New Leader Crumbs?

While he would make for very interesting bonuses related to terrain and Towns (in the vein of Bull Moose Teddy from VI), it would feel a little antithetical to me for the "go live in a cabin in the woods and disobey the government" guy to be at the helm of an entire developed nation.

I'm aware that's a gross oversimplification of his writings, but if Machiavelli is any indication a gross oversimplification is probably what we're gonna get.

Edit: Thoreau would make for some great Tech or Civic quotes though. "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Feels very monumental and Civ-esque.
Well, good news: Thoreau's cabin experience was about as authentic as your average "survival" show. He may have written about living off nature in a cabin, but he went home to Mom for a sandwich every day. :mischief: Thoreau was born a century and change too soon for his real calling: "reality" TV. :mischief: If it sounds like I'm dripping with contempt for Thoreau...that's only because I am. :p
 
Well, good news: Thoreau's cabin experience was about as authentic as your average "survival" show. He may have written about living off nature in a cabin, but he went home to Mom for a sandwich every day. :mischief: Thoreau was born a century and change too soon for his real calling: "reality" TV. :mischief: If it sounds like I'm dripping with contempt for Thoreau...that's only because I am. :p
The 'political equivalent' of Thoreau was Jefferson. His insistence that small independent farmers should be the basis for the American economy and state showed an incredible obliviousness to the strength of the cities as economic engines and the absolute requirement of them for a 'modern' (well, 18th/19th century) economy.

That said, it is an attractive concept that has had adherents among European aristocrats and intellectuals going back to Classical Athens (and required Solon's reforms to correct the resulting economic/social calamities associated with it) and still prevalent in modern America - or hasn't anybody noticed how outrageously imbalanced the importance of rural voting disticts is compared to the population distribution in urban areas?

It would be interesting to play a Civ in which the 'back to the land' movement resulted in a real economic as well as political force, but it would be an economic Fantasy.
 
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Rasputin would be fun, but the best Russian "thought leader" would be Tolstoy, I think.

I think they should stop including renowned pacifists in the game (Gandhi included) unless they are willing to implement them with abilities that are more explicitly inline with said pacifism - ie can't declare war, can't conquer cities, can't fight in foreign territory, etc.
 
I think they should stop including renowned pacifists in the game (Gandhi included) unless they are willing to implement them with abilities that are more explicitly inline with said pacifism - ie can't declare war, can't conquer cities, can't fight in foreign territory, etc.
Only if they also stop including renowned warmongers/conquerors unless they are Required to declare war and penalized severely if they do not.
 
Only if they also stop including renowned warmongers/conquerors unless they are Required to declare war and penalized severely if they do not.
I don‘t think this is quite the same. Most warmongers get bonuses for exactly that. So, if you don‘t fight and conquer, you‘re losing out on your bonuses/uniques. There is a clear benefit of waging war for all civs/leaders usually, because this is how the game is conceived and designed. And this benefit it even larger with a militaristic civ/leader. But as a pacifist, you don‘t get a good compensation for being peaceful - in almost all cases, you are better off conquering as well. Especially in high level civ VI, letting the AI build stuff with bonuses and taking it is better than staying at peace trying to outperform the AIs bonuses with their own stupidity only.
 
I don‘t think this is quite the same. Most warmongers get bonuses for exactly that. So, if you don‘t fight and conquer, you‘re losing out on your bonuses/uniques. There is a clear benefit of waging war for all civs/leaders usually, because this is how the game is conceived and designed. And this benefit it even larger with a militaristic civ/leader. But as a pacifist, you don‘t get a good compensation for being peaceful - in almost all cases, you are better off conquering as well. Especially in high level civ VI, letting the AI build stuff with bonuses and taking it is better than staying at peace trying to outperform the AIs bonuses with their own stupidity only.
On the contrary, being warlike in Civ VI got you universally condemned by every other power forever: take one capital, and it would be Eras before you got another trade agreement of any worth, and you would also get negative diplomatic points, be outvoted in every World Congress, and so on.

Mind you, none of this was enough to avoid winning the game by Domination, but that is a matter of game balance, which has, frankly, always been in favor of the human player in combat, and the abysmal state of the AI in Civ VI, which was and is utterly incapable of forming any alliance of Civs against an aggressor.

Although, I have also played utterly Pacific games in which I aimed to win by never declaring war, never fighting except against barbarians, and only 'taking' foreign cities by peaceful flipping or taking advantage of cities reverting to Free City status - and won a diplomatic victory that way once before Turn 220.

That was with a Leader not considered particularly advantageous as a Cultural or peaceful one, so I'd say if anything, 'pacificists' get plenty of advantages (or did get in Civ VI) just as 'warmongers' did - IF they knew how to play them. - And I freely admit it took me quite a few tries to get used to playing a pacific game and using the advantages available in that mode. It is certainly less obvious than combat advantages are at first glance, whether they are attached to Civ or Leader.

So, to me it depends on how the diplomatic and other 'systems' in Civ VII are applied and interact with 'loyalty' and 'culture' to determine if pacifists will need anything special as bonuses or maluses, but the fact remains that to provide blanket maluses to one entire class of Leaders and only one is just bad Game Design regardless of how 'accurate' anyone thinks that might be.
 
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hasn't anybody noticed how outrageously imbalanced the importance of rural voting disticts is compared to the population distribution in urban areas?

That has nothing to do with an idealization of rural life and everything with the idea that making the votes of the (geographic) minority weigh more heavily will decrease the ability to the (geographic) majority to exert tyranny over them.

The European Parliament uses the same mechanism, for an example that has little to do with the US, and in fact has a significantly bigger variation in vote weight between it's smallest and biggest members than the US Electoral College has.

Mind, no value judgement from me here (that'd go too much into real-world politics anyway, even ignoring that I can't make up my mind on whether I'm in favor or against this concept in the first place), just discussing the reasons for why the concept exists.
 
That has nothing to do with an idealization of rural life and everything with the idea that making the votes of the (geographic) minority weigh more heavily will decrease the ability to the (geographic) majority to exert tyranny over them.

The European Parliament uses the same mechanism, for an example that has little to do with the US, and in fact has a significantly bigger variation in vote weight between it's smallest and biggest members than the US Electoral College has.

Mind, no value judgement from me here (that'd go too much into real-world politics anyway, even ignoring that I can't make up my mind on whether I'm in favor or against this concept in the first place), just discussing the reasons for why the concept exists.
Disagree. The 'idealization' of rural population, as stated, goes back to the origins of the 'landed aristocracy' in at least classical Greece and Rome and although modified by modern concepts of equalizing the influence of various voting blocs, the origins are in an on-going distrust of cities and their inhabitants compared to the 'sturdy yeomen' in the countryside.

All of which, however, is only very distantly related to anything in the game, so enuff . . .
 
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Disagree. The 'idealization' of rural population, as stated, goes back to the origins of the 'landed aristocracy' in at least classical Greece and Rome and although modified by modern concepts of equalizing the influence of various voting blocs, the origins are in an on-going distrust of cities and their inhabitants compared to the 'sturdy yeomen' in the countryside.

That argument could, theoretically, be valid for the US.

But it is by no means valid for the EU, which as I pointed out uses the same system. The Netherlands has five times the population density of France, and yet the Netherlands get one seat in the EP for every 574k population, while France only gets one seat in the EP for every 840k population.

To say nothing of Malta, which is basically an island covered by a city, having the strongest relative vote.

The correlation between rural/urban and voting power in these systems holds only if all subdivisions are similar in land area. Which is the case in much of the US (although the US also sees very high voting power in states like New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware!), but not in many other places that use this system.
 
could also just be that she’s standalone for now, like Amina, Trung Trac and Machiavelli


yep definitely
Nice catch, although one thing I'm personally disappointed by with 7 is that not every civ will have a historically accurate/appropriate leader to choose for them, it seems. The Mississippians kept no written records, for instance, so there can't be a Mississippian leader to pair with the civ in the Antiquity Era.
 
Only if they also stop including renowned warmongers/conquerors unless they are Required to declare war and penalized severely if they do not.
That seems like a bit of a false equivalency to me. Are there a lot of renowned warmongers in the game who had moral objections to non-violence? Most of them certainly enjoyed warfare, and had the goal of an empire united under them, and violence was the necessary way to achieve that. But they were certainly happy to use diplomatic and other non-violent approaches as opportunities arose.
 
That seems like a bit of a false equivalency to me. Are there a lot of renowned warmongers in the game who had moral objections to non-violence? Most of them certainly enjoyed warfare, and had the goal of an empire united under them, and violence was the necessary way to achieve that. But they were certainly happy to use diplomatic and other non-violent approaches as opportunities arose.
"What every conqueror wants, in the end, is peace,"
-P. Sebastien
 
I don't think Alexander did. :mischief:
Ah, but the lowly mosquito, the only enemy who bested him, cut his life too short to know if he may have mellowed with age (and piles of loot).
 
Ah, but the lowly mosquito, the only enemy who bested him, cut his life too short to know if he may have mellowed with age (and piles of loot).
Alexander really was the perfect storm of an adolescent with the brilliance to back his own view of himself and the youthful energy to carry it out.
 
"What every conqueror wants, in the end, is peace,"
-P. Sebastien
To quote Mel Brooks:

"A little piece of England, a little piece of France . . . "
 
Nice catch, although one thing I'm personally disappointed by with 7 is that not every civ will have a historically accurate/appropriate leader to choose for them, it seems. The Mississippians kept no written records, for instance, so there can't be a Mississippian leader to pair with the civ in the Antiquity Era.
I'd like to amend my statement, actually: after some brief research, there is mention of a (very late, more "Exploration Era") leader/chief from a Mississippian culture, one Pacaha, whom lent his name to a tribe/polity in modern-day Arkansas and whom Hernando de Soto encountered in 1541. There's also a rival, Casqui, who likewise lent his name to a tribe/polity in the area; de Soto seems to have stepped foot into their preexisting conflict. Still, this is... pretty much all that's known about the guys? And they're definitely not what I'd call the "Mississippians proper", the Woodland Period cultural group that seems to be represented in Civ VII's Antiquity Era.
Ultimately, my point still stands unless they wanted to reach into the murky depths of history for one of two people who barely survive in it and who may have literally just been "the chief of the Pacaha/Casqui" as remembered by a white guy.
 
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I'd like to amend my statement, actually: after some brief research, there is mention of a (very late, more "Exploration Era") leader/chief from a Mississippian culture, one Pacaha, whom lent his name to a tribe/polity in modern-day Arkansas and whom Hernando de Soto encountered in 1541. There's also a rival, Casqui, who likewise lent his name to a tribe/polity in the area; de Soto seems to have stepped foot into their preexisting conflict. Still, this is... pretty much all that's known about the guys? And they're definitely not what I'd call the "Mississippians proper", the Woodland Period cultural group that seems to be represented in Civ VII's Antiquity Era.
Ultimately, my point still stands unless they wanted to reach into the murky depths of history for one of two people who barely survive in it and who may have literally just been "the chief of the Pacaha/Casqui" as remembered by a white guy.
One advantage of Mississippian societies is that in most of them the chiefs didn't have names; they had heritable titles. Tuskaloosa (1540) may have been able to do lot more than lose a war to De Soto, but there was an earlier Tuskaloosa who was more impressive, for example.
 
One advantage of Mississippian societies is that in most of them the chiefs didn't have names; they had heritable titles. Tuskaloosa (1540) may have been able to do lot more than lose a war to De Soto, but there was an earlier Tuskaloosa who was more impressive, for example.
Huh, that's quite interesting. I didn't know about the titular inheritance. Is there a good source you recommend for Mississippian knowledge?
 
Huh, that's quite interesting. I didn't know about the titular inheritance. Is there a good source you recommend for Mississippian knowledge?
Not specific to the Mississippians, but Facing East from Indian Country is a good general history of the early contact period (up through the 18th century, I think) from a Native American perspective, including the Mississippians; as I recall, it covers De Soto's journey in a decent amount of detail. From Chicaza to Chickasaw is a good look at the transition from the Mississippian to post-Mississippian societies, including an overview of the Mississippians--but I have to offer the caveat that I only skimmed it for a paper. :D
 
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