TSL not possible in Civilization

[Staal]

This discussion has probably already been had but I have never bothered partaking so here are my thoughts because I see it being brought up in countless threads.

I think people need to forget about TSL. There are just not enough Civs in certain parts of the world to provide an adequate and interesting selection to balance out all the traditional European civs. It certainly isn't possible to balance it at launch given that Civilization is a Western product for a largely Western audience. It is NOT 'euro-centric' because TSL is an add-on requirement, not the original basis for the game.

The issue is how many steppe hordes or NA-natives do you want? I realise they are all distinct etc but from a visual and world achievement perspective they are all pretty much the same. To me Shoshone/Comanche/Iroquois/Sioux are the same and not worth trying to include more than one. They do not have the distinctive 'known history' of a China or Japan that make them desirable from a marketing pov.

That said, if you were to ignore local sales for the majority of the market and prune down Europe you can discuss how that Civ layout could look.

If you want TSL you need to allocate Civs by landmass. If Europe makes up <10% of the landmass and you have say 20 Civs at launch (just for arguments sake) they would have to be 2-3 Civs max.

Very rough numbers:
Europe 7% = 3 (based on 1.5 but rounded up, most of the others rounded down)
Asia 33% = 6
Africa 22% = 4
Oceania 6% = 1
North America 18% = 3
South America 13% = 3

Now I am going to cheat some more and include some nations on continents they are not really on but have the opportunity to expand into it. I'll bold them below.

Europe = Romans, Germans, Greeks (3)
Asia = China, Japan, India, Russia, Mongols, Persia (6)
Africa = Kongo(?), Zulu/Boers, Mali/Songhai/Ethiopia/Carthage, Egypt (4)
Oceania = Polynesia (1)
N. America = America, Shoshone/Sioux, Aztecs (3)
S. America = Inca, Maya, modern SA-Civ/Arawaks (can cover Caribbean as well) (3)

Africa a bit top heavy so will have to make sacrifice in the Mali->Carthage range. Maybe another civ needed in N.America so that they don't have too much space but... like I said having two NA-native tribes is just not worth it.

A big Civ like England is partially covered by US. The Spanish and Scandinavians lose out unfortunately but I think the Germans cover the 'Germanic' civs in northern Europe well enough, yes even the French. Spain will have to pretend they are Roman or rediscover their Visigoth heritage.

 

[Bast]

I think you can still have a TSL fair split with 6 European, 6 Asian and 6 from Americas (3) /Africa (2) /Oceania (1).

And I wouldn't count Russia as Asia as the starting location would be in European Russia.

 

[Haig]

I have a feeling that launch version has some parts of earth pretty empty, but in coming months we get some dlc packs to fill them up.

Like vanilla might have only one mid-eastern civ and one to none south American civs.

 

[nunor]

Well, there's a reason the European powers were able to colonize Africa and the Americas with relative ease. It's precisely because there were few powerful civilizations there.

I'm all for representing different cultures from different parts of the world, but there are some continents that will always be more empty of civs, which only reflects their history.

Acknowledging the vastly major role of European powers in the shaping of the history of our world, relatively to Sub-Saharan and Native American cultures, is not euro-centrism, it's being factual.

As for Asia, it is fairly well represented by Arabia, Persia, Turkey, India, Mongolia, China, Japan, and Korea (all of them merit being in the base game), but I feel they could give more attention to SE Asian civilizations.

With only 18 civs it's impossible to achieve a fair balance between geographical and historical representation, though.

 

[Bast]

Well, there's a reason the European powers were able to colonize Africa and the Americas with relative ease. It's precisely because there were few powerful civilizations there.

I'm all for representing different cultures from different parts of the world, but there are some continents that will always be more empty of civs, which only reflects their history.

Acknowledging the vastly major role of European powers in the shaping of the history of our world, relatively to Sub-Saharan and Native American cultures, is not euro-centrism, it's being factual.

As for Asia, it is fairly well represented by Arabia, Persia, Turkey, India, Mongolia, China, Japan, and Korea (all of them merit being in the base game), but I feel they could give more attention to SE Asian civilizations.

With only 18 civs it's impossible to achieve a fair balance between geographical and historical representation, though.

I agree with this.

 

[Atlas627]

I don't think TSL *can* be balanced, but that isn't the point of it anyway. If you want to play the balanced game, play on the default settings. TSL is fun for some people, and Firaxis is trying to support that mode of fun.

Something more interesting to note is that TSL may not work properly this time around. They seem to be making the capitals based off of the time period in which the leader ruled, and they may offer more leaders (with different capitals, I'd assume). Where do you put the civ's starting location if they have 2 different capitals? We'll have to see how it works out.

 

[Ryika]

I don't quite get what this Thread is for.

TSL games are very possible, there's tons of them, and there will probably again be tons of them in Civ VI. They're not perfectly balanced as the selection of Civilizations is clearly not designed to work with TSL-Games, but people are aware of that anyway. That's where mods come in.

The real question is what role Firaxis should take in TSL-games, and how a native but modable system would work. They've said they want to support them better, so what exactly will they do? TSL-Scenarios are probably not the solution, but maybe they add some "Official TSL Maps" and a way for Creators of Civilizations to define where their Civs shall spawn on such maps.

That would be great in general, even for other projects. Imagine for example someone could create a Map of Azeroth, and then 5 people can all independently create Civs with "true" Starting Locations on that map without the Map Creator having to decide which Mods he or she wants to manually add Starting Locations for.

 

[stroypa]

Yeah GamerKG is spot on. TSL isn't supposed to be balanced, it's supposed to give true start locations. It doesn't matter if 4 or 5 civs are squashed together and other civs have enormous room to expand into. This can be sort of mitigated a little bit by giving the squashed European civs more resources near their capitals, and I seem to remember Civ IV TSL doing this. Plus they're likely to get science bonuses early on. Because 4 or 5 close capitals will generate more science in trade routes to each other, and they'll all likely discover each other quite quickly and get the research boosts you get when another civ has already researched a tech. Assuming those mechanics are still in anyway.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

If they're going to ship a well-made 'official' World map with the game (which I certainly hope they will), then either it needs to be truly gigantic in size, or Europe will have to be enlarged somewhat from its 'natural' size, to accommodate more of the civs that will be present at launch. I'd prefer an enlarged Europe, because my computer probably couldn't run a gigantic map in Civ VI...

Later on, as they'll add more civs via DLC, they can update the world map with all their starting locations, leading to a balanced mix of civs, say, a year or two from release. And obviously modders will start making new civs from day one. So assuming Firaxis know what they're doing, this is a non-issue imo (or at least a very minor one).

We can only hope that they've hired the right people to design the world map (assuming there will be one... It would be weird for them not to include it, given their mentions of giving support to the TSL playstyle). The 'official' maps have always been terrible and nowhere near the level of modded ones; imo, they should hire that Genghis guy, or whoever it was that made the 'standard' huge Earth map for Civ V. Give him 4 years of time (or however long they've been making the game), and have his only task be to make the best world map possible... That'll give the other map makers something to look up to as they design their own maps!

 

[Plus Ultra]

This discussion has probably already been had but I have never bothered partaking so here are my thoughts because I see it being brought up in countless threads.

This needs to be your signature from now on.

 

[historix69]

This discussion has probably already been had but I have never bothered partaking so here are my thoughts because I see it being brought up in countless threads.

I think people need to forget about TSL. There are just not enough Civs in certain parts of the world to provide an adequate and interesting selection to balance out all the traditional European civs. It certainly isn't possible to balance it at launch given that Civilization is a Western product for a largely Western audience. It is NOT 'euro-centric' because TSL is an add-on requirement, not the original basis for the game.
...
If you want TSL you need to allocate Civs by landmass. If Europe makes up <10% of the landmass and you have say 20 Civs at launch (just for arguments sake) they would have to be 2-3 Civs max.

I suppose when you write

I think people need to forget about TSL.

you mean "Balanced TSL" Games.

TSL in the first place means "True Starting Locations" on a real Earth Map. Like in real history, starting positions are not balanced. They are based on history or current position of nations. Even Civ1 allowed to play on an Earth map with TSL but if you started as England, it was not balanced.

Spoiler :

Playing a TSL game is fun and roleplaying. The human player knows the map and can try to replay history (England as Naval SuperPower) or try ahistorical (nonsense) strategies (England takes over Central Asia and controls the Silk Road). Since starting positions are not balanced, playing a civ with a bad start is like playing on a higher difficulty level. Europe is usually very crowded so Europe determines players to do conquest or colonisation if they want to expand.

If the 18 starting civs do not cover the world, modders will soon come up with new civs to fill the gaps. In Civ Games usually the Barbarians are representing all the minor tribes and nations which are not named in history books. However it would be great if the devs would allow generic minor civs (like different Barbarian leaders, not CS) to cover empty parts of the map.

Crucial for TSL is the supported size of the world map. If the map is so small that you can only place one city in Europe, TSL games become very limited. However with the new 64-bit-engine, we can hope that bigger maps are supported in Civ6. The famous Giant Earth Map uses a special distortion to enlarge europe and reduce the oceans.

Spoiler :

 

[TPangolin]

The issue is how many steppe hordes or NA-natives do you want? I realise they are all distinct etc but from a visual and world achievement perspective they are all pretty much the same. To me Shoshone/Comanche/Iroquois/Sioux are the same and not worth trying to include more than one. They do not have the distinctive 'known history' of a China or Japan that make them desirable from a marketing pov.

There are so many issues that I have with this paragraph that I'm having a tough time figuring out where in the true-start world to start. Probably after the aneurysm that it caused.

Native Americans are not some homogeneous ethereal woodland creatures akin to magical native elves that all look, talk, and walk the same way. The fact that people still pain the Iroquois and the Sioux as the exact same type of people just adds to the reasoning as to why NA representation in is absolutely necessary.

I get the argument, but it's pretty darn intellectually dishonest and you're gonna end up playing into pretty elastic forms of mental gymnastics. The argument being "fall back to the name of the game; Civilization". It's an easy fallback to say that to warrant inclusion in the game an entity needs to first adhere to the definition of 'Civilization'. This is the type of reasoning that some use against inclusion of groups like the Inuit, Cree and any other myriad of culturally unique Native American societies, alongside colonial powers like Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil et al.

Unfortunately, when you have civs like The Huns, Polynesia, Venice, Shoshone, The Zulu etc, as official Firaxis civs, the argument loses significant amounts of weight seeing as Firaxis now has more clear and firm grasp on what their definition of "Civilization" means. You can disagree all you want with that definition, as is your subjective right - but Firaxis calls the shots and the presupposed rule book was thrown out the window when these civs were included. The definition that Firaxis uses is no longer the presupposed and assumed "the process by which a society or place reaches an advanced stage of social development and organization", but instead "any type of culture, society, etc., of a specific place, time, or group".

You can absolutely say that with all certainty - all 43 of Firaxis' Civs in Civ V meet the definition and criteria of the latter as opposed the significantly lesser amount that adheres to the former.

With all this in mind, you have to ask yourself - are the plethora of Native American/First Nations as cultures, societies, nations, histories and peoples significantly different from those that surround it? America's history is so much more than being hunted by the white man whilst simultaneously hunting buffalo.

Firaxis already, especially with the BNW and G&K civs have really subverted the opinions of many by including civs that don't adhere to the presupposed definition, but to their own. It's evidently more about culture, people and society, and not technological and societal advancement. Essentially, the result of this is that Firaxis has treated civs like Venice, Shoshone and The Zulu with the same legitimacy as entities like China, Arabia and Russia. This means that Firaxis are going above and beyond to tell stories that are worth telling.

The question to ask yourself is thus: Are the NA civs a story worth telling? Of course your answer is subjective, but it's the question you should all be asking yourself instead of trying to shoehorn in whether or not an entity deserves inclusion based on a definition and criteria that Firaxis never used in the first place. Remember, the more divergent a culture, peoples and society is from the norm, the more dynamic you can make their gameplay mechanics. It's just something to keep in mind.

 

[albie_123]

To me Shoshone/Comanche/Iroquois/Sioux are the same and not worth trying to include more than one. They do not have the distinctive 'known history' of a China or Japan that make them desirable from a marketing pov.

I really, really want to hear what you actually mean by the Shoshone/Comanche/Iroquois/Sioux being 'the same', as I'm almost 100% certain that the exact same argument could be applied to England, Germany and France. They didn't have the same language, the same culture, the same systems of governance, the same relations with other groups - they aren't even geographically proximal, unlike most European 'civilizations'.

This is exactly what historians are on about when they talk about how representation in media like Civilization might help dispel the notion of European nations somehow having some unique 'civilized' quality, or at the very least somehow more worthy of study and recognition, over the generic blob of African, Oceanic and Native American 'tribes'. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's worked too well in your case.

EDIT: I honestly didn't see tpang's comment, thanks for saying what I had to say but better

DOUBLE EDIT: I also noticed you said 'marketing POV', which in my bout of white-hot rage I missed. You are, from that perspective, correct. A Native American civ doesn't sell as well as a European one, probably due to the fact Native Americans don't represent a sizeable portion of the consumer base.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Playing a TSL game is fun and roleplaying. The human player knows the map and can try to replay history (England as Naval SuperPower) or try ahistorical (nonsense) strategies (England takes over Central Asia and controls the Silk Road).

This is my favorite reason for wanting TSL in a civ game. Random maps are great but since I am very familiar with what Earth looks like and what happened generally in history, I feel a stronger connection to a TSL map. It means more to me when the Roman civ eliminates Egypt and colonizes all of Africa than say when they colonize a randomly generated continent.

Of course, TSL will be unbalanced. Historical civs were unbalanced. Geographical locations influenced civs a lot, just read "guns, germs and steel". That is part of the fun is to play a civ that might have some geographical constraints on it rather than playing on a perfectly balanced random map.

Again, I am not against random maps but I think TSL has a lot to offer too. I am glad that civ6 will be putting more thought into it.

 

[inthesomeday]

Well, there's a reason the European powers were able to colonize Africa and the Americas with relative ease. It's precisely because there were few powerful civilizations there.

I'm all for representing different cultures from different parts of the world, but there are some continents that will always be more empty of civs, which only reflects their history.

Acknowledging the vastly major role of European powers in the shaping of the history of our world, relatively to Sub-Saharan and Native American cultures, is not euro-centrism, it's being factual.

As for Asia, it is fairly well represented by Arabia, Persia, Turkey, India, Mongolia, China, Japan, and Korea (all of them merit being in the base game), but I feel they could give more attention to SE Asian civilizations.

With only 18 civs it's impossible to achieve a fair balance between geographical and historical representation, though.

Many errors here, let's start with first paragraph:
The Americas were "easy to colonize" because the Europeans, who did not bathe, brought scores of horrific diseases which they were immune to and that absolutely decimated the Amerindian population. Africa was not easy to colonize, and actual "colonialism"-- the settlement of the land by a non-native population-- only really occurred on a relatively large scale in the south. Most of Africa was "colonized" in a system known as New Imperialism, which did not occur because of "uncivilized nature" of Africans, but rather because the Europeans used violent technology and firepower overwhelm tactics to beat back the African populations. In fact, in the one region where the natives had anything near equivalent technology, IE Ethiopia, European imperialism was totally prevented in the earlier stages.

Second paragraph: Nope. There are many civ mods in the steam workshop that prove you wrong here, such as Colonialist Legacies. There are literally thousands of cultures in the world, and classifying "civilizations" based on Eurocentric conceptions of the world will obviously belittle the non-European civilizations.

Third paragraph: While it's true that Europeans have had more global geopolitical influence than many others, it's actually laughable to say they have more "history". History is linear and occurs across the world, and every culture in the world has just about the same amount of history. While it's true the popular conception is that history is always written, most history in the world has been oral for most of the existence of humans. But regardless, it is very Eurocentric, because it relies on the assertion that places conquered by Europe had no civilized history before the Europeans came. I mean look at a civ like the Aztecs; they were completely conquered by Europeans (due to disease) but they still merit a civilization based on their achievements before European interference.

Fourth paragraph: Not much of anything wrong here, I agree Southeast Asia could use some love. We need Tagalog civs!

Fifth paragraph: Strongly disagree. More from a marketing standpoint, because Americans wanna play America, Germans wanna play Germany, Brits wanna play Britain, etc. However if you dial back the OVERWHELMINGLY DISPROPORTIONATE number of Euro civs then it's very easy.

EDIT: Also obviously this entire thread is at its core riddled with Eurocentric inaccuracies but it seems as though other users have already broken down some of the OP stuff. So no need for me to.

 

[Xen]

A balanced TSL map is totally doable when the game is fleshed out with x-packs. Look ats whats gone on with Europa Universalis 4, which has made HUGE strides in representing late medieval/renaissance Africa in a detail never before known in gaming- and probably far beyond what many aduiences outside of Africa itself ever see portrayed. (Africa being one of the bigger 'issues' in the civ series in terms of TSL headaches)

 

[Plus Ultra]

Native Americans are not some homogeneous ethereal woodland creatures akin to magical native elves that all look, talk, and walk the same way.

Now that I think about it, I'm very ashamed to admit I've always seen them as slight variations off the same template. Basically, what we see on TV.

Hunters and gatherers with varying degrees of agricultural proficiency that lived in tipis or longhouses, dress themselves with leather, paint their faces and bodies, didn't develop writing, and were very spiritual and ceremonial without the need for an organized religion.

I would appreciate if someone could share a link to a good documentary or book to learn a little bit more about the different civilizations in what is today north america.

 

[stroypa]

Firaxis already, especially with the BNW and G&K civs have really subverted the opinions of many by including civs that don't adhere to the presupposed definition, but to their own. It's evidently more about culture, people and society, and not technological and societal advancement. Essentially, the result of this is that Firaxis has treated civs like Venice, Shoshone and The Zulu with the same legitimacy as entities like China, Arabia and Russia. This means that Firaxis are going above and beyond to tell stories that are worth telling.

I think they still do place a lot of importance on the traditional definition of "civilisation" though, and it's not really correct to say they treat interesting cultures or peoples like Venice or The Shoshone with the same legitimacy as the "true" civilisations like China or Russia. There's a reason the former are added as expansions primarily for their unique gameplay options, whereas the latter are in the base game not because of some new fun way to play but because they're notable in their historical achievements and standing.

The person's point, I think, was that essentially the biggest factor for deciding which civilisations to include is based on what they have actually achieved and how advanced they are. North American civs and African civs in that regard are not particularly notable. There weren't as many peoples and cultures which actually developed into proper civilisations with writing, advanced architecture and urban development. That's generally the key criteria.

Firaxis include "civilisations" which don't fit that criteria and aren't traditional civilisations, because they also want to get a representation of the world, and they want to have a level of geographical variety, cultural variety, ethnic variety and gameplay variety too.

Ultimately though peoples and cultures which did develop into advanced civilisations with written language and organised urban societies, were historically notable, do get a much bigger importance in Civilisation.

 

[Cyon]

I would appreciate if someone could share a link to a good documentary or book to learn a little bit more about the different civilizations in what is today north america.

I read 'Bury my heart at wounded knee'
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bury_My_Heart_at_Wounded_Knee it was very interesting, but it more about how Native Americans got screwed by the invading white people. So not that much details about different cultures.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Now that I think about it, I'm very ashamed to admit I've always seen them as slight variations off the same template. Basically, what we see on TV.

Hunters and gatherers with varying degrees of agricultural proficiency that lived in tipis or longhouses, dress themselves with leather, paint their faces and bodies, didn't develop writing, and were very spiritual and ceremonial without the need for an organized religion.

I would appreciate if someone could share a link to a good documentary or book to learn a little bit more about the different civilizations in what is today north america.

Their history is pretty diverse, though one universal is that they all got completely ruined by disease spread on contact with Europe. The resulting depopulation makes it hard to get good information on what it was like prior, since the time between when that started and when Europeans really started trying to get colonies going in NA was generations.

It's not the only factor in their weakness to Europe but it's a very significant one.

I'm also not big on people projecting post industrial revolution advantages onto history prior to the industrial revolution, especially in a game that runs 4000 - 2050. Post-industrial revolution time is what, ~5% of the years represented by the game, if that? Even less so for representing civs as all starting with the foundation of widespread agriculture.

@ OP:

How many "steppe hordes" do we want? How about "how many Europeans do you want"? Same frame of mind, same logic, same rational backing. Using bias as an excuse to perpetuate bias is not a useful defense for over-representing some areas.