how to make significant disparities fun to play in?

[civilizationfanatic2000]

one suggestion I raised in my earlier threads is that the farther away from the equator you are, and/or the less hospitable your climate is to farming, the more time your civilization will need to become agrarian. this severely limits what the player can do and limits their score in the early game significantly. on a TSL earth map, this means that the traditional European civs would simply be unable to compete with the earlier civs like Sumeria, Egypt, Persia, India, and China for many turns at a time. England and Sweden and Russia would be particularly affected. It might take them until 1000 AD in game until they become civilized or later.

in your eyes, how would you solve the problem of players being unable to really participate in the game? I know I said they could invade their civilized neighbors, define their culture, and so on, but they would have smaller cities (pops = power), slower to invent technology, probably not literate (prevents them from conducting advanced diplomacy from other civilizations), and on average are weaker (which allows them to be invaded much easier if they happen to be near a civilized neighbor). obviously major exceptions are the mongols and the Germans but those were flukes led by one of the best military leaders/massive tribal confederation in their homeland

 

[Naokaukodem]

France is just fine for crops, and I think that it has ever been. Temperate climates are just fine. They do not get backwarded because of that. Your theory is on wrong basis I think. (You may live in tropical areas ?)

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

France is just fine for crops, and I think that it has ever been. Temperate climates are just fine. They do not get backwarded because of that. Your theory is on wrong basis I think. (You may live in tropical areas ?

Well, yes. My point not that France is unfarmable, the mere existence of medieval Europe disproves this, what I am saying is that agriculture starts in the easiest places to farm- which are warm areas with lots of sunlight (or areas with flooding rivers not surrounded by dense forest or clay soil like China). Then agriculture spreads from those places to less and less optimal places. In 625 BCE (which would take 100-ish turns to get to on Civ VI standard speed I think) most of Europe was far behind places like the Middle East, India, or East Asia in terms of development and population. So there's the issue of spending more than a hundred turns as essentially a barbarian state.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Look more closely at the biomes closer to the equator, compared with those near the Tropic lines (Cancer, Capricorn). Isn't there a lot of jungle / rainforest / heavy vegetation close to the equator? The civs who start in temperate zones, with good rivers, will have strong early agriculture. Rivers might be as important as temperature.

Now, for those civs which start much closer to the poles, they would have smaller populations initially. Perhaps they get advantages to fishing or hunting? What about the distribution of resources, e.g., horses and iron? To the extent that those civs have resources in their starting locations, they might need to make war earlier to grab arable land. Which did happen, in the first few centuries of game time.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

Look more closely at the biomes closer to the equator, compared with those near the Tropic lines (Cancer, Capricorn). Isn't there a lot of jungle / rainforest / heavy vegetation close to the equator? The civs who start in temperate zones, with good rivers, will have strong early agriculture. Rivers might be as important as temperature.

Now, for those civs which start much closer to the poles, they would have smaller populations initially. Perhaps they get advantages to fishing or hunting? What about the distribution of resources, e.g., horses and iron? To the extent that those civs have resources in their starting locations, they might need to make war earlier to grab arable land. Which did happen, in the first few centuries of game time.

those are good ideas yes, it makes it possible to simulate nomad invasions

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

there's also this Quora answer that goes into more detail than me about why Europe developed urban and literate civilization later than what the Middle East and South Asia did (I think I covered this with Cultural Authority and State Formation)

What made Europe so unnattractive to ancient agricultural societies that they took so long to settle it, despite it being so green? Why d...

Answer (1 of 7): “What made Europe so unnattractive to ancient agricultural societies that they took so long to settle it, despite it being so green? Why did they prefer Egypt and Mesopotamia, which are in the middle of deserts?” In both Egypt and Mesopotamia agriculture began on fertile river f...

www.quora.com

 

[BuchiTaton]

There are not definite enviroments for a civ to develop. For example the 4 main staple crops come from different environments.

- Wheat, temperate-dry mostly open vegetation, great rivers basin of the Fertile Crecent.​

- Rice, temperate-tropical forested, great rivers basin of China.​

- Maize, tropical-dry forested, mountain valleys of Mesoamerica.​

- Potato, cold-dry open vegetation, mountain valleys of the Andes.​

There are also significative crops like sorghum, millet, cassava and yam that add anothers scenario options.
Add to the above the role of domesticated animals like cattle, buffalo, yak, sheep, goat, reindeer, llama, camel, pig, donkey, horse, etc.

From these is easier to add some unique advantages like yield bonus for certain crops on certain tile biome/climate/terrain. This would help to facilitate the growth of any civ from the crops they have incorporated. So a way to guide BUT not limit the expansion of civs, a positive boost not a prohibitive mechanic.

By the way I dont think CIV is the series to expect drops their gamey, symmetric and quite deterministic design. Of course others games and the modder community show us that a more simulator like game is possible, but it is not just about if is possible, is also about the traditional model, the target audiences and the profitability.