How diverse was Civ 5?

[Henri Christophe]

I draw this map to show how diverse (or not) civ 5 was, it is surprising how the civilizations who lived next to the Mediterranean sea have a lot of representation and others places of the world was just ignored.

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The area knows as India and Indochina have thousand of different empires (As Mughal, Vietnam, Maratha, Thai) and despite that just have TWO civilizations of this area (Siam and India), and Indias is just the British version of the Indian society. Where is the Delhi Sultanate? :/

Another area really under-represented is Mexico, having really amazing societies for 3.000 years before Christy, the only civs there are is who had any contact with Europeans. Just Aztecs from Mexico, despite the fact the Toltecs was the biggest empire before Spain or others Civilizations as Zapotecs and Olmecs don't have any representation. In other hands, the Roman empire is at least represented two times, (or more, because the Russland, Austria, and Turks also believe at some point they also were the continuous of the Roman empire)

Africa maybe is better in Civ 6 with Kongo civilization but is that enough to represent this continent. Why this game never had at least one Slavery kingdom of West Africa? Is that shame of the Atlantic Slavery Trade!? Or maybe anyone cares to South Atlantic history?

 

[Warmonger Max]

Do you know that there are over 2000 mods adding new Civs available on Steam? Lots to choose from.

 

[beetle]

I draw this map to show how diverse (or not) civ 5 was, it is surprising how the civilizations who lived next to the Mediterranean sea have a lot of representation and others places of the world was just ignored.

Thanks for the map, as it is interesting. But it is not at all surprising, since Firaxis aimed (quite successfully) for a commercially viable entertainment product. It is not an educational or historical game. One might argue that it is surprising that they included a few extinct civilizations. How did that help sales? Or how about you note how much more diverse Civ5 is compared to IV or III?

 

[youngsteve]

Perhaps for the next game, Firaxis will take up your comments & make it equally diverse across the world, giving new civilizations a chance & taking out all those ones in every game like England, France, Germany, & America. On a civilization scale it is hard to see how America is even in every new game, but commercially it is no brainer. Just see then how any game would sale without civilizations for where the main audience for Civilization resides. There is more to realism when making games with a historical stance.

 

[claudiupb]

Why would they need to take out civilizations from the game? They could just add more, a thing they are currently doing in 6. I wouldn't mind if there are 200 playable civilizations in the game, it just means that there is more content and play time. There is no need to remove civilizations like England, France, Germany or America just because they were in every iteration. The Zulu have also been in every iteration since the first Civilization and technically represent a kingdom that lasted 80 years, but I don't see any complaints about them.

Why this game never had at least one Slavery kingdom of West Africa? Is that shame of the Atlantic Slavery Trade!?

I highly doubt this, since the workers in the game can be actual slaves. The workers you capture are technically slaves, and when you demand tribute from a city state you can also enslave a worker (they use the word enslave). You would think they would want to avoid this, right?

 

[Equilin]

Delhi Sultanate? I'd take the Mughal Empire over them at any time.
I think the developer has mostly given up at taking diversity in regions seriously since the modern civilization is based on Europe for the most part, thus important Europeans (Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, etc.) and their ancestors (Greece, Rome, Egypt, *insert a Mesopotamian civ here*) cannot be left out, as well as other important ones around the world (USA, China, India, Japan). They then include civs based on 1.region (the reason we're seeing West Africa and Southeast Asia imo), 2. presentation in popular history (Zulu, native americans), 3. popularity (Byz), and maybe a few other criterias such as game mechanic compatibility (as well as mixing these). The rest of the civs not presented will be the job of modders who include those they want to.

Civ6 also has that leader mechanic which is meant to show the same civ in different period (India is there with Maurya too) so that problem is kinda solved.

Finally, I don't understand why you're posting this specifically about civ5 instead of in civ6 board comparing 4-5-6 altogether.

 

[Henri Christophe]

The Zulu have also been in every iteration since the first Civilization and technically represent a kingdom that lasted 80 years, but I don't see any complaints about them.

The Zulu always was the stereotyped of an African kingdom, because of all African Civs, Shaka always seems so "barbarian" and "Native Tropical Society".
But I like what this game makes for Shaka, he becomes very popular outside South Africa because of this game.

I highly doubt this, since the workers in the game can be actual slaves. The workers you capture are technically slaves, and when you demand tribute from a city-state you can also enslave a worker (they use the word enslave). You would think they would want to avoid this, right?

The Atlantic Slavery Trade of ~1600-1888 was different from everything there ever exist before, and I believe deserve special attention. I thought one game mechanic for that issue, of all Western Africa kingdoms, the one who more slavery was is the Dahomey empire (now a day the Country is called Benin, but Benin is another slavery kingdom of Nigeria... a bit confuse ), even in English Language Dahomey is also called Slavery coast.

His special ability can sell the population of cities (even if captured cities), trade for 7 golds or for Whales... I believe that is better represented than enslave the other civs slaves

Do you know that there are over 2000 mods adding new Civs available on Steam? Lots to choose from.

I have a lot of problems with MODS, they are very unbalanced and don't have a cool animation as a regular CIV.

Finally, I don't understand why you're posting this specifically about civ5 instead of in civ6 board comparing 4-5-6 altogether.

I don't made the 6 because they still releasing new civs, but I like the Idea to do a comparing between civilizations, I will do that later

 

[claudiupb]

The Zulu always was the stereotyped of an African kingdom, because of all African Civs, Shaka always seems so "barbarian" and "Native Tropical Society".
But I like what this game makes for Shaka, he becomes very popular outside South Africa because of this game.

All the civilizations in the game are stereotyped, this is a consequence of the game mechanic: you get 2 uniques per civ and then the leader has some special ability. So there are unique 3-4 traits at maximum for each civilization, which pretty much will have to create a flavor for that civ. As a side note this was even worse in older iterations of the game since there was less uniqueness. In civ 2 the only "unique" was the city graphics, and there were only 4 styles (Stone/Bronze, Ancient/Classical, Medieval and Far East) the 21 civs in the game could have.

The Atlantic Slavery Trade of ~1600-1888 was different from everything there ever exist before, and I believe deserve special attention. I thought one game mechanic for that issue, of all Western Africa kingdoms, the one who more slavery was is the Dahomey empire (now a day the Country is called Benin, but Benin is another slavery kingdom of Nigeria... a bit confuse ), even in English Language Dahomey is also called Slavery coast.

His special ability can sell the population of cities (even if captured cities), trade for 7 golds or for Whales... I believe that is better represented than enslave the other civs slaves

The whole point of this was a response to your initial statement claiming that the devs purposely left the Atlantic slavery trade out of the game out of shame, which honestly is very far-fetched. I was not saying that the worker/slave mechanic replaces or represents the slave trade just that the game does contain slavery, and this might indicate that there is no hidden agenda to keep this event out of the game. In fact there are multiple significant events that happened throughout history that are not in the game, and this is ok because CIV is a game that is supposed to be entertaining, it's not a history teacher. Fixating one one historical event or the other will not really achieve anything, and I would rather have devs focusing on creating a good game, because frankly they haven't been able to do this since the BNW release and that was almost 6 years ago.

 

[leif erikson]

The Atlantic Slavery Trade of ~1600-1888 was different from everything there ever exist before, and I believe deserve special attention. I thought one game mechanic for that issue, of all Western Africa kingdoms, the one who more slavery was is the Dahomey empire (now a day the Country is called Benin, but Benin is another slavery kingdom of Nigeria... a bit confuse ), even in English Language Dahomey is also called Slavery coast.

His special ability can sell the population of cities (even if captured cities), trade for 7 golds or for Whales... I believe that is better represented than enslave the other civs slave.

Moderator Action: Slavery is not represented in Civ5, please do not start this in this forum as you have in others.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889