India

[Henri Christophe]

Hopefully we get a Muslim civ outside of the Middle East and Africa for once.

A place I would like to see a muslim civ is Europe, maybe the best option is the Al-Andalus in nowadays Spain
They have an Umayyad caliphate and control a big part of Spain for a long time

Other option to have Muslim in Europe is the Chechen in nowadays Russia. I don' t know a good name to be it's civ leader, but I'm sure there is someone.

Back in the topic, what do you think about Rama leading a civ called Ayodhya. I like semi mythical kings and read his history in the Veda books caled Ramayana.
Will be very cool to have a blue leader as Rama in Civ 7.

 

[Yudhisthira]

A

Back in the topic, what do you think about Rama leading a civ called Ayodhya. I like semi mythical kings and read his history in the Veda books caled Ramayana.
Will be very cool to have a blue leader as Rama in Civ 7.

Let's not go in this direction please, let's try to keep it as historical as possible. Mixing religion with history won't be of any help.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

The Ramayana (of which I know the Ramkhien, the Thai version, the best) is a fantastic story. It goes like this:

Once there was a minor god, whose job it was to wash the feet of all the gods going to events in Mount Meru. This was not a good job. All of the lesser gods would kick him, mock him, etc, and treat him very badly. He went to complain to Shiva, who granted him a boon (a favor that cannot be denied). This god wanted to be immune to harm from any god. Shiva granted the boon, but Vishnu was angry with him because this could spell trouble, and so it did. This god was reborn on earth as Ravanna, a ravaging king (in Sri Lanka), who could do whatever he liked - he was too powerful for any mortal, and immune to the gods. So Vishnu himself was reborn as a human, Rama.

Rama had a beautiful wife, Sita, and Ravanna heard about her and kidnapped her, taking her to Lanka with him. Rama gathered together a band of the mightiest heroes in the land to fight Ravanna and, over a long time, defeated the demon after many adventures.

If the plot of "hero's wife is stolen, so he has to assemble a band of warriors to get her back across the sea" sounds a little familiar, it might be. The Ramayana has connections with the Iliad, at least according to some. Or it might be a coincidence. But the story is definitely a religious one. Ayodhya and Lanka are certainly real places, but the myth is deeply intertwined with the stories of gods and heroes.

Putting Rama in the game would raise a few questions:
1) Rama is a living god. Unlike Hercules, Athena, etc., people worship Rama today in India. In Thailand, the kings of the present-day Chakri dynasty are all named Rama (e.g. Rama I, Rama II, Rama III) as their title, as he is the perfect king (IN THEORY), being an incarnation of Vishnu. Putting him in the game would be like putting Jesus in the game.

2) Clearly this would be a mythic hero. That might work if we had an all-mythic leader group - we've already got Maui and Gilgamesh; this would be like including Achilles, Quetzalcoatl, Arthur, Vainamoinen, Coyote, etc. Some of these names would be most appropriate to something like Heroes & Legends, but with a focus on actual historic people, Rama might seem out of place. It might be a slightly different game, too - magic, monsters, demons, dragons, oni, tengu, yakshas, nagas, etc. Cool, and something I'd love to play, but a really different feel from what we have now, vampires and heroes and zombies aside. I love mythology, and H&L, SS, and Z allows you to dabble in myth (urban legend, ancient myth, and pop culture in the above cases), but the feel of such a game would be different.
3) To reiterate #1 - again, this is a god that people worship today. So having Rama opens the door to having the Jade Emperor, Coyote, Jesus, Ogun, et cetera. Which is cool, but seems to be a bit of a hornet's nest (I don't know about the others, but I know there are Christians on this thread - declaring war on Jesus might feel... weird, no?). A safer bet would be to go with gods that do not have worshippers today (Thor, Hercules, etc). But... again, that's a different game.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Oh wow, what a poisonous statement to make. Calling riots as pogroms & ofcourse let's not talk about the burning of train which really triggered the riots so as to call it a pogrom.
Anyway I m out of this thread. Should have known it will go along this way only.

Apologies. Edited. I didn't mean offense.

 

[Yudhisthira]

Apologies. Edited. I didn't mean offense.

Thank You Sir, & please accept my apology also if I have overreacted.
I really love your post & I am also in awe of your knowledge about myths & overall culture of Indosphere. It is that please just be little considerate sometimes with these modern events.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Noted. I was trying to convey how figures like Rama are significant to people today, and shouldn't be treated as pawns in a game. Very often in these Ideas threads we see people from distant places suggesting or commenting on figures that are incredibly significant to people elsewhere based just on internet browsing, whether that be indigenous groups or figures or religious figures of significance. In this case, I'd been reading Parvis Ghassem-Fachiandi's work recently, and so those events came to mind, but I'd done the exact same thing that I was trying to prevent people from doing here. I shouldn't have used that word.

 

[Yudhisthira]

Noted. I was trying to convey how figures like Rama are significant to people today, and shouldn't be treated as pawns in a game. Very often in these Ideas threads we see people from distant places suggesting or commenting on figures that are incredibly significant to people elsewhere based just on internet browsing, whether that be indigenous groups or figures or religious figures of significance. In this case, I'd been reading Parvis Ghassem-Fachiandi's work recently, and so those events came to mind, but I'd done the exact same thing that I was trying to prevent people from doing here. I shouldn't have used that word.

Completely agree, figures like Rama,Krishna,Muhammed, Jesus, etc hold immense importance in their respective culture & generally people are quite sensitive of their portrayal. That doesn't mean Ofcourse they are completely sacrosanct & cant be touched it just that a deeper reading is required to present them. For example many conservative Hindus do have deep suspicion & dislike for west due to -ve portrayal of hindu deities in movies like temple of doom or in some video games.

Rama might have been a real person but the fact is we don't have any historical evidence to prove his existence. Still, he continues to be very important in Indosphere both religiously & culturally & sometimes politically as well.
Anyway there isn't any dearth of rulers from real historical Indian subcontinent. But even if one want to go for legendary kings then maybe the rulers mentioned in Vedic corpus like Sudas,Divodasa are better options then say epic heroes like Rama since Rig Veda is considered more original & real in nature vis-a-vis epics like Ramayana.

 

[Krajzen]

Henri, could you please either stop posting huge images on this forum or use spoilers to contain them? To make spoilers do [ spoilers ] stuff [ /spoilers ] without spaces

Nobody else does that and it seriously makes many pages and posts unreadable when there are gigantic images of people wasting so much space, everybody can just google them, it doesn't add anything to conversation anyway. I think small images which actually carry some information (such as Umayyad Caliphate small map) are ok as they add some value while using very little space.

Regarding India, I think that the country of over two thousand years of written history doesn't need to go for religious figures instead of having political leaders be its political leaders

 

[Henri Christophe]

we've already got Maui and Gilgamesh; this would be like including Achilles, Quetzalcoatl, Arthur, Vainamoinen, Coyote, etc.

About this list, at least Quetzalcoalt was a real king of the Toltec Empire, as discussed in Americas thread. I don't mind if Arthur leads England once in this game, I'm not sure about his history is true or not. But speaking about a game civ7 can have more mithological flavour, they already put some myth Heroes and at least Oyo of Yoruba still praised (of this hero expansions of Civ6).

So having Rama opens the door to having the Jade Emperor, Coyote, Jesus, Ogun, et cetera.

I'm not sure who is this Coyote you said twice, Jesus can be leader of the Jews, but I believe the Jews can be better lead in this game by King Solomon, but the jews are so controversial because Palestine issue I don't see they come in the game.
I'm glad you remember Ogun, I see he as a potencial Unique Unit for Oyo/Yoruba civilization, maybe some spiritual hability as, when Ogun dies all other Oguns receive +10ATK

Completely agree, figures like Rama,Krishna,Muhammed, Jesus, etc hold immense importance in their respective culture & generally people are quite sensitive of their portrayal. That doesn't mean Ofcourse they are completely sacrosanct & cant be touched it just that a deeper reading is required to present them. For example many conservative Hindus do have deep suspicion & dislike for west due to -ve portrayal of hindu deities in movies like temple of doom or in some video games.

About Muhammed, there is stricte rules to use his image, it is forbiden, but that don't means we can't use his with a covered face, and maybe some fire arround the face.

But I think is better maintain the tendency as other Arabian great leaders others than Muhammed, because just have one leader covered should be weird.

And let's remember this game already used Haile Selassie as leader of Ethiopia in Civ 5, who is God to Rastafarians. That means used some God-kings as Rama not that wrong. But I think Ayodhya is not a great idea because it is just a city, it can be a city-state.

Henri, could you please either stop posting huge images on this forum or use spoilers to contain them? To make spoilers do [ spoilers ] stuff [ /spoilers ] without spaces

Nobody else does that and it seriously makes many pages and posts unreadable when there are gigantic images of people wasting so much space, everybody can just google them, it doesn't add anything to conversation anyway. I think small images which actually carry some information (such as Umayyad Caliphate small map) are ok as they add some value while using very little space.

About image issue, there is no rules about how to use it in this forum. I like to use image the most make the Aesthetic of the forum better. I recommend you all use images too.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Coyote is one of the most important deities in the Dine (Navajo) tradition. Yes, I was wondering if present-day Yoruba religion practitioners would comment on Oyo; thus far, no.

About Quetzalcoatl, he changes over time, from a culture-hero of the Toltecs (who founded the civilization after his descent from the originary lands) to the divine feathered serpent. In the former respect, he's more like Maui or Arthur. With regards to the latter, I think there's the best case for historicity, although what that would look like is questionable (e.g. a powerful leader of the Brythonic peoples, or just the myth of a powerful hero). In any case, these are figures that straddle the line between history and myth, and in both certainly enter into the realm of religion. We cannot accept everything that is said about these figures (did Maui in fact pull the Hawaiian islands up from the sea?) because different worldviews clash, but neither can we simply assert that we know better - the latter is historical colonialism and short-sightedness. Stories about long migrations through the dark, great fires or floods, or years with no summer might be metaphorical, or they might relate to historical events (think about how disastrous floods are to river-dependent agricultural cities, and you can easily see how "describe the worst time ever" becomes the description of a flood; now think about a people who live on the brink of the cold and ice, and "describe the worst time ever" becomes a year without a summer).

Halie Sessalie I is indeed a god to Rastafarians, but not to Ethiopians, and that latter context would be the most important one to take into consideration. In fact, these days he's quite a contentious figure in Ethiopia, especially to the Oromo ethnic group, on whose land Addas is founded. Given that there's a civil war there now, he'd be a controversial figure these days.

I don't foresee a time when Jesus or Muhammad is an uncontroversial pick.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Jesus can be leader of the Jews, but I believe the Jews can be better lead in this game by King Solomon, but the jews are so controversial because Palestine issue I don't see they come in the game.

Jesus doesn't really make sense as a leader in civ, disregarding him being a controversial pick, considering he wasn't necessarily interested in leading in a worldly stance. Plus I don't see him leading the Jewish/Israelite people which the majority ended up wanting to crucify him?

Muhammad on the other hand, could be a leader for the Arabs at least, though wouldn't for reasons already stated. That's also reasons why they haven't, and probably wouldn't, appear even as Great Prophets.

 

[Patine]

But speaking about a game civ7 can have more mithological flavour,

Uh, no, this could be the actual Civ7, or any official numbered Civ iteration. At BEST, it could be a segue game that is modelled on similar mechanics to an iteration of Civ, but is NOT that iteration of Civ, like Master of Magic, Colonization I and II, Alpha Centauri, or Beyond Earth - but not an actual official, numbered iteration of the game.

 

[bene_legionary]

did Maui in fact pull the Hawaiian islands up from the sea?

Because of the Polynesian expansion, Maui also 'pulled' up New Zealand's islands; the South Island is the boat he travelled in, while the North Island is the fish he pulled up with his magic hook (I don't remember the exact story). This makes it a bit... weird when multiple cultures claim the same originator. There's one mythological Chinese navigator that supposedly landed on Japan and settled it.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Jesus doesn't really make sense as a leader in civ, disregarding him being a controversial pick, considering he wasn't necessarily interested in leading in a worldly stance. Plus I don't see him leading the Jewish/Israelite people which the majority ended up wanting to crucify him?

After Gandhi leading India was a thing, I can't see why Jesus can't lead the Jews. Maybe he can be a pacifist civ as Gandhi who started to do nuke weapons in late game.
But if one day Jews become a civ, it should be lead by King Solomon, just to avoid controversia.

Uh, no, this could be the actual Civ7, or any official numbered Civ iteration. At BEST, it could be a segue game that is modelled on similar mechanics to an iteration of Civ, but is NOT that iteration of Civ, like Master of Magic, Colonization I and II, Alpha Centauri, or Beyond Earth - but not an actual official, numbered iteration of the game.

The only game I know who use mythology is Age of Mythologies. And even they don't do that very well because is most focus in Eurasian mythology.
And Civilization 6 already give a step in direction to more myths in the game with the add of heroes, what I like too much.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

After Gandhi leading India was a thing, I can't see why Jesus can't lead the Jews. Maybe he can be a pacifist civ as Gandhi who started to do nuke weapons in late game.
But if one day Jews become a civ, it should be lead by King Solomon, just to avoid controversia.

Gandhi lead a political movement in India to free themselves from the British, which is why they chose him to lead India. Jesus on the other hand wasn't leading a political movement, trying to free Jews from the Roman Empire. He was leading a religious movement which crossed political boundaries. In that sense he would make more sense as a potential Great Prophet. Of course Christianity has plenty of them to choose from without resorting to actually put him in the game.

The only game I know who use mythology is Age of Mythologies. And even they don't do that very well because is most focus in Eurasian mythology.
And Civilization 6 already give a step in direction to more myths in the game with the add of heroes, what I like too much.

And Age of Mythologies happened to be a spin-off game of the Age of Empires series. I'd love a Civ Mythology game, but it shouldn't be Civ 7, but it's own game.

 

[Henri Christophe]

And Age of Mythologies happened to be a spin-off game of the Age of Empires series. I'd love a Civ Mythology game, but it shouldn't be Civ 7, but it's own game.

If every civ game should be different of it's antecessors, I don't see any problem if mythological figures was used in Civilizations main series.
Heroes & Legends was already a step in this direction, but Civ 7 can give way more steps.
I guess was Carl Jung who said every civilization in earth have Dragon myths, if that is true just think how amazing to control a dragon to solve your borders issues in Civ7.
I know there is the Western dragons, who was very different of Chinese dragons. We also have the feathered serpent of Meso-America and the Dragon Amaru of Incas (who has a Llama head). Even Brazil have it's own dragon called Boitatá. Who is different from Guarani Dragons called Mbói Tu'ĩ.
I'm not sure if Indian mythology have dragons, but it certanly have it's own mythological creatures to replace it.

Speaking about India, and Heroes & Legends, I miss Rama as one of the heroes in this expansion. Do you think it was forgoten or have some issue with use hindus heroes in this game?

 

[Patine]

I don't see any problem if mythological figures was used in Civilizations main series.

The problem is, it obviously and firmly belongs in a spin-off and not a main iteration. Very different things are expected by the player base of both. And do you NOT consider a spin-off to be sufficient to cover such a thing, anyways?

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

If every civ game should be different of it's antecessors, I don't see any problem if mythological figures was used in Civilizations main series.
Heroes & Legends was already a step in this direction, but Civ 7 can give way more steps.
I guess was Carl Jung who said every civilization in earth have Dragon myths, if that is true just think how amazing to control a dragon to solve your borders issues in Civ7.
I know there is the Western dragons, who was very different of Chinese dragons. We also have the feathered serpent of Meso-America and the Dragon Amaru of Incas (who has a Llama head). Even Brazil have it's own dragon called Boitatá. Who is different from Guarani Dragons called Mbói Tu'ĩ.
I'm not sure if Indian mythology have dragons, but it certanly have it's own mythological creatures to replace it.

Speaking about India, and Heroes & Legends, I miss Rama as one of the heroes in this expansion. Do you think it was forgoten or have some issue with use hindus heroes in this game?

Jung is a relatively discredited philosopher, though I think he's interesting. There are indeed big scaly snakes in most mythologies - Indian myth might have its naga as a dragon-like creature.

With regards to Rama, I think - I know - that it was the concerns that Yudhisthira and I raised, about Rama being an existing, worshipped god. I would worry about a devout Hindu fan feeling badly about our portrayal.

 

[Henri Christophe]

With regards to Rama, I think - I know - that it was the concerns that Yudhisthira and I raised, about Rama being an existing, worshipped god. I would worry about a devout Hindu fan feeling badly about our portrayal.

If being a worshipped god was a problem, they shouldn't add Oya who is a worshipped god by Yoruba population in Nigeria and his descendents in Americas.
Acctually I'm a dude who worship the Orixás (as Oya) but I wasn't mad to see an Orixá in the game, by opposite of that, I was very happy to see Fireaxis remember the Orixás as one heroe.

If Rama be a problem, what do you think to use other deities as Indra? Or all should be avoid?

 

[Yudhisthira]

As others have pointed out before,deities like Rama,Krishna are extensively deified & subject to active worship in Hinduism & other Indian religions. Now to see them as playable characters fighting under the command of the player and possibly being killed and dying, might be perceived as offensive by many Hindus. Moreover depiction of Indian/Hindu culture in western media has been getting increasing & at times unfavorable attention in India. In today's time, where it is easy to manufacture outrage on SM with trolling & all, it is understandable why firaxis is careful in this regard.

Leaving that, I don't think including deities like Indra, Agni,Mitra would create any problem. Also there are many outrage free Mahabharat heroes like Arjuna,Bheem.