Why not have more unions as civilisations?

[KrikkitTwo]

I've been thinking a lot wether I would prefer the developers to include for instance The Kalmar Union or The Union of Sweden-Norway instead of having a selection between the Scandinavian countries in every game. Since our culture is so very similar, I don't see a problem. The same goes for many Eastern European countries. What do you guys think would be the pros and cons with unions rather than many small independent countries?

I would prefer unions since it would give a wider representation of countries and at the same time enable to take the best perks from each country.

True, although many civs are unions of multiple polities already (as in, they were multiple at some time in their history, and were united at some other point)

China
America
Mongols
Japan
Spain
Greece
Germany
India
Maya
..and others

It works if such a union is actually historical and lasted for more than one leader... if the Whiskey Rebellion had worked and the US states all went back to being separate countries, then "America" as a civ would be almost as ridiculous as the "Native Americans" in civ ?3?

 

[Darth Tribble]

While that is reasonable, it would still be cool if the game would allow you to make union between different civs, such as a German-Russian Union or something similar like that.

I really that idea. I hope we can do something like Austria-Hungary.

 

[gja102]

True, although many civs are unions of multiple polities already (as in, they were multiple at some time in their history, and were united at some other point)

Yes, most Civs could be broken down into smaller civs if needed. In fact, it would be a really interesting mechanic if your Civ "defaulted" to being a fragmented chain of polities, like the Greek city states, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, or the Holy Roman Empire, and the player had to achieve some kind of "unity" among their own peoples if they wanted to build a centralized empire.

Otherwise your Civ on the map would be largely limited to your capital area (with a lot of semi-independent city-state-style regions around it that were pretty closely aligned to you). But you would still get points for cities that were part of your Civ but not under direct control.

(e.g. when playing as a fragmented Greece, you control Athens but still have some input and points from an independent Sparta)

 

[dexters]

The United States is a Federation as well.

 

[ldvhl]

Reminiscent of the tribal-phase play of King of Dragon Pass, for anybody who's played that. Having to gain alliances to form larger groups until your tribe's leader is declared King in the kingdom you've created through diplomacy and war.

 

[dexters]

An interesting mechanic would be have Civilizations grow via a combination of settling and conquering/allying with neighbouring independent city-states.

But that would see a game start with 20,30,40,50 factions at 4000 BC with many more popping up throughout history as simulate the various new coalescing of independent fiefdoms.

A civ game like that would become much more involved as a government simulator as you tweak your policies and government types to keep cities and the local elites in check and under your control, and the player would be much less of an absolute power in the game and would have to deal with cities and provinces more like a traditional monarch or ruler.

Probably a spin-off series would be needed as the mechanics would not necessarily be very Civ-like.

When players are given absolute power over their own empire/lands as in Civ, it's difficult to simulate unions and federations of cities and states as those types of governments necessarily emerged to keep disparate factions together under a single state/entity. In Civ, every Civ is an empire and the player is at once in control of all of its power centres, from the executive through to the lowly power broker in some far off back-water city