{The List} Civilizations ver. II

[Niptium]

All right, I'm opened to any suggestions or any debates. But there are things that I find pretty much useless. Eskimos ?! Hittites ?! They hardly had any impact on History.

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Niptium
They hardly had any impact on History.

There's the problem right there, IMO. What history? Which history? And, most importantly, who's history? And beyond that, what sort of impact on history are you looking for? Every civilization has their own history, and thus had a complete impact on it. I just keep getting the impression that you're really only looking at this from a modern western historical perspective. I read the above quote and see, 'They hardly had any impact on [Western] History.' There's just so much more, plenty of which, for reasons you have already outlined, that wasn't written down and was lost in the ages, and plenty more which was passed down from generation to generation and been discounted by modern historians for various reasons, and, again, much more that has been recorded that simply isn't taught to those who don't go out of their way to look for it. Even a Ph.D. in history will not force you to encounter all there is to know (figuratively).

[Brent]

What's wrong with an interesting but unsuccessful group from the real world having the chance to become a civilization in the game? Should or could the game allow for native American types of technology and extensions thereof? Every civ in the game starts with a population less than 50000. I think that the game should look at each major world region separately and pick the cultures that are most interesting from each, as well as giving some consideration to which ones extended their power beyond.

[Brent]

Ancient times are as important for the game as modern times. The great civilizations of the ancient Middle East are as important for the game as the great civilizations of modern Europe and their colonies. The game should allow the ancient Middle Eastern civs to produce a different subsequent history.

[Niptium]

I see both your points and I gotta agree with you. Amerindians, Black Africans and Polynesians could have evolved to be very interesting civilizations and at a certain point have at the very least a proto-national form.

Well, if there was to be a 100+ list of civilizations to pick up from in Civ IV, there would be no doubt that they'd have their place in there.

But it's not going to happen. Even if they doubled the number of Civs to 32, I think some Civs like the Portugueses and Dutch should be considered first. Their culture, their influence on other civilizations and their ability to last a pretty long time should place these ahead of any Hittites, Iroquois or Polynesians groups out there.

Again, I don't even claim having the whole TRUTH, but to me it's a pretty logical reasoning ? No - I may be mistaking...

[Brent]

Well what do you think they'll do with expansions? Let's say the core game has 32. Would expansions bring the number over 100? What about scenarios? Might the original game come with regional scenarios with many extra civs that can easily be transferred to the main game? I can live with a core game the way you describe it, especially if it comes with a good number of scenarios the way I describe them and/ or if they add many additional civs in expansions (preferably 32 or more per expansion).

[Niptium]

Well, I will be more then happy if there is expansions with added Civs and I'll be the first one to try your scenarios

[Heresson]

Try MY scenarios!

[Brent]

South America

responses to new posts in old thread:

I would enthusiastically welcome more South American civs. Exoticness is a huge reason to include a civ in my view. Maybe the same civ could either be chosen to start with, with possible breakoffs from it, or be designated as a possible breakoff from another civ. The game should in some way handle immigrants colonizing among natives and producing a new combined culture. As suggested, the Guaranis would be a good civ for the game, and I would add Otavalo and Nazca as suggestions. One reason why more South American civs were not already suggested is that I don't really know enough about that region to make very good suggestions. Brazil, Peru, and Argentina would be good for having the option to either begin the game or break off from another civ.

[Brent]

Underdog Scenario

Maybe have a separate scenario with obscure civs, noncivs, and small modern countries as your choices and the major civs from the main game can be among the barbarian tribes. Be sure you can play it on a map of the real world. How would the technology tree, standard units, and city improvements be? I guess the scenario could interestingly replace all the standard wonders.

Civs for this scenario could include:

Inuit, Cree, Otavalo, Guarani, Iceland, Faroese, Gotland, Sami, Karelians, Basques, Catalonia, Sicily, Switzerland, Balts, Goths, Albania, Picts, Kurds, Armenians, Kashmir, Tibet, Ainu, Hmong, Vietnam, Berbers, Ethiopians, Madagascar, Bushmen, Australian Aborigines, Hawaii, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa

[Brent]

Swapping of Rulers

Be able to use the same ruler for more than one available Civ. Possibly each culture group would have a pool of rulers that you choose from separately from your civ. Some of these rulers could be actual rulers from history, some could be other famous members of that culture group from history, and some could be ficticious. If you really want to any ruler could rule any civ. The rulers could have their own traits, completely separate from the civ traits or the same sorts of traits and you could choose which civ and ruler you want by their Traits. The ficticious rulers could be designed to cover Traits that you couldn't reasonably assign to one of the historical persons for that culture group. You could have more limited options for ruler/ civ combinations. Benito Juarez could be available only for the Zapotecs or the Mexicans. Margaret for Norway, Sweden, or Denmark. Charlemagne for Rome, France, or Germany.

Optional restrictions for each civ based on history

Be able to turn on or off restrictions for either all civs or none. You can choose to restrict each Wonder to one culture group. You can limit each civ to a certain selection of government types. The same for religions, but maybe this would only apply to what you start with. You can choose whether or not to restrict build priorities for AI civs. You could do the same for tech priorities for AI civs or for your own civ if you allow the computer to choose. Have optional restrictions for aggression levels. Startup could suggest which traits each civ may wish to avoid if you have the option to choose some of them. You could choose to restrict Switzerland from alliances.

Worker Priorities as part of Civ Uniqueness

A particular civ could be more likely to build more roads or colonies.

[Brent]

Re: Swapping of Rulers

This could particularly be useful when an obscure Civ has no usable historical ruler of its own. Such a Civ could either use a historical ruler of a related Civ, or a ficticious person assigned to the Culture Group.

[Brent]

Re: Swapping: City Name pools

Along the lines of ruler- swapping, with a ruler pool for each culture group (it would make sense to still have some rulers defaulted to specific civilizations), have a common culture group city name pool to draw from when you run out of your civspecific city names. Maybe modern (Spanish?) Mexican city names could be used for mesoamerican civs in general when civspecific names run out.

Comments from anyone else?

Any comments on my latest few ideas in this thread? People are still posting in other threads, I'm just wondering if no one's interested in this one anymore. It's probably my favorite thread, and it would be more fun with other people contributing new ideas to it. Has everything already been said?

[Brent]

Civil Wars

Any civilization could split by adding North, South, East, West, New, Upper, Lower, Nieder, Occidental, Australis, Borealis before or after the original name for one or both civs. Some of these could depend on the civ, like Nieder for the Germans. North, South, East, West, Upper, Lower, and Nieder would be most likely when the breakoffs are still adjacent. New, Australis, and Borealis would be most likely for overseas breakoffs. A breakoff civ could use the name of its new capital.

Preference would be given to historically appropriate, completely different names, such as the Afrikaners for the Dutch, Catalonia for Spain, or the Faroese for the Vikings.

The game could begin with a civ already split into North and South, East or West, or Upper and Lower.

A pregame setting could affect the frequency of breakoffs. A large map with few civs could spawn a lot of breakoffs. Breakoffs could be automatically disallowed for for a small map already basically full of civs.

A breakoff could incorporate the name of the continent it is on, such as West Australia, West Antarctica, Central Africa, Central Asia, Central Europe, or North Greenland, whether you're playing on a real world map, or if the game assigns its own names to randomly generated continents (based on the presence of multiple civs of the same Culture Group?), or if the human player names continents.

A breakoff could combine the original name with the name of a body of water it is on, such as Pacific America or Atlantic America.

A breakoff could be named for a physical feature like The Andes, The Amazon, or Sahara, most likely randomly assigned based on terrain and/ or the original civ and/ or neighboring civs. For example, a new civ broken off from the Incas or near both the Incas and the Guarani could be called The Andes.

If a particular game involves many different breakoffs from different civs, two adjacent breakoffs from different civs could merge.

Any new civ either in the southern hemisphere or to the south of the civ it breaks from could be called Australia.

A new civ's primary designation could be an acronym based on things like the name of the original civ, the government type, North, South, East, West, Upper, Lower, New, Monotheist, Pagan, or words that have no specific relation to game circumstances. If a government type becomes part of an acronym used as a civ's name, maybe that civ would tend to stick with that government type more than it otherwise would.

[Brent]

Many Provinces to Choose from Randomly

For civs with many city names available, divisible into many provinces, you can set the game to choose randomly a new province to select names from whenever you run out of the names you're already working with. I guess this would work best with America and only work with a few civs at all maybe. I guess for the Scandinavians each county of each Nordic country would be enough, maybe it would be workable for more civs than I thought. Maybe this feature would only be usable for lists the player enters manually.