North American Nations

[Kingetos]

Dear Illwinter, you need to ad some North-American themed nations to the game.
Currently apart from LA Atalantis there is nothing

[Sombre]

Does the game need some, or just one? Unless I'm mistaken there's only one south american themed nation.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Worth noting, a lot of native north american groups keep their cultures and faiths as closed systems, and don't want outsiders mining them for fictional adaptations.

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by Kingetos:

Dear Illwinter, you need to ad some North-American themed nations to the game.
Currently apart from LA Atalantis there is nothing

While I second the nation the game needs more North American nations I would state they're even more desperate for something subsaharan. And there are in fact several North American nations in the game:
LA Atlantis
EA Mictlan
MA Mictlan
LA Mictlan
EA Xibalba
MA Xibalba
LA Xibalba

But it would be nice to see something from the plains or eastern woodlands.

[anaris]

Point of information, Nazca is a south american nation - they're based on the Inca, originating in what is now Peru

[Mormacil]

You're absolutely right, I misplaced the Nazca lines in my mind.

[DasaKamov]

As with most "Add X Nation, pls" thread, modders have you covered. ;)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3142360502&searchtext=

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3141508624&searchtext=

[Mormacil]

I'm quite sure I'll do some more in the future, just as I did for D5. But it's fair to ask for a little more representation of some underserved corners of the world. A three era subsaharan african nation or something oceanic would be nice.

[Chilli-Göttinger]

Let Predator Lizards from C´Tis (or Enkidus, if something happened in Middle Age to them) emigrate up to the North, lots off swamps there and could be an Idea to have that Settler-Theme. And give them Wigs like Mans Magi.

Also i thought Nidavangr is kinda North America as like the Movie Pathfinder Vibes and having Contact with Vanheim. Having those Viking Unit Names could be just that Vanheim calls them those, would be not new in the Series that some Names are relative.

[geepope]

Originally posted by Ddraig Lleuad:

Worth noting, a lot of native north american groups keep their cultures and faiths as closed systems, and don't want outsiders mining them for fictional adaptations.

Yes, it's a delicate topic. Representation is a great goal but it can be difficult to keep it respectful. It doesn't help that there are so few historical primary sources to go by, which means that not only is there scant information, most of what we have is based on living cultural memories. If you want to base a nation on myths that are reasonably removed from extant cultures there's just not much that goes back far enough.

So I suspect that North American representation is probably going to remain mostly the domain of modders, who are free to make their own calls on how to approach sensitive cultural issues. For what it's worth I think the Bagwajini mod probably has a good approach: it doesn't try to directly represent a specific indigenous culture or religion, it's based on their folklore about other mythical beings.

[Mormacil]

I could see sobeks settling in Florida after fleeing Egypt.

Originally posted by geepope:

Originally posted by Ddraig Lleuad:

Worth noting, a lot of native north american groups keep their cultures and faiths as closed systems, and don't want outsiders mining them for fictional adaptations.

Yes, it's a delicate topic. Representation is a great goal but it can be difficult to keep it respectful. It doesn't help that there are so few historical primary sources to go by, which means that not only is there scant information, most of what we have is based on living cultural memories. If you want to base a nation on myths that are reasonably removed from extant cultures there's just not much that goes back far enough.

So I suspect that North American representation is probably going to remain mostly the domain of modders, who are free to make their own calls on how to approach sensitive cultural issues. For what it's worth I think the Bagwajini mod probably has a good approach: it doesn't try to directly represent a specific indigenous culture or religion, it's based on their folklore about other mythical beings.

It's how Illwinter did Judaism with Hinnom, seemed the best approach. There's an old interview floating on the internet of a Jewish man talking about Hinnom and how he liked Illwinter's depiction.

Native believes is a complex subject but there certainly some groups with a decent catalogue of their culture. My first recommendation is seeking out story collections of the people themselves but that can be tricky. You can pretty much ignore any 19th century publication as that will be trash.

[Kingetos]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

Originally posted by Kingetos:

Dear Illwinter, you need to ad some North-American themed nations to the game.
Currently apart from LA Atalantis there is nothing

While I second the nation the game needs more North American nations I would state they're even more desperate for something subsaharan. And there are in fact several North American nations in the game:
LA Atlantis
EA Mictlan
MA Mictlan
LA Mictlan
EA Xibalba
MA Xibalba
LA Xibalba

But it would be nice to see something from the plains or eastern woodlands.

Those are more Central Americans though

[anaris]

No, the aztecs are north american. Mexico is in north america.

The main difference between Jewish culture and Native American cultures is the degree to which the myths are preserved; Judaism is well-recorded throughout history, but native american belief has some missing parts, and these can get distorted and harder to reconstruct when fictional works play off them - for example, when Dominions becomes a higher result in a google search than someone's blog where the actual belief is detailed. It's not a general case with all mythologies, but rather a specific historical effect of the disruption of their oral tradition.

There are some other examples in the world, both from extinct groups (the Vikings particularly) and extant ones, with the extant ones more important to be careful with.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by anaris:

No, the aztecs are north american. Mexico is in north america.

Mexico is Central America. ;)

The countries that are in North America are Canada and the US.

[geepope]

Originally posted by anaris:

No, the aztecs are north american. Mexico is in north america.

The main difference between Jewish culture and Native American cultures is the degree to which the myths are preserved; Judaism is well-recorded throughout history, but native american belief has some missing parts, and these can get distorted and harder to reconstruct when fictional works play off them - for example, when Dominions becomes a higher result in a google search than someone's blog where the actual belief is detailed. It's not a general case with all mythologies, but rather a specific historical effect of the disruption of their oral tradition.

There are some other examples in the world, both from extinct groups (the Vikings particularly) and extant ones, with the extant ones more important to be careful with.

Yes, the distinction between extant/extinct culture is an important one and part of what I was getting at: most of the information we have on historical North American cultures comes via oral transmission from extant groups that still identify as those cultures. We know of various extinct North American societies that might theoretically be more appropriate but having no written record and limited archaeological evidence there's not a ton of material to work with.

[freek_o_nature]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by anaris:

No, the aztecs are north american. Mexico is in north america.

Mexico is Central America. ;)

The countries that are in North America are Canada and the US.

Mexico is the southernmost part of North America. Central America begins at Guatemala and Belize, ends at Panama, and includes Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua in between, much of which was at one time Mayan territory. The capital city of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan, is present-day Mexico City, well within North America's/Turtle Island's borders.

EDIT: You may be thinking of Mesoamerica, which does include the Aztecs and much of southern and central Mexico but is not the same as Central America. Mesoamerica is more of a cultural and historical region that's rarely invoked today, other than for its historical context; Central America is a comparatively more recent designation of a political and economic region. Much of pre-colonial Mexico was part of Mesoamerica, which did include the Aztecs, but no part of Mexico qualifies as Central America.