[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Boris Gudenuf]

. . . Ultimately, if Civ6's leaders truly are the single most time-consuming element of the game, it's not because they couldn't be done faster. The lead developers simply agreed the game will never need to have that many of them and they can thus take their sweet time (it's honestly not even *that* slow, the initial waves of DLC gave the game 18 leaders in a span of 15 months including 2 holiday seasons and all the surrounding scenario and R&F work).

Now, here I think we are agreed: the animated Leaders are in fact totally unnecessary to the game: they are a marketing device, a "nice to have" feature but have no bearing on the play of the game itself. The 'Uniques' attached to the Leaders are there whether they are completely animated portrayals or still cartoons. That means, whatever resources of whatever kinds are available to the game design team, there are better places to use any of them to make a better game than on an animated, articulate, linguistically complex Leader.

And, @sukritact, your comments in a way reinforce my thoughts on this: they could get a lot more 'bang for their buck' by allocating more of the resources to better and more variety of Unit animations, terrain/map, buildings, wonders and Improvement graphics and animations. As an example already commented on elsewhere, Humankind's herds of deer and occasional elephant wandering the landscape - no apparent effect on game play, but much more visible as a graphic Bonus as you play the game than an intermittent Leader Board.

 

[mitsho]

What I personally dislike most about the Leaders is that they take you to their own distinct leader screens. It just takes up time and you out of your immersion. That‘s also why I think they will go a dramatically different route with leaders in the next civ game. I just feel there‘s a lot of room for optimization there. I can‘t imagine that the graphics will be the bottle neck anymore (if they set it up like that again, that‘s entirely on them). If Crusader Kings 3 can create a wide range of okish looking people, so can civ. It‘s just a question of what‘s the goal there (gameplay and „making the customer buy the DLC“-wise).

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

As an example already commented on elsewhere, Humankind's herds of deer and occasional elephant wandering the landscape - no apparent effect on game play, but much more visible as a graphic Bonus as you play the game than an intermittent Leader Board.

Herds of deer and elephants have an impact on gameplay. They're the first "barbarians" you encounter, generally peaceful but can be killed in combat. They're a gameplay experience and so having their graphics polished makes sense because the design serves the gameplay (except if we speak about different elephants and deer in which case I withdraw my comment)

 

[sukritact]

Herds of deer and elephants have an impact on gameplay. They're the first "barbarians" you encounter, generally peaceful but can be killed in combat. They're a gameplay experience and so having their graphics polished makes sense because the design serves the gameplay (except if we speak about different elephants and deer in which case I withdraw my comment)

He’s speaking about the tiny non-unit animal herds that flee from your cursor.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

He’s speaking about the tiny non-unit animal herds that flee from your cursor.

That would be a nice addition. Random packs of animals moving away from your cursor as you move across a Civ map... What about dolphin and whale pods as well Sukritact, you have a lot of work to do.

 

[spacedinosaur]

Portugal Confirmed??


Playing the game just now, as the Byzantines, two Portuguese Rivers showed up on a map I explored..

Spoiler Portugal Confirmed? Douro River :

Spoiler Portugal Confirmed? Tagus River :

 

[Potworny]

Portugal Confirmed??


Playing the game just now, as the Byzantines, two Portuguese Rivers showed up on a map I explored..

Spoiler Portugal Confirmed? Douro River :

View attachment 576493

Spoiler Portugal Confirmed? Tagus River :

View attachment 576491

Yeah, so how many unique ways did we have a civ leaked as of now?
In all seriousness, I feel weird with that, I want Portugal included because I love Portugal, but its inclusion makes me disappointed, because I want more civs

 

[God of Kings]

Portugal Confirmed??


Playing the game just now, as the Byzantines, two Portuguese Rivers showed up on a map I explored..

Spoiler Portugal Confirmed? Douro River :

View attachment 576493

Spoiler Portugal Confirmed? Tagus River :

View attachment 576491

Both of those rivers have their sources in Spain.

 

[spacedinosaur]

Both of those rivers have their sources in Spain.

I know, however these rivers are on opposite sides of the map with me in the middle & so far only the Ottomans in sight...

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Both of those rivers have their sources in Spain.

Are they in the Spain River list? @bite would know.

 

[AntSou]

Are they in the Spain River list? @bite would know.

Both are:
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/River_(Civ6)

 

[spacedinosaur]

The Nile tributaries are not in Egypt but we still associate the river with them. The Tejo (Tagus) & Douro are both core to the Portuguese existence. I'm almost certain the devs have been looking at my data to get ideas for this expansion. Certain things I've been researching have appeared in this game & Portugal is my favorite. I'm hoping to will this into existence like I did in Civ V when they announced them last.

Spain is still not in this game of mine. Here's a current screenshot of the Douro:

Spoiler Douro River? :

Spoiler Tagus River? :

I'll update once I explore the south, but so far the Douro is isolated & between Byzantium, Nubia & Sumer, I cannot explain this glitch.

 

[Virdrago]

If a civ runs out of names for geographical features, like Canada after one volcano or the Dutch when finding a desert, the game will pick a name from a civ that isn't in the game. In this case, Spain. My last Maya game was full of deserts around me, and they all had Australian desert names. Australia wasn't in the game.

I believe this was mentioned by the devs when they bought the geographic naming feature into the game.

 

[spacedinosaur]

I believe this was mentioned by the devs when they bought the geographic naming feature into the game.

Very plausible scenario -- They've been teasing Portugal from the very beginning of Civ VI. Portugal fits into each expansion of Civ VI & as the first global empire, deserves to be in this game more than Eleanor of Aquitaine does twice.

 

[AntSou]

Very plausible scenario -- They've been teasing Portugal from the very beginning of Civ VI. Portugal fits into each expansion of Civ VI & as the first global empire, deserves to be in this game more than Eleanor of Aquitaine does twice.

When did they tease Portugal? And you can fit any Civ to nearly any expansion, that's just a matter of having some imagination.

Anyway, Portugal was one the most popular requests for NFP, along with Maya and Byzantium. The likelihood was high until the Europe pack came out and it was Gaul instead. Now there's only one slot left, leaving some in this thread thinking that either: a) the final pack is Portugal or b) there's no more Civs from Europe and it will be a Civ from some other continent, likely North America.

In case b) happens then you'll have to hope like me that they release a couple extra DLCs after NFP.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Very plausible scenario -- They've been teasing Portugal from the very beginning of Civ VI. Portugal fits into each expansion of Civ VI & as the first global empire, deserves to be in this game more than Eleanor of Aquitaine does twice.

Looking at the list of rivers both Byzantium and the Ottomans share a lot the same river names.
I think it's more plausible that either you or the Ottomans ran out of names and started using some from Spain's list.

If you mean they've had Lisbon from the very beginning of the game I agree that it might be seen as a teaser. They'll get in eventually just like Amsterdam and Seoul did.

 

[SMcM]

To add to that it's very clear that the pipeline Firaxis has set up with regards to creating leaders isn't very robust, compared to something like an RPG (which given the level of detail on the leaders is a better comparison). Each of the leaders have their own unique rig (less true for New Frontier Leaders admittedly, since they're clearly adjusting old ones, and people are already complaining at them doing that). Physics is baked in rather than simulated in real-time (so hair, cloth, and even the champagne in that glass Catherine is holding is rigged). This is different from RPGs where many of the characters will share the same rig, the same animations; where cloth and hair are delegated to real-time physics systems. In an RPG, once you get that fancy Inverse Kinetic system set up, it's basically done for everyone, you don't have to redo that a thousand times. Each leader in civ requires a new rig (even if a modified one), a whole new set of animations, a whole new set of audio lines translated to god-knows what language, a whole bunch of man-hours cleaning up that newly rigged cloth so it doesn't clip through the guy's shoulders (I've experienced that particular pain first hand).

We also don't know how Firaxis is set up, but well, they're a developer of Strategy games, is it really a surprise they're less adept at mass producing characters than a studio that focuses on making RPGs? Why would they have the same number of character artists?

Yes these are all good points. And I think the point you make about their pipeline for leader creation pipeline not being the most robust applies to a few things, thus the complaints many have made about the game generally not being best optimised.

I can't say for certain which of the things take the most time in Firaxis' case. My main point is that it's not really a feasibility problem. They have a major publisher and a very successful IP behind them, which means that if they wanted, they could very well make a game with 100 different civ leaders.
It's really not technical or budgetary constraints which make this scenario unlikely, but the project's inherent design.

Thing is this is you're dismissing the practical complications. As per what Suktritact was saying, it is clear there might be significant hurdles for them pumping out tons of leaders on the system they are currently using. And saying there is no budgetary concerns doesn't make sense- they are only willing to put in money to the extent they are sure it will see significant financial return. If they currently have an inefficient process, which means the time spent on making each leader could be far longer than ideal, then that is going to factor into calculations about how worthwhile it is for them to keep making this content. If Civ 6 DLC is only making very modest financial returns then they aren't going to keep doing that. Obviously we don't know either way.

 

[notNamed]

Thing is this is you're dismissing the practical complications. As per what Suktritact was saying, it is clear there might be significant hurdles for them pumping out tons of leaders on the system they are currently using. And saying there is no budgetary concerns doesn't make sense- they are only willing to put in money to the extent they are sure it will see significant financial return. If they currently have an inefficient process, which means the time spent on making each leader could be far longer than ideal, then that is going to factor into calculations about how worthwhile it is for them to keep making this content. If Civ 6 DLC is only making very modest financial returns then they aren't going to keep doing that. Obviously we don't know either way.

Hold your horses right there. We were talking about Civ as a series in general, including all of its sequels in the future, where the argument against more detailed histories outside Europe was that covering it would be infeasible, because you need to make leaders for all of that and that is not possible. In turn, I argued that's definitely not the case and the leader creation process can be generally made as fast as the team desires. Civ 6 slowed down its pace of making new leaders dramatically compared to the past, so they obviously aren't interested in going in the opposite direction for it, instead simply scaling down the work on the (by now fairly old) game's support.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Why stop at Chola though? Why not go for Tamilakam?
Were they different from other Tamils dynasty like Chera,Pandya etc.
Or earlier Tamilakam culture cease to exist after Chola rule like what happened in Anatolia with ottoman Turk conquest?

& If u really want to play as an empire like Chola,Mughal,Qing,Ming, Qajar etc,Isn't Humankind better suited for it.

firstly, there’s no distinction between an empire and a civ, as you seem to suggest. Both are inherently abstract terms


Likewise, the idea of Humankind’s ‘cultures’ is also an abstract term

nonetheless, while Tamilakam could be a fine choice for the name, ultimately, the Chola fall into the case of the Ottomans, where a dynastic name is simply more effective at conveying their accomplishments and stuff

 

[SMcM]

In turn, I argued that's definitely not the case and the leader creation process can be generally made as fast as the team desires.

Which is exactly what I'm disputing, even if we are talking about Civ 7 or future games instead of Civ 6. Unless there is a major overhaul of their current development processes. I'm not sure how big their team is but they don't have unlimited funds and employees and as things stand it seems like the way they are going about creating leaders is far from completely efficient.

Also I could be forgiven for thinking Civ 6 future leaders was the topic at hand, since that is the point of the thread and if you'e not discussing that then you're direction of conversation is going very off-topic.