[R&F] New Leaks (new civ Cree, new alt leader Chandragupta Maurya of India)

[Krajzen]

The leader should have been Isabella, Moderator Action: <SNIP> .

India has 3000-4000 years of urban history and cultural diversity comparable to the entire Europe taken together, it deserves more leaders way more than tiny, young Spain Chandragupta's empire could devour Iberian peninsula in one war.

To be honest, if not the fact this game is Western product, devs could easily split "Indian civilization" into like 10 separate civs... Damn, I hope they do thst in the future! I definitely desire to see Mughal Empire, Maurya Empire, Chola Empire and Nepal as separate entities.

 

[evanaurora]

The thing about choosing only one Native American group to represent the entirety of the continent is that any group choice is going to seem a little arbitrary. Which is why there should be more!! But there's lots of cool stuff, as people have been discussing, that might be done with the Cree and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what that will look like.

 

[Perseus Gold]

The thing about choosing only one Native American group to represent the entirety of the continent is that any group choice is going to seem a little arbitrary. Which is why there should be more!! But there's lots of cool stuff, as people have been discussing, that might be done with the Cree and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what that will look like.

To be fair most of the North American native societies/cultures don't even meet the archeological definition of civilization including them at all is already an arbitrary conceit due to political correctness. You need to be engaged in both permaculture, animal husbandry and have a social hierarchy and task job specialization more complex than that of hunter-gatherers to be a civilization and not just a culture, something that only a few of the NA tribes did prior to colonialism. Interestingly enough the Mississippian civilization had shown much more complex organization and methods earlier in their history and it collapsed long before european contact. Well what is not called that, given the Michigan in origin copper found in coins in the Levant it is likely there was earlier contact that was lost at some point.

 

[Krajzen]

The thing about choosing only one Native American group to represent the entirety of the continent is that any group choice is going to seem a little arbitrary. Which is why there should be more!! But there's lots of cool stuff, as people have been discussing, that might be done with the Cree and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what that will look like.

To be fair most of the North American native societies/cultures don't even meet the archeological definition of civilization including them at all is already an arbitrary conceit due to political correctness. You need to be engaged in both permaculture, animal husbandry and have a social hierarchy and task job specialization more complex than that of hunter-gatherers to be a civilization and not just a culture, something that only a few of the NA tribes did prior to colonialism. Interestingly enough the Mississippian civilization had shown much more complex organization and methods earlier in their history and it collapsed long before european contact. Well what is not called that, given the Michigan in origin copper found in coins in the Levant it is likely there was earlier contact that was lost at some point.

I agree with both of you.

On one hand, civ4 solution of introducing artificial united "native american civ" was heretic abomination. On another, tribes were diverse enough for one of them to hardly represent all (but way too many to put them all in the game). On yet another, to be honest, most of North American Indians don't meet criterias of actual civilization...

Thus, NA natives have been always problematic in civ series. Everybody (except youtube comment section alt right lunatics) wants to see them in the game in some way, but every way to include them sacrifices some "civ values" in the process.

I know three NA groups which meet criterias of settled civilization.
1) Cahokia (also known as Missisipi Civilization or Mound Builders) which is mostly obscure and I am not sure if we know any of its leaders good enough
2) Cherokee after adopting European inventions, but they are geographically close to Washington so they mess up with hotly desired "geographic balance" of civs
3) Pueblo adobe builders who were going to be added in BNW... And then it turned out tribal elders oficially disagreed on their people being displayed in a video game

So current solution is to grab any big, fresh NA culture and put it in the game as an abstract representation of North American Indians

 

[Vandlys]

Your situation is similar to Switzerland as in you have parts of your country that speaks different languages. I mean the Swiss have a very distinct culture, but to a degree the part that speaks French will have more in common with the French, and the so on. Both your countries are the meeting place of bigger cultures, and while there are reasons why your countries have managed to become independent, that in and of itself doesn't really neutralise that your culture is fractured in part because it is a mish-mash of much bigger colliding cultures. Even within cultures speaking the same language you'll get person x from this end of the country who doesn't understand person y from the other end.

Once again - if they can include a hundred different Civs, I want to see Belgium. But I see no reason to include a French-Dutch-other fracture, until many other places are in the game.

While I agree with most of your sentiment and comment (The Dutch and Belgians of certain times were indeed much closer than some Civs in game and their closest neighbour), I do think it sounds rather condescending to say The Netherlands and Belgium are 'the meeting place of bigger cultures' and 'a mish-mash of much bigger colliding cultures'. I mean, just because The Netherlands and Belgium are geographically smaller, does not reduce their cultural significance. Otherwise you could say the same for Germany, and before you know it your list ends in the pacific : P What is now Germany were a lot of different kingdoms before. They could easily have been their own countries, would that have made them a meeting place of bigger cultures? There are plenty of differences between Belgium and The Netherlands, and personally (having lived in Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Denmark) I see more similarities between The Netherlands and Denmark, followed by Germany and then finally Belgium. So to say Belgium should feel included by the inclusion of The Netherlands feels wrong.

That said, I still don't think Belgium is a viable candidate over so many other empires and cultures that could be added to Civ. The Netherlands wouldn't have been either, if it hadn't been for their Golden Age of colonization, their arts, liberal attitude towards various subjects and to be completely frank, the many stereotypes surrounding the country that just lend themselves well to media (clogs, polders, tulips, orange etc.) If anything, the country is just better branded than Belgium, at least that's how I perceive them on a world stage.

OT:
I'm extremely excited to see the Cree. I love playing cultures I know less from, and that seem more different from the European cultures. If they add a polynesian civ at some point I would be most happy. Seeing Kamehameha always cheered me up : ) Oh, and I'd be extatic to see the Incan people return to Civ : )

 

[GenyaArikado]

India has 3000-4000 years of urban history and cultural diversity comparable to the entire Europe taken together, it deserves more leaders way more than tiny, young Spain Chandragupta's empire could devour Iberian peninsula in one war.

To be honest, if not the fact this game is Western product, devs could easily split "Indian civilization" into like 10 separate civs... Damn, I hope they do thst in the future! I definitely desire to see Mughal Empire, Maurya Empire, Chola Empire and Nepal as separate entities.

GL playing Civilization without tiny Spain and Isabella's having "discovered" America Moderator Action: <SNIP>

Moderator Action: Please do not troll the forums. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Krajzen]

GL playing Civilization without tiny Spain and Isabella's having "discovered" America Moderator Action: <SNIP>

We already have good luck while discovering America, because we do get Spain, just under Philip II who lived less than century apart from Isabella.

Meanwhile there is bigger difference between Chandragupta's India and Gandhi's India than between Spain and Poland.

Other than that, your preference of Isabel is opinion not fact as much as mine opinion, and you should use capital letter for ethnic groups even if it is just some Indian as opposed to some European.

 

[Phrozen]

I agree with both of you.

On one hand, civ4 solution of introducing artificial united "native american civ" was heretic abomination. On another, tribes were diverse enough for one of them to hardly represent all (but way too many to put them all in the game). On yet another, to be honest, most of North American Indians don't meet criterias of actual civilization...

Thus, NA natives have been always problematic in civ series. Everybody (except youtube comment section alt right lunatics) wants to see them in the game in some way, but every way to include them sacrifices some "civ values" in the process.

I know three NA groups which meet criterias of settled civilization.
1) Cahokia (also known as Missisipi Civilization or Mound Builders) which is mostly obscure and I am not sure if we know any of its leaders good enough
2) Cherokee after adopting European inventions, but they are geographically close to Washington so they mess up with hotly desired "geographic balance" of civs
3) Pueblo adobe builders who were going to be added in BNW... And then it turned out tribal elders oficially disagreed on their people being displayed in a video game

So current solution is to grab any big, fresh NA culture and put it in the game as an abstract representation of North American Indians

3) The Hopi didn't want Popi to be portrayed in a game as he is a major religious figure to them.

The PNW tribes pretty much had all the hallmarks of a civilization except for agriculture as they didn't need it due to living in a temperate rain forest for fruit and vegetable food and the salmon runs in the rivers provided plenty of protein.

 

[PhilBowles]

From a cursory google search-- so, grain of salt, etc.-- both Argentina and the Phillippines have never been represented in any fashion in the civ franchise, and they're both bigger gaming markets than Belgium. Then, when you add on countries that have been represented in the past (Thailand, Sweden, and so forth) or countries that are currently semi-represented (Italy, Mexico, and so forth) but are not fully present in the game right now.... Belgium falls pretty far down the list. It's not a small market, but if one's purely considering a potential consumer base (which I obviously don't think one should do) there would be higher priorities.

Malaysia's likely to be a large market, as it's the largest market for computer games in SE Asia and we already know Indonesia and Siam were added partially due to large playerbases in those areas.

Argentina's still in as the Buenos Aires city state - if I recall correctly, Manila was a CS in Civ V.

Same here. I would have no problem with Canada. Australia was also my favorite DLC Civilization despite that being controversial. At the end of the day it comes down how the civ translates to game play mechanics for me and how it challenges me to play the game in a new way. I'm also happy to learn more about the history of just about any spot on the earth.

I don't think there's necessarily anything inconsistent in both not wanting Civ X in the game and approving of its implementation when actually added. Curtin's animations sold me on the Civ VI style and his "War only brings loss" screen is one of the best-presented in the game. The Waltzing Matilda arrangements are fantastic. Even so, if you asked me "should they have added Australia to the game?" I'd still say "no" for both thematic and practical (poorly-balanced on a TSL map to have a civ that necessarily has a large landmass to itself) reasons, and despite loving Australia as a country and having once lived there for several years.

WoW had six expansion packs already; when the current expansion pack is released, all prior expansion packs are added to the base game.

In Civ VI's case, if there's a second expansion, then everything added to R&F could be added to the base game, allowing for DLC that uses R&F mechanics without double-dipping.

But WoW expansions are just additional content like areas and items - a WoW expansion is equivalent to a Civ expansion that is only civs and scenarios and no extra mechanics, akin to the Civ II expansions. The Civ audience has come to expect full-content expansions that change the base game experience. What's more WoW is a single long-running systems - Civilization has had three or four base games over the same period of time.

Civ V already showed signs of strain with BNW due to feature creep and mechanics that the base game was built around (mainly global happiness) either feeling redundant or hampering the full implementation of new systems. Civ VI is likely to have a bigger problem in that regard because it had so many more systems in the base game than Civ V did. Once you hit the point where you need to revisit the original game to make new systems work rather than just add new features, it's time for a new version of the game. It's unlikely any Civ game could support more than two expansions, and people seem to be suggesting that Civ VI may not even get a second (then again, they suggested the same for Civ V).

I had the same reaction to people not hearing about the Shoshone. In American schools they're brought up so often that I thought they were one of the most recognizable tribes of all time and thought that their inclusion in BNW was the obvious and "safe" choice. Then everyone from every country that isn't the USA tells me they've never even heard of the Shoshone before and that they were a total left field dark horse civ. Made me question my entire worldview.

To some extent that's a case of people not recognising the name for the overall cultural group rather than ignorance of Shoshone tribes - the name Comanche is at least somewhat familiar (though less so than names like Apache, Sioux, Cherokee or Iroqois) and people know about Lewis and Clark at least in vague terms. If pressed, I wouldn't have been able to name Sacagawea's tribe as one of the Shoshone tribes. Within the US it's probably regionalised as the country has no national curriculum - likely they're well-known within the area they dominated, but from what I recall from the BNW period American posters were also not expecting them.

The leader should have been Isabella, Moderator Action: <SNIP> .

I don't see any need for Isabella - I think people expected her just because she was in early promotional material. In practical game terms King Zorro already covers the religious angle Isabella did in Civ V. Philip's presentation is atrocious and shows a random caricatured Renaissance Spaniard rather than the ruler himself, but he remains a good choice for the civ. What practical reason is there for wanting Isabella?

 

[Perseus Gold]

3) The Hopi didn't want Popi to be portrayed in a game as he is a major religious figure to them.

The PNW tribes pretty much had all the hallmarks of a civilization except for agriculture as they didn't need it due to living in a temperate rain forest for fruit and vegetable food and the salmon runs in the rivers provided plenty of protein.

That's exactly why they were not a civilization though. One of the main threads tying together what defines a civilization vs a culture is logistics and low time preference behavior. There is a direct correlation between average IQ in the northern hemispheres and how large an impact the artic Jetstream has on seasonal variation with higher average IQs being found in north western European and north eastern Asia precisely because cold and lack of growing conditions selects against lower IQ high time preference behaviors killing the stupid and impulsive people at the lower extreme of the bell curve in those regions over multiple generations. If you don't need to plan your group activities years in advance to ensure your success you aren't a civilization.

 

[Disgustipated]

I mentioned in the Mongolia thread that I'm trying to eat something from the revealed civs

When I heard about Stroopwaffels I had to order some. They haven't came yet though. I want to try them. Though I think they will be more of a processed kind and not authentic. Oh well.

 

[evanaurora]

Malaysia's likely to be a large market, as it's the largest market for computer games in SE Asia and we already know Indonesia and Siam were added partially due to large playerbases in those areas.

Argentina's still in as the Buenos Aires city state - if I recall correctly, Manila was a CS in Civ V.

If we're counting city states, I mean, Brussels is in the game as it is. (As the discussion started around Belgium.)

I'll be honest, I don't know enough about Malaysian history to know what good representation for them might look like-- I don't think Indonesia had a lot of overlap, but I could be completely offbase. Siam was more Thailand, I believe. My East Asian history is... very poor, probably my biggest blind spot by far.

To be fair most of the North American native societies/cultures don't even meet the archeological definition of civilization including them at all is already an arbitrary conceit due to political correctness. You need to be engaged in both permaculture, animal husbandry and have a social hierarchy and task job specialization more complex than that of hunter-gatherers to be a civilization and not just a culture, something that only a few of the NA tribes did prior to colonialism. Interestingly enough the Mississippian civilization had shown much more complex organization and methods earlier in their history and it collapsed long before european contact. Well what is not called that, given the Michigan in origin copper found in coins in the Levant it is likely there was earlier contact that was lost at some point.

If you're implying a Mississippian civilization of some sort would be awesome-- I completely agree. If a reasonable leader could be procured, which I'm not sure about.

I think your definition of "civilization," however, is extremely limiting. Would you say that the longhouses built by the Pacific Northwest people were somehow lesser structures because they were not built by an agricultural people, even though there was no reason for their society to be structured that way? I'm not an anthropologist, so I have no academic qualifications here. But neither are the game designers, to my knowledge. And the game is structured around setting up alternative human societies along a generic "course of history." That should absolutely not exclude Native American groups whose societies evolved differently than European ones.

And those groups were diverse, and in interesting ways, which makes for interesting gameplay! So I'll stand by my original point: picking one group to represent the entire continent is inherently an arbitrary and limiting choice, and more should absolutely be included. I'll even add to it-- it's a travesty a North American group wasn't in the base game.

 

[Haig]

What could be the Cree's Civ Unique Ability? This Iron Confederacy could meet the feel of expansion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Confederacy

I'd love some terrain-related skill too.

 

[PhilBowles]

If we're counting city states, I mean, Brussels is in the game as it is. (As the discussion started around Belgium.)

I'll be honest, I don't know enough about Malaysian history to know what good representation for them might look like-- I don't think Indonesia had a lot of overlap, but I could be completely offbase. Siam was more Thailand, My East Asian history is... very poor, probably my biggest blind spot by far.

What's now Peninsular Malaysia was a series of sultanates in the centuries prior to unification under British rule (what are now Sarawak and Sabah were entirely British creations, the former a historically tribal area with no unified local leadership, the latter a former part of local sultunates (Brunei and, latterly, Sulu). There wasn't a lot of overlap with the island states, and essentially none with the non-Muslim states to the north.

Now that you bring it up I'm not sure why the barrier formed where it did and why empires like the Khmer didn't expand southwards into Malaysia before Islamification. Regardless, there was a discrete Islamic culture in the southern portion of the peninsula and developed kingdoms that could be recognised under the umbrella name Malaysia much as assorted island states are included within Indonesia or multiple empires and kingdoms within China and India.

 

[pgm123]

On yet another, to be honest, most of North American Indians don't meet criterias of actual civilization...

Thus, NA natives have been always problematic in civ series. Everybody (except youtube comment section alt right lunatics) wants to see them in the game in some way, but every way to include them sacrifices some "civ values" in the process.

I know three NA groups which meet criterias of settled civilization.
1) Cahokia (also known as Missisipi Civilization or Mound Builders) which is mostly obscure and I am not sure if we know any of its leaders good enough
2) Cherokee after adopting European inventions, but they are geographically close to Washington so they mess up with hotly desired "geographic balance" of civs
3) Pueblo adobe builders who were going to be added in BNW... And then it turned out tribal elders oficially disagreed on their people being displayed in a video game

So current solution is to grab any big, fresh NA culture and put it in the game as an abstract representation of North American Indians

I'm curious how you define civilization based on what you have there.

1. Mississippian was a number of cultures--Middle, South, Caddoan. The Choktaw, among others, claim descent from them, but so does an Iroquois culture, the Cherokee. It's not connected to the Fort Ancient culture in Ohio, but they had some similarities and likely traded. The Shawnee may be a Nation that came from the Fort Ancient Culture.

2. Why do a Cherokee only qualify as a civilization after adopting European culture? Are we talking about clothes and writing? Or European crops? Or chattel slavery? The last two are why Europeans/Americans at the time considered a "civilized tribe," but I'd like to know how you define it.

3. The Navajo adopted many aspects of Pueblo culture, you could go with them.

To me, a civilization requires cities. So you need a permanent or largely permanent location with a division of labor and large-scale projects carried out for the common good. The Eastern Woodlands tribes--Iroquois, Shawnee, etc.--certainly qualify. The Iroquois (and other confederacies) add governing structures and foreign policy. They quickly adopted European-style foreign delegations as well. The only thing they didn't have are domesticated animals (except dogs) and relied on hunting instead. It was more land-intensive than Eurasian agriculture, but I don't think efficiency of land use (per acre) should be the make-or-break point.

If you're implying a Mississippian civilization of some sort would be awesome-- I completely agree. If a reasonable leader could be procured, which I'm not sure about.

There are a number of nations that are descended from the Mississippi Cultures. I'm partial to including one of them and just including elements of their older culture. Civ does that with a number of civilizations in the game.

 

[evanaurora]

To me, a civilization requires cities.

I largely agree, but I also think if a semi-nomadic civ had enough cultural or economic complexity, or something interesting enough to make them stand out, then they shouldn't be excluded. Civ is best when it's a flexible franchise imo.

There are a number of nations that are descended from the Mississippi Cultures. I'm partial to including one of them and just including elements of their older culture. Civ does that with a number of civilizations in the game.

I mean, I don't DISagree, and in general I'd certainly love to see more pulled from pre-European contact aspects of North American culture with current tribes... but if the devs wanted to go all in with an earlier-history civ like Cahokia, and found a way to do that in a reasonable way, it would be cool. But the lack of distinct leader personalities would be a probably insurmountable obstacle.

 

[pgm123]

I largely agree, but I also think if a semi-nomadic civ had enough cultural or economic complexity, or something interesting enough to make them stand out, then they shouldn't be excluded. Civ is best when it's a flexible franchise imo.

Fair enough. I'm just saying that a lot of Native Americans weren't nomadic, so they could be included even focusing on cities.

I mean, I don't DISagree, and in general I'd certainly love to see more pulled from pre-European contact aspects of North American culture with current tribes... but if the devs wanted to go all in with an earlier-history civ like Cahokia, and found a way to do that in a reasonable way, it would be cool. But the lack of distinct leader personalities would be a probably insurmountable obstacle.

Well, the idea would be that you pull from pre-European contact and include aspects from post-contact. We don't know that some groups of moundbuilders didn't call themselves Chocktaw. Cahokia itself is named after a tribe in the Illinois Confederation. Perhaps the builders of Cahokia were Cahokia. I just don't like using the name "Mississippian" if it can be avoided.

 

[Ever Adrift]

If we're counting city states, I mean, Brussels is in the game as it is. (As the discussion started around Belgium.)

I'll be honest, I don't know enough about Malaysian history to know what good representation for them might look like-- I don't think Indonesia had a lot of overlap, but I could be completely offbase. Siam was more Thailand, I believe. My East Asian history is... very poor, probably my biggest blind spot by far.

Siam and Thailand are one and the same. A ruling military junta renamed the country from Siam to Thailand in 1939 - it reverted back to Siam in in 1946 before permanently becoming Thailand in 1948. Siam was a Portuguese transliteration of the Chinese term for the country. Nationalism drove the renaming of the country to essentially mean 'Country of the Thai People.'

The Civilization games have never stuck to a consistent, singular definition of what a civilization actually is - and that's a good thing. Any definition they developed would be far too constraining on the game - so I feel the people who lived in each region of the world ought to be represented to the best degree possible. If that means allowing a few semi-nomadic groups from the Americas, some modern states like the USA; Australia and Brazil, and more 'true' civilizations like China then that's great.

 

[Duckfromstatefarm]

Not really, Firaxis would have to search pretty hard to find a female leader for the Cree.

Just wait, Firaxis is going to find one and its going to trigger all the anti-female leader players when Cree gets announced.

 

[Perseus Gold]

Just wait, Firaxis is going to find one and its going to trigger all the anti-female leader players when Cree gets announced.

If you have to search that hard you are clearly over inflating the importance of a minor player not representative of their people at their most iconic.