pre-release info New First Look: Trưng Trắc

pre-release info
That's why I keep the civ guide bookmarked instead of the wiki.
 
Andrew Johnson [FXS] said:
Caveat: My academic specialty is indeed Laos and Thailand, but I'm also a graduate of Cornell's Southeast Asian Program, and have been in Southeast Asian Studies now for over 20 years; most such departments include Vietnam, the Philippines, and East Timor in their range of study, and we read works by Keith Taylor, Phan Bội Châu, Heonik Kwon, Christina Schwenkel, and others - John Phan and Ivan Small were in my cohort (and are my friends) and are now experts in Dai Viet history and Vietnamese religion, respectively. So I feel, academically speaking, moderately OK to weigh in on Vietnam in places where there's no specific expert, though I don't speak the language.

Văn minh is a significant concept in Vietnam that can't be reduced to its Chinese origins here. Like many other words for "civilization" (e.g. the Thai "sriwilai"), it is a term taken from powers that sought to change society, incorporated, and deployed against that change, even if the civilization defended is hybridized. It was used extensively (see Erik Harms's work) to refer to a notion of beauty and order to bring people of varied backgrounds and class positions in line with a unified vision of what is desirable and good - far beyond just "literature" - this is why it became a popular name (its use here has nothing to do with Dương Văn Minh any more than the use of "freedom" in one context in the United States impinges upon the origins of the idea in the American Revolution - William Tecumseh Sherman's middle name says everything about what his parents thought Tecumseh was, and nothing about Tecumseh himself). For the few years that Trưng ruled, she sought to build Vietnamese infrastructure and unify the disparate peoples along a common vision.

It was this notion of defense against control and acculturation (despite foreign influence), and the importance of the Trưng sisters to fostering pride in this defense of local civilization against these powers, and the later articulation of this thing that is to be defended as Vietnamese civilization that prompted the use of this word here - not seeing Vietnamese civilization as a lacking, incomplete version of Chinese culture, but as civilization in its own right, and worthy of being defended. "Yes, we have taken certain things from you, but we will not be controlled by you." If we see văn minh as the thing the Han were seeking to implement and Trưng as resisting civilization, we miss entirely the Vietnamese perspective (i.e. that this is a struggle for their own claim to civilization). So here, văn minh refers to that latter bit: an assertion that Vietnam possesses a civilization of its own, and a defense of that civilization against attempts to assimilate and control.
Click to expand...

Just to remind you that. Vietnam as a traceable polity didn't exist before the 10th century... Trung Track represents Luoyue tribes. Tribes. Not country.
 
cristobalushebrew said:
Just to remind you that. Vietnam as a traceable polity didn't exist before the 10th century... Trung Track represents Luoyue tribes. Tribes. Not country.
Click to expand...
Civ does play a little loose with the idea of "civs" in that respect, which I am totally for. If a collection of tribes shared a lot of similar characteristics/heritage and later define more unified polities and nationalistic ideas, then they are fair game to be included as a "civ."

See, previously: Gaul, Mapuche, Cree, Scythia, and to large extent the Maya and Greeks in VI. (i.e., approaching 10 percent of the final roster).
 
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cristobalushebrew said:
Just to remind you that. Vietnam as a traceable polity didn't exist before the 10th century... Trung Track represents Luoyue tribes. Tribes. Not country.
Click to expand...
A civilization doesn't really need to be unified as a polity, though, just a common identity and cultural sensibility.
 
Yeah I knew that but it seems the "intro" of Trung Trac extensively conflates "Vietnam" (of the Vietnam war modern era) with ancient history. From my point of view considering the conventional idea of modern Vietnam be the same as barbarian tribes in ancient history is beyond historical absurdity
 
cristobalushebrew said:
Yeah I knew that but it seems the "intro" of Trung Trac extensively conflates "Vietnam" (of the Vietnam war modern era) with ancient history. From my point of view considering the conventional idea of modern Vietnam be the same as barbarian tribes in ancient history is beyond historical absurdity
Click to expand...

That was almost exactly how most civs were portrayed in VI, and indeed games prior in the franchise, though. Coalescing the "idea" of "Ethiopia" or "Germany" as it persisted across human history. Doing the same thing with Vietnam is no different, really.

I think it will make more sense to you and everyone else when Trung's preferred line turns out to be something like Khmer -> Dai Viet -> Vietnam/Nguyen. She's is a leader representing a consistent Vietnamese identity across the many stages of Vietnam, not just the modern Vietnamese polity being crudely retrofit onto history.
 
cristobalushebrew said:
From my point of view considering the conventional idea of modern Vietnam be the same as barbarian tribes in ancient history is beyond historical absurdity
Click to expand...

Out of interest, do you apply this same logic about a lack of unity to ancient Greece in Civ? I find it strange that it doesn't get the same pushback for not being unified that civs from other parts of the world seem to.
 
Arcaian said:
Out of interest, do you apply this same logic about a lack of unity to ancient Greece in Civ? I find it strange that it doesn't get the same pushback for not being unified that civs from other parts of the world seem to.
Click to expand...
I mean, it does and has, but not as much, you are correct lol.

(I hope Macedon doesn't return, we don't need it now that we can just have Alexander move from Greece into Sasanids).
 
RedCourtJester said:
That was almost exactly how most civs were portrayed in VI, and indeed games prior in the franchise, though. Coalescing the "idea" of "Ethiopia" or "Germany" as it persisted across human history. Doing the same thing with Vietnam is no different, really.

I think it will make more sense to you and everyone else when Trung's preferred line turns out to be something like Khmer -> Dai Viet -> Vietnam/Nguyen. She's is a leader representing a consistent Vietnamese identity across the many stages of Vietnam, not just the modern Vietnamese polity being crudely retrofit onto hi
Click to expand...
What I'm reading? Khmers and Daiviets were arch nemesis for most of medieval history.

Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge's anti-Vietnamese sentiment traced its origins to medieval Khmer-Viet rivalry.

I think grouping Khmer with Vietnamese is similar to grouping Turks with Greeks as the same civilization.
 
cristobalushebrew said:
What I'm reading? Khmers and Daiviets were arch nemesis for most of medieval history.

Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge's anti-Vietnamese sentiment traced its origins to medieval Khmer-Viet rivalry.

I think grouping Khmer with Vietnamese is similar to grouping Turks with Greeks as the same civilization.
Click to expand...
They aren't the same, one succeeds over the other.
 
cristobalushebrew said:
What I'm reading? Khmers and Daiviets were arch nemesis for most of medieval history.

Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge's anti-Vietnamese sentiment traced its origins to medieval Khmer-Viet rivalry.

I think grouping Khmer with Vietnamese is similar to grouping Turks with Greeks as the same civilization.
Click to expand...
Not medieval history.

Antiquity, where both Vietnamese and Cambodian trace back to similar Mon-Khmer and Austroasiatic origins, and the Hoabinhian share genetic ancestry with, among others, the Jahai, indicating a likelihood of spreading out of pre-Khmer territory roughly defined by the later Funan kingdom.
 
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Arcaian said:
Out of interest, do you apply this same logic about a lack of unity to ancient Greece in Civ? I find it strange that it doesn't get the same pushback for not being unified that civs from other parts of the world seem to.
Click to expand...
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]
 
cristobalushebrew said:
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 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]
Click to expand...
No more than Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, Australians, or Brazilians are the same people? And as far as I can tell, Civ has never represented any SEA civ along the Indochine spectrum as either Indian or Chinese; when the game's roster was large enough, those civs were represented as their own thing separate from China and India.
 
RedCourtJester said:
Not medieval history.

Antiquity, where both Vietnamese and Cambodian trace back to similar Mon-Khmer and Austroasiatic origins, and the Hoabinhian share genetic ancestry with, among others, the Jahai, indicating a likelihood of spreading out of pre-Khmer territory roughly defined by the later Funan kingdom.
Click to expand...

Austro-asiatic is a language family. Would you consider grouping English with Iranian since their spoken languages are Indo-European?
 
cristobalushebrew said:
Austro-asiatic is a language family. Would you consider grouping English with Iranian since their spoken languages are Indo-European?
Click to expand...

I think, when we are talking antiquity origins, it could be justifiable depending on how far of a spread and differentiation we are talking.

I actually would very much enjoy a game like Civ VII's model that approached linguistic and religious evolution from proto-PIE in the same vein as VII is exploring political, cultural, and geographic evolution.

Would be nice to see the "wha?" on consumers' faces when Dyeus Phater turns into Roman Christian Deus and Zurvan/Ahriman turns into Satan, and Canaanite El being buried in a pantheon among other syncretized Mesopotamian gods like Astarte and Baal.
 
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