[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Zaarin]

While I don't think thenewguy (or anyone here) is misogynist, this sort of strict meritocratic thinking is what often excludes women and minorities from getting any exposure and recognition at all.

I don't think it's misogynistic to acknowledge that history has been overwhelmingly dominated by men, nor to celebrate the women who had to work twice as hard to be a successful ruler in a male-dominated society (or to celebrate the societies, like Ancient Egypt, where it was more normative for women to hold power). If anything, glossing over it undermines the hard work and progress women have made in the past few centuries. Tossing in token women to meet a quota is incredibly patronizing. I'm not a female, but I am part of a minority with enough experience to say that no one wants that kind of pat on the head.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

While I don't think thenewguy (or anyone here) is misogynist, this sort of strict meritocratic thinking is what often excludes women and minorities from getting any exposure and recognition at all. It's the sort of stuff I've heard several times from my boss, who was THE guy who tried to dismantle affirmative action in my state. And all because he lived a fairly sheltered life and can't see that his idea of "meritocracy" is just promoting similarly privileged conservative white guys who are constantly handing each other advantages. So, again, if abandoning meritocracy is how we get more ethnicities, more women, more diversity and cultural consciousness in the game, then I don't care if they are mythical or not.

The problem is if we start going down the route of putting in a female leader, just because she's female, then we might go down the route of Civ 2 again where they actively try to do things like Pocahontas for the Powhatan, though it was actually Sacagawea for the Sioux in Civ 2, as well as Hippolyta for the Greeks, Shakala for the Zulu etc.
Then there was also Indira Gandhi.

 

[pokiehl]

i agree that it’s design was really well done and made fun, and i’ll note that kupe is also incredibly well designed and fun to watch.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Kupe was the best choice to lead the maori, nor do I think the maori in civ 6 actually represent the maori very well at all.

If we replaced Kupe with Momo, and called it Tonga, it would make ‘work’. If we replaced him with Kamehameha. It would ‘work’.

That’s the shame with the design because the maori are such an interesting civ with an interesting culture but yet the design they picked just feels like the civ 5 polynesia applied to certain polynesian people.

We'll agree to disagree here. My best friend is Maori and he thought it was absolutely wonderful. He only plays as Maori

 

[PhoenicianGold]

That seems to be an argument in favor of Ashurbanipal or Sennacherib, who have had a significant legacy in the West--not to mention are culture heroes for the Assyrians. But I wasn't speaking specifically of the Middle East; I mean there are good options for female leaders, in general, without resorting to using ones who were insignificant or lacked accomplishments or hamfisting a female leader onto a civ that never had significant female leaders. Why pick a woman who is very subject to legitimate accusations of tokenism when you could pick Hatshepsut, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Isabela, Wu Zetian, or any of the other female leaders who were without question among the greatest leaders of their civilization without reference to sex?

I'm quite amused that this is the same argument I saw floating around the boards regarding Kristina versus Adolphus. The same sort of arguments that Seondeok was a terrible military leader and Sejong was just all around better and more recognizable. That Lady Six Sky was a token choice when we have Pacal. That Eleanor wasn't William or Charlemagne. That CdM wasn't Louis XIV or even French. That Victoria was just a figurehead. At some point they begin to build up and you notice only the female leaders get nitpicked, and often expressly, if not implicitly, because they weren't a strong masculine general-king (by contrast I only see major criticisms about Gandhi, which is understandable, and Gilgabro, which I suspect is just emasculization).

Again, most of the leader swaps in the game have been male to female (France, Korea, Huns/Scythia, Egypt, Poland, Indonesia, Korea, Netherlands, Sweden, Maya) and while we have only had a couple male-for-male swaps (America, Japan, Ethiopia) (Greece counts as both). The civs have largely remained the same or been refined, but the lesser relevance of female options has, time and again, not precluded the swap.

You guys can keep bringing up variations of "not her" every time a female leader is up for consideration. But I'm not buying it because so far Firaxis has been jumping on female options like it's nothing. And maybe it is just token, third wave feminism. But it is happening and I'm not going to turn a blind eye to what the developers are doing just to maintain my bubble of historical purity.

 

[Zaarin]

I'm quite amused that this is the same argument I saw floating around the boards regarding Kristina versus Adolphus. The same sort of arguments that Seondeok was a terrible military leader and Sejong was just all around better and more recognizable. That Lady Six Sky was a token choice when we have Pacal. That Eleanor wasn't William or Charlemagne. That CdM wasn't Louis XIV or even French. That Victoria was just a figurehead. At some point they begin to build up and you notice only the female leaders get nitpicked, and often expressly, if not implicitly, because they weren't a strong masculine general-king (by contrast I only see major criticisms about Gandhi, which is understandable, and Gilgabro, which I suspect is just emasculization).

Then I'm inclined to feel like you haven't been paying attention. Quite a few of Civ6's male leader choices have also been criticized. Also every woman you just mentioned has been controversial in the general fan base, yes, but they also all have arguments in their favor, where Shammuramat has none. (Also, I love how your argument is that apparently the entire fan base is a bunch of misogynists who hate men apparently. It doesn't exactly do wonders for your argument when you accuse people of disliking female choices, and then also accuse people of disliking Gilgabro for being "too masculine." I know you've stated multiple times that you have no interest in Mesopotamian history, but is it really so terribly hard to imagine that some people do?)

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Let me get this straight: do you think including women in civ regardless of their accomplishments is equatable to affirmative action? Yes or no?

"Regardless of their actions" is creating somewhat of a false binary, particularly since so far (and including Shammuramat) there is some sort of meritocracy at play, even if it isn't necessarily one others subscribe to. But on the whole yes I do think that this is equatable to affirmative action, something which I am quite in favor of, especially in the case of:

1) games like this which play quite loose and fast with history compared to other historical media which are meticulously accurate.

2) characters from eras of history so long ago that no one alive could claim much offense to creative liberties.

The problem is if we start going down the route of putting in a female leader, just because she's female, then we might go down the route of Civ 2 again where they actively try to do things like Pocahontas for the Powhatan, though it was actually Sacagawea for the Sioux in Civ 2, as well as Hippolyta for the Greeks, Shakala for the Zulu etc.
Then there was also Indira Gandhi.

This would never happen. Society has progressed too much, civ isn't as niche as it used to be among basement-dwelling neckbeards, and gaming as a whole has become more casual and woke. Any of those decisions would be widely condemned as sexist. Shammuramat might be received as lazy, but not sexist.

And I must emphasize that I'm not totally for Shammuramat. I have my own misgivings, like the fact that she isn't exactly an Assyrian culture hero and therefore only questionaly "represents" the Assyrian legacy. But again, we have Kristina. We have Dido. We have Gilgamesh. I'm just keeping my expectations realistic.

Then I'm inclined to feel like you haven't been paying attention. Quite a few of Civ6's male leader choices have also been criticized.

Pretty isolated criticisms, few and far between. I think it a false equivalency compared to how many threads have popped up on reddit throwing vitriol at Kristina and Seondeok, and Victoria pops up quite a bit as well on these boards. Gaming culture has always leaned misogynist, that's why we even had gamergate. Put it in a historical contrast which tends to attract military fanatics and traditionalists and it's pretty demonstrable that the civ random is fairly male-oriented. Something which VI is deliberately trying to change.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I'm quite amused that this is the same argument I saw floating around the boards regarding Kristina versus Adolphus. The same sort of arguments that Seondeok was a terrible military leader and Sejong was just all around better and more recognizable. That Lady Six Sky was a token choice when we have Pacal. That Eleanor wasn't William or Charlemagne. That CdM wasn't Louis XIV or even French. That Victoria was just a figurehead. At some point they begin to build up and you notice only the female leaders get nitpicked, and often expressly, if not implicitly, because they weren't a strong masculine general-king (by contrast I only see major criticisms about Gandhi, which is understandable, and Gilgabro, which I suspect is just emasculization).

Again, most of the leader swaps in the game have been male to female (France, Korea, Huns/Scythia, Egypt, Poland, Indonesia, Korea, Netherlands, Sweden, Maya) and while we have only had a couple male-for-male swaps (America, Japan, Ethiopia) (Greece counts as both). The civs have largely remained the same or been refined, but the lesser relevance of female options has, time and again, not precluded the swap.

You guys can keep bringing up variations of "not her" every time a female leader is up for consideration. But I'm not buying it because so far Firaxis has been jumping on female options like it's nothing. And maybe it is just token, third wave feminism. But it is happening and I'm not going to turn a blind eye to what the developers are doing just to maintain my bubble of historical purity.

what are you even talking about? Im legitimately confused as to how you’re accusing us of being sexist or feeling ‘emasculated’ but at the same time arguing that tokenization is a legitimate form of representation.

No one was saying that every leader should be a ‘general king’. I even said a lot of these leader choices were great for their civs in their own rights as leaders.

And yet you find a way to twist words out of their context and use red herrings and straw mans in the pursuit of what? making you look good on an internet web board?

You say that we keep saying ‘not her’ yet the people who are arguing against your support of tokenization and implicit sexism are the same ones who have consistently defended the leader choices against Seondeok’s hate, Aminatore’s hate, Dido’s hate. We argued that CdM was an amazing choice that highlights an underappreciated time in French History, even if her mechanic design is more reminiscent of Richelieu (iirc you were complaining about her the other day anyway so...) and even more so, Just now, you were arguing that LSS wasn’t a good choice for the maya.

Your argument is incredibly incoherent. I can’t understand what you’re saying, why you’re saying it or what your rhetorical goal is. You’re simultaneously accusing us of hating women while simultaneously hating men, arguing against the chosen women leaders in the game (which we haven’t done) while you do the same, and comparing Semaramis’s lack of any historical merit to great queens like Seondeok where there was evident merit outside of being the source of obsession by a foreign culture.


So in case it isn’t clear, the reason why I don’t like the choice of Gandhi in-game is because he’s a modern leader representing a civ which is far more than its modern representation, one who didn’t even lead the civ and has turned into a meme over a representation of one of the most interesting and oldest cultures in the game. I don’t like Gilgamesh because he’s objectively a poor choice to represent Sumer, since his main accomplishment was to get deified. I don’t think Kupe was a wise choice bcs his inclusion made the representation of the Maori quite poorly done in my opinion.

This is a video game discussion board and here you are accusing people of being simultaneously sexist and man-hating, involving politics like Affirmative Action in a discussion of game development.

You advocated for the tokenization of women by just putting in any queen of anywhere in for a leader of a civ regardless of their merit. We said that if Firaxis wanted to put in female leaders, there are plenty of valid female leaders that they could put in who’d be justifed in their own right and their own accomplishments, and ultimately adding someone like Semiramis, who had no accomplishments other than being the object of obsession of the Greeks takes away from the objective of picking valid leader choices.

You don’t change misogynist gaming culture by putting women for the sake of them being women in the game. You change it by putting undeniably good choices—Jadwiga, Isabella the Great, Wu Zetian, Seondeok, Gitarja, Elizabeth and Victoria, Lady Six Sky in the game, because they’re objectively good choices to be leaders in the game.

 

[SirMediocrity]

"Regardless of their actions" is creating somewhat of a false binary, particularly since so far (and including Shammuramat) there is some sort of meritocracy at play, even if it isn't necessarily one others subscribe to. But on the whole yes I do think that this is equatable to affirmative action, something which I am quite in favor of, especially in the case of:

1) games like this which play quite loose and fast with history compared to other historical media which are meticulously accurate.

2) characters from eras of history so long ago that no one alive could claim much offense to creative liberties.

Originally, I thought you were trying to prove the existence of civ-oriented affirmative action. Then I realized that you were equating it with college-oriented affirmative action, which was a very offputting discovery. So now you're trying to justify including women in the game solely because they're women...

I hope that I'm misinterpreting you right now...

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Pretty isolated criticisms, few and far between. I think it a false equivalency compared to how many threads have popped up on reddit throwing vitriol at Kristina and Seondeok, and Victoria pops up quite a bit as well on these boards. Gaming culture has always leaned misogynist, that's why we even had gamergate. Put it in a historical contrast which tends to attract military fanatics and traditionalists and it's pretty demonstrable that the civ random is fairly male-oriented. Something which VI is deliberately trying to change.

At the same time nobody talks about how Elizabeth I shouldn't be a leader for England.
Maybe because it has nothing to do with her being female, but because she's qualified and would be much more appreciated even over Winston Churchill, who is a man.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

what are you even talking about? Im legitimately confused as to how you’re accusing us of being sexist or feeling ‘emasculated’ but at the same time arguing that tokenization is a legitimate form of representation.

No one was saying that every leader should be a ‘general king’. I even said a lot of these leader choices were great for their civs in their own rights as leaders.

And yet you find a way to twist words out of their context and use red herrings and straw mans in the pursuit of what? making you look good on an internet web board?

You say that we keep saying ‘not her’ yet the people who are arguing against your support of tokenization and implicit sexism are the same ones who have consistently defended the leader choices against Seondeok’s hate, Aminatore’s hate, Dido’s hate. We argued that CdM was an amazing choice that highlights an underappreciated time in French History, even if her mechanic design is more reminiscent of Richelieu (iirc you were complaining about her the other day anyway so...) and even more so, Just now, you were arguing that LSS wasn’t a good choice for the maya.

Your argument is incredibly incoherent. I can’t understand what you’re saying, why you’re saying it or what your rhetorical goal is. You’re simultaneously accusing us of hating women while simultaneously hating men, arguing against the chosen women leaders in the game (which we haven’t done) while you do the same, and comparing Semaramis’s lack of any historical merit to great queens like Seondeok where there was evident merit outside of being the source of obsession by a foreign culture.


So in case it isn’t clear, the reason why I don’t like the choice of Gandhi in-game is because he’s a modern leader representing a civ which is far more than its modern representation, one who didn’t even lead the civ and has turned into a meme over a representation of one of the most interesting and oldest cultures in the game. I don’t like Gilgamesh because he’s objectively a poor choice to represent Sumer, since his main accomplishment was to get deified. I don’t think Kupe was a wise choice bcs his inclusion made the representation of the Maori quite poorly done in my opinion.

This is a video game discussion board and here you are accusing people of being simultaneously sexist and man-hating, involving politics like Affirmative Action in a discussion of game development.

You advocated for the tokenization of women by just putting in any queen of anywhere in for a leader of a civ regardless of their merit. We said that if Firaxis wanted to put in female leaders, there are plenty of valid female leaders that they could put in who’d be justifed in their own right and their own accomplishments, and ultimately adding someone like Semiramis, who had no accomplishments other than being the object of obsession of the Greeks takes away from the objective of picking valid leader choices.

You don’t change misogynist gaming culture by putting women for the sake of them being women in the game. You change it by putting undeniably good choices—Jadwiga, Isabella the Great, Wu Zetian, Seondeok, Gitarja, Elizabeth and Victoria, Lady Six Sky in the game, because they’re objectively good choices to be leaders in the game.

You're the one who started this by trying to shut down discussion of a leader the devs are, as I have said, probably very tempted to include, with what I consider to be a lazy impressionistic argument propagated by chauvinists. Don't rant at me because your idea of "merit" is quite undermined by all the goalpost shifting in this community, in both directions, by both developers and players, an doesn't seem strong enough to overcome the fact that Shammuramat is baity af and absolutely something the developers would do no matter how much the players protest her relevancy.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

You're the one who started this by trying to shut down discussion of a leader the devs are, as I have said, probably very tempted to include, with what I consider to be a lazy impressionistic argument propagated by chauvinists. Don't rant at me because your idea of "merit" is quite undermined by all the goalpost shifting in this community, in both directions, by both developers and players, an doesn't seem strong enough to overcome the fact that Shammuramat is baity af and absolutely something the developers would do no matter how much the players protest her relevancy.

i’m still very confused as to what your argument or perspective is here besides you just using big words to give credence to a point which makes no sense.

Im being called chauvinistic because i said tokenism isn’t real representation?

You need to stop pretending like any of us, including you, have any semblance of an idea of what the devs are thinking. And your arguments, which flip flop constantly simply to accommodate what you view as being what the devs would support feel ungrounded and more buoyed by an obsession with viewing a video game politically and trying to align yourself with the devs’ decisions.

I find it really amusing that you’re trying to tie my, @Zaarin and @Mediocrity (Dare I say 3 of the users here most committed to historical backing and validity)’s arguments (arguments consistently in the defense of the inclusions of nearly every female leader in this game) to those of the sexist portion of the civ audience that complain at any female leader added to the game.

even if you were trying to argue in good faith, i think you could do it without gaslighting and misguided virtue signaling

 

[Zaarin]

You're the one who started this by trying to shut down discussion of a leader the devs are, as I have said, probably very tempted to include, with what I consider to be a lazy impressionistic argument propagated by chauvinists.

She ruled as regent for her son for five years. The sum total of evidence of her existence and accomplishments is a stele with her name and the titles of her husband and son on it. Please elaborate on how objecting to this clearly eminently qualified choice is "chauvinistic," or how including her would be anything short of tokenism. Or to put it another way, maybe we should choose Nikare to lead Egypt in Civ7; since he's a man, clearly no one would object to him on the basis that he led Egypt in a period of civil turmoil or the fact that his existence is barely attested.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Originally, I thought you were trying to prove the existence of civ-oriented affirmative action. Then I realized that you were equating it with college-oriented affirmative action, which was a very offputting discovery. So now you're trying to justify including women in the game solely because they're women...

I hope that I'm misinterpreting you right now...

I am trying to explain why women are being given preferential treatment and how part of that phenomenon is the tendency for traditionalists to find any excuse to pushback against it. I see many trying to reduce the inclusion of women as for their own sake, much as those against affirmative action argue that people get in solely because of their race. Neither is the case, there are still standards in place, but they will not necessarily comport to the same standards as the dominant paradigm.

In this case, many stronger female leaders probably won't be in the game because there is a competing meritocracy concerning the relevance of the civ they would lead. So most of our female options are limited to big name civs, which also coincidentally tended to be very male-dominated and had several exceptionally strong male leader choices. This sort of argument that "woman did nothing" has popped up before and will pop up with nearly every female leader proposal. And so concessions are made under this affirmative action to find other ways to determine a woman's "importance". For Cleo, Tomyris, and Dido, it was clearly more about their legendary legacy in the west than how "great" they were as leaders.

The devs have done this at least thrice before with female leaders (arguably more with Kristina whose legacy is more as a modern LGBT icon); to them being "legendary" is enough to be relevant. I am not putting it past them to do it again, and so I find all this whining about Shammuramat to be quite in vain. If Shammuramat would ruin civ for anyone here, I'm sorry but the game has been tainted with similar design decisions for years.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I am trying to explain why women are being given preferential treatment and how part of that phenomenon is the tendency for traditionalists to find any excuse to pushback against it. I see many trying to reduce the inclusion of women as for their own sake

In this case, many stronger female leaders probably won't be in the game because there is a competing meritocracy concerning the relevance of the civ they would lead. So most of our female options are limited to big name civs, which also coincidentally tended to be very male-dominated and had several exceptionally strong male leader choices. This sort of argument that "woman did nothing" has popped up before and will pop up with nearly every female leader proposal.

So essentially, you’re arguing against fans who aren’t in this particular thread at this time, with arguments which don’t apply to the actual people debating you, and your excuse to the validity of your arguments is that you don’t even agree with the point, you’re just defending the devs’ decisions (which you literally have no insight to). If you want to debate those fans, go find them and do it, but don’t pin their opinions on people who agree with you on the fact that the women leaders in civ are valid choices.

The devs have done this at least thrice before with female leaders (arguably more with Kristina whose legacy is more as a modern LGBT icon); to them being "legendary" is enough to be relevant. I am not putting it past them to do it again, and so I find all this whining about Shammuramat to be quite in vain.

In all fairness, Cleopatra, Tomyris and Dido all have actual, legitimate, historically attested to accomplishments outside of their legend. But even they are more well known in the public consciousness than Semiramis. They were actual rulers for lengthened periods of times who greatened their nations over their reigns. They had hate from fans, but like nearly every female leader in this game, that hate is unjustified.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

In this case, many stronger female leaders probably won't be in the game because there is a competing meritocracy concerning the relevance of the civ they would lead. So most of our female options are limited to big name civs, which also coincidentally tended to be very male-dominated and had several exceptionally strong male leader choices. This sort of argument that "woman did nothing" has popped up before and will pop up with nearly every female leader proposal. And so concessions are made under this affirmative action to find other ways to determine a woman's "importance". For Cleo, Tomyris, and Dido, it was clearly more about their legendary legacy in the west than how "great" they were as leaders.

The point we are trying to make is, in the case of Semiramis, the woman did do nothing of importance.
I would argue the same if Atahualpa was in the game as the ruler of the Inca. All the women currently in the game are better leaders than he would be.

 

[The Kingmaker]

I simply think Zenobia and Pudu-hepa are better contenders for the middle-eastern queen spot.

Let Assyria have Sennacherib or one of the other contenders. Then give us Palmyra and the Hittites too. That’s three new ancient near eastern civs with only one male leader between them.

I’d love to see all three civs in high enough demand that FXS feels compelled to grant the fans’ request, like with Georgia, and now Gran Colombia.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I simply think Zenobia and Pudu-hepa are better contenders for the middle-eastern queen spot.

Let Assyria have Sennacherib or one of the other contenders. Then give us Palmyra and the Hittites too. That’s three new ancient near eastern civs with only one male leader between them.

I’d love to see all three civs in high enough demand that FXS feels compelled to grant the fans’ request, like with Georgia, and now Gran Colombia.

i wouldn’t mind replacing zenobia/palmyra with the more long-lived Yemen and Queen Arwa either, since if I’m honest we’ve got a lack of Islamic civs, and Queen Arwa’s fame and popularity made her extremely interesting as a historical figure, perhaps particularly as a builder/trade civ.

I also would love to see Shajar al-Durr rule Arabia in some capacity in future games or as an alt leader in a future expansion or season pass.

Mary of the Scots, Dihya of the Berbers and Ana of Angola would also be new leaders/civ’s that would be really fun to see, as well as Mathilda representing Tuscany, Nur Jahan representing the Mughals/India, as well as many other options for India like the Rani of Jhansi.

Then of course, you’ve got Wu Zetian, Isabella, Theodora, Catherine the Great and Elizabeth I, all leaders who’ve appeared in the past and would be good fits to show up again.

There are so many women leaders who are amazing choices in their own capacity that I find it mind boggling that a terrible choice like Semiramis is being defended simply for the sake of tokenism and performative allyship

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: This thread concerns possible new civilization we may get in the New Frontier Pass. It is not about sexism or any other current event issues or political controversies. Please get back on topic and stop derailing this thread.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

If Firaxis ever wanted to replace the Zulu with a similar, Southern African war-based civ, I think the Swazi would be a great choice. They were powerful conquerers throughout southern africa, even more so than the Zulu. Queen Nyamazana of the Swazi overthrew the Shona Rozvi empire in modern-day zambia, for example, to get an idea of how vast their conquering was.

Obviously, I am of the opposing opinion to those who say the Zulu are not relevant enough to be a civ in civ. Perhaps in civs 1-4, they were only included for their pop culture merit, but i would say in civs 5 and 6, the zulu are relevant enough to be in the game.

I would say that a Mutapa/Zimbabwe/Shona would likely be ultimately more trade and settling focused than war, so Southern Africa could have them as well as a more warmonger focused civ like the Zulu or Swazi, and finally, the religious/cultural Kongo in present-day Angola, who could be rotated with the Kingdom of Angola (which was a vassal of the Kongo until the rule of Ana)

 

[Zaarin]

i wouldn’t mind replacing zenobia/palmyra with the more long-lived Yemen and Queen Arwa either, since if I’m honest we’ve got a lack of Islamic civs, and Queen Arwa’s fame and popularity made her extremely interesting as a historical figure, perhaps particularly as a builder/trade civ.

Understandable, but at the same time I feel like Zenobia is really the only conceivable way to represent the Aramaic-speaking civilizations between Mesopotamia and the Levant.