[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[SammyKhalifa]

Man, I try to not be offensive to our good posters here but I can think of a whole plethora of civ I'd like to see before another from SA. It seems it has been filled pretty thoroughly in civ 6.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Man, I try to not be offensive to our good posters here but I can think of a whole plethora of civ see I'd like to see before another from SA

Yeah, many places are underrepresented!

I would see someone from Americas, Africa, India or Oceania.
Or Vietnã.


I guess Euroasia Civs are already overrepresented.
Just India, Indochina and Central asia need more representation, I guess.

 

[Xandinho]

Man, I try to not be offensive to our good posters here but I can think of a whole plethora of civ I'd like to see before another from SA. It seems it has been filled pretty thoroughly in civ 6.

True, I was saying in a second round of passes. But even in a second round of DLCs, I wouldn't mind giving up a South American civ to give additional civs to Africa, which, for me, is probably one of the most under-represented continents.

 

[Henri Christophe]

True, I was saying in a second round of passes. But even in a second round of DLCs, I wouldn't mind giving up a South American civ to give additional civs to Africa, which, for me, is probably one of the most under-represented continents.

The most underrepresentade continent is Oceania by far.
I would like to have Hawaii or Tonga Empire.

About African. I guess Africa can very well be represented with some Americans CIV as Haiti and Palmares. They are the Africa in Americas.
Haiti have the Dahomey heritage (From nowadays Benin)
Palmares the Angola heritage (From Ndongo, the same of the great Ana Jinga (Nzinga, Njinga).


I guess it will represented very well Africans in America Diaspora.

If we have white leaders in Europe, America and even in Australia.
Why not have some African Civs in America?

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Man, I try to not be offensive to our good posters here but I can think of a whole plethora of civ I'd like to see before another from SA. It seems it has been filled pretty thoroughly in civ 6.

To be fair, the specific place where the Guarani are located is empty in the map, and they were a very important civilization.

Also, I’d never say no to more indigenous civs.

Now, South America already has been done in this season pass, but the Guarani should be the go-to for the SA representative in the next season pass, should there be one.

also, count me as a vote for calling it Guarani, since Paraguay is a colonial name. It would low-key be like calling the Inca ‘Peru’

The most underrepresentade continent is Oceania by far.
I would like to have Hawaii or Tonga Empire.

About African. I guess Africa can very well be represented with some Americans CIV as Haiti and Palmares. They are the Africa in Americas.
Haiti have the Dahomey heritage (From nowadays Benin)
Palmares the Angola heritage (From Ndongo, the same of the great Ana Jinga (Nzinga, Njinga).


I guess it will represented very well Africans in America Diaspora.

If we have white leaders in Europe, America and even in Australia.
Why not have some African Civs in America?

I’d like Hawaii or Tonga too, but the design of maori is such a bad representation of the maori and so clearly a polynesian blob civ just given a specific name that i don’t see much design room, especially for Tonga.

Haiti would be a great civ choice, maybe with L’Overture, but I’d personally rather see the Taino or Carib first, from that general region.

I dont mind a civ specifically designed with a black leader in the Americas like Haiti, though, it’s a key part of the history of the Americas which is often minimized in general. L’Overture would be a good way of drawing focus to it.

I do generally see a need for africa to be more generally filled out. I want to see Mutapa, Swahili and the Berbers, in general, led by Dihya, if not a specific berber civ like Numidia or Morocco.

 

[Henri Christophe]

To be fair, the specific place where the Guarani are located is empty in the map, and they were a very important civilization.

The spot of Palmares is also empity, it is north east of south America XD

Also, I’d never say no to more indigenous civs.

Please say yes to Afro-American, we also like to play Civilization.
We just want to see our self, I swear. Nothing more.

also, count me as a vote for calling it Guarani, since Paraguay is a colonial name. It would low-key be like calling the Inca ‘Peru’

That I like XD
But Paraguay is named because the river, it is a Guarani word to geography.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I think when choosing a Civs it is a mixture of map filling and choosing civs based off of appeal.
Gran Colombia and the Mapuche are good examples. Like it's been pointed out they do fill up areas of South America that weren't there, even for previous games. They could have easily gone with the Muisca and Argentina, but in the end Simon Bolivar appealed to more South Americans than an Argentina leader and the Mapuche successfully defended themselves against the Spanish, something the Muisca couldn't.

Where map filling is less of a concern is in the case of Scotland. I say that because the spot could have easily gone to Ireland, or even Gaul which wouldn't have filled a part of the map at all, as the "Celtic" spot. But Scotland does have lots of appeal with the combination of Robert the Bruce, Highlanders, and FREEDOM (War of Liberation)!

The same goes for the Maori. Granted a Polynesian spot was going to be filled, but I don't think it mattered if it were New Zealand or Hawaii. The Maori are one of the most recognizable and I'm sure they wanted their Maori Warriors back.

Probably. I think I would rather have a champa UU than a Viet cong. There are a lot of directions they could take a Vietnamese design.

I'd like something like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mông_Đồng
I hope they wouldn't take a modern approach when it comes to their design based off of the Vietnam War, but I'm also not sure if they would have any Champa influences either, considering of their own independent status at least until the 1800s.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Probably. I think I would rather have a champa UU than a Viet cong. There are a lot of directions they could take a Vietnamese design

the only reason that Champa territory is incorporated into Vietnam today is because of European Colonial random border drawing. No more blob civs. They’re totally different ethnicities, although I, at one point, shared this possibility as a viable option. I’d much rather see the Champa as their own civ than blobbed into Vietnam

The spot of Palmares is also empity, it is north east of south America XD


Please say yes to Afro-American, we also like to play Civilization.
We just want to see our self, I swear. Nothing more.


That I like XD
But Paraguay is named because the river, it is a Guarani word to geography.

Oh, I know paraguay refers to the river, but it’s a colonial name nonetheless.

I don’t know enough about Palmarés, but if they were historically relevant, have a cool, really personality-driven leader, and the devs have heard of them, I’m down.

 

[Henri Christophe]

I think when choosing a Civs it is a mixture of map filling and choosing civs based off of appeal.
Gran Colombia and the Mapuche are good examples. Like it's been pointed out they do fill up areas of South America that weren't there, even for previous games. They could have easily gone with the Muisca and Argentina, but in the end Simon Bolivar appealed to more South Americans than an Argentina leader and the Mapuche successfully defended themselves against the Spanish, something the Muisca couldn't.

I also have this concern, I want the map full everywhere, any place to found a settler because it is totally full of Civs XD
That is the why I want CIVS for all Globe, except for Europe and Middle Eastern...

Where map filling is less of a concern is in the case of Scotland. I say that because the spot could have easily gone to Ireland, or even Gaul which wouldn't have filled a part of the map at all, as the "Celtic" spot. But Scotland does have lots of appeal with the combination of Robert the Bruce, Highlanders, and FREEDOM (War of Liberation)!

I would prefer the Celts, I would someone who look like Asterix, I love his winged hat ^^

The same goes for the Maori. Granted a Polynesian spot was going to be filled, but I don't think it mattered if it were New Zealand or Hawaii. The Maori are one of the most recognizable and I'm sure they wanted their Maori Warriors back.


I'd like something like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mông_Đồng
I hope they wouldn't take a modern approach when it comes to their design based off of the Vietnam War, but I'm also not sure if they would have any Champa influences either, considering of their own independent status at least until the 1800s.

The Pacif ocean need more peeps too!
I would like the Vietnamise pirate girl, I forgot her name.
Or ho chi minh, C'mon, the guy defeated USA.
WE NEED HO CHI MINH in an Cold War scenario

 

[PhilBowles]

It's certainly bizarre if you go into VI presuming that it has the same meritocratic standard of only including "empires" as V did.

And there was no "theme" connecting the civs in V's expansions like there was in VI. Rise and Fall, the political expansion, included seven smaller imperial or quasi-imperial powers which were well-known for resisting even larger empires (Scotland v. England, Cree v. Canada, Mapuche v. Spain, Dutch v. Germany, Zulu v. Boers, Georgia and Korea v. a lot of people)

This seems very much a case of seeing a pattern because you're looking for one. Most civs can be defined as having fought against rivals, often bigger rivals. While leaders like Robert and Wilhemina were noted for leading their civs in resistance, Seondok wasn't - indeed the main conflict during her reign was suppression of an internal rebellion. That Korea has during its history resisted "a lot of people" is ludicrously nebulous. Poundmaker is notable for actively not taking part in what seems to have been an 'accidental' rebellion that lasted all of six hours. Shaka was an expansionist leader, and wasn't in conflict with either the Boers or the British.

Gathering Storm, the terrain expansion, included seven civs with terrain bonuses known for thriving in extreme frontier conditions (Canada and tundra, Mali and desert, Maori and ocean, Phoenicia and coasts, Inca and mountains, Hungary and rivers/hot springs, Sweden kinda shoehorned with multi-terrain bonus and open air museums).

As I noted, just like Civ V expansions the Civ VI ones focused on mechanics new with the expansion. You're on firmer ground here but are misreading the reason - mechanical, not some overarching pre-planned theme. There's no good thematic reason to associate Hungary with rivers and hot springs (and conversely the Netherlands was a terrain-linked civ in an earlier expansion, and Egypt liked floodplains), it was just a way to show off mechanics.

Both expacks had a generic domination civ, probably for balancing purposes (Mongolia, Ottomans)

And this is just handwaving. There's no reason the expansion that included the Zulu and a domination-focused Mapuche needed another "generic domination civ", you're just creating a new bucket to explain why Mongolia doesn't fit your pattern rather than accepting that the pattern isn't real.

The question is not whether VI had greater design plans in mind, because it clearly did.

No, that isn't clear at all. I suspect they had firmer plans to stay with a two-expansion model than Civ V did, simply because it's not clear Civ V was ever originally conceived as having full expansions rather than DLC content - but I don't imagine they had any specific plans about the themes those expansions would cover or the civs they would include. They ended up in retrospect with some omissions the fanbase found unexpected, not because of pre-planned further content, but precisely because they hadn't planned far ahead and simply found that Babylon et al. didn't fit their needs at each stage when they had content to add.

Ending up doubling Canadian civs while missing civs people expected to see is precisely the sort of thing I'd imagine happening if the content was planned on a pretty ad hoc basis as it went along.

The Mapuche were not imperialistic and equally represent Chile.

I think your imperialistic/non-imperialistic division is completely invented. Yes, the Mapuche are probably taken to represent both Chile and Argentina - not because of map representation, but because of the demographic criterion: they appeal to both Chilean and Argentinian players. Culturally they don't represent either and instead represent only a single, Mapuche culture. They aren't varying cultural representation any more than any other single civ. As your map indicates, they had a very small geographical coverage compared with Argentina.

They also happen to fill out New Zealand pretty elegantly on TSL maps, giving us a Polynesian civ that could actually have land to work with as opposed to Tonga or Hawaii.

That's purely a gameplay consideration - New Zealand has usable land that the Polynesian islands don't on a TSL map. Also, as implemented, the Maori don't even start in New Zealand and when played by the AI don't seem to end up there, at least not all the time - in my last TSL game they ended up in Japan.

No it wasn't. Carthage in V didn't have a writing bonus; it makes sense for the Phoenicians but not for Carthage. Same with the cothon.

The original meaning of 'cothon' was the harbour at Carthage - it was a proper name like the Pharos in Alexandria. The cothon was also the unique building for Carthage in Civ IV. How is that not appropriate for Carthage?

A eureka for writing specifically is a slight stretch for Carthage, but representing the Phoenician alphabet as a Carthaginian ability makes sense as it was the area that continued to use it for longest. I'm not suggesting they didn't want to represent other aspects of Phoenicia with the civ - what I'm pointing out is that Carthage has always been the game's representative for Phoenicia as a whole (other than in Civ V, where the city state mechanic allowed them to represent the independent Phoenician cities as city states).

As I stated above, the civs were themed to the expacks. So Netherlands got a loyalty effect because there was design synergy for a civ that was already likely going to be included because POLDERS.

Ah yes, polders - the terrain-linked improvement that by your logic should have resulted in them being held for the next expansion rather than the imagined "anti-imperialist" theme (how does that theme incorporate areas like the Netherlands that have been major empires and subject states alike?).

Again, you're looking at it backwards: the Netherlands would have been a good fit for the base game or either expansion. At some stage Firaxis decided to put them in the first expansion, and made an ability that fit, rather than hold them back just in case they needed a loyalty civ or a terrain-linked civ for an expansion. That logic would have prompted them to hold England back for similar reasons.

That isn't any different from Civ V putting Byzantium in its religion expansion, for instance.

I guess I just need to keep posting this every ten pages or so because nobody goes back to read how we got here.

More pertinently you need to do a better job of explaining why a map with gaps fits your imagined scheme more than Firaxis' own stated intent and past practice. Why are the North American civs all clustered in the east? Why is Central and southern, and most of West, Africa empty when we're about to get Ethiopia - a civ directly continuous with Egypt and Nubia in East Africa? Why stick the Mapuche in to represent a small stretch at the 'waist' of South America and leave a large Argentina-shaped gap (actually larger than shown because the Inca seem to reach too far south and Brazil too far west). Where do you imagine your Bulgarians fitting as there is no space at all in Europe south of northern Scandinavia? Why, indeed, is Ireland empty while Great Britain has two civs?

Courtesy of reddit /u/derPhilstift (red non-Spain blobs are large unfilled regions with potential). Look at how cleanly continental Europe is filled by Hispania under Philip, France, Germany, Poland-Lithuania, and Hungary. Aside from a couple LARGE sprawling empires like Rome, Macedonia, Phoenicia, to some extent the Ottomans and Mongolia (which are comfortably represented by modern Turkey and Mongolia), every civ has been localized and culturally vamped up to eleven to cater to modern nationalist sentiments.

Civs have been 'localised' because Civ fans, myself included, have complained for years about blobs. 'Nationalism' has nothing to do with it. They aren't appealing to Cree nationalists by not having a "Native American" civ.

They added a whopping TWO civs to the tiny South American continent, just to fill out as much geography as possible.

Because of TSL concerns - South America has always been underrepresented, and having only one or two civs for such a large area leads to an easy start without competition for anything that spawns there. The way TSL civ generation works, not every civ is always present anyway (the only unmodded TSL map can have only eight civs), so more South American civs in the game increases the chances of having at least one. In general TSL is skewed by the odds that nothing will spawn in the New World, so there's a need for more American civs for the region as a whole - not just South America specifically. Conveniently, this is a further justification for Canada.

nor Argentina under Eva Peron, a "big personality" and a female to boot.

Likely too recent and, I think, controversial in-country. General Rosas also not popular despite being a good option otherwise.

We got...the most you could possibly fill out South America with four civs.

Which is what you want for TSL representation - you don't want a Bolivian native civ when you're using the Inca with a capital in southern Peru. Argentina would have worked, and has more viable leader options than Peron, but Brazil is already there and represents a post-colonial civ. Likely the original plan was not to have multiple post-colonial civs in either South or North America, as Canada seems to have been a late decision and I suspect nothing in New Frontier was planned at the time the Mapuche were introduced.

Just because the devs have other express design goals does not mean that they can't have implicit design goals, or that any of these need be in conflict.

Occam's razor would suggest adopting the simplest explanation, which is that the goals the designers have announced are the ones they applied, when this satisfactorily explains everything we've seen. There's no need to invent patterns or motives that aren't there.

And Ireland was never an empire. Scotland briefly held overseas territory

Yet again, you're turning civs into whatever you want them to be for the purpose of the moment: Scotland was in Rise and Fall because of its resistance to imperialism, but favoured over Ireland because of its (very short-lived) imperial adventure. It's amazing what patterns you can come up with when every civ is what you need it to be for any given argument and all counterexamples are ignored.

 

[Henri Christophe]

I don’t know enough about Palmarés, but if they were historically relevant, have a cool, really personality-driven leader, and the devs have heard of them, I’m down.

Palmares was biger than Muisca in Land their ocuppied, (the size of Palmares was also bigger than Portugal)

The history of Palmares begins when Diogo Cão arrive in Angola and found the city of Luanda.
We already know about Afonso I (Here in Civilization his name is Mvemba).

Some of us should know about the Queen Nzinga from Ndongo

I don't know that much about Congo history, but I have a book here about Ndongo history.
And the war between Ndongo and Portugal (Cavazzi call the Portugal empire in Central Africa as Angola)
In this war, the prisioners of the war was enslaved in Brazilian suggar plantation in Recife.

The Portuguese conquer once a King, called Ganga Zumba.
When Ganga Zumba arrived in Brazil, at almost the same time
The Quenn Nzinga made an alliance with the Dutch against the Portuguese.

while Dutch aid the Queen Nzinga conquer back half of Ndongo kingdom and the Ganga Zumba help a lot of Africans to follow to Palmares also with Dutch aid.
When Portugal and Dutch made peace, both Ndongo and Palmares was too strong to be destroyed.

But, for the great leader of Palmares I think should be not Ganga Zumba, but Zumbi.
He was the last king and have amazing battles against the Paulistas. As Jorge Velho.
By the way, Paulistas should be brazilian Unique Unit, I really hate the Minas Geras boat because it was just used in military coup, nothing to be proud of

One thought about Historical relevance.​

Why we cannot also celebrate the historical un-relevance of one nation?

I mean, what about the Trunganini lead the Tasmanian Civ?
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truganini
The Tasmanian was the most unrelevante nation on earth, they can't have none unique unit, none unique improvement, they had nothing at all.

They are soooo un-relevant, they was also the first nation to be full extermined on earth.
His queen, Trunganini, was queen of ALL Tasmanian, because she was the last of they.
She rules ALL tasmanians, because she rules her self.

And also would be cool to fill Australian void of Civ.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Palmares was biger than Muisca in Land their ocuppied, (the size of Palmares was also bigger than Portugal)

The history of Palmares begins when Diogo Cão arrive in Angola and found the city of Luanda.
We already know about Afonso I (Here in Civilization his name is Mvemba).

Some of us should know about the Queen Nzinga from Ndongo

I don't know that much about Congo history, but I have a book here about Ndongo history.
And the war between Ndongo and Portugal (Cavazzi call the Portugal empire in Central Africa as Angola)
In this war, the prisioners of the war was enslaved in Brazilian suggar plantation in Recife.

The Portuguese conquer once a King, called Ganga Zumba.
When Ganga Zumba arrived in Brazil, at almost the same time
The Quenn Nzinga made an alliance with the Dutch against the Portuguese.

while Dutch aid the Queen Nzinga conquer back half of Ndongo kingdom and the Ganga Zumba help a lot of Africans to follow to Palmares also with Dutch aid.
When Portugal and Dutch made peace, both Ndongo and Palmares was too strong to be destroyed.

But, for the great leader of Palmares I think should be not Ganga Zumba, but Zumbi.
He was the last king and have amazing battles against the Paulistas. As Jorge Velho.
By the way, Paulistas should be brazilian Unique Unit, I really hate the Minas Geras boat because it was just used in military coup, nothing to be proud of

Queen Nzinga as in Anna of Angola?

One thought about Historical relevance.

Why we cannot also celebrate the historical un-relevance of one nation?

I mean, what about the Trunganini lead the Tasmanian Civ?
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truganini
The Tasmanian was the most unrelevante nation on earth, they can't have none unique unit, none unique improvement, they had nothing at all.

They are soooo un-relevant, they was also the first nation to be full extermined on earth.
His queen, Trunganini, was queen of ALL Tasmanian, because she was the last of they.
She rules ALL tasmanians, because she rules her self.

And also would be cool to fill Australian void of Civ.

I think Aboriginal Australians oppose the depiction of the dead

 

[Henri Christophe]

Queen Nzinga as in Anna of Angola?

Yes, her name have many ways to write.
I guess Brazilian would prefeer Jinga, or Ginga.
Africans should prefeer Nzinga or Njinga.

The European name can be Anna or Ana.
Her familly Christian name was de Souza.

So, I guess the best options is Dona Ana Ginga de Souza.
But there is no consensus.

I think Aboriginal Australians oppose the depiction of the death

I just want to think about this idea just to celebrate great empires, I don't know well Australians Civs to do a good sugestion, but I guess need someone.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

This seems very much a case of seeing a pattern because you're looking for one. Most civs can be defined as having fought against rivals, often bigger rivals. While leaders like Robert and Wilhemina were noted for leading their civs in resistance, Seondok wasn't - indeed the main conflict during her reign was suppression of an internal rebellion. That Korea has during its history resisted "a lot of people" is ludicrously nebulous. Poundmaker is notable for actively not taking part in what seems to have been an 'accidental' rebellion that lasted all of six hours. Shaka was an expansionist leader, and wasn't in conflict with either the Boers or the British.

What the civs were chosen to represent thematically does not necessarily align with which leader personified them. Point being, these were all underdog empires that resisted expansion by larger empires.

As I noted, just like Civ V expansions the Civ VI ones focused on mechanics new with the expansion. You're on firmer ground here but are misreading the reason - mechanical, not some overarching pre-planned theme. There's no good thematic reason to associate Hungary with rivers and hot springs (and conversely the Netherlands was a terrain-linked civ in an earlier expansion, and Egypt liked floodplains), it was just a way to show off mechanics.

Hungary was primarily chosen, if I recall, to be a city state levying civ. Which could have been any other civ in theory. Yet it was specifically crammed into some terrain-based mechanics as well. If, as you say, there was no theming and no reason to associate Hungary with hot springs and rivers, then why did this happen? Hungary is a great example of pre-planning because it only makes sense as a terrain civ if it made the preproduction list and then was shoehorned into this iteration when civs were grouped and themed for expacks.

And this is just handwaving. There's no reason the expansion that included the Zulu and a domination-focused Mapuche needed another "generic domination civ", you're just creating a new bucket to explain why Mongolia doesn't fit your pattern rather than accepting that the pattern isn't real.

It's a better explanation than pretending the other seven civs aren't themed when they clearly were.

No, that isn't clear at all. I suspect they had firmer plans to stay with a two-expansion model than Civ V did, simply because it's not clear Civ V was ever originally conceived as having full expansions rather than DLC content - but I don't imagine they had any specific plans about the themes those expansions would cover or the civs they would include. They ended up in retrospect with some omissions the fanbase found unexpected, not because of pre-planned further content, but precisely because they hadn't planned far ahead and simply found that Babylon et al. didn't fit their needs at each stage when they had content to add.

This is a ridiculous assertion. If they had only planned two packs, they would not have omitted Portugal or the Maya. Their omission is not from lack of planning, but from deliberately planning to have a larger roster than 42 civs over more than 2 expacks.

Ending up doubling Canadian civs while missing civs people expected to see is precisely the sort of thing I'd imagine happening if the content was planned on a pretty ad hoc basis as it went along.

Why would they double up on Canada without intending to fill out other wanted parts of the map at some point? Having the confidence to put out two Canadian civs for *gestures to these forums*? They assuredly had stuff players actually wanted up their sleeve. Again, a really stupid argument where Firaxis has been completely on top of marketing and consumer relations.

I think your imperialistic/non-imperialistic division is completely invented. Yes, the Mapuche are probably taken to represent both Chile and Argentina - not because of map representation, but because of the demographic criterion: they appeal to both Chilean and Argentinian players. Culturally they don't represent either and instead represent only a single, Mapuche culture. They aren't varying cultural representation any more than any other single civ. As your map indicates, they had a very small geographical coverage compared with Argentina.

They cover roughly the northern half of both Argentina and Chile. Those are also the most populous regions, and they are the largest native demographic in both countries. I don't really see what you think you're trying to distinguish here; they vicariously represent both Chile and Argentina, a more efficient way of repping the whole of that region than selecting only Chile or Argentina which was an actual polity and highly requested civ.

That's purely a gameplay consideration - New Zealand has usable land that the Polynesian islands don't on a TSL map. Also, as implemented, the Maori don't even start in New Zealand and when played by the AI don't seem to end up there, at least not all the time - in my last TSL game they ended up in Japan.

Again you haven't quite caught on to the distinction of the map-filling theory yet. TSL locations are a loose indicator, but what the devs are actually trying to fill out is cultural representation. It just happens that the biggest TSL gaps tend to contain the biggest opportunities for representing large populations that otherwise have no civ to relate to.

The original meaning of 'cothon' was the harbour at Carthage - it was a proper name like the Pharos in Alexandria. The cothon was also the unique building for Carthage in Civ IV. How is that not appropriate for Carthage?

A eureka for writing specifically is a slight stretch for Carthage, but representing the Phoenician alphabet as a Carthaginian ability makes sense as it was the area that continued to use it for longest. I'm not suggesting they didn't want to represent other aspects of Phoenicia with the civ - what I'm pointing out is that Carthage has always been the game's representative for Phoenicia as a whole (other than in Civ V, where the city state mechanic allowed them to represent the independent Phoenician cities as city states).

This iteration is clearly more Phoenician than Carthaginian. That is the only point I was making.

Ah yes, polders - the terrain-linked improvement that by your logic should have resulted in them being held for the next expansion rather than the imagined "anti-imperialist" theme (how does that theme incorporate areas like the Netherlands that have been major empires and subject states alike?).

Again, you're looking at it backwards: the Netherlands would have been a good fit for the base game or either expansion. At some stage Firaxis decided to put them in the first expansion, and made an ability that fit, rather than hold them back just in case they needed a loyalty civ or a terrain-linked civ for an expansion. That logic would have prompted them to hold England back for similar reasons.

Again, the Netherlands is a very good indicator that all the civs were chosen first, and then grouped into themed expacks. Otherwise, yes, it would likely have been in GS. But apparently, like Hungary, it was lumped into a different theming and other facets were built out.

More pertinently you need to do a better job of explaining why a map with gaps fits your imagined scheme more than Firaxis' own stated intent and past practice. Why are the North American civs all clustered in the east? Why is Central and southern, and most of West, Africa empty when we're about to get Ethiopia - a civ directly continuous with Egypt and Nubia in East Africa? Why stick the Mapuche in to represent a small stretch at the 'waist' of South America and leave a large Argentina-shaped gap (actually larger than shown because the Inca seem to reach too far south and Brazil too far west). Where do you imagine your Bulgarians fitting as there is no space at all in Europe south of northern Scandinavia? Why, indeed, is Ireland empty while Great Britain has two civs?

The North American civs are clustered because there is likely content planned for western US. Also the Cree nation is clustered around central Canada but there are Cree tribes which span further west.

Same for Africa. The gaps appear to be pointing toward planned content for a Berber and Swahili coast civ. If South America can get a whopping four civs to fill it out, get something relatively unnecessary for a 50 civ roster like the Mapuche, then that points toward Africa being planned to receive more civs.

Because of TSL concerns - South America has always been underrepresented, and having only one or two civs for such a large area leads to an easy start without competition for anything that spawns there. The way TSL civ generation works, not every civ is always present anyway (the only unmodded TSL map can have only eight civs), so more South American civs in the game increases the chances of having at least one. In general TSL is skewed by the odds that nothing will spawn in the New World, so there's a need for more American civs for the region as a whole - not just South America specifically. Conveniently, this is a further justification for Canada.

Africa is twice as big. So why would they give SA four civs without planning to similarly flesh out Africa with later content? I don't think Ethiopia is the end of it.

Occam's razor would suggest adopting the simplest explanation, which is that the goals the designers have announced are the ones they applied, when this satisfactorily explains everything we've seen. There's no need to invent patterns or motives that aren't there.

Clearly there are room for different models based off their self-professed rules. There are those who presume they prioritize returning, "important" civs. And there are those who presume they are prioritizing other things: new civs, new regions, new cultures. Both align with the express rules, because frankly the rules don't cover all of the developers' priorities; there is room for speculation either way.

But since my hypothesis attempts to explain the new choices, while others just seem to lazily lean back on tradition and complain when we get a Georgia or Canada, I think I'll just go with my hypothesis and keep refining it as we get more data.

Yet again, you're turning civs into whatever you want them to be for the purpose of the moment: Scotland was in Rise and Fall because of its resistance to imperialism, but favoured over Ireland because of its (very short-lived) imperial adventure. It's amazing what patterns you can come up with when every civ is what you need it to be for any given argument and all counterexamples are ignored.

Your counterexamples just generally aren't very good? It is totally possible to be both an "empire", but a small one that is better known for stubbornly resisting bigger guys. I actually think it was very clever of the devs to group the civs in R&F that way so that they all kind of reinforce each others' inclusion in VI. Without the theming, it would be a lot harder to make peace with a Scotland or Georgia in the game; but taken together, they actually say something new: that civ shouldn't limit itself strictly "empires" in the classical sense, and that smaller cultures can still have a huge regional impact simply by enduring.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Same for Africa. The gaps appear to be pointing toward planned content for a Berber and Swahili coast civ. If South America can get a whopping four civs to fill it out, get something relatively unnecessary for a 50 civ roster like the Mapuche, then that points toward Africa being planned to receive more civs.
.

I don't want to see a Civ as Swahilli, I guess it can be better represented with a lot of City States.
Africa have a lot of CIv who is needed to be done.

I Guess the most representative CIvs from Africa are Ndongo, Oyo, Dahomey, Ashante, Chad and Zimbabwe.

One African CIV i think would be great and I never saw anyone talking about is Botswana.

Botswana have on of the best IDH and PIBs from black africa, but it isn't the most interesting.
The most interesting is, Botswana last king is also Botswana first president.

Botswana prince was elected to be president for while too.
I guess Botswana had the most smooth transition from monarchy to democracy I ever saw.

There is this movie about him, Seretse Khama.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I don't want to see a Civ as Swahilli, I guess it can be better represented with a lot of City States.
Africa have a lot of CIv who is needed to be done.

I Guess the most representative CIvs from Africa are Ndongo, Oyo, Dahomey, Ashante, Chad and Zimbabwe.

One African CIV i think would be great and I never saw anyone talking about is Botswana.

Botswana have on of the best IDH and PIBs from black africa, but it isn't the most interesting.
The most interesting is, Botswana last king is also Botswana first president.

Botswana prince was elected to be president for while too.
I guess Botswana had the most smooth transition from monarchy to democracy I ever saw.

There is this movie about him, Seretse Khama.

I think Swahili would be perfectly fine, something in the vein of Maya or Greece: group of city states represented by one (probsbly Zanzibar or Kilwa)

Botswana would be interesting and in line with some of what civ 6 goes for.

Mutapa is more appealing to me though as it basically united all of southern africa and succeeded the Kingdom of Zimbabwe

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

As long as I want an alternate leader for the Netherlands just to have, somehow, a useful LUA (sorry Wilhelmina, you were great and personality-wise kind of good but Radio Oranje is just completely useless), I doubt we would have Wihelm of Oranje. After all, the LUA of Wilhelmina is supposed to represented a trade civ (having bonuses from trade routes). Representing the Netherlands other than a mercantile empire or, at most, a colonial one (but colonial for commerce) would be a stretch. But here, the only bonus towards trade the Dutch have is through Radio Oranje (and, for some extent, the harbor cultural bombs). So, in the hypothesis we have Wilhelm of Oranje, I see several problems with it which make me think it's very unlikely:

1. If they give Wilhelm a trade-oriented LUA, it will means the Netherlands will have two trade-oriented leaders, which would mean, whatever the leader you choose, you'll be a trade empire, which will give not the replayability expected from an alt-leader (think Chandragupta, the opposite of Gandhi; or Pericles and Gorgo, kind of opposite too; Eleanor at least brought us the loyalty mechanism twist which can be really fun). So, if Wilhelm of Oranje is given a trade-oriented ability, it's basically the last nail in Wilhelmina's coffin because noone would ever play her. If you want to play a trade-oriented Dutch Empire, why choose the leader with the worst ability of the game if you have one better just here? And I doubt Firaxis is ready to sacrifice a whole leader.
2. They might give a completely different LUA for Wilhelm, which would be the logical and sensible choice. But what? What is Wilhelm I known for? He's the one leading the revolt against Spain in the 80-years war. So we'll probably have a war-oriented leader, or at least a leader with military abilities. And while Dutch have been fierce warriors (especially on the sea), having a militaristic Netherlands sounds... odd? I mean, France have been a greater military power all of their History but, strangely, the Netherlands, i.e. the ubertrade, mercantile, we're-only-here-for-business-and-nothing-else Dutch India Companywould have be a militaristic empire before the French? I'm sorry but while historically it makes sense, in the game it will just be completely of the charts.
3. Having two leaders named Wilhelm and Wilhelmina in the same game is absolutely ridiculous.

So, as long as I crave a new LUA for the Netherlands, adding an alt-leader for them seems completely unlikely (especially against his best contestant, Kubilai Khan) and especially not Wilhelm of Oranje.

***

Another thing that makes me laugh:

People proposing a modern/renaissance Italy or substitute (one major city-State like Florence, Genoa, Venice or Naples) as a new civ: No, impossible, the Romans already fill the role of Italy, they would be at the same spot, too close, and Romans always have been the predecessor of renaissance/modern Italy so they're basically the same. And what would be their capital? Rome too? Preposterous, a same city cannot be used as capital for two different civs!

People proposing Byzantium as a new civ, knowing perfectly they were the true heir of the Roman Empire, called themselves the Roman Empire (so there is no doubt that, in a sense, the Romans and Byzantium are the same just spreaded in time), are already clustered in their starting position and LITERALLY SHARE THEIR CAPITAL WITH THE OTTOMANS while also saying that it's normal to have China or India represented as a unique empire with only one leader: F**K YEAH! IT PERFECTLY MAKES SENSE TO HAVE BYZANTIUM AND NOT ITALY!

(Also, if we have Byzantium to have yet another religious focused civ while we could have a civ turned towards culture and city-States in a more engaging way than Pericles, I don't see the point of having Byzantium except "BUt tHeY'Re a StAPLe nOw!")

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I for one want a return of king sejong the great as an alternative leader for Korea. He made more sense as a leader then Seondeok anyways. He might overlap as science-focused leader but I kinda hope they find ways to make him different from Seondeok-like focus more on cultural victory than science? He did make great achievement in culture as well as science...

 

[cosmicmangobear]

I'm not sure how the Netherlands theory got started but I would say they're one of the least likely to get a new leader. Then again, I do have a habit of being wrong. However, I think some of the "mightier" civs objectively make more sense to be next, such as:

Mongolia/China (Kublai Khan)
Dynastic China (Kangxi?)
Pre-Hellenic Egypt (Hatshepsut or Akhenaten)
United States (JFK or Jefferson)
Russia (Catherine, maybeeee Lenin?)
Rome/Byzantium (Constantine?)
Pre-Christian Rome (Marcus Aurelius)

 

[AntSou]

I'm not sure how the Netherlands theory got started but I would say they're one of the least likely to get a new leader. Then again, I do have a habit of being wrong. However, I think some of the "mightier" civs objectively make more sense to be next, such as:

Mongolia/China (Kublai Khan)
Dynastic China (Kangxi?)
Pre-Hellenic Egypt (Hatshepsut or Akhenaten)
United States (JFK or Jefferson)
Russia (Catherine, maybeeee Lenin?)
Rome/Byzantium (Constantine?)
Pre-Christian Rome (Marcus Aurelius)

It got started because there's an alt leader coming with Pack 5. Pack 5 also requires you to own Rise and Fall.

Which means the alt is in all likelihood for Mongolia/Korea/Netherlands/Scotland.

Mongolia being the most likely BECAUSE of China. France, England and soon the US will all have alts. The ones remaining among the usual suspects are China and Germany, and to a lesser extent Russia.

This is why I also think Charles V is still a possible alt leader for the Netherlands and Germany since he was from Flanders and was tolerated there (unlike his successors). However, some Dutch forum members have indicated this would be a bad idea.

An alt for the Netherlands by itself is less likely imo.