I will be very, very surprised if C5 isn't an Ottoman sultan. Someone mentioned it previously, but Tomyris of Scythia, besides being a 'big personality' with a capital P, is a perfect fusion of Mongols (Eurasian steppes-dwelling, warlike nomadic culture), and Persia (as cousins, being an Iranian people). Also fits the TSL location nicely. I think that's a big point.
She just takes a good bit of the need for having Mongols and Persia there in the base game, if she's in it. So we get to vary up the Mongols, include a very interesting female leader, and also cover for Persia and free up another slot. I see a lot of win for Firaxis in that. Of course the Persian civilization isn't represented with its achievement by the Scythians, but in some way they are a glimpse of their own origins descending from the Eurasian steppes, no?
I was going to be very sad if Persia wasn't in the base game but I have no problem with it actually, as long as we have Tomyris/Scythia. A great new introduction. I'm very happy with this choice by Firaxis.
That shadow looks very much like Mehmed II from Civ 4, and not unlike Suleiman in Civ 5 + Firaxis name-dropping Mehmed on the twitter feed a while back + Turkey being probably an important new market, I think make an Ottoman very likely. They also have a good tradition of being included in Civ. Also happy with this one, Ottoman Turks are one of my favorites. Also like getting Gilgamesh of Sumer back, I think he'll be very cool.
I like that they really seem to want to switch out leaders for basically every civ this time from Civ 5 (except for that darn Gandhi).
I think too, there are probably some civs out there that would work perfectly for mechanics that they aim to introduce in an expansion and so are held in reserve with that in mind. So fans of Persia, SE Asia civs, Inca, etc shouldn't be too dejected, they'll probably get their civ later on with new mechanics they are custom-made to take advantage of. I'll laugh if I get more 150 turn Persian golden ages
My biggest disappointments I think are not having Gandhi replaced by Asoka or someone, anyone, else (pipe dream
), and I wanted Russia to have Ivan the Terrible. I'm glad they went to Peter at least though.
Biggest surprise is that this has definitely more weighting to Europe (8 I think, not sure what to make of the two Spanish portraits, a hint that multiple leaders per civ are in the works?), and Middle East/Africa (if we include Scythians it's 6, if Georgia is in its 7) and less to Asia/Americas than expected at just 3 apiece from what I'm guessing. That brings up a point, in that the Asian style is really 'East Asian', and there's not a lot of candidate civs, India really should belong with Middle East style but gets grouped in Asian for numbers balancing (in Civ 4 it had Middle East troops, and Asian architecture though).
