New BNW FAQ!

[Gedemo]

Sorry but everybody here forget that in civ IV, we had Charlemagne and the HRE...

As byzantium and the ottoman empire, they are able to ignore the overlap with germany . It could also maybe explain the "motte and bayley" graphical hint on the poster.

 

[SnowKomodo]

I think the ITR UA segment could easily be a new puppy for Indonesia.

Ruff ruff. You're right, but I've adopted this "100% not in until it's in" mindset just because of the history of them not being in

 

[Crodface]

But Rome and Italy are the same thing -- in GAMEPLAY terms. Sorry real-life Italians, I'm not at all bashing or diminishing your beautiful nation or culture. What I'm saying is, the distinctions you're drawing really come down to time-frame, i.e. whether we're talking about people on the Italian peninsula 2k yr ago, or their direct descendants on the same peninsula today, who btw embrace Roman culture as a proud (if distant) part of their history. These time-frame distinctions bug me if it means including a "redundant" civ at the expense of some other. So the Romans get Rome and the Italians get Roma? Weak.

But I'm repeating myself from another thread. My rancor aside, Italy not only seems to fit the clues it also strikes me as a civ that would work great with the new features. And though I may wish for other choices, it would qualify as a "fan favorite."

The one "clue" that speaks against Italy (as already pointed out) is the fact that it's named in the achievement list. That's not conclusive either way, but seems pretty loose-lipped to me if it's a full-on civ.

btw the fan-favorite comment to me reads as Sioux. Just my gut.

OK, Italy supporters... go gentle!

Rome and Italy are very different, in real life terms and gameplay terms. Rome was conquest, war, and expansion. Italy would be culture and trade.

And as far as city names go, Rome gets things like Rome, Antium, Cumae. Italy would be Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Milan.

 

[sanpavlos]

And there IS a western bias... They are very nitpick about having every single European nation pretty much differenced (perhaps with the exception of the Greeks), but then they group other civilizations like India (joined with Mughal's), the Inca (founding Tiwanaku), Polynesia, Siam (with a Khmer head on the background)... At least this time they didn't do a "Native American Empire"... Just count how many civs Europe's got in each iteration in comparison of other regions....

^^^Pretty much agree completely. Would also add that they sure represent the fertile crescent pretty thoroughly -- which suits me fine since I love the ancient civs, but that's personal taste. In fact, I'd be happy with a few more: Give me Minoa & Israel/Hebrews/Judea please!

If they add Italy, then they should load up on Mycenae, Sumeria, Hittites, Ionians, Scythia and Turkey -- because clearly redundancy is not an issue.

 

[sanpavlos]

Rome and Italy are very different, in real life terms and gameplay terms. Rome was conquest, war, and expansion. Italy would be culture and trade.

Right you are, I don't disagree. To clarify, by gameplay I meant more conceptually (so maybe I should have chosen a different term). The guiding concept is to take a people from ancient to modern times, and along the way rewrite history. If Rome and Italy are in the same game session it feels like a bit of a cheat because they didn't coexist, one is the continuation of the other.

It's an aesthetic thing, I guess. It bugs me, but hey, I won't be crying in my beer over it.

 

[Pedro P]

Are they more or less different than ancient India and modern India? Or ancient China and modern China?

Surely more different than America and England or Greece and Byzantium.

And if we use India and China as example, yes Italy is not that different to Rome on that way, but so are France, Spain and Portugal. (I'm forcing myself to include the least countries possible here) And you can't possibly think that it would be ok to leave France out because of Rome right? The Franks are Franks not Latins. Yet you come here and say that Lombards and such are the same thing as Latins. No they are not. Italy naysayers have a thousand of good arguments against Italy, saying that Italians are Romans is not one of them.

 

[Zigzagzigal]

Sorry but everybody here forget that in civ IV, we had Charlemagne and the HRE...

Landsknecht are the HRE unique unit in Civ 4, while they're a German unique unit in Civ 5. I expect Germany "represents" the HRE in Civ 5 similar to how Denmark covers Norway, Sweden covers Finland, Siam covers the Khmer and the Songhai cover Mali.

 

[Fabiano79]

Another european civ...ok, besides the polemic Italy, which powers are still out of the game?

Scotland? Switzerland? Finland? HRE? Some kind of Balkan civ?

 

[JSMCAG]

There have been suggestions for Hungary as well, and sometimes Venice is chosen instead of Italy, but besides those it gets hard to choose a good civilization - Europe is getting kinda crowded...

Also:

Do you mean Europe, the Eurasian landmass, or culturally European but located elsewhere?

Am I the only one crazy enough to believe this is a clue? So Europe would be Italy/Venice, the Eurasian landmass would be Vietnam/Indonesia, and what about that last one? Is America and Brazil considered "culturally European but located elsewhere"? In such case... Gran Colombia? Mexico? I'm not seeing much more than that (with Argentina, Australia and Canada out and all)...

 

[Pikachao]

well I'm going to jump on the "take a minor thing and make it big thing" and point out that Gucumatz's attempt to settle th pueblo buisness went unanswered, even though it was like the third question, so I'm sticking to my sinking ship and hoping for the pueblo from this.

I'm surprised more people haven't tried to finish the UA hint yet, personally, I think, if it's for indonesia, it could be along the lines of getting more *something* for every trade route another civ is engaging with you. That'd bring the whole "all o' europe wants to trade with me" for indonesia into play.

 

[Liex]

Q: What is the name of a Unique Ability found in the next civ you want to reveal?
A: Sorry, we can’t reveal that. However a snippet of the text string describing the Unique Ability can be shared. That is: ‘… for each International Trade Route with …’

...with city-states, perhaps?

Q: Is one of the not yet revealed civs from Europe?

A: Do you mean Europe, the Eurasian landmass, or culturally European but located elsewhere? But seriously, the answer is yes. We have a European Civ coming still.

Argentina, for sure.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Another european civ...ok, besides the polemic Italy, which powers are still out of the game?

Scotland? Switzerland? Finland? HRE? Some kind of Balkan civ?

Neither
The obvious answer is Hungary

 

[PhilBowles]

While I also do not want italy, and would much rather have morocoo and indonesia, couldn't indonesia simply be named majapahit?

It wouldn't affect anything. There are two slots between Brazil and Poland, one of which is almost certainly Morocco. Italy, Majapahit and Indonesia could all be the missing names, but changing Indonesia to Majapahit wouldn't free up an Italy slot.

I personally think (and hope) that the European civ is Hungary-Sophia replaces Budapest as a CS. I do not think Italy will be included, they would not have revealed the Italy achievement in the new achievements if it was a new civ. Similar to how an accomplishment related to "Belgium" was revealed n relationship with scramble to Africa even though we know Belgium is not an official civ.

I'm increasingly inclined to think Italy is a red herring, but there's a slight difference between these two situations. Belgium is already ruled out by the alphabetical order, so revealing a scenario-specific Belgium achievement doesn't rule out anything that wasn't already ruled out. Italy remains a possibility, however, and the wording of its achievement can be taken either way. It's one of only two civs which has an achievement (other than winning) listed for the Scramble which reads "In the Scramble for Africa scenario..."

The only other civ that uses this wording for that scenario is England, which is also the only (known) main-game civ which has a Scramble-specific achievement (again, other than "win the scenario"). It could be read as "in the scenario, do X" because otherwise it could be confused with "in the main game, do X", and this confusion would only arise with civs that are found in both the scenario and the main game. This seems unlikely, however (at least with that motivation) because neither achievement can be completed outside the scenario (Cairo isn't in any main game city list, and you don't get victory points for discovering natural wonders - or indeed anything else - in the main game).

On the other hand, this kind of wording has been used inconsistently in the past (for instance, in the G&K and New World scenarios this wording was used for both main game and scenario-specific civs, while in the 1066 and Korea scenarios the scenario name is not mentioned in the achievement text for any civ).

At the same time, they did use the name Siam for the other SE Asian civ, but Siam is really easy and accessible for pretty much everyone. So it's possible. Just don't bank on it

This is actually an example of choosing a name for familiarity. Siam is well known in popular culture as "the name for historical Thailand" if only because of The King and I and such terms as Siamese cats and Siamese twins. The Siamese civ, however, does not represent historical Siam but the Sukothai Kingdom, an earlier and separate entity ultimately conquered by the Siamese.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Neither
The obvious answer is Hungary

Venice still could be in... and I think we saw Budapest as a City State no?

 

[Buccaneer]

Why is that obvious? I think it's one of least likely European nation to be included.

 

[ImperialChaos]

Yes. But why is it on the poster? WHHHYYY? If they were just filling space they could have used the Brazilwood Camp. It haunts me!

Isn't Notre Dame in the poster as well? I think it's just coincidence. A kasbah is different...unless it's just for the SFA scenario, like the vikings, and Morocco is not a civ at all .

Italy and Indonesia instead of Morocco???

Spoiler :

Venice still could be in... and I think we saw Budapest as a City State no?

Is it? If it is I want to put it in that list I made in the other thread of civilizations that cannot be in BNW.

 

[PhilBowles]

Spoiler :

Q: What is the name of a Unique Ability found in the next civ you want to reveal?

A: Sorry, we can’t reveal that. However a snippet of the text string describing the Unique Ability can be shared. That is: ‘… for each International Trade Route with …’”

If it is the European civ that has this UA, then the only one I can think of that would make sense would be Italy.

Venice, not Italy. Italy of the form people expect was not known principally as a trading power, but as a cultural one. Including Italy and giving it a non-cultural UA would be as bizarre as, well, including Portugal and not tying it to exploration. Oh, wait...

Except that while mainly known as explorers, the Portuguese were also traders so that does genuinely reflect their civ, just not as well as it might do. "Italy" as a conglomerate, or as a collection of city states, was not especially well-known as a trading power, certainly not enough for it to be a better fit than Venice, Morocco or Indonesia.

 

[gunnergoz]

Wasn't there some pretty strong evidence that Italy was one of the countries in the African colonization scenario? I recall seeing an achievement excerpt that included it. That would make me think it would be a likely candidate to be in the BNW expansion itself.

 

[Hannibal XIII]

Bah. We don't need more Europeans, although the landmass/Euro culture clue is intriguing. That points either to Italy/Venice, Argentina (most European country in South America), or, if they go with Eurasian landmass, maybe the Asian countries or perhaps something like Armenia.

Or maybe Vlad the Impaler really is in as an amalmagated Romania.

 

[PhilBowles]

If a unified Greece under a Macedonian king can make it into CIV then a unified Italy with a Venetian or Florentine leader can too.

Except that (Sparta aside) Greece was unified under that king in a way the Italian states never were. And it remained largely unified (as Macedon) until the Romans conquered it. It's something of a myth that everything fell apart and went back to the way it used to be after Alexander - his empire splintered, but the Greek area under his control survived as a single successor state, it was simply the Asian and Egyptian territories that split away.

It's been said that the Italian situation was more similar to the Mayan one, which is true. But it's a lot harder to draw discrete dividing lines between Maya states; these were city-states of sorts, but not really in the European sense, and each founded satellite cities, formed multi-city alliances, and periodically conquered its neighbours. Beyond which no individual Maya kingdom had the 'brand familiarity' of the Maya as a whole, or of individual Italian states.