Civilization VII Civs and Leaders Wishlist [Not a Prediction]

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

An odd choice, given Bulawayo was founded by the Ndebele king Lobengula, in the 1840's, notably after Shaka's death in 1828.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulawayo_(Zulu_empire)
It was this one. It's different than the one in Zimbabwe.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'll put it this way: for me, one of the main things about whether something deserves to be a civ is a national identity, which I don't really see in the Timurids.

It's a hard Civ to specifically find Uniques for, yeah. You basically have to pivot into Persian or Mughal uniques, which is why they compete with the Safavids and Mughals for basically the same spot (meanwhile, the Safavids and Mughals can simply co-exist together with only minor overlap.)

The concession probably will be to either make Tamerlane a Mongol leader, or by renaming the Civ as The Uzbeks to extend their timeline to include the Sogdians and Transoxians.

 

[moondog385]

I thought the Timurids and the Mughals could be one and the same if you called them Gurkani. Personally, that's how I'd implement it.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I thought the Timurids and the Mughals could be one and the same if you called them Gurkani. Personally, that's how I'd implement it.

It would indeed be interesting if they did that, especially if they gave us two different leaders depicting each one.
However, I feel that the devs would use the names that are more familiar to the general public, which is either the Timurids or Mughals, in game.

 

[IgorS]

I would personally not implement it at all)

 

[BuchiTaton]

Is not CIV "THE" historical 4X asserting dominance over games like Millennia and Humankind?
As a game with over 30 years of history and >40 playable civs in last iterations, CIV can afford to add some obscure names like already did with Mapuche or Cree.
I mean fans would not be like "Oh nice a CIV7 expansion with Netherlands, Maya, Korea and... Gurkani?! Who are those? Since I dont know them I would not buy it and be mad!!!"

 

[Krajzen]

To change topic, one thing that has always annoyed me in recent civ games was their tendency to assign bland and kinda weak bonuses to the base game civs... Which due to the nature of base roster means that some of the most powerful civilizations of human history hit like a wet noodle and have the most boring designs, before civ mechanics getting steadily more fun with later DLC releases.

Like seriously how is it possible that such behemoths as America, England, Spain, France, India and China haven't had truly strong economic, expansionist or scientific bonuses for two past games in a row, and have been some of the civs with weaker and more boring designs. Even those of the main superpower cast who got slightly more lucky (Russia, Germany, Rome) tend to get plain mechanics, stereotypical focus and never too powerful stuff.

I want to get civ game where early civs don't look evidently lame next to late civs, and where Western empires or India or China are industrial/scientific/imperial beasts they were IRL. Like come on, are we always going to get Korea, Babylon and Maya as the ultimate scientific powers, but not civs who gave us Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Feynman and Mendeleev?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Like seriously how is it possible that such behemoths as America, England, Spain, France, India and China haven't had truly strong economic, expansionist or scientific bonuses for two past games in a row, and have been some of the civs with weaker and more boring designs.

Didn't England and Spain get reworked and have economic and expansionist bonuses in Civ 6?

 

[GeneralZift]

My list of Civs and Leaders.
Disclaimer: I'm not a history buff.

England: Elizabeth or Victoria
France: Jeanne
Germany: Don't really care
USA: JFK (Wouldn't mind another unused leader)
Arabia: Harun or Saladin
Greece / Macedonia: Alexander
China: the Lady from Civ5
Egypt: Cleopatra
Mongols: Genghis
Aztecs: Montezuma (or Moctezuma or whatever, it really doesn't matter)
Spain: Don't mind, I think anything works.
Mali: Mansa Musa
India: Gandhi.
Japan: Again, Don't mind who.
Russia: Want a Soviet leader but it'll never happen.

[Sorry if I missed something from the regulars I forgot]


Oddball / Personal / New choices:

Swiss: late game money making type Civ. Peace loving. Don't know of an appropriate leader.

Vatican City: Civ5 Venice but Religious. Don't think this'll ever happen because Vatican is iconically a city state.

Inuit: I KNOW this will never happen. But if they wanted to, they could. For city names, they could fabricate them based on Inuit languages. It's possible.

Tupi: or some other hunter gather type group. Based off of AoE3 mod WOL; I want them to have a reduced focus on Gold (penalties) and made up for it by their spiritual connection to the Earth (culture, faith, food etc.)

A civilisation with a weird feature like the Mayan calendar from Civ5.

A civilisation where you get massive benefits from Razing cities and drawbacks from Capturing.

Iceland. With some focus on fishing and volcanos.

A civilisation with strong benefits to propaganda. For legal reasons I can't think of any.

Anyway! That's all!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Iceland. With some focus on fishing and volcanos.

I'm not quite sure if I'd be interested in Iceland, but it's not the first time I've seen it mentioned by others. If it's supposed to be the next "Viking" civ I'd rather it just go back to Denmark.

A civilisation with strong benefits to propaganda. For legal reasons I can't think of any.

Obviously, Germany/Austria.
As in Maximillian I of the Holy Roman Empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

France, India and China

China- at least under the original Qin persona- was and is a decently powerful wonder-building, cultural turtle Civ, though definitely stereotypical.

Gotta agree with most of the other ones, at least in the base game (quite happy with how England eventually turned out).

It doesn't help that most of them are primarily designed to interact with the new systems, with historical relevance coming second.

This is why we had an America about government legacy bonuses instead of ruthless expansion and development. This is why we had an England with an ability about Archaeological Museums. And this is why Philip II got pigeonholed into just being the "Spanish Inquisition" leader.

This was also the reason behind all of those horriblly niche Casus Belli abilities from the immediately following DLC, the worst of which have thankfully been removed/reworked. While Bannockburn (Robert the Bruce's ability) still... exists, at least we don't have release Georgia anymore.

+100% Faith for the first 10 turns after declaring a Protectorate War.

 

[GeneralZift]

What did the Yogscast used to call it? Casus Bellend? Haha

Edit: I didn't really think it added much to the game. The AI should figure out whether a war is just or not on its own, don't have me go through lists of options and declare on technicalities. Moreover, attaching abilities to such a thing was so niche and inherently useless

 

[Patine]

What did the Yogscast used to call it? Casus Bellend? Haha

Edit: I didn't really think it added much to the game. The AI should figure out whether a war is just or not on its own, don't have me go through lists of options and declare on technicalities. Moreover, attaching abilities to such a thing was so niche and inherently useless

Yogscast?

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Yogscast?

A YouTube channel.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

This was also the reason behind all of those horriblly niche Casus Belli abilities from the immediately following DLC, the worst of which have thankfully been removed/reworked. While Bannockburn (Robert the Bruce's ability) still... exists, at least we don't have release Georgia anymore.

+100% Faith for the first 10 turns after declaring a Protectorate War.

At least there was a greater chance that someone might attack one of your city-states, rather than waiting to see if a city from another civ gets captured, in order to even trigger his.

 

[Lord Lakely]

At least there was a greater chance that someone might attack one of your city-states, rather than waiting to see if a city from another civ gets captured, in order to even trigger his.

It was always strong with Papal Primacy too, since you could reliably Suzerain/Convert every city state, which could then snowball into a huge Faith econ into conquering a neighbour on the backs of the Grandmaster's Chapel.

(Pretty meh otherwise, but Georgia is one of those Civs that improved the more new systems were added to the game, rather than being powercrept.)

 

[Jewelrunna]

I've got some basic wishes, I like a lot of our iconic leaders, but I've got a few curveballs.

America: FDR
Arabia: Harun al-Rashid
Aztecs: Montezuma I
Babylon: Hammurabi
China: Liu Bang (Gaozu)
Denmark: Canute the Great
Egypt: Hapshepsut
England: Victoria & Alfred the Great
Ethiopia: Ezana
France: Napoleon
Inca (probably the inevitable pre-order bonus): Pachacuti
India: Ashoka & Gandhi
Japan: Oda Nobunaga
Germany: Frederick II
Greece: Solon
Persia: Darius the Great
Ottomans: Suleiman the Magnificient
Rome: Augustus Caesar
Russia: Catherine the Great
Seminole: Micanopy

First wave of DLC:
Assyria: Tiglath-pileser III
Brazil: Pedro II
Indonesia: Gitarja or Gajah Mada
Mali: Mansa Musa
Spain: Philip II & Isabella

First XPac:
Austria: Maria Theresa
Carthage: Hannibal
Dutch: William of Orange
Haudenosaunee (Iroquois): Jigonsaseh
Maya: Jasaw Chan K’awiil
Mongolia: Genghis Khan
Poland: Casimir the Great
Siam/Thailand: Chulalongkorn
Alternate leader for China: Wu Zetian

Second XPac:
Byzantium: Justinian I
Colombia: Simon Bolivar
Gaul: Vercingetorix
Korea: Sejong
Portugal: João III
Sumeria: Gilgamesh
Sweden: Gustavus Adolphus
Vietnam: Trưng Sisters
Zulu: Shaka
Alternate leader for France: Henry IV

Third XPac/Pass:
Australia: Alfred Deakin
Celts: Boudicca
Italy: Matilda of Tuscany
Khmer: Jayavarman VII
Maori: Te Rauparaha
Macedon: Alexander the Great
Norway: Harald Fairhair
Sioux: Sitting Bull
Alternate leader for Rome: Hadrian

Leaders Pass:
Abraham Lincoln, Peter the Great, Saladin
Qin Shi Huang, Pacal the Great, Ramses II
Tokugawa, Cyrus the Great, Mehmet II
Catherine di Medici, Jadwiga, Elizabeth I
Louis XIV, Otto von Bismarck, Menelik II

 

[UWHabs]

China- at least under the original Qin persona- was and is a decently powerful wonder-building, cultural turtle Civ, though definitely stereotypical.

Gotta agree with most of the other ones, at least in the base game (quite happy with how England eventually turned out).

It doesn't help that most of them are primarily designed to interact with the new systems, with historical relevance coming second.

This is why we had an America about government legacy bonuses instead of ruthless expansion and development. This is why we had an England with an ability about Archaeological Museums. And this is why Philip II got pigeonholed into just being the "Spanish Inquisition" leader.

This was also the reason behind all of those horriblly niche Casus Belli abilities from the immediately following DLC, the worst of which have thankfully been removed/reworked. While Bannockburn (Robert the Bruce's ability) still... exists, at least we don't have release Georgia anymore.

+100% Faith for the first 10 turns after declaring a Protectorate War.

You can always nitpick some civs as getting better abilities than others. Like yeah, if I have to choose Spain vs Portugal, Portugal's abilities are like 10x more interesting. Some civs like France just never hit quite right in this version of the game. But then there's others like Germany who is a pretty base civ who has stayed as a pretty strong civ through the life of the game, even if they're not as crazy as they were right at launch before some of the factory overlap was closed down. Even others like Japan and Greece while maybe not being top of the line have relatively decent base abilities that they stayed interesting enough.

India does tend to get pretty weak bonuses. They always seem pigeonholed into being like a mildly religious civ, but never get enough religious bonuses to actually be a dominant religious civ.

 

[GeneralZift]

You can always nitpick some civs as getting better abilities than others. Like yeah, if I have to choose Spain vs Portugal, Portugal's abilities are like 10x more interesting. Some civs like France just never hit quite right in this version of the game. But then there's others like Germany who is a pretty base civ who has stayed as a pretty strong civ through the life of the game, even if they're not as crazy as they were right at launch before some of the factory overlap was closed down. Even others like Japan and Greece while maybe not being top of the line have relatively decent base abilities that they stayed interesting enough.

India does tend to get pretty weak bonuses. They always seem pigeonholed into being like a mildly religious civ, but never get enough religious bonuses to actually be a dominant religious civ.

India needs to get some kind of super tall behemoth ability. If they couple 'tall gameplay' with 'tall cities are harder to take' and tall is viable in general, then overall, this will make India more interesting as a peaceful opponent and easier to play.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Even others like Japan and Greece while maybe not being top of the line have relatively decent base abilities that they stayed interesting enough.

I like that you pointed these two out because they're also some of the few examples of simple powerful abilities.

I'm actually more fond of the complex abilities than some of the other people on these forums (i don't have as much trouble keeping track of them all so I feel like I can actually fully utilize them), but I really appreciate Greece especially for its simplicity, room for strategy, and synergy, all while being powerful and impactful. That's good design right there.