thecrazyscot
Spiffy
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2012
- Messages
- 2,460
As an American, I'd be pretty upset if in 4000 years in the future, if America in Civilization 1 Million was led by someone like Buchanan, even if they somehow managed to spin his utter failure of a presidency into legitimately cool abilities and what not.
But isn't Buchanan an awesome positive leader compared to Stalin, who made it into civ? There will always be someone better and some people are always offended. If you stick with only the *safest* choices, it gets boring pretty soon.
Youll be upset in 4000years ?
I didn't mean Stalin offends the Russians in the first place...
What I meant: Incompetent rulers are ok, terrible persons, as you call it, are not.
If you play the civ yourself, you won't mind since you can be competent - if the AI is playing them it probably also is incompetent of some sort ;-)
Like we had have leaders such as Napoleon who made such huge mistakes he ended up as a prisoner and wasted maybe millions of lives.
I feel like here, afonso loses the game, because culture victories are based around your culture being dominant, not someone else's.I could see the game designers giving Afonso a cool ability based on his effort to culturally change his country. Like Qin get his ability for the massive building projects he started.
This + as long as the civ creates a certain feel when playing or meeting it, all lights are green.
Civilization is about creating history so if a civilization was successful or not historically should not matter. This such as cool unique abilities and such matter more in my opinion.
I think you're selling Alfonso a bit short honestly. He's far from perfect yeah and his failure to effectively stand up to the Portuguese slave trade is a huge black mark against him but he's also the one who broke Kongo out of it's relative geographic isolation and onto the world stage.
There's a lot that can be said about his converting to Catholicism but it wasn't, as you suggest, some sort of universally terrible thing. It bought him good relations with Europe , allowed for a far more efficient taxation system and established the first formal education network in that part of the world. It was Alfonso that introduced literacy to Kongo after all and there was overall a huge influx of knowledge during his reign.
He's a choice with a lot of good points and bad points is what I'm saying and far from the absolute disaster that you imply.
Incompetent or vicious leaders are part of history, so if historicity is your main goal (which I'm not sure why it would be given that Civ is not a historical series...it's quite ahistorical) then any leader is fair game.
I would also like to argue that while not a perfect Civ, Mali should be a perennial base game civ in the same vein as Greece, Rome, America, England, France and Germany.
I think it should be a must have civ, even over Shaka, and I'd further argue that at least one other sub Saharan civ should always eventually make some iteration Civ as well. Not just in an argument for diversity but as an argument for more varied and original gameplay.
All I have to say in terms of the detailed rundown on Kongo is that I agree that it's basically a Europeanised African state, but I don't have particularly strong feelings either way in that regard.
Ethiopia really should be a base game civ, but it's East African and the past couple of Civ games have wanted a western representative as well.
Reintroductions
Sometimes, a good civ's already been used.
- The Zulu, as always led by Shaka, are a mainstay of Civ. Aggressively challenging to play against, fun to play with, the Zulu have a special place in civ.
[*]Mali, led by Musa I, was arguably the best civ of IV. Musa I was officially declared the richest person to ever live, and I think his influence stretched far beyond the borders of his kingdom - some would argue his excessive charity on Hajj led to the rise of Venice. A solid pick for an African country with far-reaching influence.
[*]Songhai, led by Askia Muhammad Ture, is not as important as Mali, despite occupying roughly the same territory. Songhai was quite possibly one of the most modern states in West Africa during Askia's reign, however. Some law books written during the Songhai period are still used today in Islamic law, while the Songhai bureaucracy was quite possibly the best in Western Africa while still managing to stay true to the Songhai's original roots.
New Civs - West Africa
Other than Mali and Songhai, the homeland of the Bantu in general offers much more.
- Sokoto, led by Usman dan Fodio, is the main reason you find Fulani all over Western Africa. The Fulani Jihad was one of the most establishment-upsetting events in pre-colonial West Africa. Usman was more than just a religious warrior, however - he criticized other African leaders of the time for corruption and neglect of the common man, and wrote more than 400 poets too. This gives us a good idea of his UA, Leader Ability, UU, UB and Agenda - detesting those who have his religion but allow religious minorities in their empire, culture boosts, unique cultural districts, and of course his soldiers fighting with increased fervor against those of different religions.
- Ghana, and it should be clear I'm not discussing the modern state here, ruled by Ghana Kaya Magan or Bassi, is certainly an interesting choice in the vein of Mali and Songhai. Lasting for nearly 1000 years, the capital of Koumbi Saleh was one of splendor, with Arab travellers reporting that everything in the palace was covered in gold - Ghana probably had a better claim to being El Dorado than any South American country ever had. Supposedly, Ghana was sacked by the Almoravids - but tradition also maintains they held out for a decade first, which is a feat in and of itself.
- Ashanti, led by Osei Kofi Tutu, is another very interesting choice. A federation of various Ashanti kingdoms led by Kumasi, the Ashanti Empire was the centrepiece in Western Africa's precarious balance of power. It's a testament to the Ashanti that it took the brits 3 wars to actually defeat the Ashanti, thus swiftly causing the collapse of hegemony in modern-day Ghana. Ashanti grew on the slave trade, and the importance placed on both the Golden Stool and stools in general means that there is still a unique culture in place. Ashanti would definitely be an interesting choice.
- Dahomey under king Ghezo was an interesting state. First fully independent under Ghezo, he is also credited with the formation of the Dahomey Amazons as a proper fighting force - the Amazons would be an interesting UU for sure. He also maneuvered around British demands rather skillfully, something the British did very little about. The king of loophole abuse, Ghezo would be an amazing trickster AI to play against if he were added.
- Nok - we don't actually have a leader of the Nok, which is where the obscurity clause comes in. However, this doesn't mean the Nok weren't important - their culture was highly refined and, as contemporaries of several major civilizations further north, their use of Iron was developed independently from other countries and could well have been started around 1000 BC. A cool early game civ with focus on culture.
[*]Madagascar is counted amongst the East and not the South, because it is most definitely an East African civ. Led by either Andrianampoinimerina or Radama the Great, the men who respectively started and finished the unification of Madagascar, Madagascar could get a bonus from natural wonders, or access to unique resources to represent its position as an isolate from most of Africa. The Menalamba rebellion against French rule provides an excellent UU.
I'm not qualified to judge Afonso as a choice as I know little of Western African history, but why should his conversion to Catholicism even be relevant? Would you object to an Islamic West African nation like Mali, since Islam was also introduced from outside of Africa?
civs are picked for being similar to Europe.
I'm not qualified to judge Afonso as a choice as I know little of Western African history, but why should his conversion to Catholicism even be relevant? Would you object to an Islamic West African nation like Mali, since Islam was also introduced from outside of Africa?