Balanced Civ Lineup for TSL?

[True_Candyman]

The trouble with picking additional African or South American civilizations is how you make them distinct in game terms.

Subaltern historians are crying right now.

Realistically, we know enough about almost every culture that's ever existed to find 3 or 4 slightly different things that stand out about them. It's not a huge ask.

And to make things more interesting again, there is always the EU4 route, allowing civs to have some overlapping traits, but maintaining difference and uniqueness through a new combination of traits and uniques. That way some fairly generic knowledge can still combine to create a distinctive play style

 

[Stilgar08]

I agree: Spain should be in... Maybe even more than Germany! (and I am German). Won't happen, though; crowded Europe - Marketing importance - todays powerhouse blablabla

Is it wrong to hope more gamer playing Europa Universalis so they would heard of many cool people that never represented by Civ series and start to actively asking for them? Last time I checked, Africa just got dozen of nations added from free latest map rework.

Nothing's wrong about it!!! Won't happen nevertheless... Bets anyone?

For example, you could adjust the rules so that every civ would be able to research a basic unit/building and additionally the more expensive corresponding stronger "unique" unit/building. If the unique unit/building would not provide enough benefit for a civ, it might skip the unique tech and continue with the default tech tree.

I would love to see that! Very intriguing thought!

 

[Ikael]

If I would have to pick civilizations outside of the standard ones, these ones would be my picks:

African:

Ashanti Empire: Far, far better choice than overrated, short-lived Zulus. The Ashanti built an incredible cosmopolitan, tolerant empire that lasted for centuries, they surely deserve an spot among the main African civilizations.

Gameplay aspects:

Lots of supporting units (advance guards & medical corps), bonuses towards military techs (first African empire to adopt fire weapons en masse) and bonuses towards wide expansion and cultural assimilation of another empires.

Etiopia: One of the longest-lived civilizations, up there with China, Etiopia has a rich history and a very unique Christian African identity.

Gameplay aspects:

Etiopia ought to be a cultural & religious powerhouse (Steles, Laibela churches) and be fiercely resistant against agression wars (only African nation to defeat XIXth century European colonialism!). Might be the "go to" option for builders and turtlers.

Malinese empire:

It is a pity that they overlap with the Shongai, but screw that, if we can have both the Ottomans and Bizantium we can surely have both Mali and the Shongai, but if I would have to choose only one, I would rather for it to be Mali due to it being far more historically relevant.

Gameplay aspects:

Turbocharged trade routes gallore. Make them generate more gold, more science, more everything! Mali was an empire forged around salt & gold mines and the control of its extensive commercialization networks. Sofa and Mandekalu armies gotta be represented too, but Mali's strenghts always lied on commerce, not warfare.

Kingdom of Congo: A very influential and longstanding African civ, they could make for a great "nemesis civilization" with African flavour, having a longstanding tradition of forceful vassallage of city states and slaver trade.

Gameplay aspects:

Bonus for creating vassal states and forcing city states to give them tribute. Since I suppouse that the developers wouldn't like to open the ugly can of worms of their slaver exports, they can always focus into their other export instead, the famed raffia cloth and its productive raffia mills.

 

[Captain Fargle]

Chinese, Roman, Persian and American (European?) history and cultural achivements are definetely different from each other. Todays political systems in China, Italy, Iran and USA may also vary.

My point is that the game starts 4.000 BC ... at that time most of the civs we play were just unknown barbarians living as hunter-gatherer, early farmer and/or livestock owner ... development of smaller and larger settlements (villages, cities) was dependent on food resources in the environment, so some had a better start (Chinese, Middle Eastern civs). The "unique" achivements of real civs were the results of specialisation and adaption to external influences like resources, climate, geography, hostile neighbours, historical progress ... they were not predefined ...

Imagine that England would have won the 100-years-war ... Englands resources would probably been used to build armies and castles to maintain their possessions on the european continent for the next centuries, leaving less resources for developing a strong fleet which they would no longer need since they would control both sides of the channel and would not fear invasion. In that scenario (England as a strong land power in europe), developing a stronger version of Ship-of-the-Line might be not the best choice ...

Predefined unique traits in Civ seem like genetic endowments which often do not fit with the strategical development of a civ in an actual game. They are ok for a specific scenario which is especially designed for that kind of traits to work, but in most games they are just wasted, e.g. if a naval civ has to focus on land, mountain civ settles on a map with almost no mountains, a desert civ settles on a map with only a few desert tiles for the start, a "barbaric" civ starts on a map surrounded by other civs but no barbarians, etc. Predefined unique traits are unflexible.

Speaking of cultural flavour (how things look and are called) is a different thing. There is no problem in naming Japan's sword warrior a Samurai and make him look like in the movies ... I think everybody expects this and it is one of the reasons to buy civ games. The question is if the Samurai should always be a unit with unique super powers, even if Japan in an actual game might be under massive attack by naval forces and would prefer a stronger ship type or stronger ranged weapons instead of a strong melee unit ...

What you're asking for is not having any Civs at all. Just one completely generic blank slate that you start as in every game. That's not at all what Civ is as a series and not what the fans want to see. It's not in the spirit of the game.

If you want to advocate for that please do it in it's own thread somewhere else and stop derailing this one.

 

[Krajzen]

Not trying to be confrontational here, but why is Spain always discarded as a must-be-on-release day Civ?

Because on release civ already and always has many semi-European civilisations thst are undeniable must-haves: Greece, Rome, Russia, Germany, France, England and America. They are guaranteed in every civ since first one and depending on title they constitute 40-50% of starting civs. More exotic and diverse nations in the beginning => more fun, especially when Europe already has basic coverage.

<Spanish achievements>

While Spanish imperial position and influence on the world is undeniable, its actual global imperial position lasted only about two centuries (pr less than that), since 18th century you can't argue Spain had similar position to France, England or Germany.

... etc, etc... the Reconquista, , Civil War, Indepence war vs Napoleon... etc, etc.

This is all local stuff, sorry but for Europe as a whole it was as important as Polish regional wars and internal conflicts

Picasso/Velazquez/Cervantes/Goya

>Copernicus, Maria Sklodowska, Chopin...

The difference with other historical empires like Persia or the Aztecs is that, Spain continues to exist since 1479 as one unified country.

Persia? Iran exists to this day while having cultural and genetic continuity with 2500 years of its history.

We are only the 14th country by GDP and 29th by population today, but as always we hold a strategic geographic (entrance to mediterranean, door to africa) and political position (influence with south america).

And Poland as always holds strategic position between Germany and Russia while having political influence in eastern Europe... You could say similar things about most of big modern countries.

======================
Don't get me wrong, Spain is necessary civ and very high priority but I can understand it not appearing on release.

 

[Captain Fargle]

Malinese empire:

It is a pity that they overlap with the Shongai, but screw that, if we can have both the Ottomans and Bizantium we can surely have both Mali and the Shongai, but if I would have to choose only one, I would rather for it to be Mali due to it being far more historically relevant.

Gameplay aspects:

Turbocharged trade routes gallore. Make them generate more gold, more science, more everything! Mali was an empire forged around salt & gold mines and the control of its extensive commercialization networks. Sofa and Mandekalu armies gotta be represented too, but Mali's strenghts always lied on commerce, not warfare.

I'd definitely want Mali back over Songhai as well. Musa I, the richest man to have ever lived, is too good of a leader slot to pass up again.

 

[Krajzen]

I'd definitely want Mali back over Songhai as well. Musa I, the richest man to have ever lived, is too good of a leader slot to pass up again.

It is very legitimate empire too.

 

[poom3619]

If I would have to pick civilizations outside of the standard ones, these ones would be my picks : [snip]

I guess someone would say Ashanti and Mali start too close to each other and there are enough civilization to "represent" East Africa as it is.

Well, I personally consider those argument a bit Eurocentric after I think about Venice's distance from Austria, Rome, Greece and Carthage while there's 2-3 civilizations that represent Sub-Saharan Africa, North America and South America.

Persia? Iran exists to this day while having cultural and genetic continuity with 2500 years of its history.

Sadly, It's common misconception in Civ fanbase that Persia ended with Achaemenids.

Fun Fact : Iran is called so because Reza Shah asked everyone to stop calling them "Persia", at around 1935. Even after then, Iran = Persia for a few decades after Shah' request.

 

[Krajzen]

I guess someone would say Ashanti and Mali start too close to each other and there are enough civilization to "represent" East Africa as it is.

Well, I personally consider those argument a bit Eurocentric after I think about Venice's distance from Austria, Rome, Greece and Carthage while there's 2-3 civilizations that represent Sub-Saharan Africa, North America and South America.

I'd love Venice, Austria and Sweden being kicked out and replaced with Kongo, Swahilli and Timurids (for example). Screw minor European states. I'm so insane I'd even support removing my own country, Poland, from the game in favour of more exotic civilisation, just to annoy eurocentrism. However on the other hand Eastern Europe needs some representation beyond Russia... It could alternatively be Hungary or Bulgarian Empire, if not Poland.

Sadly, It's common misconception in Civ fanbase that Persia ended with Achaemenids.
Fun Fact : Iran is called so because Reza Shah asked everyone to stop calling them "Persia", at around 1935. Even after then, Iran = Persia for a few decades after Shah' request.

I'd love Persia finally being represented in civ as not purely Achaemenid state but also with elements of its later (especially Islamic) history. Especially of Safavid period.
I'm afraid it will take long time for that to happen, similarly to finally depicting India in decent way and kicking out Gandhi leader as well as Zulu civ

 

[historix69]

What you're asking for is not having any Civs at all. Just one completely generic blank slate that you start as in every game. That's not at all what Civ is as a series and not what the fans want to see. It's not in the spirit of the game.

If you want to advocate for that please do it in it's own thread somewhere else and stop derailing this one.

I did not want to derail the thread ... the discussion evolved when I suggested to start with 30-40 civs right away and there was a comment that it would not be possible to make each civ unique enough and so some people do not want 30-40 civs from start ...

I play Civ games for almost 25 years now and the first Civ games did not feature unique units or abilities at all ... a civ was just a name, a leader (with character properties) and a list of city names ... cultural flavour was added later with different styles for european, asian civs, etc. Unique units were introduced in Civ 3 ... Unique civs do not have such a high priority for me ... I would prefer a custom civ. A civ usually becomes unique due to their geographical location, expansion, action on the world map (creating its own history).

 

[Plus Ultra]

Don't get me wrong, Spain is necessary civ and very high priority but I can understand it not appearing on release.

Let's agree to disagree.

In my eyes, there is no way you can select 10 civilizations/empires based on their historical significance and not include Spain.

No disrespect to Poland, which has an amazing history and has been and still is a crucial player in Europe and one of the world's countries with the richest history, but Spain is in a completely different league.

Imagine Poland discovered the Americas and Polish was the second (behind chinese) language with more native speakers in the world. Imagine that from Los Angeles to Santiago de Chile all cities had Polish names, and were founded by Polish Conquistadors. In that scenario, I'm sure you will be baffled Poland was not included in the game at release!

 

[Krajzen]

Let's agree to disagree.

In my eyes, there is no way you can select 10 civilizations/empires based on their historical significance and not include Spain.

The problem is, Civ games don't make a raning of 'greatest civilisations ever' but 'great civilisations mixed with some less great but cool and exotic societies that would be fun to play as'
If Civ's main priority was including the most impactful civilisations and empires ever, then in civ5 we shouldn't see Iroquis, Shoshone, Zulu, Polynesia, probably also Siam, Venice, Sweden, Songhai, Celts, Maya etc. And instead we'd get such major cultures/empires as Sumer, Timurids, Mughals...

Civ's prime concern is gameplay diversity, not historical significance. My point is not diminishing importance of Spain, which would be near top "civ ranking" indeed, but the fact civ is anyway going to get 7 European/Western civilisations and I think Firaxis priority for release (seeing their recent tendencies) would be filling rest of roster with more exotic peoples than adding one more Western European country.

That's why I expect Civ6 base version to include something like Vietnam or Kongo, and Spain to come a bit later in some DLC or first expansion (it is guaranteed to come and come fast because of its importance anyway).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't like some of the lists I'm seeing for "TSL balance". You can't have balance while leaving 1 nation in China and India each. The absurdity of land mass vs civs inside region is overwhelming.

For TSL Europe is over-crowded as is and needs a few nations cut in favor of extras in/around China/India, if you want any pretense of balance.

 

[Ikael]

As another fellow Spaniard, I disagree. I mean, I would love if civs would get pick out of historical significance (which in this case, Spain would be a "vainilla civ" type of civ), but that's simply not the case due to a lot of different factors:

- Spain has a small PC gaming market (exhacerbated due to rampant piracy, let's get real here)
- Lots of European civilizations already cluttered around the same geographic area
- You need a solid religious and exploration system if you truthly want to get the best gameplay possibilities for Spain, and that's not present in most of the initial Civ releases

That being said, an Isabella with a "Reconquista" agenda might very well be a really fun civ to play with / against! Same goes for Charles V and his "Universal imperator" agenda. Who knows, perhaps we might get Spain in the main roost thanks to the inclussion of religion & exploration right out of the bat.

That being said, let's continue with the "non standard" types of often overlooked civs here. There's a particular area that the Civ saga has usually neglected: Eurasia. Huge territory, little popullation and zero actual geopolitical weight have damped the representation of this are in the saga, but once you start to scratch the surface there are many fascinating civilizations and opportunities for game design right there:

Eurasian region civs

Khazars

Nomadic peoples that latter became the second Jewish state to ever exist and that dominated the trade with the Bizantine empire and the silk route. What is not to love?

Gameplay aspects: Well, faith bonuses would be in order, as well as the ability to integrate people from many ethnicities into their empire. Oh, and their Qoruq should ought to appear in some form too! (a hidden mausoleum for their Kings, consisting on an underground palace built with subterranean rivers diverted into it!).

Harappan civilization:

Ancient culture that used to occuppy modern day Pakistan-Afganistan area, its legendary status almost rivals the one of Atlantis. Outstanding planned cities, far more advanced than any other metropolis of their time, and a quasi-utopical social order with little to no recorded warfare nor strife bodes well for some of the most puzzling lost civilizations ever.

Gameplay elements: They should have some kind of bonus for building districts, seeing how well planed their cities were. Some kind of diplomatic / city state bonus ought to be in order too, seeing how they were able to downright prevent war during the majority of their long timed existence.


Khazak Khanate

Comprising a huge landmass, the Khazak Khanate could easily be considered the precursor of modern Khazastan. Its culture combines its warrior past with a nomadic tradition of hospitality and religious syncretism that makes it unique.

Gameplay elements: The heavily nomadic Khazak culture could be represented by either longer land trade routes and perhaps even by some UA that allows for moving cities. Its recent history of its 100% artificial capital, Astana, could bode well for some type of late game district planning mechanic too!

 

[Plus Ultra]

The problem is, Civ games don't make a raning of 'greatest civilisations ever' but 'great civilisations mixed with some less great but cool and exotic societies that would be fun to play as'

Your whole post makes perfect sense Krajzen, I understand and respect your position.

As stated by my fellow spaniard Ikael and the quoted part of your last post, I agree that civlizations are not chosen, and for all the good reasons, just based on a abstract power index or their position on a wikipedia list.

I feel I'm derailing a very interesting thread, but let me say one last thing:

Unless Mexico, Argentina or Great Colombia are added into the game, Spain is the only one representing most of modern South American countries in the same way England represents New Zealand or Australia.

 

[ldvhl]

Sorry for my poor choice of words.

All good man. Thanks.

 

[Plus Ultra]

- Spain has a small PC gaming market (exhacerbated due to rampant piracy, let's get real here)

-Our small PC gaming market was 45 millon &#8364; in 2016. (How big is Alexander's Greece?)
-Our total gaming market, 763 million &#8364;.
-We spend, on average, 16,42&#8364; per capita in gaming.

Yet, somehow, even us Spaniards believe that everyone is just pirating their games

Edit: Now I'm sure I am derailing this thread, and that was never my intention. Let's agree to disagree and move on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I agree that civlizations are not chosen, and for all the good reasons, just based on a abstract power index or their position on a wikipedia list.

Even so the bias is real, and tremendous.

There is no criteria set that allows for previous lineups in civ games to be rational, absent heavy European/western bias. It's showing even now in TSL thread. Europe just isn't that big physically to have such a large percentage of total civs while areas like China and India have one.

You just can't put in "Celts" or "Huns" or multiple other overlapping territory civ representations, multiple north American tribes, then leave only 1 representative in India/China and conclude the inclusion criteria is rational.

I don't care if you're using wiki lists, known historical contributions, length of empire's existence, impact on the world, etc etc. There's nothing you can do, absent bias, that lets such happen.

From a TSL perspective it's even more egregious. Modern Chinese borders are not that much smaller than all of Europe combined. India is smaller, but still the kind of thing where you could put France x6 there. This thread is about a *balanced* lineup, so why are some of the more culturally, technologically rich areas of the world's history getting enormous territories for free and being ridiculously under-represented?

Nations like Venice, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Byzantium, Celts, and many more are instant scratches by any rational criteria that excludes additional nations in India/China. From a TSL perspective you might move someone up to "balance" start positions, but that only favors reducing the number of European civs more since it's very overcrowded in civ relative to other regions.

 

[nunor]

Even so the bias is real, and tremendous.

There is no criteria set that allows for previous lineups in civ games to be rational, absent heavy European/western bias. It's showing even now in TSL thread. Europe just isn't that big physically to have such a large percentage of total civs while areas like China and India have one.

You just can't put in "Celts" or "Huns" or multiple other overlapping territory civ representations, multiple north American tribes, then leave only 1 representative in India/China and conclude the inclusion criteria is rational.

I don't care if you're using wiki lists, known historical contributions, length of empire's existence, impact on the world, etc etc. There's nothing you can do, absent bias, that lets such happen.

From a TSL perspective it's even more egregious. Modern Chinese borders are not that much smaller than all of Europe combined. India is smaller, but still the kind of thing where you could put France x6 there. This thread is about a *balanced* lineup, so why are some of the more culturally, technologically rich areas of the world's history getting enormous territories for free and being ridiculously under-represented?

Nations like Venice, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Byzantium, Celts, and many more are instant scratches by any rational criteria that excludes additional nations in India/China. From a TSL perspective you might move someone up to "balance" start positions, but that only favors reducing the number of European civs more since it's very overcrowded in civ relative to other regions.

There will always be a eurocentric bias in the choice of civilizations. The exercise we're doing here is to try and guess which civilizations will most probably be chosen to achieve a better TSL balance, in spite of the eurocentric bias.

 

[Captain Fargle]

Even so the bias is real, and tremendous.

There is no criteria set that allows for previous lineups in civ games to be rational, absent heavy European/western bias. It's showing even now in TSL thread. Europe just isn't that big physically to have such a large percentage of total civs while areas like China and India have one.

You just can't put in "Celts" or "Huns" or multiple other overlapping territory civ representations, multiple north American tribes, then leave only 1 representative in India/China and conclude the inclusion criteria is rational.

I don't care if you're using wiki lists, known historical contributions, length of empire's existence, impact on the world, etc etc. There's nothing you can do, absent bias, that lets such happen.

From a TSL perspective it's even more egregious. Modern Chinese borders are not that much smaller than all of Europe combined. India is smaller, but still the kind of thing where you could put France x6 there. This thread is about a *balanced* lineup, so why are some of the more culturally, technologically rich areas of the world's history getting enormous territories for free and being ridiculously under-represented?

Nations like Venice, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Byzantium, Celts, and many more are instant scratches by any rational criteria that excludes additional nations in India/China. From a TSL perspective you might move someone up to "balance" start positions, but that only favors reducing the number of European civs more since it's very overcrowded in civ relative to other regions.

Alright then. We discussed India previously but how would you break up China for a TSL map? I've never really considered breaking them up necessary for a TSL map because once you include Mongolia, Korea, Japan and someone from SE Asia like Khmer I've found they fill in the space pretty well provided you're not too hung up on having someone rapidly fill in the western deserts.

It's not like India where you end up with no real competition at all.