[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Thenewwwguy]

China:
Once you reach the Medieval Era you reveal niter/saltpeter, esclusive to China. You can trade gunpowder to other civilizations or if you send a trade route to them. If China isn't in the game no one can discover gunpowder or build gunpowder units.


As much as I do find it interesting I'm having a hard time seeing how a technology tree would work for let's say the Aztec, Inca or Maya once you reach the Early Modern Renaissance Era considering they never outright developed technology after that time period, let alone a Classical Era Babylon?

maybe they get unique tech trees for their existence and then progress as usual?

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

What I'm thinking is that we have a Tech Tree that all Civilizations will have to use, but have the Civs each have unique Techs that only they can research. They can share these with other Civilizations, and can be stolen through Espionage by other Civs.

 

[Cooleatack]

totally agree, and reflecting things like the fact that math and astronomy were first developed by India, Egypt and Babylon, then spreading elsewhere, being adopted and modified would be interesting (although the tech tree would have to be a bit more in depth). Likewise, Mongols and other central asians should have very early access to horseback riding. This would be like a more in-depth version of the civ 3/4 thing where certain civs started with certain techs.

This could also tie into regional/cultural abilities.




I don’t think this is a bad idea but they’d have to be careful about doing this with indigenous people civs. I’d also like paths to victory which allow indigenous nations to keep their cultural heritage over being forced to westernize for overwhelming bonuses, but that’s my take on this


having nomadic tech trees could also actually make options like the ainu, saami and inuit make sense in the conceptualization of civ, as long as gameplay becomes more flexible to allow for hyper-wide play (tiny cities which are still productive and can be spaced closer together)


i can’t see nomadic civs working as long as districts take up an entire tile on the overlay. We’ve discussed this many times but reducing cities to one tile once again, but making adjacency bonuses something that happens on an internal level inside the city would be really interesting (you zoom in to place districts within the 1-tile city)

This also fixes map scale, bcs at present way too much land in relation to cities is urbanized and developed, which makes the map look covered in cities and wilderness is sparse. There’s also no way to make developing on rainforest or forest harder past the ancient era, when even to this day we can’t drive from North America to South America because certain parts of Northern Colombia are untraversable.

i hope tech exchange becomes something more broadly focused upon later. Right now it’s so mechanical...just espionage or trade. But why does having a neighbor study something not give you a bonus towards it (perhaps you actively learn that tech at a quarter of the rate? That would be cool)

I think in general Civ’s biggest issue is all of these aspects of humanity and cultural development are so surface level. Government just gives you a couple of different cards. Culture and Science are rigid trees. City lists are mutually exclusive. the religion you pick (named after a real one) doesn’t matter.

It would go so far (in terms of immersion) to actually flesh these things out. More government types and the one you choose gives you tangible advantages and disadvantages. Maybe even tie the exposure to a government by a great thinker (make people like Smith, Marx, Lenin, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, who developed new forms of government great people and by getting one that form of government arises in your land and you can choose to adopt it and it slowly spreads across the world and other places can adopt it).

The leader mechanism stops factional conflicts from ever being good, so i’ll ignore the idea of civil wars.

dynamic tech trees would be awesome for immersion.

city lists being exclusive and dynamic (if Byzantium founds Byzantium, Ottomans default to Edirne) would also increase immersion

I would love to see a system that bases your tech and even unique units/infrastructure on your surroundings and the way the game progresses around you. Have most systems be adaptive to your playstyle and path through the game would make for a much more immersive experience and a great continuation of Civ VI ‘s focus on the map

to give an example, starting around jungle, would lead you to become more Jungle civ like and have cutting jungle tech or guerilla warfare become available to you, while perhaps steppe horse tactics or the wheel become less readily available for you

 

[Henri Christophe]

I would love to have a CIV7 with regional groups of civs with different techs, eras, districs, units, etc. But is very unlikely to change on CIV series (like I dislike the leader focus). Maybe on a similar game.

This idea of different regional groups could even help to justify less eurocentrism, since most of the current on game "civs" are not true civilizations but very expecific nations/states/governments. Europe is basicaly one or two civilizations (west and east) in the make since late classical to medieval time, yes descentralized and with regional flavor, but is absurd to have on game two germanic protestant colonial nations that could be on design more different between them than any of them to a native american tribal civ or to a far east empire.

Make a group of Central Asia nomad civs with therir own eras, mechanics, units, etc. And then you could justify more civs that would use variations of that gameplay (Scythians, Huns, Turks, Mongols, etc.)

I totally agree on it, more one season is needed to at least more one Native AMerican and one African.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

For all the discussions about unique tech trees, I think we are facing a major problem, which is the very design of a tech tree.

I began to dislike it. Let's face it, it's completely ahistorical. Some prerequisites are simply untrue (you don't need to have money to decide to discover mathematics, and why would animal husbandry predate necessarily archery?). It's clearly based upon the eurocentric advancement of kowledge and technology, and even by those standards it's quite clumsy.

I hope for a complete overhaul on how scientific and sociological discoveries are made in 4X games, and I already thought of something:

Each "technology" would be kind of available right of the beginning, but unknown (like in the shuffle tech/civic trees). Each techology would exist in three states: unknown (you absolutely don't know what it is), mastered (you "discovered" it in the 4X game, so you enjoy the bonuses it gives) and known (you know the tech exist, but you haven't researched it yet). To go from "unknown" to "known", it would be based upon what is around you. If you have a lot of wild animals around you, the technology "animal husbandry" would probably goes from "unknown" to "known" because some guys in your empire would think "hey, wouldn't it be neat if we had control over those animals?".

Each technology would have, each turn (or each time limit for non-turn based 4X games), a chance to be mastered. This chance would be between 0 and 100% (no chance at all vs you're certain to master it the next turn/time unit).

The science output would not be beckers that fill a bigger becker than, when full, discover/master you a tech. It would just increase the chance of all (or some) techs to be mastered.

But this system would be very dynamic with how you play and your environment, not unlike how Eurekas and Inspirations work. For example, having access to the sea or a river would increase the chance of sailing techs to be discovered. Lots of things would help this way: mastering Chemistry would enhance the chances of discovering medical-related techs; having some stables would enhance your chances of discovring gunpowder. Having neighboring civs that have mastered the tech would also increase your chances, especially if you do some trade.
Important notes: a technology doesn't need to be "known" to be mastered. It would be like serendipity, or the discovery of quantas: nobody knew they existed before discovered them (unlike atoms, where the theory existed long before we prooved they exist).
Of course, we won't get rid completely of the prerequisites. The techs at the end of the tree would be very difficult to master, and might not give you any bonus at this moment (like discovering nuclear physics in the Bronze Age would be of no help). For example, to master Physics, Mathematics would be a prerequisite (meaning that without mathematics, physics will always have a 0% chance of being discovered).

Of course, to not let this completely passive, you'd have ways to influence your scientific research. First, building "science related" buildings would naturally increase the potential of discovering new techs. It can be pondered though: having a library would help you master mathematics and astronomy, but libraries aren't enough for high-tech technologies like nuclear physics for example. Once the "scientific method" mastered, you could also decide to focus your scientific efforts on one specific known technology, which would then greatly increase the chances of mastering it (at a money cost maybe). You could also finance "fundamental research" which does not focus on mastering a specific technology, but will increase the chances of unknown tech to become known.

I see a lot of advantages of this system. It's not just anymore a "fill your becker with smaller beckers until it's full, rince and repeat", you'd need to have actual strategies to got through the tech tree. How your expand your empire would have a direct impact, not just the numer of cities you plopped anywhere to have a new scientific district. It would also be more historical: a civ/faction in the mountains might not need to discover the wheel, but they will know how to build bridges much earlier since they need them to cross canyons and mountains. A completely inland empire would not have to research the completely useless Shipbuilding technology to be able to build buttress. Nomadic factions would laugh at irrigation, but would need animal husbandry and archery much earlier. You could discover writing without having the faintest idea what a pottery is, which (while not necessarily historical) could be feasible and should be feasible. Astronomy wouldn't be locked behind seafaring.

Each playthrough would be different, and really unique, reflecting the way you play. I don't know what you think about it, but I personally think that the tech tree model is old and it's great time we challenge it a little.

 

[AntSou]

What I'm thinking is that we have a Tech Tree that all Civilizations will have to use, but have the Civs each have unique Techs that only they can research. They can share these with other Civilizations, and can be stolen through Espionage by other Civs.

Have you seen the honeycomb tech tree idea? (Created by user lennongrad / Emrakul. Link here. No idea if he has an account on Civfanatics)

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Have you seen the honeycomb tech tree idea? (Created by user lennongrad / Emrakul. Link here. No idea if he has an account on Civfanatics)

I have now. That is such a simple yet effective idea.

 

[Tigranes]

This thread is still alive and kicking? Guess Game is over, ladies and gentlemen. 50 civs+48 city states+Free Cities+Barbarian civ = 100. Magic number. It is Finished.

"It is finished" is the English translation of the Greek word Tetelestai, which was the last thing Jesus' said before dying on the cross. Tetelestai comes from the verb teleo, which means "to bring to an end, to complete, to accomplish." It's a crucial word because it signifies the successful end to a particular course of action. It's the word you would use when you climb to the peak of Mt. Everest; it's the word you would use when you turn in the final copy of your dissertation; it's the word you would use when you make the final payment on your new car; it's the word you use when you cross the finish line of your first 10K run. The word means more than just "I survived." It means "I did exactly what I set out to do."

 

[Menocchio]

Ahh, but Mount Everest has deep significance in Tibetan Buddhism, and rather than 100, the magic number in Buddhism is 108. How many civilisations were in the New Frontier Pass? Of course, 8. And not only was Vietnam - a historically Buddhist culture - included, so was Kublai Khan who himself converted to Tibetan Buddhism. Therefore we will see a Final Frontier Pass with up to 8 civilisations and city-states total, bringing the final tally to the sacred number of 108.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

For all the discussions about unique tech trees, I think we are facing a major problem, which is the very design of a tech tree.

I began to dislike it. Let's face it, it's completely ahistorical. Some prerequisites are simply untrue (you don't need to have money to decide to discover mathematics, and why would animal husbandry predate necessarily archery?). It's clearly based upon the eurocentric advancement of kowledge and technology, and even by those standards it's quite clumsy.

I hope for a complete overhaul on how scientific and sociological discoveries are made in 4X games, and I already thought of something:

Each "technology" would be kind of available right of the beginning, but unknown (like in the shuffle tech/civic trees). Each techology would exist in three states: unknown (you absolutely don't know what it is), mastered (you "discovered" it in the 4X game, so you enjoy the bonuses it gives) and known (you know the tech exist, but you haven't researched it yet). To go from "unknown" to "known", it would be based upon what is around you. If you have a lot of wild animals around you, the technology "animal husbandry" would probably goes from "unknown" to "known" because some guys in your empire would think "hey, wouldn't it be neat if we had control over those animals?".

Each technology would have, each turn (or each time limit for non-turn based 4X games), a chance to be mastered. This chance would be between 0 and 100% (no chance at all vs you're certain to master it the next turn/time unit).

The science output would not be beckers that fill a bigger becker than, when full, discover/master you a tech. It would just increase the chance of all (or some) techs to be mastered.

But this system would be very dynamic with how you play and your environment, not unlike how Eurekas and Inspirations work. For example, having access to the sea or a river would increase the chance of sailing techs to be discovered. Lots of things would help this way: mastering Chemistry would enhance the chances of discovering medical-related techs; having some stables would enhance your chances of discovring gunpowder. Having neighboring civs that have mastered the tech would also increase your chances, especially if you do some trade.
Important notes: a technology doesn't need to be "known" to be mastered. It would be like serendipity, or the discovery of quantas: nobody knew they existed before discovered them (unlike atoms, where the theory existed long before we prooved they exist).
Of course, we won't get rid completely of the prerequisites. The techs at the end of the tree would be very difficult to master, and might not give you any bonus at this moment (like discovering nuclear physics in the Bronze Age would be of no help). For example, to master Physics, Mathematics would be a prerequisite (meaning that without mathematics, physics will always have a 0% chance of being discovered).

Of course, to not let this completely passive, you'd have ways to influence your scientific research. First, building "science related" buildings would naturally increase the potential of discovering new techs. It can be pondered though: having a library would help you master mathematics and astronomy, but libraries aren't enough for high-tech technologies like nuclear physics for example. Once the "scientific method" mastered, you could also decide to focus your scientific efforts on one specific known technology, which would then greatly increase the chances of mastering it (at a money cost maybe). You could also finance "fundamental research" which does not focus on mastering a specific technology, but will increase the chances of unknown tech to become known.

I see a lot of advantages of this system. It's not just anymore a "fill your becker with smaller beckers until it's full, rince and repeat", you'd need to have actual strategies to got through the tech tree. How your expand your empire would have a direct impact, not just the numer of cities you plopped anywhere to have a new scientific district. It would also be more historical: a civ/faction in the mountains might not need to discover the wheel, but they will know how to build bridges much earlier since they need them to cross canyons and mountains. A completely inland empire would not have to research the completely useless Shipbuilding technology to be able to build buttress. Nomadic factions would laugh at irrigation, but would need animal husbandry and archery much earlier. You could discover writing without having the faintest idea what a pottery is, which (while not necessarily historical) could be feasible and should be feasible. Astronomy wouldn't be locked behind seafaring.

Each playthrough would be different, and really unique, reflecting the way you play. I don't know what you think about it, but I personally think that the tech tree model is old and it's great time we challenge it a little.

i really like this idea

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Have you seen the honeycomb tech tree idea? (Created by user lennongrad / Emrakul. Link here. No idea if he has an account on Civfanatics)

I love this idea, actually. Not only because it reminds me of some final fantasy license board nonsense, but because it condenses the tech tree into something you can view on a single screen. I really hate scrolling through that thing.

 

[AsH2]

..

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/research-and-tech-tree.622214/

 

[PhoenicianGold]

So I have decided that Chinguetti--if it represents any "kingdom/people" at all, given that Wolin, Nalanda, and Samarkand seem similarly disassociated--is really representing the Almoravids and western Arabic sphere more than it does the Berbers. Otherwise, it would have been a commercial city-state rather than a religious one.

Not that this really changes recent developments about the game likely ending with NFP, but theoretically I wouldn't think that Chinguetti would preclude a Berber/Numidia civ.

(and I guess by a related argument, Samarkand doesn't necessarily preclude the Timurids given that it could easily be replaced by Bukhara...but I think that represents more of a hurdle than Chinguetti does for Numidia)

Also, again, can I just bring everyone's attention back around to the fact that we have nothing representing western North America? Not even city-states like Mesa Verde or Hlgaagilda.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Also, again, can I just bring everyone's attention back around to the fact that we have nothing representing western North America? Not even city-states like Mesa Verde or Hlgaagilda.

I vote Sheet'ka as a cultural city-state with a crest pole UI for a city-state in the PNW. A Pueblo city-state makes sense too, even a scientific Cherokee one.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I vote Sheet'ka as a cultural city-state with a crest pole UI for a city-state in the PNW. A Pueblo city-state makes sense too, even a scientific Cherokee one.

I suggest Wappatoo to represent the Chinook as a city-state, given it was the preceding settlement to Portland, OR and the largest city of the Chinook

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I suggest Wappatoo to represent the Chinook as a city-state, given it was the preceding settlement to Portland, OR and the largest city of the Chinook

Would you consider them to be a cultural city-state too? I guess that's my main reasoning is to get a totem/crest pole UI in the game, which is why I went with a Tlingit one.
I figured a Haida city-state would be militaristic.

 

[Henri Christophe]

North AMerica really needs more city states

 

[Zaarin]

Would you consider them to be a cultural city-state too? I guess that's my main reasoning is to get a totem/crest pole UI in the game, which is why I went with a Tlingit one.
I figured a Haida city-state would be militaristic.

I'd go with Mercantile. Without in any way suggesting the people of the PNW were peaceful, which they were not, their wars were highly ritualized, and I wouldn't call any of them "warlike" or "militant" in a Western sense. If anything, the Tlingit were more militant than the Haida, being often at war with the Inuit, whom they hated, and later with the Russians. I'd go with Mercantile for Haida, cultured for Tlingit. The Chinook aren't from the PNW in the first place; they're an interior tribe.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I'd go with Mercantile. Without in any way suggesting the people of the PNW were peaceful, which they were not, their wars were highly ritualized, and I wouldn't call any of them "warlike" or "militant" in a Western sense. If anything, the Tlingit were more militant than the Haida, being often at war with the Inuit, whom they hated, and later with the Russians. I'd go with Mercantile for Haida, cultured for Tlingit.

I'd assumed militaristic considering they were known to be like the Vikings, but I guess trade makes sense too. Though like you mentioned for the Tlingit I'd prefer them being cultured if that gets us a crest pole unique improvement that provides culture based on the number of coastal tiles adjacent to it.

The Chinook aren't from the PNW in the first place; they're an interior tribe.

Everywhere I've seen the Chinook are referred as a PNW tribe. If I'm not mistaken I didn't think that being from the PNW meant that you only had to inhabit the coast?

 

[TeddyMain]

Everywhere I've seen the Chinook are referred as a PNW tribe. If I'm not mistaken I didn't think that being from the PNW meant that you only had to inhabit the coast?

They basically resided in Northern Oregon / Southern Washington, and some sources say they did inhabit the coast as well as farther inland. I'd say that definitely classifies them as a Pacific Northwest tribe.