Iceland

Origins and formation

The settlement of Iceland is generally placed in the second half of the ninth century, when Norse settlers crossed the North Atlantic. Later medieval Icelanders tended to blame the ambitions of Harald Fairhair of Norway. Modern historians look instead at shortages of farmland in Scandinavia. Unlike Britain and Ireland, the settlement page says, Iceland was unsettled land and could be claimed without a fight against existing inhabitants, with the probable exception of hermitic Irish monks, the Papar, noted on the commonwealth page. On the basis of Ari Thorgilsson’s Book of the Icelanders and the Book of Settlements, 870 and 874 have traditionally been treated as the first years. Those sources are largely unreliable in their details. Archaeology and genetics now carry more of the argument. The age of settlement is traditionally 874 to 930, when most of the island had been claimed.^{[1] [2]}

The guide does not use 874. It starts with a volcanic, windswept island and a commonwealth of chieftains, warriors, lawyers, and scholars. That picture matches the commonwealth page’s goðar, a shared law, and the Althing, and it adds warriors the legal pages do not make the constitution. The English ability is named Kringla Heimsins. The Chinese ability is named with a phrase that points at sagas of kings. The two titles are not the same book. This essay does not merge them.^{[2] [3] [4]}

Defining periods

The Icelandic Commonwealth, also called the Free State, ran from the Althing in 930 to the Old Covenant of 1262, when Iceland pledged fealty to the Norwegian king. Chieftains settled disputes at the assembly. There was no executive that enforced the law, and the commonwealth has been called a stateless society. In the thirteenth century Iceland came under Norway. The guide says centuries of independence held until civil war weakened Iceland and it submitted to Norway. The history pages date the submission to 1262 and describe the thirteenth-century loss of independence. They do not, in the leads used here, narrate the civil war battle by battle. The guide’s civil war is the reason it gives. The pages’ date is the covenant. This essay keeps both and does not invent the battles.^{[1] [3]}

The guide says Icelandic longships ranged far, that Vikings terrorized Europe’s rivers and coasts while explorers roamed North America, and that poets and saga writers set those deeds beside gods, saints, and heroes. The settlement page is about the island, not a North American camp. This essay does not supply a Vinland narrative the leads do not give. No published Norway essay exists, so the 1262 king is not linked. The published Norman essay is a different North Atlantic story, and it is not used as a substitute.^{[1] [2] [3]}

Legacy and interpretation

The legacy on the commonwealth page is a legal assembly without an executive, then a pledge to Norway. The guide’s legacy is poetry and saga beside that independence. A menu of activatable saga heroes is a third thing. The English and Chinese guides list named heroes, among them Egill, Gisli, Grettir, and Gudrun, and they attach each name to a unit ability: culture on a kill, stealth, splash damage, a relic, a full heal. Those are rules. They are not the sagas. This essay does not retell each life from a tooltip.^{[3] [4]}

The Chinese wonder uses a Reykholt name. It pays culture, raises production of military units for each great work, holds relic slots, and must be placed on tundra. The English page’s wonder name was not in the same sentence as a construction date on the text used here. A tundra requirement is a rule. It is not the Althing of 930.^{[3] [4]}

A closer look

The ability raises naval sight in every age. In antiquity it pays culture for discovering a wonder. In the exploration age, the apex, it pays more culture for a natural wonder in distant lands, grants a relic whenever a civic is mastered, and makes missionaries cost more. In the modern age, naval units may coastal-raid an archaeology site, take artifacts, and remove the site, and natural wonders and volcanoes pay culture. Discovery, a relic, and a raid on a dig are three rewards. None of them is the Old Covenant.^{[3] [4]}

The English traditions are Drekahöfuð, Dróttkvætt, Lyfsteinn, Reiði Guðanna, and Strandhögg. They tie culture to shipbuilding and raiding, healing outside friendly territory, and adjacencies from volcanoes. Strandhögg lets naval units pillage and raid at a distance. The Chinese page names the same ideas in its own words, and its gameplay tip cites a further tradition name, a raven feast, that is not in the English tradition list retrieved here. This essay does not add that name to the English tree. The unique building is a thing-place, which must sit on tundra or grassland and not beside another of its kind. The civilian is a saga hero trained where that building stands. The military unit is a Viking ship. A ship named Viking is not the commonwealth, and a raid range is not the Althing. Yields stay on the guide.^{[1] [3] [4]}

In Civilization VII

The English guide names Kringla Heimsins, the traditions above, the thing-place, the saga hero, the Viking ship, and a wonder whose Chinese page uses a Reykholt name. The simplified Chinese guide titles the civilization with its Chinese name and names the ability in its own words. The apex age is Exploration, which is the codex age. The page places Iceland in the Tides of Power Collection. The Chinese body uses the catalog’s Chinese chip name. A Chinese footnote, as retrieved, uses another wording. The base game is required. Owning the collection means the content is already owned. That requirement is not a base-game tag.^{[3] [4]}

The first step back from the saga menu is to keep the traditional settlement years 874–930, the Althing of 930, and the Old Covenant of 1262 apart from a naval raid. The guide’s civil war is the reason it gives for the submission to Norway. It is not a list of hero abilities.^{[1] [2] [3]}