Denmark? Why not Netherlands?

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MAHRana

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Honestly, I can't understand why Denmark is added as the new civilization. I know they colonized Greenland, etc. but then in that case, why wasn't it the Netherlands that was included. I tried to research the history of Denmark today but I didn't find it to be a particularly influential or powerful empire, but I don't know, maybe I'm wrong?
 
Being from Holland myself, I would still say a bunch of Vikings speaks more to the imagination that a seafaring trading nation that got rich of slave trading.
 
Honestly, I can't understand why Denmark is added as the new civilization. I know they colonized Greenland, etc. but then in that case, why wasn't it the Netherlands that was included. I tried to research the history of Denmark today but I didn't find it to be a particularly influential or powerful empire, but I don't know, maybe I'm wrong?
I think you're wrong :p

The Danes were a powerful force in Europe in the early middle ages. They once controlled quite some territory (called 'Danelaw', lands under the law of the Danes) and were a massive trading power in Europe, although it's relative as trading in Europe was very low at that time.
They traded in a massive arc from the mediterranean up along the Western coast and the British isles, Scandinavia and down across Russia up to Constantinople.
Also, as vikings, they raided lots of cities and monestries, not only along the coast, but also up the rivers, unless people paid tribute ('Danegeld'). And caused quite some upheaval (and some say were one of the reasons the Carolingean Empire collapsed).

800px-Knutrike.png

Area under Cnut the Great

Oh, they also raided Dorestad, more than once ;)

Maybe the Dutch will come as a DLC, but it won't be for a while (as there's a lot of cultures to go before they choose another northern European naval power).
 
They wanted a viking civ, pretty much. The "Viking" civ in Warlords caught flak for being too generic (similar to the Native Americans; we got the Iroquois confederation this time), and Denmark (largely representing Denmark-Norway of the 16th-19th century, in addition to having vikings) was apparently deemed to be a better historically accurate viking civ than the more generic "Scandinavia" or "Norsemen".

It's not Netherlands versus Denmark, it's Netherlands versus Vikings. As a Dane, I applaud Firaxis on this choice.
 
Well, this brings in the Vikings without a nebulous designation like "The Civilization of the Vikings" when they're a multi-national group. I think bringing in the Danes was a way to A) introduce another civilization, and B) introduce the vikings.

As for why ahead of The Netherlands... There is no directive that says they need to get the Dutch in as fast as possible, and it's obvious that some civilizations weren't put in purely based on historical impact. They may get to it, they may not - for now, they've put the Vikings, as represented by the Danish, in there. If who was put in next was based purely on who was most important, I'm pretty sure the Dutch wouldn't be next in line anyways.
 
They wanted a viking civ, pretty much. The "Viking" civ in Warlords caught flak for being too generic (similar to the Native Americans; we got the Iroquois confederation this time), and Denmark (largely representing Denmark-Norway of the 16th-19th century, in addition to having vikings) was apparently deemed to be a better historically accurate viking civ than the more generic "Scandinavia" or "Norsemen".

It's not Netherlands versus Denmark, it's Netherlands versus Vikings. As a Dane, I applaud Firaxis on this choice.

So basically you're saying that "Denmark" in this case represents the Vikings as opposed to the Danish empire after the Middle Ages, or both combined?
 
Both combined. It also clearly includes the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, one UU, the UA, and one leader represents the Viking era.
 
They wanted a viking civ, pretty much. The "Viking" civ in Warlords caught flak for being too generic (similar to the Native Americans; we got the Iroquois confederation this time), and Denmark (largely representing Denmark-Norway of the 16th-19th century, in addition to having vikings) was apparently deemed to be a better historically accurate viking civ than the more generic "Scandinavia" or "Norsemen".

It's not Netherlands versus Denmark, it's Netherlands versus Vikings. As a Dane, I applaud Firaxis on this choice.

But what about Polynesia? They got it right for the scenario: Samoa, Tonga, ect but it the main game it looks more like you're playing as Hawaii

Anyway I agree it was a good choice
 
Plus, it's not just about the civ for the DLC pack, there also needs to be a cool scenario built around the civ or civs. Maybe they didn't have as good of an idea for something focused around the Dutch?

I imagine that whenever an expansion is announced there will be a bunch of civs added who might not work as well for individual DLC but might work well in some larger scenario.

I really don't think that who "deserves" to be added first is really the way Firaxis is thinking about it, and I'm quite sure the Dutch would be on the list to get in at some point.
 
But what about Polynesia? They got it right for the scenario: Samoa, Tonga, ect but it the main game it looks more like you're playing as Hawaii

Anyway I agree it was a good choice

One might similarly argue the Greece should be split into Athens, Sparta, Macedonia, the Selucids, etc ... but that only really makes sense in a scenario specific to that time and geographic area. On the grand timeline and grand scale that civ is portraying, tying Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand, and Hawaii together is the only really sensible approach IMO.
 
One might similarly argue the Greece should be split into Athens, Sparta, Macedonia, the Selucids, etc ... but that only really makes sense in a scenario specific to that time and geographic area.

Well, with that one, you can make an argument for the civ being the Delian League/Athenian Empire (Pericles) or Hellenic League (Alexander), since both of those were confederations(-turned-centralized-empires) made up of many city-states. "Greece" is just a more flexible term.

Point taken though.
 
We already had dutch in III and IV (don't know if they were in any earlier CIVs, never played them myself), and yeah, I expected Sweden to be a playable civilization rather than the danes, but either way it's alright.

Well, this brings in the Vikings without a nebulous designation like "The Civilization of the Vikings" when they're a multi-national group.

So true, also now there's room for troops that are not somehow viking-related, like the ski-troops.
 
also, netherlands is kind of small. i mean, they'll probably get in anyway because they were still important, but a norse empire allows for more coverage of the map right away.
 
also, netherlands is kind of small. i mean, they'll probably get in anyway because they were still important, but a norse empire allows for more coverage of the map right away.
That, of course, depends how you look at it.

The Dutch did have colonies on every continent (bar Antarctica).
From Surinam and North-Eastern US (don't know if Providence is of Dutch origin?), to Ghana and South-Africa, to Sri Lanka and Indonesia, for instance.

220px-Dutch_Empire35.PNG


But, fair enough, it is quite a scattered coverage :p
 
Just look into the history of the Danes for a minute. Yes, the most remembered period was the Viking Era, but the Danish civilization reached far beyond that. Iceland, Greenland, Vinland, England, North Germany, and Normandy were all colonized extensively by the Danes. The Norman conquerors of England were basically Franco-Danish mutts only one step removed from the first wave of Danes that invaded. They competed with Saxons and pure Danes to eventually control England.

Danish European power persisted for centuries after the Vikings too. For three centuries of the Norwegian-Danish union ruled most of Scandinavia, Iceland, and Greenland. Their military pretty much invented the Biathlon and employed ski-infantry during those Napoleonic Era with Sweden. It finally broke up into smaller, separate nations shortly thereafter.

- Marty Lund
 
Honestly, I can't understand why Denmark is added as the new civilization. I know they colonized Greenland, etc. but then in that case, why wasn't it the Netherlands that was included. I tried to research the history of Denmark today but I didn't find it to be a particularly influential or powerful empire, but I don't know, maybe I'm wrong?
It doesn't matter how powerful a civ was in history, we just want more diversity & fun civs. With your logic I can also say that why did they included Songhai in ciV but not Spain or Mongolia (which were added later on by DLC).
 
It's quite possible that they want to leave some potential expansion options open.
 
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