[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Potworny]

Is there some specific source for those concepts?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Is there some specific source for those concepts?

Some of these abilities are based off of the different secret societies.
Menelik's ability is based off of the voidsingers ritual promotion.
I don't think every new civ will use these new mechanics though.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Is there some specific source for those concepts?

Yes, my head
Part of them are mechanics used in Secret Societies (Voidsingers ability was reused in Ethiopia, so we may assume some other Secret Societies abilities will be revisited in a new Civilization resign as well)
Some of them are just my guess what might be a core new mechanic for a new civ to be designed around.
The list is open and speculative.

As for possible Civs I see the great possibility for Venice (just abandon the idea they have to be one City Civ. They don't) and the Byzantines too
Moving districts would be a fun mechanic for nomadic Civs like native Americans.

 

[8housesofelixir]

As for possible Civs I see the great possibility for Venice (just abandon the idea they have to be one City Civ. They don't)

I feel like having a meaningful limit of cities can introduce a better flavor between the extremes of a one city civ and a wide civ. Currently Maya is a good example, using a range based bonus to "softlock" the number of cities.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

As for possible Civs I see the great possibility for Venice (just abandon the idea they have to be one City Civ. They don't) and the Byzantines too
Moving districts would be a fun mechanic for nomadic Civs like native Americans.

i just can’t imagine a moving district civ, it just feels like unnecessary complexity that doesn’t make the civ better in any capacity, just a weird gimmick. Even the Phoenician moving capital makes more sense gameplay-wise.

Ppl need to stop with one-city Venice though. It had cities up and down the adriatic coast and the balkans and it makes complete sense to put those on its city list. Venice would be way better than an Italy civ imo, and if they bring it back, I hope it’s nothing like Civ 5 Venice

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Ppl need to stop with one-city Venice though. It had cities up and down the adriatic coast and the balkans and it makes complete sense to put those on its city list. Venice would be way better than an Italy civ imo, and if they bring it back, I hope it’s nothing like Civ 5 Venice

It made sense flavorfully though, given that Venice before, during, and after the Venetian empire was a city-state. Also, it didn't really found any of those cities, just traded with and/or captured them (which, granted, is how some other empires operated, but again for a civ like Venice which really didn't have a lasting cultural effect on its territory like other Thassalocracies, it felt appropriate). The sort of idea you propose feels more appropriate for thassalocracies that actually had more core territory outside of a single city-state, like say the Chola or Oman/Swahili.

I'm torn on whether I want Venice to return. I would like more of Italy as a whole represented, but Venice just works better than any of the other Italian city-states. And so far all of the Italian propositions feel unnecessarily complicated for a civ design (but then again, so was Venice in V's time). I hope we get something either way with some weird, unbalanced mechanics, but I think on the whole I would support a puppet-state Venice again given its unusual place in history and how difficult otherwise it is to put anything Italian in Civ. It would do.

i will say that the swahili civ 6 mod came out pretty early and is one of the most subscribed civ mods when you don’t consider the civ 5 rerun ones. It’s been out for 3-ish years now if i’m not wrong so i can’t imagine it hasn’t caught the dev’s attention, if not for civ 6, then civ 7

It did, and it received an aesthetic update recently. I'm not sure to what extent the devs are paying attention to civ VI mods; they might have set up a Chinese wall for two reasons: 1) Because "doing better than V" is really the point of reference and the needs expressed by VI modders don't necessarily reflect what V needed to be improved on, and 2) V is a different game with incompatible mods, so the devs really can't step on the toes of any modders and are very unlikely to generate copyright claims; whereas developing VI mods for the same game can effectively obviate the hard work of modders and discourage the current modding community.

Note, that hasn't prevented them from doing it anyway when the civ was important enough like Ethiopia, but I suspect there is a relevancy tipping point where if a civ is small enough, they might just leave the mod be and focus on a different part of the world. Sukritact's mods come to mind; I could see Burma being left out just because he already made a pretty solid (if imo mechanically boring) Burmese civ. The only thing the players really miss out on is a little more polish (acceptable) and no unique soundtracks (inconsolable rage).

 

[Thenewwwguy]

The sort of idea you propose feels more appropriate for thassalocracies that actually had more core territory outside of a single city-state, like say the Chola or Oman/Swahili.

True. I’ve always seen a big opportunity for the Chola to have an ability that allows them to turn captured cities from other civs into mercantile city states that they’re already suzerain of, to reflect how when they captured land, they turned them into vassal nations which traded heavily with them: see: Srivijaya, Khmer, Pegu, Majapahit, Bengal, among others. I could actually see Venice with a similar ability.

That said, I don’t think Venice not founding its balkan holdings should make sure they can’t found those cities in game. Lots of cities in civs’ city lists weren’t founded by those civs. There’s a number of Roman cities in France and England’s city lists, including their capitals, founded by Rome. Not a single Ottoman city was founded by them, and Khmer has a number of Champa and Lan Xang cities it never ruled (which unfortunately means we will not be getting Champa and Laos in this iteration of civ sad)

 

[PhoenicianGold]

True. I’ve always seen a big opportunity for the Chola to have an ability that allows them to turn captured cities from other civs into mercantile city states that they’re already suzerain of, to reflect how when they captured land, they turned them into vassal nations which traded heavily with them: see: Srivijaya, Khmer, Pegu, Majapahit, Bengal, among others. I could actually see Venice with a similar ability.

That said, I don’t think Venice not founding its balkan holdings should make sure they can’t found those cities in game. Lots of cities in civs’ city lists weren’t founded by those civs. There’s a number of Roman cities in France and England’s city lists, including their capitals, founded by Rome. Not a single Ottoman city was founded by them, and Khmer has a number of Champa and Lan Xang cities it never ruled (which unfortunately means we will not be getting Champa and Laos in this iteration of civ sad)

Oh I agree that there's no reason why Venice can't found cities...it just benefitted flavorfully from that limitation so the players feel like they are playing as "Venice" as opposed to a larger, more integrated, traditional empire.

And all that said, for as much as I think Venice returning might just be the best/easiest/only option for an Italian civ, I suspect the devs won't do it unless they can find a way to improve or "top" them with an even grander concept. If players just got Venice-again, their reactions would generally trend somewhere between underwhelmed and disappointed. But if players got something even as simple as two Venices (with one being Genoa) or an Italian scenario pack featuring Venice (in which you could play against Genoa, Florence, Milan, Sicily, etc.), then I think it would be very well-received.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

As for possible Civs I see the great possibility for Venice (just abandon the idea they have to be one City Civ. They don't) and the Byzantines too
Moving districts would be a fun mechanic for nomadic Civs like native Americans.

All the Native Americans I want aren't nomadic though.

It made sense flavorfully though, given that Venice before, during, and after the Venetian empire was a city-state. Also, it didn't really found any of those cities, just traded with and/or captured them (which, granted, is how some other empires operated, but again for a civ like Venice which really didn't have a lasting cultural effect on its territory like other Thassalocracies, it felt appropriate). The sort of idea you propose feels more appropriate for thassalocracies that actually had more core territory outside of a single city-state, like say the Chola or Oman/Swahili.

I'm torn on whether I want Venice to return. I would like more of Italy as a whole represented, but Venice just works better than any of the other Italian city-states. And so far all of the Italian propositions feel unnecessarily complicated for a civ design (but then again, so was Venice in V's time). I hope we get something either way with some weird, unbalanced mechanics, but I think on the whole I would support a puppet-state Venice again given its unusual place in history and how difficult otherwise it is to put anything Italian in Civ. It would do.

I still think if they wanted to bring back a "one city city-state" civ I would rather they made it Babylon, instead of anything Italian.
Instead of annexing city states however you'd have to conquer them and other civilizations cities to form Babylonia.

 

[Zaarin]

I still think if they wanted to bring back a "one city city-state" civ I would rather they made it Babylon, instead of anything Italian.
Instead of annexing city states however you'd have to conquer them and other civilizations cities to form Babylonia.

I agree that Babylon makes the most sense for the "playable city-state" or at least "hyper-tall super capital" model, but whether we get Babylon or Assyria I'd rather they not be portrayed as particularly militant or aggressive--Gilgabro has that niche covered. At the very least I'd rather see them more like Persia: even if they have some militaristic abilities, still perfectly capable of playing a peaceful builder game. (In particularly, I'm very ready to break the "Assyria must be ultra-militant" trope that has existed in strategy games since forever. )

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I agree that Babylon makes the most sense for the "playable city-state" or at least "hyper-tall super capital" model, but whether we get Babylon or Assyria I'd rather they not be portrayed as particularly militant or aggressive--Gilgabro has that niche covered. At the very least I'd rather see them more like Persia: even if they have some militaristic abilities, still perfectly capable of playing a peaceful builder game. (In particularly, I'm very ready to break the "Assyria must be ultra-militant" trope that has existed in strategy games since forever. )

I don't see a non-militant Assyria happening in a game that tends to focus on what civs did exceptionally. Assyria is renowned as the first military power in history and many of its other cultural and scientific successes were quite intertwined with that identity. It might focus on other facets if it is included in Civ VI, but I think those would end up being secondary traits for a primarily militaristic civ. Assyria is probably one of the hardest civs to justify not making militaristic.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I agree that Babylon makes the most sense for the "playable city-state" or at least "hyper-tall super capital" model, but whether we get Babylon or Assyria I'd rather they not be portrayed as particularly militant or aggressive--Gilgabro has that niche covered. At the very least I'd rather see them more like Persia: even if they have some militaristic abilities, still perfectly capable of playing a peaceful builder game. (In particularly, I'm very ready to break the "Assyria must be ultra-militant" trope that has existed in strategy games since forever. )

for real. I’ve always associated both babylon and assyria far more with wonder building, scientific and literary compilation, and in babylon’s case, astronomy and math, far more than military might.

 

[Zaarin]

I don't see a non-militant Assyria happening in a game that tends to focus on what civs did exceptionally.

They were also exceptional builders (Nineveh was the crown jewel of the ancient world), exceptional librarians, exceptional administrators, exceptional city planners, exceptional traders...The only reason they've generally been portrayed as exceptional militarists is to distinguish them from the generally less militant Babylon. Without Babylon and with an ahistorically hyper-militant Sumeria already in the region, there's no reason not to portray them as a culture-focused builder civ in Civ6.

Assyria is probably one of the hardest civs to justify not making militaristic.

Only if you ignore its entire history and focus exclusively on Ashurbanipal--who himself was a literary collector and a scholar and could easily be portrayed as a Kristina-like Great Work hoarder.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I don't see a non-militant Assyria happening in a game that tends to focus on what civs did exceptionally. Assyria is renowned as the first military power in history and many of its other cultural and scientific successes were quite intertwined with that identity. It might focus on other facets if it is included in Civ VI, but I think those would end up being secondary traits for a primarily militaristic civ. Assyria is probably one of the hardest civs to justify not making militaristic.

And IMHO if emphasizing a strong secondary trait for a primarily militaristic Assyria, it will ends up very similar to the current in-game Persia (primarily military with a strong culture game as the secondary trait).

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Only if you ignore its entire history and focus exclusively on Ashurbanipal--who himself was a literary collector and a scholar and could easily be portrayed as a Kristina-like Great Work hoarder.

To be fair he did use conquests to justify obtaining his large collection when the demands didn't work.
I can see them getting an early siege UU at least while he can focus on building up both science and culture and disliking those who have more knowledge than him.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Only if you ignore its entire history and focus exclusively on Ashurbanipal--who himself was a literary collector and a scholar and could easily be portrayed as a Kristina-like Great Work hoarder.

IIRC Sennacherib, Sargon II, and Tiglath-Pileser III were all super militaristic leaders, their conquest usually involving massacre, razing cities to the ground, and massive deportations.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

And IMHO if emphasizing a strong secondary trait for a primarily militaristic Assyria, it will ends up very similar to the current in-game Persia (primarily military with a strong culture game as the secondary trait).

Practically i think persia ends up being primarily a culture civ

To be fair he did use conquests to justify obtaining his large collection when the demands didn't work.

Is this why he got science off conquering in civ 5?

IIRC Sennacherib, Sargon II, and Tiglath-Pileser III were all super militaristic leaders, their conquest usually involving massacre, razing cities to the ground, and massive deportations.

Sennacherib was also much better known for building nineveh, potentially the founder of the hanging garden, and more. Tiglath Pileser is best known for reorganizing the army, but also was a builder.

 

[Zaarin]

IIRC Sennacherib, Sargon II, and Tiglath-Pileser III were all super militaristic leaders, their conquest usually involving massacre, razing cities to the ground, and massive deportations.

Sennacherib was also a major builder who showed a personal aversion to war, to the extent that some historians believe he suffered from PTSD. He distanced himself from Sargon II's rabid militancy and rebuilt the temples that Sargon II destroyed. Tiglath-Pileser III was also a builder and also a major civic reformer. Yes, you can justify a militarist Assyria. "Pure Domination civ" is probably an option for any major civilization--France, either under a Medieval king like Philippe Auguste or under Napoleon Bonaparte, could be portrayed as one of the most rabid warmongers in the game--but I think there's general agreement that pure one-trick Dom civs are boring (do you see anyone exuberant about Gran Colombia's or Zulu's designs?). Any civilization that lasted any amount of time can be portrayed in many different ways; there's no reason to perpetually portray Assyria as the "hyper-militarist" civ when Nineveh was the most wondrous city in the ancient Near East (and Ashur, Kalhu, and other Assyrian cities were nothing to scoff at), Nineveh's library was second to none before the Library of Alexandria, Assyrian math and science (granted built on the shoulders of Babylon) were centuries ahead of their time, and Assyrian administrative practices were the groundwork on which the famous Persian satrapies were built.

And IMHO if emphasizing a strong secondary trait for a primarily militaristic Assyria, it will ends up very similar to the current in-game Persia (primarily military with a strong culture game as the secondary trait).

I agree with @Thenewwwguy. Persia is a culture civ that can do war, not a war civ that can do culture.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

They were also exceptional builders (Nineveh was the crown jewel of the ancient world), exceptional librarians, exceptional administrators, exceptional city planners, exceptional traders...The only reason they've generally been portrayed as exceptional militarists is to distinguish them from the generally less militant Babylon. Without Babylon and with an ahistorically hyper-militant Sumeria already in the region, there's no reason not to portray them as a culture-focused builder civ in Civ6.

I think calling Sumeria hypermilitant in VI is hyperbolic. Its UI doesn't grant any militaristic bonuses, war carts are quickly obsolete, and Gilgamesh's (fairly rudimentary) abilities are just as much about diplomacy as they are about warmongering. Functionally it does play out a bit militaristic, but mostly because Sumeria isn't really given a leg up in any other area and the diplomatic aspect of Gilgabro is kind of underdeveloped.

And yes, Assyria was exceptional at building infrastructure. But it was also known for aggressively conquering and incorporating other people into that infrastructure. The average armchair historian and casual gamer probably won't buy into the concept of a pure cultural Assyria, and Firaxis likely thinks (possibly correctly) that laying siege to cities with a minimal penalty to converting them would make Assyria flavorfully quite different from Gilgamesh's rush-down tactics.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Sennacherib was also much better known for building nineveh, potentially the founder of the hanging garden, and more. Tiglath Pileser is best known for reorganizing the army, but also was a builder.

Sennacherib was also a major builder who showed a personal aversion to war, to the extent that some historians believe he suffered from PTSD. He distanced himself from Sargon II's rabid militancy and rebuilt the temples that Sargon II destroyed. Tiglath-Pileser III was also a builder and also a major civic reformer. Yes, you can justify a militarist Assyria. "Pure Domination civ" is probably an option for any major civilization--France, either under a Medieval king like Philippe Auguste or under Napoleon Bonaparte, could be portrayed as one of the most rabid warmongers in the game--but I think there's general agreement that pure one-trick Dom civs are boring (do you see anyone exuberant about Gran Colombia's or Zulu's designs?). Any civilization that lasted any amount of time can be portrayed in many different ways; there's no reason to perpetually portray Assyria as the "hyper-militarist" civ when Nineveh was the most wondrous city in the ancient Near East (and Ashur, Kalhu, and other Assyrian cities were nothing to scoff at), Nineveh's library was second to none before the Library of Alexandria, Assyrian math and science (granted built on the shoulders of Babylon) were centuries ahead of their time, and Assyrian administrative practices were the groundwork on which the famous Persian satrapies were built.

To clarify, I'm not against them becoming culture civs, I primarily want to point out that their massive gains in war can also justify them being militaristic civs. I think it will be a matter of whether military first culture second or culture first military second.

Also, as far as I know, their is only one leader that was super militaristic IRL but lost that militaristic trait entirely in the game, Qin Shi Huang. Other figures such as Teddy and Cyrus all kept their military side of things, for Cyrus it even raises to a meme level (surprise wars). Judging from these examples, I would assume that the future in-game Assyria will more likely to have a strong military trait, or at least a strong early game UU with an aggressive UA.