In the new video, Soren plays in a game and plays a bit in the diplomacy screen, he talks to Quin Huang Di (or something alike, I didn't understand him well enough), the Chinese Emperor. A few moments later, he talks to Mao Zedong, right, in the same game!

--> There are two Chinese civs in that game!

How's that possible?

Solution ONE: Each leader has its own civ, both of the two mentionned above are leaders of China, but there are two different Chinas in the game! This would be awesome in my eyes...

Solution TWO: China started as one nation in this game, but eventually, a civil war occured and it split into two with Mao or Qin becoming the leader of the revolting part.
Good inclusion of the Civil-War concept, but what leader will the civs get that do not have two leaders?

Solution THREE: We just see in this video an example. They wanted to show the leaders already done, so they put the two Chinese leaders into the game, but of course, in the endgame, you and/or the Chinese nation will have to chose its leader of the two (there will only be one civ!).

So, Civilizations will no longer exist as in the definiton of civ1-3: Culture groups that remained as one through the ages. But, they are now split into nations (or whatever you want to call it). I certainly love this new aspect, if it is either Solution ONE or TWO. :)

because of the massive call for civil wars during the reign of Civ3, I think that its likelly to be included in soem form.

my own thought is that if a nation enters a civl war it will first use a secondary leaderhead for its civlization if one is present; if not, it will look any possibilites within its culture group; if none are so present thier, then it will perhaps choose a "spare" leaderhead at random

Some civs have two leaders. Maybe you can have both leaders in the game at the same time.

I think its solution three. That took me by surprise also. I quickly concluded its for representation purposes only. What can I say: I'm a bit conservative, rather believe in what I think should be than in thruth. I'm only human.

Or it could be like Civ2 where you could choose the male or female leader...

nope; china has two male leader; a recent link to an article gave englage Victoria, and Liz (obviouslly, both girls, unless, a massive hsitorical consirpracy had gone on ;), and France has Louy and Nappy.

(Besides, for some nations, thier are no suitable female leaders; sure, a few interestign females, but no one in aan actual leadership situation of real importance, or in some cases, at all, unfortunatelly.

I think its solution three. That took me by surprise also. I quickly concluded its for representation purposes only. What can I say: I'm a bit conservative, rather believe in what I think should be than in thruth. I'm only human.

That's what I think as well. :)

I understand it that there are a variety of leaders by function (upwards of 5 now), and they can appear by some mechanism (not just Elite units winning combat, or researching a tech first). I'd bet the new civics, the new religious system, and the culture system will also have a mechanic for generating leaders.

Probably something like solution #3+

I'd like the ability to have multiple players as the same civ. Why not?

solution 2

I'm really hoping it's Solution 2.

I'm really hoping it's Solution 2.

I don't know. They'd probably be advertising this by now.

they could making it a last minute surprise? (working out the kinks of it now and holding back on releasing it just in case they cant work it out and have to remove it)

It probably can't be 2 because not every civ has two leaderheads, there'll be 18 civs and 28 leaders.

Maybe it means two eras in China.

Yeah, methinks that if civil war IS in the game, they will probably try and keep it from us until the very last minute. Lets face it, they can't reveal ALL of their new goodies in one hit, can they? That said, though, whether civil wars are in the game or not, I still think the Chinese leaders were cycled for 'illustrative' purposes.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

They can TOO reveal everything- it would only turn a wildfire of enthusiasm into... a bigger wildfire of enthusiasm.

You guys are overthinking this. Firaxis has already told us that there some civs are going to have two different leaders; from the video, it looks like China is one of them. So I don't see any reason why you couldn't have a game with both Chinese leaders in it at the same time. They'll both take different colors and that'll be that. What's so confusing about it? :)