@~frogchild~ Firstly, even if it is unlikely that Firaxis would make a similar base game roster, I must say that I really like your roster a lot! Your choices for leaders look great too with some refreshing new faces like Bayinnaung, Scipio Africanus, Idia, etc. It seems very odd to have America and India out of the base game but if you bring them in eventually in an expansion pack then I'd personally still be fine with it. As much as I love America, putting them in an expansion centered around colonies makes sounds great and perhaps some of the animosity colonial civs get might be mitigated by being brought in later in an expansion rather than right away in the base game. I'm also quite curious about how you'll split up India.
I'm sure you could put more civs in the base game but 19 civs is at least a good idea for the lowest number of civs we can expect. I now see you've got 20 plus a bonus 1 but either way I'm not complaining (at least as long as you include way more down the road with expansions).
In my opinion, you already deserve props for having written down Babylonia instead of Babylon and for most of the double leader picks (especially the Maya who fit the need for it as much as Greece does)!
I'll also give you plenty of credit for the number of Native American and African civs. Your base game alone has 5 civs from the Native Americas (who don't even have to share land with any colonial civs yet) and 4 African civs (5 if you're including Carthage) while Civ 6 currently has 4 Native civs and 5 African civs even after 2 expansions.
Cardinal Richelieu is a pretty cool and unique leader choice even if I'd prefer the Sun King or the previously mentioned Henry IV. No complaints here though since him and Wu are the only leaders I can think of aside from Catherine that would have fun mechanics with spies.
About the earlier comments about needing to separate the Anglo-Saxons from England, would there be large differences between the Anglo Saxons and early England? I do agree that I'd like more civs when possible but, based on what I've seen, many appear to include Alfred and his descendants as the first kings of England.
Since you have listed Carthage, I'm guessing you'd prefer them or at least the civ name of Carthage over Phoenicia?
To describe her briefly, Mandukhai was a Mongol queen who lived about 100 years after the fall of the Yuan dynasty. She reunited the mongols into a single empire by uniting them behind Dayan Khan, a descendant of Genghis and Kublai. Since Dayan was a child, Mandukhai was essentially the ruler with her own diplomatic and military successes. When Dayan came of age she married him and together they created a dynasty that harassed the Ming for 100 years and their descendants would be leaders of Mongolia all the way to the 1900s. Mandukhai was also said to be pregnant during and gave to twins after a battle. Regardless of the validity of that last story, she was a competent ruler and was described by some as the second coming of Genghis Khan. I'd say she's definitely a worthy leader to consider.
I see that she's been replaced with Kublai now. He's great too but personally the only Mongol leader I like more than Genghis is Mandukhai.
Thank you for getting me to look into Soleiman Hacen. Sounds like he's a great leader choice for the Swahili.
The Tlingit are one of my favorites so I'm glad to see them on here! Katlian or Shaadaxicht would be cool leaders choices but there's some good stuff to use with Sheiyksh I so I approve regardless (especially because of his hat).
I also really love the choices you made for the DLC civs, especially getting both Achaemenid and Sassanid Persia in.
I see you've mentioned that you're wondering where to include Mansa Musa and Mali. They'd be cool to have in the DLC with a scenario but if you're set on the number of civs then they'd probably fit in with one of the expansions.
Regardless, I'd say you've done a great job with the roster. I can only hope that a miracle happens to get a similar or identical list.
