[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[VermelhoRed]

Pop-culture fans have probably heard one or two words that they think that they recognize from a popular movie series. I'd advise them not to over-think this. The creator of said series was into Buddhism and tossed around religious terms a lot.

Tbh I think George Lucas coined "jedi" for the SW based on "jidaigeki", the style of Japanese samurai dramas that inspired him so.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Tbh I think George Lucas coined "jedi" for the SW based on "jidaigeki", the style of Japanese samurai dramas that inspired him so.

Ok! I didn't know this! That makes a lot more sense.

 

[notNamed]

Tbh I think George Lucas coined "jedi" for the SW based on "jidaigeki", the style of Japanese samurai dramas that inspired him so.

Actually... it's from the book Barsoom. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/26/movies/the-names-came-from-earth.html
Jidaigeki is a nice etymology and all, but it's not like anyone ever mentions the term in those movies, nor would they be known as such in the US (as opposed to "Samurai Cinema" or some variant thereof).

 

[dc1215]

“The Native Americans” is awful. However, de-blobbing some Civ mainstays is not in the interest of the devs. I’ve always felt that the average player likes to think of think of this game as an opportunity to recreate history with a collection of the greatest civs in history, led by some of the greatest leaders in history. Quite honestly, that’s sort of how I feel as well, while of course welcoming as many Civs as possible. It’s a bit of a slippery slope since many, like Egypt, India, China, Germany, Persia, Gaul and others are inherently blobs, but the sum of their parts are in each case greater than those parts individually. The second we have Middle Kingdom vs Chola vs Tang vs hohenstaufen dynasty vs Safavids vs Aedui to many will kill some of the soul that a particular civ has, that in my mind is established through the game’s concept of leading a civ through the whole of history. It would also necessitate hundreds of civs to evenly represent everything. That scenario may be cool in another game, but not Civ.

I actually like the concept of 1 civ and different leaders, because it provides opportunities to flavor a singular, more timeless concept of a “Civ” differently based on very different iterations of that civ. A HRE and Prussian leader for Germany, or a Maurya and Mughal leader for India, for example is an ideal way to accomplish this. And I encourage the Devs to use this to diversify flavors as much as possible. I think China, England, etc deserve AT LEAST 3 leaders to represent very different Englands and Chinas throughout history.

And in my mind, blobbing can actually be helpful in providing a region or an underrepresented people validation for making it into one of the games, whereas there is less of an argument otherwise. I think the Berbers are a good example of this and I am interested to see them in the game, whereas I think Numidia as a Civ has almost no shot.

For good measure, assuming portugal is the last Civ, I would like the following in a final package:

Iroquois
Apache
Assyria
Hittites
Austria
Siam
Goths
Berbers

 

[Zaarin]

It’s a bit of a slippery slope since many, like Egypt, India, China, Germany, Persia, Gaul and others are inherently blobs

I think we have different definitions of "blob." To me, if it's culturally unified, it's not a blob, even if it was never politically unified. So to me Germany, Greece, Phoenicia, Maya, and Gaul are not blobs. Since Persia is strictly Achaemenid, I wouldn't call it a blob, either. I assume you're calling Egypt a blob because it has a Ptolemaic leader, but that could be easily avoided by simply not bowing to pop culture by continuing to pick Cleopatra as leader.

 

[notNamed]

“The Native Americans” is awful. However, de-blobbing some Civ mainstays is not in the interest of the devs. I’ve always felt that the average player likes to think of think of this game as an opportunity to recreate history with a collection of the greatest civs in history, led by some of the greatest leaders in history. Quite honestly, that’s sort of how I feel as well, while of course welcoming as many Civs as possible. It’s a bit of a slippery slope since many, like Egypt, India, China, Germany, Persia, Gaul and others are inherently blobs, but the sum of their parts are in each case greater than those parts individually. The second we have Middle Kingdom vs Chola vs Tang vs hohenstaufen dynasty vs Safavids vs Aedui to many will kill some of the soul that a particular civ has, that in my mind is established through the game’s concept of leading a civ through the whole of history. It would also necessitate hundreds of civs to evenly represent everything. That scenario may be cool in another game, but not Civ.

Well, it is certainly not outside of the capabilities of a full AAA game and the biggest 4X franchise out there to model a full continuity of a civilisation. So even if you'd keep playing as Qin Shi Huang, you'd still live out the whole of Chinese history. The real issue with this approach is twofold:

• It requires more resources per civ whereas civs have already become one of the main monetisation factors. Less civs means "less content" and less expansions/DLC.
• It introduces an issue with staples in the series. If you add USA, will you simply make up stuff to fill out the earlier eras? Merge them with the English? How about the other way around, do Romans stay Romans who basically turn into modern Italians? Or will they attain Byzantine characteristics for the medieval period? And even if you could solve these, "5 minutes of fame" civs like the Aztecs or Huns would just be plain out of luck. Aztecs still have an alternative in Maya, who have a long history spanning from the past into the present. But it disqualifies a number of civs in the game.

I actually like the concept of 1 civ and different leaders, because it provides opportunities to flavor a singular, more timeless concept of a “Civ” differently based on very different iterations of that civ. A HRE and Prussian leader for Germany, or a Maurya and Mughal leader for India, for example is an ideal way to accomplish this. And I encourage the Devs to use this to diversify flavors as much as possible. I think China, England, etc deserve AT LEAST 3 leaders to represent very different Englands and Chinas throughout history.

We've already had that several times. China led by Qin Shi Huang, Taizong and Mao in Civ4, Russia led by Catherine, Peter and Stalin (just swap Peter/Catherine for Ivan the Terrible and you're golden), Japan led by Himiko, Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Tougou Heihachirou (maybe swap one of the unifiers out for Houjou?). It's not really that hard, but it's also not that much of a solution. Even if arguabyly, the amount of differentiation per leader has been raised since then.

 

[SagarRathore]

my main reasoning is modern india is not historically representative of the history of the subcontinent. It’s basically a cult of personality civ for gandhi.

I don't get what u want to say...I mean Are u taking about Independent India nation or Civ 6 representation of India.
Because earlier case is quite complex topic & similar thing can be said about China.

For the later case, I agree that Gandhi ji overshadow India Civ in Firaxis representstion but that's because of unawareness among western audience regarding Indian History. But India History is still in there(Gandhi ji never controlled War Elephants & build stepwells) though it is overshadowed by Gandhi's Pacifism or Congress advertisement about religious unity.

the maurya and mughals were as different, temporally and culturally, as the gauls and england in civ 6. the chola (and tamilians as a whole) share literally nothing with the north besides a religion.

At minimum, the Chola should be a Macedon to India’s Greece, but ideally they’d break off the Maurya and Mughals too

Gaul & England r Civilization in their own rights while Maurya,Mughal r empires. & If I m not wrong Gaul culture was pretty much over till early part of culture (what would become England later) cemented itself.

Tbh I don't understand this classification of Indian history as Maurya,Mughal,British. Neither of these empires covered more than 50℅ of area of modern India for more than 140-150 years.
While u right when u say Maurya & Mughal Empire(separated by 1800 years) were quite different, just like One can say Mughal Empire was quite different from British Raj(separated by only 200 years). But thats about administrative/ruling class. For example Qing is not a civilization.
Civilization is society, cultural entity.

& as I said before,I won't comment about Tamilakam case for a separate Civilization. Right now I m quite neutral about it,& will explore more about Tamil desa culture before coming to conclusion. Though it has better claim as separate civilization than empires like Mughal,Maurya.
But I have my apprehension on portrayal of Tamil culture as separate from India as I m not sure what unique factors would define Tamil Culture. For Instance if they come up with something like Shaivism Tamil religio-cultural then it would be absurd as Shaivism is/was widespread all over subcontinent especially North-West,Gangetic Plains etc.

 

[Txomin]

I wonder if Vietnam will have a drawback to their unique ability since we have three civs in nfp so far with drawbacks.
Portugal seems pretty likely for the last spot but maybe I'll be surprised and they won't have Portugal and instead save them for another dlc pass
One can dream

 

[8housesofelixir]

I wonder if Vietnam will have a drawback to their unique ability since we have three civs in nfp so far with drawbacks.

I just wish the devs can make adequate balancing if they use this design the next time. Gaul's not-next-to-city-center is more of a thematic consideration, Babylon's -50% science is a great way of balancing compare to full Eureka, but Maya basically has 2 sets of drawbacks, and one of which (housing loss) has no effective compensation. To this day, Maya is still notoriously slow-paced in the start, and I personally don't want to see the same thing happen to Vietnam.

 

[j51]

While I'm all in favor of more unique factions, tossing together everyone who happened to live in the same area sounds like a horrible idea to me. This is just begging for the return of "the Native Americans," "the Polynesians," and "the Celts."

Yeah, true. It can definitely lead to such messes. I think there's a fine line to walk between the examples you mentioned and reblobbing the Greeks and Macedonians, or the Swedes and Norwegians into the Norse. To me, if the Maya, Arabs, or the Indians are one civ, then the Norse, Greeks, and Germans should be too. But yeah, Celts, and that whole Native American thing: that's going to far the other way.

It just feels like Civ 6 has civ bloat. A lot of the newer civs are almost just more powerful versions of vanilla civs mechanically. Keeping things a little blobby where multiple states are part of a shared 'civilization' (as in cultural legacy) together, but represented by different leaders would go toward helping that.

I'll admit that I got carried away blobbing the Byzantines in with the Greeks, the Italian city states with the Romans, and pre-post Islamic Iran, but there's no need for Civ to have separate Norse civs, or a separate Germany and Austria. As for the post-colonial nations: they shouldn't be fully separate civs from their mother countries. Instead they should have some kind of late game mechanic that spins them off as mostly like their mother country in traits, but with one or two slight adjustments that play with a post-colonial mechanic of some sort. But I'm getting into the weeds here.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I actually like the concept of 1 civ and different leaders, because it provides opportunities to flavor a singular, more timeless concept of a “Civ” differently based on very different iterations of that civ. A HRE and Prussian leader for Germany, or a Maurya and Mughal leader for India, for example is an ideal way to accomplish this. And I encourage the Devs to use this to diversify flavors as much as possible. I think China, England, etc deserve AT LEAST 3 leaders to represent very different Englands and Chinas throughout history.

Ideally for me it would be great to have a Medieval England leader, with Henry V, Renaissance leader with Elizabeth I, and then a later British leader in Victoria each with their own respective units: Longbowman, Sea Dog, Redcoat.
As for the Mughals, I can possibly see them being a separate civ from India if they focus on Lahore as the capital have their cities in other areas away from India. If that's not the case than I'm perfectly fine with them being represented by an alt leader in the future.

And in my mind, blobbing can actually be helpful in providing a region or an underrepresented people validation for making it into one of the games, whereas there is less of an argument otherwise. I think the Berbers are a good example of this and I am interested to see them in the game, whereas I think Numidia as a Civ has almost no shot.

I agree. As cool as Numidia does sound an overarching Berber civ would be just as nice. I'm not sure of any unique infrastructure that Numidia could get off the top of my head, but you can find something encompassing the whole Berber culture.

Yeah, true. It can definitely lead to such messes. I think there's a fine line to walk between the examples you mentioned and reblobbing the Greeks and Macedonians, or the Swedes and Norwegians into the Norse. To me, if the Maya, Arabs, or the Indians are one civ, then the Norse, Greeks, and Germans should be too. But yeah, Celts, and that whole Native American thing: that's going to far the other way.

If you are going to blob the Norse together that's fine as long as you solely make it based on Medieval Vikings.

But if you put in attributes based off of later time periods, I think it would be a problem. Personally I'm fine with the way they've implemented one "viking" civ from the region and one "non-Viking" representation, which has always been Sweden, considering Sweden has always been the least "viking" like.

 

[Zaarin]

If you are going to blob the Norse together that's fine as long as you solely make it based on Medieval Vikings.

But if you put in attributes based off of later time periods, I think it would be a problem. Personally I'm fine with the way they've implemented one "viking" civ from the region and one "non-Viking" representation, which has always been Sweden, considering Sweden has always been the least "viking" like.

I agree. I like that more of their history than just "Vikingness" gets represented.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Personally I'm fine with the way they've implemented one "viking" civ from the region and one "non-Viking" representation, which has always been Sweden, considering Sweden has always been the least "viking" like.

Interestingly, Civ VI chooses a Viking leader who was one of the least Viking-like IRL, but the Viking civ overall is still pretty Viking.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Interestingly, Civ VI chooses a Viking leader who was one of the least Viking-like IRL, but the Viking civ overall is still pretty Viking.

Even though I'd rather new leaders or civs, as opposed to different personas, I do admit that a religious "Varangian" version of Harald would be an interesting take on Norway focusing on trading/religious abilities.
That would synergize well with the stave church and the early ocean crossing abilities already in place.

 

[SirMediocrity]

Even though I'd rather new leaders or civs, as opposed to different personas, I do admit that a religious "Varangian" version of Harald would be an interesting take on Norway focusing on trading/religious abilities.
That would synergize well with the stave church and the early ocean crossing abilities already in place.

I'm really glad they gave Norway the Stave Church rather than a generic Mead Hall or something like that.

 

[8housesofelixir]

That would synergize well with the stave church and the early ocean crossing abilities already in place.

A religious colonization of Vinland looks promising.

 

[Zaarin]

Interestingly, Civ VI chooses a Viking leader who was one of the least Viking-like IRL, but the Viking civ overall is still pretty Viking.

I die a little every time he swears by Odin.

I'm really glad they gave Norway the Stave Church rather than a generic Mead Hall or something like that.

Gotta save that for the Anglo-Saxon civ. But yes, the Stave Church was an inspired choice.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What a "Viking Civ" needs in the game is an emphasis on Trade for once. BY 1000 CE 'viking' traders were boating or portaging through Russia all the way to the Caspian Sea, where they traded with the cities at the end of the Silk Road to China. At the other extreme, there are Mayan representations from approximately that time of blond, bearded men and wooden ships. That's literally a half-world stretch of trading/exploring activity! Then you add the caches of coins from all over the world found in Scandinavia from 'Viking' times and you start to realize that these guys traded a lot more than they raided, even if they sang more songs about raiding than haggling.

Have a UU of "Viking" which is a typical mail-clad Warrior on land but turns into a Long Ship on sea and has a single Charge that can be used to establish a Trade Route with either a Civ or City State he encounters. That would be a much better representation of the Vikings than the 1% of Nutters called 'berserkers'.

 

[Zaarin]

At the other extreme, there are Mayan representations from approximately that time of blond, bearded men and wooden ships.

...I'm a little skeptical that the Vikings were actively trading with the Maya. Their attempts at coexisting with the Greenlanders and Vinlanders weren't exactly inspiring (though it's interesting to note that they were conducting the fur trade in Canada 600 years before Cartier--before wearing out their welcome and getting driven back into the ocean).

even if they sang more songs about raiding than haggling.

I'm sure there are Ferengi epics about glorious trading missions, but pretty much everyone else sings about battles, no matter how much they may have also liked trading.

 

[8housesofelixir]

BY 1000 CE 'viking' traders were boating or portaging through Russia all the way to the Caspian Sea, where they traded with the cities at the end of the Silk Road to China.

A Kiev Rus' civ would be interesting.

At the other extreme, there are Mayan representations from approximately that time of blond, bearded men and wooden ships.

Any source of this one? Because there are a lot of people claimed that they were the first civilization that "landed in America and had a contact with the Mayans" but cannot provide sufficient evidences.

To my knowledge the Norse activities in America were limited to north (Canadian and Newfoundland coasts) and they never reached anywhere southern than New England.