More Alternate Leaders?

[Zaarin]

The problem with this argument is that, as the three biggest universalist, proselytizing religions of any great success (along with, for a while, Manichaeism), the reason "we're swimming in Christians and Buddhists, and there's a lot of potential Islamic civs," is because of the previously mentioned fact of these three religions, compared to the VAST majority of other religions that exist or have existed in the world, which are usually very parochial in their world view and strongly tied to a specific region, people, and/or nation, and having a real ringer they put prospective converts through, if they take converts at all.

Well aware (and I'd love to see historically significant religions like Manichaeism, Gnosticism, and Neo-Platonism added--I have the mod that adds them, but...). Though to be fair there was a time when Zoroastrianism was well-established not just in Persia but also Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Central Asia, and none of the Late Antiquity Big Three (Christianity, Gnosticism [including Manichaeism], Neo-Platonism) were able to displace it--Zoroastrianism wouldn't be marginalized in the region until the Islamic Conquest. So yes, of course we're going to have a lot of Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic civs--those three have been far more effective at winning converts than most religions. I belong to one of them. But my point was that, where we have a choice (as we do with Persia), it is nice to be able to represent other religions. I don't think civs or leaders should necessarily be chosen because of their religion, but I think when you have an opportunity for something different...

 

[Stomper66]

1) Absolutely no satisfactory demonstration of a relationship between Eskimo-Aleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan exists. 2) The Siberian Yup'ik are backwards immigrants (i.e., they moved back across the Bering Strait from Alaska; they are not a remainder of the Eskimo-Aleut population that remained in Siberia). 3) The original homeland of the Proto-Eskimo-Aleut peoples is unknown and, barring some astonishing linguistic discovery, probably unknowable. They obviously had to pass through Kamchatka, but that doesn't make them Chukotko-Kamchatkan any more than the white population of New York is Iroquois or the Turks in Turkey are Hittite. Also, again, the Yukaghir also live in Kamchatka, but virtually all linguists agree that there is no relationship between Yukaghir and Chukotko-Kamchatkan (they were once lumped together based on geography, as Haida was with Na-Dene).

Does everyone in this thread have a major in history or something? I thought I knew a lot but compared to you guys I am such an amateur.

I agree that there are tons of Christian and Buddhist civs and hardly any Muslim ones (or Wonders) but I think we just have to be patient for Mali/ Songhai, Morocco and the Ottomans to get more diversity in the Islamic world. I am not a fan of including the Assyrians, Babylonians or Sassanians anytime soon, at least not until the Islamic civs mentioned have been included. Gilgamesh's Sumeria already represents thats region of the world well enough. And if I'm not mistaken didn't all the civs occupy the same regions and succeed each other?

When I play Persia I like to found Zoroastrianism as a religion but the historical religions mod does allow you to found Shia as well. I think this option should be in the main game though since you get to choose from 3 forms of Christianity. Why should Islam be any different?

 

[Zaarin]

Does everyone in this thread have a major in history or something?

A minor and a keen interest in my case.

I am not a fan of including the Assyrians, Babylonians or Sassanians anytime soon, at least not until the Islamic civs mentioned have been included. Gilgamesh's Sumeria already represents thats region of the world well enough.

I might be more inclined to agree (not entirely since the Ancient Near East is my biggest interest in history) if Sumeria weren't so absolutely horribly designed.

And if I'm not mistaken didn't all the civs occupy the same regions and succeed each other?

Same-ish region. Sumer was in southern Mesopotamia. Babylon was in northeastern Mesopotamia. Assyria was in northwestern Mesopotamia. Persia was in, surprise, Persia. At various times they did control each other's territory, but Babylon at any rate was at one time or another contemporary with all of them. NB we could probably fit about five European civs in that space.

When I play Persia I like to found Zoroastrianism as a religion but the historical religions mod does allow you to found Shia as well. I think this option should be in the main game though since you get to choose from 3 forms of Christianity. Why should Islam be any different?

And Buddhism and Hinduism. I suspect Christianity was split because, particularly in Civ5 where it was originally done, there were just so many Christian civs. But I do appreciate the numerous religions added by Historical Religions.

 

[Guandao]

Sumeria's design in Civ6 doesn't do that region justice. It's an Epic of Gilgamesh Civ rather than an actual Sumerian one. Even though the Babylonians and Assyrians were influenced by the earlier Sumerians, they spoke a different language from them, Akkadian (a Semitic language in contrast to the language isolate Sumerian). Sadly, the actual Sumerian language was apparently too difficult for the studio Firaxis hired to do the dialogue to pull off and they made Gilgamesh speak Old Akkadian.

 

[Patine]

A minor and a keen interest in my case.


I might be more inclined to agree (not entirely since the Ancient Near East is my biggest interest in history) if Sumeria weren't so absolutely horribly designed.


Same-ish region. Sumer was in southern Mesopotamia. Babylon was in northeastern Mesopotamia. Assyria was in northwestern Mesopotamia. Persia was in, surprise, Persia. At various times they did control each other's territory, but Babylon at any rate was at one time or another contemporary with all of them. NB we could probably fit about five European civs in that space.


And Buddhism and Hinduism. I suspect Christianity was split because, particularly in Civ5 where it was originally done, there were just so many Christian civs. But I do appreciate the numerous religions added by Historical Religions.

Sumeria's design in Civ6 doesn't do that region justice. It's an Epic of Gilgamesh Civ rather than an actual Sumerian one. Even though the Babylonians and Assyrians were influenced by the earlier Sumerians, they spoke a different language from them, Akkadian (a Semitic language in contrast to the language isolate Sumerian). Sadly, the actual Sumerian language was apparently too difficult for the studio Firaxis hired to do the dialogue to pull off and they made Gilgamesh speak Old Akkadian.

The problem with the Babylonians is actually saying they were a definite "civilization," "people," or "nation," of any real unity. From all historical accounts, they were two empires (one of which was couched as a VERY belated revival of the previous - like some of those horrid Hollywood sequels to movies made in the '60's-'80's coming out in the 21st Century ) which were just clusters of Akkadian city-states (and a broader, conquered Empire in the revival) under three foreign dynasties (the Ammonites and Kassites in the original, and the Chaldeans in the revival) that are mostly untied by their capital city, Babylon. Despite it's immense commonality in the parlance, it's very tenuous to define as a distinct civilization, people, and nation, and not a different type of political-military-religious structure, archaeologically speaking.

 

[Guandao]

The problem with the Babylonians is actually saying they were a definite "civilization," "people," or "nation," of any real unity. From all historical accounts, they were two empires (one of which was couched as a VERY belated revival of the previous - like some of those horrid Hollywood sequels to movies made in the '60's-'80's coming out in the 21st Century ) which were just clusters of Akkadian city-states (and a broader, conquered Empire in the revival) under three foreign dynasties (the Ammonites and Kassites in the original, and the Chaldeans in the revival) that are mostly untied by their capital city, Babylon. Despite it's immense commonality in the parlance, it's very tenuous to define as a distinct civilization, people, and nation, and not a different type of political-military-religious structure, archaeologically speaking.

But they've been present in the main games since the first one? The Classical Greeks weren't unified. Neither were the Maya. Same goes for the Sumerians.

 

[Patine]

But they've been present in the main games since the first one? The Classical Greeks weren't unified. Neither were the Maya. Same goes for the Sumerians.

I'm well aware. Neither were the Cree or, by all accounts, the Scythians, either. And nor were the Indians until the British artificially unified them as a foreign, colonial power - they never did fully unify under their own leaders - and even then, in 1947, Jinnah's partition plan broke off Pakistan, a not-at-all insignificant piece of India's geographic area and population. But political unity under one leadership wasn't ACTUALLY the exact point I was getting at in my last post.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I agree that there are tons of Christian and Buddhist civs and hardly any Muslim ones (or Wonders) but I think we just have to be patient for Mali/ Songhai, Morocco and the Ottomans to get more diversity in the Islamic world. I am not a fan of including the Assyrians, Babylonians or Sassanians anytime soon, at least not until the Islamic civs mentioned have been included. Gilgamesh's Sumeria already represents thats region of the world well enough. And if I'm not mistaken didn't all the civs occupy the same regions and succeed each other?

How about more Muslim and Near East Civs at the same time and maybe a Jewish one as well?

 

[Zaarin]

Sadly, the actual Sumerian language was apparently too difficult for the studio Firaxis hired to do the dialogue to pull off

Since Sumerian is well-attested, I suspect the difficulty was in finding a voice actor. Though the voice actor they found to speak Gilgamesh's Akkadian actually speaks it quite badly, even making the noobish mistake of pronouncing a Sumerogram in Sumerian. His delivery is on point, though...

The problem with the Babylonians is actually saying they were a definite "civilization," "people," or "nation," of any real unity. From all historical accounts, they were two empires (one of which was couched as a VERY belated revival of the previous - like some of those horrid Hollywood sequels to movies made in the '60's-'80's coming out in the 21st Century ) which were just clusters of Akkadian city-states (and a broader, conquered Empire in the revival) under three foreign dynasties (the Ammonites and Kassites in the original, and the Chaldeans in the revival) that are mostly untied by their capital city, Babylon. Despite it's immense commonality in the parlance, it's very tenuous to define as a distinct civilization, people, and nation, and not a different type of political-military-religious structure, archaeologically speaking.

They had a common language, a common religion, a common culture, they thought of themselves as one people, other people thought of them as one people, and they spent more time politically unified than the Greeks or Mayans. I don't see in what way the Babylonians could be argued to not be a civilization unless one confuses a civilization with a nation-state, in which case we have no civilizations before the 18th century. Also the Kassites weren't a foreign-ruled Babylonian dynasty; they were a foreign-ruled Sumerian dynasty (and may have been relatives of the Hurro-Urartians, though their language is too fragmentary to classify for certain).

But political unity under one leadership wasn't ACTUALLY the exact point I was getting at in my last post.

Then I'm not exactly sure what is? The Babylonians had a unified culture, language, and religion, so if the fact that sometimes they had disparate leadership wasn't the point...what was?

 

[Guandao]

Since Sumerian is well-attested, I suspect the difficulty was in finding a voice actor. Though the voice actor they found to speak Gilgamesh's Akkadian actually speaks it quite badly, even making the noobish mistake of pronouncing a Sumerogram in Sumerian. His delivery is on point, though...

Gilgy's voice actor is a professional Mexican voice actor. It makes sense he speaks it quite badly, I doubt he is well versed in speaking Akkadian.

 

[Patine]

Gilgy's voice actor is a professional Mexican voice actor. It makes sense he speaks it quite badly, I doubt he is well versed in speaking Akkadian.

I doubt anyone is so versed in speaking Akkadian fluently and as though a native speaker for over two millennia. Even the modern ethnic group in Northern Iraq and Northeastern Syria today called Assyrians speak Aramaic, and have at least
since the Council of Chalcedon.

Then I'm not exactly sure what is? The Babylonians had a unified culture, language, and religion, so if the fact that sometimes they had disparate leadership wasn't the point...what was?

I had just gotten up after sleeping in and a very long sleep (as a civil servant, Sunday is NEVER a work day), and I had typed that before showering or having coffee or breakfast. Forgive it's semi-incoherent rambling nature.

 

[Zaarin]

I doubt anyone is so versed in speaking Akkadian fluently and as though a native speaker for over two millennia. Even the modern ethnic group in Northern Iraq and Northeastern Syria today called Assyrians speak Aramaic, and have at least
since the Council of Chalcedon.

Longer than that. Imperial Aramaic became the court language of Assyria before the Achaemenid conquest, and eventually the Achaemenids adopted it as well. Still, barring the difficulties of an insufficient script and its having been dead for thousands of years, we do have a reasonable idea of how Akkadian was spoken: the emphatics were almost certainly ejectives as in Ethiopian Semitic and Modern South Arabian languages; most linguists now agree that the "plain sibilants" were actually affricates and the "esh" was actually a plain sibilant (so <s> /ʦ/, <š> /s/, etc.), though this isn't universally accepted; the laryngeals were probably lost under the influence of Sumerian, though the possibility remains that this is simply the deficiency of cuneiform; and something we know for certain is that Sumerograms were pronounced in Akkadian (so KI.ENGI in Gilgamesh's intro should be pronounced Šumērim). Gilgy's VA does not distinguish plain/emphatic consonants, pronounces the sibilants according to traditional reconstructions (we'll give him a pass on that one; it doesn't match with modern scholarship, but it has tradition behind it), and again pronounces Sumerograms in Sumerian. TBH it's a shame they didn't use Sumerian: it actually would have been easier for your standard Indo-European speaker to pronounce.

I had just gotten up after sleeping in and a very long sleep (as a civil servant, Sunday is NEVER a work day), and I had typed that before showering or having coffee or breakfast. Forgive it's semi-incoherent rambling nature.

No worries.

 

[Patine]

How about more Muslim and Near East Civs at the same time and maybe a Jewish one as well?

As for a Jewish ones, were you thinking Simon Maccabaeus of the Hasmonean Dynasty, Herod the Great of Herodian Judea (a very iffy one, as he was obviously a puppet or proxy ruler propped up by the Romans), Bar Kokhba (although he could be said to have a certain argument against him that has been levied against Zenobia and the Palmyrans), Solomon or his father David, who have extremely little historical contemporary attestation outside Hebrew religious scriptures, or David BEN-GURION - just to annoy @Zaarin, as we all know how much he just LOVES stacking tonnes of 20th Century leaders in there?

 

[Zaarin]

As for a Jewish ones, were you thinking Simon Maccabaeus of the Hasmonean Dynasty, Herod the Great of Herodian Judea (a very iffy one, as he was obviously a puppet or proxy ruler propped up by the Romans), Bar Kokhba (although he could be said to have a certain argument against him that has been levied against Zenobia and the Palmyrans), Solomon or his father David, who have extremely little historical contemporary attestation outside Hebrew religious scriptures, or David BEN-GURION - just to annoy @Zaarin, as we all know how much he just LOVES stacking tonnes of 20th Century leaders in there?

What about Josiah, king of Judah? He has the benefit of being praised by the Biblical chroniclers and being attested outside the Bible. Also, if the artists wanted to go for something extremely different from the other leaders, Josiah came to the throne at the age of eight. If they wanted to go with a Hasmonean and a woman to boot, there's also Salome Alexandra. There's also Athaliah if we need another "Black Queen." (IMO the best options for a female leader of Israel would be Salome Alexandra or Deborah.)

 

[Stomper66]

If the political hot potato that is modern day Israel was included, Palestine would need to be in as well of course.

 

[Zaarin]

If the political hot potato that is modern day Israel was included, Palestine would need to be in as well of course.

And the game would be banned in every country with a Muslim majority.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Does everyone in this thread have a major in history or something? I thought I knew a lot but compared to you guys I am such an amateur.

Heavens no! I prefer finding work in the field I've studied .

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

As for a Jewish ones, were you thinking Simon Maccabaeus of the Hasmonean Dynasty, Herod the Great of Herodian Judea (a very iffy one, as he was obviously a puppet or proxy ruler propped up by the Romans), Bar Kokhba (although he could be said to have a certain argument against him that has been levied against Zenobia and the Palmyrans), Solomon or his father David, who have extremely little historical contemporary attestation outside Hebrew religious scriptures, or David BEN-GURION - just to annoy @Zaarin, as we all know how much he just LOVES stacking tonnes of 20th Century leaders in there?

It honestly wouldn't matter. It's just a shame that we probably won't get them in even though we now have a religious victory and this would be a Civ perfect for it. And as for David, we could watch out for his buffed slingers.

If the political hot potato that is modern day Israel was included, Palestine would need to be in as well of course.

They wouldn't even try to do modern day Israel, and that's not what I would want either.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

Khosrow II was a typo (though not at all a bad option); I meant Khosrow I.

I see, I had wondered why you hadn't mentioned Khosrow I as a choice though Khosrow II isnt a bad choice like you said. It could've been way worse if your typo was Khosrow III!

maybe Sogdia, but a Sogdian leader would be more likely to be Buddhist).

I was thinking Sogdia could be led by Gurak who I recall being a Zoroastrian but I wouldn't mind hearing more about the Buddhist leaders and why they'd be more likely.

Does everyone in this thread have a major in history or something? I thought I knew a lot but compared to you guys I am such an amateur.

I feel the same way dude. One of the main reasons I love looking through and posting messages here is because I get to learn something new and fascinating about history! Perhaps we should eventually get a 'History Discussion' thread?!

Akhenaten doesn't sound like the worst ruler ever and I do think he'd be an interesting choice for Civ VI, but every source I see online seems to say that he was one of if not the worst. Surely there was an ancient Egyptian ruler who did way worse at some point during all those thousands of years?

I know that modern Israel would cause controversy but the Kingdom of Judea shouldn't cause any issues right? Would be nice to get a Jewish civ in the roster.

 

[Zaarin]

I was thinking Sogdia could be led by Gurak who I recall being a Zoroastrian but I wouldn't mind hearing more about the Buddhist leaders and why they'd be more likely.

That's Sogdia's biggest issue is that none of the Sogdian leaders were really all that interesting. I'm more interested in the civ itself, which is the quintessential Silk Road civilization and would fill in Central Asia nicely. I mentioned Buddhism because, while Sogdiana was multi-religious, it was a major crossroads for Near Eastern religions (Christianity [mostly the Assyrian Church of the East], Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, etc.) moving east and Far Eastern religions (chiefly Buddhism but also Hinduism and Confucianism) moving west. Early Sogdia was chiefly Zoroastrian while later Sogdia became more Buddhist and Manichaean.