1.18 Civilizations - Brainstorming

[TsimTsigal]

Probably Celts were discussed a lot before (and certainly included in at least one modmods, as well as going to be included in 1.18, unless i got it wrong), but i feel that their identity is not exactly caught in either variant. Celtic history was one of rise and fall - rising to be the most influential and biggest culture in Europe and falling to relative obscurity.

Yeah, i'm aware that it's not a thread for civ drafts, but tbf posting complete variant with all parts being connected to each other feels more... reasonable than posting separate parts that might look awkward on their own.

UP - Druidism: one free slot for priest in every city (or free priest for cities with forests in city radius, which is honestly not that cool because it means pretty much everywhere in Europe).
Reasoning: Celts lacked Writing and had to rely on priest-scholar caste of Druids to keep their culture and traditions. It also works nice as Insular Monasteries representation (save for the name, of course...)

UUs - Celtic Chariot, Karbantos, could serve as early replacement for Catapults (or Chariots serving same purpose). The idea is that Celts lacked sophisticated siege weapons, but collateral damage chariots can make up for that. The second UU is not that important, probably some variation on Light Swordsman with retreat chance will do fine, to represent less rigid formation and tactics of Celtic infantry (compared to Legionaries/Phalanx).

UB - Dun: Walls with either +1 commerce, or -10% maintance. Makes early expansion less punishing for economy, and defending big early empire easier. With stone and possible free priest it is both cheap and useful, while not exactly powerful.

UHV1 - Menhirs and Mystery: own Stonehenge and build X (~6-10?) Pagan Temples in X BC
Reasoning: Pagan Temples goal is indirectly a stimuli to force player to expand. Celts never had defined borders, but early rapid expansion will probably make them stick to Historical area even when controlled by human.

Actual effect of the Stonehenge should be something like "Priests +1 science", to make Celts focus on Priests more. Should get obsolete relatively early, thematically Writing would be very fitting. Restrictions might be tied to forest and coast tiles to prevent Middle Eastern civs from building it before Celtic spawn (~1000 BC - Iron Age start?)

UHV2 - Vae Victus: Control Core area of any Ancient civilization in X BC (+ maybe research some metal-related tech if it is too easy?)
Reasoning: Celts were agressive people who sacked (but never conquered) city of Rome and majority of Greece. Going full alt-history and conquering Egypt or India should be an option, tho - not that it will make UHV easier, and you probably want to kill Rome anyway.

UHV3 - St. Patrick and Insular Christianity: Have a Cathedral of your state religion in your capital in 1000 AD, as well as 4 Monasteries.
Reasoning: and here we come to the Fall part. From ~500 AD onwards, European civs will start spawning all across the Europe, and if 1.18 gonna be anything like 1.17 in that sense, there won't be much territory there that won't flip - namely, Ireland, and maybe Scotland which should not be core. At this point you will be reduced to rather meh Dublin as sole expansion stability source, and let's be honest - it is not a stellar city. At this point the player should desperately try to get 4 cities staying until 1000 AD, while wasting production in the only safe city on rather worthless and expensive building (there are easier ways to get +2 happiness). Sure, if you kill Rome early, you will have around a millenia of peace, but in the end it won't make much difference. It also makes settling Iceland for sole purpose of building a Monastery here both reasonable and historically accurate choice. The fourth city can be anything, from trying to fit 2 cities in Ireland or Iceland (boo, boring), to settling in Baltics (weird and probably harmful for stability), to trying to retake some of your former lands in hurry. St Patrick reference can come in handy for some Great Prophet goal, but honestly at 1000 AD you will probably have at least 2-3 of them.

I purposefully decided to disconnect Celts from Scotland and Wales in this vision (save for historical areas ofc), because honestly i'm not a fan of idea of something like "don't die completely to English until historical date of...": they are both easy and boring, and anything beyond that would require just too much of alt-history.

 

[MISER SVM]

What about voiceovers for the civ units? Of course for some it is pretty impossible, but would convincing results be feasible with, urgh, AI? After all some civs still lack unique voiceovers to this day (maybe Harappans could use Tamil due to the idea that they probably spoke a Dravidian language).

OTOH Swahili,（Malaysian) Malay, or Javanese are still spoken by millions... At least for Malay maybe the voiceovers from Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition could be used?

Assyrian is reconstructed but could also just use Babylonian (since both are Akkadian), not sure if you can get some approximation of "all present and accounted for" in Hittite OTOH. Some other ancients will probably remain a mystery, sadly... For Kushan Persian (for Bactrian) or Hindi would probably work (I remember that RFC Asia would give them or rather the Yuezhi Celtic as a stand on for Tocharian). The closest IE language to Hittite in Civ on the other hand, what would that be...?

 

[brett0007]

Probably Celts were discussed a lot before (and certainly included in at least one modmods, as well as going to be included in 1.18, unless i got it wrong), but i feel that their identity is not exactly caught in either variant. Celtic history was one of rise and fall - rising to be the most influential and biggest culture in Europe and falling to relative obscurity.

Yeah, i'm aware that it's not a thread for civ drafts, but tbf posting complete variant with all parts being connected to each other feels more... reasonable than posting separate parts that might look awkward on their own.

UP - Druidism: one free slot for priest in every city (or free priest for cities with forests in city radius, which is honestly not that cool because it means pretty much everywhere in Europe).
Reasoning: Celts lacked Writing and had to rely on priest-scholar caste of Druids to keep their culture and traditions. It also works nice as Insular Monasteries representation (save for the name, of course...)

UUs - Celtic Chariot, Karbantos, could serve as early replacement for Catapults (or Chariots serving same purpose). The idea is that Celts lacked sophisticated siege weapons, but collateral damage chariots can make up for that. The second UU is not that important, probably some variation on Light Swordsman with retreat chance will do fine, to represent less rigid formation and tactics of Celtic infantry (compared to Legionaries/Phalanx).

UB - Dun: Walls with either +1 commerce, or -10% maintance. Makes early expansion less punishing for economy, and defending big early empire easier. With stone and possible free priest it is both cheap and useful, while not exactly powerful.

UHV1 - Menhirs and Mystery: own Stonehenge and build X (~6-10?) Pagan Temples in X BC
Reasoning: Pagan Temples goal is indirectly a stimuli to force player to expand. Celts never had defined borders, but early rapid expansion will probably make them stick to Historical area even when controlled by human.

Actual effect of the Stonehenge should be something like "Priests +1 science", to make Celts focus on Priests more. Should get obsolete relatively early, thematically Writing would be very fitting. Restrictions might be tied to forest and coast tiles to prevent Middle Eastern civs from building it before Celtic spawn (~1000 BC - Iron Age start?)

UHV2 - Vae Victus: Control Core area of any Ancient civilization in X BC (+ maybe research some metal-related tech if it is too easy?)
Reasoning: Celts were agressive people who sacked (but never conquered) city of Rome and majority of Greece. Going full alt-history and conquering Egypt or India should be an option, tho - not that it will make UHV easier, and you probably want to kill Rome anyway.

UHV3 - St. Patrick and Insular Christianity: Have a Cathedral of your state religion in your capital in 1000 AD, as well as 4 Monasteries.
Reasoning: and here we come to the Fall part. From ~500 AD onwards, European civs will start spawning all across the Europe, and if 1.18 gonna be anything like 1.17 in that sense, there won't be much territory there that won't flip - namely, Ireland, and maybe Scotland which should not be core. At this point you will be reduced to rather meh Dublin as sole expansion stability source, and let's be honest - it is not a stellar city. At this point the player should desperately try to get 4 cities staying until 1000 AD, while wasting production in the only safe city on rather worthless and expensive building (there are easier ways to get +2 happiness). Sure, if you kill Rome early, you will have around a millenia of peace, but in the end it won't make much difference. It also makes settling Iceland for sole purpose of building a Monastery here both reasonable and historically accurate choice. The fourth city can be anything, from trying to fit 2 cities in Ireland or Iceland (boo, boring), to settling in Baltics (weird and probably harmful for stability), to trying to retake some of your former lands in hurry. St Patrick reference can come in handy for some Great Prophet goal, but honestly at 1000 AD you will probably have at least 2-3 of them.

I purposefully decided to disconnect Celts from Scotland and Wales in this vision (save for historical areas ofc), because honestly i'm not a fan of idea of something like "don't die completely to English until historical date of...": they are both easy and boring, and anything beyond that would require just too much of alt-history.

Stonehenge predates the Earliest Celts by 1 to 2000 years, the earliest evence of human activity at the site is around 3000 bc and the
iconic sarsen stones we recognise today were erected in about 2600-2500bc and the site is 'abandoned' (nothing else is really done to modify it) by around 1600 bc. The earliest celtic peoples in europe, let alone the British isles are dated to 1200 bc, in Austria... Also plenty of UHV's are ahistorical, Byzantium requires you to control the entire east mediterranean by 1450 ad , the Maya requires you to be the one to make transalantic contact, Arabia requires you to match the Umayyad caliphate borders in 1300 ad. as far as alt history UHV's go Celts squatting the british isles is hardly the most outlandish.

 

[Dracosolon]

Probably Celts were discussed a lot before (and certainly included in at least one modmods, as well as going to be included in 1.18, unless i got it wrong), but i feel that their identity is not exactly caught in either variant. Celtic history was one of rise and fall - rising to be the most influential and biggest culture in Europe and falling to relative obscurity.

Yeah, i'm aware that it's not a thread for civ drafts, but tbf posting complete variant with all parts being connected to each other feels more... reasonable than posting separate parts that might look awkward on their own.

UP - Druidism: one free slot for priest in every city (or free priest for cities with forests in city radius, which is honestly not that cool because it means pretty much everywhere in Europe).
Reasoning: Celts lacked Writing and had to rely on priest-scholar caste of Druids to keep their culture and traditions. It also works nice as Insular Monasteries representation (save for the name, of course...)

UUs - Celtic Chariot, Karbantos, could serve as early replacement for Catapults (or Chariots serving same purpose). The idea is that Celts lacked sophisticated siege weapons, but collateral damage chariots can make up for that. The second UU is not that important, probably some variation on Light Swordsman with retreat chance will do fine, to represent less rigid formation and tactics of Celtic infantry (compared to Legionaries/Phalanx).

UB - Dun: Walls with either +1 commerce, or -10% maintance. Makes early expansion less punishing for economy, and defending big early empire easier. With stone and possible free priest it is both cheap and useful, while not exactly powerful.

UHV1 - Menhirs and Mystery: own Stonehenge and build X (~6-10?) Pagan Temples in X BC
Reasoning: Pagan Temples goal is indirectly a stimuli to force player to expand. Celts never had defined borders, but early rapid expansion will probably make them stick to Historical area even when controlled by human.

Actual effect of the Stonehenge should be something like "Priests +1 science", to make Celts focus on Priests more. Should get obsolete relatively early, thematically Writing would be very fitting. Restrictions might be tied to forest and coast tiles to prevent Middle Eastern civs from building it before Celtic spawn (~1000 BC - Iron Age start?)

UHV2 - Vae Victus: Control Core area of any Ancient civilization in X BC (+ maybe research some metal-related tech if it is too easy?)
Reasoning: Celts were agressive people who sacked (but never conquered) city of Rome and majority of Greece. Going full alt-history and conquering Egypt or India should be an option, tho - not that it will make UHV easier, and you probably want to kill Rome anyway.

UHV3 - St. Patrick and Insular Christianity: Have a Cathedral of your state religion in your capital in 1000 AD, as well as 4 Monasteries.
Reasoning: and here we come to the Fall part. From ~500 AD onwards, European civs will start spawning all across the Europe, and if 1.18 gonna be anything like 1.17 in that sense, there won't be much territory there that won't flip - namely, Ireland, and maybe Scotland which should not be core. At this point you will be reduced to rather meh Dublin as sole expansion stability source, and let's be honest - it is not a stellar city. At this point the player should desperately try to get 4 cities staying until 1000 AD, while wasting production in the only safe city on rather worthless and expensive building (there are easier ways to get +2 happiness). Sure, if you kill Rome early, you will have around a millenia of peace, but in the end it won't make much difference. It also makes settling Iceland for sole purpose of building a Monastery here both reasonable and historically accurate choice. The fourth city can be anything, from trying to fit 2 cities in Ireland or Iceland (boo, boring), to settling in Baltics (weird and probably harmful for stability), to trying to retake some of your former lands in hurry. St Patrick reference can come in handy for some Great Prophet goal, but honestly at 1000 AD you will probably have at least 2-3 of them.

I purposefully decided to disconnect Celts from Scotland and Wales in this vision (save for historical areas ofc), because honestly i'm not a fan of idea of something like "don't die completely to English until historical date of...": they are both easy and boring, and anything beyond that would require just too much of alt-history.

Your ideas are actually relatively close to what I and other posters suggested:

Personally I like Krieger's proposal detailed here:



I would adjust the UHV a bit though:

1) Vae Victis: Conquer two civilizations' capitals and gain X gold from sacking and tribute by [date].
The wording needs to be two civilizations rather than two capitals, otherwise you can cheese it by taking a civ's capital twice.

2) Europa Celtica: Control 6 Nemetons, 4 Duns and X Forest tiles in 1 CE.
The number of forest tiles should be suitably huge to encourage expansion while giving you some flexibility as to how to accomplish it. However your stability would be poor enough that ahistorical settling would be discouraged. This has overlap with the Druidic URV (20 unimproved forest or march tiles), but that one should probably be changed anyway since the Celts could accomplish it without too much effort. The number of buildings could also be increased if we want more of a challenge.

3) Celtic Christianity: Build seven state religion monasteries on four different landmasses and have two cities with [X level] culture in the British Isles by 800 CE.
I feel like the UHV can afford to be more challenging given its late date and the fact that you only need to build the monasteries, not control them at a certain date (though that could be included if we want a focus on resistance to the emerging civs). The culture deadline could also come later, especially if we want some synergy with a possible Irish or Scottish wonder - though that risks being a bit less exciting.

I also think the expansion system should be simplified. Maybe that could be part of the UP? Though I also like the idea of giving some small bonus from forests, so maybe it could be something like: "Core territory follows the Palace among Historical territories. +10% unit production per worked Forest."

In terms of flipping to new civs, Ireland, Scotland and maybe even Britanny should be excluded.

I like the notion of a UP based around Priests (or maybe even Priests + Artists) since it'd have relevance for both the pagan and christan periods.

As mentioned though Stonehenge is too early (and will probably be back as a Natural Wonder at some point).

 

[TsimTsigal]

Stonehenge predates the Earliest Celts by 1 to 2000 years, the earliest evence of human activity at the site is around 3000 bc and the
iconic sarsen stones we recognise today were erected in about 2600-2500bc

I know, but a lot of early (and late as well) wonders can be quite ahistorical (Babylonian UHV pretty much requires you to build Delphian Oracle in Middle East a few millenia earlier), and making Stonehenge a goal for Celts gives them "personal" wonder as well. Moreover, it's one of the most iconic Civ series wonder, it feels a bit wrong that it is not in DoC in any form.

Your ideas are actually relatively close to what I and other posters suggested:

I think i have already mentioned it? Perhaps i didn't made it clear enough. My goal was to emphase more on building a lot of cities (6 being bare minumum, but 10 might be too much, altho it indirectly nerfs Celtic science which is fitting) and then losing them, especially by making point with Celts having very little Core or even Historical territories after Germanic peoples claim Europe (altho tbf Dublin might grow in a quite big city, and being single core it can support reasonable amount of Foreign cities).

After all, it's a brainstorming thread.

 

[Dracosolon]

The number of cities required to expand can be adjusted accordingly for the first "spread across Europe" UHV. If we want a later UHV with religious buildings maybe you're right that the number of cities should be smaller (I envisioned the monasteries goal as building them but not necessarily controlling them at the same time). A cathedral is a classic way by now in DoC of enforcing a minimum of four cities (though it can also be implicitly encouraged by a goal).

A point of contention though: Should the last UHV end before or after the English spawn? Your version extends to 1000 AD, which is quite late (especially since a religious building goal can be done relatively fast under the right circumstances). I don't know if if a Celtic UHV lasting that long is desirable. On the other hand, extending the Celts into the medieval era gives us more options for some aspects (wonders especially), though it makes other aspects a bit harder (such as leaders and dynamic names once the Celts are fractioned into various remnants).

 

[TsimTsigal]

I envisioned the monasteries goal as building them but not necessarily controlling them at the same time. A cathedral is a classic way by now in DoC of enforcing a minimum of four cities (though it can also be implicitly encouraged by a goal).

After you have conquered Rome (and maybe Greece), you don't have any pressing matters, so you can easily build any number of Monasteries you wish. That's why it appears to me that "in" is better than "by" in this case. Cathedral also can be built before you start lose cities to flipping... probably. I'm not sure about this tbh, it's mostly to ensure that Dublin won't have much of infrastructure.

A point of contention though: Should the last UHV end before or after the English spawn? Your version extends to 1000 AD, which is quite late (especially since a religious building goal can be done relatively fast under the right circumstances). I don't know if if a Celtic UHV lasting that long is desirable. On the other hand, extending the Celts into the medieval era gives us more options for some aspects (wonders especially), though it makes other aspects a bit harder (such as leaders and dynamic names once the Celts are fractioned into various remnants).

This depends on what vision Leoreth has for the Celts as civ. Personally i'd prefer last UHV to be a challenge to adapt to the world where you are no longer a significant power (and, unlike Polynesia, you actually were such a power), which feels unique enough. But of course Celtic UHV can be based purely on "barbarian", anicent times, or be extended to alt-history where Celtic peoples reclaim Britain as Scotland-Irish-Welsh state (altho this would be in a bad taste).

 

[brett0007]

After you have conquered Rome (and maybe Greece), you don't have any pressing matters, so you can easily build any number of Monasteries you wish. That's why it appears to me that "in" is better than "by" in this case. Cathedral also can be built before you start lose cities to flipping... probably. I'm not sure about this tbh, it's mostly to ensure that Dublin won't have much of infrastructure.

This depends on what vision Leoreth has for the Celts as civ. Personally i'd prefer last UHV to be a challenge to adapt to the world where you are no longer a significant power (and, unlike Polynesia, you actually were such a power), which feels unique enough. But of course Celtic UHV can be based purely on "barbarian", anicent times, or be extended to alt-history where Celtic peoples reclaim Britain as Scotland-Irish-Welsh state (altho this would be in a bad taste).

How would that be in bad taste?!?

 

[trexeric]

After you have conquered Rome (and maybe Greece), you don't have any pressing matters, so you can easily build any number of Monasteries you wish. That's why it appears to me that "in" is better than "by" in this case. Cathedral also can be built before you start lose cities to flipping... probably. I'm not sure about this tbh, it's mostly to ensure that Dublin won't have much of infrastructure.

I quite liked the 'on four different landmasses' aspect of @Dracosolon 's original proposal, which would make it so that you can't just spam monasteries on mainland Europe, you have to settle Ireland, Great Britain, and (probably) Iceland or Anatolia. Which in my mind sort of favors "by" rather than "in", so that the migration and loss of territory can be represented while still working towards the UHV. And I think that feels plenty unique, in my opinion.

I also think maybe that goal should include something with Great Prophets, considering the plentiful array of Celtic saints.

Also, my proposal for the title of this religion-oriented UHV goal is The Book of Kells - monastic, related to both Scotland and Ireland, iconic representation of Insular manuscript art, associated (ahistorically) with St. Columba. Overall, great fit in my opinion.

 

[Dracosolon]

The idea didn't originate with me but I like it too - though now I realize that settling Iceland might put the Celts in position to settle America the same way the Vikings do it.

A UHV involving UHV would also be thematically fitting (and have synergy with a possible Priest-related UP) - even if it conflicts with a goal which I think would also be fitting.

 

[brett0007]

The idea didn't originate with me but I like it too - though now I realize that settling Iceland might put the Celts in position to settle America the same way the Vikings do it.

A UHV involving UHV would also be thematically fitting (and have synergy with a possible Priest-related UP) - even if it conflicts with a goal which I think would also be fitting.

The Intresting thing is according to the Norse, Iceland was inhabited by Irish monks before they arrived, they apparenly got mad about a bunch of pagans interrupting their seclusion and moved away.

Papar - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[trexeric]

Yeah, Iceland is semi-historical, and so would be a fine choice for such a UHV goal. Even discovering America early has some precedent, though it's only legendary - Norse sources name a mysterious "Great Ireland" out in the vicinity of Vinland, and that's not to mention the Welsh Prince Madoc who supposedly sailed to America in the 12th century. Of course, the historical evidence for these is nonexistent, but as legends I think it should be fine if the player can reenact them. Should only be limited to the player, though, the AI should definitely be heavily discouraged from even settling Iceland in the first place.

 

[miccal2000]

Hello,

Are there any plans to add a First Nation civ or two on North America? I'm thinking an east coast one, and a 2nd on the Great Plains.

Thanks!

 

[Publicola]

Per the opening post, the twelve civilizations listed here are the 'essential' ones that will significantly affect game balance with the new map. It's possible that Leoreth will add additional civs that don't affect how existing civs work, and that might include First Nations like Iroquois and Lakota. However, I'm pretty sure most First Nations civs would fit in the 'nomadic' category, and that is a long-standing discussion that probably won't be resolved in 1.18

 

[Dracosolon]

I'm not sure how the current roster of new civilizations was chosen actually. Most of them make sense just on the basis of being in the crowded parts of the world like South East Asia, etc. but then you have the Swahili and Toltecs, who are a lot more isolated.

 

[Leoreth]

The post that lists them explains at length how they were chosen.

 

[freethink]

The Heroic/National epics feature has never been brought in yet, but in the hope to see on a sunrise one day we can think about what can be included in the civs which will be included for sure.

Dawn of Civilization Unique Epics Chart

docs.google.com

 

[Dracosolon]

The post that lists them explains at length how they were chosen.

Right, I was wondering about the more isolated civs specifically. Was it that the Swahili would affect Congo and Toltecs the Maya?

The Heroic/National epics feature has never been brought in yet, but in the hope to see on a sunrise one day we can think about what can be included in the civs which will be included for sure.

Dawn of Civilization Unique Epics Chart

docs.google.com

Come to think of it there's also their Great People names.

 

[freethink]

Right, I was wondering about the more isolated civs specifically. Was it that the Swahili would affect Congo and Toltecs the Maya?


Come to think of it there's also their Great People names.

You mean we should make a document for them? Because I could not find any in my records.

 

[Efim]

And what about adding Australia?