New Expansion Speculation Thread

Working evenings. Getting those first look videos prepared?

 

I don't know enough about Tongan or Samoan history to answer that, but I'm concerned a Maori civ would lean too heavily into the warrior culture aspect when I'm hoping whatever Polynesian civ we get focuses more on wayfinding and small island colonization.

 

I agree that being able to build districts in the middle of absolutely nowhere would be immersion breaking, but being able to build certain districts or variants of existing districts (like the Campus and Industrial Zone which seem to appear in the leaked images) on coastal water tiles adjacent to land like the the Water Park would be a welcome change that would give coastal cities more more infrastructural options.

Think of it more like "land reclamation". I cringe at the term because you can't reclaim what you never had... but it is the one that I have seen used most for filling in coastal estuaries or extending landmass into bodies of water.

Mini-rant aside, having districts that can be placed on water tiles, even with some restrictions, I think would help coastal cities make use of their less valuable tiles and allow them to set up better adjacency conditions.

 

For the Tongan leader, I have in mind king Tuʻi-tā-tui, who was king over the Tonga Empire ~ yes, they had a pre-colonial empire! Alternatively there is ʻAhoʻeitu.
Queen Salamasina and queen Nafanua are two potential female leaders for Samoa.

 

Actually, now that we have a male leader for (most likely) a Maori civ, if we are to get two Polynesian civs, the second one could have a female leader. Samoa has a couple of interesting options for a female leader, so perhaps they should go with a Samoan civ ~ trouble is, I seriously doubt we are getting two Polynesian civs in this expansion.

 

If we do get the Maori (which would be great NZ represented without our boring colonial history) I don’t want it sullied as poly hybrid, let’s not introduce alt leaders into the mix, i would be keen for more poly civs though ( does Indonesia or Norway help stretch that island itch ?)

 

If you look at the leaked water campus and wind farm images they have a different colour scheme to other districts - it’s sort of “blue” and “green”. I wonder if FXS are thinking about creating a new “class” of districts rather than just adding some new districts to the existing classes. If that’s right, then my best guess is that there might be some sort of “energy” or “power” class districts (maybe even split into clean and dirty power), or maybe a more general “ocean” class districts.

I’m very reluctant to read too much into the leaked information we have. But I do think something around energy is possible - energy is not well represented at the moment (eg coal and oil have no significance beyond building certain units, powerplants are just another building in the useless IZ), and FXS must realise there are problems around late game production. So, fleshing out energy and power would be an obvious move, and probably not hard to implement something. That would also fit with the late game focus.

I still think there’s a 50:50 chance we might get some sort of rework of governments, governors, Government Plaza and Legacy Cards. The underlying mechanics work really well, but at the same time what we got in RnF was just so bare in terms of execution. Surely that’s an area ripe for development.

On a different note. I’ve also been playing a lot of Khmer on Immortal lately, and one thing I’ve noticed is that RnF did do a good job of making population more valuable. In particular, I’ve noticed High Pop makes your Religon so much more robust and does give you some good faith at Theocracy. And then the loyalty pressure can get pretty crazy, flipping cities all over the place. And of course you do get extra production etc by being able to work more tiles (which are now easier to enhance given build charges are easier to get).

Okay, so what’s my point? Well just that, post RnF, I’m not sure the game needs all that much to really click. It’s pretty good - it just needs some fleshing out in some places and balancing and it’d basically be there. There’s still the issue of the AI, but that has got steadily better and maybe will get much better once the rules are more settled. I still think the AI challenge overall needs a look (eg getting bonuses over the course of the game, not just at the start; a few more diplomatic options), but maybe that could happen too.

Hmm. I’m not hyped about the next expansion. Just happy to wait and see. But it is very tedious waiting at this point. Will FXS get there? Won’t they? The game is currently right on the edge of “awesome” or “underwhelming”.

I’ve asked this before, but what are people’s experience with the “second expansion” for Civ 4 and 5? It feels like both games really hit their stride on their second expansion. Do those games give good reasons to be excited about Sid Shrodinger’s Civ VI Brave New World of Dynamite Polynesian Vesuvius: Rising Tide Expansion? #CivVI:SSBNWDPVRTE

 

Personally I would also prefer two separate Polynesian civs (in which case the Maori would be quite welcome as a second choice), but seeing that it does appear that the Polynesian civ is the Maori, and there is little chance that there would be two separate Poly civs, I'm more in favor of a blob Poly civ with two leaders representing two different aspects of Polynesia instead of only one civ that happens to be the heavily militaristic, and more land-centric Maori. For me, it's the not what I wanted, but would be the next best thing.

Indonesia and Norway is kinda like scratching just next to an itch, but not quite getting it. I do like both those civs though, but not for the reason why I liked Polynesia in Civ V.

 

He and Gitarja will get on just swell.

 

Whether Maori or Polynesia, they are going to be screwed on the TSL map.

 

Why's that? Give them a combo of Civ 5 Polynesia's early seafaring and Indonesia's Kampungs and they should do just fine.

 

Honestly the more I think about it there is a possibility that they could definitely give the Maori a "Polynesian wayfinding" ability and give the "warrior culture" ability to the leader. Having the ability for settlers to at least enter the water earlier at like sailing would be beneficial and go great with any Polynesian Civ.
They could alternatively give them an outrigger canoe UU that has the ability to cross oceans sooner, but I think they would be better suited to a Maori Warrior unit, where others such as Samoa or Tonga would get make more since for a canoe.

 

About this ship in the 2nd leak... https://i.redd.it/60s18lncgew11.png

Berbers were mentioned by some but could it possibly be UU for Genoa or Venice? Either of them is my #1 hope (along with Sweden) for the expansion.

If we get canal district Venice could have unique one that has tourism bonus..

 

I hope the Berber ship also means some general medieval ship units could be added. It's very weird to me that triremes and quadrimes stick around from the Ancient era to the Renaissance era (not to mention Norway's Ancient era viking longships..).

 

Well, we can discuss all day what we would like to have in the game. But what I really just need is a usable map editor, complete with setting up cities and units, to make complex scenarios.
And the complete moddability, .DLL code. The rest the modding community can do. I mean there are already so excellent modded civs out there.

 

I saw the Wikipedia page on the show, those character names are awful. Not real Brittonic names.

Did the Genoese and Venetians use xebec ships?

 

Here's something portentous. It's not a qa update though. They just cleared the header image on Steam for all languages. The previous one was advertising R&F.

How long will they let it sit on Steam without a header image? Will they go back to the vanilla image before switching to Vesuvius? I'm intrigued.

 

Oh wow, that is exciting! Could we possibly hope for an announcement as early as next week?

 

I wouldn't think so. But maybe these leaks pushed their marketing schedule up? If they put in a new non-Vesuvius header up soon, then probably not.

And it's not like they would promote the iPhone and Switch versions on Steam. (Switches don't run Steam, right?)

 

I could see an announcement next week, even with the Switch release, but, realistically, I think the week after Thanksgiving feels likely.