How well has your country been represented in game?

AgressiveWimp said:

So one day I was thinking: do people from Mongolia who possibly play civ5 find insulting that their leader is always represented by a mass-murderer?

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Mongolians definitely don't think of him like that. Portrayals of Genghis tend to vary depending on geographical location; the Mongolians have a very positive view, the Chinese think quite highly of him (laid the foundations for their future unity), while the Westerners have a very mixed view, and the Middle East (particularly Persia) despise him with a passion.

Colin said:

While I'm not from Mongolia, I have lived there for a number of years. For Mongolians Genghis (Chinggis) Khan is the only possible choice. He is not seen here as a 'mass murderer' but as a great empire builder, innovator, and tolerant leader. He's really not more of a mass murderer than any other great 'expansive' historical leader like Alexander, Napoleon, etc. I think Mongolia is well represented by civ5.

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true! The view is completely the same for those roman emperors. While considered as great empire builder by europeans, romans were slaughter of asian nations, just as mongols were slaughter of european nations, but great empire builder of the plains people.
Note, Kubilai is another noteworthy name, but won't make a distinct difference.

These threads never end well.

I'm not Mongolian but I do believe they still see him as the founding father of Mongolia. This is from his Wikipedia article.

Beyond his military accomplishments, Genghis Khan also advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways. He decreed the adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empire's writing system. He also promoted religious tolerance in the Mongol Empire, and created a unified empire from the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. Present-day Mongolians regard him as the founding father of Mongolia.[8]

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I'm another American.

I think the UA represents the Louisiana Purchase, Seward's Folly etc. We got the land cheaper than it was worth because of the desperation of the French and lack of knowledge of Alaska's natural resources. The tile buying makes sense, not sure what the sight radius represents. In light of the expansions' mechanics I wouldn't mind a tourism bonus. That is where that "blue jeans and pop music" comes from.

The Minuteman is a nice change for America in the Civ series and the rough terrain movement is perfect for the guerilla tactics they used against a superior British army. The GAP promo is weird but I'll take it. I'm just happy to have something earlier in the game. America has always been stuck with really late UUs in the past.

The B17 is a good choice for an iconic American war machine even though I'd rather have almost anything else. Bombers are already really powerful and usually if you can spam bombers you're already probably winning so just having a stronger one seems kind of frivolous. I'm not a huge fan of late UUs usually, more often than not the game has been won or lost before I get there.

The wonders and natural wonders are all great choices imho.

Overall I think they did a good job representing us even if I find America sort of boring and a tad underpowered in game.

I don't see Genghis being portrayed as a bloody murderer in Civ 5. Warmongering civ =/= mass-murdering civ.

I lived long enough in both Russia and China to judge both civs in the game.

China: choosing Wu Zetian as the leader was driven by nothing else but Firaxis's attempt to add as many female leaders as possible to keep the gender equilibrium. She is seen as a controversial leader even in China, and she doesn't really have accomplishments that make her a great ruler. Both Qin Shihuang and Taizong are much better choices. And even if we accept the choice of Wu, her screen in this game is just wrong - I explained it in the leaderscreen elimination thread.
With that being said, I actually like the gameplay design of China. Some people claim that they don't see China as a military civ, but the reality is that China had A LOT of domestic warfare. Also, China's peaceful inventions are all over the place, so it's hard to make all of them work together. I`d rather have China as a warmonger with nice synergy between UA, UU and UB than have a melting pot with no synergy whatsoever.
Grade: A-

Russia: Choosing the proper leader to represent Russia is a delicate thing, and I think Catherine is the best compromise in this situation. Choosing Peter the Great would actually cause more stir because there are plenty of people in Russia who think he ruined Russia's unique path by forcing the European customs. Ivan the Terrible is "more Russian", but he has his own controversies, and by choosing him we would have a huge discrepancy between the leader and the country's cultural golden age. And please, stay away from Stalin.
Gameplay-wise I find tundra bias a silly stereotype - none of Russia's early major cities are located in this climate zone. Siberian Riches is okay, but could really give some gold bonuses for Fur, thus mitigating one of the problems of Russia now: lots of strategic resources, but can't use all of them because of maintenance costs (no, you don't trade strategic resources without thinking twice). UA and UB are well chosen but kinda boring. Giving Krepost a slightly increased GWAM generation would be nice.
Grade: B

From a Eurocentric point of view Australia is a dumping ground for the British that got its independence when the British were tired of being the world's bad guys and started giving everyone their independence.

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Whoa whoa whoa, that happened after world war 1 and 2. Australia gained its independence in 1901 and was functionally largely independent for a long time prior to that. It had nothing to do with Britain wanting to not be the bad guy anymore, because Australia has never considered Britain to be a bad guy EVER in their treatment of Australia.

Dralix said:

These threads never end well.

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it doesn't have to, still its educative. Just treat it as watching a campus debate match.

Sagax said:

I don't see Genghis being portrayed as a bloody murderer in Civ 5. Warmongering civ =/= mass-murdering civ.

I lived long enough in both Russia and China to judge both civs in the game.

China: choosing Wu Zetian as the leader was driven by nothing else but Firaxis's attempt to add as many female leaders as possible to keep the gender equilibrium. She is seen as a controversial leader even in China, and she doesn't really have accomplishments that make her a great ruler. Both Qin Shihuang and Taizong are much better choices. And even if we accept the choice of Wu, her screen in this game is just wrong - I explained it in the leaderscreen elimination thread.
With that being said, I actually like the gameplay design of China. Some people claim that they don't see China as a military civ, but the reality is that China had A LOT of domestic warfare. Also, China's peaceful inventions are all over the place, so it's hard to make all of them work together. I`d rather have China as a warmonger with nice synergy between UA, UU and UB than have a melting pot with no synergy whatsoever.
Grade: A-

Russia: Choosing the proper leader to represent Russia is a delicate thing, and I think Catherine is the best compromise in this situation. Choosing Peter the Great would actually cause more stir because there are plenty of people in Russia who think he ruined Russia's unique path by forcing the European customs. Ivan the Terrible is "more Russian", but he has his own controversies, and by choosing him we would have a huge discrepancy between the leader and the country's cultural golden age. And please, stay away from Stalin.
Gameplay-wise I find tundra bias a silly stereotype - none of Russia's early major cities are located in this climate zone. Siberian Riches is okay, but could really give some gold bonuses for Fur, thus mitigating one of the problems of Russia now: lots of strategic resources, but can't use all of them because of maintenance costs (no, you don't trade strategic resources without thinking twice). UA and UB are well chosen but kinda boring. Giving Krepost a slightly increased GWAM generation would be nice.
Grade: B

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I agree with both the paper maker and ckn are good representation of China. Although historically the ckn isnt a very effective weapon in practice, it does reflect the China's heavy usage of archery and innovations in weapons design.

The UA is ok but definitely not what China is known for. Despite the heavy internal conflicts, Chinese generals were hardly talked about outside of China (although I am not saying that they are of poor quality). Granted, the Sun Tze art of war is a famous Chinese book but it has been used in politics more often than the battlefield. In Chinese philosophy, war is an extension of politics, and war is not a glorious thing, more like last resort. I do not see China as a military civ, even Wu says something about persuing peace and prosperity in the leaderscreen. Chinese military has always been used for domestic consolidation and establishing unity, not for the subjugation of other people, unlike the Romans or the British.

Here we go, Dutch review

The sea beggar: Pretty awesome pick, actually. They were very important in the war against Spain, just like our leader. The two coastal raider promotions prove to be very handy for me.

William of Orange: They didn't have much choice. We call him, de vader des vaderland, the father of the homeland. There were not that much other leaders who they could pick, I love it

Polder: The unit and the leader were perfect, but I'm disappointed. I mean, sure, you can use it on marsh and flood plains, but there were much better picks.

Dutch East India company: The name is so promising, and I must say, I wasn't disappointed. The ability is alright

All in all, the Dutch are portrayed pretty accurate

Mexican here, and seeing as Mexico is not in civ, I think I'll give it a go for both Aztecs and Mayans.

Aztecs I think they are one of the few vanilla civs that has a very elegant flavourful UA, it fits the theme perfectly, the Jaguars are well represented. The UB floating gardens (chinampas) actually was a surprise, it shows that Firaxis did some research, the chinampa system was fundamental in making Tenochtitlan the massive city it was.

As for things not so good...the city list, its not that hard to find a list of provinces and cities conquered by the Aztecs, there absolutely no reason to include Teotihuacan and Tlaxcala on the list. Also the leaderscreen.. I sincerely hope Civ 6 is the one when Firaxis finally makes a Monty that actually looks like the real thing and not a down town folkloric dancer that watched too much Apocalypto.

Maya: Theres plenty of good stuff, like their particular wide faith/science playstyle, it does fit the classical Maya. The inclusion of the calendar on the UA, and the UB are both very flavourful and spot on, Pacal as a leader is also nice. the Atlatl, however isnt particualry "Mayan", the Atlatl is the javelin thrower they used, and it was used all over mesoamerica, it would be like naming a UU "bow and arrow" they could certainly find a more fitting UU. Also there's the problem of adding mayan cities by their Spanish names, staring with, Palenque, it does break inmmersion a bit.

Overall both mesoamericans are good enough, in some respects they are spot on, and show previous research, in others they fall flat, like the obvious Apocalypto inspiration, and anyone who is interested in mesoamerican cultures knows Apocalypto should not be used as a source.

So they both get a : Meh, they did okay

Seeing as I live in former Celtic territories, I suppose I get to do them!

Leader: You have got to be kidding me. Sure, Bouddica's famous, but there is no link to her within the rest of the civ.

Ability: Not the worst representation, and I couldn't think of a better one, but I probably read too much Asterix and Obelix to take this seriously.

Building: It doesn't apply to all of Celtic culture, but it does compliment it well.

Unit: The Picts were Celts, but they still don't do a good job of covering the unit.

Overview: The leader should be someone more appropriate, the ability does admittedly cover them quite well, the building's alright, and the unit should be something from a different territory.

I don't have any alternatives, other than perhaps some link to the spread of Christianity from Ireland, but there's my view on the representation.

Merciorum said:

For England:

UA: Reasonable, I suppose. Our naval might was the key defining factor in our power-base. Might have been nice to be a little less conquest-heavy.
UU1: Accurate. Vital to our military stratagems in the later Middle Ages.
UU2: Not exclusive to England, but as a unit, it does a good job in establish 18th-century British naval dominance.

So I voted for "pretty good".

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Ditto.

I don't know what to say. My country is a city apparently - and only since the latest patch.

Viregel said:

Leader: You have got to be kidding me. Sure, Bouddica's famous, but there is no link to her within the rest of the civ.

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I'd like to see Vercingetorix sometime. His rebellion against Rome makes Boudicca's look like a minor skirmish. It does seem like whenever the Celts are depicted they always focus on the "British" ones (not sure what else to call them) and Gaul doesn't get the same representation.

Vitruvius said:

Chinese military has always been used for domestic consolidation .

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This perspective is prevalent around here, but it's really not correct, in my opinion. China is, essentially, Asia's Roman Empire (except it didn't die). In reality, it wasn't "unified", it was simply conquered. The first China was just a kingdom that conquered other kingdoms in the area, in a manner not at all different from how the Roman Empire "unified" Europe. We now see China as one, homogenous blob, but it wasn't always like this (nor did it have a consistent shape on the map through history...).

Also, Chinese history is wall to wall violence and war, pretty much like the history of any place on Earth. Most great dynasty creators started out as generals or rebel leaders. It has been in no way a peaceful area of the world.

Pretty happy with Sweden, we dodged the viking stereotype (suck it, Denmark) and instead the focus was on the Swedish Empire.

direblade99 said:

I don't understand how they have the huns and the zulus as a civ yet not Australia, which for a short lived country has a very diverse culture and extensive history of interaction between different groups both internally and externally.

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Apart from Australia being a big market there is no reason to include them into the game, in my mind its just a hotter version of England.

I'm not in the empire atm, but my ancestors were...in 4 possibly 5 empires from the game. Austria is spot on, Rome and Byzantine as well, Otomans are the only empire that doesn't feel right, their naval UU just seems wrong.

The QC said:

This perspective is prevalent around here, but it's really not correct, in my opinion. China is, essentially, Asia's Roman Empire (except it didn't die). In reality, it wasn't "unified", it was simply conquered. The first China was just a kingdom that conquered other kingdoms in the area, in a manner not at all different from how the Roman Empire "unified" Europe. We now see China as one, homogenous blob, but it wasn't always like this (nor did it have a consistent shape on the map through history...).

Also, Chinese history is wall to wall violence and war, pretty much like the history of any place on Earth. Most great dynasty creators started out as generals or rebel leaders. It has been in no way a peaceful area of the world.

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The reason behind Roman conquest and Chinese conquest is different. Roman conquers territory and people that they think are Barbarians or belongs to a different world/culture and they attempt to Romanize them all. Chinese conquers people and territory to fullfil the mandate of heaven, that all people in that territory belongs to the son of heaven (the emperor) and its his duty to rule over them. Thats why the Chinese never bothered much about colonizing Barbarian tribes. The mandate of heaven was established in early Zhou dynasty and there was already a singular overarching ruler the son of heaven. The son of heaven rules over the land divided among the different states and they fight wars mostly for bragging rights and influence. It was until the warring states that state leaders began to have ambitions of becoming that son of heaven themselves. However the idea and philosophy of the mandate of heaven remains all the way until 1911. Most of the wars prior are really just ambitious people trying to become the son of heaven themselves with exception of several invasions from northern tribes. I agree with you that there were plenty of violence but I don't think violence is what Chinese rulers desire, it was only means to consolidate their power amongst people they consider their own. Unlike many Western imperialists who wants to rule over people they consider as foreign.

I'm a Silesian but since Silesia is a part of Poland now...

Winged hussars
It's a woeful historical inaccuracy. Polish hussars were an elite heavy cavalry unit with superior tactics, morale and pretty much everything else imaginable at their time. They are definitely the unit of choice for Civ games. The problem is that the unit portrayed in the game never existed.
Hussars were recruited from the richest noblemen who were able to support their mounts, training and equipment. All of them decorated their armors in a lavish fashion but they did it the way they see fit. Some used wings but wings were not a part of their armors! This common mistake was born in the XIXth century when a museum decided to make such wings and attach them to hussar's armor in order to give an example of how they might looked like in combat. Later, its picture was distributed as an example of an average hussar and made it to all history books kids get at schools. The museum got the idea from a honor unit created after the old hussars were decommissioned. They used to parade with such wings but polish hussars never rushed into battle with such wings and all the tales about terrifying noise of wings are nothing more than fairy tales.

Ducal stables
It's a great UB. Works really nice with in BNW. It's also well paired with Winged Hussars. Yes, there is a BUT coming.
Polish military for centuries consisted of large quantities of cavalry as most easter European armies did. It was the only reasonable choice in vast flatlands. The thing is that Poland doesn't have any strong equine tradition. Horses were never especially revered and do not have any special place in polish culture. I'd rather go with something granary-like or happiness-producing temples. Polish religious fanaticism was born in the XX century. Until then it was a very open-minded, multicultural society of many religions. It would be hard to name a particular building, though, so I cannot really complain about Ducal Stables.

Solidarity
Yeah... This one is... Um...
In sociological terms, Poland is an extremely underdeveloped country. Xenophoby and homophoby are not only widely accepted in Poland but views to the contrary are often met with open hostility, blatant verbal attacks, even with violence of late. It's also said, mostly by Poles themselves, that they prefer harm to their neighbor over their own gain.
There is no "solidarity" whatsoever in this country but there was "Solidarity"
Solidarity is a reference to labor union-national movement of the same name, and to Carnival of Solidarity: 2 years of pro-democratic actions ended by martial law introduced in December 1981. Carnival of Solidarity was the first rock that started the avalanche of democracy in Central/Eastern Europe. Why does it offer a free social policy? Don't ask me.
The whole idea of bonus social policies is quite nice because the 1st Rzeczpospolita (Polish 1st Republic) was a very liberal and progressive country, an exact opposite of modern Poland. The same could be said about the 2nd Rzeczpospolita (1918-1939).

Kazimierz III the Great(who's that f-ing casimir?!)
He's a good choice. The best possible, imo. He's got a silly voice, though, and doesn't say kurwa even once. I wish he had some better lair. It's ok but I find it somewhat lacking.


All in all, representation of Poland is very pleasing. Can't blame Firaxis for repeating the fairy tale about Winged Hussars, Ducal Stables are fantastic game-wise and Kazimierz III is the perfect choice. Solidarity is still the trademark of Poland and its leader, Lech Wałęsa, is among the greatest people of the XXth century. There are some historical inaccuracies but hey, it's a game, not a history book!

My grade: A-


PS.
Is Australia the new Poland after BNW?

For France :

Leader : Napoleon would have been my choice as well. I see him much more as an exceptional statesman who briefly managed to make France whole again after the chaos of the Revolution and as a founder of many of our civil institutions, than as a warmonger (his conquest of Europe was actually his biggest mistake I think), but he would also have been my choice regardless. Louis XIV, Philippe Auguste and even Charles de Gaulle would also have been fine, as long as we don't get stupid Jeanne d'Arc (not a political leader, very low actual impact).

UA : I like the current one more than the previous one, though that was fine as well. Makes sense to have France going for cultural victory, since that's pretty much what we achieved in the 17th century at the height of our power. That's something that's missing from America btw, since the late 20th century is also pretty much a CV for America.

UU: Sure, the musketeers are very well known abroad thanks to Alexandre Dumas, so that makes sense.

UI: Love that. The tie to luxury resources, the bonus after Flight, it's pretty perfect I have to say. It should probably come a little later in the tech tree though (the châteaux represented here are more from the Renaissance than the medieval era).