foggyautumn
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2024
- Messages
- 20
Here are a couple concepts for civ abilities that can more dramatically shake up the way a player interacts with base game systems, now that we're a couple weeks in after release! I've had East Asian history on the mind, so I'll assign these ideas to that part of the world for flavor. These are just incomplete outlines for civs, just drawing a core ability and ways that it can be made stronger in Civics, not fully rounding out all the UQs and UUs.
Tang China: Diplomatic / Economic
Unique Ability: Cèfēng Tǐzhì (Tributary System)
Completing the "Promote Growth" action on a city-state generates a Treasure Caravan in that city-state. The Treasure Caravan can be activated in the Capital to gain Treasure Fleet Points.
Some bonuses from the Civics Tree or Unique Events:
Tang China is considered one of the Chinese golden ages, characterized by the flourishing of the Silk Road and deep cultural diversity in its core cities. The Sino-centric tributary system has its roots in Tang China, when neighboring states under its sphere of cultural and diplomatic influence would send local crafts, treasures, flora, and fauna in caravans as tributes to recognize the hegemony of the Chinese empire. This practice is often depicted in Tang art, with palace scrolls documenting different states' tributes of giraffes, corals, and handicraft.
Gameplay-wise, this feature puts focus on an (imo) underused action, "Promote Growth", available to suzerained citystates which lasts five turns and results in the city-states growing its borders. This is a gameplay alternative that lets Tang China focus on development of its homeland settlements, while increasing the power of city states. Tributary System applies to both homelands and distant-lands city-states (since the Silk Road was a land route), but only distant-lands one benefit from getting more points from treasure resources. The Investiture endeavor shares the wealth, allowing for interesting gameplay tradeoffs even after all the city-states on the map have been claimed. Tang China can benefit their allies by giving them the chance to play with the same system.
Great Liao: Militaristic / Cultural
Unique Ability: Plural Administration
Once per foreign settlement, conquering a foreign settlement grants the Great Liao access to one random Tradition that the foreign civilization has unlocked (from any age).
Some bonuses from the Civics Tree or Unique Events:
The Great Liao were a rival dynasty founded by the Khitan peoples centered in the Mongolian plateau and modern Northeast China, around the same timeframe as the Tang and Song China. They jockeyed for power against the Chinese hegemon, conquering territory on the northern borders of China, driving the Song Dynasty southwards. A notable feature of Great Liao government administration was establishing separate parallel governments - one suited specifically for the culture of the nomadic Khitan and Uighur peoples in the north, and one syncretized to fit the conquered sedentary Han peoples in the south.
Gameplay-wise, this allows the Great Liao an extra strategic lens on who to focus in war, in order to poach specific powerful traditions to incorporate into its own government. It offers a different take on Tradition-focused gameplay, currently offered by Rome, Normans, and Mexico.
As far as this ability goes, it may make more sense to be in the Modern age instead of the Exploration age, since there will be many more Traditions for each civ available to poach. Although, off the top of my head I'm not sure what modern age civilizations could fit this gameplay theme.
Other unrelated abilities I'm toying around with:
Tang China: Diplomatic / Economic
Unique Ability: Cèfēng Tǐzhì (Tributary System)
Completing the "Promote Growth" action on a city-state generates a Treasure Caravan in that city-state. The Treasure Caravan can be activated in the Capital to gain Treasure Fleet Points.
Some bonuses from the Civics Tree or Unique Events:
- Treasure Caravans can cross Open Ocean and gain 3 movement on Roads.
- Treasure resources within a city-state's borders greatly increases the amount of Treasure Fleet Points generated by its Treasure Caravan.
- Grants a new unique Endeavor, Investiture. Grants Gold-per-turn for the player, and Food-per-turn for the recipient. Grants Influence-per-turn for both players if Supported. When Investiture is completed, a Tang-bound Treasure Caravan is created in the recipient's capital city. If Investiture is supported, a recipient-bound Treasure Caravan will also be created in Tang's capital.
Tang China is considered one of the Chinese golden ages, characterized by the flourishing of the Silk Road and deep cultural diversity in its core cities. The Sino-centric tributary system has its roots in Tang China, when neighboring states under its sphere of cultural and diplomatic influence would send local crafts, treasures, flora, and fauna in caravans as tributes to recognize the hegemony of the Chinese empire. This practice is often depicted in Tang art, with palace scrolls documenting different states' tributes of giraffes, corals, and handicraft.
Gameplay-wise, this feature puts focus on an (imo) underused action, "Promote Growth", available to suzerained citystates which lasts five turns and results in the city-states growing its borders. This is a gameplay alternative that lets Tang China focus on development of its homeland settlements, while increasing the power of city states. Tributary System applies to both homelands and distant-lands city-states (since the Silk Road was a land route), but only distant-lands one benefit from getting more points from treasure resources. The Investiture endeavor shares the wealth, allowing for interesting gameplay tradeoffs even after all the city-states on the map have been claimed. Tang China can benefit their allies by giving them the chance to play with the same system.
Great Liao: Militaristic / Cultural
Unique Ability: Plural Administration
Once per foreign settlement, conquering a foreign settlement grants the Great Liao access to one random Tradition that the foreign civilization has unlocked (from any age).
Some bonuses from the Civics Tree or Unique Events:
- +1 War Support for each foreign Tradition slotted into the government.
- +2 Culture in fortified districts for each Tradition slotted into the government.
- Unique Tradition Scapulimancy: Celebrations last 25% shorter but cost 25% less happiness to trigger.
The Great Liao were a rival dynasty founded by the Khitan peoples centered in the Mongolian plateau and modern Northeast China, around the same timeframe as the Tang and Song China. They jockeyed for power against the Chinese hegemon, conquering territory on the northern borders of China, driving the Song Dynasty southwards. A notable feature of Great Liao government administration was establishing separate parallel governments - one suited specifically for the culture of the nomadic Khitan and Uighur peoples in the north, and one syncretized to fit the conquered sedentary Han peoples in the south.
Gameplay-wise, this allows the Great Liao an extra strategic lens on who to focus in war, in order to poach specific powerful traditions to incorporate into its own government. It offers a different take on Tradition-focused gameplay, currently offered by Rome, Normans, and Mexico.
As far as this ability goes, it may make more sense to be in the Modern age instead of the Exploration age, since there will be many more Traditions for each civ available to poach. Although, off the top of my head I'm not sure what modern age civilizations could fit this gameplay theme.
Other unrelated abilities I'm toying around with:
- UA: Burn a Great Work to instant-suze a city state
- Incentivizes going above the required limit for Great Works in order to use this extra utility. Maybe this ability is too "helps winners win more"?
- UA: Bonus towards researching tech/civic masteries, but only if immediately researched after the base tech/civic
- Changes the pacing of research by incentivizing moving slowly through the trees.
- UU: Ranged Cannon that forces cavalry units backwards one tile and gives them a heavy defense debuff for a remainder of the turn.
- UU: Naval raider that can set underwater bomb traps in navigable rivers
