"Pokrovka" is surely not Scythian city name

[CornPlanter]

I don't see the problem. Almost every citys name is wrong in Civ 5 in one way or another. Moscow? No, it's &#1052;&#1086;&#1089;&#1082;&#1074;&#1072; (Maskva). Persepolis? It's P&#257;rsa, city of Iran, not Persia. -Polis is Greek suffix, surely, similarly to how -ovka is Slavic. What's that Heliopolis, seriously, Egyptians 4 thousand years ago did not name their cities in Greek. It's actually something close to Iunu. Next, we have Rome, <snip> please, Romans did not name their cities in English, don't make me laugh. R&#333;ma. But at least it's close enough.

I don't have any problems with Pokrovka, nor any other historical inaccuracy in Civ5 games. They are not supposed to be historic, they are strategy games with little historic flavor, but nowhere near "historical" games. And Firaxis proved time and again they don't care about accuracy. They managed to confuse Kremlin with St. Basil's Cathedral. Their unique units are sometimes (historically) not military units (Praetorians), or not units at all (Quechua). City names is nothing by comparison.

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[Zaarin]

I don't see the problem. Almost every citys name is wrong in Civ 5 in one way or another. Moscow? No, it's &#1052;&#1086;&#1089;&#1082;&#1074;&#1072; (Maskva). Persepolis? It's P&#257;rsa, city of Iran, not Persia. -Polis is Greek suffix, surely, similarly to how -ovka is Slavic. What's that Heliopolis, seriously, Egyptians 4 thousand years ago did not name their cities in Greek. It's actually something close to Iunu. Next, we have Rome, <snip> please, Romans did not name their cities in English, don't make me laugh. R&#333;ma. But at least it's close enough.

I don't have any problems with Pokrovka, nor any other historical inaccuracy in Civ5 games. They are not supposed to be historic, they are strategy games with little historic flavor, but nowhere near "historical" games. And Firaxis proved time and again they don't care about accuracy. They managed to confuse Kremlin with St. Basil's Cathedral. Their unique units are sometimes (historically) not military units (Praetorians), or not units at all (Quechua). City names is nothing by comparison.

There's a big difference between "Moscow," the accepted English form of &#1052;&#1086;&#1089;&#1082;&#1074;&#1072;, and "Pokrovka," a seemingly arbitrarily chosen Slavic-named city in an area that may have once been inhabited by Scythians.

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[Manifold]

I don't see the problem. Almost every citys name is wrong in Civ 5 in one way or another. Moscow? No, it's &#1052;&#1086;&#1089;&#1082;&#1074;&#1072; (Maskva). Persepolis? It's P&#257;rsa, city of Iran, not Persia. -Polis is Greek suffix, surely, similarly to how -ovka is Slavic. What's that Heliopolis, seriously, Egyptians 4 thousand years ago did not name their cities in Greek. It's actually something close to Iunu. Next, we have Rome, <snip> please, Romans did not name their cities in English, don't make me laugh. R&#333;ma. But at least it's close enough.

The displaying city name depends on the game language.
If in English Parsa is called in the greek way, so there is no problem, that should be so, because you know this city under this name.
So if you play the game in a non-English language the capital of the Roman Empire could be not "Rome". If you play the game in Russian the name of Moscow should be Russian.

Heliopolis is the same case, it is a very famous and international (and in English common) name of an ancient city in Egypt. The Macedonians themselves were part of Egyptian history (e.g. Cleopatra). The name of the Civ with this city is Egypt and not the Old Kingdom of Egypt. If you could play the game in the ancient Egypt language the name of the city should be another.


The difference to Pokrovka is, that this name has no link to the game language (English in the video) and a Scythian maybe settlement area. When the Slavic peoples came to such place the Scythian were long time gone.

Also there is still no need to give the Scythian cities Slavic names because we know enough about the Scythians to give their cities atmospheric names, i will not repeat here.

I don't have any problems with Pokrovka, nor any other historical inaccuracy in Civ5 games. They are not supposed to be historic, they are strategy games with little historic flavor, but nowhere near "historical" games. And Firaxis proved time and again they don't care about accuracy. They managed to confuse Kremlin with St. Basil's Cathedral. Their unique units are sometimes (historically) not military units (Praetorians), or not units at all (Quechua). City names is nothing by comparison.

Errors, Filling the gap, popular platitudes and speculations are acceptable to a limited extent.

But what most Civ-players expect is in the core , what the game Description says:

Civ1:"Build an empire to stand the test of time"
Civ3: "It´s History in the making"
Civ6: "...Become Ruler of the World by establishing and leading a civilization from the Stone Age to the Information Age. Wage war, conduct diplomacy, advance your culture, and go head-to-head with history’s greatest leaders as you attempt to build the greatest civilization the world has ever known."

Pokrovka did not fit in any way. The game Description did not talk about Mickey Mouse from Duckburg.

 

[daft]

"ka" or "ovka" is a suffix for village and street names on Russian language (feminine form). So, if you have name "Petr" then the village name in honor of him is "Petrovka". "Ivan"&#8212;"Ivanovka". Etc. Scythians speak on some Iranian language, not Russian or old Slavic. They couldn't have such a suffix on their cities' names.

Things are getting worse, when we look at root of this word. "Pokrov" is a religion word in Russian language. It belongs to Christian faith and means "shroud" or "cover".
Surely, Scythians didn't use this name. It is, surely, Russian and couldn't exist before Christian religion spread to Russian lands (late IX century).

So, we have Russian root and Russian suffix. And after all many villages and streets in Russia have this name.

Developers probably took this name from village near which Scythians ruins were found, but it sounds like "Silicon Valley" as name of capital of some Native American civilization. Or "Queen Victoria Castle" as name of ancient Chinese city.

They need to change their capital name. It is not only ahistorical, it is just absurd.

Right on!

"Pokrovka" as the capital of Scythia? What a lack of historical, cultural and linguistic knowledge!
Pokrovka is a Slavic name! Ancient Scythians/Massagethians/Sauromatians were not Slavic tribes.

This demonstrates lack of knowledge in the above mentioned departments by the game's developers, unfortunately, yet again.

It's like them naming "Salamanca" the capital of the Iroquois in Civ 3, as well as many other city name/linguistic/historical gaffes they've made in every iteration throughout the game's history to date.

If you're going to design a game based on large part on the histories of different cultures and nations of Earth's civilization then do the proper research, or don't bother at all!

 

[Krik_IDDQD]

Pokrovka

Which one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokrovka,_Russia

 

[God of Kings]

Right on!

"Pokrovka" as the capital of Scythia? What a lack of historical, cultural and linguistic knowledge!
Pokrovka is a Slavic name! Ancient Scythians/Massagethians/Sauromatians were not Slavic tribes.

This demonstrates lack of knowledge in the above mentioned departments by the game's developers, unfortunately, yet again.

It's like them naming "Salamanca" the capital of the Iroquois in Civ 3, as well as many other city name/linguistic/historical gaffes they've made in every iteration throughout the game's history to date.

If you're going to design a game based on large part on the histories of different cultures and nations of Earth's civilization then do the proper research, or don't bother at all!

Don't forget Nazca of the Inca and Shakala of the Zulu in Civ II. The devs could have found suitable female rulers for the Inca and the Zulu (even if they are just consorts) without having to create fictional characters. Amaterasu leading Japan is borderline acceptable though, despite her being a deity who was never a mortal (I would have preferred a consort of a shogun for a female ruler of Japan).

 

[Manifold]

Don't forget Nazca of the Inca and Shakala of the Zulu in Civ II. The devs could have found suitable female rulers for the Inca and the Zulu (even if they are just consorts) without having to create fictional characters. Amaterasu leading Japan is borderline acceptable though, despite her being a deity who was never a mortal (I would have preferred a consort of a shogun for a female ruler of Japan).

You are kidding for sure. Nazac and Shakala even sound realistic. The current city names of scythia did not sound authentic. That is, i mean, is clear for everyone, if someone follows another aberration I will despair. The current city names disturb the game atmosphere, thats the point.

But I am still hopefull with the Scythians. In the last video with Rome and Kongo I see that there were a lot of Kurgans build adjacent to each other. This should be not allowed!
So I guess the Scythians are still a construction site. Otherwise I would ask me which sponsors those responsible. That suggest some kind of foul deeds behind the scenes - honestly.

 

[Manifold]

In the Gorgo video is still the beta version name for the Scythian capital shown. When will they fix this finally.

 

[Ravellion]

Obviously they won't fix it anymore. Which is a shame. I doubt anyone loves the Russian names (some don't mind, but that's not the same as love), but they are clearly annoying to some. Something unloved by anyone and hated by some seems to me like a feature best changed.

 

[General Meevious]

Something to note is that Tomrys was not strictly speaking "Scythian", according to Herodotus, who differentiates between the Scythians and the Massagetae, of whom she was a queen of the latter.

If Civ VI is using "Scythian" to refer to all Scytho-Sarmatian tribes, as the above would infer, there are many more sources for city names, as the Scytho-Sarmatian culture stretched not only northward along the eastern Baltic (according to Pliny), but also as far east as the Ordos Loop and southward into northern India, "Scythia" itself referring only the tiny frontier shared with the Greeks. As for a capital, I don't think there's a clear choice, given that for the Greeks, the "Royal Scythians" were the Paralatae, on the far side of the Sea of Marmara, but for the Persians, the Saka were led by the Tigraxauda, living in what's now the border between China and Kazakhstan and for the Chinese, the Xiongnu, centred in Mongolia, were considered dominant.

Towns like Samarkand, Kashgar, Khotan and so on all seem to have their etymological origin in the Scytho-Sarmatian culture.

 

[Zaarin]

@General Meevious Whether the Xiongnu were Iranian is very much so up for debate and only one of many possibilities. (No particular opinion on the ethnic identity of the Xiongnu here, just pointing out that equating them with the Scythians is premature.)

 

[Manifold]

My favorite topic is back up in the list

 

[General Meevious]

@General Meevious Whether the Xiongnu were Iranian is very much so up for debate and only one of many possibilities. (No particular opinion on the ethnic identity of the Xiongnu here, just pointing out that equating them with the Scythians is premature.)

"Premature" sure is a funny way to describe the interpretation of ancient history.

Worry not though, I'm not calling the Xiongnu "Iranian", linguistically or ethnically. The Scytho-Sarmatian culture clearly encompassed many languages and ethnicities in some way or another and many tribes within it were in a state of constant "internal" warfare. The culture was by no means a single political entity, but the "royal" tribes of various regions could probably generally raise a number of nearby tribes for the purpose of external warfare.

The Xiongnu material culture, however, is more or less identical to that found in Scythian Ukraine. Their mode of warfare, belief system and general way of life also seem to have been very similar to that of the western Scythians, so despite (presumably) little or no political connection to the more distant representatives of the Scytho-Sarmatian culture, they can't be excluded from it.

 

[BenZL43]

When the developers created Scythia, I wonder which definition they used. Honestly, I'd be fine if they start at Afrosiyab rather than this obscure city name which is located in way too many place in Russia, based on a Kurgan.

*Afrosiyab is now known as Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It was a continuously settled city in the region where Scythia begins, during Scythia's timeframe. Not.that I think CivFanatics didn't know, however.

 

[God of Kings]

Don't forget about the Scythian city of Seven Brothers!

 

[pgm123]

Something to note is that Tomrys was not strictly speaking "Scythian", according to Herodotus, who differentiates between the Scythians and the Massagetae, of whom she was a queen of the latter.

If Civ VI is using "Scythian" to refer to all Scytho-Sarmatian tribes, as the above would infer, there are many more sources for city names, as the Scytho-Sarmatian culture stretched not only northward along the eastern Baltic (according to Pliny), but also as far east as the Ordos Loop and southward into northern India, "Scythia" itself referring only the tiny frontier shared with the Greeks. As for a capital, I don't think there's a clear choice, given that for the Greeks, the "Royal Scythians" were the Paralatae, on the far side of the Sea of Marmara, but for the Persians, the Saka were led by the Tigraxauda, living in what's now the border between China and Kazakhstan and for the Chinese, the Xiongnu, centred in Mongolia, were considered dominant.

Towns like Samarkand, Kashgar, Khotan and so on all seem to have their etymological origin in the Scytho-Sarmatian culture.

Saka, Shaka, and Scythia have the same root. Sometimes people think Xiongnu also have that root. There's likely Scythian influence over the Xiongnu. Either way, I don't trust Herodotus's ethnography.

 

[True_Candyman]

There are cities on the Cree list named after famous Cree people instead of places, Mapuche cities are just geographical directions and the Kongo city list is just baffling, I think they made half of it up.

Then when the Maya get introduced we get the really fun stuff like “El Mirador”

This is what you get when you shoehorn other cultures into a modern western civilisation simulator

 

[Scaramanga]

I don't think "scythian" is a Scythian word. I think it's a Greek exonym.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Saka, Shaka, and Scythia have the same root. Sometimes people think Xiongnu also have that root. There's likely Scythian influence over the Xiongnu. Either way, I don't trust Herodotus's ethnography.

Herodotus actually gives three different versions of the 'origins' or ethnography of the Scythians, and it turns out that all are mostly wrong but a tiny bit right!
First, the latest (2017) mitochondrial DNA studies show that the later 'Scythians' were related to the Srubna Culture of the Bronze Age in what is now south Ukraine. So, ethnically', the Scythians were Europeans - one researcher hypothesized that when the Greeks were writing about them from the 6th century BCE on, a large percentage of the 'Oriental' horse-archers had red or blond hair and green or blue eyes.
Linguistically, their language was in the Iranian family, but there are very few 'pure' Scythian words that haven't been 'Greekified' or "Persianized' when they were written down by people not Scythian.
Technologically is where it gets tricky. They adopted, by the 9th century BCE, the horse-riding and composite-bow warfare of the Cimmerians living north and east of the Black Sea, and seem to have perfected the recurved composite bow that was almost universally known to the Greeks as a 'Scythian Bow'. The problem is, from that time until the 15th century AD Every Group that inhabited the steppes from modern Rumania to Mongolia used very nearly the same basic military technology and many of the same cultural 'effects' - the Kurgan burials that date back to 800 BCE are reflected in mound and ring burials (with copious grave goods) in Mongolia a 1000 years later and at the far eastern end of the 'steppe belt'.

I don't think "scythian" is a Scythian word. I think it's a Greek exonym.

I had to look this one up, because I agree with you, but didn't have the details.
The Greeks used two words, 'Skoloti' and 'Skuthai', the Persians called them 'Saka' or 'Sakae', and the Chinese called the culturally/militarily similar nomads of the Tarim Basin in the same period 'Sak' or 'Sec'. - The similarities among all the names are pretty striking, but generally today 'Sakae' or 'Saca' is used for the more eastern tribes north of the Caspian Sea and east of there and 'Scythian' for the groups west of the Volga River in the modern Ukraine.
However, good ol' Herodotus (our source for too much of what was written down about the Skuthai, the only saving grace being that he actually lived and traveled among the Greek colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea in direct contact with the Skuthai, making him an actual 'eye witness' instead of a second-hand chronicler of 'tall tales exclusively) says that the people called themselves the 'Skula', and Historical Linguists have related this to a proto-iranian word meaning 'to propel' or 'to shoot'.

So, if we want total accuracy (and we don't, really - this is Civ, not a graduate course in Historical Ethnological Correctness), the 'Scythians' should be called the 'Skula' and everybody talking to or about them should call them 'The Shooters' in their own language.

 

[General Meevious]

When the developers created Scythia, I wonder which definition they used. Honestly, I'd be fine if they start at Afrosiyab rather than this obscure city name which is located in way too many place in Russia, based on a Kurgan.

*Afrosiyab is now known as Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It was a continuously settled city in the region where Scythia begins, during Scythia's timeframe. Not.that I think CivFanatics didn't know, however.

While Afrosiyab may very well be derived from a very old place name, as far as I know, the earliest record of its use is many hundreds of years later than the larger (and apparently older) neighbouring district of Samarkand. That said, I agree, either would be better than the Russian archaeological sites.

They adopted, by the 9th century BCE, the horse-riding and composite-bow warfare of the Cimmerians living north and east of the Black Sea, and seem to have perfected the recurved composite bow that was almost universally known to the Greeks as a 'Scythian Bow'.

Where does that idea come from? It seems rather dubious, given that evidence of horse archery stretch across the entire Scytho-Sarmatian range, millenia before the advent of the Cimmerians in historical reference; most probably from before the Cimmerians headed west. AFAIK, archaeological finds have also so far pointed to a trend for the western Scytho-Sarmatians to use a higher proportion of self bows, relative to their eastern counterparts, possibly because of a lower abundance of wildlife with enormous horns, such as the argali.