If the "leaked" picture turns out to be true...

[j51]

I'm aware that there are people who find modern civs interesting, but I think they should be limited to DLC and expansions, that there overall should be fewer of them, and that Firaxis is way overdo in allowing us to exclude civs from being selected randomly (which, of course, has a lot of applications--for example, I can't remember the last time I played a game of Civ5 and Brazil was not randomly selected--I set up my last game's civs manually simply because I was sick of seeing Brazil in every game I played).

Turning off a civ is literally one of the easiest and most basic things to mod.

 

[Loaf Warden]

Firaxis is way overdo in allowing us to exclude civs from being selected randomly (which, of course, has a lot of applications--for example, I can't remember the last time I played a game of Civ5 and Brazil was not randomly selected--I set up my last game's civs manually simply because I was sick of seeing Brazil in every game I played).

This, I wholeheartedly agree with. I certainly don't object to having America and Brazil in the game, but if I'm playing as England or Portugal and I want to do a colonial thing, I don't necessary want to see them in that particular play-through. I play Civ V with the Really Advanced Setup mod specifically so I can deactivate the civs I don't want to see this time around, because A) I'm tired of seeing them every time (Hello, Kamehameha), B) I feel like playing with a theme of some kind and there are civs which don't fit with it, or C) I'm playing with a modded civ and don't want to see two different versions of France or Russia or whatever on the map at the same time. The option to deactivate specific civs from a given play-through is a feature which I think shouldn't have had to be a mod in the first place, and I would be very happy if Firaxis would implement it as an official feature.

 

[m15a]

Turning off a civ by mod is fine if you prefer to never see civ X, but if someone loads up Civ and starts to setup a game and then on a whim decides to play a certain map type that is paticularly poor for certain civs, it's too much hassle to spend 10 minutes finding an existing mod or changing an XML file and restarting the game.

 

[j51]

True. Sorry Zaarin, I was just being salty. They really should include turning off a civ as an option.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I voted Satisfied, Disappointed that some regions not represented, Some bad leader choices.

I actually considered going for Very Satisfied but the one thing that held me back was the apparent lack of representation for various corners of the world, especially no South-east Asian Civ which is an absence I will definitely feel. I feel a bit like a Bad Person for saying this but I personally wouldn't miss a Native American Civ, but I can appreciate that they should be represented. It's weird not to have Persia (assuming C5 is the Ottomans - it surely must be) or Mongolia, but I can see some of the other Civs in the list as being interesting alternatives and I'm happy to wait for Persia and Mongolia to turn up later if they're not in the base game.

While I do think it's important that Civ makes an effort to represent as wide a range of cultures as possible, my lust for variety would be sated by this combination of Civs not often seen before (Scythia! Kongo! possibly the Goths or Ghana or who knows what!) and really interesting 'big personality' leader choices (I'm still not sold on Catherine de Medici but I'm thankful they didn't go with *She Who Must Not Be Named*). But I will miss not having a Siam/Thailand/Vietnam/Khmer, and I really hope that the few leaders we haven't identified include some of the franchise favourites we're currently missing.

 

[Zaarin]

Turning off a civ is literally one of the easiest and most basic things to mod.

I play offline and mods have never worked for me offline.

 

[durfal]

I'm satisfied as a whole.
Most of the expected civs are in. I find the lack of (South-)East Asian Civs a bit surprising though. And hope to see some of them soon as dlc. I expect Korea will come sooner than later and a SE Asian one will come in the dlc or expansion without a doubt.
In the last 2 civ games there was only 1 sub Saharan African civ in vanilla so it's no surprise this happens again. And I find Kongo an excellent choice.
From a marketing point of view I understand Brazil and Poland, but I would have preferred the Inca in South America and for Poland an Asian civ in staid.
If the mystery civ between Germany and Greece ends up being the Goths before the inclusion of The Netherlands, Portugal and a Scandinavian civ I will be a bit disappointed though. Still hoping B5 is a civ for a scenario, cause there are a lot of 16th century leaders in there.
From the Leaders that are found I'm very surprised with Catherine de Medici for France.
If they want a female leader I would have go with Eleonore of Aquitaine but to be honest Louis XIV would be the best choice if they didn't want Napoleon again. I really don't like it when the give us the not so famous female leaders in staid of very famous male leaders just to have the quota of female leaders in.
The other way around I'm happy with Peter the Great, Trajan, Frederick I, Pericles and Philips II (if it is him).
I don't have that much problems with Gandhi as many others here but I wouldn't have mind if they went with Asoka this time.
Tomyris and the Scythians are a huge surprise though. I have a feeling she and Scythia as a whole come as a replacement for Persia.
The whole Isabella and Philips II thing isn't really clear to me. (one is a dlc second leader for Spain, or one is there for Scenario reasons, or 1 of the two is completely someone else but looked a lot like the picture found).

 

[Groucho Marx]

Overall satisfied but as with many here feel dissatisfied with many of the regions represented.

The Sycthians I happen to think are the most probable to replace warmongering Mongols (both largely nomadic and conquest oriented cultures) which makes they're inclusion rather logical and somewhat unsurprising.

Southeast Asian civilizations seem to be absent but they're likely to appear in early post production DLC.

Catherine Medici I find rather promiscuous in their attempt to please diversity but the period I find during her rule interesting as she was engaged in power politics with a variety of factions during the myriad of civil wars that France was engrossed in while attempting to keep the house of Valois ad the ruling noble family.

Gandhi is arbitrary but that's fine.

 

[Zaarin]

Tomyris and the Scythians are a huge surprise though. I have a feeling she and Scythia as a whole come as a replacement for Persia.

That would be rather strange. The Scythians spoke an Iranian language, but they weren't Persians. If they were going for a Persia replacement, I would expect something more along the lines of the Parthians. I would expect the Scythians to rather replace the Mongols as the representative of the Eurasian Steppe cultures.

 

[Krajzen]

That would be rather strange. The Scythians spoke an Iranian language, but they weren't Persians. If they were going for a Persia replacement, I would expect something more along the lines of the Parthians. I would expect the Scythians to rather replace the Mongols as the representative of the Eurasian Steppe cultures.

But Parthia was Persian empire.
Achemenid empire was Persian, Seleucid empire was half Persian half Greek, Parthia was Persian empire, Sassanids were Persian empire, Muslim era had Persian kingdoms, Safavid empire was Persian, Afsharid empire was Persian and modern Iran is Persian (Iran = native word for "Persia").
It's just stupid civ which makes Achaemenid dynasty = Persian civilization. Personally I hope for Persia that combines aspects of different Iranian states (like China, India etc), not just of Achaemenid dynasty.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So basically you're dismissing everyone else's bias to justify your own...? Also, your argument about similarity is simply wrong: the world is far more homogeneous now than it has been at any time in the past on account of globalization. Pick any two modern industrialized nations, and they will be more similar to each other than even two provinces in a civilization 500 years ago. Not that I'd want such a thing, but based on distinctiveness it's far more justifiable to include Medieval Bohemia, Prussia, and Austria than it would be to include the modern United States, Mexico, and Brazil--and those are some of the more distinctive modern nations that don't even speak the same languages.

Which is why, for me, Medieval and earlier nations are more interesting. The world has been growing more homogeneous since the Age of Exploration began bringing cultures closer together, and that rate has accelerated astronomically in the last 200 years. Medieval and earlier nations have much more flavor before the rise of nationalism and Western globalization.

He makes a pretty solid point: there is no rationally self-consistent criteria applied to civ selection in any previous civ title, nor is there one for the confirmed civs in civ 6. The only criteria that fits the mold is "what the developer feels like doing".

When you're stuck with that, you're going to get whatever biased representation the development team desires and theoretically any civ could make or miss "the cut", which is a moving goalpost depending on civ.

I don't like mechanics and choices made in such a way because it invites bias and mistakes. When human beings approach things in such a manner without a self-imposed check-mechanism like criteria they're doomed to make weird choices, pick irrationally, or demonstrate bias. The game is often good enough that it's a minor hit to the overall experience on average, but it's still a mistake in principle.

That remains true regardless of whether the goal is "fair representation of potential civs" or even a more cynical "civs that create the highest amount of anticipated sales". No criteria makes self-consistency and optimizing for own goal very improbable.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

What civilizations achived in real life have little to no weight in my opinion as this is a game about creating history. I think it is far more important to have a group of interesting civilizations.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What civilizations achived in real life have little to no weight in my opinion as this is a game about creating history. I think it is far more important to have a group of interesting civilizations.

Even if you want to go that route, you still need a basis for defining something as interesting. To avoid bias in implementation that holds even if you're defining what is interesting to yourself.

 

[Zaarin]

But Parthia was Persian empire.
Achemenid empire was Persian, Seleucid empire was half Persian half Greek, Parthia was Persian empire, Sassanids were Persian empire, Muslim era had Persian kingdoms, Safavid empire was Persian, Afsharid empire was Persian and modern Iran is Persian (Iran = native word for "Persia").
It's just stupid civ which makes Achaemenid dynasty = Persian civilization. Personally I hope for Persia that combines aspects of different Iranian states (like China, India etc), not just of Achaemenid dynasty.

Yes, that was the point I was making: that if they wanted a horse-centered culture as a replacement for Achaemenid or Sassanid Persia, they would go with Parthia, who were horse nomads from the north who were ultimately Persianized and became the latest Persian Empire for a time. But as opposed to the Achaemenids and Sassanids, who were settled kingdom builders, the Parthians were closer to the steppe cultures--but they were still clearly culturally Persian and were, for the most part, Zoroastrian (or else were Iranian polytheists who later adopted Zoroastrianism in the Arsacid period? I'm no expert on Parthians). The Scythians, on the other hand, were completely unrelated to the Persians except in speaking an East Iranian language (and it's worth recalling that the various languages we call "Persian" like Avestan and Farsi are all West Iranian) and were Iranian polytheists not Zoroastrians, which would make them a dubious replacement for Persia.

I too would like to see Persia represent more than just Achaemenid Persia, but I'd prefer Persia continue to represent Zoroastrian pre-Islamic Persia, since the Islamic cultures of the region are well-represented by Arabia and (usually) the Ottomans.

 

[poundjd]

I have just finished reading this entire thread, to me, it all boiled down to which mods we were going to develop/use.

Don't forget that one of CIVs best features is the ability to MOD the game.

-jeff

 

[Morningcalm]

The base game civs in the leaked list indicate a far, far too Eurocentric approach. I know Ed Beach likes the European Renaissance, but this is Civ, and he should know better. Almost half the base game civs are European. That is sad. Europe is a tiny continent in the world and the wider world has far more to offer. A lot of these civs (Poland in particular) should have been considered for expansions.

Rome
Greece
England
France
Germany
Spain
Russia
Poland

(not counting the US, Brazil even though they are Westernized nations. Afonso of Kongo may also end up being pseudo-European due to Afonso's particular history of kowtowing to the Portugese).

 

[Colmar]

I agree with everything you said, and I still can add a few more things:

-Architecture and Urbanism: the capital of Brazil (Brasilia) is an example, the captial is a planned city and munidal heritage of UNESCO because of its unique modern architecture.

-Great Artists: Oscar Niemeyer (one of the most important figures of modern architecture, and also worked in the UN building project), Paulo Coelho, Tarsila do Amaral, Candido Portinari, Anita Malfatti, Castro Alves, Machado de Assis, Jorge Amado, Oswald de Andrade, Cecilia Meireles ....

-Discoveries and inventions: Read about Santos Dumont, César Lattes, Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Vital Brazil, Oswaldo Cruz, Manuel de Abreu, Landell de Moura, Carlos Chagas...

-Extremely diverse culture: Just to name a few examples, the Brazilian city of Blumenau has one of the largest Oktoberfest of the world . The Brazilian city of Salvador is considered, according to some sources, the blackest city in the world outside Africa. Brazil has the largest colony of Japanese in the world. Still can mention the strong presence of indigenous and natives culture, especially in the north.

This doesn't add a lot though...

Planned capitals and world heritage sites number in the dozens. Hardly a reason to be in Civ. The list of people becomes extremely esoteric and unknown past Paulo Coelho. As far as "blackest city" goes, you're forgetting Port-au-Prince, Kingston, and much more of the Caribbean. Diversity and strong indigenous cultures are a hallmark of post-colonial countries. Brazil wasn't even THE regional power until the decline of Argentina somewhere around the inter-war period.

Canada has the largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany, the largest Sikh population in the West, and its capital was planned and has a World Heritage site. Indigenous art, culture, and history are quite visible in Canada. Canada is where the inventions of standard time (time zones), gas masks, insulin, Canadarm, snowmobiles, prosthetic hands, garbage bags, and poutine (!!!) were made. Canada should not be in for the same reason Brazil should not be in: being big and having some quirks is not unique or relevant. Great People, Great Works, and City States represent these civilizations well enough. Brazil has barely any "defining moments" that make it interesting compared to Carthage or Korea. Brazil has one thing that many modern-day countries don't have: 200 million people. That is the only reason Brazil will ever be included in Civ; it pulls in sales.

(and before claims of me being ignorant of Brazil: I have spent a good amount of time in the country, and I know its history pretty well. Rebellious monarch, peaceful independence, lingering slavery, mass immigration in the South, only Latin American country to go to European theatre of war, brutalist/modernist popularity, military coups, renewed prosperity, and then the loss of it. That's a brief summary; not much that stands out.)

 

[Xandinho]

Planned capitals and world heritage sites number in the dozens. Hardly a reason to be in Civ. The list of people becomes extremely esoteric and unknown past Paulo Coelho. As far as "blackest city" goes, you're forgetting Port-au-Prince, Kingston, and much more of the Caribbean. Diversity and strong indigenous cultures are a hallmark of post-colonial countries. Brazil wasn't even THE regional power until the decline of Argentina somewhere around the inter-war period.

I did not say that these points I mentioned are relevants for a country to be considered a civ, I mentioned these points because someone said in earlier comments that Brazil has a indistinct culture of European countries and that the country has no architectural feat. That is not true, the culture of Brazil is extremely mixed, so I cited the strong presence of African and Indigenous culture in the country, and the largest colony of Japanese outside Japan.... only some examples.
Regarding Salvador, the city is, according to some sources, the city with the largest number of African descendants in the world outside Africa.

Canada should not be in for the same reason Brazil should not be in: being big and having some quirks is not unique or relevant. Great People, Great Works, and City States represent these civilizations well enough.Brazil has barely any "defining moments" that make it interesting compared to Carthage or Korea.

Well, following that thought, I do not know if Zulus, Polynesia, Iroquois and Shoshone (especially the last two) would be more interesting than Brazil.

Brazil has one thing that many modern-day countries don't have: 200 million people. That is the only reason Brazil will ever be included in Civ; it pulls in sales.

I agree that there is a marketing appeal to Brazil to be in the game, but is it only that? If we follow this understanding, Indonesia should be included before Brazil, because there are more people there.
Population of a country is not a single factor that can be used to analyze the importance of a market, even Brazil with approximately 200 million people, the country is has 12th position in world's gaming revenue, Brazil is after countries with a much smaller population, such as South Korea (4th) Canada (9th) and Italy (10th), therefore, the three last countries should be included as civ before Brazil, since their games markets generate more revenues than Brazil.

Source

Anyway, I keep saying that I prefer the Incas to represent South America in the base game, but I respect the opinion of people who do not sympathize with colonial civilizations. So I believe that the solution would be to insert the option to leave some civilizations out of the game, that way if you wanted to play a scenario with only European civilizations, you could use the option to delete the Asian and African civilizations.