Civilization IV Civs

[Alexander I]

In my opinion, the criteria for whether or not a civ should be in the game rests on a small handful of criteria.

1. Major Impact at some point in history on other cultures (Worldpoweritude). Example: Germans, but not Liechtensteiners. Persians, but not Elamites. No Canadians at all! (Just kidding!) That's what separates Sid Meier's Civilization Games from the Call to Power frustration of dealing with the omnipotent Jamaican empire!

2. The Token Civ. Rule. There is always a civ from every major cultural or ethnic group. Example: Sioux, Iroquois, Zulus in previous Civ games, Malinese in the current version. I personally think the two Kush/Ethiopia/Nubia/Axum civs were more influential, but what do I know?

So we'll see soon enough, I guess.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Modo44
But, like I said, I understand that making graphics costs money. I will rather have "only" 18 civs with a good game balance instead of 50 civs with a crappy game.

I defently agree, who cares about if you can play a nation that nobody knows about

Originally posted by Modo44
By the way, if one seriously wanted to drop one civ, it would be the Americans. Being 200 years old, they are not even an infant compared to all other choices. You could make them show up because of huge uprisings, but to allowing them to start in 4000 BC is a joke...

Whenever I hear people saying they don't want the Americans in the game because they're so young a nation I wonder why they're not complaining about other nations like Germany who didn't become a nation before late 1800 (until then they were just smaller "nations" who didn't feel united at all) which makes them actually even younger than the Americans
I'd say the nations picked to be in Civ games should be based on their impact on the world, and there's probably no other nation that has a greater impact on the world today than USA.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Adagio
Whenever I hear people saying they don't want the Americans in the game because they're so young a nation I wonder why they're not complaining about other nations like Germany who didn't become a nation before late 1800 (until then they were just smaller "nations" who didn't feel united at all) which makes them actually even younger than the Americans

Except there were people already the Romans called Germans. Can you say the same about Americans? Somehow, I doubt it.

The point is, people living in and around the territory called Germany now were there for centuries. Even if not always united under one leader, they did use a similar language, had a similar culture, and often joined to pursue common goals. Now, how long have Americans lived in America, before it even became America? This time, you count in years (starting with colonization), not in centuries. That is "a bit" of a difference...

Originally posted by Adagio
I'd say the nations picked to be in Civ games should be based on their impact on the world, and there's probably no other nation that has a greater impact on the world today than USA.

I would say historical civs are what civ is really about, as nobody even heard about the Americans until 200, let alone 6000, years ago. But who cares, I am not an American, right?

[vovan]

Originally posted by Modo44
But who cares, I am not an American, right?

I might be wrong, but AFAIK, neither is Adagio.

[Mace]

Originally posted by Modo44
I would say historical civs are what civ is really about, as nobody even heard about the Americans until 200, let alone 6000, years ago.

It looks like Firaxis choice of civs to include in Civ4 has been based on something other than "historical significance" and "impact of a civ on world events".

But putting the Mali in over Ethiopia/Axum/Kush???
Hrm Ok.

I think it's all a moot point because we'll probably be able to mod in any civ we want. And, short of that, Firaxis will probably make some expansion packs so they can make more $$$.

[Kuciwalker]

The American debate is rather stupid and pointless given that there's no chance of Firaxis ever leaving them out of a civ game.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Modo44
Except there were people already the Romans called Germans. Can you say the same about Americans? Somehow, I doubt it.

The point is, people living in and around the territory called Germany now were there for centuries. Even if not always united under one leader, they did use a similar language, had a similar culture, and often joined to pursue common goals.

But they also fought each other

Originally posted by Modo44
But who cares, I am not an American, right?

Neither am I

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The American debate is rather stupid and pointless given that there's no chance of Firaxis ever leaving them out of a civ game.

Personally I don't care if they're in or not, I'm just tired of the "America is too young to be in Civilization" reason

[vovan]

Originally posted by Adagio
But they also fought each other

Everyone fought amongst themselves at some point. Russians fought each other. Americans fought each other.

As far as putting in Americans or not. I think the developers are mostly aiming for atmosphere. Obviously there isn't much historical accuracy in randomly-generated games -- that's what you have your scenarios for. And in terms of atmosphere, the game just wouldn't feel right to the modern player without the Americans.

[Alexander I]

Civs in Civilization games are generally geared toward having a world that feels like a world -- there are the great nations of today and of the past and you're one of them, interacting, progressing, conquering...

So it would feel pretty weird to be the all-powerful Wallachian empire, having conquered the great Uighur, Tuareg and Blackfoot civilizations.

Instead we have Americans, Romans, Russians and Chinese. They may not all quite belong together, but it makes for a better game experience.

[Alexander I]

You know, come to think of it, how many civs can be in any one game at any given time? I was irritated that you could only have 3 cis on a small map in Civ 3. I'd like a good 18 civ game without all the glitches...

[Vince278]

I thought it was odd to have Mali in Civ 4. I'm sure it would be PC to include an ancient African civilization but I would think Zimbabwe would be a better choice.

[Alexander I]

I don't mean to sound boorish or ignorant, but Mali is what?

A FIFTH WORLD COUNTRY?

In Tomboctou (Timbuktu) the buildings are practically made of dust! The whole country would dissolve with one good rainstorm!

As if they'd actually get a rainstorm there in the middle of the Sahara!

My personal opinion is that they could have done much better in choosing the "token-African civ."

A great deal of wonderful culture and civilization has come out of Africa. There have been many amazing nations that spawned from its climes. But I do not believe that Mali is one of them. Maybe it was for 3 or 4 years back a millenium ago. But Aksum dominated ITS sphere of influence for a much longer period of time.

Pardon my rant.

[Vince278]

The Empire of Ghana was bigger and lasted longer. Much of its territory overlapped Mali's (particularly in the resource rich Niger valley).

Lets also not forget the Ethiopians and Nubians.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Alexander01
I don't mean to sound boorish or ignorant, but Mali is what?

A FIFTH WORLD COUNTRY?

Well, I'm no history buff, and I didn't know much about Mali either, but here's a post from civfanatics:

The Mali Empire were a powerful empire of Sahelian Africa (between the Sahara and the rainforest), in the valley of the Niger river, in present day Mali and Niger primarily. At the height of the empire, their territory ranged from the Atlantic coast near present-day Dakar all the way to well into present-day Niger. This, incidentally, meant that they were, at that time, second only to the Mongols in terms of size of their empire.

Though the leading elite of Mali were mostly muslims, they did not impose their religion ; african paganism was perfectly allowed under the Mali empire.

The Mali empire (and its successor state and predecessor states, the Songhai and Ghana empires) controled the Saharan trade route, which were (among other things) the primary source of slaves and gold of the european and arab worlds until the XV-XVIth centuries when European sailors began ranging further afield, enabling them to replace the Saharan trade with Atlantic trade. The riches of the kingdom were such that, when the Mali emperor went on his pilgrimage to Mecca, he gave away so much gold in Egypt and such that it took several years for the value of gold to recover from that sudden drop.

Timbuktu was in addition a major learning center of the Muslim world in the medieval era (ie, back when Muslim science/learning/etc was nowhere near backward)

Compare this to the Zulu claims to fame ("We beat the brits once in a rebellion we lost in the end anyway"), and you might see why mostly everyone who has actually researched african history in the least bit wanted the Zulu gone and Mali in.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2773154&postcount=7

Granted, I don't know how much this guy knows about history, but sounds plausible.