Designing America for Civ7

[Zaarin]

I might take Abigail Adams over John Adams.

I'd take either one, but I adore John Adams.

 

[Sirsquier]

I'd take either one, but I adore John Adams.

I can see why... he was a talented man and a good president.

 

[reddishrecue]

The Miami area is the 4th largest urban area in the U.S.? Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area is also prone to earthquakes and forest fires.

Most of the large places of unsettled land is in the West because of deserts and the Rocky Mountains where historically people really never lived also, not necessarily because of more natural disasters. Most of the largest urban places in the U.S. are prone to experience some sort of hurricane/tropical system.

There are earthquakes in Los Angeles and San Francisco but the big one they call it hasn't even hit in about 40 years especially in Los Angeles. As for the rest of the mid-west and mid US, there are dust bowl effects in civ 6 (or it could be 4) where it's hard to populate and farm. Transportation between states is also nice, it keeps you away from the busy cities which aren't that bad at all. Also, there are small towns which support restaurants and hotels that make rural areas a bit more desirable and road trips a lot more interesting. Travelers often stop through hotels to rest at night since they get tired after busy driving during the day. Seattle, Idaho and Utah all have interesting sights to see like forest preserves, casinos and Mormon temples sort of like the Shoshone in civ 5 and the natural wonders in civ 6 or humankind... The Shoshone did have all that land but no temples were mentioned nor were there any faith bonuses for them. Civ 5 Shoshone was kind of odd because in the help section of the Shoshone there were a lot of tiles at the start but there were no faith bonuses from the Mormons. I remember seeing Yukon and many other territories in the west which were Shoshone. However, the west does have its history of inhabitants like the Europeans a long time ago and then the Spanish, the Mexicans and now the Americans. The lands have been passed around through different nations throughout the ages, sort of like what goes on in humankind.

 

[Zaarin]

The Shoshone did have all that land but no temples were mentioned nor were there any faith bonuses for them. Civ 5 Shoshone was kind of odd because in the help section of the Shoshone there were a lot of tiles at the start but there were no faith bonuses from the Mormons. I remember seeing Yukon and many other territories in the west which were Shoshone.

...What? While Mormon missionaries have certainly been active among the Native Americans since, the Shoshone weren't Mormon, nor are they from the Yukon, which is far to the north of Shoshone territory.

 

[BuchiTaton]

There are earthquakes in Los Angeles and San Francisco but the big one they call it hasn't even hit in about 40 years especially in Los Angeles. As for the rest of the mid-west and mid US, there are dust bowl effects in civ 6 (or it could be 4) where it's hard to populate and farm. Transportation between states is also nice, it keeps you away from the busy cities which aren't that bad at all. Also, there are small towns which support restaurants and hotels that make rural areas a bit more desirable and road trips a lot more interesting. Travelers often stop through hotels to rest at night since they get tired after busy driving during the day. Seattle, Idaho and Utah all have interesting sights to see like forest preserves, casinos and Mormon temples sort of like the Shoshone in civ 5 and the natural wonders in civ 6 or humankind... The Shoshone did have all that land but no temples were mentioned nor were there any faith bonuses for them. Civ 5 Shoshone was kind of odd because in the help section of the Shoshone there were a lot of tiles at the start but there were no faith bonuses from the Mormons. I remember seeing Yukon and many other territories in the west which were Shoshone. However, the west does have its history of inhabitants like the Europeans a long time ago and then the Spanish, the Mexicans and now the Americans. The lands have been passed around through different nations throughout the ages, sort of like what goes on in humankind.

Some point about America cities and their representation on game:
- Found an urban civilization from hunter-gatherers is not the same as found cities as part of the Modern Western civilization, the built of USA is part of the recent European civilization and all their technological advantages (please no more absurd bonus like Canada with "tundra farming"). We can even see how faster it grew with the 19th century industrial innovation and european population boom.
- Midwest add a lot of land for farming and grazing and the Rockies a huge amount and variety of minerals but this under the already mechanized model of the 19th century meaning a low population density for modern standard (but civ5 gives us the famous Shoshone cities of the Rockies and Midwest ). Apart from the area closest to the Mississippi and Great Lakes that region is historically unattractive to main settlement.
- The most populated and rich cities of USA are mainly on the coast and near the borders because most of USA grew under the modern importance of markets, metropolis with significative influence of foreigns and access to their main trade routes; Europe, East Asia, Canada and Mexico (by the way just Mexico represent an equivalent amount of USA's exports than the ones to China+Korea+Japan combined, and hispanics are near the 40% of the population of California to Texas). Another reason to make CIV7's American civ that expand huge to get closer to immigration/trade sources.

2/3 of USA's population live within 100 miles from the coast/border zone.

 

[reddishrecue]

...What? While Mormon missionaries have certainly been active among the Native Americans since, the Shoshone weren't Mormon, nor are they from the Yukon, which is far to the north of Shoshone territory.

Oh ok. Sorry for that misinterpretation from civ 5 maps. The lands did show Yukon territory but it wasn't part of Shoshone.

Some point about America cities and their representation on game:
- Found an urban civilization from hunter-gatherers is not the same as found cities as part of the Modern Western civilization, the built of USA is part of the recent European civilization and all their technological advantages (please no more absurd bonus like Canada with "tundra farming"). We can even see how faster it grew with the 19th century industrial innovation and european population boom.
- Midwest add a lot of land for farming and grazing and the Rockies a huge amount and variety of minerals but this under the already mechanized model of the 19th century meaning a low population density for modern standard (but civ5 gives us the famous Shoshone cities of the Rockies and Midwest ). Apart from the area closest to the Mississippi and Great Lakes that region is historically unattractive to main settlement.
- The most populated and rich cities of USA are mainly on the coast and near the borders because most of USA grew under the modern importance of markets, metropolis with significative influence of foreigns and access to their main trade routes; Europe, East Asia, Canada and Mexico (by the way just Mexico represent an equivalent amount of USA's exports than the ones to China+Korea+Japan combined, and hispanics are near the 40% of the population of California to Texas). Another reason to make CIV7's American civ that expand huge to get closer to immigration/trade sources.

2/3 of USA's population live within 100 miles from the coast/border zone.

- I noticed the large populations on the coasts and that there's hardly large cities in some areas in the Midwest or the Rockies but enough to support travelers traveling from coast to coast.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

Make America not only a Western Nation, but also any other culture.

When you click America, you get to choose which culture (east asian, south asian, etc) that you come from, and that affects your Unique Units, your leader and your unique abilities. It's meant to reflect that, technically, China (and India and West Africa) could have discovered America in the 1400s.

 

[Zaarin]

Make America not only a Western Nation, but also any other culture.

When you click America, you get to choose which culture (east asian, south asian, etc) that you come from, and that affects your Unique Units, your leader and your unique abilities. It's meant to reflect that, technically, China (and India and West Africa) could have discovered America in the 1400s.

Doubtful on West Africa, but the Chinese, Indians, and Arabs certainly had the capability; largely what they lacked was the motive.

I can't say I like this idea. Certain absurdities are part and parcel of the Civ branding and charm, but how would one make sense of a Chinese, Arab, or Indian America? Do we have four leader models--George Washington, Huáshèngdùn Qiáozhì, Jūrj ibn Wāšinṭun, and Jarj Vŏśiṅgṭan? What would such a civ design even look like? E.g., earlier I proposed a Meeting House as America's UB--do we just assume that the Chinese, Arabs, or Indians brought Protestantism with them? A more interesting idea might be a scenario, for those who play them, about who can settle the New World first, but I don't think this kind of historical fantasy civ has a place in the base game or would even lend itself to an interesting design.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

I can't say I like this idea. Certain absurdities are part and parcel of the Civ branding and charm, but how would one make sense of a Chinese, Arab, or Indian America?

We keep the same basic value of America- expansionism. Everything else, the original culture takes precedence (A Chinese America would focus on establishing tributary states as well as expanding, so barbarians in the way would either get destroyed or turned into money/unit makers, Indian America would focus on religious inclusivity getting bonuses for having other religions in its empire, Arab America would focus on spreading religion, and Norse America would focus on sea-trade) . It would be absurd, but no more than Sumerian spaceships or Ancient Egyptian tanks or Roman guns.

Do we have four leader models--George Washington, Huáshèngdùn Qiáozhì, Jūrj ibn Wāšinṭun, and Jarj Vŏśiṅgṭan?

Yeah I can see why that's a problem. You would have to make seperate lines for each variant of George Washington (Literal translation: Tiller of Fields Victory Settlement) , so if you kept it to about five (Western, Indian, Arab, Chinese, Norse)

A more interesting idea might be a scenario, for those who play them, about who can settle the New World first, but I don't think this kind of historical fantasy civ has a place in the base game or would even lend itself to an interesting design.

That would be an interesting idea, and besides we have had a steampunk scenario (V) and a dinosaur scenario (II), so it's not that fantastical in comparison. Would breathe some air into the series.

 

[Zaarin]

We keep the same basic value of America- expansionism. Everything else, the original culture takes precedence (A Chinese America would focus on establishing tributary states as well as expanding, so barbarians in the way would either get destroyed or turned into money/unit makers, Indian America would focus on religious inclusivity getting bonuses for having other religions in its empire, Arab America would focus on spreading religion, and Norse America would focus on sea-trade) . It would be absurd, but no more than Sumerian spaceships or Ancient Egyptian tanks or Roman guns.

Like I said, certain absurdities are part of what makes Civ charming, but they're always absurdities based on a civilization that did exist--e.g., what if Georgia, locally important but never globally dominant, became the most important and powerful nation in the world? That's why I adamantly oppose people who argue that nations that were stronger in the real world should be stronger in the game. At any rate, I suppose I'd rather see the possibility of someone else reaching the New World first with a TSL or Terra map than with a civ with no historical basis or flavor.

That would be an interesting idea, and besides we have had a steampunk scenario (V) and a dinosaur scenario (II), so it's not that fantastical in comparison. Would breathe some air into the series.

I'm not much of a scenario-player myself (I played the Viking scenario once in Civ6, and I think I played the New World scenario a couple times in Civ5), but yeah, a scenario is definitely the best place to broach this kind of alternate history/historical fantasy IMO.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Doubtful on West Africa, but the Chinese, Indians, and Arabs certainly had the capability; largely what they lacked was the motive.

I can't say I like this idea. Certain absurdities are part and parcel of the Civ branding and charm, but how would one make sense of a Chinese, Arab, or Indian America? Do we have four leader models--George Washington, Huáshèngdùn Qiáozhì, Jūrj ibn Wāšinṭun, and Jarj Vŏśiṅgṭan? What would such a civ design even look like? E.g., earlier I proposed a Meeting House as America's UB--do we just assume that the Chinese, Arabs, or Indians brought Protestantism with them? A more interesting idea might be a scenario, for those who play them, about who can settle the New World first, but I don't think this kind of historical fantasy civ has a place in the base game or would even lend itself to an interesting design.

America - and to a great extent this includes everything from Alaska to Patagonia - is Europe Transported. It is all the baggage from several thousand years of European developments in technology, culture, religion, social and civic policies uprooted and therefore more easily massaged and mangled into new versions of themselves.
To imagine America from other roots requires a complete overhaul of the American systems that developed IRL, and requires both a massive 'recognition' of unfamiliar results by gamers and also a huge amount of research work by any development team to have even a half-assed chance of getting it right. @Zaarin only touched on the problems in imagining what would happen to a Chinese Imperial Polity with rice-based agriculture, Confucion-based Civil Service, and Buddhist/Taoist religions if transplanted to North or South America, where rice doesn't grow well and people who don't like the Polity, Civil service or Religion can simply Walk Away - and thereby produce American Cossacks?!.
NO "Old World" systems are going to be established in the Americas without massive change and disruption to themselves, and what emerges is, frankly, an exercise in Alternative Universe far beyond anything ever attempted in Civ - it, in fact, is the realm of the master Science Fiction writers like Poul Anderson, H. Beam Piper and Harry Turtledove who used the imaginative exercise to build backgrounds for stories (and other writing. If you can find it, Poul Anderson wrote a 'fact' article back in the 1950s or 60s for Analog magazine on physics - but it was written in an English that had no Latin or Greek influence on it, because it assumed that Rome lost its wars with Carthage and so 'English' was a Germanic/Punic mix instead of Germanic/Latin - the result was both amusing and disturbing)

Let's leave all that work for a team and company that wants to do a really different type of 'Alternative History' Science Fiction 4X game (to steal a title from another company Endless Speculation? - and yes, if done well, I'd buy it in a heartbeat!) instead of Civ trying to stuff complete Alternative Universe exercises into a 'historical' 4X system.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yeah I can see why that's a problem. You would have to make seperate lines for each variant of George Washington (Literal translation: Tiller of Fields Victory Settlement) , so if you kept it to about five (Western, Indian, Arab, Chinese, Norse)

Why limit it to only those five? And isn't Norse considered Western?

We keep the same basic value of America- expansionism. Everything else, the original culture takes precedence (A Chinese America would focus on establishing tributary states as well as expanding, so barbarians in the way would either get destroyed or turned into money/unit makers, Indian America would focus on religious inclusivity getting bonuses for having other religions in its empire, Arab America would focus on spreading religion, and Norse America would focus on sea-trade) . It would be absurd, but no more than Sumerian spaceships or Ancient Egyptian tanks or Roman guns.

That being said discovering America (as in the New World being both North and South America), and playing as America (modern day U.S.A.), are two separate things. I understand the idea of wanting America to be expansive, and be culturally multiethnic, but that could easily be reflected in the abilities and giving citizens ethnicities in the game instead.

If I want to play as China or Arabia I'd just play them without playing an "Americanized" version of them, but that's just me.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

Why limit it to only those five? And isn't Norse considered Western?

Five leaders would keep things short. Norse is just a reference to when Lief Eriksson went to America.

The other comments: now i realize this is too complex for a civ game.

 

[Zaarin]

and other writing. If you can find it, Poul Anderson wrote a 'fact' article back in the 1950s or 60s for Analog magazine on physics - but it was written in an English that had no Latin or Greek influence on it, because it assumed that Rome lost its wars with Carthage and so 'English' was a Germanic/Punic mix instead of Germanic/Latin - the result was both amusing and disturbing

Oh, hey, that's one of the two branching off points of my alternate timeline sci-fi setting (the other being that the Islamic expansion was firmly rebuffed by a strong Persian-backed Aramaic state in Syria, resulting in Islam becoming an inward-focused ethnic religion, much like Judaism). Though I allowed Rome to keep Northern and Western Europe, while Carthage assumed control of the Mediterranean (including Iberia). Though TBH this was all just an elaborate scheme to get Phoenician spoken in space and to keep the Middle East a hotbed of linguistic and religious diversity, and I've honestly given only fleeting thought to what happened to the world outside the Middle East after the Classical period.

 

[Knightfall]

Maybe America could have a mechanic like Gandhi has where he can benefit from other religions Follower Beliefs, except in this case benefit (in a reduced way) from the ability of any civ they have open borders with?