Measuring representation in the civ and leader rosters (you're probably wrong)

thecrazyscot

Spiffy
Joined
Dec 27, 2012
Messages
2,916
There's always complaints about over and under representation in the civ and leader roster.

So, how do you group things? Several options below.

How do you handle leaders and civs which can represent multiple areas? Multiple civilizations and leaders can accurately be claimed to represent several different geographical areas at once, depending on what point in time you arbitrarily choose. Lafayette? Easily represents (North) America and Europe. Abbasids? Africa (North) and Asia (Middle East). Rome? Europe, Asia, Africa. Spain/Isabella? Europe and (Central/South) America. Yeah, large empires make it even messier.

However you do it, you're probably doing it wrong ;)

All maps from Wikipedia.

Continents?
The default! But how many? 4? 5? 6? 7?
Continental_models-Australia.gif


Tectonic Plates?
Or what about tectonic plates? This includes subcontinental divisions. By this method "America" might be considered a single continent with multiple subcontinents (2 or 3, depending on your method).
Screenshot 2025-01-09 at 15-49-27 .png


Statistical Groupings?
You could do anything here, but in this case a United Nations model for statistical analysis.
United_Nations_geographical_subregions.png


Linguistic Families?
From what point in time? What linguistic families are present in a certain location depends on who lives there, which changes due to population movements and political boundaries.

Primary_Human_Languages_Improved_Version.png


Religious Groupings?
Same common issue - what time period do you choose?
Screenshot 2025-01-09 at 16-14-18 .png


Cultural Area?
From what time period? And defined by whom? This picture was arbitrarily picked from Wikipedia and can't be claimed to be objectively correct.
Kulturareale.png
 
Wow, this is some amazing thinking by you. I need some time to take it all in; I used to always just think continents or parts of continents...
 
I went into this deep in some other thread a year or two ago. I'll elaborate later when I have the time, but for me it's primarily based on arbitrary geographical locations, each weighted according to their ethnolinguistic diversity
 
I resent the insinuation that I'm probably wrong.

I'm certainly wrong!

Continents. Seven of them.
 
Continents. Seven of them.
I won't stand for the lack of representation of Antarctica! We need Emperor Penguin leading the Penguin civ yesterday!
 
I won't stand for the lack of representation of Antarctica!
Jean-Baptiste-Étienne-Auguste Charcot

I won't pretend that I knew him. I Googled, "French explorers of Antarctica." But does this man not have the Frenchiest name evah?
 
Last edited:
I do statistical groupings I guess. By time period on top of that. But I also don't care who they put in the game for the most part. I want to see new faces in each iteration on launch and some old faces. Especially now that they do a seriously ridiculous amount of DLC packs. You can just pick the ones you want/don't want. It is a shame, IMO that this is where things have lead us, but here we are. If this is the model, there is no reason to not include as many as possible. People clearly buy the crap out of it.
 
I do 7 continents during the base game and I go more region based as the roster expands, like 25% of the civs being from Asia is good when the roster is small but it would suck if by the time all the DLC's dropped if the majority of the civs represented were all from East Asia. This game of all others is the most important for this as an issue because it depends so much on having a historical path for each civ and in a lot of cases sharing a continent won't cut it for a realistic enough progression between civs, look at the backlash when Egypt's original path was listed as Songhai
 
My internal classification could seem rather arbitrary, but it is the way I try to organise it. I will list the groups and, as an example, the way in which I would group the civilizations that we know of for Civ 7:

Confirmed in Civ 7
Appeared in previous games
Wishlist

Post-Colonial
-Civs: America, Mexico, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Haiti

Western European (Catholic/Protestant)
-Civs: Normandy, Spain, France, Netherlands, England, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Venice, Holy Roman Empire, Italy, Castile, Bavaria

Eastern European (Orthodox)
-Civs: Byzantium, Georgia, Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia

Ancient European
-Civs: Greece, Rome, Gaul, Macedon, Scythia, Celts, Huns, Viking, Gothic, Etruscan

Ancient Middle Eastern
-Civs: Egypt, Persia, Babylon, Nubia, Phoenicia, Sumer, Assyria, Carthage, Hittite

Middle Eastern
-Civs: Abbasid, Arabia, Ottoman, Morocco, Oman, Safavid, Turkey, Modern Egypt

Subsaharan African
-Civs: Aksum, Songhai, Buganda, Ethiopia, Kongo, Mali, Zulu, Ashanti, Hausa, Kanem-Bornu, Swahili, Mutapa, Madagascar

Native South American
-Civs: Inca, Mapuche, Muisca, Arawak, Taíno, Tupi, Carib, Cañari, Chimú

Native Mesoamerican
-Civs: Maya, Aztec, Olmec, Zapotec

Native North American
-Civs: Mississippi, Shawnee, Cree, Iroquois, Shoshone, Cherokee, Apache, Inuit, Abenaki, Navajo, Hopi, Seminole, Powhatan

Indian
-Civs: Maurya, Chola, Mughal, India

East Asian
-Civs: Han, Ming, Mongolia, Qing, China, Japan, Korea

Southeast Asian
-Civs: Khmer, Majapahit, Indonesia, Vietnam, Siam, Burma

Oceanic
-Civs: Hawai'i, Māori, Polynesia, Tonga, Fiji
 
Last edited:
My internal classification could seem rather arbitrary, but it is the way I try to organise it. I will list the groups and, as an example, the way in which I would group the civilizations that we know of for Civ 7:
This is how i'd do it. I'd probably keep europe divided regardless of era though. Also I'd make mexico fit both the colonial and mesoamerican role given that unlike the US it has a substantial indigenous population and has had indigenous leaders.
 
Historical borders of Civilizations and leaders that led those civs?
As far as I know, no civilizations followed tectonic plates or such, if those are even real?
 
Back
Top Bottom