What Civs and Leaders do you all predict will be in VII's base game?

[Caesar of Bread]

Civilization VII will be epic

 

[Xandinho]

With almost 100% certainty:

China
Greece
Rome
Egypt
India
England
France
America
Russia
Arabia
Japan
Germany

Quite likely:

Aztec
Persia
Spain
Viking Nation

Slots that will certainly be:

Central Asian Civilization
Ancient Civilization of Mesopotamia
South American Civilization
Second African Civilization

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

There are a few possible hints from the Trailer, artificial imagery though it be:
1. A large Egyptian God/Statue which is female and traditionally Egyptian. So, Egypt with Hatshepset or Nefertiti as Leader?
2. Lots of horse archers shown in the middle section of the trailer, so Mongols, Huns, or Scythians - some kind of Pastoral Civ.
3. Chinese Hand gunners shown, China is a near-certainty.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Considering one of the quotes has been uncovered to be from a Mayan text: The Mayans, which I'm in, they're one of my favorite nations to flavor wise.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

There are a few possible hints from the Trailer, artificial imagery though it be:
1. A large Egyptian God/Statue which is female and traditionally Egyptian. So, Egypt with Hatshepset or Nefertiti as Leader?
2. Lots of horse archers shown in the middle section of the trailer, so Mongols, Huns, or Scythians - some kind of Pastoral Civ.
3. Chinese Hand gunners shown, China is a near-certainty.

I'd suggest Hetshepsut. Nefertiti is almost always depicted with the crown in her famous bust. Nefertari always has the bird crown. Hetshepsut usually has the sphynx crown, which is what this statue is most similar to.
Lots of Chinese stuff in general in the middle. Probably because China is a big growning video game market. China being in is beyond a certainty.

 

[AtlanteanLord]

I think it’s Nefertiti with a different hat.

 

[Navelgazer]

Yeah, some can be assumed, specifically America, China, Japan, Egypt, Greece, India, Rome, England, France, Germany, Russia.

Some are very likely but not as 100% certain as the previous list: Arabia, Persia, Aztec, Maya, Korea, Brazil. I expect we'll get some of those but probably not all of them in the base game.

Beyond that, expect a few wild cards (like Scythia being in the base game for Civ6) but those are by nature very difficult to guess.

 

[Hannibal XIII]

I just hope they move past the asinine gender balancing for leaders -- especially since they made some baffling choices for 6 like Kristina of Sweden, Jadwiga and Wu Zetian (or Maria of Portugal from Civ V). \

My ideal list after expansions:

• China (my pipe dream is bringing Mao back. There are so many options for them -- you could plumb the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, go outside the box with someone like Koxinga ... I'd expect Kublai who is always solid, and then another emperor. A new entry on that front, like Qianlong or Taizong, would be nice.)
• America, ideal leaders FDR/Lincoln/Washington
• Ancient Greece (ideally they fold back in Macedon, having them separate was almost as bad as Civ 4 HRE or Civ 6 having so many post-colonial nations. I'm fine with Alexander, Pyrrhus of Epirus would also be cool. Pericles, Leonidas, or maybe someone like Themistocles, all acceptable.)
• Rome (Julius Caesar and/or Octavian -- other cool options IMO would be Trajan, Constantine the Great, Marcus Aurelius, or even a Republican leader like Sulla etc.)
• Egypt (I'd much prefer Hatshepshut to Cleo but I recognize Cleo is iconic. I also expect Ramesses, but other cool options would be Piye as a dual leader with Nubia or another great pharaoh like Amenhotep III)
• Nubia (Amanitore and Piye.)
• England (Lizzy I, Vicky. Pipe dream for me is Oliver Cromwell. Canute the Great as a dual leader with the Norse would also be cool.)
• France (Philippe Augustus, Nappy, Charlemagne or Louis XIV. Joan of Arc would be a cool option for a woman leader and I thought de Medici was an inspired choice)
• Spain (Isabella and either Charles V or his son Philip II.)
• Portugal (Joao II, Pedro I as co-leader with Brasil. Afonso Henriques would also be neat)
• Brasil (Pedro I, Isabella)
• Arabs (absolutely not Saladin the Kurd pls. Harun al-Rashid, Almanzor both cool options. For a more modern feel I think Nasser would be neat.)
• Berbers/Numidians (Massinissa, Moulay Yacoub of the Almohads.)
• The Turk (Suleiman Kanuni, I also think Kösem Sultan would be a great choice, and I think Ataturk and Alp Arslan as a dual leader with Iran are deserving as well.)
• Ethiopia (Gelawdewos, Queen Yodit to shake things up. Zara Yacob or Menelik would also be fine.)
• Mali (Mansa Musa.)
• Shona/Great Zimbabwe: Changamire Dombo
• Fulani (Usman dan Fodio or El Hadj Umar Tall)
• Madagascar (Andrianampoinimerina or Rainilaiarivony)
• Sumeria (Gilgamesh)
• Babylon (Nebuchadnezzar)
• Assyria (Ashurbanipal)
• Ancient/Classical Iran (Cyrus, Shapur II, Khosrau II)
• Muslim Iran (Ismail I Safavid, Alp Arslan, Khomeini.)
• Cholas (Rajendra I)
• Mughals (Akbar)
• Ancient India (Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka)
• Vandals (Geiseric)
• Scandies (Canute the Great/Harald Hardrada for Viking era, Margaret I of Denmark)
• Germany (Otto the Great, Bismarck, maybe Barbarossa again. Charlemagne as co-leader with France. Maria Theresa for a woman/co-leader for Hungary)
• Lithuania (Gediminas, Jogaila, and at least one co-leaders with Poland)
• Poland (Sigismund II Augustus, Stefan Bathory as a co-leader with Hungary, Jan III Sobieski)
• Hungary (Matthias Corvinus, St. Stephen, and/or Bathory)
• Venice (Enrico Dandolo)
• Eastern Rome (John Tzimiskes, Alexios I Komnenos, Nikephoros Phokas the Pale Death -- just not Theodora pls. Belisarius if they want to go for early ERE, Theodora Porphyrogenneta if they want a woman)
• Bulgaria (Boris I, Ivan Asen II, and maybe Krum)
• Normans (William the Conqueror as a co-leader with England, Robert Guiscard or Bohemond, and definitely Roger II of Sicily)
• Catalans (Jaime II of Aragon, Roger de Flor)
• Mongols (Timur, Hulagu, Genghis, Kublai. Altani Khatun would be a cool option for a woman leader)
• Japan (Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hojou Tokimune, and the Emperor Meiji)
• Korea (Seondeok, Sejong or Wang Kon/Taejo)
• Vietnam (Ba Trieu or the Trung sisters and IMO Ho Chi Minh is a must.)
• Indonesia (Gitarja, Soekarno. Would also be cool with Gajah Mada coming back)
• Maya (Pacal II, Lady Six Sky)
• Nahua (Nezahualcoyotl and Montezuma. Malintzin would be a controversial but IMO interesting pick as well)
• Inca (Pachacuti, Huayna Capac. Would also like Tupac Amaru II)
• Haudenosaunee (Hiawatha)
• Dutch (Billy Orange. Boer leader like Kruger would also be cool)
• Gaels (Brian Boru, Macbeth for fun)
• Britons and Bretons (Boudicca, Nominoe I, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn)
• Hittites (Šuppiluliuma I)
• Phoenicians (Hannibal Barca. Dido if you want to use mythical figures, although IMO its as bad as using King Arthur)
• Russia (pipe dream is Stalin or Lenin, I'd also include Cathy the Great and Alexander Nevsky. Would also love to see Ivan Grozny)
• Georgia (Tamar)
• Kongo (Mvemba and the female St. Anthony Beatriz Kempa Vita)
• Hawaii (KA-ME-HA-ME-HAAAAAAAAAAAA) OR Kupe for the Maori
• Khmer (Suryavarman or Jayavarman)
• Siam (Naresuan, Mongkut, or Ramkhamhaeng, and I would love to see Constantine Phaulkon or the king he served, Narai)
• Burma (Bayinnaung)

 

[AtlanteanLord]

I think would prefer a Ptolomeic Empire civ led by Cleopatra than having her rule the egyptians. It would allow to showcase the differences

 

[reddishrecue]

I know for sure we will have: America, Babylon, China, Aztec, Rome, Greece, Germany, Russia, Japan, Egypt, India, Mongolia, Persia, France and England. I expect more in the vanilla version also but I cant tell which others will be in there also.

 

[pokiehl]

I think would prefer a Ptolomeic Empire civ led by Cleopatra than having her rule the egyptians. It would allow to showcase the differences

It’d be awesome to have both as separate factions. If not the Ptolemaic Kingdom, I m think some Hellenistic diadochi kingdom in general deserves its own space to shine.

 

[reddishrecue]

It’d be awesome to have both as separate factions.

In the expansions or the vanilla itself?

 

[AtlanteanLord]

It’d be awesome to have both as separate factions. If not the Ptolemaic Kingdom, I m think some Hellenistic diadochi kingdom in general deserves its own space to shine.

Yeah. I mean I agree Cleopatra is iconic (besides the obvious, she was basically Civ6 mascot) but separating the Ptolemic Kingdom and Egypt could allow to have a different flavor of Egypt, showcase the visual differences and have Egypt use the egyptian names for their cities (while Ptolomeic Kingdom would use the greek ones)

In the expansions or the vanilla itself?

Imo a DLC a la Alexander and Macedon would be the best way

 

[pokiehl]

Yeah. I mean I agree Cleopatra is iconic (besides the obvious, she was basically Civ6 mascot) but separating the Ptolemic Kingdom and Egypt could allow to have a different flavor of Egypt, showcase the visual differences and have Egypt use the egyptian names for their cities (while Ptolomeic Kingdom would use the greek ones)

Agreed!

Imo a DLC a la Alexander and Macedon would be the best way

I meant beyond Alexander

In the expansions or the vanilla itself?

I imagine it in the expansions.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Based on the theory that the voices in the trailer are leaders:
1: Wu Zetian
2: George Washington
3: Gandhi
4: Isabella
5: Mary Stuart

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

3: Gandhi

another 4-8 years, another Gandhi...

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

another 4-8 years, another Gandhi...

There is no peace, only Gandhi

 

[Inawordyes]

It's hard to guess at potential "deep cut" civilizations aside from the usual ones without knowing what they're aiming for with the leaders. For VI, they were focused on strong personalities and that's what made a civ like Scythia viable based on their leader.

But we know that the dev teams listen to fan feedback on popular requests (Kongo, Tamar, the Mapuche, Vietnam, Anna Nzinga, etc.), we can probably reasonably expect that if the Iroquois make a reappearance, it will be with Jigonhsasee as their leader. We may get more Native American representation in general (particularly in the basegame) aside from the usual Aztec/Mayan/Inca just because of fan feedback to the low quantity of them in VI overall. Which I hope would bring the Cherokee into play. Depending on the route, we could also see famous/popular-with-fan leaders bring civs with them, such as Illyria led by Teuta, a Berber civ led by Dihya/Al-Kahina, Pagan/Burma led by Anawrahta, the Ashanti/Ghana led by Yaa Asantewaa, maybe Armenia, etc.

We also don't know yet if they're looking for new leaders (like Civ VI mostly did) or returning to the 'classics', so it makes it hard for me to speculate on potential leaders for the usual suspect civs

 

[notNamed]

Yeah. I mean I agree Cleopatra is iconic (besides the obvious, she was basically Civ6 mascot) but separating the Ptolemic Kingdom and Egypt could allow to have a different flavor of Egypt, showcase the visual differences and have Egypt use the egyptian names for their cities (while Ptolomeic Kingdom would use the greek ones)

The issue with a Ptolemaic Kingdom civ is that we'd now have Ancient Greece, Macedon, Byzantines and Ptolemaic Kingdom all together in one game for Greece. Which is just compounding the problem, especially given that even from Greeks' perspective, you're just adding a Macedon sidegrade instead of showing something new.

Ptolemaic Egypt is interesting, but making it its own civ 'ala 1-6 would not be a great decision.
You can do the same with Cleo being a dual leader for Macedon/Greece and Egypt, but that's already Civ6's forte and repeating the same mechanics is also not great.
IMO they'd need to think of a different way of representing these sort of edge cases in 7 to make it both fresh and not compound the game's problem with overdoing certain regions which in turn means less for everyone else.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Someone had proposed to me a while ago a multi-leader Hellenistic Greece that has possible leaders from Greece proper, Macedon, Seleucid Empire, and Ptolemaic Egypt. It sounds cool to me