pre-release info New Civ Game Guide: Mississippian

[Guandao]

Maybe we can get the Hisatsinom eventually. I'm calling the Ancestral Puebloans that instead of the much maligned "Anasazi".

 

[Gedemon]

That's very tactical RPG like... More XCOM or Divinity Original Sin than Civilization IMO.

But good for modding...

Maybe we'll have a Fantasy total conversion at some point.

 

[Siptah]

I think the Burning status is interesting. I wonder whether pillaging enemy districts and improvements now also applies this status to the respective tiles. With the consequence that fighting in pillaged cities might be quite painful.

 

[Zaarin]

if they even participated in wars.

I mean, we do know they were human.

 

[8housesofelixir]

If they did good research, they will have cities in several indigenous languages. Poor research and we will see dozens of "(English surname) Mound".

There is a Mississippian site called "Aztalan", because it is located in a modern town named Aztalan because the first modern discoverer thought he discovered the Aztec Aztlan there.

Would be very funny if this name ended up in the Mississippian city list while Aztec is a released civ.

 

[Krikkit1]

But in real history, it probably wasn't unified politically. It was many chiefdoms.

So we got 9 Antiquity Civs confirmed so far. Leaving less room for others, like Persia, Babylon, Assyria etc.

Like Greece (not unified till someone conquered it) known best for its pre unification.

 

[Guandao]

Neither were the Greeks, Phoenicians, Maya, Cree, Scythians...Even the Mongols were pretty fractious for most of their history.

But most of those examples you listed were unified pretty much linguistically. Greeks spoke Hellenic languages, Phoenicians spoke Phoenician, Maya spoke Mayan languages, Cree spoke Cree, Scythian spoke related Iranian languages, Mongols spoke Mongolic ones. But the Mississippians are like Natchez, Yuchi, Muskogean, Cherokee, Siouan, Tunica, etc. Multiple Language families and even isolates.

But at least it's better than the Native American "Civ" in Civ4.

 

[Siptah]

There is a Mississippian site called "Aztlan", because it is located in a modern town named Aztlan.

Would be very funny if this name ended up in the Mississippian city list while Aztec is a released civ.

The map on that wiki page shows a place called BBB motors. In civ VI, such a place would have showed up in the Scythian city list for sure

 

[Gruekiller]

Cool! I faked playing as the Mississippians for one of my Civ 4 stories back in the day - it'll be cool to play them for real in 7.

 

[Zaarin]

But most of those examples you listed were unified pretty much linguistically. Greeks spoke Hellenic languages, Phoenicians spoke Phoenician, Maya spoke Mayan languages, Cree spoke Cree, Scythian spoke related Iranian languages, Mongols spoke Mongolic ones. But the Mississippians are like Natchez, Yuchi, Muskogean, Cherokee, Siouan, Tunica, etc. Multiple Language families and even isolates.

But at least it's better than the Native American "Civ" in Civ4.

Yes, the Mississippians were a culture zone. However, they have the advantage of being proto-historical. Other options for Antiquity North America would be...Hopewell culture. Or Poverty Point culture. It's just the nature of lacking written records.

 

[AriochIV]

I'm just slightly amused that a mound improvement requires building on a flat tile.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I mean, we do know they were human.

I'm sure they can give them something, but it wouldn't be historically accurate.
They lived in South Asia, so the default would be an elephant unit.

But most of those examples you listed were unified pretty much linguistically. Greeks spoke Hellenic languages, Phoenicians spoke Phoenician, Maya spoke Mayan languages, Cree spoke Cree, Scythian spoke related Iranian languages, Mongols spoke Mongolic one. But the Mississippians are like Natchez, Yuchi, Muskogean, Cherokee, Siouan, Tunica, etc. Multiple Language families and even isolates.

Usually I would agree with you, but in this game that would make it easier to find many different civs for them to potentially progress to in the Exploration Age.

 

[Leucarum]

Yes, the Mississippians were a culture zone. However, they have the advantage of being proto-historical. Other options for Antiquity North America would be...Hopewell culture. Or Poverty Point culture. It's just the nature of lacking written records.

I mean, they could have gone forward in time to get antiquity era civs in NA too. I like that using Mississippians opens up pretty much all the extant first nations as exploration or modern era civs. That was a good call.

 

[Zaarin]

I'm sure they can give them something, but it wouldn't be historically accurate.

My point was we know they engaged in warfare because humans are violent. Every time archaeologists think they found a pacifist culture, it doesn't end well (hello, Maya human sacrifice).

I mean, they could have gone forward in time to get antiquity era civs in NA too.

They basically did. The Mississippians are a stretchy fit for Antiquity--the peak of their civilization(s) was definitely Exploration Age--but I think it's a very acceptable stretch.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Yes, the Mississippians were a culture zone. However, they have the advantage of being proto-historical. Other options for Antiquity North America would be...Hopewell culture. Or Poverty Point culture. It's just the nature of lacking written records.

There are also some speculations that the Mississippian culture zone was not established diplomatically or peacefully. If you are an excellent conqueror but haven't got the state apparatus to assimilate everyone else yet, your empire would also be relatively culturally uniform but linguistically diverse.

And judging from the very much offensive-oriented fire arrow ability, we can see the Civ 7 Mississippians are indeed good conquerors.

 

[The Fanatical]

Yeah, but the names for the Minoan uniques would be generic English or in ancient Greek.

Mycenaean words can also be used for the uniques and cities, and I believe it is accurate, since at some point Linear B replaced Linear A. I don't see why using English words would pose a problem though, since it has already happened for the other civilizations.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'm not sure about the Harrapans either. Humankind had to make up their own UU, because nothing was known about them or if they even participated in wars.

That was going to be a given. They are called Mississippians because they all lived in the Mississippi River region, and were the ancestors to all the eventual tribes.

A bit like Sumeria's UU in CIv 3 being the "Enkidu Warrior".

As someone who's visited several sites associated with the Mississippi mound-builders (I live within an hour's drive of Moundville), this civ sounds interesting. Glad the southeast US is getting some attention.

 

[j51]

There are also some speculations that the Mississippian culture zone was not established diplomatically or peacefully. If you are an excellent conqueror but haven't got the state apparatus to assimilate everyone else yet, your empire would also be relatively culturally uniform but linguistically diverse.

And judging from the very much offensive-oriented fire arrow ability, we can see the Civ 7 Mississippians are indeed good conquerors.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff about them as potential conquerors, or at least representing a hierarchical state from which various eastern native cultures rebelled in The Dawn of Everything, which has proved an extremely influential book in the popular sense in the last few years regardless of the validity or not of its arguments. (I’m not expert enough to comment on most of such arguments, but the Minoan section did have a questionable source or two to my very amateur understanding.)

Also Timothy R Pauketat (spelling? - It’s been forever) has lots of insights and evidence about the sometimes violent nature of Mississippian society.

 

[Uberfrog]

There are also some speculations that the Mississippian culture zone was not established diplomatically or peacefully. If you are an excellent conqueror but haven't got the state apparatus to assimilate everyone else yet, your empire would also be relatively culturally uniform but linguistically diverse.

And even a literate empire with a very strong but devolved government structure can be linguistically very diverse - look at the Achaemenids!

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

There’s a lot of interesting stuff about them as potential conquerors, or at least representing a hierarchical state from which various eastern native cultures rebelled in The Dawn of Everything, which has proved an extremely influential book in the popular sense in the last few years regardless of the validity or not of its arguments. (I’m not expert enough to comment on most of such arguments, but the Minoan section did have a questionable source or two to my very amateur understanding.)

Also Timothy R Pauketat (spelling? - It’s been forever) has lots of insights and evidence about the sometimes violent nature of Mississippian society.

Graeber is fantastic, but at times his reach exceeds his grasp. I like (and recommend) DoE to anyone interested, but individual claims (e.g. Minoan stuff, Kondiaronk stuff) need to be taken with a grain of salt.