Historical paths problem

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

It's probably easier seeing that from an English or British perspective because London, and many of the surrounding cities, did begin as Roman settlements. Where the possible absurdity comes in is when an Italian person sees the city of Rome, and other Roman cities, turning into Norman and British cities.

I can accept that, although it basically comes down to the question of whether there are other historical paths for Rome, right? If Florence and modern Italy are in the game, for example, is there still an issue?

 

[brick623]

This game shouldn't be designed around the history of England, which was particularly conquest driven. A more accurate in game representation in Civ VII of that country would be would be starting as Celts (Player 1), getting aqueducted by Romans (Player 2), who then collapse/withdraw about 80 turns later, resettled as Germanics (Player 1 or 3), then bulldozed by the Normans (Player 4?) (Normans themselves of Scandinavian origin), then evolving into what we think of as Britain (but also being conquered in 1688 by the Dutch -Player 5- in what totally wasn't a successful invasion... Rule Britannia). Our history is basically a monster fueled multiplayer game of civ.

What was really good news is Dennis Shirk's answer that the AI prefers the historical evolution. Next I would really like to know how cities are passed over (or not) to the new civ at the era change, and how city naming works in particular. "Rome the capital of the Normans" or "Babylon the capital of Kievan Rus" (I'm speculating) is quite jarring. I'm not sure what a good solution to this is. There's a fantastic Civ 6 mod which addresses this, but I'm not sure whether Firaxis would implement something like that.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

When creators just start changing/breaking rules when it's convenient, you get Game of Thrones season 8.

Does that mean I should like this game, since I liked Season 8?
Nah, I'll stick to GoT Season 8 over Civ 7. I don't think it was that different, though I admit I am probably in the minority.

I can accept that, although it basically comes down to the question of whether there are other historical paths for Rome, right? If Florence and modern Italy are in the game, for example, is there still an issue?

I'm sure there will be, but who knows if it's for the base game. Either way I'm not surprised about the contention based off of the initial reveals, even if Ed himself loved the idea and thought it was great. I'm sure there would be less pushback they went Anglo-Saxons>Normans>Britain's instead of trying to connect them to the Romans on the other side of Europe.

 

[Thormodr]

If you want to play from the Italian perspective then yes it's a tenuous connection. If you want to play as the English then it is a tangible connection. Most English cities were once Roman cities.
It's as much about as playing a geographical region as it about playing as an ethnic group.

For the Anatolian region, I've read that Turks are still largely descendant from Anatolian neolithic farmers. The ruling class of the Ottomans were newcomers but the broader population are not.

I suppose if you went Norway//Angles/Saxons-> Normandy -> England, I could be on board with that.

Yes, that's fair about the Italian perspective being tenuous.

-------

Replace Turks with Armenians and you'd be on to something.

Genetic evidence for an origin of the Armenians from Bronze Age mixing of multiple populations - European Journal of Human Genetics

The Armenians are a culturally isolated population who historically inhabited a region in the Near East bounded by the Mediterranean and Black seas and the Caucasus, but remain under-represented in genetic studies and have a complex history including a major geographic displacement during World...

www.nature.com

Recent studies have shown that Armenians are indigenous to the Armenian Highlands and form a distinct genetic isolate in the region.[5] Analyses of mitochondrial ancient DNA of skeletons from Armenia and Artsakh spanning 7,800 years, including DNA from Neolithic, Bronze Age, Urartian, classical and medieval Armenian skeletons,[6] have revealed that modern Armenians have the least genetic distance to them compared to neighboring peoples such as Turks and Azerbaijani Turks, but followed closely by Georgians. Armenians are also one of the genetic isolates of the Near East who share affinity with the Neolithic farmers who expanded into Europe beginning around 8,000 years ago. There are signs of considerable genetic admixture in Armenians between 3000 BC and 2000 BC but they subside to insignificant levels since 1200 BC, remaining stable until today.

Origin of the Armenians - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Krikkit1]

This game shouldn't be designed around the history of England, which was particularly conquest driven. A more accurate in game representation in Civ VII of that country would be would be starting as Celts (Player 1), getting aqueducted by Romans (Player 2), who then collapse/withdraw about 80 turns later, resettled as Germanics (Player 1 or 3), then bulldozed by the Normans (Player 4?) (Normans themselves of Scandinavian origin), then evolving into what we think of as Britain (but also being conquered in 1688 by the Dutch -Player 5- in what totally wasn't a successful invasion... Rule Britannia). Our history is basically a monster fueled multiplayer game of civ.

What was really good news is Dennis Shirk's answer that the AI prefers the historical evolution. Next I would really like to know how cities are passed over (or not) to the new civ at the era change, and how city naming works in particular. "Rome the capital of the Normans" or "Babylon the capital of Kievan Rus" (I'm speculating) is quite jarring. I'm not sure what a good solution to this is. There's a fantastic Civ 6 mod which addresses this, but I'm not sure whether Firaxis would implement something like that.

They talked about moving your capital. I imagine in the transition you get a free move of the capital and a “do you want to rename it”

So maybe Rome gets Renamed to London, or maybe Cumae does, or maybe they jeep their name as British capitals (player choice, AI should probably default change the new capital name)

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Does that mean I should like this game, since I liked Season 8?
Nah, I'll stick to GoT Season 8 over Civ 7. I don't think it was that different, though I admit I am probably in the minority.

I'm sure there will be, but who knows if it's for the base game. Either way I'm not surprised about the contention based off of the initial reveals, even if Ed himself loved the idea and thought it was great. I'm sure there would be less pushback they went Anglo-Saxons>Normans>Britain's instead of trying to connect them to the Romans on the other side of Europe.

Well perhaps. Personally I'd love them to add the Saxons, Celts, and Vikings - all with a historical path to the Normans and then Britain. But Rome works just fine too.

 

[Thormodr]

Well perhaps. Personally I'd love them to add the Saxons, Celts, and Vikings - all with a historical path to the Normans and then Britain. But Rome works just fine too.

Don't really agree about Rome but the others, bravo!

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Don't really agree about Rome but the others, bravo!

Well, you won't find me arguing that Rome is the best option, not at all, but still perfectly reasonable imo.

 

[Leyrann]

I genuinely don't understand why Roman > Norman should be considered an odd outlier?

If it was the only path for Rome, then I understand, but I really don't see any reason to believe it will be.

If it's just one of several paths for Rome, what is odd about it? Think backwards from the Modern Age. I prefer to speak about Britain because I know more about it, can anyone tell me what is odd about representing Britain with Rome > Norman > Britain? Sure, there are other ways you could do it, but this is completely fine, there is nothing odd about it as far as I can see.

Let's work back.

Great Britain -> England, Scotland.
Scotland -> Earlier forms of Scotland, Picts, eventually Celts, I guess? I hope I'm not missing anything major here, I'm not a history expert.
England -> Anglo-Saxons, Normans.
Anglo-Saxons - Celts, Saxons. Probably can't go further than that.
Normans -> Norse, Franks.
Franks -> Gauls, Romans.
(pre-post edit: wait, the Bretons should probably be somewhere in there too... this is where my history knowledge is just lacking - are they an Anglo-Saxon precursor?)

I guess that's how far back you can go. Sticking to the three ages (meaning some omissions compared to above), that would leave the theoretically 'valid' routes of ending at Great Britain as:
Celts -> Scots -> Great Britain. Note: you could argue the English are sufficiently dominant in Great Britain that this doesn't fit, but we'll be tolerant here.
Celts -> Anglo-Saxons -> English -> Great Britain, with any of these other than Anglo-Saxons being a possible omission to get to a three-step process.
Saxons -> Anglo-Saxons -> English/Great Britain, depending on which one works better.
Norse -> Normans -> English/Great Britain.
Franks -> Normans -> English/Great Britain.
Gauls -> Normans -> English/Great Britain.
Romans -> Normans -> English/Great Britain.

So yeah, there's only one way to get from Romans to Great Britain, out of at least five Antiquity sources that can get there overall (six if we count the Franks). Similarly, the Franks can go into France or Germany (through the HRE), giving Rome more paths, plus Rome could perhaps go into Castille or something and then Spain or Portugal, obviously there's the Byzantine Empire which leads into modern Greece and perhaps Russia, plus geographically the Ottoman Empire, there's the Papal States or Italic city-states ending at Italy, and I'm sure there's a bunch more options.

Rome -> Normans -> English is a valid path if you look back from England to where things began. That doesn't mean Rome has to develop in that way, nor that England has to originate from Rome. Just that they're possibilities.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Rome -> Normans -> English is a valid path if you look back from England to where things began. That doesn't mean Rome has to develop in that way, nor that England has to originate from Rome. Just that they're possibilities.

Right, that's exactly how I think about it, you just articulated it much better, thanks.

I sincerely hope that we see many of these other possibilities as the game grows.

 

[Thormodr]

Well, you won't find me arguing that Rome is the best option, not at all, but still perfectly reasonable imo.

Will agree on it not being the best option.

I still don't think it's reasonable but will concede that it is actually more reasonable than Egypt into Songhai.

Hoping for modders (as Ed Beach said) to run with it and smooth out the bumps.

 

[brick623]

They talked about moving your capital. I imagine in the transition you get a free move of the capital and a “do you want to rename it”

So maybe Rome gets Renamed to London, or maybe Cumae does, or maybe they jeep their name as British capitals (player choice, AI should probably default change the new capital name)

I'd love to see that implemented. I guess we just have to wait for more livestreams to see how it's done in Civ7

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I totally get why people don't want to see Egypt into Mongolia but some of the criticism of this just seems so weird to me.

I don't get it at all. If Ancient Egypt had spawned or expanded into the steppes and domesticated horses, it seems very reasonable to me that they could have evolved into a horse nomad society. That real-world Egypt is geographically distant from real-world Mongolia and was dominated by first Greek, then Arabic culture, says nothing about whether Civ-game Egypt will also encounter Greece or a religiously expansive Arabia or settle in terrain ill-suited for massive horse armies.

You can't explain real-world cultural evolutions without a step-by-step recreation of the conditions that led to those evolutions. If you require all of those conditions be present in the game, it's not a game, its a history book. Once you introduce gameplay, you're in the realm of alternate history, and in alternate history there's no reason an Egypt located in the middle of a large plains with early access to domesticated horses couldn't have become steppe warriors.

Maybe it's not a game you want to play, maybe the dev team has come up with a dud that no one will enjoy playing. But honestly, complaining that this game will suck because the player will have the chance to evolve Egypt into Mongolia is a strange thing to assert when we've seen next-to-nothing about how the game will play.

 

[Kev1916]

I genuinely don't understand why Roman > Norman should be considered an odd outlier?

If it was the only path for Rome, then I understand, but I really don't see any reason to believe it will be.

If it's just one of several paths for Rome, what is odd about it? Think backwards from the Modern Age. I prefer to speak about Britain because I know more about it, can anyone tell me what is odd about representing Britain with Rome > Norman > Britain? Sure, there are other ways you could do it, but this is completely fine, there is nothing odd about it as far as I can see.

Im pretty sure your serious ? but again this is a good example of perhaps civ 7 ( I think they will get it right and put England in and not britain ) and your own ignorance like btw both the Romans and Normans never conquered Scotland so yea its odd to say the very least ...
And lol Normans left England in about 1200 britain was form in 1800, and Scotland was in the auld alliance with our friends the French for 100's o years
(btw - The original alliance between Scotalnd and France that granted dual citizenship in both countries was eventually revoked by the French government in 1903.)

Civ is a game but people really shouldn't put there own narrow view on history to try fit a major change
And ofc it's fine it's fantasy , Civkind should just go the whole hog and bring in elves and dwarves be a pretty good game Erbus rocked.
lol if going by the new civkind ages England shouldnae even be in it , think about it
Ancients Celts then britian then uk - no England lol

Anyway from your further posts Im out England = Britain , when you mean your history you mean English and the rest dont count thou tbf the English are the most inward-looking Civ in the world - Enjoy your night

 

[aieeegrunt]

"rule-breaking"

What rules are being broken, exactly?

Good taste and writing?

Disney Star Wars is incredibly uneven. Andor and the first season of Mandalorian was incredible. Book of Bobba Fett was awful trash. The “main” movies were also awful. Rogue One was pretty good.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Back to Civ please.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I don't get it at all. If Ancient Egypt had spawned or expanded into the steppes and domesticated horses, it seems very reasonable to me that they could have evolved into a horse nomad society. That real-world Egypt is geographically distant from real-world Mongolia and was dominated by first Greek, then Arabic culture, says nothing about whether Civ-game Egypt will also encounter Greece or a religiously expansive Arabia or settle in terrain ill-suited for massive horse armies.

You can't explain real-world cultural evolutions without a step-by-step recreation of the conditions that led to those evolutions. If you require all of those conditions be present in the game, it's not a game, its a history book. Once you introduce gameplay, you're in the realm of alternate history, and in alternate history there's no reason an Egypt located in the middle of a large plains with early access to domesticated horses couldn't have become steppe warriors.

Maybe it's not a game you want to play, maybe the dev team has come up with a dud that no one will enjoy playing. But honestly, complaining that this game will suck because the player will have the chance to evolve Egypt into Mongolia is a strange thing to assert when we've seen next-to-nothing about how the game will play.

The idea of change civs is OK, even civs that are not historically realted are perfectly fine. The later would be even more usefull for more interesting gameplay and like you said in our random generated match's world would make sense to have our own narrative development.
Still what we know about CIV7 system feel like something that could have been better in both gemeplay and narrative terms. For example:
* Independent People and Crises at ending era could be used to justifity the origin of the new Mongol elite for your Egyptian population. There are even crisis option related to Barbarians and Mercenaries, so why not make them the trigger to explain the Mongol change?
You could either get access to certain civ from the Independent Peoples anexed, and some of these could come from your decision to accept them as mercenaries or refugees. These would be way more immersive and interesting that "get three horses".
* Mongolia itself is not the problem but why Mongols when Arabs, Berbers and Turks also are famous horse riders more related to Egypt?
* The change of name, architecture and units style as seems to be for CIV7 is something that do not fit the idea of a kind of "friendly" transition. For example keep your middle eastern style for buildings and most units (beyond the Mongol uniques) with a name like Khanate of Egypt would feel way more natural and immersive.

 

[notNamed]

* Mongolia itself is not the problem but why Mongols when Arabs, Berbers and Turks also are famous horse riders more related to Egypt?

Mongols have absolutely no relation to Egypt in the game. It's a conditioned path available to EVERY Ancient civilisation.
Chinese with 3 horses can become Mongols.
Maya with 3 horses can become Mongols.
Romans with 3 horses can become Mongols.
Et cetera.

 

[Thormodr]

Mongols have absolutely no relation to Egypt in the game. It's a conditioned path available to EVERY Ancient civilisation.
Chinese with 3 horses can become Mongols.
Maya with 3 horses can become Mongols.
Romans with 3 horses can become Mongols.
Et cetera.

The great Mongolia has been reduced to anyone with a bunch of horses could have been them, yeah.

 

[Krikkit1]

The great Mongolia has been reduced to anyone with a bunch of horses could have been them, yeah. .

And anyone near enough mountains could be Inca, and probably anyone occupying multiple islands could be polynesia,
and possibly anyone with 4 settlements on the new world can become America,
or anyone in complete control of a landmass could become Japan Age2
Or anyone who lost their capital in the crisis can become the Byzantines
Or conquering/annexing 4+ Independent peoples unlocks Germany
….. etc.