Civs included. Just the facts madam 2.

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Several points:
First of all, the empire I'm describing, Arab or not, was ruled by Arabs, and at it's greatest reach was divided into four(i think) kingdoms that adhered to a single ruler.
Also, if you start an Arab civ, you'd start it from Baghdad, not Mecca. Then there would be competition with the Babyloneans, that have the same capital, but who cares Have the Persians instead. Now Baghdad is located in an extremely fertile land between the two great rivers. Iraq, Syria (incl. Lebanon), Iran are all fertile and mostly non-desert countries. The two major Arab desert states are Saudia and Egypt. And both Saudia and Egypt have very fertile regions.
And Lord, don't be silly. Like there aren't enough Jews already
This discussion is pretty futile, I guess - and after all, we'll be able to make our own civs. I only regret that it would be virtually impossible to make the leader portraits with these nifty cool animations. I hope they'll release leaders once in a while, for free download
(I don't even know if I have money to buy the game itself... It'll cost something like eighty to a hundred bucks for me. And Civ is one game I don't wanna copy.)

[Locutus]

Gramphos,
You have a point. It is done.

JellyDonut,
Ah, what the heck! We don't have much else to discuss anymore so I'll just keep track of colors as well. I can't imagine anyone will be bothered by it (other than me, it's just more work for me ). Anyway, I must admit, now I looked into it, there's a surprisingly large number of civs of which we already know the color (it indeed looks like they are tied to color). Let me know if I missed anything...

LotM,
True, but the same goes for the Greek. But IIRC in the very next sentence after the paragraph you quoted I also said that this was a controversial issue and that other people could well disagree. You're language argument is a valid one and there are more arguments both for and against it but this is not the place to discuss them, it was merely an example (don't you hate it when people use that excuse? ). Zimbabwe in particular would be an excellent civ to include instead though, I definitely agree on that.

Mark, Kenobi, joseph and others,
I hate to be the bogeyman and cut the discussion short but you are getting awfully off-topic with that Arab discussion. You're discussing a civ that's almost certainly not in Civ3, you're wildly speculating rather than stating facts, throwing around figures that have no meaning whatsoever in the context of Civ3 and - worst of all - Mark is obviously *very* biased on the ME conflict (no offense, Mark) which means this discussion could well lead to Jew- or Arab-bashing (in fact, some or Marks comments could already be insulting to the Jews among us). Though I agree that the heart of the discussion is very interesting, this is not the place for it so I would very much appreciate it if you guys could continue it elsewhere.

One little nitpick though (): zero was 'invented' by Indians, not by Arabs. The Arabs just brought it to Europe.


So far, based on our evidence, we know that:

100% CONFIRMED. These civs ARE in CIV 3:

1. AMERICANS - Leader (Abraham Lincoln; 100% confirmed), city names (capital), Unique Unit (F15) -> Light blue
2. GERMANS - Unique Unit (Panzer), city names (capital), multiple text references, video reference -> Dark blue
3. CHINESE - Leader (Mao Zedong; 100% confirmed), city names -> Light blue
4. ROMANS - Leader (C. Julius Ceasar), city name (capital), Unique Unit (Legion), video reference -> Red
5. FRENCH - Leader (Joan of Arc(?); 100% confirmed), city names (capital), dialogue window of the French (Unique Unit: Musketeer?) -> Pink
6. RUSSIANS - Unique Unit (MiG), city names -> Grey
7. ZULUS - Unique Unit (Impi), city names -> Yellow
8. ENGLISH - Leader (Elisabeth I; 100% confirmed), (Unique Unit: Man-at-Arms?)
9. EGYPTIANS - Leader (100% pharaoh, does anyone know who this is?), definite text reference, city names (capital) -> Yellow
10. INDIANS - Leader (Mahatma Ghandi; 100% confirmed)
11. MONGOLS (50%) or JAPANESE (50%) - one of these two is certainly in but which one is still open for debate, evidence consists of a Leader (Genghis Kahn or not?) and a possible Japanese Unique Unit (Samurai(?))
12. IROQUOIS - Leader (Hiawatha; 100% confirmed), city names, text references, Unique Unit (75% Unique Unit - 25% Military Leader) -> Grey
13. GREEKS - Leader (Alexander the Great, city names (capital), possible Unique Unit (Hoplite), text reference, video reference -> Green


EVIDENCE ABOUT OTHER CIVS (which means they could be in or not):

14. PERSIANS - City names (capital) -> Brown?
15. BABYLONIANS - City name -> Red
16. AZTECS - City names -> Pink


SUGGESTIONS BASED ON CLUES (weak clues but we report them):

17. SPANISH - City name: Salamanca, but it was once a Roman city and there's also an Iroquois city with that name.
18. VIKINGS (?) Very weak clues. See above mention URL for the boat: Viking Longboat?
19. ISRAELIS. Apolytoner Eli has pointed out that according to a israeli site, Israel is in.
20. CANADIANS. City name (Montreal). The city name is NOT on the map, but on a civ 3 window.
21. CONFEDERATES. As refered to in a swedish article, a Great Military Leader in Civ 3 could be Stonewell Jackson. Apolytoner Arator argued that this leader is impossible to be in the same civ as Lincoln (=100% confirmed leader of the Americans). Many other Apolytoners disagree though, arguing that he's more likely to be an American, among other reasons because (as joseph1944 pointed out) he served for the American Army before joinging the Confederates.
22. PHOENICIANS. Based on a single text reference in a preview.


--------------------------------------------------------
The evidence is categorized as such:

Leader= We have a picture of the leader of the corresponting civ.
Unique Unit= We know that the particular unique unit belongs to the corresponding civ
Text reference= The civ has been mentioned by Firaxis in their web site or in interviews by their CEO
Video reference= The civ was seen in Firaxis demo movie from E3.
City names= The names of cities that clearly belong to the corresponding civ are included in scrrenshots of the game
All other clues= All other clues are reported next to the civ name.
-> Color Indicates in which color(s) the civ has been seen in in-game screenshots.

-------------------------CIV FACTS-----------------------

+ Firaxis said the made NO official announcement regarding the number of civs that may or may not be included in the game.
+ In a Gamespot article its says that civs will be 16.
+ An israeli site says that civs will be 16
+ In an IGN preview it says that there will be 16 civs.
+ By now, many other sources have also claimed that the total number of civs in Civ3 will be 16.

--------------------------POINTERS-------------------------

* The city names in the screen shots can be from an extra city names list or could have been arbitrarily written be members of Firaxis. So city names in screenshots doesn't guarantee that a civ will be in. Examples: Kerplakistan and Huntsville, possibly others.
* Another problem could be scenarios. Though city names alone are not enough evidence to include a civ on the 100% certain list and scenario-specific graphics are not likely to be made public until the game is in late beta (if they even exist at all), it's quite possible that some of the evidence we used in this list is based on scenario specific information and not be valid for the regular game.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


The civilization that the Moghul Emperors ruled over was Indian, not Mongol.

was it? my understanding is that the language of the moghul court was Persian, and that moghul culture was as much Persian as Indian. That they may have brought with them some Mongol elements as well would not be surprising (though i am not aware of any)

See thats the problem - thinking of civilizations as homogeneous entities - so that say the moghul empire is EITHER mongol or Indian or Persian - civilizations in reality were complex blendings, especially in cases of conquest.

my suggestion - chuck out the whole civ specific unit idea, and have generic civs, and lots of them.

LOTM

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Mark_Lipovrovskiy
Several points:
First of all, the empire I'm describing, Arab or not, was ruled by Arabs, and at it's greatest reach was divided into four(i think) kingdoms that adhered to a single ruler.
Also, if you start an Arab civ, you'd start it from Baghdad, not Mecca.

Baghdad, home of the abbasid caliophate - islam at its height, but with al- andalus independent

Wouldnt it make more sense to start them in Damascus, home of the Omayad caliphate?

LOTM

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
my suggestion - chuck out the whole civ specific unit idea, and have generic civs, and lots of them.

YEAH!!! Just mass-produce out the portraits!

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Baghdad was THE Arab capital - both the first one (of the empire, I'm not counting whatever it was before they got out of the Peninsula, prob. Meca or somethin), and the most important (I think). Although Damascus is a viable option too.
Who'd you make the leader? Not Mohammed, surely That one died long before there was an Empire.
What's his name... um.. I forgot. The one from a Thousand and one Nights...

(I smell a mod lol. Call it "the Real Civilizations Mod"... )

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, the Arabs should be represented as some kind of civilisation which hasn't been represented in the past. Although I think the fear is that they overlap too much with the Persians.

I would like to see the Incas however, I think they should be made into a civilisation...

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Arabs, Incas... There are so many civilisations around that the average European-minded individual will be surprised... I'd just compact the Europeans a bit by using the ancient tribes that incorporate several of today's nations. Or something... Then the Celts would revolt into French and Irish Identical in all the special civ things but different in name and portrait and such.
Hey, that's a genuine good idea! I'm surprised!

[Colon™]

The French are a lot of things, but I'd say they're far less Celtish (or Gaullic) than they are Germanic and Latin. Beside the Irish the Welsh and Scottish would have been better examples.

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Weirdly, I've just noticed Locutus' post. Have to answer to that.

I'm a Jew (secular traditionalist), I live in Israel, I am totally biased, yes. Not for the Arabs, of course Although I do not hesitate to ponder and consider (and talk about) the other POV, I'd never carry it beyond idle speculation. So there.
I thought people would notice the thingy at the left of my posts and not be mistaken on that account. Oh well.
Just like any honorable warrior, I have great respect for my enemy - esp. for such a formidable one.
In fact, at the time-period I'm talking about, the Arabs were the Jews' greatest friends. Jews were all over the place - govt., culture, etc. Just look at what was going on at Kordoba (sp?)... Or in Egypt or wherever the rambam was located. He was the Kaliff's personal physician and one of the greatest Jewish philosophers.
And just like any Jew with a sense of humor, I laugh at antisemistic jokes (at, not with, with all due respect)... They don't offend me since I don't consider them worthwhile enough for that.

Well, yes, we're getting off topic. But I'm afraid that the topic is much less... useful than the discussion that sprang from it

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Colon, I guess that you are right somewhat, but the French, Welsh, Scottish and Irish (and more) all belong to the large framework of Celts. Gauls is the Roman name for French Celts. And the French are very much Celtic.
The Germans would encapsulate lots of central-europe nations, and I guess that the Russians will get their own "name" although you could split them into various other Slavic nations.
The Romans will simply be the Italians (split into.. Etruscans? ), Spanish spanish (I guess that Portugal would have to be related in spite of what the guys say Basque have nothing to do with the Spanish as far as I know but they can split into them as well...)

[Gramphos]

Locutus
How many of the colors are taken from screens before it was stated that there would be 16 civs in one game?

As we have some civs using the same color is either the colors chooseable, randomized or has changed since that screens were taken. I think they have added more colors to the later screens, and given all civs unique colors, but I'm not sure. However, we can't have more then one civ with the same color in a game . So we have to focus on the most recent screens while determining the colors.

Edit: Spelling

[Colon™]

Mark, it depends how you look on it, but you can say one things, the French aren’t just Celtic.
It’s true they have Celtic blood and particularly in the centre and the west people still have Celtic characteristics. However the invasion of the Germanic tribes and the Normans invasion drove away much of the Celtic influence and the French language is a Latin one. Besides, France is multilingual, since you not only have the distinctively different Breton, which is a Celtic language, and Basque, but also Germanic languages such as Flemish and other Latin ones such as Corsican.
And I’m not even mentioning more recent influences such as the Arab one.

Sure, it isn’t wrong to say that the French are Celtic (but only up to an extend), but if the French are Celtic, half of Europe is Celtic, as is half of North America.

Idem dito with the Spanish. Sure they have Roman influences but you have to consider the original population which was mostly Celtic and the substantial Germanic and Arab influx and I’m not mentioning numerous other influences through all ages. (from the Phoenician to the Subsaharan)

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Well, Colon, I won't argue with that - those are exactly the problems you run into when you try to generalise. I said Celts because it has always seemed to me that the French consider themselves of Gaelic origin for the most part, culturally and all. Yes, there is a very strong Norse influence (Normandy) and Latin (you know...). But those troubles are a lot less important I think that non-inclusion of the Maya or the Arabs.

[Colon™]

Mark,
Yeah, identification of a country with their (famous) predecessors appear to be a common theme through the world, the Italians with the Romans, the French with the Gauls, we (Belgians) with the Belgae... Just are MarkG, he’ll be happy to tell you about the excruciating habit of the Macedonians to claim the ancient Macedonians as their ancestors.

Seems cultures just don't like admitting they're immigrants, as if they've always lived there.

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

I'm Jewish! I identify myself with Jews! lol.
Once civ3 comes out I'll have to make myself do that scenario I wanted... Something that has to do with either modern Israel or the ancient kingdoms...

[Colon™]

Yes, the Jews appear to be a special case...

[Locutus]

Mark,
Oops, I now see I made a total fool out of myself Apparently I didn't read your posts very carefully last night and missed a couple of smilies and some sentences that indicated that your insults to the Jewish people were just self-mockery, so I thought you were an Palistian with strong feelings against the Israelis I apologize if I insulted you in any way. Let's just say I was very tired last night... (In any case, you seem to severely underestimate the importance of your own nation: the Jews are one of the oldest and more important civs in history, they can't be dismissed offhand as a possibility for inclusion in a Civ game)
The main reason for trying to get the discussion away from the Arabs was the fear that some of our residental Jews would be insulted. It was still getting off-topic of course but I'll be the first to admit that I myself am guilty of taking the discussion off-topic at times as well. So on that ground alone I wouldn't have interfered, though I would still appreciate it if everyone at least tried not to wander too far from the original discussion...

LotM,
I can see your point and from a historian's point of view it's a very good one. The thing is though, Civilization is a game. If you'd really want to, you could name the civs A, B, C, D, etc. and the cities A1, A2, B3, D15, etc. but that way you would completely miss the point of 'rewriting history in your own way', as a Civ game is supposed to let you do. To allow people to do this you need civs with unique properties and behaviour that are similar to important real-life civs. If you make a game with a very large number of small, specific civs and model them after reality you would end up playing games with the Chavin, Picts, Songhai, Moghul and Khmer as opponents. I'm sure some of the history buffs among us would love it but the average Civ player probably never even heard of any of those civs so the atmosphere is gone (for many people this was already the case with CtP and CtP2).
OTOH, if you would play with very generic civs (like the Slavs, Mesoamericans, Germanics, Romanic), they would be so generic that they don't mean much to people anymore and you won't be able to add unique properties to these civs as the various subgroups in this group are so different. If you put the Dutch, English, German and various Scandinavian countries in 1 civ (the Germanics), should it focus on conquest (ala the Germans), trade (ala the Dutch) or colonization (English)? Should they be aggressive backstabbers (Germans) or trustworthy diplomats (Dutch)? Etc. Not to mention the problems you'd have picking leaders, unique units, flags, city names, etc. In any case, the average player won't be able to see the link between the game and real-life. In addition, I don't think it would be possible to come up with more than 4 or 5 civs per continent (except maybe Asia), so you could never have more than 25 odd civs, which makes it impossible to have 'generic civs and lots of them'.
So if you ask me, the solution should be somewhere in between, a compromise between the 2 approaches. So IMHO it should be possible to treat the Slavs, Bantu, Mongols and Chinese as a single civ while the English, French, German, Incans, Aztecs and Mayans can be split up - even though in reality the situation was more complex. Of course, as always when making compromises, everyone will have something to complain about...

Gramphos,
I think the rumor that there are only 16 civs is older than the oldest screenshot (though I'm not 100% certain of that). But even if it's not, I don't think it matters. Most (though not all) of the civs that occur in the earlier screenshots can also be seen in later screenshots but they still have the same color (though the colors themselves changes slightly: in the earliest screenshots they are very faded while they are much brighter in the newer screenshots). Also, not every civ has it's own unique color but there are 2 civs tied to 1 color, ala Civ1: I noticed that there are 8 different colors for the 16 civs. 5 colors are assigned to 2 civs, 3 only to 1 civ, while of the 3 other civs no color has been seen yet. If all this is just a coincidence I'll eat my hat...

BTW, Joseph, I guess this is off-topic but I don't know where else to post it. You mentioned a couple of times in this thread that 'noone really knows how long the Polynesians have been on the Pacific Islands'. I did some research on Polynesia (unrelated to this thread) and discovered that this is in fact incorrect, it is very well known: they started inhabiting the Pacific from 1500 BC onwards (from Asia) and had all islands colonized by 1000 AD. Two good sources are http://www.pbs.org/wayfinders/polynesian2.html and http://www.iaora.com/NatHist/polynesian_history.htm.


So far, based on our evidence, we know that (no changes):

100% CONFIRMED. These civs ARE in CIV 3:

1. AMERICANS - Leader (Abraham Lincoln; 100% confirmed), city names (capital), Unique Unit (F15) -> Light blue
2. GERMANS - Unique Unit (Panzer), city names (capital), multiple text references, video reference -> Dark blue
3. CHINESE - Leader (Mao Zedong; 100% confirmed), city names -> Light blue
4. ROMANS - Leader (C. Julius Ceasar), city name (capital), Unique Unit (Legion), video reference -> Red
5. FRENCH - Leader (Joan of Arc(?); 100% confirmed), city names (capital), dialogue window of the French (Unique Unit: Musketeer?) -> Pink
6. RUSSIANS - Unique Unit (MiG), city names -> Grey
7. ZULUS - Unique Unit (Impi), city names -> Yellow
8. ENGLISH - Leader (Elisabeth I; 100% confirmed), (Unique Unit: Man-at-Arms?)
9. EGYPTIANS - Leader (100% pharaoh, does anyone know who this is?), definite text reference, city names (capital) -> Yellow
10. INDIANS - Leader (Mahatma Ghandi; 100% confirmed)
11. MONGOLS (50%) or JAPANESE (50%) - one of these two is certainly in but which one is still open for debate, evidence consists of a Leader (Genghis Kahn or not?) and a possible Japanese Unique Unit (Samurai(?))
12. IROQUOIS - Leader (Hiawatha; 100% confirmed), city names, text references, Unique Unit (75% Unique Unit - 25% Military Leader) -> Grey
13. GREEKS - Leader (Alexander the Great, city names (capital), possible Unique Unit (Hoplite), text reference, video reference -> Green


EVIDENCE ABOUT OTHER CIVS (which means they could be in or not):

14. PERSIANS - City names (capital) -> Brown?
15. BABYLONIANS - City name -> Red
16. AZTECS - City names -> Pink


SUGGESTIONS BASED ON CLUES (weak clues but we report them):

17. SPANISH - City name: Salamanca, but it was once a Roman city and there's also an Iroquois city with that name.
18. VIKINGS (?) Very weak clues. See above mention URL for the boat: Viking Longboat?
19. ISRAELIS. Apolytoner Eli has pointed out that according to a israeli site, Israel is in.
20. CANADIANS. City name (Montreal). The city name is NOT on the map, but on a civ 3 window.
21. CONFEDERATES. As refered to in a swedish article, a Great Military Leader in Civ 3 could be Stonewell Jackson. Apolytoner Arator argued that this leader is impossible to be in the same civ as Lincoln (=100% confirmed leader of the Americans). Many other Apolytoners disagree though, arguing that he's more likely to be an American, among other reasons because (as joseph1944 pointed out) he served for the American Army before joinging the Confederates.
22. PHOENICIANS. Based on a single text reference in a preview.


--------------------------------------------------------
The evidence is categorized as such:

Leader= We have a picture of the leader of the corresponting civ.
Unique Unit= We know that the particular unique unit belongs to the corresponding civ
Text reference= The civ has been mentioned by Firaxis in their web site or in interviews by their CEO
Video reference= The civ was seen in Firaxis demo movie from E3.
City names= The names of cities that clearly belong to the corresponding civ are included in scrrenshots of the game
All other clues= All other clues are reported next to the civ name.
-> Color Indicates in which color(s) the civ has been seen in in-game screenshots.

-------------------------CIV FACTS-----------------------

+ Firaxis said the made NO official announcement regarding the number of civs that may or may not be included in the game.
+ In a Gamespot article its says that civs will be 16.
+ An israeli site says that civs will be 16
+ In an IGN preview it says that there will be 16 civs.
+ By now, many other sources have also claimed that the total number of civs in Civ3 will be 16.

--------------------------POINTERS-------------------------

* The city names in the screen shots can be from an extra city names list or could have been arbitrarily written be members of Firaxis. So city names in screenshots doesn't guarantee that a civ will be in. Examples: Kerplakistan and Huntsville, possibly others.
* Another problem could be scenarios. Though city names alone are not enough evidence to include a civ on the 100% certain list and scenario-specific graphics are not likely to be made public until the game is in late beta (if they even exist at all), it's quite possible that some of the evidence we used in this list is based on scenario specific information and not be valid for the regular game.

[Locutus]

Mark, Colon,
The solution to having too many Western civs would IMHO not be to simply merge very different civs such as the French and English (or whatever) but to just add more civs (32 rather than 16 FE). With 16 more civs one could add maybe 3 or 4 more European nations (FE Dutch, Austrians, Polish, Celts, Spanish) and 12 or so other nations (FE Inca, Maya, Olmec, Israel, Arabia, Byzantine, Khmer, Birma, Japan/Mongolia, Korea, Polynesia, Ethiopia, Nubia, Bantu/Zimbabwe, Mali, etc).

[Provost Harrison]

On the Mongol/Japanese debate. Look at the backdrop. That is definitely not typical Mongol architecture seen around the time of Genghis Khan. The Mongols were primarily nomadic. The background is definitely Japanese.

[Colon™]

Provost, I had the same though and the guy's hat, or at least the bit we can view, also seemed Japanese to me. However, after having seen several pictures of Mongolian buildings and uniforms, I think it is possible guy really is a Mongolian, if a modern, non-nomadic one. (the video's could reflect the time period)

The least you can say is that it is incomprehensible that most people say it is Mongolian, since it’s simply too hard to tell.

[Colon™]

Locutus, no need to address that to me, I was just being pedantic and lecturing Mark about the French.
I’m fairly satisfied with the civs as stated above and beside the Japanese there isn't really one I'd miss.

[Gramphos]

Locutus,
The last time a preview said that there only would be 16 civs did they also say that all 16 would be playable at once. This might of course just be a combination of the rumor about total 16 civs and that Firaxis said to them that there would be 16 civs playable at the same time. Anyway, there "must" be 16 colors if 16 civs shall be able to play at the same time.

[Footie Mad]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Locutus,
Anyway, there "must" be 16 colors if 16 civs shall be able to play at the same time.

So what are the new colours? The only new one i've seen is the pink french.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Wille
So what are the new colours? The only new one i've seen is the pink french.

I've no idea, hope I'll find out later.

[Locutus]

PH,
I agree with Colon here. The Mongols conquered almost all of Asia, that background could be almost any Asian city that has such an architecture. Also recall how the houses behind the Iroquois leader weren't Iroquois houses. Firaxis went wrong in this area before, they could have done it again.
I also agree with Colon that it's simply too hard to tell who it is on basis of this leader pic alone, that's why I made the percentages 50/50 and moved the Japanese up in the first place.

Ok, sorry Colon.

Gramphos,
Ah, ok. Now I get it. You mean you still attach any importance to that preview? You silly Sweed In any case, you're right: if 16 civs are playable at the same time then each civ must have it's own color. However, in the latest PC Zone screenshots both the Americans and Chinese have the color light blue. Conclusion: no 16 civs are playable at the same time (8 seems to be the most likely number at this moment, but we don't know the role&color of the barbarians yet).
Wille, the pink of the French isn't even new: the Aztec had the same color in an early screenshot (though it was still faded pink back then).

[Gramphos]

Locutus,
Have you joined OfAPeCiClu?
You have to be more optimistic.

Regarding the Barbarians I think I've read somewhere in a preview that they will have encampments, (cities), and when you win over one of the cities they will just move out to the fog of war and create a new one. As that come they might be a Civ, with some specific rules. (Maybe the Mongols).
Can someone help me find that info (if it exists). When I'm back to work after the Summer I'll search myself, but as long as I use a modem I'll stay to what I remember, but as I've read many suggestions, I might mess things up. Hope I don't.

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Originally posted by Locutus
Conclusion: no 16 civs are playable at the same time (8 seems to be the most likely number at this moment, but we don't know the role&color of the barbarians yet)

I think (wishful thinking perhaps) that the conclusion is that there are MORE than 16 civs - since somewhere somebody from Firaxis said that there would be more than 8 playable at once. And that means that either the different colors are just something they put there to confuse us or that there in fact are more than 16 different civs to choose from. I do think that it's possibe and even probable.

Also, Locutus: No offence taken.

[Warm Beer]

Originally posted by Gangerolf


It looks like a woman. My guess is Kleopatra. She's awfully dark-skinned for an Egyptian though.

Not to mention, Cleopatra was actually Greek... The Ptolmeiac ruler of the Egyptians.

[MarkG]

Ptolemaic


there is a city near my home town named Ptolemaida