[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I don’t know too much about Vietnam, but I’d personally still like to see Ngo Quyen, who unlike Trung Trac, actually successfully defeated the chinese for good and permanently established vietnam as a political entity (although he didn’t control the whole region and he didn’t call his kingdom Vietnam). He also was indubitably Vietnamese and likely spoke it or a related language.

I'm just excited that Vietnam appears to be coming so even if there are better options than the Trung sisters I'll be happy with whoever they decide to pick, as long as it's not Ho Chi Minh, which I doubt it would be anyway.
Then again Trung Trac would probably mean no Maria the Mad and Semiramis/Shammuramat considering they usually go for 3 female leaders for every expansion/dlc cycle.

you missed my point. My point is that I can imagine the devs using a language they didn’t speak, like when Ramses the Great spoke Arabic in civ 5.

Anyway, I’d argue the language they speak is importnat. Language is an important part of national identity.

I feel like they've done a litle better job in Civ 6 such as Eleanor speaking Occitan. Though I agree I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted a Vietnamese leader to speak Vietnamese.

 

[ShimmerGloom]

I'd love to see the timurids in the game. They are one of the greatest (relatively) unknown empires in history.
The big problem with adding them is how to distinguish the timurids from the mongols. You could possibly give the timurids a bonus to their Capital when they conquer foreign cities, to represent Timur bringing back specialists from across his conquered land back to samarkand. But this is kind of similar to Alex getting boostys when conquering cities...

 

[SMcM]

Trưng Trắc for Vietnam is probably only acceptable because Vietnamese national narrative. I think European countries often have less romanticised narratives these days, where we don't attempt to claim ancient origins for our nations (possibly in part due to influence of academics, and partly because feelings of national guilt over colonialism and such). England could try and celebrate Boadicea as a hero of the nation, but I think we tend to not see ourselves as very linked to that history because we are as much descended from Saxons as Celts and have Germanic language and culture- so Anglo Saxon migration is usually seen as the earliest point of the history of the country. In fact we often start our history from 1066 (representing the final important conquest of this land and a turning point in English and British history) and very often overlook the things before that as merely having been things that happened in the same land that our country now exists on. I'm sure movements of various people groups means Vietnam is ethnically and culturally very alien from the culture of the Trung sisters, but modern Vietnamese people probably aren't too bothered by that or even aware- I think they probably just like being able to point to a birth of their nation that is nearly two millennia in the past.

 

[untitledjuan]

At least Numidia is famous for it's closeness with Carthage and the Numidian cavalry.

Carthage's unique unit in Civ IV was the Numidian Cavalry

 

[8housesofelixir]

The big problem with adding them is how to distinguish the timurids from the mongols. You could possibly give the timurids a bonus to their Capital when they conquer foreign cities, to represent Timur bringing back specialists from across his conquered land back to samarkand. But this is kind of similar to Alex getting boostys when conquering cities...

Currently Mongols' bonuses are mostly militaristic, with a little bit diplomacy and trade (for this, I would say it's more a Genghis Khan civ rather than the Mongolian civ). I think Timurids can be distinguished from the current Mongolian civ by having a science/culture bonus - to represent the Timurid Renaissance - and focus more on trade.

Although if we have Kublai Khan in the future he will probably take that trade/gold-focused position.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I think Timurids can be distinguished from the current Mongolian civ by having a science/culture bonus - to represent the Timurid Renaissance - and focus more on trade.

this would be the key if we got the Gurkhani

 

[Navelgazer]

My favourite is the mod which adds Gajah Mada as an alternate leader, with his 3D model and animations and everything all ported across from Civilization V.

As someone who felt like the lone fan of Civ5's Indonesia at the time, I am shocked that this mod exists.

 

[Futumch]

Interestingly, in the specific file that kinda confirmed Kublai, I believe he leads Vietnam. This could be from simply bug fixing or some code testing, but what if the game mode which comes with that pack is some play on randomly assigning leaders to civs, or something like that

If the lines are just referring to a DLC, I wouldn't read much into it. We already have examples of two civs in file names, it's not that much of a stretch to have a leader and another nation instead. Examples = Macedonia_Persia, Indonesia_Khmer, GranColombia_Maya etc.
Those couple of lines may be referring to the DLC that's scheduled for January, with a Civ and a leader. Maybe it's Kublai as an alternate leader for Mongols and China (similar vein to Eleanor) alongside Vietnam as a new fully fleshed out civ.

 

[Navelgazer]

Yeah, I'll forgive Trung Trac speaking an early/archaic version of Vietnamese. I'm sure that, even in a Pandemic, they'd be able to find and remotely record a voice artist proficient in Old Chinese, but given the Trung Sisters' place in Vietnamese lore (a "founding myth" as has been said above, though there seems to be some actual historical record for their existence) I think having them speak an older/more archaic form of Vietnamese would be just as fitting (provided Firaxis avoids, say, French loan words, etc.)

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think Timurids can be distinguished from the current Mongolian civ by having a science/culture bonus - to represent the Timurid Renaissance - and focus more on trade.

Thinking on how asking for deblobbed Celts gave us Scotland, I foresee this:

Players: We want the Timurids!

Firaxis: We hear you want a Persianized sci/culture civ from west-central Asia.

Players: Yes, the Timurids!

Firaxis: Ha ha! You got it. Here's the Seljuqs!

 

[8housesofelixir]

I'm sure that, even in a Pandemic, they'd be able to find and remotely record a voice artist proficient in Old Chinese

I mean they didn't even find one for Qin Shi Huang...the pronunciation of old Chinese is entirely different from modern Chinese, and how exactly a Chinese word was pronounced 2000 years ago is (still) usually open to scholarly debate. Anyone who is proficient in old Chinese is probably a well-known scholar of old Chinese. (Unless you supposed to say Classical Chinese or 文言 here.)

 

[Navelgazer]

Yar, I don’t know much of anything about old Chinese. I know that based on Shakespearean research, that Elizabeth would probably sound more like Robert the Bruce than the modern RP we heard in Civ5. Meanwhile, Washington sounded like GWB in that game, when his accent was almost certainly more British-Inflected. All this to say that, absent objections from Vietnamese fans, I’m fine with the Trung Sisters speaking an older Vietnamese.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Yar, I don’t know much of anything about old Chinese. I know that based on Shakespearean research, that Elizabeth would probably sound more like Robert the Bruce than the modern RP we heard in Civ5. Meanwhile, Washington sounded like GWB in that game, when his accent was almost certainly more British-Inflected. All this to say that, absent objections from Vietnamese fans, I’m fine with the Trung Sisters speaking an older Vietnamese.

My personal guess is that Vietnamese fans will also be fine with Trung Sisters speaking an older Vietnamese, since nobody knows what spoken language they were using (I'm not Vietnamese though, just a guess).

Besides, if anyone is interested, here is a little chatter about the Old Chinese: It not hard to figure out what a medieval English noble would sound like, as the English language uses a phonetic transcription system (technically), and there is more or less a close relationship between the spelling and the sound. For Chinese is the opposite, a large portion of Chinese characters have no relationship with how it should be pronounced. The only way to find out how a Chinese word should be pronounced in pre-modern era is to find a pre-modern Chinese rhyme dictionary and try to speculate from the rhyme - that's how you figure out the phonology of Middle Chinese. And for Old Chinese is to speculate again based on already-speculated Middle Chinese. Currently all the "pronunciations" of Old Chinese are technically the "reconstructions" of Old Chinese.

So I'm very okay with a modern-Chinese-speaking Qin Shi Huang, we really don't know what he would actually sound like. (However his lines are not very good as well.)

 

[notNamed]

My personal guess is that Vietnamese fans will also be fine with Trung Sisters speaking an older Vietnamese, since nobody knows what spoken language they were using (I'm not Vietnamese though, just a guess).

I think middle Vietnamese should be doable. It's the language reflected in the current Vietnamese alphabet, after all. As long as it's not their local pho restaurant owner, it should be fine.

And for Old Chinese is to speculate again based on already-speculated Middle Chinese. Currently all the "pronunciations" of Old Chinese are technically the "reconstructions" of Old Chinese.

So I'm very okay with a modern-Chinese-speaking Qin Shi Huang, we really don't know what he would actually sound like. (However his lines are not very good as well.)

Yeah, older Chinese pronunciations are a much, much involved topic than one would think for a place that loved to write about itself so much.
Though there is still a difference between making an effort and not caring at all. Longest Day in Chang'An, for instance, did have the characters speak differently, or at least the more educated/higher on the social ladder ones even at the cost of being hard to understand at times. Though of course a show has much more leeway in the topics of its dialogues, you just won't see a Civ leader talk about time (when they could use the Sinospheric time divisions instead of "9 o'clock") or talk to someone their superior (honorifics and all) to get to show off you actually care.

 

[zhugejingqi]

you missed my point. My point is that I can imagine the devs using a language they didn’t speak, like when Ramses the Great spoke Arabic in civ 5.

Anyway, I’d argue the language they speak is importnat. Language is an important part of national identity.

If you want leaders to pronounce exactly the same as they used to be. It's too hard. If they can show some sense of the times, that's good. But if, in a field that is completely unfamiliar with you and then make a fool of yourself, I don't think anyone wants to see it.

 

[SMcM]

As someone who felt like the lone fan of Civ5's Indonesia at the time, I am shocked that this mod exists.

Deliverator23 aims to bring across most of the Civ V leaders that aren't already in the game to VI I think. He's already done Askia, Bismarck, Maria Theresa, Pacal, William of Orange and Darius, I think he said that he was planning to add Oda Nobunaga, Ashurbanipal and Enrico Dandolo in the future as well.

Also the mods aren't duplicating the Civ 5 civ designs, only copying across the leader art. I presume unhappiness with Indonesia was focused on it's design and gameplay, not the choice of leader or how he was portrayed? The Civ VI mod adding him just adds him as an alternative leader.

 

[WillowBrook]

Then again Trung Trac would probably mean no Maria the Mad and Semiramis/Shammuramat considering they usually go for 3 female leaders for every expansion/dlc cycle.

Lady Six Sky, Trung Trac, who would be the third female leader in the pack? Did I miss something?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

If the lines are just referring to a DLC, I wouldn't read much into it. We already have examples of two civs in file names, it's not that much of a stretch to have a leader and another nation instead. Examples = Macedonia_Persia, Indonesia_Khmer, GranColombia_Maya etc.
Those couple of lines may be referring to the DLC that's scheduled for January, with a Civ and a leader. Maybe it's Kublai as an alternate leader for Mongols and China (similar vein to Eleanor) alongside Vietnam as a new fully fleshed out civ.

I think this is the first time we've had another leader for an existing civ, and not just one or two civs, in a DLC so it makes sense why they named it the way they did.

Lady Six Sky, Trung Trac, who would be the third female leader in the pack? Did I miss something?

No you didn't miss anything. I'm just speculating. I was just saying if Vietnam's leader was Trung Trac we most likely wouldn't be able to get both Maria the Mad for Portugal or Semiramis for Assyria, which I'm okay with.
If anything I'm expecting Theodora for the Byzantines to return.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Do you suppose they would do Portugal with a Great Admiral parallel to Bolivar's Comandantes? Like a Unique Great Admiral with unusual and powerful retirement bonuses that are metered out over the course of the game?

 

[Lord Lakely]

Lady Six Sky, Trung Trac, who would be the third female leader in the pack? Did I miss something?

Theodora for Byzantium is what Occam's Razor would suggest. I don't think we'll get another female mesoamerican leader - the best female options here are Jigonsahsee for the Iroquois, which... good, but how do you distinguish them from the Cree?, and Anacaona for the Taino (which is a very, VERY dark horse).

Other options i could see are Berbers/Morocco (who have two choices - Sayyida al-Hurra and Tahina), Austria (Maria Theresa) and the Hittites (Puduhepa). And then we get to the more obscure picks such as Matilda di Canossa for Italy (unlikely - we already have CdM) and Grace O'Malley for Ireland (again unlikely - if Ireland are in, I would except they are led Brian Boru)

I'm not saying that we are guaranteed to get Trung Trac for Vietnam and Theodora for Byzantium. But, based on the very little that we know, I would assume those are our female choices.