How diverse is civ6?

[Henri Christophe]

Like I said, I have nothing against including them even as semi-regulars or regulars. I just would like to see them matched by a few more similar...call them A-tier and B-tier nations from thecrest of the world (where S tier is the global/supraregional empires.

S-tier: global and supra regional empires. To be included no matter what (even if they're, say, a colonial nation), and origins balance doesn't matter.
A-Tier: Key regional players who were a dominant power in their region for a significant period (and who are well documented). Poland and Sweden may be here, but so are the Aztec-Inca-Maya, Mali-Songhai-Kanem-Swahili-Ethiopia, Siam and many others, including, yes, the Iroquois in North America (there aren't many A-tier North American natives, but the Kingmakers of the Northeast certainly are). Most of the major Fertile Crescent empires also qualify here. This is where Europe is overrepresented at the expanse of others.
B-tier: Other major regional power who may not quite have been dominant but still had an interesting or striking role in their regional history (and who are well documented). The Scots are here, the Gauls likely too, the Scythians, the Zulus. Also possibly some European overrepresentation at this tier, but less pronounced because few b-tier civs are in to begin.
C-tier: Overall minor but striking regional powers, who may be associated with a famous person or incident in history, but otherwise largely obscure (if well documented). Not many of those in past Civ games.
D-tier: Minor regional powers with no striking features. Likewise, and too many of them in the world to name.
E-tier: Civilizations that were never more than local players. (Olmec-Xicalanca are here, and so's Liechentstein)
F-tier: Civilizations that we're not even sure actually existed (Srivijaya, arguably Toltec)
Z-tier: Civilizations we're pretty sure never existed (Atlantis, Mu)

Not Contending Tier: Civilizations that definitely existed but of which we know next to nothing because our knowledge of them is purely from examining their material remnants, and they didn't write or we have yet to decipher their writing, and their neighbors didn't write much either. Our old friends the Olmec are here, and the Harappans, and the Minoans, the Cahokians/Mississipians, etc...(A lot of them WOULD be A-tier if they had a writing system we could decipher)

I don't exaclty like this way to divide humans by militar power, but instead we have to look for civilizations sometimes as amazing facts they achieved.
For example Haiti in this tier should be a B or even a E. But if you remmember how unique is Haiti history, the first enslaved people to be free, and still free today, they started the real abolishment movement. So Haiti deserve a S tier if we look achivments.
BUt I think the Devs thinks as you Evie, in Tiers, because just that to justify the pool of civs choicen to be in Civilization.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

I actually somewhat agree with @Henri Christophe here, but I also see the merits of @Evie's argument.

I believe there should be a synthesis of each of these arguments: tiers of achievements, and tiers of regional power.

 

[Zaarin]

But if you remmember how unique is Haiti history, the first enslaved people to be free, and still free today, they started the real abolishment movement.

Not to discount Haiti's achievement, but Quakers and Wesleyans were pushing for abolition a couple centuries before the Haitian revolution.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Not to discount Haiti's achievement, but Quakers and Wesleyans were pushing for abolition a couple centuries before the Haitian revolution.

Yeah, the Haitians were most certainly not the first to advocate the abolition of slavery, but they were the first nation to come from a slave rebellion.

 

[Henri Christophe]

but Quakers and Wesleyans were pushing for abolition a couple centuries before the Haitian revolution.

I guess if we search about anti-slavery movments we should find many people in all times, but Haiti was the first enslaved people to achieve freedom.

Palmares,for example, happens before Haiti, but survived less time than Haiti.

 

[Zaarin]

I guess if we search about anti-slavery movments we should find many people in all times, but Haiti was the first enslaved people to achieve freedom.

Indeed. Like I said, I don't mean to detract from Haiti's success at actually breaking the chains of slavery. Just pointing out that as early as the 17th century the Quakers were pointing out the incompatibility of slavery and Christianity, and a century later the Wesley brothers were outspoken against slavery from the start of the Wesleyan/Methodist movement. Both Quakers and Wesleyans were active in the Underground Railroad throughout the 19th century. (I'm from a Wesleyan background myself and very proud of my church tradition's involvement in both the abolition and women's rights movements.)

 

[Henri Christophe]

Indeed. Like I said, I don't mean to detract from Haiti's success at actually breaking the chains of slavery. Just pointing out that as early as the 17th century the Quakers were pointing out the incompatibility of slavery and Christianity, and a century later the Wesley brothers were outspoken against slavery from the start of the Wesleyan/Methodist movement. Both Quakers and Wesleyans were active in the Underground Railroad throughout the 19th century. (I'm from a Wesleyan background myself and very proud of my church tradition's involvement in both the abolition and women's rights movements.)

And that is the why north was anti-slavery in America Civil-war. I guess

 

[Zaarin]

And that is the why north was anti-slavery in America Civil-war. I guess

To some degree, yes, though both Quakers and Wesleyans were minorities in the predominantly Congregationalist and Presbyterian North, and Abraham Lincoln himself was (probably) an atheist of Baptist background (though he had ancestors who were Quakers). It's also complicated because Quakers supported abolition but, as pacifists, opposed all warfare on principle, which put them in a difficult position between their two principles (most remained pacifists, but a few put aside their pacifism and fought). I actually just finished writing a paper on the Quakers in the Civil War.

 

[Evie]

Dominance I used in a broader sense than just military. Widespread cultural, political or social impact over a region (or more) would certainly qualify as a form of dominance in my mind.

By your standard, Henri, most civilizations are S-tier in some way, at which point there's no reason to have tiers at all. While that's afair system, at the end of the day...it makes the idea of tiers pointless. And makes it hard to acknowledge that there are some civilizations that would be very hard to sell the game if you excluded them altogether, becsuse they'e the ones that shaped global history.

Now let me be clear on one thing. I do NOT think that the Civ team should just look at tiers and follow them exclusively (eg "We put all the S-tier civs in, then we put all the a tiers in, then all the B tiers".). To me, the base game, and every single expansion, should have a mix of S, A and B tier civilizations - the expected standards who will rarely if ever miss an entire game, though they may have to wait til the last DLC (S tier), the semi-regulars who can rotate in and out of a given generation based on needs (A tier) and the more off the wall suggestion that may never become series regulars or appear in more than one or two generations (or who may turn into Effing Shaka and be in every freaking game) but that add variety to the game (B tier).

What's important to me is that within A and B tier, we get a good balance of representation across the world, maybe even slighly favoring regions outside Europe (since Europe and USA take up a lot of S tier), to help diversity.

Do we have that right now? I don't think so. In A tier, we're surprisingly close (and remerging Greecedon would get us most of the rest of the way), but in B tier, we have a massive glut of Europeans/Colonials meme-civs (Scots, Gauls, Hungarians, Canadians, Gran Colombians, Australians, Georgians...), versus very few true B-tiers from the rest of the world (Cree, Mapuche, Maori, Zulu, Scythians essentialy). We need less of the former group, and more of the later.

 

[Henri Christophe]

By your standard, Henri, most civilizations are S-tier in some way

I don't think so, if we forget militar achiveaments for while, what other kind of achvieament is possible? Maybe leave humans to space. SO it give S rank to Russia, USA and China. Fight against Slavery, that give S rank to Haiti and Palmares. But, for militar achiveament I think just Mongols and British deserve S because had a very very huge empire.

But let's look others S rank as Germany and Dutch? Why they are in this tier? Just because military expansions outside Europe, that means this tier is very militaristic. I like militaristic civs but this kind of thinking bring the same Civs ever to the game.

Let's make a tier of Fun to play, in that tier Germany, Zulu and Aztecs, for me, go to S rank because I always play as war, you prefer play as cultural civ, for you should Hawaii be a S rank (the best, in my opnion, in civ5, to win as cultural game)

I really believe Vanila game can have less S tier civs and more A B tier just to be different, a guy from Germany have money to buy the expansions, he don't need to be in Vanila.

 

[Evie]

That's an,..incredibly narrow list of achievements that seems specifically tailored to your interests. Exploration (Portugal,first sailing from Europe to India and beyond, and Spain, first circumnavigation), longevity (China, managing to be a great nation in almost every single era of the game), economic (Mali, causing large deflation simply giving away so much on the Hajj), engineering (Dutch - reclaiming vast swathes of land from the sea, Inca - building a vast effective communication network across some of the world's highest mountains and roughest land without the wheel, Romans- building aqueducts and other structures some of which are still in use two thousand year later, Egypt - creating with the technology of four thousand years ago buildings that would remain the tallest in the world until nearly now), technology (Sumer - first use of writing), cultural (France - making their language the common language of diplomacy and nobility of an entire continent to the point that we name the concept of a common language "lingua franca" - the french language), philosophical (Greece. Just Greece.), diplomatic (Austria - uniting large parts of Europe through shrewd diplomacy and royal marriages, without fighting), and so forth.

If "fight against slavery" is an achievement, there's a lot that constitutes achievements (and the Ottomans should be in for military achievement for making the entirety of Europe quake in fear of them for centuries). And we shouldn't ignore military conquest. Not just, or even mainly, because of the conquest itself, but be cause of the cultural influence that result from spreading over continents from one end of the world to the other. Rome, England, France, Spain, the Portuguese and Dutch,- not to mention the Arabs - influenced the history and culture of a number of other civs (many of which are also in the game

Fun to play is a terrible idea for tier lists - because fun to play just depends on how the devs build the civilization. They could make boring cultural germany, if they wanted (and history would support it).

I'd love to have the S tier more spread out in expansions, but I'm not blind to what would happen if you did that. If you leave Germany out for a DLC and expansion, you will get your reviews destroyed by people saying you're deliberately leaving essential base game content to sell as DLC later. That's the reality of making games today. You might get away with one or two fewer S tiers (amd the weaker ones at that), but no more than that.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Korean: A/B-tier. By technical wording should be a B, but that seems unfair to them as the only reasons they never really rose to a dominant role is they were stuck next to the S-tierest of S-tier civilizations ; it's hard to be dominant anything in China's shadow. That they stood out as much as they did in that shadow

I would rank Korea higher than Japan...

 

[Evie]

In term of impact on world history that seems really hard to justify. What would your reasoning be?

 

[Kupe Navigator]

In term of impact on world history that seems really hard to justify. What would your reasoning be?

because most of Japan's culture came from Korea. Flow of East Asia came from like this China-Korea-Japan... at least till modern era ( i.e Meiji Restoration)

 

[Henri Christophe]

But this tier have a militaristic issue, as Japan conquer almost the intere pacif ocean in WW2 they got a S tier

 

[Evie]

Hmm.

Except that was Chinese influence going to Japan by way of Korea (and not always that way) more than Korean influence. Actual Korean influence on Japan did exist, but was fairly limited, and after Meiji it definitely goes the other way.

Plus... « civ X influenced civ Y so it is higher tier » is not how the proposed tier system works. That would be a very hard system to implement since influence between neighbours is usually a two way street. The proposed tier reflects overall direct influence; Japan largely had had more of that than Korea. Indirect influence (Korea influence Japan, who then influence a lot of countries, so Korea gets the credit for Japanese influence) gets far too complicated for this.

Henri - Japan’s achievement is the Meiji restoration: managing to turn a country from a colonialism victim to a world power in thirty years. There is some military element to that, but it is more social, economical and industrial.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

But this tier have a militaristic issue, as Japan conquer almost the intere pacif ocean in WW2 they got a S tier

So only S ranking countries are Russia, America, Germany and Japan?
Edit: well that's bullcrap mate.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I would rank Korea higher than Japan...

Nothing against Korea, but I don't see how you would be able to rank Korea above Japan based on global impact.

Korea definitely had more of a cultural impact earlier in the Joseon dynasty, but that only feels limited to East Asia. But it was the boom of the Meiji Restoration in the 1800s that made Japan a world superpower throughout the 20th century. To this day they are still the one of the only major players from East Asia, only second behind China.

 

[Evie]

So only S ranking countries are Russia, America, Germany and Japan?
Edit: well that's bullcrap mate.

Arabia, Rome, Persia, China, India, Macedon/Greecedon, Mongolia, France, England, Spain, Portugal and Netherlands are all listed as S tier on my list.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Arabia, Rome, Persia, China, India, Macedon/Greecedon, Mongolia, France, England, Spain, Portugal and Netherlands are all listed as S tier on my list.

not you. I was talking to @Henri Christophe