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

[fantsu]

Historical borders are difficult to pin down, not to mention the eternal question of what defines a 'civilization'

Difficult for some but not for the people.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Difficult for some but not for the people.

Try Turks. What are the Turkish/Turkic/Ottoman historical borders?

 

[Potworny]

I won't stand for the lack of representation of Antarctica!

Well, I hoped that the modern age would bring map expansion in form of exploration of the ice caps, and maybe mountains by very special units...

 

[fantsu]

Try Turks. What are the Turkish/Turkic/Ottoman historical borders?

Its quite well known fact how Turkeys borders are. Maps arent secret or anything. One important fact is also that the borders wont follow any made up tectonic plates or religious groupings.
History has a lot of unknown and even your masters cannot explain everything even they try to.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Its quite well known fact how Turkeys borders are. Maps arent secret or anything. One important fact is also that the borders wont follow any made up tectonic plates or religious groupings.
History has a lot of unknown and even your masters cannot explain everything even they try to.

You mean the modern state?

 

[fantsu]

You mean the modern state?

Yeah. Maps show the borders of Turkey quite clearly (modern state).

 

[GeneralZIft]

Well, I hoped that the modern age would bring map expansion in form of exploration of the ice caps, and maybe mountains by very special units...

You know, this makes me wish that instead of the useless ice caps we have in Civ, that we had stuff like "race to the poles" that happened in real life, or even something like cold war / late game pressure to colonise the poles for oil, it doesn't need to end in a treaty like it did in the real world.

Edit: only issue is that the map isn't spherical so it's not possible to have ice caps on the map :/

 

[Uberfrog]

I think the 7-continent model works well enough initially, but subcontinental divisions are necessary eventually. A civ game with only Western European or North African civs would obviously leave big gaps.

I think that US statistical map is closest to how I would approach choosing civs, although I’d modify it slightly from the present day borders to put Persia in West Asia and Mongolia in Central Asia. You can see that we are currently completely lacking in Middle and Southern Africa, and Eastern Europe (with the exception of the unconfirmed Russia). South America is also pretty empty for its size. I’d love to see a Caribbean civ in Civ 7.

 

[untitledjuan]

I think the 7-continent model works well enough initially, but subcontinental divisions are necessary eventually. A civ game with only Western European or North African civs would obviously leave big gaps.

I think that US statistical map is closest to how I would approach choosing civs, although I’d modify it slightly from the present day borders to put Persia in West Asia and Mongolia in Central Asia. You can see that we are currently completely lacking in Middle and Southern Africa, and Eastern Europe (with the exception of the unconfirmed Russia). South America is also pretty empty for its size. I’d love to see a Caribbean civ in Civ 7.

Having a sea-based Exploration Era Arawak, Taíno or Carib civilization would be awesome.

 

[Krikkit1]

Yeah. Maps show the borders of Turkey quite clearly (modern state).

Turkey=\=Turks

 

[UWHabs]

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

Confirmed that sub-saharan Africa is over-represented!

But yeah, if you're doing the fairly detailed breakdown, and willing to have a group that includes Canada, Brasil, and Australia together, this is actually a pretty solid way to look at the world. Obviously it's not entirely balanced, in that the Western Europe group has and pretty much always will have more entries than the Oceanic group, for example. But all in all, it seems like a solid grouping among both time and space, covering the globe.

Using the same groups, I think the leaders map like this?
Post-Colonial
-Franklin, Tubman, Lafayette
Western European (Catholic/Protestant)
-Charlemagne, Isabella, Machiavelli, Napoleon
Eastern European (Orthodox)
-
Ancient European
-Augustus
Ancient Middle Eastern
-Hatshepsut, Xerxes
Middle Eastern
-Battuta
Subsaharan African
-Amina
Native South American
-Pachacuti
Native Mesoamerican
-
Native North American
-Tecumseh
Indian
-Ashoka
East Asian
-Confucius, Himiko
Southeast Asian
-Trung Trac
Oceanic
-

The leaders definitely lean post-colonial/Western Europe. We still have a few leader spots left. Monty still would fit a bit hole. And the entire Eastern Europe/Orthodox side of things is a big hole, a return of Suleiman and his onion hat would also help balance the regions a bit more.

 

[Gorbles]

Don't forget to group by time zones.

Finally, something I'm equipped to talk about that isn't programming*.

We can trade all previous arguments for named locales vs. numeric offsets. Oh! Or which timestamp format is the greatest, and why it's always ISO-8601.

*Well, it's not directly programming. But I'm equipped to talk about it because of programming, so. Nevermind.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I personally count have a civ or a leader the same as representation. Don't need both at launch.

Or those who are Pants wearers and those doing it correctly.

 

[Inotrobot]

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?
View attachment 714602

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).
View attachment 714603

Statistical Groupings?
You could do anything here, but in this case a United Nations model for statistical analysis.
View attachment 714604

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.

View attachment 714605

Religious Groupings?
Same common issue - what time period do you choose?
View attachment 714606

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.
View attachment 714608

Cultural Area I guess? For example Civs devs seem to have settled on the belief that Egyptians(Ruling Class) in antiquity aren't "Black". However their culture is markings follow closely to the rest of Black Africa; Braids, Twists, Locs, Hair Outlining. It's also time specific. The idea of an "American" changed from antiquity to now. Where in the past, the Native Population would be the face, now it's a White Population.

 

[Ryansinbela]

I usually do it as
North America
Central America/Caribbean
South America
Subsaharan Africa
North Africa/Middle East (either seperate or grouped together)
Europe
India
Central Asia
East Asia
Southeast Asia
Oceania
I either group colonial civs with their geographic location (even though I admit this isn’t a good choice), As European, or their own things
I inspired this off of an early sheet Rac98 posted on Amplitude’s discord

I do find UntitledJuan’s interesting