How would you design nomadic Civilizations?

[Leucarum]

Random thought - less of a way to implement nomadic civs and I guess it's more as a mechanic that you could use as part of a single 'nomadic' Civ in Civ6... A civ ability where your capital city automatically moves to the city in your empire with the highest population each turn. Couple that with some mechanic to move your population from one city to another (domestic trade routes shuffling population from the destination to recipient city upon completion?) If you were going all in, you could add additional loyalty pressure from your capital to represent your nomads settling nearby lands whether invited or not?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Random thought - less of a way to implement nomadic civs and I guess it's more as a mechanic that you could use as part of a single 'nomadic' Civ in Civ6... A civ ability where your capital city automatically moves to the city in your empire with the highest population each turn. Couple that with some mechanic to move your population from one city to another (domestic trade routes shuffling population from the destination to recipient city upon completion?) If you were going all in, you could add additional loyalty pressure from your capital to represent your nomads settling nearby lands whether invited or not?

On a more general note, "Moving Capitals" was pretty common throughout history, and is left out of Civ VI, as far as I can tell, simply to make it easier to define a Dominaton Victory.

To start with, of course, many of the pastoral civs and all of the City State polities had no 'capital' as such. To take the oft-discussed Classical Greeks, while Athens was the Cultural capital, Syracuse in Sicily was actually the largest city in the Greek-speaking world by a wide margin, and at various times Athens, Sparta, or Thebes dominated many (but never all) of the other Greek city states politically/diplomatically.

Many other Civs had multiple capitals at the same time. The Achaemenid Persians and the Kushans had summer and winter capitals and moved the court between them every year. Since the game has turns that are a minimum of 1 year long, that means any single capital for either of them Artificial from the start.

And it seems that every Chinese Dynasty almost, moved the capital to a new city. In several cases the new city was not that far from an older capital, but for at least the first 1000 years or so of Chinese history there is no one city that can be singled out realistically as The Chinese Capital.

And note that even a monolithic state like Rome had at various times its political capital in Rome, Ravenna, Constantinople, Thessalonica, Mediolanum (Milan), Nicomedia, Augusta Treverorum (Trier), Antioch, Sirmium and extremely briefly, Salona. Sure, "Rome" is pretty much the 'standard' and the longest-lasting historically (not counting the Byzantine period), but it was a long way from being the only Imperial Capital.

 

[pokiehl]

It's always been a game named "Civilization" that was about developing individual Cities while at the same time being a really bad City Builder compared to games that were from the start Real City development games like Caesar IV, the Anno series, and many others.
It's well past time for Civ to become a real Civilization Building game and not try to do a mediocre job of City Building. Expanding the game mechanics to include the varieties of Culture/Civilization development that have been tried IRL would at least be a start.

Huh? I don't consider Civ games, Paradox games, or other similar strategy games to be "city builders" at all. None of them are trying to be anything close to like what Anno is.

Random thought - less of a way to implement nomadic civs and I guess it's more as a mechanic that you could use as part of a single 'nomadic' Civ in Civ6... A civ ability where your capital city automatically moves to the city in your empire with the highest population each turn. Couple that with some mechanic to move your population from one city to another (domestic trade routes shuffling population from the destination to recipient city upon completion?) If you were going all in, you could add additional loyalty pressure from your capital to represent your nomads settling nearby lands whether invited or not?

I don't really see how moving capitals or moving population from city to city ties into nomadism...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Huh? I don't consider Civ games, Paradox games, or other similar strategy games to be "city builders" at all. None of them are trying to be anything close to like what Anno is.

Civ is not succeeding at being anything close to what the Anno games are, but since Civ I the Civ games have been all about founding and developing Cities: building things in them, improving the terrain around them, defending them, feeding them with resources. It is exactly what the City Building games do, except that Civ does it badly and, worse, does it instead of building a real civilization which, contrary to popular belief, is not all about building individual cities.

 

[Falrinn]

Not sure how to do it as a playable civ, but I'd love to see Barbarians replaced with nomadic societies. This takes some inspiration from Barbarian Clans mode, but is even more in depth.

A nomadic society would have a civ name based on a real-world culture (there are thousands of such cultures throughout history, so there are plenty to chose from), rather then having encampments would have a "Tribe" unit that would be able to move around but still spawn military units.

Unlike barbarians they would not be inherently aggressive. Rather they would have an aggression score, and only the highest would go straight to violence and pillaging upon sight. Societies with more moderate aggression scores would demand tribute in order to leave you alone and would generally ransom back any captured civilian units, and low aggression societies would only attack if directly provoked. The aggression score would be set for each individual nomadic society plus or minus a couple points in a given game. Attacking unprovoked or settling territory they have an affinity for without permission will raise aggression score, while trade or other positive dealings would lower it.

If you manage to drop a tribes aggression towards you to it's lowest level, you will have the option of inviting them into your territory.

If you invite them in, then you will dedicate a couple hexes worth of land to supporting them, and in exchange they will help defend your territory from invasion. Typically they'll just hang around their assigned hexes and attack any invaders nearby, but you could also levy their troops to control them directly for a set time period. Then after a time period that is shorter if the hexes you granted them are more valuable and if your culture generation is stronger, you will be able to assimilate the nomads into your civilization. This action instantly bumps up the population of the nearest city, grants you full ownership of their military units, and a permanent bonus along the lines of what great people grant.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Not sure how to do it as a playable civ, but I'd love to see Barbarians replaced with nomadic societies. This takes some inspiration from Barbarian Clans mode, but is even more in depth.

A nomadic society would have a civ name based on a real-world culture (there are thousands of such cultures throughout history, so there are plenty to chose from), rather then having encampments would have a "Tribe" unit that would be able to move around but still spawn military units.

Based on CIV6's Barbarian Clans model I would like to see for example a "Steppe Societies" group with Tribes from the Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Yeniseian and Uralic peoples, all those share a pastorial culture but not just about horses, cattle and sheep on the proper steppe but also the reindeer from the taiga on the north and the bactrian camel from their arid south, likely practiced Tengrism*, etc. Maybe also the Iranian peoples but I think they have less in common.

So could the Scythian share group with the Jurchen, Xianbei, Gokturks, Huns and Magyars?

 

[BuchiTaton]

Seems like the "Chariot Clan" in CIV6 are basically the ancient Indoeuropean peoples, then what about this:

> "Chariot People" aka Indoeuropeans. Start with Horse resource and Wheel technology.
- HITTITE (eureka for Smelting technology)
- YUEZHI (produce a Camel resource)
- THRACIAN (provide Peltast unit)
- SCYTHIAN (grants a copy of cavalry units)
- CELTIC (construct Oppidum insfrastructure)

 

[Zaarin]

Seems like the "Chariot Clan" in CIV6 are basically the ancient Indoeuropean peoples, then what about this:

> "Chariot People" aka Indoeuropeans. Start with Horse resource and Wheel technology.
- HITTITE (eureka for Smelting technology)
- YUEZHI (produce a Camel resource)
- THRACIAN (provide Peltast unit)
- SCYTHIAN (grants a copy of cavalry units)
- CELTIC (construct Oppidum insfrastructure)

As a minor civ, I like it; not a fan of evolving civs for playable civs, though. (I'd prefer a full Hittite civ, of course.)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Seems like the "Chariot Clan" in CIV6 are basically the ancient Indoeuropean peoples, then what about this:

> "Chariot People" aka Indoeuropeans. Start with Horse resource and Wheel technology.
- HITTITE (eureka for Smelting technology)
- YUEZHI (produce a Camel resource)
- THRACIAN (provide Peltast unit)
- SCYTHIAN (grants a copy of cavalry units)
- CELTIC (construct Oppidum insfrastructure)

Let's see if we can refine this a bit.

Good news, it all fits within the 'traditional' Civ start date of 4000 BCE.

At the moment, the earliest identified proto-Indo-European speakers are the Yamnaya Culture, dated back to 3400 - 2600 BCE. They herded sheep and cattle from horseback, hauled their worldly goods in solid wheeled wagons drawn by horses or oxen, had pottery, gold and silver ornaments and built Kurgans. BUT they did not fight from horseback, having no weapons hat were adapted for it: javelins, copper/stone axes seem to have been their primary weapons and men on foot could use them better than a man on a horse with no decent saddle or tack yet. Humankind's Scout Rider unit is actually a very good representation of this - really fast scouts with really mediocre combat factors.

Flash forward about 500 years, and from 2100 - 1800 BCE the Sintashta Culture shows up in the same area as the earlier Yamnaya - north of the Caspian Sea on the central Eurasian steppe. Still got the wagons, the herds of sheep and cattle, the kurgan building, but much more evidence of inter-tribal/group warfare: they had short bows that they could apparently use from horseback (but not true composite bows until possibly the very end of their period) and fortified villages. In their kurgan burials are also found the very first spoked-wheel Chariots.
That technology spread remarkably fast:
1700 BCE - chariots and composite bows in Shang Dynasty China
1650 BCE - chariots and composite bows introduced into Egypt by the Hyksos
1600 BCE - spoked wheel chariots in Mycenean Greece
1500 BCE - spoked wheel chariots used by the Mitanni in Mesopotamia
1300 BCE - chariots depicted in Spain, Germany, Poland and Sweden - meaning the technology is pretty much general throughout Europe Except in Italy - here is no indication that anyone south of the Alps had chariots until much, much later - in fact, most of the Latin words relating to chariot, wagon or cart technologies have Gaulic roots, meaning that the entire technology may have been 'borrowed' along with the words from the Celts to the north almost 1000 years after the rest of Europe had it.

Now, the earliest "historical" (mostly in other people's 'histories' rather than their own) charioteers are a little different, and if we don't want to intrude on potential Civilizations for the game (that is, groups with identifiable named Leaders) here is possibly a better list:

SHANG (eureka for Bronze Working technology)
MITANNI (provides an automatic Horse resource)
HYKSOS (produces Chariot Archers)
CIMMERIAN (provides a Horse Archer unit)
CELTS (construct Oppidum Improvements)

 

[Zaarin]

MITANNI (provides an automatic Horse resource)

Unlikely to happen, but the Mitanni would make an interesting civ. While it was only the upper crust of the society, the common people being Hurrian, the Mitanni are the only Indo-Aryan people attested outside of India (not counting the Roma/Romani who emigrated from India in historical times). Many Akkadian terms related to horsemanship were borrowed from the Mitannni. Its language is poorly attested but appears to be very close to Vedic Sanskrit, which could easily be used in its stead. (Though, I'll be honest: given the choice between Mitanni and an actual Hurro-Urartian state like Urartu, I'd take the latter.)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Unlikely to happen, but the Mitanni would make an interesting civ. While it was only the upper crust of the society, the common people being Hurrian, the Mitanni are the only Indo-Aryan people attested outside of India (not counting the Roma/Romani who emigrated from India in historical times). Many Akkadian terms related to horsemanship were borrowed from the Mitannni. Its language is poorly attested but appears to be very close to Vedic Sanskrit, which could easily be used in its stead. (Though, I'll be honest: given the choice between Mitanni and an actual Hurro-Urartian state like Urartu, I'd take the latter.)

As interesting as the Mitanni are, this is why I considered them less than likely to be a 'real' Civ in Civ VII or any other foreseeable Civ game: they virtually introduced Horses, horse raising and horse training to the Middle East, were probably the conduit (via their Indo-European aristocracy) for introducing chariots to the Middle East/Anatolia by way of the Maikop culture in the Caucasus, and produced the first known book on horse-handling anywhere in the world. But, as you say, their language is problematic and, while we have some names of Mitanni kings, we know almost nothing else about them - appearance, personality, policies - we aren't even sure exactly what the borders of the Mitanni kingdom were at any given time, so it's a sort of Political Amoeba of a state to us - and given that the same general area and period give us a host of better candidates like the Hittites, Akkadians, Assyrians, Elam, etc. there just isn't a good reason to stretch to make them into a regular Civ.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

Permanent cities are going to be the core of any civilization game. If you don't have them or can just move them, whether that's advantageous or not it not putting you on an equal playing field with the other players.

 

[BuchiTaton]

As a minor civ, I like it; not a fan of evolving civs for playable civs, though.

"Evolving"? I am not sure if it is a misunderstanding but I do not mean sequence of cultures like in Humankind, these are separated "barbarians" within a group that share common elements but each one also have their own bonus.

(I'd prefer a full Hittite civ, of course.)

I would like a playable Hittite civ for CIV7 also, I add them as "barbarians" mainly because I think they fit nice within a group equivalent of CIV6's "Chariot Clan".

By the way I was also thinking about have Hittites as the city state of Hattusa, but since Hattusa was first a Hattian city I see this as a chance to have both, Hattians as the original inhabitants with Hattusa and Hittites as a very early "barbarians". In a similar way others "Crandle of Civilization" civs could be also city states like Hurrians with Urkesh, Elamites with Susa, Oxus* with Gonurdepe, Meluha* with Harappa, or even Amorites with Ugarit. While Sumerians and Assyrians could be the playable ones.

 

[Zaarin]

"Evolving"? I am not sure if it is a misunderstanding but I do not mean sequence of cultures like in Humankind, these are separated "barbarians" within a group that share common elements but each one also have their own bonus.

Ah, I thought you were proposing a "Chariot People" civ that could evolve Humankind-style. As minor civs, we're on the same page.

By the way I was also thinking about have Hittites as the city state of Hattusa, but since Hattusa was first a Hattian city I see this as a chance to have both, Hattians as the original inhabitants with Hattusa and Hittites as a very early "barbarians". In a similar way others "Crandle of Civilization" civs could be also city states like Hurrians with Urkesh, Elamites with Susa, Oxus* with Gonurdepe, Meluha* with Harappa, or even Amorites with Ugarit. While Sumerians and Assyrians could be the playable ones.

I suppose Hittites could do without Hattusa as long as Muwatilli II is king and Tarḫuntašša is the capital. As for the Amorites, I'd associate them with Yamhad or Qatna rather than Ugarit. While the Ugaritic people seem to have been descendants of the Amorites (or at least their language was), they don't seem to have been Amorites proper. That being said, I'd love to see Ugarit removed from Phoenicia's city list and made a city-state. Ugarit seems to have been culturally associated with the Phoenicians, but they weren't Phoenician.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Now the equivalent of "Rover Clan" group:

> "Rider People" aka Tengri* cultures. Start with Reindeer resource and the special Raider unit.
- UGRIAN (unique Skiing technology)
- HUNNIC (automatic bonus to light cavalry)
- TURKIC (unique Khanate civic)
- XIANBEI (eureka for Stirrup technology)
- JURCHEN (enable to produce Raider in any city)

The Rider is a Horse Archer (ranged light cavalry) unit avaible since Classical Age.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

you move your cities and territory around if you wish

 

[Zaarin]

you move your cities and territory around if you wish

That's an easy answer, but the problem is there has to be a good motivation to do so.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

That's an easy answer, but the problem is there has to be a good motivation to do so.

flee from a aggressive neighbor that fabricates casus belli because it's racist

Decide you really want to fight not!Germany so you pack up, travel across the steppe and plop yourself next to it

Climate change

And so on

 

[Krajzen]

One thing I am wondering about.

In real life steppe horse nomads were a powerful part of history because of a particular geography of our world, where you have open steppes and deserts stretching from independent Ukraine through half of Asia to Manchuria. They have ruled across vast lands with very few mountains and forests, which were also awful for agriculture and no settled civilization could truly colonize them before industrial revolution (also advanced firearms were necessary to break horse archers power). An enormous particular part of our world just happened to be their heaven, but what if between Ukrainian Donbas and north west China there was an ocean. They weren't exactly flourishing across the world outside of "steppe Eurasia" (Bedouin Arabia had one spectacular expansion fluke and then returned to backwater immediately).

What am I trying to say, is that nomadic empires don't make sense on many randomly generated civ maps, even besides horse availability. There is no reason why should they exist on archipelagos, on heavily hilly/mountainous/forest maps, or on very agriculturally fertile areas, where settled cultures crush them with numbers and cultural output. Powerful nomadic empires in civ should make sense in a context of the map.

Personally if I'd design civ7
1) I'd make some civs (obv Mongols + like two from among Scythians, Huns, Turks, Cumans, Manchus, Tatars, whoever else set) have special nomadic rules for first few eras of a game, but you have to settle in cities by the late midle ages bc you need universities to develop higher science. And there is a tradeoff between benefits of longer nomadic period vs earlier city settling since late classical era.
2) When generating a new map, game checks if according to rules it allows on its own "steppe Eurasia" zone/zones
3) If it does generate them, it assigns them civs with aforementioned 'nomadic' token

 

[Zaarin]

flee from a aggressive neighbor that fabricates casus belli because it's racist

Decide you really want to fight not!Germany so you pack up, travel across the steppe and plop yourself next to it

Climate change

And so on

Climate change already starts too early in Civ6; if it's hitting when there are still nomadic civs in Civ7, they've done something terribly wrong.

Personally if I'd design civ7
1) I'd make some civs (obv Mongols + like two from among Scythians, Huns, Turks, Cumans, Manchus, Tatars, whoever else set) have special nomadic rules for first few eras of a game, but you have to settle in cities by the late midle ages bc you need universities to develop higher science. And there is a tradeoff between benefits of longer nomadic period vs earlier city settling since late classical era.
2) When generating a new map, game checks if according to rules it allows on its own "steppe Eurasia" zone/zones
3) If it does generate them, it assigns them civs with aforementioned 'nomadic' token

These are good ideas.