Today Firaxis did the live stream about Tecumseh and the Shawnee civ, which gave a lot of interesting background information. On the live stream Chief Barnes from the Shawnee was present, as well as a langauge specialist of the Shawnee nation. They talked about how Firaxis developed the Shawnee nation, and how cultural aspects got taken into account. Aspects of cultures also get translated into the game, as e.g. natural features will be given names of the discovering nation, therefore in the live stream all rivers had Shawnee names.
On the gameplay side, Firaxis introduced the advanced start, which you can utilize to directly start in the exploration and modern age. The advanced start works a bit like in previous civ games: A part of the map is revealed, and you can invest points into getting more units, cities, and other features. Details can be found at 46 minutes in the Youtube stream.
As usual, if you want to discuss any of the details, join us in our thread here.
Firaxis has also posted another dev diary, this time discussing the choice of civilizations in leaders for Civ7. Check out our thread for this dev diary.