Designing Persia in Civ7

[Zaarin]

If Firaxis doesn't opt for Afsharid or Safavid Persia and chooses Achaemenids or preferably Sassanids instead, I'll be happy to welcome the Durrani Empire in Civ VII . Apart from blue domes, we could get more oriental music, and that's always a plus by me .

Since the Afsharids were Turkoman, I'd prefer the Safavids myself, especially if we get a broader Turk civ representing both the Seljuqs and the Ottomans as some (myself included) have suggested.

 

[Krajzen]

@Krajzen I get your frustration, but I think you kind of made your own point: there really was no significant Persian state in Iran proper between the fall of the Sassanians in 651 and the rise of the Safavids in 1501. At any rate, I would like to see an Islamic and Zoroastrian Persia if we could--and Zoroastrian Persia by definition means Sassanid since the Arsacids were pagan and the bulk of the evidence suggests the Achaemenids were, too.

Two Persias in the same time wouldn't make sense, because there actually were many sorts of 'nationalist' continuity, consciousness and identity that made Islamic Persians consider Sasanians to be "our glorious ancestors" and "old Persia". It would be logically equivalent to separating Hindu - Buddhist Indonesian civilization from Islamic one, the same thing happens here; religion changed, but continuity of identity, culture and language didn't.

Maybe unless second "Persia" was Samanid empire, which elite also considered themselves Persian inheritors of Sasanian cultural heritage, but at least it ruled over Central Asia far from modern Iranian borders, largely populated by "not exactly" ethnic Persian people speaking "not exactly" Persian language; it would be a grey zone case similar to Rome/Byzantium dispute, where main ethnic group still considered themselves Romans/Persians, but there are so many differences in every aspect that games like this separate them anyway, to the joy of many.
Samanid empire would also be the second best way to finally introduce Central Asia to the game, besides Timurids:

Spoiler :

Now I have realized I have actually proposed arguments both for and against two Persias...

 

[Zaarin]

Two Persias in the same time wouldn't make sense, because there actually were many sorts of 'nationalist' continuity, consciousness and identity that made Islamic Persians consider Sasanians to be "our glorious ancestors" and "old Persia".

Nationalist narratives aside, I'd be perfectly comfortable with treating Sassanid and Safavid Persia as two different entities. Like India and China, there are arguments both pro and contra continuity, but in game terms I think Sassanid and Safavid Persia would function very differently. You sidestep the naming issue by calling the Sassanid civ Persia and Safavid civ Iran (even though either name is equally applicable at either time period).

 

[BuchiTaton]

Samanid empire would also be the second best way to finally introduce Central Asia to the game, besides Timurids:

For me the best options for Central Asia are Gurkani (Timurids) as the islamic turkic+persian, and the Hephthalites as the "Cross Road" trade and pluri-religious empire that actually could use their Huna steppe nomad + Bactrian/Sogdian/Tocharian cities that CIV5 Huns and CIV6 Scythians fail to represent.