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

[Menzies]

It has as much truth to it as all the wild speculation.

Another sound argument.

There have actually been some very solid arguments raised on most sides, and some arguments have actually developed quite nicely due to the arguments between the various sides. As things stand we have a pretty damn good idea what the remaining 4 civs are going to be:

6. Morocco - The seemingly accidental mention of them
7. A Native American Civ - As they planned to have the Pueblo, but couldn't
8. Italy or Venice - As Venice appears to have been replaced by Riga

The only one where there isn't some kind of solid speculation now is this last one. The most logical final option would be Indonesia however, particularly as it's been a fan favourite for a long time now. That said, it could be any number of Civs, including Vietnam or even Hungary, although I'd hope they'd pay East Asia (South East Asia included) some attention.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Another sound argument.

There have actually been some very solid arguments raised on most sides, and some arguments have actually developed quite nicely due to the arguments between the various sides. As things stand we have a pretty damn good idea what the remaining 4 civs are going to be:

6. Morocco - The seemingly accidental mention of them
7. A Native American Civ - As they planned to have the Pueblo, but couldn't
8. Italy or Venice - As Venice appears to have been replaced by Riga

The only one where there isn't some kind of solid speculation now is this last one. The most logical final option would be Indonesia however, particularly as it's been a fan favourite for a long time now. That said, it could be any number of Civs, including Vietnam or even Hungary, although I'd hope they'd pay East Asia (South East Asia included) some attention.

More or less my speculation at this point. I'm banking on the fact that they will add in one Asian civ (not to mention that they haven't added an Asian civ since the Korea DLC) to round things out in terms of cultural flavor. As for now I'm placing my bets on Indonesia/Majapahit or Vietnam for an Asian civ, but they could throw in something like a Silk Road civ or another Asian nomad civ, or something else.

 

[Moraiwe]

Well, the Venice replacement theory is entirely based on the premise that what's happened in the past will happen again. By that logic(and taken to an extreme, I admit) there'll be no east asian civ in this expansion as there was no east asian civ in the last expansion.

 

[Menzies]

Well, the Venice replacement theory is entirely based on the premise that what's happened in the past will happen again. By that logic(and taken to an extreme, I admit) there'll be no east asian civ in this expansion as there was no east asian civ in the last expansion.

...that is the most ridiculous way of describing it I can imagine and is nothing more than a terrible strawman.

The idea about Venice is replaced is based on well established patterns which are readily observable throughout the lifetime of Civ V and can't be explained by a simple statistical effect. That is, it must have been something done by choice, not just a random effect.

On the other hand, each expansion and DLC has a different makeup of cultures and civs and there is no clear pattern that has yet been described to explain it. To use such an extremely simple description and treat it in the way you have is not only a ridiculous strawman but seems to suggest you don't even understand the most basic logical principals. This isn't even taking something to an extreme, as that implies continuity, this is just comparing things that have no reasonable basis to be compared.

 

[Moraiwe]

I agree that there's a well-established pattern of city-state replacement - I don't agree that this means that pattern has to continue. There's no reason to suggest that they can't do things differently in the future. That said, I do think you're probably right and that Venice has been replaced (and with my desire for a Venice civ, I sincerely hope it so).

In other words, you've established the pattern, but not the cause for the pattern.

 

[Menzies]

I agree that there's a well-established pattern of city-state replacement - I don't agree that this means that pattern has to continue. There's no reason to suggest that they can't do things differently in the future. That said, I do think you're probably right and that Venice has been replaced (and with my desire for a Venice civ, I sincerely hope it so).

In other words, you've established the pattern, but not the cause for the pattern.

They could do things differently, but that's the difference between something that is observable and a theory. We have no tested theory on how they go about what they do, at least not a complete one, but we do have what is akin to an observable law. It's true, they could go ahead and do something completely out of the ordinary, but the observed relation has not only not got any examples against it as of yet, but it has continued with Brave New World city states so far. There is, at the present time, nothing to say that it will change, and there is no reason to think it will. There is a small chance something out of the ordinary may happen, but at the end of the day there is no reason to think it will. It's not a situation where we should think it's any more than extremely unlikely that Venice hasn't been replaced.

As an aside, the line:

In other words, you've established the pattern, but not the cause for the pattern.

Describes the difference between a law and a theory (although that can't be directly applied here, this is just an aside). I always laugh when I hear nonsense like "it's just a theory" (particularly from creationists). What a lot of people don't get is that in the hierarchy of science, a law is actually lower than a theory. A law is just the observed relation, the theory is why it happens, and is more complete and better tested. That is, the Law of Gravity comes lower than the Theory of General Relativity.

There is also some speculation on the cause of the city state pattern in the thread where I initially discussed it all, but it's untestable and incomplete at this time, so there's no reason to really dig all that up.

 

[Moraiwe]

Admittedly I dip in and out of these conversations too rarely to keep abreast of the discussions, however I'm glad to see you acknowledge the idea that Venice being replaced isn't 100% confirmed. I honestly felt you were saying it was previously. Probably just as much a mistake on my part.

 

[Menzies]

Admittedly I dip in and out of these conversations too rarely to keep abreast of the discussions, however I'm glad to see you acknowledge the idea that Venice being replaced isn't 100% confirmed. I honestly felt you were saying it was previously. Probably just as much a mistake on my part.

I've said it quite a few times that whilst nothing goes against the observations so far, you never quite know what they're going to do, and something completely unexpected could happen. Again though, there is no reason to think it would and at the end of the day it should only be as a very small probability.

That said, if they've been reading the forum in the last couple of weeks, they might decide to use this as a way of screwing with us come the next play through.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Okay, let's look at the whole Riga/Venice thing the other way around: If Riga does not replace Venice, then we have a grand total of two city-states that share each other's type and color. No other CS in the game has an identical flavor with another city-state; they have been deliberately avoiding this sort of conflict. Is it really too hard to believe that the best explanation for a city-state to show up with the same color and type as a previously known city-state is that the old one is no longer a city-state?

That said, if they've been reading the forum in the last couple of weeks, they might decide to use this as a way of screwing with us come the next play through.

As amusing as this would be the new civ list has likely been finalized for a long time now. Longer than we've known about Riga, at least.

 

[Menzies]

Okay, let's look at the whole Riga/Venice thing the other way around: If Riga does not replace Venice, then we have a grand total of two city-states that share each other's type and color. No other CS in the game has an identical flavor with another city-state; they have been deliberately avoiding this sort of conflict. Is it really too hard to believe that the best explanation for a city-state to show up with the same color and type as a previously known city-state is that the old one is no longer a city-state?


As amusing as this would be the new civ list has likely been finalized for a long time now. Longer than we've known about Riga, at least.

It probably has been, but they could still have a laugh with an image or two specially made for the cause. Generally expansions are "feature complete" by the time they tell us about them, but you really never know what they might do, which is the point a lot of people like to make.

That said, the key thing about it isn't even that city states don't tend to share colour-type combination, it is that every time a city state has turned up with the same colour-type combination (this includes when Lhasa and Budapest had their colours changed), it has been a replacement. It does seem that after Vanilla though that they have specifically tried to make it so every colour-type combination has been unique, and I went over this in the city state colour thread I posted around a week ago now.

 

[sukritact]

As amusing as this would be the new civ list has likely been finalized for a long time now. Longer than we've known about Riga, at least.

They could still screw with us by deliberately omitting Ragusa and the Italian CSs, and Hanoi, and Jakarta, or whatever they want.

 

[Menzies]

They could still screw with us by deliberately omitting Ragusa and the Italian CSs, and Hanoi, and Jakarta, or whatever they want.

If they had been specifically doing this, they wouldn't have let us see Jerusalem, Mbaza-Kongo and several others that ruled out some popular choices. The reason we haven't seen the Italian city states, Hanoi or Jakarta is almost certainly that they just haven't shown up in the games we've seen so far. There's only been 16 city states on screen and there were 42 in Gods & Kings, it's most likely that they just haven't appeared yet.

I doubt that they put much thought into the city states that appear in their games for demonstrations. I'd think they just select the civs they want to show off, start and game and go from there.

The only worry about them screwing with us now would be after several large threads about city state colours and how they've picked up on Venice having been most likely replaced by Riga. This gives them something simple they could mess with for one of their demonstrations, and whilst I doubt they'd do something like that, they may know what we're looking for now come the next round of information.

 

[sukritact]

@Menzies: It's more likely that by now they've settled on both color-type combinations and CS names. I think it unlikely they'd bother changing them. Other than deliberately choosing which CSs to release and withhold, the only thing I see them doing is releasing an exception to your theory which breaks it or means that a lot of modification to it will be required.

Otherwise, they don't care and aren't messing with us.

 

[Gedemo]

What if the pro-civ was the HRE?

It would be like a civ built with "puppet" cities (that you don't totally decide what they produce and very hard to manage)

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

What if the pro-civ was the HRE?

It would be like a civ built with "puppet" cities (that you don't totally decide what they produce and very hard to manage)

Something to note.

I've checked the Bailey and Motte and found something like this :

motte-and-bailey castle is a fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised earthwork called a motte, accompanied by an enclosed courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to build with unskilled, often forced labour, but still militarily formidable, these castles were built across northern Europe from the 10th century onwards, spreading from Normandy and Anjou in France, into the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century.

Just pointing that out.

 

[codepoet]

They could still screw with us by deliberately omitting Ragusa and the Italian CSs, and Hanoi, and Jakarta, or whatever they want.

Heh funny point.
We did pick up on this City-State mapping / replacement thing for the G&K release teasing.
It would not take them much effort to put together some of these sorts of things to mess with us :]
I doubt they've been doing this, but I'd find it funny.

 

[CGPanama]

You know it did not get much support when I thought of this back in April, but with the latest info (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12511227&postcount=613) I feel pretty good about my prognosticating abilities. Perhaps tonight I shall purchase some lottery tickets.

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".

 

[Wabango]

I have been downright against the thought of a Venetian Empire, almost solely because they were defined as a City-State, but if they were incapable of founding other cities, I would gladly step aside and welcome them in as a "One City Challenge" civilization.

 

[Louis XXIV]

They are not a OCC civ, though. In fact, they are most useful if you puppet cities. Without puppets, it's actually kind of a wasted ability (although the double trade routes will be quite good).

 

[Deggial]

They are not a OCC civ, though. In fact, they are most useful if you puppet cities. Without puppets, it's actually kind of a wasted ability (although the double trade routes will be quite good).

Well, at least I always thought that puppets would be available. That's why I did name the thread OCC-variant. My main point was that only the capital would be able to build things. And this came true...

The ability to purchase things in puppets is very interesting, though!