A leader idea for the Navajo

[Eagle Pursuit]

https://tylansolomon.weebly.com/about-chief-hoskininni.html

Chief Hoskininni - The Angry One

In the 1850s, Kit Carson was ordered to lead the US Cavalry in rounding up the Navajo. He raided their farms and burned their crops, cutting down thousands of fruit trees and slaughtering herds. The Navajo submitted to the US to avoid starvation. But Hoskininni refused to be interned on a reservation and fled to the mountains with his family. There he raised sheep, planted a unique, hardy cultivar of peaches, and allegedly discovered a rich silver mine.

The US army was unable to maintain the reservation that the other Navajo were imprisoned and they were released with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Hoskininni welcomed them back with sheep and seeds to plant, enabling them to resume their way of life.

Afterwards, he lived a long and prosperous life leading the Navajo people with his wisdom and perseverance, finally passing in 1912. The Navajos' tradition of working in silver and turquoise is attributed to him.

Hoskininni would be a good leader for the Navajo in Civ, with potential bonuses for Pastures and Plantations in the desert, as well as mined luxuries. Additionally, his units could only be visible to enemies on adjacent tiles when on desert tiles.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

https://tylansolomon.weebly.com/about-chief-hoskininni.html

Chief Hoskininni - The Angry One

In the 1850s, Kit Carson was ordered to lead the US Cavalry in rounding up the Navajo. He raided their farms and burned their crops, cutting down thousands of fruit trees and slaughtering herds. The Navajo submitted to the US to avoid starvation. But Hoskininni refused to be interned on a reservation and fled to the mountains with his family. There he raised sheep, planted a unique, hardy cultivar of peaches, and allegedly discovered a rich silver mine.

The US army was unable to maintain the reservation that the other Navajo were imprisoned and they were released with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Hoskininni welcomed them back with sheep and seeds to plant, enabling them to resume their way of life.

Afterwards, he lived a long and prosperous life leading the Navajo people with his wisdom and perseverance, finally passing in 1912. The Navajos' tradition of working in silver and turquoise is attributed to him.

Hoskininni would be a good leader for the Navajo in Civ, with potential bonuses for Pastures and Plantations in the desert, as well as mined luxuries. Additionally, his units could only be visible to enemies on adjacent tiles when on desert tiles.

Some units in Humankind have the Stealth capability, in which they are invisible except to adjacent enemy units. That would be a suitable special ability for many Native American units, including (especially) the Navaho, Apache, and Commanche. The latter feature in Colonel R. MacKenzie's reports (commander of the 5th US Cavalry that chased them repeatedly) for their abiity to suddenly 'disappear' an entire train of women, children, horse herds, travois full of belongings, so that what was a wide trail suddenly evaporated and the tribe vanished in front of the cavalry!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Some units in Humankind have the Stealth capability, in which they are invisible except to adjacent enemy units. That would be a suitable special ability for many Native American units, including (especially) the Navaho, Apache, and Commanche. The latter feature in Colonel R. MacKenzie's reports (commander of the 5th US Cavalry that chased them repeatedly) for their abiity to suddenly 'disappear' an entire train of women, children, horse herds, travois full of belongings, so that what was a wide trail suddenly evaporated and the tribe vanished in front of the cavalry!

Likewise, in Civ VI Privateers work the same way, as do recon units with the appropriate promotion.

Hoskininni basically disappeared into the desert mountains for six solid years with a herd of sheep and a Johnny Appleseed-like tendency to plant peach trees.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Amazing sugestion!

 

[TahamiTsunami]

Definitely a great suggestion! This an example of someone who would make for a great leader of a civ but most people wouldn't about them due to a lack of a Wikipedia page!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Now that Civ 6 is apperently over I'm hoping the Navajo make it into Civ VII.

I think they could take the Maori's ability of not harvesting resources but instead get greater yields from them. They also need to be territorial toward their homeland, but also respecting other people's original homelands.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

I don't have much idea towards Dine' (as the Navajo called themselves) but city lists should be based upon settlement names located inside Navajo domain (which lies within a location where four states borders meet)

- Are they really good at horsemanship and should their UU be Cavalry replacements?
oh! 'Windtalkers' spy. Japanese Navy goons didn't have any clues how to extract ANY informations interrogating them (Well if Spy rules had changed to be more in dept like that player can interrogate and even use enemy spies against them. Player who captured Navajo spy may not be able to do that AT ALL except to kill or hold ransom)

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I don't have much idea towards Dine' (as the Navajo called themselves) but city lists should be based upon settlement names located inside Navajo domain (which lies within a location where four states borders meet)

It's not ideal to use city names on the current reservation, but that's probably the best way to go about it like they did with the Cree. Tségháhoodzání, or Window Rock, would probably be their capital.

- Are they really good at horsemanship and should their UU be Cavalry replacements?
oh! 'Windtalkers' spy. Japanese Navy goons didn't have any clues how to extract ANY informations interrogating them (Well if Spy rules had changed to be more in dept like that player can interrogate and even use enemy spies against them. Player who captured Navajo spy may not be able to do that AT ALL except to kill or hold ransom)

They did use horses but not as much well known compared to their Apache counterparts.
I'd personally like a Codetalker unit. I'd personally still make them a combat unit considering I'd at least like every civ to get a combat UU, though the Codetalker would also have spy capabilities. If they were to get a civilian Spy UU replacement, then I think another combat related UU for the leader would have to happen.

 

[BuchiTaton]

oh! 'Windtalkers' spy. Japanese Navy goons didn't have any clues how to extract ANY informations interrogating them (Well if Spy rules had changed to be more in dept like that player can interrogate and even use enemy spies against them. Player who captured Navajo spy may not be able to do that AT ALL except to kill or hold ransom)

The whole point of use Navajo for intelligence was their obscure language, in CIV if you are playing againts a whole industrial Navajo world power it makes no sense that their enemies would not know enough of their language.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ A very headache to Japanese Empire particularly with their Intel units are EXPERTS in EVERY LANGUAGE knew to men. some even study minor languages, a very feat given how handicapped Kana system was by that time.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The whole point of use Navajo for intelligence was their obscure language, in CIV if you are playing againts a whole industrial Navajo world power it makes no sense that their enemies would not know enough of their language.

I'd consider it gameplay over realism.

That being said I envision them as an isolationist civ trying to protect their homeland/way of life so it's not out of the realm of possibility that they could have an obscure language to other civs in the Industrial Era.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It's not ideal to use city names on the current reservation, but that's probably the best way to go about it like they did with the Cree. Tségháhoodzání, or Window Rock, would probably be their capital.


They did use horses but not as much well known compared to their Apache counterparts.
I'd personally like a Codetalker unit. I'd personally still make them a combat unit considering I'd at least like every civ to get a combat UU, though the Codetalker would also have spy capabilities. If they were to get a civilian Spy UU replacement, then I think another combat related UU for the leader would have to happen.

I'd have the Codetalker as a unique support unit, allowing adjacent friendly ranged units to shoot without direct line of sight, and increasing flanking bonuses for adjacent friendly melee units. Barring that, perhaps as a unique scout class unit with similar bonuses to adjacent units.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I'd have the Codetalker as a unique support unit, allowing adjacent friendly ranged units to shoot without direct line of sight, and increasing flanking bonuses for adjacent friendly melee units. Barring that, perhaps as a unique scout class unit with similar bonuses to adjacent units.

If it is a combat unit it would make sense if it was in the recon line.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

A relevant (and non-rhetorical) question that few ask here is: what does the Navajo Nation think about the use of Hoskininni's representation (or theirs, for that matter) in a (for-profit) game with no Navajo designers or writers?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

A relevant (and non-rhetorical) question that few ask here is: what does the Navajo Nation think about the use of Hoskininni's representation (or theirs, for that matter) in a (for-profit) game with no Navajo designers or writers?

That's certainly a concern. Many of us wouldn't want a culture to be represented in a way that offends them or against their wishes. Discerning whether or not the Navajo leadership would approve of being in the game or having Hoskininni depicted is a bit beyond our ken, I think, as we are generally only "wikipedia smart" about the civ ideas we propose. We are not deeply imbued with first hand experience that could tell us how their group culture might inform their preferences regarding Civ.

For instance, it would be hard for me to say whether the Navajo hold their ancestors in such high regard that it is taboo to depict them, like the Pueblo apparently do. I suppose we could research that before making such proposals. But as we are merely 'fan-casting' our favorite game series, that seems like an unnecessary step for us to take.

Naturally, we would expect the team at Firaxis to perform their due diligence in seeking out official approval and input from the Navajo and to abide by their wishes, whatever the result.

As for us fans, we may only dream of the possibilities. But dreams, unlike reality, are unconstrained by these concerns.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Naturally, we would expect the team at Firaxis to perform their due diligence in seeking out official approval and input from the Navajo and to abide by their wishes, whatever the result.

As for us fans, we may only dream of the possibilities. But dreams, unlike reality, are unconstrained by these concerns.

Of course, of course. I have this reaction sometimes when reading fan ideas, like "why don't you do X" or "why isn't there e.g. Aboriginal Australian representation" and my thoughts go to the practicalities of it. The ethics of inclusion and refusal. Would a person from X community feel good about seeing X representation in the game, etc. And acknowledging that I'm a white American dude (though with research in SE Asia and family in Finland), and most of (not all) the devs are as well, it's a sense of responsibility - "we have none of the stakeholders on staff here, but still we want to incorporate a full vision of history. How do we do that well?"

I think with Vietnam I was really pleased by the Vietnamese players' reaction to it (obviously certain quibbles, e.g. Thang Long as the capital, preferences for someone other than Trieu) but largely it was "wow cool!" I saw it as a way of also showing American players that there was more to the place than [American representations of] a war just fifty years ago.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

For instance, it would be hard for me to say whether the Navajo hold their ancestors in such high regard that it is taboo to depict them, like the Pueblo apparently do.

For what it's worth, it wasn't showing their ancestors that the Pueblo were objecting to. What they were objecting to was having their language spoken in the game, specifically Tewa in the Kiowa–Tanoan family of Puebloan languages. The quote I found lays it out quite well from this source: Knowing history: Behind Civ 5's Brave New World | Polygon

"Firaxis was willing to consult with the Pueblo Council to determine the most realistic way of portraying the Pueblo civ, but the Pueblos drew a hard line at the language. To the Pueblo people, their language is sacred. They viewed inclusion of the language in a video game as a form of desecration, similar to how many native people do not wish to be photographed."

A user who made a Pueblo mod on Steam also worded this quite well:

"...despite popular misconception to the contrary, the Pueblo did NOT specifically request to be excluded from Civilization V. The "Pueblo Council" (unspecified which) initially worked with Firaxis to aid them in their planned BNW depiction, but ended up drawing a line when Firaxis sought their help in finding a Tewa-speaking voice actor to record Po'pay's lines. The council felt that video games were not a worthy enough medium to depict their spoken language, which left Firaxis at an impasse and led to the Shoshone being developed instead."


It appears to me from the quotes above that there probably wouldn't be a group of people that would put in a specific and flat out request to be excluded from a video game, at least not right away. I imagine that the opportunity for even the basic general public awareness is usually at least worth considering and not taking lightly as long as it doesn't step over any particularly sacred cultural traditions. If you could have a game where the leader either isn't visible or doesn't exist at all like in Humankind, you could potentially have an Aboriginal Australian civilization in the game with the blessing of modern Aboriginal Australians. Perhaps if you could have a game where Po'pay didn't have to speak Tewa specifically (such as speaking a less sacred Puebloan language, pretending he was fluent in another language he encountered such as Spanish, or have him be constantly accompanied by a translator, etc.), then it could've been possible to have the Pueblo lead by Po'pay in the game.

This will also vary quite a bit between even related peoples. Tewa may be a sacred Puebloan language but one of the Keresan Puebloan languages was sung during the Coca-Cola "It's Beautiful" commercial at the 2014 Super Bowl. From what I've seen and heard from a Navajo friend of mine, the impression I get is that the Navajo are more used to media attention like the Iroquois, Powhatan and Sioux so they may not have any particular issues with a portrayal of their civilization in a video game but of course feel free to take what I say with more than a grain of salt!

I'd also say I can't help but approve of the progress that Firaxis has made. For whatever issues with gameplay or historical accuracy they may have even today, I think that going from a Native American civ in Civ 4 to consulting with a Pueblo Council on the most realistic way of portraying a Pueblo civ in Civ 5 deserves a lot of praise even if it ultimately didn't pan out at the end.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Right. I was speaking very generally, including language, ancestors, or anything of the sort in my "X representation". I just want to feel good about the final product. My role is history and culture, and so I focus on that (and less on, you know, UPT concerns or other design decisions). It would absolutely kill me to feel like a potential fan feels like we've done them or their ancestors a disservice. I'm less sympathetic to overtly nationalist concerns where there are multiple legitimate sides, but groups that have been routinely misrepresented definitely deserve proper respectful inclusion - or respectful exclusion - from something that I produce.

My sensibilities here are also anthropological. The discipline has been extremely self-reflexive on its approach to studying people for whom study itself has been a tool of colonial administration. Some early anthropologists engaged out of an attempt to mitigate colonial harm, some were less altruistic, but even then there were key omissions that put a pall over the discipline's history (studying "a group" and neglecting to talk about the historical factors that led to that group's formation. Many "primordial societies" are anything but, being instead results of refusal to engage with hierarchical systems - see the work of James Scott, Eric Wolf, Audra Simpson, etc., or work on "Zomia" in Southeast Asia, the Seminole of Florida, et cetera). My own work is in between; in working with Lao-speaking Thais, here's a population that is both on the "victor" side (powerful lowland Lao states versus smaller groups) but also on the "losing" side of things (people whose history is subordinate to Siamese history in nationalist tellings, whose language is cast as a "rude, ignorant country dialect"). Be aware that you're telling someone else's story; you might disagree (I personally don't really entertain some Indigenous arguments that humans evolved in North America), but you must listen respectfully and be aware that here is a story that has been either ignored or misrepresented so many times in popular media, so stepping back when asked to is a part of that.

Civ is a game of global history, and global history is, well, global. Our fans, too, are global.