[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[batusay]

Don't we have any reliable leaks as to what the upcoming civilizations are? I remember that some years ago someone here had reliable info as to the civilizations that comprised the first DLC for the base game.

 

[GenyaArikado]

Don't we have any reliable leaks as to what the upcoming civilizations are? I remember that some years ago someone here had reliable info as to the civilizations that comprised the first DLC for the base game.

No. The guy who leaked GS said that Babylon/Assyria, Portugal, Ethiopia, Maya, Byzantium and native american civ were possibilities.

If he's right, then we only have one full unknown civ and one unknown leader (but given it needs R&F, most common guess is Kublai Kahn). There is also the possibility that (given previous xpacks civ patterns) GC replaced the NA civ and we have two unknown Civs (Italia and Vietnam being two top guesses)

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please do not get into another discussion of the leaker.

 

[AsH2]

Eh, history has been a bit harsh on Marie Antoinette. I'm not saying I want her to lead France, but she wasn't the self-absorbed fool that most (hostile, revolutionary) historians have taken her for. But I was also jabbing at Firaxis for piling on female leaders for one of the in-game civs most hostile to female leadership.

Oh! I'd like to see Nadezhda Krupskaya as leader of Soviet Union.

 

[Zaarin]

However, I would like to see new civilizations in parts of the map that are less represented. For example, a civilization for central Asia where the Stans are located, in Siberia, or in the far Asian north east. It would be interesting to play a civilization that could thrive there. I just don't know what those civilizations are.

The problem with any far northern civ on any continent is civilizations don't thrive in the tundra or sub-Arctic. People survive, sure, but not thrive.

I'm 100% on board with a Central Asian civ, though. I think the Sogdians fit the bill perfectly as the quintessential Silk Road civ.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The problem with any far northern civ on any continent is civilizations don't thrive in the tundra or sub-Arctic. People survive, sure, but not thrive.

Yes I don't want to play a Civ that will have a start bias to the polar ice caps.

I'm 100% on board with a Central Asian civ, though. I think the Sogdians fit the bill perfectly as the quintessential Silk Road civ.

You might get that with Kublai Khan.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

The problem with any far northern civ on any continent is civilizations don't thrive in the tundra or sub-Arctic. People survive, sure, but not thrive.

Eh it is still an impressive feat to civilize the sub-Arctic to any extent, even if you're only forming small villages and sticking to domesticating and hunting animals. It's honestly not that much removed from many Polynesian cultures, and yet we have the Maori as a pseudo-nomadic, illiterate civ. :/

I'm not saying that the Inuit or Sakha are necessary to filling out VI's list of "empires." But if the devs wanted to explore the design space of an arctic civ, maybe in an "ice age" mode, these civs would not be unwelcome. And I do think the Inuit fit the idea of an "expansionist" culture about as well as if not better than the Maori, if that is how the idea of "empire" is being stretched to include less imperial regions of the world like the Cree.

I do not anticipate a far north civ in New Frontier. But I do think, if they continue to make content after New Frontier, it could make for some interesting design space for a small DLC pack.

Yes I don't want to play a Civ that will have a start bias to the polar ice caps.

What if you had a game mode where most of the map is tundra and arctic tiles?

 

[Navelgazer]

The problem with any far northern civ on any continent is civilizations don't thrive in the tundra or sub-Arctic. People survive, sure, but not thrive.

I'm 100% on board with a Central Asian civ, though. I think the Sogdians fit the bill perfectly as the quintessential Silk Road civ.

Yeah, I've long thought an Inuit Civ could be interesting but it would necessarily be a Blob Civ, which 6 has been good about avoiding doing, and while I don't think being at the subsistence level of society disqualifies a group as a "Civilization" it does make them an odd fit for the mechanics and design of the game as it exists.

Agreed that a Silk Road central Asian civ would be a good idea. Sogdians are probably the best fit, though it'd be a shame to have another part of the modern Islamic world represented by a pre-Muslim antecedent. The Umayyad Caliphate could work, maybe, but would most likely be an alt-leader for Arabia and thus not really "feel" like Central Asia.

And yeah, Navajo or Salish are probably the best choices for a Native American/North American civ choice. They just don't excite me as a player. Having lived in Oklahoma during some formative years both gave me a bias toward the Cherokee and took away any sense of romance the Great Plains might have held for me. But that's obviously not a reason not to include them.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

The problem with any far northern civ on any continent is civilizations don't thrive in the tundra or sub-Arctic. People survive, sure, but not thrive.

I'm 100% on board with a Central Asian civ, though. I think the Sogdians fit the bill perfectly as the quintessential Silk Road civ.

Greenland and Saapmi are the only ‘snow civs’ i can see being proper snow civs.

Rather than the Sogdians, i’d rather see the Uzbeks, Kazakhs or Timurids as a islamic silk road civ.

I really don't understand how everyone thinks that legions and baths represent italy from the middle ages onwards, and yet accepts the byzantines which was still the Roman empire but later on.
History has contiguity and societies change gradually through time so honestly every civilization that occupies the same territory is going to have close relation with the civilizations that occupied that territory in the past.
However it is also agreeable that there is a distinction to be made, and there we have to agree on a common measurement to divide different civilizations, because the same story everyone uses for italy is applicable to a lot of other civs like mexico whose pop culture is directly influenced by aztec traditions, or spain and the arabs, and much more.
So our unit of measurement has to be the same: i believe that a civilization is defined by language, institutional structure, economic structure, composition of its society
If we consider Rome and Byzantium different civilizations as many historians do due to many differences in institutions, language, economic structure and societal differences than italy and rome should be considered very very different:
The italian language has lost almost completely the use of declinations which is the backbone of latin grammar, german instead still uses it. Also the italian language uses articles that latin didn't have and also a lot of words come from germanic due to the lombard reign in the early middle ages.
The italian institutional structure in the middle ages was much more germanic (dukedoms, kingdoms and counties) than latin ( roman repubblic) and even when there were republics on the peninsula they were never comparable to the roman one.
The economic structure of rome was based on agricultural slavery, the italian economy is mainly based on manifacturies and trade since the middle ages.
Roman society was very rigid and divided into plebs and patricians, the italian society was more varied and the new patricians (nobles, dukes eccetera) had a more marginal power related to the old patricians mainly due to the power of the italian bourgeoisie.
So there are extreme substantial differences between italy and Rome.

Case closed.

I agree. I can reasonably see a need for Medieval or Rennaissance Italy or at least a Italian city state represented. I personally don’t care if they make it in and would rather see a different civ, but the same is true for the Byzantines imo. It’s funny to me when people who want Byz but not Italy say Italy would be a geographical overlap when Byz is like the king of geographical overlaps (Rome, Greece, Macedon, Georgia, Ottomans, Arabia, Phonecia, Hungary)

Yeah, I've long thought an Inuit Civ could be interesting but it would necessarily be a Blob Civ, which 6 has been good about avoiding doing, and while I don't think being at the subsistence level of society disqualifies a group as a "Civilization" it does make them an odd fit for the mechanics and design of the game as it exists.

Agreed that a Silk Road central Asian civ would be a good idea. Sogdians are probably the best fit, though it'd be a shame to have another part of the modern Islamic world represented by a pre-Muslim antecedent. The Umayyad Caliphate could work, maybe, but would most likely be an alt-leader for Arabia and thus not really "feel" like Central Asia.

And yeah, Navajo or Salish are probably the best choices for a Native American/North American civ choice. They just don't excite me as a player. Having lived in Oklahoma during some formative years both gave me a bias toward the Cherokee and took away any sense of romance the Great Plains might have held for me. But that's obviously not a reason not to include them.

the Navajo and Salish aren’t great plains. Navajo are Southwest and Salish are Cascadian Northwest. Cherokee would be cool too, but I feel like the Salish or Tlingit have much more interesting options which haven’t been explored from a civ perspective.

I feel like I say this everyday but as often the Inuit are requested, it just doesn’t make sense. Yes, they’re an incredibly influential culture with an interesting history and practices but they also never really had settlements we could classify as cities or even towns really, which is a big part of civ.

The closest you could get is Greenland, which is majority Inuit I think, but has an organized government and has for a while. Sapmi, a region in Norway, Sweden and Finland which is settled by the Saami people, also is a good option for a snow civ led by Indigenous people. And you could also get the Ainu, presumably, as a indigenous snow civ (not really a snow civ though, tbh), but finding a voice actor for them is probably the main issue

 

[Grand-Admiral Thrawn]

Oh! I'd like to see Nadezhda Krupskaya as leader of Soviet Union.

Why would they choose Lenin’s wife when they could just pick Lenin himself? Also, they won’t have a Soviet Union when Russia is already in the game.

Also, I’d like to weigh in in Italy: Italy is not Rome. Different culture, different time period. But a united Italy is, in my opinion, not a strong candidate compared to Venice/Florence/Genoa etc. The real flourishing of Italian culture came in the Renaissance, so why not pick a civ from the renaissance.

 

[Zaarin]

You might get that with Kublai Khan.

Eh, Kublai expanded into Central Asia, but Sogdia was long since just a Persian satrapy by that point.

Eh it is still an impressive feat to civilize the sub-Arctic to any extent, even if you're only forming small villages and sticking to domesticating and hunting animals.

I think there's a minimum level of sophistication necessary for being considered a civilization, and no Siberian or Sub-Arctic peoples meet that criteria. The Koreans or the Tlingit, who are ultimately of Siberian ancestry, are probably our best stand ins there. This is where having "minor civilizations" would be handy, as that would be a better way to represent Siberian peoples.

It's honestly not that much removed from many Polynesian cultures, and yet we have the Maori as a pseudo-nomadic, illiterate civ. :/

Civ6's Maori are a Polynesian blob civ with a specific name and relatively specific uniques. The Polynesians had agriculture, aquaculture, and sophisticated navigation techniques that make them a very different consideration IMO.

Agreed that a Silk Road central Asian civ would be a good idea. Sogdians are probably the best fit, though it'd be a shame to have another part of the modern Islamic world represented by a pre-Muslim antecedent.

I don't really see that as any kind of argument against them. I think the most compelling reason to include a Silk Road civilization is how religiously diverse it was in Antiquity: Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Christians, Jews--all could be found along the Silk Road. The Sogdians themselves were chiefly Manichaean.

Greenland and Saapmi are the only ‘snow civs’ i can see being proper snow civs.

I could see a Nuuk city-state (with a fun achievement relating to Gandhi, no doubt ), but I don't find either very compelling as a civ.

Why would choose Lenin’s wife when they could just pick Lenin himself? Also, they won’t have a Soviet Union when Russia is already in the game

Tacking on the Soviet Union to Russia's extremely religious design would be bizarre in the extreme, unless you consider Statism a religion, which is a fair argument but also not what Civ6's Religion is meant to represent.

 

[Thormodr]

The Inuit with an ice age mode? I like that idea.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Greenland and Saapmi are the only ‘snow civs’ i can see being proper snow civs.

...

I feel like I say this everyday but as often the Inuit are requested, it just doesn’t make sense. Yes, they’re an incredibly influential culture with an interesting history and practices but they also never really had settlements we could classify as cities or even towns really, which is a big part of civ.

...

The closest you could get is Greenland, which is majority Inuit I think, but has an organized government and has for a while. Sapmi, a region in Norway, Sweden and Finland which is settled by the Saami people, also is a good option for a snow civ led by Indigenous people.

89 percent of Greenland's population are Inuit. There is also a very large Inuit-led separatist movement in Greenland. Also the coat of arms for Greenland is a polar bear. Also I believe Greenland has a higher number of Inuit overall than any individual Canadian territory. I've always viewed the Inuit as being "centered" in Greenland for a TSL, and so for a Greenlandic civ I just presume it would be wholly Inuit or otherwise slightly blobby.

I agree. I can reasonably see a need for Medieval or Rennaissance Italy or at least a Italian city state represented. I personally don’t care if they make it in and would rather see a different civ, but the same is true for the Byzantines imo. It’s funny to me when people who want Byz but not Italy say Italy would be a geographical overlap when Byz is like the king of geographical overlaps (Rome, Greece, Macedon, Georgia, Ottomans, Arabia, Phonecia, Hungary)

I am in exactly the same boat, particularly observing the overlap between Byzantium and the Ottomans as being the strongest counterargument to Rome and Italy. Very little about Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Milan at their height tracks to "Rome." Although for the record I don't see Byzantium as fitting very well in VI's larger picture where we have Maurya/India, Angevin/France, and Pelopennesian/Delian Greece; it really feels like it should be made some sort of extension of Rome. Especially since I am convinced it is Bulgaria's time; it is the last European civ I think needs to be included to fill every major region, and I think VI is so far the only game it makes sense in, and may ever make sense in.

 

[Thormodr]

Eh, Kublai expanded into Central Asia, but Sogdia was long since just a Persian satrapy by that point.


I think there's a minimum level of sophistication necessary for being considered a civilization, and no Siberian or Sub-Arctic peoples meet that criteria. The Koreans or the Tlingit, who are ultimately of Siberian ancestry, are probably our best stand ins there. This is where having "minor civilizations" would be handy, as that would be a better way to represent Siberian peoples.


Civ6's Maori are a Polynesian blob civ with a specific name and relatively specific uniques. The Polynesians had agriculture, aquaculture, and sophisticated navigation techniques that make them a very different consideration IMO.


I don't really see that as any kind of argument against them. I think the most compelling reason to include a Silk Road civilization is how religiously diverse it was in Antiquity: Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Christians, Jews--all could be found along the Silk Road. The Sogdians themselves were chiefly Manichaean.


I could see a Nuuk city-state (with a fun achievement relating to Gandhi, no doubt ), but I don't find either very compelling as a civ.


Tacking on the Soviet Union to Russia's extremely religious design would be bizarre in the extreme, unless you consider Statism a religion, which is a fair argument but also not what Civ6's Religion is meant to represent.

Kublai didn't exactly expand into Central Asia. That was already done by Chinggis Khan who conquered the Silk Road area.

In fact, with the rebellion of Kaidu, Kublai basically lost control of Central Asia.

As to a Nuuk city state, that'd be cool.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Eh, Kublai expanded into Central Asia, but Sogdia was long since just a Persian satrapy by that point.

I'm just saying that Kublai might get a "Silk Road" ability, not that Mongolia is Central Asian.
To me Scythia is still considered a Central Asian Civ anyway, so it's not a priority region for me.

 

[XX36789]

If they add a city-state named Nuuk, there should be an acheivement for nuking it.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I think there's a minimum level of sophistication necessary for being considered a civilization, and no Siberian or Sub-Arctic peoples meet that criteria. The Koreans or the Tlingit, who are ultimately of Siberian ancestry, are probably our best stand ins there. This is where having "minor civilizations" would be handy, as that would be a better way to represent Siberian peoples.

Civ6's Maori are a Polynesian blob civ with a specific name and relatively specific uniques. The Polynesians had agriculture, aquaculture, and sophisticated navigation techniques that make them a very different consideration IMO.

True, a Sakha CS granting reindeer or diamonds would be a convenient space-filler. The Tlingit could certainly qualify as a civ in their own right, although they weren't nearly as expansive as the Inuit and still don't really feel "arctic." I acknowledge that an arctic civ would be bending the infrastructure rules a bit, but also kind of the point of an arctic civ would be to allow them to settle where other civs can't.

Mechanically the concept of an arctic civ does beg for a game mode where most of the basic districts and improvements can't be built, and maybe that could happen. Or maybe in the alternative, an Inuit/Siberian civ could be a more extreme version of the Maori, having far fewer improvement options but able to settle where they have very little competition.

I don't really see that as any kind of argument against them. I think the most compelling reason to include a Silk Road civilization is how religiously diverse it was in Antiquity: Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus, Christians, Jews--all could be found along the Silk Road. The Sogdians themselves were chiefly Manichaean.

Given that VI seems to really be focusing on modern cultural legacies, Bulgaria is also a really strong option to represent religious diversity. Sofia has an Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, Jewish Synagogue, and Muslim Mosque all coexisting peacefully within roughly a city block in what is known as the "Square of Religious Tolerance."

I'm generally more intrigued by the Spice Route civs than filling out the Silk Road.

 

[Zaarin]

I'm just saying that Kublai might get a "Silk Road" ability, not that Mongolia is Central Asian.
To me Scythia is still considered a Central Asian Civ anyway, so it's not a priority region for me.

Where does Tomyris start in TSL? I assumed Ukraine, but I suppose it could be Kazakhstan, which would make sense for Tomyris specifically. Still, Central Asia gets hugely overlooked in history despite its importance so I'd really like to see a non-Eurasian Steppe civ in Central Asia. This is also why I want Sogdia, not the Timurids, another group of horse-riding steppe invaders.

The Tlingit could certainly qualify as a civ in their own right, although they weren't nearly as expansive as the Inuit and still don't really feel "arctic."

I wasn't suggesting that they're Arctic. I'm merely pointing out that 6,000 years ago the Proto-Eyak-Tlingit-Athabaskans moved out of Siberia and into North America, and a couple thousand years later the Proto-Koreans moved out of Siberia into Korea. I feel like those are the closest to Siberian civs we're going to get.

I'm generally more intrigued by the Spice Route civs than filling out the Silk Road.

They'd have to have the leader speak a Modern South Arabian language, which aren't directly related to the Old South Arabian languages. Getting a full city-list would also be a problem, as would finding a "big personality" leader. So while I'd love to see a Himyarite civilization, I think we're better off with a Sana'a city-state.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Where does Tomyris start in TSL? I assumed Ukraine, but I suppose it could be Kazakhstan, which would make sense for Tomyris specifically. Still, Central Asia gets hugely overlooked in history despite its importance so I'd really like to see a non-Eurasian Steppe civ in Central Asia. This is also why I want Sogdia, not the Timurids, another group of horse-riding steppe invaders.

Yes she does start east of what would be the Caspian Sea.
She holds the distinction of being the only leader playable on both the Europe and East Asia TSL maps as well.

 

[The Kingmaker]

If we’re talking central Asian options, the Kushans could be fun.