[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

One could make an argument that Siam did not as much lose territory, as gain it from Lanna, Nan, Patani, and Laos. And was forced to reframe its own system of governance to match European expectations.

(Reading: Thongchai Winichakul: Siam Mapped; Michael Herzfeld: "Crypto-colonialism"; Shane Strate, The Lost Territories)

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

I think it takes much more than a single UB to make a Civ a truly cultural based civ: as least leader's and civ's abilities should also boost culture. as well as synergizing with the UB to make it a cultural powerhouse. Personally I don't think Vietnam is gonna be a cultural civ, because the selling point of such a civ is expected to be... warfare. Not to mention we already have other cultural civs in Asia, who are right next door to Vietnam: China and Khmer - which also making much more sense for cultural based civs than Vietnam.

My father was a diplomat and always told this joke about the most unique thing about Vietnam compared to other East/Southeast Asian countries is that it is the only one without a culture, and most suggestions from non-Viet players going in the cultural direction remind me of that joke and make me chuckle a bit. To be fair, they make Canada a cultural civ and it is probably the blandest country out there, so it is not unthinkable regarding Vietnam.

 

[almughavar]

My father was a diplomat and always told this joke about the most unique thing about Vietnam compared to other East/Southeast Asian countries is that it is the only one without a culture, and most suggestions from non-Viet players going in the cultural direction remind me of that joke and make me chuckle a bit. To be fair, they make Canada a cultural civ and it is probably the blandest country out there, so it is not unthinkable regarding Vietnam.

Yeah, I’m not gonna pretend that Vietnam has an extremely unique and rich culture compared to many other countries.

As least throughout history, Vietnam has some innovations which mostly belong to the categories of military weapons and warfare, which can justify some science boosts, but regarding many of its cultures, alphabets, structure of government, thoughts, philosophies, religions, beliefs... it either borrowed from other countries, or absorbed from nations which Vietnam has conquered.

To the point that one of the most acclaimed literature works of Vietnam - Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kieu) - was based on the settings, characters and plots of... a Chinese novel.

 

[8housesofelixir]

My father was a diplomat and always told this joke about the most unique thing about Vietnam compared to other East/Southeast Asian countries is that it is the only one without a culture, and most suggestions from non-Viet players going in the cultural direction remind me of that joke and make me chuckle a bit.

Yeah, I’m not gonna pretend that Vietnam has an extremely unique and rich culture compared to many other countries.

I, as another East Asian, do find that the heavy coffee drinking culture very unique, even coffee itself is not a unique thing (I just brought a Vietnamese coffee filter/maker).

I know this will probably not going to be presented in the game, but just want to say that I like your way of coffee.

 

[sweetbrown89]

A
After you having said all this, if you still think Siam/Vietnam, Austria/Hungary, or basically all your suggested pairings other than maybe Denmark/Norway are acceptable “slant representations” of each other, I’m honestly going to have to say you’re being either absolutely arbitrary with your criteria or wilfully culturally ignorant tbh.

(Also I strongly feel the urge to point out that Rapa Nui was like, part of the Polynesia blob in Civ 5, so I can’t even...)

Yes, and I think the devs know enough to understand that adding Vietnam is not adding representation for Thailand (especially since they have a scholar of the region on their writing team), even if adding either probably does give Mainland Southeast Asia enough representation. The ultimate effect on the game of both viewpoints are the same. But you’re framing can be taken as extremely ignorant. I’m personally slightly affronted as someone from Thailand that you think Vietnam can be treated as a “slant replacement” for Siam for instance.

To be clear, I agree that many of those pairing mean that including one makes the other less likely (because diversity of representation does matter), I don’t disagree with you there. I do disagree with the logic you’re using to exclude the other however, because many of your suggested slants have very distinct cultures.

My issues and critiques remain regardless. Like for instance, the Khmer were Hindu/Mahayana Buddhist whereas Siam is Theravada Buddhist, not to mention languages from different languages families, time period; The Khmer are Medieval, Siam is more representative of the Early Modern (Hey! What do you know! Just like Norway/Sweden!), etc, etc. Similar arguments can be pulled up for the other pairings

For the third freaking time, I clarified that Khmer / Siam were the slant from other people’s suggestions, not Vietnam and Siam.

I think it’s horrifically sad that I have to keep reiterating that I am NOT LISTING WHAT I PERSONALLY THINK ARE PROPER REPLACEMENTS OF CULTURES WORTHY OF INCLUSION. I AM RECONSTRUCTING THE PATTERN AND LOGIC OF FIRAXIS IN TERMS OF SELECTING WHICH CIVILIZATIONS TO INCLUDE IN THE GAME AND THE PROBABLE LOGIC BEHIND THEIR SELECTIONS, NOT WHETHER OR NOT IT SATISFIES YOUR CULTURAL OR HISTORICAL CONTEXTS.

Or better yet, YOU explain what exact selection methods the devs are using FOR THE PURPOSE OF PREDICTING NEW CIVS — AGAIN NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF SATISFYING WHAT SUKRITACT THINKS ARE WORTHY OR EQUIVALENT INCLUSIONS.

You’re a great modder, but an insipid jerk for making this about whatever you’re on about and not “analyzing patterns of civilization selection for the purpose of predicting future civilizations.”

Also I said nothing about language and NOTHING about Thailand. You’re bringing up points that aren’t even relevant to what I’m talking about, so don’t call someone ignorant when you’re straw manning an argument.

I NEVER said that “the devs are picking Civs that are properly equivalent to each other” that’s what a slant representation is — a minimal, bare bones substitution of something: something as simple as “Austro-Hungarian empire historically existed. We did Austria in the last game, we will replace with Hungary this game.” Or “these are both nomadic cultures, we did Huns in this game and are doing Scythians in the next.”

So PLEASE explain the pattern of selection for all Civs. Since that’s the topic and not “random points that Sukritact is obsessed with that weren’t even mentioned” since your argument is (supposed to be) about what in my reconstruction of the pattern of selection is wrong.

For example: City-States in VI that are related to Civs from V
• none from slant represented Civs (Austria, Denmark, etc.) have been present at any time
• all capital cities (at some point in history) of previous Civs from V (Lisbon, Venice, Fez)
• these “rules” exclude Rapa Nui for that reason and have no other patterns to discount said “rules”

If something is wrong with the pattern of prediction, discuss THE PATTERN.

Moderator Action: Please do not yell at others through the use of caps. It is annoying. leif

 

[notNamed]

To the point that one of the most acclaimed literature works of Vietnam - Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kieu) - was based on the settings, characters and plots of... a Chinese novel.

Hamlet is a riff on an Italian novel. Divine Comedy (and a massive amount of European lietrature) riffs the Bible, a mid-eastern book. Japan has made tons of Suikoden (Water Margin) sequels, named every single one of their eras (except for the newest one) by excerpts from Chinese books... and the newest one is based on a selection of poems which were trying to copy Chinese poetry. Meiji is named after a replica from Yi Jing (聖人南面而聴天下、嚮明(mei)而治(ji)). And yet, scarcely anyone would call Japan a cultureless country, now would they?

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

Yeah, I’m not gonna pretend that Vietnam has an extremely unique and rich culture compared to many other countries.

As least throughout history, Vietnam has some innovations which mostly belong to the categories of military weapons and warfare, which can justify some science boosts, but regarding many of its cultures, alphabets, structure of government, thoughts, philosophies, religions, beliefs... it either borrowed from other countries, or absorbed from nations which Vietnam has conquered.

To the point that one of the most acclaimed literature works of Vietnam - Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kieu) - was based on the settings, characters and plots of... a Chinese novel.

Wait, so you're saying that the distinctive cultural achievment of Vietnam is... to borrow cultures from all around their neighbors?

It could be extremely interesting as a civ ability, don't you think? Like:

In addition to Vietnam's CUA, UI and UU, each time a foreign culture became dominant in Vietnam, they gain the ability to build the UU, UI and use the CUA of the foreign civ

At the beginning, it would be kind of weak, but as the world advance and more culture expand their tourism, Vietnam will gain more and more bonuses... Yes, it's dangerous because one of your opponent might win a cultural victory this way, but it would be like Kongo: you might let another civ win the Religious Victory but you need it to shine really bright.

Just a silly idea thrown here. Let's see what Vietnam will become (even if, not being an American, I never saw Vietnam as a warfare civ, but more a merchant or even a cultural one, but I have to admit my knowledge is heavily based upon the Tran-Nhut novels with the Mandarin Tân, while being fictions, are still very accurate historically speraking, with lots of sources at the end of the novels)

 

[Jeppetto]

The fact is that the March Civ will be a very marketable one, I mean, I don't think it will be a new name, see that they launched GC, Gaul and are going to launch Vietnam (presumably) together with another veteran civ or a leader. Portugal fits perfectly in an isolated DLC, but if it's not Portugal, I can only imagine Iroquois and perhaps Austria as marketable close. Among these options, I'd say that Portugal is the most likely.

Based on their quotas, the March civ should be considered new. Though the two concepts can merge. Things like Phoenicia and Maori are also considered "new" civs. So they can both introduce Civ that can hold on its own as Civ returning from Civ V and still be considered new by renaming Iroquis to Haudenosanee. Plus it also offers decent female leader for the other quota. With leak of Babylon, it seems more and more probable.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found the "one leader leading two civs" to be kinda janky. It looks really weird on the leader selection screen. The same thing goes for the persona packs.

That's really not an issue with the mechanic and more like issue of UI, which is known to be rather lacking in Civ 6.

I, as another East Asian, do find that the heavy coffee drinking culture very unique, even coffee itself is not a unique thing (I just brought a Vietnamese coffee filter/maker).

I know this will probably not going to be presented in the game, but just want to say that I like your way of coffee.

I mean, Austria in Civ 5 had Coffee House as their UB So why not, representing coffee aspect of a culture is even more probable in Civ 6 where we have Ice Hockey Ring.

 

[notNamed]

Just a silly idea thrown here. Let's see what Vietnam will become (even if, not being an American, I never saw Vietnam as a warfare civ, but more a merchant or even a cultural one, but I have to admit my knowledge is heavily based upon the Tran-Nhut novels with the Mandarin Tân, while being fictions, are still very accurate historically speraking, with lots of sources at the end of the novels)

I think one of the previous poster's gripes about historical slights in Vietnam-Thai relations should be a decent hint, but Vietnamese were not a very peaceful nation. Their history is basically one of continual expansion. Heck, they had a 200 year long civil war and even then the separate kingdoms (nominally under the same emperor) kept expanding their territory. Likewise, I'm not so sure about the whole culture borrowing portion. We had mentioned previously about the elephant tactics and symbolism they acquired from the Champas, but they also carried out a mostly successful and through ethnicide of those folks in the process. They do have a little more of South Asia in them than the Chinese but they were just as adept at sincisation of any barbarians they got under their control.

 

[Codeword Iroquois]

Side question: Would Akkad fall in as one of Babylon's cities, and if it did, who would replace it?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I think it takes much more than a single UB to make a Civ a truly cultural based civ: as least leader's and civ's abilities should also boost culture. as well as synergizing with the UB to make it a cultural powerhouse. Personally I don't think Vietnam is gonna be a cultural civ, because the selling point of such a civ is expected to be... warfare. Not to mention we already have other cultural civs in Asia, who are right next door to Vietnam: China and Khmer - which also making much more sense for cultural based civs than Vietnam.

I think primarily it will be military/defensive but there's no reason why they couldn't lean cultural second with the water puppet theater infrastructure. Producing lots of culture will help them acquiring military policies in the civics tree.

I mean, Austria in Civ 5 had Coffee House as their UB So why not, representing coffee aspect of a culture is even more probable in Civ 6 where we have Ice Hockey Ring.

Which they borrowed the idea from the Ottoman Empire. I don't think the Coffee House was the most inspired choice of a UB in Civ 5 and shouldn't even be brought back for anyone, even Austria.

Side question: Would Akkad fall in as one of Babylon's cities, and if it did, who would replace it?

Probably an Assyria city like Assur or Nineveh.

 

[Kimiimaro]

Side question: Would Akkad fall in as one of Babylon's cities, and if it did, who would replace it?

Aššur, perhaps. If they choose Nineveh to replace Babylon, it would make a great Assyrian pair

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Aššur, perhaps. If they choose Nineveh to replace Babylon, it would make a great Assyrian pair

I don't know if they would do two Assyrian cities.
Babylon could easily become Ebla.

 

[Kimiimaro]

So, now, the question is when do we expect Babylon official reveal vid on YouTube? Is it more likely coming next week or the week after it?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

So, now, the question is when do we expect Babylon official reveal vid on YouTube? Is it more likely coming next week or the week after it?

The pack preview is tomorrow. They will probably give a brief teaser of the civ like they did with Byzantines and Gaul. But the First Look won't happen until the 17th.

 

[almughavar]

Wait, so you're saying that the distinctive cultural achievment of Vietnam is... to borrow cultures from all around their neighbors?

It could be extremely interesting as a civ ability, don't you think? Like:

In addition to Vietnam's CUA, UI and UU, each time a foreign culture became dominant in Vietnam, they gain the ability to build the UU, UI and use the CUA of the foreign civ

At the beginning, it would be kind of weak, but as the world advance and more culture expand their tourism, Vietnam will gain more and more bonuses... Yes, it's dangerous because one of your opponent might win a cultural victory this way, but it would be like Kongo: you might let another civ win the Religious Victory but you need it to shine really bright.

Just a silly idea thrown here. Let's see what Vietnam will become (even if, not being an American, I never saw Vietnam as a warfare civ, but more a merchant or even a cultural one, but I have to admit my knowledge is heavily based upon the Tran-Nhut novels with the Mandarin Tân, while being fictions, are still very accurate historically speraking, with lots of sources at the end of the novels)

I don't think that's how culture works in this game.

Moreover Vietnam was heavily influenced by the "four occupations" system originated in China, which divided the common citizens into 4 main classes: intelligentsia, farmer, craftsmen and merchant. Intelligentsia is on the top of this hierarchy, farmer class is lower than the intelligentsia, craftsmen class is lower than farmer class, and merchant is the lowest class in this hierarchy.

I think one of the previous poster's gripes about historical slights in Vietnam-Thai relations should be a decent hint, but Vietnamese were not a very peaceful nation. Their history is basically one of continual expansion. Heck, they had a 200 year long civil war and even then the separate kingdoms (nominally under the same emperor) kept expanding their territory. Likewise, I'm not so sure about the whole culture borrowing portion. We had mentioned previously about the elephant tactics and symbolism they acquired from the Champas, but they also carried out a mostly successful and through ethnicide of those folks in the process. They do have a little more of South Asia in them than the Chinese but they were just as adept at sincisation of any barbarians they got under their control.

Vietnam's culture, philosophies, thoughts... were heavily influenced by China, then later it was also influenced by France when Vietnam became its colony, but after Vietnam became independent the influences from France faded, making place for influences from the Soviet Union as well as the US...

Lý and Trần dynasties of Vietnam were influenced by Champa to some extent, evidently through the usage and reverent of elephants, the decorations on armors, and Dai Viet (Vietnam's old name) regularly brought back artisans and Apsara dancers whenever it successfully invaded and looted Champa - the royals loved to watch the Apsara dance... Nowadays influences from Champa on Vietnam had vanished, but back then it was different.

Above were some details I remember having read in forum threads involving modding of games of Total War series, and it always fell to Vietnamese team to make the Champa faction, in addition to the Vietnam faction.

It should be noted that Vietnam only began sinicizing the populace of territories conquered by Vietnam by the time of its final dynasty: Nguyễn dynasty. Before that, it was simply massive land grabs, and the Cham people was even allowed to maintain an autonomous region inside Dai Viet. But by the time Nguyễn dynasty was established (through winning the civil war), that was the time the influences from China and Confucianism peaked.

At that time China was conquered by the Manchu, who established the Qing dynasty. The Nguyễn kings had the funny idea that since China was already conquered by Manchu, so Chinese people should only be referred to as Qing citizens, meanwhile Vietnamese could be referred to as Han people, because apparently Han people back then was a concept which denoted people who followed and practiced the culture of China, instead of limited to ethnically Chinese like nowadays. The kings claimed that Vietnam was the true inheritor of the pre-Manchu China culture, instead of China itself which was ruled by foreigners.

Beside referring to Vietnamses as Han people, Nguyễn kings also referred to Vietnam as the Middle Kingdom - the name only reserved for China previously.

So yeah, only since that time would Vietnamese attempt to sinicize the Khmers in Southern Vietnam (which originally belonged to Cambodia) as well as in Cambodia when Vietnam invaded and annexed those regions, and also completely annexed the autonomous territory of Cham people as well.

 

[notNamed]

Moreover Vietnam was heavily influenced by the "four occupations" system originated in China, which divided the common citizens into 4 main classes: intelligentsia, farmer, craftsmen and merchant.

It's usually called scholar-official (CN)/yangban (KR)/samurai (JPN) in the west, not intelligentsia.

Lý and Trần dynasties of Vietnam were influenced by Champa to some extent, evidently through the usage and reverent of elephants, the decorations on armors,

As far as my research into these matters was concerned, I've never been able to find any holdover examples of Vietnamese armors from this period. All we had to go on was statues which either used normal Tang dynasty armor or mountain pattern (for guardian dieties). This is also the look that AoE2 used for its ddepiction of the Vietnamese unit (Tang armor with that iconic breastplate, commander helmets and lamellar). Certainly no Indic armor decorations (if you have any examples, they'd certainly be appreciated) and likewise, we've gone through the official histories of Viet to find when exactly they started with the elephants and it was certainly not a fixture of either of these two dynasties.

It should be noted that Vietnam only began sinicizing the populace of territories conquered by Vietnam by the time of its final dynasty: Nguyễn dynasty. Before that, it was simply massive land grabs, and the Cham people was even allowed to maintain an autonomous region inside Dai Viet. But by the time Nguyễn dynasty was established (through winning the civil war), that was the time the influences from China and Confucianism peaked.

Nguyễn shifted it into high gear due to stability factors but the sinicisation has been there basically since the start? I mean, Vietnamese ethnogenesis rests on two points. That is the Viet (historical relation to the pre-Han polities by people called Viets; applies to all of Vietnam) and Kinh (townsfolk, as opposed to the barbarians; applies specifically to the modern dominant ethnicity) identity, the latter defining the ethnicity through a clear sign of civilisation lacking in others.
As far as the peaks go, there were three peaks of Chinese influence in Vietnamese history (Lý for Song influence, Lê for Ming influence and Nguyễn for Qing+Japan influence). There's no real reason or way to quantify these as objectively more or less influential to the whole (as opposed to Ming's legacy in Korea and Ryukyu, Tang's legacy in Japan).

Beside referring to Vietnamses as Han people, Nguyễn kings also referred to Vietnam as the Middle Kingdom - the name only reserved for China previously.

Just a minor sidenote, but the name Middle Kingdom/Central Plains as the name for the whole state is relatively recent. Though yeah, by the time of their dynasty, it was obviously that China. As far as the Han succession thing goes, almost everyone partook in it to some extent. Korean Sojunghwa or Japanese Ka-i Hentai all follow the same idea, which was kind of a sign of things to come in this part of the world (they rejected China as the center of the civilised world, but still saw the legacy and connections valid... unlike today when the old Japantowns in Vietnam would be seen as downright bizarre, same as exiled Vietnamese princes defending Koreans from invasions).

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

If one spawned in the game

This is crucial for the mechanic you described because it will be too random to utilize its benefits. If one will not spawn in a game (on a standard map it would be around 86% probability now - increasing with the number of leaders) your bonus would be useless. So it should enforce this" second" Civilization to be always in your game after picking the first one. I don't know if it is an elegant solution. And how should it work in a multiplayer game?
Perhaps this leader should grain a new unique alliance type that only he or she could form with any AI?

BTW if this leak is legit I wonder what this new game mode would look like. Should we prepare for more vampires from those legends?

 

[pokiehl]

There's absolutely no reason to doubt the "leak" because many of us saw it ourselves on the eShop.

I wouldn't anticipate vampires because Anton said remaining modes are historical in nature.

 

[Zaarin]

Ethiopian though, moreover we still have another unrevealed civ.

Ethiopia is a culture-by-faith civ like Khmer; we still don't have a direct culture civ. As for the unrevealed civ, I'm expecting one of Portugal or a Native American civ. Portugal will not be a culture civ. While a culture-focused PNW tribe has been a high priority for me for years, I'm not expecting it. Babylon would be a great culture civ, but we've already been told it's a science civ. Of the remaining civs, then, Vietnam just seems the likeliest candidate.

I, as another East Asian, do find that the heavy coffee drinking culture very unique, even coffee itself is not a unique thing (I just brought a Vietnamese coffee filter/maker).

I know this will probably not going to be presented in the game, but just want to say that I like your way of coffee.

I typically drink my coffee black, but I once had a Vietnamese egg coffee--it was pretty fascinating. (Also East Asians make great coffee products. I'm pretty certain I could use my 1Zpresso grinder as a blunt weapon with no ill effect to the grinder, and it grinds more consistently than any other grinder I owned. When I brew a pour-over, everything except my Italian electric kettle is East Asian--my brewer isn't when I brew by AeroPress, of course.)

Side question: Would Akkad fall in as one of Babylon's cities, and if it did, who would replace it?

It shouldn't be, but based on previous Civ games it might be. As others have mentioned, Aššur seems like a prime candidate.