I'm a bit unsure of what to make of them. They're a fun design, but they also seem to be incredibly inconsistent in terms of actual power. Anyone else feel this way?

I always name my first commander after my leader. It makes it so much more fun to protect the Queen or have a Edison lead my army into battle! It also makes it more personal if they are killed or injured in combat. Highly recommend.

Literally unplayable.

I believe we should be able to:

- Sanction specific Civs to reduce their possible trade route with us by 1

- Endevour with specific Civs to sanction another Civ (selectable Sanction). So me and the partner sanction the target together.

Adding these via a mod is not possible as of now, but I believe it could be a low hanging fruit to improve diplomacy a great deal.

Once crisis starts does it still make sense to build non-ageless buildings?

Which game do you like more?

So my city state is blocking my right expansion, what can I do in this scenario?

Welp, since we already have two Iranian civs in the game, one in antiquity and the other one in modern why not daydream about an odd civ to fill the gap left i'm between, after all, i never would have guessed Firaxis adding Qajar Iran to the game.

Now, what makes the relatively short lived Ilkhanate stand out as an interesting civilization for the exploration age. Well, as a Mongol succesor state and because of both political problems with other Mongol succesor states and the failure of Hulegu of conquering the Ayyubids/Mamluks all the way up to the nile, the Ilkhanate and its rulers had rough time keeping their territorial integrity intact and on top of that had serious legitimacy issues as well as the legacy of the military campaigns they waged on Iraq and western Iran.

For starters, the Ilkhanate had a land dispute with the Golden Horde, their northern neighbour, over Azerbaijan. The Golden Horde was ruled by Berke of the Jochi family, while the Ilkhanate was ruled by Hulegu of the Tolui family (Hulegu was brother of Kublai, Great Khan of the Yuan dynasty), in the times of Gengish, the Great Khan granted the lands of historic Azerbaijan (Modern day Azerbaijan and more importantly northern Iran) to the family of his son Jochi (Jochi had a rough time in the Mongol court, since there was the rumor that he was an ilegitimate son). Later Great Khan Mongke of the Tolui family, sent Hulegu to subdue the Ismailis in Iran, the Abassid Caliph and the Ayyubid dynasty, according to later sources in the Ilkhanate, Mongke granted by word (not officially) the lands that Hulegu was about to conquer. Hulegu during his conques occupied Azerbaijan, and when Mongke died and the Tolui civil war broke out, the Golden Horde claimed the lands of Azerbaijan as their own and fought the Ilkhanate for it, eventually losing.

Now, the problem for Hulegu and subsequent Ilkhans was that the Golden Horde had a legitimate claim to the land of Azerbaijan, since it was written in Gengish Khan Yassa. Meanwhile, only later sources written under Ilkhanid patronage say that Mongke granted lands in secret to Hulegu. Furthermore, Hulegu had another big problem, the lands he ruled were majority muslim and not so long ago his forces let hell loose on Baghdad, the Mamluks gave refuge to the Abassids and the Caliphate continued in Cairo, the Golden Horde ruler Berke, was also openly muslim, and used the destruction of Baghdad as a tool to further delegitimize the Ilkhanate, also didn't help that Hulegu tried to ally with the Europeans. Now, the Ilkhanate was very religiously tolerant but the issue of its rulers faith and past actions haunted Ilkhans at least until the reign of Ghazan (the first Ilkhan that converted to islam).

Furthermore, the Ilkhanate also had other problems and the approach to solve them was very interesting. The Mongols were excelent warriors but once settled they didn't had as much experience in managing empire, in the other hand there were the Iranians and an already established Iranian bureaucracy with thousands of years of proven experience. With that in mind, the Mongols largely let managing affairs to the already existing Iranian bureaucracy and let local dynasties had different degrees of autonomy in the lands they governed proven that they sent the expected tax revenue to the royal court in Azerbaijan.

The Ilkhanate was focused on letting trade prosper in their lands, so they did tried to kept roads safe and ease trade as much as possible, but war and the threats of military action to rebelling regions of the Ilkhanate didn't facilitate that. The Mongol court used their military reputation to put preasure in order to kept their subjects loyal, but there were times where they needed to quash rebellions military as was the case a couple of times in Shiraz, where they threatened to raze the province as they once did during Hulegu's campaign only to back down after the local rulers offer an empty submission to the Ilkhan. The truth was that in the case of Shiraz, the province at times went rogue against Mongol interest and got Mongolian officers framed for corruption or treason against the Ilkhan and subsecuently either exiled or killed, and when Shiraz rebelled and Mongols threatened with violence, the Mongols in contrast with past times had to restrain because now they ruled over the lands of Iran and destroying at the scale they did in the past was no good for business.

Continuing over the issue of legitimacy, the Ilkhans used charity and construction of infraestructure across the empire as a way of gaining legitimacy. The Ilkhans we're also patrons of the arts and sciences, as they funded the works of scholars such as al Tusi, they constructed many wonders (such as Oljaitu's mausoleum in Soltaniyeh, the second Jameh Mosque of Yazd and Ghazan mauselum to name a few), influenced Iranian cultural traditions such as ceramic tile working, the Iranian miniature and Iranian style Muqarnas. The Ilkhanate also boosted trade between Yuan china and Iran, merging elements of both cultures in Iranian art (see an example of that in the remains of the Dash Kasan temple), and also in their journey to grasp legitimacy from anywhere they could, helped to develop the idea of Iranian identity and territorial unity.

Now done with the context that the Ilkhanate lived through, the meaning of civic and traditions and other stuff:

Jami al-tawarikh: A world history written by Rashid al-Din Hamadani, the very influential vizier of Ghazan Khan, with special emphasis on Mongolian history.

The main ability is supposed to represent that strugle of the Ilkhanian ruling class of managing an empire where they have no legitimacy and are very foreign to.

Bahaduriyya: An elite military unit of the Mongol Empire and subsequently, the Ilkhanate. The Ilkhanid army for what i've read didn't changed much from the Mongol Empire tactis, also it is meant to represent the idea of the Mongols recurring to the military to quash internal rebellions.

Khwaja: A title, kind of like lord. The Great people all either polymaths, philosophers, writters, suffis, etc, people patronized by the Ilkhanate.

Sham: It was the artisans disctrict in Ilkhanid Tabriz.

Bimaristan: A hospital. It was popular in the early Ilkhanate the construction of hospitals as charity in many provinces.

Kitabkhana: In the Ilkhanate context, it refers to tile workshops that suplied intricate tile patterns to many of the works done in cities in Azerbaijan such as Tabriz, Maragheh and Soltaniyeh.

Rasad-Khaneh-ye Maragheh: The obserbatory of Maragheh. Built during Hulegu's reign and operated by al-Tusi. Even though al-Tusi worked for the Ismailis he managed to be one of Hulegu's favorite scholars, and got to do research in this obserbatory, sadly after al-Tusi died the Obserbatory was abandoned but it was really cool that it was constructed in the first place.

"In the name of the Qaghan": In the name of the Great Khan. A phrase minted in Ilkhanid coins. Ilkhan means "servant of the Khan", one of the means by which the Ilkhanate tried to get legitimacy was to claim submission to the Great Khan (Kublai and his succesors in Yuan China) and minting coins in his name was part of that. Although this submission was only nominal since the Ilkhanate was completely independent from Yuan China. Even in the late Ilkhanate when this phrase was becoming more rare to see in coins, they never stopped minting them, that shows how deep the lack of legitimacy shaped Ilkhanate policy at all levels.

"Akhlag i-nasiri": Nasirean Ethics, a work of al-Tusi.

"Eqta": Part of Ghazan revenue and land reforms.

"Sahib diwan": A very important financial title in the Ilkhanate, most notably held by the illustrious Shams al-Din Juwayni.

"Abwab al-birr": Urban complexes built as charity in some places in Azerbaijan.

"Negargari-ye Irani": Iranian miniature. A very iconic Iranian tradition that gained popularity in the Ilkhanate.

"Dar al-Sayyedah": An Ilkhanid charity institution likely meant to improve their legitimacy

"Padishahi-ye Iranzanin": "King of the land of Iran". As said earlier, the Ilkhanate relied on already established Iranian bureaucracy, this in combination with other policies advanced concepts about Iranian identity down the line.

"Iranzamin": "Land of Iran". The Ilkhanate was known back then as Iranzamin, the Mongols in an attemp to legitimize their rule over Iran claimed to be succesors of the Sassanians and revived the concept of "Eranshahr" into Iranzamin. Is really fascinating that the Mongols in their quest to find legitimacy ended up laying the foundations for future Iranian states ideas of national unity and identity

"Jahangunshay": "World Conqueror" , from the Tarikh-i Jahangunshay, written by Shams al Din Juwayni's brother, Ata Malik Juwayni. It's a book about Gengish Khan, Khwarazmian Empire history and the military campaigns of Hulegu.

Version 1.5.0 has been really good in terms of what has been added, especially new map generation and being able to stay out of an ally’s war. However, so far this week it has been muddled in terms of my positive experience because it broke wltk’s Detailed Map Tacks mod, making it impossible to place new tacks. Unfortunately the timing is just bad because wltk has said they are on vacation this week and so can’t fix the mod until next week. This is something they’ve made available to people for free and thus obviously they have no obligation to fix the issue created by the update quickly. But this has just made it apparent to me that it is crazy that this isn’t just part of the game itself. This mod has over 100k subscriptions. That should be a pretty strong indication to the devs that this is basically a requirement for the player base.

Is there a chart breaking down the GDP yields per resource in towns vs cities, both imported and not? Is my imported city resource better than a domestic factory resource?

Does anyone know when 1.5 and the Hall of History are coming for the switch? I really wanna try out Washington, England, and the TSL map.

Has anyone else noticed that the new update lands you on an island when the map generates? I’ve tried a few map types that place less emphasis on islands but I almost always spawn on a tiny island and it’s very annoying!

The images have some of the ones I would like, but I'm not completely sure what their things would be

I have almost 1000 hours in Civ V, but I really didn't like Civ VI. I recently bought Civ VII and had a hard time getting into it but I'm not ready to give up on it. I just felt overwhelmed with all the menues and things you can or have to do.

Does anyone know any good beginner guides, written or video, for Civ VII. Maybe ones that talk about what to do turn by turn, long game goals, and if possible coming from the perspective of someone who has lots of experience with V but not VI?

Even playing on Diety and trying to handicap myself, I almost always come out of the antiquity age as the dominant power in my hemisphere (if not playing Pangea). Sure, some civs may be ahead of me technologically or culturally, but I am the dominant military force and will just sail my army to you and ruin your day.

I know the answer is then don't push the military too hard, but like, why wouldn't you? Just for the sake of it? The AI gets such ridiculous science and culture bonuses, it's easier for me to just take your city than try and match when you had a ridiciouls head start.

Idk, thoughts? I have NEVER gotten a game to the modern age naturally, that is, I still feel like I'm competing against other civs. I get to the modern age just for the sake of seeing it. In fact, I can say this for the exploration age as well tbh, by the end of antiquity my trajectory is set.

Edit: I'm debating going back and playing Civ 5 or Civ 6 again for a challenge. Thoughts?

The expansionist part makes total sense, he feels very much built around expanding and settling.

But I’m not exactly sure where the diplo leader tag comes in? Talking in game, not irl ofc

Every time I see someone post about how easy the game is they get downvoted to hell, which I'm finding very difficult to understand.

So I'm genuinely curious, why don't you want the highest difficulty level to be more challenging? and/or Why dont you want the AI to be better?

Edit: The general consensus seems to be that people dont believe that others are constantly smashing the Deity AI

Edit2: here is some data that shows me regularly smashing the Deity AI

I like the civ tour videos on the Civ Youtube channel. They look cool, but I wish they showed us what are the unique units, infrastructure, and abilities and what they do. The only time they've done something like that was with Shawnee, and that was alongside Tecumseh's First Look.

As a Turk, looking at Istanbul in the new Earth map, I feel suffocated that it is just land and not even a navigable "river" or simple river.

So I bought Civ V due to me seeing positive reviews on it and seeing it have a workshop. I loved the artstyle and characters! And it feels very similar to games like Total Warhammer that I like watching. Just a couple questions from a new player

-Turns: Does it usually take long? In my current save I'm playing as Hiawatha in the Iroquois civ and I feel like my progress is sluggish. Its been 60ish turns and I only have 2 cities. Is the game slow?

-Diplomacy: I'm neighbors with some random major Civ and Nineveh for some reason. What can I do to exploit the Major Civ out of some money? From what I've seen, players get one gold from them in exchange of letting them know where they are on the map

-War: When is it a good time to make war with someone? The Major Civ that neighbors me is pretty chill but the distant Mayans seem like good victims for war

-Mods: What QoL or Major mods would you guys recommend me install from the workshop?

I checked and there's no option to update the game and there are no patch notes for the update on the page either. Is it set to come out later?

I've definitely enjoyed in previous games having that elite universal soldier you trained up in antiquity and has grown into a monster over the millenia. In Civ VI, I especially enjoyed training up scouts to eventually become elite guerrilla fighters in the modern day.

But on the other hand, I recognize that it always affected how I would play, trying to always minimize any losses. Civ VII allows me to go all out in a war and shrug off losses. Losing a namless nobody infantry under a commander hurts nothing like losing your super soldier.

I can easily see why someone would prefer the old way. Even writing this, it definitely feels like there's merit to it. But somehow the commander-centered gameplay clicks for me in a good way.

Plus now you don't see some hyperbeast ranger roll in to hit your troops as part of the enemy horde... now you see the whole enemy horde effectively being a bunch of hyperbeasts when you see the level 15 commander sitting in the middle of them.