Create a good vanilla line-up for Civilization

1. Greece: due to its immense cultural legacy and possibly the main pillar of "Western civilization", Greek philosophy, its scientific achievements, its concepts of democracy and politics...
2. Rome: its immense empire, and have adopted Greek culture and taken to the rest of Europe. In addition to its many wars...
3. France: its rich culture, its many interesting leaders, its many wonders, its many wars, Napoleon Bonaparte...
4. England: the greatest empire of history the land that "sun never sets", its gigantic cultural influence in the conquered lands...

fifth slot:

5. Russia: its great influence in the world, especially from the 20th century. Currently, the world's largest country...

 

Here's how I'd rank the importance of including civ(s) in a vanilla line-up by group, though in no particular order within groups (ie: Egypt and Greece being equally important in the first group).

1. Egypt
2. Greece
3. Rome
4. China
5. Babylon (can be 'subbed' for Sumeria, only because they represent a similar region/timeframe)
6. India

The game's called Civilization, it wouldn't be fitting without including the most famous ancient civs most people are taught about in school.

7. England
8. France
9. America
10. Germany
11. Japan
12. Russia

Civs with good name recognition to a casual fanbase and a modern-day demographic that it represents.

13. Zulus
14. Persia
15. Aztecs

Civs that also have name recognition, but don't necessarily represent a current market demographic.

16. Iroquois (or other NA civ)
17. Mongols
18. Arabia
--------cut here for 18 vanilla civs------
19. Mali
20. Khmer

Civs that will have to temporarily represent their entire regions (N Africa, SE Asia, etc.) until DLC comes along.

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IMO I think a line-up like this would be the ideal way to compromise between interesting potential gameplay in vanilla while also including most of the big-name marketable civs. I would be perfectly fine with a few of them being cut to push some other civs like Mali and Khmer upwards.

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EDIT: and regional rankings if we have a quota/cap per region:

Spoiler :

Americas:

Aztecs > America > NA Native American > Maya/Inca > Brazil > Other

The Maya and Aztecs could honestly be swapped in terms of importance, it's moreso that we get America and an NA Native American civ before a second SA one than Aztecs over Maya/Inca.

Europe:

Greece = Rome > England = France > Spain = Germany > Nordic > Netherlands = Austria > Other

North/West Asia:

Russia = Mongols > Other

South/East Asia:

China = India > Japan > Korea = Khmer > Siam = Majapahit > Other

Middle East:

Sumeria = Babylon > Persia = Ottomans > Arabia > Other

Africa:

Egypt > Carthage = Mali = Kongo = Zulu > Other

(I feel Africa is such a large continent that multiple civs can be "equal" to one another, especially when they don't overlap in territory)

Oceania:

Polynesia > Australia

 

I don't know. The more and more I think the about, the less and less I feel I'd miss them. That's not to say they aren't important to history, but at the same time, I don't feel like they'd be exceptionally missed by me or by others. They simply aren't that compelling and their influence is less immediately felt than with other countries that are included, although I should differ history to you.

 

Really, it's a matter of records. The Sumerians and Babylonians were meticulous record keepers, but the truth is that the Greeks were horrible narcissists when it came to history. They really cared about two things: themselves and their rivals (Persia, Egypt), with occasional amusing anecdotes about those backwards barbarians elsewhere (like the Celts, Slavs, Thracians, those Seres in the Far East with their funny customs and lovely silk, and so forth). Babylon was gone and Sumer forgotten by the time the Greeks started recording history, so of course the Greeks didn't care about them. Consequently Babylon and Sumer feel less significant to Western history than Persia, but the truth is there'd be no Persia without Babylon or Sumer, for Persia was built on the ashes of Babylon, which in turn was built on the foundation of Sumer. Also NB that the Sumerians were the first to irrigate their fields, the first to use wheeled vehicles (whether they used them in combat as depicted in Civ6 isn't known for certain), the first to create a codified law system, the first to found schools, the first to develop a non-logographic writing system (early cuneiform was indeed logographic, but it developed into a syllabary), the first civilization to have a (known) female ruler, to say nothing of the developments of Babylon after them (much of Greek astronomy and mathematics was ultimately Babylonian or Egyptian in origin). So if Babylon and Sumer seem remote, that is in part due to the narcissism of the Greek transmitters of history, who often failed to cite their sources when it came to the sciences and were rather self-absorbed when it came to history.

 

I have to admit I went with 18 + 1 in part because I think it's harder to balance 16 across time compared to 19 total. Not only do I find myself thinking "who can I cut out of England/France/Rome/Germany/Russia" but also "who can I cut out of Rome/India/Egypt" (Since I picked only 4 from the middle-east, my own rules forbid me from cutting Persia/Babylon).

 

As an exercise in the line of "the vanilla civs should be the most recognizable ones" here are the 22 civs that were mentioned in length in my American (Californian) 6th/7th grade history classes. Qualification is that they had at least 1 chapter of the textbook dedicated to them, or in the case of the Latin American ones, a chapter dedicated to the region. In theory, everyone in my elementary school district should have taken a history class in the 6th/7th grades and thus been familiarized with these "civs".

Sumer
Babylon
Egypt
Rome
Greece
Byzantine
Ottomans
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China
India
Japan
_____

Aztec
Maya
Inca
_____

England
France
_____

Haiti
Iroquois (Native Americans as a whole had a chapter, but the Iroquois had an additional chapter just for them)
America
_____

Colombia/Other Latin American countries
Germany (HRE also got a chapter but since Civ conflates it with Germany I didn't list it)
Russia (as the SU)

Interesting notes:

* Chapters about general concepts (ie: the Industrial Revolution) didn't count towards any civ
* Spain didn't get a chapter, but it's mentioned a lot in others
* Africa beyond Egypt didn't get a chapter (Mansa Musa got a mention somewhere, but not in any depth)
* Oceania didn't get a chapter
* SE Asia didn’t get a chapter
* Persia didn't get a chapter
* The Aztecs/Maya/Inca each got their own chapters rather than a single shared one, which was interesting.
* All chapters before Haiti were about the civ's culture and society
* When I say America got a chapter, I mean the American Revolution. A lot of the later chapters involve America and its influence post-revolution
* The Haiti and Latin American chapters were about their revolutions
* Germany and Russia didn't get chapters of their own, so to speak, but the World War/Cold War chapters were so heavily German/Russian that they almost were chapters for them (with that said, they were definitely war-leaning in nature). But the HRE chapter was about general society and government, so Germany as Civ interprets it got some of both.

 

Will someone please explain to me why people want to include Haiti, an utterly impoverished third-world nation that hardly merits a city-state never mind a civ?

 

If you’re referring to my post above it wasn’t my ideal vanilla line-up, which was a few posts before it. It was just a side note going off the idea that *most* vanilla civs should be recognizable and marketable to a wide audience. It was a list of countries/civs that my elementary school history classes went over in detail (ie: at least a full textbook chapter dedicated to it). These would be civs an American audience would likely be familiar with even without research beyond elementary school, not necessarily a list of the best ones to choose.

 

Your post prompted it, but I've seen a fair number of suggestions to include Haiti, all of which just baffle me. I don't like having Australia and Brazil in the game, but at least I understand why someone might include them. Haiti has no political, economic, or even cultural accomplishments to speak of that would merit inclusion.

 

I think it's because some people would like to play with Touissaint Louverture, who was a well-recognized Haitian revolutionary, and Haiti was an empire for a short period of time, before most Latin American nations conquered independence, and it was an empire again later.

However, for all this, I am also not an enthusiast to have Haiti as a playable civilization, although I would be satisfied with a city-state.

 

I don't mean to belittle their accomplishments. However, I still feel that if I had to pick between having Persia in the base game and having Babylon in the base game, I'd pick Persia. I don't place as much importance on it as I would Germany either. Maybe that's because I started with Civilization 4 and only had vanilla for the longest time.

 

I'd have a hard time picking because both are deserving, but I'd be inclined to pick Babylon. Of course, if I were designing the game, at some point someone would have to tell me to stop including every single civilization from the Iron Age Near East.

Interesting idea, actually. Ignoring marketing and catering solely to your tastes, what would the base game look like? Mine would be something like this:

England (Edmund Ironside, Henry V, Elizabeth I)
France (Francis I)
Germany (Frederick Barbarossa)
Russia (Catherine the Great)
China (Wu Zetian, Wu of Han)
Korea (Seondeok)
Japan (Hojo Tokimune)
India (Shah Jahan)
Maya (Lady Six Sky, Pacal the Great)
Powhatan (Powhatan)
Egypt (Akhenaten, Hatshepsut)
Babylon (Nabonidus)
Persia (Darius II, Shappur II)
Sumer (Gudea)
Aram (Zenobia)
Arabia (Harun al-Rashid)
Georgia (Tamar)
Ethiopia (Zar'a Ya'qob)

Pre-Order DLC: Duchy of Brittany (Joanna of Flanders)
First DLC: Inca (Huayna Capac) and Mongolia (Kublai Khan)

Rome and Greece are notably absent, because frankly I don't care about either of them. You'll also notice no USA, because no colonies allowed. I also included a few more second leaders than Firaxis did.

 

But why shouldn't we?

Well, for me, it'd be something stupid, like this:

America under Theodore Roosevelt (but actually good for once)
India under Aurangzeb and Gandhi (My memes are more important than your happiness)
Russia under ya boi J-Stal and ya homie Ivan the Terrible
Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus
Carthage under Hannibal Barca
Aztec under Netzahualcoyotl
Huns under Attila
Zulu under Shaka
China (Two leaders)
Arabia (Two leaders)
Hittites
Songhai
Assyria
Ottomans
Persia
Polynesia
Khmer
Venice (Italy with multiple leaders, each taking a different approach to "playable city state," would be cool too)

There are the 18 civilizations that I would pick if they were the only 18 civilizations I was going to get, not listed in any particular order except those with leaders at the top. They, to me, are the most desirable to have, the ones I would be most excited to see announced (discounting the ones already announced). To be honest though, whether or not the actual design and abilities are interesting is more important.

It's not a perfect list, but I can't spend to long thinking about it. I could keep that going for ages.

 

@AnonymousSpeed That's a very warmongery list.

 

I actually would like if they did some kind of ancient near east/mediterranean spin-off (like BE or Colonization) that goes beyond being just a scenario.

 

So would I. It's the only way we're ever likely to see groups like the Hurrians or Elamites, or even the Hittites.

 

Yeah, I was considering the Mali instead of the Songhai for the sake of some "balance," but ultimately I just feel some odd affinity for the Songhai. They and the Ottoman's stuck out to me as inclusions in Vanilla Civ5.

With the Zulu, Hittites, Huns and Assyrians, the early game would be a bloodbath. I'd like to imagine they'd at least do different sorts of early rush strategies.

I'd like to think they might include the Hittites. They were in Civ3 and I think they're fairly popular among fans. I might be overstating that in my head though, since I personally would like to see them.

 

Ed Beach said diversity is a focus, and there seems to be an intention not to repeat leaders from civ V, and maybe (we can't know for sure) also a tendency to substitute some civs with others. I don't think the chances for a return of the Hittites are that bad. The Hurrians and Elamites however...

 

I would love to see this. Then maybe we could finally see Phoenicia if it doesn't get into a regular game.

 

Going to do it again, well here we go.

America (Dwight Eisenhower)
Arabia (Harun Al Rashid)
China (Kangxi)
England (Elizabeth I)
Egypt (Hatshepsut)
Ethiopia (Menelik II)
France (Louis XIV)
Germany (Otto Von Bismarck)
Greece (Leonidas)
Inca (Pachacuti)
India (Ashoka)
Indonesia (Majaphit)
Japan (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)
Mayans (Lady Six Sky)
Persia (Cyrus The Great)
Rome (Marcus Aurelius)
Russia (Catherine The Great)
Spain (Isabella II)
pre-order: Assyria (Ashurbanipal)

for civ VII