Katakanja
Emperor
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2016
- Messages
- 1,258
New civ : Australia
- Thread starter Liufeng
- Start date
Magil
Monarch
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2010
- Messages
- 1,618
Never heard of him.
Isn't he that guy who said there's no multiplayer in Civ because if you were playing Civ it meant you had no friends?
And this is exactly why we need to be able to 'double like' a post.
Why shouldn't a nation-state be considered a significant civilization? Did someone change the definition of either on me?
And I would be fine with Belgium, too. Imo they played a significant role in world affairs.
It seems to me that the infantry replacement will be great for late game pushes. In most of my deity games, there can be a slow down in domination between the time you get infantry and the time you get mech infantry. Since most offensive wars at that point will be fought on other continents, this unit will be perfect for end game conquest. Also, the bonus production from liberating cities will be huge in early game when you have numerous opportunities to liberate city states conquered by the AI which tends to aggressively take them.
Leyrann
Deity
Unique Ability: Political Deadlock: Civilization is in a permanent state of semi-anarchy; governments and policy cards are not available at any point, but because there's so many layers, all other facets of the game are unaffected.
Unique Building: Frietkraam: Replaces Arena. Grants more amenities, but reduces production.
Leader: None, as there is no government. This also means no leader bonus.
God of Kings
Ruler of all heads of state
Belgium:
Inherently funny: All quotes contain the word Belgium
Inherently funny: All quotes contain the word Belgium
Olleus
Deity
Disappointing choice.
I like historical immersion when I play; this feels halfway between a gimmick and a joke
I like historical immersion when I play; this feels halfway between a gimmick and a joke
kul
Prince
I agree. "Citadel of """"Civilization""""" is such a diplomatically safe but lousy name. Maybe it is also the trouble with all modern leaders, but John Curtin looks so unappealingly normal its barely intresting. At least Theodore Roosevelt is well known. They AT LEAST can give him to that caricature modeler who gives us Uncle Pedro and Mascothead Victoria, just so I dont have to play against a L.A Noir NPC that requires subtitles to be understandable.
Lukey_Jangs
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2016
- Messages
- 16
I didn't read all of the pages, so this may have already been brought up, but what is with the similar Civ colors in Civ 6? From that video Australia looks a lot like Arabia, and I always get France and (Pericles's) Greece confused
Vahnstad
King
I'm from Belgium too, i would love a Belgian civ 
Manifold
ModderProtectionAdvocate
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2007
- Messages
- 1,580
Civ 5 came out in autumn 2010. So Civ 7 could take till 2022. If we get every month a dlc there will be not 100 but 70 new dlc´s in 6 years. This is enough for a lot of new playable countries.
But isn´t it better to make 10 dlc with 1.000.000 customers than 70 dlc with 10.000 customers.
I would still prefer that they do some substantial stuff and let us give the chosen leader an own name and the opportunity to change the name of your civilization in the game menu.
tomaltachpaulson
Chieftain
So I get sick and leave the internet for a couple of days, and then come back to find Australia is going to be a civ! Awesome get well present, Firaxis!
Personally, I think Curtin is perfect as the civ leader. He's suitably far back in time, he defended the country in war (which always seems to be a popularity boost), he was a well-liked leader at the time (winning a huge landslide victory in 1943), and he died in office rather than ending his prime ministership through slow decline. Bob Menzies would have been a slightly lazy choice in my opinion—just because he was the longest-serving prime minister by no means makes him the best one. Additionally, much of his success was actually luck—he lost the two-party preferred vote (to non-Aussies, this is essentially means the popular vote) three times at elections he nevertheless won. He also set Australia on course to enter the Vietnam War, then left the prime ministership before anyone realized how foolish an idea that was… Gough Whiltam would have been fun, but he is obviously way too recent (1972–75) and too controversial (actually, probably still the most controversial, come to think of it). Apart from Billy Hughes (who would have been funny) that just leaves the first PM, Edmund Barton, who can immediately be discounted for being a racist (to be fair though, most of the first parliament was too though, so…). Anyway, TL;DR, I like Curtin.
Clearly the big advantage of this is for TSL balance—Australia will neatly fill a nice civilization-sized gap in the Asia- Pacific. I do wonder what this means for @Colonialist Legacies though—will the team carry on with their own version of Australia, or switch to something else?
To the commentators who say that Australia before Ottomans, Mongols, etc. is an odd ordering—I have to agree. In fact, I though Brazil had taken the post-colonial slot again in VI as in V. However, it is DLC, so if you don't like it, don't buy it. And as for the digital deluxe buyers—well, it was your gamble.
Personally, I think Curtin is perfect as the civ leader. He's suitably far back in time, he defended the country in war (which always seems to be a popularity boost), he was a well-liked leader at the time (winning a huge landslide victory in 1943), and he died in office rather than ending his prime ministership through slow decline. Bob Menzies would have been a slightly lazy choice in my opinion—just because he was the longest-serving prime minister by no means makes him the best one. Additionally, much of his success was actually luck—he lost the two-party preferred vote (to non-Aussies, this is essentially means the popular vote) three times at elections he nevertheless won. He also set Australia on course to enter the Vietnam War, then left the prime ministership before anyone realized how foolish an idea that was… Gough Whiltam would have been fun, but he is obviously way too recent (1972–75) and too controversial (actually, probably still the most controversial, come to think of it). Apart from Billy Hughes (who would have been funny) that just leaves the first PM, Edmund Barton, who can immediately be discounted for being a racist (to be fair though, most of the first parliament was too though, so…). Anyway, TL;DR, I like Curtin.
Clearly the big advantage of this is for TSL balance—Australia will neatly fill a nice civilization-sized gap in the Asia- Pacific. I do wonder what this means for @Colonialist Legacies though—will the team carry on with their own version of Australia, or switch to something else?
To the commentators who say that Australia before Ottomans, Mongols, etc. is an odd ordering—I have to agree. In fact, I though Brazil had taken the post-colonial slot again in VI as in V. However, it is DLC, so if you don't like it, don't buy it. And as for the digital deluxe buyers—well, it was your gamble.
Kyro
King
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2014
- Messages
- 600
A coast dependent Civ? Really? Australia's not gonna have much of an advantage on any map that's not Island Plates. So what if they get bonus housing for coastal cities? The lack of land to work those Citizens just about negates the point of having more housing.
As for getting bonus production when getting targetted for war that may happen early but it's not within a player's control and doesn't really happen late.
The only saving grace imo is its bonuses regarding district placement on appealing tiles. Then again I believe Brazil does a far better job in this regard.
Oh and no offense to Australians but there are more historic Civilizations that deserve that spot. Another time Marketing takes precedence over design.
As for getting bonus production when getting targetted for war that may happen early but it's not within a player's control and doesn't really happen late.
The only saving grace imo is its bonuses regarding district placement on appealing tiles. Then again I believe Brazil does a far better job in this regard.
Oh and no offense to Australians but there are more historic Civilizations that deserve that spot. Another time Marketing takes precedence over design.
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Nigel_Tufnel2
King
I'm really looking forward to Australia with TSL maps. One of my favorite things going back several versions is to colonize Australia if I am anywhere coastal. Now I can just start there!
I probably played more Polynesia and Indonesia in Civ5 than anyone else, and I'm sure I've spent half my time on 6 playing Vicky. I guess I just love sailing around...
I probably played more Polynesia and Indonesia in Civ5 than anyone else, and I'm sure I've spent half my time on 6 playing Vicky. I guess I just love sailing around...
TPangolin
Just the worst person
@tomaltachpaulson Fun story: "Outback Station" is a term that I pretty much made up for a draft Civ VI design; I felt that Station was a bit bland, so I decided to tack on "Outback" to give it more flair and up the Australianism ante.
I posted some screenshots of the model design on the CL webpage, back when we first started working on the civ and linked them to Firaxis back when I was pushing for them to give some modders in the community access to the game to start modding it pre-release. Here's a comparison of the the model for fun:
If Firaxis saw this and decided to go with it, then that's pretty damn ace. If not, then I'm still enjoying the heck out of this coincidence! All in all Firaxis just straight up made the civ that we were going to make. The Civ VI civ features all the components that we've included in our previous Australia mods (Curtin and Digger) in addition to the Outback Station which I'm pretty sure they took from the graphics we released (since it's not a term that people use in Aus at all). I know for sure the dev team has saw these screenshots pre-release because of prior interactions on twitter
We'll definitely be making Henry Parkes as an alternative leader, to give the civ a more colony/federation focus that the Outback Tycoon scenario is evocative of.
But yeah, even if this is all a big coincidence, I'm still taking the following quote as a victory in some sense, since it means that us modders are now squarely and firmly on their radar:
Now that we have some semblance of a spotlight, the onus is on us to show the Devs what other types of civs are in demand. Our goal with CL has always been to use civs like Australia and Canada as soapboxes. It's our intention to present these civs in a similarly legitimate light to other historical heavyweights to show that just because something is in demand, does not mean it is without merit; that diversity can lead to fantastic gameplay, and fantastic gameplay can lead shaping the perceptions of how we view cultures. This notion scales quite well, and I hope it's something that Firaxis takes on board.
So when Australia, Mexico and Canada blew up in popularity, the time was right to start making Indigenous Civilizations. We had established Aus and Canada in a 'legitimate' light, meaning that when we presented our Indigenous, Canadian First Nation and other colonial civs in a similarly equal light - the demand was just as, if not equally there.
In terms of CL alone - 29K subs for the Blackfoot, 24K for the Cree, 26K for the Dene (this isn't even including the 51K and 47k respectively for the well known Inuit and Tomatekh's Sioux, or the hundreds of thousands of downloads from other HQ non CL indigenous civs). In terms of subscribers in comparison to other mods on the Steam Workshop - these numbers are kind of crazy. Our civs have always had the sneaky ulterior motive - intended to be proof of concepts for devs and community to go - "huh I didn't know I wanted something like this".
So is this sort of strategy manipulative in a sense? Yes. But it's a step by step process that undoubtedly works - especially if you have reasonably high standards for content production. Better yet, we've been able to introduce and shape people's perceptions about the nature of pre-colonial indigenous cultures. And it definitely wouldn't have played out similiarly if we didn't make Australia first.
In Civ V, when Venice, Brazil and Shoshone were released many in the community were shocked. The attitudes towards these civs are now relatively normalised, and the interesting byproduct is that suddenly, because these Civs were placed up against heavyweights like Arabia and India - people are suddenly taking these cultures a lot more seriously. It's absolutely fascinating the impact that video games can have in this regard and I don't think game devs realise the power they have in their hands.
To me, Firaxis portrayed Australia in an extremely fair light. This sort of positive, fair recognition on a world stage is nice (because it seldom happens), and because we know that from history - anger about this will die down, perceptions will have changed and Aus will be accepted. Now the onus is on the community and us modders to push the devs in a direction where they introduce more new and interesting indigenous and unorthodox civs - for which the shock will be brief, but the end result will do plenty of social good after normalisation.
As I said in another post: Heavyweights will always exist. Specific civs that cater to demographics will always exist. Civ is an investment really, and you'll just have to trust that the end lineup will be well rounded. The question then becomes what non-marketspecific/heavyweight civs will sneak into that lineup?
And it's in this specific regard that the community has a way bigger voice than they might think.
I know that personally I'm going to be pushing super hard towards an Indigenous Australian civ and a PNW civ
Spoiler :
I posted some screenshots of the model design on the CL webpage, back when we first started working on the civ and linked them to Firaxis back when I was pushing for them to give some modders in the community access to the game to start modding it pre-release. Here's a comparison of the the model for fun:
If Firaxis saw this and decided to go with it, then that's pretty damn ace. If not, then I'm still enjoying the heck out of this coincidence! All in all Firaxis just straight up made the civ that we were going to make. The Civ VI civ features all the components that we've included in our previous Australia mods (Curtin and Digger) in addition to the Outback Station which I'm pretty sure they took from the graphics we released (since it's not a term that people use in Aus at all). I know for sure the dev team has saw these screenshots pre-release because of prior interactions on twitter
We'll definitely be making Henry Parkes as an alternative leader, to give the civ a more colony/federation focus that the Outback Tycoon scenario is evocative of.
But yeah, even if this is all a big coincidence, I'm still taking the following quote as a victory in some sense, since it means that us modders are now squarely and firmly on their radar:
Now that we have some semblance of a spotlight, the onus is on us to show the Devs what other types of civs are in demand. Our goal with CL has always been to use civs like Australia and Canada as soapboxes. It's our intention to present these civs in a similarly legitimate light to other historical heavyweights to show that just because something is in demand, does not mean it is without merit; that diversity can lead to fantastic gameplay, and fantastic gameplay can lead shaping the perceptions of how we view cultures. This notion scales quite well, and I hope it's something that Firaxis takes on board.
So when Australia, Mexico and Canada blew up in popularity, the time was right to start making Indigenous Civilizations. We had established Aus and Canada in a 'legitimate' light, meaning that when we presented our Indigenous, Canadian First Nation and other colonial civs in a similarly equal light - the demand was just as, if not equally there.
In terms of CL alone - 29K subs for the Blackfoot, 24K for the Cree, 26K for the Dene (this isn't even including the 51K and 47k respectively for the well known Inuit and Tomatekh's Sioux, or the hundreds of thousands of downloads from other HQ non CL indigenous civs). In terms of subscribers in comparison to other mods on the Steam Workshop - these numbers are kind of crazy. Our civs have always had the sneaky ulterior motive - intended to be proof of concepts for devs and community to go - "huh I didn't know I wanted something like this".
So is this sort of strategy manipulative in a sense? Yes. But it's a step by step process that undoubtedly works - especially if you have reasonably high standards for content production. Better yet, we've been able to introduce and shape people's perceptions about the nature of pre-colonial indigenous cultures. And it definitely wouldn't have played out similiarly if we didn't make Australia first.
In Civ V, when Venice, Brazil and Shoshone were released many in the community were shocked. The attitudes towards these civs are now relatively normalised, and the interesting byproduct is that suddenly, because these Civs were placed up against heavyweights like Arabia and India - people are suddenly taking these cultures a lot more seriously. It's absolutely fascinating the impact that video games can have in this regard and I don't think game devs realise the power they have in their hands.
To me, Firaxis portrayed Australia in an extremely fair light. This sort of positive, fair recognition on a world stage is nice (because it seldom happens), and because we know that from history - anger about this will die down, perceptions will have changed and Aus will be accepted. Now the onus is on the community and us modders to push the devs in a direction where they introduce more new and interesting indigenous and unorthodox civs - for which the shock will be brief, but the end result will do plenty of social good after normalisation.
As I said in another post: Heavyweights will always exist. Specific civs that cater to demographics will always exist. Civ is an investment really, and you'll just have to trust that the end lineup will be well rounded. The question then becomes what non-marketspecific/heavyweight civs will sneak into that lineup?
And it's in this specific regard that the community has a way bigger voice than they might think.
I know that personally I'm going to be pushing super hard towards an Indigenous Australian civ and a PNW civ
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tomaltachpaulson
Chieftain
@TPangolin That is a fun story! I had been wondering in the back of my mind where the "Outback" prefix had come from—as you say, it's not exactly something that you hear in Aus. Normally you'd hear about a cattle station or a sheep station or else a geographic name like Anna Creek Station.
I do agree though that this does seem to be a well-considered civ by Firaxis. The conversion of history and location into gameplay mechanics is well done—a fair portrayal, as you said.
I look forward to see what the future holds for new civs both from Firaxis and Colonialist Legacies. Firaxis does seem to be in the mood to shake things up with this one, debuting multiple new civs (and leaders) at launch and now adding Australia soon after. And being a Mac player, Colonialist Legacies is something I've only ever been able to admire from afar until VI, so I'm looking forward to getting to play it this time around!
I do agree though that this does seem to be a well-considered civ by Firaxis. The conversion of history and location into gameplay mechanics is well done—a fair portrayal, as you said.
I look forward to see what the future holds for new civs both from Firaxis and Colonialist Legacies. Firaxis does seem to be in the mood to shake things up with this one, debuting multiple new civs (and leaders) at launch and now adding Australia soon after. And being a Mac player, Colonialist Legacies is something I've only ever been able to admire from afar until VI, so I'm looking forward to getting to play it this time around!
