Beyond the Sword Fact Sheet

[Thedrin]

I guess I was too subtle.

[dregor]

Originally posted by Thedrin
I guess I was too subtle.

Oh, I understood you, and agreed. Just figured I'd show what they probably used as inspiration for it

[Virdrago]

Me too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Damn, didn't even notice the new screens with leaderheads:

Does look like Pericles for the Greeks. And there also seems to be ANOTHER leaderhead... perhaps Darius or Xerxes for the Persians or Hammurabi of the Babylonians (looks like the Hanging Gardens behind him)?

[Solver]

I'll update the factsheet with him as Pericles tentatively.

[Paddy]

thanks Solver for keeping that 1st post humming

[Targonis]

I just had a thought that one of the problems with having a limited number of civilizations represented in the game means that there will be some "grouped civs" like the Native Americans. Given enough time and expansions, we might see these grouped civs broken out into multiple civilizations.

So, if you are complaining because of these "lumped together" civs, figure that it's better to have at least that, rather than nothing. Or to add more civs that were split from another existing civ rather than more unique civs. Hell, we could see every country as it's own civilization, but would you rather see a really new "ancient" civ, or Canada?

[Virdrago]

By that reckoning, since we have no Southeast Asian Civ yet, we should add the Southeast Asians, with city names like "Khmer", "Siam", "Vietnam", "Burma", and "Java".

Also, since the Babylonians are the only Middle Eastern civ (from pre-Roman times, and I don't include Persia), we should have the Ancient Mesopotamians, with city names like "Phoenicia", "Israel", "Assyria", and "Hatti".

I'll take individual civs, personally, rather than a "lumped-together because we're missing spaces on the Earth-map" bunch of tribal names. We have that with the Barb city-names.

Being Canadian, I would definitely like to see a really new "ancient" civ over Canada, like all nine mentioned above, but I guess I may have to wait for or create map-specific scenarios for some of them...

[joncha]

It's far better to leave out a civ entirely than to have it included as part of some silly mishmash.

[Targonis]

Originally posted by joncha
It's far better to leave out a civ entirely than to have it included as part of some silly mishmash.

It depends on the civ in question though. I agree that it would be better to have individual civs than a mishmash, but lumping together several civs would be better than not having any from that "group" represented. As I said in my previous post, I would prefer to see them broken out.

In many ways, it is also based on what the civ has left behind in terms of "wonders", and in terms of really different concepts for how easy it would be to represent a civ.

There are probably several hundred civs that started out in the real world that were wiped out so quickly no trace of their existence has been discovered at this point. It is primarily through historical records that we know about many, but the ruins that have stood the test of time are the real key, as well as how long they survived.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by joncha
It's far better to leave out a civ entirely than to have it included as part of some silly mishmash.

I disagree. A similar approach has been taken with Celts, but people are not complaining that much.

The Celt example also shows that you can then deal with different tribes within a broader civ by having leaders representing such tribes (as in Brennus for Gauls and Boadicea for Britons).

[ZargonX]

Byzantine

[Virdrago]

Originally posted by Martinus

I disagree. A similar approach has been taken with Celts, but people are not complaining that much.

The Celt example also shows that you can then deal with different tribes within a broader civ by having leaders representing such tribes (as in Brennus for Gauls and Boadicea for Britons).

You can also make that point for the different Viking peoples. At the same time, they and the different Celtic tribes still shared the same general language as other tribes in the area, and shared the same culture. The Sioux and Iroquois, for example, did not. The Iroquois, Huron, and Mohicans, yes, but we're not going to see an Iroquoian language civ and a Lakota-Blackfoot civ.

Also, for the Celts, they still only used Gaulish names. Boadicea was a Briton, who leads the Gauls in Civ IV, and Brennus was a Celt from Eastern Europe, who leads the Gauls. Where's Hallstatt, Vix, and La Tene, never mind the British Isle settlements? But now I'm being too picky.

[joncha]

Exactly. It would be more like including the "Eurasians" as a civ and having Mao as a the leader, cathedrals as the unique buildings and cossacks as the unique units. It's a sloppy, lazy choice.

Do it properly or leave them out altogether.

[Solver]

New Info

The latest issue of PC Gamer has published a list of scenarios/mods in BtS:

• Final Frontier
• Afterworld
• Gods of Old
• Chaos
• Next War
• Charlemagne
• Crossroads of the World
• Broken Star
• Superrobo
• WW2: Road to War
• Fall from Heaven
• Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations

Some big names there!