What do you think of the Leaders?

[Gorbles]

Like sure, pretty, complimentary colours. Now point me to a bird that has feathers of that EXACT hue of bright orange (and a purple shaft?) and that exact size. I doubt that species would be alive right now as it can't camouflage to save its life.

The macaw would like to have a word with you, r.e. the bold.

r.e. the headdress . . . who knows, I'm not an ornithologist. Are you?

Also, PURPLE clothes? How did the Incans dye that? It took chemists centuries to create synthetic purple dyes. Tyrian purple (which is more of a violet than anything) is painstaking to produce. How did the Incans extract purple pigments for their Sapa-Inca rulers, the same Sapa-Inca rulers who were noted to wear RED clothes, hmm?

Google says with mollusks (for the Mayans, too).

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

About Montezuma, it seems very strange in my opinion to see him with 'Mexico' or Shaka with 'Buganda'. Seems unrelated

Well leaders are unrelated to civs, so I don't see why it would be strange?
Obviously, they could always be released with an Aztec or Zulu civ later on, but since those aren't going to be in the base game those are the closest civs they could be associated with.
In fact, I'm sure once we get the Aztecs, the preferred path would be Maya>Aztec>Mexico in game.

 

[Lord Lakely]

r.e. the headdress . . . who knows, I'm not an ornithologist. Are you?

Biology teacher. Close enough?

I know a little bit about the fauna of the Andes, and typically the feathers of parrots would be used: quetzals, macaws and the like.

Now, if you look at the headress itself, the colouration suggests flamingo (which is viable as the Andes has an endemic species of flamingo), but the broadness of the feathers themselves match with the condor. Condors feathers are dark in colour with white stems. It's unlikely that a Sapa-Inca, whose associated colour is RED, would have worn a headress of Condor feathers, let alone in those colours. More likely, they would have worn a headress with feathers of a red macaw, a lot of smaller wing and tail feathers nearly tied together.

The other option is that the feathers are man-made, but then again, they would not have been orange and purple.

And like @pokiehl correctly pointed out, cocineal dye would have been used for the garments themselves to dye them carmine red. The lice responsible are endemic to South-America. There are techniques to dye wool purple; but those clothes would not have been worn by the Sapa-Inca and it would have been a dull hue of violet, not the rich dark lavender as shown.

Like I said, pretty colours. But not very accurate.

 

[Hilton1]

How many leaders are we still expecting to be announced for the base game?

 

[gdr_willter]

How many leaders are we still expecting to be announced for the base game?

At least 15 base leader as I know. (except Persona and DLC leaders)

 

[Teproc]

While I find the discussion interesting, expecting Civ, which is not exactly a game franchise noted for its historical accuracy, to have that level of attention to detail feels very strange to me. Civ is historical fantasy.

 

[notNamed]

While I find the discussion interesting, expecting Civ, which is not exactly a game franchise noted for its historical accuracy, to have that level of attention to detail feels very strange to me. Civ is historical fantasy.

It's kind of a biproduct of the last decade or so? Civ 6 put more attention to detail than Civ 5, hired Mr. Johnson for consultancy during its later lifecycle and was moving towards more attention to detail.
Then you had Humankind in the background, a game CIv 7 takes a lot of inspiration from, which made historical accuracy one of its pillars and put unprecedented effort into stuff to set a new high bar in this category.
Similarly you had titles like Old World trying to put attention to detail to its own version of historical 4X.

So Civ 7 making a heel-turn and going back into Civ 5 era of attention to detail (with the more involved stuff being hidden, like the discussions behind quotes from Mr. Johnson: why keep Chiefdom, imagined ideals of Cartography) was a bit unexpected.
Though at the end of the day, it's an understandable choice... at least most of the time.

 

[Bast]

While I find the discussion interesting, expecting Civ, which is not exactly a game franchise noted for its historical accuracy, to have that level of attention to detail feels very strange to me. Civ is historical fantasy.

I can't at names like Shakala from Civ II, that's like burned into my memory lol

I don't mind this. If I wanted historical accuracy, I would just play stuff like Europa Universalis or Victoria. But I play that and Civ for different reasons. Which is why I'm also opening my mind to playing 3 civs for 3 different eras.

 

[Gorbles]

Now, if you look at the headress itself, the colouration suggests flamingo (which is viable as the Andes has an endemic species of flamingo), but the broadness of the feathers themselves match with the condor. Condors feathers are dark in colour with white stems. It's unlikely that a Sapa-Inca, whose associated colour is RED, would have worn a headress of Condor feathers, let alone in those colours. More likely, they would have worn a headress with feathers of a red macaw, a lot of smaller wing and tail feathers nearly tied together.

I really appreciate the detail here, but I just want to note that it's apparently possible for a Sapa Inca to wear dark feathers.

But I agree orange and purple are very likely nothing more than artistic license. But in-keeping with the aesthetic idea that the Sapa Inca gets the brightest and most colourful clothes and decorations.

 

[Willie5000]

What's next? They'll make Gandhi a leader for India?

It’s a silly post-mortem justification for the fact that Gandhi lead India for the past six games.

They could just chose actual leaders for the civilizations (Wu Zetian for the Chinese civs and Jefferson for the U.S.) and pick Ashoka for Maurya. Plus if they put Gandhi they know us Civ fans will understand because nuclear Gandhi is funny and basically one of the things Civ is known for.