"Pokrovka" is surely not Scythian city name

[Agent327]

Settlements used by semi-pastoralists aren't generally considered cities. This is why we don't find cities prior to ca 3,200 BC. Obviously the use of (temporary) settlements came before a change to an agricultural lifestyle. It is the latter which is the defining 'moment' for cities to be founded. (This also, in part, explains why the late antiquity Huns haven't left any cities.)

So it would be more proper to speak of a Scythian culture (which definitely existed) than a Scythian civilization. This might even apply to the Celts, who definitely had towns and were well on their way to statehood (another defining moment in what is considered a civilization). In short, Civilization uses a bit of a wide, diffuse definition of 'civilization'. Which is perfectly fine for a game.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

begs why its a civ in the first place. what would have been really interesting is if barbarians were changed over to "barbarian" civs like the Scythians, Visigoths...like a version of nomadic and warlike city states. certain civs could have an easier time with them or have them join as allies (mongols).

Except the mongols were a "barbarian/nomadic civ".. that became a "regular civ" once they conquered a regular civ.

If you want a "regular civ" that had barbarians join... well the Romans, but all ancient "city civs" occasionally paid the surrounding barbs to do dirty work.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Except the mongols were a "barbarian/nomadic civ".. that became a "regular civ" once they conquered a regular civ.

If you want a "regular civ" that had barbarians join... well the Romans, but all ancient "city civs" occasionally paid the surrounding barbs to do dirty work.

Actually, almost every 'Civ' in the game started as pastoral or nomadic 'barbarian' group WITHIN THE TIME FRAME OF THE GAME. For the most blatant example, in 4000 BC there were no 'Greeks' in Greece - they migrated in some 2000 years or more afterwards. Therefore, in game terms, the Greeks should start as 'nomads' who don't even think about founding a 'city' until they conquer some in the area we now call Greece - one of them, in fact, being Athens, which was settled long before there were any Greek 'Athenians' in the area. (And in this respect, the Acropolis unique district for the Greeks in Civ VI isn't entirely Greek - it was settled, possibly as a religious center, long before the Greeks arrived)

And one positive note in Civ VI, if they follow up on it, is that so far the only Mounted Ranged unit in the game is the Scythian Saka horse-archer. If they allow 'civilizations' to hire another civ's units, or allow 'gifting' of units between Civs instead of just Civ to City State, as in Civ V, then you'd get the very common practice of hiring mercenary 'barbarians' 'to do your dirty work'. The Athenians even hired Scythians as Police in Athens - they show up as stock characters in Greek drama and comedy on a regular basis. Civilizations as diverse as China, Rome, Byzantium, Prussia, Britain and Holland all used mercenaries or barbarian mercenaries extensively, and the famous French Foreign Legion is just a modern extension of this: use somebody else's soldiers to 'do the dirty work'!

 

[Manifold]

back to the topic again:

I just remember that there was a similar discussion about the capital of Huns in Civ5. Last the name of the capital of Huns was connected to the name of the Leader (Attila). And this method is also the best to choice the name of the capital of the Scythians.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

back to the topic again:

I just remember that there was a similar discussion about the capital of Huns in Civ5. Last the name of the capital of Huns was connected to the name of the Leader (Attila). And this method is also the best to choice the name of the capital of the Scythians.

Except that Scythia has a city list. The Huns don't. (well they do, but it's only 1 city just like Venice)

 

[Brianstorm]

When will Firaxis realize that Washington is a state and Washington DC is the capital!

 

[King William I]

When will Firaxis realize that Washington is a state and Washington DC is the capital!

Washington is the name of the city, it's located in the District of Columbia. Hence the DC

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Except that Scythia has a city list. The Huns don't. (well they do, but it's only 1 city just like Venice)

Which, I suspect, is a product of the 'Huns' only being on the European/West Asian landscape for a few generations as opposed to the Scythians' 1000 years or so. Huns never had time to put place names on anything that stuck, so we aren't able to reconstruct a Possible City List for them, the way we can for the Scythians.

Parenthetically, anybody wanna bet we'll see similar problems (not enough 'real' city names, city names from later/earlier cultures) in the city lists for Sumer and Kongo?

 

[Siptah]

Parenthetically, anybody wanna bet we'll see similar problems (not enough 'real' city names, city names from later/earlier cultures) in the city lists for Sumer and Kongo?

There are so many lists and bureaucratic writings left from Sumer that we have an abundance of Sumerian names for places: cities and surrounding villages/settlements. No problems there. But an artificial problem might occur, since they may use some assyrian or babylonian names, if they are not careful.
Is there a problem with modern congolese names for Kongo?

 

[Zaarin]

Parenthetically, anybody wanna bet we'll see similar problems (not enough 'real' city names, city names from later/earlier cultures) in the city lists for Sumer...?

If we do, then I must say the devs are extraordinarily incompetent, given the huge corpus of Sumerian sources and how much we know about Sumerian archaeological sites. Seriously, do you expect to see Tell el-Muqayyar or Ur? At worst, we'll see some Akkadian rather than Sumerian forms (for example, I'd be surprised to see Unug rather than the Akkadian form Uruk--but it would be a pleasant surprise). I doubt we'll see any Arabic or even Aramaic forms.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

If we do, then I must say the devs are extraordinarily incompetent, given the huge corpus of Sumerian sources and how much we know about Sumerian archaeological sites. Seriously, do you expect to see Tell el-Muqayyar or Ur? At worst, we'll see some Akkadian rather than Sumerian forms (for example, I'd be surprised to see Unug rather than the Akkadian form Uruk--but it would be a pleasant surprise). I doubt we'll see any Arabic or even Aramaic forms.

Yes, but...

The Haudenosenee (Iroquois) left place-names of actual village sites all over northeastern USA and eastern Canada, and Celtic/Gallic place names of settlements, oppidae and religious sites are all through the Roman writings of the period, yet both city lists in Civ V were like bad jokes.

So yes, I expect the worst!
- And am prepared to do what I did in Civ V, which is go into the files of city names and replace most of them if necessary - same thing I did in Civ III and Civ IV, come to think of it...

 

[Guandao]

Yes, but...

The Haudenosenee (Iroquois) left place-names of actual village sites all over northeastern USA and eastern Canada, and Celtic/Gallic place names of settlements, oppidae and religious sites are all through the Roman writings of the period, yet both city lists in Civ V were like bad jokes.

So yes, I expect the worst!
- And am prepared to do what I did in Civ V, which is go into the files of city names and replace most of them if necessary - same thing I did in Civ III and Civ IV, come to think of it...

Yeah, in my opinion, the Civ5 citylists could be better. China's list has historically insignificant cities in Guangdong, and is missing some more important cities. Inca's lacks some important settlements, has Tiwanaku in it. Mongolia's has Tiflis (Tbilisi), a city called Xia (which never existed, it's meant to refers to the Western Xia dynasty conquered by the Mongols), and so on.

 

[Zaarin]

Yes, but...

The Haudenosenee (Iroquois) left place-names of actual village sites all over northeastern USA and eastern Canada, and Celtic/Gallic place names of settlements, oppidae and religious sites are all through the Roman writings of the period, yet both city lists in Civ V were like bad jokes.

So yes, I expect the worst!
- And am prepared to do what I did in Civ V, which is go into the files of city names and replace most of them if necessary - same thing I did in Civ III and Civ IV, come to think of it...

...I see your point. Let's hope they do better this time, though "Pokrovka" is not encouraging...

 

[magha77]

Shows that this ridiculous "civ" should not have been included at all. Anyway, there has to be better alternativens than modern slavic city names.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I've studied Near Eastern history quite a bit and was shocked that this was included as a Civ.

 

[PhilBowles]

Civ IV Khmer and the Civ IV Maya list have used modern archaeological names for cities that have no relation to what the inhabitants would have called them. La Venta (the name used for a city state in Civ V) is a Spanish name, not an Olmec one. Attila's Court (Civ V) is an English name.

This isn't any different. We don't know what the Scythians would have called their sites, so this choice is more defensible than, say, "Palenque" (the Spanish name for a city known to the Maya as B'aakal) or "Angkor Thom" - a 16th Century name for a site known to the Khmer as Yasodharapura (though that stemmed from a bigger problem with the Khmer city list - more than one city in the list referring to the same real-world site).

 

[PhilBowles]

"Better" doesn't mean "good". "Better" is "better". If I have to chose between "Ishlovskagrad" and "Mao Zedung", as capital of Russia, I will surely prefer "Ishlovskagrad". Despite it is pseudo-Slavic word, but it is not Chinese XX century leader name, at least. So, it is not "acceptable", but "more acceptable than".

Bear in mind that one purpose of these names is recognition: a real site players can look up to learn about an archaeological site has value even though it's not the name the inhabitants would have used. The same argument can be made for names like Palenque and Angkor Thom.

...And this is why disasters like Civ5 Celts happen

The Celts shouldn't have been included as a civ in any Civ game, but they could have been done better than they were if Firaxis wanted. Just make them Gallic Celts rather than the horrible amalgam of British 'Celts' with their Anglo-Norman city list. Civs III and IV managed to do a better job than Civ V - not a good job, but they at least made the effort to use Celtic (or failing that Roman) names for the British settlements they used, settlements there were at least historically associated with Celtic groups.

 

[Tigranes]

Meanwhile, Teddy Roosevelt in 4000 BC is completely reasonable.

Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations VI mod will fix it.

Why in 25 years devs never thought about dynamic civ founding is beyond me...

 

[MikalJ]

Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations VI mod will fix it.

Why in 25 years devs never thought about dynamic civ founding is beyond me...

Because it means you can only play one map, and that's not what base-game Civ is about?

 

[Zaarin]

La Venta (the name used for a city state in Civ V) is a Spanish name, not an Olmec one.

To be fair, the sum total of our knowledge of the Olmec language is that they presumably spoke one. Since the archaeological site only has a Spanish name, though, they could have moved it one step closer to authenticity and called it "Olmec," which is still an Aztec name for them but it's better than Spanish...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

To be fair, the sum total of our knowledge of the Olmec language is that they presumably spoke one. Since the archaeological site only has a Spanish name, though, they could have moved it one step closer to authenticity and called it "Olmec," which is still an Aztec name for them but it's better than Spanish...

Actually, we're a little better off than that. There has been extensive work done on translating Olmec 'glyphs' and phrases. Trouble is, there is frequently no context for what they are talking about, so paragraph-sized meanings are hard to glean, and as far as I know, they haven't uncovered anything resembling a city or place-name. Result: you could end up with a 'city list' in which the cities are named "Jaguar", "turtle", "serpent", "wading through water", and other words/phrases that have nothing to do with the original cities at all - the only 'advantage' they have is that they are actual Olmec words, but that's it, and it's not much...