Is Venice the mysterious 'Pro'-Civ? Is it designed as OCC-variant?

[CGPanama]

Not sure how to interpret the "pro-civ" comment, but the discussion made me thing of an off the wall possibility. What about creating a true "Republic". Venice is essentially a City State which cannot produce settlers, but instead can subsume other City States into its Civ. I could think of all kinds of gameplay challenges this would offer that might be considered "pro-civ".

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Not sure how to interpret the "pro-civ" comment, but the discussion made me thing of an off the wall possibility. What about creating a true "Republic". Venice is essentially a City State which cannot produce settlers, but instead can subsume other City States into its Civ. I could think of all kinds of gameplay challenges this would offer that might be considered "pro-civ".

We already have this. Diplomatic Marriage via Austria.

Just so you know, the idea of "no settlers" for any civ WILL never happen in Civilization. As fun as it might found it's completely.. hmm, unbalanced and unfair.

Devs would never do it.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I think the best opportunity to create a Civ that cannot build Settlers has come and gone with the Huns.

CGPanama's post did make me think of Diplomatic Marriage. I can't see it being incorporated as is into another Civ, which is kind of a shame as I think it might work quite well for Venice.

Anyway, my new theory - based in part on wishful thinking - is that the devs are actually adding Italy, not Venice, but decided to troll us with the whole Venice/Riga replacement theory...

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

To me, pro-civ would mean versatile. Like a Swiss Army knife of possibilities. I've been considering that if Venice were in, it could not be solely focused on trade because that's portugal's flavor. But it could be a mix of naval might, culture, and trade, which would be more versatile. A pro-civ.

 

[Scaramanga]

Maybe they meant "proto" civ, a very ancient one like Suneria (even though Ur is the game...).

 

[Zodan_Mir]

A few weeks back, I developed a similar idea where a civ could be added to the game with a forced OCC component. The only difference is that I based my idea around Minoan culture. I could see a Minoan civ with this design before any other civ, as Crete was an island nation but also a huge part of trade and culture/art in the early Aegean. It established the foundations for maritime trade and the notion of independent culture before phoenicia, greece, etc.

Not sure about Venice; nothing about Venice really stands out to me. It was certainly a "hot bed" of culture and art--but it doesn't stand out as a full blown, world-building civilization to me. It was a cultural focal point during a particular era, but did it really lay the foundation for a succeeding civilization? It was a trendy place for artists and musicians in it's day, but what else?

 

[codepoet]

We already have this. Diplomatic Marriage via Austria.

Just so you know, the idea of "no settlers" for any civ WILL never happen in Civilization. As fun as it might found it's completely.. hmm, unbalanced and unfair.

Devs would never do it.

Well maybe not "no settlers" but rather gets their settlers through a different mechanism? Coming to mind is maybe Papal States and "settling" is done by sending missionaries to barbarian camps...

 

[Scaramanga]

Florence would be better for OCC. You'd have to be a "Perfect Prince" to win that.

 

[Snoopaloop]

There is already a Venice/Italy/Papal States speculation thread....

 

[SammyKhalifa]

To me a "pro" civ would be just a generic civ with no AI and no units or buildings. Plain grey flag? Available as an option in the startup menu.

 

[Deggial]

There is already a Venice/Italy/Papal States speculation thread....

Thanks for the info!
I was aware of this fact and therefore mentioned it in my OP.

That's why I would love to see this thread dedicated to the idea of Venice as 'Pro'-civ. (And it was taken as such).
What could be a civilization, that is legitimately titled 'Pro'? And especially: Could it be some OCC-related game mechanic? I think, this is quite different to the thread you mention.
There were some really reasonable and interesting considerations posted in this thread and I would love to read more of them.

I still think, an OCC-civ could be possible, but with some major changes to the OCC we already can chose as game option. (@g3istbot: You are right, a civ would be pointless, if it plays exactly like a game with this option.)
For example: Puppet cities will be allowed. Annexing them, not.

As Menzies mentioned, one main problem would be, how the AI is capable to handle a special civilization like this. An absolutely valid point!

I proposed that settlers would be able to establish outposts. (By the way: this was requested by fans many times. We know that Firaxis listens to us. Maybe this might be a way they made them reappear? As special ability/handicap?)

How could those outposts be interesting for the player and manageable by the AI at the same time? Maybe like this:

- Outposts count as cities and are handled as such by the AI.
- There is no (significant?) happiness- or cultur-hit due to outposts.
- There is no cultur-related border growth. New tiles must be purchased. (Very suitable to a money-based civ.)
- Building options are very limited: Defensive buildings and wealth-buildings, but no units.
- Granary and workshop can be built in order to allow national trade routes to enhance Venice (the capital).

(Further ideas:
- There is no natural population-growth. Instead, there could be an increased base-production - enough to build early buildings quite fast. Advanced buildings would take very long to be built.
- Alternatively, additional citizen are added when a new era is entered.)

--

My mayor point regarding the likeliness of thuch an "unconventional" civilization concept:
Firaxis came up with some really interesting and out-of-the-box ideas so far. As the total numbers of civilizations keeps growing, exceptional ideas get sparse. As the boring "+2 bonus to XYZ" is not the way to go, new concepts are harder to find.

I really think, with 43 civilizations there is enough room for at least on really daring "experimental civ"!

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Perhaps the translation could also mean a civilization very much desired by the fans?

But why don't call it simply 'fan-favorite" then?

Possibly they would have if the article was in English, but it was in German. As you're in Germany, you'll know better than I, but I took "Pro-Volk" to possibly mean "For the people", hence my comment. As far as I'm concerned it could mean a multitude of things; I hope it is Venice like you've suggested though .

 

[Louis XXIV]

A few weeks back, I developed a similar idea where a civ could be added to the game with a forced OCC component. The only difference is that I based my idea around Minoan culture. I could see a Minoan civ with this design before any other civ, as Crete was an island nation but also a huge part of trade and culture/art in the early Aegean. It established the foundations for maritime trade and the notion of independent culture before phoenicia, greece, etc.

Not sure about Venice; nothing about Venice really stands out to me. It was certainly a "hot bed" of culture and art--but it doesn't stand out as a full blown, world-building civilization to me. It was a cultural focal point during a particular era, but did it really lay the foundation for a succeeding civilization? It was a trendy place for artists and musicians in it's day, but what else?

I have no problem having the Minoans as separate from the Greeks (aside from the fact that we literally don't know what language they spoke at the time or any of their leaders), but I struggle to see why you consider Crete to be a better choice than Venice. Even adjusting scale for the time period (i.e., those in later eras would have to have a proportionally greater influence than one in the ancient eastern Mediterranean), Venice was at least as influential if not more so than the Minoans.

Anyway, "pro" is such a vague term that all our speculation is essentially guesswork. The only way we'll be able to figure it out is if another reviewer also describes this civ, but uses a slightly different word (so we can figure out the subtlety of meaning). Ideally, this review would be in English too.

Venice could be the pro civ, but they are not a good OCC civ since they didn't have only one city.

 

[cybrxkhan]

If pro simply meant a civ known only to history buffs, it could literally be anything, and anything that's been suggested on the forums, ranging from Venice to Majapahit to the Berbers to Khazaria and the Ashanti, stuff most normal people don't know about.

 

[Snoopaloop]

Thanks for the info!
I was aware of this fact and therefore mentioned it in my OP.
....!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12321299&postcount=2

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12318507&postcount=14

 

[synulia]

I'd really hate for Venice to become a full civ, over say, a unified Italy. It would completely invalidate the system of city states by including including a "super" city state as a fullblown civ, while all the others just stick around as lesser entities. Italy as a fullblown civ would be disappointing in a way as well, since the Italian city states make up such a solid proportion of the city states.

 

[blash]

Pro could easily mean a Civ capable of being top-tier, which is the opinion of that writer. I wouldn't take his comment too literal.

For the sake of this discussion, what of that mysterious barbarian unit that was talked about? Some of you were coming up with some pretty crazy explanations that would definitely fit under "requires more knowledge/skill than other Civs" to play effectively.

maybe one civ is simply playing the barbarians?
maybe with a few perks (e.g. axeman).

you basically have to win before the civs got enough vision of the map to lock you out.

this would solve alot of open clues on this forum.


it's pro because the gameplay would be entirely new, but everybody who has played the series for long enough should already have a good idea how to play it (and be willing to).

there also are a few suggestion threads about "better barbarians", "scale encampment graphics with era", etc. maybe they picked some of those up and decided that there should be an emphasize on the barbs to make players more aware of those improvements.

 

[Nujabes]

Venice has gone from being a maritime trade nation to glassmakers to Marco Polo-inspired land trade to being restricted to a single city. Each variant is increasingly unlikely in my opinion, and only offered to fit one of the clues we have. I'm gonna stick to my guess that Venice won't be in, and I'll happily make a signature bet or something with anyone for fun.

 

[Haig]

Sent the reviewer an email and as what he meant.

ACHTUNG! VAS IST DAS "pro-civ" BITTE?

 

[turingmachine]

Why would it be designed as a OCC civ?

It was a republic that lasted over a thousand years.

I had an actual city-list.

It wasn't a singular city-state.