[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Jeppetto]

Three points: not every civ would have to have a unique resource; it could be to some extent map based: e.g., you have fine deposits of clay, you get Porcelain; and I would argue that manufactured resources shouldn't stay unique forever. Eventually someone smuggled the secret of glassmaking out of Tyre; Tyrian purple eventually spread to other regions of the Mediterranean and in modern times can be synthesized; the Byzantines smuggled silkworms out of China and developed sericulture in the Eastern Mediterranean; porcelain can now be made anywhere; etc.

Whether they should or should not stay unique forever is besides my point.

You want civs to be tied to unique resource, one way or another. If we're talking resource on map tile and then the civ having bias towards it, you must be sure each civ can have such bias. Having resource that you have better access to is proper gameplay advantage and should be distributed equally. I care more about the gameplay than the historical accuracy. As such you must be sure that either each civ has such unique resource or come into terms with even more RNG deciding early power, as you may have one East Asian civ having Porcelain all to themself while three European civs all share Wine, for example. This sounds to me that either you are creating needless barrier for introduding more civs, or you are adding another thing which pleases people who want to see something and say "Just like the real world", while damaging gameplay consistency.

On grander scale, this could work and it already does in that the map generator tries to attach each continent set of unique luxuries, so that you get forced into trading with "exotic" foreign civs and IMHO it's enough. Trading with China from Asia has advantages for you If you're Cree from America, as by map design, they are guaranteed to have luxury you don't (Luxury unique to Asia). In exchange, you are guaranteed to have Luxury unique to America. This is enough for me. Digging deeper to this might be interesting If it's general gameplay, so much like you can be Fascist Mongolia, you can also be Scotland that invented Porcelain. But attaching these to specific civs to simulate real-world sounds like exactly something that would bring more mehs than goods.

 

[Zaarin]

Actually set up farms in the desert seems to require some modern technology to me.

I could buy building farms around Oases as comparable to building farms on Desert Floodplains, e.g., from irrigation, but yeah, actually farming straight Desert requires modern irrigation technology.

Whether they should or should not stay unique forever is besides my point.

I'd argue that it's not insofar as once it ceases to be unique it becomes available to other civilizations.

You want civs to be tied to unique resource, one way or another. If we're talking resource on map tile and then the civ having bias towards it, you must be sure each civ can have such bias. Having resource that you have better access to is proper gameplay advantage and should be distributed equally. I care more about the gameplay than the historical accuracy. As such you must be sure that either each civ has such unique resource or come into terms with even more RNG deciding early power, as you may have one East Asian civ having Porcelain all to themself while three European civs all share Wine, for example. This sounds to me that either you are creating needless barrier for introduding more civs, or you are adding another thing which pleases people who want to see something and say "Just like the real world", while damaging gameplay consistency.

Balance only matters in multiplayer, and Civ is overwhelmingly a single player game. Not every civ needs to have a unique luxury, any more than every civ has to have a unique district.

 

[Jeppetto]

Balance only matters in multiplayer, and Civ is overwhelmingly a single player game. Not every civ needs to have a unique luxury, any more than every civ has to have a unique district.

First of all, I heavily disagree with balance only mattering in multiplayer, this game is supposed to be strategy even in single-player and any desire to go farming/rpg/simulation can be already achieved with lower difficulty. Second of all, it's not just matter of balance, but gameplay consistency. Even If you disregard both of these as matter of taste, comparing it to UD is very wrong, as not every civ has UD, but every civ has something it its place that should be equal in power or the civ is compensated. Even "civs" that have extra unique have it as part of their power, even stressed more by Firaxis including it in their tooltip every now and then when the tech/civic prereq is different (such as Tagma being part of Basil II's power budget, not just some random extra).

If that's the way you want it, then yes, you could weaken the civ mildly to include unique resource as part of their power, but I think it ends up being too underwhelming to be desirable. That way it's better to have one civ that has such unique ability that they have several unique resources they may trade away - If you want the civ to be the master of trade deals. Maybe it's matter of taste, but If I were choosing civ I would find their unit, district, building or improvement far more interesting than resource. On the other hand If you don't want it to be generic luxury but for the resource itself to have some bonus, the difference being that the civs can willingly lose the bonus and give it to someone else in trade deal, while I still consider it underwhelming, I would at least with this agree it could add something interesting to the game and I could see why it would be appealing to others, that I admit.

 

[Zaarin]

First of all, I heavily disagree with balance only mattering in multiplayer, this game is supposed to be strategy even in single-player and any desire to go farming/rpg/simulation can be already achieved with lower difficulty. Second of all, it's not just matter of balance, but gameplay consistency. Even If you disregard both of these as matter of taste, comparing it to UD is very wrong, as not every civ has UD, but every civ has something it its place that should be equal in power or the civ is compensated. Even "civs" that have extra unique have it as part of their power, even stressed more by Firaxis including it in their tooltip every now and then when the tech/civic prereq is different (such as Tagma being part of Basil II's power budget, not just some random extra).

If that's the way you want it, then yes, you could weaken the civ mildly to include unique resource as part of their power, but I think it ends up being too underwhelming to be desirable. That way it's better to have one civ that has such unique ability that they have several unique resources they may trade away - If you want the civ to be the master of trade deals. Maybe it's matter of taste, but If I were choosing civ I would find their unit, district, building or improvement far more interesting than resource. On the other hand If you don't want it to be generic luxury but for the resource itself to have some bonus, the difference being that the civs can willingly lose the bonus and give it to someone else in trade deal, while I still consider it underwhelming, I would at least with this agree it could add something interesting to the game and I could see why it would be appealing to others, that I admit.

To be clear, I can't speak for @PhoenicianGold , but what I was suggesting as unique manufactured luxuries would be based more on the map than on the civ. To go back to porcelain, the Chinese developed porcelain in actual history because they had access to excellent clay and poor stone, which led them to develop exceptional earthenware, not because there is anything inherently "Chinese" about porcelain. Likewise, the Phoenicians developed Tyrian purple because of their ready access to Murex snails, not because the Phoenicians had some cultural fixation on the color purple. And to go back to my idea of unique luxuries not staying unique, once other civilizations developed the kilns necessary to make porcelain, China lost its monopoly; once Murex snails were harvested in other places, Tyre lost its monopoly; once silk was smuggled out of China and glass-making techniques out of Tyre these technologies spread. So what I'm suggesting is essentially just another manifestation of Civ6's central theme of playing the map, not simply stacking on more power creep.

(Though I still maintain that balance is of limited importance in a single player game. People complain about the Maya, but I found them one of the most fun civs to play. People talk about Korea being OP, but in my opinion Korea's just boring--same with Gran Colombia. I think it's much more important civs be "fun" or "interesting"--terms I grant are highly subjective--than "balanced" or "powerful.")

On the other hand If you don't want it to be generic luxury but for the resource itself to have some bonus, the difference being that the civs can willingly lose the bonus and give it to someone else in trade deal, while I still consider it underwhelming, I would at least with this agree it could add something interesting to the game and I could see why it would be appealing to others, that I admit.

I would very much like to see Civ pick up Endless Space 2-style luxuries where luxuries have specific effects, though I'd also like to see it applied more broadly than ES2, where only "development luxuries" affect your empire. It looks like that may be the route Humankind is taking.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

- Still need celts/druids/forest worshippers. Make it similar to Boudica from Civ V.

We already have that with the Maori.

This would be awful in terms of history, but in terms of gameplay, I wish they had just made Gorgo an alt leader for Alexadander instead of for Pericles (I know Alexander wasn't there at game release). Perhaps they could call Alex/Gorgo Greece and call Pericles Athens.

Personally I like the Greece/Macedon split with Greece being represented by both Athens and Sparta. I am open to the idea of Alexander being an alternate Greek leader in Civ 7 with him representing the military side of Greece rather than Sparta.
Splitting Alex and Gorgo into Greece and having a separate Athens makes even less sense.

I could buy building farms around Oases as comparable to building farms on Desert Floodplains, e.g., from irrigation, but yeah, actually farming straight Desert requires modern irrigation technology.

Like Canada farming on tundra?
Honestly I think the Navajo could get that ability too since they did learn to farm in the desert.

To be clear, I can't speak for @PhoenicianGold , but what I was suggesting as unique manufactured luxuries would be based more on the map than on the civ. To go back to porcelain, the Chinese developed porcelain in actual history because they had access to excellent clay and poor stone, which led them to develop exceptional earthenware, not because there is anything inherently "Chinese" about porcelain. Likewise, the Phoenicians developed Tyrian purple because of their ready access to Murex snails, not because the Phoenicians had some cultural fixation on the color purple. And to go back to my idea of unique luxuries not staying unique, once other civilizations developed the kilns necessary to make porcelain, China lost its monopoly; once Murex snails were harvested in other places, Tyre lost its monopoly; once silk was smuggled out of China and glass-making techniques out of Tyre these technologies spread. So what I'm suggesting is essentially just another manifestation of Civ6's central theme of playing the map, not simply stacking on more power creep.

(Though I still maintain that balance is of limited importance in a single player game. People complain about the Maya, but I found them one of the most fun civs to play. People talk about Korea being OP, but in my opinion Korea's just boring--same with Gran Colombia. I think it's much more important civs be "fun" or "interesting"--terms I grant are highly subjective--than "balanced" or "powerful.")

I like the idea but at the same time I would be fine with only a handful of civs having access to a unique manufactured resource. Obviously Phoenicia comes to mind with Tyrian Purple which they could start off with in the game but another could be Japan which gets access to electronics whenever they build their first electronics factory.

Of course I wouldn't mind thins like porcelain but as you say it's not like porcelain is at all "unique" to China and I wouldn't consider it a unique manufactured luxury if anyone could eventually gain access to it.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Of course I wouldn't mind thins like porcelain but as you say it's not like porcelain is at all "unique" to China and I wouldn't consider it a unique manufactured luxury if anyone could eventually gain access to it.

Personally I see this as a possible interaction between resources and technologies in the future: Everyone can access to the same resource as long as a deposit of the resource is within their empire, but some civs can have the related resource-extracting and resource-manufacturing technology unlocked earlier (similar to how Gaul instant gain Apprenticeship) - therefore they extract the resources early and produce unique goods (such as porcelain) early.

(I would also like to see new interactions such as the techs behind the resource-extracting tech are locked by both science output and that resource - therefore if you don't have a stockpile of Iron, you cannot research everything after the Iron Working in the tech tree. Currently one can build modern warships without having any Iron. Although many may find a system like this complicated things too much.)

 

[Zaarin]

Like Canada farming on tundra?

Modern.

Honestly I think the Navajo could get that ability too since they did learn to farm in the desert.

Herding sheep or goats is a lot easier than growing crops.

Of course I wouldn't mind thins like porcelain but as you say it's not like porcelain is at all "unique" to China and I wouldn't consider it a unique manufactured luxury if anyone could eventually gain access to it.

It was unique to China and Korea until the 16th century, when the Japanese learned to make it from the Koreans (under duress ), and the 18th century, when Europeans learned to imitate it via the Jesuit missions to China.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Modern.

Right but I was thinking in terms of gameplay it would have to come before the modern era.

Herding sheep or goats is a lot easier than growing crops.

I'm under the impression that they did learn the Three Sisters technique from the Pueblo and did farm corns, squash and beans in addition to herding livestock as well.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Of course I wouldn't mind thins like porcelain but as you say it's not like porcelain is at all "unique" to China and I wouldn't consider it a unique manufactured luxury if anyone could eventually gain access to it.

To be fair, many UIs: the open air museum, the golf course, the electronics factory, the film studio, the hockey rink, the hacienda, the carnival, the tlachti, the pyramids, the sphinx, the lavra, the baths and thermal baths, the mission, etc. etc. were either created by other cultures and/or adopted by other cultures.

Civ's design seems to be trying to find uniques that show some exemplary aspects of civs, not necessary things which were exclusive to them. So if a civ was renowned for initiating or monopolizing a particular luxury good for quite some time, like @Zaarin suggested Tyrian purple or Chinese porcelain, then I think it's in line with the overall design philosophy.

The downside is that other civs might have limited or no access to certain luxuries, but in a game where most luxuries are only superficially different I don't see that as a problem. If anything it would make a rather boring luxuries system more interesting.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

To be fair, many UIs: the open air museum, the golf course, the electronics factory, the film studio, the hockey rink, the hacienda, the carnival, the tlachti, the pyramids, the sphinx, the lavra, the baths and thermal baths, the mission, etc. etc. were either created by other cultures and/or adopted by other cultures.

Civ's design seems to be trying to find uniques that show some exemplary aspects of civs, not necessary things which were exclusive to them. So if a civ was renowned for initiating or monopolizing a particular luxury good for quite some time, like @Zaarin suggested Tyrian purple or Chinese porcelain, then I think it's in line with the overall design philosophy.

The downside is that other civs might have limited or no access to certain luxuries, but in a game where most luxuries are only superficially different I don't see that as a problem. If anything it would make a rather boring luxuries system more interesting.

I agree with what you are saying. I don't know if I would use the term "unique" when describing those types of luxuries in the game, especially if there is a possibility that other civs could not only obtain them, but produce them as well.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I agree with what you are saying. I don't know if I would use the term "unique" when describing those types of luxuries in the game, especially if there is a possibility that other civs could not only obtain them, but produce them as well.

What I'm saying is why not make some luxuries exclusive to a single civ and call them uniques? Are the other civs really that inconvenienced by not having access to Tyrian purple except through trade? Are any of them inconvenienced by not being able to build a film studio?

We already have a system where somewhat universal structures are limited to specific civs...I don't see how it's any more disbelief-breaking to do the same thing with certain resources, especially in the case of luxuries which:

1) are not as regionally wide spread as bonus resources typically.
2) are not as necessary for tech advancement like strategic resources.
3) are presently not very deep or well differentiated beyond aesthetics,
4) could certainly stand to be given more specific luxury abilities to make them more exciting than simply bonus resources.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

What I'm saying is why not make some luxuries exclusive to a single civ and call them uniques? Are the other civs really that inconvenienced by not having access to Tyrian purple except through trade? Are any of them inconvenienced by not being able to build a film studio?

I agree with this as I said previously. I probably wouldn't give every civ access to a unique luxury resource but some such as Phoenicia with Tyrian Purple would benefit from it and even Japan with manufactured "electronics" luxury resources produced by the Electronics Factory.
In that instance I would argue maybe America's Film Studio should be able to produce a special Great Work of Film, but that's a different subject.

I was only addressing the idea that if other civs would eventually have access to produce a "unique" luxury resource in the game to me I wouldn't use the name "unique" to describe them.

 

[Zaarin]

Are any of them inconvenienced by not being able to build a film studio?

Actually I'd argue America is inconvenienced by having the film studio.

I was only addressing the idea that if other civs would eventually have access to produce a "unique" luxury resource in the game to me I wouldn't use the name "unique" to describe them.

If everybody has a unique luxury, nobody has a unique luxury.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

All the other ones are fine but Iran? Doesn’t that fold into Persia?

Historically in the western world Iran refers to the Islamic era in Persian History while Persia refers to the pre-islamic periods. It’s a tenuous and unclear distinction, and I believe Iran was endonyms in their own right even for pre-islamic Persia, but separating them as separate civs would be acceptable (especially since the Persian civ ability wouldn’t make much sense for Islamic Iran)

Yeah, the problem with getting a second Persian civ is that it's called "Persia." And I suspect, like China, having a singular civ is an appeal to Iranian pride, despite it spanning several long and varying empires. But that also doesn't discount the possibility of a second leader I suppose (even though I kind of view Alexander as representing the greek-ish Persian empires).

While Iran does today consider itself an extension of the Achaemenid empire, it isn’t the type of thing which would offend the Iranian diaspora (I say iranian diaspora bcs embargo’s among other things would mean there wouldn’t be a Civ player base in Iran anyway). Iranians freely recognize the distinction between the pre-islamic and islamic periods.

 

[Zaarin]

I believe Iran was endonyms in their own right even for pre-islamic Persia

It was. Persia comes from the Greek rendering of Pars, the home province of the Achaemenids, but as I outlined above the Persians have always called their homeland "the country of the Aryans." I agree, though, that we could easily have a second civ called "Iran."

Iranians freely recognize the distinction between the pre-islamic and islamic periods.

Agreed. In fact, many are very pleased to consider both Zoroastrianism and the Church of the East as part of their historical heritage. The shah referred to them as a national treasure of Iran.

 

[notNamed]

Historically in the western world Iran refers to the Islamic era in Persian History while Persia refers to the pre-islamic periods...

It's always been "Persia" in the west. Up until the point that Iran itself started asking to be called Iran in international cycles. This only happened after WW2.
So no, there is no historic distinction of this sort in the western world. It's a distinction in video games and movies because Iran is an icky word in the USA and "Persia" just sells more. In historical texts, it's all Persia and when it comes to scholarship, you're going to be either studying Achaemenid Iran or Islamic Persia. Either, or. You don't mix the two. Hence why there's Encyclopaedia Iranica but also institutions like The British Institute of Persian Studies, both of these covering the whole history of the region.
That is, to the best of my knowledge. If someone specifically dealing with Iranology/Persialogy has a different view, I'd be happy to hear it out.

Also, on the margo of there being no Iranian Civ fans. There are. You can still get most video games in Iran. The issue is from the other side. That is, as a company, you can't market and sell it to them. So it's either going to be all pirated or imported copies.

 

[agonistes]

At least, not if you are over about 2 years old. When babies are apparently babbling to themselves, they are actually practicing every possible sound that the human voice can produce. When they start actually pronouncing recognizable word-sounds, though, they have focused on those human vocals that they are hearing. So, any human baby can learn any human language, but they 'learn' to ignore, and therefore largely lose the ability to pronounce, sounds that they don't hear as babies/children.
This is one of the few things from my one linguistics course that I have no trouble remembering!

Theory disproven!

Just step on some legos barefoot in the dark. I pronounce all kinds of things.

 

[Jeppetto]

Theory disproven!

Just step on some legos barefoot in the dark. I pronounce all kinds of things.

You speak language so obscure it's frowned upon by entire societies.

 

[Zaarin]

Theory disproven!

Just step on some legos barefoot in the dark. I pronounce all kinds of things.

Remember, no speaking in tongues without an interpreter.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Theory disproven!

Just step on some legos barefoot in the dark. I pronounce all kinds of things.

You accidentally summon the Lord of Dread from the Hollow Plane.