Alt Method/Objectives for Abbasid Unlock

[shortski13]

I hate how unlocking Abbasid either requires you to be a certain leader/civ or often is completely reliant on resource spawns on your map, which usually means it is impossible, esp if playing on a small map. Every other civ that has a resource unlock criteria also has an alternate more objective based unlock, such as Majahpajit have 3 naval trade routes if there arent pearls around.

I wish If there is a non-historical civ you want to play as, you could fulfill some objectives to unlocking Abbasid, esp since they are the only science focused exploration civ. Maybe build 3 Academies in towns with Altars or have a certain amount of specialists.

 

[Menocchio]

It does feel unbalanced that some civs are remarkably easy to unlock—Chola comes to mind here, with just 3 coast-adjacent settlements, which you'll get by default as any coastally-minded Antiquity civ—while some are up to the whims of map generation. I wouldn't mind if civ unlocks became somewhat harder, but with more player agency—for Abbasids, this could be "have X Specialists in Science/Happiness buildings," "Have 2 Science buildings with a +3 adjacency," or something along those lines. I think it's key not to require too many buildings, for example, because that can soft-lock the player out of them as Carthage, etc. So the bounds of civ unlocks have to be respected in a sense.

Meiji Japan, America, and Mexico are kind of maddening ones though, especially Japan for me since it's my favourite Modern civ. Sometimes you will just never find 3 Tea resources, limited to the Distant Lands, in places where you can settle and improve them. I've fought wars over this! Meanwhile the Mughals ask you for a mere 3 salt shakers, which you can have already in Antiquity.

 

[Sagax]

Laughs and cries in Spain

But yes, there are a few civs where the gameplay unlock conditions are noticeably more difficult than for the rest of the roster. Hope they look into that, although so far it hasn’t been as hot of a topic compared to all the other issues in the game.

 

[UWHabs]

Laughs and cries in Spain

But yes, there are a few civs where the gameplay unlock conditions are noticeably more difficult than for the rest of the roster. Hope they look into that, although so far it hasn’t been as hot of a topic compared to all the other issues in the game.

Yeah, in my current game, I opted to play Rizal and planning a Mississippian-Hawaii route, since I haven't played any of them yet. All good at the start, but I get towards the end of the age, and I'm realizing that I don't actually have that much naval land, and maybe given my map state, someone like Bulgaria might be a better civ to try. But then looking back, having used both Rizal and Mississippi, my unlock options for Hawaii are pretty tight if I want to try them in the future...

Some civs are just too easy - like I can't imagine any game where I won't unlock Bulgaria with only 3 altars. And others basically the only chance to play them is to pick the leader or one of the feeder civs.