Which Civ we should have before Civilization VI?

[Monado]

I voted Other. I've always wanted to see the Phoenicians in Civ. From the poll list I would have went with the Sumerians.

 

[aluelkdf]

So we're just gunna ignore the hundreds of groups of people that live within Russia, China and Mongolia who have historically been independent and still have some autonomy, or at the very least almost nothing to do with the state they are represented by?

Ironically, the ignorance you display about asia has everything to do with eurocentrism.

I'm not ignoring those people. There are people who live in Siberia who have no connection to Russia, and they don't even identify as Russian, yet Russia controls that land. There could be a Tibet civ because they are distinctly different from Chinese, but China controls this land. All the groups you talk about have no political or military power (at least not on the world stage).

I feel that the way Asia is treated is consistent with how Europe is treated. Look at the Basque people who live in Spain. The Basques don't identify with Spain and want their own country. One could argue that there should be a Basque civ in the game because they are different from Spain. But there is no Basque civ in the game, because that land is controlled by Spain.

If every single European group were represented in the game, the game would have hundreds of European civs, so would Asia and all other continents. But all these European civs are not represented, only the ones that have a significant impact on the world and actually have real power. So I don't think Europe gets any special treatment over any other part of the world.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I'm surprised Vietnam's not on the list. It's one of the top choices in the other civ poll and is now a front-runner for the next Asian civ alongside the Khmer and Timurids.

And I'm not saying that because I'm Vietnamese, either.

 

[Danielion]

Well, the game is called civilization, not 'ethnicity'. They are not the same thing. Hence you won't see a Basque civ. They could do it, though, as in a hypothetical empire (like we see with the Celts or Amerindian civs) but there are many more interesting choices.

Khmer and/or Vietnamese are a good idea. I think one or the other, but not both.

 

[aluelkdf]

There should be a Kazakhstan civ. Their unique building could be a brothel, which will increase happiness and gold. Their unique unit should be in the modern era, perhaps a catapult.

(sorry, I was just thinking of the movie "Borat")

 

[DyadoMraz]

Poland is by large the biggest Slavic nation next to Russia, in my opinion. Everyone knows about the winged hussars and Jan Sobieski, for instance. Everyone knows about the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. Conversely is Bulgaria today known as the country that's the most corrupt and in the worst shape in all of the EU and is still not accepted to Schengen and probably won't be before Croatia'll be admitted to it. Not meaning to bash Bulgaria, but just saying how easy it is to judge modern history.

You are absolutely correct about present state Bulgaria
However the current Republic of Bulgaria is about as representative of the Bulgarian Tsardom I'm referring to as Germany is of the Holy Roman Empire or Italy is of the Roman Empire
In other words - not so much at all
At its peak, it held larger territory than Carthage, Austro-Hungary, Egypt and the Hunnic, Aztec & Latin Empires among others and was just short of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (which consisted of 2 states)
And that's just territory
I've already mentioned some major cultural contributions of the empire I'm talking about and comparing those to a cavalry such as the hussars isn't serious
That's not even mentioning that Serbia can claim just as much credit for the Hussars as the Commonwealth if not more


So bottom line is, you may be correct that Poland is the second most... influential I suppose slavic nation currently, but when we talk about civilizations you're way off

 

[seancolorado]

I'm surprised Vietnam's not on the list. It's one of the top choices in the other civ poll and is now a front-runner for the next Asian civ alongside the Khmer and Timurids.

And I'm not saying that because I'm Vietnamese, either.

Yeah I think that was just an honest slip-up by OP. We all agree Vietnam is a strong candidate for a future civ. Devs know it as well, as they almost chose Vietnam for the new expansion between Khmer and Indonesia

I hope in the future that region gains more Civ followers so that we don't have to limit ourselves for three very deserving Civs as if they overlap

 

[Depravo]

IIf you look at Europe by contrast, Europe is very small. And Europe is very fractured. Instead of having massive civs like China and Russia, there are many smaller civs competing over a small area of land.

Therein lies the rub, does a civilization represent a culture, or a family of cultures, or a state? Civ 5 seems to have come down firmly in the second camp, no doubt in part because a game based on easily recognisable national tags will sell better.

 

[quantum42]

The nations represented in Civ (all versions) remind me of a scene from the movie Fantasiawhere two dinosaurs are fighting. They never would have met because they weren't present at the same time.

 

[Godmother]

Well, the game is called civilization, not 'ethnicity'. They are not the same thing.

I couldn't agree more with you.

I was wondering : If they were to include Mali, would it be an anachronism to also include the Songhai?
As much as I would love to see a Phoenician civ, they'd have to leave out the Carthaginians.

 

[Clement]

I think we should have comedy civilization, smurfs maybe.

 

[Danielion]

I couldn't agree more with you.

I was wondering : If they were to include Mali, would it be an anachronism to also include the Songhai?
As much as I would love to see a Phoenician civ, they'd have to leave out the Carthaginians.

Overlap like that makes it impossible for Mali and the Songhai to coexist in one game. Same with Phoenician and Carthaginians. So much is obvious. I wonder whether they could implement Khmer or Vietnam next to Siam. Perhaps they could, but I'm not well-versed enough in their history and possible overlap of their city names.

I think we should have comedy civilization, smurfs maybe.

More plausible alternative for a Belgian civ.


Link to video.

 

[Clement]

Overlap like that makes it impossible for Mali and the Songhai to coexist in one game. Same with Phoenician and Carthaginians. So much is obvious. I wonder whether they could implement Khmer or Vietnam next to Siam. Perhaps they could, but I'm not well-versed enough in their history and possible overlap of their city names.



More plausible alternative for a Belgian civ.


Link to video.

I would choose them all the time.

 

[Xandinho]

I miss Sumerian and Khmer
I want to see them in DLC

 

[ACivFan]

Overlap like that makes it impossible for Mali and the Songhai to coexist in one game. Same with Phoenician and Carthaginians. So much is obvious. I wonder whether they could implement Khmer or Vietnam next to Siam. Perhaps they could, but I'm not well-versed enough in their history and possible overlap of their city names.

I took a look at Cambodia, and I am pretty confident that you can still pull quite a decently long list of cities from Cambodia's proper that don't overlap with Siam, especially those closer to the Vietnamese border.

Vietnam has even less of an issue. Cambodia was stuck between Vietnam and Thailand, and Cambodia was never entirely wiped out. Hence, Vietnam and Thailand actually don't share any cities at all.

 

[True_Candyman]

I'm not ignoring those people. There are people who live in Siberia who have no connection to Russia, and they don't even identify as Russian, yet Russia controls that land. There could be a Tibet civ because they are distinctly different from Chinese, but China controls this land. All the groups you talk about have no political or military power (at least not on the world stage).

I feel that the way Asia is treated is consistent with how Europe is treated. Look at the Basque people who live in Spain. The Basques don't identify with Spain and want their own country. One could argue that there should be a Basque civ in the game because they are different from Spain. But there is no Basque civ in the game, because that land is controlled by Spain.

If every single European group were represented in the game, the game would have hundreds of European civs, so would Asia and all other continents. But all these European civs are not represented, only the ones that have a significant impact on the world and actually have real power. So I don't think Europe gets any special treatment over any other part of the world.

Quite simply, yes you are. Again, you ignored the fact that a lot of these people historically had autonomy and political power. Asia has not had a consistent map from the beginning of time. Russia only entered Asia in the last few hundred years, and China only at times loosely controlled areas of central asia before the twentieth century. You cannot look at a 21st century map and judge what is or is not a civ based on that. Nations are not = to civilizations. They may be a type of civilization, or a civilization may be part of a nation, but they are not the be all and end all of civilized humanity.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Vietnam has as much overlap with Thailand as Scotland does with France. Culturally Vietnam's also the oddball in SE Asia, being the only SE Asian culture not influenced by India, and instead being influenced by China, so I don't think there's much overlap when it comes to Vietnam and the rest of SE Asia.

Yeah I think that was just an honest slip-up by OP. We all agree Vietnam is a strong candidate for a future civ. Devs know it as well, as they almost chose Vietnam for the new expansion between Khmer and Indonesia

I hope in the future that region gains more Civ followers so that we don't have to limit ourselves for three very deserving Civs as if they overlap

Devs almost chose Vietnam? Where'd you hear that?

 

[seancolorado]

Vietnam has as much overlap with Thailand as Scotland does with France. Culturally Vietnam's also the oddball in SE Asia, being the only SE Asian culture not influenced by India, and instead being influenced by China, so I don't think there's much overlap when it comes to Vietnam and the rest of SE Asia.





Devs almost chose Vietnam? Where'd you hear that?

In the most recent Civ podcast they interviewed Ed and Dennis. They said they were choosing the new civs in quote "clusters" and one of those clusters was between Canada, Australia and Brazil while another cluster was Khmer, Vietnam and Indonesia. It's not 100% clear whether or not there were other clusters as well. They cited relevance to expansion as well as current rise globally as reasons why

 

[cybrxkhan]

In the most recent Civ podcast they interviewed Ed and Dennis. They said they were choosing the new civs in quote "clusters" and one of those clusters was between Canada, Australia and Brazil while another cluster was Khmer, Vietnam and Indonesia. It's not 100% clear whether or not there were other clusters as well. They cited relevance to expansion as well as current rise globally as reasons why

Oh wow, that's cool.

Maybe we'll get our Trung Sisters in a third expansion or a Civ6.

 

[PhilBowles]

I always thought a Turkey/Armenia civ would be better than a Turkey/Greece civ

Well, since they can't raze Yerevan...

Thanks for the comments. I have only played in LAN games against my friend and the AI, and therefore am unfamiliar with the dynamics of multiplayer games. In my games, wars are a rarity (at least in BNW), which is what inspired me to tie GGs spawning to declarations of war: No war, no need for a GG. But if wars in MP mode "go on forever," well then, I like your idea better, i.e., Vietnamese units generating more points towards a GG while defending.

I was basing that on my single-player experience. Wars happen more rarely in BNW, but they still seem to be very persistent when they actually happen - that hasn't changed much since G&K.

With regards to workers, it is my experience that I do not have a surplus of workers in the early and mid game. However, past the modern era, I end up deleting workers, because (1) all of the tiles around my home cities are improved (with the occasional technological advancement requiring further improvement, e.g., uranium mining), and (2) I gain quite a few captured workers from wars (usually started by someone else) that can be used to improve newly-captured cities and repair damaged tiles.

I rarely bother capturing workers, and I always want to keep one or two on standby in case pillaged improvements need repairing. It's certainly an inventive idea, I just doubt I'd get more than a couple of units out of it in a game.

There is another benefit to this worker-to-military unit upgrade, however: Workers are much cheaper to produce! In times of war, a Vietnamese worker could be produced (or purchased) in each city quickly, and then upgraded to the military unit. I would imagine that that is a unique attribute that should not be underestimated.

Hmm, yes that would be a very good application, although likely difficult to balance.
I am guessing that you worry that since rice is produced by so many different cultures that making it a unique bonus resource for the Vietnamese would be immersion-killing? I can see that, too. Granted, there are other uniques in the game that aren't really unique in the real world (war elephants, Great Galleass vs galleass, polders, pepper, etc.), but I do agree that the existence of other unjustified uniques should not excuse the creation of additional ones.

I think a unique resource feels different in that regard from some of the other clumsy uniques. A unit or building is something produced; a resource is something in the landscape to exploit. Indonesia skirts close to the edge with pepper, certainly (and in general I think the unique resource idea is awkward), but even that is less ubiquitous in its production than rice - there are a few historical core sources, and while Indonesia isn't the primary one it's among a small number of major pepper exporters.

And the minute Civ4 added modern mass murderers like Stalin in Mao as leaders, they gave up all claims to fearing modern political controversy

Added? Mao and Stalin have been in the series since Civ I. Stalin disappeared from Civs II and III, but Mao was the Chinese leader until Civ IV. He's not in Civ V precisely because of controversy - as the Bo Xilai affair testifies, he is not a popular figure among the Chinese leadership.

I suspect the only reason Hitler wasn't available in that game was because such an action would have gotten the game outright banned in Germany, which is a major market.

Hitler could have been airbrushed out in the same way Mao was in Civ IV's Chinese version - it was just a near-static leader graphic that was easily replaced with a different leader.

The issue, as mentioned, is controversy. Rightly or wrongly, controversy is not directly linked to what individuals happen to have done. Stalin is not as reviled in Russia, or indeed in the West, as Hitler is throughout the West. Mao was removed from the Chinese version of the game not because his atrocities offend Chinese sensibilities but because Chinese leaders are wary of the cult-of-personality leadership that Mao represents (and as a leader of a Chinese civ, would imply is characteristic of China).

As ridiculous as I find any Israel "controversy" (they exist, de facto; the current nation-state has existed for over 60 years now; and there's no denying Israeli history), such a controversy could easily be circumvented by offering Israel as a DLC and not as a part of a package. Places where Israel's existence is contested (are those even major markets?) can eschew the DLC and other places - like in North America, Europe, and Israel - CivFans will likely buy the DLC in droves.

You are, I think, mischaracterising the controversy. I believe that Iran is the only country that denies Israel's existence (or at least right to exist), and no it probably isn't a particularly major market. Including Israel wouldn't be controversial by implying that it exists, it would be controversial by implying that its history - and specifically its recent history - makes it worthy of inclusion in a choice list of only around 40 of the world's civilizations. And it wouldn't be tempered by pointing out that other civs, such as the Shoshone, are also arbitrary inclusions made with little regard to their "worthiness" - the sorts of people primed to perceive conspiracies in such inconsequential things as faction names in a computer game are not going to be looking at the issue objectively.

EDIT: There is an additional complication, which I obliquely alluded to in another post, and that's the Jerusalem issue. Right now it serves purpose very well as a city-state, but what to do with it if Israel is a civ? Making Jerusalem capital of an Israel civ might well cause an uproar among people already sensitive about Israel (for most of whom Jerusalem is also highly significant in their culture, plus the city is technically divided between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, something making it the Israeli capital would risk implying is not the case). Making Tel Aviv the capital (as it was for some time after Israeli independence) ties an Israel civ to the modern society (there's no good alternative to Jerusalem for a capital for Canaan/Judea). Leaving it as a city-state would duck the issue, but it would be very odd to have an Israel civ in the game without its capital represented in its city list at all.

I'll also mention that I'm surprised not to see Mexico make the list. They have an interesting history and had independence long before either Canada or Austrailia, and even before Brazil.

Mexico's represented by one and a half civs - the Aztecs, and the Maya who have a leader from Palenque and probably a majority of city names taken from Mexican sites. It's uncommon for the Civ series to represent the same country with both indigenous and colonial civs - in fact America and Native American civs, and several incarnations of the Celts and succeeding European civs from the same areas, are the only cases where this has been done.

I can't remember exactly but I think the Iriquois already cover the Mississippians with Cahokia.

Cahokia is a city-state in the game. In both the game and reality it has nothing to do with the Iroquois. The Iroquois were a 16th Century native federation, the Mississippians a wholly pre-colonial artefact culture that was long extinct before Europeans encountered the New World.

However we know that Firaxis really likes the idea of a mountain civ, and I can see two strong candidates to fill that role: Nepal and Chachapoya. Both really interesting on their own, hopefully one of them makes it.

From what was said in the design article, Firaxis wanted the Pueblo specifically to tie into the archaeology mechanic; they appeared to perceive them as some kind of guardians of mystic knowledge, basing the civ wholly on mythologised interpretations of the Anasazi. Frankly the idea sounds horrible to me and I'm glad they had to scrap it. I'm not aware that they wanted a civ specifically tied to mountains, they just had a specific idea for a mountain UI they could have used with the Pueblo.