Guess the New Civs

[Androrc the Orc]

The Israelite kingdom has little to nothing in common with the state of Israel currently. What you're suggesting is to put that plot of land in the game, and just incorporate all the people that so happened to live there. (Or I guess just incorporate the kingdom, ignore what happened for the next several thousand years, then pick up in 1948).

The latter is exactly my suggestion. Saying that there is "little to nothing" in common between the two is false: they have the same state religion, both have Hebrew as the official language, etc.

The modern state of Israel clearly in many ways continues the ancient kingdom; it was formed by the people from that kingdom who had a diaspora, after all, and kept having a distinct culture despite having migrated to other countries.

 

[Swerv]

I fail to see how that makes Isreal ineligible to be a civ. So they do some nasty things to people living within their bounds. Many, if not all the civs in the game have been guilty of countless crimes against a myriad of victims. Our fine shining example of enlightenment, the USA, cleansed the frontiers of inconvenient Native Americans and had Africans systematically imported and enslaved for half of its duration on the planet.

None of your reasons speak to why Isreal shouldn't be included. A reason should be something to the effect of: a lack of cohesive culture, lack of regional/global influence, or a lack of long-term impact. The last one is the only one that might apply. Modern Isreal has only been in place for 3 generations. The jury is still out on how long they will really last.

You make a valid point; all or most civs in the game, and indeed all modern nation-states were founded with a lot of violence and bloodshed, and were likely built on slave labor. However, I did not intend to make my comment a critique of nationalism or the current global system. And while the USA is similarly a modern state founded on war and mass expulsion, there can be no question about the might of its empire or the global reach of its culture. To not include the Americans in a game of empire and global domination would be a striking omission. Israel is not an empire. And, in my opinion, it is nothing more than a client of the United States.

I am a bit puzzled by the rest of your post. I probably should've been more clear, but what I was trying to say is that Israel was founded relatively recently by Ashkenazi (European Jewish) colonists from Poland, Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, etc. In fact, the Mizrahi Jews who emigrated to Israel from parts of the Middle East and North Africa have much more in common, culturally-speaking, with the native Arab population than they do with their Ashkenazi Jewish counterparts. More recently, Israel has allowed (and even subsidized) an influx of Ethiopian Jewish, as well as Russian (Jewish and non-Jewish) immigrants to offset the growing Arab population. So no, there is no cohesive culture to speak of.

Israel certainly has had a regional/global impact in its brief history, and it has been a very negative one, launching countless wars and setting off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The only reason I can think that people would want such a new (arguably self-destructive) state included in a game alongside historic civilizations and once-great empires is that they might be proud of it. Well, I am here to remind you that Israel is nothing to be proud of, yet.

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[turingmachine]

The latter is exactly my suggestion. Saying that there is "little to nothing" in common between the two is false: they have the same state religion, both have Hebrew as the official language, etc.

The modern state of Israel clearly in many ways continues the ancient kingdom; it was formed by the people from that kingdom who had a diaspora, after all, and kept having a distinct culture despite having migrated to other countries.

Except it doesn't.

It's one thing to say there exists a continuation of Judaism between the two, but modern Rabbinic Judaism, not to mention various Orthodox and mystical variations like Hasidism and Kabbalah, are so vastly different from the Temple Judaism that would have been practiced in the Kingdom of Israel that if you put the two side by side they'd be practically unrecognizable as the same religion.

This is also true in regards to the Hebrew Language, as Classical Hebrew was significantly modified in the middle ages due to the the incorporation of Arabic grammar forms and then later with the modern Hebrew revival with the influence of Ladino, Yiddish, and a ton of distinct languages.

Even the continuity of the culture is questionable, due to the huge influence of the Arab world on the Sephardic diaspora, and the European-German influence on the Ashkenazi diaspora, among others.

The continuity that does exist is the concept of the identity of "Jewish". A cultural identity, no matter how unique and interesting, is not a civilization unto itself. The Jewish cultural identity forms a part of the identity, history, and uniqueness of a lot of different civilizations. Modern Israel is a reconstruction of this identity not a continuity from an old one.

 

[evanschrader]

I think that an unlikely but very interesting possibility is the Taino civilization of the Caribbean, since there have never been a civ from the Caribbean

 

[evanschrader]

Possibilities:
North America/Apache or (wild card) Canada
Central America/Caribbean/Taino?
South America/I like the idea of Chachapoya and or Brazil
Europe: Hun, Poland, Austria, hopefully Scotland w/ william wallace and highlanders
Africa: Moors, Zulu, Ethiopia/Kongo
Middle East: Israel/Hebrews
Asia: Tibet or indonesia

Top 4:
1.poland w/ medival scenario
2.israel w/ religion feature
3.hun w/ fall of rome
4. African civ or se asia

 

[Androrc the Orc]

I think that an unlikely but very interesting possibility is the Taino civilization of the Caribbean, since there have never been a civ from the Caribbean

If they were to implement it I think it would be more likely they would be represented as "Arawaks" instead, since that's how they were represented in Colonization and in Civ4Col.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Well, I tried to give the Pro-Portugal fanbase a little bit of hope, but I see what you're saying. I know next to nothing about developing video games, so I was pretty much in over my head to begin with. I just thought it could be a case of "one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing" and that whoever decided to hypothetically add Portugal as a new civ didn't know that the decision was made to add Lisbon as a CS (or vice versa).

I considered it. There's a screenshot of the original game with a natural wonder that didn't make it. However, they also carefully select these screenshots to reveal new information. If they didn't want to reveal Lisbon as a City-State, I think they would have made a map that just used old CS.

I'd hate to burst a lot of bubbles, but the Moors are not a civilization. They aren't even a distinct people. "Moor" is a term that medieval Europeans used to describe the Muslim Arabs, Berbers, and West Africans of Al-Andalus (the term given to Iberia by it's Arab/Muslim conquerors in 711CE). You could argue that later Berber dynasties such as the Almoravids or the Almohads were culturally and ethnically distinct, and this is who you are referring to when you say "Moors," but you'd be wrong.

When I use Moors, I usually use it in the sense of popular terminology. Technically, the Iroquois are the Haudenosaunee. They were called the Iroquois by their enemies, but the name stuck. I usually literally write "Moors (Almoravids)" for clarification. One is the popular name, the other is the actual name. I'd be happy if they're called the Almoravids, but having another Muslim Kingdom on the Mediterranean coast is an uphill battle to begin with, I want to at least have people go "ah, I heard of them."

EDIT: All this is a bit moot. As is this Israel discussion. There's a "Suggest New Civs" thread in the suggestions forum. This was supposed to be about guessing the actually included civs. We know Israel and the Almoravids are not being included because they are City-States. So there's no need to bring in a quasi-historical, quasi-political fight over Israel.

 

[j51]

Hopefully with the new wave of excavation of some of these Chachapoyan sites, the "People of the Clouds" will become better known to the public.

Yeah, they look fascinating. I'll have to find some books articles on them.

Excellent!

Could you please not quote huge stacks of images.

 

[MadDjinn]

Could you please not quote huge stacks of images.

more appropriately, please use spoiler tags for large images.

 

[WilliamKendall]

Europe: 6 (+2 in DLC; +3 in G&K) (*Counting the Byzantines in)
Asia: 4 (+ 2 in DLC)
Middle-East: 3 (+1 in DLC) (*Counting Persia in)
Northern Africa: 2 (+1 in G&K) (*Counting Songhai in)
North America: 2
Mesoamerica: 1 (+1 in G&K)
Oceania: 0 (+1 in DLC)
South America: 0 (+1 in DLC)
Sub-Saharan Africa: 0

Thank you for this tally. Its an interesting way to demonstrate geographical holes in the distrubution of the game's civilizations. It might also be interesting to assemble a tally where the civilizations are roughly sorted by the era in which they existed.

 

[Megashadow41]

Isnt songhai part of sub-saharra africa?

 

[Louis XXIV]

In technical terms, yes. However, I assume he means Black Africa or the Africa that was part of the Bantu migrations. In that case, it isn't.

 

[mitsho]

I guess he put it into Northern Africa because they are Muslim and they may use "middle eastern" skins due to them living in the sahel, and not the jungle. But it is clearly wrong as both Islam and Christianity are really big in Sub-saharan Africa. Also, they are geographically clearly south of the Sahara.

 

[Liex]

Isnt songhai part of sub-saharra africa?

That is why I made it explicit where I was counting them; it’s an arguably classification, indeed. I could have counted them as a Sub-Saharan civ, but then even more people would point out that it wasn't a good classification - albeit it technically is.

Considering “Sub-Saharan Africa: 1”, I still think my previous point is valid: Sub-Saharan Africa is currently the least represented region.

 

[athas65]

my guesses:

- In Europe I don't think there is much need for another civ, but wouldn't mind if they add Portugal (even through Lisbon is probably a city-state)
- I would like a Sioux civ, as an horse-focused civ.
- I'm not a big fan of African civs, but won't mind Zulu or Ethiopian civs.
- Any civ will be welcome and help making the game even more interesting

BTW, about the discussion about Israel civilization- as an Israeli myself, I have to say some of you were a bit offending. I agree we doesn't have enough history to be a civ in the game (hundred years as a kingdom, then be divided into 2 kingdoms after a civil war, one conquered by Assyria then both by Babylon, Persia and than Greece (Alexander, The Ptolemaic Kingdom and then The Seleucid Empire) won independence for 100 years only to be conquered by the Romans at 37 BC, and in the end win independence 70 years ago), but to be honest, most of the civs weren't a major power from the moment they were founded. America needed 200 years to win independence and another 150 years to become a major power (after WW1), Britannia was (and still partly is) most of its time busy fighting itself (Romans vs Celts, Celts vs Germans) and different invaders such as the Vikings and French (Normans).
My biggest problem is your generalization, not all Israelis hate Arabs (through you'll be surprised how many Arabs who live in Israel want to kick us out, but again not all). We live under a threat of terrorism, and most of our wars at least started as defensive wars before moved to the territory of the attacker (the rising conflict with Iran may change this).
So in the end, maybe for now Israel is not a civ (but definitely not a tyrannical self destructive nation whose only goal is to kill every one in the middle east and give bad name for Jewish people), but in few hundred years, who know maybe we will be a known civilization with a strong impact on the history of planet earth.

 

[evanschrader]

If they were to implement it I think it would be more likely they would be represented as "Arawaks" instead, since that's how they were represented in Colonization and in Civ4Col.

yes i agree with you

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: No more Israel discussion. There are lots of other possible topics.

 

[MARDUK80]

After a hard consideration and some chances in my opinions, my "wishlist" for the last four Civs for Gods & Kings are:

1) Finland (C.G.E. Mannerheim)
2) Khazaria (Ziebel)
3) Kongo (Nkuwu Nzinga)
4) Hungary (Matthias Corvinus)

and the extra Civ for the G&K Deluxe Edition (which I hope will be released with a soundtrack )

5) Missisippi (or Cherokee, Apache, Sioux, Comanche)

Possibly (and hopefully) there will be seven DLC Civs later this year, so my prefers for those:

1) Indonesia (Hayam Wuruk)
2) Ethiopia (Menelik II)
3) Vietnam (Lê Thánh Tông)
4) Austria (Franz Joseph I)
5) Hittites (Muwattali II)
6) Kushan (Kanishka)
7) Romania (Vlad Tepes)

 

[True_Candyman]

After a hard consideration and some chances in my opinions, my "wishlist" for the last four Civs for Gods & Kings are:

1) Finland (C.G.E. Mannerheim)
2) Khazaria (Ziebel)
3) Kongo (Nkuwu Nzinga)
4) Hungary (Matthias Corvinus)

and the extra Civ for the G&K Deluxe Edition (which I hope will be released with a soundtrack )

5) Missisippi (or Cherokee, Apache, Sioux, Comanche)

Possibly (and hopefully) there will be seven DLC Civs later this year, so my prefers for those:

1) Indonesia (Hayam Wuruk)
2) Ethiopia (Menelik II)
3) Vietnam (Lê Thánh Tông)
4) Austria (Franz Joseph I)
5) Hittites (Muwattali II)
6) Kushan (Kanishka)
7) Romania (Vlad Tepes)

I would be happy with any and all of that Sumeria would be nice too though, the more i hear about it the better it sounds.

Finland could have one man as it's UU though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä

He replaces the Giant Death Robot

 

[MARDUK80]

I would be happy with any and all of that Sumeria would be nice too though, the more i hear about it the better it sounds.

Yeah, I had hard time choosing between Hittites, Sumer, Zulu and Portugal for the final slot.

Finland could have one man as it's UU though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä

He replaces the Giant Death Robot

Heh, yeah Simo "White Death" Häyhä would be cool. It was just yesterday when I switched Finnish UU idea from WD (Infantry replacement) to Runonlaulaja (Scout replacement). I felt Finnish Civ concept needed stronger link to the past, hence Runonlaulaja, but White Death would have been fun to play as well. Invisible sniper unit with extra range and extra movement --- or the GDR replacement with that kill ratio

Hakkapeliitta and Sissi would work as well. But I think Sauna is the essential UB for the Finns. Replaces Garden and has increased Great People birth ratio (Saunas were common place to give birth in older times) and gives happiness. Though Tar Kiln would be exciting UI as well. Gives a bonus to naval units and generates extra gold.