Khmer - Antiquity Age Civilization Discussion

[anemo]

Khmer empire belongs in the exploration age probably, but Khmer civilization is way older than that. And I think that in the design of this civ, firaxis is focusing in the development of agriculture and the rapid growth of Khmer at ancient times. But ofcourse they will use some anachronisms to insert in the game Angkor Wat and thinks like that.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Yeah, I don‘t like the year count per se and would like it to disappear for good. But with the ages, one could count differently (year/turn of antiquity) altogether and forget about any references to earth time.

Similar, I don't know why they are sticking with a yearly calendar, especially since the 3-Age system is already a very generalized and fluid concept. Maybe adding an option to turn it off?

 

[The_J]

The Twitter account has a short video clip, which is not yet on youtube, therefore I cannot embedd it. It can be found here

https://twitter.com/x/status/1841146135584358527

 

[JNR13]

On identifying Ages, we sought to capture and represent general historical trends that were happening roughly around the same time period. But this isn't perfect, and one thing we didn't want to do was have the events of the Mediterranean dictate a calendar for the rest of the world. So if we were to summarize some general processes within each Age:

Antiquity is characterized by competition between states and non-state regions around them – the “blank spaces” on the map. It is a time of city-building, of universalism and expansion, where states claim a mantle of absolute authority. This is the time when states claim to represent the heavens, and that their language is the one true one.

Exploration is a time of vernacularization – when these prior empires split into fragments of the former whole, and where local innovations alter what was there before. It is a time when universal religions rise to suture this gap, but where interconnections – especially global interconnections – come to define states.

Modernity is a retrenchment of empire. Here, modern and scientific thought, bureaucracy, has replaced or fused with notions of divine right, and empires are increasingly seeking to understand, catalog, control, and apportion their subjects.

In that way, I made the pitch for the early Khmer as a better fit for Antiquity – early Khmer was continually expanding into non-state lands, the building and establishment of cities and the construction of a mandala state - a center-oriented city that sought to bring the cosmos into orbit around itself. In creating this gravitational/civilizational pull, Khmer cast itself as a universal center for civilization – something which resonates much more with Antiquity states elsewhere. In Southeast Asia, we can pretty clearly see a classical period of state formation (until 1100ish), a period of vernacular splintering and cosmopolitan early modern trade (around 1400), and the formation of modern nation-states (around 1820). Three ages - pretty nicely delineated... but the numbers here don't line up with Europe.

As this suggests, there are also excellent descendants in the region that are doing very Exploration Age related things

Sorry but to me this reads like a fancy way of saying "they were underdeveloped by a western standard view of history". And I'm not buying that this same view would be applied to civs in the Mediterranean. Both the Ancient Greeks and Phoenicians could be considered strong naval explorers held together more by culture and mythology/religious cults than empire, with signs of cosmopolitanism in their role as merchants across large areas. But nobody would get the idea to put either of them in the Exploration Age.

 

[pokiehl]

The Twitter account has a short video clip, which is not yet on youtube, therefore I cannot embedd it. It can be found here

https://twitter.com/x/status/1841146135584358527

They post these as YouTube shorts too:

 

[Nikolai II]

Thank you @Andrew Johnson [FXS] for an excellent explanation for your reasoning. As a historian myself, I approve of your reasoning.

 

[Lord Lakely]

In that way, I made the pitch for the early Khmer as a better fit for Antiquity – early Khmer was continually expanding into non-state lands, the building and establishment of cities and the construction of a mandala state - a center-oriented city that sought to bring the cosmos into orbit around itself. In creating this gravitational/civilizational pull, Khmer cast itself as a universal center for civilization – something which resonates much more with Antiquity states elsewhere. In Southeast Asia, we can pretty clearly see a classical period of state formation (until 1100ish), a period of vernacular splintering and cosmopolitan early modern trade (around 1400), and the formation of modern nation-states (around 1820). Three ages - pretty nicely delineated... but the numbers here don't line up with Europe.

That's an explanation I can buy into. There were two Khmer empires at Angkor before the big one was established, and they had similar structures, so why not treat them as the same Civ?

But I also think you'll have to admit that the options for actual antiquity South East Asia are somewhat limited due to a lack of records (I believe it's what? Nanyue, Funan and Champa? And the Cham may not respond positively to evolving into the likes of Vietnam and Siam), and it's better to put the first true superpower in the area as the first playable civilization at the start of the game, and work into the other empires from there. (since we've more or less already inferred that Majapahit Indonesia is the successor state in Exploration and they come after Khmer). The choice for Antiquity Khmer is one of pragmatic convenience, and that's fine as long as the Exploration and Modern counterparts feel like worthy successor states.

 

[The_J]

They post these as YouTube shorts too:

Ah, I had checked on youtube, but must have missed it o_O.
I embedded the clip into the OP.

 

[Leucarum]

I am very curious what this design philosophy will mean for the choices of modern era civs. Very hopeful too, without that philosophy then the natural trajectories available for a lot of non-european civ lineages would feel depressingly like "you lost" when picking your 3rd civ, and where's the alt-history fun in that!

 

[JNR13]

Modernity is a retrenchment of empire. Here, modern and scientific thought, bureaucracy, has replaced or fused with notions of divine right, and empires are increasingly seeking to understand, catalog, control, and apportion their subjects.

I know Andrew can't comment on this because it's about technically unrevealed civs, but I'm also wondering now if the Ming will actually be the modern era Chinese civ as they fit this description very well, with an exploration civ maybe like the Song that in their struggle against the Yuan dynasty with the Mongols in the game represent the splintering of former empires better.

 

[sukritact]

I know Andrew can't comment on this because it's about technically unrevealed civs, but I'm also wondering now if the Ming will actually be the modern era Chinese civ as they fit this description very well, with an exploration civ maybe like the Song that in their struggle against the Yuan dynasty with the Mongols in the game represent the splintering of former empires better.

Aren’t the Ming confirmed exploration from the Han video?

 

[timmychompchomp]

I hope there is a way to disable the automatic conversion of turns to years then… or just hide the year count. There‘s no reason for it with the ages.

No need for that. Civ is not a simulation it’s alternative history. Do you think the label of time and date was universal around the world? It wasn’t and even today, certain people groups have their own calendar. According to them it is not October 2024.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: the notion that civilizations would be divided based strictly on which years they existed in was never a sensible one. Similar historical eras happened at different time in different parts of the world, and attributing civs to eras based on local history makes much more sense than trying to have one strict calendar

I'm not sure Khmer are a good antiquity fit that way, but 400 ad is a terrible bechmark for determining that.

Precisely. There are Stages, not Ages.

Dates don't matter as much as the stage of cultural and technological development that a civilization was in.
This almost certainly indicates that there will be no Amerindian tribes in the Modern Age.
Contra my hypothesis is the inclusion of Buganda; hopefully it's the exception that proves the rule.

 

[Evie]

Historical periodicization may be an imperfect study, but it is pretty much the best way of dividing history into periods we have, and it tries to reflect actual trend or pattern that actually happened. Not arbitrary numbers.

And it is far more demeaning toward the rest of the world to try to cram everyone into whatever period was happening in Europe (ormevennuustmrandom dates) at a given point in them without regard for their own conditions and developments, than to have different dates for eaxh period for different regions, based on what the people there were actually doing rather than based on what Europe was doing. It's erasure, not respect, to have generic period that reflect no actual historical development and just enforce uniform random dates that are the same everywhere.

 

[Krikkit1]

Its kind of unusual . . . 'Expansionist' . . . but focuses on having a large capital and gets reduced happiness in all other cities?

A ton of flood based effects . . . you really need lots of floodplains.

Expansionist seems to mean any type of growth of pop or territory

 

[Siptah]

No need for that. Civ is not a simulation it’s alternative history. Do you think the label of time and date was universal around the world? It wasn’t and even today, certain people groups have their own calendar. According to them it is not October 2024.

Of course there are different calendars. But civ has one, not one for every civ. This whole calendar thing isn‘t necessary at all, it felt strange since decades. And now, with the ages, we can just count „year of the antiquity age“ or „year of the modern age“. No need for tying it to world history on earth. Especially since we’ve seen that antiquity can end way before 400 CE, but age 2 will nonetheless start at 400. This jump can be avoided by simply not transforming turns into real-world years. I really hope there is an option for it. But I’m sure there will be a mod quickly otherwise.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Precisely. There are Stages, not Ages.

Dates don't matter as much as the stage of cultural and technological development that a civilization was in.
This almost certainly indicates that there will be no Amerindian tribes in the Modern Age.
Contra my hypothesis is the inclusion of Buganda; hopefully it's the exception that proves the rule.

In an earlier video the date/turn ratio in the Antiquity Age changed from 40 years/turn to 30 years/turn before the Age was more than a third over. That leads me to suspect that there is no hard and fast years/turn ratio in the game, but a more flexible 'dating' based on a set of criteria not yet revealed.

And based on @Andrew Johnson [FXS] 's comments, the only way I could see an extreme Technology Disconnect in later Ages like the 'Modern' Amerindianian groups might be as independent Settlements or City States, not as playable Civs.

Given the inclusion of the Shawnee as Exploration Age, though, that may also mean simply that certain included Native American Civs will be 'backdated' to Exploration Age to be included. That's pure speculation at this point, since we'cve seen so little of the Exploration and Modern Age Civs and Leaders so far . . .

 

[OzzyKP]

Sorry but to me this reads like a fancy way of saying "they were underdeveloped by a western standard view of history". And I'm not buying that this same view would be applied to civs in the Mediterranean. Both the Ancient Greeks and Phoenicians could be considered strong naval explorers held together more by culture and mythology/religious cults than empire, with signs of cosmopolitanism in their role as merchants across large areas. But nobody would get the idea to put either of them in the Exploration Age.

This is precisely my read on his justification for it as well. Aztecs will no doubt be ancient as well, and Native American tribes.

Khmer being in the ancient age and the Firaxis historian's tortured justification of it has dampered my enthusiasm a notch.

 

[JNR13]

Aren’t the Ming confirmed exploration from the Han video?

It was more of a rhethorical question, pointing out that the idea of what each era means isn't applied consistently and that certain civs seem to get a pass for going agaisnt these standards while certain others don't.

Precisely. There are Stages, not Ages.

Pretty sure the game literally calls them "ages". The promo material certainly has.

Historical periodicization may be an imperfect study, but it is pretty much the best way of dividing history into periods we have, and it tries to reflect actual trend or pattern that actually happened. Not arbitrary numbers.

And it is far more demeaning toward the rest of the world to try to cram everyone into whatever period was happening in Europe (ormevennuustmrandom dates) at a given point in them without regard for their own conditions and developments, than to have different dates for eaxh period for different regions, based on what the people there were actually doing rather than based on what Europe was doing. It's erasure, not respect, to have generic period that reflect no actual historical development and just enforce uniform random dates that are the same everywhere.

Uniform dates don't have to be enforced, they are a historic fact. It's a self-made problem for the devs that they enforced everyone doing the same thing at the same time and the world progressing uniform. Just another thing where Civ and Humankind have opposed approaches, both missing the mark. In Humankind, players progress individually, yet civs are grouped into eras by calendar. In civ, players progress collectively, yet civs are grouped by their individual period.

In the end, all cultures are a product of their time. They did not do the same thing at the same time (which will still happen in Civ VII - all parts of the world will research the same techs *around* the same time thanks to collective era progress) but they all did *something* at *any* given time, possibly advancing in things not represented on the eurocentric timeline (e.g. developing intricate kinship systems, advanced language techniques, etc.) and in the end influencing one another. With the Khmer in antiquity for example, we cannot move to them from Maurya to show the history of the indianization of SEA - which could've well fit into the idea of relgion spreading as a core concept for the exploration age. In Humankind, the Zulu could fight the British. Didn't make much sense given the tech tree of that era, but it acknowledged the real history of these cultures having directly encountered one another. That's as much of a culture's history as what tools they used is.

In an earlier video the date/turn ratio in the Antiquity Age changed from 40 years/turn to 30 years/turn before the Age was more than a third over. That leads me to suspect that there is no hard and fast years/turn ratio in the game, but a more flexible 'dating' based on a set of criteria not yet revealed.

On stream, the year counter jumped to exactly 400 AD for turn 1 of the exploration age. When an age ends seems to be dynamic, but when the next one starts seems to be fixed. I guess this treshold is the max duration of the previous age, and unlocking legacy goals and with them "era progress" can move the end date of the era ahead.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Nanyue, Funan and Champa?

Nanyue is the Chinese term for Vietnam (well, northern Vietnam as well as the Hong Kong region), and Funan is a Chinese term for somewhere in mainland SE Asia (whether Champa, Khmer, or other is unclear), so these are a little complicated, as there's little to draw upon for these.

The Chams are their own thing, with a long historical trajectory, that could fit multiple places.