Native Tribes

[daft]

Instead of those city states I suggest:
Tribes of natives, barbaric peoples, with a few(each with some different) technologies, capable of defending themselves with different types of warrior units (especially good in guerilla type warfare), have their own workers and be capable if a very limited and slow expansion and scientific research. These natives would be divided into 3 groups depending on size of tribe and tribe's characteristic.
These tribes would live in a villages(huts and/or tipis), between 1-4 in close proximity-villages per each tribe. They would often be at war with other native tribes.

After encountering these natives you could have several choices:
1. Attack and grab their land, resources and gold- successful attack would cause a village to disappear-you would also get their-now slave- worker(s). You could go on- if able to- to conquer the entire tribe- village by village or sign peace before the full conquest. The natives could get help from other civilization or native tribes.
2 Influence in positive way- by sharing knowledge and resources- such treatment would bring in the steady turning of these villages into your towns, mixed with native and your own population. Their warrior units would enlist in your military.
3. Influence a tribe against another civilization. If successful, the tribe would declare war o your enemy
4. Convert them to your religion-unless the natives are a highly spiritual tribe- this usually would work-after some time- bringing your nations closer to unity.
5 Trade with the village
6 Cultural Influenced overtake of villages- with time, the villages might(would) slowly turn into your towns due to your nation's cultural influence
7 Demand occasional(or regular) tribute
If dealing unfairly with a tribe it could declare itself a part of another civilization, village(s) would turn into a town of a rival civ.
If undisturbed and able to acquire the knowledge a native tribe could declare itself a separate and independent nation, down the line.

Instead of constant need for expensive settlers, this could help your empire grow. More strategizing would be involved.
I would drastically limit the number of city states in the game, introduce aps consisting of 2 or 4 hemispheres to boost expansion capabilities for nations. And stop the ridiculous limitations on expansion for all the imperialistic players out there.
The whole concept of city states should be left to a civic/government choice type, real city states were the city states of Greece, Phoenicia or the Mayas.

 

[andreafin]

its interesting that liechtenstein, san marino, monaco and andorra are not city states still existing today

 

[epicivfreak]

I hate city states. I like this.

One thing we could take from current Civ5 city states though, is the qualities - Militaristic, Spiritual, Maritime, etc. and apply that to Natives. So, for example, a Militaristic group of natives would pump out military units and attack nearby civilizations, but if made friendly, they could then grant bonuses to the Civ such as gifts of military units.

Maybe such Militaristic Natives could replace barbarian encampments entirely, and instead of that, barbarians would instead be and act like animals from civ 4 - animals were a great concept and game element in civ4, it was just stupid-as-hell to have a Barbarian Tiger kill my Warrior unit in that game and I'd always thought they should have just made the animals a different type of barbarian unit there.

Of course, honestly, I'd rather just do away with the concept of city states, barbarians, natives, etc. and add more civs to the map. If I'm playing a game with 12 civs, losing 1 feels like a major impact to the game, whereas if I'm playing a game with 64 civs, losing 1 is no big deal. And full-blown-civs fill all the roles the non-civ concepts attempt to add to the game just fine, IMHO.

 

[awesome]

I would sometimes worldbuilder animals into civilizations, like giving russia a bear.

And, while I like this idea, I think the name "city-state" can probably still stay.

As for getting rid of the barbarians and city-states in favor of more civs...you can have both. Because you'll never be able to have every civ in the game, these represent the others and give you gameplay choices on top of that.

 

[daft]

That's the general idea, replace barbarians with these primitive tribes, you wouldn't be able to play as them, but they'd be definitely interesting part of the game. Such changes would bring in more diplomatic possibilities as you'd negotiate not only with other nations which are capable of building cities, expansion and fast scientific advancement but also with far more primitive but in the first few eras quite capable of not only defending themselves but also of defeating your armies (they'd use ambush tactics, hit and retreat, with fast moving-especially through forests and jungles- both melee and ranged type- warrior units)
You could ally with them to attack their enemy tribes-and take over their enemy lands if successful, turning their villages into your cities, their captured population into slave workers).
Trade with them to acquire resources that they posses- through their villages being located close to them and worked by their workers(slower than yours due to primitive tools), trade until you are ready to take those resources by force- if you wish.
Because of their very slow and limited to their trait type technological advancement they'd be keen on getting their hands on your technologies, and trading these with them could yield a lot of gold but be potentially very dangerous in the future. They'd have different tribe traits, like scientific, horse (warrior) tribe, aggressive militaristic tribe, a honorable militaristic tribe, there also could be spiritual tribes, seafaring-sea people ( or fisherman) tribe, an erratic\opportunist tribe-usually attacking others without a warning, a pacifistic tribe and several more options.
Militaristic tribes would attack you first, negotiate later, others would be more neutral or friendly.
They could start with a single village-or settlement, and very gradually expand to a max limit of 4 perhaps, 4 villages- with much smaller workable area tiles than your cities.
They'd start with some knowledge, like for a horse warrior tribe- animal domestication, in order to build their special unit, hunting, or fishing, depending on their trait.
Besides their special(unique) unit like a horse bowman or axe thrower, they could also build units as they acquire more knowledge.
For these tribes settler building would be several times more expensive than for civilizations, and they'd rather build military units anyway in order to defend themselves and attack their enemies.
These villages would produce their warrior units, worker units, build a few improvements over time- like a granary, (wooden palisade) walls, barracks, if a tribe's spiritual a temple, all depending on their advancement level, or techs acquired from Civilizations.
A human player could hire them out as mercenaries for your armies for a very reasonable price.
Having achieved the max level of villages and a max size of each village(like a 4) and provided they've acquired the necessary technology their settlements would transform into (small at first) cities(towns) and they'd declare themselves one of the civilizations, a sovereign nation. Before that happens you could persuade them to join your nation, if you have dealt with them fairly then most of them(except the ruthlessly aggressive militaristic ones) would agree to assimilation.
Thought this over and I think this would change the game into a more engaging experience.
Imagine: A couple of larger militaristic tribes allying together to attack you, or your enemy, they could be quite a threat, or an ally.
The commonly used barbarian tribe names in the game could be given to these primitive native tribes, like: Goths, Hurons, Caribs or Scythians.

 

[daft]

in response to andreafin's post:
those city states exist only because it was profitable in some way for much larger nations to keep them in existence, or because of much more complicated politics than you could comprehend, do you seriously think that if for example Italy chose to they couldn't just take over San Marino at any given time?
Some nations were a bunch of small states, just check out the history of Germany or Italy, how many of them consisted of a single city?

 

[epicivfreak]

@daft - spaces between paragraph man, use em...

 

[epicivfreak]

As for getting rid of the barbarians and city-states in favor of more civs...you can have both. Because you'll meet been able to have every civ in the game, these represent the others and give you gameplay choices on top of that.

My point is:
Some folks like the special rules for barbarians, others don't and turn them off.

Some folks like the special rules for city-states, others don't and turn them off (although civ5 was designed so heavily around city-states that turning them off entirely nerfs too much else, but that's another issue entirely).

But all folks that play civ like interacting with other civilizations. Nobody turns that off - not that you could mind you, but nobody would want to if you could. So let's do away with all these special rules for special "types" of civilizations like barbarians and city-states, and just have more civilizations on the map, from the start, instead.

I know we could have "both" barbarians, city-states and civilizations, because we have that now - but why? What's the point if only some people find two of those options fun? No matter how we redesign these special rules for these special types of civilizations, only some folks are going to find them fun, while others will find them annoying and want to turn them off.

 

[awesome]

Because you can say that about pretty much anything. Some people turn off espionage, so let's get rid of that. Some people turn off unit attacking animations and some others would turn off leader animations if they could, so let's get rid of those. Some people turn off some (or all) of the victory conditions and we have no idea which ones will be turned off in any given game, so let's get rid of all of them.
I realize these are crazier sounding as I go along, but I'm using the craziness to make a point. If you start taking out things based solely on the fact that some people won't use it or don't like it, then you remove a lot of optional stuff that makes the game fun for everybody else, and not all of those groups necessarily overlap anyway.
I'm all for more civilizations, but I like the other stuff, too (or something like what this thread is about).

 

[epicivfreak]

Because you can say that about pretty much anything. Some people turn off espionage, so let's get rid of that...

Well, in civ6, this one at least, will get turned off, and will only see a comeback in an expansion pack, as I believe is standard practice at Firaxis now, with the civ series.

But anyway - I'm not saying take out barbarians and city-states just because some folks don't like them and that's it - there's nothing more to what I'm suggesting at all, as you're indicating there. I'm saying boost the number of civs on the map while also removing those two, because everyone likes civs, whereas not everyone likes barbarians and/or city-states. That's a far different reasoning than just "take barbarians and city-states out because some people don't like that."

While I personally don't turn such things off, even though I don't like the animals of civ4 and city-states of civ5, I do find it very "gamey" to have special types of civilizations, each with their own special set of rules for interacting with them - when you could just replace that "barbarian tribe" with another civ and that "city-state" with another civ that could also be a 1-city civ, which is essentially what encampments and city-states are, one-city civs with special-snowflake rules.

I could be perfectly happy without special-snowflake civilizations, if I could play with more real civs on the map.

 

[awesome]

But anyway - I'm not saying take out barbarians and city-states just because some folks don't like them and that's it - there's nothing more to what I'm suggesting at all, as you're indicating there. I'm saying boost the number of civs on the map while also removing those two, because everyone likes civs, whereas not everyone likes barbarians and/or city-states. That's a far different reasoning than just "take barbarians and city-states out because some people don't like that."

I never said you said take stuff out and do nothing else. I said that some people like the special snowflakes and will be upset if the things they like are taken out, just like people get upset if things they don't like are put in.
But, even with more civs, that doesn't solve everything. You'll never have every civ (at least, not officially, which is what really matters), and then there are the people who don't want certain civs.
Some people don't want America/Korea/Ethiopia/whatever. So, make everything dlc so you can appease them?
Well, some people don't like dlc...

The way I see it is that the best solution is to have tons of options and let people opt in or out of them.

But, that's not really the point of this thread.

Anyway, I like the extended diplomacy and sometimes it's just cool to have an ai only faction or someone who acts different than the normal ai would.

 

[epicivfreak]

Anyway, back on topic...

It depends on map size, of course, but for huge maps at least, I'd like to see these tribes with a number of villages from 1-5, with 3 being most common. Add to that, tribes could capture cities from civs, capture encampments from barbarians (should they also exist) and convert such encampments to new villages, capture goody-huts and not only get the benefit of the hut but also convert it to a new village. If that were done, IMHO, there'd be no need for the tribe to settle any new lands via settlers.

As for diplomacy, I don't really see why you couldn't have full-blown diplomacy with such minor civs (and certainly not the ham-brained limited city-state diplomacy of civ5). In fact, I don't see why such "minor civs" couldn't be just that, like other civs in all respects, since they have "villages" which are really just "cities" in civ terms, except gimped in some way - say they can't build wonders or settlers, construct buildings at half pace (but units at full pace), get a unique technology*, etc.

Maybe only these minor civs could get cities overtaken with cultural flips (like in civ3), and only they can trade units with major civs (no major-to-major unit trading), etc.

*This could really just be as simple as putting "Advanced" in front of the tech-name and the units and buildings it allows, then giving those advanced-versions a 25% bonus. For example, if there's a Pottery tech that allows Granary buildings, a minor civ has Advanced Pottery tech that allows Advanced Granary buildings which are 25% more effective than regular granaries.

So yeah, more like real civs, but still with a little bit of special-snowflake goodness.

 

[daft]

all good points epicivfreak, Minor Tribes- a good name for them.
If these were included in the game I don't think there'd be any need for barbarians, as many of these Minor Tribes would be aggressive and militaristic, besides the Major Civs would consider these guys barbarians.
They would be able to build workers and military units at the similar rate/cost as corresponding units for the main civs, however their workers would work 50% slower that the Major Tribes ones.
I'd suggest they being able to build settlers as well, but again, at at least 50% higher production cost than the Main Tribes.
As far as tech research is concerned it again would be 50% slower than Major Civilzations one, it could consist of a few techs which would be for Minor Tribes only- but if undoable they'd research the same techs as Main Civs but a lot slower as well as their research would be confined to their trait type(s), for example an Militaristic tribe would always choose to research a military related advancement(tech)-one that can improve their military- than scientific or commercial one.

They'd all have one leader, with 1 or 2 traits for tribe/leader max, ruler names would be historically accurate , if possible. Besides bowmen(less efficient than archers) and warriors they could all build 1 special unit, for a seapeoples minor tribe it could be a boat that doesn't sink in sea squares, for a horsetribe minor tribe a type of a horse archer(bowman), and others.

As far as Minor tribe's names they'd carry the historically known as barbaric tribe's names like Ostrogoths, Avars, Vandals and many others. Depending on the size of the world there'd be more of these Minor Tribes or more in the game.

Their villages wouldn't have names, except perhaps the main-capital one, after they achieve a Civilization status (which would not be easy to accomplish for them) their cities could be simply named in a following way: Scythians: Capital: Scythia 2nd town/former village: Scythia 1, and so on, similar to civ3.

As far as goody huts (if included in the game) I've often wondered why they always disappeared after exploration, they're villages, not ruins, the only way they should disappear is if they provide a settler, otherwise if a minor tribe discovers a goody hut first there would be a 25-50% chance they could take it over and now it becoming one of their villages- the villagers might choose to fight and defeat their unit though but in that case they could still take the goody hut over later- with more armies- or burn it. Major tribes would be able to capture these goody huts and get a slave worker through that.
Their diplomatic abilities would be lesser than major civs leaders, not as deep diplomacy, but you could trade with them, they might be less demanding on profit than the cunning Major civ players.

Wonder if the designer would go this route, this concept would add a lot more diplomacy, trade and war strategizing opportunities for human players.

For a real challenge perhaps they could add a possibility for human players to play as one of these minor tribes, imagine trying to win against far more advanced and larger nations this way, only the best players would be able to accomplish it, but it should be made realistically possible.

 

[epicivfreak]

If these were included in the game I don't think there'd be any need for barbarians, as many of these Minor Tribes would be aggressive and militaristic, besides the Major Civs would consider these guys barbarians.

I agree, but seeing as barbarians have been in every civ game and people love their sacred cows, we'll likely still have barbarians even with minor tribes. Though, I'd say the barbarians should follow the "animal" model from civ4 with minor tribes in play, popping in fog, and just there to be a nuisance.

They would be able to build workers and military units at the similar rate/cost as corresponding units for the main civs, however their workers would work 50% slower that the Major Tribes ones.
I'd suggest they being able to build settlers as well, but again, at at least 50% higher production cost than the Main Tribes.
As far as tech research is concerned it again would be 50% slower than Major Civilzations one, it could consist of a few techs which would be for Minor Tribes only- but if undoable they'd research the same techs as Main Civs but a lot slower as well as their research would be confined to their trait type(s), for example an Militaristic tribe would always choose to research a military related advancement(tech)-one that can improve their military- than scientific or commercial one.

They'd all have one leader, with 1 or 2 traits for tribe/leader max, ruler names would be historically accurate , if possible. Besides bowmen(less efficient than archers) and warriors they could all build 1 special unit, for a seapeoples minor tribe it could be a boat that doesn't sink in sea squares, for a horsetribe minor tribe a type of a horse archer(bowman), and others.

Sounds good.

As far as Minor tribe's names they'd carry the historically known as barbaric tribe's names like Ostrogoths, Avars, Vandals and many others. Depending on the size of the world there'd be more of these Minor Tribes or more in the game.

Civ3 would be a good place to get such names as there barbarian encampments were named and culturally linked to nearby civs.

Their villages wouldn't have names, except perhaps the main-capital one, after they achieve a Civilization status (which would not be easy to accomplish for them) their cities could be simply named in a following way: Scythians: Capital: Scythia 2nd town/former village: Scythia 1, and so on, similar to civ3.

This I don't like. Seeing a city named "Capital" or "Scythia 1" is totally immersion-breaking. There's no reason why the minor tribes can't have proper city names, perhaps stealing them from the city-name-list of the closest civ.

As far as goody huts (if included in the game) I've often wondered why they always disappeared after exploration, they're villages, not ruins, the only way they should disappear is if they provide a settler, otherwise if a minor tribe discovers a goody hut first there would be a 25-50% chance they could take it over and now it becoming one of their villages- the villagers might choose to fight and defeat their unit though but in that case they could still take the goody hut over later- with more armies- or burn it. Major tribes would be able to capture these goody huts and get a slave worker through that.

I'd just simplify it and make minor tribes get the same bonus as a civ would, be that a bonus settler, warrior, tech, or whatever - and - automatically (or % chance would be fine as well) get a new village out of it.

If they didn't disappear unless a minor civ converted it into a village - would every civ that lands on it get a bonus? Would a civ be able to sit there an mine bonuses out of the village? How would that work and what would be the purpose of the goody hut if it didn't disappear after someone stepped on it?

Their diplomatic abilities would be lesser than major civs leaders, not as deep diplomacy, but you could trade with them, they might be less demanding on profit than the cunning Major civ players.

It could work that way, or it could be full-blown. I don't see any reason to deny the various diplomacy options between civs to minor tribes.

Wonder if the designer would go this route, this concept would add a lot more diplomacy, trade and war strategizing opportunities for human players.

Doubtful.

 

[andreafin]

in response to andreafin's post:
those city states exist only because it was profitable in some way for much larger nations to keep them in existence, or because of much more complicated politics than you could comprehend, do you seriously think that if for example Italy chose to they couldn't just take over San Marino at any given time?
Some nations were a bunch of small states, just check out the history of Germany or Italy, how many of them consisted of a single city?

point is they still exist now, and if italy made a move on san marino or france on monaco i suspect the EU and UN might have some sanctions resolutions drafted in an instant.

 

[daft]

Furthermore on this topic, Minor Tribes could have the following features:
1. Have One-historically accurately portrayed leader and 1 or 2 traits.
2. Build villages(or settlements) of (wooden) huts(houses) or tents(tipis), or Mountain( or Rock) Dwellings-for the mountainous/and Desert peoples, villages on islands-for seafaring tribes, all depending on a minor tribe's cultural/historical background
3. Settler unit cost 50% higher than Major Nations, worker units- at same cost as Major Tribes, Military and recon and unit cost 25% lower than major nations, buildings cost 25% higher than Main Nations.
4. Besides settling would also be able to acquire new villages/settlement/cities by:
-capturing Major Tribes cities- even at size 1.
-converting goody huts into their villages upon discovery(a 25% chance) or acquiring settler units from these huts.
-capturing other minor tribe's villages
5. Have 1 Special-Unique unit available
6. Scientific Research 50% slower than Major Tribes, possibly a separate research tree for minor tribes could also be developed, which would consist of a lot less choices as the one for major ones. 7 They would build more primitive buildings, with less effect than those of major tribes, eq: minor tribe's walls would be a wooden (not stone walls) palisade, less effective in a settlement protection.
7. Acquire technologies through goody huts (25% chance), research, ruins or by capturing major tribe's cities as well as other minor tribe's villages.
8. Upon reaching the max number of villages, village sizes and a specific amount of needed technology they would become a Major Tribe and thus be able to build World Wonders and have the same capabilities as any other Nation(no Minor tribe features would apply to them anymore).

I would say, a good player, given a large terrain to quickly explore and expand on, with a significant amount of huts to explore could be able to reach Main Tribe status by 500BC-1AD.
Since barbarians should also be in the game, their encampments would appear in uninhibited lands of sufficient size in between Minor Tribes and Main Tribes territories.

As per city names for minor tribes it was just a suggestion, stealing names from neighbouring Major Nations is not a bad idea, none of their villages names would be named Capital, I meant it this way: for Scythians:
Minor Tribe's first village's name(capital village) would be: Scythia, the following ones: Scythia 1, Scythia 2, and so on. Only the first (capital) village would have a name, all others would be named only after the tribe reaches Major Tribe status, besides, this was only in case they couldn't come up with names for cities for such tribes.

There are lots of historically known tribes out there that will probably never have a chance to be included as one of the nations in this game, this would enable that, nations such as: Nazca, Tiwanaku, Olmec, Toltec, Moche, Carib, Huron, Apache, Sarmatians, Philistines, Nabataeans Canaanites(though they should), Alans, Avars, Goths, Thracians, and many others.

Lastly, I'd suggest that some of the current Major Tribes, might be converted to a Minor Tribe status, especially the nomadic Huns, who never formed governments, never built wonders(or any other significant buildings- like libraries or amphitheatres for that matter- and brought only the following to the history of this world's civilization: WAR, DEATH, DESTRUCTION AND SUFFERING.

 

[daft]

point is they still exist now, and if italy made a move on san marino or france on monaco i suspect the EU and UN might have some sanctions resolutions drafted in an instant.

Instead of arguing with me, I strongly suggest you read up on your history.

 

[awesome]

What argument? They exist now and no reading up on history will change that fact. Sure, they exist for complicated reasons, but isn't that more of a reason for them to be included, since they pretty much serve the purpose of civ5 city-states in real life?
You guys are both right.

 

[daft]

yes, they do serve purpose, and there's no denying that they have and still exist. However, how many are out there, or were there throughout history?
Lets see, in Civ5 we've got the following city states: (I'll only name a few)
1. Bogota - a city state? not at all, capital of Colombia- quite a large nation.
2. Bratislava - a city state? not at all again, capital of the country of Slovakia
3. Brussels - city state(a state comprised of a single main city) ? absolutely not
4. Bucharest - again, the capital of European country of Romania
5. Buenos Aires - capital of Argentina, again, absolutely not a city state
6. Florence - is Italy a city state?
Should I give more examples?
The only cities included in Civ5 as single city states which come close to rightly being given the title of a city state are: Monaco, Ragusa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Valletta and Vatican (not sure about Kathmandu)
Why not add to these Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Andorra and San Marino, perhaps Petra as well, plus a few more states, which were in fact a civilization but no more than 1 major city could be named as known cities of that civilization, or because their land area was/is so small.
Make it a total of 15, or so, city states, add Minor Tribes, Barbarians, as well as Major Civilizations and let's play a deeper, more immersive game.
Ps. In my original post I did not say absolutely no city states, as it is true, the game might loose some of it appeal if they were no longer in, but let's limit their number and allow players to decide whether and how many of them they want in their games.

 

[awesome]

I agree that capitals of large countries don't belong in as city-states (though if they're going to be in anyway, they make sense to have instead of making every single country available), but people can already choose how many city-states they have in the game (including zero).