Eh, geographical overlap doesn't make it the same civilization, otherwise Teddy Roosevelt should be leading the Iroquois. Even calling Francia France is a stretch, and by the time Francia rolled around there was virtually no trace left of the Gauls. Gaul was never part of France so it can't really said to be balkanized from France, unlike Aquitaine, Brittany, Normandy, Burgandy, etc.--any one of which could be made into a civ if someone really wanted to but are also just fine under the French banner.
I was half-joking. Though I do think the fact that there was a short-lived Gallic empire--totally separate from the Belgiae--helped Gaul's chances for inclusion considerably over other Celtic regions.
Well you're talking about missing content as rationale for continuing more content, but I think that's a tricky road to go into. Really, there is no way they'll satisfy the entire fanbase to the point where no one thinks "oh so-and-so is missing!" - so I'm not really moved by that sort of argument. Even if Portugal doesn't come in March I won't be convinced that there'll be more content. Of course, I could be wrong, but I think it's fallacious to think that Firaxis has some spreadsheet set-up and that there are all these civ or city-state buckets that HAVE to be filled for the game to be complete. Also, I cannot see a city-state pack being something they'd put up for sale. The Vikings DLC is among the worst-reviewed DLC - regular fans just don't want to pay for that stuff.
We might claim that "so-and-so is missing" is irrelevant, and yet the devs were still compelled to include the Maya, Babylon, and Byzantium in NFP. There is definitely pressure on the developers to return staples, even if it is just token representation through city-states ala Fez, Venice, Ayutthaya. And it's not really the
amount of representation, so much as whether former fan favorites like Austria and Assyria
aren't represented in VI at all. That feels like something, especially after seeing the line-up for NFP, that the developers would be hyper-conscious of. We could have gotten Vienna/Assur instead of Ayutthaya/Wolin (and planned to replace Lisbon with Copenhagen) and the game would have felt just a hair more complete; it feels like there's a reason
why they didn't go with the obvious fanservice city-states.
It seems clear to me that NFP has been a challenge for the team. It started right as the pandemic began and for whatever reason, they've had to cut corners on essentially everything except for the music. Those on this forum know that I am a generous defender of the devs to the disgruntled or whining contingent here, but let's be honest with ourselves: NFP lacks polish. It's been rough. I am appreciative of the NFP, but the bittersweet thing about all the content we've gotten is that it would have looked better and played better if it were released earlier in the game's development cycle when the full team was focused on the game. So with all that said, I can't really see them continuing down this path much longer.
This is a very strong counterargument. But the fact is that:
(a) We are still in the middle of a pandemic. Things might marginally improve this year, but the developers could still be seeing many of the same difficulties for months out. Sustaining revenue with something less strenuous like Civ VI DLC content might be the better model for them than trying to operate at full force to put out a new title.
(b) NFP still sold, polished or not. It's still better than what modders can do without the DLL and professional musicians/voice actors, and it still served its purpose as late-cycle content that likely turned a modest profit.
I can't know either way, but a second season pass, milking the properties they have during lean times where they
can't get new product out, might just be the reasonable thing to do until everything stabilizes.
