Civilisation Attributes open discussion

Personaly i don't think there is much need for civilian units for every specialist and most are better represented as they are, inside the cities.

I see the case for a unit mostly in interaction with other civs, with the spy and potentialy with a diplomatic unit(which i definitely support).

The merchant obviously interacts also with other civs but is better represented through traderoutes in that regard than through a unit.

The missionary gives you control over religion that you in another way just dont have.

A rethink of the specialist boni on the other hand seems kinda interestings.

For exampel the maintenance bonus could be interesting on statesman specialist itself.
Or an boni to traderoutes from the merchant.
 
The actual exploring of North America was done by the coureurs des bois, a similar but earlier group of people (17th-18th as opposed to 18th-19th c.). This would require Canada to spawn as soon as the first colony is founded... And in any case, there were also more official expeditions (e.g. D'Iberville), so replacing the explorer unit isn't such a great idea either.

It might be ahistorical but courers is the only canadian thing I know too and they are a common trope in games. I think it can work as a worker unit with increased movement/improvement speed in some terrain features, forests, tundra etc. Maybe they can have some defense as well? in AOE3 they were a lot tougher than other workers, and were capable of taking military units, idk if that's historical though.
Probably it won't be needed with the late spawn of Canada but a unit capable of defending against a standard infantry could be interesting and a peaceful deterrent.
 
What does everyone think about changing the scope of the "Mali" civilisation? It's kind of in a weird spot right now, because they spawn before the actual Mali Empire was founded, but also long after the first "Mandinka" polities existed at all. I don't think moving their spawn down the timeline makes anything better. The peak of the Mali Empire was shortly after the empire itself was established (Mansa Musa's reign) and it would compress the amount of time and interesting challenge for any of the associated goals way too much.

What if instead the Ghana Empire and Mali Empire are regarded as empires of the same civilisation? They have some broad similarities, their power bases are largely coextensive, and both their economies and power were centered around the West African gold fields, followed by salt and copper mining. Also, the Ghana Empire is believed (though not proven) to have been founded by the Soninke, who like the Mandinka are a Mande people. So broadening the civilisation to encompass all Mande peoples would be reasonable, especially since all of those subgroups wound up inside the Mali empire at its height.

This would allow us to let the civ spawn at around the 4-5th century, which is more historically sound than the current spawn date, and gives a lot more time to space out the existing goals. For example, a Sankore related goal could actually reflect the correct build time of the madrasa. And on the other hand, not representing the Ghana Empire is a historical blind spot imo, and they are too similar to Mali and too badly sourced to justify being their own potential civ. It would be two unsatisfied rushed civs instead of one combined civ that can actually work.

Lastly (though out of scope for this thread), to add some interaction to the Niger region, Songhai could be more easily added some time in the 11th century to challenge the Mande. This would be very awkward with the current spawn date, as that'd make them pop up almost immediately after Mali appears.
 
What does everyone think about changing the scope of the "Mali" civilisation? It's kind of in a weird spot right now, because they spawn before the actual Mali Empire was founded, but also long after the first "Mandinka" polities existed at all. I don't think moving their spawn down the timeline makes anything better. The peak of the Mali Empire was shortly after the empire itself was established (Mansa Musa's reign) and it would compress the amount of time and interesting challenge for any of the associated goals way too much.

What if instead the Ghana Empire and Mali Empire are regarded as empires of the same civilisation? They have some broad similarities, their power bases are largely coextensive, and both their economies and power were centered around the West African gold fields, followed by salt and copper mining. Also, the Ghana Empire is believed (though not proven) to have been founded by the Soninke, who like the Mandinka are a Mande people. So broadening the civilisation to encompass all Mande peoples would be reasonable, especially since all of those subgroups wound up inside the Mali empire at its height.

This would allow us to let the civ spawn at around the 4-5th century, which is more historically sound than the current spawn date, and gives a lot more time to space out the existing goals. For example, a Sankore related goal could actually reflect the correct build time of the madrasa. And on the other hand, not representing the Ghana Empire is a historical blind spot imo, and they are too similar to Mali and too badly sourced to justify being their own potential civ. It would be two unsatisfied rushed civs instead of one combined civ that can actually work.

Lastly (though out of scope for this thread), to add some interaction to the Niger region, Songhai could be more easily added some time in the 11th century to challenge the Mande. This would be very awkward with the current spawn date, as that'd make them pop up almost immediately after Mali appears.
All very good points. I fully agree. I'd been wondering myself what exactly the Mali civ was, and why it spawns when it spawns.

Since they would spawn long before Islam appeared and spread in the area, there would be a need for a proper pagan religion, as discussed recently in the Suggestions and Requests threads. "Yoruba" isn't accurate by any measure. We'd also have to make sure Islam properly spreads to the civ (I'm not sure at what date).
 
Earlier spawn is generally more fun, all else equal. The rise of civs is one of the best parts of CIV/RFC/DoC.

Mali UHVs can easily be decoupled from being contingent on Islam with slight renaming/modifications. For example:

UHV1: The Great Pilgrimage: Conduct a trade mission to your holy city by [YEAR]

UHV2: Timbuktu Center of Learning: Have the highest :science: output and a settled Great Prophet in your capital by [YEAR]

UHV3 [Unchanged]
 
Yes, but there are also more opportunities for the UHV:
- I think the "discover the Americas" goal mentioned earlier is interesting
- maybe an earlier date for the gold goal (subgoals) makes things a lot better: you can spend the gold in your tech endgame then
- I like that the first UHV implicitly requires converting to a religion, since a Ghana start would be pagan instead
- it would also neatly solve the problem with a Niani spawn, because now we could have the decent Kumbi Saleh, Djenne, Timbuktu setup
- Sankore could really have a better effect, maybe -50% cost for techs already discovered by civs with your state religion?
- also not opposed to adding the Great Mosque of Djenne
 
- it would also neatly solve the problem with a Niani spawn, because now we could have the decent Kumbi Saleh, Djenne, Timbuktu setup
Where would Koumbi Saleh be? From the recent screenshot in the Map Development thread, I think the best spot is 1NE of the Bambuk gold field, but that tile is desert. Maybe it should be changed to semidesert.
- also not opposed to adding the Great Mosque of Djenne
Good idea. It could be called "Great Adobe Mosque", since one of its distinguishing features is being the largest adobe/mudbrick/banco building in the world.
 
- I think the "discover the Americas" goal mentioned earlier is interesting
It could be an adjunct of the Pilgrimage UHV.

To have such a maritime UHV, perhaps Mali's UP should be broadened a bit? The current Mali UP is basically "Mansa's Financial Trait from Vanilla CIV but only works on land tiles".

Example: The Power of Wealth: Extra :commerce: on improved resources and extra :traderoute: for cities on Desert or Semi-Desert tiles.

Compared to the old UP, this UP is more vulnerable to disruption by war, which is more realistic.


Sankore could really have a better effect, maybe -50% cost for techs already discovered by civs with your state religion?
That might create a strong incentive to convert to Christianity, especially if Arabia dies early to its many mishaps.

-% cost for techs already discovered by civs with Pleased or better relations would be a bit more flexible.

In general, I think the Japanese UP (Modernization) should be available to all civs after certain conditions are met (perhaps based on Civics + Tech). Sankore could be a wonder that unlocks this effect early.
 
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Something like the Japanese UP already applies to all civilisations.
 
So, this weekend I was able to take a look at Crusader Kings 3 and found out some ideas for DoC. As some of you may know, they took a more immersive and detailed approach in the religion aspects, which allowed a better representation of the many paganisms within the geographical and historical limits of the game. See, for exemple, this long list that includes every religion ingame.

Going back to DoC, some weeks ago we were discussing on the Suggestions and Requests thread about how to improve the pagan religion of the African civs and I'd like to point some aspects from CK3 that may help us.

The Malinese pagan religion (incorrectly called Yoruba in our mod) is named Mandé (the same of the people) in CK3, but has two denominations of itself: the Siguism and the Bidaism (you can look at the link with the religion list to see more details [lore and game information tabs] and the symbols); the first is more distributed among Malinke provinces and the latter in Soninke and Songhai ones.

Also, I noticed that Ethiopia currently have Anunnaki (Mesopotamian paganism) as pagan religion, which seems weird. I know that as Ethiopia you are basically required to convert as soon as possible (since its is a UHV!) and historically the Abrahamic religions were present there quite early, but it would be nice have a more accurate portrayal of their paganism. Looking on the CK3 list, I'd like to suggest changing it to Waaqism, which is a native religion of the Oromo and Somalis. I'm not sure about possible URVs or temple art (since I literally never heard about it before), but is one more idea to flavour Africa a little more in our games.
 
Also, I noticed that Ethiopia currently have Anunnaki (Mesopotamian paganism) as pagan religion, which seems weird. I know that as Ethiopia you are basically required to convert as soon as possible (since its is a UHV!) and historically the Abrahamic religions were present there quite early, but it would be nice have a more accurate portrayal of their paganism. Looking on the CK3 list, I'd like to suggest changing it to Waaqism, which is a native religion of the Oromo and Somalis. I'm not sure about possible URVs or temple art (since I literally never heard about it before), but is one more idea to flavour Africa a little more in our games.
Wow I'd never heard of this. There's also this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waaqeffanna
 
I have been playing CK3 too, the level of detail is very interesting and it seems well researched.

For Ethiopia though, it's important to keep in mind that the CK3 time period covers the Ethiopian dark ages, and that Oromo and Somali peoples aren't Ethiopian. Ethiopia has Annunaki at the moment (with a different Pagan Temple name) because I found some sources stating that in the pre-Christian period, Arabia and Ethiopia (which were strongly culturally linked at the time) shared similar religious beliefs to the Mesopotamian region, or at least formed some sort of religious continuum. Since you start pagan in the 3000 BC scenario, reflecting the pagan religious beliefs of that time period is more important than e.g. medieval ones.
 
I have been playing CK3 too, the level of detail is very interesting and it seems well researched.

For Ethiopia though, it's important to keep in mind that the CK3 time period covers the Ethiopian dark ages, and that Oromo and Somali peoples aren't Ethiopian. Ethiopia has Annunaki at the moment (with a different Pagan Temple name) because I found some sources stating that in the pre-Christian period, Arabia and Ethiopia (which were strongly culturally linked at the time) shared similar religious beliefs to the Mesopotamian region, or at least formed some sort of religious continuum. Since you start pagan in the 3000 BC scenario, reflecting the pagan religious beliefs of that time period is more important than e.g. medieval ones.

Oh, I didn't knew about their conections with these Mesopotamian religious beliefs, just knew about ancient Arabian-Ethiopian relations. It makes sense the current representation.

A minor additional note that I just thought: wouldn't be nice to have a description about the different pagan religions and URVs in the Civilopedia? Currently we just have information about the major religions. I know that it is a laborious effort, but then we can mobilize the community here to make it!
 
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Yeah, part of the reason is that pagan religions aren't really their own entities in the game code at the moment. It's just a name, icon and unique building tacked on to the civilisation.
 
I suggest putting Santa Anna as the first appearing leader in Mexico civ, I don't know what civic causes him to appear but on all my games the first leader that appears after Mexico declares independence is Juarez, which is incorrect since he didn't became president until 1857, whilst Santa Anna was president from 1834 to 1855. I don't know if this was made for gameplay purposes or it's only an oversight.
 
Any thoughts on the English UB? I never found the Royal Exchange very particularly English or very useful either. Does anyone have a better idea?
 
I've seen several mods (including HR) using the Public House as the English UB. The most suitable building it can replace is likely the Coffee House. I think a GPP bonus would be appropriate. However the French Salon also replaces the Coffee House and has a GPP bonus. On top of that, the French Salon also has a culture bonus and a statesman slot. IMO an UB shouldn't be a worse version of another UB.
 
The Salon could replace something else, it's kind of weird that France can't build cafés
 
I've seen several mods (including HR) using the Public House as the English UB. The most suitable building it can replace is likely the Coffee House. I think a GPP bonus would be appropriate.
Yeah, but do we really want the British Empire to rest on their pubs? At that point we'd really have cemented Daily Mail patriotism into the civilisation.
 
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