplomatic Immunity ever mentioned in the books or associated canon? I like that one, but it feels a bit too Earth-y if it doesn't have a concrete books connection. It makes a lot of flavorful sense for the ability as well.

It's worth us discussing though - do we want the ability to remain the same? As I see it, the main important thing is that the player gets a lot of Compact votes out of it, not necessarily that it's connected to Diplomats.

counterpoint said:
(really didn't think that'd lead me to read up on the Peace of Westphalia!)

It's always amazing what these flavor dives lead to!

counterpoint said:
This last thing. That's the answer, IMO. Swap Telescopes and Greater Consensus in their entirety (including unlocks). There don't appear to be any negative "direct line" consequences resulting from this swap, and as you note, G.C -> P-W Weap is quite fine, and Tel -> T'a is also quite fine with me. All opposed?

*silence*

None opposed, the motion passes!

counterpoint said:
You're on the right track, I think. What if we went with something like Colonization or Colonialism? I know it's a little weird, since it actually applies to stuff that happened earlier in the tree (e.g. the Consolidation), but it also has a degree of gravitas that fits this point. It also fits both naval and prestige elements as well.And it does seem to lead very well into both of the final two diplo/culture techs. Heh, there's always Sphere of Influence if we don't use it above (which fits the Prestige thing as well)

As to your specific suggestions, the Shipmaster ones feel so much like Shipcraft. The Captain ones feel redundant to the Great Captain/Admiral notion that exists elsewhere as a mechanic.

Coordinated Navy, could work, though it's perhaps a little bland. A similar idea is Naval Levies or Naval Conscription. The Companion writes a lot (actually for almost ever coastal civ) that these civs don't have standing navies, and instead rely on levies of the nobility for such things (as well as armies), so that could be cool. This could work ok, but the issue is that it possibly fits better earlier in the tree. To that end, the opposite of it - a Coordinated Navy - does seem to be more "late game." The problem is mostly with the name itself. Something like National Navy isn't even much better.

thoughts? so close!

Standing Navy would be the converse of a levy-based system, right? (Does that expression port (ahem!) from Standing Army to work for Navies?)

Colonization could work, but like a lot of the others it isn't really a tech.

I'd say Shipmastery feels quite different from Shipcraft. The latter is basically just the formalized making of ships and is more about the physical process of creating them, whereas the former implies a much more general understanding of how to captain/navigate/construct/etc.

counterpoint said:
ok. should update... whatever summary has all that. Misc?

Done!

counterpoint said:
yeah, definitely. We'll vet the excel sheet against the editor's tree, check "direct line" on things, and see the general "flow" and how it all holds up. I have a feeling that we'll be changing some flavor months from now.

Sounds good. Agreed, I think we'll be tweaking this even after we release.

counterpoint said:
also, could name innovations now, too

Good call, doesn't look like any of them are moving based on what we're discussing above! So, some suggestions for those innovations:

Laws of Motion - Glider
Lightning Jars - Lightning Jars
Steam Engines - Steamcarts
Cuendillar - Cuendillar
Power-Wrought Weapons - Mah'alleinir
Roarsticks - Roarsticks

For the granddaddy innovation on Wells, I'm actually not sure. I feel like this one shouldn't just be "Wells"? Is there something else specifically show-off-able that this could be?

counterpoint said:
Yeah, I think that's it for the "big categories," and then it gets specific (actual units, etc.)

We're so close! Then we'll be actually putting mechanics into the game!

counterpoint said:
As discussed, I have a big "Framing Post" for civs and uniques that I'll drop when we're done here. It's a pretty big one (been in process for many months, during lulls in activity here). The last time I did that (Channeling, a looong time ago) I kind of scared away the civilians. Not sure who I'll scare away this time.

I'm in this too deep to be scared away now!

Are there any more non-civilians, assuming you won't scare yourself away?

counterpoint said:
EDIT: should it be "Sextants" instead of singular?

Fixed!

counterpoint said:
EDIT 2 should we have another Polearm unit pop up in era 8 or 9? It's all the way back at era 7, the last one, and we have THREE Mounted units after that point!

Very true, that's way back. Shall we add one onto Power-Wrought Weapons?

counterpoint said:
(the same is mostly true for Ranged and Siege as well - we ok with that too?)

I think siege might be ok as is, but we do probably want another ranged unit. Where should he live? It seems like there should be ranged flavor connections available for Telescopes?

Would either of the above (polearm or ranged) fit on Lightning Jars somehow?

counterpoint said:
also, think there's need for any more late-game wonders?

I don't think we need any more for now, but we could definitely consider adding them later if we want to encourage specific mechanics.

counterpoint · Mar 24, 2016

S3rgeus said:
I like Mechanical Printing, but didn't we mention earlier than the printing press has existed in the WoT world for some time before the books, and the stuff from the academies is just an improvement? That makes me think we're too far along in the tree to use this here.

Aside from that, Hegemony seems like it could work. It's a bit negative though.

National Heroes is probably the closest? But I'm still partial to Untempered Glory, of these choices.

Yeah, I'm pretty solidly in the "no" camp on Untempered Glory. It's just very much not a tech or "advance.". I'm mostly not ok with such for these last few.

regarding Mechanical Printing, this is pretty much new in the Academy. Apparently the printing press survived the Breaking, but this new version had a system of levers and such - was much more "industrial." Perhaps it's an issue of the nomenclature - would Mechanized Printing be more effective? Any other similar word choice.

I understand the negative connotation of Hegemony. The truth is, this tech is sort of "negative" - it's you lording your awesomeness over everybody else. What if it was Cultural Hegemony or something? Again, Sphere of Influence says basically the same thing, without the negativity (though it is less "techy"). I also very much don't mind Nationhood.

I would be fine with any of the above mentioned options, or modifications on them. And I suggest we select one of them.

regarding, National Heroes, I feel like that one needs a little tweaking so as not to be something that would have absolutely been "discovered" six eras earlier...

S3rgeus said:
Isn't that what the tech used to say? And we're not using this flavor here anymore, right?

1) don't remember, but in my head it was always "The Dragon Peace" and 2) correct.

S3rgeus said:
Is Diplomatic Immunity ever mentioned in the books or associated canon? I like that one, but it feels a bit too Earth-y if it doesn't have a concrete books connection. It makes a lot of flavorful sense for the ability as well.

It's worth us discussing though - do we want the ability to remain the same? As I see it, the main important thing is that the player gets a lot of Compact votes out of it, not necessarily that it's connected to Diplomats.

I don't think it needs to be the same, but I also don't necessarily have a good reason to change it. It seems reasonable that Firaxis wanted a reason to pull your spies into Diplomats at the end - in our case, that balancing act is even greater, as by losing spies you are not defending your seals and such.

No, Diplomatic Immunity isn't from the books. We could generalize it as Diplomatic Rights or something to make it less earthy. I like the idea of DI, but it is a bit modern seeming.

What if we focused in on the "international summit" kind of thing that got mentioned a few posts back, and turned it into more of a tech? Something like International Agreements, Global Treaties. I don't like either of those, but that's a path we could go down.

What do you not like about Balance of Power, Nationhood, Sphere of Influence, or such?

S3rgeus said:
*silence*

None opposed, the motion passes!

done!

S3rgeus said:
Standing Navy would be the converse of a levy-based system, right? (Does that expression port (ahem!) from Standing Army to work for Navies?)

Colonization could work, but like a lot of the others it isn't really a tech.

I'd say Shipmastery feels quite different from Shipcraft. The latter is basically just the formalized making of ships and is more about the physical process of creating them, whereas the former implies a much more general understanding of how to captain/navigate/construct/etc.

I think Standing Navy could work. The problem with it is that I don't think the flavor is that obvious to most people. I'm not sure most people would expect that a standing navy didn't already exist by this point. I can live with this one, though it's kind of a let down.

What about Professional Navy

Shipmastery kind of feels "lazy" to me, though.

Focusing on the Prestige thing a bit more, what about something like National Waters or National Waterways or Territorial Waters or something like that? Is there a better way to say that? Something that is all about your country exerting its influence over the surrounding ocean. To me this is just enough of a tech to work, and fits both the prestige and the navy thing.

S3rgeus said:
Sounds good. Agreed, I think we'll be tweaking this even after we release.

Yeah, probably the most efficient thing is that while you're reading and contemplating the Uniques/Civs thing, I'll proofread and check for errors and such. So, make your own "pass" at evaluating the tree before I post the next Frame, but I'll proofread a good deal of it after we've technically moved on.

S3rgeus said:
Good call, doesn't look like any of them are moving based on what we're discussing above! So, some suggestions for those innovations:

Laws of Motion - Glider
Lightning Jars - Lightning Jars
Steam Engines - Steamcarts
Cuendillar - Cuendillar
Power-Wrought Weapons - Mah'alleinir
Roarsticks - Roarsticks

For the granddaddy innovation on Wells, I'm actually not sure. I feel like this one shouldn't just be "Wells"? Is there something else specifically show-off-able that this could be?

(in numerical order)
Wells - "Wells" could work. Could also go with something like "Access Key" or perhaps name a specific fancy ter'angreal (much like you're doing with Mah'alleinir. The truth is, Wells is kind of an odd choice for an innovation, from a flavor perspective, as no wells are actually ever created in the books, as far as I can tell. or angreal, either.
Laws of Motion - Glider
Power-Wrought Weapons - Mah'alleinir - I'm mostly ok with this, but it is a little weird, seeing that that is a unique item. It seems a bit odd. I'm not sure what else to do, though.
Lightning Jars - Lightning Jars
Cuendillar - Cuendillar
Roarsticks - Roarsticks - I wish there were a more fun thing here, but there it is
Steam Engines - steamwagons appears to be the correct flavor

I won't put these into the summary until they're settled.

S3rgeus said:
Very true, that's way back. Shall we add one onto Power-Wrought Weapons?

do it! Pol 6!

S3rgeus said:
I think siege might be ok as is, but we do probably want another ranged unit. Where should he live? It seems like there should be ranged flavor connections available for Telescopes?

Would either of the above (polearm or ranged) fit on Lightning Jars somehow?

Yeah, Siege might be ok because it is somewhat replaced by Skimming anyways.

I could see a Ranged unit going on Lightning Jars. That'd probably be fine.

However, given the flavor, part of me feels like Roarsticks would make the most sense, for obvious reason (there's no real reason why guns should be melee in CiV). Is there a way to somehow make that work, by switching not-too-much around? I see the appeal of having Mel 9 be super late, but there's truly no real reason the last Melee unit's flavor couldn't just be another power-wrought dude, and let the last ranged be the gun. Maybe the melee could go on Steam Engines (Mounted could be moved if need be?) and Ranged 7 could go on Roarsticks?

I could also see range dgoing on P-W Weapons if need be, and Pole going somewhere else - really, anywhere.

Where's you ideal placement of these things?

Cool! So a few pesky flavor issues still to work out, innovation flavor, and this stuff with the last batch of units.. hopefully solved very soon! Then I'll post the summary so we can evaluate as a whole, and then we move on.

S3rgeus · Mar 25, 2016

counterpoint said:
Yeah, I'm pretty solidly in the "no" camp on Untempered Glory. It's just very much not a tech or "advance.". I'm mostly not ok with such for these last few.

regarding Mechanical Printing, this is pretty much new in the Academy. Apparently the printing press survived the Breaking, but this new version had a system of levers and such - was much more "industrial." Perhaps it's an issue of the nomenclature - would Mechanized Printing be more effective? Any other similar word choice.

I understand the negative connotation of Hegemony. The truth is, this tech is sort of "negative" - it's you lording your awesomeness over everybody else. What if it was Cultural Hegemony or something? Again, Sphere of Influence says basically the same thing, without the negativity (though it is less "techy"). I also very much don't mind Nationhood.

I would be fine with any of the above mentioned options, or modifications on them. And I suggest we select one of them.

regarding, National Heroes, I feel like that one needs a little tweaking so as not to be something that would have absolutely been "discovered" six eras earlier...

I'd say let's go with Mechanized Printing!

counterpoint said:
I don't think it needs to be the same, but I also don't necessarily have a good reason to change it. It seems reasonable that Firaxis wanted a reason to pull your spies into Diplomats at the end - in our case, that balancing act is even greater, as by losing spies you are not defending your seals and such.

No, Diplomatic Immunity isn't from the books. We could generalize it as Diplomatic Rights or something to make it less earthy. I like the idea of DI, but it is a bit modern seeming.

What if we focused in on the "international summit" kind of thing that got mentioned a few posts back, and turned it into more of a tech? Something like International Agreements, Global Treaties. I don't like either of those, but that's a path we could go down.

What do you not like about Balance of Power, Nationhood, Sphere of Influence, or such?

Diplomatic Rights or Global Treaties seem like the best to me. Any preference?

counterpoint said:
I think Standing Navy could work. The problem with it is that I don't think the flavor is that obvious to most people. I'm not sure most people would expect that a standing navy didn't already exist by this point. I can live with this one, though it's kind of a let down.

What about Professional Navy

Shipmastery kind of feels "lazy" to me, though.

Focusing on the Prestige thing a bit more, what about something like National Waters or National Waterways or Territorial Waters or something like that? Is there a better way to say that? Something that is all about your country exerting its influence over the surrounding ocean. To me this is just enough of a tech to work, and fits both the prestige and the navy thing.

Professional Navy!

counterpoint said:
Yeah, probably the most efficient thing is that while you're reading and contemplating the Uniques/Civs thing, I'll proofread and check for errors and such. So, make your own "pass" at evaluating the tree before I post the next Frame, but I'll proofread a good deal of it after we've technically moved on.

I'll try to go through soon! Any specific kind of error we're looking for aside from through lines for unit upgrade paths? Missing unlocks from BNW as well, I assume?

counterpoint said:
(in numerical order)
Wells - "Wells" could work. Could also go with something like "Access Key" or perhaps name a specific fancy ter'angreal (much like you're doing with Mah'alleinir. The truth is, Wells is kind of an odd choice for an innovation, from a flavor perspective, as no wells are actually ever created in the books, as far as I can tell. or angreal, either.

Actually, going for specific flavor so that we've got something else like Mah-alleinir could be good here. What about "The Golden Hummingbird"? That's Cadsuane's well.

I wouldn't be inclined to go for Access Key because that should be more attached to the Cleansing/sa'angreal stuff, and the Access Key isn't a well in the flavor.

counterpoint said:
Laws of Motion - Glider

Sounds good

counterpoint said:
Power-Wrought Weapons - Mah'alleinir - I'm mostly ok with this, but it is a little weird, seeing that that is a unique item. It seems a bit odd. I'm not sure what else to do, though.

If we have more than one example from above, then this won't stand out so much. It seems like a good combo then.

counterpoint said:
Lightning Jars - Lightning Jars
Cuendillar - Cuendillar
Roarsticks - Roarsticks - I wish there were a more fun thing here, but there it is

These all seem good.

counterpoint said:
Steam Engines - steamwagons appears to be the correct flavor

Cool, Steamwagons it is, then!

counterpoint said:
do it! Pol 6!

Done!

counterpoint said:
Yeah, Siege might be ok because it is somewhat replaced by Skimming anyways.

I could see a Ranged unit going on Lightning Jars. That'd probably be fine.

However, given the flavor, part of me feels like Roarsticks would make the most sense, for obvious reason (there's no real reason why guns should be melee in CiV). Is there a way to somehow make that work, by switching not-too-much around? I see the appeal of having Mel 9 be super late, but there's truly no real reason the last Melee unit's flavor couldn't just be another power-wrought dude, and let the last ranged be the gun. Maybe the melee could go on Steam Engines (Mounted could be moved if need be?) and Ranged 7 could go on Roarsticks?

I could also see range dgoing on P-W Weapons if need be, and Pole going somewhere else - really, anywhere.

Where's you ideal placement of these things?

Interesting, what about if we swap the tech names for Lightning Jars and Roarsticks? Lightning Jars actually makes a bit more sense upstream from a bunch of channeling techs and then we just swap the innovations. Roarsticks also quite feasibly connects to Steam Engines. It seems like everything else can cooperate with the other tech?

Then we can put Range7 on Roarsticks, located where Lightning Jars was before? I've done this in the Editor tree to make it clear what I mean.

counterpoint said:
Cool! So a few pesky flavor issues still to work out, innovation flavor, and this stuff with the last batch of units.. hopefully solved very soon! Then I'll post the summary so we can evaluate as a whole, and then we move on.

Almost there!

counterpoint · Mar 25, 2016

S3rgeus said:
I'd say let's go with Mechanized Printing!

done!

S3rgeus said:
Diplomatic Rights or Global Treaties seem like the best to me. Any preference?

Eh, Diplomatic Rights, I think. As long as you don't think it will confuse people, that's my favorite.

S3rgeus said:
Professional Navy!

cool

S3rgeus said:
I'll try to go through soon! Any specific kind of error we're looking for aside from through lines for unit upgrade paths? Missing unlocks from BNW as well, I assume?

illogical prereqs (like redundant ones), weird or illogical spans of time between different generations of a unit/building, lame flavor, flavor that is too similar to other techs, overall "feel" by era and such. That kind of stuff.

S3rgeus said:
Actually, going for specific flavor so that we've got something else like Mah-alleinir could be good here. What about "The Golden Hummingbird"? That's Cadsuane's well.

I think that will work. I think the thing that feels weird about these to me is that having them as innovations means that there may/will be multiple of them in the world, which is odd. I think it's probably fine, though.

S3rgeus said:
I wouldn't be inclined to go for Access Key because that should be more attached to the Cleansing/sa'angreal stuff, and the Access Key isn't a well in the flavor.

right.

S3rgeus said:
Cool, Steamwagons it is, then!

ok, so "final" list is:

Wells - The Golden Hummingbird
Laws of Motion - Glider
Power-Wrought Weapons - Mah'alleinir
Lightning Jars - Lightning Jars
Cuendillar - Cuendillar
Roarsticks - Roarsticks

S3rgeus said:
Interesting, what about if we swap the tech names for Lightning Jars and Roarsticks? Lightning Jars actually makes a bit more sense upstream from a bunch of channeling techs and then we just swap the innovations. Roarsticks also quite feasibly connects to Steam Engines. It seems like everything else can cooperate with the other tech?

Then we can put Range7 on Roarsticks, located where Lightning Jars was before? I've done this in the Editor tree to make it clear what I mean.

great idea! done!

S3rgeus said:
Almost there!

cool. I'll post the summary later tonight, which will include the updated excel sheet and editor tree (taken from the DB).

Then I gotta get to work on turning my Framing post into bbcode!

counterpoint · Mar 25, 2016

Created 3/25/16, last updated 8/19/16

Technology Tree Summary

Contents
1 The Tech Tree

A Era After Breaking
B Era of Nations
C Era of Freedom
D Era of Consolidation
E Era of New Beginnings
F Era of Stability
G Era of Encroaching Blight
H Era of the Dragon
I Era of Turmoil
2 Upgrade Paths and Unlocks

A Units
B Buildings
C Abilities

NOTE:
items that are undetermined are not red here there are simply too many of them
attached to this summary are the excel spreadsheet and IndieStone Visual Tech Tree Editor (which is "mod ready") versions of the tree

1 - The Tech Tree

A - ERA AFTER BREAKING (1, AB0 AB500)

Column 0

Tech: Cooperation
Requires:
Leads to: Community, Ownership, Survival, Leadership, The Pattern
Units: Melee 1, Recon 1, Settler, Worker
Buildings: Culture 1
Abilities: Construct Farm

Column 1

Tech: Community
Requires: Cooperation
Leads to: Fishing, Cultivation, Legend
Units:
Buildings: Faith 1, Food (Wheat)
Abilities:

Tech: Ownership
Requires: Cooperation
Leads to: Territory
Units: Land Trade
Buildings:
Abilities: Reveals Horses, Construct Pasture, Additional Trade Route

Tech: Survival
Requires: Cooperation
Leads to: Territory
Units: Ranged 1
Buildings: Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Leadership
Requires: Cooperation
Leads to: Fealty, Warfare
Units:
Buildings:
Abilities: Remove Forest, Construct Mine

Column 2

Tech: Fishing
Requires: Community
Leads to: Seafaring
Units: Sea Trade, Naval Melee 1, Work Boat
Buildings:
Abilities: Construct Fishing Boats, Additional Trade Route

Tech: Cultivation
Requires: Community
Leads to: Ritual
Units:
Buildings: Production (Marble/Stone), Wonder
Abilities: Construct Plantation

Tech: Legend
Requires: Community
Leads to: The One Power, Ritual
Units:
Buildings: Science 1, Wonder
Abilities: Establish Embassies

Tech: The Pattern
Requires: Cooperation
Leads to: The One Power
Units: Female Channeler 1
Buildings: Happiness (Horse/S'redit)
Abilities:

Tech: Territory
Requires: Ownership, Survival
Leads to: Measurement, Smithing
Units: Mounted 1
Buildings: Food (River)
Abilities: Construct Camp, Construct Road

Tech: Fealty
Requires: Leadership
Leads to: Smithing
Units:
Buildings: Defense 1, Wonder, Wonder
Abilities: Clear Marsh, Construct Quarry

Tech: Warfare
Requires: Leadership
Leads to: Duty
Units: Polearm 1
Buildings: Wonder, Experience 1
Abilities: Remove Jungle, Reveals Copper

B - ERA OF NATIONS (2, AB500 AB1000)

Column 1

Tech: Seafaring
Requires: Fishing
Leads to: Shipcraft
Units:
Buildings: Food (Coastal), Wonder
Abilities: Embarkation

Tech: The One Power
Requires: Legend, The Pattern
Leads to: The Wheel of Time, Weaves
Units:
Buildings: Happiness (National Wonder), Wonder
Abilities: Spark Bonus, Meet White Tower

Tech: Measurement
Requires: Territory
Leads to: Appraisal, Slate Roofing
Units: Siege 1
Buildings: Courthouse, Gold (Trade Building), Wonder
Abilities: Construct Bridges

Tech: Smithing
Requires: Fealty
Leads to: Slate Roofing
Units: Ranged 2
Buildings: Happiness 1, Production (Pasture)
Abilities: Construct Lumber Mill, Additional Trade Route

Column 2

Tech: Ritual
Requires: Cultivation, Legend
Leads to: Heritage
Units:
Buildings: Faith 2, Science (National Wonder 1), Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: The Wheel of Time
Requires: The One Power
Leads to: Heritage
Units:
Buildings: Culture 2, Doomseer Building, LP Rate (National Wonder), Wonder
Abilities: Send Projection into T'a'r

Tech: Appraisal
Requires: Measurement
Leads to: Weaves, Apprenticeship
Units:
Buildings: Gold 1, Gold (Gold/Silver), Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Slate Roofing
Requires: Measurement, Smithing
Leads to: Apprenticeship, Siegecraft
Units:
Buildings: Food 1, Production 1, Wonder
Abilities: Construct Fort

Tech: Duty
Requires: Warfare
Leads to: Siegecraft, Heroism
Units: Melee 2
Buildings: Experience (National Wonder), Wonder
Abilities:

C - ERA OF FREEDOM (3, FY0 FY500)

Column 1

Tech: Shipcraft
Requires: Seafaring
Leads to: Weather Sense
Units: Naval Melee 2, Naval Ranged 1
Buildings: Gold (National Wonder 1)
Abilities: Additional Trade Route

Tech: Heritage
Requires: Ritual, The Wheel of Time
Leads to: Weather Sense, Tutelage
Units:
Buildings: Faith (National Wonder), LP Rate (River/Lake), Wonder, Wonder, Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Weaves
Requires: The One Power, Appraisal
Leads to: Tutelage, Hierarchy
Units:
Buildings: Wonder
Abilities: +1 Food for Farms along Fresh Water, Allows Open Borders Agreements, Allows Sending Novices to the Tower, Channeler Upgrade

Tech: Apprenticeship
Requires: Appraisal, Slate Roofing
Leads to: Hierarchy, Gearworks
Units: Polearm 2
Buildings: Artisan Building, Wonder
Abilities: Construct Trading Post, Produce Wealth

Column 2

Tech: Weather Sense
Requires: Shipcraft, Heritage
Leads to: Mapmaking
Units: Exploration Ship
Buildings: Coastal 1
Abilities: +1 Gold from Fishing Boats, Increases the range of Sea Trade Routes

Tech: Tutelage
Requires: Heritage, Weaves
Leads to: Mapmaking, Bitterns, Dreaming
Units:
Buildings: Science 2, Science (National Wonder 2), Wonder
Abilities: Produce Research, Establish Research Agreements

Tech: Hierarchy
Requires: Weaves, Apprenticeship
Leads to: Dreaming, The New Tongue
Units: Mounted 2
Buildings: Defense 2, Wonder
Abilities: Form Defensive Pacts

Tech: Gearworks
Requires: Apprenticeship
Leads to: The New Tongue
Units: Ranged 3
Buildings: Production (National Wonder)
Abilities: Faster Movement on Roads

Tech: Siegecraft
Requires: Slate Roofing, Duty
Leads to: Formations
Units: Melee 3, Siege 2
Buildings:
Abilities:

Tech: Heroism
Requires: Duty
Leads to: Formations
Units:
Buildings: Production (Copper), Experience 2, Wonder
Abilities:

D - ERA OF CONSOLIDATION (4, FY500 FY1000)

Column 1

Tech: Mapmaking
Requires: Weather Sense
Leads to: Sailcloth
Units: Naval Ranged 2
Buildings: Science (Mountains)
Abilities: Allows Units to Embark Across Oceans, Faster Embarked Movement

Tech: Bitterns
Requires: Tutelage
Leads to: Snakes and Foxes
Units:
Buildings: Culture 3, Gleeman Building, Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Dreaming
Requires: Tutelage, Hierarchy
Leads to: Snakes and Foxes, Wards
Units:
Buildings: Spy 1, Wonder, Wonder
Abilities: T'a'r upgrade

Tech: The New Tongue
Requires: Hierarchy, Gearworks
Leads to: Wards, Profession
Units:
Buildings: Gold 2, Happiness 2
Abilities: Establish Compact of Nations once all civs have been met, Additional Trade Route

Tech: Formations
Requires: Siegecraft, Heroism
Leads to: Profession, Sword Forms
Units: Polearm 3
Buildings: Wonder
Abilities:

Column 2

Tech: Sailcloth
Requires: Mapmaking
Leads to: Bookbinding
Units: Naval Melee 3, Recon 2
Buildings: Coastal 2
Abilities:

Tech: Snakes and Foxes
Requires: Bitterns, Dreaming
Leads to: Bookbinding, Treatises
Units:
Buildings: Culture (National Wonder), Wonder, Wonder, Wonder
Abilities: Spark Bonus

Tech: Wards
Requires: Dreaming, The New Tongue
Leads to: Treatises, Invention, Crop Rotation
Units:
Buildings: Production (Flat)
Abilities: +1 Gold from Camps, Lord's Holdings and Trading Posts

Tech: Profession
Requires: The New Tongue, Formations
Leads to: Crop Rotation, Channeling Circles, Tactics
Units: Siege 3
Buildings: Defense 3, Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Sword Forms
Requires: Formations
Leads to: Tactics
Units: Melee 4
Buildings:
Abilities: Warder Upgrade

E - ERA OF NEW BEGINNINGS (5, NE0 NE500)

Column 1

Tech: Bookbinding
Requires: Sailcloth, Snakes and Foxes
Leads to: Letters of Rights
Units: Historian
Buildings: Culture 4, Wonder
Abilities: Construct Historical Dig, Reveals Sites of Power

Tech: Treatises
Requires: Snakes and Foxes, Wards
Leads to: Letters of Rights, Concoctions
Units:
Buildings: Science 3
Abilities: Begins High King Event, +2 Science from Estate Library, +1 Production from Lumber Mills

Tech: Invention
Requires: Wards
Leads to: Fireworks
Units: Ranged 4
Buildings: Production 2
Abilities: Reveals Iron

Tech: Crop Rotation
Requires: Wards, Profession
Leads to: Fireworks
Units:
Buildings: Wonder
Abilities: +1 Food from Farms without Fresh Water, +1 Food from Plantations and Pastures

Tech: Channeling Circles
Requires: Profession
Leads to: Alloys
Units:
Buildings:
Abilities: +1 Production from Mines, Quarries, and Brickyards, Channeler Upgrade, Enables Linking for saidar units.

Tech: Tactics
Requires: Profession, Sword Forms
Leads to: Alloys
Units: Mounted 3
Buildings: Experience 3, Wonder
Abilities:

Column 2

Tech: Letters of Rights
Requires: Bookbinding, Treatises
Leads to: Exchange Rates
Units: Naval Melee 4
Buildings: Gold 3
Abilities: Faster Embarkation, Additional Trade Route

Tech: Concoctions
Requires: Treatises
Leads to: Exchange Rates, High Chant, Shared Bloodlines
Units:
Buildings: Food 2
Abilities: Reveals Peat, Construct Peat Well

Tech: Fireworks
Requires: Invention, Crop Rotation
Leads to: Shared Bloodlines, Skimming, Infrastructure
Units: Polearm 4
Buildings: Gold (National Wonder 2), Production (River)
Abilities: Reveals Sulfer

Tech: Alloys
Requires: Channeling Circles, Tactics
Leads to: Infrastructure
Units: Melee 5, Siege 4
Buildings:
Abilities:

F - ERA OF STABILITY (6, NE500 NE800)

Column 1

Tech: Exchange Rates
Requires: Letters of Rights, Concoctions
Leads to: Rule of Medians
Units: Naval Ranged 3
Buildings: Wonder, Wonder
Abilities: Construct Offshore Platform

Tech: High Chant
Requires: Concoctions
Leads to: Rule of Medians, Lenses
Units: Female Channeler 2
Buildings: Culture 5, Prestige 1, Wonder (Authority)
Abilities:

Tech: Shared Bloodlines
Requires: Concoctions, Fireworks
Leads to: Lenses
Units: Settler 2
Buildings: Happiness 3, Alignment 1, Wonder (Liberation)
Abilities:

Tech: Skimming
Requires: Fireworks
Leads to: Advanced Maneuvers, Traveling
Units: Gateway 1
Buildings: Defense 4, Wonder (Oppression)
Abilities: Waygate Key Quests, Channeler Upgrade

Tech: Infrastructure
Requires: Fireworks, Alloys
Leads to: Advanced Maneuvers, Fancloth
Units: Ranged 5
Buildings: Spy 2
Abilities: Construct Cobbled Roads, Additional Trade Route

Column 2

Tech: Rule of Medians
Requires: Exchange Rates, High Chant
Leads to: Keeping, Rediscovery
Units:
Buildings: Science 4, Wonder, Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Lenses
Requires: High Chant, Shared Bloodlines
Leads to: Rediscovery, Traveling
Units: Naval Melee 5, Anti-Naval 1
Buildings:
Abilities: Increases the range of Sea Trade Routes

Tech: Advanced Maneuvers
Requires: Skimming, Infrastructure
Leads to: Mechanisms
Units: Anti-Gateway 1, Melee 6
Buildings:
Abilities: Additional Range for Land Trade Routes

Tech: Fancloth
Requires: Infrastructure
Leads to: Mechanisms
Units: Mounted 4
Buildings: Spy (National Wonder)
Abilities: Create Bloodknives, Warder Upgrade

G - ERA OF ENCROACHING BLIGHT (7, NE800 NE970)

Column 1

Tech: Keeping
Requires: Rule of Medians, Lenses
Leads to: The Flame and the Void
Units: Naval Ranged 4
Buildings: Food 3, Sulfer Production
Abilities: Additional Trade Route

Tech: Rediscovery
Requires: Rule of Medians, Lenses
Leads to: The Flame and the Void, Wells
Units: Recon 3
Buildings: Angreal Project
Abilities: Reveals Mythic Sites, Reveals Angreal Cache, +2 Science from Estate Library

Tech: Traveling
Requires: Skimming, Lenses
Leads to: Wells, Law of War
Units: Gateway 2, Traveler 1
Buildings: Airport
Abilities: Construct Traveling Grounds

Tech: Mechanisms
Requires: Advanced Maneuvers, Fancloth
Leads to: Law of War, Bellfounding
Units: Polearm 5, Ranged 6
Buildings: Wonder
Abilities:

Column 2

Tech: The Flame and the Void
Requires: Keeping, Rediscovery
Leads to: Sextants, Conduits
Units: Asha'man
Buildings: Production 3 (Angreal Cache), Black Tower Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Wells
Requires: Rediscovery, Traveling
Leads to: Conduits, Laws of Motion
Units: Angreal
Buildings: Innovation (The Golden Hummingbird)
Abilities: Channelers can attack inside stedding and the Guardian

Tech: Law of War
Requires: Traveling, Mechanisms
Leads to: Laws of Motion, Greater Consensus, Telescopes
Units: Melee 7, Mounted 5
Buildings: Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Bellfounding
Requires: Mechanisms
Leads to: Telescopes
Units: Anti-Gateway 2, Siege 5
Buildings: Production 3 (Desert)
Abilities:

H - ERA OF THE DRAGON (8, NE970 NE1000)

Column 1

Tech: Sextants
Requires: The Flame and the Void
Leads to: Professional Navy
Units: Anti-Naval 2
Buildings: Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Conduits
Requires: The Flame and the Void, Wells
Leads to: Roarsticks
Units: Sa'angreal
Buildings: Cleansing Project
Abilities: Allows Linking between Male and Female Channelers

Tech: Laws of Motion
Requires: Wells, Law of War
Leads to: Roarsticks, Cuendillar, Power-Wrought Weapons
Units: Melee 8, Mounted 6
Buildings: Innovation (Glider)
Abilities:

Tech: Greater Consensus
Requires: Law of War
Leads to: Power-Wrought Weapons, Ter'angreal
Units:
Buildings: Angreal Defense, Wonder
Abilities: Heal Gentled Units

Tech: Telescopes
Requires: Law of War, Bellfounding
Leads to: Ter'angreal
Units: Naval Melee 6
Buildings: Production (Envoy)
Abilities: Reveals Map

Column 2

Tech: Professional Navy
Requires: Sextants
Leads to: Mechanized Printing, Diplomatic Rights, Steam Engines
Units: Naval Ranged 5
Buildings: Prestige (National Wonder)
Abilities:

Tech: Roarsticks
Requires: Conduits, Laws of Motion
Leads to: Steam Engines
Units: Ranged 7
Buildings: Innovation (Roarsticks), Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Cuendillar
Requires: Laws of Motion
Leads to: Lightning Jars
Units:
Buildings: Innovation (Cuendillar)
Abilities: Spark Bonus, Channeler Upgrade

Tech: Power-Wrought Weapons
Requires: Laws of Motion, Greater Consensus
Leads to: Lightning Jars
Units: Anti-Channeler, Polearm 6
Buildings: Innovation (Mah'alleinir)
Abilities:

Tech: Ter'angreal
Requires: Greater Consensus, Telescopes
Leads to: Lightning Jars, Inverted Weaves
Units: Gateway 3
Buildings:
Abilities: T'a'r Upgrade

I - ERA OF TURMOIL (9, NE1000 NE1001)

Column 1

Tech: Mechanized Printing
Requires: Professional Navy
Leads to: A Beginning
Units:
Buildings:
Abilities: Doubled Prestige Output

Tech: Diplomatic Rights
Requires: Professional Navy
Leads to: A Beginning
Units:
Buildings:
Abilities: +1 Compact Vote for every Diplomat in a Foregin Capital

Tech: Steam Engines
Requires: Professional Navy, Roarsticks
Leads to: A Beginning
Units: Mounted 7
Buildings: Innovation (Steamwagons)
Abilities:

Tech: Lightning Jars
Requires: Cuendillar, Power-Wrought Weapons, Ter'angreal
Leads to: A Beginning
Units: Melee 9
Buildings: Innovation (Lightning Jars), Wonder
Abilities:

Tech: Inverted Weaves
Requires: Ter'angreal
Leads to: A Beginning
Units: Traveler 2
Buildings:
Abilities: Reveals Undiscovered Seals, Allows Global Re-base of Gateway Units, Channeler Upgrade

Column 2

Tech: A Beginning
Requires: Mechanized Printing, Diplomatic Rights, Steam Engines, Lightning Jars, Inverted Weaves
Leads to:
Units:
Buildings:
Abilities: Increases Score

2 - Upgrade Paths and Unlocks

FORMAT:
Unit 1 (Era.Column) [direct line to] Unit 2 (Era.Column) / [indirect line or to]Unit 3 (Era Column) : [no link ] Unit 4 (Era.Column), etc.

A - Units

Anti-Gateway
Anti-Gateway 1 (6.2, Advanced Maneuvers) Anti-Gateway 2 (7.2, Bellfounding)

Channeler
Female Channeler 1 (1.2, The Pattern) Female Channeler 2 (6.1, High Chant)
Asha'man (7.2, The Flame and the Void)
Angreal (7.2, Wells) Sa'angreal (8.1, Conduits)

Civilian
Settler 1 (1.0, Cooperation) : Worker (1.0, Cooperation) : Land Trade (1.1, Ownership) : Sea Trade (1.2, Fishing) : Work Boat (1.2, Fishing) : Historian (5.1, Bookbinding) : Settler 2 (6.1, Shared Bloodlines)

Gateway
Gateway 1 (6.1, Skimming) Gateway 2 (7.1, Traveling) Gateway 3 (8.2, Ter'angreal)
Traveler 1 (7.1, Traveling) Traveler 2 (9.1, Inverted Weaves)

Melee
Melee 1 (1.0, Cooperation) Melee 2 (2.2, Duty) Melee 3 (3.2, Siegecraft) Melee 4 (4.2, Sword Forms) Melee 5 (5.2, Alloys) Melee 6 (6.2, Advanced Maneuvers) Melee 7 (7.2, Law of War) Melee 8 (8.1, Laws of Motion) Melee 9 (9.1, Lightning Jars)
Anti-Channeler (8.2, Power-Wrought Weapons)

Mounted
Mounted 1 (1.2, Territory) Mounted 2 (3.2, Hierarchy) Mounted 3 (5.1, Tactics) Mounted 4 (6.2, Fancloth) Mounted 5 (7.2, Law of War) Mounted 6 (8.1, Laws of Motion) Mounted 7 (9.1, Steam Engines)

Naval Melee
Naval Melee 1 (1.2, Fishing) - Naval Melee 2 (3.1, Shipcraft) - Naval Melee 3 (4.2, Sailcloth) Naval Melee 4 (5.2, Letters of Rights) - Naval Melee 5 (6.2) Naval Melee 6 (8.1, Telescopes)
Exploration Ship (3.2, Weather Sense) [upgrades to Naval Melee 3]

Naval Ranged
Naval Ranged 1 (3.1, Shipcraft) - Naval Ranged 2 (4.1, Mapmaking) - Naval Ranged 3 (6.1, Exchange Rates) Naval Ranged 4 (7.1, Keeping) Naval Ranged 5 (8.2, Professional Navy)
Anti-Naval 1 (6.2, Lenses) Anti-Naval 2 (8.1, Sextants)

Polearm
Polearm 1 (1.2, Warfare) / Polearm 2 (3.1, Apprenticeship) / Polearm 3 (4.1, Formations) / Polearm 4 (5.2, Fireworks) Polearm 5 (7.1, Mechanisms) Polearm 6 (8.2, Power-Wrought Weapons)

Ranged
Ranged 1 (1.1, Survival) Ranged 2 (2.1, Smithing) Ranged 3 (3.2, Gearworks) Ranged 4 (5.1, Invention) Ranged 5 (6.1, Infrastructure) Ranged 6 (7.1, Mechanisms) Ranged 7 (8.2, Roarsticks)

Recon
Recon 1 (1.0, Cooperation) Recon 2 (4.2, Sailcloth) - Recon 3 (7.1, Rediscovery)

Siege
Siege 1 (2.1, Measurement) Siege 2 (3.2, Siegecraft) Siege 3 (4.2, Profession) Siege 4 (5.2, Alloys) Siege 5 (7.2, Bellfounding)

B - Buildings

Alignment
Alignment 1 (6.1, Shared Bloodlines)

Coastal
Coastal 1 (3.2, Weather Sense) Coastal 2 (4.2, Sailcloth)

Culture
Culture 1 (1.0, Cooperation) Culture 2 (2.2, The Wheel of Time) Culture 3 (4.1, Bitterns) Culture 4 (5.1, Bookbinding) / Culture 5 (6.1, High Chant)
Culture National Wonder (4.2, Snakes and Foxes)

Defense
Defense 1 (1.2, Fealty) Defense 2 (3.2, Hierarchy) Defense 3 (4.2, Profession) Defense 4 (6.1, Skimming)
Angreal Defense (8.1, Greater Consensus)

Spy
Spy 1 (4.1, Dreaming) Spy 2 (6.1, Infrastructure)
Spy National Wonder (6.2, Fancloth)

Faith
Faith 1 (1.1, Community) Faith 2 (2.2, Ritual)
Faith National Wonder (3.1, Heritage)

Food
Food 1 (2.2, Slate Roofing) Food 2 (5.2, Concoctions) Food 3 (7.1, Keeping)
Food [Wheat] (1.1, Community) : Food [River] (1.2, Territory) : Food [Coastal] (2.1, Seafaring)

Gold
Gold 1 (2.2, Appraisal) Gold 2 (4.1, The New Tongue) Gold 3 (5.2, Letters of Rights)
Gold [Trade] (2.1, Measurement) : Gold [Gold/Silver] (2.2, Appraisal)
Gold National Wonder 1 (3.1, Shipcraft) : Gold National Wonder 2 (5.2, Fireworks)

Happiness
Happiness 1 (2.1, Smithing) Happiness 2 (4.1, The New Tongue) Happiness 3 (6.1, Shared Bloodlines)
Happiness [Horse/S'redit] (1.2, The Pattern) : Happiness National Wonder (2.1, The One Power)

Legendary People
Doomseer Building (2.2, The Wheel of Time) : Artisan Building (3.1, Apprenticeship) : Gleeman Building (4.1, Bitterns)
LP Rate National Wonder (2.2, The Wheel of Time) LP Rate [River/Lake] (3.1, Heritage)

Miscellaneous
Courthouse (2.1, Measurement)
Airport (7.1, Traveling)

Prestige
Prestige 1 (6.1, High Chant)
Prestige National Wonder (8.2, Professional Navy)

Production
Production 1 (2.2, Slate Roofing) Production 2 (5.1, Invention) Production 3 [Angreal Cache] (7.2, The Flame and the Void) : Production 3 [Desert] (7.2, Wells)
Production [Marble/Stone] (1.2, Cultivation) : Production [Pasture] (2.1, Smithing) Production National Wonder (3.2, Gearworks): Production [Copper] (3.2, Heroism) : Production [Flat] (4.2, Wards) : Production [River] (5.2, Fireworks) : Sulfur Production (7.1, Keeping) : Production [Envoy] (8.1, Telescopes)

Project
Angreal Project (7.1, Rediscovery) : Cleansing Project (8.1, Conduits)
Innovation [The Golden Hummingbird] (7.2, Wells) : Innovation [Glider] (8.1, Laws of Motion) : Innovation [Roarsticks] (8.2, Roarsticks) : Innovation [Cuendillar] (8.2, Cuendillar) : Innovation [Mah'alleinir] (8.2, Power-Wrought Weapons) : Innovation [Steamwagons] (9.1, Steam Engines) : Innovation [Lightning Jars] (9.1, Lightning Jars)

Science
Science 1 (1.2, Legend) Science 2 (3.2, Tutelage) Science 3 (5.1, Treatises) Science 4 (6.1, Rule of Medians)
Science National Wonder 1 (2.2, Ritual) : Science National Wonder 2 (3.2, Tutelage) : Science [Mountains] (4.1, Mapmaking)

Wonder

Experience
Experience 1 (1.2, Warfare) Experience 2 (3.2, Heroism) Experience 3 (5.1, Tactics)
Experience National Wonder (2.2, Duty)

C - Abilities

Civilization Ability
Produce Wealth (3.1, Apprenticeship) : Produce Research (3.2, Tutelage)
Spark Bonus (2.1, The One Power) : Spark Bonus (4.2, Snakes and Foxes) : Spark Bonus (8.2, Cuendillar)
Bridges (2.1, Measurement)
Novices (3.1, Weaves)
Historian Dig (5.1, Bookbinding)
Bloodknives (6.2, Fancloth)
Waygate Key Quests (6.1, Skimming
Reveals Map (8.1, Telescopes)
Double Prestige Output (9.1, Mechanized Printing)
Increases Score (9.2, A Beginning)

Diplomatic Ability
Embassies (1.2, Legend) : Open Borders (3.1, Weaves) : Research Agreements (3.2, Tutelage) : Defensive Pacts (3.2, Hierarchy)
Meet White Tower (2.1, The One Power) : Establish Compact (4.1, The New Tongue) : Begin High King Event (5.1, Treatises)
+1 Compact Vote for Every Diplomat in a Foreign Capital (9.1, Diplomatic Rights)

Improvement Construction
Farm (1.0, Farm) : Pasture (1.1, Ownership) : Mine (1.1, Leadership) : Plantation (1.2, Cultivation) : Camp (1.2, Territory) : Road (1.2, Territory) : Quarry (1.2, Fealty) : Lumber Mill (2.1, Smithing) : Fort (2.2, Slate Roofing) : Trading Post (3.1, Apprenticeship) : Peat Well (5.2, Concoctions) : Cobbled Road (6.1, Infrastructure) : Traveling Grounds (7.1, Traveling)
Fishing Boats (1.2, Fishing) : Platform (6.1, Exchange Rates)

Miscellaneous
Courthouse (2.1, Measurement)

Resource Revelation
Horses (1.1, Ownership) : Copper (1.2, Warfare) : Iron (5.1, Invention) : Peat (5.2, Concoctions) : Sulfur (5.2, Fireworks) : Angreal (7.1, Rediscovery)
Sites of Power (5.1, Bookbinding) : Mythic Sites (7.1, Rediscovery) : Seals (9.1, Inverted Weaves)

Terrain Modification
Remove Forest (1.1, Leadership) : Clear Marsh (1.2, Fealty) : Remove Jungle (1.2, Warfare)

Trade Routes
Route (1.1, Ownership) : Route (1.2, Fishing) : Route (2.1, Smithing) : Route (3.1, Shipcraft) : Route (4.1, The New Tongue) : Route (5.2, Letters of Rights) : Route (6.1, Infrastructure) : Route (7.1, Keeping)
Sea Range (3.2, Weather Sense) : Land Range (6.2, Advanced Maneuvers) : Sea Range (6.2, Lenses)

Unit Abilities
Embarkation (2.1, Seafaring) : Projection (2.2, The Wheel of Time) : Embark over Oceans (4.1, Mapmaking) : Linking for Saidar Units (5.1, Channeling Circles) : Attack in Stedding (7.2, Wells) : Linking Between Male and Female Channelers (8.1, Conduits) : Heal Gentled Units (8.1, Greater Consensus) : Global Re-base of Gateway Units (9.1, Inverted Weaves)

Unit Boosts
Channeler Upgrade (3.1, Weaves) : Channeler Upgrade (5.1, Channeling Circles) : Channeler Upgrade (6.1, Skimming) : Channeler Upgrade (8.2, Cuendillar) : Channeler Upgrade (9.1, Inverted Weaves)
Faster on Roads (3.2, Gearworks) : Faster Embarkation (4.1, Mapmaking) : Faster Embarkation (5.2, Letters of Rights)
T'a'r Upgrade (4.1, Dreaming) : T'a'r Upgrade (8.2, Ter'angreal)
Warder Upgrade (4.2, Sword Forms) : Warder Upgrade (6.2, Fancloth)

Yield Bonuses
+1 Food from Farms [Water] (3.1, Weaves) : +1 Food from Farms [No Water], Plantations, and Pastures (5.1, Crop Rotation)
+1 Gold from Fishing Boats (3.2, Weather Sense) : +1 Gold from Camp/Lord's Holding/Trading Post (4.2, Wards)
+2 Science from Estate Library (5.1, Treatises) : +2 Science from Estate Library (7.1, Rediscovery)
+1 Production from Lumber Mills (5.1, Treatises) : +1 Production from Mine/Quarry/Brickyard (5.1, Channeling Circles)

S3rgeus · Mar 26, 2016

counterpoint said:
Eh, Diplomatic Rights, I think. As long as you don't think it will confuse people, that's my favorite.

Done!

counterpoint said:
illogical prereqs (like redundant ones), weird or illogical spans of time between different generations of a unit/building, lame flavor, flavor that is too similar to other techs, overall "feel" by era and such. That kind of stuff.

Right, I'll keep an eye out!

counterpoint said:
I think that will work. I think the thing that feels weird about these to me is that having them as innovations means that there may/will be multiple of them in the world, which is odd. I think it's probably fine, though.

Yeah, I think it will be ok.

counterpoint said:
ok, so "final" list is:

Wells - The Golden Hummingbird
Laws of Motion - Glider
Power-Wrought Weapons - Mah'alleinir
Lightning Jars - Lightning Jars
Cuendillar - Cuendillar
Roarsticks - Roarsticks

And Steam Engines - Steamwagons!

counterpoint said:
Then I gotta get to work on turning my Framing post into bbcode!

I'm looking forward to it!

counterpoint said:
Technology Tree Summary

Awesome, thank you for writing up all of this! I've linked to this post from the first one.

I've read through and I think we might be missing a sea trade route range boost - there were two of them in BNW, I think, and we've only got one. I'll check to make sure.

S3rgeus · Mar 26, 2016

Also, I've just uploaded a new version of the Tech Tree Editor that fixes a lot of the era related bugs. So I've updated the WoTMod tree to have the correct era names and to add the Era of Turmoil on the end!

counterpoint · Mar 26, 2016

S3rgeus said:
Awesome, thank you for writing up all of this! I've linked to this post from the first one.

I've read through and I think we might be missing a sea trade route range boost - there were two of them in BNW, I think, and we've only got one. I'll check to make sure.

you're right. looks like we're missing the second one, which is on Refrigeration (6 column 1) in BNW. Should we put it around there?

realistic options seem to be exchange rates, rule of medians, or lenses. From a flavor perspective, skimming, infrastructure, and advanced maneuvers also somewhat work.

S3rgeus · Mar 26, 2016

counterpoint said:
you're right. looks like we're missing the second one, which is on Refrigeration (6 column 1) in BNW. Should we put it around there?

realistic options seem to be exchange rates, rule of medians, or lenses. From a flavor perspective, skimming, infrastructure, and advanced maneuvers also somewhat work.

I noticed this missing before, but I'm having difficulty finding if I brought it up in a post. It's assigned to Exchange Rates in the Editor tree at the moment, which seems like a good place?

counterpoint · Mar 26, 2016

S3rgeus said:
I noticed this missing before, but I'm having difficulty finding if I brought it up in a post. It's assigned to Exchange Rates in the Editor tree at the moment, which seems like a good place?

yeah, that could work. That tech does have a lot more on it then, say, Lenses, though (and lenses is actually flavorfully pretty good). What do you think?

S3rgeus · Mar 26, 2016

counterpoint said:
yeah, that could work. That tech does have a lot more on it then, say, Lenses, though (and lenses is actually flavorfully pretty good). What do you think?

Sounds good to me! Moved to Lenses.

counterpoint · Mar 27, 2016

S3rgeus said:
Sounds good to me! Moved to Lenses.

Cool! Summary updated. excel updated and attached to it (as well as the Editor files) as well.

OK, I'm taking a pass over the tech tree, looking more "big picture." See if things stand out as "off". Not checking proofread kinds of things, so much now, more just taking it all in, focusing on the techs and eras in general (not so much their unlocks). I'll do more itty bitty stuff while y'all are reading the next framing post, I'll post tonight. (we've also been proofreading as we go, luckily)

None of the "issues" labelled below necessarily warrant "fixing." Just putting them here so we can give them proper consideration.

Era 1
style: "general", broad topics. pretty consistent
issues: none. seems solid. This was pretty well-hashed early on in this discussion

Era 2
style: mostly actual "discoveries", though most are still relatively general. Only "ritual" and "duty" remain highly abstract. Slate Roofing stands out as the most specifically "techy." This has been previously discussed.
issues: none

Era 3
style: a mix of abstract stuff (heritage, tutelage, weather sense) and more specific stuff (gearworks), mostly including the former. The balance isn't quite as... balanced as the era previous, though it's not entirely terrible.
issues: Weather Sense has been labeled as suspect previously. Heritage, heroism and Tutelage, while likely suitable, are highly abstract in a way that fits the early eras a little better (they aren't very "techy"). I don't have a proposed solution, or necessarily think we need one.
The prereq line from Weaves to both tutelage and hierarchy is flavorfully weak. As is slate roofing to siegecraft.

Era 4
style: mostly highly specific "techs," with the only exception being "profession." Feels appropriate for this stage in the game.
issues: this was also very hashed out earlier. Snakes and Foxes is good flavor, but isn't particularly "techy" (since it's a game...), and its prereqs aren't obvious. The New Tongue's prereq into wards is somewhat weak.

Era 5
style: this maintains the specificity of the previous era, with the exception being "invention." Feels like a suitable "sequel" to the previous era.
issues:sailcloth and s&f don't feel particularly appropriate as prereqs for Bookbinding. s&f into treatises is also odd. chan circles and tactics into allows has been previously mentioned as odd, and is.

Era 6
style: this ones a mix, with a few abstract (shared bloodlines, which isn't very "Techy", and infrastructure, which is), and the rest specific (with rule of medians being very, very specific, beyond even Slate Roofing). Mostly holds together.
issues: "Rule of Medians" is obscure flavor, but likely worth it - hopefully people don't think it means rule *by* medians (you know, fortune tellers). Exchange rates into RoM isn't particularly clear (though, we don't know what RoM actually *is*). High chant amd Shared Blood into lenses is very much random and seems somewhat ill fitting, if necessary. Fireworks into Skimming is somewhat silly.

era 7
style: mostly specific, though of few of them "feel" abstract (F and Void and Law of War), even if they aren't actually. Rediscovery is quite abstract, in a way that sticks out a little bit this late in the tree (in that rediscovery as a concept is likely to have been already "discovered" by now).
issues: keeping into FatV is unclear. The rest seem fine.

Era 8
style: all are pretty specific discoveries that seem appropriately late-game. Telescopes being the only semi-contradiction (with Lenses), as has been discussed.
Issues: Flame and Void into Sextant is weird. The rest seem suitable.

Era 9
style: all are quite specific, with the obvious exception of A Beginning.
Issues: Inverted Weaves is slightly problematic this late, as it was rediscovered in the middle of the series. It's somewhat worth considering simply flipping its flavor with Power-Wrought Weapons, and mostly leaving its unlocks in place, since P-W W were discovered very late in the game. The unlocks *mostly* still work this way. Of course, this doesn't have to be done - it depends on how much a problem the timing of Inverted Weaves seems.
Professional Navy doesn't lead particularly well into any of its subsequent techs. the rest seem fine.

OK, so, in general, I'd say I'm pretty happy with it. It's not perfect, but I think if I viewed BNW in this manner, I'd feel the same. Basically, I don't see anything above that needs to be addressed, really, with the last bit about Inverted Weaves maybe been the only one that gives me some pause.

good work!

What follows is a big Framing Post for our next topic. Feel free to respond to this stuff (on the tech tree) well in advance of dealing with all of that. I'll be doing some proofreading if I get a chance over the next several days.

counterpoint · Mar 27, 2016

CIVILIZATIONS AND UNIQUES FRAMING POST

CONTENTS

[page 1]
1 CIVILIZATION OPTIONS - OVERVIEW

A NUMBER OF FIRST LAUNCH CIVS
B FIRST LAUNCH CIVILIZATION SELECTION
C CATEGORY 1: CIVS WE KNOW WE WANT
D CATEGORY 2: CIVS THAT ARE CONSIDERED FOR EITHER LAUNCH OR EXPANSION
E CATEGORY 3: CIVS THAT WE MIGHT CONSIDER
[page 2]
2 CIVILIZATION OPTIONS GAMEPLAY AND FLAVOR

A INTRODUCTION
B CIVS FROM CATEGORY 1

[page 3]
C CIVS FROM CATEGORY 2
3 CIV CHARACTERISTICS: GENERAL

A INTRODUCTION
B VICTORY CONDITIONS
C START BIASES
[page 4]
4 CIV CHARACTERISTICS: UNIQUES

A UNIQUE ABILITIES
B UNIQUES: OVERALL NUMBER
C UNIQUE IMPROVEMENTS
D NEW MECHANICS
E ERA DISTRIBUTION
F UNIQUES IN BNW

1 CIVILIZATION OPTIONS OVERVIEW

A NUMBER OF FIRST LAUNCH CIVS

How many will be present at launch and how many will be added later?

We'll call these First Launch Civs (FLC). S3rgeus has indicated that 14 seems to be a a good target for launch (quotes because, as previously discussed, this mod will likely have more of a roll out soft launch than a clear release.

Things to consider in determining the number of FLCs at launch and through later expansion/update:

The full suite of CiV (including all expansions) has 43 civs. These, to me, feel like a balanced whole that fits together well though it's possible that even if they aren't balanced, there are so many of them that a lack of balance isn't particularly noticeable.
Vanilla included only 18 civs. G&K added 9 more. BNW added 9 again. 7 additional were added through assorted DLC. 18 was thus considered by Firaxis to be suitable for launch.
Unlike vanilla civ, though, our mod includes all the game mechanic options of G&K and BNW, plus all of our new mechanics (T'a'r, the LB/Alignment, governors, channeling, etc.). If we hope to include an assortment of specialties in our Uniques, like Firaxis did (i.e., a few science civs, religion civs, etc.), we would need to carefully examine whether or not 14 is a large enough number.
Related to above, we need to have an appropriate number of civs to provide sufficient options of civilizations for each victory condition. We wouldn't want, for instance, to have only one civ that was diplo-oriented.
This number should take into account the time required to create and balance an individual civ. If this amount of time is high, our number of FLCs might be lower, whereas if it is low, we may be able to accommodate more civs. As mentioned below, though, I recommend we at least explore the implications of all civ we want at this stage, even if we don't think they'll make first launch.

As far as how many would be added later (post-release), this likely depends on how many civs are left over (beyond the launch-count we decide above) and still fit the bill of desirable determined below. Additionally, if we decide to include major game-mechanics additions post-launch, these mechanics might be associated with a few civs that accompany that expansion.

In any case, both the number of FLCs and the number of post-launch civs is not a value that has to be 100% settled now. It would be helpful to have a target, but this kind of thing is certainly easy enough to tweak later.

Big Questions:

How many civs would we like available at launch?
How many civs might we consider adding post-launch?

B FIRST LAUNCH CIVILIZATION SELECTION

Which civilizations will we include in First Launch?

This is a more complicated issue, because there are several layers to consider in determining whether a civilization deserves to be an FLC. The considerations that seem apparent to me:

The prominence of the civ in the books, in terms of exposure. In short, would somebody be bummed if it wasn't present in the mod? (e.g., Manetheren is likely not any more important, historically, than other Ten Nations civs... but is given a lot of exposure in the books).
The importance of the civ in the history of Randland. Related to above are we not representing the mythos properly if we exclude a civ? (e.g., though Hawkwing the man is discussed a bunch, his actual empire isn't really, but it's such an important historical entity that it warrants consideration... despite us not actually knowing its name...).
The availability of flavor for the civ in question. Is there enough to go off of to build convincing civ, with uniques and such? (e.g., Murandy and Kandor would be dubious in this regard, when compared to other present day civilizations).
A balance between eras, both in terms of the historicity of it (it's kind of lame to have, say, only one ancient civ and a bunch of modern ones), but also in terms of the balance and spread between Uniques. If at all possible, our FLCs should create a spread of Uniques that are somewhat evenly-distributed throughout the Eras of the game, at least to a degree comparable to BNW. (e.g., while Kandor may be more visible in the books than, say, Aridhol, a surplus of modern UUs could conceivably make Aridhol the more desirable inclusion as an FLC.) Of course, some modern civs could have UUs that can be put into earlier eras (e.g. the Aiel), but this cannot be easily done en masse.
Similar to our consideration of the number of FLCs, a balanced spread of Victory Condition specialization should probably be sought (at least roughly comparable to in BNW). It is understood that many Uniques do not directly point to a specific victory condition, but still, general consideration for a decent spread of options to pursue each VC is desirable. (e.g., adding Arafel [arbitrarily ssuming for the moment that it would be a domination-oriented civ] when we already have a bunch of domination civs may not be the best idea)
Related to above, civs whose flavor suggests opportunity for the association of auxiliary mechanics that don't directly relate to a specific victory (such as Religion in G&K/BNW) might make themselves more likely to earn a spot as an FLC so as to provide an opportunity to include such uniques. (e.g. Ghealdan or Amadicia for Paths/Alignment and Hawkwing's empire for Governors, etc.)
Civs that include aspects that are likely to be highly unpredictable or even chaotic from a mechanics/balance perspective might be best left for post-launch. If we want to try something crazy with a civ's uniques (Venice might be a good example from BNW), they might not be the best civ to include at launch. (e.g. a nutty Tuatha'an civ or an Ogier or shadowspawn civ or something).
If a civ's uniques will likely be based around mechanics that we plan on adding post-release, that civ may not be a prime candidate as a FLC. It doesn't appear that we have any at the moment, but if any were to appear, this would be worth consideration. (e.g., if we had dreams of a whole fancy and complex channeler neutralizing system, Far Madding would likely be a civ we'd avoid using for the time being in order to provide for their inclusion later). Of course, a civ could be included and then have its uniques changed later.
A balanced spread of start biases should be achieved, if possible. We don't want a set of civs that all have avoid coast or start near Tundra, for instance. Many f the nations in the books have similar climates, so this should be considered (e.g., Mayene may become more attractive due to its hot, wet climate [I think] and thus the potential of a near jungle start, which might be otherwise hard to create given the flavor of the books).
If we are considering creating a True Start Locations map or scenario, such might be worth briefly considering in order to ensure that something like this is viable (e.g. Seanchan is a very sparse continent in comparison to the northern part of Rand's continent).
This is very minor, but in BNW, Leaders apparently have tendencies (Shaka is vicious, Gandhi isn't, etc.). Choosing civs (and leaders) that create an even balance of these tendencies is probably desirable.
Related to above (and to the Victory Condition consideration), in BNW civs have Ideological tendencies, whether because of personality type or due to likely Victory avenues. In our mod, we might want to take consideration of a balanced array of Philosophies that either the AI would adopt or that humans would be likely to adopt in the books, most of the Westlands would choose Authority creating a mix of civs that is likely to duplicate this scenario might not be good for the balance of our Philosophies).

That's quite a lot to consider. I suspect that the first few points (the flavor) have been the major thing occupying our previous thoughts on FLCs this framing post hopes to open the other aspects up in a more systematic way. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on which of the above have what degree of priority, and how you suggest we move forward in actually selecting our civs.

So below is an introduction to the civs we 1) are confident we will include, 2) should seriously consider including, and 3) could conceivably consider including (likely to fit any surprising determinations in the consideration list above).

I should say that this is opening up for consideration ALL of these civs, so as not to make a regrettable omission. Also, while I won't be going into detail on all of them, I will for the first two categories, so we can truly balance appropriately. It would be good to know, for instance, that we have X number of realistically viable science civs at our disposal, even if we'll only be using a few of them it would help us properly select them and plan for any future releases.

So, in short, we may be wasting some time hear by philosophizing about civs we don't end up using. Of course, we won't actually make the civs or go into detail on their UUs or anything.

C - CATEGORY 1: CIVS WE KNOW WE WANT
These are ones that were mentioned by S3rgeus in his introductory posts a long time ago (before counterpoint was involved, i.e.B.C.), as being a part of the first-launch. There are others that have been introduced at later dates, and essentially added as FLC (e.g. Shara and Hawkwingville), but since proper discussion may have never occurred, I'll not presume that to be the case. Regardless, this category is not technically meaningful, in that it won't have any bearing on the end result of this exercise, if we delve into Category 2 in equal detail.

In the subsequent sections of this series of posts, there are additional flavor details about each of these civs. That information may be useful to help decide which civs should be selected.

The following 12 civs are highly likely to be in the mod:

The Aiel
Altara
Amadicia
Andor
The Atha'an Miere
Cairhien
Illian
Manetheren (HISTORICAL Ten Nations [Era of Nations/Classical])
Seanchan
Shienar
Tarabon
Tear

All of these are modern civs, in that they exist in the book, with the exception of Manetheren, which is marked as such. These all seem essential to me, with Tarabon and Amadicia perhaps being the only ones that are borderline. Shienar could also be considered somewhat less important than the others. The merits of these three are discussed below, but feel free to entertain the validity of any of the others as well.

Tarabon is deserving of inclusion mostly because of the prominent events that take place in Tanchico in the middle-late books. However, other than that, it occupies a relatively small space in the zeitgeist of the books, which makes its position as FLC somewhat arguable. The same could be said, to a certain extent, of Shienar, which is most prominent within the early books and not as much later (though it is perhaps the most noteworthy borderland nation, which makes it quite significant in the overall lore of the books).

For me, Amadicia's status as a first-launch civ is dependent on whether their uniques are tied to the Whitecloaks. Obviously in the context of the books, the Children make their home in Amador, but they are not technically the ruling party (though they are the defacto authority). Additionally, in this mod, the Way of the Light is a Path that can be chosen by any civ, and, some of the Children units can additionally be built by anybody with the proper Path Custom. In any case, a strong case could be made for tying Amadicia to the Whitecloaks, but on the other hand, a case could also be made that the whitecloaks should be treated as a separate entity entirely. This issue doesn't technically have to be solved until we make this civ's uniques.

However, if Amadicia isn't given a Children-related ability, there doesn't really seem to be enough in-book content to use to come up with their uniques and justify their inclusion as a FLC. In short, if they aren't tied to the Whitecloaks, they probably shouldn't be a FLC. Currently, I'm tempted to split the difference here make some aspects of the Whitecloaks generic and available to anybody (such as our Customs), but also give Amadicia some (or perhaps only) whitecloak-related uniques.
This is a similar line of thinking to what will be found below regarding Ghealdan.

It should also be mentioned that we could theoretically consider having The Two Rivers as its own civ. Obviously, it is not its own country, but in the books it is somewhat treated as if it is and in fact, it's separateness from Andor is one of its defining characteristics. The flavor components of the Two Rivers are discussed below within the context of either Andor or Manetheren if a Two Rivers civ were to be desired, that flavor could be removed and reassigned as we saw fit.

Big Questions:

Which of the civs above should be included? (see below for more detail)
Which should be considered for post-launch release?

D - CATEGORY 2: CIVS THAT ARE CONSIDERED FOR EITHER LAUNCH OR EXPANSION
These are civs that have been mentioned variously as candidates for first run, or as later additions. Some of these were on S3rgeus' original list, but have been mentioned as possibly less essential than some others on this second list.

Arad Doman
Arafel
Aridhol (HISTORICAL Ten Nations [Era of Nations/Classical])
Far Madding
Ghealdan
Hawkwing's Empire/Shandalle (HISTORICAL Free Years [Era of Consolidation/Renaissance])
Kandor
Malkier (HISTORICAL New Era [Era of Encroaching Blight/Atomic or Era of Stability/Modern])
Mayene
Murandy
Saldaea
Shaido Aiel
Shara
Tuatha'an

Of these, those most vying for FLC inclusion are Hawkwing's Empire, Shara, and Ghealdan, with Arad Doman, Malkier, and Mayene coming up next. The Tuatha'an and the Shaido might be most worthy for consideration as an expansion civ. Of course, any of these are open for further debate, even those that I don't say much on here.

Hawkwing's empire is very prominent in the Lore and thus deserves inclusion, IMO. The same is true for Shara which also gives us a civ that isn't from the Westlands. Malkier gives us relatively little to go off of, but is highly memorable due to its connection to certain characters. The same is true for Mayene, though as a City-State, Mayene might not be considered a valid civilization (as is the case with Far Madding, which is much less prominent in the lore).

Arad Doman is relatively high-profile in the books, from a referential perspective, though it is not visited (to my recollection). The same is true with Saldaea. Arafel, Kandor, and Murandy occupy only small parts of the overall flavor of the lore.

The Shaido Aiel are an interesting choice in that it is not necessarily clear if they should be given their separate status (from the Aiel in general) as a civ. Still, they occupy a very primary role in the sequence of events in the books, and this could serve as justification.

Aridhol is probably the only other Ten Nations's country familiar to readers, as it becomes Shadar Logoth.. Unfortunately, that's most all we know about it, and since Shadar Logoth has been divorced of any specific City-State allegiance (any CS can become it), it leaves us with precious little flavor to go on. Still, it is an ancient era civ in a mod that might have very few of them. Theoretically, some reflection of it's Logoth-ness could be provided in its Uniques (much how the same might be done for the Children in Amadicia, despite the Way of the Light standing alone as an independent Path).

For me, whether Ghealdan is relevant enough to be a civ depends on how we choose to deal with the Prophet. In some ways, this situation is similar to Amadicia's we know very little about Ghealdan that doesn't involve it getting turned to chaos by the Prophet. So it seems to me that if Ghealdan does make the cut, it's going to be in some way connected to the Prophet's control of the region. That said, this is a bit odd for a few reasons. First, the Dragonsworn are our barbarians. Second, Masema was never a real ruler more like a raider/conqueror (see: barbarians).

But again, if we don't go with Masema, then I have zero idea what to do with Ghealdan (it fades into the obscurity of places like Murandy). And, it should be mentioned that the uniques associated with the Prophet's dragonsworn would probably be unique at the very least (pun semi-intentional) it might be a chance to do some cool things with DS/lawless, Paths, and even Alignment, that would be a much less natural fit with other civs.

The decision to go with the Tuatha'an or not is both flavor-related and gameplay-related. On the one hand, they are relatively memorable within the WoT universe. But on the other hand, they are not a nation they don't even have settlements. Furthermore, the whole pacifism thing would make them very difficult to balance (see: any suggestions made earlier in this thread...). Still, they are intriguing.

Big Questions:

Which of the civs above should be included? (see below for more detail)
Which should be considered for post-launch release?

E CATEGORY 3: CIVS THAT WE MIGHT CONSIDER
These civs are ones that I think might be worth considering, if only to spread out the history/game Eras a bit more (i.e., including more AB civs and FY civs) as well as Philosophies, Victory-tendencies, start biases, etc.. None of these are well-known to readers, so we should probably only include them to fill a specific need if we do put them in, it's probably chiefly for mechanical/balancing reasons.

These are not ones I will be diving further into in my dive for flavor and balance generalizations. Do not take that to mean that these are not still to be considered call one out by name and we can did in more specifically. Additionally, note that this list is not exhaustive. These are simply those civs that seemed to stand out in the lore. There are many others we could consider (especially from the Free Years).

Those of these that aren't selected are likely to be prime sources of CS names.

Aldeshar (HISTORICAL Free Years [Era of Freedom/Medieval or Era of Consolidation/Renaissance]) apparently a powerful nation, and one that stood against Hawkwing pretty significantly. Andoran nobility claim descent from their queen, Ishara.
Almoth (HISTORICAL New Era [Era of New Beginnings/Industrial])  This one occupied the space that is in between Tarabon and Arad Doman. Apparently they had a piece of Avendesora. This is also the name of the Whitecloak Nation Pedron Niall hoped to create.
Aramaella (HISTORICAL Ten Nations [Era of Nations/Classical]) this was supposedly a powerful one, and has a leader whose name we know (in the Lore), and authored the Compact of the Ten Nations
Darmovan (HISTORICAL Free Years [Era of Freedom/Medieval or Era of Consolidation/Renaissance]) One of the larger FY nations. The first nation that the Second Dragon Guaire Amalasan took control of, starting the War of the Second Dragon (eventually leading to Hawkwing's empire).
The Isle of Madmen Era Unknown)  We know essentially nothing of this third continental mass... and that's part of what makes me super interested in it. It's all mysterious and dangerous. Putting a civ in would be adventurous on our part, and would provide us with a lot of flexibility in what the Uniques would be... but it would also be 100% speculative.
Katar This is a city-state in the northwest of the continent during the modern era. It is claimed by Arad Doman, but doesn't appear to really be under that nation's control, and thus may be considered as at least semi-autonomous.. There isn't much about it in the books.
Moreina (HISTORICAL Free Years [Era of Freedom/Medieval or Era of Consolidation/Renaissance]) This was a strong trade nation, occupying the lands currently a part of Tear. This includes the Stone of Tear, which led to false dragons trying to take the city (which was actually still called Tear).
Pre-Consolidation Seanchan (HISTORICAL After the Breaking through Free Years [Era After the Breaking/Ancient through Era of Freedom/Medieval])  This is whatever culture/society existed in Seanchan before Luthair Consolidated it. Presumably it was a pretty developed civilization (or several) because so many odd things appear to have been inherited by the modern empire. There are a few characters we meet (e.g. Ajimbura), that appear to be of outsider peoples from Seanchan, and these might be a good place to start looking. It would provide us with something else from the earlier eras but much of their flavor would be speculative on our part.

Of these, those that seem to me to be most compelling from a flavor perspective are Almoth and Pre-Consolidation Seanchan. From a mechanical/balancing perspective, the Ten Nations and Free Years civs might be the most useful. The Isle of Madmen is of course fun, but probably not practical.

Big Questions:

Which of the civs above should be included?
Which should be considered for post-launch release?

counterpoint · Mar 27, 2016

2 CIVILIZATION OPTIONS GAMEPLAY AND FLAVOR

A INTRODUCTION
Before we jump in and actually try to settle UU's, UA's, and UB's, I think it best to have a general idea of the various design goals for each potential civ. In CiV, most civ's unique aspects tend to suggest one or more victory types. Often, there is a primary and a secondary. For example. Assyria is obviously very capable in a Domination victory because of its powerful UU and UA, but its UB and UA also lend themselves to a Scientific victory, though perhaps less simply than for Domination.

Along these lines, here I provide a conception of each civ's victory types based solely on the lore. Settling these can then make the design of unique characteristics much more deliberate (a Domination-oriented Tear would likely have a very different UA than a Diplomatic-oriented Tear, for example). Lastly, this will also help us keep track of the overall balance between various victory types. There's a lot of war in this series, so we might have to go out of our way to make it so every civ wasn't Domination-aimed seeing these all laid out will help that cause.

I should state that I have elected not to include the Last Battle victory as a type that a civ could specialize in. I think we could conceivably make that the case (there are some civs, like the Aiel, the borderlanders, etc. for which this could make sense), but to me it seems peculiar from a design perspective. I'd rather not telegraph a civ's allegiance in the LB or even that the civ wants the LB to happen any more than possible. While we could make an alignment-agnostic LB-related Uniques, still the idea of oh, X civ is in the game... looks like we're in for an LB seems problematic to me. It seems better that a civ be good at the LB simply because they are good at one of the other four VCs. We have elected to include Tier Three Philosophical tenets that are LB-related, but these are selected late in the game having this kind of selection happen before turn one is very different.

I'm doing these based on the lists I described above, though of course when evaluating the overall balance between victory types we'll need to consider which civs will actually make the cut. I'm not putting the civs we might consider yet. We know virtually nothing of most of those, so there isn't much lore for me to realistically base this on if we do include them, it'll be for game design purposes, so we'd probably force a play type anyway. Please do note that I am not 100% solid on any of these, and all of them are open to interpretation and debate. Additionally, I am not trying to insinuate that civs should be limited to one or two VCs these are just meant to be rough guidelines for how a civ could be built (to me, the civs in CiV feel like they were constructed this way, in part).

I'm also making note of whether the civ appears to be well-suited for Tall or Wide play. This is listed here solely based on flavor, not game balance or mechanics. I'm also suggesting a possible Starting Bias again, coming only from the Lore/geography in the books, and a Philosophy-bias based only on Lore. These components may be useful in determining which civs we include.

Additionally, I'm listing some key features about a given civ that we might consider including or use as inspiration for uniques, or even just the naming of said uniques (e.g. the Golden Tree being the name of some UA we create for Tarabon). These flavor bits are not necessarily useful in the which civs should we use phase, but will be most definitely useful in the pick-Uniques phase, and so are listed here for easy reference (though if the pick uniques phase happens much later in the design process, much of this may need to be recopied for easier access in a later post.

Of course, this list is incomplete.

The information below is intended both as a bank of flavor in designing our civs' uniques, as well as a tool to help us choose which civs belong in the game. The latter is of course our primary aim at this time. To that end, I suggest we evaluate each civ's overall potential as a civ option. I suggest we do all of them so that we can consider things objectively and make sure we come out with good solutions.

Consider each civ and comment, but also give them a numerical score based on the subsequent categories. Since I'm presenting the options, I don't want to provide scores first, so by all means, if you have another category in mind, or want to adjust these, please do so. Let's say each category should be given a score from 1-5, with 1 being really bad and 5 being really good, and 3 being neither bad nor good. In the end, we can give each civ a final score that sums these scores, but I'll leave it up to you how you think that should go I can see us weighing the categories different, such that it won't be a simple X+Y+Z. Of course, a score doesn't have to be binding or anything these will simply help inform our decisions. In any case, I propose the following categories:

Prominence This is a civ's recognizability for the reader. These civs either play a big role in the books, or else in the back story or lore of the world of the books. An possible example of a 5 would likely be Andor, while a place like Murandy or Aridhol might be a 2. Something like Aramaella would probably score a 1.

Flavor This refers to how much depth of flavor we have to work with, i.e. how much we know about the civ, and thus how easy it will be to come up with uniques, a leader, art, city names, etc. An example of a 5 is probably Seanchan. Arafel would probably score a 2 or a 3. A 1 would be something like Katar.

Mechanics This is the niche that the civ might provide us, from a mechanical perspective. A civ that scores high on this does so because it affords us mechanical possibilities that other civs don't uniques that focus on paths or alignment, unusual UU types, science-oriented civs, etc. Civs that score low on this might be ones that are just another domination civ. An example of a 5 on this might be Prophet-centric Ghealdan. A 3 would be something like Cairhien. A 1 might be something like Saldaea (I know that may be harsh, but they might be just another militaristic borderland civ).

Placement This is the niche that the civ provides us based on it's overall situation in the game. This is based on its era (especially the era its unique are likely to appear), likely start bias, geographic location, philosophical tendency, and such. A civ that scores high here represents eras, regions, and terrain that we are ignoring. A low-scoring civ is with everybody else. A 5 would be any FY-era civ (not counting Hawkwing's empire) or any jungle civ. A 3 would be something like Arad Doman (modern, but coastal). A 1 is something like Andor (authority, generic terrain, modern day).

So, for example (do not let this influence your scores):

Manetheren
Prominence: 3
Flavor: 3
Mechanics: 2
Placement: 4

Obviously, there are some components that this simply doesn't Catch. The Tua'tha'an, for example, might score quite high on most of these categories, but there's also a phantom pain in the ass category that isn't listed, that might be prohibitive. In any case, I hope something like this proves helpful.

B CIVS FROM CATEGORY 1

The Aiel
Primary: Domination
Secondary: Cultural (perhaps Diplomatic)
Notes: Domination should certainly be the primary, for obvious reasons. Of the others, the only one that doesn't make much sense is Scientific. Cultural could make sense, especially if their UA tied to captured Great Works or something (the Fifth). The Aiel seem particularly inward facing, so Diplo doesn't make much sense... but something like the Fifth could also provide a lot of gold, theoretically, which could lead to diplo victories.

Size: Wide lots of settlements, with very few being large.
Starting Bias Desert
Philosophy Tendency Liberation

Flavor Bits:
Symbol - (unknown)
Wise Ones
Three-Fold Land
Algai'd'siswai
Warrior Societies Maidens of the Spear, Stone Dogs, Red Shields, Black Eyes, Brothers of the Eagle, Dawn Runners, Thunder Walkers, Mountain Dancers, Knife Hands, Night Spears, True Bloods, Water Seekers, the Brotherless
Maiden hand talk
Ji'e'toh
Gai'shan
Polygamy and relationships first sisters, sister-wives, etc.
The Fifth
Clan Chief organization
Desert survivalism
Spears, not swords
Lack of horses
Holds Roof Mistresses
Stealth
Sending male channelers into the Blight
Avendesoraldera
The Car'a'carn
Water Oath
Water and Shade
Sweat Tents
Clans Chareen, Codarra, Daryne, Goshien, Miagoma, Nakai, Reyn, Shaarad, Shaido, Shiande, Taardad, Tomanelle, Jenn (former), Da'shain (former)
Roof of the Maidens
dedicated (translation of Aiel in Old Tongue)
veils
the dance of the spears
Rhuidean
blood feud
Da'tsang (despised one

Altara
Primary: Cultural
Secondary: Scientific (perhaps Diplomatic, not Domination)
Notes: Cultural is chosen as the primary, mostly because of the emphasis placed in the books on this civ's society (as opposed to its military or its economy). While the dueling thing is neat, I don't think Domination makes sense these guys didn't last long against the Seanchan and don't usually have a standing army. I mention Scientific as a secondary because it appears to be a free society, which might foster such things similar arguments could be used for Diplomatic, though.

Size: Tall (the royal family rarely controlled much solidly outside of the capital), although we do have a rather long list of village and town names for Altara)
Starting Bias None or Coastal
Philosophy Tendency Authority (possibly Liberation)

Flavor Bits:
Symbol The Golden Leopards
Lack of centralized control via Throne of the Winds in Tarasin Palace
no standing, centralized army
Female social dominance
Duels
Marriage knives
Kin and Daughters of Silence (the latter of which may not have actually been in Altara)
Knitting Circle
Port on the bay
Rahad district
canals with boats
Large gates Moldaine Gate, Three Towers Gate, and Dal Eira Gate
Squares throughout city, ex. Mol Hara
The Altaran Noon - forcing out the whitecloaks by being too hot to handle
Altara Causeway
Ancient and Honorable League of Nets
Ancient and Worshipful Guild of Stablemen
Civil Guard
King Maddin Todande (first)
death, daggers, and the sea female, ships, swords and trade male
fine lacquerwork and lace
olive orchards
pears, mother-of-pearl, and fish

Amadicia
Primary: Domination
Secondary: Cultural
Notes: The above assumes this is Whitecloak-associated Amadicia. If not... we have much less to go on. Domination is obvious, due to their military presence. Cultural seems somewhat like the only remaining option Science and Diplomacy both seem somewhat antithetical to the Children. The Secondary one is likely a distant second to the primary. Also note that a Whitecloak-themed Amadicia also lends itself well to Path or Alignment-related Uniques.

Size: unspecified
Starting Bias None or Hills
Philosophy Tendency Oppression (possibly Authority)

Flavor Bits:
Symbol the Thistle and Star
Fortress of the Light
Lack of legitimate royal [power
Channeling illegal
Frequent execution of suspected darkfriends
Questioners/Hand of the Light/Inquisitors
Dome of Truth
Spymasters
Guardians of the Gate (military group)
Hundredman (whitecloak)
Nobles not allowed to keep standing armies
The Tenets
Troubles
Santal Ramoth first king
weaving and dyeing
iron, silver, gems and gold mines

Andor
Primary: Any (perhaps best as Diplomatic or Domination)
Secondary: Any
Notes: Since Andor is essentially the central nation in the books, I can imagine a UA/UB setup that justifies essentially any configuration. I'm not suggesting all be actually equally viable for the player I'm just suggesting that we could choose any of them and they'd work fine with the lore. Domination is easy since Andor is a large and powerful country, but we may be saddled with too many Dom-centered civs as is. Diplomatic makes a lot of sense due to the wealth of the nation and the political prowess of Elayne (for example). Scientific makes sense for similar reasons. Cultural could work, though this one is perhaps the least viable.

Size: probably Wide due to territory or at least wide borders (some of the cities themselves are quite large)
Starting Bias none or Plains (country in general) or Hills (Caemlyn)
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor Bits:
Symbol the White Lion
succession of queens
Red bandanas showing support of queen
Traditional relationship with White Tower (including sending the daughter-heir and aes sedai advisor)
First Prince of the Sword
Queen's Guard
Master of the Sword (trainer of Queen's Guard)
The Queen's Bodyguard
Dragons (weapon)
Wealth gold, silver, iron, and copper mines in mountains of mist unless those are given to manetheren)
Caemlyn Road
New City and Inner City
Royal Palace
Low Caemlyn
Far Madding Gate
The Lion Throne
Band of the Red Hand connections
Longbowmen (from Two Rivers)
Boar Spears (from Two Rivers)
The Queen's Bounty gift to beggars
Captain General
First Clerk
Queen's Bounty (giving out of food)
Queen's Writ (laws)
Rose Crown of Andor
White Lions part of Queen's Guard
Wolf Guard perrin's guard
Ishara Maravaile first queen
iron, steel, bronze, and copper, cutlery
bellfoundries
tabac (two rivers)
first-quality alum (recently discovered)
Inner City vs. New City
Low Caemlyn
Destruction in last battle

The Atha'an Miere
Primary: Diplomatic
Secondary: Domination (perhaps Cultural)
Notes: Essentially, I see the Sea Folk as trade-centered. Consequently, this suggests a Diplomatic victory. That said, as the Sea Folk keep the Tower at arms length (in the books), so that would seem to make their diplo victory have more to do with gold, and less to do with the tower. The lore certainly supports Diplomacy, however (Aes Sedai aside), because of their negotiation prowess. With vast wealth, coupled with probably the best UU ships in the game, Domination is an intuitive choice mechanically, though one that doesn't perhaps jive 100% with the lore. Cultural can certainly make sense as well. Scientific is the only one that doesn't make much sense to me.

Size: wide
Starting Bias Coast
Philosophy Tendency Liberation

Flavor Bits:
Symbol - (unknown)
Adept Negotiators
Sealing bargains by kissing fingertips
Hierarchy (Mistress of the Ships, Master of Blades, Wavemistress, Swordmaster, Cargomaster, Sailmistress)
Windfinders
Distrust of Aes Sedai
Sending quota of girls to the White Tower
The Coramoor Jendai Prophesy
Porcelain/The Amayar
Ships (darter, soarer, skimmer, and raker)
Escape late-books battles with Seanchan
First Twelve higher-ups
Salt Name last name given to you (e.g. Wild Winds)
tattoos on hands
accurate clocks
Pearls
glass (including looking glasses, etc.)
The Water Way
female Choedan Kal
tremalking black (tea)

Cairhien
Primary: Scientific (perhaps Diplomatic)
Secondary: Diplomatic (perhaps Scientific)
Notes: The Scientific victory seems reasonable in part because of the Academy set up there. Additionally, it seems to be quite developed among the nations (incomplete Topless Towers notwithstanding). Diplomatic certainly makes sense, both because of The Game of Houses, and the country's trade focus. I choose Scientific here as primary in part because I feel there will be few opportunities to do so with other civs (understanding that I've contradicted my assertion that I'm doing this based on flavor, not balance).

Size: Tall, though this could be simply due to a lack of representation of their other cities in the books.
Starting Bias Hills
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor Bits:
Symbol the Rising Sun
Daes Dae'mar
School of Cairhien
Feast of Lights
Silk Path
Laman's Pride/Aiel War
Topless Towers
Sun Throne/Royal Palace of Cairhien (Sun Palace)
Jangai Gate and Dragonwall Gate
Illuminator Chapter House
Kesiera jeweled pendant worn by noblewomen
Con square banners worn to identify houses
Reconciliation (actually a war of succession)
Royal Library
failed revival of Tovan nation (early Cairhien history)
Martaine Colmcille (first king)
rigid division between noble and commoner, and between middle and lower classes
classism in military foot (commoners) vs cavalry (nobles)
army consists of combination of nobles' armies
Master of the Lances
King's Gift
Foregate
Illuminator's chapter house
fine cloaks, mirrors, blown glass, olives
Academy of Cairhien

Illian
Primary: Cultural (perhaps Domination)
Secondary: Domination (perhaps Cultural)
Notes: I choose cultural as the primary because we'd discussed that Illian's ties to the Hunt for the Horn could provide it with big culture/prestige boosts (though again I know that I claimed above that I was doing this solely based on flavor...). Domination makes a good deal of sense here because Illian is somewhat the 800 pound gorilla in the south. Either could be primary, but once again I'm concerned there are too many Domination-centered civs.
Of note is that Illian apparently doesn't have a standing navy despite its major-port status, a military naval-related unique is somewhat against-lore.

Size: unspecified, but potentially Tall due to the large size of the city itself.
Starting Bias Coast or Hills or Marsh
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor Bits:
Symbol the Golden Bees
Companions
Ranks in Companions: First Captain, Second Captain, Lieutenant, Under-Lieutenants, Bannermen, Squadmen
The Great Hunt for the Horn
Square of Tammaz
The Council of Nine
The Laurel Crown/Crown of Swords
Assemblage
Largest port in the known world
Olive Groves
Marshlands
Channels
Dialect
Guild of Bookers (insurance)
The Watch/City Watch
Nicoli Merseneos den Ballin first king
possible for commoners to become officers
no naval forces defense against pirate done ad hoc by nobles
arranged marriages
perfume, glassmaking, silver and gold, clocks, cutlery, olive oil, leather,

Manetheren
Primary: Domination
Secondary: Any
Notes: Manetheren is difficult because we don't know all that much about it. Domination makes sense as either the primary or the secondary, due to the emphasis in the books on its great generals and valiant battles. Of the others, I could imagine any of them working, and Domination could easily be the secondary option.

Size: unspecified
Starting Bias River (is this possible?) or Hills
Philosophy Tendency Liberation or Authority (The Queen was an Aes Sedai the implications of this should be explored)

Flavor Bits:
Symbol the Red Eagle
Old Blood
Longbowmen (modern, from Two Rivers)
Band of the Red Hand (Shen al Calhar) destroyed in defense of Manetheren during trolloc wars
Redarm
Destroyed in Trolloc Wars
Sorelle ay Marena queen at time of Compact
River Manetherendrelle

Seanchan
Primary: Domination
Secondary: Scientific
Notes: Domination is the easy answer they will probably be among the best military civs in the game. Scientific makes a lot of sense as a secondary, since they are relatively advanced. Additionally, both Diplo and Cultural seem to make little sense given the country's insular nature. One could make a case for culture, though, since they are quite unique and far-reaching.

Size: Wide
Starting Bias None/Any
Philosophy Tendency Oppression

Flavor Bits:
Symbol golden hawk
The Return/Corenne
The Conquest/Consolidation
The Blood High Blood and Low Blood, High Lords and Ladies
The Crystal Throne ter'angreal causing awe and wonder
Court of the Nine Moons
Daughter of the Nine Moons
Tower of Ravens
Seekers of Truth/Listeners (not the same thing)
Truth Speakers (soe'feia')
Da'Covale
so'jhin
a'dam
Damane/Sul'dam
Ever Victorious Army
Omens
Gardener
Deathwatch Guard
Bloodknives
Bug-helmet soldiers
Crazy animals: raken, to'raken, grolm, Corlm, Lopar, Torm, S'redit
Kaf
Frequent Assassinations
The Towers of Midnight
The Lesser Blight
Ajimbura tribesman, notable in that he is a native Seanchan
Armies of the Night forces of the Native Seanchan (during conquest) obviously useful flavor if we have a seanchan native civ
Asa concubine
Banner-General
Captain-General
Marshall-General
Captain of the Air, of the Gold, of the Green, of the Lance, of the Seas, of the Silver, of the Spear
Essanik Cycle prophesies
Fists of Heaven seanchan to'raken forces
fourth circle of Elevation
Forerunners (Hailene) first batch of Return (Suroth, et al)
Seed of the Hammer (decendents of Hawkwing)
Mothers (seanchan Wisdoms)
Rodholder second in command
Standard Bearer
Taking Price
Voice of the Blood
Luthair Paendrag Mondwin
Sky Lights damane created fireworks shows
headman's axe and rope symbol of justice
omens/superstitions

Shienar
Primary: Domination or Any
Secondary: Any
Notes: Shienar is tricky because, like other Borderlanders, they have a very militarized society, which would obviously suggest Domination. However, their military appears to be mostly defensive in nature, and Shadowspawn-focused. Shienarans appear willing to sacrifice their own lives in the defense of the Westlands, which doesn't fit well with the take-over-the-world goal. Thus, we could make their militancy be in support of some other victory type, though none are obviously prescribed by the lore.

Size: unspecified
Starting Bias Hills or Tundra or Blight (?)
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Black Hawk
Borderlands
Even civilians are capable warriors
Skilled, top-knotted heavy cavalry
lack of internal political strife
Well-lit at night to detect Myrddraal infiltration
Gates East Gate, King's Gate, and Malkier Gate.
Royal Palace of Shienar
Ingathering of the Lances
Welcome (a ceremony)
Fal Moran, capital, sacrificed in Last Battle
Fal Dara city near the blightborder
Gates in Fal Dara
didn't take part in war of hundred years (as with other borderlanders)
separation of men and women
shame (important motivator)
nameday day you are given your sword (all of borderlands)
gold, silver, gems (especially firedrops), emeralds, rubies, sapphires, timber and fur

Tarabon
Primary: Diplomatic
Secondary: Cultural/Scientific
Notes: Tarabon's trade wealth and interesting political structures suggest to me a Diplomatic victory, though I think Culture and Science can also be in contention. I don't see anything to suggest Domination.

Size: unspecified
Starting Bias Coast or Plains
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Golden Tree
joint rule of:
Panarch (elected by Assembly of Lords) taxes and duties, civil watch and Panarch's Legion, most courts
King/Queen (hereditary) spends money, controls army, Court of the King, (high court), King's Life Guard
Monarch and Panarch always of opposite gender (by 500 NE, always king and female panarch)
Grand Hall of the Assembly
Crown of the Tree
Port on the Aryth Ocean customs and duties collected (customs men marked by brass key around necks)
no permanent navy (navy it has is part of the Panarch's Legion)
exports: olive oil, fringed rugs, dyes, and fireworks
The Tree of Man - potential pieces of Avendesora tarabon in general referred to as this as well
Dialect (not as odd as Illian's)
Veils and cylindrical caps
Guild of Illuminators
Peninsulas of Tanchico Verana, Maseta, Calpene
Circles - assembly arenas: Great Circle, King's Circle, Panarch's Circle.
Panarch's Palace
Skeletons of extinct animals in Palace
Display of ancient artifacts
Disputes with Arad Doman over Almoth Plain
Tower Guard
Lord Boral, Lady Tazenia, Lord Haren trio of nobles who founded country
dyes, rugs, carpets, lace
olives (after tear and illian), silverwork and goldword
peninsula's of Tanchico (Verana, Maseta, Calpene)
Civil Watch in Tanchico
Tanchico Bay

Tear
Primary: Diplomatic
Secondary: Domination
Notes: Tear is frequently described as a wealthy nation in the Westlands. This, coupled with the fact that their society seems to slide along the borders of various philosophies (they cooperate somewhat with Aes Sedai, but distrust channelers, for instance), suggests to me a Diplomatic victory. They are also described as aggressive and somewhat entitled, which suggests to me Domination.

Size: unspecified or Tall
Starting Bias Coast
Philosophy Tendency Authority (conceivably Oppression)

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Crescent Moons
Defenders of the Stone
Captain of the Stone
defenders both cavalry and foot
Noble cavalry
master of the horse
illegality of channeling and fear of One Power
Stone of Tear
Heart of the Stone - Callandor
High Lords of Tear (usually not ruled by a King) between six and twenty of them
Great Holding - hoard of channeling-related artifacts (e.g. doorframe ter'angreal)
port on the Sea of Storms extreme wealth
trade in olives, as well as grain, fish, and spices
carpets, clcoks
second-quality alum
finest horses in the westlands
ships second in quality to only sea folk
constant wars with Illian
ambitions towards Mayene
Inequality between social classes (in wealth and rights) and physical separation between them
numerous portal stones within its boundaries
Fingers of the Dragon delta
Dragonwall Gate
Lord of the Land
Rite of the Guarding (ceremony, affirm protection of Callandor)
Stone Verge (surrounds the stone)
Tairen Maze (embroidery)
history as capital of Essenia (AB) and Moreina (FY)
no real standing navy
carrying of swords prohibited (except by nobles and defenders)
outer city/inner city

counterpoint · Mar 27, 2016

C CIVS FROM CATEGORY 2

Arad Doman
Primary: Scientific/Diplomatic
Secondary: Scientific/Diplomatic/Cultural
Notes: Due to their merchant prowess and the presence of the Terhana Library, these two options both seem fitting for this civ. I am not sure which is more appropriate. The festivals may suggest a Cultural path as well.

Size: unspecified
Starting Bias Coast or Plains
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Sword and Hand
King elected by Council of Merchants
most merchants are women excellent bargainers
men have famous tempers
frequent trade with the Sea Folk
autonomy of Katar and other cities far from Bandar Eban
port city on the Aryth ocean
Arandi Square (plaza in Bandar Eban)
Gull's Feast (dump dock)
Terhana Library one of the best in the world
mines in the Mountains of Mist
Disputes with Tarabon over Almoth Plain
seduction
Razor horses
very small military (to preserve balance of power between merchants and King)
standing navy the coast guards (controlled by Council, not king)
Festivals Feast of Freia, Festival of Lanterns, Chansein
White Ribbon symbol of Truce in Arad Doman
sursa (chopsticks)
Windborn merchants who rent shipping space on ships
first rulers Lord Jalaam Lazari, Ahran Nawaz, and Lady Bastine Almadar
glasswork (especially bowls), carpets

Arafel
Primary: Any
Secondary: Any
Notes: We know relatively little about Arafel. Since they are Borderlanders, they feature the same possibilities (and problems) with them being tooled towards Domination as Shienar.

Size: unspecified
Starting Bias Hills or Tundra or Blight (?)
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Roses
Borderlander
fiery people
strange sense of honor seek punishment to restore honor
Shol Arbela, capital one of the few large cities not founded on Ogier-built city
City of Ten Thousand Bells (in people's hair)
rugged terrain
Warriors with two swords
Silverwall Keeps (on border between Arafel and Kandor in Firchon Pass)
Lamplighters
Sword Bearer
bellfoundries
shame (as motivator, though less than in Shienar)
can't hide your face in the city (true in all borderlands), though women could wear translucent veils in Arafel and Kandor
some matters of authority traditionally reserved for Queen (instead of king)
gemstones, especially firedrops, gold, silver, timber, and fur

Aridhol
Primary: Any
Secondary: Any
Notes: We don't have much to go on for Aridhol. Most of what we do know is concerned with its transformation into Shadar Logoth. What we do know doesn't suggest much regarding Victory Conditions.

Size: unspecified probably Tall
Starting Bias None or Forest
Philosophy Tendency Unknown

Flavor bits:
Symbol unknown
fought in Trolloc Wars
Mordeth gained access to King Balwen Mayel
Convinced him to become cruel evil grew to consume the capital
Shadar Logoth
Mordeth
Doreille Torghin Queen at time of Compact

Far Madding
Primary: Diplomatic or any (not Domination)
Secondary: any (not Domination)
Notes: Most of what we know of Far Madding concerns the Guardian. Since it is a trade hub and is relatively wealthy, it could make sense for Diplomatic victories.

Size: Tall Far Madding is a city-state, with a few satellite towns.
Starting Bias Plains
Philosophy Tendency Authority (possibly Oppression)

Flavor bits:
Symbol golden hand
The Guardian makes channeling impossible
Guardian detects male and female channeling, within certain range (larger for men)
Strangers' markets (where foreigners may trade) Nethvin, Amhara, and Avharin
weapons must be peace bonded (wrapped)
matriarchal society women run city's business and government
The Counsels (thirteen women) rule, presided over by First Counsel
Hall of the Counsels, in the Counsels' Plaza
island in the middle of a lake
Three bridges (Ajalon, Ikane, and Goim)
center of trade between illian, tear, and andor
former capital of nation of Maredo
Wall Guard military (commanders all women)
Street Guard police, only cudgels, sword-breakers, staves

Ghealdan
Primary: Domination (Prophet-centric) or not Domination (non-Prophet-centric)
Secondary: Any
Notes: Ghealdan is tricky because of the aforementioned decision to feature a Prophet-controlled Ghealdan, or a peaceful (and mostly insignificant) Ghealdan that existed for most of its history. A Prophet-centric Ghealdan suggests a Domination- (and Path-) oriented Barbarian civ. If we go with normal Ghealdan, we have relatively little to go off of not likely to be Domination, though, as their armies are traditionally small.

Size: possibly Tall (described as relatively small)
Starting Bias Hills or Forest
Philosophy Tendency Oppression (possibly Liberation!)

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Silver Stars
Prophet of the Dragon (Masema Dagar) control, and Dragonsworn
Legion of the Wall (small military, dispersed by Masema and then reconstituted later)
Lancers (part of the Legion of the Dragon), with green armor
monarch advised by the Crown High Council
rocky, mountainous, or forested terrain
produces first-quality Alum in mines, but not a very rich nation
border problems with Children in Amadicia
destruction caused by Logain
founders Lord Kiran Almeyda, Lady Valera Prosnarin, Lord Cynric Talvaen, Lady Iona Ashmar
mostly stayed out of wars
First Captain
Jheda Palace in Jehannah
timber, gold, silver, and iron, furs

Hawkwing's Empire/Shandalle
Primary: Domination
Secondary: Diplomatic
Notes: Domination and Diplomacy both feel fitting for Hawkwing's empire. I suppose any of the others could work, as well, but these two stand out as the best options (though I can see Diplomatic being primary as well).
Obviously the name of this era is worth discussing. It doesn't appear to ever be named. However, Shandalle is the nation in which Hawkwing was born, and where he rose to power, so it could be said that it was that nation's empire that he founded.

Size: Wide (Shandalle is relatively small, but the empire is quite large)
Starting Bias None
Philosophy Tendency Authority (possibly Oppression Hawkwing's relationship with the Tower was strained)

Flavor bits:
Symbol golden hawk
Shandalle's territory present day western Cairhien
Rise to power after defeat of False Dragon Guaire Amalsan (War of the Second Dragon - defeated in Battle of Jolvaine Pass) and Black Fever epidemic
Hawkwing - speed of moving armies
Consolidation
High King
Unknown capital (possibly Shandalle) planned to build one in abandoned stedding in Caralain grass
Feud with Tar Valon and eventual Siege
Shandalle merged with Tova to form larger Province of Cairhien
Imperial Governors provinces, promoted by merit
Black Years (Years of Silent Rage) hawkwing's vengeful war against final free kingdom (Aldeshar) for allegedly killing Hawkwing's family.
Tamika, Amaline Paendrag Tagora (wives)
Luthair Paendrag Mondwin Seanchan
court system
Circuit Rovers militia
Civil Guard police forces
Failed invasion of Aiel Waste and of Shara
Jalwin Moerad (Ishamael), advisor urged him to war with Tar Valon
Death and collapse War of the Hundred Years
Justice (his sword)

Kandor
Primary: Any
Secondary: Any
Notes: Quite little is established about Kandor that sets it apart from the other Borderlander nations, so it has the same problematic relationship with Domination aims. The nation does seem to have a significant trade network, which could suggest a gold-funded Diplomatic victory.

Size: Tall (Chachin is described as large, and the country isn't particularly big)
Starting Bias Plains or Tundra or Blight (?)
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Red Horse
Borderlander
Plain of Lances (used for military exercises)
Fur trade prized fox skins
Powerful merchants wear three silver chains on chest
Throne of the Clouds
Crown Council/Council of Twelve half were always commoners
Monarch's spouse Prince Consort or Princess Consort
Chachin, The Three Mountains - capital (towers and dry moat)
Chachin - the city of the clouds
Aesdaishar Palace (All Glory) - on mountain top in Chachin
Chachim is not ogier-built
Bridge of Sunrise leads to road to Canluum
The Deeps shady areas of Canluum
Stag's Stand, hill in Canluum
Slavic or Asian-inspired names
Silverwall Keeps structures in Firchon pass between Kandor and Arafel
King's Guard
Night Watch (in Canluum)
Three halls of trade
Swordbearer carried power-wrought Sword of Kirukan, always available for ruler
touchy reputation
mass duels
gems sapphires, emeralds, rubies (especially Canluum)
clocks, timber, fur

Malkier
Primary: Any
Secondary: Any
Notes: Malkier has the same challenges as any Borderlander nation. Domination could be a good choice because of the legendary prowess of its warriors... but it was completely destroyed. Other than that, culture seems like it could be a possibility.

Size: unknown (possibly Tall)
Starting Bias Tundra or Blight (?)
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Golden Crane
Borderlander northernmost in the westlands
Hadori braided cord worn in hair
Ki'sain dot on forehead, indicating marital status (blue=unmarried, red=married, white=widowed)
Carneira first lover
Daori braid of hair, cut by Carneira
Swallowed by the Blight
Attempted coup against King al'Kir Mandragoran (last king)
Diademed Battle Lord / Dai Shan / True Blade of Malkier
Rallying the last Malkieri forces (Lan raising the Crane Banner)
Seven Towers now toppled
The Thousand Lakes (now poisonous)
Herot's Crossing site of final Malkieri stand
Open helmets with crests
Guestright
men extremely polite with women
musical instrument playing praised
poetry praised usually abstract
arranged marriages

Mayene
Primary: Diplomacy
Secondary: Any (not Domination)
Notes: The Diplomatic victory path is an obvious one because of both the City-State's wealth, as well as the legendary diplomatic prowess of its Firsts (Berelain and those before her). Either Culture or Science seem like viable second options, though there isn't clear flavor preference for one over the other.

Size: Tall (maybe one city or Venice-like)
Starting Bias Coast or Marsh or Jungle
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Golden Hawk
City-State
Constant aggression/claim from Tear
Claim of direct line through Hawkwing's Grandson (Tyrn, First Lord of Mayene)
his Dauger, Miselle, First Lady of Mayenne
Surrounded by Drowned Lands and Bay of Remara
Wealthy port on the Sea of Storms
Monopoly on oilfish shoals
Winged Guards - lancers
Lord Captain, captain, lieutenant
required military training/brief service for every young man.
First of Mayene uncanny ruler, advised and trained by Aes Sedai, and against assassination
advised by council of Seconds
Second [Lord or Lady], several at a time, replaces notion of High Seat of House
Third of Mayene lower ranking nobles (informal)
Diadem of the First
shipbuilding
no mines, but good gold- and silver-work, gem polishing
best blown glass

Murandy
Primary: Any
Secondary: Any
Notes: Murandy is difficult because we know very little of it, and most of the characterization we do see does not paint it in a good light what exactly is it good at? Wealth may inspire Diplomacy, but the ruler is frequently described as nearly powerless. Domination suffers for the same issue. Perhaps Culture and Science are the only options, due to process of elimination.

Size: unknown, perhaps Tall
Starting Bias Hills
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol The Red Bull
history of border disputes with Andor
City/Lord identification of people, rather than national
King/Queen usually control little outside of the capital (Lugard)
Lugard has flourishing trade (regardless of chaos elsewhere in country)
Lugard full of travelers more inns and stables than homes and shops [note how is that possible?] this is according to wikis - also full of thieves
Lugard dirty city, walls in disrepair
Minor role in world politics
Silver Road south to Illian
Shilene Gate eastern side
founded by Lady Katrine do Catalan a'Coralle (assassinated after less than a year)
During war of 100 years, averaged a new ruler every two years even after that, average rule was only 8 years.
No permanent military formation
some gold and silver mining, good trade in wool, fine lace
King Roedran (current king)

Saldaea
Primary: Any
Secondary: Any
Notes: Saldaea prompts the same questions as all the Borderlander civs. Most of the attention paid the nation in the books is in characterization of its people (e.g. Faile), not its lands or institutions. Also mentioned are some luxuries they export. Neither of these suggest specific Victory paths particularly strongly.

Size: Any
Starting Bias Coast, Hills or Plains or Forest or Tundra or Blight (?) avoid Desert/Jungle?
Philosophy Tendency Authority

Flavor bits:
Symbol the Silver Fish
Borderlander (westernmost, and largest)
Plain of Lances
Banikhan range ice peppers grow there, gems minded there
Rocky coast World's End no major port or good harbors
Maradon capital
Battle of Maradon (in LB, mostly destroyed)
Coramora Palace
Strong economy trade of furs, wood, and ice peppers
Saldaean women fierce strength and loyalty all Saldaeans carry at least a knife at all times
sa'sara seductive dance
war as a family affair families accompany officers
unmatched light cavalry with serpentine swords
Proska Flats
Language of Fans
Lastriders (in last battle)
largest borderlander nation
fishing actually not a major part of trade/life (despite symbol), no real ports
didn't really participate in Aiel War (some with Lan at Blood Snow)
Mazrim Taim sprang up there
spouses take each others names (e.g. Perrin t'Bashere Aybara)
Shame less a motivator here than in other borderlands
Council of Lords
timber, finished wood, fur, ice peppers, iron and steel, diamonds, silver

Shaido Aiel
Primary: Domination
Secondary: Culture (perhaps Science)
Notes: Most of the characteristics of the Aiel in general can apply to the Shaido. If we decide to include the Shaido as a specific civ, though, we are doing so in obvious representation of the Shaido of the very late Third Age. So the sneakiness and warmongering nature make something like Diplomacy a non-option. Culture seems like the likely secondary aim, if only due to process of elimination.

Size: Wide
Starting Bias Desert
Philosophy Tendency Liberation

Flavor bits:
Symbol (unknown)
Most traits associated with Aiel in general (see above)
Sneaky representation
Violations of Ji'e'toh taking wetlanders as Gai'shan
Couladin falsely marked Car'a'carn and illegitimate Clan Chief
The Brotherless and the Bleakness
Shaido War
Nar'baha (Traveling Boxes) gifted to Sevanna by Sammael - allows them to spread throughout Westlands
Septs Domai, Green Salts, Jonine, Jumai, Morai, Moshaine, White Cliff
after Couladin's death no chief, as nobody was permitted in rhuidean (thus, Sevannah)

Shara
Primary: Any (not Diplomatic)
Secondary: Any (not Diplomatic)
Notes: Shara is interesting because everything we know about it comes from interactions very late in the third age either in aMoL or in River of Souls. Domination could be a possible path, due to the presumed power of the country, but they are typically isolationists by design, which is somewhat contradictory to that aim. Culture and Science could be fine options. Diplomatic seems unlikely due to their lack of interaction with any other civilizations (I suppose the same could be true about Culture).

Size: Any (likely Wide)
Starting Bias None
Philosophy Tendency Liberation (possibly Oppression!)

Flavor bits:
Symbol (unknown)
Various names for the Land Shamara, Co'dansin, Tomaka, Kigali, Shibouya
Morenal Ocean
Cliffs of the Dawn and Great Rift separate it from the Aiel Waste
Shara Pass
Six trade posts on the Cliffs permit trade with Aiel and gleemen/peddlers from westlands residents are always veiled renowned liars
mountainous southern coast five known ports, open to traders
Immense walls block entry into Shara proper even extending across harbors
Claim of one government (with no political upheaval) since Breaking deny Trolloc Wars
Hawkwing's failed invasion of Shara with 300,000 troops (same as size he sent to Seanchan) Sharans deny it it ever happened
slaves viewed as animals
Rumors of anarchy and chaos in Shara before LB
Prophesies of The Wyld freeing the slaves, Dragon will destroy them, etc.
Bao the Wyld Demandred
The River of Souls (Angarai'la) stream flowing through valley (Abyrward). Trees with Silkworms
The Hearttomb (Rai'lair) cave, source of River of Souls. A Nym (and a jumara!) is in there protecting Sakamen/Djedt (Scepter sa'angreal)
Sh'boan (female) and Sh'botay (male) monarchs rule for 7 years, then die and their consort takes power (the Will of the Pattern, but actually likely the ayyad kill them)
Graendal's capture of Sh'boan Chiape and Sh'botay Shaofan creates power vacuum enables Demandred's rise to power
Ayyad secluded channelers, potentially the true power in Shara.
Male Ayyad kept only to breed later become the Freed
Slavery
Tattoos the more you have, the less authority you have
silk, ivory

Tuatha'an
Primary: Cultural/Diplomatic
Secondary: Diplomatic/Cultural
Notes: The most important consideration is that the Tuatha'an should absolutely not be steered towards a Domination Victory. Science could be possible, but their nomadic nature makes that seem unlikely. Cultural Victories seem the most in-tune with their flavor, but I can imagine an economically-driven Diplomatic Victory as well.

Size: Wide
Starting Bias: None
Philosophy Tendency Authority (possibly Liberation)

Flavor bits:
Symbol (unknown)
Tinkers/Traveling People/ The Lost
Way of the Leaf Pacifism
Descendants of Jenn Aiel (and the Da'shain Aiel before them, servants of Aes Sedai)
Can pass through Aiel waste
The Song searching for for centuries
Nomadic nature often characterized as thieves by others, or for trying to convert children
Wagons
Pottery
Tiganza sensual dance
Shared origins cause the Bleakness in the Aiel
Mahdi (aka Seeker)

(note, again, that civs from category 3 are not covered in detail here. They can be, if it is desired, on a case-by-case basis)

3 CIV CHARACTERISTICS: GENERAL

A INTRODUCTION

In order to help us find the appropriate balance in our civilization selection, it may be worth taking a look at the civs in BNW and seeing the spread that exists in the base game. We can of course choose to go in a different direction than BNW, but for the purposes of this discussion I'm treating BNW as good from a design perspective, or at least neutral.

As this first section covers the selection of civilizations, I'll be starting with the following reference materials:

a very rough outline of the Victory Conditions linked to each civ
the start biases of each civ

We can choose to follow or abandon the model set by BNW, but if we do so, we should do so knowingly.

I originally wanted to also include a reference list of Preferred Ideologies of BNW, to see if these were spread evenly between the three ideologies (which I suspect is true), so as to allow for a discussion as to whether we should strive for the same with philosophies (which would likely involve some lore-fudging, as Authority is likely to be the most common). However, I couldn't find an easy list, and I didn't want to have to click through every civ's wiki page only to see that two of them were 14 civs and one was 15, or some other unglamorous result. If you have this information, please share it. Otherwise, we can determine the importance of this issue without consulting BNW.

Later, after the introductory questions on Uniques, I will compile a similar reference list of each civ's uniques, and compare them in various ways.

In these sections, the Big Questions will be mostly worked into the prose (though at the end of each section), rather than as stand-alone questions.

B - VICTORY CONDITIONS

The following is totally subjective. Not being an expert on CiV strategy (and having not played all the civs yet), I have stolen these assessments from Zigzagzigal's excellent guides on the Steam Community forums (for example: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=326390646 ). In the guides, Zigzagzigal scores each VC for a civ on a scale from 1-10. Zigzagzigal doesn't specifically call out primary and secondary VCs for the purposes of this list, I'll be listing a civ's top VC only, unless Zigzagzigal marks their best as a tie, at which point I will put both (thus the final tally will include more than 43 total VCs). My oversimplification of Zigzagzigal's ratings is obviously an imperfect system. Apologies in advance to her/him.

These are of course subjective, but I have found these guides to be pretty smartly written, so I would say, at the very least, they are a useful jumping off point for our discussion.

Credit is of course due to Zigzagzigal.

America Domination
Arabia Diplomatic/Domination
Assyria Domination
Austria Domination
Aztecs Domination/Scientific
Babylon Scientific
Brazil Cultural
Byzantium Cultural/Domination
Carthage Diplomatic/Domination
Celts Cultural
China Domination
Denmark Domination
Egypt Cultural
England Domination
Ethiopia Cultural/Scientific
France Cultural
Germany Domination
Greece Diplomatic
Huns Domination
Inca Scientific
India Cultural
Indonesia Diplomatic/Domination
Iroquois Domination
Japan Domination
Korea Scientific
Mayans Scientific
Mongolia Domination
Morocco Diplomatic
Netherlands Diplomatic
Ottomans Domination
Persia Domination
Poland Domination
Polynesia Cultural
Portugal Diplomatic
Rome Domination
Russia Domination
Shoshone Domination
Siam Scientific
Songhai Domination
Spain Cultural/Domination
Sweden Diplomatic
Venice Diplomatic
Zulus Domination

Final Counts:
Domination 26
Diplomatic 8
Scientific 7
Scientific 8

The abundance of Domination, when counted out, is staggering. This is interesting because of the aforementioned bias in the books towards showing us a lot of military might that had left me inclined towards putting forth a large number of Domination-oriented civ designs above.

It's also interesting to note that the other three VCs are very close to balanced in terms of their spread throughout the civs. There are several possible reasons for this dominance of domination (and in fact, it's likely that many of these are at work):

This may be simply an intrinsic part of the Unique system. Because every civ has at least one UU, that means (in most cases, at least), every civ has a window of opportunity to gain a military advantage and steer themselves towards a domination victory. If this is true, then it's highly possible that many of those listed above were not designed as domination civs necessarily, but that those civs having one or two UUs turns them into such.
It may be a conscious decision on Firaxis' part to make Domination Victories the most common.
My oversimplification of Zigzagzigal's ratings may have biased these results towards domination victories
Zigzagzigal's ratings themselves may be skewed more towards domination victories, whether due to subjectivity, or simply that the Domination Victory is in many ways objectively simpler than some others (and thus tends to score higher in the ratings).

So, if we choose to model ourselves after BNW's ratio, we should ask ourselves: Do we want Domination to be the most common primary VC, or should we design our civs with true balance in mind, and be ok with some overflow that may occur into Domination?

In any case, balance between the other three conditions does seem to be a stable part of BNW. Should we preserve that?

Ultimately, how many of each victory specialization should exist in the mod?

C - START BIASES

In looking at the civs in BNW, an array of Starting Biases can be found with the 43 civs. We could choose to model our civs after this ratio, or ignore it.

American none
Arabian desert
Assyrian desert
Austrian hills
Aztec jungle
Babylonian avoid tundra
Brazilian jungle
Byzantine coast
Carthaginian coast
Celtic forest
Chinese none
Danish coast
Duth grassland
Egyptian none
English coast
Ethiopian none
French none
German none
Greek coast
Hunnic none
Incan hills
Indian grassland
Indonesian coast
Iroquois forest
Japanese coast
Korean coast
Mayan none
Mongolian plains
Moroccan desert
Ottoman coast
Persian none
Polish plains
Polynesian coast
Portuguese coast
Roman none
Russian tundra
Shoshone none
Siamese none
Songhai none
Spanish coast
Swedish tundra
Venetian coast
Zulu avoid jungle

Final counts:
none 13 (30%)
desert 3 (7%)
hills 2 (5%)
jungle 2 (5%)
avoid tundra 1 (2%)
coast 13 (30%)
forest 2 (5%)
grassland 2 (5%)
plains 2 (5%)
tundra 2 (5%)
avoid jungle 1 (2%)

Obviously the main thing to note here is that none and coast are by far the most common. Most of the others occur in 2 civs, with desert being a curious exception, as well as the 2 avoid ones.

Probably, we should roughly maintain this ratio so start locations fit on most maps well, at least as well as they do in BNW. Of course, if we do that, we'd have to make sure each civ's uniques actually support that Bias.

Mathematically, it's not possible for us to have 2% of our civs be avoid jungle if we only have 14 civs, so the ratios above will be impossible. Still, it does seem to make somewhat of a case for around 20 civs, so that we can have 1 of each bias type which hopefully won't require much fudging of the lore and 6 of both none and coast, preserving the ratios of BNW.

I should state that I don't necessarily grasp the mechanical implications of Starting Biases, beyond the obvious sense. Also, I don't quite understand the significance of the avoid biases e.g., what makes avoid tundra worth choosing over near X instead (and why that would be more suitable for babylon, for instance, than a near desert or rivers or plains start bias). I also have no idea what happens to Starting Biases in weird map types (e.g. no coast, no desert, etc.)

Can we combine/stack them (e.g., start near coast and plains)? Is this a bad idea? This would obviously affect the ratios above.

Also, can we/should we be adding our own (e.g. near blight, rivers, and marsh)? Again, would affect the ratios above.

I should mention that I don't think it's a good idea to solidly decide on Starting Biases until we've at least partial determined Uniques (a coastal bias would likely depend on a ship UU or a coastal-UA). However, in the first stage of this process, this data will be helpful if we want to use starting biases to help us balance/determine which civs make the cut.

So, in general, how many of each starting bias should we have?

counterpoint · Mar 27, 2016

4 CIV CHARACTERISTICS: UNIQUES

Once we've decided the civs that we would like to use, we need to consider their Uniques. It seems to me that a rough outline of all the civs we plan to include (at launch or short-term expansion) is prudent before we dive into the specifics of each civ. At the very least, a cursory exploration of potential uniques could inform which civs make the cut.

Note that civ aspects that aren't directly related to mechanics and are solely about flavor (e.g., the Leader of each civ), are not covered here, and should be introduced when we get specific on each civ.

A UNIQUE ABILITIES

What Unique Abilities should be associated with each civ?

This is not really a question that can be discussed briefly. The best bet is probably to outline a few possible UA's that fit the Victory Conditions described above at the same time that we outline some potential UU's, UB's, and/or UI's. From there, a UA can be selected, when weighed with all the other Uniques of a civ. As some UA's are quite powerful, and others are secondary to a civ's other Uniques, a UA must be selected in relation to the other civ's Uniques. This is not necessarily the case with UU's, UB's, and UI's, which, being typically linked to numbers, can be tweaked (unlike, say, the Byzantine UA which is not easily tweakable).

A related topic is how well a civ's uniques should synergize. Some are very clearly designed with the civ's other uniques in mind (siege towers [UU] fuel your theft of technologies [UA] as Assyria, etc.), while some seem to be very separate in their conception (e.g. the Byzantine uniques). Should we be case-by-case about this, as Firaxis apparently was, or be consistent?

I ask about UA's first, but it's quite possible that this is the last thing we should settle. For reference purposes, a very rough (and subjective) abstraction of the goals of the UA's from BNW are below:

American exploration, expansion
Arabian trade (not necessarily just gold), religion, strategic
Assyrian science
Austrian expansion
Aztec culture
Babylon science
Brazilian culture, tourism
Byzantine religion
Carthaginian gold, exploration
Celtic faith
Chinese war
Danish exploration, war
Dutch happiness
Egyptian wonders
English exploration, espionage
Ethiopian defense
French tourism, culture
German gold, war
Greek influence
Hunnic war, production
Incan defense, gold
Indian growth
Indonesian happiness
Iroquois war, trade
Japanese war, culture
Korean science
Mayan great people
Mongolian war
Moroccan gold, culture
Ottoman war, gold
Persian golden ages, war
Polish social policies
Polynesian exploration, defense
Portuguese gold
Roman production
Russian production, strategic
Shoshone expansion, defense
Siamese growth, culture, faith
Songhai gold, war
Spanish natural wonder yields
Swedish influence
Venetian trade, expansion (sort of)
Zulu gold, war

counts:
culture 6 (14%)
defense 2 (5%)
gold 8 (19%)
espionage 1 (2%)
expansion 4 (9%)
exploration 5 (12%)
faith 2 (5%)
golden ages 1 (2%)
great people 1 (2%)
growth 2 (5%)
happiness 2 (5%)
influence 2 (5%)
national wonder yields 1 (2%)
production 3 (7%)
religion 2 (5%)
science 3 (7%)
social policies 1 (2%)
strategic 2 (5%)
tourism 2 (5%)
trade 3 (7%)
war 11 (26%)
wonders 1 (2%)

The above catalog of data may not be particularly useful certainly, it is very rough and highly subjective (the distinction between defense and war is subject to much debate, for example). Additionally, the percentages described above add up to much more than 100%, as many UA's included more than one feature. Thus, numerically this data is highly suspect, since not all UA components are created equal.

That said, it is worth noting the rather large amount of UA components (if not entire UA's) are dedicated to combat. Gold came in second, with most others being far more rare.

It certainly doesn't seem to me that we should seek to reproduce this kind of distribution in the mod, however, it might be worth keeping such in mind, as significant deviation from this could have some unusual (potentially negative) consequences a single game with 6 civs all with CS-influence-related UA's would likely be pretty lame (more so than a game with several battle-ready civs). Or worse, yet a game full of religion-UA'd civs (not faith, actual religion), more than the max number of religions per game!

B UNIQUES: OVERALL NUMBER

How many Uniques of each type should we select?

Many cycles of the moon ago, S3rgeus stated that he was planning on using two UU's and one UB for each civ. I don't have a problem with that, but it's worth discussing here, as are all of our early-development-cycle decisions.

Would having two UU's (i.e., one more than in CiV) cause there to be more of a focus on combat and/or domination than in the game? The civs with two UU's in BNW are relatively rare, and typically combat-oriented civs.

Is there flexibility in this? Will some combat-heavy civs have 3 UU's? Will some have 2 UB's and 1 UU?

C UNIQUE IMPROVEMENTS

What about Unique Improvements?

S3rgeus's early suggestions don't (as far as I recall) include Unique Improvements? While they are relatively rare in CiV, it is worth considering including them in the mod.

If we do include them, how many should there be? Should it mirror the ratio of their inclusion in BNW?

If we do include them, what Unique should they replace? Replacing one of the UU's would give a civ one of each Unique type. Replacing the UB (which appears to be what occurs in CiV) would give a civ two UU's and no UB.

What flavor exists in the books to suggest UI's? It seems like a few civs (Ghealdan, Aiel, etc.) might have flavor that would suggest such. In some cases, a UB concept can be tweaked to become a UI (the Kasbah is a good example of this in BNW). But the opposite is also true if we find flavor that suggests a UI, it could probably be adapted into a UB.

D NEW MECHANICS

Should the Uniques all be normal uniques, or should some of theme embody new or unusual mechanics in the game? For example, we've discussed the possibility of the Freed (UU Male Channeler for Shara), the Daughters of Silence (UU Wilder for Altara, possibly), the Wise Ones (UU Wilder for the Aiel), the Damane (UU... something of Seanchan) and the Windfinder (UU... something of Sea Folk), so clearly we will have UU channeling units. Also, the Khan (Mongolia) and the Merchant of Venice (Venice) are precedent for UU GP's. To what extent should we employ these? Some possibilities:

UU Aes Sedai units (i.e., not regular channelers)
UU governors (bizarre, I know)
UU Heralds, Truthspeakers, or Questioners (conceivably linked to Amadicia, Ghealdan, Seanchan, etc.)
UU Workers, Historians or other civilians
UU Eyes and Ears (e.g. Seanchan Listeners) or Bloodknives
UU GP's (especially new ones like Wolfbrothers)
UU trade units
UU shadowspawn
UB Faith buildings (i.e. buildings bought with faith via Customs)

E ERA DISTRIBUTIONS

Given the modern-heavy leaning of most of the civs of the books (i.e., late-third age), how should we distribute the UU's of the game? How much fudging of flavor should we do to accomplish a relatively even distribution?

Or, alternately, should we embrace the late-game-ness of this and have most of the UU's occur during the late game (I'm guessing no)?

On a related note, for those civs with multiple Uniques (which may be all of them), should those UU's occupy close or the same era? There doesn't appear to be a consistency in this in BNW (e.g., the American UU's are Renaissance and Atomic), and appear to be based primarily on flavor (in this case, those two eras are eras that were home to important phases of US history). However, basing it more-or-less on flavor (as seems to be mostly the case in BNW, though the mesoamerican UU's like the Incan Slinger are an exception) would lead to us having the aforementioned modern bias in our mod. Should we let mechanical balance trump flavor, unlike in CiV?

(this question is valid for any civs we create that have more than one UB)

F UNIQUES IN BNW

Below is a compilation of the UU's in BNW for reference purposes. These have been abstracted so as to give us a more useful spread of what exactly each unit is. This way we can see not only how many of each unit type exist, but in what eras they all appear.

Unique Abilities, being much more abstract in nature, are not covered here. That, of course, is a severe limitation to this chart, as some civs have somewhat underpowered UU's because of their powerful UA's (the opposite is also true).

Note that these categorizes may be oversimplified. The Keshik, for instance, is listed as mounted, though, of course, it is also ranged. Similarly, a faith building (e.g. the Burial tomb) may actual provide culture, etc.

Note that types like Gun are unlikely to occur in our mod (perhaps in the late-game, though we are unlikely to actually make it mechanically different from Melee or Ranged units). These should be considered melee units for the purpose of this overview. Spear units are not separated from other melee units, though they are obviously somewhat different from a balance perspective.

Also note that I have decided to categorize them by eras (eg. Era 2) rather than by the unit they replace (e.g. Melee 2), because finding that specific info would have required way more clicking than I wanted. Luckily, in the vast majority (all but era 1, perhaps?) of cases, there is only one unit of each type per era, so this shouldn't be problematic.

Lastly, note that pre-BNW uniques (e.g. French foreign legion) are not considered here)

Eras are abstracted into numbers
Ancient (1), Classical (2), Medieval (3), Renaissance (4), Industrial (5), Modern (6), Atomic (7), Information (8)

CIV NAME UU's (era) UB's (era) UI's (era) [span between eras]

American Gun (4) Bomber (7) 0 0 [3]
Arabian mounted (3) 0 gold (2) 0 [1]
Assyrian siege (2) 0 science (1) 0 [1]
Austrian mounted (5) 0 production (4) 0 [1]
Aztec melee (1) 0 production (1) 0 [0]
Babylon ranged (1) 0 defensive (1) 0 [0]
Brazilian gun (6) 0 0 jungle culture (3) [3]
Byzantine mounted (2) naval ranged (1) 0 0 [1]
Carthaginian mounted (2) naval melee (1) 0 0 [1]
Celtic melee (1) 0 culture (4) 0 [3]
Chinese ranged (3) 0 science (1) 0 [2]
Danish melee (3) gun (5) 0 0 [2]
Dutch naval melee (4) 0 0 marsh/flood plains food/gold (3) [1]
Egyptian mounted (1) 0 faith (2) 0 [1]
English ranged (3) naval ranged (4) 0 0 [1]
Ethiopian Gun (5) 0 culture (1) 0 [4]
French gun (4) 0 0 luxury gold/culture (3) [1]
German armor (7) 0 gold (4) 0 [3]
Greek mounted (2) melee (1) 0 0 [1]
Hunnic mounted (1) melee (1) 0 0 [0]
Incan ranged (1) 0 0 hills food (2) [0]
Indian mounted (1) 0 defensive (3) 0 [2]
Indonesian melee (2) 0 GP rate (3) 0 [1]
Iroquois melee (2) 0 production (3) 0 [1]
Japanese melee (3) fighter (7) 0 0 [4]
Korean naval melee (4) siege (3) 0 0 [1]
Mayan ranged (1) 0 faith (1) 0 [0]
Mongolian mounted (3) great general (1 all eras) 0 0 [2 or N/A]
Moroccan mounted (5) 0 0 desert food/gold/production (3) [2]
Ottoman gun (4) mounted (4) 0 0 [0]
Persian melee (1) 0 gold (4) 0 [3]
Polish mounted (4) 0 production (3) 0 [1]
Polynesian melee (1) 0 0 coastal land culture (2) [1]
Portuguese naval melee (4) 0 0 CS territory luxuries (4) [0]
Roman siege (2) melee (2) 0 0 [0]
Russian mounted (5) 0 XP (1) 0 [4]
Shoshone recon (1) mounted (5) 0 0 [4]
Siamese mounted (4) 0 science (3) 0 [1]
Songhai mounted (3) 0 faith (2) 0 [1]
Spanish melee (4) mounted (3) 0 0 [1]
Swedish mounted (4) gun (5) 0 0 [1]
Venetian Great Merchant (1, all eras) naval ranged (3) 0 0 [2 or N/A]
Zulu melee (3) 0 XP (1) 0 [2]

count of spans between eras for uniques:
0 eras: 8 18%
1 era: 19 44%
2 eras: 5 (7 including the N/A GP ones) 12% or 16%
3 eras: 5 12%
4 eras: 4 9%

BREAKDOWN BY ERA

Ancient (1) 15 UU (3 ranged, 0 armor, 0 bomber, 0 fighter, 0 gun, 6 melee, 3 mounted, 1 naval melee, 1 naval ranged, 1 recon, 0 siege), 8 UB (1 cult, 1 def, 1 faith, 0 gold, 0 GP rate, 1 prod, 2 sci, 2 XP), 0 UI = 23 Uniques
Classical (2) 8 UU (0 ranged, 0 armor, 0 bomber, 0 fighter, 0 gun, 3 melee, 3 mounted, 0 naval melee, 0 naval ranged, 0 recon, 2 siege), 3 UB (0 cult, 0 def, 2 faith, 1 gold, 0 GP rate, 0 prod, 0 sci, 0 XP), 2 UI (1 coastal culture, hill food) = 13 Uniques
Medieval (3) 11 UU (2 ranged, 0 armor, 0 bomber, 0 fighter, 0 gun, 3 melee, 4 mounted, 0 naval melee, 1 naval ranged, 0 recon, 1 siege), 8 UB (0 cult, 1 def, 2 faith, 1 gold, 1 GP rate, 3 prod, 0 sci, 0 XP), 4 UI (1 desert food/gold/prod, 1 jungle culture, 1 luxury gold/cult, 1 marsh food/gold) = 23 Uniques
Renaissance (4) 12 UU (0 ranged, 0 armor, 0 bomber, 0 fighter, 3 gun, 1 melee, 4 mounted, 3 naval melee, 1 naval ranged, 0 recon, 0 siege), 4 UB (1 cult, 0 def, 0 faith, 2 gold, 0 GP rate, 1 prod, 0 sci, 0 XP), 1 UI (1 CS Luxury) = 17 Uniques
Industrial (5) 7 UU (0 ranged, 0 armor, 0 bomber, 0 fighter, 3 gun, 0 melee, 4 mounted, 0 naval melee, 0 naval ranged, 0 recon, 0 siege), 0 UB (0 cult, 0 def, 0 faith, 0 gold, 0 GP rate, 0 prod, 0 sci, 0 XP), 0 UI = 7 Uniques
Modern (6) 1 UU (0 ranged, 0 armor, 0 bomber, 0 fighter, 1 gun, 0 melee, 0 mounted, 0 naval melee, 0 naval ranged, 0 recon, 0 siege), 0 UB (0 cult, 0 def, 0 faith, 0 gold, 0 GP rate, 0 prod, 0 sci, 0 XP), 0 UI = 1 Unique
Atomic (7) 3 UU (0 ranged, 1 armor, 1 bomber, 1 fighter, 0 gun, 0 melee, 0 mounted, 0 naval melee, 0 naval ranged, 0 recon, 0 siege), 0 UB (0 cult, 0 def, 0 faith, 0 gold, 0 GP rate, 0 prod, 0 sci, 0 XP), 0 UI = 3 Uniques
Information (8) 0 UU (0 ranged, 0 armor, 0 bomber, 0 fighter, 0 gun, 0 melee, 0 mounted, 0 naval melee, 0 naval ranged, 0 recon, 0 siege), 0 UB (0 cult, 0 def, 0 faith, 0 gold, 0 GP rate, 0 prod, 0 sci, 0 XP), 0 UI = 0 Uniques
All eras 2 GP

BREAKDOWN BY TYPE

Type era 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

UU 15, 8, 11, 12, 7, 1, 3, 0 = 57
ranged 3, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 5
armor 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 = 1
bomber 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 = 1
fighter 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 = 1
gun 0, 0, 0, 3, 3, 1, 0, 0 = 7
melee 6, 3, 3, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 13
mounted 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 0, 0, 0 = 18
naval melee 1, 0, 0, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 5
naval ranged 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 3
recon 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 1
siege 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 3
GP 2 all eras

UB 8, 3, 8, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 23
culture 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 2
defensive 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 2
faith 1, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 5
gold 0, 1, 1, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 4
GP rate 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 1
production 1, 0, 3, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 5
science 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 2
XP 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 2

UI 0, 2, 4, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0 = 7

Total Uniques 23, 13, 23, 17, 7, 1, 3, 0 (plus 2 all era) = 89

Things to Note:

This is obviously not an even distribution of Uniques, whether considered by type or by era. The degree to which we will preserve that is something we have to consider, but in any case it seems worthy of note. The mean era (and median era) of the UU's is 3 (Medieval), with the mode being 1 (Ancient).

Of the UU's, melee and mounted units are the most common, but appear in very different ways throughout the game, with the melee units clustering towards the beginning, and the mounted units clustering in the middle. This is true even if we group like-unit types (melee with gun, mounted with armor), though less so. This clustering, with these types and with others, likely is at least in part due to idiosyncrasies of the tech tree the arrival of the caravel in the Renaissance, an important and era-defining unit, is likely responsible for the clustering of naval melee UU's in that era.

On the other hand, there are important, era-defining units that are mostly ignored as UU's, which I found surprising. Ranged units are particularly rare, as are siege there is no UU artillery, despite that unit's significance (a UU of that unit would potentially be far too powerful). Whether we preserve this or not is certainly open for debate, but it appears to be consciously done that way by Firaxis.

Concerning UU's in general across eras, it is worthy of note that the late game is essentially completely devoid of UU's (or uniques in general). Things slow down in the Industrial era, and then completely drop off in the Modern. This is particularly significant in our mod because those eras correspond to the New Era in the lore. Strictly speaking, all the events of the book are within era 8 (Era of the Dragon), which has zero uniques in BNW. Viewed liberally, many of the potential UU's shown in the books were likely first created in the preceding few eras, but there is a limit to how far back we can push such things many of the nations of the books did not exist in the equivalent to the Renaissance or even Industrial eras. This is something we'll have to consider very carefully. While we should feel free to stretch the flavor within limits, we probably should strive not to break it. It should be noted that this kind of pushing back does occur in BNW for instance, the mesoamerican civs tend to have early-game Uniques, even though those civs didn't exist that early in Earth's history. Still, they are the exception, rather than the rule.

On the other hand, if we chiefly follow the flavor, we will end up with a game with a bunch of mid-late and late-game UU's, which will likely drastically alter the way a game of CiV works (especially domination runs) a problem amplified if we decide to go with 2 UU's per civ.

Most civs have a relatively small span between their uniques, with a significant plurality being separated by one era. A few civs are as separate as four eras.

Of course, the existence of both fighter and bomber UU's should be considered within the context of our comination of those units into one unit type.

So what should our spread of UU's be, across eras? Across unit types?

Regarding the UB's, the most significant thing of note is that there are zero UB's originating after the Renaissance (clustering mostly in the Medieval). Mean/Median = 2 (Classical), mode = 1 and 3. This makes sense, as it gives the UB's plenty of time to pay off and also, the UB's tend to be based on simple versions of a building (e.g. the barracks, not the military academy), which all occur early in the game. In BNW, the late-game civs (e.g. America) simply don't have UB's.

This is, of course, highly problematic for our flavor, when you consider that most of our civs are late game again, in multiple cases not even existing during era 4. How should we handle this?

As far as the UB's themselves, they are mostly an even distribution, though faith-, gold-, and production-related UB's are the most common. Interestingly, the science- and experience-related UB's only exist in the Ancient era. Both of these aspects are worthy of consideration.

So, should our spread of UB's by type and era be similar to BNW? If not, what should it look like?

The UI's are mostly unsurprising, in that they, like the UB's, only exist in the early-mid parts of the game, likely to allow their benefits to pay off over time (mean = late era 2, median = 2, mode = 3). The implications of this are the same as those described above. Worthy of note is that there is no duplication of terrain type for the UI's (though there is some duplication of the yields they produce), which probably contributes to their overall small number. This is a feature that can most likely be preserved in the mod. Should we do things this way in the mod (assuming we have UI's at all)?

When considering the Uniques as a whole, they are obviously clustered in the early game: mean = late era 2, median = 2, mode = 1 and 3. As far as the ratio between UU's, UB's, and UI's in BNW, it is actually surprisingly similar to what we'd be creating with a 2 UU-1 UB-0 UI distribution for every civ: 64% are UU's, 26% are UB's, and 8% are UI's. The 2-2-0 method of course creates 66%/33%/0%, which is quite similar the UI's could be thus said to be stolen from the UB pool. Of course, my thoughts above that 2 UU's per civ would create a more combat-heavy game isn't quite true there's be many more UU's (and UB's) than in BNW, but the overall ratio would remain unchanged, excluding UI's.

S3rgeus · Mar 28, 2016

counterpoint said:
None of the "issues" labelled below necessarily warrant "fixing." Just putting them here so we can give them proper consideration.

Sounds like a good plan. I'll comment on some specifics below, and generally I agree that it doesn't look like we need to tweak anything based on this stuff.

counterpoint said:
Era 1
style: "general", broad topics. pretty consistent
issues: none. seems solid. This was pretty well-hashed early on in this discussion

Awesome, sounds good!

counterpoint said:
Era 2
style: mostly actual "discoveries", though most are still relatively general. Only "ritual" and "duty" remain highly abstract. Slate Roofing stands out as the most specifically "techy." This has been previously discussed.
issues: none

Slate Roofing represent!

counterpoint said:
Era 3
style: a mix of abstract stuff (heritage, tutelage, weather sense) and more specific stuff (gearworks), mostly including the former. The balance isn't quite as... balanced as the era previous, though it's not entirely terrible.
issues: Weather Sense has been labeled as suspect previously. Heritage, heroism and Tutelage, while likely suitable, are highly abstract in a way that fits the early eras a little better (they aren't very "techy"). I don't have a proposed solution, or necessarily think we need one.
The prereq line from Weaves to both tutelage and hierarchy is flavorfully weak. As is slate roofing to siegecraft.

I think Weather Sense is one we'll replace if we (or a player) come up with better flavor later, because it was one neither of us were particularly keen on.

I see what you mean re Weaves. It can sort of make sense - teaching about weaves tying into the flavor of tutoring people, and the strength of weaves leading to a hierarchy of people. The flavor of Tutelage and Hierarchy are broader than that, obviously, but there are at least some tenuous flavor links.

I think Slate Roofing into Siegecraft works ok, at least it isn't much different from a lot of the others. Learning how to build solid roofs leads to learning how to tear your enemy's down, etc.

counterpoint said:
Era 4
style: mostly highly specific "techs," with the only exception being "profession." Feels appropriate for this stage in the game.
issues: this was also very hashed out earlier. Snakes and Foxes is good flavor, but isn't particularly "techy" (since it's a game...), and its prereqs aren't obvious. The New Tongue's prereq into wards is somewhat weak.

I see what you mean about Snakes & Foxes, but I would say that it is still something that someone "invents", which gives it more of a pass.

I see what you mean about New Tongue into Wards.

counterpoint said:
Era 5
style: this maintains the specificity of the previous era, with the exception being "invention." Feels like a suitable "sequel" to the previous era.
issues:sailcloth and s&f don't feel particularly appropriate as prereqs for Bookbinding. s&f into treatises is also odd. chan circles and tactics into allows has been previously mentioned as odd, and is.

Sailcloth into Bookbinding seems ok - refinements in that kind of material manufacturing could have implications across books and sails. S&F not as direct, beyond rulebooks for the game.

S&F into Treatises makes more sense if you think about S&F as touching on the Finn flavor, who are all about knowledge and questioning.

counterpoint said:
Era 6
style: this ones a mix, with a few abstract (shared bloodlines, which isn't very "Techy", and infrastructure, which is), and the rest specific (with rule of medians being very, very specific, beyond even Slate Roofing). Mostly holds together.
issues: "Rule of Medians" is obscure flavor, but likely worth it - hopefully people don't think it means rule *by* medians (you know, fortune tellers). Exchange rates into RoM isn't particularly clear (though, we don't know what RoM actually *is*). High chant amd Shared Blood into lenses is very much random and seems somewhat ill fitting, if necessary. Fireworks into Skimming is somewhat silly.

Aren't fortune tellers "mediums"? I don't think people will get that confused.

If the Rule of Medians is mathematical (which would make sense for a logical paradigm) then the relationship to Exchange Rates makes sense.

Agreed on the others.

counterpoint said:
era 7
style: mostly specific, though of few of them "feel" abstract (F and Void and Law of War), even if they aren't actually. Rediscovery is quite abstract, in a way that sticks out a little bit this late in the tree (in that rediscovery as a concept is likely to have been already "discovered" by now).
issues: keeping into FatV is unclear. The rest seem fine.

Agreed re Keeping.

I'd say Rediscovery's flavor is more about rediscovering the specific AoL stuff that it unlocks, rather than the general concept of rediscovering any concept that has been lost in general.

counterpoint said:
Era 8
style: all are pretty specific discoveries that seem appropriately late-game. Telescopes being the only semi-contradiction (with Lenses), as has been discussed.
Issues: Flame and Void into Sextant is weird. The rest seem suitable.

You could concentrate better from the Void.... nah, I got nothing. Agreed.

counterpoint said:
Era 9
style: all are quite specific, with the obvious exception of A Beginning.
Issues: Inverted Weaves is slightly problematic this late, as it was rediscovered in the middle of the series. It's somewhat worth considering simply flipping its flavor with Power-Wrought Weapons, and mostly leaving its unlocks in place, since P-W W were discovered very late in the game. The unlocks *mostly* still work this way. Of course, this doesn't have to be done - it depends on how much a problem the timing of Inverted Weaves seems.
Professional Navy doesn't lead particularly well into any of its subsequent techs. the rest seem fine.

I don't think the unlocks really work if we swap that flavor around. Traveler2 on Power-Wrought Weapons could work if we made sure to align the flavor of the unit with it, but the other three upgrades work better on Inverted Weaves. The innovation and non-channeler units (particularly an anti-channeler unit) work better on Power-Wrought Weapons than Inverted Weaves - the former provides an avenue for making non-channelers stronger, but the latter doesn't really. I see what you mean about them being out of order, but I think given the mechanical considerations and how close together the tree is (time wise) by this point, I think it's ok.

counterpoint said:
OK, so, in general, I'd say I'm pretty happy with it. It's not perfect, but I think if I viewed BNW in this manner, I'd feel the same. Basically, I don't see anything above that needs to be addressed, really, with the last bit about Inverted Weaves maybe been the only one that gives me some pause.

Sounds good!

counterpoint said:
good work!

Thanks, and you too!

counterpoint said:
What follows is a big Framing Post for our next topic. Feel free to respond to this stuff (on the tech tree) well in advance of dealing with all of that. I'll be doing some proofreading if I get a chance over the next several days.

Epic framing post! Awesome, thank you for putting all of this together! I've read through it all and in broad strokes I feel like we're starting at a good place and I think this approach is a pretty good one. And I agree on a lot of the ideas in it! I'll work through my detailed responses in the next few days.

S3rgeus · Mar 29, 2016

counterpoint said:
CIVILIZATIONS AND UNIQUES FRAMING POST

Awesome!

Having read through all of this, I'll start with thank you! This is a ton of great stuff and, as I said last time, a good foundation for us to work out all of the civs and uniques.

As usual, I'll go through with detailed responses to stuff below, but it may take me a while to get to the end! I even broke up the reading into two sessions!

I'm going to write my replies in order (which is quite unusual by now - I usually jump all over the place, writing separate quote blocks in the "easiest first" order), so that when I run out of time for a session, I can post what I've got at the time.

Anything that I skip over while quoting, then I already agree with what it entails or feel that the same topic comes up again later where we can cover it in more relevant detail there. (Basically, if I figure I'd end up writing the same thing in two places.)

So, here we go!

counterpoint said:
1 – CIVILIZATION OPTIONS – OVERVIEW

A – NUMBER OF FIRST LAUNCH CIVS

How many will be present at “launch” and how many will be added later?

We'll call these First Launch Civs (FLC). S3rgeus has indicated that 14 seems to be a a good target for “launch” (quotes because, as previously discussed, this mod will likely have more of a “roll out” soft launch than a clear release.

Agreed on the general structure of our roll out. I think "launch" will be rather like when Kerbal Space Program "launched". The game had been functional and in "beta" for months (more than a year maybe?) and features were being added that whole time. The "launch date" was a date they chose to release version 1.0 which had some significant but non-overhaul changes that meant the game was a "complete product" - even though they were continuing to work on it.

counterpoint said:
Things to consider in determining the number of FLCs at launch and through later expansion/update:

The full suite of CiV (including all expansions) has 43 civs. These, to me, feel like a balanced whole that fits together well – though it's possible that even if they aren't balanced, there are so many of them that a lack of balance isn't particularly noticeable.

Man, BNW has tons of civs. In fact, I think I remember someone from Firaxis being quoted for an article a few years ago expressing surprise (even as one of the devs) at how many civs they had gotten into the game. He was commenting on how they could possibly do something "better" for Civ6.

counterpoint said:
Vanilla included only 18 civs. G&K added 9 more. BNW added 9 again. 7 additional were added through assorted DLC. 18 was thus considered by Firaxis to be suitable for launch.

That's a much more manageable number. I don't think we should feel like we need to meet that though. As you say below, we've got other mechanics, and I think given our relative size difference from Firaxis players wouldn't expect as many civs. (I already think 14 is quite high!)

Mechnically, we want to cover our bases, which you go into in more detail later, and is probably what you're referring to here. I think we can cover all of the mechanical needs at 14 (or even fewer, if we wanted to).

counterpoint said:
Unlike vanilla civ, though, our mod includes all the game mechanic options of G&K and BNW, plus all of our new mechanics (T'a'r, the LB/Alignment, governors, channeling, etc.). If we hope to include an assortment of specialties in our Uniques, like Firaxis did (i.e., a few “science civs,” “religion civs,” etc.), we would need to carefully examine whether or not 14 is a large enough number.

For a direct comparison, vanilla civ did include the actual game of CiV though - which we're getting for free. I figure most of this difference is a size thing - Firaxis can invest more in variety because they have more developers.

counterpoint said:
This number should take into account the time required to create and balance an individual civ. If this amount of time is high, our number of FLCs might be lower, whereas if it is low, we may be able to accommodate more civs. As mentioned below, though, I recommend we at least explore the implications of all civ we “want” at this stage, even if we don't think they'll make first launch.

In terms of authoring time, compared to the major systems like T'a'r/LB and such, an individual civ is a much smaller amount of work (even ones with exotic, weird playstyles like Venice), though we obviously have lots of civs, where there's only one LB that works for everyone. Balancing will likely take an interestingly long time. I can't see it being a quick process, because it will involve playing whole games with the civs we're evaluating (possibly multiple games).

counterpoint said:
As far as how many would be added later (post-release), this likely depends on how many civs are left over (beyond the launch-count we decide above) and still fit the bill of “desirable” determined below. Additionally, if we decide to include major game-mechanics additions post-launch, these mechanics might be associated with a few civs that accompany that expansion.

This is a good point and a good reason to "batch" civs like Firaxis have, so that any new mechanical systems aren't referenced only by one civ.

counterpoint said:
In any case, both the number of FLCs and the number of post-launch civs is not a value that has to be 100% settled now. It would be helpful to have a target, but this kind of thing is certainly easy enough to tweak later.

Totally agree, we can be super flexible on this, since decreasing the number doesn't change what else we need to do, we just don't make civ X. And increasing it doesn't commit us to reaching that target until we've basically finished all of the civs, or at least started work on them.

counterpoint said:
Big Questions:

How many civs would we like available at launch?

How many civs might we consider adding post-launch?

Based on the content of the subsequent sections, I assume we don't want to approach answering these questions yet?

As a ballpark, I'm still quite happy with 14 FLCs. My general assessment is it might be a bit on the high side, in terms of amount of work, but it feels like it will create a well varied world for the game.

In terms of post-launch, I wouldn't be inclined to even guess. We can shift specific flavor to "post-launch" based on the discussions below, but I don't think that stuff will need a plan until much later.

counterpoint said:
That's quite a lot to consider. I suspect that the first few points (the flavor) have been the major thing occupying our previous thoughts on FLCs – this framing post hopes to open the other aspects up in a more systematic way. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on which of the above have what degree of priority, and how you suggest we move forward in actually selecting our civs.

Pulling this quote block up a bit, so that I can embed some information as I comment on the points individually below! I think your general ranking system that you outline after this has put us in a good place for exploring the flavor of some civs that we think are useful to us and narrowing down an FLC list from that.

Below, as I comment on each point, I'll put a number in the quote block, which represents my opinion of how important I think that factor is. 1 is the highest importance, higher numbers less so! These are obviously only my opinions, rather than a given decision, and I'll include a short explanation of why.

counterpoint said:
The prominence of the civ in the books, in terms of exposure. In short, would somebody be bummed if it wasn't present in the mod? (e.g., Manetheren is likely not any more important, historically, than other Ten Nations civs... but is given a lot of exposure in the books).

Agreed, this definitely guides a lot of our decisions and frames our early choices. We want the mod to feel like the books and immerse the player in the lore, and a part of that is fans recognizing the flavor involved. We can certainly have more obtuse flavor and I think it will be great for fans to discover new elements of WoT flavor through the mod that they hadn't seen before, but we need to hit the "big ticket" stuff before we can do that.

Priority: 1 - This seems like it captures the whole point of the mod, to immerse players in the fiction, so I think extreme prominence in the books (Andor, Seanchan) basically guarantees a civ a place. (Though a lack of prominence wouldn't discount it!)

counterpoint said:
The importance of the civ in the history of Randland. Related to above – are we not representing the mythos properly if we exclude a civ? (e.g., though Hawkwing the man is discussed a bunch, his actual empire isn't really, but it's such an important historical entity that it warrants consideration... despite us not actually knowing its name...).

I'd say the history of the whole world is relevant, but you're right that Randland is our primary concern, mainly for the reasons above.

Priority: 7 - I think a lot of this will be covered in the prominence stuff above, but it is still something separate for us to keep an eye on.

counterpoint said:
The availability of flavor for the civ in question. Is there enough to go off of to build convincing civ, with uniques and such? (e.g., Murandy and Kandor would be dubious in this regard, when compared to other “present day” civilizations).

Agreed, though I'm not sure if Murandy lacks lots of flavor? Isn't there a fair bit of merchant in-squabbling and petty lords stuff we know that we could use here? That's a Murandy-specific thing that we could go into later though. As a general guideline, I totally agree that we want to make sure we have enough flavor to actually build a civ players will recognize.

Priority: 2 - Unlike prominence, which I've given a 1 and is most useful for deciding to include civs, I think this one is more powerful in discounting civs. There are civs that have been named in the books that we won't be able to make CiV civs for because there isn't enough information, and they'll feel weak and forced by comparison to the others. I think we want to avoid that if at all possible.

counterpoint said:
A balance between eras, both in terms of the historicity of it (it's kind of lame to have, say, only one “ancient” civ and a bunch of “modern” ones), but also in terms of the balance and spread between Uniques. If at all possible, our FLCs should create a spread of Uniques that are somewhat evenly-distributed throughout the Eras of the game, at least to a degree comparable to BNW. (e.g., while Kandor may be more visible in the books than, say, Aridhol, a surplus of “modern” UUs could conceivably make Aridhol the more desirable inclusion as an FLC.) Of course, some “modern” civs could have UUs that can be put into earlier eras (e.g. the Aiel), but this cannot be easily done en masse.

Also a good point! There's a lot more detail on this in later sections, but in general it looks like we'll have our work cut out for us when it comes to distributing uniques' placement throughout the tree. And totally agree on the Aridhol point, that we may want more older civs that are any way recognizable, because we'll otherwise be mostly civs from the times of the books.

Priority: 3 - Given the imbalance toward the latter eras, I think we'll have to give this a bit more importance than we would have otherwise in order to achieve a reasonable mechanical balance.

counterpoint said:
Similar to our consideration of the number of FLCs, a balanced spread of Victory Condition specialization should probably be sought (at least roughly comparable to in BNW). It is understood that many Uniques do not directly point to a specific victory condition, but still, general consideration for a decent spread of options to pursue each VC is desirable. (e.g., adding Arafel [arbitrarily ssuming for the moment that it would be a domination-oriented civ] when we already have a bunch of domination civs may not be the best idea)

Yeah, this is a good consideration. You go into more numbers for this later, so I'll cover it in more depth then.

Priority: 5 - We want the victories to be covered so that in big games there is almost always someone competing directly with the human player.

counterpoint said:
Related to above, civs whose flavor suggests opportunity for the association of auxiliary mechanics that don't directly relate to a specific victory (such as Religion in G&K/BNW) might make themselves more likely to earn a spot as an FLC so as to provide an opportunity to include such uniques. (e.g. Ghealdan or Amadicia for Paths/Alignment and Hawkwing's empire for Governors, etc.)

Good point! I'm liking Hawkwing for Governors actually, sounds like a good flavor and mechanical combination!

Priority: 4 - We don't want there to be mechanics that are left out/orphaned on release, so making sure we cover all bases with this one is probably a good thing. We also want to make sure we have at least one civ that calls out each of the WoTMod mechanics as well, to draw players into exploring how they work more.

counterpoint said:
Civs that include aspects that are likely to be highly unpredictable or even chaotic from a mechanics/balance perspective might be best left for post-launch. If we want to try something “crazy” with a civ's uniques (Venice might be a good example from BNW), they might not be the best civ to include at launch. (e.g. a nutty Tuatha'an civ or an Ogier or shadowspawn civ or something).

I agree to an extent. I think that we want to tend more towards the BNW side of the spectrum. I don't think the civs from vanilla are more "baseline" than the BNW civs in order to create a balance/lack of chaos, I think that's more about Firaxis' designers getting more comfortable with bolder choices after they'd worked with the game for some time. We're obviously only "starting" making civs now ourselves, but we do have hands on experience with the known quantity of BNW and what works well there. So I'd say we want our civs to stand out as interesting and distinctive to play wherever possible, and we shouldn't necessarily shy away from "crazier" FLCs if we can make them work. (The risk is of course that we can't make a crazy Tuatha'an civ without it disrupting the game for all of the other players - that would make us step back and not include them!)

Priority: 9 - I'd say this is more case by case, we'll know the civs that have problematic abilities when we work on them, and for civs that don't this won't be a factor.

counterpoint said:
If a civ's uniques will likely be based around mechanics that we plan on adding post-release, that civ may not be a prime candidate as a FLC. It doesn't appear that we have any at the moment, but if any were to appear, this would be worth consideration. (e.g., if we had dreams of a whole fancy and complex “channeler neutralizing” system, Far Madding would likely be a civ we'd avoid using for the time being in order to provide for their inclusion later). Of course, a civ could be included and then have its uniques changed later.

I think this is a good theoretical consideration, but I don't think we have any way to apply that now. As you've said, we're not aware of any additional mechanical systems we plan to add post-release, so we can't say which civs will intersect with them. And like Firaxis did, we are of course free to modify existing civs when we create a new expansion/new mechanics. (England gained the bonus Spy, France's whole UA changed, Germany gained a UB and lost a UU, etc.)

Priority: 11/not - I don't think we have the information to use this consideration effectively yet. If we do add these kinds of systems and have put in a Far Madding CS, and want to promote it to a civ, I'd say we're on a timeframe for those kinds of changes that it would be fine to remove the CS and add the civ, and generally approach the allocation of flavor that way, rather than reserve anything for mechanics we don't know yet.

counterpoint said:
A balanced spread of start biases should be achieved, if possible. We don't want a set of civs that all have “avoid coast” or “start near Tundra,” for instance. Many f the nations in the books have similar climates, so this should be considered (e.g., Mayene may become more attractive due to its hot, wet climate [I think] and thus the potential of a “near jungle” start, which might be otherwise hard to create given the flavor of the books).

I had not even considered this! This is a good point, we want random maps to feel authentic but still be playable, which this plays into. There's a lot more detail on the specifics of starting biases below, so I'll cover that then.

Priority: 6 - I feel I should almost bump this up a bit, because I'm not really familiar enough with the map scripts and how starting points are allocated to make definitive assessments of how robust they are to an imbalanced civ pool, so this has the potential to break the major map types. Definitely something we'll want to shuffle to optimize for.

counterpoint said:
If we are considering creating a True Start Locations map or scenario, such might be worth briefly considering in order to ensure that something like this is viable (e.g. Seanchan is a very sparse continent in comparison to the northern part of Rand's continent).

I think for any true start locations stuff we'd want to be fairly beholden to the flavor, since that's the objective behind that game mode. I don't think this needs much consideration from us for now - it would be difficult to create a situation where it's impossible for us to do a true start map. For example, if Seanchan being sparse in the flavor creates mechanical implications, I think we'd mostly want to just go with them, mitigating where we can (resource distribution, etc).

Priority: 10/not - I think this is a secondary concern that we will want to address as a part of that scenario/map, rather than make it important in how we choose civs for the main game.

counterpoint said:
This is very minor, but in BNW, Leaders apparently have tendencies (Shaka is vicious, Gandhi isn't, etc.). Choosing civs (and leaders) that create an even balance of these tendencies is probably desirable.

Yeah we probably don't want to be completely lacking in terms of a militant civ that always tries to kill everyone and passive civs that rarely go to war - a balance would be good!

Priority: 8 - I think we mainly want to do a general purpose sanity pass on this consideration, to make sure we haven't completely missed any major archetypes.

counterpoint said:
Related to above (and to the Victory Condition consideration), in BNW civs have Ideological tendencies, whether because of personality type or due to likely Victory avenues. In our mod, we might want to take consideration of a balanced array of Philosophies that either the AI would adopt or that humans would be likely to adopt – in the books, most of the Westlands would choose Authority – creating a mix of civs that is likely to duplicate this scenario might not be good for the balance of our Philosophies).

I'll go into this in more detail when you ask about it again later, but civs don't actually have direct Ideology tendencies in BNW (hence the difficulty finding them!). The AI picks its Ideology based on the victory it's going for and the state of the world. Since the leaders do have victory tendencies, this usually amounts to the same civ picking the same Ideology in isolation, which creates the appearance of Ideological tendencies. (Or it creates the Ideological tendencies indirectly, however we wish to think about it.) A nice side effect of this is if we balance the victory tendencies for the leaders (which doesn't necessarily map one to one with victory effectiveness), we effectively balance Philosophy selection as well.

Priority: free! - Probably not actually free, but we'll see.

And that's all I have time for tonight! I'm not going to be home tomorrow evening, so I'll be back on Thursday!

S3rgeus's Wheel of Time Mod

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