One idea I’d like to see implemented in a 3rd expansion pack is a radical overhaul to Barbarians and City-States that would allow the strictly non-player character agents to compete towards victory, resulting in a more dynamic political landscape over time. For this to work,
the basic political division will have to become Cities, as will be evident through my explanation.
Unlike Barbarians and City-States, Nations can potentially become Civilizations, and Tribes could likewise become Nations, and in turn, Civilizations.
Moreover, each and every Tribe would be unique. Those with a unique unit would start the game with such, though unique abilities and improvements would only be available once a Tribe became a Nation. Tribes would start off in Outposts, similar to the former Barbarians. However, a Tribe’s goal is explicitly to capture a Settler from a Civilization and return it to its Outpost. If a Settler founds a City on an Outpost, that City becomes permanently associated with the Tribe’s unique attributes. The same is true if a Civilization’s Settler captures the Outpost, albeit the Civilization would own that City instead of the Tribe becoming a Nation. Were that to happen, the Tribal units would attack that City without halt until they captured it or all died. This is the only scenario in which Tribes can capture a City.
If the Tribe either uses a captured Settler at its Outpost or captures the City founded there, it succeeds in becoming a Nation. Every Nation has two uniques, a combination usually consisting of a unit and an improvement, but sometimes substituting an ability or a second unit. Additionally, each Nation has a typing and Suzerain bonus. The typing is the same as with City-States, but with the addition of Naval-type Nations that give bonuses to harbors and Naval unit production. Suzerain bonuses benefit whatever Civilization has sent the Nation the most envoys. Were the Nation to become a Civilization, it would no longer generate a Suzerain bonus, but the envoys sent would still continue to confer type bonuses.
Nations have no Leader, Leader Ability, or Civilization Ability, nor do they acquire any should they become Civilizations. All of their abilities always and only apply within the borders of the original City. This is true even if that City is captured by another Nation or Civilization. All Nations share the same Agenda: Become a Civilization. They do so by expanding to a second City. Because Nations cannot directly produce or purchase Settlers, they must Capture cities or Settlers. This is the major differentiating factor between the new Nations and the former City-States mechanic.
If a Nation captures a Settler, the City it founds will be pulled from the list of names from the Settler’s Civilization. The new City would not have any of the uniques associated either with the Nation or the Settler’s Civilization. However, if the Nation conquers another Nation, the conquered City remains named after the conquered Nation and retains all of its uniques, including improvements already constructed and the ability to build new unique units and improvements associated with the conquered Nation. Likewise if a Nation (or Civilization) conquers a City belonging to a Civilization, all of the unique improvements and districts of the original Civilization are preserved.
Nations that become Civilizations are able to adopt a government, participate in trade deals, generate envoys, earn era score, and achieve victory conditions. They can form Alliances, albeit their Alliance-types are always the same as their Nation-typing, and former Nations alone can have multiple Alliances of the same type (including a new Naval-type Alliance).
A former Nation turned Civilization will have an Agenda to pursue whatever victory condition is associated with its original typing (Domination for both Military and Naval types, Diplomatic for Industrial types, and the new
Economic victory for Economic types).
Not all Nations will begin as Tribes. Some will be Nations from the start, with the density of such equivalent to the number of City-States per map size currently. In general, ancient peoples would be designated Tribes and modern nation-states would start as full Nations.
While Civilizations that start as either Tribes or Nations are at a distinct disadvantage compared to actual Civilizations, those fortunate few that manage form a broad coalition by conquering numerous other Nations and having access to their various uniques may achieve some semblance of a competitive edge. However, given that Civilizations can likewise conquer Nations, with those Cities being able to generate both the uniques of the Civilization and that particular Nation, as well as accessing the Leader Ability and Unique Ability of the Nation, the original Civilization will usually retain an advantage.
