What Barbarian tribes would you like to see in Civ VII?

[Patine]

Randomly gen leader names for every state that the Olmecs or Harappians or whatever are divided in (civilization and state separation, remember) according to the rules of the language, which could in theory account for 100+ ingame cities. The thing the Civ player plays is the 'spirit of the Civilization', represented by a historical figure as in civ that sorta pushes the civ into acting a certain way that can be swapped out at any time. Make it very clear that this leader representative doesn't exist in universe and is just a face to make playing the civ easier. Still keep the funny interactions between civilizations (states are just automated, this would be for when you meet other civilizations entirely)



look through the historical city list, if you can't, try to figure out their language and name cities based off of that, city names are usually things like 'river city'.

You do know that there are no historical contemporary city names, and their languages are unattested, except for undeciphered script.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

You do know that there are no historical contemporary city names, and their languages are unattested, except for undeciphered script.

if you can't, make stuff up by using terms from related languages to them (proto Dravidian for Harappans, Mixe-Zoquean for Olmecs)

 

[Patine]

if you can't, make stuff up by using terms from related languages to them (proto Dravidian for Harappans, Mixe-Zoquean for Olmecs)

There is absoluteky no evidence Dravidian languages are at all related to what may have been spoken by Harrappians, and Mixo-Zoquean relation to what the Olmecs spoke is just a guess, and nothing more.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

i don't want any barbarian tribes, unplayable minor civs.

i want all of the principles that make a civilization to be programmed into the game (cultural authority, etc) so you could mix and match different values (high authoritarianism, high collectivism) to create any civilization theoretically possible, not limited to those that had already existed. use GPT-4 to make conlangs for the civilizations that didn't exist. give players the opportunity to create their own civilization or plop them in a geographical area that matches the earth-existent civilization they chose (if you pick Chinese civilization, it puts you in a river valley surrounded by inhospitable wasteland and mountains)

this would make every premade civ as complex as the civs in civ v or vi btw or even moreso

go FAR and BEYOND with this in advertising. 'CIV ULTIMATE, EVERYONE IS HERE' on a poster with every single leader type in every cultural outfit and every ethnicity imaginable

This sounds a lot like what Humankind did, but to the extreme, which to me isn't what I want in a Civilization game.

if you can't, make stuff up by using terms from related languages to them (proto Dravidian for Harappans, Mixe-Zoquean for Olmecs)

Which is why groups like the Harappans, Olmecs, Minoans etc. make for good non-playable city-states/minor civs.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Got to reply to this, because I've been there, tried that, and for numerous reasons, it just doesn't work.

First, take China. There are indications of settled proto-agricultural groups in the territory now identified as China going back over 10,000 years (Pengtoushan Culture, cultivating rice by about 8000 BCE, decorated pottery, but no metal used, only bone and stone tools).
From that to the first non-mythical Chinese Dynasty (Shang, 1600 BCE) there are, by an incomplete list, cultures and sites named Dadiwan, Peligang, Houli, Cishan, Xinglongwa, Xingli, Hemudu, Lengyel, Majiabang, Daxi, Yangshao, Hongshan, Dawenkou, Liangzhu - and the last is still 600 years before the earliest Shang sites.

These archeological sites range from the southern reaches of Mongolia to the South China seacoast, and the various cultures have traces of rice and millet agriculture, jade and lacquer-working, decorated pottery, stone, bone and early bronze tool production, domestication of pigs, sheep and goats and rammed earth defenses - all characteristic of later Chinese Civ, but NONE of those sites have all of them. Furthermore, the few skeletons/DNA recovered shows that many of the populations migrated into the area of much later China from the west - Siberia, Mongolia, etc. And some of the sites show distinctly Non-Chinese cultural attributes - like Totem Poles and South Pacific-style stilt houses.

So, which one is going to result in a "Chinese" Civ? Given that the starting locations/conditions range from the river valleys to marshy coastal areas to hilly highlands and populations that do not conveniently stay where they started, regardless of when you start the game between 8000 and 2000 BCE.

Back in Civ V days I tried coming up with a combination of resources and terrain that allowed me to 'model' a specific start position for each Civ, so that if you chose to play, say, Greece, you got an appropriate Starting Position every time. Unfortunately, unless you start the game at about 1700 BCE, when the "Greeks" arrived in Greece, they weren't anywhere near their "starting position": they were horse-nomads from the area between the Caspian and Black Seas who migrated into an area already settled by agriculturalists with already-founded cities named Athens and Argos (neither of which word is Greek: both sites were already settled before 'Greeks' arrived). And how do you differentiate between the chariot-riding nomads that moved southwest and became Greeks, and those that moved north and became Germans, Poles, Dutch, French (Gauls along the way) or headed the other way and became Aryans, Mauryans, et al. (And earlier, groups that moved east and became Proto-Chinese?)

To put it bluntly, you can't. In fact, one of the few things Humankind got exactly right was their Generic Neolithic: there is damned little connection between most of the pre-agricultural or proto-agricultural groups and the later 'Civs' in the same area. As mentioned, in the case of China there are both too many groups to define a linear connection and a gap of several thousand to a minimum of 600 years between them and the first recognizable, historical 'China'.

Oh, and I also tried to come up with 'real' Olmec city-names from Mixe-Zoquean or Epi-Olmec, and after more work than it was worth came up with 6 cities whose names are sort of related to their modern Spanish or later Nahuatl names, and that's assuming that there are really any connections at all between the original and the later names given to them. Frankly, I felt like I was reconstructing the American capital from the old archeological parody, "The Digging of the We-en" in which far future archeological researchers translated Washington as Pound Laundry. After a certain amount of supposition, it all becomes Fantasy . . .

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

There is absoluteky no evidence Dravidian languages are at all related to what may have been spoken by Harrappians, and Mixo-Zoquean relation to what the Olmecs spoke is just a guess, and nothing more.

absolutely no evidence? a cursory look through google tells me it's a reasonable hypothesis

This sounds a lot like what Humankind did, but to the extreme, which to me isn't what I want in a Civilization game.

that's fine if you don't want it. i can't account for taste.

now, was about to write something different but then I saw Boris's post. he raises some very good points.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

absolutely no evidence? a cursory look through google tells me it's a reasonable hypothesis

that's fine if you don't want it. i can't account for taste.

now, was about to write something different but then I saw Boris's post. he raises some very good points.

Don't get me wrong, I would love a game in which one started with a 'proto-Civ' and developed your group to a proper Starting Point for a historical civilization. Just want to point out that it is much harder than it appears - I've been wrestling with it, off and on, since Civ V times and am no closer to a solution now than I was 2 computers ago.

And the problem with modern languages as descendants of ancient languages is that languages are subject to massive borrowings of all kinds over the centuries, especially when exposed to new languages and groups through those centuries. From the original Aryan invasions through the various groups following them down off the Central Asian landmass, whatever language the Indus Valley Civilization people were speaking has been modified, warped, changed, revised - and while the paleo-linguists can track a lot of changes, as the influences get more complex and numerous, it becomes more and more difficult to relate the language(s) Now with the language(s) Then. The Olmec and Mixo-Zoquean or Proto-Olmec has a slightly different problem, in that there is now a consensus (debated, for sure) that the Olmec cities may have spoken several languages, some unique to individual cities. Since we are not even entirely certain which cities were dominant at any given time, deciding on which reconstructed fragment of a pseudo-language to use becomes a nightmare.

 

[Patine]

absolutely no evidence? a cursory look through google tells me it's a reasonable hypothesis

From the articles I read (I don't know which ones you did), one linguist proposed linking Dravidian, Elamite, and the potential languages of the Harappian Civilization, but the linguistic community could not demonstrate a tie between the limited attestation of Elamite to Dravidian, and, since whatever language(s) were spoken by the Harappian Civilization were UTTERLY unattested, save for UTTERLY undeciphered script, the hypothesis was rejected. Mixo-Zoquean was an ESTIMATE based solely on the first verified attested speakers of languages in the area, which was still CENTURIES after the fall of the Olmec Civilization, who glyphs are also UTTERLY undeciphered.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Back in Civ V days I tried coming up with a combination of resources and terrain that allowed me to 'model' a specific start position for each Civ, so that if you chose to play, say, Greece, you got an appropriate Starting Position every time. Unfortunately, unless you start the game at about 1700 BCE, when the "Greeks" arrived in Greece, they weren't anywhere near their "starting position": they were horse-nomads from the area between the Caspian and Black Seas who migrated into an area already settled by agriculturalists with already-founded cities named Athens and Argos (neither of which word is Greek: both sites were already settled before 'Greeks' arrived). And how do you differentiate between the chariot-riding nomads that moved southwest and became Greeks, and those that moved north and became Germans, Poles, Dutch, French (Gauls along the way) or headed the other way and became Aryans, Mauryans, et al. (And earlier, groups that moved east and became Proto-Chinese?)

To put it bluntly, you can't. In fact, one of the few things Humankind got exactly right was their Generic Neolithic: there is damned little connection between most of the pre-agricultural or proto-agricultural groups and the later 'Civs' in the same area. As mentioned, in the case of China there are both too many groups to define a linear connection and a gap of several thousand to a minimum of 600 years between them and the first recognizable, historical 'China'.

My solution would be to be able to still choose your civilization from the main menu and let the "Neolithic Era" be the solution to the whole starting position crisis. There's not much difference between the English "tribe" and an Egyptian "tribe" until they wander around and found their first city, let alone many of the other "tribes" that might become potential city-states/minor nations.

As for the starting position if playing as England and they have coastal bonuses, or a naval UU, you would most likely look for the coast, while Egypt would most likely look for a desert or river with floodplains etc. I would also say that some civs, like America which has a wide variety of geography, it wouldn't really matter where you eventually settle.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Related to this topic, the next changes to how Settlers works could provide new opportunities :
- Settlers have Denizen (basic population unit) "charges" to found Villages (Improvements) and Districts (replacing the redundant Builder/Worker).
- When is needed (or suffered) Villages and Districts can turn again into Settlers, allowing their relocation.
- Of course foundation and building actions cost yields (and turns) so relocation is not supposed to be a common or preferred action.
- Like Districts, Villages can be upgraded with buildings, some of these are yield related but others increase growth.
- Both Villages and District have dwell+job slots from buildings, these give Denizens their Class (social caste).
- From the population growth new denizen automatically occupy avalaible dwell+job slots, BUT denizen can be also turned into Settlers (on map unit).
- When a Village achieves its maximum (upgrade+denizen slots) it can be turned into a new City or District.
- Either from a grown Village or directly founded as District, Districts need to be contiguous to CityCenters or previous Districts.
- If is needed the Denizen "charges" of Settlers can be used to occupy dwell+job slots on specific Districts/Villages .
- Administratively Villages are part of a City. In "Neolithic Era" before grow your first City all villages are under the "Tribal Land" special status (City "dummi").
- All these mechanics apply for both Nations (minor non-playable) and Empires (major playable) civs. So the two can upgrade from "tribal" to "urban".
- Districts and Villages can be razed, but they always turn into Settlers that could escape or be captured (never completely destroyed).

So under this system Neolithic Era allows to already start building Villages (improvements) all around, included the one you choose to turn into your first City (action that advance you to Ancient Era). About this last, the kind of resource from the Villages you turn into your first City provides one from three early Ideologies (civic/policies); Agrarian, Pastorial or Maritime society, with their own related bonus and uniques.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

From the articles I read (I don't know which ones you did), one linguist proposed linking Dravidian, Elamite, and the potential languages of the Harappian Civilization, but the linguistic community could not demonstrate a tie between the limited attestation of Elamite to Dravidian, and, since whatever language(s) were spoken by the Harappian Civilization were UTTERLY unattested, save for UTTERLY undeciphered script, the hypothesis was rejected. Mixo-Zoquean was an ESTIMATE based solely on the first verified attested speakers of languages in the area, which was still CENTURIES after the fall of the Olmec Civilization, who glyphs are also UTTERLY undeciphered.

Can't speak to the Harappan material, but I delved into the Olmec, Proto-Olmec and Mixo-Zoquean mess, and one group proposed translations for about 50 glyphs of Olmec, but they are not at all universally accepted and, frankly, appear to be as much supposition as evidentiary - and none of them even speculatively were identified as anything resembling a city, place, or settlement name, so don't do us much good. Even they turn out to be completely right, it's still only 50 'words' or syllables and we still don't have a clue what the spoken forms sounded like. Got a long way to go to come up with what Civ needs for a Leader or the Civilization . . .

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Related to this topic, the next changes to how Settlers works could provide new opportunities :
- Settlers have Denizen (basic population unit) "charges" to found Villages (Improvements) and Districts (replacing the redundant Builder/Worker).
- When is needed (or suffered) Villages and Districts can turn again into Settlers, allowing their relocation.
- Of course foundation and building actions cost yields (and turns) so relocation is not supposed to be a common or preferred action.
- Like Districts, Villages can be upgraded with buildings, some of these are yield related but others increase growth.
- Both Villages and District have dwell+job slots from buildings, these give Denizens their Class (social caste).
- From the population growth new denizen automatically occupy avalaible dwell+job slots, BUT denizen can be also turned into Settlers (on map unit).
- When a Village achieves its maximum (upgrade+denizen slots) it can be turned into a new City or District.
- Either from a grown Village or directly founded as District, Districts need to be contiguous to CityCenters or previous Districts.
- If is needed the Denizen "charges" of Settlers can be used to occupy dwell+job slots on specific Districts/Villages .
- Administratively Villages are part of a City. In "Neolithic Era" before grow your first City all villages are under the "Tribal Land" special status (City "dummi").
- All these mechanics apply for both Nations (minor non-playable) and Empires (major playable) civs. So the two can upgrade from "tribal" to "urban".
- Districts and Villages can be razed, but they always turn into Settlers that could escape or be captured (never completely destroyed).

What exactly is a District in terms of your concept? Is it just another name for simple improvements farm, mines, fishing boats etc.?

My idea was to only have Settlers to turn into settlements, which is similar to your idea of a village, and be a base to where you can produce more early units. Because in this era settlements can be mobile and moved, by turning it into a settler again, I wasn't going to focus on producing buildings or improvements in these areas, yet. At least not until you upgrade your settlement/village into your first city by reaching the Ancient Era.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I would like to see all barbarian tribes that you could pick up at start, at least all known ones. It is to say, all civs. Because "barbarians" is just a term, with a negative connotation acquired with time (especially modern), that design first, "stranger to the greek", it is to say "that don't speak greek", and then, "that don't speak latin" or "that is stranger to Rome/Roman empire", with a remake of the greek term, which was supposed (we believe) to depict ununderstandable language ("bar-bar").

Obviously, the negative connotation could be seen contemporarily of said civs, which is quite obvious, however some authors approached it like the "good savage" we could see later with the discovering of the new world, as to opposed to the corruption of "civilization", or at least politics, trade and habits of said civs.

That said, one could see in outlying human life from firsts or proto- empires of Mesopotamia, "barbarians", it is to say more or less migrating people, more or less aggressive, which lived in symbiosis with the more known civs.

The series depicts barbarians as anonymous aggressive clans that can suicide on your troops, but that's just a gimmick to an attempt to populate the land and give something to do to an isolated player. It's also an homage to the term and its perception within the required (past) simplicity.

But Persia, for example, was barbarians to Greece and Rome, as much as China could see Mongols as barbarians. However, we happened to incarnate both of them in the previous instalments of the series. It all depends of the point of view. Barbarians are, by essence, the stranger. That's why we can duplicate them all over the world and history from the greek and roman definitions.

No matter what, even if they have a strong state, barbarians are unintelligible and fascinating.

That's why we don't have to stick too much to the series definition ; we can re-invent the barbarians, and even treat every known clan or tribe on an equal foot. Well, not totally as like it have been pointed out in some thread, we may not know, for example, the name they gave to their cities/locations.

What I suggest, beside the idea in my signature, is to propose an alphabetical list of factions that we could incarnate, only one mention in any ancient book being enough, and name the cities, if we don't know them or if they aren't known to being having any, after the ones of their first known successor of their vague region.

And that would be it ! No fancy unique abilities, units, buildings, improvements, leaderheads. Just cities and, maybe, "culturally linked starting locations" as an option, except if that demands too much work or is not desired by the devs. (for example if there is too many factions on the map, it could be tricky to name them all after direct neighbours/mid-distance neighbours/long distance neighbours)

 

[BuchiTaton]

What exactly is a District in terms of your concept? Is it just another name for simple improvements farm, mines, fishing boats etc.?

My idea was to only have Settlers to turn into settlements, which is similar to your idea of a village, and be a base to where you can produce more early units. Because in this era settlements can be mobile and moved, by turning it into a settler again, I wasn't going to focus on producing buildings or improvements in these areas, yet. At least not until you upgrade your settlement/village into your first city by reaching the Ancient Era.

These Districts are pretty much like in CIV6. Still Im not sure about they being specialized in one theme with predefined buildings like CIV6 or completely customizable with mixed buildings. The part I am sure about it is the need for districts to be directly adjacent to City Center or another previous District.

I also tried to unified the concept of Districts and Villages(Improvements) but keep them as part of Urban/Countryside duality helps to represent things like "tribal" lifestyle, events of fast urbanization like Industrialization, etc. Also Villages could be automatized to turn into the kind of the resource on the tile (Farming Village, Pastorial Village, Fishing Village, Mining Village, etc.) while Districts usually disregard resources on their tile. The unified part about Districts and Villages is that both can be settled and provide dwell/jobs (class) for more denizens (we must remember that many real city neighboorhoods were founded by and received immigrant waves).

So default buildings to improve a Village are things like Well/Fountain, while others are related the resource/yield like Mill when is a Farming Village or Foundry for a Mining Village.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

These Districts are pretty much like in CIV6. Still Im not sure about they being specialized in one theme with predefined buildings like CIV6 or completely customizable with mixed buildings. The part I am sure about it is the need for districts to be directly adjacent to City Center or another previous District.

I would still want Districts to be similar to how they are in Civ 6, with some alterations. I'd still like the majority of them to be specialized, however unique districts for civs could be more customizable, such as a Roman Forum housing both governmental and market buildings. That being said I'd also want more exclusive buildings for each district so not every Commercial Hub or Campus would even look the same.
I also agree with you that most districts would need to be directly adjacent to the City Center, at least early game, with a few exceptions.

I also tried to unified the concept of Districts and Villages(Improvements) but keep them as part of Urban/Countryside duality helps to represent things like "tribal" lifestyle, events of fast urbanization like Industrialization, etc. Also Villages could be automatized to turn into the kind of the resource on the tile (Farming Village, Pastorial Village, Fishing Village, Mining Village, etc.) while Districts usually disregard resources on their tile. The unified part about Districts and Villages is that both can be settled and provide dwell/jobs (class) for more denizens (we must remember that many real city neighboorhoods were founded by and received immigrant waves).

That sounds like a good way to specialize cities even more. I could see something along the lines of if you have a section of two or more of the same improvements: farm, pasture, fishing boats, mines, you can turn those into a village and make those yields even stronger. Basically, like a "corporation" for bonus resources.

 

[reddishrecue]

I guess I see what you're saying.. sort of like etrusca who had good architecture. Etrusca barbarians would be good at buildings or walls in this case for example.

 

[Patine]

I guess I see what you're saying.. sort of like etrusca who had good architecture. Etrusca barbarians would be good at buildings or walls in this case for example.

I think what's REALLY being said is that the term, "Barbarian," and the concept of, "Barbarian tribes," probably shouldn't be revisited in future Civ iterations.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I think what's REALLY being said is that the term, "Barbarian," and the concept of, "Barbarian tribes," probably shouldn't be revisited in future Civ iterations.

Whaaaat ? Where has that being said ? I've said the contrary in a long post. Tsssslll, what are you talking about ?

 

[reddishrecue]

If barbarians weren't around, liberty would be easier to manage. Military wouldn't be as necessary either.

 

[Henri Christophe]

3. Greek tribes, Sparta.

Don't make sense the Greeks being barbarians because the word barbarian means people who can't speak Greek.