[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Zaarin]

On the subject of Macedon, though, I will forever maintain that the problem was Gorgo and not Macedon. Splitting Greece into "cultural Greece" and "Alexander Greece" is a perfectly sensible thing to do and something I'm much less bothered about than e.g. Scotland; Gorgo was a dumb compromise between the two and a poor choice for demonstrating alt leaders, and she had the side effect of making other Greek civs look even more overkill than they already were. It would've been much smarter to give her spot to Hatshepsut; she adds basically everything you could call worthwhile about Gorgo, while also likely being much less polarizing. She'd also make the many faces of Greece look better, instead of worse, by alleviating Cleopatra's duty as the only representation of Egypt.

TBH they could have kept Cleo's abilities 100% as is and they still would have been very fitting for Hatshepsut, who was known for her trade expeditions.

IMHO the Greek question is still "if separate them into Athens, Sparta, Ionia, etc. then each looks too small and don't have a city list, but if group them together then it will result in a blob and left no accurate place for Alexander".

Basically: We always say 4x games cannot handle nomadic people well, but they cannot handle City-States well either.

I think the idea of multiple leaders to represent multiple city-states looks appealing on paper, but in actual practice it feels redundant. I think Civ6 handled Phoenicia and the Maya just fine, for example. Adding Gorgo and Sparta was just unnecessary.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I think Civ6 handled Phoenicia and the Maya just fine, for example. Adding Gorgo and Sparta was just unnecessary.

Phoenicia and Maya have an "advantage" of we don't know much about the political/economical/cultural difference between Carthage and Tyre or Tikal and Chichen Itza (although Mayapan is a big exception). Therefore grouping them together as a single civ won't really feel not right.

But nearly everyone know that Athens and Sparta are quite different, as well as Alexandra's huge empire.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I think the idea of multiple leaders to represent multiple city-states looks appealing on paper, but in actual practice it feels redundant. I think Civ6 handled Phoenicia and the Maya just fine, for example. Adding Gorgo and Sparta was just unnecessary.

I think it was just a design consequence of not wanting Alexander to lead Greece this time around. Any of the good Greek options would have had to have come from one city state or another, and frankly neither an Athenian nor Spartan leader alone would have felt like it covered what fans like about Greece. I would imagine there is about an even split of casual history buffs who like Athenian democracy and philosophy, versus those who are obsessed with Thermopylae. There would have been complaints about either decision in isolation, so it really just felt like preemptive damage control.

(And similarly, I would argue that pairing Alexander with either an Athenian or Spartan leader would have also invited complaints. Once the city state door is opened the Athens/Sparta split just feels like an inevitability for a series mostly concerned with pop history.)

That said, what a weird conclusion to come to and still put Alexander in the game with a pretty unidimensional Macedon design. They may have saved Greece (which now has a pretty solid design), but at the cost of still feeling obligated to include a staple leader as some of the least interesting bonus fluff content in VI. Some of this deblobbing has resulted in doubling efforts only to have dubious payoff (see Scotland/Gaul as the other primary example).

 

[Zaarin]

That said, what a weird conclusion to come to and still put Alexander in the game with a pretty unidimensional Macedon design. They may have saved Greece (which now has a pretty solid design), but at the cost of still feeling obligated to include a staple leader as some of the least interest bonus fluff content in VI.

Alexander/Macedon is definitely where things got weird. Otherwise, I agree that Greece is well-designed.

Phoenicia and Maya have an "advantage" of we don't know much about the political/economical/cultural difference between Carthage and Tyre or Tikal and Chichen Itza (although Mayapan is a big exception). Therefore grouping them together as a single civ won't really feel not right.

At least from a pop history sense, yeah. Tyre and Sidon were pretty similar, but Byblos and Qart-ḥadast were very different. Likewise, there were differences among the Mayan city-states (and Mayapan is just completely a different thing altogether, one I wouldn't mind having in a future iteration of Civ to be honest).

 

[Codeword Iroquois]

Going off the other thread of "What makes a civilization" I think groups like these would make for interesting minor factions in games, including the Huns, Goths etc. if they aren't to be playable.
Not quite like the barbarians in game but not inherently peaceful like city-states. I'm not sure how they would work alongside barbarians though but I would be open to the idea of them outright replacing them.

One could make it so they had land, but would pillage you unless you paid for them to work with you militarily.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

IMHO the Greek question is still "if separate them into Athens, Sparta, Ionia, etc. then each looks too small and don't have a good city list (esp. Athens), but if group them together then it will result in a blob and left no accurate place for Alexander".

Basically: We always say 4x games cannot handle nomadic people well, but they cannot handle City-States well either; and City-States are not that hard to handle (CS civs don't require the devs to write a new set of game mechanism, it is more of a problem of how to alter the existing mechanism in a fun way).

Exactly. The two big problems that (probably) Civ VII has to address are Nomadic/Pastoral Civs that had great influence on their neighbors in all directions, like the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Mongols, etc, and the City State Civs like Greece, which, in that specific case, had simply enormous influence culturally and scientifically, but was never a political 'state' unless conquered by someone else (Cue Alexander, Rome, Ottomans, etc)

There are two examples of potential solutions to the City State Problem, at least.

1. There was an Olmec Modded Civ in Civ V which addressed the City State problem head on. It had a completely Spanish city list, which drove me crazy every time I saw it, but it did reflect some of the City State 'problem'. Every city founded after the first one added to the Science, Culture, etc points for your Civ without requiring any maintenance on your part, but you could not build anything in those cities. IF attacked, all the cities in the Civ defended (not quite realistic, that) but you had no control over how much the other cities might add to the defence, what units they might build, etc, unless you 'assimilated' them, in which case they became a 'normal' city in your budding Empire but you lost all the automatic Culture, Science, etc. from them.

2. Also in Civ V, there was an Iroquois Mod Civ in which whenever you founded a city, including the first one, you picked which 'tribe' it belonged to: Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, Onandaga, Oneida, (I don't remember if they included the Tuscarora late-joiners or not) - and each tribe had a different set of Bonuses for the city, based on Production, Military, Science, Food, etc.

These two different approaches to the City State Problem IMHO have potential, if combined and massaged, to provide a working mechanism for such civilizations.

 

[Zaarin]

Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, Onandaga, Oneida, (I don't remember if they included the Tuscarora late-joiners or not)

When the Wendat Confederacy was formed, it consisted of only two tribes: the Attignawantan and the Attigneenongnahac. Later, two more tribes joined, first the Arendarhonon and, later, the Tahontaenrat. All were treated as equal members of the confederacy alongside the founding members. The Great Law of Peace, however, made the Haudenosaunee so inflexible that, though they accepted the Tuscarora as "full members," the Tuscarora were never granted representation at the Haudenosaunee council because they weren't provided for in the Great Law of Peace. I found that interesting. Another interesting thing about the Haudenosaunee is that many Haudenosaunee in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries attributed the Great Law of Peace to Handsome Lake rather than Deganawida.

 

[8housesofelixir]

These two different approaches to the City State Problem IMHO have potential, if combined and massaged, to provide a working mechanism for such civilizations.

I like them. I think that can be one of the starting points of how to do decentralization/federalism under the Civ game mechanics (or 4x games in general).

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Don't you think those are false criteria that would lead us to the set of Civs unsatisfying for the majority of players? If devs can make some specific Civ that would be fun to play, well-received, or desired by fans why they shouldn't do it? Because of some arguable, and purely subjective census? This makes no sense

It might be unsatisfying to the majority of players, but I think that isn't a consequence of fun mechanics so much as the general consumer base being heavily Europhilic.

I'm just saying that a game where we have England and Scotland, Rome and Byzantium, Gaul, three French leaders...but pretty overgeneralized, if not outright orientalist representation of the Asian continent, is not satisfying to my tastes. I already learned enough about European history in school...I come to civ to explore and enjoy the rest of human history that wasn't covered in the standard curriculum.

 

[Abaxial]

Just in case anyone is unaware: spoken Cantonese is unintelligible to a Mandarin speaker and vice versa, but because both are wriiten as pictograms, the written forms are the same. The number five has the same written expression in any version of Chinese, but is pronounced (IIRC) "wu" in Mandarin and "mm" in Cantonese.

 

[notNamed]

but because both are wriiten as pictograms, the written forms are the same.

Not really, written standards were developed independently for both. They use the same underlying set of characters, but the characters used can and frequently are different.
For instance, "I don't eat rice." is "我不吃米" in Mandarin and "我唔食米" in Cantonese. And yes, both of them can read both sentences. However, it doesn't necessarily have to make sense to them. They use different words for the same concepts, so it's somewhat similar to false friends, where you can make out each individual word, but they don't have to make sense in context. In my example, it's best seen in 不 and 唔 (not and not(Yue)/humming noise(Mandarin)), where the other becomes "I *hmm* eat rice." when read in Mandarin.

 

[Zaarin]

pictograms

Logograms. Pictograms are non-linguistic mnemonics. Though my understanding of Chinese script is that it's a combination of logograms and syllabograms, like Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphics.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

It might be unsatisfying to the majority of players, but I think that isn't a consequence of fun mechanics so much as the general consumer base being heavily Europhilic.

I'm just saying that a game where we have England and Scotland, Rome and Byzantium, Gaul, three French leaders...but pretty overgeneralized, if not outright orientalist representation of the Asian continent, is not satisfying to my tastes. I already learned enough about European history in school...I come to civ to explore and enjoy the rest of human history that wasn't covered in the standard curriculum.

Ok, you are right. It has a little in common with fun mechanics. The vast majority of customers of this game are N. Americans or Europeans. So what's weird about the fact that devs are more focused on European and US Civs. People want to play the Civs they know or like. or at least they would never sacrifice the possibility of playing the Civ they want for a chance to explore less known and obscure Civs in general. People who want to explore different cultures like you are a minority, Giving your customer something different than he wants is a very a bad idea for the game Perhaps it would be good for you but this is a little bit selfish approach

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ok, you are right. It has a little in common with fun mechanics. The vast majority of customers of this game are N. Americans or Europeans. So what's weird about the fact that devs are more focused on European and US Civs. People want to play the Civs they know or like. or at least they would never sacrifice the possibility of playing the Civ they want for a chance to explore less known and obscure Civs in general. People who want to explore different cultures like you are a minority, Giving your customer something different than he wants is a very a bad idea for the game Perhaps it would be good for you but this is a little bit selfish approach

Like everything in Game Design, it's all a balancing act, and no two people will completely agree on where the 'balance' lies. Yes, the familiar, as in the cultures/Civs you know something about, tend to be largely preferable, but there's also the attraction of the Different, the Weird, the "I ddn't know that!" feeling that Ripley's made a good living on for decades. How much of which you prefer, and what constitutes 'Different but intriguing' to you will be vastly different from person to person.

For a personal example, I can think of at least 3 different Alexander the Greats with aspects and Uniques other than 'conquering expansionist' that could have been included in the game, and at least 4 different Greek Classical cities that could have been the 'capital' or basis for a Greek Civ other than Sparta or Athens - but then, I spent 5 years at University studying Alexander and the Classical Greeks, so no surprises there.
Everyone has some kind of background like that, though, that will modify their approach to the game, the Civs, the Leaders, and the design. I do not envy the Designers who have to ry and find a middle path through all that and also come up with a game that will sell to both the knowledgeable or partially knowledgeable and the largely ignorant but keen players. I'll sit back here on the Forums and kibitz, thank you . . .

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Like everything in Game Design, it's all a balancing act, and no two people will completely agree on where the 'balance' lies. Yes, the familiar, as in the cultures/Civs you know something about, tend to be largely preferable, but there's also the attraction of the Different, the Weird, the "I ddn't know that!" feeling that Ripley's made a good living on for decades. How much of which you prefer, and what constitutes 'Different but intriguing' to you will be vastly different from person to person.

For a personal example, I can think of at least 3 different Alexander the Greats with aspects and Uniques other than 'conquering expansionist' that could have been included in the game, and at least 4 different Greek Classical cities that could have been the 'capital' or basis for a Greek Civ other than Sparta or Athens - but then, I spent 5 years at University studying Alexander and the Classical Greeks, so no surprises there.
Everyone has some kind of background like that, though, that will modify their approach to the game, the Civs, the Leaders, and the design. I do not envy the Designers who have to ry and find a middle path through all that and also come up with a game that will sell to both the knowledgeable or partially knowledgeable and the largely ignorant but keen players. I'll sit back here on the Forums and kibitz, thank you . . .

You are right, but do we really think this balance is insufficient now? Ok, we have a 3 Greek Civs, three French leaders, Scotland, Canada but on the other hand, we have Mapuche, Cree, Maori, Nubia. I think it is not bad. Especially this is not even a Eurocentrism but an overload (in my opinion) of British Commonwealth Civs. But still, this is absolutely understandable.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Ok, you are right. It has a little in common with fun mechanics. The vast majority of customers of this game are N. Americans or Europeans. So what's weird about the fact that devs are more focused on European and US Civs. People want to play the Civs they know or like. or at least they would never sacrifice the possibility of playing the Civ they want for a chance to explore less known and obscure Civs in general. People who want to explore different cultures like you are a minority, Giving your customer something different than he wants is a very a bad idea for the game Perhaps it would be good for you but this is a little bit selfish approach

Eh I don't really ascribe to the "consumer is law" attitude toward entertainment. Comfortable ideas may be marketable, but give people too much access to only familiar ideas and they tend to become complacent, small-minded, and generally less concerned with understanding the world and the larger community.

So yes, while I generally just prefer the media I consume to provide me something new and interesting, I also think it is a general social imperative to want popular media to challenge and educate people. Particularly where entertainment is the de facto, primary means of general and/or non-specialized education for the majority citizens in developed countries. Whatever we aren't forced to learn in school or willingly seek out, we passively absorb through media--and that turns out to be quite a lot.

You are right, but do we really think this balance is insufficient now? Ok, we have a 3 Greek Civs, three French leaders, Scotland, Canada but on the other hand, we have Mapuche, Cree, Maori, Nubia. I think it is not bad. Especially this is not even a Eurocentrism but an overload (in my opinion) of British Commonwealth Civs. But still, this is absolutely understandable.

I do admit. If we only get a roster of 50 civs, I will be just as disappointed that we have both Canada and the Cree, on top of so many European civs.

Where players have been highly requesting civs like the Timurids/Mughals, Bulgaria, Burma, Oman/Swahili for years... I'd consider the new additions we do have only a half-win. I don't think I would have prioritized Georgia over any of those. I definitely would not have prioritized Scotland or Gaul. Even Nubia and Gran Colombia I think.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Eh I don't really ascribe to the "consumer is law" attitude toward entertainment. Comfortable ideas may be marketable, but give people too much access to only familiar ideas and they tend to become complacent, small-minded, and generally less concerned with understanding the world and the larger community.

So yes, while I generally just prefer the media I consume to provide me something new and interesting, I also think it is a general social imperative to want popular media to challenge and educate people. Particularly where entertainment is the de facto, primary means of general and/or non-specialized education for the majority citizens in developed countries. Whatever we aren't forced to learn in school or willingly seek out, we passively absorb through media--and that turns out to be quite a lot.



I do admit. If we only get a roster of 50 civs, I will be just as disappointed that we have both Canada and the Cree, on top of so many European civs.

Where players have been highly requesting civs like the Timurids/Mughals, Bulgaria, Burma, Oman/Swahili for years... I'd consider the new additions we do have only a half-win. I don't think I would have prioritized Georgia over any of those. I definitely would not have prioritized Scotland or Gaul. Even Nubia and Gran Colombia I think.

Well, it means you expect the game to be an instrument of "education" and shaping of attitudes. This is completely not my story. We are on two opposite riverbanks here
And again. I think this is all about coming up with a justification for demanding your subjective list of Civs. Let's be honest you just don't like the number of European Civs because each of them has stolen a possible spot for your favorite ones

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I do admit. If we only get a roster of 50 civs, I will be just as disappointed that we have both Canada and the Cree, on top of so many European civs.

Where players have been highly requesting civs like the Timurids/Mughals, Bulgaria, Burma, Oman/Swahili for years... I'd consider the new additions we do have only a half-win. I don't think I would have prioritized Georgia over any of those. I definitely would not have prioritized Scotland or Gaul. Even Nubia and Gran Colombia I think.

I'd argue that a separate Gaul over a Celts blob has probably been requested way more than those that you've listed though. And I don't see the problem with adding in Nubia either, considering we do now have both Mali and Ethiopia as well.

I can see the arguments against Georgia or Gran Colombia but it's not like other's weren't requesting them either. Tamar was definitely memed in because people wanted her. I of course requested the latter.
I'm not going to say I would have prioritized Scotland either but I enjoy their presence.

 

[untitledjuan]

I find it funny that three civilizations in the game can found different versions of Carthage. Phoenicia, obviously, but Spain can found Cartagena, which was Carthago Nova or "New Carthage" in Roman times. But also Gran Colombia can found Cartagena de Indias, which would be "New Carthage in the Indies": New New Cartage. I just think this is an interesting link between three civilizations in the game

 

[SirMediocrity]

These conversations about the Huns make me kind of sad. I used to have hope that they might show up in civ 6, but the plethora of more popular civilization choices (as well as potential overlap with Scythia) have dampened my hopes. It's a shame too; Attila would have been epic in civ 6's art style.

Anywho, while we're on the topic of future leaders and their personalities, what base animations do you guys think that theoretical new leaders would use (i.e. Kublai Khan, Le Loi, Trung sisters, Puduhepa, Maria I of Portugal, Dihya, Zenobia, etc.)?