i wish firaxis would reveal all the civs in Conquests...

[brianshapiro]

...so i can know what i need to do for my expansion pack

this is what i planned (i hope firaxis picks up on these btw)


DUTCH. Commercial, Industrial
The Dutch was a major cultural power, not only mercantile, but industrial and was a major art (Rembrandt, other N European artists) and religious center. Adding the Dutch sort of squeezes in other northern european countries like Belgium and Denmark with similar traits, like adding Spain squeezes in Portugese.
UU: SLOOP [replaces Caravel];
modifications: movement 6 (withdraw ability), blitz, bombard 1 with 1 rate of fire; doesn't upgrade to Galleon, requires Iron.
The Dutch had many innovations in shipbuilding, including the Fluyt which the Dutch are famed for. The Fluyt however, was primarily mercantile. The addition of the Sloop is to add something interesting to the game, the second UU naval military unit; sloops were very quick ships often equipped for war with cannons or other weapons, and fleets of sloops would be able to match against more powerful ships as frigates because of sheer speed. Movement of 6, so it allows for the ship to be able to withdraw from combat with frigates and caravels, and blitz. Because it should compete with frigates, the Sloop would not upgrade to Galleon (which could be a disadvantage), and would have poor bombard abilities, but the added ability requires Iron. I believe the large additions and advantages of the Sloop over the Caravel are justified design-wise, because of the limited ability and use of naval power in Civ3 [a pumped-up caravel with limited bombard will not unbalance the game in any important way]

PRUSSIANS. Militaristic, Commercial
This is to account for pseudo-Germanic eastern european cultures left out of the game, including Austrians, [Prussians, of course], Swiss, Lithuanians. At various times in history, each of these had some substantial power, but in general remained a hodge podge without any real supremacy. The same goes for the SLAVS, the next civilization group in the list I will suggest. This group had militaristic backtones, of course seen in the pomp and court culture of Prussians and Austirans, but also in the mercenary armies of the Swiss.
UU: HALBERDIER [replaces Pikeman];
modifications: attack 3, shield cost 2.
The UU, Halberdier obviously derives from the famed Swiss Halberdiers which were used as Mercenaries in many early modern wars, in Italy, Germany, and France. The Halberd adds extra attack from the pike, bringing it equal to its defense: the Halberdier becomes both a decent offensive and defensive unit. The reason I would increase attack to 3 instead of 2 (which i considered) is that in play the world, the medieval infantry also arrives with Feudalism and has an attack of 4; not leaving the Halberdier 'overpowered', it also does not have the defense of 4 that comes with Musketmen. The lowered shield cost reflects the mercenary nature of the units. What this allows the Prussians is the ability to rapidly create units to defeat swordsmen and protect units, while still having a defensive disadvantage to longbowmen and medieval infantry. In otherwords, i think it mainly only allows to the Prussians the advantage of a stonewalled defensive, allowing them to keep attackers at bay, [and make only limitedly advantageous offensive maneuvers--ie moving in to attack while not fearing as much destruction through counter-offense].

SLAVS. Religious, Industrial
Similar to the Prussians, this is meant to account for a large hodgepodge of cultural groups identified as "Slavo-Baltic" in eastern europe left out from Civ3, in this case, including, Poles, Czechs, and though not technically 'slavic' , 'baltic' ethnicities associated with the Slavs, as Hungarians and Serbians. As is obvious this reigous has been the center of focused religious, ethnic, and cultural conflict; in many cases accompanying strong religious sentiment, hence accounting for the Religious characteristic; and the industriousness reflects the periods under Communist programs more than anything though I think it could be made to relate to earlier slavic history.
UU: MOUNTED SCOUT [replaces Scout - civ starts with unit even though not expansionistic];
modifications: movement 3, invisible, doesn't upgrade to Explorer, requires Horses.
Admittedly I didn't really have a strong historical basis for this; i didn't feel like giving a military UU to the slavs and instead came to the idea of giving an advanced type of scout; something about the atmosphere of the region led me to think a mounted scout was a good variation; my ethnic background is slavic, Hungarian and Ukranian, so don't lecture me for being naive; i just think of images of horsemen steathfully riding through the Carpathians, stories of Vlad the Impaler leading horsemen and cavalries. At any rate, despite whatever historical basis it has, I think its a good idea for the Civ . Competing with the ability of explorers in some way, it does not upgrade to Explorer (it has movement of 3 rather than 2 instead of having the 'treat all terrain as roads' ability of explorers), and is able to remain invisible so to travel through the territories of competing civs; however, unlike the standard scout, requires Horses [requiring Horses also postpones the use of the scout unit until later in the game when cities and trade are established so the added movement bonus and invisibility isn't too much of an advantage].

[Louis XXIV]

If they released them all at once, what would you talk about?

This adds speculation and length to the dicussion

Evil, isn't it?

[History Guy]

No! I like to guess!

[Louis XXIV]

I hope they release info at least once a week

Speculating is fun, except when you've said everything

Which is a bigger shock:
The Hittites
or the Koreans?

[History Guy]

I agree. Just give us enough to chew on, at least.

But with that stuff, I do like to speculate...

The bigger shock? The Hittites. I'd actually expected the Koreans to show up sooner or later myself, as I think they were one of the really great Asian civilizations (at least they were much more of a civilization than the Mongols). The Hittites I'd never have expected, the Sumerians less so. The latter because of Babylon, the former because they weren't much for civilization either.

[dexters]

How many more friggin European Civs do we need?

The Asias, Southern Africa and the Americas need more Civs to fill them out.

What is now known as China for example, is actually a collection of nations and tribes. Some of those could be included in Civ 3 Conquests.

[History Guy]

Dexters,

Xia-Xsia, et al, do you mean? I don't see why they should, since they make up China as it is. It'd be like adding the Mohawks in when you already have the Iroquois Confederacy.

I only see two European civs that really deserve to be in there after what's in now, and those are Portugal and Holland. Asia needs something like Angkor. Oceania needs to have Polynesia in there. Africa needs another civ as well. And most of all...we need Israel!

[Jon Shafer]

What about Poland?

[History Guy]

Firaxis might horrify me again and stick in Poland instead of somebody else. But other than push around people and get conquered, what did they do? The only claim to fame they can really take is their breaking of the siege of Vienna, certainly a great affair, but other than that, they were never very significant as independent peoples.

[TheArsenal]

If you don't release the full list, as noted above, speculation and discussion abound. Most importantly anticipation.

If you do release the full list, its weeks/months of moaning and groaning about the civs that didn't make it, and second guessing about the one's that did.

I'd rather see the first option.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by History Guy
Firaxis might horrify me again and stick in Poland instead of somebody else. But other than push around people and get conquered, what did they do? The only claim to fame they can really take is their breaking of the siege of Vienna, certainly a great affair, but other than that, they were never very significant as independent peoples.

The Poles have been quite important, and were one of the strongest European nations from 1300-1700 or so.

I would also like to see the Magyars in.

That in addition to the Incas, Mayans, Nubians would be my civ wish-list for Conquests.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by brianshapiro
SLAVS. Religious, Industrial
Similar to the Prussians, this is meant to account for a large hodgepodge of cultural groups identified as "Slavo-Baltic" in eastern europe left out from Civ3, in this case, including, Poles, Czechs, and though not technically 'slavic' , 'baltic' ethnicities associated with the Slavs, as Hungarians and Serbians. As is obvious this reigous has been the center of focused religious, ethnic, and cultural conflict; in many cases accompanying strong religious sentiment, hence accounting for the Religious characteristic; and the industriousness reflects the periods under Communist programs more than anything though I think it could be made to relate to earlier slavic history.

Sounds good, as long as you leave the hungarians out. They have absolutely nothing to do with the slavs, other than geographic proximity. There are no links between them: no ethnic links, no religious, no language, nothing. The hungarians don't have relatives in Europe, except for the finns (a distant cousin ). I really doubt Firaxis would include them, even though they were one of Europe's most powerful and important civs between the 12th and 16th century and if weren't them Wien would have a lot of turkish architecture today
Including the hungarians/magyars would make sense in a medieval European scenarios, that'd include: Byzantium, Poles, Hungarians, Ottomans, The Holy Roman Empire, etc.
For a WWI scenario an Austro-Hungarian monarchy could make sense; however, the autrians are included in the german civ and we don't know if a WWI is in or not...
I find it more probable that Firaxis could include the huns, only because they're so well-known. But then, who would be the barbarians ?

Back the slavs: actually I'm quite curious what Firaxis will do: include one slavic nation (the Poles, for ex.) or include a generic Slavic civ (Poles+Chechs+Serbs).

[Panag]

hi ,

"rumour control" has it that we shall know most of it within eight weeks , ......

anyway , looking at the screenshots can teach us a lot , .....

have a nice day

[David Murray]

Unbelievable! New civs, units, MORE GOVERNMENTS! (fundamentalism is coming back?!!), wonders ... proper scenarios ... and I still play Civ3 about 4-5 hours a day at the moment ... oh my god, I am so excited, release this damn expansion pack now!

[History Guy]

Trip, another culture that was quite strong was Hungary. That's right, Hungary was one of the most important of all East European civs, and certainly had a greater influence and importance up until its conquest by the Ottomans than Poland. Let's face it, Hungary won't go in, and Poland shouldn't go in. They had military power. So what? Did they leave any real impression on the world? What did they do outside of Poland that was so great other than the winged Hussars episode at Vienna? They were conquered over and over again, had a period of great kings, a very brief period in which they controlled more land then they do today, and then they immediately fade into nothing. The Portuguese conquered much of South America. The Dutch colonized North America and the Southeast Asian islands. The Poles didn't do too much that effected anyone else, except the normal books, discoveries, and occasional military victories. One might as well find much more cause to put in Austria. Too German, one might say. Poland would apply to Russia as well in the same manner.

What I want, but probably won't see, is Israel. No civilization that could possibly be crammed into Conquests (perhaps save Sumeria by a nose) had half as much influence as Israel did.

[monkspider]

My two civs I would like to see most in Conquests are the Byzantines and the Hebrews. I am pretty sure we will at least get the latter since they would be a great addition to the mesopotamia scenario.

[bobbo008]

i would say poland would apply more to Germany, but still a lot to Germany. 100 years ago, Germany's borders extended all the way INTO present day Russia, by Russia I mean the Russian enclave with the port of Kaliningrad (then Koenigsberg, a German city in Civ3). I think Austro-Hungarian could be justified, since it is Austrian and Hungarian (duh), which would also cover some of the Slavic groups that people want.

[Panag]

hi ,

, okay the world map is bigger now , but where are all these european civs be placed on the world map , .....

it starts to be full , .....

it could very well be that an azian or pacific civ gets in

have a nice day

[Captain Obvious]

okay the world map is bigger now , but where are all these european civs be placed on the world map , .....

What law says all the Euro civs must be played in the same game??? And any decent map should leave room for at least 6 or 7 Euro civs (UK, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Poland or Austria, Russia, and either Greece or a Scandinavian country.

How many more friggin European Civs do we need?

Hey, if the Euro civs happen to be the most deserving, they should be in. End of story. Lets concentrate at historical importance instead of just trying to be politically correct for a change. It will make the game more realistic, thus making Civ 4 a whole lot better.

If you don't release the full list, as noted above, speculation and discussion abound. Most importantly anticipation.

Exactly! They want us to keep on thinking about it, dreaming about it, obsessing about it soooo when the time comes, we all take a day off from our job (if we have one ) and run to our nearest comp store and buy the game first thing........

Its all about $$$$ and %%%%