There will be a third expansion and/or more DLC for Civ5?

What do you think?

  • There will be more DLC's AND an expansion

    Votes: 67 11.8%
  • There will be DLC's but not an expansion

    Votes: 225 39.5%
  • There will be an expansion, but not DLC's

    Votes: 51 9.0%
  • Neither DLC's nor expansion

    Votes: 107 18.8%
  • You're asking this way too early, JaGarLo...

    Votes: 119 20.9%

  • Total voters
    569
Screw China. Historical accuracy ftw. Let's have Tibet, Uyghurs, and Manchurians.

...it's not like they make games to make a profit, to in turn make more games now do they? I mean, they didn't even go as far as making a new leader head to replace Mao in Civ IV so it wouldn't be censored or anything.
 
Not to be cynical, but if they did have another expansion, they'd still cram it with European civs. You'd probably get Belgium, Serbia, Hungary and Italy or something like that. I doubt they'd ever have less than a third of new civs non-European.
Well to be honest there still are interesting options in Europe, particularly in the east. And I wouldn't mind seeing Florence or the Papal States making an entrance in the game.

But almost all the obvious choices have been put into the game, Venice was a huge exception. They might not have considered them if they hadn't heard about the sacking of Constantinople. And I personally find that for Venice it worked out really well because of its original design. Compare that with the Zulu who just have combat bonuses.
 
...it's not like they make games to make a profit, to in turn make more games now do they? I mean, they didn't even go as far as making a new leader head to replace Mao in Civ IV so it wouldn't be censored or anything.


No firsthand experience with software sales in China. I'd welcome someone with detailed knowledge to chime in, but this seems like an area that is accepted as convention and one I'd challenge. Sure they'll ban it. But so what ?

How much software do they actually buy vs pirate in China ? Thats 5.4 billion in software sales. My uninformed guess would be the bulk of that is business sales. Companies can afford and cannot risk pirating. How much of whats left over is going to Civ ? Of that, how much would actually be stopped by a government ban ?

Yes, they're an emerging market with huge potential. Shareholders would indeed revolt. But Chinas not there yet in legal software sales, and I'd argue you'll set yourself up better for future sales in that market and others if you make a principled stand now. You are a game maker. Your game is based on history and fun. Do honor to those things and you will reap rewards later. Do I expect Firaxis to do it. Of course not, and I don't hold it against them. Its more of a niggle on how we accept and perpetuate it.
 
At this point my next 12 would probably be

Kievan Rus - Olga
Berber - DAHIA-AL KAHINA
Vietnam - The Trung Sisters
Gran Columbia - Simon Bolivar
Australia - Alfred Deakin (c'mon you gotta choose the bearded guy)
Hungary - Erzsébet Bathory (so she's just a countess - I want my blood bathing serial killer leader screen)
Israel - Solomon
Ashanti - Yaa Asantewa
The Papal States - Alexander VI (I want Lucrezia and Cesare in the background)
Mughal Empire - A'la Azad Abul Muzaffar Shahab ud-Din Mohammad Khurram
Tlingit - Ḵʼalyaan - I want totem poles and a leader in a kick ass Raven war mask!
Hittites - Hattusili

Lots of female leaders, a couple of beards and a reasonable mix and whilst Gods & Kings was a religion based expansion I was always disappointed that no religion specific civs were brought in. Some of the choices above aren't what I'd choose myself but I've tried to pick something for everyone.
 
No firsthand experience with software sales in China. I'd welcome someone with detailed knowledge to chime in, but this seems like an area that is accepted as convention and one I'd challenge. Sure they'll ban it. But so what ?

How much software do they actually buy vs pirate in China ? Thats 5.4 billion in software sales. My uninformed guess would be the bulk of that is business sales. Companies can afford and cannot risk pirating. How much of whats left over is going to Civ ? Of that, how much would actually be stopped by a government ban ?

Yes, they're an emerging market with huge potential. Shareholders would indeed revolt. But Chinas not there yet in legal software sales, and I'd argue you'll set yourself up better for future sales in that market and others if you make a principled stand now. You are a game maker. Your game is based on history and fun. Do honor to those things and you will reap rewards later. Do I expect Firaxis to do it. Of course not, and I don't hold it against them. Its more of a niggle on how we accept and perpetuate it.

Doesn't work like that in China. Also, I'd be more worried about anything Civ related being blocked if they really did take a "go suck yourself China" attitude. You can't annoy potentially important markets with something that World powers try and avoid. I mean, Taiwan isn't even internationally recognised as independent.

Honour counts for little in software sales either, otherwise we wouldn't see all this intrusive and disgusting DRM punishing us that actually pay good money for the software.
 
Firstly:



We actually couldn't do that as it would lead to an instant ban in China. They are not fond of China being represented as anything but the one great China, and that includes Tibet being shown as an independent nation in any sense. They banned Hearts of Iron if I recall for showing Tibet as independent (which they were at the time) for example.

Beyond that it does become subjective, but how this argument came about through discussion of North America is ridiculous. Again, if the game was made and a large chunk of the English speaking player base were not Yanks we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, and we'd instead be taking about other peoples being added. It's as simple as that. It's not even as though there are great Civilizations that have been completely ignored up to now. A lack of Sumeria, Phoenicia and Khmer is completely laughable, and to be perfectly honest Burma (Pagan) should probably also be a huge consideration, as though Vietnam. Asia tends to get completely ignored though.

The idea of having a mere two Civilizations in South East Asia, one of the most densely populated areas in the World and one of the most important regions for trade in the World is utterly laughable, particularly when the Native North Americans get that much representation. Yeah, in the 13th century Cahokia may have had a population of 15-40k, at the same Angkor's population was by same estimates of the order of 1 million and one of the largest cities in the World and there were many like it at the time as well.

As of today there are about 4.5 Native North Americans, similar in number to the pre-Columbian era (although estimates range as high as 9 million). As of today there are around 650 million people in South East Asia and it has been one of the most densely populated regions historically.

You show again remarkable talent in picking out one little sentence while ignoring the rest of the post. The China comment was made as an illustration that your origin matters, it's clear to me that they can't split up China. [Though there might be some way if you do it via historical dynasty's instead of regions. In any case, that doesn't prevent Tibet or Manchuria as a DLC that's not available in China]

It's true, I probably should have brought up Arabia as the example of a civ that wouldn' exist if the game was made in Lebanon or Qatar. It's a better example than China arguably.

But other than that you fail to argue why population or trade matter and should be used as a basis for a quantitative comparison. I maintain that whatever factor you take to "rank" (and that's what you're doing) the empires, it will be highly subjective. For example, I personally don't have to think the Russian culture is interesting just because there are lots of them.

And btw. how can you argue for Aborigines and meanwhile say no to "Australia", last time I checked there are lots more "Australians" than "Aborigines" (of course the latter count to the former, but you get my point I hope).

Nigeria is the 7th most populous country in the world. There is arguably a national identity, just look at the success of the national football team. But would we want Nigeria as a civ? [To answer that, there might be some arguments for this, but most civ players in here prefer more "ancient" african civs.] And btw. by that metric, the Philippines would deserve inclusion before Vietnam or Burma.

Again, all I'm saying is that the "deserves to be included"-discussion is absolutely worthless. It doesn't further the discussion at all.
 
You show again remarkable talent in picking out one little sentence while ignoring the rest of the post. The China comment was made as an illustration that your origin matters, it's clear to me that they can't split up China. [Though there might be some way if you do it via historical dynasty's instead of regions. In any case, that doesn't prevent Tibet or Manchuria as a DLC that's not available in China]

It's true, I probably should have brought up Arabia as the example of a civ that wouldn' exist if the game was made in Lebanon or Qatar. It's a better example than China arguably.

But other than that you fail to argue why population or trade matter and should be used as a basis for a quantitative comparison. I maintain that whatever factor you take to "rank" (and that's what you're doing) the empires, it will be highly subjective. For example, I personally don't have to think the Russian culture is interesting just because there are lots of them.

And btw. how can you argue for Aborigines and meanwhile say no to "Australia", last time I checked there are lots more "Australians" than "Aborigines" (of course the latter count to the former, but you get my point I hope).

Nigeria is the 7th most populous country in the world. There is arguably a national identity, just look at the success of the national football team. But would we want Nigeria as a civ? [To answer that, there might be some arguments for this, but most civ players in here prefer more "ancient" african civs.] And btw. by that metric, the Philippines would deserve inclusion before Vietnam or Burma.

Again, all I'm saying is that the "deserves to be included"-discussion is absolutely worthless. It doesn't further the discussion at all.

I don't actually say no to Australia, I just don't like the idea, much like I don't like the idea of Italy, Venice (who are now confirmed in), Canada, more Native American groups and such. As I've said even in this thread, if a colonial expansion were to be made, Australia and Canada would be decent options for a tie in to the expansion. I've also talked about an Indigenous Australian civ before, and in particular the issues that go along with one.

Population certainly isn't a particularly great metric, but in reference to others it is something useful to consider to gauge the size and significance of historical cultures. The Khmer for example were massive, not only on a regional scale either. Angkor at it's height was arguably on a similar level of any city before the Renaissance. The issue here, which I tend to not bother mention, is that they went for Siam "instead", which would be like going for France "instead" of Germany. The same issue exists for Mali, where they chose Songhai "instead" of them bizarrely as well. My guess would be they did it for a bit of shock factor in the build up to release rather than actually doing it for any cultural reason.

I also don't remember anyone talking only about modern populations. If you recall from the discussion about the Native North Americans and South East Asia before, the mention of modern populations was for flavour about the modern world, but the main reference was to them historically (although finding historical values for South East Asia directly is difficult). For a taste of the numbers though, the Khmer Empire in the 12th century had a population similar to the entire Native North American population today. On the other hand, whilst populous and united today, the Philippines did not have a Khmer Empire type power before the colonial period.

As for regional DLC, it's something I can't picture them ever bothering with. If they put all the time, expense and effort into making new Civs, they'd surely want them to be sold to everyone, and not limited by where they are "allowed".

Also, you're quite right about the effect that the origin of the game has. If the game was made (and dominated) by somewhere like Qatar or the UAE, it'd be unlike to have just an "Arabia" (although having an Arabia wouldn't be impossible culturally). With that example though, they'd have far more Civilizations from their own region, most likely with some that would seem odd to us. Personally I'd prefer to try and best to avoid being overly biased as the game tends to be to places related to America.
 
It would be good to have a religion based world congress type thing, but one for each religion with more than, say, 3 member states? Plus it would be another good way to use the state religion thing I talked about way earlier in the thread. But maybe not go away after WC is founded, so you could have deeper inter-civ diplomacy?

Plus it could be a good way to represent the smaller diplo-organisations of the world than UN.
 
I'm pretty sure the metric which is used by Civ is position in the public conscious of the target demographics (i.e. ours)
 
Screw China. Historical accuracy ftw. Let's have Tibet, Uyghurs, and Manchurians.

You know I wonder if its worth considering doing that and actually having it help. So hypothetical, Civ puts in Tibet, and if the above prophets of doom are right China bans it.

I bet this would make some news in the overall gaming community that it was banned in China.

I also wonder what the number of previous sales were in China to begin with.

I do know that young males love controversy in games, and the more someone tells them not to play a game (ex. Grand Theft Auto with video games, or Eminem with music etc.) the more appealing they are to that crowd. Additionally, Tibet sympathizers in other countries (USA included) may purchase or at least look into the game based on that.

Bottom line is I wonder if the added controversy from China's ban would increase sales to people who have:

A. Publicly denounced China
B. Made a declaration of friendship with Tibet
C. Want to "stick it to the man" by playing something that an "oppressive nation" doesnt like.

Now Ill admit I have no numbers for these for all I know China's sales could be higher then all the other countries combined, but I doubt it. I am currently under the assumption that US sales are highest, but again, I could be wrong.

Anyways, just something for them to consider.
 
You know I wonder if its worth considering doing that and actually having it help. So hypothetical, Civ puts in Tibet, and if the above prophets of doom are right China bans it.

I bet this would make some news in the overall gaming community that it was banned in China.

I also wonder what the number of previous sales were in China to begin with.

The risk to Firaxis is not just a loss in sales. Someone along the line might associate them with a position on an issue that a gaming company best not be involved with.
 
And what does that translate to?

Bad press; unnecessary controversy. What would it look like if someone took the inclusion of Tibet as Firaxis taking a stance on the legitimacy of Tibetan statehood? If such a thing grew, Firaxis would have to address it, which would just end up an awkward mess, because not everyone is going to be satisfied with that they would declare their neutrality to the issue.
 
I don't particularly think 2K China would be wanting to get on the bad side of the government. There's a whole studio at stake.
 
Words.

Unless it translates to lost sales or a weaker game, what does it matter?

Words as such do and would have the potential to weaken sales, as well as the image of the company as a whole, which could further weaken their position as a gaming business. This is worst case scenario for them, of course, and would require some real political activists to probably ignite, but why risk it when you could, for instance, put in Nepal? This would be a perfectly acceptable substitute for a Tibetan civ.

In any case, this isn't particularly germane.
 
I don't particularly think 2K China would be wanting to get on the bad side of the government. There's a whole studio at stake.

It appears I was wrong. I didn't know that there even was a 2K China. You are right in it not being wise to piss off the government of a country you did business in. I was falsely under the impression that they just shipped games to China.
 
Doesn't work like that in China.

Sure it does. More importantly, it will.

Also, I'd be more worried about anything Civ related being blocked if they really did take a "go suck yourself China" attitude.

Thats why you don't take a "go suck yourself China" attitude. You make a game. You want it fun. You want interesting elements in the game. The Government of China is the one that says "go suck yourself Firaxis". This is the position.


You can't annoy potentially important markets with something that World powers try and avoid. I mean, Taiwan isn't even internationally recognised as independent.

1) Annoy a government, not a people.
2) Global Politics is on a different scale than making a game.


Honour counts for little in software sales either, otherwise we wouldn't see all this intrusive and disgusting DRM punishing us that actually pay good money for the software.

Bad analogy. In this scenario the company is telling the consumer to suck themselves. In the other the company is saying....we like to make interesting and fun products.

Now Ill admit I have no numbers for these for all I know China's sales could be higher then all the other countries combined, but I doubt it. I am currently under the assumption that US sales are highest, but again, I could be wrong.

Check my prior post for some figures and additional conjecture. All very high level, assumption riddled, and poorly informed (my post, not article)....but so far its holding up :)


Words.

Unless it translates to lost sales or a weaker game, what does it matter?

I like the way you think!


Words as such do and would have the potential to weaken sales, as well as the image of the company as a whole, which could further weaken their position as a gaming business. This is worst case scenario for them, of course, and would require some real political activists to probably ignite, but why risk it when you could, for instance, put in Nepal? This would be a perfectly acceptable substitute for a Tibetan civ.

In any case, this isn't particularly germane.

He made a case that it would do just the opposite. Any case that China sales would be impacted is supported by "Chinese government doesn't like it". Which is all well and good, but we have data that can be interpreted as showing the Chinese consumer market at the moment pirates more than they buy. Therefore, impact of "Chinese government doesn't like it" is minimal.

I don't particularly think 2K China would be wanting to get on the bad side of the government. There's a whole studio at stake.

It appears I was wrong. I didn't know that there even was a 2K China. You are right in it not being wise to piss off the government of a country you did business in. I was falsely under the impression that they just shipped games to China.

Don't give up the fight too quickly, I think we can get a least a couple more posts out of this one :)

China 2K does have a presence, but what is it ? I'd say they are focused on hiring in China. Not to say they don't want to sell, but my bet is the shop is setup for hiring. In other words, the Chinese govt and people are benefiting directly from that presence. Not the other way around. Cheap development labor can be had in India, Romania, Poland...the list is endless. Its a competitive market, the cheap labor one. They don't want to set a precedent that creates a distinct advantage for other locations.
 
And just thought of another thing. I would have to imagine the inclusion of Tibet as a civ would be comparably offensive to China as creating the Golden Shield Project and labeling it the Great Firewall. I honestly don't know the Chinese governments opinion, but I would think the Great Firewall mocks their Golden Shield Project, and position on censorship in general. To my knowledge they haven't made a fuss over it, so it may be they wouldn't make a fuss over including Tibet.
 
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