Discussion: Should the Vikings be replaced by Scandinavian civs, or add to them?

[AbsintheRed]

I think it never came up that u should replace the Vikings with the Danes or Sweden or Norway, just to replace them with the Danes and Sweden and Norway (and maybe some more civs).
Vikings are in all of these nations culture, so the poll is not perfect IMO...

I was just trying to cover more bases. Some people might think that one civ is more closely related than the others, or at least that was what I thought. I might end up just adding those votes together, anyway.

Yeah, i see your point NikNaks, but no one will vote to replace the Vikings with just one of the new civs. Even if someone likes the idea of the Scandinavian expansion, he/she may only vote for those 3 options if he/she is from one of these nations...
Just watch the polls results, it represents nothing
I think this was a bad decision to write it out like this...

 

[PPQ_Purple]

What do you meen the votes meen nothing?
The vote clearly shows that we want both the Scandi-Civs and the Vikings as seperate civilisations.

 

[702]

I have to say I'm afraid I agree that the poll was poorly worded, the original idea was to replace Vikings with all 3, and as Absinthe says, the only way I can imagine anyone choosing just one of them would be if they were from the country in question.

And I'm afraid I still don't see the importance of having the Scandinavian countries AND the Vikings, when clearly those countries represent the Vikings. But I may be in a minority...
I also still wonder when one ends and the others begin, when do Vikings become Danes, Norwegians and Swedes?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Again, you completely missed the point of it.
Vikings do not end, and DNS do not start. They are one and the same but from a diferent point of view.

The individual civs should exist for those that realy care for them, but the Vikings should remain as an abstraction of the entire group.

But you don't have to listen to me. After all, the people have spoken.

 

[702]

No I see the point, I just don't see the necessity of having the same people twice.
And I would say the people have been mislead somewhat by the wording of the poll, but I don't expect it to be taken again...

Would you also support having an East Asia civ, a Southeast Asia civ, a Turkic civ, a sub-Saharan African civ and a Western European civ?

Anyway, never mind.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

No I see the point, I just don't see the necessity of having the same people twice.
And I would say the people have been mislead somewhat by the wording of the poll, but I don't expect it to be taken again...

Would you also support having an East Asia civ, a Southeast Asia civ, a Turkic civ, a sub-Saharan African civ and a Western European civ?

Anyway, never mind.

East Asia civ and Southeast Asia civ? Probably, but it is not realy needed.
Theis region is inhabited by the 3 Great Factions (China, Japan and Mongolia) and these 3 already serve as a good apstraction.
China = All Asian Comunist Countries or in earlyer starts (Korea, Kmer, and all other continental asian civs)
Japan = All Asian Capitalist Countries and island nations, places like singapore, taiwan ect.
Mongolia = For medieval or earlyer games only, a thirt option if you need a filler civ.

So these 3 basicly serve all the needs of asia. (if you are playing a mixed non regional game)

Western European civ? Probably yes.
I personaly am from europe so I am a bit biased but I can see how players from the rest of the world would benifit from this abstraction. Perhaps a civ like the European Union?

Turkic civ? Not realy needed. Simply becouse there are not that many importmant middle eastern civs that coegsisted.
The middle east usualy has one empire falling and another rising in it's place unlike europe where the civs coegsist.
It's silly for example to include both Turkey, Arabia and Persia in the same game.

sub-Saharan African civ?
We alredy Have the Zulu for that.
They serve as an apstraction for all african tribes south of Egipt.

As for the vote, why don't you simply add up the votes.
Only a third of all people voted against the Vikings, I think that qualifies as a win for the add side.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Uhhh, PPQ Purple, u have a really, really, really weird point of view...
And this is certainly a bad poll, the result is not representative this way at all!

Back to topic, I still hesitate. Sweden, the Danes and Norway mainly covers the Vikings, so i can imagine replacing them with all of these 3 (or maybe some more) civs. But it would be like taking the Celts out, they are almost in the same place as the Vikings IMO.
Altough ideally that would be the best solution, i tend to think that both the Vikings (and Celts), and both the new civs deserve their place in Civ. Even if the Vikings only represent the first few hundred years of these civs, they should probably stay too...

 

[702]

I have to agree with Absinthe, that is very strange, tbh when I made those suggestions I was being a tad facetious... but each to his own...

Anyway, if there were Vikings and DSM, what would their units look like? This is for VD after all. What would the modern Viking units look like? Currently they appear to be mostly Swedish units (correct me if I'm wrong NikNaks). Would you suggest just keeping these anyway, using the default units, or creating a new set of historical "what if?" units?
And what about the early Danish, Swedish and Norwegian units? They would surely look very similar to the Viking units. Perhaps a spot of research would reveal more details about early Swedes, etc...

 

[Badtz Maru]

We already have a southeastern Asia civ, the Khmer. They were very significant in their time.

 

[702]

Ah I think you missed the point of my comment.
Which was to say, if you have individual countries/states AND wider groups of people (like having Norway, Denmark, Sweden AND Vikings as all Scandinavia as PPQ does) in one case, why not do it for the whole world? So have Khmer, and other SE Asian civs, Siam, Burma, Vietnam, etc... AND Southeast Asia Civ.

Also PPQ, my comment above about what would all the different units look like wasn't an attempt at putting you or anyone off the idea (which I can see seems popular (not that the alternative was offered!)), simply me mentioning something else that would have to considered when making these civs.

 

[Badtz Maru]

Ah I think you missed the point of my comment.
Which was to say, if you have individual countries/states AND wider groups of people (like having Norway, Denmark, Sweden AND Vikings as all Scandinavia as PPQ does) in one case, why not do it for the whole world? So have Khmer, and other SE Asian civs, Siam, Burma, Vietnam, etc... AND Southeast Asia Civ.

Also PPQ, my comment above about what would all the different units look like wasn't an attempt at putting you or anyone off the idea (which I can see seems popular (not that the alternative was offered!)), simply me mentioning something else that would have to considered when making these civs.

Well, I'm a proponent of the one generic Scandinavian civ, so I don't think we need a Sweden, Denmark, and Finland any more than I believe we need a Siam, Burma, and Vietnam. Fortunately, the entire SE Asia region was under the control of one empire at once point, so we have a good name for it. Scandinavia was never under the prolonged control of any one nation. If Sweden had ruled most of Scandinavia for a few hundred years, then I'd say have a Swedish civ that represents all of Scandinavia, but at the time of the vikings there was not one nation that controlled the whole region.

 

[Kristian95]

Technically speaking (well actually it's factually speaking) Scandinavia was unified under Queen Margrethe I in the Kalmar Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_Union) though the union did not last hundreds of years...

 

[Duuk]

My vote:

Remove viking.

Add Denmark and Sweden.

 

[Xyth]

My opinion on the topic:

Unless playing on an Earth map or specific scenario, the entire point of Civ is an alternate history. There is nothing wrong with adding some historical accuracy but too much and it starts to feel like historic recreation.

Just because in actual history the Viking/Scandinavian peoples went on to create the nations of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, etc, doesn't mean that they should in Civ as well. I'm not super familiar with Scandinavian history but what I would ask is:

Were these national/ethnic identities well defined and differentiated prior to the Vikings becoming players in European history? If so, add them in and remove the Vikings if necessary.

Or were these national/ethnic identities defined later? In that case I personally would just leave in the Vikings (maybe renamed) unless I was making a specific map/scenario.

That's the way I like to play anyway. My country is not represented in any of the versions of Civ but I really don't mind. Cos perhaps New Zealand gets colonized by the Maya and their Malinese allies. Perhaps NZ is a giant continent where the Japanese and their mortal enemies the Celts fight over the world's only source of elephants. You get the idea

 

[702]

I think it is likely these identities likely became defined during the Viking period. Norway became a single entity during the Viking period, as did Denmark, but Sweden wasn't consolidated until after the Viking era. So a mix of both I would say, which could support an argument either way...

 

[kochman]

I dunno, I think it's OK having the Vikings as a civ. They weren't just marauders, they had a real civilization of traders, fisherman, and farmers for like 1000 years. Granted they're not around now, but neither is Sumeria.

Agreed.
They are basically the reason the UK and Ireland are full of blonds, and created the modern Russian race through extensive... uh... breeding. Not to mention the impact on France, Germany, and other places.
Vikings in!
After that, I would say modern Sweden and Denmark have both been pretty powerful at points. Modern Norway not so much really...

 

[702]

(just as a rather off topic aside, I've been reading some Richard Dawkins lately, and this all reminds me of the discontinuous mind. The Vikings start as one civ perhaps, but end up "evolving" into several, how to represent this? There would be a similar problem I feel if this thread were instead about the Celts vs. Scotland and Ireland as civs.
Some interesting comments are the two paragraphs following "The discontinuous mind is ubiquitous." (actually the whole is interesting imo but rather more off topic
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/dawkins01.htm)

 

[DrewTate]

Keep them, just add Adrian Peterson as their UU.

 

[Antilogic]

My vote:

Remove viking.

Add Denmark and Sweden.

I vote the same, although I would specifically call "Denmark" "the Danes". Under Canute the Great (or Cnut, ~11th cent. CE), the Danes controlled a relatively large amount of territory, including England, and were partly fit the role of the classic Viking raiders. The Swedes reached their zenith under Gustav II Adolf (I'm not going to reprint the Roman name) in the age of the musket.

Using two civilizations still keeps the civilization count under control, still keeps some of the classic Viking pillaging fun, while also recognizing that the entire sum of Scandinavia isn't just piracy. It's a win-win.

 

[Sian]

i would suggest taking a look at this thread which sums up the different point of views and reasonings quite well

out with Vikings ... in with Danes and Swedes (other than the last 100 or so years, Norway have 'always' been the small one, either answering to the Danish or the Swedish Royality, fact in point, the current Norwegian king's ancestor was a Danish Prince which was offered the throne when they became independent)