Well, good news: Thoreau's cabin experience was about as authentic as your average "survival" show. He may have written about living off nature in a cabin, but he went home to Mom for a sandwich every day.
Thoreau was born a century and change too soon for his real calling: "reality" TV. If it sounds like I'm dripping with contempt for Thoreau...that's only because I am. 
The 'political equivalent' of Thoreau was Jefferson. His insistence that small independent farmers should be the basis for the American economy and state showed an incredible obliviousness to the strength of the cities as economic engines and the absolute requirement of them for a 'modern' (well, 18th/19th century) economy.Well, good news: Thoreau's cabin experience was about as authentic as your average "survival" show. He may have written about living off nature in a cabin, but he went home to Mom for a sandwich every day.
Only if they also stop including renowned warmongers/conquerors unless they are Required to declare war and penalized severely if they do not.
I don‘t think this is quite the same. Most warmongers get bonuses for exactly that. So, if you don‘t fight and conquer, you‘re losing out on your bonuses/uniques. There is a clear benefit of waging war for all civs/leaders usually, because this is how the game is conceived and designed. And this benefit it even larger with a militaristic civ/leader. But as a pacifist, you don‘t get a good compensation for being peaceful - in almost all cases, you are better off conquering as well. Especially in high level civ VI, letting the AI build stuff with bonuses and taking it is better than staying at peace trying to outperform the AIs bonuses with their own stupidity only.
On the contrary, being warlike in Civ VI got you universally condemned by every other power forever: take one capital, and it would be Eras before you got another trade agreement of any worth, and you would also get negative diplomatic points, be outvoted in every World Congress, and so on.
Disagree. The 'idealization' of rural population, as stated, goes back to the origins of the 'landed aristocracy' in at least classical Greece and Rome and although modified by modern concepts of equalizing the influence of various voting blocs, the origins are in an on-going distrust of cities and their inhabitants compared to the 'sturdy yeomen' in the countryside.
Nice catch, although one thing I'm personally disappointed by with 7 is that not every civ will have a historically accurate/appropriate leader to choose for them, it seems. The Mississippians kept no written records, for instance, so there can't be a Mississippian leader to pair with the civ in the Antiquity Era.
That seems like a bit of a false equivalency to me. Are there a lot of renowned warmongers in the game who had moral objections to non-violence? Most of them certainly enjoyed warfare, and had the goal of an empire united under them, and violence was the necessary way to achieve that. But they were certainly happy to use diplomatic and other non-violent approaches as opportunities arose.
"What every conqueror wants, in the end, is peace,"
I don't think Alexander did.
Ah, but the lowly mosquito, the only enemy who bested him, cut his life too short to know if he may have mellowed with age (and piles of loot).I don't think Alexander did.
Alexander really was the perfect storm of an adolescent with the brilliance to back his own view of himself and the youthful energy to carry it out.
I'd like to amend my statement, actually: after some brief research, there is mention of a (very late, more "Exploration Era") leader/chief from a Mississippian culture, one Pacaha, whom lent his name to a tribe/polity in modern-day Arkansas and whom Hernando de Soto encountered in 1541. There's also a rival, Casqui, who likewise lent his name to a tribe/polity in the area; de Soto seems to have stepped foot into their preexisting conflict. Still, this is... pretty much all that's known about the guys? And they're definitely not what I'd call the "Mississippians proper", the Woodland Period cultural group that seems to be represented in Civ VII's Antiquity Era.
One advantage of Mississippian societies is that in most of them the chiefs didn't have names; they had heritable titles. Tuskaloosa (1540) may have been able to do lot more than lose a war to De Soto, but there was an earlier Tuskaloosa who was more impressive, for example.
Huh, that's quite interesting. I didn't know about the titular inheritance. Is there a good source you recommend for Mississippian knowledge?
Not specific to the Mississippians, but Facing East from Indian Country is a good general history of the early contact period (up through the 18th century, I think) from a Native American perspective, including the Mississippians; as I recall, it covers De Soto's journey in a decent amount of detail. From Chicaza to Chickasaw is a good look at the transition from the Mississippian to post-Mississippian societies, including an overview of the Mississippians--but I have to offer the caveat that I only skimmed it for a paper.
