Why not have more unions as civilisations?

[SwedenIsDaBomb]

I've been thinking a lot wether I would prefer the developers to include for instance The Kalmar Union or The Union of Sweden-Norway instead of having a selection between the Scandinavian countries in every game. Since our culture is so very similar, I don't see a problem. The same goes for many Eastern European countries. What do you guys think would be the pros and cons with unions rather than many small independent countries?

I would prefer unions since it would give a wider representation of countries and at the same time enable to take the best perks from each country.

 

[Felis Renidens]

Well, The Greeks are in every game and they were a bunch of city states. There were wars between Athens and Sparta or different heirs of Alexander - but for the game they are all "Greeks".
Also in CiV Denmark seems to include Norway and Sweden seems to include Finland.

So - some civs are unions already.

 

[Spartan_X]

Some playable civs in game, especially those with long histories are more like representations of cultures rather than actual historical countries/kingdoms - with exceptions of course. That is why, for instance, we have Germany and not Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony etc

 

[SwedenIsDaBomb]

Well, The Greeks are in every game and they were a bunch of city states. There were wars between Athens and Sparta or different heirs of Alexander - but for the game they are all "Greeks".
Also in CiV Denmark seems to include Norway and Sweden seems to include Finland.

So - some civs are unions already.

Right, thanks for reminding me about Greece. However, as a swede it was troubling to have Swedish city names mixed with Finnish ones since our cultures are very different although parts of Finland once belonged to Sweden. The spelling of city names weren't spelled the Swedish way, yet the civilisation was Sweden. I hope they don't continue with that

 

[ldvhl]

I would never want to see Ukrainian cities on Russia's city list. I think it's better to keep everybody separate.

 

[EricTheGreat12]

That is why, for instance, we have Germany and not Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony etc

While that is reasonable, it would still be cool if the game would allow you to make union between different civs, such as a German-Russian Union or something similar like that.

 

[Art Grin]

I've been thinking a lot wether I would prefer the developers to include for instance The Kalmar Union or The Union of Sweden-Norway instead of having a selection between the Scandinavian countries in every game. Since our culture is so very similar, I don't see a problem. The same goes for many Eastern European countries. What do you guys think would be the pros and cons with unions rather than many small independent countries?

I would prefer unions since it would give a wider representation of countries and at the same time enable to take the best perks from each country.

Civ5 went a bit overboard with the Nordic countries by including both Sweden and Denmark. Usually there has always been a single Viking civ representing all the Nordics.
Eastern Europe isn't exactly over represented in the series. Prior to Poland making it in in BNW we'd usually only have the Russians as the sole Slavic representative.

Anyway, except for Civ5 the series usually represented civilizations rather than nations or kingdoms.
For example we always have the Greeks as one civ representing the entire Greek world from Sparta over Athens to Macedon.
The Celts represent not merely Britons or Gauls but usually the entire Celtic culture.
Same is the case with the German civ which encompasses the ancient tribes, HRE and the post 1871 nation-state.

 

[Krajzen]

Not only Greek civ is union. There were many "unions" in civ5:

*Celts - Boudicca + Wales + Scotland + Ireland + Picts + Brittany + ???
*Maya - there was never one centralized Mayan state, only many city-states and small kingdoms
*Iroquis - there were no "Iroquis people" but Iroquis Confederacy created by six tribes: Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora [this one is union on historical level, not arbitrarily made by Firaxis]
*Shoshone - not sure about this but it seems Shoshone and Comanche (Shoshone unique unit is Comanche riders) were in fact two separate nations
*Huns - "Huns" were probably in fact "confederation of warrior bands" (their origins are unclear)
*India is union civ as hell, seeing how it includes disconnected civilisations of Indian subcontinent (modern, colonial, Mughal, ancient - btw India is very unfairly treated in civ series)
*Polynesia - Maori + Eastern Island + Hawaii + Polynesia itself (yes, all following areas were outside of geographic Polynesian area) => basically islands from the entire Pacific Ocean => it's exactly as realistic as putting all islands of Mediterran Sea into one civ and naming the result "Mediterranean civilisation"

 

[nunor]

Don't forget the infamous Native American civilization

 

[Krajzen]

Don't forget the infamous Native American civilization

I was listing civ5 unions. But yeah, Native American civ in civ4 was catastrophically stupid concept.

You put all North American indians in one ridiculous (and fairly stereotypical) "Indian" generic civ, yet you bother to do separate Germany and Holy Roman Empire into two separate civilisations...

 

[nunor]

I was listing civ5 unions.

Sorry, my mistake!

But yeah, Native American civ in civ4 was catastrophically stupid concept.

You put all North American indians in one ridiculous (and fairly stereotypical) "Indian" generic civ, yet you bother to do separate Germany and Holy Roman Empire into two separate civilisations...

Yeap, when I saw they had the Native Americans and the HRE... that was a major facepalm moment.

 

[j51]

Having unions allows for a more unique play-style as there are then less civs, but more uniques per civ. The pan-Greek civ is more distinctive than if several city states were their own civs.

The union civs would work perfectly if you had multiple leaders with distinct city lists and nation names to reflect their particular slice of that civ. Some examples:

Greeks: Pericles, Athens, Athens; Lysander, Sparta, Lacedaemonia; Alexander, Pella, Macedon
Germans: Otto, Magdeburg, Saxony; Frederick II, Berlin, Prussia; Maria Theresa, Vienna, Austria
Norse: Cnut, Roskilde, Denmark; Gustavus Adolphus, Stockholm, Sweden
Akkadians: Hammurabi, Babylon, Babylonia; Ashurbanipal, Nineveh, Assyria
Indians: Ashoka, Pataliputra, Maurya; Raja Raja, Thanjavur, Chola; Akbar, Agra, Mughal

PS: India should still be more than one civ in that circumstance. Maybe two; a (northern) Indian and a (southern) Dravidian civ.

 

[Art Grin]

I was listing civ5 unions. But yeah, Native American civ in civ4 was catastrophically stupid concept.

You put all North American indians in one ridiculous (and fairly stereotypical) "Indian" generic civ, yet you bother to do separate Germany and Holy Roman Empire into two separate civilisations...

I think the only reason we got the HRE is because they wanted Charlemagne in. It was one of the series weirdest choices for a civ right up the with the Native Americans and Huns.

 

[ringwraith18]

Sorry, my mistake!


Yeap, when I saw they had the Native Americans and the HRE... that was a major facepalm moment.

The HRE makes more sense than Greece.

 

[nunor]

The HRE makes more sense than Greece.

So, you think the Greek civilization is something Firaxis made up?

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Iapetus303]

The game is called "Civilization", and in a standard game you guide your civilization from ancient times all the way up to (potentially) the near future.


As such, I've always felt that the civilizations work best when they represent actual "civilizations" (i.e. entities with a clear cultural continuity of several hundred years at least), rather than short-lived kingdoms, unions, and other polities.

(Otherwise you could potentially end up with the Kingdom of France, all five republics, and the Empire all in the same game).

I think such short-lived polities are better left to scenarios.

(Although the suggestion to allow the formation of unions in the course of a game is a good one).

 

[daft]

Unions, as in smaller, weaker civs, rather than being conquered by much stronger neighbours, choose to become part of another's (or the aggressor's themselves) nation make some historical sense. Basically, a civilization is merging into another (sometimes creating a nation with a new name) rather than concede to the inevitable conquest by the hands of aggressive, superior in every aspect, civ.

Although becoming a vassal or a puppet state should also be an option in such a situation.

Ancient Greek City States were much more often at war with each other than outside forces, although they did form (partial) unions against outside threats (Persia).

Seeing Comanche Riders as unique unit of the Shoshone in CV made me laugh, those are two different tribes.

In late Eras, nations might want to form unions such as the EU, when economics play more important role than nationalism.

 

[awesome]

Well, Comanche were technically Shoshone who broke off from the others and developed a horse culture, so it's not terribly inaccurate.

 

[Ezumiyr]

I think it's more about a subjective common culture than about political borders.
For the Greeks, the common culture is materialized by the language, which is called "koine", which means "common language". So it makes sense to have a civ that brings together all greek-speaking people, including macedonians.

For other people, it's not the language that matters the most, but a common goal, a common history or a common state. It can be more than one thing.
That's why we have Germany, France and the others.
For Rome, it was the roman citizenship and latin. For France, it is a common language and common values. For Germany... well, I don't know. The fact of being called considered as one people by other civs ?


So I think that we can have unions as civs, but it has to be unions that are not in fact distinct cultures that happen to be working together. There is a need for a common culture. So no Habsburg Empire, for example.