New DLC: Polynesia

Cool, got to love a civ that stands out from the other bland ones

Well said, the fact its causes this amount of debate leads me to looking forward to knocking Washington / Cartherine into second place with my well aimed Polynesian nuke (while drunk of course). That is what a game is all about.
 
Well said, the fact its causes this amount of debate leads me to looking forward to knocking Washington / Cartherine into second place with my well aimed Polynesian nuke (while drunk of course). That is what a game is all about.

Umm...I have never seen Washington be in first place in this game. The American civ is kind of lame, IMO. But I get your point.
 
However I will say to one of the above posters that Inca is not a fail civ, they had quite a respectable empire in their day. They were simply behind Europe.

The Inca build monuments like puma punku before rome was build.
 
I'm talking about their contributions... Egypt, and England+France for that matter have minimal power today, but contributions the Egyptians and English and French made were the basis for other developments in later cultures..

Ie America is a major power today, and has made many achievements, but those achievements weren't from scratch. American achievements are based on acheivements previously.. ie Americans did not develop writing, the Sumerians did*

*note: the Aztecs also had writing, but Aztec writing didn't contribute to any other significant developments in other civilizations before the Aztecs were wiped out.
*Chinese writing may not have contributed to American writing... but it led to other things in China that Were contributed to America, ususally indirectly (gunpowder)

The point is that most civilizations have achievements... but not all achievements are lasting contributions... we don't use cuneiform currently, but it was a vital step in the development of what we DO use currently. (not saying it had to be cuneiform, but there had to be some initial system and cuneiform is what it happened to be)

If the Polynesian navigational techniques had been spread around the world before other peoples developed better techniques on their own, then they would be remembered as the civilization who brought seafaring to the world... (they didn't and they are not).

Instead the Europeans "brought" seafaring "to the world" (even though China had better seafaring at that point.. I'm not sure if any Chinese naval technology leaked to Europe... although it probably did somewhat like gunpowder)

Areas that were isolated from Europe (which ended up dominating the world and making the world a lot of what it was) didn't have the chance to either borrow from them or lend to them (like Asia and north Africa did). And they also didn't make significant speed bumps on the path... (like some civilizations in Asia and north Africa did)

And as such the modern world sees primarily the contributions/effects that came through Europe. (civs like China may have contributed a lot more, and are making their own New contributions now, but even they were significantly reshaped by european effects... but less so than many others). All civs have Some effects left over (the cultural effects on Mexico from the Aztecs) assuming the civ didn't go extinct without other peoples knowing about it. But those effects are usually only local, and are often overshadowed by other effects.

So most civs outside of Eurasia can be excluded for Significant historical impact (assuming one is talking about Historical impact on the present day... which is about the best way to tell if it is truly a lasting impact)

However, geographic representation and variety is important for making a fun game. (since it is not a history simulator)

Your tacit assumption is that civs are important insofar as they shaped the modern West.

That's one perspective on history, but by no means the only one. Polynesian culture remains the dominant cultural influence over an enormous portion of the earth's surface. It was important, and it was significant. It just wasn't important to or significant for Europe and America, so you discount it.
 
So once again the patch is nothing more than a clever marketing device to sell DLC.

I am not sure where you get that conclusion. You are not required to download the DLC in order get the patch. They are being released at the same time to draw interest but that doesn't mean the patch is useless by itself.
 
Not exactly accurate; they weren't Incas, and it wasn't in the BCs.

Ok the Tiwanaku culture built it(haha like lego, and well bc), but the incas used and modified them.
 
How about the contribution of population that makes the pacific not barren and devoid of humans? Outriggers were a great invention. Granted, Europeans didn't learn about them until they developed better techniques, but it would have revolutionized sea travel centuries earlier. And we do use them in certain situations today, so it's not irrelevant.

I think that's an unusually narrow view to take on which civs are deserving. It either cherry picks one contribution or it focuses on things like colonialism. What, for example did the English directly contribute that's not analogous to the Austronesian expansion? Don't say they spread their population and culture around the globe - that's what the Polynesians did 7,000 years earlier.

"Would have" is the key term... separating achievements from contributions... Everyone learned about european navigation.. from the europeans that spread their culture and population around the Whole globe not a measly 1/3 of it (Pacific Ocean =/= Whole globe)

And that is the point, every culture on earth is impacted by that colonialism. Areas where the Natives had made achievements were often surpassed by the Europeans (at least at some point... Asia was ahead for quite a while.. and then it caught up again after it fell behind)

If the Aztecs had developed gunpowder the Chinese would still be the ones that introduced it to most of the world..through ->Arabia->Europe (unless the Aztecs had spread it to the rest of the Americas, which would have been significant, since that was pretty close to European tech at contact time.. or if they had used it to hold off the Colonizers for a significant amount of time.)

You don't have to have "a Western civ" you have to have a civ that impacts other civs. The Aztec affected the Spanish far less than the reverse. And far less than the Aztecs and Mayans both impacted each other. But their impacts were overwhelmed (not completely eliminated but overwhelmed) by the impacts of the Spanish.

Various European Civs and China aren't the same, the flow in 1800-1950 was probably more from Europe than China, but there wasn't the overwheming that there was in other cases.


It Should be included.. but for geographic/interesing reasons rather than "impact"
 
To those that claim Polynesia is unimportant or not important enough for this "early" inclusion in Civ V I offer a few thoughts:

  1. No Oceanic culture has ever been included as a regular, non-scenario civilization in the entire history of this game. This despite the fact that New Guinea alone contained more spoken languages than all of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East at the time of initial European contact.
  2. Polynesian civilizations have achieved some of the highest population densities of their times, despite (in many cases) extremely limited arable land area and irregular supplies of fresh water.
  3. The Polynesian mother culture was the first civilization to have been proven to have crossed open seas with no land in sight. And they did it in canoes.
  4. According to Tongan legend and some (disputed) archaeological evidence, the Tongans once held a maritime tributary empire stretching from Samoa to Niue. The Hawai'ians also held an extensive multi-pelagic kingdom that later became the US state of Hawai'i.

I, for one, am very excited to see this admission into the game for several reasons. Western culture, though globally dominant for the last few centuries, has been a blip in terms of the sum total of human civilization. It remains to be seen whether "new" nations like America and Germany will outlast the thousand-year histories of many Polynesian nations. Polynesia's availability as a playable CiV also serves as further representation of advanced aboriginal cultures whose people and practices have survived Westernization and still exist in some form today.

On top of that, it looks to be another fun naval civ, which is great news for aspiring maritime imperialists like myself.
 
Your tacit assumption is that civs are important insofar as they shaped the modern West.

That's one perspective on history, but by no means the only one. Polynesian culture remains the dominant cultural influence over an enormous portion of the earth's surface. It was important, and it was significant. It just wasn't important to or significant for Europe and America, so you discount it.

Yes, there were about 800,000 of them scattered over many islands in the Pacific. As a historian you can never discount a group or groups of people because you think they are inferior. These people had there part to play in the world. They also had breadfruit, which they should add to the game. Breadfruit as we know was a staple source of food that could be transplanted in the like climate of the West Indies for the purpose of feeding slaves. This of course was a good idea at the time but a failure because the slaves refused to eat breadfruit. So the British Empire with their infinite power, their huge fleet, and their long arm, actually found a purpose for something the Polynesians had. This insignificant conglomeration of tribes certainly was not useless. Besides what is interesting about exploration, of course, the wonders you meet along the way. New and interesting people, wildlife, agriculture (etc.), and the possibilities of how you can use these things to benefit you own civilization.

So, I agree that these people were important. "Although they lived in a "Stone Age," the Polynesians learned to make good use of all the things at hand and showed skill in the making of houses and clothing and in the cultivation of fields; in their art, government, and religious ideas they reached a high stage of development."
 
And that is the point, every culture on earth is impacted by that colonialism. Areas where the Natives had made achievements were often surpassed by the Europeans (at least at some point... Asia was ahead for quite a while.. and then it caught up again after it fell behind)
Hold on...
Mayan Codex?
Yep, colonization of the New World had impacts.
Even religious beliefs were somehow protected from scientific knowledge beyond what the Europeans brought across an Ocean.
Flight, anyone?
There is evidence, hidden.
 
Interesting to see so much debate about whether they should be included as a Civ. I find their inclusion to be awesome! The first game post patch that I'll play is going to be with them, I think.
 
...i'm confused...if there was a concept for the "post production" of Civ5, then it's now probably gone.

What would have been logical as DLC concept?

Concept 1:
- Release every Civ, which most people would consider "important", as DLC, like the Incas and Spain, or which most other people would guess in the first place as candidates, Vikings, Mayas, Zulus, Portugal, Korea, etc.
Make afterwards an Addon/bundle out of this stuff.

Concept 2:
- Relase every Civ, which are for most people not that important, but which many people want, probably some "underdogs" also, like Polynesia, Poland, Australia, Brazil, Southern Africa, Austria/Hungary, etc., and make a separate addon with the Civs mentioned in concept 1.


So...what now? Did the dog eat the design document, did someone burn it or did anyone use it as toilet paper? What happened? Is there a concept? Or are they rolling dices?
 
it's a crap shoot J, pot luck, grab bag, mystery meat etc. LOL
 
Well I think that everyone can agree that Civ games have a very loose and broadly applied definition of what constitutes a 'civilization'.

Polynesia outclasses a lot of other Civs from the game in many areas that we would look at to see if they merit inclusion. Such as longevity (thousands of years as an identifiable culture), technological achievement (vast early voyaging and astronomy), population (just the sheer number of people who have ever lived that would identify themselves as 'polynesian' as we define it would hugely outweigh many other Civs that have been included such as Carthage and Zulu).

So in light of these facts it's totally appropriate that Polynesia be included as a civ. I'm looking forward to smashing those wimpy spearmen with my taiaha!
 
2K Games have announced that they will be releasing new Civilization 5 DLC this Thursday. The Polynesia pack will add the Polynesian civilisation and new research trees that can be used to unlock new cultural wonders like the Moai stone heads of Easter Island, and military units like the Maori Warriors. There will also be a new scenario called Paradise Found in which you must take charge of one of four tribes and fight for supremacy in Polynesia.

Does this mean new techs, or poor wording?
 
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