[R&F] Mongolia First Look

[God of Kings]

Still the number of Genghis victims is on the top of the world most deadly events list. The only challenger is the Black Death.

...which is indirectly a result of Genghis's conquests.

 

[Zaarin]

His face doesn’t bother me too much. He looks like he is still a maturing young adult, rather than a man in his 30s.

I've never seen an adolescent whose face has turned into molten plastic before maturing. Also, even taking into account that onset of puberty probably wasn't until ~16 back then, Alexander would have been quite grown up, even if his portrayal is meant to be twenty, his age when he took the throne and began his conquests.

 

[Thormodr]

...which is indirectly a result of Genghis's conquests.

Well, not really.

There are a number of theories on the subject.

Some say that when the Mongols went into modern Myanmar under Kublai Khan they brought back some unwanted visitors from the tropics. Can hardly blame Chinggis Khan for that.

Some say it was a decade of unusually warm years in Mongolia and the subsequent boom of the marmot population which is a rodent that is known to carry the bubonic plague. Can’t really blame Chinggis Khan for that.

Incidentally, I have eaten marmot in Mongolia. The head of the nomadic family I stayed with shot two big ones in my honour. They cooked it in the traditional manner of hot stones inserted into the carcass, sewed up and cooked from within. A little fatty but it didn’t taste too bad, actually. Only later did I find out that it carries the bubonic plague.

 

[Thormodr]

Still the number of Genghis victims is on the top of the world most deadly events list. The only challenger is the Black Death.

A lot of the death counts were greatly exaggerated. History was written by his enemies, by and large. Let’s just say that they had an axe to grind.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Some say it was a decade of unusually warm years in Mongolia and the subsequent boom of the marmot population which is a rodent that is known to carry the bubonic plague. Can’t really blame Chinggis Khan for that.

Very interesting. I heard that they had tracked the Bubonic bacillus to Wild Gerbils. Basically, Beware of Cute Little Furry Critters Of Any Kind...

As to the death rate from the Black Plague, if you lay it at Chingis' door, then you have to lay the Smallpox and Measles epidemics that wiped out 75 - 90% of the Native American populations at the Europeans' door as well. On a percentage of population removed basis, those plagues were much, much deadlier than anything in Asia or Europe.

As to Chingis' or the Mongols homicidal tendencies, for sheer numbers you would have to compare them to the 20th century contenders, Adolph Hitler (50 mill), Iosif Stalin (30 mill) or Mao Tse-Tung (75 mill). Except that Chingis had a form of historical excuse: Mongolia is not resource-rich, nor are the Mongolians a great mass of people: anybody not Mongolian is therefore a competitor and an enemy: if they do not become Mongolian in culture and lifestyle or support the Mongolian culture and lifestyle, then they are Impedimenta, to be removed.

With a lot less excuse, Europeans 'removed' large numbers of natives in the Americas, Caesar removed a large percentage of the population of Gaul, and so on and on and on.

'Evil', as mentioned, is subjective until You have to make the decision on how to combat dangers to your People.
Then it becomes Necessity: The Iron Law of History

 

[nzcamel]

Does he even look like Khan? He was a ruthless barbarian, and here? We get a funny guy. At least in Civ V, he looked like a real man.

Nah, I bet he was a laugh riot.

I'm with Sammy - I don't know enough about Genghis tbh, but I'd bet he was funny and charismatic.

Also, the leaders aren't mute for most of the game

Their mouths might not be, but their bodies are

Well, they could just copy and paste him from Civ V and I would be happy. He even smiled and still looked right. I think they messed him up here. Some leaders look good, others really odd. As if two different people worked on it. BTW, why did they change face of the Korean leader?

I think the 5 one just seems more "right" to you because it's the one you're familiar with. To me the 5 GK looks and moves and sounds like he's everybody's happy buddy.

VI's take seems more accurate to me. I liked him in V...but I prefer VI already.

She's close, but the overweight aspect seems to have been pushed a bit far, as with Roosevelt. I'll grant the same is true of Jayavarman.

He was too fat because that's the caricature - people complained because they didn't want a caricature. New Teddy is still too fat, but actually looks like a realistic human.

The new Teddy is a caricature. The original was massively inaccurate; given he was one of the fittest Presidents ever (prob one of the fittest leaders of State anywhere ever!) A caricature has to stay kinda close to reality and exaggerate what is - not create a whole different body.

I don't think that really had anything to do with it honestly. Between the Korea First Look video and the updated model revealed on the livestream graphic, less than a week passed. It's more likely that they simply put the First Look video together with an older iteration of Seondeok.

Why would you do that? It seems like a silly risk to me, given the size of the Korean market. I mean I don't know what the real Seondeok was supposed to look like...but I'm sure it wasn't SE Asian...

Re: Julius (whom many Civ fans do not view with the immediate ruthlessness given Genghis), he practically committed genocide upon the Gauls, as pointed out in BBC's In Our Time podcast on Julius Caesar. Yet somehow Genghis is the one seen as a monster (despite his religious, cultural, ethnic tolerance, exemption of professional lawyers, doctors and the poor from taxation, his Yassa code forbidding the selling of women or kidnapping of women, etc, requiring recognition of children born of concubines), while Julius Caesar is given more or less a free pass for his genocidal rampage against Gauls.

I think that Caeser was no worse than Genghis generally was in his treatment of the Gauls; but you're right that his image gets a free pass in regards to it when compared to Genghis.

Well, not really.

There are a number of theories on the subject.

Some say that when the Mongols went into modern Myanmar under Kublai Khan they brought back some unwanted visitors from the tropics. Can hardly blame Chinggis Khan for that.

Some say it was a decade of unusually warm years in Mongolia and the subsequent boom of the marmot population which is a rodent that is known to carry the bubonic plague. Can’t really blame Chinggis Khan for that.

Very interesting. I heard that they had tracked the Bubonic bacillus to Wild Gerbils. Basically, Beware of Cute Little Furry Critters Of Any Kind...

As to the death rate from the Black Plague, if you lay it at Changes' door, then you have to lay the Smallpox and Measles epidemics that wiped out 75 - 90% of the Native American populations at the Europeans' door as well. On a percentage of population removed basis, those plagues were much, much deadlier than anything in Asia or Europe.

As to Chingis' or the Mongols homicidal tendencies, for sheer numbers you would have to compare them to the 20th century contenders, Adolph Hitler (50 mill), Iosif Stalin (30 mill) or Mao Tse-Tung (75 mill). Except that Chingis had a form of historical excuse: Mongolia is not resource-rich, nor are the Mongolians a great mass of people: anybody not Mongolian is therefore a competitor and an enemy: if they do not become Mongolian in culture and lifestyle or support the Mongolian culture and lifestyle, then they are Impedimenta, to be removed.

With a lot less excuse, Europeans 'removed' large numbers of natives in the Americas, Caesar removed a large percentage of the population of Gaul, and so on and on and on.

'Evil', as mentioned, is subjective until You have to make the decision on how to combat dangers to your People.
Then it becomes Necessity: The Iron Law of History

I'm glad to see the level of nuance discussing history here. I don't think that Europeans (esp the Spanish) deserve a pass for how they often treated natives in the America's etc; but that the vast majority of deaths were caused by diseases that the Europeans still knew close to nothing about (and wouldn't start to get any reasonable understanding of till the 19th century) is a very important part of reasonable judgement on what went down. And that certainly happened in the old world too.

 

[God of Kings]

I'm glad to see the level of nuance discussing history here. I don't think that Europeans (esp the Spanish) deserve a pass for how they often treated natives in the America's etc; but that the vast majority of deaths were caused by diseases that the Europeans still knew close to nothing about (and wouldn't start to get any reasonable understanding of till the 19th century) is a very important part of reasonable judgement on what went down. And that certainly happened in the old world too.

There's this video as well:

 

[nzcamel]

There's this video as well:

"An unpredictable violent tank on hooves that can outrun you over the plains"

 

[Thormodr]

Very interesting. I heard that they had tracked the Bubonic bacillus to Wild Gerbils. Basically, Beware of Cute Little Furry Critters Of Any Kind...

As to the death rate from the Black Plague, if you lay it at Changes' door, then you have to lay the Smallpox and Measles epidemics that wiped out 75 - 90% of the Native American populations at the Europeans' door as well. On a percentage of population removed basis, those plagues were much, much deadlier than anything in Asia or Europe.

As to Chingis' or the Mongols homicidal tendencies, for sheer numbers you would have to compare them to the 20th century contenders, Adolph Hitler (50 mill), Iosif Stalin (30 mill) or Mao Tse-Tung (75 mill). Except that Chingis had a form of historical excuse: Mongolia is not resource-rich, nor are the Mongolians a great mass of people: anybody not Mongolian is therefore a competitor and an enemy: if they do not become Mongolian in culture and lifestyle or support the Mongolian culture and lifestyle, then they are Impedimenta, to be removed.

With a lot less excuse, Europeans 'removed' large numbers of natives in the Americas, Caesar removed a large percentage of the population of Gaul, and so on and on and on.

'Evil', as mentioned, is subjective until You have to make the decision on how to combat dangers to your People.
Then it becomes Necessity: The Iron Law of History

Good post.

Mongolia is not resource-rich, nor are the Mongolians a great mass of people: anybody not Mongolian is therefore a competitor and an enemy: if they do not become Mongolian in culture and lifestyle or support the Mongolian culture and lifestyle, then they are Impedimenta, to be removed.

Actually, the Mongols were surprisingly tolerant of other cultures and religions. As long as you submitted and didn’t rebel, that is. They didn’t just decimate other culture groups because they weren’t Mongolian. For whatever reason, Chinggis Khaan and subsequent rulers had this dream of uniting the world together.

For their day and age, they were remarkably enlightened in that aspect.

 

[darko82]

So like I said. If you objected him, you were dead. No mercy to enemies. I did not say that others were better in that respect. Cruelty was more common those days. To survive, you often had to become cruel and ruthless. His childhood had a big impact on his personality, too. My point is that animations should make more sense. They should fit a leader and be more realistic.

 

[nzcamel]

So like I said. If you objected him, you were dead. No mercy to enemies. I did not say that others were better in that respect. Cruelty was more common those days. To survive, you often had to become cruel and ruthless. His childhood had a big impact on his personality, too. My point is that animations should make more sense. They should fit a leader and be more realistic.

We communicate more with body language than with words. Most leaders in V were anything but realistic in terms of movement.

 

[darko82]

We communicate more with body language than with words. Most leaders in V were anything but realistic in terms of movement.

Because they move less in Civ V, it's less visable - not so disturbing. Simple as that. Besides, some leaders were akward looking in Civ V, too.

I just realised that it's not even about how much they move but how they move.

And don't get me wrong. I like most of them. But it seems that GK won't be my favourite. Just as Alexander, Frideric in particular.

 

[DeepKing]

It’s pointless to set the morals and actions of leaders from centuries ago against our own.

 

[nzcamel]

Because they move less in Civ V, it's less visable - not so disturbing. Simple as that. Besides, some leaders were akward looking in Civ V, too.

I just realised that it's not even about how much they move but how they move.

And don't get me wrong. I like most of them. But it seems that GK won't be my favourite. Just as Alexander, Frideric in particular.

But I want them to move - I want expressiveness from them. It won't always be realistic (leaders meeting face to face lots isn't of course), but they are there to convey thematic interactions with their Civ. I get that you might not like more animated leaders, but I'm not sure why you'd find them disturbing.

 

[darko82]

But I want them to move - I want expressiveness from them. It won't always be realistic (leaders meeting face to face lots isn't of course), but they are there to convey thematic interactions with their Civ. I get that you might not like more animated leaders, but I'm not sure why you'd find them disturbing.

I did not say that they should move less. No, I just said that they moved less in Civ V, thus you had less chance to see some odd animations.

I want them to move, too. But it's pretty important how they do it. Frideric is odd to me, for instance. And it seems that GK will be waving with his hands like a freak one - making some angry faces. Montezuma type of guy, which is not how I imagine GK.

 

[steveg700]

So like I said. If you objected him, you were dead. No mercy to enemies. I did not say that others were better in that respect. Cruelty was more common those days. To survive, you often had to become cruel and ruthless. His childhood had a big impact on his personality, too. My point is that animations should make more sense. They should fit a leader and be more realistic.

Okay, so just being fussy and splitting hairs ad nauseum about minor peeves, and folks like me have overindulged this with replies. Too many pages spent on this, too much static on the channel.

Keep this up and we might as well retitle the thread "Darko's Mongolian Beef".

 

[Jaybe]

To me, the animations are irrelevant: I keep them turned off.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I did not say that they should move less. No, I just said that they moved less in Civ V, thus you had less chance to see some odd animations.

I want them to move, too. But it's pretty important how they do it. Frideric is odd to me, for instance. And it seems that GK will be waving with his hands like a freak one - making some angry faces. Montezuma type of guy, which is not how I imagine GK.

Just to be clear, while I recognize the passion people bring to the discussion of the Leader mini-videos, they have absolutely no effect on the play of the game, and I suspect most players are like me and cut them off short after the first half-dozen times they hear/view them. In my personal view (and that's ALL it is) they are greatest waste of graphics resources in Civ VI.

If they could get the rights, the animation of Elmer Fudd in a helmet singing "Kill the Wabbit!" would make a perfectly good Declaration of War for the Mongols, be much more entertaining than any animation Firaxis could do - and have just as much to do with how the Mongolian Civ plays in the game.

 

[DeepKing]

To me, the animations are irrelevant: I keep them turned off.

Same. They’re very well made and all, but too taxing for me to use.

 

[darko82]

Okay, so just being fussy and splitting hairs ad nauseum about minor peeves, and folks like me have overindulged this with replies. Too many pages, too much static on the channel.

Keep this up and we might as we retitle the thread "Darko's Mongolian Beef".

For some people it can be minor, for others it may be significant part of the game. If there are animated leaders in the game, they should be relevant etc. And I think leaders representing particular cultures and civilisations are significant. If they are relevant, I might as well be happy with static pictures. Cheers.

And the only real thing I always split hairs about is the poor AI. But that's not something we should be talking about here.