Civ4: Omega Expansion

[fed1943]

So the question is just about the name of the civ, is it?

Best regards,

[padillah]

Originally posted by monkspider
I think most people here are famillar with the Khmer. They are pretty famous. Great Zimbabwe is probably more obscure, but they were still one of my favorites on the list.

Any question is easy when you know the answer.

Do you have any idea how out-of-touch it sounds to refer to an obscure 700 year old empire as "pretty famous" in the face of the Chinese, French, German, and Russian empires.

Maybe I run with the more uneducated crowd but refering to the Khmer as "famous" just sounds ridiculous to me. Even the Celts, who are technically gone and have no country named after them, are known by an average person. That's famous.

Babylon. People recognise the name if not the empire. It's biblical references alone hold it in peoples minds. That's famous.

Being in power for 6 years and then being overshadowed by the likes of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia is not famous.

But maybe I'm missing something.
Tom P.

[Nikolai]

I too have heard of the Khmer, I think they're more commonly known than you think padillah.

[padillah]

Originally posted by fed1943
So the question is just about the name of the civ, is it?

Best regards,

My (original) point exactly!

These are just names. Text typed into an XML file.

Locutus, you want the Khmer? Edit the name of your civ when you start the game. Or, open the leaderheadinfo.xml and change one of the names to Khmer.

There. The Khmer are in.

Given the incredible ability to mod this game I don't see why, other than the art work, we need Firaxis to use resources on creating new civs.

"Worthwhile" or "Famous" has nothing to do with the fact that we can add them pretty easily if we feel so inclined. We can even program an AI that "acts like the Khmer" if someone feels the burning desire.

Why does Firaxis have to divert resources to this task?

Tom P.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Nikolai
I too have heard of the Khmer, I think they're more commonly known than you think padillah.

Having just asked 15 people here at work and none of them knew of the Khmer at all...I don't think they are.

Like I told monkspider, any question is easy if you know the answer. Of course you guys think they are well know... you know of them so by definition they are well know to you. But being well know in a community that researches and experiments with civilisations is not the same as being universally popular. And to Locutus' point, we hardcores only make up a miniscule part of the customer base.

I would be willing to bet there are more people walking the street that know of the Celts then know of the Khmer, and the Khmer have had a country named after them.

Tom P.

[monkspider]

Khmer aren't an obscure Civ. They were even mentioned quite a bit in a recent Tomb Raider movie from what I understand. Are they less well known than say the Chinese or Romans or Germans? Sure.
But they are more well known than I think you are giving them credit for.

As for why Firaxis should invest their resources, as has been said many times before, only they can create professional looking leaderheads, units, unique buildings, and have the resources to balance them approriately. Having more civs in the game adds variety and flavor.So conversely, if you don't want extra civs in the game, then mod them out.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by padillah
Per the civ issue: Knock yourself out man. Have 75 civs that no one but you and other history buffs have heard of.

I never said 75, I said 33 (plus a few debatable ones) and I named them. And obscure is a relative thing. They might be obscure to you as an American, but Civilization is sold and played on every continent on the planet. Ask any educated Asian and they'll put the Khmer right near the top of their list of civs they think are worthy of a place in Civ. Ask an African, they'll likely want to see at least 3 of the 4 proposed or existing sub-Saharan African civs (Nubia, Ethiopia, Mali, Zimbabwe -- no, not the Zulu, they're a joke and only an anglophone with a very skewed view of history would seriously consider them), depending on which part of Africa they're from. And neither Africans nor Asians will likely know much (if anything) about the Celts or Vikings. Many a European questions if US deserves to be on the list though you'll be hard-pressed to find any Americans who agree with that (we've had several debates on this topic on this very forum that often went well past the 500-post marker). It's all relative, for every civ already in the game and most of the other ones I listed here there's a large group of people who will want to see them in the game (though they may not all post in large numbers on an very strongly anglophone-oriented forum like this one) and for most you'll also find large groups that don't see their importance.

So who should Firaxis listen to? What's wisdom here? Whatever they do, noone going to be perfectly happy about it... I gave a list of the civs which I think are important based on their impact on world history as a whole (as opposed to history seen from a Western or Asian or other point of view), which very few people have a comprehensive knowledge of (if anyone -- I'm hardly omniscient myself). But it's the closest thing you can have to making an 'objective' judgement.

I guess I'm missing something. Adding civs will effect them same systems as adding a game mechanic but they'll justify testing a civ but not a game mechanic change?

If you add a new civ without changing anything else, you only have to test that civ and make sure it's roughly as strong as all the other civs in the game. Civs are a very isolated feature, they don't cause any fallout in other systems. However, if you add a game mechanic the entire game balance can be upset by it and you have to re-test and re-balance everything else as well. A good example of how a small thing can have a big unforeseen side effect is the Great Wall: since it's very cheap it turns out that many players now no longer build the Pyramids but build the Great Wall instead and use the Great Engineer they can generate with that to rush the Pyramids, which gives them one of the most powerful wonders in the game pretty much for free. This has a significant but unforeseen impact on game balance (that depending on internal discussion/balance testing may or may not be addressed in a future patch).

One of the reasons this wasn't foreseen by Firaxians and the testers is probably because we were all focused on getting the Vassal States feature right, which obviously has a much bigger impact on the game than the Great Wall and in its initial implementation had all kinds of foreseen and unforeseen (side) effects on balance that needed to be tested.

Obviously Firaxis will add plenty of new gameplay mechanics in the next XP (very few people would buy it if they didn't), but adding new civs is just infinitely easier to do than adding new gameplay, even if developing the art for them is probably the most expensive part of the whole XP. It's just not as simple as firing 2 artists so you can hire 2 new designers to add more features. Doing so would probably lead to a unbalanced game with poorer graphics, a lose-lose situation for all...

[Kuciwalker]

hey might be obscure to you as an American, but Civilization is sold and played on every continent on the planet.

Civilization is made and marketed to Americans, and makes extra money in the European market. (Are there Japanese/Korean localizations?) That's not going to change.

So who should Firaxis listen to? What's wisdom here? Whatever they do, noone going to be perfectly happy about it... I gave a list of the civs which I think are important based on their impact on world history as a whole (as opposed to history seen from a Western or Asian or other point of view), which very few people have a comprehensive knowledge of (if anyone -- I'm hardly omniscient myself). But it's the closest thing you can have to making an 'objective' judgement.

Objective representation of history is not the point of Civ. Being able to play an awesome game in a familiar setting is the point. Civ should be biased, because it would be a lot less fun for most people if it weren't.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Nikolai
I too have heard of the Khmer, I think they're more commonly known than you think padillah.

I have never heard about them, except in threads like these talking about which civs to include

From a quick look in wikipedia Kmer doesn't seem to have had much influence on the world. Seems like the only thing they managed to do was to build the Angkor Wat

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Civilization is made and marketed to Americans, and makes extra money in the European market. (Are there Japanese/Korean localizations?) That's not going to change.

Not it's not. From what little numbers have been made publish over the years we can conclude that as many copies are sold in the US as in Europe.

Being able to play an awesome game in a familiar setting is the point.

Familiar is different things for different people, that's my whole point. I personally think it's ludicrous the Zulus and Americans are in the game, they have absolutely nothing to do with world history as covered in Civilization -- the Zulu are not familar to me at all and the Americans only in the sense of mid- to late-20th century history (post-1940). The Khmer and Ethiopians OTOH most certainly are familiar to me.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Adagio
From a quick look in wikipedia Kmer doesn't seem to have had much influence on the world. Seems like the only thing they managed to do was to build the Angkor Wat

Wikipedia sucks donkeyballs, especially the history articles. Either topics aren't covered at all or are mostly stubs, or they're heavily biased and filled with nationalist propaganda of one nation or another. Get a proper history book...

[DrSpike]

Maybe they should just make leaderheads, civ trait combos they want included, and then allow players to put names to Civs!

It would be a game within a game, at least for some. It could even have its own forum.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by DrSpike
It would be a game within a game, at least for some. It could even have its own forum.

Alex01 could be moderator

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Locutus
Not it's not. From what little numbers have been made publish over the years we can conclude that as many copies are sold in the US as in Europe.

And so you see a very Western view of history.

Familiar is different things for different people, that's my whole point. I personally think it's ludicrous the Zulus and Americans are in the game, they have absolutely nothing to do with world history as covered in Civilization -- the Zulu are not familar to me at all and the Americans only in the sense of mid- to late-20th century history (post-1940). The Khmer and Ethiopians OTOH most certainly are familiar to me.

You're a very small minority.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by LordShiva

Alex01 could be moderator

Yeah, and all the threads on whether a certain trait combo is powerful can stay here, and all threads about whether Smythe's rebuttal to Chesterton's 1952 treatise on the Malinese gave enough consideration to socioeconomic factors can go there.

Sometimes my genius surprises even me.