u/5-2-50

For Egypt I'm not sure, I mean wonders in all ages give you culture, so they'd help any culture oriented leader. There isn't really a leader who is great at producing tourism via any way other than wonder construction that I can think of (I'm on like 4 hours sleep tho so bear with me if I'm missing someone)

Hatch would work well with any civ that favors navigable rivers, so Shawnee and Songhai come to mind, but any other interesting (not necessary particularly strong, but interesting and fun) combos that come to mind?

So, preface- I am not a man with much free time, 45-50 hour a week job and 2 kids means I wont be ripping through seasons very fast in dynasty. I'd like to not have to wait till December to be competing for my first natty, so as much as I'd like to rebuild a 1 star team, I'm thinking of using a 2-3.5 star team to "rebuild" at least for my first dynasty

I'd like to use a G5 (or G6 now with PAC-12, idk) keep them there for a few seasons, then move to a P4 conference, but that's not required. Tulane comes to mind as an obvious pick and if I had to pick my team now, I guess I'd go with them. Being at the bottom-to-middle of the SEC or Big 10 could be good too. I'd say the same for ACC and Big 12 but the competition there isn't stacked enough to make having a 3.5 star team enough of a challenge in terms of regular season play (North Carolina seems much easier than Iowa despite them both being 3.5 stars, for example)

It seemed that EA actually got it right when they said different regions would vary in position to position strength. I used Liberty for a bit this past year and the NC/Tidewater pipelines did have very good D line talent like they said it would. I would like strong pipelines for D line and TEs since I like creating matchup mismatches so great TEs would be fun, although I dont recall any pipes being named as hotbeds for TE talent, is there a list somewhere with pros/cons to different pipelines? I know there are for overall strength but havent seen a list based on position. I'd use UNC if they would drop just a touch from 3.5 to 3 star in '27

I could also be down for a "challenge" that would make a higher prestige team function more like a lower start team. A Florida-only challenge with the gators for instance, although that is 3 pretty strong pipelines so that might not be enough of a restriction. Georga only with Georgia Tech, but you have to compete with multiple other big time schools with tier 5 pipes so that one might be too restrictive, at least at the start. Can't think of any team with an obvious state/region restriction that isn't either too restrictive or not restrictive enough. Although with the Florida one, there are a lotttt of tier 5 pipes to compete with, so maybe that one could be interesting, especially if the CPU teams get better at recruiting. Could also have a "no platinum abilities" restriction or something

finally and least important- I'm a little spectrum-y and cool colors (blue, purple) bring me joy. I found that deep-purple XP bar for Liberty to be just great. So I'd prefer a team with blue or purple (better dark than bright) as a primary color (the background color for the dynasty screen most importantly). Dark green and black would be my next choice, light green like North Texas doesn't quite hit the same but its doable. Dark red/orange like the Gophers would be acceptable if the team is perfect otherwise, but a bright red/orange like Clemson is a deal breaker, as is white but i dont think any teams have white as their background color

thanks for any suggestions

I'm in the camp that believes that leader/civ abilities should be significant enough that you plan your game around them. I feel like this increases replayability if abilities to leaders/civs aren't simply small boosts, but significant boosts ideally tied with mild/moderate nerfs

Pachacuti was a good example in civ 6. His ability to work mountain tiles meant you interacted with the map in a fundamentally different way than you would with other leaders, and so long as you had enough mountains around you, playing him felt like a kinda unique experience compared to other leaders. I also like the idea of hammurabi in civ 6 but he's just too strong IMO, but his very unique ability is per se a good thing

interacting with the map is just one way for this to play out, though. With all the added mechanics to civ 7, there are a lot of possibilities. Just some ideas for leader abilities that would make a game with them feel very different...

- get additional memento slots (also, I think it would be interesting if you could by default get 3 mementos instead of 2 if you used the 3 mementos tied to your leader, but thats a different topic)

- additional triumph slots moving into the next age

- idk exactly how to word this one, but something that de-nerfs city state suz bonuses. It used to be, for instance "+5 percent to wonder production for every city state you are suz of" now its +5 for every cultural city state you are suz of. Maybe a leader could have their suz bonuses be based on total CS suzeranity rather than the current benefit that is limited to CS suz of that particular type. Tell me that wouldn't make Greece or Siam more interesting

-automatically unlock the mastery to a civ/tech when you complete the parent civ/tech. This one would be pretty strong so maybe paired with a reduction in which ever of the two that you aren't getting the boost to, so minus X amount of science overall if youre getting the civic masteries when completing the parent civic

- Abe Lincoln was apparently pretty tall in a day and age when ppl didnt grow that tall, so maybe a buff to settlement growth but a significant reduction to settlement cap and a big penalty for going over (or maybe straight up cant go over)