Absent cultures, who will you play?

[Sal]

Every time I have played a Civ game for the first time I have always started with England. It just seemed like the obvious choice for me before exploring all the other alternatives. This time Britain is not there in any for (which makes sense, considering the isolationist, narrow path we seem to be heading down), but politics aside, this is the first time my first choice will be something unrelated to my own country, as it will for many other players.

I am interested then, if your country, continent or culture is not there in one of the sponsors, who will you choose to play and why? Will it be based on game mechanics or story and attachment?

I am probably going with Franco Iberia, which is geographically closest. I might also go with Kavithan Protectorate, because they seem like a kind of religious bunch.

How about other Brits, Canadians, Germans and so on. Who will you go for?

 

[Bkeela]

Conversely as an Australian, this is the first time I'll be able to play a faction representing something close to Australia, though I resent the intrusion of Polynesia into the faction. Maybe I should make Polystralia my first ever faction to play.

 

[Lord Shadow]

The manly way if your faction's not officially depicted is creating it yourself!

But for my first game, since I won't dive into modding straight away, I'll most likely play as Franco-Iberia. Maybe renamed and all. Remember you can easily do that from the Advanced Setup UI.

 

[ToothedBomb]

Dutchman here. Right now I'm thinking Slavic Federation.

 

[Greybane]

As an American, I almost never play America in Civ. BE has me interested in ARC surprisingly though, so I will give that a shot...as my second game. First game I am going PAC.

 

[AriochIV]

Absent any cultural footprint (or ability to see your own leader), choose for the unique ability and the icon color. In my first game I'll go Slavic Federation for their ability and Purity colors, and I'll change the city names.

Kind of a pain that you have to wait until the Outpost develops into a city to be able to change the name.

 

[defiler]

Absent any cultural footprint (or ability to see your own leader), choose for the unique ability and the icon color. In my first game I'll go Slavic Federation for their ability and Purity colors, and I'll change the city names.

Kind of a pain that you have to wait until the Outpost develops into a city to be able to change the name.

If BE engine is based on CiV you can edit the XML file that contains the city names and change the names at your own accord and they prob will be applied even to outposts
I will do that as soon as I get hands on mine, Brasilian city names gives me shivers, even if I will not play with them I refuse to see cities named Manoel or Borda Dura

 

[Rolaran]

Canadian, going for Franco-Iberia. Mostly because my favorite Civ flavor is just about always cultural giant anyway, and it's a happy coincidence that Canada seems better represented by that than by "surveillance state". And there is the French link with Quebec.

Actually, it'd make a certain amount of sense if Quebec had become part of Franco-Iberia in the wake of the Great Mistake (the Great Mistake Wake?). New headcanon complete in 3 turns...

 

[WiseGreen]

Random! Power to the RNG!

 

[Civ'ed]

As a Dutchman, random. We're all dead (canon-confirmed), so little chance of ever getting to be my descendants

 

[gunnergoz]

I'll play whatever faction suits me that particular moment. I'm mostly a Culture and Research kind of guy so FI is a natural based on its UA, but the new Covert Ops system sounds yummy to try out as well so ARC will be a close second.

 

[MechMedic130]

I'm American and I've only played as America a handful of times in Civ V (they just have a yawn inducing UA). My favorite Civ in Civ V is Venice, so I imagine I'll play Polystralia a lot. I plan on playing Brasilia on my first play through, nice simple no fuss UA to help learn the game, though I feel in the long run Brasilia is going to be viewed as one of the least interesting Civ's to play as because it is so mundane.

I feel like ARC is going to be the golden child civ since they've done so much to improve espionage in this game.

 

[Ryoga]

I've never had a particular preference for a civilization or faction, I'll play them all. As for which I'll play first it will just about as whimsical as a throw of dice.

Franco-Iberia sort of represents my country (Italy) but in a minor way.

I wonder why they left out so much of Europe anyway, Ireland, U.K., Germany, Netherlands, the Scandinavian and the Baltic states as well as Greece, Switzerland and Austria. That's quite a lot.
They grouped up the whole Africa why not Europe that's already united for the most part?

Maybe they are saving them for an expansion.

 

[Navelgazer]

I'm American and not particularly interested in ARC. People's African Union and Polystralia look much better to me, especially for a first play-through (boosted population or boosted money will always be of good use in Civ games.)

 

[cooldude1128]

Well, I was planning to go ARC with a heavy focus on supremacy, since that's my own personal philosophy as well as my country (though I certainly don't agree with the current president's policies!) though in Civilization 5 I almost never picked America due to, similar to somebody above me, not liking the trait thinking the others were more unique/better.

 

[IncessantMace]

The whole EU being left out is baffling me immensely, having been born in Germany I would have used it since we basically own the EU

Guess I'll go Slavic Federation thought, I can play the Soviet Anthem while being them and make it sound even more awesome.

 

[Obbu]

As an Australian, its never bothered me before that we were left out: and its not exciting me overly much now that we're in.

Does that make me strange?

 

[Sal]

I've never had a particular preference for a civilization or faction, I'll play them all. As for which I'll play first it will just about as whimsical as a throw of dice.

Franco-Iberia sort of represents my country (Italy) but in a minor way.

I wonder why they left out so much of Europe anyway, Ireland, U.K., Germany, Netherlands, the Scandinavian and the Baltic states as well as Greece, Switzerland and Austria. That's quite a lot.
They grouped up the whole Africa why not Europe that's already united for the most part?

Maybe they are saving them for an expansion.

Yeah I would have imagined an EU sponsor would have been obvious - more obvious than France and Spain for some reason coming together. I would designed them as a trading oriented sponsor, like polystralia is now I guess.

 

[Lancor]

I'll play whatever faction suits me that particular moment. I'm mostly a Culture and Research kind of guy so FI is a natural based on its UA, but the new Covert Ops system sounds yummy to try out as well so ARC will be a close second.

Taken the words out of my mouth likewise!

Never played germany much in civ anyways.

 

[EddieTheLion]

I never feel anything resembling particular attachment to a nation or ethnicity and I think of people who do as mildly insane at best. In Civ5 I mostly play factions either for the coolness factor or the abilities (also when not using RED modpack I rarely play as some civs not because of anything against their nations but because it's immersion breaking seeing their units be light skinned. This won't be a problem in BE because all the units are wearing environment suits/powered armor (Or are in cyborg combat bodies. Or are robots. Or are aliens...)).

In BE I think who I play as will mostly be for story roleplaying purposes. I think my favorite character so far might be Daoming Sochua, so I might play as her a lot. (interestingly her colony is the only faction who's ideology is not really related to their sponsor, If you read her backstory fluff she was in conflict with the PAC leadership and went directly against their ideology).