Olmecs not a major civ

[Kupe Navigator]

in the end of the video they speak about Casta wars and EZLN moviment and how Maya still a live nation, in special to Belize and Guatemala where had great numbers of Mayans speakers

the same way we still have "Romans" in Italy... and parts of Greece... doesn't mean Rome is still a thing.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

the same way we still have "Romans" in Italy... and parts of Greece... doesn't mean Rome is still a thing.

Well it's the capital of Italy and Romans today are anybody that live in Rome, Italy.

Anyways I remember when they announced the Maya we were talking about potential UUs, an interesting one came up. That is some Maya defended themselves with either wasps or hornets by lunging them at their enemies. If you click on the link it's mentioned at the bottom of the page.
https://www.historyonthenet.com/mayans-at-war

That could potentially be a future UU opening up possibilities for another Mesoamerican culture to get the atlatlist considering the Aztecs will always get either the Eagle or Jaguar Warrior.

 

[Zaarin]

The Aztecs thought he was Quetzalcoatl, not that he actually was. He clearly wasn't.

Evie beat me to it, but this almost certainly didn't happen. The earliest mention of such an occurrence came decades after the conquest. Scholars to this day debate why Moteuczoma didn't take the Conquistador threat seriously until it was too late, but it almost certainly wasn't because he mistook Cortes for a god.

Sargon would be great but wouldn't that have to be the Akkadian Empire and not Sumer?

The Akkadians were culturally Sumerian and were included in the Sumerian king-list. In a game without Sumer, it might be interesting to have a civilization called Akkad led by Sargon or Naram-Sin, but with Sumer already in the game they'd make much more sense as alternate leaders for Sumer. (Of course, we'd need a Sumer that wasn't "the Epic of Gilgamesh civilization" first. Ideally led by Gudea or Shulgi or Ur-Nammu.) At the end of the day, however, I'd consider Akkad, whether on its own or as Sumer, a low priority. Babylon and Assyria were ultimately the major players of Mesopotamia (and both should be Civ staples--it's a crime Assyria has only been in the game once); after that I'd look for more distinct para-Mesopotamian civs like Elam, Hurria, Urartu, Hittites, etc. (Not a single one of those is Mesopotamian, but they were in Mesopotamia's sphere of influence.)

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Evie beat me to it, but this almost certainly didn't happen. The earliest mention of such an occurrence came decades after the conquest. Scholars to this day debate why Moteuczoma didn't take the Conquistador threat seriously until it was too late, but it almost certainly wasn't because he mistook Cortes for a god.


The Akkadians were culturally Sumerian and were included in the Sumerian king-list. In a game without Sumer, it might be interesting to have a civilization called Akkad led by Sargon or Naram-Sin, but with Sumer already in the game they'd make much more sense as alternate leaders for Sumer. (Of course, we'd first need a Sumer that wasn't "the Epic of Gilgamesh civilization" first. Ideally led by Gudea or Shulgi or Ur-Nammu.) At the end of the day, however, I'd consider Akkad, whether on its own or as Sumer, a low priority. Babylon and Assyria were ultimately the major players of Mesopotamia (and both should be Civ staples--it's a crime Assyria has only been in the game once); after that I'd look for more distinct para-Mesopotamian civs like Elam, Hurria, Urartu, Hittites, etc. (Not a single one of those is Mesopotamian, but they were in Mesopotamia's sphere of influence.)

As always, you have interesting and relevant commentary to add to the discussion. Also, that is a crime. Although, I don't think Assyria will be in Civ 6 unless in mods considering that the Babylonian Unique Unit and Infrastructure all had something to do with Assyria.

 

[Zaarin]

Also, that is a crime. Although, I don't think Assyria will be in Civ 6 unless in mods considering that the Babylonian Unique Unit and Infrastructure all had something to do with Assyria.

I agree. It was always a long shot for Civ6. I'm hoping to see them return in Civ7, though.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

As always, you have interesting and relevant commentary to add to the discussion. Also, that is a crime. Although, I don't think Assyria will be in Civ 6 unless in mods considering that the Babylonian Unique Unit and Infrastructure all had something to do with Assyria.

Well Assyria had a catapult replacement and a library replacement last game so I don't necessarily see the uniques keeping them out. It's more like I don't see 3 civs from Mesopotamia officially getting in the game at this stage which Mesoamerica is in a similar situation.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I mean Athens uniting Greece is no more or less fantasy than communist America. This is the nature of the genre: if you let the players control their game, they are likely to take it in ahistorical direction. And that was the case from Civ I onward. If you don't let players take things in different directions - turn Athens into an Empire or play Rome as a city state (one city challenge), then you have a history book, not a game.

Player agency and gameplay trump accurately representing internal Greek politics of the 5th century.

Of course the game veers into fantasy as soon as you start playing - it's not supposed to be a mere historical simulation (for one thing, even those are fantasy because no one has enough data to avoid guesswork and speculation as to What Really Happened). What I'm really arguing for is more than a nodding acquaintance with the historical basis in a game marketed as historically-based.
Which means, sure, you can have an Athenian Empire - or Delian League, which is the larger polity that Athens did put together. And while he gave us the term "Pyrrhic Victory", Pyrrhus of Epirus and his Greek Army came closer than most realize to turning Rome into a Historical Footnote in the building of a Greek Mediterranean - But he did it as head of the Kingdom of Epirus, an entire region of (western) Greece, not a single City State.

And, yes, the ONLY united Greece historically before the Greek Republic of. modern times was when the country was conquered by outsiders: Macedon, then Rome, then the Byzantines (which is really sort of Greco-Romans conquering/inheriting Greece), finally the Ottomans - and that list could have included the Achaemenid Persians, if they hadn't gotten suckered into losing their fleet at Salamis. But a more-accurately modeled Greek City State mechanic still leaves room for a Conquering, Expansive Greece: they did establish colonies in the 8th - 6th centuries BCE from the Don River in Russia to Spain and Greek troops fighting as City State or League troops or mercenaries fought and beat non-Greeks ranging from Persians to Thracians to Carthaginians without waiting for Alexander or his father to lead them.

But please don't try to convince me that an Athens or a Sparta can have as complete control over all other Greek cities and build an Empire as coherent as the Persians or Romans - that is Lazy Fantasy by a game that doesn't bother to explore the truly fantastic possibilities of 'alternate history'.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Lets hope CIV7 could have more solid regional groups of civs like:

> Mesoamerica:
* PUREPECHAS, militar civ leaded by Tariácuri (Quangáriecha + Yácata temple)
* AZTECS, cultural civ leaded by Nezahualcóyotl (Ocelopilli + Calmécac college)
* MAYA, scientist civ leaded by Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil (Hornet Thrower + Pitz court)

Other regions that also deserve more than "a representative".
> Mesopotamia: HITTITES + ASSYRIANS + SUMERIANS.
> Indochina: BURMESE + SIAMESE + KHMER.
> Horn of Africa: NUBIANS + ETHIOPIANS + SOMALI.

There are also the elephants in the room for India and China but are unlikely because political reasons, still would be great to have:
> China: HAN (Chinese) + TUFAN (Tibetans) + QIN (Manchus)
> India: MAURYA (Maghada) + CHOLA (Tamils) + GURKANI (Mughals)

 

[Evie]

It's a game which defaults to randomly generated maps. By the rules of alternate history, that literally puts the point of divergence for your alternate history several billions years into the past, back when the Earth was a molten ball. Assuming any of what we know about history remains true with a divergence that early is actually a violation of even the most basic rules of althistory - there shouldn't even BE greeks or romans or *anything recognizable at all* on a planet like that, let alone greeks with recognizably greek cultural traits. In all likelihood, recognizable humans are a dicey proposal at best on a planet like that - different landmasses with different connections, and the possibilities that mass extinction events happen at different times or not at all (I don't see the Chicuxclub crater on my Civ maps, do you?) lead to a situation where even the very basis of what species are alive or not are completely impossible to predict.

Even if you DID use a real world map in Civ, and used True Start Locations - that would still put the point of divergence in 4000 BCE, when the game begins - 3500 years before the heydays of Greek city-states. That's (considerably) more than enough time for history and Greek cities to evolve in a completely different direction, and never form the propension for independent City States we know them to have had in the mid-first millenium.

For althistory to meaningfully resemble our own (eg, recognizable culture, civilizations, etc), the point of divergence has to be reasonably close to the start of our story. That definitely doesn't happen when you have a random map, and it pretty much doesn't work either if the history you want the game to replicate is several centuries or millenia after the point of divergence.

But Civ is not a althistory game. It's a 4X game, and the random map is a fundamental part of that (because the first X is exploration, which implies a world that is unknown to players at game start, at least by default). It is, to all practical purposes, a fantasy map populated with cultures loosely inspired by real world cultures - which it has to be for random maps to work.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It's a game which defaults to randomly generated maps. By the rules of alternate history, that literally puts the point of divergence for your alternate history several billions years into the past, back when the Earth was a molten ball. Assuming any of what we know about history remains true with a divergence that early is actually a violation of even the most basic rules of althistory - there shouldn't even BE greeks or romans or *anything recognizable at all* on a planet like that, let alone greeks with recognizably greek cultural traits. In all likelihood, recognizable humans are a dicey proposal at best on a planet like that - different landmasses with different connections, and the possibilities that mass extinction events happen at different times or not at all (I don't see the Chicuxclub crater on my Civ maps, do you?) lead to a situation where even the very basis of what species are alive or not are completely impossible to predict.

Even if you DID use a real world map in Civ, and used True Start Locations - that would still put the point of divergence in 4000 BCE, when the game begins - 3500 years before the heydays of Greek city-states. That's (considerably) more than enough time for history and Greek cities to evolve in a completely different direction, and never form the propension for independent City States we know them to have had in the mid-first millenium.

For althistory to meaningfully resemble our own (eg, recognizable culture, civilizations, etc), the point of divergence has to be reasonably close to the start of our story. That definitely doesn't happen when you have a random map, and it pretty much doesn't work either if the history you want the game to replicate is several centuries or millenia after the point of divergence.

But Civ is not a althistory game. It's a 4X game, and the random map is a fundamental part of that (because the first X is exploration, which implies a world that is unknown to players at game start, at least by default). It is, to all practical purposes, a fantasy map populated with cultures loosely inspired by real world cultures - which it has to be for random maps to work.

I'm sincerely not certain if this is a reducto ad absurdum argument or a simple lack of geographical knowledge as it applies to a 4x game based on modern human populations.

First, any game that starts, as you seem to indicate, long before anything resembling modern humans are on the planet, is no longer a historical game at all and so outside any discussion in this Forum. (also, if you're going back that far Why Stop? Might as well go back to the Big Bang and start with a real 'blank map')

Second, for as long as modern humans have been around, and most definitely by the beginning of the Neolithic, both the climate and its effect on the map and the terrain on the map itself have been in near-constant Flux. Go look up the African Humid Period, the Khyalynian Sea, Lake Ojibway Collapse, Little Ice Age, among others. In addition, humans themselves have been modifying "the map" for at least as long, using fire and other techniques for changing the flora and fauna to their own ends even before sheer numbers of humans starting to have a major effect in the past 1000 years.

In short, even if you assume that the map is the sum total of Civilization divergence (which, despite Jared Diamond's arguments, is still very much debatable) the Map Is Not Static and so the geographic conditions change from whatever date you desire to start the game (but, please, keep it since modern Humans appeared unless you want to change the game from 4X to Anthropological Determinism) so that any group on the map will/should have to deal with a changing map, not a set of static conditions.

And yes, at the traditional 'start date' of 4000 BCE for Civ, none of the 'Civilizations' in the game exist in more than prototype form - and that only in Egypt and Sumer, with a number of caveats. In fact, most of the peoples that will become the later Civilizations aren't even anywhere near their 'starting positions' yet: the 'Greeks' are not only about 2500 years in the future as recognizably Greek but at least 1000 kilometers off to the east with a different language and basic food supply, and religious practices which can only be guessed at from archeological evidence.

I submit that is not an argument for being content with a set of fantasy starting Civs, but for making a game that shows the development of those Civilizations from far more different 'starting points' than the game provides now.
The Humankind game appears to be 'dipping their toe' in that water, by starting with a Neolithic Era in which you do not play as any recognizable group: you choose your 'Civ' (Faction) only when you achieve a progression to the Ancient Era. Add to that some influences (but NOT absolute ones, or the game becomes an attempt at Geographical Predetermination or Historical Simulation, and even I don't want to play that!) from the terrain and climate and maybe even some 'preliminary' cultural/civic traits, and I think it would be a major step in the right direction.

 

[Evie]

There is no reductio ad absurdum, or ignoring anything, in any if what I wrote.

What I wrote is that, according to the principles of alternate history, the further back in time the point of divergence is, the more unrecognizable the resulting world is. If the point of divergence is on a geological scale (which is what is needed* to produce a world with completely different mountains, seas, continents et sl, as you get with a random world generator), then there is zero reasonable expectation that anything in this althistory should be remotely like the history we know. At that point, even having groups called Greeks and Romans on the map is pure fantasy, not plausible althistory. Whether the map is static or evolving has precisely nilch to do with that fact. That's not a reductio ad absurdum; that's applying fundamental principles of AH to an average game of Civ.

Civ has never been and will never be a althistory game. It's Deadliest Warrior: the Strategy game - a piece of fantasy pitting famous people, civilizations and warriors against one another. Trying to turn that into a proper althistory game is about equivalent to trying to turn Europa Universalis into Colonization. They're completely different games in completely different genres, and whatever merit they may have, we're much better with them sticking to the genre they do well rather than naking then into something they're not.

The game you're looking for sounds interesting, but it's not a Civilization game.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

There is no reductio ad absurdum, or ignoring anything, in any if what I wrote.

What I wrote is that, according to the principles of alternate history, the further back in time the point of divergence is, the more unrecognizable the resulting world is. If the point of divergence is on a geological scale (which is what is needed* to produce a world with completely different mountains, seas, continents et sl, as you get with a random world generator), then there is zero reasonable expectation that anything in this althistory should be remotely like the history we know. At that point, even having groups called Greeks and Romans on the map is pure fantasy, not plausible althistory. Whether the map is static or evolving has precisely nilch to do with that fact. That's not a reductio ad absurdum; that's applying fundamental principles of AH to an average game of Civ...

The further back in time the point of divergence is, the more drastic the changes will be - Unless, as in your example, the point of divergence is so far back that it is on a different time scale. Plate tectonics, which is what causes an entirely different planetary surface, take place over a timescale of tens to hundreds of millions of years. Human civilizations of any kind develop over a timescale of hundreds to thousands of years. The first is invisible to the second, and in fact, to human eyes for most of history, the changes to the planetary surface were invisible because they took place too slowly. So unless the divergence results in a planet that does not support human development at all - in which case you have an entirely different, and completely science-fictional game - you have to assume that each individual human polity, group, or state is so utterly dependent on a specific combination of terrain, climate, and biome for its development that any divergence from the 'historical' (Timeline 0, as H. Beam Piper called it) planet will change them utterly.
I honestly don't think that is a valid point.
As long as the divergent planet provides a terrain, climate, and biome that supports human life, then unless you also postulate a compete change in human behavior there will be development of human societies, groups, polities, civilizations. Now, expecting them to develop exactly the same as the historical groups is pure Fantasy, or taking Historical Coincidence far, far into the realm of fantasy.
But that's precisely what the game does not do. On the contrary, it postulates that in 4000 BCE we the gamers take over and using what plate tectonics and human development through to the Neolithic gave us (or, more precisely, what the Game Design gives us) we take it from there, in whatever direction we choose within the game parameters.

Thank you very much for a fascinating discussion, which I'm sure could be continued for several more pages, but I'm also afraid this is getting 'way off topic from the Olmecs!

 

[Evie]

Agreed, but then by your own breakdown of the game - there is no reason for the Greeks to be locked or pushed into a City States social organization. There is reason to have that option as a potential social organization in the game, maybe to have the Greeks AI favor it, maybe even to give it a particularly efficient synergy with other abilities Greece may have. But there should be no unique greek trait or ability forcing them in City States (even if they can later change).

Back to our friends the Olmecs...well, really, what more is there to say? We lack any pertinent information to have them in game, as previously agreed. Hence why my vote for third mesoamericans would go to the still obscure but far better documented Purépecha,

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Agreed, but then by your own breakdown of the game - there is no reason for the Greeks to be locked or pushed into a City States social organization. There is reason to have that option as a potential social organization in the game, maybe to have the Greeks AI favor it, maybe even to give it a particularly efficient synergy with other abilities Greece may have. But there should be no unique greek trait or ability forcing them in City States (even if they can later change).

Back to our friends the Olmecs...well, really, what more is there to say? We lack any pertinent information to have them in game, as previously agreed. Hence why my vote for third mesoamericans would go to the still obscure but far better documented Purépecha,

My argument for a 'City State' political/diplomatic mechanic is not specific to the classical Greeks. In fact, what little information has been gleaned about the Olmecs suggests that they were a 'city state' civilization as well, possibly not even speaking the same language in all the 'Olmec' cities.
Being unable to conceptualize someone from another city or region as 'one of us' seems to be a default Human characteristic that has to be Unlearned or Learned by Force/Compulsion - as various Conquering Empires did with varying degrees of success throughout history.

 

[Evie]

Some kind of tribal-city state early organization that all civs (excepting any unique ability) start in, yes, I can definitely see that!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Some kind of tribal-city state early organization that all civs (excepting any unique ability) start in, yes, I can definitely see that!

Until X (Civic/Social Policy), any cities you start after your first one start with a Loyalty Deficit . . .

There's also strong archeological evidence that even having internal organization within your first city was not automatic: they've gone back and taken a hard look at some of the early city sites: Catal Huyok in Anatolia and some of the big Cucuteni-Tripolye neolithic/chacolithic cities, and discovered no signs of 'heirarchy' - that is, every dwelling almost exactly the same size, no central ornamental or 'public' buildings, no central worship area. And it turns out as soon as there was any trouble - raiding by steppe dwellers, a drought for a few years - those cities literally unraveled: the population simply packed up and left. Apparently, an absolute prerequisite for a stable city is that people recognize the need for some authority above Head of the Household, Extended Family or Clan, and that was not a Given when people first started to gather in urban concentrations.
Given that many of the Olmec and later Mayan cities appear to have been simply abandoned rather than conquered, something like that may have continued to apply long after the 'game start date' of 4000 BCE.

 

[The Civs 6]

All that is assumed when you plop down a city on turn 1. Any polity that didn't achieve those things is simply not a suitable Civilization/4x candidate. Change my mind.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

All that is assumed when you plop down a city on turn 1. Any polity that didn't achieve those things is simply not a suitable Civilization/4x candidate. Change my mind.

All what? The discussion was of a City State mechanic because so many Civs IRL in fact never were united under one Great Leader unless conquered from the outside. That includes such Civ game stalwarts as Classical Greece, the Maya, the Celtic Gauls, and for virtually all of their history up until 1871 CE, the Germans. If none of those are suitable Civilization/4x candidates, it is You who will have to change the minds of the designers at Amplitude and Firaxis and a number of players.

Now, if you mean that a group that cannot found a viable City in the first place, then I'd just point out that with the possible exception of Sumer and Egypt, no group had founded any viable 'cities' in 4000 BCE, and even those two are Suspect: Egypt's First Dynasty is about 850 years in the future, and as late as the Sumer Dynastic Period 1100 years later the records refer to 'Kings' of individual cities, which looks very much like Sumer also is a "City State' Civ.

The Civ games (and Humankind as well, from what we've seen so far) assume both City Development from 4000 BCE for everyone and that All Civs are coherent political entities from that same date, neither of which is historically accurate and in fact for most 'civs' is so inaccurate as to be laughable. Throwing some alternative civic/political structures into that mix and making the development of the social/political/civic policies necessary to build and maintain a city and Empire part of the game would, IMHO, make for a more interesting game. If you want to play as the Emperor of Germany you should have to build the social and political means to do that and the unitary Imperial political structure shouldn't be handed to you gratis from Turn 0.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Maybe Civ 7 can do Greeks and Mayas just city states and not playable civs, that should open space for more civs come with Atlalists as Unique Unit

 

[Zaarin]

Maybe Civ 7 can do Greeks and Mayas just city states and not playable civs, that should open space for more civs come with Atlalists as Unique Unit

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one...