Asset file hinting at future and/or cut content

What up Bárður Snæfellsás Statue

I don’t know it’s just important, that’s just the first thing I found
 
As I believe someone said earlier, L'Anse aux Meadows could reasonably be attributed to Iceland for this game despite the not-very-Icelandic name. For the sake of consistency they could just choose to believe the theory that the settlement indeed was the Leifsbuðir mentioned in the sagas. Alternatively they could turn the historically important village of Skálholt into a wonder, as they've done with entire cities before. (e.g. Kilwa Kisiwani)

The Temple at Uppsala, however, I can only see belonging to either an antiquity "Norse" civ or the Swedes. But it naturally won't go to the latter if a modern Sweden is indeed the plan at Firaxis.
 
Or they could call the wonder Leifsbudir and only base the appearance on L'Anse-aux-Meadows.
 
Alexander's Hetaroi said:
Isn't that in located in Sweden?
Not sure about wonders especially if they turn out to be Exploration Age, because most notable things I have found were built in the 1800s and later.
As far as unique infrastructure goes Icelandic turf house would be neat.
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I see L'Anse aux Meadows as a very possible option, perhaps as a wonder that must be built on another continent. Another possibility is that Iceland could receive a culturally associated wonder, even if it wasn't built by them.

ButtBillionaire said:
The Temple at Uppsala, however, I can only see belonging to either an antiquity "Norse" civ or the Swedes. But it naturally won't go to the latter if a modern Sweden is indeed the plan at Firaxis.
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Indeed, the Temple at Uppsala could work well for an Antiquity Nordic civilization, perhaps granting a second pantheon or enhancing the existing one, or maybe serving as a "Tundra Petra."
 
TheGrayFox said:
Okay I understand your position even if I'm still going to respectfully disagree. My undergrad focus was on colonial history, so I've taken courses on the Golden Age of Piracy. I don't think many historians would make the argument that pirates were the "precursor" to 1776 or revolutions against Spanish rule. Which isn't to say that pirates, the golden age of piracy, and the Nassau Republic weren't important parts of history or worth learning about. Pirates were cool and would be a fun addition to the game, even if I don't nessecarily agree that they should be a full fledged civ. I think they'd be better represented through events, crises, and/or game mechanics.

I see what you mean about some of the idea we've come to associate with pirates and their code predating the mainstream modern and post-modern trend in the West and that is an interesting discussions but I think these trends devoloped seperately across the west and that pirates bare little responsibility for why we have gender equality, multi-culturalism, anti-racist activism, and the like today.
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The article I linked helped me understand the idea better. The relevance of pirates is Foucauldian. It's not that revolutionaries were inspired by pirates or thinking of them.

The idea is that the entire modern and post-modern world is defined by the presence of colonial power. People today still always talk about decolonizing and so forth. For Foucault, power doesn't have an identity, it simply appropriates things that serve its purposes. So this entire modern world that came out of British colonialism: "The West" and "Modernity" and even post-modernity and post-colonialism as reactions, it's just a bunch of things like technology, morality that have been appropriated and exploited by power to serve power.

The way power defines itself is against some antithesis; "otherization". British colonialism very explicitly chose the Golden Age of Piracy as the other. The thing which defined what colonial civilization was by way of contrast. Up front this means that pirates rob and kill, civilization protects and creates order. But then pirates also come to represent other things like the immorality of homosexuality and so forth, serving the same purpose in defining what civilization is.

Since the exploration age creates the modern age, then the Pirate Republic is quintessential in defining colonial and modern civilization. Not by inspiring the people who reformed or changed civilization, but by defining the foundation which was being reformed. A good example of this comes from the article where the British colonization of India was first justified as anti-piracy. They had to conquer India because otherwise India would produce pirates, so the violence and exploitation of this action was justified using the model of a golden age pirate to frame the moral premises of colonialism.

As I said, this is a Foucauldian premise. I don't completely agree that civilizations are purely expression of power that are defined only through their others. Still, the analysis is solid enough to show why the pirates were actually very important.
 
untitledjuan said:
Gran Colombia's oficial name was the "Republic of Colombia". Neither Bolívar, nor the people who lived back then, used the term "Gran Colombia" they just called their nation "Colombia".

The term "Gran Colombia" was later created by historians to refer to the historical period when Colombia was waaay larger, but the nation per se never stopped existing. The Republic of Colombia still exists and has existed for 200 years, it still consider Bolívar to have been its first president and still has some active laws from the "Gran Colombia" period.

"Gran Colombia" is a historical period similar to "Revolutionary America", "Imperial France, or "Meiji Japan", it is just a fragment of the wider history of a country which kept on existing to this day.

Sure, the "Napoleonic French Empire" was short lived, but France kept on existing. Its the same thing.
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Well yes, my point is that the short lived "Gran Colombia," whatever we choose to call it, was reflective of several centuries of Spanish occupation of New Granada and the current heritage of Colombia/Venezuela/Ecuador/Panama.

Piracy dominated the Caribbean for a couple centuries; aside from maybe a Taino/Arawak civ, which could very easily serve as an antiquity origin point instead, it is a thoroughly valid exploration era representation of the region. Had this civ come later, after other regions (South America, Africa, Scandinavia and Slavic Europe, Polynesia) were better fleshed out, and after we had other orientation points like Cuba/Haiti or the Taino, I don't think people would be nearly as frustrated with an exploration era pirate civ. It just looks really wonky when the map is currently this empty. But I am cautiously optimistic that this signals at every region of the world getting solid three-era representation by the time DLC is finished.
 
Oh also if I had to guess that some of this content was cut to fit into the "four civs, two leaders" format:

* Sayyida Al Hurra is most likely to have been cut. Because we already have a very "explorer-y" Moroccan/Berber leader in Ibn Battuta. And that keeps to a more expected gender/era split between Teach and Cooper.
* Tonga or Maori were most likely to have been cut and pushed back to DLC. I would give better odds to Maori to be released alongside Cooper, so probably Tonga put off. This would still keep a decent era balance with the other civs in the pack, as I am getting huge vibes that Iceland will be our antiquity Norse civ.

(I hope nothing was cut though, I want it all om nom nom)
 
RedCourtJester said:
* Sayyida Al Hurra is most likely to have been cut. Because we already have a very "explorer-y" Moroccan/Berber leader in Ibn Battuta. And that keeps to a more expected gender/era split between Teach and Cooper.
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That would be a shame considering she is my favorite pick out of these choices.
RedCourtJester said:
This would still keep a decent era balance with the other civs in the pack, as I am getting huge vibes that Iceland will be our antiquity Norse civ.
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I'm wondering why Iceland would be Antiquity when they were one of the last Nordic places to be settled?
 
RedCourtJester said:
I think the line was crossed ages ago. If loose confederacies of tribes and city-states qualify (Maya, Iroquois, Phoenicia, Scythia, Mapuche, Cree, Maori), the Pirate Republic is hardly a stretch.
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No, I’m afraid these are not fair comparisons. The objection to the Pirate Republic is not about whether something is a polity or not - this game has never been Sid Meier’s States and Polities. It’s whether it is functionally a civilisation. What all of your examples have in common (in fact some very much are political unions) are shared and defining languages, religions and material cultures developed over a long history even if they were never a unified political entity.

The “Pirate Republic” lasted 12 years and at its height had just over 1,000 pirates. It was essentially a short-lived rebel occupation of a precarious colony by people who were mostly culturally British. It is certainly an interesting historical episode, especially given the proto-anarchic nature of their code, but it lasted scarcely a decade before being subdued and its members largely folded back into British subjects. I don’t think it is comparable to… the Mayans.

The pirates have been much romanticised, and an endless source of fiction, which is the only reason it would ever be considered, besides a frankly quite narrow gameplay function.

It would be disappointing if it was made an Exploration Age civ before the Aztecs, the Safavids, the Almoravids, the Khazars, the Dutch … repeat ad nauseam.
 
I can only support the idea of a Pirate Republic if the leader of said Republic receives an eye patch, a hook for a hand, and a parrot on their shoulder.

I’m sorry but Catherine the Pirate Prime Minister doesn’t really speak to me. Nor does Baroque Friedrich, nor does…nor does…
 
SammyKhalifa said:
I'd enjoy it as a unique city state that gives special pirate-like bonuses if you suze them.
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Yeah I think that would be great!

Civs are already quite large by Exploration, so I am having a hard time imagining the Pirate Republic from the Bahamas controlling 1/3 of the Earth’s territory. (Same can be said for some other civilizations we’ve had in the game, like Venice, but Venice at least had a “one city” design).
 
Not sure how I feel about Edward Teach. Like sure, Blackbeard, big name, but dev resources are limited and as far as pirate/sea captain-type leaders go I was more interested in Zheng Yi Sao, Grace O'Malley or Laskarina Bouboulina. Nothing in the way of more than one of these existing at the same time, but it certainly feels less likely if he is indeed planned and hasn't been cut.
 
ButtBillionaire said:
Not sure how I feel about Edward Teach. Like sure, Blackbeard, big name, but dev resources are limited and as far as pirate/sea captain-type leaders go I was more interested in Zheng Yi Sao, Grace O'Malley or Laskarina Bouboulina. Nothing in the way of more than one of these existing at the same time, but it certainly feels less likely if he is indeed planned and hasn't been cut.
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I absolutely prefer Sayyida as a concept over Laskarina if we are looking at that general era/region.

I would be fine with Zheng Yi Sao, although I think a more interesting pirate niche for the area would be Queen Soma. Sadly I think Trung Trac competes for conceptual space with both of them for different reasons.

I think Grace's chances are still okay if we ever get Irish representation. I think her odds are a bit diminished by Sayyida/Teach, but I would still put her in top three most likely Irish leaders alongside Brian Boru and Michael Collins. Just depends on what era of Irish independence the devs are feeling I suppose.
 
Figured it was worth mentioning (since I haven't seen anyone else mention it yet), but the "Flying Gang" is actually an Exploration Age independent power with the city of Nassau. I have them (hilariously land locked) in my current game, I'll send a picture later if anyone wants to see it. Figured this points to them still considering the Pirate Republic as an idea
 
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