[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Zaarin]

Currently the Phoenicians will generate Israel/Palestine place names for rivers and lakes, and IIRC Dido is speaking some form of ancient Hebrew.

Yeah, she's kind of speaking Israeli Hebrew with some grammatical archaeisms and some "Phoenician-isms"; I wouldn't remotely call what she's speaking Phoenician--but it's not Biblical Hebrew, either, which would be closer to Phoenician than what she's speaking.

I believe they also did share a language

Hebrew and Phoenician were very closely related languages, but not the same.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

the good thing is there’s culturally adjacent options which can be added: Phoenicia for Ancient Israel/Judah/Hebrews, and Burma for Tibet.

My biggest gripe is that we don’t have a single major jewish leader or civ in game, which would be more interesting and add a lot more depth. It doesn’t even have to be an Israelite leader, but not having any jewish leader at all is a bit odd.

Technically they did make Dido preferring to found Judaism, even if historically inaccurate, but otherwise I agree.

It's a shame that we cannot have Tibetans in the game, because they are the real "mountain" civilization, more mountain-ish than the Incas. I would image they can put pastures, holy sites, and neighborhoods directly on mountain tiles.

I'd at least like a Lhasa city-state that could let your religious units use "mountain tunnels" before they are built.

 

[Zaarin]

Technically they did make Dido preferring to found Judaism, even if historically inaccurate, but otherwise I agree.

Before I started playing with the Historical Religions mod, I noticed that Tomyris had a strong tendency to found either Judaism or Sikhism, by which I suspect that the religions with no or few leaders that preferred them were weighted to be chosen by leaders with no preferred religion.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Before I started playing with the Historical Religions mod, I noticed that Tomyris had a strong tendency to found either Judaism or Sikhism, by which I suspect that the religions with no or few leaders that preferred them were weighted to be chosen by leaders with no preferred religion.

I do see her with Shinto a lot.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Burma is better as a substitute for Tibet than Nepal bcs

Let's get into this! (Speaking here as a prof of Southeast Asian studies and not in my role as writer at Friaxis)

"Tibeto-Burman" language is, sure enough, a category that encompasses both of those places, as well as other, smaller languages like Hmong. But how much faith should we put in these things? Other than a shared linguistic background, the two places are not terribly alike, and we're shaped often by our history, environment, neighbors, etc. more than our ethno-linguistic origins. I think a combination of those factors have led the (lowland, Theravada, Southeast Asian) Burmese to diverge pretty radically from the (highland, Vajrayana, Himalayan) Tibetans.

There's climate, for one, which has a profound impact on how people live their lives. Burma, being in the subtropical monsoon parts of Southeast Asia, is an intensive rice-cultivating place with all that entails -- large-scale centralized organization of rice agriculture, meaning that the accumulation and control of people is vital.

Burma, like Siam, Cambodia, etc. - had a model of kingship centered on the Cakkavatin - the divine ruler at the center of a charismatic sphere. As one got further away from the king, one got further away from Burmese control until influence kind of petered out (instead of dead-ending at a border). People in between - e.g. smaller ethnic groups such as the Shan, Lanna khon meuang, Mon, etc. - would vacillate between such kingly centers (Ava, Yangon, Chiang Mai, Nan, Ayutthaya) or simply decide to create their own center (e.g. Kengtung). Tibetan politics weren't really like this.

Then, there's the matter of Buddhism. Burma is, like Siam and Cambodia and Laos, in the Theravada camp, whereas Tibet has its own particular brand of Buddhism (shared with parts of India and Mongolia). The monastic language in Burma is Pali, but not in Tibet.

Finally, there's the issue of the highlands. The high/low distinction is pretty strong in Nepal and Tibet as it is in Southeast Asia, but the kinds of people in high/low are rather different. In SE Asia, groups living up high were generally non-Buddhist and non-hierarchical, whereas lowlanders were strongly Indic-influenced and Buddhist.

At any rate, I think that drawing similarities here would be a bit of a longshot. Rather like claiming for Persia standing in for India, perhaps (don't want to get too much into unrelated comparisons).

For further reading, Edmund Leach's old essay "On the frontiers of 'Burma'" remains a classic, if a little dated. His Political Systems of Highland Burma is still fantastic. Maitri and Michael Aung-Thwin's work remains a great study of lowland Burmese society, and something I go back to again and again. Stanley Tambiah's World Conqueror and "galactic polity" works remain real classics in trying to think through how a "mandala" state would work (see also Clifford Geertz's Negara). If I might suggest my own book on Chiang Mai, there's a chapter or two on ancient Siamese/Burmese/Lanna conflicts (Ghosts of the New City, 2014).

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Let's get into this! (Speaking here as a prof of Southeast Asian studies and not in my role as writer at Friaxis)

"Tibeto-Burman" language is, sure enough, a category that encompasses both of those places, as well as other, smaller languages like Hmong. But how much faith should we put in these things? Other than a shared linguistic background, the two places are not terribly alike, and we're shaped often by our history, environment, neighbors, etc. more than our ethno-linguistic origins. I think a combination of those factors have led the (lowland, Theravada, Southeast Asian) Burmese to diverge pretty radically from the (highland, Vajrayana, Himalayan) Tibetans.

There's climate, for one, which has a profound impact on how people live their lives. Burma, being in the subtropical monsoon parts of Southeast Asia, is an intensive rice-cultivating place with all that entails -- large-scale centralized organization of rice agriculture, meaning that the accumulation and control of people is vital.

Burma, like Siam, Cambodia, etc. - had a model of kingship centered on the Cakkavatin - the divine ruler at the center of a charismatic sphere. As one got further away from the king, one got further away from Burmese control until influence kind of petered out (instead of dead-ending at a border). People in between - e.g. smaller ethnic groups such as the Shan, Lanna khon meuang, Mon, etc. - would vacillate between such kingly centers (Ava, Yangon, Chiang Mai, Nan, Ayutthaya) or simply decide to create their own center (e.g. Kengtung). Tibetan politics weren't really like this.

Then, there's the matter of Buddhism. Burma is, like Siam and Cambodia and Laos, in the Theravada camp, whereas Tibet has its own particular brand of Buddhism (shared with parts of India and Mongolia). The monastic language in Burma is Pali, but not in Tibet.

Finally, there's the issue of the highlands. The high/low distinction is pretty strong in Nepal and Tibet as it is in Southeast Asia, but the kinds of people in high/low are rather different. In SE Asia, groups living up high were generally non-Buddhist and non-hierarchical, whereas lowlanders were strongly Indic-influenced and Buddhist.

At any rate, I think that drawing similarities here would be a bit of a longshot. Rather like claiming for Persia standing in for India, perhaps (don't want to get too much into unrelated comparisons).

For further reading, Edmund Leach's old essay "On the frontiers of 'Burma'" remains a classic, if a little dated. His Political Systems of Highland Burma is still fantastic. Maitri and Michael Aung-Thwin's work remains a great study of lowland Burmese society, and something I go back to again and again. Stanley Tambiah's World Conqueror and "galactic polity" works remain real classics in trying to think through how a "mandala" state would work (see also Clifford Geertz's Negara). If I might suggest my own book on Chiang Mai, there's a chapter or two on ancient Siamese/Burmese/Lanna conflicts (Ghosts of the New City, 2014).

thanks for the in-depth information that was really helpful!

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I have no problem accept these points, although - my apologies - I also edited my previous post to emphasis Tibet's possible mountain focus. Plateau life is the most distinguishing feature of Tibet, the same for Nepal, but much less so for Burma.

Burma would look like a stupa-loving version of Khmer if it is implemented in a very superficial fashion.

I’d argue Tibet’s most resounding feature is religious isolationism and defense against external religious influences, something it shares thematically with Burma

Both are good points, in addition to what @Andrew Johnson [FXS] said, but I don't think either Nepal nor Burma would actually play like Tibet would. Nepal wouldn't have a religious angle, and Burma wouldn't have a mountain bias. And between the three, I would vastly prefer Tibet, as unlikely as that is.

Although...I would have hoped that we would be a lot farther along than just Khmer/Siam and Indonesia repping the Indochine sphere. I recognize there are complications between Chinese suppression of Tibet, and recent Burmese genocide sanctions, and Tamil integration into the Indian identity, etc. etc., but it's very disappointing to see such a rich region of the world so sparsely represented when we have...Scotland, three Greek leaders, and two Canadian civs. Even if we are getting Vietnam, that's only one new Asian civ that was added to the roster for VI (I consider Scythia to be a Eurasian Hun rework), as compared to five new European civs, and two new African/South American/North American civs. If we can justify two Sinosphere civs in Korea and Vietnam, I think the Timurids-Tibet-Burma-Chola diamond surrounding India could really use some attention.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Both are good points, in addition to what @Andrew Johnson [FXS] said, but I don't think either Nepal nor Burma would actually play like Tibet would. Nepal wouldn't have a religious angle, and Burma wouldn't have a mountain bias. And between the three, I would vastly prefer Tibet, as unlikely as that is.

Although...I would have hoped that we would be a lot farther along than just Khmer/Siam and Indonesia repping the Indochine sphere. I recognize there are complications between Chinese suppression of Tibet, and recent Burmese genocide sanctions, and Tamil integration into the Indian identity, etc. etc., but it's very disappointing to see such a rich region of the world so sparsely represented when we have...Scotland, three Greek leaders, and two Canadian civs. Even if we are getting Vietnam, that's only one new Asian civ that was added to the roster for VI (I consider Scythia to be a Eurasian Hun rework), as compared to five new European civs, and two new African/South American/North American civs. If we can justify two Sinosphere civs in Korea and Vietnam, I think the Timurids-Tibet-Burma-Chola diamond surrounding India could really use some attention.

I agree with all of this except for this

and two Canadian civs

the cree are unfortunately our only north american native american civ, and we really should have 1 or 2 more. I wouldn’t classify them as ‘Canadian’ really either.

Yes, the Indosphere is sorely underrepresented, but I don’t think blaming 2 ‘canadian’ civs is fair as a result—3 (potentially four, arguably 5-6 depending on how much you want to emphasize hellenization) greeks and the scottish, despite already being blobbed into the british, are fat more frustrating (not to mention the scottish civ represented isn’t particularly celtic so culturally it doesn’t even differentiate)

 

[Zaarin]

the cree are unfortunately our only north american native american civ, and we really should have 1 or 2 more. I wouldn’t classify them as ‘Canadian’ really either.

I agree. The America-Canada border is rather meaningless to the indigenous people of the region, as shown by the fact that most of them can be found on both sides of that border, including the Cree. (That being said, I was hopeful that the Cree would exclude Canada. Clearly I was wrong. )

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I agree. The America-Canada border is rather meaningless to the indigenous people of the region, as shown by the fact that most of them can be found on both sides of that border, including the Cree. (That being said, I was hopeful that the Cree would exclude Canada. Clearly I was wrong. )

The Cree still predominantly live in Canada, with only about 1 percent of them living in Montana and presumably far fewer in surrounding US states. For our purposes the Cree could have taken the place of Canada.

Put simply, the bold design decisions to add two Canadian civs (as opposed to a western US civ or the Inuit), Scotland, Macedon, and four South American civs indicated a long-term confidence that the other regions of the world would also be fleshed out. But we are somewhat left in limbo as to whether we will be forced to settle for sparse representation of South Asia, Africa, and North America as NFP wraps up the game, or if the devs actually intend to drop the other shoe in post-NFP content.

I don't mind a sufficiently completed game with the Cree and Canada, but when we have more major gaps to fill than slots left in NFP, yeah I'm a bit put out that earlier design decisions implicitly promised a cultural richness to the game that we might never actually get. If the game does stop at NFP, I will forever be mourning how one of those two slots could have been used for designing Burma, or the Berbers, or Oman, or Bulgaria, or Italy....

Put another way, to devote two whole civs to that region in a roster that ultimately would only have seven more civs than Civ V would be imo a huge misallocation of development resources and ultimately dilutes the game's globalist themes. Now, if we had 58, 60, 70 civs, that might not be an issue...so I hope the devs do in fact have a longer term release cycle planned.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

The Cree still predominantly live in Canada, with only about 1 percent of them living in Montana and presumably far fewer in surrounding US states. For our purposes the Cree could have taken the place of Canada.

Put simply, the bold design decisions to add two Canadian civs (as opposed to a western US civ or the Inuit), Scotland, Macedon, and four South American civs indicated a long-term confidence that the other regions of the world would also be fleshed out. But we are somewhat left in limbo as to whether we will be forced to settle for sparse representation of South Asia, Africa, and North America as NFP wraps up the game, or if the devs actually intend to drop the other shoe in post-NFP content.

To an extent I agree—geographically, Canada was superfluous, and feels unnecessary when 2 (arguably more necessary) anglosphere civs in Australia and USA are already in that game. Once could make the argument that especially since the leader is Québécois, Canada represents the Francosphere in the game but ehhhhhh, Haiti would’ve been far better.

That said in cultural terms they don’t step on each other’s feet at all. And I think culture has to be at least noted when discussing geographic focuses and divisions.

I think Asia, while given more love than before, ultimately was still sorely ignored and underrepresented. Unfortunately not much is going to change that, since we’re resigned to only getting Vietnam and maybe Oman, if we’re lucky in a game which still could benefit from any of the Phillippines, Chola, Malacca, Mughals, Timurids, Ghaznavids, Afghans, Pashtuns, Sogdians, Kushans, Burma and Nepal

Not to mention the obvious lack of a number of great bronze age choices—specifically the Hittites, and likely one of Babylon and Assyria, if not both being gone from the roster (alongside a real Egypt, not the watered down Ptolemaic edition). I think Bronze Age focuses are what Civs 3 and 5 did right.

The bloat of there being 3 greek leaders and 3 french leaders alongside a poorly designed Scotland means that a lot of unexplored cultures in Europe (already over represented) were already ignored—especially Romania (or one of its constituent parts), Croatia, Bohemia and Ireland. To be fair, I think the greece design they chose (Athens/Sparta binary + cult of Alexander) is fairly interesting and fun, it just feels inappropriate in a game missing so much culturally and ethnolinguistically.

Then you go to the Americas, which have 4 postcolonial nations and 5 native civs, only one of which is a North American First Nation. the US and Gran Colombia feel very much apt, and even Brazil makes sense since no native civ would fit there too well (guarani are too south) and it represents the Lusosphere colonially, but without the Navajo, Iroquois and a PNW civ attached to the Cree it feels extremely incomplete. Mesoamerica could also really benefit from a renewed look beyond the classic duo of the Aztecs and Maya, and perhaps get the Zapotecs and Purépecha added as well, if not the Miskito down south. And then you have literally no caribbean civs once again when Haiti, the Taino/Arawak, the Caribs, Cuba or even Pirates would be interesting to add there.

Africa feels much more fleshed out than past games but nonetheless empty considering the love that Europe and South America got—namely, a lack of the Swahili, Berbers, Benin, (or Ashanti, Igbo, Yoruba or another Gulf of Guinea nation), and the Shona. (plus Madagascar if you want to have a bit of fun)

If you really wanted to have some fun with Africa, you could even add the Jolof/Wolof Empire, based in modern Senegal and Gambia, a powerful nation in NW africa which would be geographically perfect in between the Mali, a Gulf of Guinea civ and the Berbers or Morocco.

All-in-all, the map still feels empty. Central and South Asia, Africa and North America need a lot of help.

 

[Bast]

Burma or death.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I’d imagine Maria Theresa or whoever else they choose as the Austrian leader would almost fit better as a german alt leader since Germany is the HRE in this game.

Bohemia and Croatia would be fun additions to the game, perhaps under Charles IV and Kresimir the Great respectively

Charles in particular would be interesting since he was also holy roman emperor

I mean, saying Austria is unlikely because Germany represents the Holy Roman Empire is like saying Scotland is unlikely because England represents the United Kingdom... Wait!

(But I agree that Austria would be unlikely and, most of all, unecessary in Europe. IMO the only civ lacking in Europe would be Italy (no, Rome does not represent Renaissance Italy) and Bulgaria; and as much as I would love seeing Austrians, Belgians, Portugueses, Irish, Gauls, we're in tremendous need of love towards Africa, North America and, especially, Asia).

 

[AaronTBD]

IMO the only civ lacking in Europe would be Italy (no, Rome does not represent Renaissance Italy) and Bulgaria; and as much as I would love seeing Austrians, Belgians, Portugueses, Irish, Gauls, we're in tremendous need of love towards Africa, North America and, especially, Asia).

I personally say that Portugal is more likely than Italy with the Venice city state revealed and with Bologna and the Vatican City States already in the game, Italy is probably one of the least likely to arrive in Civ 6.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I personally say that Portugal is more likely than Italy with the Venice city state revealed and with Bologna and the Vatican City States already in the game, Italy is probably one of the least likely to arrive in Civ 6.

I didn't said who was more likely to be in it (if I had bet to do I'd say Portugal and Byzantium), I'd say which one, in my very personal opinion, are the last lacking to fully represent enough Europe. We need Bulgaria because western Europe is quite poor (and people think that Poland and Hungary are enough to represent them, which is wrong), and we still don't have the civ that gave its name to the fourth era of the game and, looking at the importance Renaissance Italy (be it Tuscany, Venice, Genoa or any other culture of this time) had on the History of Europe still lacking is, IMO, disturbing.

And those saying "We can't have Italy, they're already perfectly represented by Rome" are the same saying "We need Byzantium! A civ game without Byzantium is not a true civ game!" while:

1. Byzantium is literally the continuity of the Roman Empire (they called themselves Romans, people at this time considered them the true continuity of Rome);
2. They literally shared the same capital city as the Ottomans, a civ already in the game;
3. They were of Greek culture, a civ already represented with two leaders, another civ and a Ptolemaic leader, adding another token in the Hellenistic rooster;
4. They'd be once again an expansionnist civ with nothing really new in term of mechanics in the game;

They're just Byzaboos wanting Theodora and nothing more, while, on the same page:

1. Italy has been represented as a civ only with Venice AND has been present in the Civ franchise only since Civ V with city-States;
2. Italy is more culturally different than the Roman Empire than Byzantines are from Rome (different culture, political systems, religion);
3. Venice was the only asymetric civ in V and having Renaissance Italy is begging to bring interesting, fun, asymetric, new gameplays and mechanics to the game, way more interesting than Byzance would ever bring;

I don't undertand why some people still value more Byzance over Renaissance Italy just because they like how they look without any objective counter-argument to this list (and if you say Yeah but they were important it's not enough to bypass all those arguments, especially against one of the two cultures that actually defeated them and were, objectively, more powerful than them).
But we'll have once again Byzance with its religion shtick. If they make Byzance in NFP, it would be the first time I'd be disappointed in buying it fully at the beginning.

 

[AaronTBD]

I didn't said who was more likely to be in it (if I had bet to do I'd say Portugal and Byzantium), I'd say which one, in my very personal opinion.

Understandable sorry for my ignorance

What Oceanic civ would be in the NFP?

 

[ElectRonin]

We need Bulgaria because western Europe is quite poor (and people think that Poland and Hungary are enough to represent them, which is wrong)

I didn't get the part about Western Europe being quite poor, but I fully agree that most mentions about including a South Slavic civ in the Balkans is either met with a 1. "Europe is over-represented as it is" (ie you'll take your 17 Greek civs and like em) or 2. "Russia and Poland represent slavs well-enough". Both are equally infuriating.

 

[mitsho]

Put simply, the bold design decisions to add two Canadian civs (as opposed to a western US civ or the Inuit), Scotland, Macedon, and four South American civs indicated a long-term confidence that the other regions of the world would also be fleshed out.

Or you know, more likely, that geographical (or chronological) balance just isn‘t that important to the developers. Civ after all isn‘t an academic book about world history. Nothing bad happens if they leave out this or that.

What Oceanic civ would be in the NFP?

Hawai‘i always seems like a good candidate, since it‘s also an American Civ. Samoa, Tahiti or Tonga seem like the other main candidates. They are all kind of alike, but it‘s better to chose one of them than to blob them.

 

[LMT]

The game needs at least one more native North American civ. (possibly two) To me, the Comanche are the most appropriate. They dominated the region they inhabited for many years (a region currently not represented by civ, other than the USA).

As many here mentioned, there are plenty of European civs. However, leaving out Portugal leaves out a country that was a major world power just when many people began to realize just how large the earth was.

 

[AtlantisAuthor]

How close are we likely getting to the next reveal trailer from Firaxis? We're approaching the middle of the month so I'd have to guess it'd be pretty soon.