But, bottom line, I don't think civs should be thought of as "just being there to be PC." That's like the token [race here] person in [that movie here]. Nobody should be thinking in those terms, it just implies inferiority.
PC as a concept is "distinctly insulting" for these very reasons, but the sad fact is that is why certain groups get put in these games. You could wax lyrical about, say, Nichelle Nichols' skills as an actress, but at the end of the day it's well-known she was added to the Star Trek cast because of her colour, not her ability.
Same in the case of many of the "PC" civs: certainly the Iroquois were an interesting experiment in communal tribal governance in their own right, but they're not in Civ because of their accomplishments as a civilisation, they're in Civ because Civ players want 'Injuns' and most Americans are at least broadly familiar with The Last of the Mohicans.
It's just almost the same, like Khmer (Cambodia) and Siam (Thailand). I guess this is one of the main reason why Khmer and Mali aren't included (for now at least).
Mali and Songhai share key cities in their list, which wouldn't be an issue with Siam/Khmer. I'd like to be able to say Siam was included for variety and to expose Civ IV players to a new culture, but given the cynicism expressed by the designers in their choice of Brazil and Indonesia (big gaming markets), and the fact that Thailand is the leading video game market in SE Asia, I suspect Siam is in because the Thais buy more computer games than the Cambodians.
1) Everybody would consider Byzantium European. They were culturally Greek and their main land holdings were in the Balkans.
Brazil's culturally European (you can point out that it's "close to Latin American" countries in a way, say, America is not - but since every Latin American country is of European origin this is immaterial). Byzantium's territorial extent is almost identical to that of the Ottomans - if we're treating the Ottomans as a European civ as well, that gives us two more medieval European civs.
2) When do you consider late-game? Are you going by renaissance era as late game? Because that's where most European civs tend to settle, and that's not late game. If going by industrial and later, you are not counting many european civs. However, if just going by pre-renaissance, you are forgetting the Celts and Germans (UA, UU early game focus). So that's 7 pre-renaissance European civs right there. That's not too bad.
Era by itself is fairly coarse; it's true that most European civs are Renaissance, but these are mostly late Renaissance (lots of Lancer replacements, Caroleans replacing Riflemen etc.) I had, indeed, forgotten the Celts (deservedly so, in my view) - you're right that I neglected Germany (also, technically, France, who now have only a medieval UU, however they don't have an early-game playstyle).
3) Huns aren't medieval in focus.
Okay, another I missed - I'm tending to think of Asia in this context as India eastwards.
So that's 4 Asian civs focused in medieval (China, Japan, Mongolia, Indonesia, maybe Siam but they have a university UB).
Education is medieval tech, albeit late. This time you missed a civ: Korea.
To be fair with Japan, even in WW2 they retained those traditions from the medieval era. That might be a fair amount, but those were very famous times for these civilizations, so it's understandable.
Japan is understandable. India's a bit of a mess - it could be understood if it was a Mughal-era focused civ, but it isn't, and the ancient Indus Valley civ isn't a particularly famous time in India's history (or one particularly associated with war elephants). China could also quite readily be a modern civ. India is the one with the most obvious UU choice in the Ghorka (granted, Ghurkas are better-known as Nepalese, and are not particularly famous as an Indian unit even though Indian Ghorkas exist, but it's at least as good a fit as Maori Warriors for Polynesia).
Isn't Thailand pretty much the modern incarnation of the Siamese Empire?
While it is, the "Siamese empire" in the game does not represent the Siamese empire of reality, but a prior kingdom - Sukothai - which was ultimately conquered and annexed by the later Siamese state.
The East Asian building graphics for the Southeast Asian civs makes no sense at all. Polynesia's graphics for them would be much more suitable
A South/Southeast Asian building style that could also be applied to Polynesia would make more sense than the reverse, since the Polynesians don't have a native stone architecture and the base game already contained two civs - India and Siam - that could use the style.
When you say "can you think of one Asian country that is currently successful" etc., presumably you mean "that's not already represented in the game"? Because every Asian country in the game (perhaps with the exception of Thailand) fits the bill. Japan and Korea (and Vietnam) in particular are countries that have been most "successful" in modern times.
Malaysia is a rather obvious one: it was one of the leading 'tiger economies' of the 1990s and Kuala Lumpur remains one of the world's major financial centres and transport hubs even if - like (then less successful) Thailand - it's of less regional importance today.
