Brave New World's 9 new Civs

[ImperialChaos]

Sicilian Normans will be the best civ. Hands down.

 

[Merciorum]

Does anyone know what the popular choice for European civs pre-BNW were? Italy has probably been crushed, along with the Normans, Franks and HRE. Venice seems very probable now. What other European civs could it be?

BTW, we could expect Coffee/Batik/etc for Indonesia, and Glass for Venice, anything that can be linked with Morocco?

Without Italy, I'd say that the most likely European ones would be:

Venice, naturally.
Hungary, but ruled out.
Serbia, but very, very unlikely, (EDIT: apparently also ruled out).
Bulgaria, but ruled out.
Bohemia, ruled out.
Kievan Rus, ruled out.
Lithuania, ruled out.
Wallachia/Romania, which it almost certainly is not.

So, almost certainly Venice. Wallachia/Romania is extremely unlikely. Of course, all of this depends on the next two civs both being pre-Pol, which is pretty well certain if things are as everyone thinks they are.

 

[ImperialChaos]

Without Italy, I'd say that the most likely European ones would be:

Venice, naturally.
Hungary, but ruled out.
Serbia, but very, very unlikely,
Bulgaria, but ruled out.
Bohemia, ruled out.
Kievan Rus, ruled out.
Lithuania, ruled out.
Wallachia/Romania, which it almost certainly is not.

So, almost certainly Venice. Serbia is about the only other one I think it could possibly be, and that's very unlikely. Romania is also fairly unlikely. Of course, all of this depends on the next two civs both being pre-Pol, which is pretty well certain if things are as everyone thinks they are.

Serbia is ruled out too. Belgrade was in a BNW video.

 

[Dragonflow]

Without Italy, I'd say that the most likely European ones would be:

Venice, naturally.
Hungary, but ruled out.
Serbia, but very, very unlikely,
Bulgaria, but ruled out.
Bohemia, ruled out.
Kievan Rus, ruled out.
Lithuania, ruled out.
Wallachia/Romania, which it almost certainly is not.

So, almost certainly Venice. Serbia is about the only other one I think it could possibly be, and that's very unlikely. Wallachia/Romania is also extremely unlikely. Of course, all of this depends on the next two civs both being pre-Pol, which is pretty well certain if things are as everyone thinks they are.

Serbia is ruled out as Belgrade is still a city-state.
Kievan Rus' isn't actually completely ruled out. It's likely that the devs would call the Civ Ukraine instead and design it based on the Kievan Rus'.

 

[Louis XXIV]

But the unit is not already in the game, so why not?

Given the likely trade overlaps with the Arabs, I'd rather not give both Camel units. It's certainly possible, but it strikes me as a weak argument when you consider that the Black Guard is strongly associated with Morocco. I just think they should be Musketmen (not that this has stopped Firaxis before).

 

[sukritact]

Just for the sake of it:

Spoiler :

TUSCANY! TUSCANY! TUSCANY!

So we're stuck with Ukraine, Wallachia, Romania, Transylvania, Sicily, and Tuscany?

Things are looking good for Venice....

 

[Loaf Warden]

We don't know what kind of curveball they're going to throw us. For all we know, they've overhauled the Celtic city list and added Scotland.

 

[Dragonflow]

Don't worry Eagle. It's the Sicilian branch, that means William the Conqueror has zero chances of getting in.

 

[Merciorum]

Serbia is ruled out too. Belgrade was in a BNW video.

Did not know this, will edit post. Thanks.

Kievan Rus' isn't actually completely ruled out. It's likely that the devs would call the Civ Ukraine instead and design it based on the Kievan Rus'.

I suppose... but that would be stretching it a bit... I hope Kiev is a city state, though, or at least a city of Poland.

 

[j51]

Also, it is, without a doubt, Gajah Mada:

Mada:

Spoiler :

Leader Image:

Spoiler :

I don't know. His face looks way thinner than Mada.

 

[Ricardo_]

With the B-P spots of the alphabet taken, San Marino has a chance of getting in as the european civ, and would appease Italy supporters:

UA: Huge tourism bonus. Permanent OCC or takes city names from neighborhoods of San Marino.
UB: Casino, substitutes Hotel, generates extra tourism and cash.
UU: ?

 

[PhilBowles]

Which is still entirely useless, we were promised no raiding types and if there were, they wouldn't be unique in Multiplayer.

You said this was promised in vanilla. It was promised in G&K that that would be the game's only expansion, from recollection. Plans change. In any case, if it was promised that in vanilla there would be no raiding units, the promise was kept. There were no raiding units in vanilla. I don't know of the promise or its wording, but it may well be that they worded it in a way that didn't rule out adding something similar in future.

You can't simply 'attack' across a border without war in MP if everyone knows who the unit belongs to, you will get flack for it and have no real benefit to the UU.

Multiplayer is an uncommon game mode. Multiplayer games without any AI civs at all are much rarer. And even in those you can use it to attack city-states. Even if you can't use it usefully against other civs it's at least as useful as the Mongol UA.

Likewise it makes no sense for singleplayer if a human could easily tell which AI was raiding them distorting the "fun" level for the human

They could tell which AI was doing it, but what they do about it is another matter. Does it distort the "fun" to know which specific civ stole your technological secrets or spread its religion in your territory? If you were playing Civ IV and only one civ had the tech for Privateers, you know who's doing the attacking then as well. You know exactly what's going on but can't declare war without diplomatic repercussions. Denouncing them might upset civs you like. In other words, you have exactly the same decisions to juggle as with aggressive use of espionage or religion.

Much like much subterfuge in reality...

Regardless, people keep shaving themselves on Occam's Razor on this issue and have to bring up a series of mental gymnastics to even remotely argue that this is a new UU. And there are possibilities the Galley does nothing that a Barb trireme can't do now with GK and as new trade routes mean naval barbarians are being slightly readjusted, it could be a replacement for the galley

These options are at least as much of a stretch. The Galley could have been removed in G&K - it wasn't because it's not meant to do anything the Trireme can't. It's meant to be a weak early barb naval unit that can be beaten by a civ's first naval unit.

A big problem with a new barbarian unit is that it simply has no role. After Brutes, barbs can get any generic, resource-less unit a civ can get. There isn't anywhere in the unit progression a tomahawk unit can usefully be placed unless it's intended as some kind of resourceless barbarian cavalry or longsword replacement. In neither case would it make sense to make it a tomahawk unit rather than something more closely resembling cavalry or longswords in function.

Once again, no justification has been presented to explain why there would be a barbarian UU specific to North America. A link to geography doesn't make any sense, a link to civ graphic style plainly doesn't hold, the idea that it's a reskin for an existing barbarian unit is ruled out by the unique unit icon, and "maybe they imported it from the scenario" is unconvincing because, again, there's no clear reason to do so, any more than there is to import Parrott Guns from the scenario.

All of which brings us back to the original conclusion: this is not evidence that can be dismissed. It could just be a barbarian unit, but that requires explanation. It could be a UU, but then its barbarian colours require explanation. And while we don't necessarily know all the possible explanations for why a UU would show barbarian colours, we can be sure we know most of the possible reasons why a NA-specific barbarian unit would be added, and none of them seem to stack up.

 

[PhilBowles]

I don't know. His face looks way thinner than Mada.

The style of the clasp for his hair is also very different.

 

[PhilBowles]

A Barbarian mechanic wherein they appropriate UUs of Civs not in the game. Now if only they could build B17 bombers.

It's not impossible that barbs would get some ability to 'bully' city-states they harass, or alternatively that CSes now have the ability to offer 'tribute' if no one comes to their aid against barbarians in time. That could take the form of units.

I'm still not feeling Venice. It's a really poor choice, especially considering the presence of both Portugal and now, ostensibly, Majapahit. Best case scenario, neither Italy nor Venice are present and it's and something we haven't anticipated.

Since it has to be European, the options are limited, and given the available leaders based on the Indonesian silhouette, the civ name has to be Indonesia or Majapahit, Srijivaya is out. That rules out any European civ earlier in the alphabet than Por, unless they really are fiddling with the alphabetical order of the achievements.

Since Firaxis decided to represent Venice as maritime rather than mercantile as a CS, they might well decide to focus on that element of the civ rather than its trade. Venice as a trading hub was Venice the city-state, not really Venice the empire, so a trade focus wouldn't even make that much sense. Given the one-dimensionality of most civ UAs, it might be something like The Travels of Marco Polo (exploration and possibly diplomacy) rather than anything trade-related.

While that's probably true, I still wouldn't be surprised if they've got one or two more unexpected plot twists up their sleeve.

Actually I doubt it. I don't see that they've ever really gone for 'plot twists' or gone out of their way to hide anything, either now or in G&K. Where people have been surprised it's by reading too much into things that are neither there nor intended.

For instance:

"Kongo has to be in, since it's about Scramble for Africa!" Well, (a) Kongo was dead and buried by the time of the Scramble, and (b) expectations that the scenario would inform civ choice were based entirely on an expectation that something Firaxis had stated outright was a G&K specific theme would be repeated.

Italy was based on a misreading of a few hints that pointed equally to Venice, and completely ignored repeated allusions by Firaxis to Rome as representing the kind of cultural influence they had in mind - all the arguments that Renaissance Italy was the best fit for the theme, again, flew in the face of what Firaxis themselves had actually said.

They aren't going out of their way to trick anyone; most of the revelations so far have been predictable and/or heavily hinted in advance. There weren't even really any "dark horses" in G&K that were held as trump cards - the only unexpected civs were the Huns, Austria and Sweden. The Huns were one of the first to be revealed, and in retrospect Firaxis' repeated hints to look at the scenario settings gave good reason to expect both of the others.

 

[sukritact]

With the B-P spots of the alphabet taken, San Marino has a chance of getting in as the european civ, and would appease Italy supporters:

UA: Huge tourism bonus. Permanent OCC or takes city names from neighborhoods of San Marino.
UB: Casino, substitutes Hotel, generates extra tourism and cash.
UU: ?

I'll stick with Venice and Tuscany, thank you.

 

[brhlbryce]

Without rehashing through several hundred pages of discussions, and neither as a history buff, but has there been concete evidence to eliminate Prussia from the possible European civ? I recognize their would be some city duplicity, but is that the only deterrent to them?

 

[cybrxkhan]

Without rehashing through several hundred pages of discussions, and neither as a history buff, but has there been concete evidence to eliminate Prussia from the possible European civ? I recognize their would be some city duplicity, but is that the only deterrent to them?

Bismarck, the German leader, is Prussian.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Without rehashing through several hundred pages of discussions, and neither as a history buff, but has there been concete evidence to eliminate Prussia from the possible European civ? I recognize their would be some city duplicity, but is that the only deterrent to them?

The fact that Germany is already in, with Bismarck as its leader?

 

[Lord Xavius]

In addition, the Civilopedia talks about Prussia as a stage of the civilization Germany represents in the game. Germany in Civ V isn't just unified Germany, or the HRE, or the Germanic tribes, it's all of them and more.

 

[Manifold]

I expect the following civs:
...
6. Crete
7. Gran Colombia
8. Indonesia
9. Franks or Soviet Union