Civ Suggestion: Polynesia

[awesome]

bump.

 

[Novicenoble]

BUMP!


Does anyone making Polynesia civ?

 

[zanuda]

there just the jungle on the islands how you can to build a city

 

[Cosmos1985]

Being able to build cities on jungle could be part of their UP?

(PS Leoreth pleeeeeeeeeeease make this happen sometime, we love you long time)

 

[ales_]

I've decided to bump this thread because, thanks to Bobby Martnen's help it's become quite obvious that Polynesia is going to be the new civ depending on culture mechanics.
I want to say (write) that I still think it shouldn't be human-only. A way must be found to make sure that it does well as an AI.

 

[Tigranes]

City is the quintessential object in Sid Meyer's interpretation of the concept of civilization. Polynesians built no cities. With the current engine they do not qualify to be a civilization.

 

[THEK1NG]

Am I the only one here who thinks that Polynesia is a bad idea for a civ? I mean think about it, it's significantly disadvantaged, it did not have a lot of impact on the world (so they colonized a few islands and discovered large chunks of land. So?) I'm sure Polynesia wont be fun for the few weeks after it's hype.

At most polynesia could be an independent city (probably on Easter Island) with one wonder built (moai statue). Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion but IMO, polynesia is a waste of space and will just lag up the game more.

 

[Tigranes]

You can clearly see that no, you are not the only one. Polynesia is sufficiently represented with ... goody huts! Regular Australia is much more realistic addition: the only nation-continent in the world.

 

[BenZL43]

Note that if all civilization are city-building, wonder-building, regional-war-expansion type, all are boring and have similar strategies - just different starting location and some other factors.

Each civilization should have a "unique characteristic/playing style" that's different from others...

Indonesia is characterized by maritime trade
Tamil is characterized by being Asian viking
Tibet is characterized by Buddhism
Arabia is characterized by Islamic expansion
Japan is characterized by its reserved and isolationism
Russia is characterized by rapid city building and vast land
England is characterized by world colonization across 7 continent
Canada is characterized by modern peacekeeper
etc.

Turkestan, if added, is characterized by fast region-conquering and nomadic lifestyle

So does Polynesia. It will be the only city-building civilization that is a tribal confederation and spread its territory by hopping from one island unto another. It's different and unique.

On the other hand, Australia seems like also a regular city-building civilization. Moreover, Australia already exists as modmodmod. I won't mind though if Australia is respawn of Polynesia.

 

[JiimBV]

Good points, BenZL. I would like to add that of the wide variety of Polynesian enclaves, a large number managed to build impressive structures (not just the Moai) and those that did were often quite prolific. Though my knowledge is fairly limited as to the structure of these societies, a book I read looking at various ancient megalith building cultures looks at many Polynesian ruins and the extent of these ruins conveys a sense that these were not necessarily "primitive" societies that are represented just as well by goody huts as by a full-fledged civilization. Even in Easter Island the stone workers building the platforms for the Moai used an earthquake-proofing technique otherwise only found in ancient Incan and Egyptian architecture.

My main issue is that I don't know how feasible it would be to make sure that the AI can handle Polynesia and that the human can't abuse it, all the while making sure it can actually build the Moai.

 

[BenZL43]

Leoreth has hinted that Polynesia will be Human only. One of the concern was the chance of premature contact between the New World and Indonesia. Though now I have a solution for that:

Make sure the easternmost coast from Indonesia and westernmost coast from Melanesia did not touch and few tiles wide (therefore it requires Astronomy to make a contact even though they are practically neighbors). The same can be done for Polynesia - Maya/Aztec. There's already significant research that point Polynesia and Inca has contacted.

 

[Tigranes]

Your examples are proving my point. One can be city builder and still different. The game simply does not provide with Polynesian alternative to the city concept. Huts and barbarians is all we got.

 

[cudfather]

As for the premature New World access, why not simply use capes east of Indonesia? It also prevents human exploits such as medieval Japanese Australia.

 

[Visard]

New research about "Climate windows for Polynesian voyaging to New Zealand and Easter Island":

"We argue here that changing wind field patterns associated with the MCA provided conditions in which voyaging to and from the most isolated East Polynesian islands, New Zealand, and Easter Island was readily possible by off-wind sailing. The intensification and poleward expansion of the Pacific subtropical anticyclone culminating in A.D. 1140–1260 opened an anomalous climate window for off-wind sailing routes to New Zealand from the Southern Austral Islands, the Southern Cook Islands, and Tonga/Fiji Islands. "

Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/09/24/1408918111
Published online before print September 29, 2014

 

[spaceman98]

One major objection to the idea of a Polynesian civ is that Polynesia is historically extremely disunited. All of the other civs we have were at some point united polities (even if, as is the case for Babylon, they represent regions or groups of cultures). Polynesia was never united. Even on the same island, warfare was common, and polities spanning multiple islands (while not unheard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuʻi_Tonga_Empire) were rare and decentralized.

The biggest question for me would be: What would a Polynesian civilization add (they do represent an underrepresented region, but we already have Indonesia there)? What would tend to happen to them (probably collapse to natives because they can't trade over ocean, so would have bad stability if they expand)? How can the player exploit them (mass-settling Australia, though this isn't necessarily a bad thing). What effect would they have on the game (remember that the AI cannot do naval invasions, so unless trading companies are added against them, those cities may remain native for much of the game, until they get traded out by congresses)

 

[Tigranes]

Polynesians did not build cities.

 

[BenZL43]

please define cities.

 

[Novicenoble]

Some very special set of UB, UP, UU will solve the problem IMAO.

Pop 1 city is 1000 population. I think Polynesians had much more than that in major islands.

 

[spaceman98]

I think that Easter Island, at its height, would count as a city, but NOT as a united polity with sufficient influence to justify a civilization. Similarly, large Maori settlements may have been sedentary and city-like in nature, but no Maori chief ever united New Zealand, or even North New Zealand

 

[The Hyper Duck]

A way must be found to make sure that it does well as an AI.

Why? The 'polynesian civilization' didn't do well in real life, if we're comparing it to the other civs in the game. They didn't do anything particularly important from a historical context, other than surviving for a long time in an isolated, completely disunited way until Western explorers eventually came along.

If this proposed polynesian civ tends to become a one or two-island state that collapses into non-aligned barbarian cities, from a CivIV perspective that is a pretty accurate depiction of the area's actual history (excepting the fact that the Polynesians were never really united enough for a region-wide 'collapse' to happen in the first place). I mean, what did the European explorers who came there during the age of exploration find? A bunch of disunited, hunter-gatherer tribes that occasionally fought with each other. Even one of the most well-known Polynesian civilizations, the Easter Islanders, managed to collapse without ever leaving their island. Trying to operate a government across a bunch of distant islets with only hunter-gatherer technology at your disposal is a losing proposition, and while it would be a nice challenge for a human player, I doubt the AI would be able to do much in that situation, even with UPs and such being used as crutches to prop it up.

I'm not saying they necessarily NEED to be a human-only civ. I just don't think it's worth altering the mod all that much in an effort to help make them more than what they were.

That being said, this is an RFC mod and historical accuracy is not exactly paramount. So if the Polynesians aren't going to occasionally settle in Australia or NZ or New Guinea or something, I don't really see the point in including them as an AI at all. You could just plop some barb cities on the islands in the area and you'd have the same end result by the time the Europeans arrive.

edit: and before people start piling on me for calling them 'hunter-gatherers', yes I am aware that many tribes in the area knew how to grow crops, and thus were not technically hunter-gatherers.