TRIBES

[I-civilian]

One of the things I like to do in CivVI is to quickly start exploring the early world map. Establishing contact with city states or stumbling upon hidden tribes is valuable and can provide additional recon units or valuable boosts to tech research, gold etc.

But once you have visited a hidden tribe, it gets wiped off the map and seize to exist.
That is not the matter with discovering city states, which continues to give beneficial boosts to your civilization throughout the game.

What if instead of getting wiped off the map after being visited, the tribe continues to exist throughout the game. This way, the tribe can continue to provide benefits from being explored, more in the same way as with city states?

For instance, what if the tribe, instead of being cleared, continues to exist as a trading post?
This would give valuable extension to the trade network.
And every now and then, the tribe could have accumulated enough experience (or whatever you wanna call it) and it can again provide a boost and continue to do so on intervals throughout the game (every 30 turns or so).

And also, what if discovering a hidden tribe can give you just the right excuse to settle nearby it?
Settling within 3 tiles of a tribe could give benefits along those of settling near a natural wonder.

For instance, when incorporated into a city, the tribe could turn into a natural reserve.
This natural reserve could provide different benefits, such as:

> + citizen to that city
> + food
> + culture
> + gold
> + amenities
> adjecency bonuses

I think there is an unexplored potential with tribes that could give an additional fun element to the game.

This way, there is also a good reason to let your recon units keep roaming the world map throughout the game, providing you with valuable boosts from distant tribes!

/Kyle

 

[EmperorMatt]

Very interesting idea. I can see Firaxis taking this a lot of different ways. Perhaps if you nurture a tribe long enough it can become a 1-hex city state (with a name on display) that provides similar unique benefits to city states. Only they would be smaller benefits than city states. (Examples: A Unique Luxury Resource (Like Salmon?), or +6 culture, or +6 faith, or +5 combat strength to all ranged units, etc). Just slight advantageous benefits. This would add extra incentive to keep them around rather than looting them for a 1 time goodie early on. They could also add cool adjacency bonuses to them like +4 culture if you have a cultural site next to it. There could even be a playable tribal civ (Ex: Polynesia, any large Native American Tribe) that gets more significant benefits from keeping tribes in tact. For example, each benefit from a tribe could be doubled.