Polynesia? Seriously!?

[esemjay]

I agree with the Horribleharald.

Evebody is thinking: "Oh, great, firaxis want to diversify, want to be a democratic game with civs from all corners of the earth. Wow how good they are, how generous.."

Actually, as I said on the DLC POlynesia thread what they are doing is being ignorant and kind of racist.

You guys dont see that probably because you come from a major power, like US or EU.

The polynesian are a ethinicty, and grouping together all the countries that have this heritage is generalization. This island countries are prider of thei land and own culture, and really have a rivalry with each other. Samoans dont like the tongans who dont like new zeland. All of then will hate be under a hawaiian king.

Like Horribleharald said, lets do a Latin Civ then. Im brazlian and if firafix created a new civ for latin america under, I dont know, Simon Bolivar..I would quit the game.

Maybe is easier to you to see that if I suggest: lets unify US and England and create the Anglo Saxon Civ...under Washington (to make the brits angry )

I think they should just make a "Human" Civ under Dan Quayle.

 

[pazmacats]

Why is the leader of the polynesians a man?! Does he have tatoos? Why is cannibalism and matriarchial rule missing from the civics? .. So many questions.
But it makes sense if I read the patch notes:
"Embarked units don't seem like having 500 HP anymore."

 

[kekekeke]

Probably they couldn't think any suitable stereotypes to make a new civ that didn't seem too much like existing ones.

One of the reasons I don't really like too much about civilization unique abilities. Leader traits was better imo - not "rasistic" and trait combinations added diversity.

 

[lepruk86]

Is it weird that I partly feel like *this is just a game* comes into play here?

I really have never seen the comparisons of Civilization leaders to real leaders other than trying to be a non-racist stereotype for a geographical location.

By this I mean when you hear England - A large portion of people probably think Queen Elizabeth or Henry VIII.

Remember your leaders live for thousands of years and do not exist or come-into-play at their correct point in time.

I kind of think you have to try to forget about the link with reality a little bit to understand some of the leaders and some of the decisions made when using them - (after all - game mechanics are far more important than accuracy when creating a good video game).

As to this specific choice; call me a little bit lacking in historical affairs - but I had never heard of this nation - to me the more important question personally is:

Is this Civ fun to play as/or against? Do you like their traits/bonuses?
(and you should try to consider this based on each individual Civ already in the game; not Civs in which you feel are missing and thus dislike it simply because it is not the one you wanted).

At least this is how I see it personally anyway (and of course this is just my opinion).

 

[awesome]

since when is hawaii not polynesian?

 

[Venereus]

Polynesia today is made up of:
-French territory
-English territory
-American territory
-Solomon islands
-Papua New Guinea
and Vanuatu

You forgot Poland!

Not really, but you did forget Chile, and you know, we own Easter Island. You know it? The one with the actual Moai statues? Get it?

 

[Louis XXIV]

Taking Polynesians with is same kind of mistake than in civ4 native americans. They are too big group and too separated. What's next? Native africans? Slavic civ? Latin americans?
If they want some polynesian civ, why not choose direct hawaiians. They had own kingdom until evil imperialistic americans conquered their lands and make whole archipelago one their own state.
But is there really more important civs? This sounds as bad as mythic natural wonders, devs are gone nuts.

Because it doesn't give them credit for the Pacific expansion. Also, one of the biggest problems is Civ4 was a regression. We had a well-qualified and well-known choice for Civ3 (The Iroquois), so to have them replaced by a generic Native American civ was disappointing. We've never had the Polynesians before, so it's good to at least take it one step at a time.

 

[jtb1127]

Are they really what made the game better?

Of course not.

 

[jtb1127]

I know that you are ignorent on most of the world your elementary teacher didn`t tell you `bout,

I lived in Hawaii for five years. I don't need my elementary teacher to tell me about it.

 

[Xenobenignitas]

Is it weird that I partly feel like *this is just a game* comes into play here?

I really have never seen the comparisons of Civilization leaders to real leaders other than trying to be a non-racist stereotype for a geographical location.

By this I mean when you hear England - A large portion of people probably think Queen Elizabeth or Henry VIII.

Remember your leaders live for thousands of years and do not exist or come-into-play at their correct point in time.

I kind of think you have to try to forget about the link with reality a little bit to understand some of the leaders and some of the decisions made when using them - (after all - game mechanics are far more important than accuracy when creating a good video game).

As to this specific choice; call me a little bit lacking in historical affairs - but I had never heard of this nation - to me the more important question personally is:

Is this Civ fun to play as/or against? Do you like their traits/bonuses?
(and you should try to consider this based on each individual Civ already in the game; not Civs in which you feel are missing and thus dislike it simply because it is not the one you wanted).

At least this is how I see it personally anyway (and of course this is just my opinion).

Completely agree with you. You could just invent a civilization and put in the traits and abilities you favour for all it's worth. The actual histories of real world civs aren't important considering you'll be creating different histories when you play them

For a scenario, the actual histories matter, but popular or not, they aren't part of the main game

 

[awesome]

well, theoretically, yeah. but it wouldn't make very much sense to fill the game up with places like kyrgyztan and sealand

you know sealand had to be mentioned once

 

[Pouakai]

Like Horribleharald said, lets do a Latin Civ then. Im brazlian and if firafix created a new civ for latin america under, I dont know, Simon Bolivar..I would quit the game.

Maybe if they were to do that (Because I'd love having Bolivar ingame) Have Gran Columbia instead?

Also, said rivalry is a 'friendly rivalry' like what NZ and Australia have. Have a go at each other, but stick up for them on the world stage

 

[Teperi Blaze]

Actually, I agree completely, although I still don't think they should be called the Vikings (Norse most likely, although Scandinavians and Danes are OK as well, with Swedes as a possibility to include Gustavus Adolphus in the mix).

If I had a choice, I would say a Rome's enemy pack next (Carthage and Celts) and then the Norse (my real goal would be the Norse, Byzantium, and Al-Andalus/Moors). But the Polynesians are a great choice right now.

Actually Norse was the strongest bundle of clans of vikings, who were situated in todays Norway. The Danes and the Swedes weren't Norse, they were whatever they called themselves back then, e.g. Daneland and Svithiod, if I remember it right.

Vikings (from vikingr or today vikingur) simply means explorer, or in full description all those people who went out to sea looking for new lands, trades or war/raids. They were all Norse, Danes and Swedes, they were all vikings.

Norse and Danes made a good stint at England and surrounding areas, while Swedes seemed more inclined to finding new trading partners to the east. It is said they reached the Black Sea in their longships, quite a trip in those days.

But I would say, if Vikings is not the right name for this civ, I suppose I could live with Scandinavians.

But as this thread is about Polynesia, didn't they invent the catamaran ship?

 

[Louis XXIV]

Norse is what the Europeans called them. Vikings weren't what anyone called them. Viking was closer to a job description. It would be like naming the Netherlands "Merchants" in a Civ game. So, if you want to go with their name by Europeans (which has precedent, the Haudenosaunee are in the game, but based on their French name, the Iroquois), Norse is fine. Scandinavians are fine too, although I know people didn't like that in Civ3. I liked it because it better included Sweden's later Empire, but either are good. The Danes would be a concession to reality for when the Vikings began to organize an empire, but it feels too exclusive otherwise.

 

[Pouakai]

Yeah, the Outrigger. In NZ it lost one of the hulls and became the massive canoe known as the Waka

 

[nokmirt]

Was Polynesia even part of the polls? In civ 4 wasn't it a user created civilization? All the same, I say why not. I can't wait to check it out tomorrow.

 

[Teperi Blaze]

Norse is what the Europeans called them. Vikings weren't what anyone called them. Viking was closer to a job description. It would be like naming the Netherlands "Merchants" in a Civ game. So, if you want to go with their name by Europeans (which has precedent, the Haudenosaunee are in the game, but based on their French name, the Iroquois), Norse is fine. Scandinavians are fine too, although I know people didn't like that in Civ3. I liked it because it better included Sweden's later Empire, but either are good. The Danes would be a concession to reality for when the Vikings began to organize an empire, but it feels too exclusive otherwise.

Well, Europeans met the Norse ppl in warfare 100 years before the Swedes and the Danes got involved. Daneland owned about a quarter of the southern parts of Sweden and did for many years after the viking-age. But the Danes was traders as so was the Swedes (therefore Swedes going east to find riches.) and they was only involved into conflicts, long after the Norse had made their statement.

So Norse is right, but wrong. The Norse triggered it all, but the tribal pacts of Danes and Swedes had NOTHING to do with this until Harald? decided to bring in the lot together.

It's like calling an American an Englishman, just that was what they were a couple of hundreds of years back.

Viking as a job description, yes, I can agree to that.
But that all vikings were Norse, no way.

 

[Akatsuki]

Vikings would be kick-ass.

 

[Teperi Blaze]

I have to say, though I do love Vikings/Scandinavians/Norse...the Polynesian ppl existed/evolved? for much longer.

50.000 years of slow exploration and expanding is good and I can only see an archipelago map fit for this civ. That beats the Norse/Vikings/Scandinavians by about 49.500 years.

 

[Pouakai]

I can only see an archipelago map fit for this civ.

Depends if the starting bias is 'Coast' or 'Island' - As aforementioned by another poster, having one civ on an island on say, a Pangea map would be very interesting