Why upset for European Civs?

[Gilgamesch]

Come on dudes, you know marketing rules the business
Indeed European Civs make the greatest part in CiV5, but maybe the most people who can buy this game come from Europa, or not i dont know.
My guess is , that the new DLCs will change this, so more African and American Civs i hope.

 

[Cicero63]

I am from America and I am huge history buff so I am aware of all these other civilizations. Don't say that its western's educations fault. Would rather have your kids know about their country's history and laws or some obscure jungle civilization that doesn't have any effect on their home country's history. Education is based on practicality and whats practical for America is it's own history and European history. But that doesn't mean that we aren't taught a little about the others, I do remember learning about the Mali and Songhai Empires as well as the Khmer people.

 

[Louis XXIV]

With the emphasis on math and science, I'm just happy history is taught at all.

 

[Cicero63]

Well everyone is pushing math and science more, it is upsetting with history though. We used to be reading Cicero, now hardly anyone knows who he is

 

[PhilBowles]

Mmm, that would actually be very silly.

It's not that different civs are too similar to be in the same game, it's that they basically ARE in the game already. Siam gets to build the wat, but it was the Khmer dynasty who were really the wat builders.

A wat isn't a particular style - it's simply a word meaning "temple" (strictly, it translates as 'school' because the temples acted as monasteries), and is of neither Thai nor Khmer origin. Arguing that the two countries overlap because of their shared word for temple is like arguing that you shouldn't have more than SE Asian civ because all these countries have guesthouses called "Same Same But Different". A temple like Angkor Wat plainly differs architecturally from one like Wat Phra Si Sanphet. Angkor Wat, the most famous Khmer monument, was constructed as a Hindu temple, and the Suryavarman II (the Khmer leader in Civ IV, and builder of Angkor Wat) was Hindu. By the Sukothai period the Khmer and Thais were Buddhist. The two groups are ethnically distinct.

So, you have differences in culture, architecture, religion and ethnicity, simply to start with, that you don't find between neighbouring European civs like English and French to any degree (save to some extent for religion).

I think that for a game made in America it is actually very good for not over shadowing the game with European influence. The Mali and Songhai can't be in a game together, that would just be silly. That's like having America in the game, and then having American in the game again with Obama as leader calling it "America Later On"

There was a period when the two were contemporary (albeit briefly, much more so than Sukothai and the Khmer), but since civs like Sumer and Babylon have been together in past incarnations of the game (or the Iroquois and America in the current version and Civ III), this isn't a good reason to bar Mali and the Songhai from being in the same game. The Songhai came to power in northern Mali, but were ultimately derived from a Sudanese lineage.

European being highly overrepresented is just a awful thing . But since "Into the Renaissence" scenario seems that it'll be the biggest scenario ever built,then their idea or overrepresenting Europe to represent some areas seems fair enough . At least,I hope they throw other European Civilizations in Freeze and release them in a second expansion or as a dlc post-2nd expansion,except if they release a double pack with a European civ and a non-european civ .

It's overrepresented, but it's hardly an "awful thing". The only difference with Civ IV at this point is that we have Austria instead of the HRE and Sweden instead of Portugal. The reason there are fewer civs from Africa than there were last time with an equal number of civs isn't because of European civs, it's because Polynesia represents a region Civ has never visited.

I'm also looking forward to the scenario - more themed scenarios with their civs added to the main game would get my vote. And a Renaissance scenario sounds fun.

If Tibet was in the game I would switch over from maining Mongolia to maining Tibet, especially if the leader page had a golden budhaa in it or something, units that had a "Meditate" ability instead of fortification, that would be crazy cool.

If Tibet was in the game it wouldn't (at least shouldn't) be the modern plateau culture best-known for peaceful protests, monks setting fire to themselves and a wise leader in exile, it would be the aggressive, empire-building theocracy that once conquered and controlled China and much of Southeast Asia and which was commonly the aggressor in frequent wars with China (most recently declaring war on China in 1932).

14 / 34 = 43% - Fourty-three percent of all civilizations in the game are European.
Land area of Europe = 6.3% Land area of Earth
Population of Europe = 10% Global population

They are horribly over-represented, and this can be seen by playing a TSL Earth Map

Could be worse - look at Empire Total War. Single player campaigns aside, 10 of 12 (83.3%) factions are European despite a theatre of war that extends to Asia (both West Africa and India), North Africa and the Americas (where there are no indigenous factions in multiplayer games).

 

[PhilBowles]

I agree that their goal wasn't to avoid diversity and so the eurocentric-focus of the expansion is merely due to two facts: that they had a renaissance-scenario with many of those civs and that they had good creative ideas for gameplay for them. If you split up the new civs by gameplay focus, you'd get:

• Religion: Celts, Byzantines
• City States: Austria, Sweden
• Naval: Carthage, Byzantines, Dutch
• Conquest: Huns (and all the other two UU-civs, f.e. Sweden)

these are all areas where G&K makes major changes, only Maya doesn't seem to fit with it's culture focus, but we know next to nothing about them. As with the Ethiopians, they seem to be focused on the Later ages (with their infantry and leader), another area enhanced by G&K.

What do we know about the Maya having a culture focus?

As for Ethiopia, the game mechanics aren't religion-based, but Haille Selassie is seen as the Rastafarian messiah, so there's certainly a religious basis for the choice of leader figure.

It makes a lot of sense to have more civs focusing on CSes - despite being Civ V's major new feature, only three of the main game civs and none of the DLCs have abilities that interact with them, and G&K is set to expand their role in gameplay further, making it reasonable to focus on civs that play well with them.

 

[Bechhold]

We are still missing Portugal people.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Well, if you want to talk about diversity of gameplay, Sweden will actually contribute more to that. Portugal is very similar to the Netherlands and where they are different, they are similar to Spain. Plus, there seems to be a desire to include new European civs rather than the old ones. That's why they added Austria, Sweden, and the Huns.

I suppose you could ask why Byzantines, Celts, or Netherlands over Portugal, but I think each is more interesting and, certainly, the Dutch are more deserving.

Yeah, I absolutely agree
Sweden is a nice choice for a new European civ

Btw, I'm sure we only have to wait a couple months, until there will be a couple non-european DLC civs like Zulu, Sumer, Kongo and Khmer
The people against too many european civs will also be statisfied, so I don't really get the such big Sweden-hate right now

 

[Buccaneer]

I am in complete agreement with this statement. While many players might prefer that Civ are chosen based on geographical representation, ultimately they are not. Compelling and diverse gameplay rules over all other factors.

I agree too but what in the civ world does real-life "geographic representation" have to do with anything when most of us play on randomly generated maps?? All that matters are the UA/UU/UB of the blue, yellow, purple, green, etc. civ that we are playing as and against. As long as we get a good distribution of strong units and buildings throughout each era, then interesting gameplay can be sustainable.

 

[synulia]

It's been also confirmed there will be more DLC so this isn't all.


******

Where exactly did they say that? I'm intrigued...

 

[mitsho]

I do also agree that creative gameplay trumps "diversity" or "balanced representation".

What do we know about the Maya having a culture focus?

I don't think I can give you a source, but I think I read it somewhere ;-) Regardless, as long as we don't know more of it, the Maya stay uncategorized.

As for Ethiopia, the game mechanics aren't religion-based, but Haille Selassie is seen as the Rastafarian messiah, so there's certainly a religious basis for the choice of leader figure.

The leader might influence how the AI plays due to his "flavour personality", but it's not really something related to the gameplay, at least not for the human. So that's no reason to put them into the religion category. Maybe their other unique is "religious". So far though, I was tempted to put them into the conquest category. If you raze the other cities like crazy, your units should be stronger (as you have less cities). Probably not what they intended when they created that turtle UA, but it certainly'd be a unique way of playing.

 

[Gilgamesch]

If Tibet was in the game it wouldn't (at least shouldn't) be the modern plateau culture best-known for peaceful protests, monks setting fire to themselves and a wise leader in exile, it would be the aggressive, empire-building theocracy that once conquered and controlled China and much of Southeast Asia and which was commonly the aggressor in frequent wars with China (most recently declaring war on China in 1932).

This!!!
Tibet is a very important Civ. But with the directions China is going, it will never be a member of any official Civ Line.
At least they die for there goal:suicide:, shame on you China, shame on you!!!!!!!!!

 

[durian]

While I do lament the under representation of the diversity of the world's cultures in CiV, I can hardly blame the developers. This game is mainly being marketed to a Western audience, so the developers have to make a product that appeals to them which includes adding Civs that they are familiar with. The job of educating people about history and the cultural diversity really falls upon the education system and not the developers.

Well everyone is pushing math and science more, it is upsetting with history though. We used to be reading Cicero, now hardly anyone knows who he is

I agree, such a shame...

 

[Gucumatz]

This!!!
Tibet is a very important Civ. But with the directions China is going, it will never be a member of any official Civ Line.
At least they die for there goal:suicide:, shame on you China, shame on you!!!!!!!!!

A ton of central Asian Civs entirely ignored. Khazaks, Tibet, and the myriad of Afghani and Silk Road Empires.

Its always funny to read about how the Tibetan Empire of the 700s marched into Chinese territory razing and pillaging their land How the tides of history change .

===

And I don't think we are pushing Math or Science enough. Tech Development isn't nearly as high as it could be and is being pushed back in many brinks of society. I also feel the same way about History... but I can't honestly say that Math or Science gets enough attention either. As an IB Senior I feel like people, school admins, etc. tend to ignore it too much. I feel like we put too much of an emphasis as a society on business and creating a managerial manifestation of a nation.

 

[Nyanko]

Its always funny to read about how the Tibetan Empire of the 700s marched into Chinese territory razing and pillaging their land How the tides of history change .

They managed to raise the Tang (or song?) Capital, Changan (Xian) Timur the Lame's empire is a good edition for another rampaging horde civ. It may have been the Mongols that beat down the Arabs, but it was Timur that ground them into the dust.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Selection of civilizations for a game has nothing to do with regional or ethnic representation. It has everything to do with interesting diversity of play.

I would never have guessed either Austria or Sweden as potential new civilizations, but the play mechanics announced for them sound thus far to be very interesting. And that's all that matters.

Those claiming they will not buy the expansion because it has too many European civilizations are frankly either not at all serious, or are total morons.

The problem is that abilities aren't really that represantitive of a single civ and many could just as well be applied to another. Take for example my home country Germany.
Defeated barbarians join ? How is that typically German ? With Bismarck as a leader at that ! It would have been much more fitting for the Mongols or Huns.
And Englands ability -improved naval movement and sight- could have been given to Polynesia just as well.
Or the Russian ability. Better use of iron and horses ? Sounds like a Hittites (I think there's even a DLC scenario with Hittites with Russian stats).

 

[carm3]

So, you have differences in culture, architecture, religion and ethnicity, simply to start with, that you don't find between neighbouring European civs like English and French to any degree (save to some extent for religion).

Erm, not disagreeing with the point about southeast Asian civilizations, but I think many would object strongly to that statement about England and France.

 

[PhilBowles]

Erm, not disagreeing with the point about southeast Asian civilizations, but I think many would object strongly to that statement about England and France.

Really? The occasional oversized telegraph pylon or well-restored stone circle aside, the most notable architectural styles in both countries tend to be Norman-era castles and Gothic religious architecture, both of which have essentially French origins, and the occasional Roman ruin. Both countries have majority populations who are ethnically Germanic.

As neither of these is very arguable, that leaves culture, which I've argued before it's hard to see as very distinct on the scale of inter-civ differences we see when considering the scope of civs in the game. 80% of words in the English language are of French origin, and many of the remainder are shared due to a common Latin or Greek root (in contrast the Khmer and Thais don't share a common alphabet and their languages have different roots); the major linguistic differences are in grammar. French was the national language in England throughout the Norman period (fair enough, you can point out that the Thais spoke Khmer during the Khmer period, but that was during the period of Khmer rule. French was the national language of an independent England for over two centuries).

Both have similar political outlooks, histories shaped by similar struggles for dominance on the European stage (the main difference being that France has been more successful), both were major players in the age of European colonialism (the main difference being that the British were more successful).

What we recognise today as cultural differences between the countries - such as foods (which aren't very distinct any longer as French cuisine is a significant component of internationalised Western cuisine) and, someone mentioned on another thread, family traditions - aren't things that are 'visible' on the scales Civ games deal with.

Personally, I've found the modern French to be more culturally familiar as a Briton than I find the Americans (although admittedly that may be due partly to long exposure and due partly to having lived in the US and become more aware of the differences).

 

[Gucumatz]

The problem is that abilities aren't really that represantitive of a single civ and many could just as well be applied to another. Take for example my home country Germany.
Defeated barbarians join ? How is that typically German ? With Bismarck as a leader at that ! It would have been much more fitting for the Mongols or Huns.
And Englands ability -improved naval movement and sight- could have been given to Polynesia just as well.
Or the Russian ability. Better use of iron and horses ? Sounds like a Hittites (I think there's even a DLC scenario with Hittites with Russian stats).

Yea I agree. Whenever I do play Germany it does feel weird with the UA. Sadly don't think it will be changed but its a UA I wish they could take back. While I may be half German I just can't seem to get around liking to play Germany in CIv 5 much

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Demographics & Patriotism... i see humanity has a looooong way to go yet to reach civilized status.