Marquese Weltschmerz
Chieftain
Hello everybody! This is my first proper post on this forum after reading it for several years.
The title of the thread sums it up: as an Italian I've always been surprisingly unbaffled by the absence of an Italian civilization in the game; we are very young as a unitary country (just celebrated our 160th anniversary), we have little to no leader which would be solid enough as a pick (none from the Republican era, Mussolini definitely out of question and no King was ever relevant.
However, every time there is a new Civ update video, the comments are always flooded with people asking for an Italian civ, which is not imho possible, especially when they ask for someone like Lorenzo de' Medici to be the leader, while he only ruled Florence and some tuscanian cities subject to Florence and the political situation in XV century Italy was much more fragmented than classical Greece (so the comparison with Pericles doesn't really hold imho.
Therefore, what I personally thought could be a solution, and I'm sharing it here to hear all the feedbacks and criticisms you have, from my point of view of an Italian which is passionate about history was:
"Why don't we focus on preunitarian states and stop asking for Italy?"
The two possible civs I would have come up with are:
Kingdom of Sardinia is the prosecution of the Duchy of Savoy, which became Kingdom when in 1713 the Duchy chose the right side to ally with in the Spanish Succession War and was awarded the Kingdom of Sicily. However, Sicily was too important a land to be left in the hands of a small spot on the European map, so the major powers offered the just become-King of Sicily a not so profitable trade:
"you give Sicily back to Naples kingdom and in exchange you take Sardinia, not as good as Sicily, but we let you keep it and also the Kingdom title".
If you look at a map of Italy, it's quite clear that Savoy could have never kept hold of Sicily, so the trade deal was finished in 1720.
Notice how I used the expression "chose the right side" and not for random: the whole "Italy switching sides" meme (which happened only in WW2 when Italy was invaded by Allies and capitulated in a way similar to what Vichy's France did) comes from this: during the modern age and the dynastycal wars, Savoy duchy was infamous for its betrayals, peaceing out and then reverting against former allies, starting and finishing a war on the same side because they jumped over the fence twice and it was actually the only thing they could do, a small mountainous duchy compressed between France, Austria and Spain's possession of Milan: if Spain lost one of these wars, it would lose some possessions here and there or a couple of bordering provinces; if Savoy lost a war, it would be wiped out of the map.
This leads us to the Civ's UA which I would call Piemontese falso e cortese (tr: "Piedmontese, a liar and a courteous") from the stereotype that surrounds us Piedmontese (the main region of Savoy Duchy later known as Kingdom of Sardinia which went on to become Italy... I told you Italian history is complicated
This ability could be integrating a diplomatic/militaristic playstyle with bonuses like:
This could be a well fertile land (sorry for the pun) for a Persona playstyle like that of Caterina and TR, but in the end, if I had to choose just one UA I would do something like...
Unification trailer:
cities connected with a railway to the capital obtain +20% to all yields (or just +10, I don't know how powerful this could be, since I almost never see railroads being used). Canals provide +1 gold and food to adjacent farms. Farms on bonus resources give +1 production, becoming +2 upon Steam Power discovery and farms on luxury resources provide +1 gold, becoming +2 after SP.
I think that these bonuses could be split in case of a Persona leader, like Agrarian Cavour gets the boni on farms and Industrialist Cavour gets the boni on rail + some bonus to building IZ and relative buildings.
For the UU, I would go with the Bersaglieri, a line infantry replacement with lower strength (maybe 5 or 6 points less) but one extra movement and which can ignore walls when attacking cities (including urban defences, even though they should be gone when steel gets in the game).
For the UD, I was thinking about a thing which really shapes the view around here, the Cascina (pl. Cascine), basically small towns or large farms, difficult to tell which of the two, which are big complexes of buildings also including a church, a shop sometimes, or a school in most recent years, surrounded by the fields where cascine inhabitants work. In Civ VI mechanics, I think this could be a replacement for Neighbourhood, unlocked at Feudalism, which gives housing regardless of the appeal (kind of like the Mbanza), but gives +2 housing as a base, plus +1 housing per each adjacent farm, to also synergise with the fact that LUA heavily inclines on farms.
For the colour combination I thought about the following ones, tested on a possible Bersagliere icon:
The first two jerseys are with inverted colours, the blue of Savoy, which is the reason why Italian NTs are called "Azzurri", even if no blue is on our flag and crimson, a colour traditionally associated to Turin nobility after the French siege of 1706.
City list:
According to the provinces subdivision of 1859, the main cities (province capitals) were:
Torino (capital, 173k inhabitants)
Genova (240k inhabitants, larger than the capital because it was a port and had been added to the Kingdom quite recently)
Alessandria (circa 50k inhabitants)
Nizza (44k inhabitants)
Cagliari (37k)
Sassari (25k)
Novara (25k)
Cuneo (circa 20k)
Chambéry (19k)
Annecy (10k)
with further important cities being Alba, Saluzzo, Mondovì, Casale Monferrato, Nizza Monferrato and Acqui Terme.
Regarding the music, Piedmontese music is traditionally based on accordion, with also a great importance for choirs. A song which would fit nicely into the style of Civ VI music could be "La bergera", whose melody blends well with those already present in the game. The text is about a woman who is looking after her sheeps in the mountains, which is courted by a Frenchman passing by when her husband comes out of the house and dances with her. Not so different from the likes of Kalinka to say one. This song comes from the mountainous regions of Piedmont, where the oc language is still spoken and the hurdy-gurdy is a common instrument.
Kingdom of Norman Sicily
Unluckily, I don't have as deep a knowledge of Sicily as I have of Piedmont (my region), so I leave the floor open to your suggestions/proposal if some Sicilians players pass by or if some history students know it better than me.
However, what even a not so deep knowledge like mine can't miss is how important and defining Federico II (or Frederich Roger II von Hohenstaufen, as he was of mixed Southern Italian and German descent) was for Italian culture and not only. He is always referred to as the "Stupor Mundi" for how cultured and elegant is court was, but his apple did not land so far from the tree of his grandad, the Barbarossa which is currently leading Germany. As said, this could also end up in getting picked as an alt leader for Germany too, following the steps of Eleanor and Kublai.
Focussing on this civ's ability, I think this could be a civ that likes to be played tall, like really tall, not like Maya. This would play well with the fact that Southern Italian cities like Palermo and Napoli were major cities in the Middle Age and also with the fact that Federico accentrated much power, while before he inherited the Kingdom from his mother, the feudal fragmentation was very heavy.
LUA: Stupor Mundi: any district placed in a charming tile gets +1 of the corresponding GP point (like Bologna's actual ability), +2 if the tile is breathtaking. +2 appeal to all tiles in cities with a governor.
This to represent, as said, the great cultural and scientific importance this Kingdom had in the Middle Age.
To also represent the centralization of the powers in the Norman Kingdom, the CUA (I don't have a name for this) could be something like:
The colours for this kingdom could be the following:
With gold and black being the colours both of the first Norman rulers of Sicily and of course the HRE
this is a second jersey for when yellow is not available as main colour, with silver being another colour often present on Altavilla's coat of arms.
same saying goes for blood red and gold, which are common in their araldic, especially since Normans came from well, you know Normandy.
This last jersey bearing the colours of the House of the Altavilla after being crowned Kings of Sicily, so on his mother's side.
I hope you can like my idea and if you think I've made mistakes, please point them out and be sure that I did not intend to offend anybody!
The title of the thread sums it up: as an Italian I've always been surprisingly unbaffled by the absence of an Italian civilization in the game; we are very young as a unitary country (just celebrated our 160th anniversary), we have little to no leader which would be solid enough as a pick (none from the Republican era, Mussolini definitely out of question and no King was ever relevant.
However, every time there is a new Civ update video, the comments are always flooded with people asking for an Italian civ, which is not imho possible, especially when they ask for someone like Lorenzo de' Medici to be the leader, while he only ruled Florence and some tuscanian cities subject to Florence and the political situation in XV century Italy was much more fragmented than classical Greece (so the comparison with Pericles doesn't really hold imho.
Therefore, what I personally thought could be a solution, and I'm sharing it here to hear all the feedbacks and criticisms you have, from my point of view of an Italian which is passionate about history was:
"Why don't we focus on preunitarian states and stop asking for Italy?"
The two possible civs I would have come up with are:
- the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Italian state which led the unification process, led by Camillo Benso conte di Cavour, first Prime Minister of the unified Italy, who died two months after unification.
- the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, the medieval portion of the HRE in Italy, possibly led by Federico II, grandson of Barbarossa, named German emperor at 18 (so we could also see him as an alt leader for Germany) and officially crowned at 26, under which science and culture flourished, leading also to the birth of Italian literature, around a century before Dante, who was an admirer of the Sicilian School.
Kingdom of Sardinia is the prosecution of the Duchy of Savoy, which became Kingdom when in 1713 the Duchy chose the right side to ally with in the Spanish Succession War and was awarded the Kingdom of Sicily. However, Sicily was too important a land to be left in the hands of a small spot on the European map, so the major powers offered the just become-King of Sicily a not so profitable trade:
"you give Sicily back to Naples kingdom and in exchange you take Sardinia, not as good as Sicily, but we let you keep it and also the Kingdom title".
If you look at a map of Italy, it's quite clear that Savoy could have never kept hold of Sicily, so the trade deal was finished in 1720.
Notice how I used the expression "chose the right side" and not for random: the whole "Italy switching sides" meme (which happened only in WW2 when Italy was invaded by Allies and capitulated in a way similar to what Vichy's France did) comes from this: during the modern age and the dynastycal wars, Savoy duchy was infamous for its betrayals, peaceing out and then reverting against former allies, starting and finishing a war on the same side because they jumped over the fence twice and it was actually the only thing they could do, a small mountainous duchy compressed between France, Austria and Spain's possession of Milan: if Spain lost one of these wars, it would lose some possessions here and there or a couple of bordering provinces; if Savoy lost a war, it would be wiped out of the map.
This leads us to the Civ's UA which I would call Piemontese falso e cortese (tr: "Piedmontese, a liar and a courteous") from the stereotype that surrounds us Piedmontese (the main region of Savoy Duchy later known as Kingdom of Sardinia which went on to become Italy... I told you Italian history is complicated
This ability could be integrating a diplomatic/militaristic playstyle with bonuses like:
- you cannot declare surprise wars (because you know, we are courteous) BUT you can declare wars 5 turns after denouncing or getting denounced (against 10 at normal speed) and grievances from DoW, capturing cities are halved. Also, you can peace out after 5 instead of 10 turns, so you can get the bribe from another civ to DoW against their foe, then peace out with anybody ever remembering it.
- diplo favour penalty for capitals captured is halved.
- You can join military emergencies you voted against up to 15 turns into it (useful if an aggressive AI captures a city state on the other side of the world and you don't want to mess up with it) BUT the boni you receive in case the emergency succeeds are halved compared to if you joined right at the start.
This could be a well fertile land (sorry for the pun) for a Persona playstyle like that of Caterina and TR, but in the end, if I had to choose just one UA I would do something like...
Unification trailer:
cities connected with a railway to the capital obtain +20% to all yields (or just +10, I don't know how powerful this could be, since I almost never see railroads being used). Canals provide +1 gold and food to adjacent farms. Farms on bonus resources give +1 production, becoming +2 upon Steam Power discovery and farms on luxury resources provide +1 gold, becoming +2 after SP.
I think that these bonuses could be split in case of a Persona leader, like Agrarian Cavour gets the boni on farms and Industrialist Cavour gets the boni on rail + some bonus to building IZ and relative buildings.
For the UU, I would go with the Bersaglieri, a line infantry replacement with lower strength (maybe 5 or 6 points less) but one extra movement and which can ignore walls when attacking cities (including urban defences, even though they should be gone when steel gets in the game).
For the UD, I was thinking about a thing which really shapes the view around here, the Cascina (pl. Cascine), basically small towns or large farms, difficult to tell which of the two, which are big complexes of buildings also including a church, a shop sometimes, or a school in most recent years, surrounded by the fields where cascine inhabitants work. In Civ VI mechanics, I think this could be a replacement for Neighbourhood, unlocked at Feudalism, which gives housing regardless of the appeal (kind of like the Mbanza), but gives +2 housing as a base, plus +1 housing per each adjacent farm, to also synergise with the fact that LUA heavily inclines on farms.
For the colour combination I thought about the following ones, tested on a possible Bersagliere icon:
The first two jerseys are with inverted colours, the blue of Savoy, which is the reason why Italian NTs are called "Azzurri", even if no blue is on our flag and crimson, a colour traditionally associated to Turin nobility after the French siege of 1706.
City list:
According to the provinces subdivision of 1859, the main cities (province capitals) were:
Torino (capital, 173k inhabitants)
Genova (240k inhabitants, larger than the capital because it was a port and had been added to the Kingdom quite recently)
Alessandria (circa 50k inhabitants)
Nizza (44k inhabitants)
Cagliari (37k)
Sassari (25k)
Novara (25k)
Cuneo (circa 20k)
Chambéry (19k)
Annecy (10k)
with further important cities being Alba, Saluzzo, Mondovì, Casale Monferrato, Nizza Monferrato and Acqui Terme.
Regarding the music, Piedmontese music is traditionally based on accordion, with also a great importance for choirs. A song which would fit nicely into the style of Civ VI music could be "La bergera", whose melody blends well with those already present in the game. The text is about a woman who is looking after her sheeps in the mountains, which is courted by a Frenchman passing by when her husband comes out of the house and dances with her. Not so different from the likes of Kalinka to say one. This song comes from the mountainous regions of Piedmont, where the oc language is still spoken and the hurdy-gurdy is a common instrument.
Kingdom of Norman Sicily
Unluckily, I don't have as deep a knowledge of Sicily as I have of Piedmont (my region), so I leave the floor open to your suggestions/proposal if some Sicilians players pass by or if some history students know it better than me.
However, what even a not so deep knowledge like mine can't miss is how important and defining Federico II (or Frederich Roger II von Hohenstaufen, as he was of mixed Southern Italian and German descent) was for Italian culture and not only. He is always referred to as the "Stupor Mundi" for how cultured and elegant is court was, but his apple did not land so far from the tree of his grandad, the Barbarossa which is currently leading Germany. As said, this could also end up in getting picked as an alt leader for Germany too, following the steps of Eleanor and Kublai.
Focussing on this civ's ability, I think this could be a civ that likes to be played tall, like really tall, not like Maya. This would play well with the fact that Southern Italian cities like Palermo and Napoli were major cities in the Middle Age and also with the fact that Federico accentrated much power, while before he inherited the Kingdom from his mother, the feudal fragmentation was very heavy.
LUA: Stupor Mundi: any district placed in a charming tile gets +1 of the corresponding GP point (like Bologna's actual ability), +2 if the tile is breathtaking. +2 appeal to all tiles in cities with a governor.
This to represent, as said, the great cultural and scientific importance this Kingdom had in the Middle Age.
To also represent the centralization of the powers in the Norman Kingdom, the CUA (I don't have a name for this) could be something like:
- Cities with an established governor build districts 50% faster than normal, 100% faster if that district is already present in the capital (sort of similar to Rome in civ V iirc).
- Governors provide +1 amenity to their city.
- Governors provide +1 housing per promotion to their city.
- BUT cities without governors cannot build districts.
The colours for this kingdom could be the following:
With gold and black being the colours both of the first Norman rulers of Sicily and of course the HRE
this is a second jersey for when yellow is not available as main colour, with silver being another colour often present on Altavilla's coat of arms.
same saying goes for blood red and gold, which are common in their araldic, especially since Normans came from well, you know Normandy.
This last jersey bearing the colours of the House of the Altavilla after being crowned Kings of Sicily, so on his mother's side.
I hope you can like my idea and if you think I've made mistakes, please point them out and be sure that I did not intend to offend anybody!
)
.
