A Nomadism civic

[Optimizer]

I am experimenting with a civic called Nomadism, which is mostly modelled from the Mongol civilization.

A Nomadic civ would be able to build and conquer new cities quickly, but terrain improvents would be severely penalized.

The roes could be:
* Requires Horseback Riding
* 20 free military units
* +4 unit experience
* No upkeep cost due to number of cities
* -1 food from Farms
* -1 production from Workshops
* -25% commerce

What do you think?

[GeoModder]

Hunting camps should bring more in for such a civic.
Health should be lower.
Worker construction time could be higher. (not production of the unit, but the time it needs to finish improvements.

[userqwerty]

the nomad civ should not be able to grow the cities it sacks. they woudl neither grow nor shrink

[Optimizer]

The "use surplus food for unit production" flag would also fit the nomads well.

So, by dropping some less necessary features, we could have these:
* uses food for unit production
* no upkeep cost from number of cities
* +4 unit experience
* +1 food from Camps & Pastures
* -1 food from Farms
* -1 health
* -25% worker rate

Nomadism would be an excellent war civic, so players might want to adopt it for every war and switch back when the war is over. To prevent this, the anarchy time should be made extra long.

[ghen]

changing out of nomadic to something else should have quite a bit of anarchy for balance.. don't want a slew of cities taken over and then a 1 turn anarchy :P

[Blake]

I like this idea in general, because the upkeep thing would make it hard to give up. But I do think it's a bit "loaded" compared to other civics.

Something like:
Low upkeep.
No upkeep for # of cities.
Units built with food&hammers.
-100% cottage growth (none, unless combined with the +100% growth civic)
-25% worker rate.

So, while running it your empire is seriously stagnant. It would be best leveraged by taking other peoples cities with their nice towns.
(I suppose some free unit support would be nice too)

[verybad]

-50% culture growth and -50% science? That'd balance it.

[Optimizer]

This civic should be useless in the industrial age. Therefore the city upkeep cost should not be affected - instead the civic upkeep could be zero.

[gdijedi7]

Um, that would be a very powerful war civic, kind of opposite of anybody in history BUT the Mongols. Instead of no maintenance per city, that should double, as nomads, by definition, don't have cities that they live in. growth should be very restricted, mounted unit production should be boosted. I like verybad's very bad idea. Wel, ok, it is a good idea. Optimizer has a good idea too.

Anarchy should be large too, as it would take a long time to convince people who are settled down to become nomads, and it tends to be difficult to make nomads settle down.

[gingoblin]

A interesting way to balance it imo would be to have each population in a city generate 2 "disease" instead of 1. That should make it very unattractive in the mid-game (due to massive starvation) while still good in the very early (when cities have not yet reached their food "cap") and possibly viable in the very late game (with environmentalism, etc pumping health)

[Ryoken]

Originally posted by gdijedi7
Um, that would be a very powerful war civic, kind of opposite of anybody in history BUT the Mongols.

WRONG

Gauls / Celts
Scythians / Sarmatians
Black / White Huns
Goths / Visigoths / Ostrogoths
Vandals
Lombards
Saxons / Angles
Alans
Vikings
Berbers
Arabs
Khazars
Uzbeks
Cossacks
Mughals
Sioux
Apache
Commanche
Shawnee
Pawnee

Mongols are not unique in being a Nomadic-Conquering Civilization.

[djpsychonaut]

I would go so far as to say that a nomadic civ shouldn't be able to build any improvements except roads and only those special buildings that give access to resources (if that...). The ability to grow so quickly would seriously tip the balance of the game, so it should come with severe restrictions.

I also think you shouldn't be able to accumulate culture at all or at least at a severely lower rate. You also shouldn't be able to build any buildings except those related to war (barracks). This would be similar to the Mobilized economy in Civ 3. I think you shouldn't be able to go back to this civic after a certain point in the game, after say the Modern era or maybe earlier.

Overall, I think this is a good idea though.

[djpsychonaut]

Originally posted by gdijedi7
Instead of no maintenance per city, that should double, as nomads, by definition, don't have cities that they live in.

Not fully true... nomads did have some urban centers, but they were considerably smaller and less established in terms of buildings than those of more urban-minded civs such as Rome, Greece, China, and India.

I think that a population cap of say 2 or 3 with a punitive level of unhealthiness for cities above that level that shrink them back down to 2 or 3 cities. This would mean that if you have three cities with your capital a size 5, the population would die off if you switch to this civic. That would be a good way to discourage it's later use.