What should determine Civ attributes and special units?

[Lancer]

Environment, and the history of the civ in the game imo.

Just as the Brits irl got seafaring (ok, not in CIV for some reason) from the fact that they lived on an island whose defense could best be served at sea. The French on the other hand lived on a continent surrounded by adversaries on all sides so they ended up being good at using muskets and lousy at fighting on the oceans.

Now when the random map generator puts the French on the island and the Brits on the continent then the environment changes which effects the history which produces the abilities which makes them better than anyone else at...something, and that something makes one of their units special. In the same way civ attributes could develope over time depending on what each civ has to contend with in each game, and not on what they had to contend with on this Earth irl.

Discuss.

[Seedle]

I disagree. The tech tree already does this for the most part. If you start on an island, you prioritize seafaring techs. If you start in a confined space with lots of neighbors, you focus on military techs.

As far as unique units and buildings go, I see where you are coming from, but I like it the way it is now. Part of the fun of the game is getting an ideal start/map for a given civ, or alternatively, making a civ work where conditions are not ideal. It adds variety to the gameplay. If you always got the special bonuses you needed for whatever situation you were in, it would be boring.

However, the build x unit quests do kinda have this flavor, i.e. your civ built lots of unit y, now you have mastered this unit, it gets bonuses. Maybe these sorts of quests could be enabled for all civs from game start. However, each civ would only get the reward for one quest, and once a civ completed a unit quest, it would not count towards future ones.