No Russia in the Base Game?

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I still think Britain is out because we already got the Normans representing the isle. Ed was talking about civs in the sense of the game design philosophy in his PAX talk, not necessarily about civs in the base game. He also used the Franks to illustrate the progression system while emphasizing that such namedropping is not a confirmation of their presence in the base game. Stacks weren't a priority except for countries which have been ridiculous temporal blobs so far, i.e. China and India. Outside of these two countries, the selections so far feel like they've been made the same way as for any other game before, just with a lot more civs. I doubt that staples of previous games are now out after the roster was expanded by 50%.

Mexico or another LatAm has got to be in because of the city style.

Don't overrate the tank appearances though, unit skins don't mean much. Have we learned nothing from the whole Gaul thing? However, without Britain, Germany and Russia and Mexico could be in.

Personally as an Englishman, I hope Normans aren't the only representation of the isle we end up getting. The normans were French/Viking invaders that supplanted the aristocracy. They took the title of King of England and reigned from there, incorporating themselves into the English tradition. The plantagenets leading England are what I would see an English civ, not the Normans. They might get a little English flavour, but it will be quite unsatisfying.

1066 is remembered here for the end of the Anglo saxon dynasty and famously the last time we were invaded - I don't think a hostile force is really going to be embraced as a good representation of the English civilization, similar to the Qing representing China.

 

[uppi]

While it's possible Britain is gone, I still think the fact that the game was openly directly inspired by Rome - Norman - Britain makes it pretty likely. To be clear, I'd be perfectly fine with dropping Britain for another civ on launch, and I suppose it does seem a bit odd that they've yet to directly state it, but they were talking about Napoleon and Ashoka specifically in that presentation.

In the Antiquity live stream, there were two unlocks for Normans in the modern age, one of them censored. Presumable these are ordered alphabetically, so the hidden civ comes before "French Empire". Which could be either Britain or America, but not both. If Britain is in, there likely is no direct unlock of America by European civs. Which would be strange but possible, I guess?

Total crackpot theory (and I don't believe it one second): Maybe there is no America? Do we have direct confirmation of it?

 

[JNR13]

I mean, England is basically "hostile invaders" all the way down. The Plantagenets aren't of Iceni descent or so either, after all. Considering the Normans some extraordinary foreign occupiers of some oppressed English nation is a bit ridiculous. And honestly, I get that as an Englishman, you want more than one civ to represent you, but surely you'll understand that one bad rep is still better than none. And Qing isn't the only civ from the history of China, so they aren't really "representing" anyone but themselves. I don't care too much about Chinese nationalists complaining about the Qing inclusion, either, because they already have two other Chinese civs in the game.

As a German, I wouldn't complain if all we were represented by was a Frankish civ that also covers medieval France. Even something like Bohemia representing the HRE and medieval central Europe I'd be fine with. Just... *something*, you know.

I think Britain will be one of the first DLC civs, possibly under "Right to Rule".

In the Antiquity live stream, there were two unlocks for Normans in the modern age, one of them censored. Presumable these are ordered alphabetically, so the hidden civ comes before "French Empire". Which could be either Britain or America, but not both.

Nice catch!

Total crackpot theory (and I don't believe it one second): Maybe there is no America? Do we have direct confirmation of it?

One of the screenshot file names had "America" in it. The City Hall model in it is consistent with the City Hall in city clusters that also have a palace that looks like the Capitol building. Also, come on, there's just no way they'd leave out America.

 

[uppi]

One of the screenshot file names had "America" in it. The City Hall model in it is consistent with the City Hall in city clusters that also have a palace that looks like the Capitol building. Also, come on, there's just no way they'd leave out America.

Yeah, yeah, I said I don't believe it one second.

Ok, that screenshot is solid evidence. I was just wondering whether we saw Benjamin Franklin and jumped to conclusions. "Benjamin Franklin leads the British Empire" would be funny though (but probably not so funny for the Americans)

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

America's going to be in the base game for marketing reasons.

Britain's going to be in the base game or one of the early DLCs because Ed keeps using the term "British" in places where it doesn't really make sense unless he and his team have already designed a British civ in the mistaken belief that that would make anybody in the U.K. happy.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I mean, England is basically "hostile invaders" all the way down. The Plantagenets aren't of Iceni descent or so either, after all. Considering the Normans some extraordinary foreign occupiers of some oppressed English nation is a bit ridiculous. And honestly, I get that as an Englishman, you want more than one civ to represent you, but surely you'll understand that one bad rep is still better than none. And Qing isn't the only civ from the history of China, so they aren't really "representing" anyone but themselves. I don't care too much about Chinese nationalists complaining about the Qing inclusion, either, because they already have two other Chinese civs in the game.

I don't want more than one civ to represent my country, I just want my country represented so I can play it through the game from start to finish. Not just my country too, that's just how I play. I'd be fine with a Norman civ, but not at the expense of an England civ.

You can call my take as ridiculous as you like, but the devs will be fighting an uphill battle if they have your opinion and they think they can win over historical stories that define national identities.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I don't want more than one civ to represent my country, I just want my country represented so I can play it through the game from start to finish. Not just my country too, that's just how I play. I'd be fine with a Norman civ, but not at the expense of an England civ.

You can call my take as ridiculous as you like, but the devs will be fighting an uphill battle if they have your opinion and they think they can win over historical stories that define national identities.

I think the dev team missed an opportunity to include 3 additional, very basic civs, one for each age, selectable only by players, not AI:

"Ancient X" (or "Proto X") - select a civ from Exploration or Modern Age, the base civ uses that name in place of X and uses that civ's city name list (and military leader name list, if applicable); will always unlock the selected Exploration Age civ (if you chose an Exploration civ) or an Exploration civ that leads to the selected Modern Age civ (if you chose a Modern civ)

"Exploration X" - same, but inherits X and name lists from the civ you used in the Ancient Age; always available for a player to select

"Modern X" - same, but inherits X and name lists from the civ you used in the Exploration Age; always available for a player to select

Bonuses for these 3 civs could be very generic, like 2 Legacy points on transition or something like that.

Doesn't eliminate the age transition and crisis turns, for players who dislike those concepts, and wouldn't appeal to power gamers because you'd be missing out on uniques and better gameplay bonuses, but would appeal to people who want to play a single civ through all the ages. No matter how much the dev team may love the forced civ changes, providing other options is good if you want to appeal to a broad consumer base.

 

[Voidwalkin]

It remains to be seen sorta how many people the switching will impact and just how impactful that impact will be.

I suppose sales numbers won't wholly tell us, but we'll all probably use them to judge, eventually. Fairly or not, we shall base arguments on em. Presumably those who support or can tolerate switching are disproportionately represented here as those to whom it's a hard no organically see their interest fade, resulting in less frequent or nonexistant posting.

If it sells less, particularly if DLC sells less even when it features really influential civs from large markets, I'm gonna presume a sizable % of players just looked at the release and went "nope, can't play home country" and moved on entirely to other games. Maybe perhaps with a little feeling of betrayal if said home country has always been an option previously.

Personally I'm an American so it perhaps impacts me a little differently. I wonder if maybe Firaxis, as an American company, was really on the pulse of this issue

 

[Patine]

This is a pretty accurate statement.

Regardless of what we get at launch, we do know that Firaxis is approached by countries for representation, and that it does factor into modern nationalism and sales to some extent. It's very likely why Canada, Australia, Vietnam, and Scotland (and maybe Gran Colombia) were included in VI, and why we will probably be seeing Mexico and maybe Italy in VII at some point.

Which does mean that they are taking (perhaps calculated) risks if they are planning to launch the game without a Germany, or Britain, or Canada, or Australia.

Are you STILL saying the portayals of Canada, Australia, and Scotland are made to inspire, "Modern Nationaistic pride," when I specifically told you, as a Canadian with strong Scottish heritage, how much of a cringeworthy, bad joke those portrayals were, and I'm certainly not alone in that feeling?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Are you STILL saying the portayals of Canada, Australia, and Scotland are made to inspire, "Modern Nationaistic pride," when I specifically told you, as a Canadian with strong Scottish heritage, how much of a cringeworthy, bad joke those portrayals were, and I'm certainly not alone in that feeling?

Including those countries for sales and representation is a different scenario than the implementation of those countries in the game. They were only implying the former.

Not entirely sure what is cringeworthy about Australia, compared to the other two?

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

I'm curious as well. Canada was... a joke, to be frank, and I don't think I need to say anything about Golf Courses, but aside from the kangaroo emblem Australia seemed alright.

 

[Krikkit1]

I think the dev team missed an opportunity to include 3 additional, very basic civs, one for each age, selectable only by players, not AI:

"Ancient X" (or "Proto X") - select a civ from Exploration or Modern Age, the base civ uses that name in place of X and uses that civ's city name list (and military leader name list, if applicable); will always unlock the selected Exploration Age civ (if you chose an Exploration civ) or an Exploration civ that leads to the selected Modern Age civ (if you chose a Modern civ)

"Exploration X" - same, but inherits X and name lists from the civ you used in the Ancient Age; always available for a player to select

"Modern X" - same, but inherits X and name lists from the civ you used in the Exploration Age; always available for a player to select

Bonuses for these 3 civs could be very generic, like 2 Legacy points on transition or something like that.

Doesn't eliminate the age transition and crisis turns, for players who dislike those concepts, and wouldn't appeal to power gamers because you'd be missing out on uniques and better gameplay bonuses, but would appeal to people who want to play a single civ through all the ages. No matter how much the dev team may love the forced civ changes, providing other options is good if you want to appeal to a broad consumer base.

Far better option…
Choose whatever civ you have unlocked, but you get to choose which (Civ Name-City List) goes with you civ.

So I want to play Rome’s but have the game call them Han or Mongol or Buganda I can…and on switching I can keep the name(s) or change it.

 

[Patine]

Including those countries for sales and representation is a different scenario than the implementation of those countries in the game. They were only implying the former.

Not entirely sure what is cringeworthy about Australia, compared to the other two?

No, they said, "Modern Nationalism," for those three, and they made the point a lot clearer in the previous post of theirs I mentioned that I also responded.

 

[Black Gate]

I'm curious as well. Canada was... a joke, to be frank, and I don't think I need to say anything about Golf Courses, but aside from the kangaroo emblem Australia seemed alright.

I actually think Australia managed to hit pretty much everything it could with the limitations of older civ games. If Aus got into Civ7 I'd like to see something about our sports obsession, but Firaxis even got the colours right, and the kangaroo references the fighting kangaroo 'flag'. Although I might prefer the Golden Wattle flag as a symbol, I believe it may be copyrighted.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Are you STILL saying the portayals of Canada, Australia, and Scotland are made to inspire, "Modern Nationaistic pride," when I specifically told you, as a Canadian with strong Scottish heritage, how much of a cringeworthy, bad joke those portrayals were, and I'm certainly not alone in that feeling?

I didn't say it appealed to everyone, or even that it was necessarily effective in its aim, merely that it does seem to have been done, in some part, to attract casual consumers in developed gaming markets. Clearly it failed with you, which is fine (it didn't hit great with me, either), but I don't think I'm wrong in claiming that was what they were trying to do.

VI, more than any game in the franchise, tried really hard to be "modern" and "accessible." I think that much is evident by the hockey rinks and golf courses and film studio and electronics factory, and the very Disney art design. I think it happened at a time in the franchise where the series didn't really know how to represent Canadian and Australian heritage across the lengths of time, while still making them have distinct character and gameplay, when their only "distinct" features in a roster of 50 were extremely modern, cultural features.

I don't totally fault the game for that, Canada/Australia/Scotland were its "Polynesia" and "Celts." I think they will be much better served in VII. But for other civs: Mapuche, Vietnam, Gran Colombia, to some extent Georgia and maybe Nubia/Kongo or the Cree, I think they were more successful in appealing to modern people from a broader range of heritages than historical games' tendency of "white people plus just enough tokens." I might even say that, from a social justice standpoint, it would be totally okay to have poor representation of America/Canada/Australia/England/etc. to better feature/highlight the other less-represented cultures: reform and sensitive representation punches up the hierarchy, against the flow of power, not down. Something which I am okay with but I understand some people may not be.

 

[Inhalaattori]

Actually I believe Russia wil be in, but Germany and Britain will not. They probably are one of the first DLC -Civs though. I think European Civs and culturally European Civs are:

Rome, Greece
Spain, Normans
France, Russia (+ America, Mexico)

This is based on what we know about Civs in the 2 first eras.

 

[Kyriakos]

I would be hugely surprised if Britain is not in the first version of this game.
Then again, also if Germany isn't.
What is the basis of thinking that either may be missing? (alluding to the obvious interest of selling the game to those markets, not relative historical importance of the civs)

If they aren't (and say Russia is), it won't make the civ progression any better, btw. How would something that was Spain or Norman in the second era, become Russia? The tie to varangians etc is really tenuous.

 

[Inhalaattori]

We practically know there wil be 2 European civs in first age and 2 European civs in the second age. It just doesnt make any sense to have more that 2 european civs in the last age when we already have at least America as European "colony civ". Allthough they dont care that much about historical connections, they do seem to care more about georaphical connections.

 

[Kyriakos]

I still would (if I had to) bet that there will be more euro civs in the third era, including Britain and (likely) including also Germany. Purely for the markets;they want to sell the first version of this game.
On the other hand, it won't surprise me if Russia is out (in this first game). For political reasons. Would they even be able to sell the game in Russia currently? (or sell without loss of income due to complications?)

 

[red_elk]

Would they even be able to sell the game in Russia currently?

They can if they want to. There are no restrictions from Russia's side.