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

[Eagle Pursuit]

Gran Colombia made it in, so I don't see why Argentina couldn't.
I don't know if they are base game material though.

Gran Colombia has the benefit of being the progenitor of several modern nations. It has broad appeal. I expect it to be in Civ 7 again at some point.

 

[pokiehl]

Okay, I'll give my two cents here since speculation is fun;
Firstly, if we go by what happened to Civ5 and Civ6 launches, it's pretty safe to assume there will be at least 20ish options of gameplay in their base games, be it that civilizations or alternate leaders mixed in too, but ever since Civ6 happened there was 2 other games that raised the bar in terms options and representation in the base.
So one of those is Humankind that launched with 60 cultures (the civ equivallent here) and is right now with 86, now yes I know that's not a fair comparison since is a complete different paradigm of game design nor feaseable to be done either on how Civ franchise works, but I metioning HK here because it influenced on both on the idea of quantity and quality in representation terms of the another game here that still launch but is far more similar to Civ in that aspect of civs, that is Ara.
Ara will be launching with at least 45 gameplay otions in their base game, 40 nations + 5 alternate leaders, and their roster just like the HK one is diverse, and yes the bigger number of slots helps as ton of course... So considering that these games did this, to have a big initial roster, why Civ wouldn't? Remember that when Civ6 launched it was criticized for being eurocentric (and the first wave of civ DLC din't help that much the situation in regard), the "easy" way to deal with this since half the roster is already definied most of the time is to add more sltos. Now, how many? IDK, but Ara managed to do 40, and being honest it's not like the Civ dev team does not have resources or isn't profitbale enough to be able to do this... IMO an optimistic and plaussible number would be 30ish slots, it could be more? Maybe less? But definitely the odds of the base roster being bigger than 20 are high in my view.
That being said, another reason I mentioned Ara and Humankind is following question: how will China, India and Arabia, but also Persia and Indonesia be portraid here? In Ara they are doing both Mexicans and Aztecs, Romans and Italians, in HK the whole main seller point is these follow ups of Phoenicia to Carthage and so on... Why I'm sugesting these civs might get splited like Celts and Polynesians did before, of course to avoid the blob argument but also and mostly because it will make money. The Chinese market is eaguer for these type of content and western audiences are now more receptive Chinese focused material, and Gulf countries are now becoming new hotspot for gaming industry, India has been strongly debated to recieve the splited treatment for years by now, there a great incentive to have more dedicated representation of these regions history that can forment DLC sales, and if you done that with these 3 why not do the same for Indonesia and Persia, what about Mexico and Italy and so on; I know lot of people dislike stuff like Macedonia and HRE/Teutons or the post-colonial nations but these do indeed driver sales and are a important consideration, and even those disliked ones can be done right if launched in good context...

So that was quite a explanation of my assumptions here, and this post is already long, I do think it will be less slots than the amount of civs I’m sugesting, but I’ll leave then all of what I think is possible in this combination here (didn't though on the leaders):
Abbasid Arabia - America - Assyria - Brazil - Burma
Carthage - Chola Tamilakam - England - Ethiopia - France
Germany - Greece - Haudenosaunee - Haussa - Heian Japan
Inca - India - Joseon Korea - Kemet Egypt - Majapahit Java
Maya - Mexico - Mongolia - Ottoman Turkey - Poland
Portugal - Rome - Russia - Sassanid Persia - Spain
Sweden - Tang China - Tonga - Uzbekstan - Zimbabwe

I really don't think there's any way we're getting 35 leaders at launch.

The comparisons with the amount of factions that Ara and Humankind have isn't really an apples-to-apples one. Civ is known for having really high quality, impressive leader avatars. It's a distinguishing characteristic of the series, and it's the biggest sign that this is an AAA franchise. Leaders are probably the most intensive part of a civ to create: animation, voicing in the appropriate language, texturing...

Humankind had no leaders to speak of. Ara's leaders aren't voiced and all so far, they all seem to share the exact same skeleton and idle animations, and they look a lot lower quality than Civ's leaders. They remind of Sims avatars.

I cannot see Civ suddenly abandoning the high quality presentation that is the cornerstone of the franchise (and indeed, a distinguishing comparative advantage vs its competitors, which are all decidedly lower budget) to suddenly take a "quantity over quality" approach. Civ is the expensive, glossy, shiny, well-put-together player in this space.

 

[Krajzen]

Ok I have perfected my ideal list for release, which hopefully intersects with Firaxis logic of choice...

America - Dwight Eisenhower (for ww2 ruler and non controversial modern leader, as they are in short supply)
Inca - idk (they don't have much to choose from ) (why Inca? because why Aztecs get to be first every time? also South America needs them)
England - Alfred the Great (for sake of medieval, Anglo-Saxon England)
France - Louis XIV (incredible personality and someone from early modern era)
Germany - Konrad Adenauer (to promote Peaceful Non-Prussian Germany, and again: have some non-controversial modern leader)
Rome - Marcus Aurelius (incredibly interesting personality)
Greece - Themistocles (to promote maritime, trade-based Greece)
Italy - Caterina Sforza (Italy not being here before is a crime) (bonus point: we need competent girls) (potentially teased in a trailer)
Russia - Dmitry Donskoy (medieval Russia for the first time) (bonus point: avoiding topic of Ukraine, unlike Peter and Catherine)
Egypt - Hatshepsut (potentially teased in a trailer) (we need competent girls)
Assyria - Shammuramat (Assyria - filling Mesopotamian staple with civ absent from civ6) (bonus point: we need competent girls)
Ottomans - Kösem Sultan (we need competent girls, very interesting character)
Persia - Khosrow the Great or Shah Abbas (one Sasanian, one Safavid, no Achaemenids!!) (okay this may be my bias)
Ashanti - Yaa Asantewa (we need competent girls, very popular civ proposal, we need non-Mali West Africa)
India - Lakshmibai (we need competent girls, bonus point for not being Gandhi and defying stereotype of passive ascetic Indian)
Mongolia - Genghis (sigh, no one can replace him)
China - some emperor of Song or Ming dynasty (to justify scientific and naval focus; also dynasties not covered yet)
Japan - I'm torn between Meiji or one of legendary shaman queens, to leave samurai zone
19th civ - some crazy unpredictable wildcard, idk native Australians for example

So we have 19 civs, covering all staples and regions, one third ruled by women without pulling any desperate unpopular maneuvers (Catherine di Medici Christina, that crazy Portuguese queen etc), a mix of all eras and personalities, very few stereotypes, fresh cast, 2-3 new civs, one rare comeback, and few veterans coming earlier this time... It is too perfect for me, Firaxis definitely won't do this - I have failed hard.

 

[reddishrecue]

Ok I have perfected my ideal list for release, which hopefully intersects with Firaxis logic of choice...

America - Dwight Eisenhower (for ww2 ruler and non controversial modern leader, as they are in short supply)
Inca - idk (they don't have much to choose from ) (why Inca? because why Aztecs get to be first every time? also South America needs them)
England - Alfred the Great (for sake of medieval, Anglo-Saxon England)
France - Louis XIV (incredible personality and someone from early modern era)
Germany - Konrad Adenauer (to promote Peaceful Non-Prussian Germany, and again: have some non-controversial modern leader)
Rome - Marcus Aurelius (incredibly interesting personality)
Greece - Themistocles (to promote maritime, trade-based Greece)
Italy - Caterina Sforza (Italy not being here before is a crime) (bonus point: we need competent girls) (potentially teased in a trailer)
Russia - Dmitry Donskoy (medieval Russia for the first time) (bonus point: avoiding topic of Ukraine, unlike Peter and Catherine)
Egypt - Hatshepsut (potentially teased in a trailer) (we need competent girls)
Assyria - Shammuramat (Assyria - feeling Mesopotamian staple with civ absent from civ6) (bonus point: we need competent girls)
Ottomans - Kösem Sultan (we need competent girls, very interesting character)
Persia - Khosrow the Great or Shah Abbas (one Sasanian, one Safavid, no Achaemenids!!)
Ashanti - Yaa Asantewa (we need competent girls, very popular civ proposal, we need non-Mali West Africa)
India - Lakshmibai (we need competent girls, bonus point for not being Gandhi and defying stereotype of passive ascetic Indian)
Mongolia - Genghis (sigh, no one can replace him)
China - some emperor of Song or Ming dynasty (to justify scientific and naval focus; also dynasties not covered yet)
Japan - I'm torn between Meiji or one of legendary shaman queens, just no samurai pls
19th civ - some crazy unpredictable wildcard, idk native Australians for example

So we have 18 civs, covering all staples and regions, one third ruled by women without pulling any desperate unpopular maneuvers (Catherine di Medici Christina, that crazy Portuguese queen etc), a mix of all eras and personalities, very few stereotypes, fresh cast, two new civs, one rare comeback, and few veterans coming earlier this time... It is too perfect for me , Firaxis definitely won't do this - I have failed hard.

Wow, so a lot of people don't predict Aztec as the first installment even after it was always usually first. Why would Firaxis change it? I mean it would make sense if they make a Inca or South American civilization to expand vanilla to South America more towards the cradles on earth.

 

[Krajzen]

Wow, so a lot of people don't predict Aztec as the first installment even after it was always usually first. Why would Firaxis change it? I mean it would make sense if they make a Inca or South American civilization to expand vanilla to South America more towards the cradles on earth.

Because why not? In popular history perceptions Aztecs are just one of three staple Precolombian civs, not "unthinkable to be absent" like classical four of Mesopotamia-Egypt-Greece-Rome, Asian four Arabia-India-China-Japan or European industrial superpowers England-France-Germany-Russia plus US. Aztecs are not the civ which would cause uproar "how dare you not put this in game, civ game needs to have pyramids, marble temples, samurais, caravans, Indian temples, Chinese emperors, and main superpowers of world wars and cold war".

Of course, Precolombian civs as a whole also became pophistory staples, but they are largely interchangeable in popular perception (especially Aztec and Maya - I'd even argue the latter are more popular than Aztec nowaday).
Also, we could see an experiment with it in civ6, when Aztecs weren't really present in release set but as day 1 DLC iirc, with Babylon not being among release day civs for the first time in civ history, being replaced with Sumer this time - and few people cried after it. So it seems Mesopotamian Three (Sumer, Babylon, Assyria) works similarly to Precolombian Three in this regard, people are fine as long as you provide some Precolombian Pyramid and Ziggurat, no matter who built it.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Gran Colombia has the benefit of being the progenitor of several modern nations. It has broad appeal. I expect it to be in Civ 7 again at some point.

If Jose de Martin is leader, he's also considered the father of Argentina, Chile and Peru.

Still, I think if any post-colonial nations might rotate, I could easily see the Spanish speaking countries being the easiest to do. But like I said before probably not base game.

 

[reddishrecue]

Because why not? In popular history perceptions Aztecs are just one of three staple Precolombian civs, not "unthinkable to be absent" like classical four of Mesopotamia-Egypt-Greece-Rome, Asian four Arabia-India-China-Japan or European superpowers England-France-Germany-Russia plus US, who consistently dominated the globe for the past two centuries. Aztecs are not the civ which would cause uproar "how dare you not put this in game, civ game needs to have pyramids, marble temples, samurais, caravans, Indian temples, Chinese emperors, and main superpowers of world wars and cold war". In elementary Polish historical books the traditional global narrative not related to the Polish history in particular could be entirely contained those 12 civs (with sadly very litle about Asian civs :c) plus Mongols and Spain (who are both very close to staple set anyway).

Of course, Precolombian civs as a whole also became pophistory staples, but they are largely interchangeable in popular perception (especially Aztec and Maya - I'd even argue the latter are more popular than Aztec nowaday)

I agree, the Aztecs were a pre-Colombian civilization, and many tribes were made from pre-Colombian immigrants who migrated to the north and settled in Meso-America and some even made it to north America even. Sort of like if most of the native American civilizations were pre-Colombian also.
I also agree with the popularity of the maya. I have heard that the 'Tabish' from Ashurbanipal of Assyria from civilization 5, or Ashurbanipal accepts your trade negotiation, sounded similar to the 'Tabish' from the Maya villager in Age of Empires 2 when you click on the villager or get the villager to do an action sometimes.

They could save Meso-America for later expansion and then make a pre-Colombian civilization for the vanilla since there are a lot of gamers in Latin America. A lot more than North American even but not as much as there is in Asia or Europe even.

 

[spacedinosaur]

There are a lot of good ideas on this thread

 

[kotpeter]

Maya, India, Egypt, Germany, France, America, Greece, China, England - all almost guaranteed.

Wild guesses are Italy, Venice, Austria, Babylon, Aztec, Armenia, Argentina

 

[AffineConstant]

Indira Ghandi - India, because we've all gotten tired of the "Ghandi nukes you" so change it up for once in the entire series.

Dwight D. Eisenhower - US, because we've had a lot of the classics, but more than 60 years feels pretty historical.

Dyah Gitarja - Indonesia - Sure it's Majapahit Empire, but people need to recognize the word so whatever. The Queen the solidified the kingdom into an empire with the help of her trusted general.

Robert Walpole - Britain, because the first British Prime Minister is a fun historical figure

 

[notNamed]

China - some emperor of Song or Ming dynasty (to justify scientific and naval focus; also dynasties not covered yet)
Japan - I'm torn between Meiji or one of legendary shaman queens, to leave samurai zone

We did get Yongle in Civ 6 so Ming has already been represented once.
As far as Japanese history goes, don't forget the Imperial times, both at its height height (Asuka-Nara) and during the Fujiwara dominance (Heian).
There aren't really any legendary shaman queens. Amaterasu is a mythical originator goddess while Pimiko (Himiko) was a real person described in the Records of the Three Kingdoms.
She's just absent from the imperial genealogy that appears when Japanese adopt writing centuries later. Said imperial genealogy stretches to Amaterasu though so... yeah, go figure.

 

[moondog385]

These are the civs I *expect* in the base game. I don't think I could even try to predict the leaders, but I'm going to guess it's Gandhi again for India, much as it pains me to say so:

1. America
2. Native American civ (Maya or Aztec)
3. Brazil
4. England
5. France
6. Germany
7. Russia
8. Rome (another one of the "Five Good Emperors" is my guess)
9. Greece (I think/hope Alexander will lead Greece again. Whether that's in the base game is another question)
10. India (though I don't think India will be split, I think it's the safest bet for the Civ 6 Greece treatment i.e. two leaders in the base game)
11. China
12. Japan
13. Egypt
14. Other African civ spot (probably central - Angola - or west - Yoruba/Benin or Ghana/Ashanti)
15. Ancient Near East civ (Sumer, Babylon, or Assyria)
16. Central Asian civ spot (Sogdia, Gurkani, etc.)
17. Persia (could also see this as very early DLC)
18. "Arabia" (represented by one of the medieval caliphates)

I expect about 20 in the base game. I assume we'll get another European civ (maybe Poland or Denmark). Maybe the other spot could be Indonesia? I'm pretty confident Korea, Mongolia, the Ottomans, any non-Maya/Aztec civs, and all the southeast Asian civs would be DLC, but I'd like to be surprised.

 

[seasnake]

official 20 prediction:

Assyria — Sargon

Rome — Augustus

Greece — Pericles

Inca — Pachacuti

Maya — Pacal

Mississippi — Tuskaloosa

Mairyan — Chandragupta

Mughal — Akbar

Qin — Shin Haung

Tang — Wu Zetian

Japan — Meiji

Majahapit — Gitarja

Spain — Isabella

British — Victoria

Mapuche — Lautaro

Persia — Darius

Songhai — Sunni Ali

Egypt — Hatshepsut

Umayyad — Abd Ar Rahman

Germany — Bismarck

 

[Leyrann]

Dyah Gitarja - Indonesia - Sure it's Majapahit Empire, but people need to recognize the word so whatever. The Queen the solidified the kingdom into an empire with the help of her trusted general.

I actually think that both Gitarja and (through in-game text) the name itself are recognizable enough to call it that, thanks to Civilization; at least among the Civ target audience (yes, even if it's bigger than the actual audience; cultural osmosis is a thing).

 

[Krajzen]

Gran Colombia has the benefit of being the progenitor of several modern nations. It has broad appeal. I expect it to be in Civ 7 again at some point.

Gran Colombia also has the benefit of being a way to include Simon Bolivar, so his titanic persona is predictably going to drag GC to civ series from time to time

(I am still waiting for Tamerlane - critics have no excuses against his empire lasting for a century if GC got in while lasting like 10 years)

 

[Leyrann]

Gran Colombia also has the benefit of being a way to include Simon Bolivar, so his titanic persona is predictably going to drag GC to civ series from time to time

(I am still waiting for Tamerlane - critics have no excuses against his empire lasting for a century if GC got in while lasting like 10 years)

By that logic the Holy Roman Empire (with Charlemagne) also deserves repeated inclusion, yet as I understand it that's one of the most disliked civs from Civ 4.

 

[Krajzen]

I actually really want Charlemagne to come back, but the problem is what civ to assign to him - HRE is extremely awkward like you point out, "Franks" civ is also awkward (its city list would overlap with France and Germany), and making him alt leader for France and Germany is super awkward as well

 

[UWHabs]

Ok I have perfected my ideal list for release, which hopefully intersects with Firaxis logic of choice...

America - Dwight Eisenhower (for ww2 ruler and non controversial modern leader, as they are in short supply)
Inca - idk (they don't have much to choose from ) (why Inca? because why Aztecs get to be first every time? also South America needs them)
England - Alfred the Great (for sake of medieval, Anglo-Saxon England)
France - Louis XIV (incredible personality and someone from early modern era)
Germany - Konrad Adenauer (to promote Peaceful Non-Prussian Germany, and again: have some non-controversial modern leader)
Rome - Marcus Aurelius (incredibly interesting personality)
Greece - Themistocles (to promote maritime, trade-based Greece)
Italy - Caterina Sforza (Italy not being here before is a crime) (bonus point: we need competent girls) (potentially teased in a trailer)
Russia - Dmitry Donskoy (medieval Russia for the first time) (bonus point: avoiding topic of Ukraine, unlike Peter and Catherine)
Egypt - Hatshepsut (potentially teased in a trailer) (we need competent girls)
Assyria - Shammuramat (Assyria - filling Mesopotamian staple with civ absent from civ6) (bonus point: we need competent girls)
Ottomans - Kösem Sultan (we need competent girls, very interesting character)
Persia - Khosrow the Great or Shah Abbas (one Sasanian, one Safavid, no Achaemenids!!) (okay this may be my bias)
Ashanti - Yaa Asantewa (we need competent girls, very popular civ proposal, we need non-Mali West Africa)
India - Lakshmibai (we need competent girls, bonus point for not being Gandhi and defying stereotype of passive ascetic Indian)
Mongolia - Genghis (sigh, no one can replace him)
China - some emperor of Song or Ming dynasty (to justify scientific and naval focus; also dynasties not covered yet)
Japan - I'm torn between Meiji or one of legendary shaman queens, to leave samurai zone
19th civ - some crazy unpredictable wildcard, idk native Australians for example

So we have 19 civs, covering all staples and regions, one third ruled by women without pulling any desperate unpopular maneuvers (Catherine di Medici Christina, that crazy Portuguese queen etc), a mix of all eras and personalities, very few stereotypes, fresh cast, 2-3 new civs, one rare comeback, and few veterans coming earlier this time... It is too perfect for me, Firaxis definitely won't do this - I have failed hard.

I would probably only argue with this in that it has too many "new" leaders and not enough "returning" leaders. But if you take that list and even swap out like 5 of the civs with their more traditional options (Lizzy, Washington/Lincoln, etc...) it'd be a plausible setup.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I actually really want Charlemagne to come back, but the problem is what civ to assign to him - HRE is extremely awkward like you point out, "Franks" civ is also awkward (its city list would overlap with France and Germany), and making him alt leader for France and Germany is super awkward as well

I'm sure a Frankish civ could work. His capital would be called Aix-la-Chappelle, modern day Aachen. I'm sure there are enough cities with different spellings (between French, German, and Latin) that it could work.

 

[reddishrecue]

NGL, I kind of think that Stalin might be back for Russia because we already had Catherine in 5, Peter in 6 and now Stalin in 7.