Playable Historical Civ ideas

[drjest2000]

I am weak on coding, so-so on working with NIF packages, but I'm not short on ideas.

I have the Welsh civs ready to go for M:C as additional Natives/Barbarians

And I have Novgorod/Gradariki ready to go, but I was thinking about the whole Viking scenario and all that entails.

If I start adding civs, they need their historical enemies too. The Viking Sagas suffer no shortage of those.

Anyway, here's a short list of places mentioned in the Viking Sagas and their modern geographic equivalents:

Bretland - Wales
Bjarmaland - White Sea region
England - England
Frísland - the Lowlands (Netherlands and Belgium)
Hálogaland - Hålogaland, northern coast of Norway, one of the Kvenlands
Helluland - "Land of the Flat Stones", Baffin Island, northern Canada beside Greenland
Hunaland - Frankish France
Hvítramannaland - "White (clothed) men's land", also called "Great Ireland", said to lay six days' sailing west of Ireland, possibly mythical or maybe a garbled account of contact with the Americas
Írland - Ireland
Írland hið mikla - "Great Ireland" also called Hvítramannaland, possibly mythical
Kvenland - there were two Kvenlands that lay between Värmland and Bjarmaland
Markland - "Forest Land", Nova Scotia region of Canada, used extensively for wood gathering by the Vikings in Greenland
Norge - "North way", the southern coast of Norway
Reidgotaland - Meaning uncertain, first used to describe a land held by a Gothic people west of the Neisse River in modern Poland
Saxland - "Saxon land", Germany (mostly) but often used as a catch-all for Holland, Belgium, Germany, Southern Jutland, and Frankish France in general
Særkland or Serkland - Abbayid Caliphate (Damascus)
Skotland - Scotland
Valland - Celtic France (Brittany and Normandy)
Värmland - "farm land", a region in southern Sweden
Vinland - "Wine land" or "Meadow land", generally accepted as Newfoundland

Historical civs at play in those regions were:

Beorma/Bjarma/Permians
Cheremis
Chuds (not to be confused with C.H.U.D.s or choads)
Gardariki/Novgorodians/Novgorodski
Karelians
Kvens
Lett
Norse-Gaels
Sami/Lapps
Swedes/Götlanders
Skralings/Skrælingas
Teutonic Knights
Veps
Votyaks

 

[Kailric]

Nice write up! We should also add dates or time or Ages in which each Civ existed or was at their hieght. Right now the game is split into Dark Age, Viking Age, and High Middle Ages. We can set three new attributes on each Civ that being:

Favored Terrain - the game will attempt to set Civs in terrain that they where familiar with in real life. You mentioned something about a Civ being surrounded by mountains and it gave me this idea

Favored Enemy- the game will attempt to add in the worst enemy of the Civ

Favored Age- the game will also select other Civs with this same Age selected to give an even more Historical Feel

For each Civ it would be really nice to have three representatives from each of the Ages. That's a lot of home work

Edit: We can also have an option somewhere for "Historical Setting" on or off. Off it would just be random and ignore the above settings.

 

[drjest2000]

Thanks - I will work out a list of major players and their place in time.

in the meantime, I spent a couple of hours poring over old D&D books (yes, I am a gamer geek) and cobbled up this list of medieval occupations:

acater - a provisioner (food)
acreman - an oxherd, one who herds oxen
arkwright - a maker of wooden chests and coffers
alewife - a female alehouse keeper
apothecary - a preparer and merchant for drugs and medicines
atilliator - a maker of crossbows

barber - one who cuts hair, also performed minor surgery and pulled teeth.
bard - a (Welsh) minstrel/story-teller
besom maker - one who makes brooms (known as besoms in the middle ages: 'broom' was the name of the plant use to make them)
bellfounder - a maker of small civic bells, like the noisemaker on a shopkeeper's door
bellmaker - these are the little bells that go on sleighs and clothing, as opposed to the large civic bells cast by the bellfounder
billier - axe-maker
boothman - one who sells grains
bowyer - maker of bows
butler - one in charge of the buttery (where alcohol for immediate use was kept), a "butt" is a wine or beer keg, a "buttery" was what we would today call a "wine closet", "cellarer" was the term used for one in charge of the wine cellar, after the widespread use of wine in glass bottles ("pottles"), this was sometimes called a "bottler"/"pottler" and a "bottlery"/"pottlery" - incidentally a "pottle" is an archaic English measurement of 1/2 gallon

campaner - maker of large bells (church-bells, for example)
canvasser - canvas-maker, sail-cloth maker
carter - a maker of small handcarts
chandler - a servant in charge of making and staring candles
chapman - travelling merchant
collier - one who makes or sells charcoal (later coal) [can also fit under craftsmen]
colporteur - seller of religious books
coppersmith, redsmith - a worker in copper and brass (fine items)
cordwainer - a shoe-maker, a cobbler
costermonger - fruit seller
cowherd - a herder of cows
cooper - a maker of barrels, tubs, and wagon-wheels, a rough coppersmith

draper - Originally, drapers were clothiers, though today the British use the word for a dry goods merchant
drover - one who drives sheep or cattle to market

eggler - an egg-merchant

falconer - one who breeds, trains, hunts with falcons
farrier - maker of tack, esp. horseshoes; also a horse-veterinarian
fewterer - kennel-master, a hunting dog-keeper
fishmonger
fletcher - a maker of arrows
fruitier - fruit seller
fueller - one who sells charcoal, wood, or other fuels

goatherd - one who herds goats
glazier - maker of windows, including those of stained glass
greengrocer - seller of vegetables and fruits

haberdasher - seller of men's clothing
harker - a herald
harlot, originally "harkelot" - until the 14th century male servant, attendant, menial, a "go-for" or "step-and-fetch", however from the 15th century, used only to denote a loose woman
hawker - one who breeds, trains, hunts with hawks
haycroft - a crofter (peasant) whose land-rent consists of providing the hay, straw-bedding, and animal fodder to a castle-keep
hayward - an officer in charge of fences and hedges
hetheleder - one who sells heather as fuel
hooper - a specialist in fitting hoops on barrels

ironmonger - one who sells things made of iron

kellogg - a hog-butcher

lighterman - one who ferries goods from ship to shore on a small boat
limner - sign painter, paint maker, originally an illuminator of manuscripts
linen-draper - one who deals in linens, calicos, etc.

mercer - a dealer in expensive clothing (silk, etc.)
milkmaid - a female servant who milks cows, and in general works in the creamery - the part of the manor used to make butter and cheese
minnesinger - a (German) minstrel/story-teller who specialises in chivalrous romance

nailmaker - the family name "Nagler" is an example of this
napier - the person who manages royal linens, so precious were napkins (linens) that a person in this office ranked above the butler

ostler - a horse handler, a stable-boy, a horse groom
oynter - an oil-merchant, an ointment-maker

painter - a plasterer, whitewasher, painter
plumer - a dealer in feathers
potter - craftsmen of in clay, porcelain and other forms of ceramics. Basically they produced pots for cooking and storage and occasionally worked as sculptors. Potters were members of Medieval craft guilds.
poulter - seller of poultry

ratcatcher - one who keeps and trains ferrets or small hyperactive dogs for catching rats and other vermin

shrimper - one who catches shrimp
skald - a (Viking) minstrel/story-teller
skinner - a dealer in furs and skins (essentially, the same thing as a furrier)
shepherd - a herder of sheep
spice merchant
spicer - grocer or dealer in spices
stationer - seller of books, etc.; also, a copyist
steward - the person in charge of the manor/castle while the lord is away
swineherd - a herder of pigs

taverner - innkeeper
thresher - one who thrashes grain, separating it from straw
troubadour - a (Southern French) minstrel/story-teller

unguentary - one who sells unguents

waferer - confectioner (a dealer in 'wafers', a kind of cake)
wainwright - a builder of wagons, a wood-worker
weirkeeper - a keeper of fish traps
woodcroft - a crofter (peasant) whose land rent was paid in wood, usually firewood
woodmonger - a seller of fuel wood
woodward - the keeper of a lord's forest, the guy who shot you for poaching the lord's game
wool stapler - one who buys and sells wool wholesale

I can't vouch for the scholarship, but the ones I spot-checked were correct according to the OED

 

[Kailric]

Another good write up and a good source for new units or professions. Ones I noted are..

Fishmonger - This could actualy replace the name of the current fisherman. I read that people didn't use poles for fishing until a later date that's why I gave the fisherman a spear

Drover - this could be a specially profession that allows a unit to go out and herd up Bonus resources like sheep and cattle and bring them into your city.

Milkmaid - who doesn't want a milkmaid?

troubadour - these could be NPC's that frequent your Cities leaving behind temporary bonuses or culture. Similar to the NPC pilgrams and just like them you have to build say an Inn and or a Tavern to attract these guys.

We could also set up a system of synergy where Professions give bonuses to each other or something like that to where you would work to have a fully functional city or castle.

 

[drjest2000]

I was looking at maps for a two hours on the University of Texas site (LINK)

There's an incredible lot of maps there that cover the 400 AD - 1400 AD period. They're spread out with little clear organization, but they might be helpful for deciding what civs you might want to add. Some of the names are a bit confusing because Victorians had a rotten habit of naming ancient people by Latin names or by inappropriate names of modern cultures. I can assure you that the Poles did not call themselves Poles in 500 AD. But you can figure it out if you remember a (dead) old white guy made this map.

Most fishing in medieval times was done one of two ways: Nets from a boat or tidal nets on posts in the "wash" or tidal area. There was some coastal net casting, but that was "feed myself" kind of fishing. The fishing pole was used, but not for the kind of fishing that feeds a city.

 

[Kailric]

Most fishing in medieval times was done one of two ways: Nets from a boat or tidal nets on posts in the "wash" or tidal area. There was some coastal net casting, but that was "feed myself" kind of fishing. The fishing pole was used, but not for the kind of fishing that feeds a city.

Yes, I even tried to find a "fishing net" on a unit of some sort and even made a post asking if anyone knew of such a unit but had no replies. Maybe there is something out there we could reskin to work as a net.

 

[drjest2000]

Maybe someone has done one of those net-thrower gladiators as a Roman unit, the downloads section is usually full of great unit art ... and disappointment, because they all need reconstructive surgery to work in Col :/

I like the idea of synergy between units. and I like the idea of traveling minstrels. That was a huge thing "back in the day". I forget the term for them, but there were troupes of players who traveled the "festival circuit" doing passion plays and providing entertainments for the big shindigs that local lords threw to keep the peasantry happy.

 

[drjest2000]

I was thinking about the FavoredEnemy idea some tonight. Historically many of the guys who were "friends" were also "worst enemies". Philip Augustus of France and Richard I of England, for instance. Those two even did the equivalent of a Medieval photo-op of sleeping in a bed together to publicize how great of friends they were. Yet it was Philip Augustus who broke the spine of the Anglo-Norman Empire.

That's the problem of our view of things looking back from the present and their view of things "back in the day". What we'd think was a "FavoredEnemy" might not jive with what was written at the time. It usually lines up pretty close, but no one even thought of the Mongols until they showed up and changed everything. Old enemies tended to remain enemies, all that really changed was the Mongols were added to this list, but not always at the top. Some groups profitted from being under the Mongol fist. The Grand Duchy of Muscovy for one, they went from a minor player to controlling most of European Russia in a very short time with the aid of the Mongols. History would have us say that the Mongols were the traditional enemies of the Muscovites, but as it turns out, if it hadn't been for the Mongols, there would have been no Peter the Great or Ivan Grozny (I won't say "the Terrible" because the term used is more like "Dread Lord" in a very medieval religious sense, like one feared and loved God, one feared and loved the King)

 

[drjest2000]

I was playing the MesoAmerica scenario in BTS when it struck me that M:C could do something very similar with any number of locale scenarios. I am not an expert on most places, but I know more about MesoAmerica than the fellows at Firaxis seem to know... like villages popping up with the name "Illinois" ....

Anyway, as a far off future project.... the MesoAmerican cultures were very similar in their trade and colonization patterns to what you have in M:C.

Aztec traders, "pochteca", were usually experienced war veterans with the "right connections" and they operated as traders, scouts, and spies for the heads of state back in the various capitals. The way I see them, they are very much like the Wily Trader.

A lot of the unit art is already available for Col thanks to the work done on RaR, and the 476 start date is about the midpoint of the Classical Mayan culture (~250 AD - ~900 AD). And the city art (city style and buildings) are available in Civ 4 and the many mods for Civ 4.

The bottom right model made me think of the Fountain of Youth >_<

The rough idea I had was the Mexica, Tarascans, Maya, and Inca grind along, butting heads with one another, having make nice to Montezuma or Pacal or Pachacuti or whoever, until 1492, then they get invaded by their version of Vikings... the Spanish. That could be the battle royale, rather than a face off with the Pope.

I didn't put a lot of thought into it, but those are the rough ideas.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program....

 

[Kailric]

Mayans aye, well if the Mayans wasn't so far away from Europe they would have made contact a lot sooner and been on more even terms as far as firepower. I say yeah, we could set up all kinds of "what if" scenarios. Sounds good to me.

 

[raystuttgart]

@drjest2000:

Actually what you are describing has already been discussed as possible setting for a mod(mod) of its own.
(The old TAC team was thinking about doing such a scenario mod after the end of the TAC base project.)

There are literaly tons of ideas for possible mods that would fit into Civ4Col base concepts with a bit of tweaking and a few new features.

"All" that is needed is skilled people motivated to invest the work necessary ...

 

[Kailric]

@drjest2000:

Actually what you are describing has already been discussed as possible setting for a mod(mod) of its own.
(The old TAC team was thinking about doing such a scenario mod after the end of the TAC base project.)

There are literaly tons of ideas for possible mods that would fit into Civ4Col base concepts with a bit of tweaking and a few new features.

"All" that is needed is skilled people motivated to invest the work necessary ...

Thanks ray, yeah I bet there is a whole lot of good info in the TAC and R&R threads. I'll be scanning through it all in the days to come.

 

[Nightinggale]

Favored Terrain - the game will attempt to set Civs in terrain that they where familiar with in real life. You mentioned something about a Civ being surrounded by mountains and it gave me this idea

Speaking of stuff like that, I noticed that CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml has <TeachUnitClasses>, which I assume is a list of units the civ can teach. However all civs are the same, either none (major civ) or the same 11 (minor civ). In addition to this each unit class has a weight, which is also the same. It would be far more interesting if you should travel the world to gain all "native" professions rather than just visiting the nearly towns.

An example would be that vikings make good fishermen, shepards and blacksmiths while cotton planter might not be that ideal for them. Making a good distribution for unit classes like this which fits gameplay and historical settings might be a bit tricky. Still it really gives added motivation for exploration even after all minor civ towns have been visited by humans/AIs, which alone makes this an interesting setup.

 

[Kailric]

Speaking of stuff like that, I noticed that CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml has <TeachUnitClasses>, which I assume is a list of units the civ can teach. However all civs are the same, either none (major civ) or the same 11 (minor civ). In addition to this each unit class has a weight, which is also the same. It would be far more interesting if you should travel the world to gain all "native" professions rather than just visiting the nearly towns.

An example would be that vikings make good fishermen, shepards and blacksmiths while cotton planter might not be that ideal for them. Making a good distribution for unit classes like this which fits gameplay and historical settings might be a bit tricky. Still it really gives added motivation for exploration even after all minor civ towns have been visited by humans/AIs, which alone makes this an interesting setup.

Exactly, I posted the same idea in another thread here ... so we all have a new research project...

I have a research project for you. I want to diversify the Professions the Natives Teach to be more Historically correct or at least change it up a bit. So, we need to figure out what Civs would have been masters at their professions. And I'd like to add maybe Wily Trader, Brilliant Dignitary, Prolific Inventor, Huntsman and any of the other units as teachable.

I was thinking too the some Native cites could actually be monasteries and you could learn to be a Benedict Monk there.

 

[Nightinggale]

troubadour - these could be NPC's that frequent your Cities leaving behind temporary bonuses or culture. Similar to the NPC pilgrams and just like them you have to build say an Inn and or a Tavern to attract these guys.

I like this. However wouldn't it be more accurate to do that with all minstrel/story-teller units. They could share a unit class and then each unit depends on which nation it originated in.

Exactly, I posted the same idea in another thread here ... so we all have a new research project...

Great minds think alike. However I don't think I will invest time in actually doing this research. Whenever I do something, I decide not to spend time on making something else and I think we would all benefit more from me coding C++/python. It would appear that we have fewer skilled coders than people with historical insights.

 

[Kailric]

I like this. However wouldn't it be more accurate to do that with all minstrel/story-teller units. They could share a unit class and then each unit depends on which nation it originated in.


Great minds think alike. However I don't think I will invest time in actually doing this research. Whenever I do something, I decide not to spend time on making something else and I think we would all benefit more from me coding C++/python. It would appear that we have fewer skilled coders than people with historical insights.

Exactly with the Troubadours, each Civ would have their own version.

I understand about the research part. Anyway, your PM box is full and I can't send you any more. I just installed windows 8. I still have all my personal files but it erased all my programs. So, it will be a while before I am back on my programing/modding feet again. Ugghh!

 

[Nightinggale]

Anyway, your PM box is full and I can't send you any more.

The offender confessed

 

[drjest2000]

Speaking of stuff like that, I noticed that CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml has <TeachUnitClasses>, which I assume is a list of units the civ can teach. However all civs are the same, either none (major civ) or the same 11 (minor civ). In addition to this each unit class has a weight, which is also the same. It would be far more interesting if you should travel the world to gain all "native" professions rather than just visiting the nearly towns.

An example would be that vikings make good fishermen, shepards and blacksmiths while cotton planter might not be that ideal for them. Making a good distribution for unit classes like this which fits gameplay and historical settings might be a bit tricky. Still it really gives added motivation for exploration even after all minor civ towns have been visited by humans/AIs, which alone makes this an interesting setup.

In the ColGold I did 4 years ago, I did something along those lines. In fact, I saw no validity for teaching "expert sugar planter" at all in the New World. Sorghum/Sugar cane is an East Asian plant that was introduced to the Americas about the same time as white rice and African slaves. The native Americans never even heard of the stuff until some white guy showed up.

And "expert ore miner"? Really? I am pretty sure that Sid Meier failed history class.

I went through the civs and stripped out the professions that were inappropriate to each, then changed the weights to reflect what they actually did most often, and found myself playing a game that was less balanced.

The problem was that the game splashes the native civs onto the map with no concern for historical fact. If I hand-placed the native villages on a map, it worked, but left to its own devices, the game will plop plains-dwelling civs in a tropical swamp and have them teaching "expert fisherman" or something stupid like that.

It's like the Inuit in RaR, they show up in the tropics and look quite out of place in their seal-skin parkas.

So I saw it as a "game limit".

It was frustrating enough to put me off completing the mod. So I went and rotted my brains in World of Warcraft for 4 years >_<

 

[Nightinggale]

The problem was that the game splashes the native civs onto the map with no concern for historical fact. If I hand-placed the native villages on a map, it worked, but left to its own devices, the game will plop plains-dwelling civs in a tropical swamp and have them teaching "expert fisherman" or something stupid like that.

This is why I made the reply to the idea of adding "Favored Terrain". Fishermen should be taught by people who has "coast" as favoured terrain. Perhaps multiple terrains should be set to make this work.

Alternatively the unit being taught should be customized to fit the terrain of the town. Rather than looking in the XML, the town should look at the surroundings and figure out a fitting unit based on that or a combo of those two approaches.

 

[raystuttgart]

Alternatively the unit being taught should be customized to fit the terrain of the town. Rather than looking in the XML, the town should look at the surroundings and figure out a fitting unit based on that or a combo of those two approaches.

The logic already does consider surrounding terrain.
(In the current revision of RaR in SVN this has been enhanced a bit.)

However, there is still some "randomness" in there for gameplay / balancing reasons.

Edit:
The XML is of course considered as well to determine the chances.