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pre-release info New Civ Game Guide: Mississippian

pre-release info
That was going to be a given. They are called Mississippians because they all lived in the Mississippi River region, and were the ancestors to all the eventual tribes.
The culture extended further than just the Mississipi. It's just the Mississipi river valley played a major role in the trade and communication which enabled the creation of the Hopewell tradition (mounds, raven motifs, pallisades, etc) from which Mississipian tradition (an evolution of Hopewellian traditions once large scale farming of maize is adopted, enabling larger cities and all that comes with them).

The full extent of it looked like this with many local subareas.
Southeastern_Ceremonial_Complex_map.jpg


The subareas are more easily visible here:
easternmap.gif


Humankind's Mississipians as well as Civ 7's rendition of these people both draws upon the Cahokians of the Middle Mississipian complex.
But it really wasn't just people living along Mississipi.
 
I'm really loving these unique unit abilities. This one, along with the Mayan Jaguar Slayers' ability to set traps in vegetated terrain, are my favorites so far.
I know! I think combat is going to feel much more "RPG-ish" this time around, and I am totally here for it.

We've got Ranger/Trappers with the Maya, Elemental Archers with the Mississippians. Berserkers who inflict the berserk status? Ninja-Assassins? Corsairs with dice gambles? BLACK MAGES (looks at Civ VI missionaries...)?
 
It meant a lot of work.
So far, literally everything I am seeing in this game seems extremely well-considered, if not for a smaller civ roster release then surely to make sense within a larger tapestry. Huge, huge kudos.
 
And why is the Antiquity Economic Legacy important? It gives you a Legacy ability to keep all your cities from regressing to towns. Seems useful.
It now occurs to me that the very point of the Antiquity Economic Legacy is probably to keep all your resource slots - and by extension, traded resources - in the cities intact, rather than an expansionist bonus.

(Do non-specialist towns have resource slots?)
 
Introducing Mississippian! The Mississippians - named for the river near where their earthen mounds stand - leave no writing behind, but archaeology tells of a complex society, a political system where cities waxed and waned in influence, maize farming, and trade in copper, shells, and hides. But by 1400 CE, whether through natural or political means, the Mississippians had already faded into memory.

Attributes:
Economic
Expansionist

Unique Ability:
Goose Societies: All Buildings receive a Food Adjacency for Resources.

Unique Infrastructure:
Potkop: Unique Improvement. Adds Gold. Adds Food for each adjacent Resource. Must be built on a flat tile.

Unique Civilian Unit:
Watonathi: Unique Merchant Unit. Gain Gold per Resource acquired when creating a Trade Route.

Unique Military Unit:
Burning Arrow: Unique Ranged Unit. Has increased Combat Strength against Fortified Districts and Siege Units. Applies the Burning status to tiles for a set number of turns; Burning deals damage to Units that end their turn on the Burning tile.

Associated Wonder:
Monks Mound: Adds Food. Increased Resource Capacity in this City. Must be placed adjacent to a River tile.

Starting Biases:
Flat
Rivers

Check out the full game guide for more info & civic trees: https://civilization.2k.com/civ-vii/game-guide/civilizations/mississippian/

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The_J
o the term chosen is Missisipian rather than Cahokians.
Who were they actually? a tribe that's now extinct or broken into other tribes? or union of mid continent native american tribes?

the only sure thing is that they were tied to Cahokia. an ancient ruins located near St. Louis.
 
o the term chosen is Missisipian rather than Cahokians.
Who were they actually? a tribe that's now extinct or broken into other tribes? or union of mid continent native american tribes?

the only sure thing is that they were tied to Cahokia. an ancient ruins located near St. Louis.
Eh I think that they and the Pueblo are probably America's two best shots at reconstructing antiquity civs, and there is generally enough to work with. It's a very solid attempt at representing a cool part of history, like the Scythia we got in VI.

I would say it gives the Olmecs good odds at eventually being elevated to a civ, but part of me thinks the Mayans already stole their "hunter/trapper" vibe that would probably suit a more generic, less known antiquity rainforest culture.
 
o the term chosen is Missisipian rather than Cahokians.
Who were they actually? a tribe that's now extinct or broken into other tribes? or union of mid continent native american tribes?

the only sure thing is that they were tied to Cahokia. an ancient ruins located near St. Louis.
They have broken up into the numerous familiar tribes that still exist and inhabited the lands of the Southeast and Midwest when the French, Spanish, and English arrived.

They were a multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic people with a large number of polities of various sizes. Mounds are not just found at Cahokia, but along waterways of all sizes from the Plains to the Appalachians, the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

Cahokia is the largest and best known site, and yet we only know a fraction of it. There were also mounds across the river that were unthinkingly leveled and St. Louis built on top.
 
Cahokia is the largest and best known site, and yet we only know a fraction of it. There were also mounds across the river that were unthinkingly leveled and St. Louis built on top.
When researching the region's history some years ago, I was surprised to learn that St. Louis once had about 40+ mounds. It was likely a major city on its own before the French arrived, but since there is only one mound left now (the Sugarloaf Mound, which even had a single-family house built on top of it), we know very little about this site. History is built in layers they said...
 
Who were they actually? a tribe that's now extinct or broken into other tribes? or union of mid continent native american tribes?
A massive area of completely unrelated cultures which were in prolonged contact that enabled trade, spread of religion, technology art and ideas.
Think Ancient Mediterranean prior to Roman conquest. Different cultures and no empire to set the standards but everyone's clothes, temples, weapons and armor, ships all look almost identical.
It's not a perfectly fitting example but it should give you a good enough idea without falling into the pitfall of seeing it as a single tribe/related city states-colonies/empire swelling to ridiculous proportions.
 
A massive area of completely unrelated cultures which were in prolonged contact that enabled trade, spread of religion, technology art and ideas.
Think Ancient Mediterranean prior to Roman conquest. Different cultures and no empire to set the standards but everyone's clothes, temples, weapons and armor, ships all look almost identical.
It's not a perfectly fitting example but it should give you a good enough idea without falling into the pitfall of seeing it as a single tribe/related city states-colonies/empire swelling to ridiculous proportions.
Just to note that prolonged contact would have included wars, just probably not wars that brought the whole area under one empire…more multiple wars that (along with trade) would have spread various cultures.
 
Are fire arrows actually historical? I thought they weren’t. Still cool though
No more historical than anyone else using fire arrows. I think this trait stems from many sites being destroyed by fire; ash layers in the archeological record atest to this. Although, they could easily have been the result of manual torching or accidents involving cooking fires.

They also started grass fires for agricultural purposes, and it doesn't take much imagination to speculate that these could get out of hand on occasion.
 
No more historical than anyone else using fire arrows. I think this trait stems from many sites being destroyed by fire; ash layers in the archeological record atest to this. Although, they could easily have been the result of manual torching or accidents involving cooking fires.
I mean they must have read De Soto's expedition (the only description of these people ever created and preserved) and the locals sometimes just burned down the town before fleeing it when they saw the expedition approaching. You don't really need to try and look for some stretch of imagination that would attest what I'd expect to be one of the most universal tools of destruction humanity had at its disposal.
 
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I mean they must have read De Soto's expedition (the only description of these people ever created and preserved) and the locals sometimes just burned down the town before fleeing it when they saw the expedition approaching. You don't really need to try and look for some stretch of imagination that would attest what I'd expect to be one of the most universal tools of destruction humanity had at its disposal.
That would be the manual torching I mentioned. It can be offensive or defensive. There's no record of arrows being involved, and that seems like a romantic convolution anyway.

But it does make for a fun game mechanic.
 
I don't know if there is evidence that the Mississippians used fire arrows against their enemies en masse as a military tactic, but I think there is also a gameplay reason as to why there is such a unit with a strong burning ability.

The Mississippian civilization seems like a counter to the Maya civilization. If you look at the Maya civilization, they appear to be very difficult to reach and fight with another civilization if the Maya cities are surrounded by vegetation. That won't be the case if you play as the Mississippians. You will burn their traps and units before you even reach their cities, nullifying the damage your army would have received otherwise.
 
Eh I think that they and the Pueblo are probably America's two best shots at reconstructing antiquity civs, and there is generally enough to work with. It's a very solid attempt at representing a cool part of history, like the Scythia we got in VI.
Now I want a SW line that includes Pueblo>Comanche>Navajo with Geronimo as leader. :mischief:
 
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