[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Ok, so from the opinions in the last few pages here is what I think about some of them:
- Hawaii, cool idea, very unlikely it is gonna come. I mean you can bend yourself over backward or perform all sorts of mental gymnastics about previous patterns and whatnot, NFP is clearly just a fan-service. Literally the only surprising element of the entire pack so far is Gaul, not a single other choice is surprising (if you patron this forum frequently), that includes obscure leaders like Lady Six Sky.
- I also think NFP is the final pieces of paid contents for Civ6. The idea that we may have a pack dedicated only to alt leaders is extremely unlikely. Someone has pointed out, and I already said this in the Kublai First Look thread, the leader is the hardest part in creating a new civ, especially the animations. If you have jumped over the hurdle of successfully creating a leader, may as well finish the entire thing and sell it as a full civ. Literally everyone would prefer a full civ than an alt leader. The idea that an alt leader pack is the final content pack so it may be "skippable" is kinda... (you can fill in the blank here), cuz 1. No one manufactures a product with the thought that "this product may be skippable", like literally no one. 2. Once again, the leader is the hardest part to make, why would they expend a lot of resources on something "skippable"?
- About a city-state pack or any form of content pack that doesn't contain a new civ, like, yeah, LOL, I guess.

 

[8housesofelixir]

The Babylonian CUA & LUA, on the other hand, are clever but baseless designs that can be applied to any other scientific (full Eureka) or generalist (free building) civs. For instance, I can relocate "full Eureka" to Scotland and "free building" to Romans, and it will not cause any major thematic issue whatsoever.

Following this line, I would also like to insert a comment about the gameplay design of Arabia here. For most of the scientific civs, their gameplay is simply either "spam Campus" or "do Eureka" (Babylon specific). For Arabia, however, the player need to actively engage the faith economy to advance the science output.

The Arabian synergy is not perfect compare to many of the RF and GS civs, but it does open up the possibility of mix and match different parts of the game mechanics as well as victory routes. I do wish more and more civs can be designed like Arabia in the future - in a possible Civ VII, that is - since we now have a much more complex toolkit for all the civs than previous games.

 

[Jeppetto]

The Babylonian CUA & LUA, on the other hand, are clever but baseless designs that can be applied to any other scientific (full Eureka) or generalist (free building) civs. For instance, I can relocate "full Eureka" to Scotland and "free building" to Romans, and it will not cause any major thematic issue whatsoever.

Didn't some people say how they want them to focus on infrastructure development the leaders brought rather than just pure science or war? Was that just about Assyria or also Hammurabi? Because I don't consider his ability baseless, it sounds exactly like what was wanted, focus on infrastructure. And it also leans towards once-city/strong Capital focus, like people desired, too.

Also you can easily give LSS ability to any tall leaning civ this way.

 

[Zaarin]

Didn't some people say how they want them to focus on infrastructure development the leaders brought rather than just pure science or war? Was that just about Assyria or also Hammurabi? Because I don't consider his ability baseless, it sounds exactly like what was wanted, focus on infrastructure.

I think it works better for Assyria (it is very much along the lines what I'd have liked to have seen for someone like Sennacherib or Esarhaddon), but sure, it's not bad for Babylon/Hammurabi. I think it gets vastly overshadowed by Babylon's Eureka gimmick, though.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Because I don't consider his ability baseless, it sounds exactly like what was wanted, focus on infrastructure.

"Infrastructure" can be different. Both Rome and Babylon are infrastructure focused; however, in terms of game design, you are not likely to see Rome receiving free sewers and Babylon receiving free triumph arches. In this case, the free building in every district is not something known as very "Babylonian". I do agree that when compare to the "full Eureka" ability then it is more of a fit, similar to @Zaarin.

Also you can easily give LSS ability to any tall leaning civ this way.

LSS ability indicates a "loss of control due to long distance", which is not something you can easily relocate to more "centralized" tall civ such as Scotland, Korea, Inca, Japan, etc.

I agree it can be assigned to Khmer, as historically speaking they probably had the Mandala political model.

This is also a question regarding the definition of "tall": More populated cities? More developed cities? Few cities? More clustered cities? LSS ability is definitely leaning towards "clustered", but not that much towards "populated" due to lack of Housing in the early game.

 

[anonxanemone]

This is also a question regarding the definition of "tall": More populated cities? More developed cities? Few cities? More clustered cities? LSS ability is definitely leaning towards "clustered", but not that much towards "populated" due to lack of Housing in the early game.

But this is quickly offset by Farms granting extra Housing and later negated with the construction of Aqueducts though, setting a stage for booming population.

 

[8housesofelixir]

But this is quickly offset by Farms granting extra Housing and later negated with the construction of Aqueducts though, setting a stage for booming population.

I would rise doubts about "quickly". Other civs can receive 5 Housing basically for free from the very beginning of the game, while Maya need to build a builder, move it to a suitable place, use all of its 3 charges, in order to offset that negative effect, while building other early game stuffs.

 

[anonxanemone]

I would rise doubts about "quickly". Other civs can receive 5 Housing basically for free from the very beginning of the game, while Maya need to build a builder, move it to a suitable place, use all of its 3 charges, in order to offset that negative effect, while building other early game stuffs.

I am (slowly) working on an extensive strategy guide on how to play LSS. Without going off-topic of this thread too much, it involves buying a builder in a newly settled city from the Gold generated in Farms and Plantations or sending a Builder trained by a nearby city to start building the Farms. But you're right in that the capital is going to have a very slow start but it gets smooth once you have the machine humming.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Aboriginal Australians seem like an obvious non-Polynesian civ.

Aboriginal Australians generally have a taboo against depiction of their dead. Any representation of a great former leader of any Aboriginal Australian group would be problematic. Firaxis messes up a lot, but you have to give them the fact that for the past 2 games they’ve had a lot of general tact when it comes to approval of indigenous groups and such. I doubt they’d willingly hurt an Aboriginal Australian tribe as such.

Since we r taking about middle-east,what r the chances for Mitanni Civ

I wish, but given Firaxis has pretended the Hittites don’t exist for 20 years, Assyria is a pet project for a single dev, Sumer gets pop-culture-fied, Babylon gets a boring design. Outside of Mesopotamia and Anatolia, Maori get blobbed into something only slightly better than a generic polynesian civ, and the devs chose classical representations of Egypt and Nubia over very accessible Ancient ones.

The devs clearly do not care about the ancient era or it’s civs and leaders enough to get the most basic civs right, let alone more obscure ones like Mitanni/Hurria.

They're both badly designed and display no knowledge whatsoever of ancient history. Phoenicia is the only well-designed, flavorful ancient civ in the game, with an honorable mention for Persia, which we might call "good enough" if we ignore its poor depiction of Cyrus.

This, and Persia is technically a classical era civ and the Maori are a blob with a specific culture name

 

[Zaarin]

Persia is technically a classical era civ

Depending on which definition of "Classical" you use; based on the popular "traditional founding of Rome" date, yes. I tend to prefer to use Classical as synonymous with Hellenistic, in which case Cyrus is Ancient. I have no clue what date FXS uses, if they even use one consistently.

Assyria is a pet project for a single dev

This one still gets me. The world's first great empire makes it into a game called "Civilization" once five iterations in because of one dev's personal interests.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Depending on which definition of "Classical" you use; based on the popular "traditional founding of Rome" date, yes. I tend to prefer to use Classical as synonymous with Hellenistic, in which case Cyrus is Ancient. I have no clue what date FXS uses, if they even use one consistently.

Well Wikipedia has it as 776 B.C. as the start with the first recorded Olympics. So I guess by that standards he is. However other sources cite the start in 508 B.C. with the birth of Athenian democracy, so he barely would qualify as Ancient.

This one still gets me. The world's first great empire makes it into a game called "Civilization" once five iterations in because of one dev's personal interests.

At least it's on their radar, even getting references in the Civilopedia for Babylon.
If Civ 7 gets to about 60 civs there's no reason we can't get better designed Sumer, Babylon and Assyria.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

If Civ 7 gets to about 60 civs there's no reason we can't get better designed Sumer, Babylon and Assyria.

Eh, I feel like there's always going to be a cap as to how historically accurate/interesting civs can be. The designs still need to resonate with common perceptions of civs, so that the game will sell. Note that although we had ideas of Vietnam having a water theatre and mong dong ship, it is instead just a hyper defensive civ with hardly any nods to culture or maritime prowess. It's a fine civ design, but it also plays heavily into the common understanding of Vietnam as a turtle civ, pun absolutely intended.

I also suspect that the inherent structure of civ might be limiting the design of ancient civs. I imagine it is difficult to make a balanced and interesting civ design when the majority of the game's interest and complexity arises in later eras, and the civ just has a much smaller pool of features to choose from; fewer units, fewer buildings, fewer political/diplomatic systems... I feel like ancient civs would shine better in a game that limited its mechanics to the ancient era (and similarly, medieval civs in a medieval era, etc.). I think AoE has an overall more robust approach to portraying historically accurate civs.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Eh, I feel like there's always going to be a cap as to how historically accurate/interesting civs can be. The designs still need to resonate with common perceptions of civs, so that the game will sell. Note that although we had ideas of Vietnam having a water theatre and mong dong ship, it is instead just a hyper defensive civ with hardly any nods to culture or maritime prowess. It's a fine civ design, but it also plays heavily into the common understanding of Vietnam as a turtle civ, pun absolutely intended.

Well even though they didn't get the puppet theater, to say they aren't a culture civ isn't wholly accurate considering there unique district grants culture. It wasn't my first choice for a unique infrastructure, but I've come around to it considering it's supposed to represent ancient citadels that have basically become modern military museums, linking Vietnam's history with military and culture.

The UU is also okay. I don't specifically know if Vietnam used elephants to carry archers, but they did field elephants, and it fits the theme of them being defensive.

I also suspect that the inherent structure of civ might be limiting the design of ancient civs. I imagine it is difficult to make a balanced and interesting civ design when the majority of the game's interest and complexity arises in later eras, and the civ just has a much smaller pool of features to choose from; fewer units, fewer buildings, fewer political/diplomatic systems... I feel like ancient civs would shine better in a game that limited its mechanics to the ancient era (and similarly, medieval civs in a medieval era, etc.). I think AoE has an overall more robust approach to portraying historically accurate civs.

To counter that argument Assyria had a unique catapult replacement, which fits thematically as they were the first to really develop siege weapons, and a unique library in Civ 5 that fit Assyria well. Those ideas could have easily been translated over to Civ 6.
Also Phoenicia, another Ancient civ, was designed pretty well in Civ 6, at least in my opinion better than Babylon and Sumeria.

 

[Zaarin]

I also suspect that the inherent structure of civ might be limiting the design of ancient civs. I imagine it is difficult to make a balanced and interesting civ design when the majority of the game's interest and complexity arises in later eras, and the civ just has a much smaller pool of features to choose from; fewer units, fewer buildings, fewer political/diplomatic systems...

I don't think the limited units and buildings unlocked are so much a barrier as balance: civs whose uniques unlock earlier snowball faster. On the other hand, balance no longer seems to be a concern in NFP.

I feel like ancient civs would shine better in a game that limited its mechanics to the ancient era (and similarly, medieval civs in a medieval era, etc.).

I think it's a given that a narrower focus will always produce better designs.

I think AoE has an overall more robust approach to portraying historically accurate civs.

The Age of Empires games are wonderful games. I love all three of them, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the fourth entry. But historically accurate? Not by a long shot. Some charming examples from AoE2: we have a civ called the Britons that is actually the English; we have a civ called the Celts that is actually the Irish; we have a civ called the Cumans with a Mongol-style mask-helmet as its icon (TBF I totally blame another great game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, for that one); Aztecs and Inca play more or less exactly like Eurasian civs except no cavalry and no gunpowder...

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Well even though they didn't get the puppet theater, to say they aren't a culture civ isn't wholly accurate considering there unique district grants culture. It wasn't my first choice for a unique infrastructure, but I've come around to it considering it's supposed to represent ancient citadels that have basically become modern military museums, linking Vietnam's history with military and culture.

The UU is also okay. I don't specifically know if Vietnam used elephants to carry archers, but they did field elephants, and it fits the theme of them being defensive.

Oh yeah they have culture bonuses, but they aren't overtly a culture civ. Based on the uniques and most of the abilities, they mostly project a military bias.

I like the UU, absolutely no issue with that.

To counter that argument Assyria had a unique catapult replacement, which fits thematically as they were the first to really develop siege weapons, and a unique library in Civ 5 that fit Assyria well. Those ideas could have easily been translated over to Civ 6.
Also Phoenicia, another Ancient civ, was designed pretty well in Civ 6, at least in my opinion better than Babylon and Sumeria.

This is fair. Babylon's design in V was pretty bad, but Assyria was solid. I could have lived with Assyria in VI; it generally had/has more potential for both resonant and rich design.

Phoenicia is one of my favorite designs in the game, but I also think it generally had more resonant design space to work with: writing, cothons, trade, and bireme are all fairly low-hanging fruit if you're trying to find things which resonate with casuals. Particularly for maritime civs which don't have to compete as much for niches as the land-based civs (something that I wish would change in later games; between most of the map being water and roster space largely being limited by how much land-based civs can be differentiated, I think a naval expansion is a natural place to find design space).

 

[Miserable Old Git]

I'm sure someone must already have suggested this in 544 pages, but the Civ I'd like to see is Rus. Characteristics as follows:

Capital - Kiev.
Leader - Vladimir.
Civ ability - Rurik's Legacy (rivers can be crossed without expenditure of movement, and attacked across without penalty; movement along riverbanks is at the speed of movement along equivalent roads of the current era; melee, ranged, anti-cavalry, and siege units expend all remaining movement points when moving into a hex not adjacent to a river).
Leader ability - Competitive Conversion (cannot found a religion, but once any Rus city is converted to a religion, that religion together with its beliefs becomes the state religion, and the converted city becomes a holy city and is automatically awarded a holy site district with a shrine, a temple, and a missionary).
Unique unit - Longship (replacement quadrireme, but available with Sailing tech).
Unique building - Dnieper warehouse (replacement market; +3 gold to trade routes from city with this building to cities built on riverbanks).

 

[GenyaArikado]

Nah if Rus comes, it has to be under Olga. Her level of petty is #goals to me

I love how art generally portrays her staring like a sociopath

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Phoenicia is one of my favorite designs in the game, but I also think it generally had more resonant design space to work with: writing, cothons, trade, and bireme are all fairly low-hanging fruit if you're trying to find things which resonate with casuals. Particularly for maritime civs which don't have to compete as much for niches as the land-based civs (something that I wish would change in later games; between most of the map being water and roster space largely being limited by how much land-based civs can be differentiated, I think a naval expansion is a natural place to find design space).

So I see you've come around on your opinion of Portugal with naus, feitorias, as well as trade and exploration bonuses?

 

[notNamed]

I love how art generally portrays her staring like a sociopath

She conducted one of the most brutal and thorough genocides in human history out of spite. It's not exactly a figure you read about and then draw as a smiling maiden, somewhat similar to how Ivan the Terrible isn't drawn as a jolly old man.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

The Age of Empires games are wonderful games. I love all three of them, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the fourth entry. But historically accurate? Not by a long shot. Some charming examples from AoE2: we have a civ called the Britons that is actually the English; we have a civ called the Celts that is actually the Irish; we have a civ called the Cumans with a Mongol-style mask-helmet as its icon (TBF I totally blame another great game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, for that one); Aztecs and Inca play more or less exactly like Eurasian civs except no cavalry and no gunpowder...

Even still, the fact that they are even called Britons, or that the Cumans even appear at all, seems to me an indication that the structure of AoE better facilitates more specific and accurate civ design. They don't need to stretch the concept of England across a millennium and a half.

SoI see you've come around on your opinion of Portugal with naus, feitorias, as well as trade and exploration bonuses?

Ok, how about that but the Chola? Or Oman?

Nah if Rus comes, it has to be under Olga. Her level of petty is #goals to me

I love how art generally portrays her staring like a sociopath

Oh yeah Olga or bust. She could even squeak by as a Russian alt leader, given that they have the very Kievan lavra UI.