The Dawn of Everything Thread (Oh, what an early game, indeed!)

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Published over a year ago, The Dawn of Everything, by David Wengrow and the late David Graeber, finally gets its own thread! I am sure many have heard of it and some are presumably already sick of discussing it, but purely from a gaming perspective, I am positive it will be a goldmine of anthropological inspiration for Civ and other titles. If I had to offer a short summary, I would say that in their critiques of historical narratives, Graeber and Wengrow reiterate the depth of possibility in human experience and social organization, which obviously seems well suited to a game like Civ! As such, while I will start with an early-game adaptation, hopefully others will feel free to share thoughts on the work as it informs our ideas and suggestions.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

A Very Early Game...

Adapting elements of early human history initially appealed to me as a solution to generated cultural/religious identity. Looking back on earlier notes, and taking into account the limited Neolithic component of Humankind, I am curious how the early game can be reimagined.


65 kya

Hold on… We’re going all the way back to Africa? Sure are! All playable factions start as tribes on one continent structurally akin to Africa. Through a combination of competition over food and environmental factors, population growth is initially limited, encouraging players to choose between sticking around or venturing onward. Land bridges connect major landmasses. No cities may be settled until ~5,000 BC.

As players scout the map, they pass through a seasonal cycle alternating between survival and festivities. This seasonal cycle is directly inspired from Chapter 3 of The Dawn of Everything. It would represent low population density and the likely types of contact among humans at this stage.

In the survival phase, tribes hunt, forage, or in some way engage their local environments for food, resources, and knowledge. Tribes stay small and may lose population if they cannot find or keep adequate stores of food. At the same time, tribes may acquire other resources like shells on the beach, or pelts from animals they hunt. They may even learn to identify cultivars and ores, knowledge that may aid them later. If different tribes come into contact during this phase, they may have to make tough choices whether deferring, fighting, sharing, or trading.

In the festive phase, tribes with adequate food may arrive at a large gathering of other tribes, possibly for ritual purpose. These festive gatherings feature cultural expression in the form of painting, ceramics, building, probably song and dance as well; but they also display different political arrangements that inform the player’s own political knowledge. At the end of the festivities, the player leaves, most likely taking with them non-food resources or other knowledge.

The goal in this phase would be to either stake out a claim to the core of the map by outlasting or driving out the other tribes, or venturing beyond the core in search of other opportunities. Both would feature the seasonal cycle to generate resources for settling a city later. They may also generate the seeds of identity traits pertaining to religion, culture, and heritage.


35 kya

This is a more flexible date that could either develop from the previous era or be a starting point on its own. If continuing from the previous era, the players would be able to go even further from the starting point and begin to stake out regions adjacent to the core, where they may still be close to other factions yet retain a significant area for food. If starting in this era, the factions would be spread rather evenly over half of the map, still centered on the core, leaving peripheral regions to explore. The most inaccessible continents would be available to reach during this era.

Either way, the era would continue the seasonal cycle, with potentially larger material achievements during these gatherings. The significant mechanical change would be from climate, with glaciation putting pressure on the forward parties to converge on narrower strips of fertile land.


12 kya

10k is the new 4k! If used as a start date, it would probably look a lot like Civilization VI does now, except with more map knowledge and more time dedicated to settling your first city. Whether starting here or continuing from the previous era, this would be the time to crystallize those questions of culture, religion, and heritage. Probably few of the initial bonuses from the previous 50k years would remain at this point, but the player would have picked up elements of identity along the way as well as be able to recognize most of the resources in their region.

During this phase, the player would be prompted to select from a choice of pantheons based on the resources, terrain, or even wonders they have encountered. I especially like the idea of pantheons reflecting the seasonal cycle, with survival beliefs focused on terrain yields and festivities concerned instead with material culture, e.g. exploiting resources, building structures.

Map changes would continue and wrap up in this phase. The land bridges would flood, isolating far off continents from the core, or possibly cutting off all landmasses from one another. Oddly enough, the reason why I think land bridges could work is because of how Civ VI implements coastal flooding. Anything on the scale of the African Humid Period could happen and be done with.

The seasonal cycle would continue but begin to shift to the periphery, as communities and early cities begin to rise and sailing takes people into coastal waters. Interactions with these early city-states and communities could be the source of starting technologies like fishing and agriculture.

By the time the player settles their first city (and chooses their civilization, I suppose…), they would have acquired map knowledge, political resources, religious/cultural heritage, and starting technologies—all as part of a contextualized journey!

 

[BuchiTaton]

Interesting, but I would like a simplified form with the next points:
- Prehistoric/Neolithic Era, 8500 to 4500 BCE
- Militar units (Warrior*) are not present at start, and get the first one need to found villages, resources to train and even a tech to unlock them. So settlers have a decent amount of time to explore, forage and find a good sites to seetle.
- Settlers replace Workers/Buildings, they can found Settlements (villages/camps) that are the equivalent of Improvements.
- While exploring and foraging you must choose wisely your first Settlement site. The only three kinds that can be founded without new techs are Farming, Rancher and Fishing ones, the very first you found would give you a title as Agrarian Society, Pastorial Society or Maritime Society with their own unique bonus.
- To found them you need the proper kind of resource for example Whet, Rise, Maize for Agrarian, Cattle, Llamas, Horses for Pastorial and Fish, Whales, Shellfish for Maritime.
- Settlements have slots like Districs, some upgrade their yield like Canals (Irrigation) and others like Shrine add to new bonus.
- When a Settlement have all their slot upgraded and X amount of population it can be upgraded to a City, the main requeriment to advance to the Ancient Era.
- All this would be also the base for the "Barbarian Clans" to "City States" transition system.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I rather like Humankind's model of generic tribes for the Neolithic, and I think something similar could encompass the warrior/settler/worker dynamic you describe.

I also like how The Dawn of Everything introduces the festive component, as it helps counterbalance the priority on early yields. For instance, for a Neolithic start, I can imagine cultural zones already broadly set, with intuitive divisions like upland/lowland. Within these zones there could be ritual/festive centers with links to exploitations in/outside the zone. The player could settle at one of these cultural sites or one of the material exploitations.

The agrarian/pastoral/maritime division (with the addition of mining, quarrying, etc.) would apply to these material exploitations, whereas the cultural sites would have an urban identity likely serving as a trade hub as well. I am certainly a fan of cultivars, but am less certain on how districts would come into play. Certainly, if ritual centers were separate from exploitations, districts would be one way to demonstrate urban identity and fill the map.

In this model, an important distinction with Civ to this point would be broad initial trade routes across and even among culture zones. Whereas in Civ VI, you wait for a builder to improve your tiles, in this interpretation, there would already be a rudimentary center/exploitation dynamic by the end of the Neolithic.

 

[Zaarin]

I rather like Humankind's model of generic tribes for the Neolithic

I think you're the first person I've heard say so. It was one of Humankind's ideas that I was most excited about, but the actual implementation (as with HK's implementation of...virtually everything) was just appallingly banal. I still think there's some potential in the idea...but absolutely not the way HK did it.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

The Neolithic unit question is a bit of a design challenge and not really my forte. One of my issues with Humankind's Neolithic, including the tribes, is that there is not much to explore, and the math is pretty straightforward. If your early population exploded, it would make more sense for some portion to split off into a new cultural identity or settlement. I would want a Civ Neolithic to have more of an RPG feel, with seasonal events representing functions like foraging, trade, and combat, and the goal social identity alongside strategic concerns like map knowledge.

Whereas as Humankind's Neolithic events tend to focus on the growth of one tribe (with civics settled later), I am encouraged by The Dawn of Everything to place those events under survival with a new festive component where the player interacts with many other groups.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think you're the first person I've heard say so. It was one of Humankind's ideas that I was most excited about, but the actual implementation (as with HK's implementation of...virtually everything) was just appallingly banal. I still think there's some potential in the idea...but absolutely not the way HK did it.

My biggest beef with Humankind's Neolithic Start was that it utterly ignored the mass of development during the Neolithic: that period saw the first settlements, which they portrayed (a bit), but it also saw domestication of almost all the important resourced animals, pottery, very early metal-working, long-distance Trade in resources and materials (like sea shells, obsidian and copper) , and earliest exploitation of such resources as Flax (for fishing nets, only later clothing), the wine grape, the earliest coastal boating (allowing settling of such 'isolated' islands as the Aegean islands, Cyprus, Crete, New Guinea, and whale-hunting from boats in Scandinavia and Korea).
Leaving out all those potential activities and developments went a long way towards making their version of the Neolithic a bland and dull Pre-Game before you could actually start doing anything.

On the other hand, the Neolithic saw the first concentrations of people that can by any definition be called 'cities' or 'towns' as permanent constructions rather than seasonal or ephemeral. Since the game is called Civilization, I think extending it too far before that point risks simply putting the bland and dull portion earlier but still present.
Also, there seems to have been a real Singularity Event once people settled down into permanent cities/towns/settlements. With a few notable exceptions culture, politics, government (politics and government needing a lot of qualifications to apply, but referring to how the Group was organized to get things done) and possibly religion all underwent fundamental changes to adapt from semi-nomadic/hunter-gathering to settled farmers/fishers/herders, so that any development you do in the eons or centuries before founding your first city may be largely just Preliminary and not Foundational.

So, like @BuchiTaton, I'd cut out the Mesolithic and Post-Hominid periods and concentrate on starting the game between 11,000 and 8500 BCE, so that the game starts at about the same time that some groups in some favorable biomes started being able to provide food to larger, settled groups and so formed early cities, while others had smaller settlements of a trans-humant (seasonal) or semi-permanent nature but could organize enough labor to create Monuments (Gobekli Tepe and its neighbors).

In other words, when Interesting Things start happening to and by Humans.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Agreed! I would definitely like an early game in higher detail. I would credit Humankind with a model for Neolithic starts and go so far as to say it can evoke a sense of wonder and exploration. That said, I do find their early game a bit bland as an experience and, perhaps from taking part in their contests, overly stressful from a strategic perspective. Partly because their Neolithic has a level of detail coherent with the rest of the game, I suspect Civilization has a better chance to incorporate lessons and start from scratch.

Civ VI kind of already starts at this Singularity Event, with little delayed settling aside from Kupe's mechanics. Personally, I am intrigued by what it would look like to incorporate a period of migration, where the first cities were founded as minor powers that informed early identity but would probably disappear before/around when the player settled. An earlier phase of migration appeals to me in part as a way to develop social, cultural, and religious identity to facility other mechanics upon settling. Of course, this would still present a tricky situation where one would choose a civilization at some point to play as...

 

[Naokaukodem]

11,000

Ah, that's better. 😌 I mean, it's more like my 12.000 BCE start I suggested in another topic.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I should mention there is lots of good discussion that could inform the addition of the Neolithic to Civ VII or another game in the following threads:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-would-you-design-nomadic-civilizations.674131/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civilization-vii-later-or-other-project.649104/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deck-of-breeds.673740/

Seasonality is probably the biggest concept I took away that could structure how the Neolithic plays out. The cycle of subsistence and surplus as a way to generate alternating political and social arrangements would help unpack the Code of Laws start. In the "dry" season, people would disperse nomadically, often accepting harsher smaller-scale political conditions. I could see the player deciding how to ensure people have food, how to resolve conflicts over scarce resources, and how best to exploit a given area, among other questions. In the "wet" season, people across large regions would gather at festive sites to share in surpluses with more options for association. In addition to importing goods, building public works, and engaging in mysteries, the player would gradually differentiate themselves from other identities and customs. With enough asymmetry, surplus/subsistence could add immersive mechanics to the Neolithic.

The generic tribes in Humankind offer the ability to represent a broad diversity of experiences through events. One thing I do like about their Neolithic is the representation of intimate tribal scenes, nice small-scale balance to the broad map presence that fits in well with the survival end of seasonality. You could imagine an event there where the player decides whether to resolve tribal labor shortages with predation and slavery, for instance. A broader issue is the sometimes flat implementation of civics. A matriarchal tribe, one that relied on magical agroforestry customs, and another that murdered outsiders on sight in the dry season are not legible in Humankind.

While they do not necessarily need to be legible in Civ VII either, it would be interesting to emphasize the Neolithic as a period of social, cultural, and political innovation in addition to advances in the traditional tech tree.

 

[VGhost]

I really don't know that I need a pre-urban part to Civ. TBH it would be more interesting as its own game with just founding a city/civ as a victory condition - as I think some of the replies already point out, there's a lot to explore here potentially; but on the other hand I don't see the early game phase interfacing very well with the urban phase (aka "what the whole Civ thing has always been about") - and I'd rather see it just left alone than done badly (...see also: World Congress).

 

[Phrozen]

I should mention there is lots of good discussion that could inform the addition of the Neolithic to Civ VII or another game in the following threads:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-would-you-design-nomadic-civilizations.674131/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civilization-vii-later-or-other-project.649104/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/deck-of-breeds.673740/

Seasonality is probably the biggest concept I took away that could structure how the Neolithic plays out. The cycle of subsistence and surplus as a way to generate alternating political and social arrangements would help unpack the Code of Laws start. In the "dry" season, people would disperse nomadically, often accepting harsher smaller-scale political conditions. I could see the player deciding how to ensure people have food, how to resolve conflicts over scarce resources, and how best to exploit a given area, among other questions. In the "wet" season, people across large regions would gather at festive sites to share in surpluses with more options for association. In addition to importing goods, building public works, and engaging in mysteries, the player would gradually differentiate themselves from other identities and customs. With enough asymmetry, surplus/subsistence could add immersive mechanics to the Neolithic.

The generic tribes in Humankind offer the ability to represent a broad diversity of experiences through events. One thing I do like about their Neolithic is the representation of intimate tribal scenes, nice small-scale balance to the broad map presence that fits in well with the survival end of seasonality. You could imagine an event there where the player decides whether to resolve tribal labor shortages with predation and slavery, for instance. A broader issue is the sometimes flat implementation of civics. A matriarchal tribe, one that relied on magical agroforestry customs, and another that murdered outsiders on sight in the dry season are not legible in Humankind.

While they do not necessarily need to be legible in Civ VII either, it would be interesting to emphasize the Neolithic as a period of social, cultural, and political innovation in addition to advances in the traditional tech tree.

It really depends on the area though. Take the Americas for example. While you had permanent settlements in some areas, the majority of peoples actually practiced a semi-permanent settlement strategy where they would build a town and exploit the resources around that town till it was exhausted and then move on to another area to build another town, usually along a river. This was the strategy for most of the Eastern Seaboard till the Great Plains. It really isn't till some basic form of irrigation and fertilization comes along that you start getting permanent settlements or you lived in the PNW whose climate provided plenty of easily exploitable resources all year long.

 

[Zaarin]

It really isn't till some basic form of irrigation and fertilization comes along that you start getting permanent settlements or you lived in the PNW whose climate provided plenty of easily exploitable resources all year long.

Even the PNW settlements were seasonal and more akin to what you'd find in a pastoralist society--only, instead of following their herds, the PNW people dispersed to the woods and salmon runs in summer and fall.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

That's fair. Personally, I find the sociopolitical dimension compelling enough to justify a robust Neolithic in some game, though there are a variety of other access points based on discussion around the forum. The irony with looking at the Neolithic as pre-urban is that, at least from what I can tell, most of the early farmers and permanent settlements did not make it. Rather than the first to settle a city or for the sake of argument discover agriculture(!), a more intuitive victory condition for a standalone game would be founding a lasting settlement, overlapping somewhat with civilizations and cultures with more of a balancing act involved.

A difficulty here (much discussed elsewhere) is that it has been viable to get through much of human history without permanently settling a city or adopting agriculture, among other criteria. Seasonality can partially contain the question of permanent/semi-permanent/seasonal settlements. For instance, an early city founded on a ritual site may still serve as a seasonal hub for others, possibly within a broad culture group.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Even the PNW settlements were seasonal and more akin to what you'd find in a pastoralist society--only, instead of following their herds, the PNW people dispersed to the woods and salmon runs in summer and fall.

In this they were actually very similar to the Algonkian groups in New England on the other side of the continent, who spent summers on the coast exploiting the fishing and shellfish, and winters well inland away from the Atlantic storms. In the Pacific Northwest they did even better, since a large part of the 'coast' was actually inland - Puget Sound, so the weather was pretty benign all year round, and the local flora included masses of berries and camas root (a starch source) which together with hunting and fishing provided a surplus of food and a balanced diet. The shores of Puget Sound had one of the highest densities of population of any hunter-gatherer groups in the world largely as a result of that - exemplified by the Potlatch cultural mechanic. You don't invent a system of giving away masses of goods and food for pure prestige purposes in an economy of scarcity!

 

[Zaarin]

In this they were actually very similar to the Algonkian groups in New England on the other side of the continent, who spent summers on the coast exploiting the fishing and shellfish, and winters well inland away from the Atlantic storms. In the Pacific Northwest they did even better, since a large part of the 'coast' was actually inland - Puget Sound, so the weather was pretty benign all year round, and the local flora included masses of berries and camas root (a starch source) which together with hunting and fishing provided a surplus of food and a balanced diet. The shores of Puget Sound had one of the highest densities of population of any hunter-gatherer groups in the world largely as a result of that - exemplified by the Potlatch cultural mechanic. You don't invent a system of giving away masses of goods and food for pure prestige purposes in an economy of scarcity!

The climate was so mild that the Tlingit went barefoot and mostly naked all year at the same latitude as Norway and Sweden.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Another structure I quite like is their translation of domination through violence, knowledge, and charisma into the institutions of sovereignty, bureaucracy, and politics as an alternate mode of comparison without the baggage of set terms. This struck me as having the potential to restructure civics around progress with more deliberate choices.

Sovereignty would indicate the use of force within a set territory, enlarged by the fact that many people would likely move away rather than live under your rule. This rule would be limited by the lack of means to effectively project power beyond that land. Starting with sovereignty could mimic the Russian ability in Civ VI, where settling a city grants more territory.

Bureaucracy implies the control of knowledge, perhaps esoteric, with an emphasis on uniform, urban administration and their necessary economies. In terms of Humankind, starting with bureaucracy could give a bonus to the city cap.

As for politics, Wengrow and Graeber point to "heroic societies" defined by decentralized epics, feasts, burials, and heroic political competition. I am not totally sure how it would translate to Civ VI, but it could be something like a less expensive version of Dido's Move Capital project to suggest decentralized centers of power.

To begin the game, players would choose one of the three, opening up a set of civic choices on the nature of violence, knowledge, or competition used to structure their civilization. Later on, there would be the option to progressively unlock the other two forms of domination, hopefully with synergies. At the same, I quite like their connection between cultures structured around one form of domination and their projections of the others onto belief systems. For example, an esoteric bureaucracy may have a pantheon of divinities locked in epic competition, or a hierarchy topped by a supreme, wrathful being. This could add another layer of complexity where a player's choice in opening civic would have an effect on the availability of religious beliefs.

I could see a wheel, where the player unlocks thirds, or something more like an inverted pyramid where the player builds out upper layers by unlocking the other forms. While I am not exactly inspired by structuring civic progress around domination, this division does help me imagine alternatives for civics, progress, and the early game.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Another structure I quite like is their translation of domination through violence, knowledge, and charisma into the institutions of sovereignty, bureaucracy, and politics as an alternate mode of comparison without the baggage of set terms. This struck me as having the potential to restructure civics around progress with more deliberate choices.

Sovereignty would indicate the use of force within a set territory, enlarged by the fact that many people would likely move away rather than live under your rule. This rule would be limited by the lack of means to effectively project power beyond that land. Starting with sovereignty could mimic the Russian ability in Civ VI, where settling a city grants more territory.

Bureaucracy implies the control of knowledge, perhaps esoteric, with an emphasis on uniform, urban administration and their necessary economies. In terms of Humankind, starting with bureaucracy could give a bonus to the city cap.

As for politics, Wengrow and Graeber point to "heroic societies" defined by decentralized epics, feasts, burials, and heroic political competition. I am not totally sure how it would translate to Civ VI, but it could be something like a less expensive version of Dido's Move Capital project to suggest decentralized centers of power.

To begin the game, players would choose one of the three, opening up a set of civic choices on the nature of violence, knowledge, or competition used to structure their civilization. Later on, there would be the option to progressively unlock the other two forms of domination, hopefully with synergies. At the same, I quite like their connection between cultures structured around one form of domination and their projections of the others onto belief systems. For example, an esoteric bureaucracy may have a pantheon of divinities locked in epic competition, or a hierarchy topped by a supreme, wrathful being. This could add another layer of complexity where a player's choice in opening civic would have an effect on the availability of religious beliefs.

I could see a wheel, where the player unlocks thirds, or something more like an inverted pyramid where the player builds out upper layers by unlocking the other forms. While I am not exactly inspired by structuring civic progress around domination, this division does help me imagine alternatives for civics, progress, and the early game.

I didn't read this book (translated into french already ?) but this seems interesting. Your ideas make me think about Civ5 civics, or Civ6 governors (that I suggested somewhere that they should act regionally or empire-wide just like Civ5 civics). Civ5 civics, Civ6 governors, your ideas, they are pretty similar no ? What's the difference between them ? Well, first governors just act in a single city most of the time, wheareas civics act empire-wide most of the time (but not always). Second, although they are earned regularly during the course of the game, they are unlocked quite a bit differently. Governors are unlocked through governor titles, in the civics "tech" tree. Civ5 civics are unlocked with brute culture thresholds. (sounds familiar yes) The more you will have culture in both games, the more civics/title you will earn, except that governor titles seems more frozen and deterministic, because you unlock them with particular civics and you can't have a tremendous amont of them even at the end of the game, unlike in Civ5 where if you skyrocket your culture (or not even that much), you will end up with civics to choose you will not know which to pick anymore because they would be kind of irrelevant. Granted, you can have the same feeling with Civ6 governors, but it's just because their effects are too local, too disconnected from each others (a same governor can have pretty much different precise effects) and not powerful/seducing enough most of the time.

Of course, another great difference with your ideas and governors/civics, is that in your ideas they are limited to 3 and you choose them at the start of the game. I don't think we should be limited to 1 on 3 though, there should be different levels you might want to pick up in each category. So, while you could still choose to choose them at start, you could pick up others during the game. Basically, it would be like the Civ6 civics tree, divided into 3. Not to say there shouldn't be a civics tree in addition. Nor governors.

About governors (while I'm at it), if they are to stay local, I would like them to have a range of effects. First, they could be placed in any palace/administrative center on the map. Second, it's boring and artificial to count tiles, so their range would be decaying nearly to the point it would reach the other side of the map. The strenght of their influence may take into account the communication ways, like roads, permeable/impermeable terrain, technology (water is impermeable without sailing, very permeable with it) To join another idea of mines, they could enhance loyalty by following this strenght the same way. So, if for some reason you settle on the other side of a mountain range, it might be handy to place a governor to this side. (but as always, if this is done, you would never want to do such a thing, because of some totally different reason, Civ design you know )

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

There is a 2021 translation, Au commencement était, from LLL. The underlying overlap between the civics trio and your suggestions for governors would seem to be acknowledgement of a space above governors, policies, and even governments, but below civilizations and leaders, both wide-reaching and progressive.

No easy solution on my part for the unlocks I agree that governor titles and culture thresholds borrow against the late-game experience, though they do represent an effort to pace progress. With these traditional mechanisms, I could see the civics as either Civ V's menu or Civ VI's tree. I could also see them as a series of binary choices as in Humankind: What do we do with war captives? What is the nature of our secret knowledge? How do we decide on our leaders? etc.

Translating the sovereignty/bureaucracy/politics concepts give us three, and I like the three, but I can easily imagine a related mechanism with more options. One bonus with the trio is their representation of common play-styles (expansion, builder, combat). That said, they strike me as useful more as they would offer early trade-offs. A player might prefer a builder style but recognize resources or terrain that incentivize sovereignty. It would be playing the map with consequences in a subset of early-game civics and religious beliefs. In this sense, it strikes me as more akin to Civ V's ideologies, where somewhat overlapping tenets offer significant strategic and gameplay differences, though permanent and starting with the early game.

I think the main difference would be repurposing the civics tree to model something like state complexity. Players would start specialized in one of three and gradually converge on more powerful synergies of statecraft like state surveillance and democratic elections. This would revive some of the eagerness to unlock civics but especially tenets from Civ V.

I am not set on bringing governors forward, particularly as I have more exposure now to how they work in Old World with influence from the Endless heroes that somehow did not make it into Humankind... Even so, Civ VI-style governors show how charisma could play a greater role, with candidates having potential in addition to their inherent values. While there is a point in Civ VI where governors cycle/sleep/garrison, that kind of rote assignment is harder in Old World where there are a lot of candidates who represent yield tradeoffs if not outright harm.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I'll try to get it.

Yes, I forgot to talk about Civ5 tenets. Your sentence about "inverted tree" made me think about them. And, it's yet another set of bonuses empire-wide, with civics, pantheon, religion, etc. There's a lot going on there if we look at it. But I would need to read the book in order to translate it in terms of Civ. About another great book that gave me the inspiration and basis for my idea in the link of my signature, is called in English "Against the Grain. A Deep History of the Earlier States" by James C. Scott (2017), not to mix up, if I remember correctly, with another older and famous book "Against the Grain" (which I didn't read either). The main title transformed in french into "Homo Domesticus".

Also, the fact that you want those abilities to be picked up at the start reminds me of (obviously) civs uniques but more particularly Civ4 generic uniques. I don't remember exatly how much there was, but each civ got two of them, and they were exactly the same from a particular civs to another particular civ. I don't remember if two civs had the exact same two uniques however. Yes, there's a lot going on. About uniques, it would be cool if we could pick them up, and play another civ. Example : I like free monument, roads to capital and Legions from Rome, but I would like to play France. And then I could pick up France AND free monuments, roads to capital and Legions. That's just the city names that would change from picking up Rome basically. Another point is that there isn't enough elements that remind us we are roleplaying a particular country. City names can not be enough. (we do not see us as leader, except if it would look itselves in a mirror. I won't suggest a unique throne room, because that would be too much work for something I want simpler - like having only name uniques and no leader or civ uniques at all -. Here, your suggestion could help)