Hittites and Assyrians

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Should the two Bronze Age Superpowers of the West Asia join Civ7? if so how and the designs.
Basic idea.
1. Hittites as playable: Capitol city is Hattusa, should have a superior chariot as UU
2. Assyrians as playable: Capitol city is Ashur, should have a kind of horseman as UU
3. Both have either Turkic or Middleeast 'cultures'.
4. Preferred religions
- Judaism
- Islam
- Eastern Orthodox Christianity
- Zoroasterism
- Manichaeism (Actually associated to Persian but not preferred, This religion featured prominent in Medieval and Early Modern China as their religious order being associated to martial arts school and-or rebellions (Particularly in Louis Cha's wuxia novels) , so often villified both in East and West as being Evil Cult. considered extinct today (though some derivatives in Qing era claimed to be their descendants)
Both are Ancient Era civs.

 

[FishFishFish]

Assyria should be in the base game and a staple of the series.

Hittites aren't as essential. I wouldn't mind seeing them as a DLC but I could live without them.

3. Both have either Turkic or Middleeast 'cultures'.

Middle Eastern yes, Turkic no.

 

[MistroPain]

As someone born in the Middle East (Iraq, though raised in the UK), I would love to see as much representation of the region as possible! That being said, if Civ7 comes out with 18 civs like the previous few have I feel like the Middle East is a difficult place to fairly represent (and by fairly I mean in the sense that doing so would detract from other regions in the world, many of which get the short end of the stick and can feel underrepresented).

A large number of important civs have occupied the area, and I would argue that the now staple Arabian, Ancient Egyptian, Persian and Turkish civs should continue to be prioritised (though base game and early expansion representation). Especially since Ancient Egypt is itself a bronze age powerhouse civ (and should be represented as pre-Persian/Hellenic Egypt anyway). I do, therefore, think that Assyria should feature in an expansion somewhere, but shouldn't hold priority over other important Middle Eastern civilizations. Like Fish I don't mind if the Hittites don't show up; but if a cool civ comes along and is well designed gameplay wise I wouldn't complain about the Hittites featuring.

Now what I would alternatively LOVE to see is Middle Eastern leaders in non-Middle Eastern civs that are themselves underrepresented, hmm, any Arabs led an Indian civ before? That might be a great spot!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

2. Assyrians as playable: Capitol city is Ashur, should have a kind of horseman as UU

Assyria should have an early siege unit like they did in Civ 5, in my opinion, considering they were the first to invent and use siege towers effectively.

 

[awesome]

As someone born in the Middle East (Iraq, though raised in the UK), I would love to see as much representation of the region as possible! That being said, if Civ7 comes out with 18 civs like the previous few have I feel like the Middle East is a difficult place to fairly represent (and by fairly I mean in the sense that doing so would detract from other regions in the world, many of which get the short end of the stick and can feel underrepresented).

A large number of important civs have occupied the area, and I would argue that the now staple Arabian, Ancient Egyptian, Persian and Turkish civs should continue to be prioritised (though base game and early expansion representation). Especially since Ancient Egypt is itself a bronze age powerhouse civ (and should be represented as pre-Persian/Hellenic Egypt anyway). I do, therefore, think that Assyria should feature in an expansion somewhere, but shouldn't hold priority over other important Middle Eastern civilizations. Like Fish I don't mind if the Hittites don't show up; but if a cool civ comes along and is well designed gameplay wise I wouldn't complain about the Hittites featuring.

Now what I would alternatively LOVE to see is Middle Eastern leaders in non-Middle Eastern civs that are themselves underrepresented, hmm, any Arabs led an Indian civ before? That might be a great spot!

I agree about Hittites. They’d be cool to see, but they’re not at the top of my list.

As for the last paragraph, a common request is the Mughals, which would basically fit that.

 

[jsciv69]

The Hittites were major rivals to Egypt. Both Ancient powers fought often over possession of the Levant. So they should be given some consideration for a return to the series. Assyrians are a no-brainer to return.

 

[MistroPain]

I agree about Hittites. They’d be cool to see, but they’re not at the top of my list.

As for the last paragraph, a common request is the Mughals, which would basically fit that.

I was joking about the Middle Eastern representation outside the Middle East, although I would like to see the Mughals one day.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

They could be a vanilla scenario with both.

 

[awesome]

I was joking about the Middle Eastern representation outside the Middle East, although I would like to see the Mughals one day.

It didn’t translate well over text, I guess. But, yeah, Mughal or even Timurid would work as a new civilization to the series, but there just isn’t a better name, which is probably why we keep getting “Ottoman” instead of “Turkish”

 

[Krajzen]

Assyria should imo have a slightly higher priority and it's kind of amazing how rarely it has appeared in the series, such a massively important and spectacular civilization, it was effectively the first truly hegemonic conquest empire in history.

On another hand, Hittites were also very cool for numerous reasons, so I'd enjoy them very much; they are also pretty much the only way to represent pre - Greek Anatolian civilizations.

So my solution is simple: include them both as well as Sumer, and in exchange don't include Babylon for once, and make Persia Islamic civ instead of Achaemenid.
"b - but Babylon -"
Oh come on, it's not like China or Rome, a civ that truly has to appear in every game, Babylon has been 6 times in the series while Sumer only twice and Assyria only once, we have three closely related great civilizations from Mesopotamia, we don't have to always include one of them at the cost of others because civ1 just happened to include Babylon instead of another two.

 

[Patine]

4. Preferred religions
- Judaism
- Islam
- Eastern Orthodox Christianity
- Zoroasterism
- Manichaeism (Actually associated to Persian but not preferred, This religion featured prominent in Medieval and Early Modern China as their religious order being associated to martial arts school and-or rebellions (Particularly in Louis Cha's wuxia novels) , so often villified both in East and West as being Evil Cult. considered extinct today (though some derivatives in Qing era claimed to be their descendants)
Both are Ancient Era civs.

None of these religions were historically followed by the Hittites, and Islam and Zoroastrianism were both followed by Assyrians AFTER their heyday and the fall of their three consecutive empires of Antiquity by forced conversion, and modern Assyrians (a small and struggling minority group) follow several mutually antagonistic denominations of Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic Eastern Rite Christianity, as well as the Yazidi faith, which seems to have Dualist elements, but not be the same as either Zoroastrianism or Manichaeanism. So, I don't understand the ones you listed, specifically.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ These are possible hypothetic religions if founded in-game by either of these.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

So my solution is simple: include them both as well as Sumer, and in exchange don't include Babylon for once, and make Persia Islamic civ instead of Achaemenid.
"b - but Babylon -"
Oh come on, it's not like China or Rome, a civ that truly has to appear in every game, Babylon has been 6 times in the series while Sumer only twice and Assyria only once, we have three closely related great civilizations from Mesopotamia, we don't have to always include one of them at the cost of others because civ1 just happened to include Babylon instead of another two.

I mean if we keep on adding more and more civs to the games there's no reason we couldn't get Babylon, Sumer and Assyria in one game, right?

 

[Xandinho]

Actually, Sumer appeared three times - Civ3, Civ4 and Civ6. So, I'd say that maybe Sumer is closer to be staple than Assyria. However, I think that we'll have one more ancient civ in Civ7 compared to Civ6. A combination of Assyria (base game)/Babylon (DLC or first expansion)/Sumer (Later expansion or DLC) is quite likely, or maybe Assyria/Babylon/Hittites.

 

[Krajzen]

I mean if we keep on adding more and more civs to the games there's no reason we couldn't get Babylon, Sumer and Assyria in one game, right?

This is a separate issue how I think 50 civs is just enough or even too much for a single civ game, it leads to information overload (especially when each has 12 separate small bonuses) and limits an ability to design them in truly unique ways.
I'd be fine if for the next decade there were like 40 - 50 civs per game max, 30 if firaxis suddenly went very hardcore into making them very distinctive and asymmetric (especially as I personally have only like 12 staple civs which I think should literally always come back in 1.0 release version: China, India, Arabia, Persia, Egypt, "Mesopotamia whatever", Greece, Rome, England, France, Germany, Russia)

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

This is a separate issue how I think 50 civs is just enough or even too much for a single civ game, it leads to information overload (especially when each has 12 separate small bonuses) and limits an ability to design them in truly unique ways.
I'd be fine if for the next decade there were like 40 - 50 civs per game max, 30 if firaxis suddenly went very hardcore into making them very distinctive and asymmetric (especially as I personally have only like 12 staple civs which I think should literally always come back in 1.0 release version: China, India, Arabia, Persia, Egypt, "Mesopotamia whatever", Greece, Rome, England, France, Germany, Russia)

Well the developers were talking about consolidating the abilities into smaller, but more powerful, bonuses for each civ next iteration. With that in mind, I think there's no reason why they couldn't continue to add on more civs and at least reach close to 60.

Of course if I had to pick one though it would be Assyria to get in Civ 7.

 

[Krajzen]

I mean, adding more civs costs devs a lot of resources, hence the question "why to add them past x number" (for me this number would be 50 or even 40) is quite legit if you assume that less civs would mean higher quality for each of them

Also, sometimes less is more, and too many civs could end up being cognitive overload for example, or make each of them shine less, so at some point the incremental growth of civs per game has to end.

 

[pineappledan]

I was genuinely surprised Assyria didn't kick Babylon off the roster in Civ 6. With how the UB they ended up settling on for Babylon talks about Assyria for 2/3rds of its civilopedia entry, it seems like it would have been a better fit.

Civ 6 has a bigger emphasis on female representation with the leaders than any previous installment, so I was shocked that Semiramis/Shammuramat -- the archetypical warrior-queen -- somehow never made the cut.

However, if the devs really wanted to do something different, they would toss all the previous empires they have used for Mesopotamia and add Akkad.

 

[Patine]

I was genuinely surprised Assyria didn't kick Babylon off the roster in Civ 6. With how the UB they ended up settling on for Babylon talks about Assyria for 2/3rds of its civilopedia entry, it seems like it would have been a better fit.

Civ 6 has a bigger emphasis on female representation with the leaders than any previous installment, so I was shocked that Semiramis/Shammuramat -- the archetypical warrior-queen -- somehow never made the cut.

However, if the devs really wanted to do something different, they would toss all the previous empires they have used for Mesopotamia and add Akkad.

I think it may be that, to many regular players, Babylon has Hammurabi's Code, the Ishtar Gate, the Walls of Babylon, the Hanging Gardens, and the Book of Daniel to grasp onto for familiarity, while Assyria, despite having a stronger and more profound (and longer) history, doesn't have such immediate iconic elements to non-armchair (or professional) historians.

 

[Krajzen]

I think it may be that, to many regular players, Babylon has Hammurabi's Code, the Ishtar Gate, the Walls of Babylon, the Hanging Gardens, and the Book of Daniel to grasp onto for familiarity, while Assyria, despite having a stronger and more profound (and longer) history, doesn't have such immediate iconic elements to non-armchair (or professional) historians.

Yeah, Babylon also has some popular proverbs and connotations as "the place of great power but also great decadence" or whatever, there are some things that name themselves "modern Babylon" or that sci fi series "Babylon whatever", so it simppy has that popcultural hook over Assyria and Sumer, similar to how Zulus have that hook over every more deserving Subsaharan civilization - which means every Subsaharan civilization