Age of Imperialism

Hoop Thrower said:

Let's keep with the "We need an african civ pack damn it" theme:

Garenganze
Leader: Msiri
UA: Scramble for Katanga: Starts the game with a Spy. Spies earn double influence and level up when succesfully rigging elections.
UU: Yeke: Replaces Musketman. Can be gifted to city states for double Influence as well as small gold gift.
UB: Warehouse: Replaces Caravansary. +50% Trade Route Lenght. Land Trade Routes originating from this city produce +1 Gold for each worked luxury resource, unlike the Caravansary it replaces.

Yeah, an Espionage Focused civ, I really got inspired when I started reading about M'siri, who accomplished what neither the arab nor the europans could do, to establish a trade route between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, he accomplished this first through superiority in arms, but what really made him prosper was the way he managed to balance the political landscape in his new territory, doing strategic marriages with familiars from various important locals to gain their trust, and to have a good ransom if things went bad, this certainly worked, as he almost singlehandedly built one of the most powerful polities in 19th century Africa, yet his power would mean his downfall as both the Belgians and British started to fight for his territory.
The Yeke got to be known as the people of his kingdom, or the noblemen at least, though from what I read the name came from an older Elephant Hunter's Guild, so yeah, they had superiority in arms by bringing guns to a territory that previoulsy hadn't seen them, but what really made them special was their good tact when it came to commerce and diplomacy, which is why they've got an ability to become mini-Great Merchants.
Finally Warehouse, not much to say here, there was a reason after all everyone was fighting for Katanga, it was a very resource rich region and it was in the middle of a very important trade route, so I thought a Caravansary replacement would be all too fitting, is it better or worse than the original? That's gonna be a question for the ages...

Bamum
Leader: Njoya the Great
UA: Shumom Archives: Cities receive a Tech and Culture Boost every time a new religion is introduced.
UB: Dye Pit: Replaces Mint. No Requirements, +1 Gold for each Luxury Resources worked by the city.
UU: Bodyguard: Cheaper to upgrade to than the Cavalry it replaces, while retaining the same fighting capacity. Upgrading to a Bodyguard generates points towards a Great Artist.

I'm surprised nobody tried to make this civ before, as there's a lot of info on them and the whole project Njoya had is simply impressive. As the hilariously colloquial wikipedia page tells, Njoya was particularly receptive of outside influence, often appropiating foreign stuff for his own people while keeping good relations with outsiders, something which really benefited his relations with the Germans.
The whole Shumom script, one of the few that has been indigenously developed in Africa, is a show of his genious, given that it was inspired mostly by the Muslim and Christian missionaries that arrived his kingdom (or at least that's what I understood) I thought that'd make for a nice and unique game feature, to have the civ benefit from having multiple religions playing a part, while having an UA that's not completly useless on it's own.
The UB comes from a small quote in his page that mentions Pits of Dyes and given that the UA is slightly on the weak side I decided that replacing a mostly useless building could make up for that. It's also quite a part of their culture, as the other UU reflects better.
Simply said, the Bamum were ingenious peoples and even better tailors and in another way that showed was with their very military, who under the orders of Njoya started replicating the uniforms of the German Colonialists, almost to perfection, which eventually impressed the colonials so much they asked him to stop doing that because the resemblance was too uncanny and the local army just waay too similar to be controlled in case things went bad.


Wassoulou
Leader: Samori Toure
UA: Mandingo Wars: Production is increased every time a new resource is revealed to a city and resistance in conquered cities is reduced by one turn for every resource worked by the city.
UU: Sofa: Replaces Rifleman. Has a combat bonus against units at a higher technological level than it.
UB: Workshop: Requires a Source of Improved Iron in the city. +1 Production for each source of Iron worked by the city and +30% Production towards Gun Units, unlike the Forge it replaces.

A... very unorthodox approach to a probably well known character, or at least should be well known, as he was one of the most succesful resistance leaders against colonialism in the continent, despite his, well, defeat.
I must admit I couldn't find a good name for the UA but the idea is there, his was an extensive empire which aimed to control cities who produced important resources to in this way keep his military machine going for the unavoidable war against the Europeans that would come, if everything works the way I hope it does, the production boost would be met instantly as soon as you found a city.
Sofa was the name of the basic military units in the Mandinka Army, I was slightly hesitant to use the name since it's already used by Mali, but screw it, someone else will have to come up with the solution. Anyways, Toure made a great deal of having a well equipped and trained in the latest tactics army so he could stand to europeans as equals which is basically what I tried to do with the Rifleman, making them useful even if you start falling behind on the tech war it, combined with the Workshop, should make the Industrial Era one where you really are looking forward to an endless spam of Gunmen to deal with anyone who dare stand in your way.
Oh yeah, the Workshop, I read some excerps mentioning how the Wassolou tried to make their own guns, with some degree of success, so I wanted to reflect that in, once again, one of those rarely built buildings, while also completly changing it's purpose, as it's kinda useless to build on the medieval era it becomes available, later on though, oh boy!

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Hoop Thrower said:

Hey, if you're gonna do Colonial Themed civs, why not go Big and Weird?

Viceroyalty of Peru

Leader: Francisco de Toledo
UA: Mita: Defeated Enemies have a chance of transforming into workers. Building an improvement grants a small amount of gold.
UU: Encomendero: Replaces Great Merchant. Instead of Building Custom Houses they Build Reducciones, which grant a smaller amount of Gold, but they grant Production and Faith.
Their Trade Missions Provide less Influence, but have a change of Providing units when performed.
UB: Real Audiencia: Replaces Courthouse. Has the same characteristics as the Courthouse, but can be built in any city. Having Audiencias in all your cities enables the Consejo de Indias, an unique National Wonder. Which reduces resistance time in occupied cities.

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Zantonius Hamm said:

Anyone wanna hear a story? No? I'l tell it anyway. So, this week we had teacher from the US visiting us, because our school apparently has some agreement with one in America regarding that. Anyway, the guy was awesome. He talked about funny ways you can use the english language, about philosophy, about history... you name it. Then he said something along the lines of "One of the best ways of learning is through failing" and asked who of us played video games. There were the normal answers, such as Counter-Strike, Runescape and Battlefield, pretty basic stuff. Then I told him I play Civ, and he went silent for a moment, pointed at me and said "Ladies, this is the man you should be going for.". Then he talked about civ for about ten minutes.

Needless to say, I was euphoric.

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Zantonius Hamm said:

No, I don't really have any more stories like this one. My life is honestly pretty uneventful.

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