Because leaders and civs are divorced from each other. This opens up a lot of potential. You can have leaders without civs (like Charlemagne) and civs without leaders (like Mississippians). We can get Alexander without the Macedonians and the Minoans without the uselessly mythical Minos.
so far we’ve got
yeah totally didn’t realize this (there’s also more ancient leaders than i realized when writing the previous post, and interestingly, all of them are ancient leaders…)
Strong disagree. some civs are better served by semi-mythical figures (gilgamesh, for example), and others are traditional civs that could use a mix-up (like greece). Additionally, the leader design philosophy here is for well-known, recognizable leaders, which semi-mythical figures lend themselves to
Unfortunately I think they are shooting themselves in the foot by not including post-colonial leaders. Thomas Sankara, Patrick Lumumba and Julius Nyerere would all make amazing modern african leaders pics beyond the done-to-death Shaka
I have no objection to semi-mythical leaders in general (I'd prefer not to have leaders with no historical basis, but mythologized leaders with a historical basis--Dido, Hiawatha, etc.--are fine), but I disagree about Gilgamesh. There was nothing Sumerian about Civ6's Sumer civ. Gilgamesh didn't look Sumerian. He didn't speak Sumerian. It was a badly designed civ, and centering it around Gilgamesh made it worse. Because the Sumerians were meticulous record keepers, they are positively swimming in interesting leader choices: Gudea, the "very humble" king who took the title of governor but couldn't get enough statues of himself; Kungbau, the alewife who became quite possibly the first queen-regnant in history and was later deified as the goddess Kubaba; Sargon, the scheming cupbearer who usurped the throne and founded the first empire (and I do consider Agade culturally Sumerian albeit linguistically Akkadian); Enheduanna, Sargon's poet-priestess daughter; Ur-Nammu, whose legal code was the basis for Hammurabi's; etc. It's not that Gilgamesh is an inherently bad choice, but I disliked the way Civ6's Gilgamesh and civ were so entirely based around the Assyrian epic poem to the point they felt and looked more Assyrian than Sumerian.
a) definitely not necessarily an error—the franks having arose (seriously under Clovis) directly subsequently the roman’s means they’re very much on the cards for civ’s ancient era, which due to only having 3 eras, needs to include more than up to the end of the roman empire, which is the traditional end of antiquity. plus, charlemagne was mostly around before the foundation of the khmer altogether—which isn’t to say the khmer decision wasn’t a mistake, it totally was, but by civ’s logic, the franks make far more sense in antiquity. even by the thematic standards the “consolidation” they’ve spoke about makes more sense for the Franks and Charlemagne than the other themes.
I totally agree, fwiw, but my assertion is more that Gilgamesh is emblematic of a lot of what pop history considers Sumer. I think separating the civs from the leaders offers both a theoretical Sumer and Gilgamesh better design opportunities. And while I agree with some of your alternative shouts (though I do think Sargon would be better served as stand-alone or leading the Akkadians than Sumer), I think (besides Sargon and maybe Enheduanna) only Gilgamesh fits the bill for leaders that both Civ 6 (big personalities, emblematic leaders) and Civ 7 (well-known, household-name leaders) go for.
Yeah, of the rulers I listed, Sargon is the only one I could see meeting Civ7's "leaders a 12-year-old could name" requirement.
Quite a few would fit the big personality bill, though. That's an advantage the Mesopotamian civs have over virtually every other ancient civilization except maybe Egypt: their extensive records leave lots of room for getting a sense of leaders' personalities. By contrast, the minimalist inscriptions extant from Phoenicia, for example, leave a lot to the imagination. Tabnit of Sidon and Azitawadda of Que (who was ethnically Luwian) have a somewhat eccentric style of writing that maybe you can glean a little from, but it's not exactly scintillating like Gudea's humble-bragging or Esarhaddon's PTSD-wracked paranoia or Akhenaten's visionary mania, for instance. (We have a little more to work with from leaders in the Punic War...all of which should be taken with mountains of salt, given the sources are Roman or Greek.)
I just wish Civ 7 was breaking more uncharted ground. even the new civs are things the community has been asking for years. god knows that the most out of pocket civ is one that i’ve personally been asking for nearly a decade, and the most unexpected leader is quite literally the most famous hausa royal.Yeah, of the rulers I listed, Sargon is the only one I could see meeting Civ7's "leaders a 12-year-old could name" requirement.
Yes, while I'm very excited to see the Mississippians, for example, I'm very disappointed at how bland the leader choices have been. Ironically, since late Civ6 I've been suggesting a female leader for Japan who would have been a lot more interesting IMO: Hojo Masako, the Nun Shogun.
this is especially worth noting cuz it seems like france, italy and germany are prob among the only civ lines that will even get multiple leaders that would exist in their civ lines (napoleon/charlemagne, augustus/machiavelli, frederick/charlamagne) unfortunately very eurocentric and dissapointing but i doubt many other civs/civ superstructures will have the privilege of having multiple leaders that function in their lines—perhaps Egypt/Arabia, India and Persia will get them if they’re lucky, but even England/UK seems unlikely to get multiple leaders in a game lifetime where so many civs are going bare.
sad Earl of Gloucester/broody Edmund noises
Toyotomi Hideyoshi is one of the famous "three unifier of Sengoku Japan" indeed... but as long as I know, he is not a marketable option comparing with the other two.
Nonetheless, it was Toyotomi Hideyoshi who completed the unification of Japan, despite his later failed campaigns. Two other options I would suggest are Takeda Shingen and Miyamoto Musashi, but something tells me Oda Nobunaga will return.
He didn't completely complete the unification of Japan, Tokugawa faction was still intact and just pretended to obey. Actually Ieyasu easily betrayed his promise when Hideyoshi died and finally got the real unified power of Japan.
Having been to several museums and places dedicated to him, not really. He's obviously known for his rise to power (rose from a peasant to the highest possible position a non-noble could conceivably hold without "redoing" Japan), he was highly resourceful during Nobunaga's conquests with tons of great stories about his exploits and decreed extremely influential policies that shape the country to this day (Sword Hunt Decree, triggered the massive castle building rush which gave us Osaka, Himeji,...).
But you have to admit that even Japanese people also regard his last years were full of wrong decisions. Someone criticize that he had became senile in that period. The medias which describe him as the monkey are mainly Japanese, and they usually focused on his Sengoku Daimyo period rather than the supreme leader period. People interested in his unique personality, his cunningness, his ability which lead him to his backgroundless success, but not so much in his final achievement of the Sengoku unification and especially the expedition to the world.
Yeah, though they call him a monkey because he was supposedly ugly and people around him, Nobunaga included, gave him horsehockey for it.
Definitely. But Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu have absolutely nothing to do with the history of any other country so naturally foreign people don't really care for their wars and bloodshed.
you’d be hard pressed to find a japanese leader who *is* liked in korea, but a warlord from 500 years ago is unlikely to be viscerally unacceptable
And I think you've struck upon the reason Civ 7 has Himiko instead of any Japanese leader more recent or better attested, particularly a Meiji leader.
I’ve spoke about how I’m not a huge fan of the infantilization of other cultures in being unable to handle the inclusion of one specific leader on behalf of a civ that they don’t like in general to begin with at length in these forums.
