Civ7 peoples-- before the starting gun -- NoGo

idk how to describe it but hatsheptsut’s design doesn’t actually feel very reminiscent of her as it does cleopatra, to me, though i could very much be off base here, or perhaps bcs of the clothing similarities.

hatshepsut doesnt have anything that we attach to her distinctly, for example the beard, the hook that she’s often depicted with, etc.

again, maybe a stupid complaint and cleopatra-lite might not be the right term as much as “generic leader” is, but i just don’t see her as being “hatshepsut” to me.
That's fair. I certainly agree their depiction of Hatshepsut is very boring and bland (and anachronistic--she's wearing an Old Kingdom style sheath dress; New Kingdom clothing was much more flowy and loose).

that’s only true if you want to consider timeframes beyond that where civ would start.
Even then, that's an artifact of our lack of knowledge about prehistory.
 
What other benefit would there be to short-civing the early game? It achieves nothing else for the game (and harm the game for people playing single-era game, who now have less options), while making it harder to follow the stated dev goal of keeping new civ options limited to avoid overwhelming players with too many choices
 
Even then, that's an artifact of our lack of knowledge about prehistory.
Although, frankly, the major places where we have no knowledge, or insufficient knowledge, in language reconstruction and specific Leaders/Great People and their names and personalities, are precisely those places where the Civ VII formula makes them less important.

What is needed in Civ VII to 'reconstruct' a Civ is Architecture and unique features of culture, art, trade goods or military prowess - which are precisely those things that show up very well in the archeological record. Can't read or speak the Minoan language? No problem: we have architecture, town planning, ship-types, trade goods, and even elements of their culture (bull 'dancing', religious altars, high status of women, etc ). Can't read Etruscan or are even sure what language family Modo Chanyu spoke? Again, no problem in Civ VII - I suspect the Chanyu's Xiong-Nu Antiquity Civ7 will do just fine under Chingis or Subotai or Timer-i-Lenk.

So, while being stuck with fewer Civ choices in an Antiquity setting made sense in all previous Civs, when they required precise data about Leaders, Languages, dress and deportment, Civ VII has dodged all that and gives us a huge assortment of previously-unavailable Civs to try. That includes Civs in Exploration or Modern Ages, but many of those already had enough data to reconstruct for the game: the great new collection of potential Civs to try is in Antiquity

And if for the first time the game allows us to try many ancient and classical Civs in-game, the game designers would be foolish not to provide them.
 
Although, frankly, the major places where we have no knowledge, or insufficient knowledge, in language reconstruction and specific Leaders/Great People and their names and personalities, are precisely those places where the Civ VII formula makes them less important.
Indeed. I was speaking specifically of archaeological cultures, where often what we know is limited to pottery types, arrowhead shapes, and possible the shape of their houses. I'm not necessarily itching for an Urnfield Culture civ at this time. :D But for proto-historical civs like Minoa, Etruscans, Xiongnu, and so forth, I'm quite on board. I'm already delighted with how civ switching and detached leaders have enabled us to include the Mississippians (though, granted, they did have both leader and language options--e.g., Tuskaloosa speaking Choctaw would have been fine--but are definitely easier without).
 
Indeed. I was speaking specifically of archaeological cultures, where often what we know is limited to pottery types, arrowhead shapes, and possible the shape of their houses. I'm not necessarily itching for an Urnfield Culture civ at this time. :D But for proto-historical civs like Minoa, Etruscans, Xiongnu, and so forth, I'm quite on board. I'm already delighted with how civ switching and detached leaders have enabled us to include the Mississippians (though, granted, they did have both leader and language options--e.g., Tuskaloosa speaking Choctaw would have been fine--but are definitely easier without).
Purely archeological non-literate Civs are still marginal at best, because in most cases we don't even know what they called themselves and wind up with artificial modern titles for them. That doesn't preclude them by any means, as Civ has played fast and loose with Civ titles forever, almost always choosing Recognition over Accuracy . . .

No matter how you slice it, though, it still leaves a great number of potential Civs that can be reconstructed. And even purely archeological groups, as long as we know 'the shape of their houses' and physical artifacts like pottery decorations (which can yield emblems to identify them by in-game) weapons, tools, burial/religious practices - as stated, the physical record from archeology can yield most of hat is needed to show the Civ 'on the map' and even in Units and iconography.

Urnfeld might be stretching it a bit, but a starting Bronze/Iron Age Scandinavian Civ, since we know their houses, ships/boats, weapons, tools, dress and even some hair-styles (the north European bogs yield amazingly detailed bodies and sacrificed goods) is quite possible as a Starting Point for later Norse, Normans, or Goths.

And in central Asia, in addition to the historical Scythian/Saka Civ, we could easily have the earlier Cimmerians or even the Sintashta or Yamnaya, as well as the Pre-Mongol Xiong-Nu.

Yum.
 
Purely archeological non-literate Civs are still marginal at best, because in most cases we don't even know what they called themselves and wind up with artificial modern titles for them. That doesn't preclude them by any means, as Civ has played fast and loose with Civ titles forever, almost always choosing Recognition over Accuracy . . .

No matter how you slice it, though, it still leaves a great number of potential Civs that can be reconstructed. And even purely archeological groups, as long as we know 'the shape of their houses' and physical artifacts like pottery decorations (which can yield emblems to identify them by in-game) weapons, tools, burial/religious practices - as stated, the physical record from archeology can yield most of hat is needed to show the Civ 'on the map' and even in Units and iconography.

Urnfeld might be stretching it a bit, but a starting Bronze/Iron Age Scandinavian Civ, since we know their houses, ships/boats, weapons, tools, dress and even some hair-styles (the north European bogs yield amazingly detailed bodies and sacrificed goods) is quite possible as a Starting Point for later Norse, Normans, or Goths.

And in central Asia, in addition to the historical Scythian/Saka Civ, we could easily have the earlier Cimmerians or even the Sintashta or Yamnaya, as well as the Pre-Mongol Xiong-Nu.

Yum.
you also get potential for ppl like aboriginal australian cultures, which don’t allow their dead to be depicted and the pueblo, who hold the speech of their language to be of religious importance and therefore a closed practice.

not to mention the flexibility in settlement type makes nomadic peoples or people with semi-mobile settlements or extremely small settlements make WAYY more sense. an exploration era inuit would be significantly more viable in civ 7
 
you also get potential for ppl like aboriginal australian cultures, which don’t allow their dead to be depicted and the pueblo, who hold the speech of their language to be of religious importance and therefore a closed practice.

not to mention the flexibility in settlement type makes nomadic peoples or people with semi-mobile settlements or extremely small settlements make WAYY more sense. an exploration era inuit would be significantly more viable in civ 7
Speaking of later-Age nomadic/pastoral Civs, I just finished reading William Taylor's new book, Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History, and on this particular point, they had assumed that Native Americans didn't get their hands on apperciable numbers of horses unntil the early 18th century. Now, from archeological finds of horse remains all the way up to Wyoming, it seems that horses got loose from Spanish colonies in Mexico and New Mexico a century earlier, and within a half-century had spread as both domestic to the natives and feral horses all the way north across the great plains.

Which means that all the Native American groups famous as 'horse people' - and pastoral nomads - were that way from the very beginning of the Civ VII Modern Age around 1600 - 1700 CE and so a Lakota/Souix, Commanche, or Nez Perce Civ could be represented with all their famous attributes without fudging the dates or any transition required.
 
Indeed. I was speaking specifically of archaeological cultures, where often what we know is limited to pottery types, arrowhead shapes, and possible the shape of their houses. I'm not necessarily itching for an Urnfield Culture civ at this time. :D But for proto-historical civs like Minoa, Etruscans, Xiongnu, and so forth, I'm quite on board. I'm already delighted with how civ switching and detached leaders have enabled us to include the Mississippians (though, granted, they did have both leader and language options--e.g., Tuskaloosa speaking Choctaw would have been fine--but are definitely easier without).
Yeah, I'm just restating a bunch above, but what was keeping a lot of the ancients off of the civ roster previously was just a language actor. They kind of sidestepped that, eh?
 
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