Playing an Inhabited World

[Saxo Grammaticus]

From recent discussions over in luca's Suggestions thread, as well as looking through the forum, there seems to be support for opening space in Civilization to other groups of people who do not fall neatly under the existing "barbarian"--city-state--civilization division. Part of this has to do with the fact that in the game's timeframe, starting in 4,000 BC, rather than empty, the world ought to already be inhabited by various groups, most of which have not settled cities (barring later starts). The question this thread asks is how the idea of an inhabited world ought to translate into gameplay.

We can start by considering a few different ideas.

First, beefing up Civ VI's existing infrastructure: tribal villages, barbarian camps (including clans mode), and city-states. Instead of their traditional role as goodie huts, perhaps tribal villages (fixed/mobile) would be semi-permanent, with a set of interactions not unlike the clans mode menu. As Alexander’s Hetaroi and Boris have mentioned, a neutral/hostile/friendly orientation or focus on first contact could add another dimension, with hostile villages taking on the role of previous barbarian camps. They would still provide bonuses similar to what they give now, but possibly include unique resources, units, or identity following Zegangani’s earlier thoughts. Ultimately, these villages would likely be subsumed by settling until those that remained were relegated to increasingly undesirable parts of the map.

I am not a fan of these groups inherently settling into villages and then developing into city-states, as has been proposed before, as this would exclude nomadic groups, for instance.

Second, we could pursue a more decentralized approach that saturated the map. One idea I quite like would concern settling the first city. A player’s first city could generate a 5-10 tile radius of cultural identity, where any cities settled there would share a common heritage, including a pantheon. Perhaps the player would be prompted to choose from a variety of pantheons based on the terrain and resources of their radius. Later on, starting around the classical, the cultural union would start to fracture, such that most settling would then involve some degree of assimilation or conflict.

Third, we can look at it from an early vs. mid-game question. What does settling outside of one’s "core" look like in the ancient/classical eras? How about the early modern/industrial? A baseline question would be clashes in cultural/religious identity, where the player may choose to embrace these groups’ traditions or force them to conform. Similarly, differences in technology would likely be more pronounced from the mid-game on.

I see a number of advantages to treating the world as inhabited rather than empty, such as more broadly representing groups under the Civilization threshold, breaking up rote early settling, and serving to integrate questions of identity and heritage. Given all this, I am curious to hear others’ ideas on how to translate the inhabited world into Civilization’s gameplay.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I guess I'll fully flesh out my idea here.

My ideas are inspired by not only the Barbarian Clans game mode, but also the Nomadic Start that occurs in the Humankind game.

1. Nomadic Start- I see every group of people, both major civs and other minor groups, start out as nomadic people. In this "nomadic" era you will have the ability to set up mobile camps with what would be a settler unit. At these camps you will be able to build scout, warrior, and slinger units in order to protect your camp and gather enough food. Any time during this era you will be able to move your camp into a different location as well. Once you reach the amount of food needed to learn the ways of agriculture, then you will be prompted to settle a city. You can choose the current location or move, but the next location will be a permanent city. The same goes for other playable major civs.

2. Tribes/Minor Nations- Other groups of people that I mentioned will take longer to possibly develop into a permanent city. Some factors include terrain.
"Tribes" that inhabit places with less food will stay nomadic longer such as tundra, desert, and plains. Those tribes that become settled still will not automatically turn into a city, but into a tribal village. Each tribe has a meter that can determine it's status either being hostile/neutral/peaceful. They can be randomized, or if we go by historical names taken from them. For example the Hunnic tribe will always spawn in plains and near horses, and be more hostile.

3. City-States- Once a tribal village has been considered peaceful long enough, by trading and learning new technologies etc., they will eventually turn into a random city-state, similar to the Barbarian Clan mode already.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

2. Tribes/Minor Nations- Other groups of people that I mentioned will take longer to possibly develop into a permanent city. Some factors include terrain.
"Tribes" that inhabit places with less food will stay nomadic longer such as tundra, desert, and plains. Those tribes that become settled still will not automatically turn into a city, but into a tribal village. Each tribe has a meter that can determine it's status either being hostile/neutral/peaceful. They can be randomized, or if we go by historical names taken from them. For example the Hunnic tribe will always spawn in plains and near horses, and be more hostile.

Cool. So my question here would then be what interactions open up in the journey for these tribes/minor nations to develop into permanent cities? Reading your post, I sort of envisioned a map where tribal villages are early trading partners connected by road to cities and each another. Major factions would then likely settle along these routes.

And I imagine randomizing names or avoiding distinct names would be critical for the end of the nomadic phase.

On another note, there is interesting discussion of the importance of food in Naokaukodem and Boris' exchange that supports how food would accelerate this development process, among other things.

I will also add that I forgot to attribute a lot of good discussion on related topics to BuchiTaton, and to point out this may be a way to compromise on MeganovaStella's idea of filling the map with states.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Cool. So my question here would then be what interactions open up in the journey for these tribes/minor nations to develop into permanent cities? Reading your post, I sort of envisioned a map where tribal villages are early trading partners connected by road to cities and each another. Major factions would then likely settle along these routes.

I envision somethings which would similar to the current Barbarian Clans turning into city-states such as major civs bribing them or hiring units from more hostile ones. Also trading with them as well and you gaining "goody hut" rewards will convert them to cities faster from more peaceful ones.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I envision somethings which would similar to the current Barbarian Clans turning into city-states such as major civs bribing them or hiring units from more hostile ones. Also trading with them as well and you gaining "goody hut" rewards will convert them to cities faster from more peaceful ones.

I would add other options:
- The chance that agressive "tribes" could conquest a city (either from a main or minor civ) and convert it to their own culture. Like was the case of Indoaryan, Germaic, Early Semitic, Turkic, Nahua, Tai, etc. tribal peoples.
- A regular civ could capture the "tribe" (they could flip between unit when moving and infrastructure when settled) and either invest on it to turn into a city or just add them to a current city as additional grow.
These two options allow to have them as dynamic elements without allways end as additional cities.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I would add other options:
- The chance that agressive "tribes" could conquest a city (either from a main or minor civ) and convert it to their own culture. Like was the case of Indoaryan, Germaic, Early Semitic, Turkic, Nahua, Tai, etc. tribal peoples.

This is essentially one of my ideas on how to at least incorporate a potential nomadic playable civ, such as the Huns or Scythia etc. At least instead of them building settlers, that's their way of incorporating more cities into their empire. But yeah I think it could also work on "tribes" too.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

- The chance that agressive "tribes" could conquest a city (either from a main or minor civ) and convert it to their own culture. Like was the case of Indoaryan, Germaic, Early Semitic, Turkic, Nahua, Tai, etc. tribal peoples.

I definitely can see this being implemented. Many examples of groups fighting over borders and frontier settlements. In a way, I think barbarians in Civ VI are close to something more acceptable: If they took cities and established their own cultures, that would be great. If they were not magnetically drawn to civilization but instead pursued their own affairs, all the better! Barbarian clans mode suggested many possibilities.

This is essentially one of my ideas on how to at least incorporate a potential nomadic playable civ, such as the Huns or Scythia etc. At least instead of them building settlers, that's their way of incorporating more cities into their empire. But yeah I think it could also work on "tribes" too.

This sounds cool, kind of like Māori on the Steppe, but no cities save those you take. It could be interesting to expand gameplay support for majors and minors to start without cities but be able to take cities and then choose from a variety of outcomes, like settling into a sedentary civilization, administering the city as a nomadic power, incorporating a new city-state, or possibly ransoming the city to a major.

- A regular civ could capture the "tribe" (they could flip between unit when moving and infrastructure when settled) and either invest on it to turn into a city or just add them to a current city as additional grow.

This is where I am more interested in how the mechanic would differ by era. It seems very possible in the ancient/classical that one could capture prisoners of war or a tribal group and then attempt to resettle them as a city, though not always successfully and certainly not without potential consequences. The legacy of colonialism does not seem to support this, though I am aware not all powers focused on settler colonies. I am open to the idea of attempts to integrate groups into cities as population (preferably over food growth), but again I see that as having a variable chance of success.

In general, even with the idea of aggressive tribes, I am aware that for all the peoples who overran the Roman Empire, or successively displaced the Chinese court, there were likely other groups that had less interest, if any, in imperial powers. A player would most likely encounter them only when encroaching upon their territory.

 

[Zegangani]

This is IMO one of the main things that the Civ Developers should put some more thoughts into in future Titles. Most of the Features in the Game have already been experimented on in previous Games, but inhabited World and Nomadism are things that were mostly just abstracted in the Game. Like the introduction of City-States as minor Civs beside Barbarian Camps in Civ V was a good step in that direction.

I like the Ideas you proposed:
1) Yes, that would make the minor factions more dynamic but also diplomatically more active. Engaging Factions makes the Game more immersive, and I really want to see City-States be more of that, currently they are mainly just puppets that you can easily influence.
2) That's an interesting Idea that I would like to see experimented more with. And I think some of the Ideas in Wolffleet's Tribes Concept could help to flesh out the Ideas around this even more: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4fSq_aL-jw_Kr8UitLI33xcvUbcIt5kH4qiUfgKp3s/edit#
3) Great Idea! having Culture being a stronger factor the longer the Game would add an interesting internal conflict.

I don't actually want to talk more about 4XP, as I haven't released any Pack yet, and I don't want to spoil any Players who are interested in it, or make false hopes since at this Point I don't know how much it would take me to complete all the packs, or even any (don't worry, I don't plan to abandon this, but you know, life sometimes doesn't leave one many options, so, you never really know...), but I will throw here some Ideas that I was experimenting with for a Tribes (Barbarians/Goody Huts) overhaul:

Spoiler :

1) Goody-Huts won't be an improvement that Players popp to get instant benefits from, instead, Goody-Huts will be merged with Barbarian Camps and form a "Tribe" Intenty, but with different sub-Tribe Types that differentiate from each other in terms of Hostility/Friendliness, Identity(affecting what Bonuses you get from them) and Diplomacy (more on these later). Ex: 1 Type is more Friendly and doesn't produce any Barbarian Units, another Type is hostile against any Player getting close to them, but they don't actively search for a possible target to attack...etc.

2) The Map will start with more Tribes (Goody-Huts + Barbarians) than you usually get in a regular Game, so the Map will already inhabit lots of Tribes even before the first City gets settled. And the Tribes will get historical Names based on the Region they are in (similar/same to what Gedemon did in his Overhaul Mod).

3) When settling a new City around tribal Camps (getting inside City Borders), the City doesn't automatically remove the Camps, but they stay and the Player will have to take some action in order to assimilate the Tribes or choose other ways to stop the conflict that might arise from infuriated Tribes.
- If it's a Friendly Tribe, the City may get a Bonus based on the type of Tribe (Player needs to gift something to the Tribe in order to get their Bonus),
- If it's Hostile, then the Camp will regularly spawn Barbarian Units that attack the City (indigenous People fighting for their Home), in which case the Player needs either to fight them and clear the Camp, or just defend the City till the Tribe gets culturally dominated by the City's Culture, so that the Camp stops spawning Rebels and get open for interaction (Neutral).

In both cases, the Player has options to assimilate the Tribes into its Culture;
Friendly Tribes inside a City's Borders can be assimilated in 2 ways (small info: not yet assimilated Camps can't be worked (tiles with no yields)):
- The Camp gets removed (clearing the Tile where you can place any Infrastructure) and the City gets +1 Population and keeps the Bonus they were getting from the Tribe, or
- keep the Camp where it is (restricting you from building anything there), but the Tile can now be worked, with Yields based on terrain and Tribe Type, which may improve as the Tribe upgrades (kinda like Tribal Camp => Village => Town). The City will still get the Pop and the Tribe Bonus though.
(Friendly Tribal Camps provide Adjacency Bonuses, increased when assimilated, and with each upgrade)

When defeating a Hostile Tribe's Barb Units, the Camp can be pillaged, in which case the Player gets a regular Goody-Hut/Barbarian Camp Bonus.

I'm also thinking of including some of Wolffleet's Ideas here.

4) Tribal Camps inside Borders can always be traded with (similar to Diplomatic Deals, but no Trade Routes). Possible Trade Items include: Food/Production for Gold Trade (in case of Production Deals, the culture assimilation will be faster), Resources (if the Camp is on a Resource or adjacent to one that isn't owned by someone)...etc.

Tribal Camps that are outside any City Borders can also be traded with and have more Trade items to offer (like Mercenaries, granting an Envoy in a nearby CityState, Relics...etc), but they are also the only ones who have Quests to offer, when fulfilled the Player gets a regular Bonus like when popping a GoodyHut.

Tribal Camps outside any City Borders, that regularly interact with other Players (Trade, Quests...etc), may later turn into a City-State. And the closer the (friendly) Camps are to each other, the faster (bot not too fast) they can merge together and form a City-State.

5) Characteristics:
Personality/Character:
- Friendly: doesn't spawn any Barbarians, even when you settle a City near them and getting inclosed in the City's Borders.
- Neutral: may spawn a Barbarian Unit once in a while (not when assimilated), but doesn't actively search for Targets to attack. When settling a City near them, they might get hostile (based on Tribe sub-type), or not.
- Closed: regular barbarian Camp, that doesn't actively chase for possible targets to attack, but highly aggressive when getting close to them.
- Hostile: regular aggressive barbarian Camps, always looking for the next target they can pillage.

Identity: the sub-Tribe Type of the tribal Camp, which affects which Bonuses you get from them and how much hostile/friendly they are.

6) Diplomacy:
Each Tribal Camp outside of anu Borders can develop a relationship with different Players. Trading with a Tribe or attacking it and its Units improves/worsens the Relationship. which also affects the diplomatic treatment a Player may get from the City-State that the Camp later might turn into (CSs will also get improved and expanded upon in 4XP). In worst case, the CS won't accept any Envoys from the Player for the whole Game.

Beside Trade and hiring Mercenaries, tribal Camps can, based on sub-type and where they are (inside/outside your Borders), also be insited to attack someone, defend the City they are in when it's getting attacked by another Player...etc.

7) this will actually be included in Colonies in Pack 2, but I suppose it will be much more present and important with this Tribes rework:
Settlements on Foreign Continents can't exploit plant based resources that are there if the Player doesn't own them already (in its home continent or through trade). It requires active trade between the City and the Tribal Camp that is near the Resource in order to benefit from the resource. + If you are on good terms with a Tribe, then they might reveal a resource on a Tile in your Territory.
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I think with this Concept, we could bring a little more life to the Map, with land already inhabited by multifaceted Tribes, that are dynamic and interactive, staying active and relevant throughout the Game, and that may organically join a Civilization or create a new, independant, minor Civilization in form of a City-State.

 

[Krajzen]

Remember to translate all that into something simple for all varieties of people who play civ.

I could imagine map being divided at the start between different kinds of peoples (marked by some very soft, non intrusive visually "borders" which you actually can enter) which have several types differing by possible interactions and how much of a pushover they are against major civilizations (as they ought to dominate vast majority of them eventually). Also, all those groups can theoretically turn into minor civs (city states), but the lower they are on the ladder at start, the less likely it is as they'd need a ton of time.

So at the start of a game you have for example

Hunter gatherers tribes [replace that with some more catchy name] who are very weak because of you know insanely low pop density and stuff, may cause you a guerilla problem or two if you try to conquer them though, they tend to live in some isolated landmasses, islands, some jungles and deserts, tundra and taiga can only contain them as you cant farm there
Agricultural tribes/Nomad tribes, still weak but slightly bigger deal, may cause you more problems, nomads spawn only in steppes, deserts or flat grass far from forests
Tribal kingdoms/Nomad hosts however you name it, now these guys can actually win a war against you and sometimes even ruin a civilizations and relatively quickly turn into minor one (I think of groups like Gauls, Goths, Huns, early Turks and so on)

Depending on where do you settle a city, it may be either mostly a business like in previous civ versions (if you deal with hunter gatherers territory) or a strategic dilemma to resolve (third tier), as you have a few options of doing deals with them, assimilation, multiculturalisn and finally co quest.


Bonus points for civ game which will have guts to allow such minor peoples turn into whatever major civs during the game and gived them catchup stuff so they suddrnly become relevant at the global stage. I have always dreamt of this


Some parts of the world should still be empty (Sahara, most of Siberia, most of Canada etc imho honestly are best represented as just empty), besides the fundamental question of would it feel good in gameplay if an entire world was actually covered by peoples at the start, as opposed to "more of the world than now".

 

[Gedemon]

To summarize what I wanted/planned (and tested a bit in the pre-city start of my civ6 overhaul) : I'd have them as "ethnicities" on the map from the start, rising and falling with eras, but interaction would happen only after "something" spawn (tribe units/camps, later cities) or enter (another tribe/player units) in an area, those interactions building initial relation values, simple first(+ on trade route to camp, hiring units as mercenaries, ... / - on attack, pillaging, ...) more complex with real diplomacy if a city is spawned later.

I'd use civ3-like % of representation for every ethnicity on the map, with migration. They'd have traits that could be adopted (if relations are good) by a Civilization if an ethnicity as a strong representation in its whole territory (you could favor one, with an effect on stability depending on other ethnicity representation - they'd have relation values between them), or would allow unique buildings/units in specific cities.

Your civilization would also have a representation as an ethnicity on the map, but slowly growing at first, and the others may represent the majority of the population, until nationalism is researched/adopted depending on the progression mechanism is used.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I am humbled by the abundance of everyone's insights. Thank you! Will do my best to respond, but I hope others will continue see ideas they can engage with.

2) That's an interesting Idea that I would like to see experimented more with. And I think some of the Ideas in Wolffleet's Tribes Concept could help to flesh out the Ideas around this even more: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4fSq_aL-jw_Kr8UitLI33xcvUbcIt5kH4qiUfgKp3s/edit#

Thank you for sharing this resource. To summarize: tribes with different orientations (based on city-states) or potentially heritage values react to play actions through a Loyalty/Disapproval/Rebellion mechanism. For example, a warlike tribe would grow disloyal if the player were at peace for too long. While Wolffleet discusses refitting the settler unit, I see these concepts as very much overlapping with an Inhabited World.

4) Tribal Camps inside Borders can always be traded with (similar to Diplomatic Deals, but no Trade Routes). Possible Trade Items include: Food/Production for Gold Trade (in case of Production Deals, the culture assimilation will be faster), Resources (if the Camp is on a Resource or adjacent to one that isn't owned by someone)...etc.
...
- keep the Camp where it is (restricting you from building anything there), but the Tile can now be worked, with Yields based on terrain and Tribe Type, which may improve as the Tribe upgrades (kinda like Tribal Camp => Village => Town). The City will still get the Pop and the Tribe Bonus though.

This is really quite eye-opening in terms of how tribal groups could be integrated or interacted with economically and politically, especially regarding alternatives to standard improvements. It offers a high incentive way to represent how indigenous peoples may just have more productive ways of interacting with deer than whoever is new to the region. By tying relations to higher yield tiles, it risks a little micro, but offers a powerful spotlight.

6) Diplomacy:
Each Tribal Camp outside of anu Borders can develop a relationship with different Players. Trading with a Tribe or attacking it and its Units improves/worsens the Relationship. which also affects the diplomatic treatment a Player may get from the City-State that the Camp later might turn into (CSs will also get improved and expanded upon in 4XP). In worst case, the CS won't accept any Envoys from the Player for the whole Game.

I like this idea you and Krajzen both raise of a Tribal village bullied early on by the majors only to settle as an autarkic city-state before emerging vengefully as a player on the global stage!

Settlements on Foreign Continents can't exploit plant based resources that are there if the Player doesn't own them already (in its home continent or through trade). It requires active trade between the City and the Tribal Camp that is near the Resource in order to benefit from the resource. + If you are on good terms with a Tribe, then they might reveal a resource on a Tile in your Territory.

Makes total sense and links back to some early-game ideas I am cooking... But for the purposes of this thread, it directly illustrates how interaction with indigenous peoples could have a substantive role in gameplay. It also speaks to how this mechanism could change over time, specifically interacting with colonialism.


Yes, simplicity, not always a personal strong suit, is all the more important given I am not in a position to mod any of these ideas to the extent they deserve. That said, I am very open to all sorts of ideation especially for exploring gameplay possibilities for the overall concept.

Tribal kingdoms/Nomad hosts however you name it, now these guys can actually win a war against you and sometimes even ruin a civilizations and relatively quickly turn into minor one (I think of groups like Gauls, Goths, Huns, early Turks and so on)

Tribal kingdoms and Nomad Hosts are a more sophisticated take on what hostile groups could look like, all the more if they achieve global prominence as mentioned above!

Another element you bring in is geography. I agree that most likely deserts and tundra should start out uninhabited, but as to your hunter-gatherer/agricultural-nomadic distinction, what I most take away is that all the good spots for cities should already have peopling living there. Whether through foraging, practicing agriculture, or other engagement, the sites with the highest yields ought to appeal to everyone. That would obviously have pretty significant gameplay ramifications.

Depending on where do you settle a city, it may be either mostly a business like in previous civ versions (if you deal with hunter gatherers territory) or a strategic dilemma to resolve (third tier), as you have a few options of doing deals with them, assimilation, multiculturalisn and finally co quest.

What ideas would you have for assimilation and multiculturalism?

Your civilization would also have a representation as an ethnicity on the map, but slowly growing at first, and the others may represent the majority of the population, until nationalism is researched/adopted depending on the progression mechanism is used.

Your overhaul for Civ VI definitely featured the most sophisticated representation of population I have seen yet, whether in cities or on the land around them. By this I mean not only a numerical precision beyond the base game but also dynamic demographics. It would also make sense for tribal groups to have a rise and fall cycle independent of conflict, perhaps related to environmental factors or natural disasters if they return.

Have you experimented with ethnic traits and how they would add up in a multi-cultural city, for instance?

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

And to import some food for thought, I saw some potential for informing our discussion in a post our historian in residence made in the India thread concerning migration theory:

On a very small scale this might mean a "stranger king" - a war band or scholar travels to a far-off land and becomes a ruler, and local people start to follow their customs and identify with them. Suddenly what were twenty Norse in a boat occupying a Slavic city becomes "the Norse founded a city". You can imagine how this might be - even in a peaceful situation, if people are introduced to a new option for how to be, it might provide a way out of older, established hierarchies. "I don't have to obey your laws anymore, I'm a Saxon". This doesn't mean that their DNA has changed, but their identification of what is more powerful or prestigious.

This is easier to see in more recent cases. "Eurasians" in Malaya (i.e. Malaysia, Singapore) were often ethnically local but converts to Christianity and thus identified as "Portuguese." Many "Portuguese" in Southeast Asia were in fact Japanese converts fleeing the Sengoku wars.

This adds another dimension I have perhaps only seen in synthesis of Wolffleet's tribal idea whereby factions may offer ideas and values that speak to other groups and encourage some manner of assimilation or syncretic development.

 

[The Kingmaker]

I’m all for a complex system with tribes, nomads, barbarians, city-states, and minor civs.

I might suggest a system similar to the minor civ system in Birth of the Federation, where the player can form non-aggression, friendship, or affiliation treaties with them. They can ally with you, they can join your Civ (granting you their unique bonuses), or you can just subjugate them. But if you do, your rivals can also liberate them from you.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Simple. Make tribal villages permanent, as "minor" civs, as much as I dislike this concept.