1.18 Civilizations - Brainstorming

[Ballazic]

In terms of other civs that would impact game balance of existing civs, here's a few suggestions:

• With the addition of Swahili, there's going to be a lot of competition along the East African and Arabian coasts. Have you considered including Oman as a civ focused on Indian Ocean trade, to balance against Swahili, Arabs, Iran, and the Tamil?
• Have you considered making medieval Venice a civ? For all the jokes about a 'one-city civ', the Republic of Venice did own considerable territory along the Adriatic coast as well as Morea (Greece), even before it briefly sacked and captured Constantinople. Venice could be a fascinating bit of gameplay, and a big counterweight against France, Austria, Byzantines, Arabs, and Ottomans, especially given their focus on trade and naval combat.
• Currently, Mali is the only West African civ in the game. Have you considered including other civs like the Ghana Empire or the Songhai (or are you treating those as coterminous like Egypt and Mamluks)? Alternately, have you considered a Nigeria civ, based on the city-states of the lower Niger like Edo/Benin City? (That said, historically there wasn't much interaction between the Niger delta and the upper Niger, and Edo only comes to prominence after the decline of Mali and the Songhai, so Nigeria might have more of an effect in terms of balancing the Kongo civ to their south).
• This one's a bit more of a stretch, but I'm wondering if you've considered incorporating an Haudenosaunee or 'Iroquois Confederacy' civ during the early American period as a counterweight against English and French colonization of North America? I'm pretty sure the Iroquois were mostly sedentary, and the 'Great League of Peace' dates back quite a ways (most likely between 1450-1660, though perhaps even earlier to 1142!?). The gameplay would be similar to the Aztecs (prepare frantically for European arrival), with two differences: a) the Iroquois settler map would keep them away from the Atlantic coast, so there would be English and French cities, and b) one of the European civs would have strongly negative diplomatic penalties, while the other would have strongly positive diplo bonuses, and you could configure this based on 'first contact' or some other mechanism to ensure it changes game-to-game.

re:venice
We already have venice. We have the late medieval/rennaissance italy spawn which is representative of the northern city states. The bigger map will actually enhance the civ we already have.

 

[Steb]

I think Venice comes up all the time because the Italian civ models it somewhat poorly. For instance, the Italian spawn occurs at a date (12th century, the establishment of the Lombard League) in which Venice had already been one of the most significant cities in Western Europe for a few centuries. I've been reading a book that even claims that Venice was the city that allowed all other Western European cities to develop thanks to Venice's trade with Byzantium. By the time of the Lombard League, Venice was very wealthy, had begun establishing its overseas possessions, and was about to conquer Constantinople. So it does feel like not having Venice as a core part of a major civ in the 697-1167 AD period is a representation problem.

It'd be overkill to split the Italian civ into two when we don't do that for Greece, China, etc. And Venice itself didn't hold enough territory for it being a major civ to make gameplay sense. But maybe we could explore the possibility of spawning Italy in Venice around 700-800 AD. The challenge, then, would be to make sure that this correctly models Renaissance Italy (also a highly important period) as well as modern Italy.

 

[Ballazic]

Good point. Maybe a combination of the bigger map and an earlier start (in venice) may help make the italians have more of a historical presence in the middle ages. I mean they are never supposed to be a world power. The cards they are dealt with both historically and modelled in DoC mean they have an opportunity to be a regional hegemon (the med). Which leads to italy being a thorn in the side of the ottomans potentially. But, if they start earlier, they could also be a thorn in the side of the byzantines!

 

[Vero Juventini]

Let's discuss how the Kievan Rus' would be in this mod. Essentially, what would later become Muscovy was a part of Rus' before the Mongol invasion. Sometime after the Mongol invasion Kievan Rus' fell apart and its Western territories (including Kyiv) were conquered by Poland-Lithuania. Then Muscovy has been a tributary state to Mongols for two hundred years before sorta gaining full independence after the Stand on the Ugra river. Meanwhile there was also the Novgorod Republic to the West of Muscovy, which did not submit to Mongols and did a lot of trade with European principalities, the Hanseatic League etc. It was later conquered by Muscovy in the XV century. It's also worth mentioning that Moscow was a small town until the yoke. Exactly at the time when Muscovy was a tributary state Moscow grew famous, as it was a city that was delegated the tax collecting by Mongols [see Ivan Kalita]. Before that, the largest city in this region of Rus' was Vladimir.

So that's the brief historical background [correct it if I'm wrong somewhere]. How is all of that going to be realized? Will Russia be spawning a few hundred years later? Will Kievan Rus' be a civilization that would span from 880 to 1250? Or is it going to lose its "Muscovy" part after the Mongol invasion and be hardcoded to become a vassal of Poland? And what would be its UHVs?

 

[Dracosolon]

1) Kievan spawn at 880 AD.
2) Kievan UHV*.
3) Mongol conquerors, likely to collapse the civ (unless it survives, in which case the Novgorod Republic could be one of its dynamic names if its capital changes).
4) Poland may have historical territory there, or even conquerors. If it doesn't, another player is very likely to snatch collapsed independant cities anyway.
5) Russia spawns as Muscovy, its UHV proceeds as usual (its deadlines are late enough that the player would still have plenty of freedom as to how to accomplish it). Of course, new goals might be introduced to represent western consolidation too.
6) Kievan Rus may respawn with dynamic names representing later entities like the Zaporozhian Sich or Ukraine (though maybe only if Russia is unstable).

*Which can either end before the conquest, or on the contrary involve surviving it.

So I think the timeline works out well enough. It's the other aspects of the civ (UHV, UP, etc) that I'm less sure about.

 

[Cacaso]

New Civ - The Israelites:

UU - Immigrant (replaces Settler): Can join foreign cities, adding Judaism, Israelite culture and GP points.
UB - Kibbutz (replaces National Park): Extra food and commerce based on the number of Jewish cities across the world.
UP - The Power of Diaspora: Does not lose the game or collapse as long as you have units, foreign cities with Judaism periodically generate Immigrants.

UHV:
-Control the Jewish Holy City in -1300, -140 and 1950.
-Make sure Jewish cities across the world generate at least 70 Great People.
-Make sure 3 cities with Judaism have Legendary culture.

For those who can't decide between an ancient Judeah civ and a modern Israel one. Spend almost the entire game managing your Immigrants, for a playthrough unlike any other!

Perhaps CIV Israel would be interesting to be discussed/added (in its old version not the modern nation-state of Israel, because of lack of slot available at the end of the game).

I referenced this message that was sent in the "completely dumb ideas" tread, which could serve as a basis for starting discussions. The UB, UP and 1st UHV I think could be used with some adaptations.

As UU maybe unity, Maccabees. being leader head "the King Davi" or "Salomon". The other two UHV I still have no idea.

But I think it would be interesting because it would be a CIV that would be a fierce challenge to any civs in the middle east area, being a counter to many of them. If the UP that prevents the civ from collapsing is accepted, and still spawns some military units from time to time with the sole objective of recapturing jerusalem, it would be a military drain for any CIV that tries to control this city, I think it would be a unique and cool challenge .

 

[Publicola]

After my mention of Venice led to Leoreth's response, I checked previous posts to figure out what was the history, only to learn that Leoreth has very strong opinions about Venice, and has categorically ruled out any Venetian civ from DOC, along with any 'Papal States' civ or 'Ancient Judah' civ. So all three of those are certainly out.

Personally, I'm most interested by the idea of including Oman and/or an Iroquois civ to 1.18. Both seem like they have 'niches' that no other civ really covers, their UHVs seem like they'd be incredibly distinctive, and their existence would have serious implications on their immediate neighbors.

 

[Dracosolon]

I think Venice comes up all the time because the Italian civ models it somewhat poorly. For instance, the Italian spawn occurs at a date (12th century, the establishment of the Lombard League) in which Venice had already been one of the most significant cities in Western Europe for a few centuries. I've been reading a book that even claims that Venice was the city that allowed all other Western European cities to develop thanks to Venice's trade with Byzantium. By the time of the Lombard League, Venice was very wealthy, had begun establishing its overseas possessions, and was about to conquer Constantinople. So it does feel like not having Venice as a core part of a major civ in the 697-1167 AD period is a representation problem.

It'd be overkill to split the Italian civ into two when we don't do that for Greece, China, etc. And Venice itself didn't hold enough territory for it being a major civ to make gameplay sense. But maybe we could explore the possibility of spawning Italy in Venice around 700-800 AD. The challenge, then, would be to make sure that this correctly models Renaissance Italy (also a highly important period) as well as modern Italy.

This would be cool if properly implemented, but my concern is that starting with just Venice would feel like you're effectively a Venetian civ expanding into a united Italian one. With the current setup you feel more like a collection of city states, having Venice settle or conquer other major Italian cities would look very odd.

 

[Steb]

This would be cool if properly implemented, but my concern is that starting with just Venice would feel like you're effectively a Venetian civ expanding into a united Italian one. With the current setup you feel more like a collection of city states, having Venice settle or conquer other major Italian cities would look very odd.

Well, I'm not sure it'd be odder than to have Italian cities of the Renaissance including Rome and Venice being brought under the rule of Florence or Milan, but yeah. It's yet another way to state how difficult it is to model pre-19th century Italy. I think we could make the case that Venice should be the default capital of the collection of Italian city-states, just like Athens and Tikal are the default capitals of the Greek and Maya city-states. Maybe there could be a way to easily move the capital between the various cities, to represent how Venice, Milan, Florence, Rome, even Genoa, Turin or Naples, were dominant in different time periods.

 

[Vero Juventini]

1) Kievan spawn at 880 AD.
2) Kievan UHV*.
3) Mongol conquerors, likely to collapse the civ (unless it survives, in which case the Novgorod Republic could be one of its dynamic names if its capital changes).
4) Poland may have historical territory there, or even conquerors. If it doesn't, another player is very likely to snatch collapsed independant cities anyway.
5) Russia spawns as Muscovy, its UHV proceeds as usual (its deadlines are late enough that the player would still have plenty of freedom as to how to accomplish it). Of course, new goals might be introduced to represent western consolidation too.
6) Kievan Rus may respawn with dynamic names representing later entities like the Zaporozhian Sich or Ukraine (though maybe only if Russia is unstable).

*Which can either end before the conquest, or on the contrary involve surviving it.

So I think the timeline works out well enough. It's the other aspects of the civ (UHV, UP, etc) that I'm less sure about.

As for the UHV, there are famous historiographic terms like "Route from the Varangians to the Greeks" or "Mother of Rus' cities" (Kiev). We can imagine something with it. The first one may be a goal about trade and money and the second one - about doing something with Kiev. There also may be a goal about Orthodoxy - Kievan Rus' is famous for christianization of Eastern Slavs and having major ties with Byzantium. By the Christian legend, the one who brought Christianity to the Rus' people was Saint Andrew. Vladimir the Great, knyaz who baptised Kievan Rus', is also known as "Red Sun" in folklore legends. Something of that may be used as the name of the goal.

Unique building most probably needs to be a religion building - almost all of known Rus'-era buildings are orthodox churches. Unique unit - something like "Druzhinniki" or "Druzhina", personal armies of princes, maybe? They were serving military and administrative functions simultaneously. It's also an idea to increase the spawnrate of barbarians in the East and in the South, on the Black Sea coast, to pose an additional challenge if the UHVs are too easy and to make use of the unique units - IRL Kievan Rus' fought a lot of various Turkic tribes.

I don't have any ideas for the Unique Power though. Perhaps use the term "Route from the Varangians to the Greeks" for it instead and make it an economy/trade buff. But there should be a goal it would synergize with - economy or research.

There also is an idea to hardcode Rus' into surviving as Novgorod after the Mongol invasion and make the third UHV for that part of the gameplay. That would be interesting, as the main problem I see with Kievan Rus' in theory is its short lifespan. Though, if we consider that scenario, I don't know if "Druzhina" should be a UU. Novgorod is a Republic, after all. [UPD: it's okay, there still were princes]

 

[Publicola]

This is why I linked to previous proposals by Merijn and 1SDAN. 'Civilization Reborn' has a really good version of the Kievan Rus that we can use as a starting point; it'll probably need some adjustments, but not much.

882 AD in Kiev
UP - The Power of Chernozem Soil: Cities partially grow when producing with Food
UU - Druzhina: Replaces Heavy Spearmen, +50% vs Light Cavalry Units
UB - Veche: Replaces Courthouse, available at Law, +1 Statesmen and Merchant Slots

UHV1 - Christianization of the Slavs: Build the St. Sophia Cathedral and an Orthodox Cathedral by 1327 AD
UHV2 - The Wise Prince: Control a continuous empire from a port on the Barents Sea to a port on the Mediterranean Sea
UHV3 - The Varangian Way: Conduct two trade or diplomatic missions with the most prominent (top scoring) European civilization by 1327 AD

UP gives Kiev a strong benefit from its food economy, Druzhina helps it defend against steppe barbarians and future Mongols, Veche gives it a slight leg up for Great Merchants.

The first UHV focuses on Christianization, the second on empire, the third on trade connections.

My only objection is that the first UHV is far too late: "by 1327" when Kiev's gameplay should be almost entirely complete by then. I'd prefer Kiev be obliged by UHV 1 to do a quick push for settling their first four cities, Christianizing and building cathedrals ASAP -- I'd favor an end date of roughly 1037, which is when the St. Sophia Cathedral was (most likely) completed in real life.

The second UHV has no time limit, though to be historical (it's based on Yaroslav the Wise) a deadline would be roughly 1054, the year of Yaroslav's death. Not sure about this one; the full expansion would be a serious challenge, especially on the new larger map with greater distances between Barents and Mediterranean... The third UHV also has a long-delayed deadline, that allows for either Great Merchants (trade mission) or Great Statesman (diplomatic mission). I'd be inclined to either shorten the deadline (to before the Mongol attack) or increase the number of missions required (two of each) if we keep the old deadline. That will depend heavily on how this civ behaves with the new map.

 

[Dracosolon]

lol I was wary of mentioning Civ Reborn here given how cranky Leoreth gets when people bug him about modmods, but yeah it's a pretty good basis. CR is likely to be regularly talked about in this thread since a lot of the 12 civs are already in, even if in unpolished states.

Though what is the Mediterranean port supposed to represent historically? And it should be kept in mind that a "continuous empire" is gonna be harder to get on a bigger map.

 

[Steb]

I've been meaning to publish a writeup of what I learned from implementing a Teotihuacano/Toltec civilization—what worked well, what worked okay, and what didn't. So here we go.

Things that worked well and I recommend adopting:

• The color scheme, based on typical Mesoamerican red paint and jade ornamentation (based on this)
• The flag, which I made myself based on the Teotihuacan Ocelot (could use an actual graphic designer to refine it maybe)

• The Ce Acatl Topiltzin leaderhead, with the name Atlatl Cauac. Atlatl Cauac is a Nahuatl rendition of the only Teotihuacan leader known by name, sort of, based on the Maya inscription Jatz'om Kuy, translated as Spearthrower Owl.
  • The leaderhead is of good quality (and fits with my color scheme!).
  • He could keep the name Ce Acatl Topiltzin if he's meant to represent the Toltecs more than Teotihuacan.

• Spawn date in 200 BC on the same spot as Mexico-Tenochtitlan (to be destroyed later when the Aztecs spawn)
• Pushing back the Maya spawn to 750 BC, usually considered the formation of their first cities. This makes the Maya feel more ancient than Teotihuacan, which is appropriate.
• The new wonder Pyramid of the Sun (requires Masonry), which has good available art here. (Though I'm not too fond of the effect I gave it, see below)

• The Dawn of Man text: "It is the year 200 BC. While the Valley of Mexico has been inhabited for thousands of years, advanced civilization thus far has only flourished East, in the Olmec, Zapotec, and Maya heartlands. Now urban centers are developing around Lake Texcoco. The most prominent is Teotihuacan, poised to influence the culture of all Mesoamerica."
• "Altepetl of $CAPITAL" dynamic names
• The name "Tollan" for the capital
  • Works with both Teotihuacan and the Toltecs, who both had a capital in the same region with an unknown name but that were referred to as "Tollan", place of reeds, by other peoples

Things that worked okay:

• The UHV. The three goals I created are fine, but a bit uninspired:
  • UHV1: Mesoamerican Metropolis: Have more than 500 culture in 550 AD
    • Not much to say about this, it synergizes well with the Artisan
  • UHV2: Birthplace of the Gods: Experience a golden age by 550 AD
    • The name is good (it's what "Teotihuacan" means in Nahuatl)
    • But the goal itself basically just boils down to build the Pyramid of the Sun and generate a great person
  • UHV3: The Toltec Empire: Control all tiles in Mesoamerica in 1000 AD
    • As I mentioned, I'd be in favor of deemphasizing the Toltec aspect of the civ, so I'm not too fond of this goal's theme.
    • On the other hand, it's good to have a goal with a longer time horizon.
    • I like that this forces conflict with the Maya. We know that Teotihuacan and possibly the Toltecs influenced Maya culture to some extent, and probably conquered parts of the Maya regions at times.
    • Controlling all tiles was meant to require culture in addition to conquest/expansion, but it's rather tedious to achieve.
• The Temazcal UB (replaces bath; grants extra health).
  • The temazcal steam bath is a pretty generic feature of Mesoamerican cultures. It works, but isn't exciting or particularly useful in game.
  • It could fit with some goal of making Teotihuacan a particularly large city, though the Aztecs already have a similar goal.
• The Artisan UU (replaces Worker; produces culture when in a city).
  • This was a Toltec reference ("Toltec" means artisan) and reflects the artisanry tradition of Teotihuacan.
  • It's nice that workers can be put to use when they don't have anything to do, and also there's a tradeoff between producing culture and building improvements
  • Surely some aspect or other of Mesoamerican warfare could be adapted into a plausible military UU instead
• The Pagan URV2: Produce 200 culture with artisans
  • Assuming artisans are kept, it's an okay goal, roughly equivalent to the Maya Pagan URV2 goal of acquiring food with Holkans.

Things that should change

• The UP: The Power of Obsidian: Melee units do not require strategic resources.
  • Moot since the new map has obsidian as a resource. In my implementation, this UP was fun but probably a bit overpowered.
  • I don't have any strong ideas of what could replace it.
• The effect of the Pyramid of the Sun: Golden Ages require one fewer great person.
  • Essentially equivalent to getting an extra Great Person that can only trigger a golden age.
  • Synergizes too well with the second UHV
  • Since not much is known about Teotihuacan, golden ages are an okay thing to emphasize, but I think I went overboard.
  • Not sure what the wonder should do, though.

 

[Vero Juventini]

I have some thoughts about some details. We can mark the beginning of Kievan Rus' as:
1) the year of 839 and let it be named "Rus' Khaganate", "Varangian Way" or "Northern Tribes Confederation" until the year of ~900, when it renames to "Kievan Rus'" or "Rus'". Spawn is at Kiev. [There are some controversial theories that Eastern Slavs in that area had some form of statehood at the time. According to some sources, they referred to their supreme ruler as "khagan" before ~900 when the Scandinavians became an established elite and the word changed to "knyaz'"]
2) the year of 862 and let it be initially named "Rus' Peoples", spawning at Novgorod. In that scenario Kiev is a neutral city, probably with population of three, that will get flipped in a few turns as it is a part of the core territory. Then name changes to "Kievan Rus'" or "Rus'" and Kiev becomes the capital. I don't know if it is realizeable, but it would be historically accurate. [Rus' initially referred to Scandinavians sailing through the Varangian Way rivers. In 862 happened the semi-legendary invitation of Varyags aka Varangians aka Scandinavians to rule Slavic and Finno-Urgic tribes in the area of Novgorod. Later they established themselves as the political elite in Kiev too]
3) the year of 882 and let it be initally named "Kievan Rus'" or "Rus'", spawning in Kiev. Novgorod is either a small neutral city or is not settled yet[1]. The most simple way to do it. [Oleg, Varangian and relative of the semi-legendary Rurik, came from Novgorod, captured Kiev in 882 and called it the mother of Russian cities. It is viewed as the moment of consolidation of Northern and Southern tribes in Russian historiography]

The leader could be Vladimir the Great or Yaroslav the Wise. If we consider making Novgorod the continuation of Kievan Rus' up to the year of ~1500, it would be good to also add Alexander Nevsky for that period.
[1] Keep in mind that if we consider Novgorod an "extension" we should be sure that it will exist.

Color of Kievan Rus' - I think something like light-cyan or light-blue. Flag - trident a-la Ukraine coat of arms, see spoiler. Left Yaroslav and Mstyslav are the best, IMO.

Spoiler :

This is why I linked to previous proposals by Merijn and 1SDAN. 'Civilization Reborn' has a really good version of the Kievan Rus that we can use as a starting point; it'll probably need some adjustments, but not much.


UP gives Kiev a strong benefit from its food economy, Druzhina helps it defend against steppe barbarians and future Mongols, Veche gives it a slight leg up for Great Merchants.

The first UHV focuses on Christianization, the second on empire, the third on trade connections.

My only objection is that the first UHV is far too late: "by 1327" when Kiev's gameplay should be almost entirely complete by then. I'd prefer Kiev be obliged by UHV 1 to do a quick push for settling their first four cities, Christianizing and building cathedrals ASAP -- I'd favor an end date of roughly 1037, which is when the St. Sophia Cathedral was (most likely) completed in real life.

The second UHV has no time limit, though to be historical (it's based on Yaroslav the Wise) a deadline would be roughly 1054, the year of Yaroslav's death. Not sure about this one; the full expansion would be a serious challenge, especially on the new larger map with greater distances between Barents and Mediterranean... The third UHV also has a long-delayed deadline, that allows for either Great Merchants (trade mission) or Great Statesman (diplomatic mission). I'd be inclined to either shorten the deadline (to before the Mongol attack) or increase the number of missions required (two of each) if we keep the old deadline. That will depend heavily on how this civ behaves with the new map.

I really like the UHV3 with trade/diplomatic missions. It also would be suitable for the latter Novgorod gameplay. Not sure about UHV2 (having a port on Barents and Mediterranean seas) and UP (chernozem). They seem to be a bit boring and generic. UP also doesn't fit really well with Kievan Rus', "Chernozem" is more like a term from the latter centuries.
"Veche" UB seems like an alternative to religion UB, as I don't know what could be imagined with it. Kievans did not have any UNIQUE churches or something like that. Their buildings fit the description of the vanilla orthodox churches and cathredals. Would be nice to hear some more ideas about it.

 

[Vero Juventini]

We should also decide on how to organize the Mongol yoke. Only Novgorod territories should survive. Ukrainian territories (with Kiev) are most probably to become a part of Mongols, become neutral when Mongols lose stability and get captured by other civs (Poland). Muscovite territories are to become a part of Mongols too (until Russia spawns), but there is a question with Vladimir/Moscow (as I mentioned in my first post). Moscow became a big urban center only in the times of the yoke, so I suggest making the name of cities in that region "Vladimir" and scripting it to rename to "Moscow" in ~1350. Wouldn't Russia have problems with spawning then, if the city that is supposed to be their capital already exists in the spawn place?

 

[1SDANi]

lol I was wary of mentioning Civ Reborn here given how cranky Leoreth gets when people bug him about modmods, but yeah it's a pretty good basis. CR is likely to be regularly talked about in this thread since a lot of the 12 civs are already in, even if in unpolished states.

Though what is the Mediterranean port supposed to represent historically? And it should be kept in mind that a "continuous empire" is gonna be harder to get on a bigger map.

I wanted to have a "control historical territory" style goal, but I also didn't want to railroad players too much so I used a "port to port" style UHV to give players a bit more leeway in how they went about it.

IIRC a lot of the weirder UHVs in DCR were results of my attempting to reduce the "railroading" of completion methods in UHVs with short timespans.

 

[Vero Juventini]

Okay, so I came up with a little concept.

Kievan Rus' -- Vladimir the Great​

It is the year 860 AD. Varangian travelers among the Dnieper trade route between Scandinavia and Byzantium have developed strong ties with local Slavic communities. A family of Varangians, the Rurikids, gain rule at the Volkhov river. They would capture Kiev, the key center of trade, and, quickly assimilating within regional culture, form a state that would be known as Rus'.

Spawn is at Novgorod. Kiev at the moment is a neutral city with a size of 3. It gets flipped in a few turns and becomes the capital. We're not Christian yet - we should manually adopt it via Byzantium.

UP - From Varangians to Greeks : +2 Trade Routes per city. Trade Routes maximum length increased.
UU - Druzhina : replaces Lancer; does not suffer penalties from defending cities; grants 1 happinness when garrisoned (stacks with monarchy civic buff); maybe also make it cheaper.
UB - Detinets : replaces Castle; +2 Great Merchant slots/+1 Great People of any kind slots/+50% Great People spawnrate/something else to help with UHV2/3.

UHV1 - Preaching of Andrew the First-Called : build an Orthodox Cathredal and St. Sophia's Cathredal by 1200 AD[1][2].
UHV2 - Mother of Russian Cities : make Kiev a city with influential culture by 1250 AD[3].
UHV3 - Eastern Entrepot of the Hanseatic League : conduct four trade missions to Germany (or just to European nations) by 1450 AD/have <insert_money_value> (maybe around ~20 000) in your treasury by 1450 AD.

Now, up to the events. Barbarians regularly spawn to the East and to the South. Those are Pechenegs (875-1036) and Cumans (~1090-~1250). They are intended to be countered by the UU and the UB. Perhaps Cumans should be stronger than Pechenegs. Somewhere around 1250 Mongols should happen. We shouldn't be able to withstand their attack - we wasted our resources on UHV1/2 [making missionaries should also be part of UHV1] and Druzhini are just that strong so that they can defeat Cumans. Mongols' historical/contested area is all but Novgorod - so that we get beaten by them and be left with Novgorod. From this moment, our name changes to "Novgorod Republic"[4] and we continue playing up until hitting the third UHV. Maybe also add some scripted wars with Catholic nations here, as Novgorod suffered from crusades after the Great Schism (and to make that part of the game more interesting).

[1] For this to be real, it's necessary to have access to stone - either by putting that resource on the territory of Rus' or by creating conditions for Byzantines to trade it
[2] It's also a good idea to modify St. Sophia's Cathredal so that it would give some bonuses synergizing with the other goals. UHV2 or UHV1 itself, maybe providing some kind of buff to building religion... buildings
[3] Intended to be completed by the culture slider in exchange for taxes. UP and UB should balance this out. It also synergizes with cathredals from UHV1 (if I understood that right)
[4] Or "Novgorod Principality" if we have a monarchy civic

 

[WhiteEyes]

Quoting myself from the Civ Attributes discussion thread...

In a more extreme suggestion, i would suggest separating the Turk into two civs. The nomadic Turks will represent Cuman, Bulgar, and Tatar in addition to Gokturk. And a new Turkoman civ to represent Turkestan-based states like Seljuk, Timurid, and Uzbek.
This way the Turks could have most of the Eurasian Steppes in their border in 900AD, getting split eventually into three big empires(Cumania, Seljuk, and Mongolia) in 1200AD, then getting invaded and respawn in Eastern Europe as the Golden Horde.

If we can split the Indonesians then we should split the Turks as well. Turkic might represent Kazakh and Crimean Tatar in the post-Renaissance age while the Turkestans represent the Transoxanian states.
Oghuz might be moved to Turkoman/Turkestani, while OG Turkic get nomadic Settler/Worker UU to help them expand through the vast empty Eurasian lands.
Turkestan gameplay would focus on research, GP, conquest, or cultural. Turkic third UHV (have cities with influential culture in 1500AD) could also be moved to Turkestani.
The Turkestani would start at 1037 as Seljuk Empire, they could start earlier to represent earlier Persian-Turkic states but I think there should be some room for Turkic play in the area.
I don't know much about Turkic history so I have no good ideas on the UB, UHV, or other details.

 

[Steb]

I like both the Soldattorp and the UN Resolution UHV ideas for Sweden.

All right, let's try drafting an Assyrian civilization:

Assyria
Spawn Date: 3000 BC in Upper Mesopotamia
(perhaps more historically -2500, but that's close enough that you might as well use -3000. Babylon and Assyria would then start on par.)

UHV 1: Four Corners of the World
Control Mesopotamia, Elam and the Levant in 1300 BC
(Can add Urartu, i.e. Armenia/Eastern Turkey, to make it four regions and match the name)

UHV 2: Palace Without Rival
Build the Hanging Gardens and the Library of Ashurbanipal by 650 BC

UHV 3: First True Empire
Control the largest land area since the beginning of history in 650 BC
(I don't know if it's practical to keep a record of the largest land area so far, or if this is too easy due to lack of rivals. Less unique alternatives:
- Control X% of land area in 650 BC
- Control or vassalise Mesopotamia, Elam, the Levant, Urartu, the Caucasus and Egypt in 650 BC)

Other UHV ideas: Found Orthodoxy/Spread Orthodoxy in most of the Middle East (to represent the role of the Assyrians in the development of Syriac Christianity) (I do feel like the Assyrian UHV game should end before Christian times though)

UU: Siege Tower
(Just stole the idea from Civ 5, where it replaces the catapult and has bonuses to city attack)

UB: Garden (art from BTS)
Replace aqueduct, available earlier, store a higher percentage of food?

Ability:
I can't remember, is the old Babylonian UP of no resistance upon city conquest used anywhere? If not, it would fit Assyria well. An alternative could be: No loss of buildings and cultural output upon city conquest.

Another totally different idea: Civs that declare independence from you are automatically made vassals

Core: Upper Mesopotamia
Historical: Lower Mesopotamia, Levant, maybe some of the other UHV-related areas

Color: How about magenta, I don't think any civ uses that

Revisiting Assyria, it looks like my proposal from a while ago didn't include what is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Assyrian state, i.e. the resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. I think there's a lot of potential for cool gameplay here. (Disregarding that resettlement was probably brutal and an atrocity for the conquered people.)

One of the UUs could replace the Settler and be called ... well, Resettler, I guess. Its main unique ability would be to be able to join a city to increase its population. This could also just be an added ability to Settlers as per the UP.

Speaking of which, the UP could be the Power of Resettlement: Half of the population of conquered foreign cities is converted to Resettlers upon conquest. (Also I'd add that settled Great People become Great People units upon conquest, but that'd be a minor point since I don't expect there'll be a lot of those in the early game when Assyria is relevant.)

This means Assyria would gain a lot of flexibility to decide where to allocate its population (and Great People), which reflects its historical use of resettlement — and also it would be fun and concrete in terms of gameplay. For extra flavor, we could also make the Resettlers carry their religion (like Judaism) and culture into the new city.

Another idea would be that the Power of Resettlement does something to transfer GP points to the capital, but that's less fun because you don't really see it.

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Somewhat relatedly, should the default capital of Assyria be Assur or Nineveh?

Arguments for Assur:
- Capital of Old Assyria, Middle Assyria, and early Neo-Assyria (Nineveh was capital only for a few decades towards the end of Neo-Assyria)
- Gives its name to Assyria
- On the west bank of the Tigris, unlike Nineveh, which feels, uh, more Mesopotamian
- Since it stopped being an important city by Late Antiquity, it can be destroyed to make room for later cities without remorse

Arguments for Nineveh:
- More famous?
- Site of the palaces of well-known Neo-Assyrian kings such as Tiglath-pileser III and Ashurbanipal
- Possible site of the Hanging Gardens
- Further north than Assur, so it might give more room to Babylon
- Can become the city of Mosul later on

In my view, the correct placement for these two would be:

Spoiler :

Assur on the oil, Nineveh on the forest. (The city name suggestion spreadsheet puts Nineveh on the olive 1S of Lake Van, which is too far north IMO.) But a case could be made for either city to be 1N of the oil (where I wrote "Assur?"), in which case the argument that it crowds Babylon doesn't apply anymore.

I think my preference would be to spawn Assyria on that spot, with the name Assur (because it's on the correct side of the Tigris, and it's more significant overall). It will also look better if the two capitals aren't aligned north-south.

 

[Ecthy]

Perhaps CIV Israel would be interesting to be discussed/added (in its old version not the modern nation-state of Israel, because of lack of slot available at the end of the game).

I referenced this message that was sent in the "completely dumb ideas" tread, which could serve as a basis for starting discussions. The UB, UP and 1st UHV I think could be used with some adaptations.

As UU maybe unity, Maccabees. being leader head "the King Davi" or "Salomon". The other two UHV I still have no idea.

But I think it would be interesting because it would be a CIV that would be a fierce challenge to any civs in the middle east area, being a counter to many of them. If the UP that prevents the civ from collapsing is accepted, and still spawns some military units from time to time with the sole objective of recapturing jerusalem, it would be a military drain for any CIV that tries to control this city, I think it would be a unique and cool challenge .

I quite like this idea. A Jewish civ without all the money-based resentment projected into it.