[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[SirMediocrity]

TBH I'm a little disappointed at some of the "change for change's sake" leader choices they've made. Some have been fine, but is Victoria really a step up from Elizabeth I, even if Lizzy has been in all five previous games? And then they haven't changed leaders in some cases where it might have been interesting to do so--for example, Montezuma, Gandhi, and Pachacuti.

Personally I'd like to see Pyrrhus lead Greece rather than Alexander sometime.

I'm not so much skeptical of her existence as skeptical of her having killed Cyrus.

I kinda wish they had chosen Ateas or another less ambiguously Scythian leader (I know I harp on this a lot, but Tomyris is really only Scythian in one of the broadest definitions of the term... Scythia is a very blobby civ).

 

[Thenewwwguy]

If you want to blame anybody you should probably blame Gilgamesh.


Yeah, I'm pretty sure somebody had to found New Zealand first.


At first I was going to comment that all the worship beliefs have been buildings but I guess that a unique improvement could be a possibility for another belief since you mention the Warrior Monks.
Though considering it's very specific it sounds like it probably is a city-state improvement. I'm assuming it might be a Bangladesh one or Kathmandu considering we already have a Sri Lankan city-state and India is a civ.

if it is a ‘Bangladeshi’ CS it would probably predate the concept of Bengali language or culture or the introduction of islam, so it would be geographically bangladeshi than anything else.

For a Nepali CS, Kathmandu wouldn’t fit well bcs it’s historically been more a center of hinduism than buddhism, but Lalitpur has a particularly famous Mahavihara named the Golden Temple which could make Lalitpur a good fit for the CS.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

if it is a ‘Bangladeshi’ CS it would probably predate the concept of Bengali language or culture or the introduction of islam, so it would be geographically bangladeshi than anything else.

For a Nepali CS, Kathmandu wouldn’t fit well bcs it’s historically been more a center of hinduism than buddhism, but Lalitpur has a particularly famous Mahavihara named the Golden Temple which could make Lalitpur a good fit for the CS.

Right I meant geographically where Bangladesh is now as opposed to Sri Lanka or India. I think a Nepalese city-state might be the most likelier option and I'd be fine with it considering I wanted maybe Lhasa as a religious-city state and it seems like it would be similar.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'm not so much skeptical of her existence as skeptical of her having killed Cyrus. . .

As mentioned, you are in good company: Xenophon agrees with you, and since he was a Mercenary Captain for the Persians he may have gotten the information straight from Persian nobles far more familiar with the Persian royal family history than Herodotus was. Of course, he might have also gotten an "official Persian version" that refused to admit that the founder of the empire could have been done in by a bunch of northern barbarians. Empires have a way of rewriting unwanted facts right out of their narratives . . .

Personally I'd like to see Pyrrhus lead Greece rather than Alexander sometime.

There are no leaders of a unified Classical Greece except conquering foreigners, so there are a host of potential Greek Leaders from individual cities and leagues: Solon, Cleisthenes, Brasidas, Polycrates, Jason of Thessaly, Dionysus of Syracuse would be my top picks, but by no means does that exhaust the potential list.

I kinda wish they had chosen Ateas or another less ambiguously Scythian leader (I know I harp on this a lot, but Tomyris is really only Scythian in one of the broadest definitions of the term... Scythia is a very blobby civ).

Like Greece, there is no 'Scythian' Leader, only leaders of individual Scythian tribes or groups, and we can't even be certain which of them were most numerous or most influential at any given time. As a good example, while Ateas (or Atea, or Atiyah) is called "King of the Scythians" by Roman and Greek authors, his dominion was only over the land between approximately the Danube and the Don Rivers, less than half of the geographical area of the Scythian lands which extended to beyond the Urals, and, among others, did not include the Massagetae further east, whom Tomyris supposedly led. Also, he ultimately got himself and his army chopped to pieces by Phillip of Macedon's new army of pike-wielding Pezhetairoi and Hetairoi or Companion Cavalry, so he wound up as a sort of 'appetizer' for the Macedonians before they and Phillip turned their attention to Greece.

 

[Zaarin]

Empires have a way of rewriting unwanted facts right out of their narratives . . .

The Achaemenids do seem to have been expert propagandists. Darius asserts his honesty so many times the modern reader quickly begins thinking, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Still, there are an astonishing number of accounts about how Cyrus supposedly died, and the Tomyris story seems rather sensational. (Sensationalism? For Herodotus? Say it isn't so! ) Since most of them involve death in battle, however, I'm also a little skeptical of Xenophon's account that he died peacefully of old age; that does sound rather like an "official Persian version."

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Achaemenids do seem to have been expert propagandists. Darius asserts his honesty so many times the modern reader quickly begins thinking, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Still, there are an astonishing number of accounts about how Cyrus supposedly died, and the Tomyris story seems rather sensational. (Sensationalism? For Herodotus? Say it isn't so! ) Since most of them involve death in battle, however, I'm also a little skeptical of Xenophon's account that he died peacefully of old age; that does sound rather like an "official Persian version."

Not just the Achaemenids, by any means!

There is a new biography of Phillip and Alexander out by Goldsworthy that I just started reading last night, and in his introduction he points out that 'propaganda' or false narrative was a feature of an unknown but large percentage of all the ancient/classical narratives. All the depictions of Alexander, for instance, show him as a very young man (in which Civ VI is only the latest in a long line of 'frat boy Alexanders') BUT he died before he turned 33, so there is no other possible realistic depiction of him. Augustus/Octavius of Rome, on the other hand, lived to his 80s, but ordered that no bust, statue, or depiction of him be made that showed him older than his 20s, so the popular notion of him is as the young nephew of Caesar instead of the manipulative old goat he really was for most of his reign. Rulers then and now! are notoriously possessive about their 'image' and States follow their leaders in this most consistently.

 

[8housesofelixir]

There are no leaders of a unified Classical Greece except conquering foreigners, so there are a host of potential Greek Leaders from individual cities and leagues: Solon, Cleisthenes, Brasidas, Polycrates, Jason of Thessaly, Dionysus of Syracuse would be my top picks, but by no means does that exhaust the potential list.

A blob "Greece" civilization but all the stock Governors are replaced by Solon, Cleisthenes, Brasidas, Alcibiades, Cleon, Lysander, etc. and give the cities they reside in a unique buff would be interesting. Every Governor-ed city represents a IRL city-state.

 

[Zaarin]

Augustus/Octavius of Rome, on the other hand, lived to his 80s, but ordered that no bust, statue, or depiction of him be made that showed him older than his 20s, so the popular notion of him is as the young nephew of Caesar instead of the manipulative old goat he really was for most of his reign. Rulers then and now! are notoriously possessive about their 'image' and States follow their leaders in this most consistently.

I would kill to look as good at my current age of 30 as Ramesses II's official portraits alleged he looked at 90.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

A blob "Greece" civilization but all the stock Governors are replaced by Solon, Cleisthenes, Brasidas, Alcibiades, Cleon, Lysander, etc. and give the cities they reside in a unique buff would be interesting. Every Governor-ed city represents a IRL city-state.

I'd agree with this idea but a hypothetical Italy needs a design like this more in the future.

 

[SirMediocrity]

Like Greece, there is no 'Scythian' Leader, only leaders of individual Scythian tribes or groups, and we can't even be certain which of them were most numerous or most influential at any given time. As a good example, while Ateas (or Atea, or Atiyah) is called "King of the Scythians" by Roman and Greek authors, his dominion was only over the land between approximately the Danube and the Don Rivers, less than half of the geographical area of the Scythian lands which extended to beyond the Urals, and, among others, did not include the Massagetae further east, whom Tomyris supposedly led. Also, he ultimately got himself and his army chopped to pieces by Phillip of Macedon's new army of pike-wielding Pezhetairoi and Hetairoi or Companion Cavalry, so he wound up as a sort of 'appetizer' for the Macedonians before they and Phillip turned their attention to Greece.

I'm not sure if this is a response or a tidbit relating to my original post...

The main point of my comment was to point out that Tomyris was only "Scythian" by one of (if not the most) the broadest definitions of the term, which is why Scythia as it stands in the game feels rather blobby (we still need an India split btw).

 

[Zaarin]

The main point of my comment was to point out that Tomyris was only "Scythian" by one of (if not the most) the broadest definitions of the term, which is why Scythia as it stands in the game feels rather blobby.

Since the Scythians left no writings of their own, any definition is going to be broad, since both Greek Scythian and Persian Saka really meant "those insufferable horse-riding barbarians on the steppe" most of the time. I'd prefer to see the Scythians replaced with the more concrete Parthians next time around.

 

[SirMediocrity]

Since the Scythians left no writings of their own, any definition is going to be broad, since both Greek Scythian and Persian Saka really meant "those insufferable horse-riding barbarians on the steppe" most of the time. I'd prefer to see the Scythians replaced with the more concrete Parthians next time around.

I completely acknowledge the fact that "Scythian" itself is a vague term even in a more drilled-down sense (at least when it comes to historical accounts). Of course, we are still able to distinguish from the Scythians, Sarmatians, and Saka (although these terms are also ambiguous and complicated, especially the Saka). I can get why some people might be okay with Scythia's depiction in Civ 6 but I would personally prefer that they either choose a more unambiguously "Scythian" leader or perhaps a more grounded steppe-civ, such as Parthia, which you just recommended.

 

[Zaarin]

Of course, we are still able to distinguish from the Scythians, Sarmatians, and Saka (although these terms are also ambiguous and complicated, especially the Saka).

As far as I can tell, the terms "Saka" and "Scythian" are both, broadly speaking, the same people from different perspectives (Scythian being a Greek term, Saka Iranian); the Saka/Scythians later developed into the Sarmatians (who in turn became Alans who ultimately became Ossetians, maybe). Distinguishing among people on the steppe is always a challenge because in many cases any given group is a short-lived multiethnic confederation that can change its makeup and even its dominant language in a moment.

 

[Patine]

The Achaemenids do seem to have been expert propagandists. Darius asserts his honesty so many times the modern reader quickly begins thinking, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Still, there are an astonishing number of accounts about how Cyrus supposedly died, and the Tomyris story seems rather sensational. (Sensationalism? For Herodotus? Say it isn't so! ) Since most of them involve death in battle, however, I'm also a little skeptical of Xenophon's account that he died peacefully of old age; that does sound rather like an "official Persian version."

Mind, one of the accounts of Attila's death (again, one of many), also from a Greek writer (Priscus, the ambassador to Attila's court from Constantinople) with the story of the victory celebration and feast, and celebration of his wedding to his newest bride, a frightened young woman, who he took up to his room, very drunk, and a not long after the woman screams in terror, and guards arrive and find Attila laying dead on his back on his bed, choked on his blood from a "nosebleed after drunkenly banging his face on the headboard," but Priscus leaves the intimation to the reader of what REALLY happened in the room. Sensationalism? You be the judge...

 

[SirMediocrity]

As far as I can tell, the terms "Saka" and "Scythian" are both, broadly speaking, the same people from different perspectives (Scythian being a Greek term, Saka Iranian); the Saka/Scythians later developed into the Sarmatians (who in turn became Alans who ultimately became Ossetians, maybe). Distinguishing among people on the steppe is always a challenge because in many cases any given group is a short-lived multiethnic confederation that can change its makeup and even its dominant language in a moment.

The "Saka" and "Scythians" are technically two different peoples and also the same people at the same time (its kind of weird). While both terms have been used interchangeably for "classical-era-steppe-nomads" they are also sometimes used to distinguish between the people in the ukraine/russia (who are usually called Scythian) region and those in the 'stans (who are usually called Saka). They had differences but they were a part of that "broader Scythian/Saka culture," depending on if you were talking to a Persian or Greek.

This is a really hard conversation to have because these words have multiple different definitions which also vary depending on the perspective, etc.

Quick Note: As someone who likes to categorize empires/cultures, I tend to be more in favor of splits rather than blobs (which is why I've been getting more into Paradox games and have become more bored with Civilization, since Civilization lends itself more to historical blobbiness due to the amount of work they put into each civ nowadays).

 

[Zaarin]

Quick Note: As someone who likes to categorize empires/cultures, I tend to be more in favor of splits rather than blobs (which is why I've been getting more into Paradox games and have become more bored with Civilization, since Civilization lends itself more to historical blobbiness due to the amount of work they put into each civ nowadays).

I tend to be a moderate on the lumper vs. splitter spectrum, but I also tend to lean towards splitting when in doubt. That said, what little linguistic evidence is available seems sufficient to me to describe the Scythians and Saka as speaking the same language and practicing similar cultures (within acceptable ranges of variability) so I don't have a particular problem with lumping in this situation--but I'd still rather use a better-understood culture like the Parthians, particularly since they eventually settled down, which is an advantage until 4X games figure out how to properly handle nomads.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The "Saka" and "Scythians" are technically two different peoples and also the same people at the same time (its kind of weird). While both terms have been used interchangeably for "classical-era-steppe-nomads" they are also sometimes used to distinguish between the people in the ukraine/russia (who are usually called Scythian) region and those in the 'stans (who are usually called Saka). They had differences but they were a part of that "broader Scythian/Saka culture," depending on if you were talking to a Persian or Greek.

I think it would be more accurate to say that Scythians/Sakae were the same or extremely similar people in culture, language, possibly religion, certainly in 'technology' living in different areas and observed by different outsiders. For anybody traveling from somewhere outside 'Scythia' along, say, the Tanais (Don) River in 300 BCE to tell the difference between one felt-hat-wearing horse archer with gorytis bow/arrow case and another and define them as Scythian or Saka (or Massagetae or Getae or later as Sarmatian, for that matter) would be, I suspect, highly problematical. Even recent DNA reconstruction (an ongoing project) has not been able to make any meaningful distinction among the people of the steppe from approximately modern Hungary to northeast of the Caspian Sea before the late Roman Imperial period: they were all visibly similar in appearance, culture, language (mostly), and intermarried amongst each other regularly as far as the evidence suggests. And, at least from the outside-looking-in Classical authors, there is little or no evidence of any political cohesion amongst all the groups, so a 'Civilization' made up of them will be to some extent an artificial construct until Civ learns how to model states without central governments, like the city states of Classical Greece or Renaissance Italy, or the 'tribes' of pastoral Central Asia.

Quick Note: As someone who likes to categorize empires/cultures, I tend to be more in favor of splits rather than blobs (which is why I've been getting more into Paradox games and have become more bored with Civilization, since Civilization lends itself more to historical blobbiness due to the amount of work they put into each civ nowadays).

As stated, Civ (and, up until now, most other attempts at 4X Historical Games) has had a real problem modeling cultures that are not also centralized political constructs. This is made even worse with regard to pastoral groups like most of the Native North Americans or Central Asian groups by the single-minded Civ concept that City = Civilization, since a great many peoples in world history (and prehistory) built no cities to speak of but still managed to be quite influential and long-lasting.

And in this respect I'm afraid that I am once again:

 

[8housesofelixir]

but I'd still rather use a better-understood culture like the Parthians, particularly since they eventually settled down, which is an advantage until 4X games figure out how to properly handle nomads.

To be honest, after Humankind semi-successfully handles the Huns (at least in my opinion, and at least compare to Civ, AOE, Total War), I think the major thing about steppe people that 4X games still lacks is how to represent the logistic nightmare caused by the steppes, how steppe nomads could overcome them and how agrarian society cannot.

Many agrarian empires had the ability to crush their horse-riding opponents, but the limits of pre-modern logistics forced them to abandon the plan. The agrarian empires that successfully challenged the nomadic powers - for example, Eastern Han, Tang, and (early) Ming - all used nomadic foreign legions as their main force (Eastern Han used Southern Xiongnu, Tang used Tiele Turks, Ming used Uriankhai Mongols), for they, like their truly nomadic brothers, didn't have the logistic problem in the steppes.

This is made even worse with regard to pastoral groups like most of the Native North Americans or Central Asian groups by the single-minded Civ concept that City = Civilization, since a great many peoples in world history (and prehistory) built no cities to speak of but still managed to be quite influential and long-lasting.

Personally I think the "outpost" system (besides Humankind, many people have suggested this particular idea throughout the Civ series) can be a solution to non-city-dwelling cultures.

On the other hand, cultures and communities who did build cities, such as Swahilis and Zapotecs, haven't show up in Civ games yet. (Gauls are in similar situation, and only being included because Civ needs a Celtic representation.)

 

[Zaarin]

Many agrarian empires had the ability to crush their horse-riding opponents, but the limits of pre-modern logistics forced them to abandon the plan. The agrarian empires that successfully challenged the nomadic powers - for example, Eastern Han, Tang, and (early) Ming - all used nomadic foreign legions as their main force (Eastern Han used Southern Xiongnu, Tang used Tiele Turks, Ming used Uriankhai Mongols), for they, like their truly nomadic brothers, didn't have the logistic problem in the steppes.

The cycle of nomadic steppe riders using their mobility to take advantage and conquer a settled empire only to become the new settled empire is a tale as old as time--see the Kassites and Sumerians, Amorites and Babylonians, Hyksos and Egyptians, Parthians and Seleucids, Mongols and the Song, the Magyars and the Bulgarians, etc.

 

[Patine]

The cycle of nomadic steppe riders using their mobility to take advantage and conquer a settled empire only to become the new settled empire is a tale as old as time--see the Kassites and Sumerians, Amorites and Babylonians, Hyksos and Egyptians, Parthians and Seleucids, Mongols and the Song, the Magyars and the Bulgarians, etc.

The Mughals and the Delhi Sultanate.