Hint at 3rd expansion from Firaxis??

[PhoenicianGold]

Interestingly there has been a pattern with both expansions though: 4 new Civs, 4 returning, and 3 female leaders.
R&F New Civs: Cree, Mapuche, Scotland, Georgia. Female Leaders: Seondeok, Tamar, Wilhelmina
GS New Civs: Maori (Not Polynesia), Phoenicia (technically not Carthage), Hungary, Canada. Female leaders: Dido, Eleanor (Pending), Kristina
The question is what staple would they leave out (Maya, Portugal, Babylon, Byzantines, Ethiopia) if they follow the same pattern, or would they rearrange it to where we would get something like a Byzantine alt leader for Rome?

I actually think Morocco is a shoo-in to become another staple for multiple reasons.

In fact, my bet so far is on Portugal, Maya, and Morocco as three locks. Regarding the fourth slot:

* Ethiopia would be the obvious "African" civ of the pack, in the same vein as Zulus or Mali. However, adding Ethiopia this early is still cramming in a lot of civs around the Red Sea, with nothing along the east African coast. Given that the Swahili stand a decent shot at being a new African civ (and that Yoruba/Hausa or OmanOprobably won't be added at the same time as Morocco), they might edge Ethiopia out for the Africa slot, while Ethiopia could be saved to sell a smaller DLC pack.

* Byzantium would be an instant expansion-seller, the Ottomans or Mongols of expack 3. But...guys, it's a really boring option. We have Georgian choral music. We have the Russian lavra. We have three Hellenic civs. We have have the Ottomans as a naval-ish power centered on Constantinople. Hungary has a similar icon. Byzantium really wouldn't be anything new at this point, and honestly it could get by as a Roman alt leader. Of course I could also see the devs making Byzantium separate and then giving Rome/Byzantium a dual leader further down the line, but I'd rather they devote resources elsewhere. So, ho hum. Perhaps the frontrunner for returning civs if only by sheer fanservice.

* Babylon has probably been cut this time around. Sumeria is by design an Akkadian blob civ, as nonsensical as that sounds. It's already half Babylonian. There's just no reason to try and string out a second civ in that region when the devs seem to have already decided on a one and done approach.

So, I don't know who or if there will be a fourth returning civ in expack three. Financially, there ought to be, because everything about the past two expacks suggests that they were market tested to hell and back. But none appear to be shoo-ins. I guess as much as the religious fervor surrounding Byzantium bores me to tears it may de facto be filling out the third set of civs.

 

[ferretbacon]

I think a hypothetical third expansion is bound to be a bit "legacy" heavy with returning civs. This is because the chances of a fourth expansion seem fairly improbable, so any civ that feels essential is going to have to make it in the third or never. I'm thinking perhaps...

1. Maya
2. Babylon
3. Byzantium
4. Ethiopia
5. Portugal
6. Native American*
7. Vietnam**
8. Morocco***
9. Ramesses II alt leader****

*Likely a horse culture. Perhaps the Sioux.
**One more representative for East Asia and a civ that seems to be a big fan request. The radical newcomer to the last expansion.
***With Carthage replaced by Phoenicia and moved to the Levant on TSL, North Africa (minus Egypt) is devoid of a civ. Morocco was cool in V. Bring em back.
****Just my personal preference.

Of the first five essential civs, I'd say Byzantium is the most likely to get dropped in favor of something new, followed by Babylon.

If that's the last eight up there, the only civ I can think of that I'll miss are the Celts in some form or another. I don't view Scotland as a replacement, even if that was the intention of Firaxis.

Additionally, it's too bad we won't get a third Native American tribe or newcomers like Renaissance Italy, Madagascar, Nepal or the Mughal Empire.

For new mechanics in a third expansion, I'm still hanging on to the idea of corporations and an economic victory. You could form guilds starting in the Medieval era, which you could customize with characteristics and a logo like founding a religion. Guilds could evolve to companies and finally into corporations. There'd be a business layer to the map much like religion now, with your civ's representative corporation trying to reign supreme through monopolization of resources and buy outs of other corporations.

 

[acluewithout]

I wonder if the World Congress was intended for RnF?

WC was the only core feature which was in Civ 5 and completely absent from Civ 6 (although that maybe depends in your definition of “core”). WC also looked like it was in the RnF video. That would have also given RnF and GS one nice big feature, i.e. RnF the World Congress one; GS the Natural Disasters one.

I wonder what happened?

One possibility is that the WC just wasn’t ready by the time RnF was coming out. In which case, I’m glad they held it back.

The other possibility is FXS are deliberately drip feeding features. There would be an obvious financial benefit doing that, but leaving that aside, I do like that approach. I’d rather things come our more slowly so each Mechanic is better developed and more balancing can happen overall.

Okay, so relevance? Well, I think a Third Expansion (or expansions beyond that) may only makes sense if there are other big mechanics to leverage. For a third expansion, I think Ideologies fits that bill particularly given it was the focus of a Civ 5 expansion previously (BNW). I’m not sure there are any other appealing “big” ideas that have been in previous games but aren’t in Civ VI, although I’m sure people could think up new stuff that hasn’t been done before.

DLC may make more sense for alt leaders and minor mechanics. I could really see a colonization focused dlc, with awesome alt leaders, a few minor mechanics around colonies, and a chunky scenario that was basically the old Colonization game.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

* Babylon has probably been cut this time around. Sumeria is by design an Akkadian blob civ, as nonsensical as that sounds. It's already half Babylonian. There's just no reason to try and string out a second civ in that region when the devs seem to have already decided on a one and done approach.

Personally I'd take Assyria over Babylon though. There's less overlap with them geographically and culturally. Plus they just brought in the Akkad city-state with a suzerain bonus that could have easily gone to say Ninevah or Assur and Akkad would definitely be on a Babylonian city list.

*Likely a horse culture. Perhaps the Sioux.
**One more representative for East Asia and a civ that seems to be a big fan request. The radical newcomer to the last expansion.
***With Carthage replaced by Phoenicia and moved to the Levant on TSL, North Africa (minus Egypt) is devoid of a civ. Morocco was cool in V. Bring em back.
****Just my personal preference.


Of the first five essential civs, I'd say Byzantium is the most likely to get dropped in favor of something new.

Navajo please or something similar. Poundmaker was a Plains Cree and that's as much of a horse culture I hope to get with the Cree.

Vietnam seems to be the fan favorite, and has a good shot especially since East Asia sat out this expansion.

I'm not as sold on Morocco returning as everyone else is for a couple of reasons:
1. Fez was introduced as a new city-state and not replacing an older one like Bologna did.
2. Mali is in the game now as a trading and faith focused Civ from almost the same region.
3. The Ottomans got the Barbary Corsair UU to give some representation to North Africa.

Unfortunately I agree that the Byzantines are the most likely to get dropped or not get in as a full Civ, but be merged with Rome with another leader.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I wonder if the World Congress was intended for RnF?

WC was the only core feature which was in Civ 5 and completely absent from Civ 6 (although that maybe depends in your definition of “core”). WC also looked like it was in the RnF video. That would have also given RnF and GS one nice big feature, i.e. RnF the World Congress one; GS the Natural Disasters one.

I wonder what happened?

One possibility is that the WC just wasn’t ready by the time RnF was coming out. In which case, I’m glad they held it back.

The other possibility is FXS are deliberately drip feeding features. There would be an obvious financial benefit doing that, but leaving that aside, I do like that approach. I’d rather things come our more slowly so each Mechanic is better developed and more balancing can happen overall.

Okay, so relevance? Well, I think a Third Expansion (or expansions beyond that) may only makes sense if there are other big mechanics to leverage. For a third expansion, I think Ideologies fits that bill particularly given it was the focus of a Civ 5 expansion previously (BNW). I’m not sure there are any other appealing “big” ideas for Civ, although I’m sure people could think up stuff that hasn’t been done before.

DLC may make more sense for alt leaders and minor mechanics.

So far they've done very little with luxury resources, which makes me believe a big economic expansion is planned with something like corporations in place. Ideologies seem to have been streamlined into government types and policy cards, which I think feels a lot more functional and less esoteric than ideologies were.

Personally I'd take Assyria over Babylon though. There's less overlap with them geographically and culturally. Plus they just brought in the Akkad city-state with a suzerain bonus that could have easily gone to say Ninevah or Assur and Akkad would definitely be on a Babylonian city list.

But Assyria appears to be the other conceptual half of Sumeria!

Honestly since we can't have them just start over and split Sumeria, I'd prefer to devs to take an opportunity that may not come again: include a Mesopotamian civ that isn't Babylon or Assyria. I think Armenia could fill out the region very well.

Navajo please or something similar. Poundmaker was a Plains Cree and that's as much of a horse culture I hope to get with the Cree.

Yes to both points. The Cree are occupying a weird middle space between what the Sioux and Iroquois were in the past, and I think they are stronger for it. But it makes differentiating other civs in the region much harder (even moreso since the Mapuche are the horse tribe). And since the Navajo are both an excellent idea on many fronts as well as nothing like the Cree or the Mapuche, I really hope that is what we get.

Vietnam seems to be the fan favorite, and has a good shot especially since East Asia sat out this expansion.

I would prefer Burma over Vietnam first since it has much more distinct iconography to work with. But I think Vietnam is almost as deserving and is a far better addition than bringing Siam back.

I'm not as sold on Morocco returning as everyone else is for a couple of reasons:
1. Fez was introduced as a new city-state and not replacing an older one like Bologna did.
2. Mali is in the game now as a trading and faith focused Civ from almost the same region.
3. The Ottomans got the Barbary Corsair UU to give some representation to North Africa.

1. We got Palenque in the Vikings pack. I know that was forever ago but I shall still cling to it. Also, clearly changing the names of city states amounts to a few lines of code and a new png file. I'm not disputing your point (especially since I myself am extremely satisfied that Babylon and Akkad and Hattusa are city states) , but we have Tamar in R&F and Sean Bean dead in 2.5 seconds in GS; Firaxis are trolls. They could easily be faking us out on a few, if not all the civs planned for expack 3.

2. Mali is really further south, and is land-based, and is specifically a gold and faith civ, no production. Morocco effectively reps most of northern Africa by proxy of the Moors/Maghreb/Berbers/whatever. Morocco's unique infrastructure would likely be a kasbah, which automatically gives it a military bent Mali doesn't have. Morocco would likely have some cultural bonuses given that the Moors have been a major cultural influencer not just in Africa but in Iberia. And Morocco's trade identity would likely relate back to its status as the gatekeeper of the Mediterranean, which would likely mean it has the Barbary Cors-.

3. Oh. Dammit Firaxis. Why did you give the Ottomans literally everything? This is wrong. This may be of of the first creative choices by Firaxis I am absolutely not okay with, since "Barbary" quite literally derives from "Berber" and should therefore be a Moroccan thing.

I mean, there is still plenty of room to differentiate Morocco from Mali, but the idea took a huge hit from the Ottomans, and imo for no good reason.

 

[Ziad]

Not people saying Mali covers Morocco/Berbers... That's like saying France covers England.

 

[PhilBowles]

Your argument was that there weren't enough staples for a full expansion. On those grounds, there were only four staples in R&F (Korea, Netherlands, Mongolia, and Zulu) and only three staples in GS (Inca, Phoenicia/Carthage, and the Ottomans). So neither of those should've been a full expansion.

That was in the context that the main reason to expect a third expansion appears to be the belief that an expansion is needed to add 'missing' civs. There's no basis for expecting another expansion in terms of missing mechanics or game systems, which leaves extra civs. My point was that there aren't enough 'expected' civs left to form the focus of a major expansion - and in any case Firaxis doesn't seem to view expansions primarily as a vehicle to add new civs, which can be done as DLCs. Compared with prior Civ games, marketing for Civ 6 expansions has focused far more on new and changed game systems and mentioned the civs mostly in passing. Their choices of civs in both Civ 6 expansions don't appear to have been chosen because they're big names or exciting additions, with the major criterion for new choices apparently being "Ed went there on holiday".

3. Oh. Dammit Firaxis. Why did you give the Ottomans literally everything? This is wrong. This may be of of the first creative choices by Firaxis I am absolutely not okay with, since "Barbary" quite literally derives from "Berber" and should therefore be a Moroccan thing.

Barbary Corsairs were literally Ottoman. The name comes from the Barbary Coast, the area historically settled by the Berbers (i.e. Libya to Morocco) - not because the pirates themselves were necessarily Berbers. The pirates principally operated out of Tripoli and Tunis, so were Libyan and Tunisian in modern terms rather than Moroccan.

 

[ferretbacon]

Navajo please or something similar. Poundmaker was a Plains Cree and that's as much of a horse culture I hope to get with the Cree.

The Cree make things awkward due to their wide historic range. They're reminiscent of both Eastern Woodland tribes like the Iroquois and Western Plain tribes like the Sioux. I'm leaning towards the former since the UU isn't mounted, despite Poundmaker belonging to the Plains Cree. Simple as that really. But I'm not attached to any particular tribe; I just want a second, be it the Sioux, Navajo, Apache, Iroquois, Powhatan, or Haida. Any of those could bring good gameplay mechanics. The Cree don't adequately cover the region as far as natives go. It's wrong that they're now outnumbered by colonial civs (America and Canada).

 

[PhoenicianGold]

That was in the context that the main reason to expect a third expansion appears to be the belief that an expansion is needed to add 'missing' civs. There's no basis for expecting another expansion in terms of missing mechanics or game systems, which leaves extra civs. My point was that there aren't enough 'expected' civs left to form the focus of a major expansion - and in any case Firaxis doesn't seem to view expansions primarily as a vehicle to add new civs, which can be done as DLCs. Compared with prior Civ games, marketing for Civ 6 expansions has focused far more on new and changed game systems and mentioned the civs mostly in passing. Their choices of civs in both Civ 6 expansions don't appear to have been chosen because they're big names or exciting additions, with the major criterion for new choices apparently being "Ed went there on holiday".

Mmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I definitely get the holiday impression for natural wonders. No doubt.

But as for the civ additions, they make up about half the draw of each expansion pack, and everything indicates they are highly vetted and organized to fit a) a specific geographic distribution, b) a specific time period distribution, c) a specific gender distribution, and d) a specific old-to-new civ distribution.

So really, it's far more than where Ed Beach vacationed, because regardless of where he went skinny dipping each expack seems to need three female leaders, four new or reconceptualized civs, six or seven civs playing up the new mechanics of the expack, and one basic, huge, domination classic (Mongolia, Ottomans) to sell the whole thing.

Also, Georgia was a meme and Mapuche were recommended by a fan historian, so neither of those can be blamed on Beach; they were just ideas that fans managed to push to the forefront of conversation. But if that means we eventually get a Taino civ cuz Beach went to the Bahamas, then I will take what I can get

 

[PhilBowles]

Mmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I definitely get the holiday impression for natural wonders. No doubt.

Also Hungary and Sweden's open-air museum, essentially by Ed's admission on the livestreams.

But as for the civ additions, they make up about half the draw of each expansion pack, and everything indicates they are highly vetted and organized to fit a) a specific geographic distribution, b) a specific time period distribution, c) a specific gender distribution, and d) a specific old-to-new civ distribution.

Yes, Firaxis has specific boxes they've said they want to tick when adding civs - but those aren't boxes most players seem to care about and no one seems to be especially excited about the reveals beyond "oh, that's who's in this time. That's nice." They aren't used in the advertising to any significant extent, they each get a week in the sun on a livestream only the most enfranchised players are going to take the time to sit down and watch, and even the livestreams spend more time showing off new generic mechanics than anything to do with the civ. Obviously Firaxis will add civs in an expansion and they need some criteria for doing so - but in most cases, fan popularity (Canada excepted) or historical significance are not among those criteria.

If Firaxis is disinterested in using civs as a major marketing tool for expansions, it seems highly unlikely that they'd release an expansion whose major hook is that it adds Babylon and the Maya. To a limited extent they used Mongolia to market Rise & Fall as they were prominent in the trailer and the first civ reveal - the same certainly can't be said of the Ottomans.

 

[Ziad]

Why is Georgia a meme? Tamar represents the Caucasian region which was pretty influential in that part of the world. She's quite a character and definitely deserving of being in the roster.

It's unfortunate that she's underpowered in some respects but that's Firaxis' doing.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Not people saying Mali covers Morocco/Berbers... That's like saying France covers England.

I generally meant that playstyle wise Morocco would probably be similar to Mali focusing on both desert trade and faith bonuses, though there could be some differences.
Then again thanks to Eleanor it looks like France is partially covering England so maybe an alt leader for Mali and Morocco could be possible.

 

[Ziad]

I generally meant that playstyle wise Morocco would probably be similar to Mali focusing on both desert trade and faith bonuses, though thete could be some differences.
Then again thanks to Eleanor it looks like France is parially covering England so maybe an alt leader for Mali and Morocco could be possible.

I mean I agree with a poster above that the Barbary Corsair (and the Fez city state) might be a nod to Morocco that won't actually lead to a civilization.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Why is Georgia a meme? Tamar represents the Caucasian region which was pretty influential in that part of the world. She's quite a character and definitely deserving of being in the roster.

It's unfortunate that she's underpowered in some respects but that's Firaxis' doing.

Oh I love Tamar, she's my bae. One of the best AI opponents imo, just a terribly designed civ.

But she's basically in the roster because when the base game's roster leaked people mistook Gorgo for her. And then everything snowballed as "it's Tamar of Georgia" became a frequent speculation troll.

I'm actually glad Firaxis ripped the band-aid off and included Georgia and Scotland and Hungary. It opened up design space just enough to free the series of its stagnant obsession with "empires" and increase overall aesthetic and mechanical diversity in the roster. I am now totally fine with things like Armenia or Bulgaria or even Finland, which I couldn't care less about, being in the game because they are far more interesting than, say Austria or Assyria, of which the lack of creativity involved made V extremely underwhelming to me.

 

[Ziad]

I did not know that story. That's actually hilarious.

 

[DWilson]

Why is Georgia a meme? Tamar represents the Caucasian region which was pretty influential in that part of the world. She's quite a character and definitely deserving of being in the roster.

It's unfortunate that she's underpowered in some respects but that's Firaxis' doing.

She's a meme because someone thought she might've been one of the original leaders, and since then every time a new civ is to be revealed Tamar of Georgia is predicted (even now that she's already been revealed).

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Also Hungary and Sweden's open-air museum, essentially by Ed's admission on the livestreams.

I happen to be very appreciative of Hungary's addition. It represents a good chunk of former Yugoslavia in a fairly responsible way, as well as vicariously represents Bohemia and Austria. But mechanically it fits a geothermal civ very well too in a way I would never have anticipated. It managed to coalesce several disparate and unique concepts at once, and the only disappointment I have is now the Roman UI and the Polish UU should probably be changed.

Sweden's museum is...fine. It's fine. It's. Fine. It's fiiiiine. It's ..................... fine.

Yes, Firaxis has specific boxes they've said they want to tick when adding civs - but those aren't boxes most players seem to care about and no one seems to be especially excited about the reveals beyond "oh, that's who's in this time. That's nice." They aren't used in the advertising to any significant extent, they each get a week in the sun on a livestream only the most enfranchised players are going to take the time to sit down and watch, and even the livestreams spend more time showing off new generic mechanics than anything to do with the civ. Obviously Firaxis will add civs in an expansion and they need some criteria for doing so - but in most cases, fan popularity (Canada excepted) or historical significance are not among those criteria.

I'm not so sure of this. I see a much more calculated bias toward adding new civs which appeal to large demographics. The Cree are the largest (or the Ojibwe? Either way largest or second largest) tribe in Canada, maximizing appeal to those of native heritage or native adjacence in Canada. The same for Mapuche being the largest native ethnic group in Chile/Argentina. These are the most marketable tribes in their respective region and hit a pretty good balance of representing native Amerindians, but also representing Canada/Argentina/Chile in a way they hadn't been in a civ game before; thus casual players in/from those regions are more likely to buy the game.

Then take into account other additions. When considering replacing the Celts with a modern polity, between Scotland and Ireland Scotland won out. Scotland happens to have the larger population. Between Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, Hungary has the larger population. Between Denmark and Sweden, Sweden has the larger population. Granted, these are all marginal differences, but in totality it gives the appearance of Firaxis' wanting to maximize appeal in order to eek out more profits. And the numbers don't lie; regardless of whether casuals care about these choices, they love the design, think the civs are fun, and VI is selling better than V did.

If Firaxis is disinterested in using civs as a major marketing tool for expansions, it seems highly unlikely that they'd release an expansion whose major hook is that it adds Babylon and the Maya. To a limited extent they used Mongolia to market Rise & Fall as they were prominent in the trailer and the first civ reveal - the same certainly can't be said of the Ottomans.

The Mongols were not the first reveal, they were third I believe after Korea and Netherlands.

Again, Maya would please the fans. Portugal and/or Byzantium would sell the thing.

 

[Ziad]

I know I'd love to play the Eastern Roman Empire was a standalone civ or an alt to Rome.

 

[awesome]

Principality of Sealand

 

[blackcatatonic]

"I think there'll be two more expansions for Civ VI rather than just one so Maya, Byzantium, Portugal, Assyria/Babylon, a Native American Civ, Ethiopia would be very likely for Expansion 3. Mali was already in my list. Phoenicia would make Carthage unlikely." - Holy Prophet AssemblingTyphoon

So this was the guy (almost certainly an insider) who correctly predicted the civs in GS before the announcement.

If he's right about the 3rd expansion then those 6 civs also look very likely. For the other 2 slots my guess/preference would be for Vietnam (no SEA civ in GS) and one last new/wildcard. Hopefully Italy. I can't see two African Civs in one expansion.