pre-release info New Civ Game Guide: Mississippian

[Mudokon Pop]

Very happy to see this civ. I once tried to mod them into Civ 4 a few years ago but couldn't get textures to show up on my models.

I am disappointed in the Monks Mound appearance though. The mound is too low and the steps appear far too wide so you can hardly see the mound from the front.

 

[j51]

Very happy to see this civ. I once tried to mod them into Civ 4 a few years ago but couldn't get textures to show up on my models.

I tried to do that too, but I just renamed all the “Native Americans” assets and used my imagination that they weren’t Siting Bull and a totem pole lol.

 

[The Fanatical]

Burning Arrow from the showcase.

 

[B0RDERL1NE]

And judging from the very much offensive-oriented fire arrow ability, we can see the Civ 7 Mississippians are indeed good coconquerors.

I can assure you that it is also very defensive. Archers defending their settlements surround them with fire, making it very hard for melee units to get through or ranged units to stay in place.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I can assure you that it is also very defensive. Archers defending their settlements surround them with fire, making it very hard for melee units to get through or ranged units to stay in place.

I need video of Burning Arrows burning things. For science!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I can assure you that it is also very defensive. Archers defending their settlements surround them with fire, making it very hard for melee units to get through or ranged units to stay in place.

As long as we're introducing Fire . . .

Humans used fire to drive prey in the directions they wanted - like into corrals or traps - dating back to the Paleolithic (ruins of stone walled enclosures/traps have been found in places as different as Arabia and the Baltic region)

Native Americans, somewhat later than the Mississippians but probably backdatable, regularly burned out the undergrowth from surrounding forests, both to clear plots for agriculture (and fertilize them with ash) and also to stimulate new growth that would attract huntable prey: they managed their surroundings every bit as much, but arguably more sustainably, than we do now.

"Fire arows", then, should possibly be applicable to providing Bonuses to tiles around the City/Settlement in addition to their military capabilities. Just a thought.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Burning Arrow from the showcase.
View attachment 706387

This is going to be my nightmare situation if I'm ever playing against the Mississippians: Burning Arrow archers on top of a cliff raining fire: I can't physically get at them while they commit Unitacide on my forces . . .

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

True, but this aren't the days of FFH c.2006. There are many, many turn based, grid based games out there that would probably provide a much better basis for this sort of thing. I know that Civ has always required a suspension of disbelief when it comes to the scale of combat, but this seems to go out of its way to draw attention to it. Like it's trying to be cool and ends up being far more uncool than if it was just itself. What's next, a Samurai with a katana attack that can split a tank in two?

Grim Fact:
Late in World War Two the Japanese Army, lacking decent antitank guns, antitank rocket launchers or tanks, adopted a Human Antitank Weapon.

It consisted of a large shaped charge on the end of the bamboo pole about 2 meters long. The idea was that a soldier, holding the pole like a spear with the shaped charge in front, would run against a tank, jamming the shaped charge against it, which would set off the charge. Hopefully, this would punch a hole into the tank, Certainly, the blast would kill the soldier.

So, the idea of a samurai attacking a tank with a sword is not too far off conceptually from what they actually tried.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It's going to be sad when you get to the Exploration Age and your ranged units forget how to do Arson Archery.

 

[Krajzen]

One fantastic benefit of the new leader mechanics is how they allow the inclusion of "archeological" civilizations that couldn't have been included beforehand due to the lack of any possible leader figure. This opens so many possibilities for Precolombian Americas, can't wait to see pre-Incan Andean civ.

Subsaharan Africa can also really benefit from this system - now we can easily include Nok civilization, Ghana, Kilwa or Swahilli in general, Bantu progenitor civ, Zimbabwe, or really any culture we deem to be interesting enough (and well documented in other aspects).

I probably should mention ancient Slavic civ right now, to fill my five hundred monthly mentions quota, but I'm too tired for that, so instead I shall add Sogdians to that list

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That's an exceedingly polite way to talk about "The Dawn of Everything"! This academic review is one of the most scathing pieces of formal writing I've ever read, that they do it in the most polite language and tone they could muster makes it all the most biting. I don't think I could get out of bed if I read something like that about my own work.

Graeber, Menzies, et al publish material that is widely commented on favorably until the investigations set in in detail, when the Reaction sets in. That's, frankly, the way Peer Review works, no matter how 'politely' it is formulated.

But for our purposes here in GameyLand, it's not necessarily that important. We are free to take Pop Culture and Controversial interpretations of Prehistoric, Proto-Historic, and even Historic-With-Gaps civilizations and cultures and run with them.

Within reason, I would hope (after all, I have pretenses of being a historian myself) but it is good to remember that the game is not required to conform entirely to only Accepted Interpretations to build playable Civs, Leaders, Uniques, etc.

 

[Lord Lakely]

It's also the Dutch word for "jar head", specifically the rude word for "head" (the one that was historically used for animals).

And here I was thinking it was Afrikaans for someone with a bowl haircut.

 

[Rac]

One fantastic benefit of the new leader mechanics is how they allow the inclusion of "archeological" civilizations that couldn't have been included beforehand due to the lack of any possible leader figure. This opens so many possibilities for Precolombian Americas, can't wait to see pre-Incan Andean civ.

Subsaharan Africa can also really benefit from this system - now we can easily include Nok civilization, Ghana, Kilwa or Swahilli in general, Bantu progenitor civ, Zimbabwe, or really any culture we deem to be interesting enough (and well documented in other aspects).

I probably should mention ancient Slavic civ right now, to fill my five hundred monthly mentions quota, but I'm too tired for that, so instead I shall add Sogdians to that list

Yep, although there are a lot of people here who don't like this idea very much, I'm very happy with the prospect of seeing Garama, Harappa, Oxus, Minoa, Caral, perhaps even Pama-Nyungan or Yamnaya/Sintashta being possible. Imagine Cucuteni–Trypillia or Ba-Shu being a thing, realy promising possibilities.
By the way, the Hisatsinom/Ancient Pueblo can be added now, if I'm not mistaken the reason for their cancellation in Civ5 was because of the language recording, but since now we don't need to have leaders we can represent them with approval, I believe.

 

[tedhebert]

Ok seriously, Burning Arrow Unit is just awesome... Residual fire in tiles attacked, Range pillage when Waahih civic chosen...

I think I found my first game ancient civ

Now... what leader will synergize well with it ? Tecumseh ?

 

[Zaarin]

Yamnaya/Sintashta

I'd feel very weird about having a Proto-Indo-European civ.

By the way, the Hisatsinom/Ancient Pueblo can be added now, if I'm not mistaken the reason for their cancellation in Civ5 was because of the language recording, but since now we don't need to have leaders we can represent them with approval, I believe.

The Puebloans are still very touchy about depictions of their ancestors. The Zuni and Hopi might be more willing to consult than the Tewa, though.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

I wouldn’t put Graeber and Menzies in the same boat! Graeber has a few well-established books before Dawn (Debt, for instance, is great) and has academic credentials. Menzies is frankly unserious, at least within the scholarly community - as, for what it’s worth, is Jared Diamond. Menzies and Diamond are overly ambitious and only partially (or, in Menzies’s case, not at all) successful. The real juxtaposition is between DoE and James Scott’s Against the Grain. Each is a sweeping claim about civilization’s origins that suffers a bit from the desires of the author filling in gaps where the data is just lacking.

I’m critical, but far less so than the posted review (I also don’t know the author of the review; Graeber again has that long list of credentials. He was also a pretty good colleague; I met him a few times when he was at Yale).

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Ok seriously, Burning Arrow Unit is just awesome... Residual fire in tiles attacked, Range pillage when Waahih civic chosen...

I think I found my first game ancient civ

Now... what leader will synergize well with it ? Tecumseh ?

Tecumseh is fairly Diplomatic focused. He probably isn't actually the best.

Amina doubles down on the Resources.

Confucius will double down on City growth and give you more benefit from Specialists.

Ashoka-WR can get a little Food/Happiness thing going for District-Resource-Potkap triangles.

 

[Zaarin]

Tecumseh is fairly Diplomatic focused. He probably isn't actually the best.

+1 combat bonus from IP suzerainty could make him a fierce combatant against major civs if he focuses his influence on IP.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

+1 combat bonus from IP suzerainty could make him a fierce combatant against major civs if he focuses his influence on IP.

Yeah, but that works with any civ. It doesn't have an unusual synergy with the Mississippians.

 

[Seek]

Ok seriously, Burning Arrow Unit is just awesome... Residual fire in tiles attacked, Range pillage when Waahih civic chosen...

I think I found my first game ancient civ

Now... what leader will synergize well with it ? Tecumseh ?

I’m leaning toward Amina or Hatshepsut for the resource synergies - and Hatshepsut gets a Nav River bonus too.