OCC leader suggestion

[Hull tyyp]

Please consider adding a one city challenge (OCC) civilization to Civ 6. Venice in Civ 5 was a very popular and fun civilization to play and it is definitely possible to make a similar fun challenge to Civ 6. As you are adding new leaders right now this is a perfect time to do that.

Add a new leader to lead any city-state. The new leader could be someone historic that has lead different city-states or it could be someone vague but for the purpose of this suggestion, I’ll call it “The Council”. The Council appears on the leader selection screen as usual but upon selecting, you get a popup or a dropdown window to choose which city-state you want to play as.

Selecting a city-state grants you its suzerain bonus ability for the game as the civilization ability.

Note: This mechanic would grant some extra replayability to otherwise similar OCC games. Choosing a powerful suzerain bonus at the start of the game also makes for a fun yet important decision.

Most mechanics of the OCC game would be defined by The Council leader abilities:

No city annexing: Capturing an enemy city grants you an option to “raze city” or to “liberate city”. Liberating a city causes it to become a free city. Can not flip free cities to your empire with loyalty. Loyalty pressure keeps the free city from flipping to any other civilization.

Note: Obviously, an OCC game shouldn’t be able to capture cities.

Unique settler: Replacing the usual settler, the unique settler can settle only the capital city and has one charge for extra action.
- Puppet free city: Use the unique settler charge next to a free city to turn it into a random city-state with 3 envoys. Using the ability on a former original capital turns it into a generic city-state that keeps the capital name and offers no unique suzerain bonus.
-Build unique tile improvement: Use the unique settler charge in your own territory to build the unique tile improvement.

Note: Just removing the settler from the OCC game would be a bad idea. The game has so many ways to get free settlers or to boost settler production. All these could boost the unique settler instead. Also capturing an enemy settler would turn it into the unique settler. Now the purpose of that unique settler could be something interesting like turning free cities into city-states, similar how in the barbarian game mode works or making some cool tile improvement.

Special domination victory condition: Become the suzerain of all capital cities.

Note: Some extra challenge for the expert players. Use your military to turn all enemy capitals into free cities, then use your unique settler to make them into city-states and then make sure you have suzerainty over all of them.

Unique tile improvement: Use the unique settler to build a “Town” in your territory. Towns can not be placed next to a city center or next to other towns. Can not be removed. Provides some or all of the following bonuses: extra yields, adjacency bonus for districts, housing, governor slot, “town wonder” slot.
-Town wonder could be something similar to national wonders from previous games. Only one allowed per empire, they are unlocked from the tech and culture trees. Can be built by unique settler using a charge on the “town” tile improvement. Various significant bonuses depending on the building: National library grants science or writing slots, Heroic epic grants boost to military production or special promotion, grand temple grants religion boost ect.

Note: First unique tile improvements and their wonders come much cheaper than the later ones due to the increasing cost of the settler. This mechanic would create interesting choices especially if you need to use some unique settlers to create city-states from enemy players. Also the town tile improvement makes sense, a lot of the city-states alteady in the game are actually small countries with multible towns.

Great city: The councils leadership allows the city to work additional tiles.

Note: The usual 3 tile radius for the city might be too cramped. Allowing to work, build districts and wonders four or maybe 5 tiles from the city center would make for a much more fun game to the OCC.

Expanding trade network: Completing a trade route to a new civilization or a city state grants a new trade route.

Note: Some mechanic would be needed that grants the civ additional trade routes. This idea scales with the number of civilizations without granting the trade routes too fast. Sometimes the player could face an interesting decision when in need of a new trade route: should I make a far trade route that takes a long time to complete or resort to violence with a closer neighbor and turn one of its cities into a city-state.

Governor system: Allows assigning more than one governor to the city at the same time.

Note: All those extra governor points can’t go to waste. Governor slots in the city could be increased by the unique tile improvement built by the unique settler.

Sorry for the long post. I hope the developers give this suggestion some thought and imploment it in some way.

 

[pineappledan]

Papal States
UA - The Holy See
+1 Faith for every 4 followers of your religion. Buildings constructed in your City Center generate +1 Great Prophet Point each.

UU - Jesuit (Apostle replacement)
4 spread actions
Gains Science when revealing tiles and for each citizen converted when using a spread action.

UB - Chapel
Replaces Temple
+5 Faith
3 Great Work Slots (any type)
+4 Culture to Relics in this city
+4 Faith and Tourism to Great Works of Art in this city
All Great works of Art stored in a City with a Chapel can be placed in Relic Slots

Leader: Pius IX
ULA: Pastor Aeternus
Cannot attack cities or train settlers.
Civilizations following your Religion automatically declare joint war and peace agreements when you do, and cannot do either action independently

 

[Patine]

Please consider adding a one city challenge (OCC) civilization to Civ 6. Venice in Civ 5 was a very popular and fun civilization to play and it is definitely possible to make a similar fun challenge to Civ 6. As you are adding new leaders right now this is a perfect time to do that.

Add a new leader to lead any city-state. The new leader could be someone historic that has lead different city-states or it could be someone vague but for the purpose of this suggestion, I’ll call it “The Council”. The Council appears on the leader selection screen as usual but upon selecting, you get a popup or a dropdown window to choose which city-state you want to play as.

Selecting a city-state grants you its suzerain bonus ability for the game as the civilization ability.

Note: This mechanic would grant some extra replayability to otherwise similar OCC games. Choosing a powerful suzerain bonus at the start of the game also makes for a fun yet important decision.

Most mechanics of the OCC game would be defined by The Council leader abilities:

No city annexing: Capturing an enemy city grants you an option to “raze city” or to “liberate city”. Liberating a city causes it to become a free city. Can not flip free cities to your empire with loyalty. Loyalty pressure keeps the free city from flipping to any other civilization.

Note: Obviously, an OCC game shouldn’t be able to capture cities.

Unique settler: Replacing the usual settler, the unique settler can settle only the capital city and has one charge for extra action.
- Puppet free city: Use the unique settler charge next to a free city to turn it into a random city-state with 3 envoys. Using the ability on a former original capital turns it into a generic city-state that keeps the capital name and offers no unique suzerain bonus.
-Build unique tile improvement: Use the unique settler charge in your own territory to build the unique tile improvement.

Note: Just removing the settler from the OCC game would be a bad idea. The game has so many ways to get free settlers or to boost settler production. All these could boost the unique settler instead. Also capturing an enemy settler would turn it into the unique settler. Now the purpose of that unique settler could be something interesting like turning free cities into city-states, similar how in the barbarian game mode works or making some cool tile improvement.

Special domination victory condition: Become the suzerain of all capital cities.

Note: Some extra challenge for the expert players. Use your military to turn all enemy capitals into free cities, then use your unique settler to make them into city-states and then make sure you have suzerainty over all of them.

Unique tile improvement: Use the unique settler to build a “Town” in your territory. Towns can not be placed next to a city center or next to other towns. Can not be removed. Provides some or all of the following bonuses: extra yields, adjacency bonus for districts, housing, governor slot, “town wonder” slot.
-Town wonder could be something similar to national wonders from previous games. Only one allowed per empire, they are unlocked from the tech and culture trees. Can be built by unique settler using a charge on the “town” tile improvement. Various significant bonuses depending on the building: National library grants science or writing slots, Heroic epic grants boost to military production or special promotion, grand temple grants religion boost ect.

Note: First unique tile improvements and their wonders come much cheaper than the later ones due to the increasing cost of the settler. This mechanic would create interesting choices especially if you need to use some unique settlers to create city-states from enemy players. Also the town tile improvement makes sense, a lot of the city-states alteady in the game are actually small countries with multible towns.

Great city: The councils leadership allows the city to work additional tiles.

Note: The usual 3 tile radius for the city might be too cramped. Allowing to work, build districts and wonders four or maybe 5 tiles from the city center would make for a much more fun game to the OCC.

Expanding trade network: Completing a trade route to a new civilization or a city state grants a new trade route.

Note: Some mechanic would be needed that grants the civ additional trade routes. This idea scales with the number of civilizations without granting the trade routes too fast. Sometimes the player could face an interesting decision when in need of a new trade route: should I make a far trade route that takes a long time to complete or resort to violence with a closer neighbor and turn one of its cities into a city-state.

Governor system: Allows assigning more than one governor to the city at the same time.

Note: All those extra governor points can’t go to waste. Governor slots in the city could be increased by the unique tile improvement built by the unique settler.

Sorry for the long post. I hope the developers give this suggestion some thought and imploment it in some way.

The problem is, Venice doesn't really live up to these restrictions, regardless of what the Civ5 designers may have thought. Venice did found and annex cities and territories across the Adriatic, Aegean, and in the Veneto hinterlands.

Papal States
UA - The Holy See
+1 Faith for every 4 followers of your religion. Buildings constructed in your City Center generate +1 Great Prophet Point each.

UU - Jesuit (Apostle replacement)
4 spread actions
Gains Science when revealing tiles and for each citizen converted when using a spread action.

UB - Chapel
Replaces Temple
+5 Faith
3 Great Work Slots (any type)
+4 Culture to Relics in this city
+4 Faith and Tourism to Great Works of Art in this city
All Great works of Art stored in a City with a Chapel can be placed in Relic Slots

Leader: Pius IX
ULA: Pastor Aeternus
Cannot attack cities or train settlers.
Civilizations following your Religion automatically declare joint war and peace agreements when you do, and cannot do either action independently

This would be a bit difficult to have on the standard Earth map with the Romans. Plus, the Papal States were not one one city, but contained several cities and territories in their swath across Central Italy, and had even had exclaves like Benevento, Avignon, and, for periods of time, Papal Fiefs in the Holy Land set up by the Crusaders and de jure the Island of Ireland.

 

[Zaarin]

UU - Jesuit (Apostle replacement)

Considering the fraught relationship between the Society of Jesus and the papacy, the several close calls the Jesuits had with condemnation for heresy, and the suppression of the Society of Jesus by the Vatican in the late 18th century, this is certainly a strange UU for the Papal States. Papal Zouaves replacing the Rifleman or Swiss Guard replacing Pike and Shot would make more sense IMO.

UB - Chapel

If this is a One-City Papal States, might as well go straight for the Apostolic Palace as a unique Government Plaza or Holy Site.

 

[pineappledan]

Considering the fraught relationship between the Society of Jesus and the papacy, the several close calls the Jesuits had with condemnation for heresy, and the suppression of the Society of Jesus by the Vatican in the late 18th century, this is certainly a strange UU for the Papal States. Papal Zouaves replacing the Rifleman or Swiss Guard replacing Pike and Shot would make more sense IMO.

Would have to put the conversion power elsewhere if you went with a military UU. An OCC focused on converting the world needs some powerful tools. You could roll it into the ULA, but any military UU would end up being a vestigial piece of the kit.

There has certainly been some ups and downs between the papacy and the Society of Jesus, but I can point to lots of examples of a very good relationship between the Pope and the Jesuits in the two's long history. Not least of which being that the current pope is a Jesuit, and that the genesis of the order was support for the Papacy. I'm not aware of any bad blood between Pius IX, the leader I picked, and the Society of Jesus.

If this is a One-City Papal States, might as well go straight for the Apostolic Palace as a unique Government Plaza or Holy Site.

The idea of the design was that if the OCC is on the leader then someone could make a Papal states that isn't OCC. The UA is mostly just guaranteed founding.

The Papal States had many cities, but not under Pius IX, 'the prisoner of the vatican', they didn't. However, he convened the first Vatican Council, where he declared the doctrines of papal infallibility, papal supremacy, and papal primacy, in addition to a broad condemnation of the tenets of liberal self-government and the division of church & state. Sort of as recompense for losing all of his earthly domains, the Pope was given unilateral power to appoint bishops and priests in all Catholic dioceses. In essence, he was given complete control of the Catholic faith and all of its adherents without interference or recourse by those citizen's kings or governments. Arguably this is even more power than the papcy had before they lost their lands.

I don't like the idea of a palace as a UB, because you don't get to build them. At that point, it may as well be part of the UA.

 

[Zaarin]

You could roll it into the ULA, but any military UU would end up being a vestigial piece of the kit.

That's true of all civs, though.

There has certainly been some ups and downs between the papacy and the Society of Jesus, but I can point to lots of examples of a very good relationship between the Pope and the Jesuits in the two's long history. Not least of which being that the current pope is a Jesuit, and that the genesis of the order was support for the Papacy.

Yes, it's been a complicated relationship, though the order's founding to support the papacy was received rather coldly by the pope himself. It's actually rather fascinating that the Jesuits didn't suffer the fate of the Spirituali and the Oratory of Divine Love, since Ignatius of Loyola expressed similar ideas shortly after the Spirituali were condemned and the Oratory closed.

The idea of the design was that if the OCC is on the leader then someone could make a Papal states that isn't OCC. The UA is mostly just guaranteed founding.

The Papal States had many cities, but not under Pius IX, 'the prisoner of the vatican', they didn't. However, he convened the first Vatican Council, where he declared the doctrines of papal infallibility, papal supremacy, and papal primacy, in addition to a broad condemnation of the tenets of liberal self-government and the division of church & state. Sort of as recompense for losing all of his earthly domains, the Pope was given unilateral power to appoint bishops and priests in all Catholic dioceses. In essence, he was given complete control of the Catholic faith and all of its adherents without interference or recourse by those citizen's kings or governments. Arguably this is even more power than the papcy had before they lost their lands.

Oh, there are so many Popes Pius and I got distracted by the Society of Jesus I hadn't even noticed the pope you picked. Interesting choice, a pope from the period when the Church began a sharp decline it's never recovered from and who began the practice of considering the papacy captivus Vaticani (a captive of the Vatican). It makes more sense to me to choose a pope from the height of the Church's temporal power--Urban II, Innocent III, even Julius II (even if he was more of a warlord than a pope). Even the early post-Tridentine popes, though considerably curtailed in their power by the rise of Protestantism, at least presided over a vigorous and reanimated Church. I wouldn't choose a pope from the 18th century onward, when the pope became a relic of a bygone age as far as earthly politics were concerned and the Church itself became increasingly stagnant and compromised. I'd personally argue that papal infallibility was a desperate grab at prestige by a has-been principate, not a badge of honor. It was extremely controversial even within Catholicism, slammed shut the door of any possibility of reconciliation with Protestantism or Eastern Orthodoxy, and the only times it has been used (to declare as dogma the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary) could be described as thumbing the Church's nose at Protestants and Orthodox, despite the Church's allegedly ecumenical overtures. (To be honest, electing a Jesuit could also be considered thumbing the Church's nose at Protestants and Orthodox, which is an interesting tactic as the papacy has made interfaith dialog its main agenda, but that's a different discussion.)

In short, Pius IX finally won the age old investiture strife--but by the time he won it the Church was so detached from earthly affairs that the civic rulers were frankly completely unconcerned about who their bishop was. He won a battle three centuries after everyone else had ceased to care about it. That definitely was not more power than was wielded by earlier popes. It would be fairer to say that Pius IX was the first pope to accept the reality that the Catholic Church had lost all its temporal authority and was, at least by its own dogmas, the steward of the kingdom of heaven only.

I don't like the idea of a palace as a UB, because you don't get to build them. At that point, it may as well be part of the UA.

I was looking for something more Vatican than a chapel, which exist all over the Christian world--not just Catholic but Protestant, Orthodox, Miaphysite, Nestorian...

 

[Hull tyyp]

The problem is, Venice doesn't really live up to these restrictions, regardless of what the Civ5 designers may have thought. Venice did found and annex cities and territories across the Adriatic, Aegean, and in the Veneto hinterlands.

Sure but Venice was fun to play as. If you want to nitpick like that then Switzerland, Latvia, Malaysia or Mexico are not a city-states either, yet they are in the game as one.

I'm just proposing a leader that can take control of any of them while giving great bonuses.

 

[pineappledan]

Irrespective of how it works IRL, winning the investiture controversy means that Pius IX, in the context of an OCC civ, has a very interesting path to an RV, in that he was granted complete power over his followers everywhere in matters of faith.

You're basically arguing backwards from a premise which is not the point of the thread: An OCC civ. The point is not whether Pius IX would be the best leader for a Papal States civ, it's whether the Vatican could be worked into an OCC. And I think Pius IX and his first vatican council would be great substrate for a civ 5 Venice-style OCC, but focused on conversion instead of TRs.

At risk of sounding like Dan Brown or something, If rulers didn't care about the investiture controversy, then maybe they should have. Maybe this rests on our differing ideas of what power is, but I think you're overstating the importance of the temporal power of the old Popes and downplaying the soft power of the current Papacy. The pope and his functionaries have direct access to a captive audience of 1.35 billion people every week who believe the pope is the literal representative of God on earth. As the head of one of the largest religions in the world, and without the oversight/interference of other rulers, the Pope holds considerable influence. Part of the bargain of that influence is that he not exercise it too much, but I would argue the papacy is at least as strong as it has ever been, and that started with Pius IX.

I was looking for something more Vatican than a chapel, which exist all over the Christian world--not just Catholic but Protestant, Orthodox, Miaphysite, Nestorian...

But if the civ were to serve as a base for a non-OCC pope like the ones you suggested then the UB can't be something only found in the Vatican.

 

[Patine]

If you want to nitpick like that then Switzerland, Latvia, Malaysia or Mexico are not a city-states either, yet they are in the game as one.

True, but if these were allowed into player's hands as opposed to using the city-state label and AI rules, there would be no inherent limits to stop them from playing as a standard civi.

 

[Zaarin]

At risk of sounding like Dan Brown or something, If rulers didn't care about the investiture controversy, then maybe they should have. Maybe this rests on our differing ideas of what power is, but I think you're overstating the importance of the temporal power of the old Popes and downplaying the soft power of the current Papacy. The pope and his functionaries have direct access to a captive audience of 1.35 billion people every week who believe the pope is the literal representative of God on earth. As the head of one of the largest religions in the world, and without the oversight/interference of other rulers, the Pope holds considerable influence. Part of the bargain of that influence is that he not exercise it too much, but I would argue the papacy is at least as strong as it has ever been, and that started with Pius IX.

Full disclaimer: I'm a Protestant and consider myself the equal of the pope and any human being in all matters whatsoever so that does influence my religious view of the papacy (and the Jesuits), though unlike many Protestants I have no hostility or ill will towards the Roman Catholic Church. However, I don't think the papacy has much soft power at all outside of Latin America (and maybe Poland), beyond a certain degree of patronizing courtesy paid him by Western leaders. The Vatican II Council basically acknowledged what was already true de facto, which is that the real power in the Church was not in Rome but in the congregations all around the world. Vatican II drew the Catholic Church much closer to its Protestant rivals in ecclesiastic model at the expense of centralized authority except investiture. It also made Latin America, not Rome, the center of the Catholic world, which makes it unsurprising that we finally have a New World pope--and only surprising that it took so long. However, from a purely academic standpoint, disregarding whatever spiritual power the Catholic Church may or may not have (which from the standpoint of Civ is pretty irrelevant), the Catholic Church has never been weaker in temporal affairs. The Vatican II undid virtually all the gains the Church made in the Tridentine reforms, and probably no nation outside of Latin America (and perhaps not some in Latin America) would take the pope very seriously if, for example, he threatened them with interdiction as he once did the Holy Roman Empire. The pope could not call a crusade or renew the sale of indulgences to fund construction of his basilica. I don't deny that the Catholic Church has extraordinary power compared to other NGOs, but not compared to other nations. In fact, thanks to Vatican II, for the second time in history the Catholic Church could probably survive without the pope (the first time was during the conciliar crisis on the eve of the Reformation when the Catholic Church seriously considered replacing the pope with a council--a movement that came very close to succeeding before the Reformation rallied the remainder of the Church around the pope and Tridentine reforms, largely thanks to a succession of powerful, vigorous, centralizing popes starting with Paul IV).

You're basically arguing backwards from a premise which is not the point of the thread: An OCC civ. The point is not whether Pius IX would be the best leader for a Papal States civ, it's whether the Vatican could be worked into an OCC. And I think Pius IX and his first vatican council would be great substrate for a civ 5 Venice-style OCC, but focused on conversion instead of TRs.

Any OCC civ is going to involve some mental gymnastics, just like Venice did. Any civ that was literally one city is probably a dubious inclusion, and any civ worth including that is portrayed as a single city is going to be portrayed dubiously.

But if the civ were to serve as a base for a non-OCC pope like the ones you suggested then the UB can't be something only found in the Vatican.

A unique Government Square or Diplomatic Quarter would still only be built once. That being said, while there are a slew of interesting popes throughout history, I don't think the Papal States would be a high priority for a second leader. (TBH I kind of hope there are no multiple leaders in Civ7, but I probably hope in vain.)

 

[Henri Christophe]

Papal States
UA - The Holy See
+1 Faith for every 4 followers of your religion. Buildings constructed in your City Center generate +1 Great Prophet Point each.

UU - Jesuit (Apostle replacement)
4 spread actions
Gains Science when revealing tiles and for each citizen converted when using a spread action.

UB - Chapel
Replaces Temple
+5 Faith
3 Great Work Slots (any type)
+4 Culture to Relics in this city
+4 Faith and Tourism to Great Works of Art in this city
All Great works of Art stored in a City with a Chapel can be placed in Relic Slots

Leader: Pius IX
ULA: Pastor Aeternus
Cannot attack cities or train settlers.
Civilizations following your Religion automatically declare joint war and peace agreements when you do, and cannot do either action independently

I would also say the Vatican to the OCC.

 

[Patine]

However, I don't think the papacy has much soft power at all outside of Latin America (and maybe Poland), beyond a certain degree of patronizing courtesy paid him by Western leaders.

A good case-in-point here. The current man labelled, "the Most Powerful Man in the World," (a title I personally disagree with due to the open and unchecked open internal division and prevention of Government polices and the much smaller amount of properties and endeavours in their country under the control of their Government, compared to China, and previously, the USSR, but I digress) Joe Biden, only the second U.S. President to be Roman Catholic, himself, after John F. Kennedy, has done nothing more than congratulations on various Papal Accomplishments and been behind many policies even the most reformist in the Vatican are certainly screaming about.

Any OCC civ is going to involve some mental gymnastics, just like Venice did. Any civ that was literally one city is probably a dubious inclusion, and any civ worth including that is portrayed as a single city is going to be portrayed dubiously.

I, too, find the concept dubious. The only nation I could see doing it, Singapore, has it's only real choice of leader, Lee Kwan-yew, having died in the 21st Century, which usually disqualifies someone.

 

[Patine]

I would also say the Vatican to the OCC.

Any rebuttals to me and @Zaarin's counterpoints, there?

 

[Patine]

a captive audience of 1.35 billion people every week who believe the pope is the literal representative of God on earth.

I am fully convinced that number of Roman Catholics today who really believe this is VERY significantly lower than the total number in Communion, frankly.

 

[pineappledan]

No real disagreement other than that it’s a video game and we’re discussing a superpower for an immortal leader in that video game. Plus IX led a 1-city Vatican, and pushed his ecclesiastical power as a result. Do I seriously expect that a pope could throw his weight around an enact the papish plot in real life? No, and in fact suggesting that is a dangerous anti-Catholic conspiracy that has a long history of getting people killed. But it’s as a video game, and it seemed like a suitable power and leader for a 1-city Vatican civ.

 

[Patine]

No real disagreement other than that it’s a video game and we’re discussing a superpower for an immortal leader in that video game. Plus IX led a 1-city Vatican, and pushed his ecclesiastical power as a result. Do I seriously expect that a pope could throw his weight around an enact the papish plot in real life? No, and in fact suggesting that is a dangerous anti-Catholic conspiracy that has gotten a lot of people killed. But it’s as a video game, and it seemed like a suitable power and leader for a 1-city Vatican civ.

What about the Romans on an official earth map. That also remains unaddressed.

 

[Zaarin]

I am fully convinced that number of Roman Catholics today who really believe this is VERY significantly lower than the total number in Communion, frankly.

Most American Catholics are what I call "cultural Catholics" in that for them Catholicism is more of an ethnic heritage than a religion: they were baptized into Catholicism, maybe baptize their kids into it, maybe even attend Mass once or twice a year, but its doctrines and teachings do not guide their behavior or beliefs. Not to say there aren't sincere adherents of Catholicism in the US--I know some--but they are a small minority compared to sincere believers in Latin America, the Philippines, or Poland.

No real disagreement other than that it’s a video game and we’re discussing a superpower for an immortal leader in that video game. Plus IX led a 1-city Vatican, and pushed his ecclesiastical power as a result. Do I seriously expect that a pope could throw his weight around an enact the papish plot in real life? No, and in fact suggesting that is a dangerous anti-Catholic conspiracy that has gotten a lot of people killed. But it’s as a video game, and it seemed like a suitable power and leader for a 1-city Vatican civ.

Fair. I legitimately wouldn't mind seeing a Papal States civ in Civ7 as the Italian representation; I'd just rather see a pope who had more temporal authority. I wouldn't limit them to one city, but I'd give them good incentives to go tall and rely on allies.

What about the Romans on an official earth map. That also remains unaddressed.

Only for people who play TSL, which is a small subset of users who already have to deal with Istanbul/Constantinople/Athens/Sparta/Aigai being right on top of each other with Krakow, Debrecen, Rome, Eridu, and Tyre all a stone's throw away to say nothing of city-states. Wilhelmina loses her capital to loyalty almost immediately if Germany, England, and France are in the game. I don't think the devs see this as an issue (and personally neither do I).

 

[pineappledan]

What about the Romans on an official earth map. That also remains unaddressed.

Diocletian is my favorite Roman emperor, so the capital could be at mediolanum (modern day Milan)

 

[Zaarin]

Diocletian is my favorite Roman emperor, so the capital could be at mediolanum (modern day Milan)

Honorius or Romulus Augustulus could rule from Ravenna.

 

[Patine]

Diocletian is my favorite Roman emperor, so the capital could be at mediolanum (modern day Milan)

Honorius or Romulus Augustulus could rule from Ravenna.

It would seem odd for the Romans to not start at, and have their default capital, at Rome. Plus, Diocletian was pretty much the beginning of the end - not a choice I'd find optimal at all.