How would you design nomadic Civilizations?

[Zegangani]

Some Days ago I read, in a Thread here, a discussion about Nomadic/Pastoral/Mobile Civilizations/Tribes, like Mongolia and Scythia, with some Ideas on how they could be played in Civ. Tbh, I've never put much thought into this, since I didn't think that Firaxis would put much effort to make a (truly) unique playstile for just 1-2 Civs to have a nomadic start with mobile Cities till they can settle once and for all. I thought it would require a lot of work and Time which are better spent for a Nomadic Neolethic Start. But, that doesn't have to be the case, I mean it shouldn't be difficult to make (at least if you also don't code AI to handle this), and sometimes simple Solutions are the best. Like Maori's unique Start.

So here is what I came with:

Nomadic Civs, like Mongolia and Scythia, will have this 2nd Unique Civ Ability:

Nomads of the Steppe:

• Start just like usual with their starting Bias, but with 2 caveats:

1) not being able to settle a City within the first 7 Turns (Normal Game Speed) since they have spawned (even if you start the Game in Industrial Era - Doesn't apply In Modern Era and onwards).
2) Can only Settle Cities on Featureless Tiles (No Forest, Jungle...etc).

• Before Settling any City, you get +2 Science and +2 Culture and +1 Faith.
• After every 3 Turns befor settling any City, get a Light Cavalry Unit for Free that doesn't require any Maintenance. If you start in:

- Ancient Era: you start with Animal Husbandry, Archery and Horseback Riding Techs already unlocked and get a Horseman Unit.
- Classical Era: you start with Horseback Riding Tech already unlocked and get a Horseman Unit (Saka Horse Archer in case of Scythia).
- Medieval Era: you start with Strirrups Tech already unlocked and get a Courser Unit (Keshig in case of Mongolia).
- Early Modern Era: you get a Courser Unit.
- Industrial Era: you start with Military Science Tech already unlocked and get a Cavalry Unit.
- Modern Era onwards: no Benefits.

• When you have settled at least 2 Cities, you can pack up any non-capital Cities and move them elsewhere with a Nomad Settler Unit that has a Melee Strength to defend itself (moved City will get a new Name but all the Population will move with it). If you want to move your Capital City [A] too, you can only do that by moving your Capital to another City (with a Project like Dido's) and then you can move that original capital City [A]. And while moving a City, you get +1 Science and + 1 Culture (Doubled if it had a Campus or Theatre Square, respectively), and +1 Faith if that City had a Holy Site (+1 Science and + 1 Culture in each Era after Ancient Era, and also + 1 Faith if City had a Holy Site).
• When moving a City, get a Free worker when settling that City.

I've actually designed this (specifically for Scythia and Mongolia) around Civ VI's modding Capabilities, because I would really like to make a Civ 6 Mod out of this. I don't know how balanced this all is, and I'm sure the AI won't make full use of this, but it's to be played with not against.

I would like to know what you think of this and how YOU would design a Nomadic Civ.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I would prefer a "Neolithic Era" and "Barbarian Clans" like mechanic in which before you have proper cities the base element is the Tribe/Camp (or village) that can change between its unit and infrastructure form, these Tribes/Camps could still be around even after turn some in cities but each era would naturaly reduce their value with new techs and civics that turn them more innefficient.

Of course civs like Mongols, Comanches or even Arabs could have some bonus that make Tribe/Camp more useful in later eras.

 

[Amrunril]

An option closer to the default mechanics would be to adapt the floating city mechanics from Beyond Earth Rising TIde (cities can be moved as a project and claim all adjacent tiles when doing so). District mechanics would make this trickier of course. The solution I thought of for the Lakota civ idea in my signature was removing districts that are no longer in range of their city but allowing them to be rebuilt at a reduced cost.

 

[jsciv69]

Muisca
The Muisca are a Native people of what is now modern day Colombia. They formed what was called Muisca Confederation. Before the Spanish invasion, The Muisca covered a territory of close to 10,000 sq. miles. Agriculture, salt mining, trading, metalworking, and manufacturing were trademarks of The Muisca economy. South America is home to many Native Tribes that could get some consideration. The Muisca would be my consideration.

 

[Krajzen]

I wouldn't, nomadic people by definition aren't urban societies, which is what Civilization games are modelling. Nomadic people are by the nature of non - urban societies extremely limited in terms of demographics, institutions, economic sophistication and science - technology, they'd never be able to hit industrial revolution (good luck finding recors of nomadic peoples developing advanced mathematics for example). There's also a reason why we always talk about Eurasian steppe nomads in this context of nomadic people being capable of genuinely fight 1v1 urban civilizations. This context of steppe environment and horse archer warriors was pretty much the only way for nomadic societies to be militarily capable of resisting incomparably more densely populated urban civilizations. Well either that or extremely rough, isolated terrain.

What I'm going to say now sounds really terrible from modern morality point of view but I genuinely think nomadic peoples are best represented as, well, 'barbarians' - which is why I'd leave 'barbarians' in the game and just rename them to something sounding less offensive, give them more individuality, and an ability to peacefully integrate them. Eurasian steppe nomads and them being a constant headache to settled societies, with no ability to decisively conquer them until more modern eras, but also not very capable of changing the course of history too much unles they settle - are just wonderfully displayed as 'barbarian' camps spawning constantly in uncolonized areas of the map.

Mongols aren't exactly problematic exception imo, because they were 'barbarians' militarily threatening China for millenias with no ability to do much more, until they got so exceptionally organized they were able to conquer and rule very much urban empires. So in terms of civ games it's as if Mongol civilization arrived in the medieval era, spawning from barbarians, working as a regular civ from this point onwards. Manchu were not even nomadic but agricultural peoples, and besides that the same reasoning works here - they have established a regular urban civilization. Timurids, Khazars, Seljuks and Tatars were regular urban state empires. Huns are exactly the kind of peoples who shouldn't ever be in civ series in my opinion, and them being here has always been very awkward on many levels (especially no city list and 'Attila's camp' as a capital). Scythians aren't even real peoples, the name is a Greek umbrella term for whatever horse nomads from steppe, there were a ton of separate Iranian tribes there at this time.

A separate issue are peoples who actually lived from agriculture but couldn't hit enough population density to turn into cities and state organization (Maori, various Native Americans etc) who also feel very awkward for me, but I handwave that saying 'we want to imagine those cool cultures in the alternate history environments which would actually allow them to do civilization Sumer style', so they play the same anyway. But I just... don't believe there is a 'nomadic civilization' alternative to a 'regular' civilization, you can't develop most of 'civilization activities' if your environment doesnt' allow you to go into agriculture and high population density.

 

[dagriggstar]

On a basic level, I'd rather just have an improvement that sort of takes up more space on the map. Sort of like
Mongolia
UI - Ger - +0.5 food and 0.5 production per adjacent unimproved land tile. +1 science/culture per adjacent strategic/luxury resource. +2 faith per adjacent bonus resource. (Scale up with tech advancement)
This way, you sort of get low population "cities" that stay productive. You are also more effective than a "normal" faction at settling what in civ terms would be undesirable tiles. The civ doesn't play massively different to other civs. Finally we could say the citizens working the Ger tile itself are moving around the map area 'being nomadic'.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Muisca
The Muisca are a Native people of what is now modern day Colombia. They formed what was called Muisca Confederation. Before the Spanish invasion, The Muisca covered a territory of close to 10,000 sq. miles. Agriculture, salt mining, trading, metalworking, and manufacturing were trademarks of The Muisca economy. South America is home to many Native Tribes that could get some consideration. The Muisca would be my consideration.

I don't believe the Muisca are nomadic?

Anyway I'd like something similar to what @BuchiTaton said. Everybody starts out with a "settler" unit, a warrior unit, and a scout in a "Neolithic Era". You can use the settler to temporarily place down a campsite where you have the ability to produce more warriors, scouts, and slingers to gather food. Eventually you'll gather enough and learn agriculture to where your settler can finally find a permanent place to start your first city.

Other "tribes" that research agriculture and found cities on their own will become the other major civilizations. There will still be more hostile tribes that act like barbarians and other peaceful tribal villages that will take longer to civilize. Most of them will become city-states like the current Barbarians Clan mode, but could also potentially other civs, like Mongolia, who get bonuses for staying nomadic longer. For example the Ger/Ordu could replacing the campsite mentioned above or they could get the ability to start the game with Animal Husbandry/Archery/Horseback Riding from the start of the game.

 

[Zegangani]

An option closer to the default mechanics would be to adapt the floating city mechanics from Beyond Earth Rising TIde (cities can be moved as a project and claim all adjacent tiles when doing so). District mechanics would make this trickier of course. The solution I thought of for the Lakota civ idea in my signature was removing districts that are no longer in range of their city but allowing them to be rebuilt at a reduced cost.

That's a really good Idea. Haven't played BE, so I didn't know about it. And Yes, it would be tricky with Districts, many Bonuses that a City profits from come from Districts, so when moving a City, all those Benefits get lost. It can be seen as the consequence for moving Cities, tho.

I wouldn't, nomadic people by definition aren't urban societies, which is what Civilization games are modelling. Nomadic people are by the nature of non - urban societies extremely limited in terms of demographics, institutions, economic sophistication and science - technology, they'd never be able to hit industrial revolution (good luck finding recors of nomadic peoples developing advanced mathematics for example). There's also a reason why we always talk about Eurasian steppe nomads in this context of nomadic people being capable of genuinely fight 1v1 urban civilizations. This context of steppe environment and horse archer warriors was pretty much the only way for nomadic societies to be militarily capable of resisting incomparably more densely populated urban civilizations. Well either that or extremely rough, isolated terrain.

What I'm going to say now sounds really terrible from modern morality point of view but I genuinely think nomadic peoples are best represented as, well, 'barbarians' - which is why I'd leave 'barbarians' in the game and just rename them to something sounding less offensive, give them more individuality, and an ability to peacefully integrate them. Eurasian steppe nomads and them being a constant headache to settled societies, with no ability to decisively conquer them until more modern eras, but also not very capable of changing the course of history too much unles they settle - are just wonderfully displayed as 'barbarian' camps spawning constantly in uncolonized areas of the map.

Mongols aren't exactly problematic exception imo, because they were 'barbarians' militarily threatening China for millenias with no ability to do much more, until they got so exceptionally organized they were able to conquer and rule very much urban empires. So in terms of civ games it's as if Mongol civilization arrived in the medieval era, spawning from barbarians, working as a regular civ from this point onwards. Manchu were not even nomadic but agricultural peoples, and besides that the same reasoning works here - they have established a regular urban civilization. Timurids, Khazars, Seljuks and Tatars were regular urban state empires. Huns are exactly the kind of peoples who shouldn't ever be in civ series in my opinion, and them being here has always been very awkward on many levels (especially no city list and 'Attila's camp' as a capital). Scythians aren't even real peoples, the name is a Greek umbrella term for whatever horse nomads from steppe, there were a ton of separate Iranian tribes there at this time.

A separate issue are peoples who actually lived from agriculture but couldn't hit enough population density to turn into cities and state organization (Maori, various Native Americans etc) who also feel very awkward for me, but I handwave that saying 'we want to imagine those cool cultures in the alternate history environments which would actually allow them to do civilization Sumer style', so they play the same anyway. But I just... don't believe there is a 'nomadic civilization' alternative to a 'regular' civilization, you can't develop most of 'civilization activities' if your environment doesnt' allow you to go into agriculture and high population density.

That's actually how the Game should be designed, and how I would prefer it to be, with Historicity and Realism, thus to keep the Game immersive. However, Civilization is just History based, with historical flavour so to speak. So, as long as the Design of a Civ, Mechanic, Wonder...etc has some historical roots and flair or resemblance to their IRL Inspiration, it's going to fit the Theme and Style of the Game. If we're going for historicity and realism as strict rules when designing things, most of the things in Civ will be boring and uninteresting, like the Wonders wouldn't have any Bonus Effects aside from being a Tourism Attraction, or serving a small to moderate role in case of some Wonders. So they wouldn't be worth the Production Cost, and Players would only build them for either a Culture Victory or because they like their Appearance.

So, I think it's Ok to get a little away from the realism path if it's for intereseting and good Gameplay. The Game is full of such good Systems but only few are boring or cumbersome, even if many are a little immersion breaking.

Though, I would like to have more Dynamic "Barbarians", which we should just call "Independent People" or "Tribes/Clans". Not calling them Barbarians would allow the introduction of many minor Civs as independent Tribes/Clans. Each Tribe should be unique, like some are more peacful than others, others are more raging/hostile (like Huns), some may have unique Luxuries to Trade, others have unique Units, some you can only find in certain Climates...etc, and their characteristics would affect how you interact with them, like peaceful Tribes would be more open for trade and they may join your Empire, and more aggressive Barbarians are less likely to Trade with you but they are willing to be hired as Mercenaries or get bribed to attack a certain City/Outpost. But they should be different from City-States (which should remain), which you can have influence over and get suzerain of them so they join you into war and peace. Independent Tribes, are not directly influencable, but they should have, like in the Barbarian Clans Mode, a conversion Bar, that fills the more you interract with them, and when filled they become a CS. Basically just like how they function in the Clans Mode but (without being called Barbarians) combined with Goody Huts and with more individuality.

 

[mitsho]

I do think there‘s a small confusion in here. Nomadic doesn‘t mean mobile cities. I do agree that that is a nightmare for gameplay reasons - a lot of clicking and you have to give so many more bonuses that it feels gimmicky and not like simulating history.

However, one problem that civilization always had with Maps of the World or even of Europe is that there are these gigantic steppes that just consist out of plain tiles without any resources or features. In the games, you‘d fill them up with a range of cities that may grow hugely large because you could farm everything in between, making „Russia“ filled with cities. That also feels wrong.

So what I am imagining with a „nomadic civilization“ is one which cities take up many more tiles than ones from civilizations in other regions of the world. Their districts would be spread over a larger area and their tiles less fertile which is why they need more of them to feed a single city and that in turn favours them using a lot of cavalry. And that is their nomadic (or rather pastoral) lifestyle: instead of farming, they raise herds. So basically, I want assymetric civ designs - and yeah, if there are 20 civs, 10 could be normal, but there can be also 2-3 group of civs that function radically different.

And this nomadic playstyle would btw not be restricted to the Steppes. I can see the Polynesians work similarly: Instead of setting lots of small islands with cities that can‘t produce much, a single „city region“ could spread over a lot of islands and be comparable to City of a „normal“ civilization. Maybe it could also be better to tie those special ways not to the civilization, but the terrain.

 

[Zegangani]

Nomadic doesn‘t mean mobile cities.

It sure isn't. But as you gessed it, it's more for Gameplay purposes than for simulating History.

Maybe it could also be better to tie those special ways not to the civilization, but the terrain.

Both would be cool. Having certain Civilizations have a non-usual Playstyle, like the Maori, would be a good thing (that should be expanded on in Civ 7). And having a variety in Terrain Types, Biomes, would certainly affect Settlements and how you grow your Population, aka how you play the Map.

 

[BuchiTaton]

However, one problem that civilization always had with Maps of the World or even of Europe is that there are these gigantic steppes that just consist out of plain tiles without any resources or features. In the games, you‘d fill them up with a range of cities that may grow hugely large because you could farm everything in between, making „Russia“ filled with cities. That also feels wrong.

The problem here is the terrain system, plains are not fertile just beacuse their relief the kind of soil and climate are also very relevant. A better system would have different kinds of vegetation coverage related to climate and independent of relief. Something like this:

> COLD, *Glacier (None), *Tundra (Low), *Steppe (Medium), *Taiga (High)
> TEMPERATE, *Badland (None), *Moor (Low), *Prarie (Medium), *Woods (High)
> HOT, *Dunes (None), *Scrub (Low) *Savanna (Medium), *Jungle (Hihgh)

Steppe would be useful just for pastures (horses, goats/sheep) so they would not be attractive unless you have some bonus (like for example mongols could have).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The problem here is the terrain system, plains are not fertile just beacuse their relief the kind of soil and climate are also very relevant. A better system would have different kinds of vegetation coverage related to climate and independent of relief. Something like this:

> COLD, *Glacier (None), *Tundra (Low), *Steppe (Medium), *Taiga (High)
> TEMPERATE, *Badland (None), *Moor (Low), *Prarie (Medium), *Woods (High)
> HOT, *Dunes (None), *Scrub (Low) *Savanna (Medium), *Jungle (Hihgh)

Steppe would be useful just for pastures (horses, goats/sheep) so they would not be attractive unless you have some bonus (like for example mongols could have).

Steppe or Prairie are not products of Cold or Temperate, they are products of Continental: central locations that do not get the amount of rainfall that coastal regions or simply areas nearer to the sea get. Here in Puget Sound I am actually north of the Great American Prairie and on the same latitude as most of the Central Asian steppe, but I'm also right next to the Pacific Ocean, so there ain't no steppe or prairie anywhere around here until you cross the Cascade Mountains and get to the dry interior. Those continental interiors are also home to more Extremes of temperature, so you get bone-chilling frozen winds on the steppe in winter, but you also get sizzling hot summers - with a fraction of the rain that the coastal areas get.

And the Bonus that made steppe or prairie attractive was Horses. Once you could ride cross the prairie or steppe instead of trudging across it on foot the terrain took on an entirely new aspect: one man on a horse can herd up to 4 times more animals than a man on foot, so you could have really big herds (and Herd = Wealth) - and feed them on the grass of the steppe because you weren't tied to a distance of a day's walk from the nearest river - and move with them because even without wheels, horses could haul travois and carry all your worldly goods with you (as the Lakotah, Comanche, Cheyenne could demonstrate throughout the late 18th and early 19th centuries). But by no accident, the first solid wheels and wagons appear in the archeological record on the edge of the steppe, and the first spoked wheel chariots appear from the steppe, along with early saddles and later the stirrup - the horse was important enough that people kept adding technology to it.

And no, the pastoral societies did not build many cities (but did build some) but they did control more territory than most cities of any size before the Industrial Era, and their mobility allowed them to act as Middle Men for trade across those wide territories.
So we don't need a Mobile City, we need a new Mechanism showing the Tribal concentrations and territorial control and the ability of those "concentrations" to both project power, provide Trade contacts and Routes and move to exploit terrain and resources over a wide area. That includes areas that are not featureless steppe, since it was central Asian pastoral groups that exploited mineral resources of gold, silver and copper and traded them for finished goods with the settled Maikop Culture, which also (probably) acted as the conduit to spread the wheeled chariot to the middle eastern states.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Steppe or Prairie are not products of Cold or Temperate, they are products of Continental: central locations that do not get the amount of rainfall that coastal regions or simply areas nearer to the sea get. Here in Puget Sound I am actually north of the Great American Prairie and on the same latitude as most of the Central Asian steppe, but I'm also right next to the Pacific Ocean, so there ain't no steppe or prairie anywhere around here until you cross the Cascade Mountains and get to the dry interior. Those continental interiors are also home to more Extremes of temperature, so you get bone-chilling frozen winds on the steppe in winter, but you also get sizzling hot summers - with a fraction of the rain that the coastal areas get.

This is Rainfall Shadow effect that produce more rain on the prevailing winds side´s and reduce the other side, the humidity reduction could be the proper for Prarie and Steppe, but...
- Not all Continental Climate (Koppen's) regions are afar from the coast.
- Not all the Continental Climate regions are covered by Praries or Steppe.
- Both terms, Praries (commonly) and Steppes (some times) are used for biomes that not fit 100% in Koppen's Continental climate.

Also there are many factors involved in the kind of vegetation biome can have:
- Temperature (variation range and seasonality), humidity (precipitation, amount and seasonality), winds, etc.
- Soil (structure, profundity, ph, salinity, etc.)
- Fauna (animals have a significative role modeling the plant coverture as pollinators, dispersers, consumers, etc.)
And these factors are produced by the relative localization (Coriolis Effect, latitude, altitude), relief (Rain Shadow, basins, etc.), bedrock (minerals), etc.

Anyway, the simulation of the factors to have some Biome is something I would not expect in CIV neither from Firaxis. CIV dont need to simulate all the process to get a tile's biome, so always is better so have an abstracted system that could be easy to remember and use by the player.
- Glacier, Badland and Dunes are tiles of almost no use.
- Low precipitation have disperse vegetation, can settle and cultivate but are kind of bad.
- Medium are open lands dominated by grass.
- High (precipitation and vegetation) would be naturaly covered by forest.
- In the axis of temperature temperate are in general* a more friendly option in each kind, but the others could still have some pros.

So a clear system of 12 (3x4) climate/biome tiles to use for gameplay, not a simulator.

And the Bonus that made steppe or prairie attractive was Horses. Once you could ride cross the prairie or steppe instead of trudging across it on foot the terrain took on an entirely new aspect: one man on a horse can herd up to 4 times more animals than a man on foot, so you could have really big herds (and Herd = Wealth) - and feed them on the grass of the steppe because you weren't tied to a distance of a day's walk from the nearest river - and move with them because even without wheels, horses could haul travois and carry all your worldly goods with you (as the Lakotah, Comanche, Cheyenne could demonstrate throughout the late 18th and early 19th centuries). But by no accident, the first solid wheels and wagons appear in the archeological record on the edge of the steppe, and the first spoked wheel chariots appear from the steppe, along with early saddles and later the stirrup - the horse was important enough that people kept adding technology to it.

Horses are usefull (obviously) in steppe, but once domesticated if the bonus is linked just to the Horses you could expand the same on any biome.
- Bonus in Horse and no pro/con Steppe > Expand on any place, Steppe would still be full of cities in/or irrelevant.
- Steppe gives bonus to horse and no so good for agriculture > Expand covered area and discourage agrarian cities.
Apart from Horse's won bonus, Steppe must have their own interactions, for example you can put duplicate Horses on Steppe.

And no, the pastoral societies did not build many cities (but did build some) but they did control more territory than most cities of any size before the Industrial Era, and their mobility allowed them to act as Middle Men for trade across those wide territories.
So we don't need a Mobile City, we need a new Mechanism showing the Tribal concentrations and territorial control and the ability of those "concentrations" to both project power, provide Trade contacts and Routes and move to exploit terrain and resources over a wide area. That includes areas that are not featureless steppe, since it was central Asian pastoral groups that exploited mineral resources of gold, silver and copper and traded them for finished goods with the settled Maikop Culture, which also (probably) acted as the conduit to spread the wheeled chariot to the middle eastern states.

And that is what the Tribe/Camp is supposed to do, settlements that are not cities but give territorial control, yields and units.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The two areas of Steppe/Prairie that have supported significant populations and varieties of pastoral cultures are the central Eurasian steppe (which actually covers a variety of biomes from desert to near desert to cold desert to steppe/prairie grasslands to wide and expansive marshy river valleys to edge of forest meadowlands) and the western North American prairies between the Rocky Mountains and, roughly, the Mississippi basin. Both are largely the products of a combination of Rain Shadow and Continental distance effects.

Another point on the American Bison is that the herds may have contributed to the maintenance of the short grass prairie through their sheer mass: between grazing and trampling they kept the ocasional 'wet' years from producing heavier plant cover on the prairies.

The horse impact as I mentioned was strictly confined to the steppe/prairie environment, because of the hostility of that environment to humans on foot. The archeological evidence (so far) shows that human settlement across both the Eurasian steppe and NA prairies was confined to river valleys, because between the rivers there was no guarantee of finding surface water, and too often the distance between the rivers was several days' travel time on foot - enough to leave a tribal group losing members and animals from their herds to thirst . On horseback the travel time was reduced for humans and the capability of herding your own animals faster was achieved, and so exploitation of the broad grasslands between the rivers started. The NA prairie, in fact, seems to have been largely empty until tribes got horses, and the 'boundary' of horse-owning tribes moved steadily north from the Spanish settlements where the horses originated. One important reason for the dominance of the Lakota and the other Souix tribes was that they moved onto the prairie on the moving boundary of firearms acquisition from the French and British and acquired both horses and firearms before most of the other tribes, which gave them a tremendous advantage over them.

Adding to all this, as mentioned, is that the steppe/prairie environment was also hostile to agriculture until the Industrial Era's development of relatively advanced irrigation techniques and modified plants like Russian Wheat that could survive the relatively harsh environment. Before that, any agriculture was confined to the river valleys, leaving the vast areas between the rivers to herding or hunting almost exclusively.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Some gameplay examples of terrain (symetric classification to easy understanding) .

> BARREN = Units can stand and cross over, but can not build* on it. Science Expedition can find resources, eurekas and natural specimens.
- Glacier: +2 attrition
- Badland: -2 movement
- Dunes: -1 movement +1 attrition

> SCRUBLAND = Cities and all kind of infrastructure can be build, but in general have not so good yields, unless you have the appropiate bonus.
- Tundra: +1 food, spam Reindeer (+1 gold expand the tundra city range x2) and Llama (+2 production)
- Maquis: +2 food +1 production, spam and bonus for Sheep, Olives and Wine
- Xeric: +1 food +1 production, spam Goat (+1 food), Donkey (+1 production) and Camel (+1 gold expand the xeric city range x2)

> GRASSLAND = Open fertile areas, basically good for food production.
- Steppe: +2 food, Pasture (x2 bonus) and spam Horse (+1 gold expand the steppe city range x2)
- Prairie: +3 food, Farm (x2 bonus) and spam Cattle (+1 food +1 production)
- Savanna: +2 food, Plantation (x2 bonus) and spam Elephant (+2 production)

> FOREST = Naturaly covered and can regrow. Spam many luxuries.
- Taiga: +3 production, spam Fur (+2 gold)
- Woods: +1 food +2 production, spam Pig (+2 food)
- Jungle: +1 food +2 production, spam Sugar, Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, Water Bufallo (+1 food, +1 production)

There are also different kinds of crops that have also different preferences (wheat, maize, rice, sorghum, millet, potato, cassava, etc.)

Elevation would have different levels instead of just be plains and hills (also help for world generation to simulate the altitude/latitude vegetation succession) and for the defensive bonus it apply for the movement between tiles of different high. Others features like rivers and mountains still have their own characteristics to add.

 

[mitsho]

That sounds all good and interesting.

For me, the game doesn't need to simulate a new Earth with all the knowledge of geography. Gameplay takes first, but there's two aspects they should take into consideration for the next game with the better and better computers:

- Dynamic geography. I want river changing paths, areas drying out, land going under. I do think it's feasible in the run of the game that there is some reaction to what the humans are doing and also just natural phenomena.

- Not every "feature" needs to be the same. Petra and Chichen Itza are cool wonders to build, but I do want my deserts to be deserts and not "prime city building location". If that means that cities in these areas cover a bigger area and citizens can "work" 4 desert tiles instead of 1 grassland tile, that's good for me.

And only if we have these two systems in place, then we can think about how "nomadism" should work in game.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That sounds all good and interesting.

For me, the game doesn't need to simulate a new Earth with all the knowledge of geography. Gameplay takes first, but there's two aspects they should take into consideration for the next game with the better and better computers:

- Dynamic geography. I want river changing paths, areas drying out, land going under. I do think it's feasible in the run of the game that there is some reaction to what the humans are doing and also just natural phenomena.

- Not every "feature" needs to be the same. Petra and Chichen Itza are cool wonders to build, but I do want my deserts to be deserts and not "prime city building location". If that means that cities in these areas cover a bigger area and citizens can "work" 4 desert tiles instead of 1 grassland tile, that's good for me.

And only if we have these two systems in place, then we can think about how "nomadism" should work in game.

The game needs both more Dynamism and better representation of the Extremes of climate/terrain.

Right now, all resources are Fixed from Start of Game: you can't move plants or animals, you discover all the minerals at fixed times and all at once - there is no possibility of discovering a new Iron or Silver deposit in the late game.
Right now, you can place a City virtually anywhere on the map. It won't grow very big in Tundra or the middle of a trackless Desert, but you can put it there and keep it there from the start of the game with the most primitive Bronze Age/Chacolithic technology.

Civ VII, regardless of how it models the Civs themselves (and I think it does need a new and different model At Least for Pastoral/Nomadic and City State Civs) desperately needs to make Resources dynamic and changing throughout the game and make terrain really, really critical to where you can place a city or district, especially in the early game when extensive modification of the terrain is either impossible or incredibly expensive in human, political, and physical resources.

Dynamic Resources would keep the late game interesting, as you have to keep on the look-out both for new Resources that technology makes available to supercede old ones, and for new sources of old ones that you still need and cannot be replaced easily. This alone would go a long way towards reducing the Late Game Dullness tha now infects Civ VI, where you wind up clicking through turn after turn in a game that is already essentially won except for piling up the last conversion or conquest.

Making some tiles virtually impossible to settle until better Technology or extreme Need is available without Civilization Uniques for the terrain would both help differentiate Civs more extremely and, again, make the late game more interesting as tiles 'open up' for settlement as your ability to support a population in Extreme Terrain improves. You want to build a city high in the mountains, either play Incas or research Dynamite. You want to settle the Arctic, you wait until Industrial Era technologies are available, because not even the most snow-loving Russki tried to put a city in the permanent snow until then. And the Norse in Greenland showed what happened when you tried to settle where you didn't have the technology to tackle the extreme terrain/cimate.

Dynamic Terrain. I've been arguing that Climate Change is an on-going phenomena, not just an End Game one, for years. Good Micro-Example: the pass at Thermopolaye was about 100 meters wide when the Spartans died there. It is now over 9000 meters wide, because of the silting up of the Malian Gulf by the Sperchelos River nearby.

Things change. The classical harbor of Alexandria is now well below sea level. Several major ports in Europe during the Middle Ages are now inland or harborless because of changes in the coastal configuration. In 4000 BCE, large parts of the 'Sahara' were actually Savannah. Merely having a few volcanoes go dormant or start erupting is no substitute for a really dynamic landscape and climate model for the game.

 

[BuchiTaton]

The question is would the average player enjoy to have their early game cities randomly destroyed?
Ancient Era itself cover as much time as all the others together, so most of the natural changes would be there or at least in classical and medieval. The gameplay usefull aspect of Climatic Change are:
- Late game: Add something to deal with and move the table for everybody.
- Easy to correlate: The effects of massives changes from Industrial Revolution are easy to catch for players.
- Consequences of own actions: The system is mainly related to CO2 emissions, so what you build, destroy, exploit, what are your policies and techs on late translate to some degree of pollution. Their early equivalent would be mainly from natural cicles, so players would find it as gratuite punishment.

On my system the effects of climatic change are also easy to read, for example:
- Level 1 to 2 elevation tiles would be sumerged by sea.
- Tiles turn one level more arid, like Jungle > Savanna > Xeric > Dunes
- Tiles turn one level hotter Glacier > Tundra

Players could catch that have a volcano as neighbor could mean destruction at some time, but if some classical ports are now under water and medieval ones are inland what kind of clue would the players have to not rage when their port just got wasted by random event?

 

[Naokaukodem]

How would you design nomadic Civilizations?

By making all civs nomadic at the start. I would love to see hunter-gatherers win the game, but I strongly wonder how though. But can hunter-gatherers be called "civilization" ? If not, just let them disappear, at least in majority.

 

[BuchiTaton]

How would you design nomadic Civilizations?

By making all civs nomadic at the start. I would love to see hunter-gatherers win the game, but I strongly wonder how though. But can hunter-gatherers be called "civilization" ? If not, just let them disappear, at least in majority.

I think the key is to have some lesser city-like element to represent the non-urban populations, because is not just for hunter-gatherers, agrarian villages and pastorial camps were the core of what in game are "barbarians" and even most of CIVs playables were not urban at 4000BC.

Pastorial Camps were the more nomadic with regular migrations, but many Agrarian Villages also had massive migrations when some mix of natural and human presure forced them, a lot of civs on game would fit in these options.