First Look: Macedon with Alex the Great

[MooFreaky]

Mind you, I'm guessing the Euro crisis means lots of Greek developers have gone to Take2/Firaxis since 2008 - we have Gorgo, Pericles, Cleopatra (yes, she was basically Greek!) and now Alexander!

I wish people would stop saying this. She was 250 years removed from Alexander. When your family lives in Egypt for almost 3 centuries you stop being classified as Greek. Especially as there is a lot of debate in academic circles now over if she was even white, there is evidence that she may have been dark skinned with far less Greek than the popular history implies.
Yes, the Ptolemys kept their Greek heritage but that doesn't make them Greek, especially as they took on HUGE amounts of the Egyptian culture to allow themselves to rule effectively. They are their own unique thing that is neither Greek nor native Egyptian.

The thing that makes them "Greek" is that the Ptolemys refrained from speaking local languages, as this helped keep them above and distinct from their subjects (which was as much to help with their divine image as anything else). Their customs were far more Egyptian than Greek besides that. The Romans were way more similar to "Greek" than Cleopatra.

 

[Leyrann]

So then we have Gorgo, Pericles, Cleopatra, Trajanus and now Alexander.

/troll mode

 

[Morningcalm]

#Civsowhite.

But seriously. At this rate the next expansion will be called "Non-European Nations" and come with all the civs we requested months ago.

 

[Zaarin]

I wish people would stop saying this. She was 250 years removed from Alexander. When your family lives in Egypt for almost 3 centuries you stop being classified as Greek. Especially as there is a lot of debate in academic circles now over if she was even white, there is evidence that she may have been dark skinned with far less Greek than the popular history implies.
Yes, the Ptolemys kept their Greek heritage but that doesn't make them Greek, especially as they took on HUGE amounts of the Egyptian culture to allow themselves to rule effectively. They are their own unique thing that is neither Greek nor native Egyptian.

The thing that makes them "Greek" is that the Ptolemys refrained from speaking local languages, as this helped keep them above and distinct from their subjects (which was as much to help with their divine image as anything else). Their customs were far more Egyptian than Greek besides that. The Romans were way more similar to "Greek" than Cleopatra.

I have to disagree. We have her genealogy intact, and it's 100% Greek and probably 95% Ptolemy. Obviously people are more than the sum of their genes--but the Ptolemies were ethnically Greek, culturally Greek, linguistically Greek. Sure, they did things differently in Alexandria than in Athens...but Ptolemaic culture was well within the margin of error to be called Greek with a few marginal Egyptian quirks like worshiping Serapis (Osiris...kind of) and Hermes Trismagistus (Thoth).

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

He takes good care of loosening his hair after taking off his helmet, I give him that. Still, it seems his hair was better cared for in civ V.

It makes me wonder: Did Alexander cut a way through Asia because he heard a rumour that shampoo was invented over in India?

 

[nzcamel]

trying to shut me up because i dared say the R word is not responding thoughtfully. addressing why 60% of the civs are white when whites make up less than 20% of the world's population would be thoughtful.

Disagreeing with you is not trying to shut you up. Were I to hope to shut people up, I'd report their posts. I don't.
Others who have responded have make their case in easy to understand language and have even provided external evidence! Which I think you deemed racist too lol
That makes as much sense as pondering why blacks make up 100% of the 100m Olympic final, yet are only x% of the population. i.e. When you apply it everywhere it becomes nonsensical.

so if i call a black guy the N word, he's only taking offense--i'm not giving it? come on.

What I mean by that is what person A finds utterly offensive, person B will not. Whether or not anything offends you, is down to you. You could call me all sorts of derogatory names for Europeans under the sun (which do exist), and I don't take it to heart. Someone else likely will though. The offense exists because of the different attitude in receiver.

interesting how you accuse me of sensitivity, and yet my use of that word provokes such responses from you. it's interesting to me too when white people are more upset about being called racist than about the possibility of actual racism.

Well, as I said, I'm not trying to shut you up. I'm trying to get you to see how misplaced your charge of racism is given the big picture. This is just cause and effect. You cannot make such accusations and expect everyone to just agree with you, or to be too fearful to challenge you.

I understand - and fully agree - that racism is one of the worst things in human history (maybe even the worst; after all, things like genocides are an effect of it). However, people need to be far more careful using the word. With what "racist" originally meant, I would rethink my life choices if someone called me a racist, but considering you can barely turn your rear without being called a racist these days, I'd probably just ignore it, thinking this was another person just throwing out the word racist for no other reason than to automatically be right.

This ^^^^ 1000 times over.

 

[Scaramanga]

I think there is a bias because of our cultural heritage that's centered on the Roman Empire, and everything that borrowed from it (Europe) and it borrowed from (Ancient Mid-East) gets special treatment. Everything else in the game is mostly "leaves" from this central tree.

 

[MantaRevan]

Ugh. IDK about you guys, but I'm weary of the eurocentricisim debate, both here and on Reddit.

This sort of culture war crap brings out the nastiness in a lot of people. Given enough time, Firaxis will probably fill out Civ 6's roster to be more globally balanced. Yes, it's pretty white right now, but that just means that some of the biggest contestants for expansions and DLCs will be civs from other parts of the world.

That being said, being ornery because we have an absurd overabundance of Greek leaders right now is both fair and a separate debate entirely. In the long run, if other civs like Russia, China, or England get as much development as Greece has now then we'll look back on this positively. Best cast scenario is that Greece is the guinea pig for what Firaxis plans to do to many major civs. Worst case scenario is that Firaxis totally forgets about the multiple leaders mechanic and we never see leader stacking again, leaving us with a weirdly fleshed out southern Europe.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I wish people would stop saying this. She was 250 years removed from Alexander. When your family lives in Egypt for almost 3 centuries you stop being classified as Greek. Especially as there is a lot of debate in academic circles now over if she was even white, there is evidence that she may have been dark skinned with far less Greek than the popular history implies.
Yes, the Ptolemys kept their Greek heritage but that doesn't make them Greek, especially as they took on HUGE amounts of the Egyptian culture to allow themselves to rule effectively. They are their own unique thing that is neither Greek nor native Egyptian.

The thing that makes them "Greek" is that the Ptolemys refrained from speaking local languages, as this helped keep them above and distinct from their subjects (which was as much to help with their divine image as anything else). Their customs were far more Egyptian than Greek besides that. The Romans were way more similar to "Greek" than Cleopatra.

This is just not the consensus of classicists on the subject. The Ptolemies were Greek, spoke Greek, married other Greeks (usually each other) and lived in Greek city among Greek intellectuals. Sometimes they depicted themselves in a traditionally Egyptian way in art, because they were ruling mostly Egyptians (the Persians, Romans, and Nubians all did the same thing when they had a turn ruling Egypt). But they absolutely thought of themselves as Greeks, and so did everyone else at the time. To suggest that the Romans (who, while they often admired Greek culture, believed there were sharp cultural and linguistic differences between themselves and the Greeks) are more Greek than the Ptolemies is just not accurate.

As for Cleopatra's ethnicity: it's a rather pointless debate because modern racial categories (which are social rather than scientific constructs) cannot really be applied to antiquity. Neither the Ancient Greeks nor the Ancient Egyptians can reasonably count as "white" in a modern sense. But we can reconstruct Cleopatra's family tree, and her ancestors are clearly Greeks, not Egyptians.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please get back to the topic of Macedon with Alexander as a Civilization in the game. Enough of Eurocentrism, Racism and the Genealogy of Cleopatra. These topics have been beaten to death in other threads, we have strayed way too far in this one.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[SMcM]

No Zulu?

Well Alexander didn't rule the Zulu, so that wouldn't make much sense .

I don't think Firaxis shares FYROM's pov.I believe they wanted more units and abilities to fit Alexander so they decided to take the liberty and portray Macedon as a separate civ.In every game that Alexander has been into,he leads the greek civ and in their blog page they clearly state what they believe...

You're ignoring the fact that I already acknowledged that this made sense from a game-play point of view .

I'm not going to read through this thread to see pages of people defending the decision, and I'm sure it makes sense from a game-play point of view, but it really irks me that Alexander is not another leader for Greece. It's almost like Firaxis is buying the narrative of the FYROM .

 

[SMcM]

I think that as part of this DLC Greece should be split into Sparta and Athens. Otherwise Macedon being a separate civilisation is just awkward.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Just look at it this way. DLC and expansion civs get over-powered bonuses. The longer you have to wait for your favorite civilization to appear on the roster, the more over-powered it will be.

I can't wait to see how good the Incan Civilization will be in Civ 6

 

[God of Kings]

Just look at it this way. DLC and expansion civs get over-powered bonuses. The longer you have to wait for your favorite civilization to appear on the roster, the more over-powered it will be.

I can't wait to see how good the Incan Civilization will be in Civ 6

That is no doubt an incentive to pay for DLC and expansions.

Canada, Inca, Mali/Songhai, Ethiopia, Zulu, Portugal, Netherlands, Venice,Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans, Siam/Khmer, and Vietnam would become awesome S-tier civs.

 

[Reval]

Just a thought though guys. Most of the civs that have been introduced so far have all held links to one another. England with America and Australia and now Tomyris > Cyrus/Persia > Greece

Feels like they're building doing clusters of stories with civs that all fit into that period

Had to laugh at all the whining about Macedon after the enormity of whining about Persia not being introduced when Australia was. Always something new to whine about

There's a reason why civ games are always Europe-heavy. It's where the majority of what constitutes as modern civilisation originates from

 

[The Fanatical]

I think that as part of this DLC Greece should be split into Sparta and Athens. Otherwise Macedon being a separate civilisation is just awkward.

I can't agree with you more.This is like having Phoenicia and Carthage as two seperate civilizations in the same game whereas it should be Tyre,Sidon,Carthage..etc.When the leak was revealed I believed Firaxis could do this in two different ways .

First way was to give Alexander as a third leader for Greece but give him the unique units and make him rule Macedon as a seperate civ only in that scenario with Persia(favors history).

Second way was to portray Macedon as a seperate civ entirely and they chose this simply because players will prefer another civ than a THIRD leader for greece(favors money and gameplay) and to be honest I totally get it...they gave new cool warlike abilities and units to Alexander that fit him good but what I don't like is watching some uneducated people on the social media claim that the choice was right and that ancient macedonians weren't greeks...etc

Maybe a mod can fix this and give gorgo and pericles their own city-states(civilizations).

 

[Leyrann]

I can't agree with you more.This is like having Phoenicia and Carthage as two seperate civilizations in the same game whereas it should be Tyre,Sidon,Carthage..etc.When the leak was revealed I believed Firaxis could do this in two different ways .

First way was to give Alexander as a third leader for Greece but give him the unique units and make him rule Macedon as a seperate civ only in that scenario with Persia(favors history).

Second way was to portray Macedon as a seperate civ entirely and they chose this simply because players will prefer another civ than a THIRD leader for greece(favors money and gameplay) and to be honest I totally get it...they gave new cool warlike abilities and units to Alexander that fit him good but what I don't like is watching some uneducated people on the social media claim that the choice was right and that ancient macedonians weren't greeks...etc

Maybe a mod can fix this and give gorgo and pericles their own city-states(civilizations).

About as uneducated as claming that macedonians were greeks. As 15 pages in this thread and probably some 10 pages in the DLC 04 Anticipation Thread can tell you, it's inconclusive and will most likely always remains so.

 

[The Fanatical]

About as uneducated as claming that macedonians were greeks. As 15 pages in this thread and probably some 10 pages in the DLC 04 Anticipation Thread can tell you, it's inconclusive and will most likely always remains so.

I don't think it's inconclusive and it doesn't matter what is said in those threads.What matters I believe is that most of the studies that have been made if not all suggest that they were.On the other hand there is no evidence to the contrary.

 

[DWilson]

Were the four empires that ultimately arose after his death Greek or Macedonian? If Macedonian, how far did Greece ever expand beyond their city states?

 

[Siptah]

Neither. They were Hellenistic (=/= hellenic).