Brave New World's 9 new Civs

[Verified_Confection_Being]

At the risk of sounding Eurocentric, why should areas where the "civs" would have to borrow from modern town names to even have any cities be represented as anything other than barbarians?

Such as the Celts, Polynesians, Huns, a prospective further North American Native civ, an Inuit civ, et cetera.

Firstly because many of theose peoples you mentioned don't have to take from modern towns and cities to have a city list, this is a gross misconception.

Secondly, because our idea of civilization is a fallacy. If the series is supposed to be an alternative history why does that history have to exclude nomads? Feasably it is possibly to have a huge, successful empire as nomads. The Mongols had the largest empire in the world until the 1700's. Nomads were in fact a hugely significant part of human history really until the modern era. It's only the rise of the west and the idea of "civilization" as we term it that has altered this.

Civilisation as the concept in this iteration of the game at least isn't really compatible with nomads. But considering the premise of the game is to lead your people from a tribal form to becoming the clear dominant peoples on the earth, nomads should really be involved in this as it has been a very valid route in the past.

 

[Sikandar]

I think it depends on why they have to borrow the names. If they didn't have cities, that's a concern. If they had cities, but white people didn't bother to write down their names, I'm fine with naming it after a modern city near the settlement. That is just blatant Eurocentrism to only favor civs whose city names Europeans felt like writing down.

Europeans weren't responsible for every civ's city lists not being accurate though. Some civilizations weren't sophisticated enough to have writing systems or if they did the records didn't survive the centuries.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Europeans weren't responsible for every civ's city lists not being accurate though. Some civilizations weren't sophisticated enough to have writing systems or if they did the records didn't survive the centuries.

Or sometimes, Europeans weren't sophisticated enough to understand their recorded language...

 

[Nujabes]

Europeans weren't responsible for every civ's city lists not being accurate though. Some civilizations weren't sophisticated enough to have writing systems or if they did the records didn't survive the centuries.

But your original question asked why peoples like the Celts, Polynesians, Inuits, Huns, etc., should be considered as anything but barbarians due to a lack of city names, which is kind of absurd on its face.

 

[Sikandar]

But your original question asked why peoples like the Celts, Polynesians, Inuits, Huns, etc., should be considered as anything but barbarians due to a lack of city names, which is kind of absurd on its face.

How is it absurd when city lists are an integral part of the character of a given civ?

 

[Sikandar]

They are better represented by barbarians than fanciful renditions. That's what I'm getting at.

 

[Option]

Oh boy, are we now implying that some cultures actually don't have any culture because they haven't achieved gigantic wondrous buildings, military conquest or scientific progress?

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

They are better represented by barbarians than fanciful renditions. That's what I'm getting at.

No they aren't. Barbarians at least as their represented in this game do not have culture, scientific development or any realistic ability to interact with other "civilisations" or conquer them.

The barbarian system is the game is not sophisticated enough to represent such civilizations, and if it were, why should they all be grouped together as one barbarian block?

 

[Sikandar]

Oh boy, are we now implying that some cultures actually don't have any culture because they haven't achieved gigantic wondrous buildings, military conquest or scientific progress?

Don't get cute with me. I could ask you the same question about why are some civs only represented by city-states and not full civs. I guess they aren't qualified either?

 

[Sikandar]

No they aren't. Barbarians at least as their represented in this game do not have culture, scientific development or any realistic ability to interact with other "civilisations" or conquer them.

The barbarian system is the game is not sophisticated enough to represent such civilizations, and if it were, why should they all be grouped together as one barbarian block?

Because presented as is they are just Firaxis' crude approximation of what that civ was (more so than civs with detailed accounts upon which to draw on and get a more accurate portrayal). It seems intellectually dishonest.

 

[Louis XXIV]

They are better represented by barbarians than fanciful renditions. That's what I'm getting at.

We're arguing that they're not fanciful renditions and they aren't better represented by barbarians. We understand your argument, we just completely disagree with it.

 

[Nujabes]

How is it absurd when city lists are an integral part of the character of a given civ?

Because city lists tell us more about the depth of our (and Firaxis' knowledge) than they do about whatever judgments go into what you call "the character of a given civ," and a lack of a good city list shouldn't necessarily move a civilization into the heading of "barbarian"? Are the Sioux barbarians because they were nomadic? Why would we represent them as barbarians just because they had to follow Buffalo herds around to live?

 

[Leugi]

This again? The "worthiness" of a civ isn't defined by the eurocentric definition of civilization. And that's Firaxis decision... There's nothing we can do about it and this argument always ends up in both sides bashing each other until a mod cuts it...

So, let us focus again on the whole, which "civs" will make it? Regardless of "worthiness", let's play with "likelihood"...

 

[otaman1]

So why are we arguing about barbarians now?

 

[Nujabes]

Because presented as is they are just Firaxis' crude approximation of what that civ was (more so than civs with detailed accounts upon which to draw on and get a more accurate portrayal). It seems intellectually dishonest.

Let's stop this derail please, or start another thread elsewhere where we can all crap on you. Your idea of intellectual honesty (No city list? Barbarians, surely) is pretty bad, and honestly, Firaxis' solutions, though sometimes sloppy, are way better than yours.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Because presented as is they are just Firaxis' crude approximation of what that civ was (more so than civs with detailed accounts upon which to draw on and get a more accurate portrayal). It seems intellectually dishonest.

I don't disagree that the current representations are crude and inaccurate. Ideally, each civ would have its own systems with which to play the game and their own victory conditions, but that is infeasibly complicated.

Instead we have people's who are particularly prolific in histories represented as a kind of shout out, all shoved into a system that doesn't really fit any of them very well, and european civs the best. That doesn't mean we shouldn't include them, after all this game is entirely hypothetical.

Hopefully we'll have some more diverse means of represented "uncivilised" peoples in future games as they are of course as civilised as anyone, and as important in history. In the mean time you'll have to stick to playing top trumps with history in its current method. Firaxis have only just started to diversify their flavours for this game, give them time and the systems will catch up.

 

[Option]

Well obviously the Vikings and Mongols only ever were barbarians and never had any culture that redeemed them whatsoever as a proper civilization.

I hope, Sikandar, you realize that the barbarians are not supposed to represent any particular civilization or culture, yes?
Nobody from the devs ever said "Yeah, and the Inuit and Ashanti are represented by our barbarians".

The city-states are a much different category than barbarians, as well. The city-states are nations/civs that have had influence, they have their own Civilopedia entries (each one of them has). They, for all purposes, are complete civs, just not playable by a human, and not capable of expanding by founding new cities (they CAN, however, conquer new cities!).

If they would have to turn every city state into a full civ, they would have to finish with over 100 or so different playable factions.

 

[obro]

Oh come on Canada? Really? What will be their UU canadian mounties?

 

[Leugi]

Or sometimes, Europeans weren't sophisticated enough to understand their recorded language... (AN IMAGE OF THE QIPUS)[/IMG]

And that's true too... Many quipus represented even the history and knowledge of the Inca, and even Spanish aknowledged it, because of that they burned most of them because of their heretic content...

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Someone call the cops, this thread has been threadjacked.