Would you like to see more 20th century leaders and civs in Civ7?

Would you like Civ7 to have more 20th century civs and leaders?

  • Yeah, a few more would be nice

    Votes: 28 25.7%
  • I don't have a strong opinion here

    Votes: 28 25.7%
  • No, 20th century civs are generally less interesting

    Votes: 46 42.2%
  • Other opinion (in the comment)

    Votes: 7 6.4%

  • Total voters
    109
Sure, why not? But not as a priority. If we end up with a huge roster by the end of Civ VII's life then I'd be quite happy for more modern leaders and civs to be included.
 
I absolutely do not understand the vitriol which so many on this forum have for 20th Century / post-WWII nation-states.

In many ways the periods of history most impactful on the present are of course the eras immediately preceding ours. The decades of the ‘80s or ‘90s are likely to be more relevant and better documented - literally having more history in the form of sources - than any random decade from prior centuries.

They even serve as a better bridge between the past and present in some cases. “Indonesia” means something to those of us living in the Anglophone world. “Majapahit” sounds like a made up name out of some second-rate Tolkien knockoff with the worst world building ever to grace the fantasy genre. If all civs got similar treatment, the game would lose its flavor as a historical game, much more so than if it actually included fantasy civs like Narnia, Gondor, or Westeros.

The one caveat I’d include is that villainous civs which continue into the current day should be excluded. The Soviet Union would potentially be permissible since it has a historical terminus, having collapsed in ‘91. So long as it isn’t portrayed in a positive light, it could allow players to play out their Cold War fantasies and crush the commies.

CCP-occupied mainland China, on the other hand, would be an absolute dealbreaker. They’re currently engaged in genocide, apartheid, Orwellian surveillance, and a long litany of other atrocities.
 
I absolutely do not understand the vitriol which so many on this forum have for 20th Century / post-WWII nation-states.

In many ways the periods of history most impactful on the present are of course the eras immediately preceding ours. The decades of the ‘80s or ‘90s are likely to be more relevant and better documented - literally having more history in the form of sources - than any random decade from prior centuries.

They even serve as a better bridge between the past and present in some cases. “Indonesia” means something to those of us living in the Anglophone world. “Majapahit” sounds like a made up name out of some second-rate Tolkien knockoff with the worst world building ever to grace the fantasy genre. If all civs got similar treatment, the game would lose its flavor as a historical game, much more so than if it actually included fantasy civs like Narnia, Gondor, or Westeros.

The one caveat I’d include is that villainous civs which continue into the current day should be excluded. The Soviet Union would potentially be permissible since it has a historical terminus, having collapsed in ‘91. So long as it isn’t portrayed in a positive light, it could allow players to play out their Cold War fantasies and crush the commies.

CCP-occupied mainland China, on the other hand, would be an absolute dealbreaker. They’re currently engaged in genocide, apartheid, Orwellian surveillance, and a long litany of other atrocities.
Youve demonstrated quite well a good reason for avoiding it: politics.

But I agree with you on Indonesia Vs majapahit. I'm disappointed by the movement towards dynasties and away from civilizations. We've always had a bit of it with the inclusions of the Ottomans for instance instead of the Turkic. But now it's got to a point where civilizations arent really a recognisable or agreed upon concept by the fanbase anymore, and any political entity seemingly counts as its own thing.

Civilization to me isn't rulers, it's a people that collectively see themselves as closer to each other than to other groups, the chinese civilization is a great example of this as opposed to the CCP or Qing. Russian as opposed to USSR or the Romanovs.

Bringing it back to the thread topics, I don't mind modern rulers, so long as they are leading a civilization and not a modern political entity.
 
My main problem with this is what those things come into play quite late in the modern age (since it starts with industrial revolution). So, it would look like in previous games there it doesn't fit well with the overall age mechanics. That's why we're speculating about the potential contemporary age.
That depends on the tech progression
You could easily have a tech/civic tree of

Column 0 (late 1700s-early 1800s) early industrialization, steam power
Column 1 (1800s) full industrialization, RR, artillery, machine guns, mass colonization (scramble)
Column 2 (~1900-1940) WW techs, ideologies, combustion, electrification, radio, flight, fertilizer, "UN/League of Nations"
Column 3 (~1940-1970) nukes, computers, rockets, MAD, mass media, decolonization, green revolution
Column 4 (~1970-2000) space travel, renewables, stealth, environmentalism, part 1 science victory
Column 5 (~2000-2030) AI, online society, genetic medicine, part 2 science victory (space bases)
Column 6 (~2030-2060) fusion, drone warfare, Science Victory Finishing techs (space colonies)

Column 7 (2060+) repeatables [techs boost warfare or science victory, civics boost leader attributes]
 
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Counterpoint 2: Huns and Gran Colombia (honestly Inca and Zulu as well, their states lasted less than a century)
Technically, "Gran Colombia" never stopped existing, the official name of what we call "Gran Colombia" today was the Republic of Colombia, which is the same country/society/culture(s) that still exists today and that, arguably, goes all the way back to 1538, when the Spanish settled in New Granada.

"Gran Colombia" is an anachronic name, it was never used by Simón Bolívar or by anybody else during his presidency, everyone just lived in Colombia. It only happened to include waaay more land than it does today.

It's kind of like the Byzantine vs. Roman empire naming convention. The "Byzantines" never called themselves "Byzantines", they were just Romans. Same happens here, "Gran Colombians" never called their country like that, they simply called it Colombia and their country/culture still exists up to the present, but greatly reduced in size.

Kind of like having a "Revolutionary America" Civilization in-game centred around Washington. Sure, "Revolutionary America" ended when Washington died, but America kept on existing.

They used the name "Gran Colombia" in Civ6 to explicitly include Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, and to avoid controversy regarding their cities being considered part of Colombia, which I guess was something they had in mind, considering that the modern-day Venezuelan dictatorship doesn't quite get along with the more democratic pro-USA modern-day Colombia, or Panamanians being mad at a game claiming that Panama is a Colombian city (even though it was).
 
It would be cool to have a 20th century/late 19th century leader for Brazil or Colombia. They have centred these two civ around a specific leader, Pedro II and Simón Bolívar, respectively. It would be great to see other areas of the history of Brazil and Colombia by having leaders that are a bit more contemporary. I'd stop at the 1940's or 1950's though, anything after that would make things complicated and can be seen more as current events.

I'd propose Rafael Núñez for Colombia and Juscelino Kubitschek fro Brazil.
 
Sigh. Yet another thread that proves Civfanatics users don't know how to make polls without leading questions.

I like that they steer away from 20th Century civs and leaders, but it's not because they're generally less interesting. The 20th century is incredibly interesting. Gandhi is a mainstay. Still, I'd rather they focus on more historical figures and cultures.

I want to lead my civ to modernity. I want to have my civ survive and prosper after world wars. I want my own version of modern events, and I find that's better when it's not shackled by actual recent historical events and states.

Your poll's options could've simply be "yes" "no" "maybe" "I don't know" and "other", or even "yes, because that's most interesting", "yes, because I find it interesting", "yes, because why should a historical era be barred" , and then similarly offer more options to "no" and the others. However, more simple options would've been best, with people elaborating in the comments.

I may prefer pre 20th Century civs and figures, but I still enjoyed Canada or Australia in Civ 6.
 
Your poll's options could've simply be "yes" "no" "maybe" "I don't know" and "other",
Yeah, I’ve pointed this out in another thread myself. I don’t get why every poll that is posted in this forum has to be muddied with overly specific, leading additions to the options.

Maybe people are trying to make the options resonate more with the reader but I think it often has the opposite effect.

Simple “yes” “no” etc. options are best, and then people can elaborate on their choices here in the comments.
 
Yeah, I’ve pointed this out in another thread myself. I don’t get why every poll that is posted in this forum has to be muddied with overly specific, leading additions to the options.

Maybe people are trying to make the options resonate more with the reader but I think it often has the opposite effect.

Simple “yes” “no” etc. options are best, and then people can elaborate on their choices here in the comments.

For what its worth (very little), lately I've been abstaining from quite a few polls here (and elsewhere) for exactly this reason.
 
But I agree with you on Indonesia Vs majapahit. I'm disappointed by the movement towards dynasties and away from civilizations. We've always had a bit of it with the inclusions of the Ottomans for instance instead of the Turkic. But now it's got to a point where civilizations arent really a recognisable or agreed upon concept by the fanbase anymore, and any political entity seemingly counts as its own thing.
Using dynasties makes total sense for Civ7's approach. If you want a fully Majapahit civilization that existed during the medieval period, calling it Indonesia would be completely inappropriate. It might have worked to some extent for Civ5 and Civ6, where civilizations encompassed much broader periods of time, but it doesn’t align with Civ7’s proposal.
 
The one caveat I’d include is that villainous civs which continue into the current day should be excluded. The Soviet Union would potentially be permissible since it has a historical terminus, having collapsed in ‘91. So long as it isn’t portrayed in a positive light, it could allow players to play out their Cold War fantasies and crush the commies.

Do you think there's an objective list of villainous states that everyone agrees on for this to work? Many people around the world view the USA as a villainous state - and not without good reason, given the USA has themselves committed, and is currently outright supporting the commitment of or continuing to commit, at least two of the three crimes in your list of crimes of the CCP. This is why people don't want modern-day depictions of states involved; the moment you say that one civ isn't allowed to be involved because of the villainous actions it has taken, you start getting people who have suffered the same villainous actions from the 'acceptable' civs asking why it doesn't count when it's done to them.
 
Using dynasties makes total sense for Civ7's approach. If you want a fully Majapahit civilization that existed during the medieval period, calling it Indonesia would be completely inappropriate. It might have worked to some extent for Civ5 and Civ6, where civilizations encompassed much broader periods of time, but it doesn’t align with Civ7’s proposal.
I disagree. I was thinking about this in the context of Persia - the antiquity era covers so many eras of Persian history, why are the Devs limiting themselves to 1 dynasty? They could have taken aspect of the Medes, the Parthians and the Archaemenids and still had a coherent Antiquity "Persia".

You then could have aspects of Sassanid and Seljuk and timurid empires mixed in for an exploration "Persia".

In the same way, an exploration Indonesia could capture aspects of Majapahit and Srivijaya.

I think that could have been a satisfying way of implementing eras still, representing more timespan and bringing more of a civilizational aspect to each era that transcends individual polities.
 
Counterpoint: it's hard to feel like you are participating in the display of all of human history if it doesn't include people of all major eras of human history ;)

Counterpoint 2: Huns and Gran Colombia (honestly Inca and Zulu as well, their states lasted less than a century)

But I would focus on the counterpoint 1: history is history, past is past, my faculty's professors when asked start counting events older than 10-20 years ago as history, and people of as massively important and colourful era as Cold War deserve being present in a game by definiton covering "all of history". I also wonder how old people in this thread are, to be blunt, because for me early 90s are already fascinating and exotic alien realm of long gone never seen past :p
The head of the History Department at my university used to say about events less than about 30 years old:

"They are not history, but the stuff from which history can be made."

Since he had personally interviewed (at the University of Zagreb, I believe) the last surviving member of the group that plotted to assassinate the Archduke that started World War One, I've always assumed that he knew what he was talking about.

At the military history lecture series that was part of the ORIGINS gaming convention for years starting in the 1990s, most of the lecturers were college professors - who pointed out that it was the first time they had had an audience that actually wanted to be there because they were interested in the subject matter, not because they needed credits towards a degree - while the audience were mostly very young board, computer, card or other gamers.

One such came up to a professor after the lecture and asked about "That war that happened a long time ago". The professor replied, "World War One?"
"No, it was after that."
"World War Two?"
"No, I think it was a little later."

- It turned out he was talking about the Vietnam War. Which, to the professor and me, was Current Events, that happened while we were both (young) adults. But to the 20-something gamer, it was an event that happened before he was born and was, therefore, Ancient History.
 
As for when history begins, opinions differ, you could say it's yesterday.
Not really. History is not the event; it is the interpretation of the event. Interpretation takes time; otherwise, every news article would be a history text. (A news article may become a historical text, in time, but a news article purporting to report current events as history is misleading its readership.) This is also why "seeing history in the making" is very boring unless you really enjoy standing over someone's shoulder and watching them write. :p (Most historians would agree that the transition from current events to history is 10-20 years. I'd lean towards the longer timeframe personally, and the level of objectivity needed for good history takes longer, IMO. I don't think many people are equipped with the level of detachment to write an unbiased history of the Bush or even Clinton administration, for example.)

“Majapahit” sounds like a made up name out of some second-rate Tolkien knockoff with the worst world building ever to grace the fantasy genre. If all civs got similar treatment, the game would lose its flavor as a historical game, much more so than if it actually included fantasy civs like Narnia, Gondor, or Westeros.
:huh: "Languages other than English sound made up" sure is a take...
 
That depends on the tech progression
You could easily have a tech/civic tree of

Column 0 (late 1700s-early 1800s) early industrialization, steam power
Column 1 (1800s) full industrialization, RR, artillery, machine guns, mass colonization (scramble)
Column 2 (~1900-1940) WW techs, ideologies, combustion, electrification, radio, flight, fertilizer, "UN/League of Nations"
Column 3 (~1940-1970) nukes, computers, rockets, MAD, mass media, decolonization, green revolution
Column 4 (~1970-2000) space travel, renewables, stealth, environmentalism, part 1 science victory
Column 5 (~2000-2030) AI, online society, genetic medicine, part 2 science victory (space bases)
Column 6 (~2030-2060) fusion, drone warfare, Science Victory Finishing techs (space colonies)

Column 7 (2060+) repeatables [techs boost warfare or science victory, civics boost leader attributes]
It's not about tech progression, it's about change of rules, which is allowed with age progression. If all contemporary features are in the latest third part of the tech tree, you can't set up rules based on them for the modern age.
 
My main problem with this is what those things come into play quite late in the modern age (since it starts with industrial revolution). So, it would look like in previous games there it doesn't fit well with the overall age mechanics. That's why we're speculating about the potential contemporary age.

Please no contemporary age. It's already hard enough having a reasonable number of civ in each age with three ; four would just be abominable. Plus having two America/United States, making it even harder to have Indigenous people in the later stages of the game (it's not done right now, but would be doable, but adding yet another tier would leave it considerably harder).

If we really had to have an extra age, I think Medieval-Exploration is the better split in terms of civ balance, but I don't think that's actually needful, and three really is the better number.
 
They're also talking about ~200 turns/era right now, and it'll be much harder to win the full set of eras in the sort of speed that are possible in previous civ games - the sub-turn-100-victories of Civ 6 would need you to somehow win an era in 30-40 turns, for example. Adding a fourth era would take that up to ~800 turns, and even if you're going really fast through the eras it seems unlikely it'll be less than 400 turns. I'm not confident that the fun of any interesting mechanics they could add exclusive to a contemporary era would be worth the problems Evie mentioned and the lengthening of the game.
 
They're also talking about ~200 turns/era right now, and it'll be much harder to win the full set of eras in the sort of speed that are possible in previous civ games - the sub-turn-100-victories of Civ 6 would need you to somehow win an era in 30-40 turns, for example. Adding a fourth era would take that up to ~800 turns, and even if you're going really fast through the eras it seems unlikely it'll be less than 400 turns. I'm not confident that the fun of any interesting mechanics they could add exclusive to a contemporary era would be worth the problems Evie mentioned and the lengthening of the game.
This is my take as well. Even putting aside my lack of interest in latter 20th century history, I really don't need 200 turns added to my game--and I play on Epic. Even if they added something I'm more interested in like the Bronze Age, I just don't feel like making the game longer is a great way to "improve" the game. (See also, Gathering Storm, whose added turns weren't even mandatory...)
 
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