[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[PhoenicianGold]

All this talk of Canton just makes me wish we had a British civ, no Macedon or Byzantium or Gaul, either Canada or the Cree but not both.

If China and India (and Persia, and Southeast Asia) can't have their diversity well-represented in civ, I don't think any civ should. Asia's representation in VI is abysmal.

 

[8housesofelixir]

spoiler

Similar to @Boris Gudenuf, I am also a firm believer of "A Language is a Dialect with an Army and a Navy".

All this talk of Canton just makes me wish we had a British civ, no Macedon or Byzantium or Gaul, either Canada or the Cree but not both. If China and India (and Persia, and Southeast Asia) can't have their diversity well-represented in civ, I don't think any civ should. Asia's representation in VI is abysmal.

If we can have different "trait" for a civ in the future, like an proper/expanded version of the alternative leaders, that will add more in to the game as well as do some more representation.

Under the current design we can only live with a Macedonian civ specifically for Alexander for he was too special to be "Greek", but he was very Greek indeed.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

All this talk of Canton just makes me wish we had a British civ, no Macedon or Byzantium or Gaul, either Canada or the Cree but not both.

If China and India (and Persia, and Southeast Asia) can't have their diversity well-represented in civ, I don't think any civ should. Asia's representation in VI is abysmal.

I know you have different opinions than me but I will have to respectfully disagree with that statement.
I'm not sure why Gaul or even the Cree is in there. In that case we might as well not get another Native American civ.

I also don't see why South East Asia isn't well represented considering we have two already and are most likely getting another, which is more than Civ 5.

 

[BuchiTaton]

All this talk of Canton just makes me wish we had a British civ, no Macedon or Byzantium or Gaul, either Canada or the Cree but not both.

If China and India (and Persia, and Southeast Asia) can't have their diversity well-represented in civ, I don't think any civ should. Asia's representation in VI is abysmal.

1000% this!

Would love to have Magadha, Tamil, Manchu, Tibetan, Miao, etc. But politics, market appealing and pop culture would be allways impeding it.

The average symmetric design between civs is another problem, on CIV series England, Scotland, USA, Canada and Australia could be as different between them as could be China, Egypt, Inca, Sumer and Russia. So any redundant euro-colonial nations is as unique as the Maori or whatever. This maintain the idea of "only we are different and unique, all the others are blobs of the same".

Middle East, India and China had the most powerfull nations for half the human history but Sumer is OK to represent all Mesopotamia? Then why not have just France to represent all the european colonial power? Of course we all know because there is not a sizable current market for people to identify with, but really I feel like the game should be named Anglos, Greeco-Romans and guests instead of Civilization.

I know you have different opinions than me but I will have to respectfully disagree with that statement.
I'm not sure why Gaul or even the Cree is in there. In that case we might as well not get another Native American civ.

I also don't see why South East Asia isn't well represented considering we have two already and are most likely getting another, which is more than Civ 5.

Gauls are there because "Celts" are part of western history. We dont get a Thracian/Dacian civ because even their are more eastern europeans, even Italy have a hard time to get more than Rome, Etruscan civ would never be. Have a Celitic civs is a must on the game but not the Hittites or modern Mexico despite Anatolia and Mesoamerica have enough space (look at Greece or the British Isles).

Cree, yes Canada is big but also Siberia or Brazil, USA and Canada are not the only countries with native minorities, even their number pale to most of the rest of America, Asia and Africa. Maori over Tonga? I am sure that have nothing to do with New Zealand market.

Who know maybe we still dont have a USA native civ just because devs are strugling with get permission from the native councils. Did you saw that AoE3 : DE changed Lakota and Haudenosaunee, that is OK and great but the new voices are cheap (I am sure they could find some good native voice actors) but the real interesting part is that now the Haudenosaunee and Lakota dont want the villagers to mine gold, that is OK, but what could this mean for CIV?

Could this mean that native councils would not want to have many other of the "generic" civ mechanics to be associated with their real history?

 

[Narcisse]

I always thought that Alexander (or any hellenic great person,... Pyrrhus ?) leading the Hellenes, is an elegant solution to simply have more slots. I like classical History, but, they just take too much space with Sparta, Macedon and Athens ... and so much time to get Byzantium.

Byzantium in some way cover the Greco-Roman culture (and more other cultures which was interwined to this Empire by the way !).

 

[AaronTBD]

I mean a Manchu civ wouldn't be an impossible reality. They are a different ethnic group from the Han Chinese. However this would also mean that China, a large market, will be banned cause the government if infamous for not wanting much representation for the minorities of China, which is the reason why a Tibetan civ, while deserves a civ, will not be possible in China. The Manchus conquered China and not the other way around though so it might be possible, with that logic a Mongolian civ wouldn't be possible due to the fact that the majority of the Mongolian population is in China.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Gauls are there because "Celts" are part of western history. We dont get a Thracian/Dacian civ because even their are more eastern europeans, even Italy have a hard time to get more than Rome, Etruscan civ would never be. Have a Celitic civs is a must on the game but not the Hittites or modern Mexico despite Anatolia and Mesoamerica have enough space (look at Greece or the British Isles).

Cree, yes Canada is big but also Siberia or Brazil, USA and Canada are not the only countries with native minorities, even their number pale to most of the rest of America, Asia and Africa. Maori over Tonga? I am sure that have nothing to do with New Zealand market.

What I meant is I'm not sure why Gaul or Cree were on the list of civs that he would rather not have been included in the game.
As it stands right now they are the only Pre-Roman Celtic representation and Native American representation north of Mexico right now and yes that's at least been a standard in the games since Civ 2.

At least the series have branched out to different places such as I would have never thought of the inclusion of the Mapuche or Scythia before. Unfortunately you can't add all of them. That being said there are some like the Hittites I wouldn't mind but that doesn't mean I would like to sacrifice a current civ in the game for them. The better solution is to keep on adding.

As for modern Mexico between the Aztecs, Maya and Gran Colombia I could personally live without them. I'd rather see Argentina beforehand too in Civ 7.

Who know maybe we still dont have a USA native civ just because devs are strugling with get permission from the native councils. Did you saw that AoE3 : DE changed Lakota and Haudenosaunee, that is OK and great but the new voices are cheap (I am sure they could find some good native voice actors) but the real interesting part is that now the Haudenosaunee and Lakota dont want the villagers to mine gold, that is OK, but what could this mean for CIV?

I've never heard about this. I hope the problems with the Native American communities won't mean we won't get another.
That being said having not being able to build mines would be an interesting mechanic for them. Though the alternative lumbermills might not be any better.

 

[Zaarin]

the issue is you’re completely right, but we do end up making arbitrary decisions on what a language actually is

The issue is that, linguistically speaking, there is no commonly accepted definition for a language or a dialect.

The issue is that for examples like Chinese or Arabic, where pop culture classifies them as one religion when in reality a number of regional ‘dialects’ aren’t mutually intelligible with each other, they’re actually independent languages of each other at that point. Indeed, it’s arbitrary, and usually politics plays a bigger role than linguistics in determining fbe difference (see hindi/urdu, or czech/slovak), but you can make general determinations, and to say Cantonese and Mandarin are languages and not dialects of Chinese is ultimately more grounded in reality than them being dislects

If it makes you feel better, Arabic is linguistically considered a language family, and Maltese in particular is pretty much universally considered its own language, not a dialect of Arabic.

We dont get a Thracian/Dacian civ because even their are more eastern europeans

We don't get a Thracian/Dacian civ because their languages are virtually unattested. They'd either be speaking Greek or Romanian or Albanian, and none of those options is appealing. To make matters worse, very little is known about Thracian or Dacian culture, politics, or social structure. There are archaeological cultures that are better-understood than the Thracians or Dacians--and I'll go ahead and add the Illyrians and Messapians, as well. Despite their importance, they'd make very poor choices for civilizations in Civ. I wouldn't mind seeing them in Humankind, though, which can take more liberties of that kind than Civ can.

USA and Canada are not the only countries with native minorities

The difference is that pre-Columbian America had a number of sophisticated, sedentary, urban civilizations, whereas Siberia did not. Granted, the Cree were not among them.

Did you saw that AoE3 : DE changed Lakota and Haudenosaunee, that is OK and great but the new voices are cheap (I am sure they could find some good native voice actors) but the real interesting part is that now the Haudenosaunee and Lakota dont want the villagers to mine gold, that is OK, but what could this mean for CIV?

I was initially a fan of the changes, but I've changed my mind. The fur trade markets were a good idea, but the implementation was horrible. (I understand that's the fault of the beta testers, not the NA advisors.) As for the community plazas, the idea was bad and the implementation was worse. I've read the interview with Anthony Brave, and I completely disagree with his assessment of the Fire Pit. It's not "magic"; if a warrior believes a ceremony makes him invincible, he's going to fight harder because he believes he's invincible. Ritual dances were a huge part of both Haudenosaunee and Lakota cultures (and for the Aztecs, too). The community plazas were badly designed, and since villagers just stand there doing nothing I'd say they're in a worse position to foster the "Native Americans are all lazy" stereotype than any negative association of the Fire Pit. I also have to correct him about his objection to mining. I can't say whether the Lakota ever mined, but Native Americans most certainly did mine for copper (not strip mining--but that's not what you see in the Age of Empires games anyway). And while I love the change from Iroquois to Haudenosaunee, I'm less fond of the change from Sioux to Lakota. The Western and Eastern Dakota were also an important part of the confederacy and are even referenced in the faction's abilities. If they wanted to change it, it should have been to Seven Council Fires, not to Lakota.

There's a risk in hiring cultural advisors who are too attached to the culture that they end up painting a picture of how they want to remember their people rather than how they were, which is what I see happening with AoE3DE. It's still a step up from Jamake Highwater and Star Trek: Voyager, but I really think hiring a more objective historian would be more effective--then maybe ask a cultural advisor to give it a once over.

I always thought that Alexander (or any hellenic great person,... Pyrrhus ?) leading the Hellenes, is an elegant solution to simply have more slots. I like classical History, but, they just take too much space with Sparta, Macedon and Athens ... and so much time to get Byzantium.

Better: leave Alexander as a Great General like he was at release and have a more cultural/scientific Ancient Greece--and leave Sparta out.

I mean a Manchu civ wouldn't be an impossible reality. They are a different ethnic group from the Han Chinese. However this would also mean that China, a large market, will be banned cause the government if infamous for not wanting much representation for the minorities of China, which is the reason why a Tibetan civ, while deserves a civ, will not be possible in China. The Manchus conquered China and not the other way around though so it might be possible, with that logic a Mongolian civ wouldn't be possible due to the fact that the majority of the Mongolian population is in China.

Could probably get around this by choosing the Jurchens instead of the Manchus.

 

[AaronTBD]

Could probably get around this by choosing the Jurchens instead of the Manchus.

It would be a blob, but other than that it's practically the same, but can possibly go around the banning. I wouldn't say that the Chinese are as strict as everyone thinks due to Hong Kong being a separate city state.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Better: leave Alexander as a Great General like he was at release and have a more cultural/scientific Ancient Greece--and leave Sparta out.

Alexander was never a Great General in the game, other than in his Scenario. The only Great Generals who became leaders were Genghis Khan and Simon Bolivar.

That being said I love Classical Hellenistic history so I don't mind all of the attention they get.
However I'm open to the idea of Greece being a scientific and cultural civ with Pericles being the diplomatic leader and Alexander being the more aggressive leader in Civ 7.

 

[Zaarin]

Alexander was never a Great General in the game, other than in his Scenario. The only Great Generals who became leaders were Genghis Khan and Simon Bolivar.

Could've sworn he as a GG in vanilla... Anyway, it's the best place to put him IMO.

That being said I love Classical Hellenistic history so I don't mind all of the attention they get.
However I'm open to the idea of Greece being a scientific and cultural civ with Pericles being the diplomatic leader and Alexander being the more aggressive leader in Civ 7.

I get the appeal of a militant Greece. There's no mistaking the Hellenes were a warrior culture--just read their literature. However, their lasting legacy (aside from Alexander) hasn't been war and conquest so much as philosophy, politics, and art so I think that's the best way to represent them. However, as someone who is not overly interested in Graeco-Roman culture, I'd like to see their representation as limited as possible. Instead of having a thousand Hellenes like we have in Civ6, I want a thousand Ancient Near Eastern civilizations.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

All this talk of Canton just makes me wish we had a British civ, no Macedon or Byzantium or Gaul, either Canada or the Cree but not both.

If China and India (and Persia, and Southeast Asia) can't have their diversity well-represented in civ, I don't think any civ should. Asia's representation in VI is abysmal.

Don't you think those are false criteria that would lead us to the set of Civs unsatisfying for the majority of players? If devs can make some specific Civ that would be fun to play, well-received, or desired by fans why they shouldn't do it? Because of some arguable, and purely subjective census? This makes no sense

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

We don't get a Thracian/Dacian civ because their languages are virtually unattested. They'd either be speaking Greek or Romanian or Albanian, and none of those options is appealing. To make matters worse, very little is known about Thracian or Dacian culture, politics, or social structure. There are archaeological cultures that are better-understood than the Thracians or Dacians--and I'll go ahead and add the Illyrians and Messapians, as well. Despite their importance, they'd make very poor choices for civilizations in Civ. I wouldn't mind seeing them in Humankind, though, which can take more liberties of that kind than Civ can..

There'd also the very real problem that everything we know about the Thracians historically comes from their enemies: Greeks, Macedonians and Romans. That results inevitably in a very skewed view of a group. The other problem, having read a few of the Greek and Macedonian/Greek comments on the Thracians, is that it is obvious from them that the Thracians were no more a monolithic group than the Greeks were: some tribes seem to have been classic 'hardy highlanders' (even with Tartan cloaks and bagpipes!), while others had a mounted warrior aristocracy and cities - or at least, proto-cities. Their societal structure, politics, and culturally significant traits, however, have to be inferred or guessed at by comparing what little we know with other groups living in similar terrain/climates elsewhere. It's pretty thin for a full-fledged Civilization in game terms, even without the language problem.

. . . And while I love the change from Iroquois to Haudenosaunee, I'm less fond of the change from Sioux to Lakota. The Western and Eastern Dakota were also an important part of the confederacy and are even referenced in the faction's abilities. If they wanted to change it, it should have been to Seven Council Fires, not to Lakota..

The Lakota were simply the first one of the Seven Council Fires that moved onto the prairie and acquired horses to go with their already-acquired firearms, making them by far the most powerful of the bunch by the 19th century. Since this occurred after over 150 years of interaction with other tribes and Europeans in the forest country south of the Great Lakes, it covers only a portion (albiet the best known portion) of Siouxian history, and almost completely leaves out their considerable influence on the fur trade and as middlemen between the Europeans and other native groups. The book Lakota America makes it clear that the continuous attribute of the Sioux was their flexibility: moving from rice-growing farmers and hunters in the woods to bison-hunting Lords of the Plains, from supplicants at the French governor's palace in Canada in 1699 CE to the arbiters of everything that happened north of Kansas in the 1860s.

 

[Zaarin]

There'd also the very real problem that everything we know about the Thracians historically comes from their enemies: Greeks, Macedonians and Romans. That results inevitably in a very skewed view of a group. The other problem, having read a few of the Greek and Macedonian/Greek comments on the Thracians, is that it is obvious from them that the Thracians were no more a monolithic group than the Greeks were: some tribes seem to have been classic 'hardy highlanders' (even with Tartan cloaks and bagpipes!), while others had a mounted warrior aristocracy and cities - or at least, proto-cities. Their societal structure, politics, and culturally significant traits, however, have to be inferred or guessed at by comparing what little we know with other groups living in similar terrain/climates elsewhere. It's pretty thin for a full-fledged Civilization in game terms, even without the language problem.

Both hostile narration and the inability of the "civilized" to distinguish among the "non-civilized" can be a major hurdle for historiography. I just wrote a paper on the Wendat (Huron), and several ethnohistorians lamented that Champlain and even the Jesuits (who were much more culturally perceptive than most of their contemporaries) were not consistently able to tell the difference among the Wendat, the Petun (Tobacco Nation), the Neutral, the Erie, the Wenro, and sometimes even the Seneca and Onondaga.

The Lakota were simply the first one of the Seven Council Fires that moved onto the prairie and acquired horses to go with their already-acquired firearms, making them by far the most powerful of the bunch by the 19th century. Since this occurred after over 150 years of interaction with other tribes and Europeans in the forest country south of the Great Lakes, it covers only a portion (albiet the best known portion) of Siouxian history, and almost completely leaves out their considerable influence on the fur trade and as middlemen between the Europeans and other native groups. The book Lakota America makes it clear that the continuous attribute of the Sioux was their flexibility: moving from rice-growing farmers and hunters in the woods to bison-hunting Lords of the Plains, from supplicants at the French governor's palace in Canada in 1699 CE to the arbiters of everything that happened north of Kansas in the 1860s.

They sound a great deal like the Shawnees.

 

[8housesofelixir]

The other problem, having read a few of the Greek and Macedonian/Greek comments on the Thracians, is that it is obvious from them that the Thracians were no more a monolithic group than the Greeks were: some tribes seem to have been classic 'hardy highlanders' (even with Tartan cloaks and bagpipes!), while others had a mounted warrior aristocracy and cities - or at least, proto-cities. Their societal structure, politics, and culturally significant traits, however, have to be inferred or guessed at by comparing what little we know with other groups living in similar terrain/climates elsewhere. It's pretty thin for a full-fledged Civilization in game terms, even without the language problem.

This is a problem with a lot of nomadic people: For instance, many modern scholars began to argue that the nomadic people north of China before the Mongols - esp. Xiongnu and Xianbei - were actually a combination of many nomadic groups from different culture origins thattook the name of the tribe that was the strongest or the leader of them as their "joint" name. Even the official Histories of Imperial China recorded that some originally "Xiongnu" tribes easily joined themselves into Xianbei after the leadership of the former collapsed in the 5th century.

Again, 4x games often had a hard time to portray nomadic groups and regimes. It is hard to make them flavorful (as flavorful as IRL) under the current game mechanics.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

This is a problem with a lot of nomadic people: For instance, many modern scholars began to argue that the nomadic people north of China before the Mongols - esp. Xiongnu and Xianbei - were actually a combination of many nomadic groups from different culture origins thattook the name of the tribe that was the strongest or the leader of them as their "joint" name. Even the official Histories of Imperial China recorded that some originally "Xiongnu" tribes easily joined themselves into Xianbei after the leadership of the former collapsed in the 5th century.

Again, 4x games often had a hard time to portray nomadic groups and regimes. It is hard to make them flavorful (as flavorful as IRL) under the current game mechanics.

Going off the other thread of "What makes a civilization" I think groups like these would make for interesting minor factions in games, including the Huns, Goths etc. if they aren't to be playable.
Not quite like the barbarians in game but not inherently peaceful like city-states. I'm not sure how they would work alongside barbarians though but I would be open to the idea of them outright replacing them.

 

[SMcM]

Going off the other thread of "What makes a civilization" I think groups like these would make for interesting minor factions in games, including the Huns, Goths etc. if they aren't to be playable.
Not quite like the barbarians in game but not inherently peaceful like city-states. I'm not sure how they would work alongside barbarians though but I would be open to the idea of them outright replacing them.

I don't really see the need for that to be honest, I don't have much interest in 'minor faction' representation. If the Huns are in the game, I'd like to be able to play as them really, not have them locked off as some AI-only thing.

 

[Arianrhod]

All this talk of Canton just makes me wish we had a British civ, no Macedon or Byzantium or Gaul, either Canada or the Cree but not both.

If China and India (and Persia, and Southeast Asia) can't have their diversity well-represented in civ, I don't think any civ should. Asia's representation in VI is abysmal.

Part of this comes down to the fact that the former countries are generally more willing to see their country "divided", from a historical standpoint, than China is. The English aren't going to boycott the game because you included Scotland, and very few Americans would boycott the game over the presence of the Iroquois/Cree/Shoshone/Sioux/whatever. The Greeks might get upset if you imply continuity between Macedon and North Macedonia, but that's easy to avoid doing.

On the subject of Macedon, though, I will forever maintain that the problem was Gorgo and not Macedon. Splitting Greece into "cultural Greece" and "Alexander Greece" is a perfectly sensible thing to do and something I'm much less bothered about than e.g. Scotland; Gorgo was a dumb compromise between the two and a poor choice for demonstrating alt leaders, and she had the side effect of making other Greek civs look even more overkill than they already were. It would've been much smarter to give her spot to Hatshepsut; she adds basically everything you could call worthwhile about Gorgo, while also likely being much less polarizing. She'd also make the many faces of Greece look better, instead of worse, by alleviating Cleopatra's duty as the only representation of Egypt.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I don't really see the need for that to be honest, I don't have much interest in 'minor faction' representation. If the Huns are in the game, I'd like to be able to play as them really, not have them locked off as some AI-only thing.

It's more of an expanded concept on city-states with cultures that really couldn't be represented by a city-state while not being a playable civ, at least yet, either.
That seems to at least be what Humankind is doing though the Huns are playable.

If the Huns do get in the game as a playable civ in the future then it wouldn't be a problem. The Xiongu could take their spot.

On the subject of Macedon, though, I will forever maintain that the problem was Gorgo and not Macedon. Splitting Greece into "cultural Greece" and "Alexander Greece" is a perfectly sensible thing to do and something I'm much less bothered about than e.g. Scotland; Gorgo was a dumb compromise between the two and a poor choice for demonstrating alt leaders, and she had the side effect of making other Greek civs look even more overkill than they already were. It would've been much smarter to give her spot to Hatshepsut; she adds basically everything you could call worthwhile about Gorgo, while also likely being much less polarizing. She'd also make the many faces of Greece look better, instead of worse, by alleviating Cleopatra's duty as the only representation of Egypt.

Although I don't mind the presence of Gorgo I'm all for keeping Alexander around anyway possible in future games.

 

[8housesofelixir]

IMHO the Greek question is still "if separate them into Athens, Sparta, Ionia, etc. then each looks too small and don't have a good city list (esp. Athens), but if group them together then it will result in a blob and left no accurate place for Alexander".

Basically: We always say 4x games cannot handle nomadic people well, but they cannot handle City-States well either; and City-States are not that hard to handle (CS civs don't require the devs to write a new set of game mechanism, it is more of a problem of how to alter the existing mechanism in a fun way).