7 New Civs You'd Like to See in Civ7

[Patine]

To me it's not hard to fathom playing as the Navajo and building a unique Holy Site, or building, that grants faith and culture to surrounding unimproved tiles based on their appeal, to represent their sacred and spiritual spaces.

There is another issue I had brought up that was unaddressed. What if a civ with such mechanics adopts a, "standard," religion? Do those abilities disappate?

I don't know how the message could've been made more clear, Evie was very straightforward in their post:

The post mentioned no civs it could apply to, explicitly described it as an example of the general trend of using faith different from a civ ability, and doesn't get involved in any of the discussion about potential indigenous religions; it is engaging exclusively with your argument that a Faith-focused ability has to coincidence with a Civ that is focused on proselytizing. I don't see any way to read Evie's message as being related to the noble savage trope. It seems strange to immediately blame the author of a straightforward post rather than assume that one read it in a way that isn't consistent with the message being communicated because of an assumption that it was about something else.

I may have misunderstood the intent of a few things there, but I was mostly concerned about special, endemic religious mechanics for a few civ's, compared to mostly generic usages for the majority, and how that would appear. I, myself, didn't allege her of addressing any SPECIFIC civ's either. "Noble savage," was a likely a bit too far, and I apologize for that.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

There is another issue I had brought up that was unaddressed. What if a civ with such mechanics adopts a, "standard," religion? Do those abilities disappate?

What issue? Scythia gets faith from their Kurgans and Aztecs from their Tlatchli building. The faith doesn't disappear if they adopt Judaism or Catholicism.

That ability that I brought up was essentially the same bonuses that the Grove building in a Preserve district currently have. Which brings up the point that Faith does not necessarily have to equate to bonuses toward a "standard" religion.

 

[GeneralZIft]

I would love a Grove style bonus by default, I think that's really creative, for a Civ of people who historically loved their sacred forests and such.

If we're talking asymmetric design: they could have an especially strong bonus from this and then some kind of unhappiness produced from harvesting features.

This will add representation for "negative bonuses" (unexplored space for Civ design); also allow designers to give strong single bonuses with some drawback rather than multiple little bonuses (which might be more convoluted)

 

[Patine]

What issue? Scythia gets faith from their Kurgans and Aztecs from their Tlatchli building. The faith doesn't disappear if they adopt Judaism or Catholicism.

That, in and of itself, seems a bit odd, though. There seems no easy way to portray religion in a way that does justice to the notion and all of it's aspects, without bizarre contradictions and lopsided renditions, without completely redoing the whole way Faith and Religion work entirely in-game. Of course, such a complete and total redoing, from the ground up, is probably what's needed in Civ7.

 

[Patine]

I would love a Grove style bonus by default, I think that's really creative, for a Civ of people who historically loved their sacred forests and such.

If we're talking asymmetric design: they could have an especially strong bonus from this and then some kind of unhappiness produced from harvesting features.

This will add representation for "negative bonuses" (unexplored space for Civ design); also allow designers to give strong single bonuses with some drawback rather than multiple little bonuses (which might be more convoluted)

Another one of those go nowhere and lose all competiveness in later ages mechanics.

 

[GeneralZIft]

Early game bonuses don't necessarily need to stay their welcome to the late game if their early game boost is powerful enough. Not that that even applies to the idea I described.

 

[Patine]

Early game bonuses don't necessarily need to stay their welcome to the late game if their early game boost is powerful enough. Not that that even applies to the idea I described.

"Penalty for harvesting," definitely does. Besides, everytime I bring up the late game issue for these mechanics, I tend not to get a very committal or meaningful response.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

"Penalty for harvesting," definitely does. Besides, everytime I bring up the late game issue for these mechanics, I tend not to get a very committal or meaningful response.

The Maori already have similar bonuses to the things that are described (resources cannot be harvested, culture and faith on unimproved tiles in cities with their UB). They are also one of the most powerful civs in the hands of players because they eventually gain +3 Production on unimproved woods and rainforests once reaching Conservation. I don't see these being late game issues at all.

I'm starting to think you just don't like civs with asymmetrical designs?

 

[GeneralZIft]

In the late game, harvesting materials doesn't usually have the same effect as chopping out core buildings in the early game.

In Civ6, it scales but still doesn't have quite the same impact. Prepatch Civ6 used to not have this feature. Civ5 never had this feature.
(Just for reference)

Now, extra faith from unimproved tiles across your entire empire for the whole game regardless of other bonuses you might have, could be intensely powerful for faith purchasing armies or powering a culture victory via naturalists (if we're talking Civ6).

At the cost of having slightly worse chops? It's not the worst idea is it?
Sorry, is your problem that the bonus wouldn't be 'strong' enough as it doesn't affect the late game as much as you think? Or is the problem just that it doesn't have a direct late game impact?

You realise it's not really possible for all bonuses to impact the late game?
You can't say, ah no, the Mongols and their horse loving bonuses can't exist because well, there's no horses in the late game. (For eg.)

 

[Patine]

The Maori already have similar bonuses to the things that are described (resources cannot be harvested, culture and faith on unimproved tiles in cities with their UB). They are also one of the most powerful civs in the hands of players because they eventually gain +3 Production on unimproved woods and rainforests once reaching Conservation. I don't see these being late game issues at all.

I'm starting to think you just don't like civs with asymmetrical designs?

It's not that I don't like the notion. I just think they'd have to be more considered in Civ7, including the realistic logic of (in most cases) hitting the Industral Age. And, as I said, the whole Religion system would have to be completely redone from the ground up.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

TIbet - with unique pikeman and archers units, monks warriors. Able to build cities on mountains top.
Amazonian - unique jungle culture, with Mayan aspects and units but more water based... this or Mapuches..
Finns - unique ice culture, which includes Lappi and many Eskimos tribes (root language)
Mapuches - Aborigenal South America culture spanning Argentina, Chile, Terra del Fuego. Shamanics. If Amazon is in, switch to Swiss or Austerrich... mountain cities...
Apaches, Iroquois, or Sasquatch. With Horse archers possibly...
Morocco - was fine in Civ V... Camels riders, fine swordsmans..
Illirians - a Balkan civ that can cover Jugoslavia, Serbia, Albania, or Macedonia... with top of the line Falanges warriors... or... Sparta!!!

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I've said before, to give us both a larger variety of basic Civ types and cover historically important and interesting groups that the game has not modeled well in the past, I think the game needs two things:

1. A decent model for the City State polities that at least makes them competitive - and given the modern examples of 'city-states' like Singapore and Dubai there's no reason they can't actually strive for certain types of Victory Conditions right to End of Game.
2. A model for the pastoral nomadic groups that dominated central Asia for almost 2500 years and had a huge impact on their Civ-normal settled neighbors.

. . .

I can think of Nomadic civs somehow similar to Oceanic civs, that in my view, should be able to 'float' cities on water, and move them (Beyond Earth mechanics) but
on land. Maybe envisioning a lighter city version, with limited growth possibilities. A sort of 'mobile' encampments-barracks cities, so relevant on the eastern side of the Urals,
and the Buffalo people of the Great Plains.

These kind of Nomadic civs unique traits parhaps should rely on an elastic environment, and without such a seasonal - environmental changes, it looks hard to enact
some of these unique civs traits that could surface - I was thinking of ''subterranean'' rivers for desert civs, adapted to roaming hordes of horses, or buffalos leaving some sort of
traces on the terrains, that only nomadic civs could see and thus exploit... naturally (a certain tech could reveal these food-resources spots to other civs at one point), before
addomestication kicks in.. Tundra civs should be able to see these as well. I think of Russia, Finns, specifically, other than Mongols, Turks, American Indians.

 

[Patine]

Finns - unique ice culture, which includes Lappi and many Eskimos tribes (root language)

Inuit languages and culture have no tie, at all to the Finns. And the Lappi were quite separate and distinct from Finnish culture (and often antagonistic). Finns, also, are not an, "ice culture."

 

[Evie]

Hrm. While it's true that current consensus is that there are no proven relations between eskaleut and any other language family, pretty much every single credible hypothesis that say otjerwise starts at including Uralic in the proposed family. So, while it appears more likely than not there is no link...there's enough of a question mark that I'd avoid being too too categoric about it,

But that would be roughly equivalent with having an Indo-European civilization: a uber-blob, so not desirable at all.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Inuit languages and culture have no tie, at all to the Finns. And the Lappi were quite separate and distinct from Finnish culture (and often antagonistic). Finns, also, are not an, "ice culture."

Based on a lot of study of older (1940s) maps of Finland, if Finns are to be related to any terrain/biome it would be lakes with swampy forests: virtually every forest north of Moscow to the Arctic also includes marsh indicators before the post-war terrain 'improvements'. And the consequences of that were that if you were going to travel, you did it in winter when the lakes were frozen highways, not in the summer when the swamps could swallow whole armies . . .

 

[Patine]

Hrm. While it's true that current consensus is that there are no proven relations between eskaleut and any other language family, pretty much every single credible hypothesis that say otjerwise starts at including Uralic in the proposed family. So, while it appears more likely than not there is no link...there's enough of a question mark that I'd avoid being too too categoric about it,

But that would be roughly equivalent with having an Indo-European civilization: a uber-blob, so not desirable at all.

It's an even bigger stretch though to say Finnish and Inuit culture and civ traits could be conflated.

 

[Evie]

Oh, it'd be a uber-blob, roughly like having an Indo-European civ.

Wait, do I hear an echo in here?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Mapuches - Aborigenal South America culture spanning Argentina, Chile, Terra del Fuego. Shamanics. If Amazon is in, switch to Swiss or Austerrich... mountain cities...
Apaches, Iroquois, or Sasquatch. With Horse archers possibly...
Morocco - was fine in Civ V... Camels riders, fine swordsmans..

Mapuche, Iroquois, and Morocco have all appeared before, with the Mapuche in Civ 6.

 

[Patine]

Oh, it'd be a uber-blob, roughly like having an Indo-European civ.

Wait, do I hear an echo in here?

Not an echo. A paraphrasing.