[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[PhilBowles]

also, after playing a lot of games with the improved city lists + rosetta stone, i’m absolutely convinced this is how civ needs to go about doing city lists from now on. It allows for much more overlap in important empires like Songhai and Mali or Byzantium and Ottomans

What are these improved city lists? A mod or a patch improvement? How does it differ from the current system in terms of what it allows?

Sadly I think that Yemen would only be included for her sake, and she's not enough to get a pretty small kingdom on a roster more concerned with filling large geographic holes. However, I'd be happy with a Queen Arwa Mosque wonder as a nod to her and Yemeni architecture (just like the Taj Mahal seems to vicariously represent the Mughals).

Sadly, I suspect Firaxis would be more likely to go with Saba than Yemen just to get 'the Queen of Sheba' as a face character.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

What are these improved city lists? A mod or a patch improvement? How does it differ from the current system in terms of what it allows?

It makes the city list read in the civ's native language (and/or finds native equivalents to those cities). And if I remember correctly, whenever the city is conquered by a new civ, the name is transliterated to the new civ's language.

So each civ not only has a completely unique city list, but also completely unique versions of every other civ's cities.

Sadly, I suspect Firaxis would be more likely to go with Saba than Yemen just to get 'the Queen of Sheba' as a face character.

True, but it wouldn't be Sabea. She would be an Arabian and/or Ethiopian alternate leader. And I've convinced myself we don't need her because we already have ancient Arabian representation with Petra and the Nabataeans.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I guess I meant the Tamil kings. I wasn't quite sure if if was the Chola who built it but my point stands that Meenakshi appears to be token representation for Indian unification under the Chola.



I briefly considered Mutapa, but it seems too poorly attested and without clear leaders for the devs to make anything out of it. Plus, the Zulu exerted military dominance over half of what would be the Mutapa kingdom anyway? I guess you could say that Zimbabwe/Mutapa is kinda lumped in with the Zulu?



Inasmuch as Firaxis has to bend to Chinese historical revisionism to keep the market open, the palace falls under Chinese imperial conquest for purposes of whether it would be associated with a separate civ, or just lumped in as part of "China." It and a Lhasa city-state may be the most we might ever see of Tibet in VI.

Though if there is even a small chance for Tibet to still happen (and consequently distinguishing Potala Palace as not Chinese) I'm all for it.



It was built on the ruins of a Gallic village. Though I guess pre-Eleanor it also would have functioned as Norman representation. The model isn't perfect, I realize (America has three arbitrary wonders and Russia has two from the imperial era and nothing from Novgorod). But it does bring up the interesting notion that perhaps wonders from the "big" civs are preferentially chosen from eras or polities that will not be represented by alternate leaders or city-states.



I don't disagree with this, in the same vein that China, America, and Russia don't have a strong concept of a consistent "culture." Is China more Han or Mongol or Manchu? Is America more English or French or Spanish? I think China is a better analogue for this than America or Russia, but the fact is that it has been cohesively occupied for so long under different regimes that all of the cultures form a sort of consistent cultural admixture. It's a bit heterogenous, but there is definitely a prevailing population which a) wants to be seen as a united nation and b) has a general idea of what the "dominant culture" has become through all the intermingling. I'd say if anything India is less cleanly divided into "North" and "South" India but involves a sort of Chola-Maurya-Mughal spectrum.

I wouldn't mind a Chola leader for India if we keep getting alternate leaders. A naval India could be fun. I could pass on the Mughals if we get the Timurids.

Well from a very literal perspective modern chinese culture, while broken up by geography, is largely han.

In regards to Mutapa, we do know enough about the first two kings, but i agree that given the Zulu had considerable influence over the southern half of Mutapa’s territorial lands, it might be redundant.

I don't see the need to split up Civs based off of cultural differences. In that case Normandy and Burgundy could be separate Civs as well.
India is a representation of the history of the whole subcontinent, to an extent, which the Maurya Empire mostly encompassed, and British ruled India which also held Pakistan and Bangladesh who Gandhi was trying to free. All of those different cultures were still under one political authority so I think it's acceptable to still keep them under the "Indian" umbrella.

I don't think it will happen for here, but I could at least possibly see the Mughals if they decided to use Akbar, ruling from Lahore, alongside several leaders from India in Civ 7.

I don’t understand why people see the Mughals as acceptable as a different civ but the Chola as only acceptable as an alt leader for India.

while they were ethnically different, they adopted indian cultures so quickly. Modern North India is more influenced by the Mughals than any other group.

I can only see the Mughals or Chola acting as the Macedon for India in civ 6, as a civ that makes more sense as an alt leader.

In civ 7, i hope they adopt the city naming style that is used in improved city names and rosetta stone, so that whether Akbar’s capital is Agra, Fatehpur Sikri or Lahore is irrelevant, because it’ll only pick city names which aren’t used elsewhere. Better yet, there is no Gandhi or other Republic of India leader, so modern Indian cities are generally left available for Akbar’s city list (with exception to Mauryan overlap in cities like Patna/Pataliputra)

I also don’t understand why people admit that India is poorly representative of the culture in civ, and then advocate for Gandhi, Ashoka or Chandragupta AND Akbar, all representing just one part of the subcontinent. The Chola NEED to be represented in this game in some capacity, whether it be a separate civ or an alt leader.

Ideally, Ashoka/Chandragupta Maurya, Akbar/Shah Jahan and Rajaraja/Rajendra Chola become the three indian civs/leaders with some rotation over iterations of the game.

Each representing different geography, religion, timeframe and culture.

What are these improved city lists? A mod or a patch improvement? How does it differ from the current system in terms of what it allows?



Sadly, I suspect Firaxis would be more likely to go with Saba than Yemen just to get 'the Queen of Sheba' as a face character.

Improved city lists is a mod by Seeling Cat that does the following:

Consistently uses native names for the cities for the civ in question (although they’re often transliterated in a borderline illegible manner and are inconsistent across languages)

Fixes the inconsistent city lists that are in the vanilla versions of the game and DLC (Ra-Kedet as Cleopatra’s capital, for example)

Prevents the same city from being founded twice with two different names (or the same one) (Chandragupta and Alexander can’t both found Taxila. Alexander and Cleopatra can’t both found Alexandria, Greece can’t found Byzantium if Ottomans have put down Constantinyye)

Changes city lists to match time frames of leaders and geographical boundaries of leaders: Pericles uses the Delian League, for example.

Rosetta Stone changes city names into native language options when conquered. Like I mentioned though, the transliteration is generally poor and inconsistent, and often different from the English spelling for being different’s sake, even if pronunciation is the same (Chennai is spelled Cennai, Uxmal as Oo’xmaal)

 

[DWilson]

Improved city lists is a mod by Seeling Cat that does the following:

Consistently uses native names for the cities for the civ in question (although they’re often transliterated in a borderline illegible manner and are inconsistent across languages)

Fixes the inconsistent city lists that are in the vanilla versions of the game and DLC (Ra-Kedet as Cleopatra’s capital, for example)

Prevents the same city from being founded twice with two different names (or the same one) (Chandragupta and Alexander can’t both found Taxila. Alexander and Cleopatra can’t both found Alexandria, Greece can’t found Byzantium if Ottomans have put down Constantinyye)

Changes city lists to match time frames of leaders and geographical boundaries of leaders: Pericles uses the Delian League, for example.

Rosetta Stone changes city names into native language options when conquered. Like I mentioned though, the transliteration is generally poor and inconsistent, and often different from the English spelling for being different’s sake, even if pronunciation is the same (Chennai is spelled Cennai, Uxmal as Oo’xmaal)

I will say I especially like the Rosetta Stone mod, even if I can't argue on the quality. It feels more natural to me that officially, and over time presumably unofficially as well in city citizen use, the city names would reflect the language of the civ in control.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I don't see the need to split up Civs based off of cultural differences. In that case Normandy and Burgundy could be separate Civs as well.
India is a representation of the history of the whole subcontinent, to an extent, which the Maurya Empire mostly encompassed, and British ruled India which also held Pakistan and Bangladesh who Gandhi was trying to free. All of those different cultures were still under one political authority so I think it's acceptable to still keep them under the "Indian" umbrella.

I don't think it will happen for here, but I could at least possibly see the Mughals if they decided to use Akbar, ruling from Lahore, alongside several leaders from India in Civ 7.

The issue with this is until 1856, the subcontinent was literally never united, let alone called India. Chola and Pandya kings saw themselves as Tamil or Dravidian but never Indian. Mughal and Rajput kings thought themselves Hindustani.

Normandy and Burgundy, for large parts of their history, were parts of France, if not vassalized or within the sphere or influence.


Cultural differences are important to distinguishing what is considered a civ, especially if the representation of a blob civ considered themselves that whole blob civ.

If a Ming Emperor and a Han emperor both called themselves emperors of China, there’s some recognition of succession, evolution and development as one nation, even if they were different culturally. Likewise, if Sparta and Athens both considered themselves ‘Greek’ despite their different political heritages, it makes sense to consider them all a greek civ.

The Chola never considered themselves as even related to the Maurya or Gupta, nor did the Mughals

In fact, over time, what is considered India has changed drastically. In Ancient times, the Mauryans viewed Seleucid Persia as an extension of what was rightfully their land, for example. The Mughals thought North India to be an extension of the Muslim world, and North India, Bengal, Sindh, Punjab and Afghanistan to be grouped together as a different geogrpahical entity than Dravidian India altogether.

The Chola viewed Sri Lanka as a part of Tamilkam, and never considered areas outside of the Deccan Plateau as part of any geographical or political entity that they shared.

I will say I especially like the Rosetta Stone mod, even if I can't argue on the quality. It feels more natural to me that officially, and over time presumably unofficially as well in city citizen use, the city names would reflect the language of the civ in control.

oh yeah, i love the mod, i just wish that it did a better job of transliteration (both it and improved city lists have this problem)

the romanized names often are literally illegible and the least one could do is use names which are phonetically correct to the native language but alphabetically logical for the latin script (why Cennai? ppl in india don’t even spell it that way, lmao)

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Ideally, Ashoka/Chandragupta Maurya, Akbar/Shah Jahan and Rajaraja/Rajendra Chola become the three indian civs/leaders with some rotation over iterations of the game.

Each representing different geography, religion, timeframe and culture.

I agree with this. Of course I don't necessarily see the need to split India into 4 separate civilizations when much of the subcontinent does have somewhat of a shared history. That would make room for other parts of the world to make it in and having more leaders would give it justice. I feel the same way about China too.

Also the thing is unified India has always been in the game because the idea of a unified India Republic is represented always by Gandhi, so it would be hard to separate India if Gandhi does keep on appearing, which I don't see that happening. So ideally we would be looking at least four leaders for India.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I don’t understand why people see the Mughals as acceptable as a different civ but the Chola as only acceptable as an alt leader for India.

I'm not in that camp. I think they both should be alternate leaders for India, as far as VI is concerned and until we find a better way to represent the Indian subcontinent in future games.

I also don’t understand why people admit that India is poorly representative of the culture in civ, and then advocate for Gandhi, Ashoka or Chandragupta AND Akbar, all representing just one part of the subcontinent. The Chola NEED to be represented in this game in some capacity, whether it be a separate civ or an alt leader.

I think it's a matter of priority. Technically, by that standard, the Franks AND Prussia AND the Qing and plenty of other influential dynasties need to be represented in Civ.

I think it quite likely that if India got a third leader, it would be from the Chola and not the Mughals. But we are still some distance away from the developers introducing third alternate leaders, and if India only had two leaders (and one of them had to represent the modern unified India), then the Maurya made sense as the first alternate leader. Ideally we would have India represented by Ashoka, Rajaraja, and Nur Jahan, but that was never going to happen with Ghandhi in the picture. I've accepted Ghandhi's place in VI, but I wholly admit that for a civ as complicated as India he probably should have been abandoned as very late cycle bonus DLC (or elsewise many more alternate leaders developed for the base game civs) so we could focus on the other facets of Indian history.

 

[PhilBowles]

Prevents the same city from being founded twice with two different names (or the same one) (Chandragupta and Alexander can’t both found Taxila. Alexander and Cleopatra can’t both found Alexandria, Greece can’t found Byzantium if Ottomans have put down Constantinyye)

I may be misremembering but I thought Civ V did this with the Huns (who usually took city names from civs not in the game, but I think not exclusively) and I think there may have been civs that shared a couple of city options. I agree Civ Vi should have the ability to do this so isn't constrained to civs that had little or no overlap in city names, or treating shared cities as city states.

Changes city lists to match time frames of leaders and geographical boundaries of leaders: Pericles uses the Delian League, for example.

Personally I feel Civ has strayed too far into focusing on leaders over civs. I can appreciate tying capitals to individual leaders, but I like having a consistent city list for civs.

Rosetta Stone changes city names into native language options when conquered. Like I mentioned though, the transliteration is generally poor and inconsistent, and often different from the English spelling for being different’s sake, even if pronunciation is the same (Chennai is spelled Cennai, Uxmal as Oo’xmaal)

This seems a bit of a gimmick. Historically colonised cities tended to retain a variant of either the local name or a name that was used by surrounding cultures, and there's no way to plausibly 'predict' what a city would be called if taken by a civ that didn't conquer it in reality. However you spell a conquered Chennai in English, no algorithm is going to change it to Madras

The issue with this is until 1856, the subcontinent was literally never united, let alone called India. Chola and Pandya kings saw themselves as Tamil or Dravidian but never Indian. Mughal and Rajput kings thought themselves Hindustani.

It's always worth bearing in mind before going too deep that Civilization is a mass market popular computer game, not an actual effort to educate people in history in any detailed way. It's necessarily time-bound by the period when it's made, and - all the moreso in an era when it has an explicit mission to incorporate civs to improve representation for territories players come from, and where modding is available for people who want to go deeper - finding a way to represent a commonly recognised state with its modern borders takes precedence over historical accuracy.

In short, they want a way to represent what people now understand by the name India (or China etc.) - it's interesting to discuss how best to represent that and which period(s), city lists and leaders are good ways to represent that, but insisting on representing historically distinct parts of what's now the modern state separately (outside scenarios where it's relevant) is a fool's errand, just as it would be to have separate civs for Wessex and Northumbria.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I think it's a matter of priority. Technically, by that standard, the Franks AND Prussia AND the Qing and plenty of other influential dynasties need to be represented in Civ.

I agree. The Chola or the Mughals being represented by India, or by a separate civ, aren't necessarily a priority. I have other needs and wants and right now I think India is fine represented with not only Gandhi but Chandragupta for Civ 6.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

think it's a matter of priority. Technically, by that standard, the Franks AND Prussia AND the Qing and plenty of other influential dynasties need to be represented in Civ.

Those are dynasties though, not seperate nations outright. India was never like china with back to back dynasties. It was tons of nations coagulated under colonial rule.

However you spell a conquered Chennai in English, no algorithm is going to change it to Madras

I believe Rosetta stone does in fact change Madras to Chennai and Kolkata to Calcutta, etc. when the brits capture indian cites. It’s not just changing it to the same name in a different language, but using the conquerer’s name for the city.

Another good example of this is when you play as the romans and capture all over the place

I agree with this. Of course I don't necessarily see the need to split India into 4 separate civilizations when much of the subcontinent does have somewhat of a shared history. That would make room for other parts of the world to make it in and having more leaders would give it justice. I feel the same way about China too.

Also the thing is unified India has always been in the game because the idea of a unified India Republic is represented always by Gandhi, so it would be hard to separate India if Gandhi does keep on appearing, which I don't see that happening. So ideally we would be looking at least four leaders for India.

ideally we don’t see gandhi after civ 6 and only need the maurya, mughals and chola.

 

[The Kingmaker]

We’re going to keep seeing Gandhi in Civ because of that power-mad, nuke-happy meme.

But maybe if enough of us request it, Sukritact will make an animated, voiced Nur Jahan. That would be really neat.

 

[bite]

ideally we don’t see gandhi after civ 6 and only need the maurya, mughals and chola.

Given he has been in every game so far, I am not sure that will happen even if it might be better

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Those are dynasties though, not seperate nations outright. India was never like china with back to back dynasties. It was tons of nations coagulated under colonial rule.

The Chola are considered a dynasty of India though, even if it's only the southern part.

ideally we don’t see gandhi after civ 6 and only need the maurya, mughals and chola.

I mean I'm one of the few people probably that doesn't mind Gandhi, as long as we get other leaders too.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

We’re going to keep seeing Gandhi in Civ because of that power-mad, nuke-happy meme.

But maybe if enough of us request it, Sukritact will make an animated, voiced Nur Jahan. That would be really neat.

I’d be up for that, although I’d like to see Rajaraja Chola and Akbar first.

Suk did the whole mod series where he broke up India in 5, didnt he? I could imagine he keeps the existing design for the Maurya, redesign the Republic, and add the Chola, Mughals

or alternatively make the Chola and Mughals alt leaders for India as mods

But legit i doubt suk takes requests at all, and if he does, idk if he’d really be willing to do an animated and voiced civ, although I dream of an animated, voiced chola civ. He seems to prefer just doing what he likes, and you can tell that in his finished product bcs it turns out so much better. I’d rather take his good mods for civs i’m less interested in than a mediocre mod that ppl begged him for.

The Chola are considered a dynasty of India though, even if it's only the southern part.


I mean I'm one of the few people probably that doesn't mind Gandhi, as long as we get other leaders too.

i don’t know where you’re learning history but i’ve never learned ‘indian dynasties’. From what i know, india doesn’t really have ‘dynasties’ like Japan, China or Korea because India never had people who led all of it.

the Chola are an Indian empire, as is the Maurya as is the Mughal empire as are the Gupta, but none of them ever were or claimed to be the empire or india or an emperor of India, so i don’t think it classifies as Dynastic in nature

 

[PhilBowles]

We’re going to keep seeing Gandhi in Civ because of that power-mad, nuke-happy meme.

Actually, maybe not. Civ VI AIs don't use nukes at all, and to the very limited extent that Civ VI AIs exhibit personalities Gandhi is actually pacifistic, so people new to the series with 6 may not even be aware of the meme. Adding Chandragupta is a fairly clear sign Firaxis was aware of the demand for a more appropriate Indian leader.

Maybe I'm optimistic, but I do think we may finally be far enough past that joke that Gandhi is no longer an automatic part of the series.

 

[The Kingmaker]

But legit i doubt suk takes requests at all, and if he does, idk if he’d really be willing to do an animated and voiced civ, although I dream of an animated, voiced chola civ. He seems to prefer just doing what he likes, and you can tell that in his finished product bcs it turns out so much better. I’d rather take his good mods for civs i’m less interested in than a mediocre mod that ppl begged him for.

He’s already done several professional level animated and voiced leaders and civs. Have you seen his Robespierre? Looks like it was done by FXS. The guy doesn’t do mediocre. He has a Patreon where people can support him. No idea if he takes suggestions, but I think he might be at least open to certain ideas.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

He’s already done several professional level animated and voiced leaders and civs. Have you seen his Robespierre? Looks like it was done by FXS. The guy doesn’t do mediocre. He has a Patreon where people can support him. No idea if he takes suggestions, but I think he might be at least open to certain ideas.

my points is that i think a large part of why he does so well is because he does what he enjoys, rather than what ppl ask him to do. It’s passion.

Actually, maybe not. Civ VI AIs don't use nukes at all, and to the very limited extent that Civ VI AIs exhibit personalities Gandhi is actually pacifistic, so people new to the series with 6 may not even be aware of the meme. Adding Chandragupta is a fairly clear sign Firaxis was aware of the demand for a more appropriate Indian leader.

Maybe I'm optimistic, but I do think we may finally be far enough past that joke that Gandhi is no longer an automatic part of the series.

Same

 

[Francel]

Reading this thread it dawned on me I haven’t seen AI use nukes. I am not super experienced player but is it true? They never use nukes?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

i don’t know where you’re learning history but i’ve never learned ‘indian dynasties’. From what i know, india doesn’t really have ‘dynasties’ like Japan, China or Korea because India never had people who led all of it.

the Chola are an Indian empire, as is the Maurya as is the Mughal empire as are the Gupta, but none of them ever were or claimed to be the empire or india or an emperor of India, so i don’t think it classifies as Dynastic in nature

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chola-dynasty
I haven't extensively studied India at all, but there are many dynasties throughout the history of the Indian subcontinent, even if they didn't rule all of India. The Mughals are also considered to be a dynasty as well. That doesn't mean they weren't empires either, just the word dynasty implies that the rulers were passed down the line of succession through a ruling family.

Actually, maybe not. Civ VI AIs don't use nukes at all, and to the very limited extent that Civ VI AIs exhibit personalities Gandhi is actually pacifistic, so people new to the series with 6 may not even be aware of the meme. Adding Chandragupta is a fairly clear sign Firaxis was aware of the demand for a more appropriate Indian leader.

Maybe I'm optimistic, but I do think we may finally be far enough past that joke that Gandhi is no longer an automatic part of the series.

I would believe it if it wasn't for the fact that Gandhi has about a 70% chance likely that his secondary agendas will be nuke happy.
I'm also sure they deliberately put in the quote about "Having a weapon is very different from actually using it," to continue on the meme. He might not use them but he probably doesn't mind building them.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chola-dynasty
I haven't extensively studied India at all, but there are many dynasties throughout the history of the Indian subcontinent, even if they didn't rule all of India. The Mughals are also considered to be a dynasty as well. That doesn't mean they weren't empires either, just the word dynasty implies that the rulers were passed down the line of succession through a ruling family.


I would believe it if it wasn't for the fact that Gandhi has about a 70% chance likely that his secondary agendas will be nuke happy.
I'm also sure they deliberately put in the quote about "Having a weapon is very different from actually using it," to continue on the meme. He might not use them but he probably doesn't mind building them.

right they’re dynasties but not dynasties of india, they’re dynasties of tamilkam and hindustan, respectively