{ The List } - Nomads and Chiefdoms

[Spiffor]

Here's the thread about ideas concerning the introdution of nomadism and chiefdoms in Civ4.

Currently, all Civs start with a structurated form of government suited for a sedentary empire. This thread is dedicated to starting the game before that, when all Civs are still nomadic chiefdoms confronted to the choice of sedentary or nomadic way of life.

This thread is also dedicated to all those who wish to give innovative ideas regarding settlers, the driving force behind nomadism.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Your initial unit could be a "Nomadic City" that generated production/commerce based on the tiles immediately adjacent like an initial city. Perhaps no ability to build settlers/workers from nomadic cities.

[Spiffor]

I'll begin with a few ideas:

1. Nomadic settlers are like mobile villages
I think a nomadic civilization should use its settlers in a very similar fashion than a sedentary Civ uses its cities. A settler would have a name (just like a small tribe), it would gather shields, food, gold and knowledge just like a town. It could produce units just like a town.
This way, nomadic Civilizations could discover techs, build military units, constitute a treasury etc even before they settle down.

2. Settlers do not have all the attributes of a town
OTOH, to compensate for the added bonus of mobility, nomadic settlers are limited, in that they can not build city improvements, their civ can not build roads or other tile improvements, and the population of a settler unit is capped.

OTOH, the first Settler should be the "palace", so that corruption can be calculated in a nomadic empire spanning on several settlers (One can also imagine that an early King unit can be used to build a palace in the city he pleases, and acts as the center of the empire until then).

Additionally, to prevent nomadic settlers from living in hostile terrain, they should not get the "flat" production a city enjoys in the city-tile. In Civ3, a newly found city will always enjoy at least 2 food, one shield, once commerce from its city-tile; a settler should only get the food / shields / commerce the tile normally produces. As such, if the settler stands on a mountain, the "city tile" doesn't produce any food.

3. Settlers produce another settler automatically once the population gap is reached.
This is the main reason why a Civ would want to remain nomadic despite the advantages of sedentary cities.
When the population cap is hit, the nomadic settler loses one-two citizens, and it spawns a new settler without having to pay the shield costs. The new settler will have to find grazelands somewhere else (either nearby or far away, just not on the same tile, as it would already be in use by its mother unit).

This gives nomadic Civs a great boost in territorial expansion at the beginning over their sedentarian counterparts, but at the cost of population growth, infrastructure, culture, and improvements.

4. Settlers and culture / borders
Settlers can not produce culture. And their borders can only span on the minimal radius. If a nomadic settler enters another Civ's territory, the offended Civ may go to war. Same if another Civ founds a city / pushes its nomadic settler in the nomad's territory.
Since nomadic Civs cannot produce culture, and if culture continues to become the driving force behind borders in Civ4, these civs will quickly be more and more pushed back by expanding sedentary cultures. Nomadic civs end up unable to defend their holdings, or only through war.

5. The shift to sedentarianism
The main idea is that all Civs start as "nomadic", and they all become sedentarian when they choose.

I think a Civ should become sedentarian when it founds its first city. The specific attributes of nomadic settlers disappear from then on, and will never come back. However, the remaining settlers act normally where they stand: they are not forced to settle on the spot, nor are they destroyed. They just move to find a good spot (if they hadn't found one already) just like they always moved in Civ series.

Also, it may be useful to restrict the ability to settle all at once. It may be a good idea to force the player to wait one turn before the foundation of each new city. This is a balance issue that has more to do with playtesting.

Lastly, it may be a good idea to require a tech (such as Alphabet or Masonry) before the settlers become able to found a city. This is also a question of playtesting.

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I think the idea of nomadism is an interesting one in Civ, as it would bring some much needed variety. I oppose the fact that Civs should be ruled the very same way from the beginning to the end, only bigger and stronger.
I advocate changes in game, and I think nomadism would bring a more lively ancient era, with nomadic barbarians frightening the fledgling sedentarians, and, later, with advanced Civs punishing primitive nomadic Civs they'd have just discovered

Nomadism can not be enough to add variety during the whole game, but it can still raise the variety level of Civ quite a bit

[Brent]

I want to be able to have nomadic units throughout the game, either exclusively or in addition to real cities. If my all cities get conquered, I want to be able to continue on as nomads, perhaps migrating a long way, even by ship, and building new cities. Maybe AI civs would automatically be tolerant of nomadic units within their territory.

I like the idea of requiring a technology in order to found your first city.

Nomadic units should be able to live in hostile terrain.

[Kuciwalker]

I think nomads should get faster units - either +1 move or double move.

[Fosse]

I'd be interested in seeing nomadic bands of "barbarians" settling down to become new Civs, but I don't think it's a good idea to give the player the option.

Don't like your starting position? No worries, produce on the go while you search out fertile land!


The resources that would need to be put into developing and balancing such a thing don't seem worth it to me.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Well there would have to be production negatives for remaining Nomadic. Say the inability to build Workers and tile improvements.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Well there would have to be production negatives for remaining Nomadic. Say the inability to build Workers and tile improvements.

Agreed, but I think you'd either make nomadic too restrictive to be a viable option, or make the flexibility it gives too powerful.

I will remain open minded if someone can develop a good model, but I am content playing as though my people spent the previous 6000 years deciding that the starting spot is a good place to settle (and I can move a space or two, of course, if I think they were off their rockers!).

[joncha]

I like this idea.

I would like to see nomadic and sedentary civs be able to coexist (maybe through diplomatic options) so you could have situtations like they settling of Germanic nations within Roman borders, or the Jewish diaspora.

Allowing nomadic civs will require big changes to the way culture works (already needed anyway IMO). Maybe nomadic and sedentary culture can "overlap" so that both can make use of the same tiles... the conflict would come in when the settled civ makes tile improvements that the nomads don't like. For example, nomadic civs could get bonuses for unimproved tiles. When someone else plops down a mine or "fences in" the land for agricultural improvements, it drives away all the game and reduces the nomadic grazing lands.

jon.

[pg]

this is really interesting... few ideas of mine -

nomadic settlers produce higher food/shields in certain squares(tundra, steppe, etc) than cities but need to move around constantly so not to deplete renewable resources(like how nomads stayed in different places in each season). ideally you want nomads lasting a long time(just like in real life) in steppe areas while cities would spring up in fertile areas. so on the map of earth civs would do best to go straight to sedentary cities in areas like the indus valley while others areas would stay nomad cities longer(iran, germany, etc?), and places like siberia would have nomads for a very long time. nomads should definately be a more powerful civ type in certain environments especially if they are located next to a sedentary civ they can raid.

[Plotinus]

I too like this idea, although it seems to me it would be a kind of add-on to the main game rather than a new element integral to it. I would prefer the developers to spend their time making the overall game richer than adding an extra bit to the start - after all, this is *Civilisation* and therefore concerns itself with the development of settled conurbations.

But if it can be done in an interesting way that doesn't feel like a gimmick or an add-on, I'm all for it. Spiffor has some very good ideas here, I think.

[rendelnep]

And just to make life intereesting you could have the tropical fruit, game, fish and whales randomly 'migrating' too.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by rendelnep
And just to make life intereesting you could have the tropical fruit, game, fish and whales randomly 'migrating' too.

I can understand the fish, game and whales. But haven't seen tropical fruit trees get up and walk somewhere except in the LotR movie.

[POTUS]

Don't make the trees move, just expand the areas where they are, like natural irrrigation, desertification, planting forests, and cutting them down.

[rendelnep]

Well actually I was thinking of a vague reference to monty python involving coconuts so just ignore the tropical fruit....