Civilization: Mythos

[Evie]

Alexander's Hetaroi - Arthur's civ should be Britain, not England, since having Arthur, famous opponent of the Angles (and Jutes, and Saxons)lead a civ named after the Angles...is weird.

I would avoid pure deities (deified humans are okay) so no Ra for Egypt, and also avoid figures that were a)probably real and b)not really depicted in a mythological way, even if the stories about them aren't real (Dido).

Perseus is cool, but come on, we have to go with a tragic greek hero (ie, anybody except Perseus) just so they can joke about their tragedy in all their diplomacy lines.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Arthur's civ should be Britain, not England, since having Arthur, famous opponent of the Angles (and Jutes, and Saxons)lead a civ named after the Angles...is weird.

True.

I would avoid pure deities (deified humans are okay) so no Ra for Egypt, and also avoid figures that were a)probably real and b)not really depicted in a mythological way, even if the stories about them aren't real (Dido).

I tried to find depictions of leaders that weren't real but Egypt was really hard for me to find one without resorting to actual deities. I considered Akhenaten, who I'd want for Civ 7, if I must go with a deified human.

Perseus is cool, but come on, we have to go with a tragic greek hero (ie, anybody except Perseus) just so they can joke about their tragedy in all their diplomacy lines.

I really like Perseus too much to want to get rid of him.
But if we must we could always have more Greek leaders.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Egypt-Akhenaten

Egypt should be lead by Osíris!

 

[Henri Christophe]

Maya-Ku'Ku'lkan

Other option to Mayans can be the twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque

And we can let the featheres serpent to the Aztecs (or Toltecs).

Greece-Perseus

Greece should received a Olympic god, as Zeus.
At least Hercules to be equipared to the other civs myths.

Norse-Ragnar Lodbrok

Could be Odin.

Inca-Manco Capac

Manco Capac was a real dude.
I should vote to Inti as Inca god.

India-Arjuna Pandava

I like Arjuna the most and his speech with Krishna, but I guess should be better to this roll one of the ten avatares of VIshnu.
Krishna can be, Rama also, even the Buda. But I think the best option is Kalki, the one who don't come yet.

Persia-Scheherazade

For Persia should be some Zoroastrian god, the only one I know is Ahura Mazda.

Romania-Vlad Dracula

Yoruba-Sango

That two I like the most

 

[Evie]

And this is why I didn't want to use the gods. Because we get spammed with gods instead of the far more interesting human heroes that were the focus until now.

(Though if we are to use a god for Egypt, it should be Horus, the one who has by far the strongest association with the leadership of Egypt)

My general thought is that we should focus on mythological (and folklore) heroes and rulers who according to legends actually ruled human civilizations. Not gods whose only connection to humans is being worshipped by them and messing with their lives (so no Olympians nor Aesir). Gods who actually lived among humans and directly ruled them might work.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Other option to Mayans can be the twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque
[IMG alt="1683454948047.jpeg"]https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/1683454948047-jpeg.661331/[/IMG]
And we can let the featheres serpent to the Aztecs (or Toltecs).

I wasn't sure if the Mayan twins were actually rulers or not. Looking them up the legendary twins could be mythical ancestors to Mayan ruling lineages, so I think this might work. That means I can do Quetzalcoatl for the Aztecs.

For Persia should be some Zoroastrian god, the only one I know is Ahura Mazda.
[IMG alt="1683455512111.jpeg"]https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/1683455512111-jpeg.661338/[/IMG]

As explained above, I'm don't want to do any actual gods/deities. I did consider Zoroaster, but decided against Ancient/Classical Persia, at least for this game.

 

[Henri Christophe]

And this is why I didn't want to use the gods. Because we get spammed with gods instead of the far more interesting human heroes that were the focus until now.

Human heroes as Gilgamesh and Dido can appear in regular civilization series, this myth spinn off would be more fun if it have gods.

But I was looking my onw list of gods I put above, there is a big problem on it, I just put male gods.
So I will list some female gods who can also appear:

From Egypt it could be Isis

From Yoruba it could be Yansã, also know as Oya.

From Incas it could be Pacha Mama

From Toltecs it could be Xochitl

From Tupis it could be Jaci (the moon)

From India could be something more warlike as Kali.

Also India could have a women more femin as Lakshimi

From Greece it could be Artemis

From Vikings it could be Freya

Also from the Vikings, it could be Loki. I know Marvel decapited Loki as a man, but my mythologic book decapited Loki as woman, I guess it can be both.

From Japan it could be Amaterasu

 

[Evie]

Mythological heroes should not be in civ.

Gods as civ leaders is weird, because gods should be leading pantheons, not civilizations. Zeus ruled the greek gods, not Greek humans.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Mythological heroes should not be in civ.

Gods as civ leaders is weird, because gods should be leading pantheons, not civilizations. Zeus ruled the greek gods, not Greek humans.

I think it's pretty obvious that the first step is to define what we mean or want in "Mythological Leaders/Characters/Great People/Heroes"

Mythical Heroes we already got. If anything, I'd like to see Great People expanded in some way to include a wider variety of Civ-Influencing Historical Characters, good and bad - "Heroes" and "Villains"

Mythical or Semi-Mythical Leaders we also already got. Do we want to expand on that? Do we want to include Dieties?
To be honest, I think that is sticking our collective game designing necks out, because some people take great exception to putting their religion into a game and especially to 'personifying' their religion in Unapproved Ways in any game. That limits the effort only to those religions safely long extinct, but. believe me, there's always someone, somewhere, who will pop up claiming to be the Last of X.

Mythical Great People?
Or a new category of 'Characters' of some kind? Possibyl a mix of Great People and Heroes as now implemented?

Without some kind of defined limits the category becomes impossibly large. Shuckee-gee, even historical characters had legends attached to them, some wildly at variance with anything they actually did or represented - like Arturos as a Saxon Hero, or Iskandar the Magician (Alexander the Great in a variety of medieval Central Asian stories)

 

[Henri Christophe]

Gods as civ leaders is weird, because gods should be leading pantheons, not civilizations. Zeus ruled the greek gods, not Greek humans.

Of course a spin off should have more then just civilized building, it should have mythical units as magic creatures as for example, to the Greek, could have the Quimera.

Egypt could have Ammit

Tupis could have a Caipora

Ashante could have Anansi

Chinese could have 石獅子

And much other mythical creatures who can be build as unit, or encouter on the field as a foe.

 

[Evie]

I completely disagree, as usual, Henri.

To me that simply takes the game too far out from civilization into something that's simply too disconnected from reality, and pose design challenges that 4X games have struggled to solve, not the least of which is the fact that developing a *real* tech tree is hard enough, but an imaginary one is infinitely harder. Pretty much all games that I've seen using an imaginary tech tree came down as dull and flavorless to me.

Moreover, that raise significant questions about some of those monsters, because many of them in their respective mythology serve the role of, well *monsters*. Enemies of the gods and of men, who had to be fought and killed. It makes absolutely zero sense for the Chimera to be a Greek Unique Unit when the whole point of the Chimera to the Greek Pantheon was that it was an adversary that needed to be overcome. And that applies to the vast majority of Greek monster: they're in the story as something the heroes are supposed to kill, not as a creature that serves the Greek pantheon.

On top of that again, many monsters of mythology like this are not species that can be raised or trained into units - they're specific characters. There aren't multiple chimeras : there is Chimera, the daughter of Echidna and Typhon, and there's only one of her. Minotaur is not a species, but an individual. Likewise Medusa, Pegasus, the Hydra, etc. There are some mythological species (cyclops, centaurs, satyrs for the greeks ; giants and elves for nordic, etc), but they tend to be the ones that are modified humans, and usually not the ones with the most monstrous characteristics.

And that's before getting into what Boris rightly pointed out about people's sensitivites about representation fo their religion (and the fact that there are people claiming to follow pretty much every religion ever created, even the ones that are on paper long since dead).

No, going for pantheons and gods is simply not a good idea.

That's what makes it, in my mind, a far better design to go with human civilizations, real or mythological (Atlantis, etc, and, oh, also the Toltecs), led by mythological but human kings and heroes, with a mythologized version of the real tech tree (an expanded ancient-to-Renaisssance, maybe Industrial historical tech tree, with additional technologies reflecting mythology. Unless we want to include Urban Legends into the game, in which case the tech tree can expand even further).

Monsters should appear in the game, but they should be cast in their proper role: that of the Barbarians. Wandering threats to be overcome by the strength and heroism of civilization. With a high-chance of monster killing (by a regular unit) resulting in a Great Hero appearing.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

To me that simply takes the game too far out from civilization into something that's simply too disconnected from reality, and pose design challenges that 4X games have struggled to solve, not the least of which is the fact that developing a *real* tech tree is hard enough, but an imaginary one is infinitely harder. Pretty much all games that I've seen using an imaginary tech tree came down as dull and flavorless to me.

Moreover, that raise significant questions about some of those monsters, because many of them in their respective mythology serve the role of, well *monsters*. Enemies of the gods and of men, who had to be fought and killed. It makes absolutely zero sense for the Chimera to be a Greek Unique Unit when the whole point of the Chimera to the Greek Pantheon was that it was an adversary that needed to be overcome. And that applies to the vast majority of Greek monster: they're in the story as something the heroes are supposed to kill, not as a creature that serves the Greek pantheon.

On top of that again, many monsters of mythology like this are not species that can be raised or trained into units - they're specific characters. There aren't multiple chimeras : there is Chimera, the daughter of Echidna and Typhon, and there's only one of her. Minotaur is not a species, but an individual. Likewise Medusa, Pegasus, the Hydra, etc. There are some mythological species (cyclops, centaurs, satyrs for the greeks ; giants and elves for nordic, etc), but they tend to be the ones that are modified humans, and usually not the ones with the most monstrous characteristics.

I think in terms of a "mythological" civilization game I think a mythological unit is warranted, alongside a normal unique unit, even if it's a creature depending on the civilization. For Greece though I think something akin to a "Trojan Horse" would be more appropriate, however.

 

[Evie]

Oh, definitely we would want mythological UUs. The problem is with using monsters in the role of supporters of civilizations rather than its opponents (which is more the traditional role of monsters).

There are numerous mythological unit examples that could fit, and you named a good one with the Trojan Horse. The Argo, the ship of the Argonauts, is another possibility. The Spartoi, the soldiers grown from sown dragon seeds, also come to mind. Or perhaps my personal favorite, the Myrmidons (Ovid's version), Achilles' own soldiers, who we are told were worker ants that Zeus turned into men (yes, it involved a feud with Hera. Again.). Finding options is not the difficult part with the Greeks. But they should be options that are generally, in the context of the myths, on the side of human civilization, and (mostly) not deities. That can include some creatures, certainly.

Other thoughts on UUs for various civilization would include the Einherjarr (the deceased warrior chosen to dwell in Valhalla, where they fight and die and live again to fight and die forevermore), the Knights of the Round Table and Charlemagne's Paladins (the first should be more centered on killing monsters, and obtaining relics for it, while the later should be more defensive, and force enemies to attack them rather than your other units, ala Roland's rearguard action at Roncesvalles). Just off the top of my head.

 

[Patine]

Oh, definitely we would want mythological UUs. The problem is with using monsters in the role of supporters of civilizations rather than its opponents (which is more the traditional role of monsters).

There are numerous mythological unit examples that could fit, and you named a good one with the Trojan Horse. The Argo, the ship of the Argonauts, is another possibility. The Spartoi, the soldiers grown from sown dragon seeds, also come to mind. Or perhaps my personal favorite, the Myrmidons (Ovid's version), Achilles' own soldiers, who we are told were worker ants that Zeus turned into men (yes, it involved a feud with Hera. Again.). Finding options is not the difficult part with the Greeks. But they should be options that are generally, in the context of the myths, on the side of human civilization, and (mostly) not deities. That can include some creatures, certainly.

Other thoughts on UUs for various civilization would include the Einherjarr (the deceased warrior chosen to dwell in Valhalla, where they fight and die and live again to fight and die forevermore), the Knights of the Round Table and Charlemagne's Paladins (the first should be more centered on killing monsters, and obtaining relics for it, while the later should be more defensive, and force enemies to attack them rather than your other units, ala Roland's rearguard action at Roncesvalles). Just off the top of my head.

Age of Mythology uses mythical monsters fighting alongside historical human units typical of that civilization and iconic heroes while the rare God power, "divine intervention," can be called down and myth techs, (an enhancement to standard historical techs) are researched.

 

[Evie]

Which result again in unique individuals being treated as species of monsters, and in monsters whose entire purpose was to fight against the Greeks suddenly fighting for the Greeks. Not a big fan of that design approach that has more to do with kitchen sink fantasy than with mythology, and lose sight that as often as not the entire purpose of monsters it to serve as obstacle to human civilization and representation of the power of the wild. Barbs, not units.

Divine Intervention is an interesting approach, although one that would require careful thought for the religious reasons invoked by Boris.

More broadly, AOM is a pseudo-ancient-age (yes, the Norse, but the Norse despite being much later get treated as "European barbarians" in most popular culture so they fit the ancient age theme of the game anyway). I don't think you want to go there with the mythology game, as there is much, much, much more to Myths, Legends and Folklore than the pseudo-pre-historical time of heroes that AOM obviously draw inspiration from. A lot of legends and folklore has it roots in the renaissance and even later, and those era should be part of the game also. Hence my feeling that you want a real-world tech tree (expanded) covering much of human history - just with mythological, legend and folklore technology and units thrown in.

 

[notNamed]

Creating any kind of commercial game using them would be a minefield of potentially upset customers world-wide.

Sure, but depending on how you target it, they also allow you to dodge any pitfalls.

Ba Trieu in Civ 6 is a perfect example. Everything about her design is just a mish-mash of tropes you'd see on public Vietnamese TV.
And from the GDC presentation, we know this was the intent. To show the character people imagine in intermediary folklore and modern culture, not the historical person.
Sure it's more promotional than educational, but you don't run the risk of stepping on any toes because it's just so prevalent. Similar to how giving Korea their gigabrain Sejong will never have the S.Korean fanbase upset.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Two suggestions: Caucasians/Narts led by Batraz, Finns led by Väinämöinen

 

[Patine]

Caucasians/Narts led by Batraz

Sorry, who?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Sorry, who?

You are referring to Batraz or the Narts?

 

[Patine]

Which result again in unique individuals being treated as species of monsters

Well, I know this isn't accurate, and so do you, but the idea of unique Mythical monsters turned to whole, "species," has been set in the popular viewpoint since at least E. Gary Gygax - even earlier, with the, "Sword and Sandal," subgenre of fantasy/pulp. Plus, some Mythical creatures were effectively, "species," like Centaurs, Satyrs, Fawns, Goblins, Trolls, Dwarves, Cluricain (or Lepracauns), Unseely, Naga, Alfar, and Thalen Sidhe (the latter two of which Tolkien hybrided influences and lore into his, "Elves," - the basis of fantasy Elves, thereafter), etc. And then, of course, we often have mixed into these pop culture tropes, "races," that mythologically were enemies of a Pantheon of Gods, or lesser members there of, and were not challengable by mortals, like Giants, Fomori, Rakshasi, Gandharvas, Nymphs, Valkyries, Anunaki, Devas, Titans, and others, who often appear as, "monster species," in a fair number of pop culture products.