[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[PhoenicianGold]

This does a pretty good job of representing the puppet kingdoms that Portugal fostered in Africa, but those had a tendency to backfire on them--after a few generations in Kongo and almost immediately in Angola, for example. I also wonder about the balance of this...I think the previous suggestion of treating a Feitoria like a luxury-leaching Vampire Castle while simultaneously counting as a Trading Post for maritime trade routes might work better in the long run.

The trading post proposal has popped up a few times, and it kind of breaks my brain a bit. Trading posts can only be built in cities, and as the recent no-city Maori run has demonstrated, so many of the game's mechanics: trade routes, governors, religion, even warmongering...are based in a system that seems to tie most values to a specific city. The Maori were able to push this a bit with culture and science production without founding a city, but those were always global values that were never tied specifically to individual cities. You could still gain experience, currency, resources, or units from goody huts, because none of those were structures tied to a specific city.

What I'm getting at is I don't even know if the game is coded in a way that allows trading posts to be separated from cities, or how much work it might take to create that mechanic if they are hardcoded as city elements. For all we know, you can't trade to anything but a city for the same reason you can't wage war on anyone without a city. :/

 

[Zaarin]

The trading post proposal has popped up a few times, and it kind of breaks my brain a bit. Trading posts can only be built in cities, and as the recent no-city Maori run has demonstrated, so many of the game's mechanics: trade routes, governors, religion, even warmongering...are based in a system that seems to tie most values to a specific city. The Maori were able to push this a bit with culture and science production without founding a city, but those were always global values that were never tied specifically to individual cities. You could still gain experience, currency, resources, or units from goody huts, because none of those were structures tied to a specific city.

What I'm getting at is I don't even know if the game is coded in a way that allows trading posts to be separated from cities, or how much work it might take to create that mechanic if they are hardcoded as city elements. For all we know, you can't trade to anything but a city for the same reason you can't wage war on anyone without a city. :/

I'm not suggesting this as something you trade to but allows you to trade further. But if there are coding limitations, the Feitoria could always hypothetically count as a single-tile city.

 

[8housesofelixir]

The trading post proposal has popped up a few times, and it kind of breaks my brain a bit. Trading posts can only be built in cities, and as the recent no-city Maori run has demonstrated, so many of the game's mechanics: trade routes, governors, religion, even warmongering...are based in a system that seems to tie most values to a specific city. The Maori were able to push this a bit with culture and science production without founding a city, but those were always global values that were never tied specifically to individual cities. You could still gain experience, currency, resources, or units from goody huts, because none of those were structures tied to a specific city.
What I'm getting at is I don't even know if the game is coded in a way that allows trading posts to be separated from cities, or how much work it might take to create that mechanic if they are hardcoded as city elements. For all we know, you can't trade to anything but a city for the same reason you can't wage war on anyone without a city. :/

I think by "trading post proposal" in this thread we usually mean the trading post which extends the limit of a trade route and give a gold bonus rather than a trading destination. I assume that will be much easier to code.

In other words: Imagine a coastal vampire castle as a trading springboard.

Not sure If I've already mentoined this, or If someone else mentoined this (my "wonderful" memory), or whether it would fit Portugal, but an ability where you may only settle your own cities on your Continent whereas cities founded on foerign Continent turn into City-State, would be nice addition. One of those questionably balanceable stuff but unique playstyle non-the-less and it would be non-corporation way of introducing newly spawned CS in later game. Alternatively it could be special faction (alongside Barbarians and Separatists from Free Cities). So basically Civ that gets huge benefits from International Trade, gives huge benefits to others when trading with them and in order to snowball (you get the benefits but not the other major civs), you basically create cities for the sake of the international tarde routes without actually trading with competition.

IMHO an overhaul of colonization (semi-independent colonies) or a re-introduce of puppet cities/vassals will do the job.

In other words (again): we need more variety of cities or a clearer city specialization.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Now, look at India. The term India specifically refers to people of the Indus valley, geographically centering the idea of Indian nationalism in northern and central India. So, too, does the term "Hindi" (the most spoken language) derive from "India," linguistically referring to the same Indo-Aryan region. Of the major empires which ruled India prior to British rule, the Maurya, the Kushans, the Guptas, the Harshas, the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals, the Marathas, only a brief period under Tughlaq dynasty ever seemed to conquer any significant portion of Dravidian India, and quickly lost it. The Tamil kingdoms generally went uninterrupted from 600 BCE through 1700. It was only around the turn of the 18th century that they were conquered and incorporated into the British Empire, so they have only been part of "unified India" for barely two centuries, and only part of a unified independent India for about as long as the Iberian Union. But Tamilakam was never really associated with the majority of the Indian subcontinent, the "Indus valley" civilizations, until conquest by the British; but for colonization they probably would never have been incorporated into "India" by native Indian empires. As a matter of distinguishing the two, I don't think it's quite wrong to say that including a Tamil empire against a "British Raj" India stands up semantically about as well as including Portugal juxtaposed against "Spain" represented by the Iberian Union (or, to a lesser extent, Scotland juxtaposed against the British Empire or Nubia against Ptolemaic Egypt).

But if we go by name only the country of England doesn't encompass the land of Scotland as well as the region of Nubia is separate from the rest of what was Ancient Upper Egypt.

The difference for me is the term India does represent the whole country of modern India today, and that encompasses southern India which to me would be best represented by another Tamil leader.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I think by "trading post proposal" in this thread we usually mean the trading post which extends the limit of a trade route and give a gold bonus rather than a trading destination. I assume that will be much easier to code.

In other words: Imagine a coastal vampire castle as a trading springboard.

Oh I get that, and my point is that I don't know if a) trade routes must start at a city and end in a city and/or b) if they can be coded to run through a particular middle point C or if the optimization expressly requires and relies upon only on starting and ending points. It sounds like a simple addition but it could very well be something impossible or ridiculously convoluted under the surface.

But if we go by name only the country of England doesn't encompass the land of Scotland as well as the region of Nubia is separate from the rest of what was Ancient Upper Egypt.

That's why they are in parentheses and not the main argument.

But as a matter of specifically "name", Nubia could have been impliedly part of Egypt. Scotland, not so much but if England were named "Britain" it absolutely would fall into the same category.

The difference for me is the term India does represent the whole country of modern India today, and that encompasses southern India which to me would be best represented by another Tamil leader.

Well does it though? For one, it has a stepwell UI, which was mostly found in northern India and Pakistan, and a cursory search isn't revealing war elephants as having existed in the Tamil kingdoms. Gandhi was assassinated not long after Indian independence, so the period he mostly represents are Indian national movements during the late British Raj. Yet upon actually achieving independence, Pakistan was broken off simultaneously, and Bangladesh broke away a couple decades later. The idea of "unified" India under Gandhi barely ever existed and never really survived him.

Also, even if the idea of a unified India weren't a tenuous thing, I would still think the Chola an excellent candidate for a "second Indian" civ in the same vein as the Cree are a second Canadian civ or the Shoshone were a second American civ. I'm of the same opinion about Tibet, except Tibet is far more controversial than the Chola.

 

[Lord Lakely]

the main obstacle that I see with Portugal is that their natural bonuses seem to have been taken by other civs. Phoenicia, Spain, England already have bonuses similar to those which make sense for Portugal (extra trade route capacity, bonuses between continents, coastal bonuses, unique harbours, loyalty + colonization). Indonesia already has bonus adjacency from coast, Maori/Norway have naval travel bonuses etc.

I don't think that's a strike against Portugal because they deserve to be in the upcoming update but I'm fearful their design, like their Civ 5 incarnation, might turn out to be an uninteresting slice of shlock,

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

But as a matter of specifically "name", Nubia could have been impliedly part of Egypt. Scotland, not so much but if England were named "Britain" it absolutely would fall into the same category.

But a Britain civ wouldn't work with Eleanor as leader, which in GS they fortunately made England feel less British.

Well does it though? For one, it has a stepwell UI, which was mostly found in northern India and Pakistan, and a cursory search isn't revealing war elephants as having existed in the Tamil kingdoms. Gandhi was assassinated not long after Indian independence, so the period he mostly represents are Indian national movements during the late British Raj. Yet upon actually achieving independence, Pakistan was broken off simultaneously, and Bangladesh broke away a couple decades later. The idea of "unified" India under Gandhi barely ever existed and never really survived him.

Also, even if the idea of a unified India weren't a tenuous thing, I would still think the Chola an excellent candidate for a "second Indian" civ in the same vein as the Cree are a second Canadian civ or the Shoshone were a second American civ. I'm of the same opinion about Tibet, except Tibet is far more controversial than the Chola.

I'll agree that the Cholas would make a good "Indian" civ if we didn't have a civ called India but had different ones like the Mauryans and Mughals, like how Humankind is doing it.
Design wise I agree that the stepwell and War Elephant have nothing to do with modern day or British Raj India, but when the idea and design of India is supposed to encompasses most of the history of the subcontinent, specifically the borders of modern day India, I don't personally see the need for a separate Chola civ in Civ 6.

the main obstacle that I see with Portugal is that their natural bonuses seem to have been taken by other civs. Phoenicia, Spain, England already have bonuses similar to those which make sense for Portugal (extra trade route capacity, bonuses between continents, coastal bonuses, unique harbours, loyalty + colonization). Indonesia already has bonus adjacency from coast, Maori/Norway have naval travel bonuses etc.

I don't think that's a strike against Portugal because they deserve to be in the upcoming update but I'm fearful their design, like their Civ 5 incarnation, might turn out to be an uninteresting slice of shlock,

I think the main focus of them should be similar to what Spain had in Civ 5, exploration based but enhanced obviously, to feel different from the others considering they started the Age of Discovery/Exploration.

 

[bbbt]

the main obstacle that I see with Portugal is that their natural bonuses seem to have been taken by other civs. Phoenicia, Spain, England already have bonuses similar to those which make sense for Portugal (extra trade route capacity, bonuses between continents, coastal bonuses, unique harbours, loyalty + colonization). Indonesia already has bonus adjacency from coast, Maori/Norway have naval travel bonuses etc.

I don't think that's a strike against Portugal because they deserve to be in the upcoming update but I'm fearful their design, like their Civ 5 incarnation, might turn out to be an uninteresting slice of shlock,

I'm expecting Portugal to come with exploration bonuses, which is missing in Civ 6. I.e. I'm expecting them to take the Civ 5 Spain/Isabella slot, but hopefully without quite as wild as RNG bonuses. With the feature naming in Civ, Portugal could get bonuses for being the first civ to 'name' a feature, for example.

Edit: Though frankly, with Religious Settlements in the game, the Isabella equivalency of 'find a natural wonder and be able to buy a free settler right at the start of the game' perhaps isn't as wildly OP as it was in 6.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

the main obstacle that I see with Portugal is that their natural bonuses seem to have been taken by other civs. Phoenicia, Spain, England already have bonuses similar to those which make sense for Portugal (extra trade route capacity, bonuses between continents, coastal bonuses, unique harbours, loyalty + colonization). Indonesia already has bonus adjacency from coast, Maori/Norway have naval travel bonuses etc.

I don't think that's a strike against Portugal because they deserve to be in the upcoming update but I'm fearful their design, like their Civ 5 incarnation, might turn out to be an uninteresting slice of shlock,

I'm of a similar opinion. I've already noted before that between Spain, England, and the Dutch, a lot of colonial design space has already been claimed. And I don't want to rag too much on everyone's idea, but the idea of Portugal being encouraged to only shallowly scatter along coastlines seems like it would play out very closely to Phoenicia, which also even has a trade route defense bonus with the bireme. Claiming extra sea territory is Maori thing, culture bombs on the coast are a Dutch thing, Treasure Fleet and foreign continent bonuses are a Spanish thing, coastal cities on foreign continent is an English thing...

This out-of-the-box Feitoria-vampire thing may be the only way Portugal can distinguish itself, but I'm still left wondering whether the idea is good enough. I suspect the trade route idea won't end up working so I'm not holding out on it except maybe as an in-city improvement that increases the city's overall range. But if we tried the vampire route, Portugal shouldn't be encouraged to plop feitorias down anywhere because they never went inland very far. But they shouldn't be limited to coasts, either, because grabbing coastal territory for its own sake is even less advantageous than land territory and just creates a useless barrier to other civs entering and exiting the continent for most of the game, making Portugal feel flavorfully more like a defensive "wall-building" civ than an explorer civ. And making feitorias coastal vampire castles just generally discourages Portugal from building coastal cities, which imo is a flavor failure.

I don't know. I can see glimpses of Portugal's niche like additional visibility to naval units and some sort of trade route extension, but as for the actual feitoria UI nothing really clicks in my head. I don't think anyone has hit exactly on what we will be getting yet.

I'll agree that the Cholas would make a good "Indian" civ if we didn't have a civ called India but had different ones like the Mauryans and Mughals, like how Humankind is doing it.
Design wise I agree that the stepwell and War Elephant have nothing to do with modern day or British Raj India, but when the idea and design of India is supposed to encompasses most of the history of the subcontinent, specifically the borders of modern day India, I don't personally see the need for a separate Chola civ in Civ 6.

I don't think it is necessary, but then I didn't really see Scotland, Macedon, or both the Cree and Canada as necessary. There are other parts of the world I would prefer get some attention first, but what I am observing is that the Chola wouldn't be wholly outside of VI's design sensibilities. VI likes to double and triple down on popular regions (Britain, Greece, Egypt), and India is a large enough market that might justify the decision. And if we didn't get Burma, the Chola are a pretty great way of "filling out" Burma, Siam, and Malaysia. I'm not completely discounting it.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I don't think it is necessary, but then I didn't really see Scotland, Macedon, or both the Cree and Canada as necessary. There are other parts of the world I would prefer get some attention first, but what I am observing is that the Chola wouldn't be wholly outside of VI's design sensibilities. VI likes to double and triple down on popular regions (Britain, Greece, Egypt), and India is a large enough market that might justify the decision. And if we didn't get Burma, the Chola are a pretty great way of "filling out" Burma, Siam, and Malaysia. I'm not completely discounting it.

Well a Celtic civ was probably necessary, and that's still what I think Scotland represents.

I'll agree that both Cree and Canada weren't necessary together but it is what it is.

To me Alexander is necessary though and if they chose Sparta as the militaristic Greece, we needed Macedon.

I agree that India is a popular market and that's why we at least got Chandragupta. At this point having a Chola civ along with two leaders for India does seem unnecessar to me. The same can be said how some people feel about the current 3, or 4 depending how you look at it, Greek leaders

 

[Ticio]

the main obstacle that I see with Portugal is that their natural bonuses seem to have been taken by other civs. Phoenicia, Spain, England already have bonuses similar to those which make sense for Portugal (extra trade route capacity, bonuses between continents, coastal bonuses, unique harbours, loyalty + colonization). Indonesia already has bonus adjacency from coast, Maori/Norway have naval travel bonuses etc.

I don't think that's a strike against Portugal because they deserve to be in the upcoming update but I'm fearful their design, like their Civ 5 incarnation, might turn out to be an uninteresting slice of shlock,

The problem for me is that the other colonial civs have very suited bonuses for them; they pretty much summarize their "behavior" in real life. Portugal had is "own style" of commerce and I really think that they will found new bonuses to show it.

I always thought that Portugal would get bonuses for acquiring and trading with luxury resources. Something like doubling their quantity and letting them stack the happiness bonus.

For example, if you put a feitoria (let's imagine they work like vampire castles) you make a cultural bomb (maybe of 2 rows of tiles) and you get a luxury it would count double. This would allow Portugal to sell double the quantity of luxuries without having service problems.

The Unique Unit could be the "Portuguese Caravel" (Another name and design, of course) with more movement and less cost than the vanilla one so they can go explore faster and make more ships.

And for the Leader power... + naval unit sight and the ability to stack amenities by luxury resources. So, if you have 2 sugar, they will get +8 amenities, for 3 +12 and so on.
This way would make a synergy with the feitoria ability of doubling luxury resources.


These are just stupid ideas I had, but they show that you could still do Bonuses that would fit Portugal and make it distinct.
If I was able to think that in some minutes, imagine what the developer have prepare!
I’m pretty excited to see what they have chosen for Portugal!

I think the main focus of them should be similar to what Spain had in Civ 5, exploration based but enhanced obviously, to feel different from the others considering they started the Age of Discovery/Exploration.

I personally think that the bonuses of Spain for discoveries in Civ V do not fit very well with Portugal (they discovered a new route, but it was to an already known place. The thing about entering unknow land looking for mythical wonders and gold cities was more about the conquistadors and the new world).

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Well a Celtic civ was probably necessary, and that's still what I think Scotland represents.

I'll agree that both Cree and Canada weren't necessary together but it is what it is.

To me Alexander is necessary though and if they chose Sparta as the militaristic Greece, we needed Macedon.

I agree that India is a popular market and that's why we at least got Chandragupta. At this point having a Chola civ along with two leaders for India does seem unnecessar to me. The same can be said how some people feel about the current 3, or 4 depending how you look at it, Greek leaders

i think having 4 or 5 hellenic leaders is much more superfluous than 4 or 5 subcontinental leaders (especially ones of highly unique cultures. Modern North Indian (Gandhi, who’s also superfluous) vs. Classical North Indian vs. Persianised Turko-Mongolic vs. Tamil Dravidian. Each is fairly different from the others, and especially in the case of Tamil/Dravidian culture which is almost completely distinct from North Indian culture, it would be very different (also gameplay wise it would be really differnet)

 

[Jeppetto]

the main obstacle that I see with Portugal is that their natural bonuses seem to have been taken by other civs. Phoenicia, Spain, England already have bonuses similar to those which make sense for Portugal (extra trade route capacity, bonuses between continents, coastal bonuses, unique harbours, loyalty + colonization). Indonesia already has bonus adjacency from coast, Maori/Norway have naval travel bonuses etc.

I don't think that's a strike against Portugal because they deserve to be in the upcoming update but I'm fearful their design, like their Civ 5 incarnation, might turn out to be an uninteresting slice of shlock,

Ironically, I think the opposite, because many other civs have taken the boring straightforward benefits (like coastal adjacency), there's space for much more interesting ways to represent aspects of Portugal. The problem is limitation of ground-breaking features as part of the Pass. Maya were unique in the way they are played, not so ground-breaking in the way they are programmed. Likewise all the interesting designs fro Portugal might be too hard to make within the Pass' budget. But a boy can dream of nice surprise.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I personally think that the bonuses of Spain for discoveries in Civ V do not fit very well with Portugal (they discovered a new route, but it was to an already known place. The thing about entering unknow land looking for mythical wonders and gold cities was more about the conquistadors and the new world).

I mainly meant for them to get some sort of exploration bonuses, which are currently missing from Civ 6. I wouldn't a carbon copy of Spain's bonuses.
And yes to a unique caravel that's faster. They've had the Nau in past games and I think that will return.

i think having 4 or 5 hellenic leaders is much more superfluous than 4 or 5 subcontinental leaders (especially ones of highly unique cultures. Modern North Indian (Gandhi, who’s also superfluous) vs. Classical North Indian vs. Persianised Turko-Mongolic vs. Tamil Dravidian. Each is fairly different from the others, and especially in the case of Tamil/Dravidian culture which is almost completely distinct from North Indian culture, it would be very different (also gameplay wise it would be really differnet)

I don't consider Cleopatra to really be overwhelmingly Hellenistic anyway, at least in the design of Egypt doesn't say or feel Greek at all.
And we can always go with a more Latin Justinian.

 

[Zaarin]

And yes to a unique caravel that's faster. They've had the Nau in past games and I think that will return.

If you want a faster caravel, it should be a caravela redonda--the nau was a heavier, bulkier ship.

I don't consider Cleopatra to really be overwhelmingly Hellenistic anyway, at least in the design of Egypt doesn't say or feel Greek at all.

Except her only non-Hellene ancestor was a (Hellenized) Persian grandmother. If Cleopatra's not Hellenized, Teddy's a Native American.

 

[8housesofelixir]

This out-of-the-box Feitoria-vampire thing may be the only way Portugal can distinguish itself, but I'm still left wondering whether the idea is good enough. I suspect the trade route idea won't end up working so I'm not holding out on it except maybe as an in-city improvement that increases the city's overall range. But if we tried the vampire route, Portugal shouldn't be encouraged to plop feitorias down anywhere because they never went inland very far. But they shouldn't be limited to coasts, either, because grabbing coastal territory for its own sake is even less advantageous than land territory and just creates a useless barrier to other civs entering and exiting the continent for most of the game, making Portugal feel flavorfully more like a defensive "wall-building" civ than an explorer civ. And making feitorias coastal vampire castles just generally discourages Portugal from building coastal cities, which imo is a flavor failure.

One way to encourage Portugal to make coastal cities I could think of is that, if a coastal Feitoria is adjacent to a city center - the most common case will be you build the Feitoria first and plop a city next to it afterwards - it will give the city a loyalty bonus and a gold bonus, or maybe the city can directly trade with the capital. The city itself can still grow as the tiles next to the vampire castle are still workable. This way the Portuguese can still make a city-based foothold if they want to expand inland.

Ironically, I think the opposite, because many other civs have taken the boring straightforward benefits (like coastal adjacency), there's space for much more interesting ways to represent aspects of Portugal. The problem is limitation of ground-breaking features as part of the Pass. Maya were unique in the way they are played, not so ground-breaking in the way they are programmed. Likewise all the interesting designs fro Portugal might be too hard to make within the Pass' budget. But a boy can dream of nice surprise.

I in general agree with @Jeppetto 's point here - to be honest, the "colonization" aspect of Spain and Netherlands are just boring and lacking flavor. Spain only has a poor UI, Netherlands only got a near-nonexist loyalty bonus, while England can receive more trade routes, free units, and a better loyalty support.

Portugal has a unique "style" of colonization historically (that sounds really weird) different from all these countries, there should be a lot of interesting design spaces still available for it.

On the other hand, the coding and programming problems for new designs do exist. I can only hope that the FXS devs have the ability of putting new wine into the old bottles without bursting them.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Well a Celtic civ was probably necessary, and that's still what I think Scotland represents.

I'll agree that both Cree and Canada weren't necessary together but it is what it is.

To me Alexander is necessary though and if they chose Sparta as the militaristic Greece, we needed Macedon.

I agree that India is a popular market and that's why we at least got Chandragupta. At this point having a Chola civ along with two leaders for India does seem unnecessar to me. The same can be said how some people feel about the current 3, or 4 depending how you look at it, Greek leaders

Yeah none of your positions are wrong, either, I'm just pointing out the flipside. Chola wouldn't be a huge stretch from what they've already done, Scotland was a pretty disappointing attempt at a Celtic civ that functionally feels like the other half of Britain instead, and imo Alexander could have comfortably been a third Greek leader released as a last hurrah for the game.

I always thought that Portugal would get bonuses for acquiring and trading with luxury resources. Something like doubling their quantity and letting them stack the happiness bonus.

I just had a dumb tinfoil idea based on the "reworked 3rd expack" theory, because I was initially going to complain about both the Maya and GC already getting luxury bonuses and this just being more of the same.

If, however, the 3rd expack was set to be centered around economic overhauls (corporations, economic victory, luxury reworking), maybe it was intended that most of the civs have bonuses relating to luxury goods, in the same way that 7 of the R&F civs had Alliance/Loyalty/War attributes and 7 of the GS civs had terrain focuses.

I was anticipating "economies" to be the 3rd expack's theme anyway prior to the announcement of NFP, but the more we learn about it the more I'm convinced it might have been the case. So far we have Maya and GC with luxury bonuses (and Paititi), Ethiopia with a faith spin on trade focuses, Venice confirming the inclusion of some sort of trade-heavy civ like Portugal/Byzantium/Oman, and the DLC 5 leak confirming an alternate economy mode and Kublai who will likely have a silk road ability. We won't know more until we get the full picture, but I think there's a very good chance a third expansion pack may have been underway and then reworked into a DLC pass.

(note that this proposed theming theory doesn't preclude "economy" adjacent mechanical additions that may have been reworked into modes, like migration or colonies/vassal states)

For example, if you put a feitoria (let's imagine they work like vampire castles) you make a cultural bomb (maybe of 2 rows of tiles) and you get a luxury it would count double. This would allow Portugal to sell double the quantity of luxuries without having service problems.

Again culture bombing doesn't feel flavorfully Portuguese though.

Someone proposed the idea of Portuguese bonuses being tied to claiming ocean tiles; that feels like a niche that could be explored and maybe make culture bombing feel more Portuguese.

i think having 4 or 5 hellenic leaders is much more superfluous than 4 or 5 subcontinental leaders (especially ones of highly unique cultures. Modern North Indian (Gandhi, who’s also superfluous) vs. Classical North Indian vs. Persianised Turko-Mongolic vs. Tamil Dravidian. Each is fairly different from the others, and especially in the case of Tamil/Dravidian culture which is almost completely distinct from North Indian culture, it would be very different (also gameplay wise it would be really differnet)

Sure, perhaps in a more granular civ installment. As far as working with what we already have in VI, though, I think, as you argued pages and pages ago, the Chola are the only sufficiently distinguished subcontinental empire/culture that could make sense juxtaposed against an India that already has Gandhi and Chad. By contrast, I wouldn't say the same for a Mughal civ. You somehow convinced me along the way lol.

Except her only non-Hellene ancestor was a (Hellenized) Persian grandmother. If Cleopatra's not Hellenized, Teddy's a Native American.

Yes, but that is all historical subtext. What I think @Alexander's Hetaroi is saying is that as far as how she is designed and voiced, she's not very Hellenic at all.In the game, she's not as blatantly non-Egyptian as Gandhi is non-Indian or CdM is non-French or Eleanor is non-English. I'm not sure how to feel about that sort of artistic license, though I trend toward the side of not minding that she doesn't speak Greek because the game is already more Greek than I would like it to be and in this instance a fake Cleo feels more culturally diverse than a real Cleo.

One way to encourage Portugal to make coastal cities I could think of is that, if a coastal Feitoria is adjacent to a city center - the most common case will be you build the Feitoria first and plop a city next to it afterwards - it will give the city a loyalty bonus and a gold bonus, or maybe the city can directly trade with the capital. The city itself can still grow as the tiles next to the vampire castle are still workable. This way the Portuguese can still make a city-based foothold if they want to expand inland.

I was contemplating something like that, a more functional alternative to forts. That I could maybe get behind; a trade route extender or luxury grabber that everyone is proposing, but one with an express city center adjacency bonus to encourage Portuguese players to build cities at most of their settlement sites. It could encourage coastal feitorias without discouraging city settling and just polluting the coastlines with only semi-functional forts.

Portugal has a unique "style" of colonization historically (that sounds really weird) different from all these countries, there should be a lot of interesting design spaces still available for it.

On the other hand, the coding and programming problems for new designs do exist. I can only hope that the FXS devs have the ability of putting new wine into the old bottles without bursting them.

This is basically the same conundrum I'm met with. And frankly, regardless of whether Portugal deserves to be in the game or not, if the devs are expected to put in this much effort to squeeze out a playstyle niche for Portugal (or Byzantium or Assyria for that matter), I really don't see much excuse for civs like Oman/Swahili, the Berbers, Burma/Chola, the Timurids, etc. etc. At this point, most of the plausible candidates are struggling for design space and I don't want to see it all squandered on returning civs.

 

[Zaarin]

Yes, but that is all historical subtext. What I think @Alexander's Hetaroi is saying is that as far as how she is designed and voiced, she's not very Hellenic at all.In the game, she's not as blatantly non-Egyptian as Gandhi is non-Indian or CdM is non-French or Eleanor is non-English. I'm not sure how to feel about that sort of artistic license, though I trend toward the side of not minding that she doesn't speak Greek because the game is already more Greek than I would like it to be and in this instance a fake Cleo feels more culturally diverse than a real Cleo.

Fair, her ethnicity definitely looks ambiguous--I could buy her being Greek or Egyptian ethnically. Certainly not as she's described by Classical writers, but I agree that it's preferable this way--I can pretend she's Nefertary or Hatshepsut at any rate.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

If you want a faster caravel, it should be a caravela redonda--the nau was a heavier, bulkier ship.

I don't know much about ships but gameplay wise I woudn't be surprised if we got the Nau again and they just made it a faster version of the caravel, but still stronger.

Except her only non-Hellene ancestor was a (Hellenized) Persian grandmother. If Cleopatra's not Hellenized, Teddy's a Native American.

What @PhoenicianGold says is what I was implying. Despite Cleo having Greek ancestry, she doesn't make it another Greek civ the same way both Catherine's don't feel the void of me not having my Renaissance Italy.
Though as a lover of Greek/Hellenistic history anyway I say bring them on, the more the merrier.

Oh and Teddy was born in New York City, so that does somewhat make him a native American.

 

[Xandinho]

What I expect Portugal can receive:

Naval units with more movement and sight;
Trade routes receiving extra gold when crossing ocean tiles;
Great explorers as a kind of unique great people;
Cities on other continents granting extra gold;
Some kind of bonus for harbor district;
One extra trade route limit after mercantilism.

If Portugal used RF resources, I'd expect it getting extra era points when discovering new continents, natural wonders and civilizations and loyalty in cities on other contitnents.