I played the [pick 30+1 civs mindgame] ... and it made me forgive the developers a bit for some of their choices

[kaspergm]

So, I admit freely that I've been very critical about some of the design choices made for Civ 7 (and I still stand by much of this). One of the things I've spoken loudly against (as has many others) is the forced civ upgrades and the sometimes weird paths it results in. Therefore I decided I wanted to challenge myself and see: If I should pick the 30 (+1) civs going into the base game, could I come up with a better scheme than the one the developers have chosen? And I must admit, the answer to the question seems to be: Only to a certain extent.

So I think I have landed on the 30+1 civs (and their upgrade paths) that I think would be my choice. Along the way, I reached some conclusions:
1) I ended up making some of the same choices that I have criticized the developers for making, simply because they ended up being the best compromise between conflicting priorities.
2) I still think this overall design approach is bad for exactly that reason: It results in too many conflicting interests.
3) 30 civs is simply not enough to include all the important civs, if we also want to have just moderately meaningful upgrade paths (although I feel somewhat confident that the whole idea will make sense once we've had a large number of DLC/expansion civs added to fill the gap).
4) Splitting the Exploration Era into a "Medieval Era" and an "Industrial Era" would have made some of the civ designations a lot easier, as some civs like Franks, Maya and Khmer feel like they should really be Medieval, while some like Ottomans and Gran Colombia feel like they are not really Modern era.

So below an overview of my selection of 30+1 civs. Civs listed in black are civs I would include in base game. Civs listed in orange would be DLC civs planned from start but not included in base game. Civ in green would be the (+1) bonus civ. I don't think this is the perfect layout - like I said, compromises had to be made between on one hand what felt like natural upgrade paths and on the other hand civs that have made historical impact. I would also like to add that the DLC civs listed here is not meant as an exclusive list of civs for the game - but this list includes all the contenders that I had in play for base game inclusion, many of which then ended up being pushed to lower priority. So yes, I would add others civs for Africa, South America and Oceania along the way, to name some not represented here, but I had excluded these from my base game priority list from the beginning. And yes, that may make me Eurocentric, but this was the choice I made in an attempt to balance world coverage vs. historical impact.

Spoiler :

So please, join the game and share here: Which civs would you choose as your 30+1, and based on what criteria?

 

[gdr_willter]

Minimum 15 per Age would be the best, but 45+1 civs delayed to 2026 seems... not better than 30+1 at 2025. I just hope they are preparing the fastest expansion sales plan within 2026.

 

[Krajzen]

Personally I would simply make it possible for civs to be retained in the new era (with some compensatory bonuses to make up for the lack of new toys), and then prepared lineup with some "gaps" having previous era civ as a filler. This allows you to simply have Gauls -> France and be done with it.

So anyway, discussing your scheme,

*I like your French line, though I'd be also fine with Gauls/Rome->Franks->France and I don't hate the current lineup either
*I like your decision to include Italy, but am weirded out by the missing link being Papal States, personally I'd make it either Tuscany, Milan or Venice. My problem with PS is that due to their nature they are torn between representing Italy and representing Latin Christianity.
*I would replace Aragon with Castille
*Goths-HRE-Germany is my dream, and so are Slavs-Muscovy-Russia, no changes here
*Spartans are imo completely and utterly redundant in this scheme
*Instead of Ottomans I'd put Safavids (pr just "Iran"), as an actual evolution of Persia-Abbasids-Safavids. Ottomans csn wait until we give theim Seljuks and either Hittites or some ancient Turks (or even Scythians) as predecessors.
*Celts are redundant in the 1.0 game, because England can grow out of Rome and "Goths" (Germanic tribes), and by the way Celts should also lead to France
*Missisipi and Shawnee leading to US is catastrophic, I'd simply make them go to some 18th and 19th century NA tribe. Remember, everything from 1600s counts as "modern", so why not?
*Three Mesoamerican civs on release are redundant, two are enough
*There are many cultures one can put instead of Wari (my favourite are Caral simply due to being actually first)
*Why did you make Gran Colombia somehow grow out of Inca instead of their obvious descendant, you know... Peru? It's not like the former political entity was more accomplished
*China, India and Japan are fine, though I'd replace Edo with some other, more dramatic and earlier period.
*Chenla is stupidly obscure, similarly to every other ancient SEA choice, so I'm actually fine with Khmer->Majapahit->Siam

 

[gdr_willter]

*China, India and Japan are fine, though I'd replace Edo with some other, more dramatic and earlier period.

Personally I prefer Heian-Shogunate-Japan trio. Meiji can be the alternative for the last of course.

 

[kaspergm]

Personally I would simply make it possible for civs to be retained in the new era (with some compensatory bonuses to make up for the lack of new toys), and then prepared lineup with some "gaps" having previous era civ as a filler. This allows you to simply have Gauls -> France and be done with it.

So anyway, discussing your scheme,

*I like your French line, though I'd be also fine with Gauls/Rome->Franks->France and I don't hate the current lineup either
*I like your decision to include Italy, but am weirded out by the missing link being Papal States, personally I'd make it either Tuscany, Milan or Venice. My problem with PS is that due to their nature they are torn between representing Italy and representing Latin Christianity.
*I would replace Aragon with Castille
*Goths-HRE-Germany is my dream, and so are Slavs-Muscovy-Russia, no changes here
*Spartans are imo completely and utterly redundant in this scheme
*Instead of Ottomans I'd put Safavids (pr just "Iran"), as an actual evolution of Persia-Abbasids-Safavids. Ottomans csn wait until we give theim Seljuks and either Hittites or some ancient Turks (or even Scythians) as predecessors.
*Celts are redundant in the 1.0 game, because England can grow out of Rome and "Goths" (Germanic tribes), and by the way Celts should also lead to France
*Missisipi and Shawnee leading to US is catastrophic, I'd simply make them go to some 18th and 19th century NA tribe. Remember, everything from 1600s counts as "modern", so why not?
*Three Mesoamerican civs on release are redundant, two are enough
*There are many cultures one can put instead of Wari (my favourite are Caral simply due to being actually first)
*Why did you make Gran Colombia somehow grow out of Inca instead of their obvious descendant, you know... Peru? It's not like the former political entity was more accomplished
*China, India and Japan are fine, though I'd replace Edo with some other, more dramatic and earlier period.
*Chenla is stupidly obscure, similarly to every other ancient SEA choice, so I'm actually fine with Khmer->Majapahit->Siam

I actually agree with pretty much all you say, including the introduction about allowing civs to carry over. That would be my preferred design as well (and would solve a lot of problems!!), but like I said, this was just to play with the idea of forced upgrade.

As for your civ comments:

• Italy/Papal States: My original design idea was to emphasize natural evolution above all else. I'm no expert, but when I looked up "history of (city of) Rome", it seemed the history of the city could be divided into three main eras: Classical roman, Papal States and modern Italy. This was why I made that suggested. But like you can see, I ended up deviating from my original plan and prioritizing the Spain line because of historical significance. I picked Aragon simply because Isabella and Ferdinand were rulers of Aragon, were they not?
• Ottomans and the whole middle-eastern line is definitely a major headache for me. I don't even have Persia on this list. Like I said, compromises, and too many were necessary ...
• Celts: Same comment as Italy line, really.
• Shawnee -> USA: I agree, really - but I didn't put any energy into this at all, because apparently the Shawnee have accepted it, and I do think modern USA is impossible to avoid on north-American territory, so ...
• The Gran Colombia vs. Peru was ... well, I originally had Peru there, tbh. It just seems like there's not a whole lot going on in Peruvian history that's particularly significant on a larger scale (sorry if I offend anyone, and I'm no expert at all, so I may just be ignorant). So I put Gran Colombia as a compromise between geography, cultural similarity and historical significance.
• Japan: I don't really know much about Japanese cultures. I saw someone else suggest this, and it's more like a general idea anyway, so if something else is better, I'd go with whatever that is. Shogunate should be represented, I agree.
• Chenla: Again, this is a victim of the design system. Khmer as Ancient just strikes me as ... off. Khmer should be medieval, but since that's not a thing, I put it in Exploration, and Chenla - vague as it is - was the only meaningful I could fill in before it (same with Wari before Inca, really). Khmer seems historically to overlap too much with Majaphit for me to accept the Khmer > Majaphit, not to mention the fact that they are not the same area geographically afaik. But I agree, Khmer is one of the civs that fits really badly into the design scheme they have made.

 

[Xandinho]

For the Italian path, I'd do something like Rome > Tuscany/Venice/Genoa > Sardinia. Perhaps the Kingdom of Sardinia would be a better option for the modern era than unified Italy, due to its great influence on the unification. I'm not sure who I'd choose for the Exploration, perhaps Venice because it fits better with the theme of the Age, but a cultural Tuscany/Florence would also be very interesting.

Isn't Champa more documented than Chenla for Age 1 Southeast Asia?

 

[kaspergm]

Isn't Champa more documented than Chenla for Age 1 Southeast Asia?

I only know about this what a Google search tells me, but my thoughts are this: 1) Yes, Champa is more documented than Chenla, but 2) Champa does not really cover the same area as Khmer, nor does there seem to be any cultural evolution from Champa culture into Khmer culture from what I can find. In fact, searching for this indicates that Champa was actually conquered by the Khmer, which goes directly against the kind of evolution trends I want to see in the game.

 

[FishFishFish]

1. Arab: Nabateans -> Abbasid -> Arabia
2. Burmese: Pyu -> Pagan -> Konbaung
3. Chinese: Han -> Tang -> Qing
4. English: Anglo-Saxons -> England -> United Kingdom
5. Ethiopian: Aksum -> Zagwe -> Ethiopia
6. French: Gaul -> Francia -> France
7. Iranian: Achaemenid -> Sassanid -> Safavids
8. Italian: Rome -> Papal States -> Italy
9. North Indian: Mauryan -> Gupta -> Maratha
10. Very temporary "Orthodoxy" path: Greece -> Byzantium -> Russia

Also Egypt.

Sorry Americas. There is no room for you!

 

[kaspergm]

Sorry Americas. There is no room for you!

 

[uppi]

My try:

Rome​	Franks​	France​
​	​	Germany​
​	English (+1)​	​
Mississippians​	Shawnee​	America​
Greece​	Byzantium​	Ottomans​
Egypt​	Abbasid​
Maya​	Aztecs​	Mexico​
Han​	Ming​	Qing​
Maurya​	Delhi​	Mughals​
Khmer​	Majapahit​	Siam​
Aksum​	Ajuran​	Ethiopia​
Babylon​	Sassanids​	Safavids​

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

I only know about this what a Google search tells me, but my thoughts are this: 1) Yes, Champa is more documented than Chenla, but 2) Champa does not really cover the same area as Khmer, nor does there seem to be any cultural evolution from Champa culture into Khmer culture from what I can find. In fact, searching for this indicates that Champa was actually conquered by the Khmer, which goes directly against the kind of evolution trends I want to see in the game.

This is correct! The Chams had a series of kingdoms in what is now eastern Cambodia and central Vietnam, and were conquered by the Vietnamese and Khmer - having Champa switch to Khmer would definitely be an "succession by military conquest" kind of thing. They were Hindu (remained so while many other groups went Buddhist) and then converted to Islam. Present-day Chams are mostly Muslim. Linguistically, Cham is a little closer to island Southeast Asian groups than mainland groups (which are themselves a very diverse bunch).

Another thing to consider if you're making these trees - how do we balance linguistic or ethnic groupings (often constructed in retrospect in ways that those so labeled wouldn't recognize) with historical political states, especially those that were multi-ethnic? Contrast labels like "Celts" or "Gauls" with "Rome" ("Mississippians" are a different thing, too - an archaeological culture; speculation about ethnic or political unity is just speculation) - historically "Rome" could have distinct policies, foreign relations, etc., but "the Norse" had no such unity. Civ has always had a mix of these, but if you're designing your ideal roster, you'll have to consider these sorts of groupings and what you think an ideal civ-candidate might be.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I think the Antiquity set is excellent, with the only gripe that the roster is too small. But if you could only pick ten and wanted a selection of different, distinct civs from all over the globe - it's a good set.

And every other Civ in the other two era's should flow from those ten choices.

So if I were in charge, I would have at minimum twelve Civs per era. but for this, I'll go for fifteen

For Antiquity: the 10 in base + Assyria, the Hittites, the Goths, the Nazca & Akkad
For Exploration: Ming, Chola, The Shogunate, The Caliphate, Jeoseon, Spain, Byzantium, HRE, England, Aztecs, Incans, Mali, Swahili, Kievan Rus & Mongolia.
For Modern: Japan, Qing, Mughal, Ottomans, Germany, Britain, France, Russia, America, Mexico, Siam, Brazil, Poland, Ethiopia & Nigeria

 

[brainwashh]

Inca to Gran Colombia makes no sense. I wouldn't mind, but you clearly put the Hellenic Republic in there because you wanted to avoid the Byzantine to Ottomans scenario and its unfortunate implications.

Would you extend the same thought to the Inca and have it evolve into Peru instead? Should you be expected to? Of course not.

Threads like these just make me wish Firaxis didn't put as much emphasis into "historical progression". It should be a free for all, with the next civ being unlocked after obtaining a certain criteria, that way we can avoid accusing the game of dictating the course of history when it tells you to go Shawnee>America or Spain>France.

 

[Sirimiri]

Peru was much more significant during the rubber boom and to an extent in the agricultural revolution due to their sales of guano (wanu being the Quechua root!). If anything, in this iteration Peru is a more reasonable inclusion, simply because there's no requirement for an associated leader and this period aligns better with what's being called the Modern Era. I really liked the inclusion of Bolivar and Gran Colombia and I think it's a reasonable pick for Hispanic South America, but there could be a place for Peru.

 

[kaspergm]

Like I said, Inca > Peru was in my original draft, so I have no objection to that.

 

[CivKirk64]

Some quite interesting ideas here. One of the interesting things about how the ages are working is that they contain the traditional eras within them. One civ can be medieval or renaissance era.
I wouldn't complain if a future expansion added more ages. a Neolitic age where you don't have any civ selected, and you can chose any civ once you clear it, with the game suggesting some to you based on your start of your first few settlements. Maybe you start off with only towns and then pick one to become your first city.
After that it would be cool to add a Medieval Age that includes more or less dark age and medieval empires.

And then a Post Modern age for Atomic and future tech civs, even if these civs didn't have associated leaders due to them not wanting any living memory persons in the game anymore.
How they would retrofit civs to fit the last age might be difficult, If a civ has Atomic age units then squish them over, the rest would have to be new.

 

[Leucarum]

Personally, I'm starting to think that enabling specific civ trajectories based on geography/actual history may have been a mistake. It creates too many unsatisfying (or at worst offensive) transitions, and many civs just don't have clear trajectories. Plus this is a game of alt history anyway...

Maybe just tie civ preferences to the leaders based on interesting gameplay interactions? I guess there you get the issue of telling players what to do if you unlock some civs automatically, while making historical accuracy of civ transitions feel even worse (but I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed).

 

[Inhalaattori]

Adding new ages could be a mistake. Less is often better. Having more crisis/ages would make age transitions feel less important and repetative. Having less ages with lots of unique content (even unique game systems) and Civs with lots of unique content is better at least in my opinion.

To me the way they are doing the ages and Civs is quite optiomal from a gameplay perspective. This is a game after all and the idea is to make the game fun and exciting. Civs withs lots of civ specific unique content makes every playthrough feel unique and interesting. Having a game with 100s of Civs with very little difference between them would not be fun. Many things that people are suggesting like for example having one civ, but with changing leaders would cause huge problems. Lots of Antique age civs would be out of the question, because they dont have known leaders and same thing would be problem for all modern Civs - I guess we would have to invent some imaginary leaders for them. When Civs and leaders are not tied together it means that we can add Civs without known historical leader and on the other hand we have less restrictions what leaders we can add to the game.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Now try to play the same game with the condition that every civ should have at least two not entirely terrible paths to go on an age transition, so that whatever player choses, AI would always have some historical-ish option.

 

[kaspergm]

Personally, I'm starting to think that enabling specific civ trajectories based on geography/actual history may have been a mistake. It creates too many unsatisfying (or at worst offensive) transitions, and many civs just don't have clear trajectories. Plus this is a game of alt history anyway...

Maybe just tie civ preferences to the leaders based on interesting gameplay interactions? I guess there you get the issue of telling players what to do if you unlock some civs automatically, while making historical accuracy of civ transitions feel even worse (but I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed).

I think it's a case of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. The current system has some obvious weaknesses like you mention, the most glaring one imo. is when a civ "evolves" into another civ that in fact conquered them in real life (that is not civ evolution, that is one civ losing to another). On the other hand, I think Humankind demonstrated perfectly that allowing civs to evolve in ways that have zero connection to history or geography is a major immersion killer for a lot of players.

The only solution I see that avoids these pitfalls would be something like picking a new leader with each era, but if you want to give the player 2-3 leader choices for each era with each civilization, that obviously quickly blows up to immense dimensions in terms of the number of abilities and leader arts you need to create. A more realistic approach would be to settle for picking a new ability each era, which is essentially just an upgraded version of Civ6 era system (which may not be a bad solution!) - but of course that does not solve the key problem that developers wanted to address which is modern civs in ancient era (and to some extent vice versa).