What about 1.19 ?

[Leoreth]

I took your post at face value, that's the problem I have with it.

 

[1SDANi]

For what? I really do not understand. I have deep respect for you and your work. Of all the possible interesting proposals, I will deliberately choose exactly how it will be implemented by you in your work. But this is the second time my comment has been interpreted by you as sarcasm. Although I never use sarcasm at all.

You called the Iroquois "barbarians who are still appearing".

While presently Civ uses the "barbarian" team to represent nomadic peoples who were historically in conflict with local agricultural peoples, often as a result of agricultural expansionism, the term "barbarian" is plenty loaded and pejorative, especially in the context of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and I wouldn't be surprised if Leoreth is planning to transition away from the label, heck most units controlled by the team don't even have "barbarian" as a prefix anymore, instead having actually respectful titles denoting the culture they are from such as scythian and numidian.

What's more, the Iroquois are not even represented by the "barbarian" team, but instead by the native team, which, in addition to being insanely less problematic, also serves to represent nomads who relied less on pastorialism.

 

[Dracosolon]

The Mississipians are in Civilization Reborn at the very least. They have a fun first UHV where you have to cover every tile in their historical area, leading to a tight settler/culture rush that you can approach in several different ways. The problem is that everything after that is too easy because the player can just expand continuously and, by the time Old World contact is made, it's very much possible to have a massive North American empire with a strong economy.

Once again, the problem is that by classic civilization mechanics it's hard to represent these cultures before European contact without risking them developing strongly ahistorically in some way or another. Which is where Nomad mechanics or some other severe nerfs could come into play.

 

[Leoreth]

But the Mississippians are an agrarian culture, not a nomadic culture.

 

[Dracosolon]

Right, I guess other limitations need to be considered for them then if they're ever included.

 

[Krieger-FS]

We had an excellent discussion few years ago about these nomadic and “tribal” civilizations and their specific dynamics in this thread. Some of the ideas discussed there are great and could give a more substantial base for further constructive debate.

 

[Gen1_]

Or just make spawn a native city called Cahokia around 11th century.

And Iroquois, as a nomadic civ, would raze it because it has culture.

 

[TwoF]

You called the Iroquois "barbarians who are still appearing".

While presently Civ uses the "barbarian" team to represent nomadic peoples who were historically in conflict with local agricultural peoples, often as a result of agricultural expansionism, the term "barbarian" is plenty loaded and pejorative, especially in the context of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and I wouldn't be surprised if Leoreth is planning to transition away from the label, heck most units controlled by the team don't even have "barbarian" as a prefix anymore, instead having actually respectful titles denoting the culture they are from such as scythian and numidian.

What's more, the Iroquois are not even represented by the "barbarian" team, but instead by the native team, which, in addition to being insanely less problematic, also serves to represent nomads who relied less on pastorialism.

I used terminology from the game. Besides, I named them because I remember them, and I remember that they are shown as barbarians.

 

[1SDANi]

Right, I guess other limitations need to be considered for them then if they're ever included.

Personally I'd like to see a distinct division between hunter-gatherer societies, nomadic societies, agrarian societies, and complex societies. To take the Mediterranean as an example, agriculture started to catch on circa 10000 BCE, but it wasn't until circa 5000 BCE that developments in fermentation, tanning, permanent settlement, crop and animal domestication, advanced pottery, irrigation, smelting, sailing, and other technologies over the last half millennia compounded into sufficient population growth to necessitate the development of more complex societies based on a specialization of labour.

DOC usually represents agrarian socities as "uninhabited land", the problematic nature of which I hope speaks for itself. At the same time, it is a representation born out of the limitations of Civ 4 as a system, as tiles are either inhabited by a local settlement, controlled by a distant settlement (in some cases like Bronze Age Greece this control is solely cultural in nature), empty, or solely occupied by a unit representing members of a nomadic peoples, and each city adds to the complexity and thus the resource requirements of the simulation. To allow every tile to have its habitation properly reflected, you'd either need to create a new type of more simplistic city mechanic or represent such cultures solely via units, representing all but the most notable in a manner similar to the independents.

A more practical implementation would be to add such societies as civs, but to hamstring their population growth, production, and commerce, perhaps by restricting them from gaining bonuses from Resources, such as Farms' +2 Food with Corn.

I used terminology from the game. Besides, I named them because I remember them, and I remember that they are shown as barbarians.

Yes, but just because the terminology is in the game doesn't mean it's not problematic. Rhye's and Fall games, and history simulators in general, are not "turn off your brain" type games. You role play as imperialists, colonists, and all sorts of other oppressors, to take the game at face value is do a disservice to the game's cultural and educational value.

 

[Gen1_]

About the Aztecs :
Central Mexico is too small. If it was larger, we could put a native city of Tzintzuntzen (nowadays 1w of Tenochtotlan) and another one for Tlaxcala.
Aztecs' civilization is based on war, central Mexico shouldn't be empty.

 

[TwoF]

Yes, but just because the terminology is in the game doesn't mean it's not problematic. Rhye's and Fall games, and history simulators in general, are not "turn off your brain" type games. You role play as imperialists, colonists, and all sorts of other oppressors, to take the game at face value is do a disservice to the game's cultural and educational value.

I try to speak in such a way that I can be understood. We're discussing the game, not its cultural heritage.

 

[Mav12]

I was thinking about an Iroquois Civ the other day and thought of a few points/ideas.

- The Civ name would be the Haudenosaunee, as that is what they actually call themselves.

- The starting tile would be in upstate NY, the same tile as where modern day Syracuse NY is (The tile directly south of the eastern tile of Lake Ontario on the new map). The core area is basically only Upsate NY with the Great Lakes being historical. historical area reaching into applachia and eastern Canada is also possible. The core might need expansion into historical areas just so there is room.

- Start date would probably be 1450 or 1660 (estimated formation of the Iroquois Confederacy is anytime between 1450 and 1660). AI/normal collapse would be 1776/spawning of the American civ as the American revolution was the event that split the Confederacy apart as the individual tribes took different sides. (If the old core/spawn system was still used I’d suggest the spawning of either the USA or Canada would auto collapse the Iroquois the same way Harappa does with India, Aztecs with Mexico or Rome with Italy etc)

- A unique mechanic related to the morning wars (where after a war the Iroquois would raid other tribes to replace losses). Maybe a UHV could be tied to acquiring a number of units/population this way?

- Dynamic name idea: as vassal of USA the Civ would be Upstate New York; USA as vassal of Iroquois could be something like “The 13 tribes” or something as a reference/joke about how the Iroquois were the 5(later 6) tribes. Vassal Canada would also have a dynamic name.

- UHV ideas: Control all of the Great Lakes region by 1700 (basically the American Midwest; from Upstate NY to the Mississippi and down to KY/TN, basically the region circled in that map posted earlier in this thread); In 1750 Have a defensive pact with at least two European Civs that have settled in North America (north of the Rio Grande); Aquire X gold trading resources to European civs; vassalize or control the flip zones of the USA and Canada in 18?? (Maybe 1860 or 1870?); Adopt the Democracy/Representation civic before any other Civ.

 

[need my speed]

The Civ name would be the Haudenosaunee, as that is what they actually call themselves.

I have been thinking about that recently for a hobby project of mine. But why do I use 'Tawantinsuyu' instead of 'Incas', why do I use 'Ochethi Sakowin' instead of 'Sioux', why do I use 'Wagadu' instead of 'Ghana', and so on? For the Haudenosaunee you could argue 'Iroquois' was an insult by the Algonquins (meaning 'rattlesnakes', I believe) - but e.g. 'Gaul' also comes from 'foreigners', that's also not a polite term to refer to a group of people. I suppose we do know how the Haudenosaunee called themselves, while I think we do not know that about the Gauls, but, mhm. It kinda feels like, subconsciously, that just because these civilisations are 'not western', they somehow need to have their name in their own native name. Shouldn't I for consistency do this wherever I can, and e.g. use Deutschland instead of Germany? I would be curious about your opinions.

 

[Dracosolon]

Do the opposite and have every civilization use an exonym. Arabs are Saracens, etc.

 

[TwoF]

I’m from Eastern Europe and therefore I don’t quite understand the reverent attitude towards such terms and attempts to call people as necessary so that no one is offended.
In my opinion, it is enough to call people as is customary in the historical science of the country in the language of which you are playing this game.
I understand that the historical science of Western Europe most of the time is mainly Eurocentric and seeks to belittle the achievements of non-Europeans, but I still insist on using those terms that are more understandable to most players, rather than the self-names of these peoples.

 

[Leoreth]

I am using the principle of using the terminology most commonly used in modern historiography, to avoid confusion. I think wikipedia is a good place to look up what the best way to refer to a historical polity is - you can be safe to assume that there at least has been sufficient discussion to reach a consensus.

Accurate naming is a good goal to have, but I don't subscribe to the premise that accurate naming can only happen if you leave a foreign word untranslated. As a German citizen, I would find it strange to see the country referred to as "Deutschland" in an English context rather than Germany, and I am not sure the consequences of this line of argument are fully thought through. Are we supposed to refer to China as 中国? I don't think that is helpful when only a tiny minority would even be able to sound out this word in their mind.

There is an exoticising and othering aspect to it as well. I always found the English speaking tendency to refer to the German "Reich" (when Reich just means Empire) offputting. Keeping a word in a foreign language often makes it seem more different than it actually is and can often alienate you from another culture rather than build respect and understanding.

I am curious what people from other cultures think about this.

 

[trexeric]

While I don't think the Haudenosaunee vs. Iroquois debate is quite as dramatic as the Inuit vs. Eskimo debate (wherein the latter is now considered a slur, particularly in Canada), I do think that they're both from the same recent historiographical impulse to defer more to the endonym when referring to Native American tribes. Not Native American myself or anything, but I worked at a museum concerned with Native American history, and I can tell you that in the museum the tribe was referred to first as Haudenosaunee, then maybe Iroquois in parentheses for recognizability. I guess I'm not really coming down one way or another, but in my experience in public history the terminology is starting to shift.

 

[Gen1_]

In 1.19 let's introduce 19 new civs !
(and in 1.20 20 new civs etc)

 

[TwoF]

There may be no point in discussing them, because they are unlikely to be added. Even the Mississippian culture has a better chance.

 

[Gen1_]

What if we didn't have to make resources just spawn ?

Workers could, with a specific technology, be able to unlock a new ability : taking a sample of a resource.
The worker takes it and can pick it up in a tile that is not too different.
Then there is a probability for the taken sample to become a resources.