New First Look: Trưng Trắc

[Zaarin]

And, as a Jesuit-educated person, I can say that Jesuits are insidious. Frank Herbert had the right of it.

As a Protestant I'm not overly fond of Jesuits myself, but I can certainly admire their efficiency--and that they recognized cultural relativism to a certain extent a couple centuries before everyone else did. It just failed them when dealing with other Christians (as with the St. Thomas Christians in India or Protestants in Europe) or even other Catholics (as with their conflicts with the Franciscans and Dominicans everywhere they went, most notoriously in Japan).

 

[RedCourtJester]

As a Protestant I'm not overly fond of Jesuits myself, but I can certainly admire their efficiency--and that they recognized cultural relativism to a certain extent a couple centuries before everyone else did. It just failed them when dealing with other Christians (as with the St. Thomas Christians in India or Protestants in Europe) or even other Catholics (as with their conflicts with the Franciscans and Dominicans everywhere they went, most notoriously in Japan).

Yes, they are efficient, and as you pointed out, due to a grasp of cultural relativism and the ability to integrate into local cultures and syncretize. A lot of cultures would otherwise not be Catholic but for Jesuits (and Franciscans). The Vatican owes a lot to them, made it possibly the richest and most landed entity, and certainly one of the most subscribed to religions, on the planet. Catholicism is set to coast for a long, long time.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I'm giving it a pass, because the Alexander civ in VI was very clearly an aesthetic blob of antiquity Macedon and modern Macedonia. The icon used definitely evokes that, and Knorr is on record in a podcast stating that he decided to have fun with Macedon's soundtrack and make it very "South Slavic."

The Vergina Sun was very much used by the kingdom of Macedon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Larnax
It's not their fault that the modern Slavic country of North Macedonia decided to use it as well.

As for the soundtrack, you are right. I give it a pass though because if they didn't use Slavic folk music it would be another track of Greek music.

But let's end this discussion on this thread, because it's about Trung Trac, and we can continue it when Alexander is revealed.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

But let's end this discussion on this thread, because it's about Trung Trac, and we can continue it when Alexander is revealed.

Fiiiiiine, I guess I’ve had my fun

If I remember correctly, Trung Trac has a Vegetated spawn bias. That means she would make a great pairing with the Mayans and their Jaguar Slayer.

Ironically, this could end up playing into the Vietnam War stereotype Firaxis has tried hard to avoid.

One of the Maya’s civics gives their unique units Stealth in Vegetated tiles. This means that, as the Vietnamese leader, your troops can attack from “in the trees.”

The trees won’t quite be speaking Vietnamese, but I guess Maya is close enough?

Regardless of… that, Trung Trac and the Maya seem like a great opportunist pairing that can wage war offensively or defensively and generate lots of Science while uniquely benefitting from their wooded terrain.

 

[notNamed]

I think Dai Viet could have had the option of branching politically/culturally off Han (and perhaps could even see a leader with a different path from Han, especially if any pro-Chinese-culture Vietnamese leader exist that I'm unaware of). However, given that so much of Vietnam's entire identity across two milennia has been "we refuse to be Chinese," I just don't think that would be a very honest depiction of Vietnam.

Vietnamese identity is literally "We are Chinese, despite how some treat as us barbarians. The Yellow Emperor has created and given out 2 mandates of heaven. One for the Northern state and one for the Southern state. And we've got the god-given-right (southern mandate of heaven) to rule this place." Ming is a foreign occupant, headed by a south Chinese family. Tran is a native dynasty worthy of being cited in a "declaration of independence", also headed by a south Chinese family. It is not being Chinese that made one acceptable and the other not.
BUT...

...this all changes once ethnic nationalism, the idea of nation-states, national histories, etc. gets introduced into the area with western colonialism.
As cited by the reformers of the early 1900s, highlighting an ethnostate as a higher form of civilisation compared to the half-civilised Vietnamese or Chinese of the time, who lack a clear sense of a fatherland, a unifying history and identity tied to the borders and language, etc. (see https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-3611-9_2). Civ 7 works with this notion of Vietnam and its national myths, as you could see in Mr. Johnson's elaborate response earlier in this thread. Continuing on from Civ 6 which likewise focused on the modern idea of Trieu, rather than trying to piece together how her world looked like and who she was.

That's the moment you need to start drawing lines in the sand and it suddenly stops making sense to identify with the world that happened outside their current borders.
A Vietnamese cannot be Chinese/Han/Tang because that is already claimed and accepted by the world at large to mean the state and nation forming under Sun Yat-sen.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Vietnamese identity is literally "We are Chinese, despite how some treat as us barbarians. The Yellow Emperor has created and given out 2 mandates of heaven. One for the Northern state and one for the Southern state. And we've got the god-given-right (southern mandate of heaven) to rule this place." Ming is a foreign occupant, headed by a south Chinese family. Tran is a native dynasty worthy of being cited in a "declaration of independence", also headed by a south Chinese family. It is not being Chinese that made one acceptable and the other not.
BUT...

To expand a bit - the traditional identity was more like "We are civilized just like you."

"Chinese," in this particular context, would be similar to "Latin," not really an ethnic marker but a commonly agreed-upon high culture. Japanese and Koreans had similar claims about this "Chinese-ness" without referring to themselves as literal Chinese.
(Such a discourse was essentially a counterargument against the traditional Sino-supremacist view that only the Middle Kingdom was civilized and therefore above everyone else. The counterargument was that we are also civilized despite not being in the Middle Kingdom, and therefore equal in status.)

For instance, the first two lines of the main text of Bình Ngô đại cáo (1427):

惟我大越之国，实为文献之邦​

Our country of Dai Viet, is in fact a nation of culture (lit. "nation of literature" or "nation of letters").​

山川之封域既殊，南北之风俗亦异​

The mountains and rivers have already marked out different purviews; therefore, the South and North customs are also not alike.​

We can see that the identification already lies in independent Dai Viet, and it further stresses that even though we are not "China," we are still a "nation of literature," and you northerners shouldn't treat us like barbarians.

 

[Arcaian]

Believe it or not but here's the reality: Greeks settlements all the way from Syracuse to Afghanistan spoke pretty much the same language, practiced the same religion, gods, traditions, customs, technology; minted the same coinage style; wore the same clothing, armors, helmets thank for Alexander the Great .
Meanwhile, in the East everything was a mess.
The reason why we have Christianity shares the same Bible words by words verses by verses, but you can't find a unified Buddist scriptures.

Do you really think that half of the world's population who live in that little circle are the same people?

- Who are you[FONT=Ubuntu, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][SIZE=16px]?[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Ubuntu, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][SIZE=16px]-[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Ubuntu, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]I'm Laotian.
-So are you Chinese or Japanese?[/FONT]

I have no idea how you got "all of the peoples of south-east and east asia are the same people" from my comment saying "we should be allowed to have groups that are not politically unified whether they're in Europe or elsewhere in the world". I'm not saying that the people of Laos are identical to the people of China, that would be silly. I'm saying that it's weird that people find it OK to project nationalist connections from modern-day states to non-unified ancient peoples seemingly only if those modern-day states are considered European. Also, Greek settlements weren't identical; there were significant cultural differences across different parts of the Hellenic world. The Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek states did have a large amount of Greek cultural influence, but they certainly weren't purely Greek all the way down. They literally minted currency with Brahmic scripts and languages on it. Also, Christianity absolutely does not have a single common Bible that is word-for-word identical across the entire religion.

 

[notNamed]

To expand a bit - the traditional identity was more like "We are civilized just like you."

I use the language I use specifically because "just like you" is a concept that is extremely rare in these contexts. Vietnamese considered Koreans and Japanese strictly below them, semi-civilised (and vice-versa) and some level of groundwork needed to be built to allow the concept of equals to exist. Hence the two mandates of heaven. Sinitic culture sits at the apex, there can only be above or below it. Hence you get two seats/thrones on that mountain peak. If you allow for equals, that group can expand infinitely. But if the world order explicitly defines there's a duality, all is well, you just budge your chair a little.

It also appeared around the same time period Chinese-Chinese Song was going through its own worldview issues where Song and Jin/Liao both adopted special language in writing, special rituals and diplomatic protocols to allow contact and coexistence of two states in the Chinese heartland.


I agree it's more of a nitpick but it's one of those things that are highly visible in Vietnamese history. The notion of strictly hierarchical diplomatic relationships and the need to circumvent that aren't unique to this place alone (Song's struggles mentioned above; Japan and the need to explain both the emperor of all 天下 coexisting with Japanese emeperor; and you likely know of many more of these than I do), the way they did it is uniquely Vietnamese. And we're of course talking about a philosophy born and held by the local culture. They didn't claim emperorship when dealing with the Song, Ming, Yuan or Qing. But even as late as the early decades of French colonisation, observers still noted how the Vietnamese (Tonkinese, Annamese and Cochichinese to be precise) visibly consider themselves above everyone else in the world, except for the Chinese.

It's a small detail but it changes the perspective of the locals.
One an image of a small, unimportant land struggling and succeeding to raise a small flag to show "we are also part of civilisation".
The other the image of a localised juggernaut which holds everyone around them, apart from their northern neighbor, in contempt and acts accordingly.

 

[RedCourtJester]

To expand a bit - the traditional identity was more like "We are civilized just like you."

"Chinese," in this particular context, would be similar to "Latin," not really an ethnic marker but a commonly agreed-upon high culture. Japanese and Koreans had similar claims about this "Chinese-ness" without referring to themselves as literal Chinese.
(Such a discourse was essentially a counterargument against the traditional Sino-supremacist view that only the Middle Kingdom was civilized and therefore above everyone else. The counterargument was that we are also civilized despite not being in the Middle Kingdom, and therefore equal in status.)

For instance, the first two lines of the main text of Bình Ngô đại cáo (1427):

惟我大越之国，实为文献之邦​

Our country of Dai Viet, is in fact a nation of culture (lit. "nation of literature" or "nation of letters").​

山川之封域既殊，南北之风俗亦异​

The mountains and rivers have already marked out different purviews; therefore, the South and North customs are also not alike.​

We can see that the identification already lies in independent Dai Viet, and it further stresses that even though we are not "China," we are still a "nation of literature," and you northerners shouldn't treat us like barbarians.

This was pretty much what I was trying to get at, even though I am very much a casual when it comes to Sinosphere history. Regardless of the shared Mandate of Heaven heritage, Vietnam's political and cultural identity has revolved around resisting being absorbed into the northern Chinese empire. Maybe a more accurate way of putting it would be "we don't want to be Chinese subjects."

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

The Vergina Sun was very much used by the kingdom of Macedon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Larnax
It's not their fault that the modern Slavic country of North Macedonia decided to use it as well.

As for the soundtrack, you are right. I give it a pass though because if they didn't use Slavic folk music it would be another track of Greek music.

But let's end this discussion on this thread, because it's about Trung Trac, and we can continue it when Alexander is revealed.

Happy Birthday!

 

[notNamed]

Vietnam's political and cultural identity has revolved around resisting being absorbed into the northern Chinese empire.

"Revolved around" is a strong word for it. At least the way I interpret it, maybe it's just me.
Vietnam's political and cultural identity "revolves around" resistance to absorption by a Chinese just as much as United States' political and cultural identity revolves around the resistance to being a British colony.

It is the principle of its foundation but very little of the actual events can be attested to it, revolve around it. The conquest of Champa has as much with resistance to China as the conquest of New Mexico has with resistance to British. Americans would be pretty pissed if the British tried to make them pay taxes to the King again but at the same time Britain was their closest cultural partner and overwhelmingly an ally rather than an enemy, ditto on Vietnam-China. Britain didn't go and try to reclaim the territory when US fell into the Civil War and neither did Ming/Qing try to conquer Vietnam when Le disintegrated into 3 states which ravaged their populations and treasuries without getting any victors for decades (and then spent over a hundred years in a pat situation to recover).

As far as my understanding of American political and cultural identity goes, I don't think it would be fair/okay to say it revolves around resistance to being a British subject. But it's perfectly possible I'm seeing those words in a different light than you do and hence why I see the statement of "Vietnam/USA's political and cultural identity has revolved around resisting being absorbed into the Chinese/British empire." as something that just helps confuse someone who's never delved into either people's history.

 

[cristobalushebrew]

Agree with #69. Trung Trac will not be smth you're gonna expect to learn actual history relevant things such as how the ancient Baiyue and Luoyue tribes resisted sinicization and become what's today Southern Chinese. Or how their tattooing traditions inspired the modern "Kevin Nguyens" and "Vivian Tran," asap they have no ideas to tell you about Trung Trac. They probably keep wrapping your head and yapping about the Vietnam war.

 

[RedCourtJester]

"Revolved around" is a strong word for it. At least the way I interpret it, maybe it's just me.
Vietnam's political and cultural identity "revolves around" resistance to absorption by a Chinese just as much as United States' political and cultural identity revolves around the resistance to being a British colony.

It is the principle of its foundation but very little of the actual events can be attested to it, revolve around it. The conquest of Champa has as much with resistance to China as the conquest of New Mexico has with resistance to British. Americans would be pretty pissed if the British tried to pay taxes to the King again but at the same time Britain was their closest cultural partner and overwhelmingly an ally rather than an enemy, ditto on Vietnam-China. Britain didn't go and try to reclaim the territory when US fell into the Civil War and neither did Ming/Qing try to conquer Vietnam when Le disintegrated into 3 states which ravaged their populations and treasuries without getting any victors for decades (and then spent over a hundred years in a pat situation to recover).

As far as my understanding of American political and cultural identity goes, I don't think it would be fair/okay to say it revolves around resistance to being a British subject. But it's perfectly possible I'm seeing those words in a different light than you do and hence why I see the statement of "Vietnam/USA's political and cultural identity has revolved around resisting being absorbed into the Chinese/British empire." as something that just helps confuse someone who's never delved into either people's history.

Revolved around as in...keeps coming back around to, somehow.

Not to be too harsh on America, but in a different way we are very much also revolving around rejecting proper English and the Europeans (and indeed, literally anyone who steps on our 1.5 acre plot).

 

[chaosprophet]

Because the agenda is supposed to give he AI a personality, that this is what they want to achieve so they may dislike others who go against it. While the player agenda is whatever the player wants to do, no need to make the Agenda work for them too.

Then they could say like/dislike instead of having a game mechanics effect. Because AI behavior and game mechanics bonuses are different things.

The AI leader's agenda affects their relationship with you and other AI players. That's exactly how it worked in Civ6.

Just to quickly bring back this topic, as I found evidence elsewhere that points for it working like Civ 6 here:

In the description of both Napoleon Personas, it mentions how the alternative agenda they have (alternative from a different persona/version) is when played by the AI, so meaning in 7, just like in 6, agendas are supposed to be just for the AI and not something to affect the player based on their own leader.

 

[Krikkit1]

Just to quickly bring back this topic, as I found evidence elsewhere that points for it working like Civ 6 here:
View attachment 706613
In the description of both Napoleon Personas, it mentions how the alternative agenda they have (alternative from a different persona/version) is when played by the AI, so meaning in 7, just like in 6, agendas are supposed to be just for the AI and not something to affect the player based on their own leader.

That's a shame... Hopefully it doesn't mean that Diplomacy is gimped in affecting the player as well.

 

[stealth_nsk]

That's a shame... Hopefully it doesn't mean that Diplomacy is gimped in affecting the player as well.

Diplomacy itself looks the most multiplayer-compatible of all civ games. You get severe penalties if you declare a surprise war against an opponent you're in good relations with, for example. It's just agendas not part of this and I'm pretty happy about it. Wouldn't want them to affect my decisions.

 

[Krikkit1]

Diplomacy itself looks the most multiplayer-compatible of all civ games. You get severe penalties if you declare a surprise war against an opponent you're in good relations with, for example. It's just agendas not part of this and I'm pretty happy about it. Wouldn't want them to affect my decisions.

But it wouldn't affect your decisions, just how much you needed to spend on someone.

Right now if my neighbor is Augustus and I have a lot of Towns it will cost Both of Us a lot of influence to have a good relationship. (assuming we want one.. that is the decision... if you want a good relationship spend influence)

However if I am Augustus, and my neighbor has a bunch of Towns, I don't have any bonuses to help me keep our relationship down so I can invade them easily.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Diplomacy itself looks the most multiplayer-compatible of all civ games. You get severe penalties if you declare a surprise war against an opponent you're in good relations with, for example. It's just agendas not part of this and I'm pretty happy about it. Wouldn't want them to affect my decisions.

I'm curious if Casus Belli come back in any form (likely heavily reworked) or if they were just so weird and specific that they were dropped.

 

[stealth_nsk]

But it wouldn't affect your decisions, just how much you needed to spend on someone.

Right now if my neighbor is Augustus and I have a lot of Towns it will cost Both of Us a lot of influence to have a good relationship. (assuming we want one.. that is the decision... if you want a good relationship spend influence)

However if I am Augustus, and my neighbor has a bunch of Towns, I don't have any bonuses to help me keep our relationship down so I can invade them easily.

There are generally 2 modes of games - single player and multiplayer. Single player needs to be asymmetrical (focusing on giving player the best experience) and multiplayer needs to be symmetrical (providing equal challenge). The current system (as we understand it so far) does exactly this.

The things you propose do exactly the opposite - they add symmetry to single player games where it's not needed, but decrease symmetry from multiplayer (as one player will have more leverage against other depending on their leaders agendas). This looks quite wrong.

And, of course, that's pure from pure strategic point of view. From immersion point of view, I just don't want the game to dictate how to roleplay a particular leader.

 

[notNamed]

Thank you. I always like learning more about history. It's very interesting, but sadly it's very difficult to find sources that are actually engaging for me.

Now I can't be sure if you find this sort of format interesting, but here's a lecture given by Keith W. Taylor regarding the origin of the Vietnamese people and culture last year in Hamburg.
It's a very concise take on the ideas of his own book on the topic and includes the topic of the border of historic Vietnam (though it doesn't go into the details of expansion past them) and the notions of what the culture was like, why Trung Trac (Civ 7), Trieu (Civ 6) can't be considered a part of it, et cetera.

Wholly recommended for anyone ITT who wants to know a tiny bit more about the details surrounding Vietnamese history as modern historians of the topic understand it.

Prof. em. Keith W. Taylor: "Archaeological Lacunae in Vietnamese History" - Prof. em. Keith W. Taylor - University of Hamburg - Lecture2Go

Alle öffentlichen Medien ansehen und recherchieren.

lecture2go.uni-hamburg.de