Okay, but seriously, what exactly IS a civilization?

I do wonder how much Firaxis considers just how ingrained nationalism has been into the game series DNA
I suspect rather a lot... We've had a bit of insight from Dev posts here and they are definitely quite aware of the real-world issues their product impinges upon. I sympathize with the balancing act between making a viable product and trying to do their part to address these concerns.

I'd love Civ7 to be less euro-centric, and feature more what-if empires, but they're still going to need to cover the nations which bring in the players...
 
I don't want to ofense you or any other Canadian, but since the moment of the queen of England still the head of state of countries as Canada and Australia, that mean these countries isn't exactly free.At least USA had an independence war and gain it's freedom with a republic. Meanwhile Canada and Australia are both monarchies lead by Elizabeth II.

I could be wrong, but I didn't think Queen Elizabeth even ruled her own country. The Prime Minister and Parliament run England, and the British Royal Family are merely figureheads - just dusty old relics of a bygone era. I thought the same was true for Canada's and Australia's PMs and Parliaments as well.
 
I suspect rather a lot... We've had a bit of insight from Dev posts here and they are definitely quite aware of the real-world issues their product impinges upon. I sympathize with the balancing act between making a viable product and trying to do their part to address these concerns.

I'd love Civ7 to be less euro-centric, and feature more what-if empires, but they're still going to need to cover the nations which bring in the players...

Yeah, iirc some of the biggest reasons for including civs like Canada, Brazil, and Australia has to do with there being lots of people from those countries who go "cool, Canada is in? I'm buying it" And choosing civs like the Mapuche or Mali, while possibly more exciting from a geographic or diversity or history context or whatever, may not sell as well. Obviously it's great that they include both in, but I do think that's a large reason why many of the post-colonial civs are more likely to stay around for longer.
I could be wrong, but I didn't think Queen Elizabeth even ruled her own country. The Prime Minister and Parliament run England, and the British Royal Family are merely figureheads - just dusty old relics of a bygone era. I thought the same was true for Canada's and Australia's PMs and Parliaments as well.
Yeah, just because the Queen is on our coins, it doesn't really mean that they have anything really to do with Canada now except for tradition and history. Now, granted, Canada didn't fully gain power over foreign affairs until the 1930s, and didn't fully gain power to modify the constitution without asking England first until the 80s, so in that sense, Canada certainly is a very "New" country in the modern world. There's plenty of debate whether Canada truly has enough history or enough influence to deserve a spot in the game (and as a Canadian, my opinion changes day by day on whether we should be in or not), but we wouldn't deserve to be in the game more if parliament passed a law that declared Harry as the head of state, or if we skipped over that line completely and appointed Wayne Gretzky as the new head of state.
 
Yeah, iirc some of the biggest reasons for including civs like Canada, Brazil, and Australia has to do with there being lots of people from those countries who go "cool, Canada is in? I'm buying it" And choosing civs like the Mapuche or Mali, while possibly more exciting from a geographic or diversity or history context or whatever, may not sell as well. Obviously it's great that they include both in, but I do think that's a large reason why many of the post-colonial civs are more likely to stay around for longer.

Yeah, just because the Queen is on our coins, it doesn't really mean that they have anything really to do with Canada now except for tradition and history. Now, granted, Canada didn't fully gain power over foreign affairs until the 1930s, and didn't fully gain power to modify the constitution without asking England first until the 80s, so in that sense, Canada certainly is a very "New" country in the modern world. There's plenty of debate whether Canada truly has enough history or enough influence to deserve a spot in the game (and as a Canadian, my opinion changes day by day on whether we should be in or not), but we wouldn't deserve to be in the game more if parliament passed a law that declared Harry as the head of state, or if we skipped over that line completely and appointed Wayne Gretzky as the new head of state.
I suspect the only way we'd get less eurocentrism is if they increase the overall number of civs - which in turn would probably necessitate less distinct civs across the board, so as it stands I'm happy with the civs which help the game sell being in there, and rotating some of the other names...

It would be cool to see more smaller nations like Haiti in there, but if they make it in, it'll in part be because including nations like Australia and Canada generated enough sales... Though in civ6 there were certainly non-european civs which did help sell expansions: Maya, Babylon, Mongolia... So maybe I'm overstating the commercial imperative here?
 
Yeah again, it's not really the list of 64 nations I feel need to take priority in a game about civilization. It's more like the 62 civs that have appeared in form or another in the series + Ireland & Ukraine because 64 is a nicer number. Also agree with you on Haiti; that'd be a very welcome addition
Even though many on your list has appeared before I wouldn't necessarily say that means they should take precedent over others in the future. The Huns come to mind and Scotland can easily be replaced by Ireland.
Meanwhile Canada and Australia are both monarchies lead by Elizabeth II.
One could argue that Queen Elizabeth II doesn't truly lead England, however. :mischief:

About Quebec be more deeply rooted, that's I think is cool, I never understand why Quebecois people vote "no" in the last referendum about be an independent country. Would be nice to have more one latin american country in Americas.
Why would Quebec be considered part of Latin America? :confused:
 
Yeah, just because the Queen is on our coins, it doesn't really mean that they have anything really to do with Canada now except for tradition and history.
The leaders in the coin is a good indicative who is the boss, if is the Queen Elizabeth II in your coins that means she is the de facto ruler of the country.

Moderator Action: Please stop trolling on this topic. US has many people on their coins and they are all dead, so they cannot rule. Please stop this foolishness. leif

Why would Quebec be considered part of Latin America? :confused:
Because Quebec speaks french, who is a Latin language.
 
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Dear lordy...
Who leads UK today? Boris Johnson or Elizabeth II?
After the parlamaint elections, in UK, the Queen Elizabeth need to accept the first minister to the job. Even if Boris Johnson do more adminastrative work then the Queen Elizabeth II, is Elizabeth the facto ruler.
Fix this wikipedia article before posting
Quebec isn't in the Latin America familly group because isn't a free country yet. But, if one day it becomes independent, it should be part of latin america since they speak a latin language, the French.
 
After the parlamaint elections, in UK, the Queen Elizabeth need to accept the first minister to the job. Even if Boris Johnson do more adminastrative work then the Queen Elizabeth II, is Elizabeth the facto ruler.

Quebec isn't in the Latin America familly group because isn't a free country yet. But, if one day it becomes independent, it should be part of latin america since they speak a latin language, the French.

The Queen is, to be precise, the titular head of state, which is quite different from being a ruler. She has no political power, and is obliged to do what Parliament tells her to do. She is a figurehead only.

In Quebec they speak Quebecois, which is a fossilised version of 17th C French - which is a Romance language, not a latin one. I greatly doubt if they would feel much affinity with Spanish-speaking Latin America.
 
which is a Romance language, not a latin one.
For me Romance language and Latin language is the same thing. Both are the vulgar latin who developed in Europe and was spread around the world due the colonization.


But okay, backing in the topic. For me Civilization is every human group and all deserve a spot in civilization games (what I know is impossible but can be a meta to be achieved.)
I can't see the world divided in Barbarians and civilized, even the Barbarians are a civilization in it own ways.
If we remember barbarians is everyone who can't speak Greek, that means is the Greek the only civilization and all others are barbarians?
And former Barbarians groups as the French, British and Germany are represented as civilization in this game.
 
I'd lean toward agreeing with Henri. In the abstract, in a world where there are no material limits to inclusion, there are no culture I would say are not worthy of being civilization. There are some political statelets and short-lived particular incarnation of culture and states I would say are too short lived and their entire existence is inherently about abhorrent ideologies rather than actual cultures (as they're political entities, not civilizations), and there may be group that we have too little solid information about (hi there, Olmecs) to reasonably translate into a game civ, but that's purely a question of lack of information, not lack of worthiness.

In the reality where we have to pick and chose who gets in because there's a limit to how many civs we can have, choices have to be made based on marketability, interest, diversity and representation but there's still not a culture I would exclude from the list because "it's not a civilization". Just some I think lower priority than others, and some amalgams ("blobs") I see as acceptable compromises in order to max out the space we have.
 
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You could solve some of the issues Civ 1-6 have with representation by changing things slightly....
• I think the overall look, feel, etc of a given civilization should be more based off player choice, technology, luxury goods, and cultural power. And I think rather than have all cities look like giant towers of steel and glass, base that on who is culturally dominant in that era, I mean Ziggurauts or Pagodas could be the dominant office building in alternate history.
• Have the player choose a historical figure, but not a "civilization" per se. So you play as Elizabeth not England, and Martin Luther King not America...
• However, the players choose city lists.
• Religons should be 100% custom, and you research tenets of faith, or philosophy. I think its more important a player chooses between a individualist society vs a collectivist society than say.... Protestant or Catholic.
• And because.... philosophy, nationalism, etc can be important Faith can be reworked to still be relevant in modern secular societies (in addition to modern theocratic societies).
 
Henri is right about Latin America. I am surprised some people here dont know the whole cover of Latin America and that the French at middle 19th century were the main promoters of the concept. And it is not just about language, but also the common catholic tradition or even be more open to racial mixing compared to the "germanic" societies.
 
(Not to mention the common political cause of not wanting English North America to boss us around. Henri may be slightly overstating his case, but he decidedly understands Quebec far better than most people in this thread.)

That said, the more I think about it, the more I'm against trying to define civilization beyond "a human culture". Trying to narrow it down beyond that just narrows down the range of playstyle and abilities the game allows for, because ultimately, it's often the smaller and more unique geouo that offer the more interesting options for variant gameplay, rather than the big imperial powers that match traditional ideas of civilization.

For the sake of gameplay, diversifying our conception of civilization and imagining civilizations as a broad range of distinct human culture is best.
 
You could solve some of the issues Civ 1-6 have with representation by changing things slightly....
• I think the overall look, feel, etc of a given civilization should be more based off player choice, technology, luxury goods, and cultural power. And I think rather than have all cities look like giant towers of steel and glass, base that on who is culturally dominant in that era, I mean Ziggurauts or Pagodas could be the dominant office building in alternate history.
• Have the player choose a historical figure, but not a "civilization" per se. So you play as Elizabeth not England, and Martin Luther King not America...
• However, the players choose city lists.
• Religons should be 100% custom, and you research tenets of faith, or philosophy. I think its more important a player chooses between a individualist society vs a collectivist society than say.... Protestant or Catholic.
• And because.... philosophy, nationalism, etc can be important Faith can be reworked to still be relevant in modern secular societies (in addition to modern theocratic societies).
This feels similar to what Humankind is already doing, though.
 
By tying civs to specific leaders I think firaxis have already gone some way to distancing civilizations from national stereotypes*. Alexander the great being a warmonger doesn't necessarily say that Macedonians are all warmongers for example. And varying leaders over time does let us explore different aspects of individual cultures...

* That said, examples like Canada getting hockey rinks and mounties suggests firaxis have some way to go still on national stereotypes 🙄
 
If every culture is a civilisation then one or the other word is redundant. Not that it matters a whit. The game plays the same. Just make every player a culture, whether it is Russia or Casarabe. End of argument.
 
I'd be happy to get rid of the term "civilization" in the study of history and cultures. It has precious little value and serve mostly to justify theory of ethnic superiority.

In the Civ context, a civilization is any of the playable factions of the game competing to win the game. All historical cultures are eligible to be be in-game civilizations, but (given there are material limits) not all historical culture *are* in-game civilizations.

(And, theoretically, not all in-game civilizations have to be historical cultures.)
 
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