Civs included. Just the facts madam 2.

[Locutus]

Gramphos,
Well, I do agree with much of what the group seems to stand for but I'm not a very 'clubby' person and I don't regard myself a pessimist either (I think it's very realistic to assume that Civ3 will NOT be utopia of strategy gaming but only a very good game at best). In any case, you don't have to be a pessimist to see that the statements of a single preview doesn't outweigh the truckload of evidence and suggestion from other sources. To assume only 7 or 8 civs are playable would be very realistic.

The only text info we have on the Barbarians that I'm aware off (I did some research, though not too thoroughly) comes from the PC Gameplay magazine:

"Barbarians now work in a totally different way. In this game Barbarians have cities, like all other civs, and they originate from these cities and make raids. Sometimes building roads can be really hard because there are barbarians out there that constantly attack. Each time you destroy a barbarian town, it will respawn itself in an area of the map you can't currently see. So what you have to try to do is set up a situation where you can see as much of the map as possible so that you can keep pushing them back."

There's one other piece of info though, from the demo video from E3 (I think the explanation of 'video reference' in the summary links to it). About 5 minutes into the video a Roman unit walks into a goody hut, unleashing barbarians (see screenshot below). This hut looks a lot like a city, perhaps this is the kind of city described above?

If this is so, it looks very different from regular cities and thus suggests that the barbarians aren't a civ. In any case, there's plenty of room for speculation here; suffice to say we know little to nothing about the barbarians and IMHO shouldn't be too worried about them in the context of this thread.

Mark,
A Firaxian said that? When was that then, I don't recall any such statement. Do you have an URL to back that up? Quite frankly I don't think you do, just check the summary: "Firaxis said they made NO official announcement regarding the number of civs that may or may not be included in the game".
Also, I find it hard to believe Firaxis would deliberately put out screenshots with as sole purpose to confuse a bunch over overly enthousiastic Apolytoners who are so desperate for an update that they'll discuss anything civ3-related to kill the time, even the colors used for the civs

[Locutus]

Summary and attachment in a single post kind of screws things up, so I put the summary in a seperate post this time:

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 they 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.

[DarkCloud]

Originally posted by paiktis22

100% CONFIRMED. These civs ARE in CIV 3.

1.AMERICANS - Leader (100% confirmed), city names, unique unit (F15)
2.GERMANS - Unique unit (Panzer). Multiple text references
3.CHINESE - Leader (100% confirmed)
4.ROMANS - Leader, city name (capital), unique unit (Legion)
5.FRENCH - Leader (100% confirmed), dialogue window of the french
6.RUSSIANS - Unique Unit (Mig)
7.ZULUS - Unique Unit (Impi)
8.ENGLISH - Leader (100% confirmed)
9.EGYPTIANS - Leader (100% pharaoh ), definite text reference
10.INDIANS - Leader (100% confirmed)
11.MONGOLS (90%)- or JAPANESE?(10%) Leader ** (see bottom of page)
12.IROQUOIS - Leader (100% indian ), city names, text references

All good... with the exception of the Iroquois... I think civ III should just lump all the Indian civs together, it would allow all the 'Native Americans' to be represented... even if they never were completely united. Now, I do realize that the Iroquois League was the closest there was to an Indian Nation and thus they are better to include than the Sioux... but still...

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

20.ISRAELIS. Apolytoner Eli has pointed out that according to a israeli site, Israel is in.

I think that civ should call them Hebrews to illustrate their time as a nation before settling in the promised land.

21. CANADIANS. City name (Montreal). The city name is NOT on the map, but on a civ 3 window.

22. CONFEDERATES. As reffered to in a swedish article, a Great Military Leader in Civ 3 could be Stonewell Jackson. Apolytoner Arator pointed out that this leader is impossible to be in the same civ as Lincoln (=100% confirmed leader of the Americans).

Two horrible civs to include.
Canada- not a great civilization. Canada is an outcropping of Great Britain, a colony that has not had much real presence in the world... In fact they seem to be extremely close to Britan today and in the 2 world wars, immediately sided with them.

The confederates just werent around long enough or did enough to be considered a real civ.

[Gramphos]

Locutus,
That was the thing of Barbarians I had read. Thank you for looking it up . I might have remembered some things wrong, but cities that move around and encampments is almost the same.

[Colon™]

Regarding the Mongoles/Japanese debate, here's another version of that picture that causes so much confusion.

Does anyone know Japanese? Those signs on his collar, are those Japanese?

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by Wille


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

There is a screenshot where a Roman city is red.

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by Colon
Regarding the Mongoles/Japanese debate, here's another version of that picture that causes so much confusion.

Does anyone know Japanese? Those signs on his collar, are those Japanese?

I dont know Japanese but I can tell you how written Japanese works. They have 3 alphabets. Kanji is a set of symbols borrowed from Chinese and makes up the core vocabulary. Hiragana and katakana are more recent creations and werent used in ancient or Medieval times. Those symbols on his collar are Chinese or else kanji. In short they could be Chinese or Japanese and we have no way of finding out which.

Does anyone know if the Mongol hordes adopted Chinese ideograms? If not, we can finally say with certainty that this guy is Japanese.

[JellyDonut]

I did some research and found out that the Chinese symbols were never used by the Mongols (http://www.friesian.com/mongol.htm). Those have to be Japanese symbols!

[Locutus]

Very good call, Colon and JellyDonut! I have some doubts though. You can't actually read those characters but just because they don't look Mongolian they must be Japanese? I think that conclusion might be a little bit premature. Maybe they don't mean anything at all, they're just random dots and stripes? Maybe they're neither Japanese nor Mongolian, maybe they turn out to be Vietnamese or something. I'll admit I know virtually nothing about languages in that region but unless someone who speaks Japanese can confirm that these characters are actually Japanese (or at least could well be) and translate them for us, I think we should be very careful about drawing conclusions.

If they indeed turn out to be Japanese characters, that would be a very important clue that this leader is in fact Japanese but it could still be possible that this is just another Firaxis screwup (like the Alexander with the short hair and the non-Iroquois houses behind an Iroquois leader). IMHO it would increase the chance of the Japanese being in to 80-95% (depending on how things develop) but it would still not be 100% certain.
In any case, I'll add your clue to the summary.

[TechWins]

I would like to say good thinking Colon and great try at finding out what the symbols represent JellyDonut, even if they do turn out to be Mongolian or don't have any significance at all. I still congratulate you two. I would like this leader to turn out to be Japanesse.

This last part I forgot to include on my original post and I didn't want to start up a new post for it (I'm not big on spamming).

Locutus, I've also seen something that stated there will now be barbarian encampments that will be pused back as your borders grow. It might have even been from a Firaxian. So I do think barbarians will be in the game.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by TechWins
I would like this leader to turn out to be Japanesse.

Hehe, originally I wanted this leader to be Mongol, right now the only thing I want is for this issue to be resolved

[JellyDonut]

After looking through the Japanese section of the Unicode fonts on my computer I found this symbol which I believe to be the leftmost symbol on the man's collar.

Edit: Now that I see the picture of the man on a better monitor, I see that it looks a lot more like the symbol in the following post, so I have deleted the attachment from this post.

[JellyDonut]

Although it might be this one.

[Colon™]

I’m pretty sure the guy is Japanese, this picture also allows to see more of his hat (or whatever that would be called) and I recognise it as a Japanese one.

"...non-Iroquois houses behind an Iroquois leader"

Maybe they'll have to change the civ to an appropriate one for the videos.

[Teeks]

I know this is a bit late, but for the record, Hunstville is a city in Alabama (about 60 miles north or so of Birmingham, where I live) with a population of roughly 100,000, the 5th(?) biggest in Alabama. It's home to a NASA base, and the University there specializes in computers and the like. I would not be suprised if it were a Firaxian simply goofing around.
Also, Kerplakistan? Someone is having a little bit of fun.

[Gangerolf]

I bet they're including the same civs as in civ1 + Iroquois and Persians.

[JellyDonut]

When will the next summary be posted? Hmm, Locutus hasn't said when. Must be October then (harmlessly poking fun at the optimists ) but I hope it comes out in 2008 (harmlessly poking fun at the pessimists ).

[Wernazuma III]

Soory that I have to quote a post a little bit back:

Originally posted by Locutus
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)?

And you're the one who wanted to prevent Arab-Jew bashing? Isn't that just a little bit offending stereotyping to germans?

[Eli]

Arab-Jew bashing? Where? Where? Where?

[JellyDonut]

Sometimes I'd like to put a giant speaker in downtown Jerusalem playing the song "Why can't we be friends?"

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Alas, my friend, that speaker will start playing "Plastic Explosives" shortly thereafter. Besides, the majority of the troblemaking Palestinians don't know English. And many of the Jews in question.

[JellyDonut]

Further research on the character leads me to believe that it and the next character are beginning to spell the word "mayonaka" meaning "midnight." However, the second character is less readable than the first because it is in the light and part of it is cut off at the bottom of the image, so this theory may very well be incorrect.

[Locutus]

Very good job, JellyDonut, excellent research! That Unicode thing does indeed look very much like the character on the collar. I agree that this, combined with Colon's observation about the hat, makes it very likely indeed that this leader is Japanese.
However, because this is such a controversial issue (Firaxis could still have screwed things up), I don't think it's appropriate yet to conclude that the Japanese are 100% certain. I can't imagine many people would still doubt it at this point but in this case particularly it would be wise to wait for more evidence (a city name, a text reference, anything goes), since we really only have 1 piece of evidence to go on. In the same way we had the 'obligation' to mention the Confederates and Canadians, I think we now 'have to' keep the Mongol option open. I hope everyone can agree with the way I adapted the summary...

Teeks,

simply goofing around [...] having a little bit of fun

I think that's exactly what paiktis was trying to say when he wrote 'could have been arbitrarily written be members of Firaxis' in the summary.

Gangerolf,
That's what I thought too for a long time but now the Mongols are (almost certainly) out this theory no longer holds.

JellyDonut,
Patience, my good friend. I can't be online 24-7 (contrary to some people, right Eli? ), there's this little thing that keeps me from doing so, it's called a 'life'

Wernazuma,
Well, I think most Germans will realize that the history of their Prussian ancestors and esp. some German morons in WWI&II didn't exactly do their reputation any good. Any German will know that the average German citizen is no more aggressive or backstabbing than the average Dutchman is trustworthy or diplomatic, it's just that some of their past leaders were. Germans have fulfilled the role of bad guys in many games (both civ and non-civ) before, it's no more insulting than giving these properties to the Zulu, Mongol or Aztec: as long as it's within the context of a game, it's harmless. I live very close to the Dutch-German border and know many Germans myself, some of them are good friends of mine. Insulting Germans would be insulting my friends and neighbours, so a Dutch-German flamewar is out of the question as far as I'm concerned. Also, the Dutch-German relationship isn't always very good but still a lot less 'emotional' than the Arab-Jew relationship. In conclusion, when I think of trade and colonization I always immediately think of slavery - and the maltreatment and stuff that came with it - as well, so I wasn't exactly flattering the Dutch (can you say apartheid?) and English either (though maybe not as explicit).



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. JAPANESE (95%) - Leader (here - hat and characters on collar are Japanese), possible Unique Unit (Samurai) (see 17)
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
17. MONGOLS (5%) - There's a small chance Firaxis made some mistakes with the Leader; if so, it is a Mongol rather than a Japanese Leader (see 11)


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 they 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 screenshots 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.

[JellyDonut]

Good list!

However I think the Vikings should be removed. These screenshots show the "Viking longboat" clearly in the possession of other civs:

http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/a...gp-screen3.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/a...iv3image18.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/a...iv3image17.jpg

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by JellyDonut
Good list!

However I think the Vikings should be removed. These screenshots show the "Viking longboat" clearly in the possession of other civs:

http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/a...gp-screen3.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/a...iv3image18.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/a...iv3image17.jpg

It is quite true that other civs have that unit, but we also know that the Viking longboat unit was a guess. Keep in mind that CTP had a generalized longboat unit for all civs. Civ3 may do the same thing.

[JellyDonut]

I havent played CTP so I didnt know that.
The reason I posted was exactly that. KrazyHorse had a krazy idea that the Vikings (with the longboat special unit) were in with the sole evidence of a picture of that boat, but it appears to be a unit that all civs can build, unless the Vikings are in and very generous about giving out longboats .

[Sabre2th]

It's also possible that the longboat was bribed away from the Vikings

[JellyDonut]

Perhaps, but its still a longshot to claim the existence of a civ based on the exisence of a boat which look like it could be a special unit but could easily not be and that all those shots (and I think there's more) were coincidentally the result of bribery/giving. But it adds merit to the Canadian argument...maybe all those "knights" are Canadian border patrol guards that were given/bribed.

[Sabre2th]

I'll admit that the bribe is a longshot and I agree that the Viking argument is very unlikely

You lost me with all the Canadian border patrol stuff. I must've missed something.

[JellyDonut]

Its an analogy/joke. I was saying if the Canadians are in, maybe their special unit is the mounted border patrol guard and they're given away/bribed to the other civs, but everybody assumes they're knights.