The file is: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Lithuania.zip

Civilization: Lithuania
Noun: Lithuanians
Adjective: Lithuanian
Colors: Dark Red
Starts with: Hunting and Mining
UU: Vytis (Knight, 1+ moviment and 1+ power)


http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/2171/lithuania016iy.jpg


Title and leader: King Mindaugas
Leader bonuses: Expansive and Financial
Leader favourite civic: Hereditary Rule


Cities:
Voruta
Vilnius
Klaipeda
Kaunas
Marijamopole
TO BE CONTINUED...


http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/1042/lithuania028aa.jpg


http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/1483/lithuania031tq.jpg


http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/6852/lithuania047zu.jpg

can you please give me some idea about this civilization?

Looks cool civ army, wil you add it to the next lv mod?

can you please give me some idea about this civilization?

Wikipedia can help us: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuania


Looks cool civ army, wil you add it to the next lv mod?

Yes, I do :D It will be included in the next version

I can help you! I am from Lithuania! Great job!

How about city Novogrudok? I always thought it's the first Lithuanian capital!
Too strong and unrealistic UU! +1 movment (wow!)-why? I think vytis should be like knight with bonus against mounted units (Golden Horde and Tevton Order).

I can help you! I am from Lithuania! Great job!

:thanx:


How about city Novogrudok? I always thought it's the first Lithuanian capital!
Too strong and unrealistic UU! +1 movment (wow!)-why? I think vytis should be like knight with bonus against mounted units (Golden Horde and Tevton Order).

I can add this city and turn it capital and change the UU power in the next version ;)

How about city Novogrudok? I always thought it's the first Lithuanian capital!
Too strong and unrealistic UU! +1 movment (wow!)-why? I think vytis should be like knight with bonus against mounted units (Golden Horde and Tevton Order).
Our first capital was Kernave, second Trakai, third Vilnius (and now it's Vilnius). Once (after WWI till WWII) our capital was Kaunas (second largest city) - because Vilnius was ocupied by Poland.
Novogrudok - has NOTHING to do with Lithuania exept the fact that once it was the part of Lithuania (we were ocupants, but peacefull ocupants here: "Because Lithuanians were pagan, they were generally tolerant towards other religions, including Eastern Orthodox, unlike European Catholic powers of the time"). Even the language is different from Lithuanian.

The short history of Lithuania:
Lithuania is based in center-east Europe near the Baltic sea ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LocationLithuania.png ). Lithuanians have their own language (which is the oldest language still in use!). And ofcourse they were pagans...

In the middle ages Poland duke asked for the foreign assistance agains eastern pagans. And Pope announced several crusades to the east (towards anybody near baltic sea).There were 2 institutions (orders) to bring the only one and true religion (cristianity) to the region: one occupied Prussians (now adays Kaliningrad district) - it's to the south of Lithuania, the other to the north - they occupied territory, were now is Latvia and Estonia. The only region which was not occupied was Lithuania (thanks to our elders, who managed to unite the country against foreign expansion).
It should be mentioned, that lithuanians beat both foreign armies, and at that times the battles were the most casual (yes there were bigger battles in UK and elsewhere, but in Lithuania nobody took prisons, so every knight was killed insted of being taken to prisons).
In 1253 we got an oficial King, who agreed to give part of Lithuania (the part near the Baltic sea) to the Orders and to accept cristianity. That was the only one crowned King the Lithuania ever had (because Lithuanias were pegans we couldnt get a crown from Rome, so official rulers title was "The Grand Duke of Lithuania"). Back to the our only King - he was poisoned and killed, all cristian missionares were killed, and the land given to cristian order "came" back to us.
While constantly being attacked by foreing forces from the west (their tactics has change from the real battle into small pillaging attacks, by the way, about 200 such attacks were made intio Lithuania per year) Lithuanian Kings managed to be expansive to the east - where was Russia occupied by the Mongols (by the "Golden Horde"). We managed to occupy now adays Belarus, Ukraine and a big part of Russia (the whole east part of it (Moscow was burned several times, but never occupied) ).
In the expansion times dutchies tried to find contacts with the cristian west and to change their attitude toward pagan Lithuania. Our position was: "cristian Orders are not here to bring cristianity, but just to occupie us. And yes - we respect your God, and we would accept your religion - but bring it in peace". In some periods of time the pope even forbidden attacks against Lithuania.
At the time when Lithuania was from the Baltic sea to the Black sea (oh yes, baby, we were large...) we were ruled by our most heroic Grand Duke Vytautas. Who understood that even expansion to the east won't save us from the west agression and tried to destroy crusaders Order (the only able to bring attacks was in Prussia(Kaliningrad)). The only ally they could find was Poland, which was fighting with cursaders (Order has occupied some parts of Poland).
In 1386 Lithuanian duke Jogaila was crowned the King of Poland (he married Poland Princes, which was umm.. about 30-50 years younger - but such are political mariages...). With this marriage Lithuania was officialy second time declaried as Cristian country (the first was when we got our King Mindaugas crowned). In 1410 a united army (of Lithuaninas, polands and some tatarians), led by Vytautas defeated cristian order army (the numbers of armies were about: 30.000 vs 20.000 (Lithuania and Poland vs. Cristian Order)) this was the blow which ended western (mainly german) expansion.
This batle was named "Zalgirio" (also it is namded "Battle of Grunwald").

It should be mentioned of difficult situation of rulers inside Lithuania - Vytautas and Jogaila were cousins and they were fighting for the goverment power, two times Vytautas has ran to the Prussia (Cristian Order) for help, and two times he broke all agreements with them, by destroying their castles and coming back to Lithuania. But when Jogaila become the king of Poland - Vytautas was officialy (from Jogaila) declared as the Grand Duke of Lithuania. In the lats years of Vytautas it was tired to crown him (so he could be called the King of Lithuania), the pope blessed and send the crown - but polish made everything whats is possible to stop the crown from reaching him (simply - they arrested the carriage with the crown), and the crown never reach him (by the way - Vytautas even for two years was a king of Czechia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechia). Vytautas died being at about 90 years old! (oh yes, i wouldn't mind to go so far, and he did that all the time by fighting in battles).

Both countries (Lithuania and Poland) relations were good enougth and in 1569 we got a united kingdom (some facts about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth ). The united kingdom was ruled by the noblemans, tjhey got the right to elect the King, and also the golden "Veto right" (if one of hundred noblemans disagrees with anything - he sais "veto" - and the law or just a decision is denied). So the united kingdom went worse - never had a strong King, and slowly loosed the lands it controlled. In the end of XVII century there were three official partitions by the Prussia, Russia and Austria. And the united country was wiped from the maps. 90% of Lithuania went into Russians hands.

In about 1830 and 1860 there were revolts, during them Russia send more army agains rebels than agains Napolen army!
And during the period of Russian ocupation it was tried to destroy Lithuanian language - the books in Lithuanian were forbidden (only writings in Cyrylica were allowed (oh yes - we use Latin alphabet, and as I said before - we have our own Language, which has nothing in common with russian or any other)). Lithuanians as a nation survived - lithuanian books were printed in Prussia and as contraband smuggled into Lithuania (oh yes - if you were caught with lithuanian book - it would be even worse than just contraband). Pupils were taught to read at home (in school there were only few lessons, and everything in russian only, so parents didn't allowd their pupils to russian schools), russians made raids into villages to find lithuanian books and any unoficial schools. This situation lasted for 40 years - a whole lithuanian generation has grown under such oppresions.

But the russia was weakened from inside... and WWI done it's job. Communists took the power of goverment and accepted all German requests for peace. At that time Lithuania was occupied by German army. After WWI we declared independence (1918). And got our independece wars: first to beat russian army (Red Army, in fact Russia was fightint it's own civil war, and a war agains Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia... etc.). After red army we got to beat German army, and the lats(3rd) our enemy was... Poland! They claimed Vilnius (our capital) as their own and invaded Lithuania (it should be mentioned, that the main Red Army forces were sent agains Poland and were defeated - after that Polish army pushed them and occupied part of Lithuania). The war with Poland was more difficult - we managed to push them out of our land, but Poland several times addressed "League of Nations" which draw three or more lines between Lithuania and Poland and polish everytime were unhappy. So after last cease-fire they sent "uncontrolled" genreal with the army to occupy Lithuania, they took Vilnius (capital) and got a very big kick into the (you know what)... when our army was goind straigt to capital - they again addresed "League of Nations" to stop the war... and - yes - league of the nations asked to stiop any combat activities, and Lithuanians stoped without retaiking capital... till the WWII we got no diplomatical contacts with Poland (there was only one request for that - to give our Capital back).
So in 1918 we with blood regained our independence. In 192x (sorry - I love history, but cant remmeber the numbers withaout looking into the books) - diplomatic goverment was changed by the military (actualy - in Europe only France, UK and Czechoslovakia remained democratic countries (ah, yes - sandinavian ones too - Sweden, Noevegian, Danish, Finland)).
It should be mentioned, that we learned a lesson from Poland triks - and made the same to the "League of Nations" - One german city (build by the cristian Order) - Klaipeda, was (and still is) a big port - after WWI it's controll was givent to the League of Nations (and France troops were sent), so Lithuania silently organized an army to inaved Klaipeda and ratake it, all two weeks our diplomats were talking "we don;t know what they are", and Klaipeda was reunited with Lithuania. Sadly after German-USSR Molotov-Ribentrop pact (secret part) USSR prepared to occupy us again (well, the change of the name doesn't change the face)...

What shouhld be mentioned in WWI-WWII peace era?
We got our national heroes Darius and Girenas to fly over Atlantic ocean (they were the second or third once to fly over IT !), sadly - they crashed in Prussia (which was a part of Germany) - a lot of dispute is about the crash... but the fact is - they flew non-stop from USA over UK, and crashed in Germany, I'm afraid, but this should be the longest flight in that time...
In research we were good enought to start the study of parcticles physic ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_physics ). Planes for this were used too.
We got several really gut enginers - who created planes, in fact there were some debates from UK to buy our planes graphics. Also a big trade surplus gave economivcal adavtages (a lot of gold was acountes in Sweden and UK). But still the country was massivle agronomical.
And yes - Lithuania two times became the champion of European basketball (this was made only with the big help from the USA Lithuanians, who came back to their nations and helped it).

Pre WWII. Germans ask for Klaipeda (Memel as they call it) (with ultimatum "give us what we want, or we don't know where our tanks will stop" Ribentrop). We accpeted their request (because it was made only week or so after Czechia surrended Suddet's to germans with the bless of UK and France. Invading Poland Germans asked Lithuanians assitance agains them - to recapture our capital (Vilnius), we denied any of such request. And soon USSR gave us thei ultimatum - to accept ocupation or to face war (well, actualy, week before this there were a lotof provocations near the border, even some of our border patrols were killed). To helpt us to decide to accpet such ultimatum was: red army across the border (it was 5 times more than we got soldiers at all) and the idea - if you disagree - Vilnius (and the districs around it) won't be Lihtunian part (aka - givent to Belarusia). So ultimatum was accepted, and till these days, Russian communists and other idiots think we were happy to accept USSR.

WWII. So - USSR annexed us, and also Vilnius district (which belonged to Poland, but Stalin did his word - Vilnius was returned to us ("Vilnius is ours, and we are russians part" - for 50 years such words will be silently mentioned in all Lithuania) ). It shoud be mentioned, what when Polands were in big trouble (and Lithuania hated them all - that's not he words, that's a fact) - we lodged polish survivors, who hoped for something better in Vilnius than staying in their occupied country (for whose who don;t know - WWII started with Germans invading Poland, but USSR was out of the war for 9 months(or more?)...).
Last week before the WWII entered USSR - Stalin passed a decree to send hundred of thousands of Lithuanians (also Latvians, Estoninans) to be send to Siberia and other "unpopulated" areas. The main target of this was: ALL lithuanian language techers, writers, university magistrals and others (in civ3-4 terms - anyone who would build culture). And only the war stoped the trains full of people into working camps (one man could take only 100kg of his own property with him).

When germans invaded USSR it was a big uprise in Lithuania - we on our own retake a lot of strategic points (telepgraphs, posts, etc.) - and russian army near the baltics was paralysed from inside (actuale, from what is now known - lithuanian partisans captured essential telegrpah line - and all red army near Baltic sea was unable to get any direct comand from Moscow).
But for those who hoped freedom from Russians got very disapointed - even now adays it's a live saying "the red plague has been cganhed to a black one" - germans sent any other inteligent survivors to their "labor camps". Also they sent a lot of Jew's top the camps and sadly, Lithuania had the biggest percent of it's own Jew'es killed ( > 90% can; remember the real number). Such things came because, most of Lithuanians REALY don't like jewry people (I checked a lot of Lithuanian greatest writers books - and more or less you can find such things/text like: "jewes sold this forest" "jewes chop down this forest" or the one I like most "One jew invented new bussiness - to build coffins, because - there allways weill be dead people" - and such things come from the XVII century! It doesn't mean that we all are anti-semitist - but there are a lot of reasons for this.... ( :( )).

After WWII.
Lithuania was occupied (oh yes - it starts to be our hobby) - by USSR again, now they made real exiles (nobody stoped them now). Also there was a bog partisan activity (much bigger than in Latvian, haven't seen numbers to compare with Estonians). Partisan activity which started 1945 ended only in 1970... Till these days survived saying "day is russians, but the night is ours".

Even in USSR Lithuania was something like India for UK (a diamond for the crown) - actualy there were three of us: Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. The most pro vestern, both incorporated into USSR by force. And with the begining of "perestroika" (reform) of Gorbachiov, Baltic states were a symbol of what USSR should become.

USSR hitory. I believe a lot of people dont' know what is it - living in communism. First - it's a veryu low level crime (because there is a very strict control of fireamrs, police has a lot of power and everybody fears it ("fears" - from both - the bad and the good side of this fact), everything is chepa enought for all - but it's allways the need of it (demand is much bigger than supplies), in elections more than 90% allways vote for the right candidate because, anyone who would bypass elections would be punished, and in elections there was only one candidate, so myou could vote for one and the only one :) funny looks? but it was here for nearly fifty years).

The only official way to fight russians was in a non-conflict way: sport. We have (till these days) - a basketball team (from Kaunas "temporal capital") named "Zalgiris" (to remember our Duke Vytautas and his victory against western crusaders in the battlefield "Zalgiris battle"), "Zalgiris" was fighting against USSR other clubs, but the strongest was Russian central army club "CSK". "Zalgiris" took USSR gold 5 times (keep in mind - there are only 3 mln of lithuanians, and USSR nearly 300 mln. ). More of this club: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC_%C5%BDalgiris

Post USSR.
Actualy even Gorbaciov (the last president of USSR 1985-1991) didn't understand the needs of Lithuanians, he thought about us like about any different republic. We were the FIRST to declare independence from USSR (we were the first to divide from russian communist party, and yes - our neighbours like LAtvia and Estorina - were looking towards the things like "what will heppen to them" after such steps, nor - some actions against USSR, inside USSR were made together, like "Baltic Freedom road" (Baltic Road) - people from Vilnius to Tallin clinched with hands stood all the way! - it was a signs against Ribendtrop-Molotov Pact(and their secret parts (for those who don't know history: now they are not secret))).
But even in USSR declaration of freedom cots blood (where a lot of people believed/trusted in others in the rights of humanity - yes it was so - people blieved they live in a better country than really are!). In 1990 we declared independence from USSR, russian tanks started to occupy post offices, TV stations, telecomunications and so on. Agains them stood only unarmed people with flags. In some events tanks just ran across the people crushing their bones.... (on the january 13, more than 2000 there injured, when Russian armored groups overtake Vilnius TV translation building).

When it was clear, that military can't deal with independence - Russians started economic blockade (no oil, no gass from them - during winter every building was cold (my best regards goes to these days Ukrarine, for few days they could feel what economic blockade means)).

As Lithuanians declaried independence there was a small group (really small) of people who thought - that Vilnius is a part of Poland (yes, few old blinded people thopugth - "Lithuania is a part of us polish"... loosers... sad of them... still - some polands are really part of Lithuania and we can't deny this).

And in these days - we are a part of NATO, EU (European Union), have our own different language (oh yes - everytime I feel I have to remind this), our one currency (not for long "Litas" is dead, long live the "Euras").

As I have read civilization creators - they keep the point - we include only those civilizations those make a real influential point the history. So why not to look at Lithuania? Once it made a bog role into central/eastern Europe, once it's size was from the Baltic sea to the Black sea, and all the time being pagan (the last pagan country in the whole Europe), succesfully fighting against Germany, Russia, Mongols ("Golden Hord") and being one of the country which helped to destroy USSR ("Lithunania is the west of USSR" - this saying is alive even today). Also Lithuania (and Poland) can be mentioned one of the first (or just the first) constitutional monarchies in the world (well it wasn't a monarch...).
And even now adays Belorus historians (the ones which are not "political historians" and care of what was real and don't try to change the history into their point of view) say: "it's hard to find our nationality, because when we look back - we find lithuanians allready there."

Nor - it would be difficult to describe such civilization - we were expancive - that's for sure (but at that time any strong civilization was expancive), as I see special unit is mounted, really in middle ages Lithuania got a very big influence on one thing - SHIELD. Lithuanian shield was overtaken by curaders and used in the whole Europe. But also we got (and till these days) a strong horse breed "Zemaitukas" (those horses aren;'t big, they are strong and has a big endurance) anyway I would vote for shielded meele unit, which could successfully fight in forest against any mounted unit and any other meele unit. As for the leaders - it's really a hard thing and a rare one too - for two hundred years we got strong kings! After one such, the other was strong too... so if one died - the country wasn't in a big trouble (and this fact helped us to stand against European - really more modern contries). Anyway - only to candidates are: Mindaugas (as the only Lithuanian King) and Vytautas (national hero and a great general, which was supposed but never got the crown from the pope....).

Well thats a very short history of a civilization. :)

---
P.s. sorry - for bad english language.
---
P.s.s as personal story - my grandgrandgrandfather came to lithuanian with Napoleon's army (he was from hungary), my grandgrandfather was a well knonw forbiden books smuggler in Lithuanina, my grandmother with family was sent to Syberia for being lithuanina language teacher and come back only with fake documents, one of the grandfathers was arrested by KGB (it's like american FBI) for being partisan. And I just feel the care of history. :)

I can add this city and turn it capital and change the UU power in the next version ;)
Please, don't do such a nonsence.

By the way, use these cities:
1. Kernave (the first residential of Lithuania governors)
2. Trakai (a long time capital, and even more - a lot of time, this city workd, in civ3-4 terms like forbiden palace (the second man in the country lived here, and often ruled his part on his onw (mainly - against german invaders)) )
3. Vilnius (Capital, there is a big legend about it, like - a duke dreamed a dream of a iron wolf roaring on the hill, and a pagan pries explaned it "here you must build a capital - iron wolf is the fortitude of our country, and the "roaring" will glorify our country acros the world")
4. Siauliai (in pagan times it was called "Sun city" - at one time (1236) a big cristian army was defeated near this scity (so this means, that a city was a big even at that time) )
5. Pilenai (a well known historical castle - when crusders surounded it and it was clear they won't survive, insted of being caputerd - everyone died in the flames, there also died the son of that time Lithuanian Dukes)
6. Panvezys, Utena, Ragaine, Kedainiai, Telsiai, Raseiniai, Klaipeda (oh it was a castle build in our lands, but its population allways was more lithuanian than german), Taurage, Marijampole.

waw! it's a cool text about the Lithuanian history! thanks for posting and congrats :thanx:

cool history UNDEADAS.
Don't forget Kaunas

Great job, CivArmy! :goodjob: Thanks for adding our country! Lithuania really deserves to be in this game.
If you need any help on cities or anything else, I'll be glad to help. I can give you a list of at least 50 city names. :D

UU could be the one you proposed - a better Knight, but I agree with undeadas, that on foot Lithuanian soldiers were stronger than anyone else. I'd make a Swordsman with +25% vs. Mounted, Meele, Marksmen (and original +20% City Attack) and with a Woodsman promotion. Or smth like that. They were really universal and versatile warriors.

PS. Oh yeah, and capital should be Kernave, since it's the oldest one, second - Trakai and then Vilnius, Klaipeda, Kaunas etc.

Lithuania is based in center-east Europe near the Baltic sea ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:L...nLithuania.png ). Lithuanians have their own language (which is the oldest language still in use!). And ofcourse they were pagans...
False.

Perhaps Lithuanian may be the oldest language still in use in Lithuania, or maybe even in the Baltic region (I'm not sure), but as for the whole of Europe the oldest language still in use today is the Albanian language, followed by the Greek language.

Iron, the UU you just proposed above would be too powerful!

False.
Perhaps Lithuanian may be the oldest language still in use in Lithuania, or maybe even in the Baltic region (I'm not sure), but as for the whole of Europe the oldest language still in use today is the Albanian language, followed by the Greek language.

Well it is stupid to dispute about such thing. But, take a look at this site:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/lithuanian.htm

Now at the same site you can find a lot of descriptions of diferent languages, and even, of Albanian:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/albanian.htm

I believe, that scientists in USA, UK and other countries learn Lithuanian beacause they have a good reason for it (and a bigger one, than one like me saying, that it is the oldest language still alive).

http://plaveguci.com/gjuhet%20indo%20europ.jpg

Cool tree image :goodjob: I didn't know Romanian r too close of Portuguese, my linguage. Well, if I understand many words in other close linguages as Spanish and Italian I think I'll be able to understand Romanian too, anyone wanna speak Romanian with me? :lol:

And this tree would be useful to my European Mod, I mean, to choice the civis :D

Glad I was able to help. The romance languages come from Latin, and they are very similar (like Spanish and Italian). Those 7 languages, the Romance languages, are derived from Latin.

English is a Germanic language, there are some similar words, but they are still very different.

The thing with the Albanian language is it is the language of the oldest surviving people of Europe, which are the descendants of the ancient Illyrians.

Albanian language is the only Indo European language that has preserved the archaic structure of proto Aryan language. Albanian adjectives and ordinals come after the stressed nouns unlike any other European tongue.

The law formulated in 1892 by J. Wackernagel, according to which unstressed parts of the sentence tend to occupy a position after the first stressed word normally situated at the beginning of a sentence makes Albanian the oldest living Indo European language.

UU could be the one you proposed - a better Knight, but I agree with undeadas, that on foot Lithuanian soldiers were stronger than anyone else. I'd make a Swordsman with +25% vs. Mounted, Meele, Marksmen (and original +20% City Attack) and with a Woodsman promotion. Or smth like that. They were really universal and versatile warriors.


We should compare to other units, especially UU units when making new, there's no point making uber soldiers compared to the original civs. ;)

I think a simple knight with +1 strength would be just enough.

hi. i'm from Lithuania too. if you need any help with graphics or any other way i will be very glad to help you, PM me or mail me. Very cool that you started to do this.

To Shqype:
your tree shows a little knowledge of Baltic languages - baltic has nothing to do with slavian. And here look at these trees:

http://www.danshort.com/ie/iesatem_c.shtml
http://www.danshort.com/ie/iecentum_c.shtml

ofcourse to say which language is older in that tree is imposible, but it gives a normal knowledge how languages evolved.

And I'm afraid, that in 1892 J. Wackernagel even didn't imagined, that there exist such language like Lithuanian (or that there exists such Baltic branch - as i writtten before - Russia (in 1864–1904) tried strongly to destroy this language - so your scientist was without even proper information).

P.s. as for specific lithuanian unit it's hard to give any idea, but it's clear, that we didn't have a real knight unit - even in 1410 heavy cavalry used was polish, we got only a light cavalry.
So for about 200 years most battles against better equiped enemies were fought in forests, where mounted units losed their advantages (and in that case: lithuanian swordsman got better chances than german knight).

Hi. Thanks for adding Lithuania into a Civ4.
Is it possible to change units language? Units are talking Russian. I'm not a nationalist( I speak Russian almost fluently myself).With some tips from a mod maker, me and other lithuanians( I hope) are ready to help to change.

Just record voices and replace files. All you need is a mic and some inspiration.

About Lithuanian language... am I the only one that sees similarities with Greek? Perhaps the two are distant kin, from before 1200BC.

And that archaic tree is not all that correct. I'd say Romanian is the most distant of all romance languages in relation to Portuguese.

Hi. Thanks for adding Lithuania into a Civ4.
Is it possible to change units language? Units are talking Russian. I'm not a nationalist( I speak Russian almost fluently myself).With some tips from a mod maker, me and other lithuanians( I hope) are ready to help to change.

I choice Russian, cos it is the closer one offered by the game... but with someone wants create the sounds file, my pleasure to add them :D

Undeads, those language trees are missing key languages... such as Thracian and Illyrian.

Illyrian is considered to be a Centum language, while modern Albanian has elements from both Centum and Satem languages. The reason why you are not finding Albanian as the oldest surviving Indo European language is because a) relatively few works and research have been done on the Illyrians, and most people (at least in American education) rarely hear or learn of them, thus knowledge is limited, and b) there is still controversy regarding the Illyro-Albanian descent.

John Wilkes' book "The Illyrians (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0631198075/qid=1136837321/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/104-5639372-3722363?n=507846&s=books&v=glance)" goes in-depth about the ancient Illyrians, not fully linking them to the Albanians (still debate over it) until the last 3 sentences where he states that the Albanians have the same language, culture, and customs (not to mention location) of the Illyrians.

Here my friend is another language tree that I found, in more chronological order:
http://www.linguatics.com/images/indoeuro02c.jpg

English is a Germanic language, there are some similar words, but they are still very different..

Do you mean that there is a great difference between English and Latin?

If thats what you mean, than you aren't excatly correct. Much of English is from France and Latin, by Willam the duke of Normandy.

If you look up latin words you will see a lot of words, mainly verb, or verb-based-words, are very easy to link to english. Of course the grammer does makes a huge difference since English doesn't have special from for subject, object, etc. for just normal words like servus, slave or pater, father.
But the words are more the simuler then you would think.

English is a Germanic language, it is derived from Germanic languages... but it is heavily influenced by Latin. The words and the structure of the language are two different things.

Grammatically, English and Latin are worlds apart. English would not know Ablative clause if it hit them in the head.

The reason why you are not finding Albanian as the oldest surviving Indo European language is because a) relatively few works and research have been done on the Illyrians, and most people (at least in American education) rarely hear or learn of them, thus knowledge is limited, and b) there is still controversy regarding the Illyro-Albanian descent.

Well at this point Lithuanian situation isn't any better:
a.) only few research was made at this point (and the more serious ones only from 1990 !)
b.) even worse, during such period of 1940-1990 in USSR it was forbbinden in the universities to talk about Lithuania without talking about our neighbors in Belorusia (slavs). And if any foreign scientist wanted to make any research - he would find political related history.
Obout this thing (political related history): in USSR it was tried to rewrite history, for example, for some time the first inventor of telegrpah, steam engine were mentioned as russians (in books).
With Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) it was even worse - russians needed the explanation of anexation(incorporation into Soviet Union) - so they were saying, that balts were slavs, and so on. And I should only to remind, that all writen books, research papers, and other stuf (in USSR) were checked if they fit into political USSR idealogy (USSR, had a very big beurocratic totalitaristic engine).
c.) So till 1990 you wouldn't find a teaching book with the idea of Lithuanian language age. And only later with foreign (western) research such conclusions are made. So if we look at a research - we have to check how old is it (and it's data used from other books).


Here my friend is another language tree that I found, in more chronological order: <a picture which you can find in older post>

And only from this picture we can certainly say: the one who made it was concerned about other languages than Baltic Lithuanian branch.

"The chancery languages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was Ruthenian (reffered to as Old Belarusian by Belarusians and as Chancery Slavic by Lithuanians) and Latin. First was used for correspondence to eastern countries and later also the local needs, such as writting laws (Lithuanian statutes). Latin and german was used for correspondence to western countries.

The Ruthenian language was chosen for inner laws and such because of more developed Eastern Slavic culture and writting by the time; as Lithuanian nation was pagan for long, culturally, from a western standpoint, it was behind the orthodox Slavs. It is stated that King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander I could understand and speak lithuanian, after him there are no valid evidences. Also, at the time nationalism was not present, and the nobles who migrated from one place to another would adapt to a new locality and take local religion and culture. Therefore those Lithuanian nobles who moved to Slavic areas took up their culture."

"Ethnically at the start of the country Lithuanians made 70% of population. With the acquisition of new slavic populated territories, this part decreased to 50% and with the acquisition of even more lands to 30%. An other major nation were Tatars (by Dykra). By the time of late Grand Duchy, Slavs made overal majority. Because of this, as well as the usage of Slavic language to write laws, in some historical sources the late GDL is often called a Slavic country among Poland, Russia etc."

WIKIPEDIA

"In 1240, after the Tatar overthrow of Kiev, the dominant principality of Kievan Rus', Belorussia and part of Ukraine came under the control of Lithuania. The resulting state was called the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus', and Samogitia. Because territories inhabited by East Slavs made up about 90 percent of the Grand Duchy, they exerted a great cultural influence on the new state. Official business was conducted in a Slavic language (a predecessor of both Belorussian and Ukrainian) based on Old Church Slavonic, and the law code was based on that of Kievan Rus'."

"The medieval Lithuanian rulers did not develop a written form of the Lithuanian language. The literary Lithuanian language, based on a southwestern Lithuanian dialect, came into use during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, replacing the use of the Samogitian, or western Lithuanian, dialect. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the use of Lithuanian was confined mainly to the peasantry, but the language was revived subsequently. In 1988 it was declared the official language of Lithuania, as it had been during 1918-40 and the early years of Soviet rule."

Source: U.S. Library of Congress
http://countrystudies.us

"Contemporary Belarusian historians assert that they were not conquered by the Lithuanians, but rather the latter were initially mercenaries at the service of Slavonic princes. Whichever is true, the entry of the Slavs in the new state – the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) was of primary importance for the cultural development of Lithuanians. Monetary system and common law, official language and diplomatic rite were borrowed by them from their new compatriots. Almost all the Lithuanian Grand Dukes of 13th-15th centuries were brought up in the spirit of Slavonic culture, married Slavonic princesses and were, at least during certain periods of their lives, Orthodox. For centuries, the main centre of Belarusian, as well as Lithuanian, culture was Vilnius (Vilnia) until it was handed over by Stalin to the Lithuanian Republic in 1939."
"Therefore the Grand Duchy (Chaucer's Lettow and Ruce) is regarded as a dual state, like Belgium or Canada and is called, ex post facto, Lithuania-Belarus. Radical nationalists, however, deny today's Lithuanians any right to the historical heritage of the GDL and contend that, if not Belarusian by its name, this state was essentially Belarusian. Oddly enough, both constituent people, known now as Lithuanians and Belarusians, called themselves "Lithuanians" in their tongues – lietuviai and litviny, respectively. The native language of the latter, however, was called Russian and the feeling of Russian identity remained quite strong, especially in the lowest classes. "
"For most of their history, Belarusian lands had no other collective name other than Litva (Lithuania)"

Ales Biely, "Belarus: real or fictitious nation?"

"The chancery languages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was Ruthenian (reffered to as Old Belarusian by Belarusians and as Chancery Slavic by Lithuanians) and Latin.

True. Lithuanians didn't have their own writings, so they used others insted (Slavic and Latin). And it should be mentioned, that at that time the people who could write and read were less than 1% of the country. So that written language was used very little, and only for chancellery purposes (mostly: trties with other countries and rulers, diplomatical mail, and very few decrees for the land inside).
Latter Polish writings will be also be used. But from that time of writings you will be unable to find any fiction, culturial writings.


The Ruthenian language was chosen for inner laws and such because of more developed Eastern Slavic culture and writting by the time;

True and false.
The reason was vey simple - the only people able to write in Lithuanian controlled territory were slavs and we by our selves didn't have any writing at that time. So slavs were used.
About stronger culture - how can you calculate it? If for any cristian (ortodox or not) anyone who worship sun, holy forests looked like barbarians (and yes, if writing and churches means bigger culter - when it was bigger in other lands).


It is stated that King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander I could understand and speak lithuanian, after him there are no valid evidences.

Now we are talking about the united kingdom period (and it's from 1569! remmeber Lithuania as a stable state was united in about 1251. For 300 years all Lithuanian Dukes spoke in Lithuania language).
And yes - in united Lithuanian/Poland kingdom, a lot of of our noble mans started to use polish language - they looked at it like to a progress (and the culturial influence was really big at that time from Poland). But ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE of the country (those were > 90%) were peasants and they used Lithuanian language only (and no any writing at any language). For two hundred years lithuanian language will we used and saved by peasants :)


Also, at the time nationalism was not present, and the nobles who migrated from one place to another would adapt to a new locality and take local religion and culture. Therefore those Lithuanian nobles who moved to Slavic areas took up their culture."

Actually in the times, of Lithuanian expansion, there wasn't such thing like colonisation of other lands, sometimes even the same disctrict governors there left in power if they agreed to accept their new dukes.
The number of noble peoples moved to rule other lands were at small numbers (to one bigger town/center of some district only 20 people... it isn't a big movement and no impact of culturial loss to the fatherland :) ).


"Ethnically at the start of the country Lithuanians made 70% of population. With the acquisition of new slavic populated territories, this part decreased to 50% and with the acquisition of even more lands to 30%.

That guy who wrote this was smoking herbs, or just was guesing on his own imagination. By the way numbers could be correct if you looked from the other side: the land which was governed by lithuanian Dukes was populated by slavs mainly, so while the territory grew, the percentage of Lithuanians in the land was going down. But in Lithuania disctrict (which was bigger than it is now) - the majority of population was (and still is) lithuanian.
If the man who wrote this sentence wopuld be right - in these days, in any village you could find a lot of speaking russian language people, but it isn't so - you could find only lithuanians (even in second largest city of now adays lithuania it's strange to hear if somwone on the streets speaks russian).
By the way those numbers (50%, 30%) could be right only on one thing: the percentage of noblemans who spoke Lithuanian (but noblemans were only about 5% of the country).


WIKIPEDIA

You can find a lot of even funny facts in Vicipedia :) Like the onle I like the most "first time lithuanian was mentioned in writing was in a XV century" (when a real fact is 1009 year).


"In 1240 <...> The resulting state was called the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus', and Samogitia.

Some old sources really mentioned about lithuania, as a ruler of slavs (at that time the most slaves ruled in single country were in Lithuania - because all other slavs countries were divided).
But the ideo of calling Lithuanians as slavs ended when Russians had to choose under whom to unite slavic country (there were onlyu two candidates: GDL and Moscow) - they chose a slavic one :) Maybe this says anything?


"The medieval Lithuanian rulers did not develop a written form of the Lithuanian language. The literary Lithuanian language, based on a southwestern Lithuanian dialect, came into use during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, replacing the use of the Samogitian, or western Lithuanian, dialect.

The FIRST Lithuanian BOOK writen in lithuanian language was Martynas Mazvydas catechism written in 1547. In the end of XIX century there were even newspapers writen in Lithuanian. And don't forget, at that time 1864-1904 - any lithuanian writing was forbbiden - and if something is forbbiden - so it exists, yes?
And ofcourse, here is the link to vicipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martynas_Mazvydas


At the beginning of the twentieth century, the use of Lithuanian was confined mainly to the peasantry, but the language was revived subsequently. In 1988 it was declared the official language of Lithuania, as it had been during 1918-40 and the early years of Soviet rule."

About the part of peasantry I wrote, and the only mistake of your statement is 100-200 hudred years - lithuanian language came back to nobles level after 1830 revolt (reason very simple - mainly nobles (some of them called themselves polish people) were punished by Czar and sent to exile).

And after 1830 lithuanian language come back at all levels (and let me point, 1830 is XIX century, not XX).


"Contemporary Belarusian historians assert that they were not conquered by the Lithuanians, but rather the latter were initially mercenaries at the service of Slavonic princes.

Yes of course not conquered, but if you wanted them to do anything you just got to move with a big army into their country :) :) :) And to ask it's ruler - "who is the boss?"


Whichever is true, the entry of the Slavs in the new state – the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) was of primary importance for the cultural development of Lithuanians. Monetary system and common law, official language and diplomatic rite were borrowed by them from their new compatriots. Almost all the Lithuanian Grand Dukes of 13th-15th centuries were brought up in the spirit of Slavonic culture, married Slavonic princesses and were, at least during certain periods of their lives,

About that princesses... One of our Dukes (Gediminas) wasn't very good at sword - but was good at diplomacy - and he got really a lot of daughters and sons. So if he wanted to make a stronger peace treaty, he often used marriage as political tool. Other grand duke Algirdas (which made a very big expansion to the slavs lands) - used both tactics - conquer and in the surrender treaty he used political marriages.
So it was nothing about "slavic spirit" it was about political/expansion tool.


"Therefore the Grand Duchy (Chaucer's Lettow and Ruce) is regarded as a dual state, like Belgium or Canada and is called, ex post facto, Lithuania-Belarus. Radical nationalists, however, deny today's Lithuanians any right to the historical heritage of the GDL and contend that, if not Belarusian by its name, this state was essentially Belarusian. Oddly enough, both constituent people, known now as Lithuanians and Belarusians, called themselves "Lithuanians" in their tongues – lietuviai and litviny, respectively. The native language of the latter, however, was called Russian and the feeling of Russian identity remained quite strong, especially in the lowest classes. "

There are some simple things:
* Belarusia never had an independent state before 1921. At that time (even now) for them it is difficult to find their true nationality. Because if they look back - they will see Lithuania. So they tried (at one time very strongly) to put all history into such a way, that they (Belarusians) were GDL. And didn't care that:
A. the 3rd letter is Lithuania (not russia)
B. that the capital (Vilnius) is in lithuanian speaking lands
C. that till the united Polish-Lithuanian country (1569), all lithuanian rulers spoke Lithuanian and none of them even wrote in russian language, because they all were illiteral.
D. in Lithuanian pagan times - slavics (Belarusian) there cristians-ortodox.
E. after christianize of Lithuania 1387 lithuanians are pure catholic (not ortodox like all slavs).
F. Russian and Lithuanian language have nothing in comon (for us it's another
foreign language).

So all that talking about culture influence are more words than facts and taken from a big despair (polish people can talk about their influence, and that would be truth, but only on very limited "nobel mans level" ).

* And as i have writen before:
"About this thing (political related history): in USSR it was tried to rewrite history <...>.
With Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) it was even worse - russians needed the explanation of anexation(incorporation into Soviet Union) - so they were saying, that balts were slavs, and so on. And I should only to remind, that all writen books, research papers, and other stuf (in USSR) were checked if they fit into political USSR idealogy (USSR, had a very big beurocratic totalitaristic engine)."

Recomended cities:
By when was granted municipal rights:
* Klaipėda since 1257
* Kaunas since 1317
* Trakai since XIV c.
* Vilnius since 1387 (current Capitol)
* Raseiniai since XV c.
* Ukmergė since 1486
* Anykščiai since 1516
* Birštonas since XVI c.
* Skuodas since 1572
* Alytus since 1581
* Biržai since 1589
* Šiauliai since 1589
* Kėdainiai since 1590
* Lazdijai since 1597
* Kretinga since 1609
* Prienai since 1609
* Jurbarkas since 1611
* Joniškis since 1616
* Simnas since 1626
* Kudirkos Naumiestis since 1643
* Šeduva since 1654
* Vilkaviškis since 1660
* Viekšniai since 1725
* Salantai since 1746
* Šakiai since 1776
* Kalvarija since 1791
* Kupiškis since 1791
* Palanga since 1791
* Panevėžys since 1791
* Telšiai since 1791
* Akmenė since 1792
* Ariogala since 1792
* Daugai since 1792
* Gargždai since 1792
* Marijampolė since 1792
* Plungė since 1792
* Rietavas since 1792
* Vilkija since 1792
* Žiežmariai since 1792
* Švenčionys since 1800
* Panemunė since 1837
* Zarasai since 1843
* Jonava since 1864
* Druskininkai since 1893
* Kybartai since 1919
* Rokiškis since 1920
* Švenčionėliai since 1920
* Pagėgiai since 1923
* Radviliškis since 1923
* Mažeikiai since 1924
* Tauragė since 1924
* Utena since 1924
* Žagarė since 1924
* Virbalis since 1932
* Šilutė since 1941
* Kaišiadorys since 1946
* Kuršėnai since 1946
* Lentvaris since 1946
* Pabradė since 1946
* Pasvalys since 1946
* Varėna since 1946
* Kelmė since 1947
* Eišiškės since 1950
* Ignalina since 1950
* Kazlų Rūda since 1950
* Linkuva since 1950
* Pakruojis since 1950
* Seda since 1950
* Skaudvilė since 1950
* Šilalė since 1950
* Širvintos since 1950
* Varniai since 1950
* Vievis since 1950
* Naujoji Akmenė since 1952
* Nemenčinė since 1955
* Molėtai since 1956
* Obeliai since 1956
* Pandėlys since 1956
* Šalčininkai since 1956
* Tytuvėnai since 1956
* Ramygala since 1957
* Garliava since 1958
* Gelgaudiškis since 1958
* Grigiškės since 1958
* Rūdiškės since 1958
* Neringa since 1961
* Elektrėnai since 1962
* Ežerėlis since 1956
* Visaginas since 1977
* Venta since 1978
* Baltoji Vokė
* Dūkštas
* Dusetos
* Jieznas
* Joniškėlis
* Kavarskas
* Priekulė
* Smalininkai
* Subačius
* Troškūnai
* Užventis
* Vabalninkas
* Veisiejai
:king:

...or by current population:
1.Vilnius - 541 278 (current Capitol)
2.Kaunas - 364 059
3.Klaipėda - 188 767
4.Šiauliai - 130 020
5.Panevėžys - 116 247
6.Alytus - 69 859
7.Marijampolė - 47 693
8.Mažeikiai - 41 389
9.Jonava - 34 782
10.Utena - 33 086
11.Kėdainiai - 31 613
12.Telšiai - 30 539
13.Tauragė - 28 504
14.Visaginas - 28 438
15.Ukmergė - 28 006
16.Plungė - 23 246
17.Kretinga - 21 425
18.Šilutė - 21 258
19.Radviliškis - 19 883
20.Palanga - 17 611
21.Druskininkai - 16 890
22.Rokiškis - 16 118
23.Gargždai - 15 510
24.Biržai - 14 999
25.Kuršėnai - 13 854
26.Elektrėnai - 13 819
27.Jurbarkas - 13 625
28.Garliava - 13 423
29.Vilkaviškis - 13 102
30.Raseiniai - 12 305
31.Lentvaris - 11 832
32.Anykščiai - 11 757
33.Naujoji Akmenė - 11 748
34.Grigiškės - 11 566
35.Prienai - 11 131
36.Joniškis - 11 129
37.Kelmė - 10 597
38.Varėna - 10 555
39.Kaišiadorys - 9 734
40.Pasvalys - 8 562
41.Kupiškis - 8 243
42.Zarasai - 8 001
43.Skuodas - 7 598
44.Kazlų Rūda - 7 330
45.Širvintos - 7 176
46.Molėtai - 7 059
47.Šalčininkai - 6 644
48.Šakiai - 6 605
49.Švenčionėliai - 6 585
50.Pabradė - 6 398
51.Kybartai - 6 395
52.Ignalina - 6 307
53.Šilalė - 6 157
54.Pakruojis - 5 998
55.Nemenčinė - 5 885
56.Švenčionys - 5 658
57.Trakai - 5 504
58.Vievis - 5 246
59.Kalvarija - 5 066
60.Lazdijai - 5 027
61.Rietavas - 3 937
62.Žiežmariai - 3 852
63.Eišiškės - 3 688
64.Ariogala - 3 627
65.Šeduva - 3 270
66.Venta - 3 221
67.Birštonas - 3 138
68.Akmenė - 2 973
69.Neringa - 2 834
70.Tytuvėnai - 2 775
71.Rūdiškės - 2 527
72.Vilkija - 2 326
73.Pagėgiai - 2 321
74.Viekšniai - 2 248
75.Žagarė - 2 208
76.Skaudvilė - 2 081
77.Ežerėlis - 2 066
78.Gelgaudiškis - 1 985
79.Kudirkos Naumiestis - 1 951
80.Simnas - 1 940
81.Salantai - 1 887
82.Linkuva - 1 770
83.Priekulė - 1 690
84.Ramygala - 1 678
85.Veisiejai - 1 673
86.Daugai - 1 453
87.Joniškėlis - 1 432
88.Jieznas - 1 423
89.Obeliai - 1 335
90.Virbalis - 1 314
91.Varniai - 1 310
92.Seda - 1 260
93.Vabalninkas - 1 225
94.Subačius - 1 122
95.Baltoji Vokė - 1 075
96.Dūkštas - 992
97.Pandėlys - 985
98.Dusetos - 866
99.Užventis - 844
100.Kavarskas - 753
101.Smalininkai - 644
102.Troškūnai - 534
103.Panemunė - 324
:king:

Excellent job, as always. If I may suggest a small change to the leader's portrait, he should probably wear chainmail, instead of platemail, as the latter has not been yet developed in the time he lived. But great job nonetheless. :goodjob:

...as for special unit I would suggest using guerrilla/partisan/bushwhacker. dont know which word is the most right one. they were active since ~1944 and till ~1955. they were fighting for freedom against Soviets and Soviet ocupation.

for medieval period... well our spearmen and swordsmen were main fighting unit. not heavily armoured they gained major advantage in woods and swamps...
:king:

thanks for the new suggestions, city list... I can use them in a future version ;)

good game! :D

Aciu Aciu Aciu!

Lithuania really didnt have knights so i think the Partisans would be a better choice for a UU.

Also for more leaders Vytautas and {Pirmas vardas ?} Smtona ( president of Lithuania Before ww2) with the favorite civ of Nationhood.

I have read very fast through this thread and I am a bit surprised. I have read several places on the net that Lithuanian is closely related to Sanskrit. I have read claims like a lithuanian farmer today would understand old scholars in India speaking sandskrit thousands of years ago.

I am Norwegian and no expert on this, but I am interested as my wife is Lithuanian.

Just dont use Paksas as a leader :)

Aciu Aciu Aciu!

Lithuania really didnt have knights so i think the Partisans would be a better choice for a UU.

Also for more leaders Vytautas and {Pirmas vardas ?} Smtona ( president of Lithuania Before ww2) with the favorite civ of Nationhood.


I read somewhere that the country had a powerful knight army in Medieval Times and other Lithuanians told me that too, well, I am not expert in Lithuanian history, but I think it's cool that Lithuanian knight.
BTW, why this symbol shows a knight? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuania

I'll tell you one thing about Lithuanians .... they sure know how to dominate SK!

I'll tell you one thing about Lithuanians .... they sure know how to dominate SK!

These words come to my mind: "Never mess with Mother Nature, mother-in-laws or *** Ukrainians." - Italian Job Movie

uh, u r talking about Lithuanians, not Ukranians, doh!!! :suicide:

Just record voices and replace files. All you need is a mic and some inspiration.


I dont think much inspiration is needed, i have a feeling that all the unit voices are exactly the same 20 or so sentences, only in different languages.

---

All those language trees with sanskrit on them kind of confuse me. Isnt sanskrit supposed to be a artificial language (like esperanto) that some wizards in india made up loooong time ago?

---

Anyway nice to see there is an lithuanian civ out there... at least one representative of baltic countries.

About the Knight in The Coat of Arms. In short terms:
At first, the charging knight showed the figure of the ruler of the country, but with time it came to be understood and interpreted as that of a riding knight who was chasing an intruder out of his native country. Such an understanding was especially popular in the 19th century and the first half of 20th century. The explanation has a sound historical foundation. It is known that at the Zalgiris (Grunwald) battle, where the united Polish-Lithuanian army crushed the army of the Teutonic Knights, thus putting an end to its expansion to the east, thirty Lithuanian regiments out of the total forty were flying with the sign of the Vytis. :king:

In wider terms: VYTIS (http://www.answers.com/vytis)

Lol yup no Paksas=commie douche

@ civ army

Im no expert on Lithuanian history but from my knowledge there was no native Lithuanian Knight order. The Livonian order from Riga Latvia had influence on the country being one of the factors that lead Lithuania coverting to christianity and of course the Teutonic knights. From what i heard in stories is that most of the country was terrified of the knights because of their brutuality

About the medival knight army... It might be confused with the horseman of Smogitia or Zemaita. I know that they were really tough and their horses were prized throught Europe. But they weren't a Knightly order. Ill call my aunt to figure this out for shure.

I do know modern day Lithuanian orginizations do use the knight as a symbol. Like the "Knights of Lithuania" which is a Political/Religious orginization and the Lithuanian scouts.

Lol yup no Paksas=commie douche
I do know modern day Lithuanian orginizations do use the knight as a symbol. Like the "Knights of Lithuania" which is a Political/Religious orginization and the Lithuanian scouts.

this organization unites (or at least its their purpose should be) Lithuanians living in USA. political? not realy, its religion and its catholic, and knights... come on if lithuania had knights, they would have been pagan, cause the Catholics were those we were fighting against...
:king:

What others said - Lithuanians were fighting with Teutonic Knights and Livonian Knights, who came to Christianise them - they eventually adopted Christianity following the union with Poland, but the catholic knight orders have always been enemies of Lithuania.

I have read very fast through this thread and I am a bit surprised. I have read several places on the net that Lithuanian is closely related to Sanskrit. I have read claims like a lithuanian farmer today would understand old scholars in India speaking sandskrit thousands of years ago.


About 100 "of the basic use" words in both languages are the same, but still not enoutgh to be able to make a normal conversation. So the answer should be "no".

@Undeadas

Thanx, then I know more than the Indians :) I know a couple of hundred words, but it is a very difficult language to learn. My wife is lithuanian and and my baby is gonna learn lithuanian too.

A really great job CivArmy s. 1994!!:goodjob: And again,with voice acting,it would be great if units spoke in lithuanian. I think there needs to be done some scripting or something,if I don't want to delete russian unit's lanugage in order to replace it, but to add lithuanian?I'm not familiar with programing,but I would really want to help with the audio,since I have the equipement needed for this job and I am familiar with the necessary programs, so if any help needed-say the word.:)

Hello

I would like to say a few words from our, polish, side of viev.
First of all I would like to say that our last hundred years of history was some much unfortunate. You blame us for takeing Wilno (Vilnus) in after WW1, yes, it was Your capital and yes, we know that not rebles but ordinary polish army took the city but please remember that this was at that time mostly polish city, most of citizens spoke polish and were saying about theirselves as polish.
It was not only Your city, it was the city of our both nations. Our Union was very long and strong, our nations were "mixed" at that time.
Do You rememeber times of our Polsih-Lithuenian Union, when we together crushed Teutonic army (most of wester Europe sent forces to crush us, Pope supported them too) on the feelds of Grunwald? It was on of the greates battles of that time but no one in the west konwos about it (it was because we took no prisoners, western europe was used to ransoms)
Do You remember times when we together were one of the strongest countries in the world (in the size of territory and army, wealth). It was the Golden age for both our countries...
Remember that taht Union was not broke by any of our countries but because of enemy plots. We remeber this time as a good time, and we learn in schools that we were friends.
Some historicians say that if this Union (plus Bearus and Unkraine) was named as a some kind of a Commonwealth of Middlesees (Black and Baltic; something like a Commonwealt of Englad, Scotland, Wales...), it could be one of the strongest countries in the world, and history would go another way (mayby without Hitler, Stalin, communis)....
We learn much about our common history but I think that Lithuanians have some kind of hate to us. When i was in Your Nationa Museum in Vilnus there were very few information about our common, and looong history, there was information in three languages - Yours, russian and english - but no in polish? Why? There were oryginal books in polish, uniforms of soldiers with polish details, nobles with polish names - it is our common history...
I think that You are a little bit afraid to agree with it but You should be.
Were can You find better long term friends than us? And were could Poland find better friend? Russia? Germany? Sweden?
?

To Kasztelaniec:
Yeah,you are right,we kicked ass in thouse times,but you shouldn't forget,that the leaders of our nations changed,and sometimes orders were givien,which were not the best ones from the common people point of view...and that changed a lot,a decision of single leader can bring anticipation and anger between people..so it was the way it happened...I guess..

To Kasztelaniec



Do You rememeber times of our Polsih-Lithuenian Union, when we together crushed Teutonic army ... Do You remember times when we together were one of the strongest countries in the world (in the size of territory and army, wealth). It was the Golden age for both our countries...
Remember that taht Union was not broke by any of our countries but because of enemy plots. We remeber this time as a good time, and we learn in schools that we were friends.
?

Don't you think it would be fair to mention that grounding on modern political map there were only 7 Lithuanian regiments (from Ukmerge under the command of Vezhgailo, two from Vilna (modern Vilnius) under the command of Voitseh Montvind and Peter Gashtold, Kovno (modern Kaunas), Medininkai, two from Troki (modern Trakai) under the command of Yavnise and Ginvill) out of 44 regiments (harugvau) in the army of GDL, which fought together with the Poles against the Teutons. The rest of the army of GDL consisted of :

25 Byelarusian regiments (harugvi) (from Byarestse, Byhau, Vitsebsk, Vaukavysk, Garodnya, Dragichyn, Drutsk, Kobryn, Kreva, Kremyanets, Krychau, Lida, Lukoml, Mensk, Zaslaue, Mahileu, Mstsislau, Nyasvizh, Navagradak, Orsha. Ashmyany, Polatsk, Slonim, Slutsak)

6 Ukrainian regiments (harugvi) (from Volodimir-Valynski, Kiiv, Litsk, Novgorod Severskii, Ratno and Chartoriisk)

3 Russian regiments (harugvi) (from Novgorod Velikii, Smalensk, Starodub)

Plus there were from 2000 to 5000 the Tartars under the command of Gelal ad Din.

I do not know what kind of historical data is given in Poland, could you give me such info.

As far as I know there were 52 Polish regiments, which participated in Grunwald battle.

I guess you understand that many Byelarusians as well as I would feel a bit offended that you metioned just the Lithuanian.

If we speak about GDL, the common name for all nations (including Byelarusians, Lithuanians, Ukranians and Russians) was LITVINS

And I would be grateful to you if you could call population of GDL as the Litvins.

Thank you (Dzen’kue!) :)


PS I know it is just a dream but it would be great to restore our Commonwealth (I mean Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and the Ukraine)

to Nieksass:
Yes, You are right. In polish historicians point of viev, too much strenght and wealth in the hands of the most powerful poeple in our countries (in polish we name them "magnateria" - the most powerfull nobles) caused riots, instability and because of that the weakness of the King and our both parlaments (please also remember that our democratic - but in that time also surrounded by Prusia, Russia and Austria - Union, introduced the first in the world constitution on the 3-third of May). The weakness of the King and parlaments (liberum veto) caused the weakness of our Union...
to Litvin:
I was told that in that battle fought 20.000 polish troops and 10.000 lithuanian-russian soldiers and less than 1000 tatars and some soldiers from czech and moravia. We do not know anything about Byelarusian regiments, mayby because of that that this treritory was under the rule of Lithuania in that time (but mayby You are right and we should count some of this troops as troops from belarus).
We had advantage over Teutonic-West European army in nuber but we had less heavy forces (armor). Our victory was because of good tactic.
About 8000 teutonic soldiers died (many many nobles), 14000 was captured....it was a crushing victory (but we unfortunetly couldnt capture Malborg - Marienburg)! The power of Teutonic Order was broken and they stoped invading our, Lithuania and Polish, teritory.

today:
Poland feels very much linked to Lithuanian, Belarus and Ukraine. Please remeber polish support now for democratic reforms in Ukraine (orange revolution, Putin supported Janukowicz) and now in Belarus against Lukasenko. Western countries do not remember of easter europe, they would prefer to give all this teritory to Russia...We have very complicated diplomatic relations with Russia because of this metter, Poland was the first country in the world to accept the free Ukraine (free from USSR in 90'), now we support democracy in Belarus (Lukasenko is supported by Putin).

In Poland there is untrust to Russia and Germany and a very warm feelings to Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. You can count on our help if Yoi need it.

Thanks for reading
(and Sorry for chaos in my writing...)

to Nieksass:
Yes, You are right. In polish historicians point of viev, too much strenght and wealth in the hands of the most powerful poeple in our countries (in polish we name them "magnateria" - the most powerfull nobles) caused riots, instability and because of that the weakness of the King and our both parlaments (please also remember that our democratic - but in that time also surrounded by Prusia, Russia and Austria - Union, introduced the first in the world constitution on the 3-third of May). The weakness of the King and parlaments (liberum veto) caused the weakness of our Union...
to Litvin:
I was told that in that battle fought 20.000 polish troops and 10.000 lithuanian-russian soldiers and less than 1000 tatars and some soldiers from czech and moravia. We do not know anything about Byelarusian regiments, mayby because of that that this treritory was under the rule of Lithuania in that time (but mayby You are right and we should count some of this troops as troops from belarus).
We had advantage over Teutonic-West European army in nuber but we had less heavy forces (armor). Our victory was because of good tactic.
About 8000 teutonic soldiers died (many many nobles), 14000 was captured....it was a crushing victory (but we unfortunetly couldnt capture Malborg - Marienburg)! The power of Teutonic Order was broken and they stoped invading our, Lithuania and Polish, teritory.

today:
Poland feels very much linked to Lithuanian, Belarus and Ukraine. Please remeber polish support now for democratic reforms in Ukraine (orange revolution, Putin supported Janukowicz) and now in Belarus against Lukasenko. Western countries do not remember of easter europe, they would prefer to give all this teritory to Russia...We have very complicated diplomatic relations with Russia because of this metter, Poland was the first country in the world to accept the free Ukraine (free from USSR in 90'), now we support democracy in Belarus (Lukasenko is supported by Putin).

In Poland there is untrust to Russia and Germany and a very warm feelings to Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. You can count on our help if Yoi need it.

Thanks for reading
(and Sorry for chaos in my writing...)

to Nieksass:
to Litvin:
We do not know anything about Byelarusian regiments, mayby because of that that this treritory was under the rule of Lithuania in that time (but mayby You are right and we should count some of this troops as troops from belarus).


Oh! :mad:

I've just enumerated Byelarusian regiments:

from Byarestse, Byhau, Vitsebsk, Vaukavysk, Garodnya, Dragichyn, Drutsk, Kobryn, Kreva, Kremyanets, Krychau, Lida, Lukoml, Mensk, Zaslaue, Mahileu, Mstsislau, Nyasvizh, Navagradak, Orsha. Ashmyany, Polatsk, Slonim, Slutsak)

All of them were formed in Byelarusian cities and towns.
Take care:p

I have already read similar thread dediated to Grand Duchy of Lituania from belorussian point of view.

What we quarell are details, and all sides wants to claim everything, declining the others. I know this well, because we Polish often tend to perceive Commonwealth of the Three Nations as solely polish; what is undoubtedly false.

Lithuania temporarily conquered belarussian lands, because Rus was severely crippled by Tartars. Despite this, Rus was economically and culturally better developed than Lithuania itself (not much better, but it was), so Lithuanians couldnt chew its prey - thats why they come to agreement with Polish. Rus noblemen were achieving more and more power in Grand Duchy, and finally become the backbone of the country. It was a conciouss choice of lithuanian dukes, really wise and deep in consequences. Domestic policy in Polish-Lithuanian (or Lithuanian-Polish) Union was transforming from double-sided pact to triple-sided, what even succeeded in change of the Kigdom name (Republic or Commonwealth of the THREE Nations...). What had gone wrong? Rus and lithuanian nobles were strongly polonized, what caused them to separate from their peasantry, which thought of them as of polish oppressors. Knowledge of this fact come to the noblemen too late, what resulted in wars with Khmielnitsky's Cossaks, Ukraine defection to Russia, and in the end to the lost of independence. I know it is simplification, but in general it is the sad truth.

Shouldnt we join our efforts, instead of acting separately, so we can popularize the knowledge of Eastern Europe's history to the western audience? Now we are constanly marginalized - there is even no Civ edition with any of our nations - which is completely unfair. On our - polish, lithuanian and rus - lands lived over one quarter of the whole Europe's population! How does this affect the true view of European history, please reffer to other popular games like Medieval:Totalwar or Europe Universalis series.

I suggest we create a common mod, describing a history of all three nations. Mod should reflect fact, that through cooperation we can go much further, through positive attitude modifiers/permanent alliance feature.

Our history, blood and genes are probably more mixed than we would admit now. Let's not be selfish enough to weaken ourselves.

Salutations! (Pozdrawiam)

<...>
What we quarell are details, and all sides wants to claim everything, declining the others.

Why claiming everything? Or declining everything? Nobody declines normal facts, just in some cases our belarusian friend simply ignore what he doesn't like, or what is more stuning - some pure baltic districs claims as slavic ones (example of Vilnius :eek: ) (thats like I would be saying that elephants can fly.... - is there a way to argue?)

Any lithuanian nationalist could take a map and claim Smolensk as lithuanian land (ruled for 300 years by GDL). But nobody does so :)


Lithuania temporarily conquered belarussian lands, because Rus was severely crippled by Tartars.

"temporarily" - a strange word... those land were conquered till other countries took them (exception - Ukraine).


Despite this, Rus was economically and culturally better developed than Lithuania itself (not much better, but it was),

Yes it was, but not as a lot of people used to think, just several small facts:
* russian writings were used in chancellery (lithuanians simply didn't have any of their own),but most of lithuanian noblemans were totaly illiteral (and not talking about peasants).
* so while russian writigns spread into Lithuania, lithuanian language spread to the east (such facts like even in XIX century there were lithuanian churches deep into slavic lands).


so Lithuanians couldnt chew its prey - thats why they come to agreement with Polish.

No. The fact one is - we couldn't capture Moscow - which was constantly growing and getting military power. From the duchy of Moscow power Lithuania was forced to go into alliance (not because of the lands which were allready under GDL controll). (and it's not a big secret, that russians tried to make a one united slavic lands country - and GDL controlled a lot of slavic lands...)


Rus noblemen were achieving more and more power in Grand Duchy, and finally become the backbone of the country.

Actually such point of view is mostly refered by the fact that in XV century Lithuanian territories were only 1/10 of all GDL (in XVI century - it was 1/6 (GDL was getting smaller) ).

But such things should be also mentioned:
* More than 50% of GDL noblemans lived in lithuanian territories
* The biggest GDL noblemans were lithuanian dynasties (Kesgailos, Gostautai, Radvilos, Astikai, etc.) - the numbers a very clearly shown by 1528 GDL army inventorisation (when each of the noblemans came with his army and all the numbers were writen (main unit: raider with the spear) ).
* Slavic noblemans were mostly orthodoxians, lithuanians - cristians. By the Horodle acts made in 1413 years the possibilities for orthodoxians to do influence to country's ruling was limited.
* And yes there are some exceptions, then some orthodoxians got some power, the best known - Konstantinas Ostrogiskis in 1514 he won a battle near Orsha and exclusivly he got the rights of seond man in Vilnius.

So the talks about slavics power in GDL don't have a strong backup - if anyone knows real facts with datelines (not kinda of fairy-tales) - tell me I'll check :)


Domestic policy in Polish-Lithuanian (or Lithuanian-Polish) Union was transforming from double-sided pact to triple-sided, what even succeeded in change of the Kigdom name (Republic or Commonwealth of the THREE Nations...).

Actually when we start talking about Commonwealth, we stop talking about GDL. In Commonwealth Ukraine was granted to Poland, and in GDL slavic noblemans slowly gained more power than they had before - so in commonwealth belorusians ( Gudai ) became third power, which often called themselves Lithuanians (but did that without loosing their ethnical principles).


Shouldnt we join our efforts, instead of acting separately, so we can popularize the knowledge of Eastern Europe's history to the western audience? Now we are constanly marginalized - there is even no Civ edition with any of our nations - which is completely unfair.

And it would be unfair to put only one of them and to call it Commonwealth. Or to do even worse (like was done in Europe Universalis) - to take commonwealth and to call it Poland :)

The big difficulty - is about what country we should be talking? If we want to talk/bring one single civilization - it should be called Comonwealth, but it's history starts only in 1569 and ends in 1795 (only 226 years), when both Polihs and Lithuanians got a deeper history...


I suggest we create a common mod, describing a history of all three nations. Mod should reflect fact, that through cooperation we can go much further, through positive attitude modifiers/permanent alliance feature.

mmm.... you are talking about Commonwealth, but Civ4 principles can't reflect GDL and Polish and Commonwealth history... that's just imposible.


Our history, blood and genes are probably more mixed than we would admit now. Let's not be selfish enough to weaken ourselves.

About htat mixing part you went too far :) :)
Todays lithuania was build peasantry - which really wasn't mixed with polish noblemans :)

About different claims...
Polish often claim dominating, key role in Polish-Lithuanian Union (some nationalists even call it Poland, what is undoubtedly false), and claim some strongly polonized areas (e.g. Vilnius) as polish. Vilnius is or rather had been (I mean become and stopped to be) polish in many ways, but it doesn't change it never was only polish. I would say rather it was always and is lithuanian city before all. And our dominating role - it is only a beutiful (for us) myth, as we were just partners.

Lithuanians often claim they conquered Belorus, while it seems they rather dominated it with diplomacy more than might, and couldnt rule it with military power only. If you want to know why, just check troops listing of Grunwald Battle - there were much more Rus then Lithuanians. Looks like these numbers counts in pro of Rus ... Despite that Lithuanians had the lead of GDL - and that is a fact that no one could defy. It wasnt slavic ruled country at all. But the fact as well is that you needed a legitimization of your rule, and you lacked a skilled administration apparatus - thats why conquered Rus became more and more important in GDL over time, not only because of Moscow threat alone.

Belorussian tend to consider themselves as equal partners of Lithuanians in GDL - what is simply not true. But many Lithuanian's talking about Belorussian in terms of a conquered or occupied nation seems not fair thing. As time passed they were rather convinced, not forced to serve in GDL army. I think Lithuanians should be pride that they could create steady alliance with Rus nobleman, instead sinking in bloodthirsty tyranny. For me it is real sign that your rulers were much smarter and civilized than many historians describing Lithuanians as pagans and barbarians could admit. It is a proof that they had great political instinct - IMO greater than of many so called civilized western kings. I cant understand why you so much insist on military aspect of your domination over Belorussians in GDL (what is not clear thing because of demographics), while more important was wise politics.

"Actually when we start talking about Commonwealth, we stop talking about GDL"
GDL didnt die suddenly, did it? IMO it has swiftly transformed into Commonwealth, what among other things reflected the increasing role of Rus people in it.

Back to the subject of modding Civ4 - I think there are some interesting possibilities of creating different mods. Three mods can introduce separate polish, lithuanian and belorussian civs. One mod can introduce them all in one moment, so they can compete or cooperate in one game, basing on normal Civ rules. Flavour political fiction scenarios can include attitude modifiers. Historical scenarios can allow to play with member of preset permanent alliance made on basis of Commonwealth.

"About htat mixing part you went too far"
Actually, I had written it more for fun, than seriously, but ...
Well, I am quite impressed about National Geographic's Genographic Project lately. It can make few big surprises...And Poles are strongly mixed with all their neighbours, even with the Germans (especially eastern Germans are almost 'slavic' nation).
Today's Lithuanians are descendants of peasntry mostly, but you can't say there weren't some illegal relationships. What about Polish immigrants who were assimilated? Moreover, many nobles of Lithuanian roots became eventually Polish, and mixed into our population. I know few Jagiello's (Jogaila's) or Sopyllo's personally, and there are the Mickiewiczes or Sapieha's still living in Poland. So we can speak different languages and have different culture or historical interpretations, but can be quite close relatives.

Still I think we should lobby together to show Westerners - e.g. from Firaxis - that East Europe consists not of Russia only. And we, together with Belorussians, should come to some kind of consensus in subject of Commonwealth and Polish-Lithuanian Union. Just think where we all can stop our claims (listed at the top), so everybody can accept this. I think compromise needs we drop sth on the table, before we can take sth back.

Regards (Pozdrawiam)

About different claims...
Polish often claim dominating, key role in Polish-Lithuanian Union (some nationalists even call it Poland, what is undoubtedly false), and claim some strongly polonized areas (e.g. Vilnius) as polish.

Well in a dominating role Polish very like suceeded (that's one of the reasons todays lithuanians don't like your commonwelf (zezczespolita or whatever it was called) like polish do :) (we like GDL times more) ).
And that part about "strongly polonized Vilnius" - can't agree. Polish allways tried to put that in this way, but then it is said so - they speak about noblemans and some part of Vilnius citizens, while closing eyes for peasantry...
I would agree that Vilnius district was polonized at about the rate of ~30% - but for any bigger number, I would like to see strong facts, not just words...

(by the way - just 80 years ago fellow polish claimed all Lithuania as their internal part :crazyeye: )


Lithuanians often claim they conquered Belorus, while it seems they rather dominated it with diplomacy more than might, and couldnt rule it with military power only.

Well - that domination which you mean, was nothing else like "incorporating into the country". How's that different from occupation? In some cases that diplomation worked this way:
"you accept me as a ruler, or i'll put another instead of you" - for example Vytautas has changed a lot of rebellious rulers...


If you want to know why, just check troops listing of Grunwald Battle - there were much more Rus then Lithuanians. Looks like these numbers counts in pro of Rus ...

If you would look at those numbers (btw - I checked it - there are about 10 different historians, and about 20 different numbers :lol: ) one thing you will find:
* There weren't any russian, belarusian or other slavic troops on the battlefield which would have come outside GDL.
* All russ who there on the battlefield came from GDL territory, more than that - the longer that territory belonged to GDL - the more troops arrived.
* The whole GDL was ruled by a bit different thing compared to other monarchies: every nobleman has had the duty to gather army if the high duke asked them. And if the nobleman (or just a simple region "duke") was unable to do so - he was changed to other... (nice thing?) So when Vytautas ordered to prepare for war - it wasn't something like - we wanna come, we don't wanna - we don't. Just all the mechanism worked fine... So GDL got a mechanism how to use conqured and incorporated regions for the kingdom... And the main thing - the decision wasn't made by a small duke, or by some belorusian noblemans congress. So the thing about troops don't give any suggestion about belarusina domination (it just shows very clearly about obiedence of their).

(BTW: it loks like on the battlefield in the army of GDL there were from 33% to 60% lithuanians (some say it was only 1 rd of them some sources say there were more than hald of them), I checked why situation in 1528 army inventorisation is different - and gues who? GDL was loosing russian territory, and also some of their influence)


Despite that Lithuanians had the lead of GDL - and that is a fact that no one could defy. It wasnt slavic ruled country at all. But the fact as well is that you needed a legitimization of your rule, and you lacked a skilled administration apparatus

actually one of the highest inheritance of high duke Vytautas - was a strong ruling mechanism (because after him all small dukes acknowledged a central - high duke as a ruler, just before Vytautas - some dukes called themselves allies (and sometimes acted even on their own foreign policy) - after Vytautas - such disobedencie vanished...).


Belorussian tend to consider themselves as equal partners of Lithuanians in GDL - what is simply not true. But many Lithuanian's talking about Belorussian in terms of a conquered or occupied nation seems not fair thing.

Actually if you would like to hear my opinion: Lithuanians would have never occupied/incorporated them into GDL, if Belarusians were united (at that time that region was called very differently on the timeline).


As time passed they were rather convinced, not forced to serve in GDL army.

That conviction was very strongly related to "how long you are in the GDL". think for your self - if your grandgrand something was obeying to some country - why should you do something differently? GDL rulers managed to incorporate them without any large scale opressions. But if you would like to look into the history - you would find small scale opresions agains noblemans (and noblemans are only a small part of any nation), for more tightness in more free-thinker regions - the new ruler was put into power from different those region nobleman family - so after 200 years (and some russ regions were rooled even more than 300 under GDL) - some could look back and say "oh - they put me and my family into power" (why should you rebell agains such thing?) many others could look back and say ("my grandma/granfa was nobleman from Lithuania - so I'm part of this country") - why such man should make rebelion?


I think Lithuanians should be pride that they could create steady alliance with Rus nobleman, instead sinking in bloodthirsty tyranny.

It wasn't an alliance - I allready showed that, if that would be alliance as you think - Belarusia would have flown into the Duthcy Moscow, that what happened to Ukraine (when GDL gave it's controll to you (polish) ).


For me it is real sign that your rulers were much smarter and civilized than many historians describing Lithuanians as pagans and barbarians could admit. It is a proof that they had great political instinct - IMO greater than of many so called civilized western kings. I cant understand why you so much insist on military aspect of your domination over Belorussians in GDL (what is not clear thing because of demographics), while more important was wise politics.

That's not only of military thing (which actually existed - all you have to read - it's Vytautas or Algirdas movements into russ territories), the thing is that russ regions weren't incorporated at alliance level (if we would look in short terms - then yes, but such short terms often ends with parting away from GDL). In GDL - it was a clear hierarchy who is who.

If you would read GDL history of each of his rulers - you could find a lot of small alliances with regional russ families, but also - those alliances after some time went off... and there is one big difference - Vytautas, who made Lithuania (GDL) not that multinational (it allready was so) - but with strong central power. After Vytautas there wasn't any kind of alliances or family alliances - it was one centralized country (btw - while every lithuanina can say - Vytautas was the one that bought Lithuania from Baltic to Black sea - really he added not so much territory after Algirdas - instead of it - he made a unitarian state insted of some kinf of federation, and if you don't like work ocupation - so I can use word - incorporation).


GDL didnt die suddenly, did it? IMO it has swiftly transformed into Commonwealth, what among other things reflected the increasing role of Rus people in it.

The last big map (known to me, and really - I don't know too much) showing Lithuania and Polish as two different countries - was about 100 years after union... But the power of "Grand Duke" (ahh.. I also call it high Duke) - died much sooner... And after union (30-50 years) - GDL was something without centralized power, only in rare exceptions some Grand Dukes of Lithuania were ruling GDL, not only their own territories...
(BTW - as I understand polish see Commonwealth as something positive, but for Lithuanians - it's something there the country died... (in some aspects - yes it grew up - cities, culture... but by goting this - it lost its internal united power) )


Back to the subject of modding Civ4 - I think there are some interesting possibilities of creating different mods. Three mods can introduce separate polish, lithuanian and belorussian civs.

Well it's hard to introduce belorussians - because, they were divided russian tribes... (anyway - if they can do so - why not, just please - don;t put a lot of Lithuanian towns into that :lol: )


One mod can introduce them all in one moment, so they can compete or cooperate in one game, basing on normal Civ rules.

So that's 4 different mods.


Today's Lithuanians are descendants of peasntry mostly, but you can't say there weren't some illegal relationships. What about Polish immigrants who were assimilated? Moreover, many nobles of Lithuanian roots became eventually Polish, and mixed into our population. I know few Jagiello's (Jogaila's) or Sopyllo's personally, and there are the Mickiewiczes or Sapieha's still living in Poland. So we can speak different languages and have different culture or historical interpretations, but can be quite close relatives.

Yes - but really it's all about small scale (exception - Vilnius district... and one in Poland - can't remmeber it's name - near Lithuanian border).


Still I think we should lobby together to show Westerners - e.g. from Firaxis - that East Europe consists not of Russia only. And we, together with Belorussians, should come to some kind of consensus in subject of Commonwealth and Polish-Lithuanian Union. Just think where we all can stop our claims (listed at the top), so everybody can accept this. I think compromise needs we drop sth on the table, before we can take sth back.

You see - here we have 4 different civs (i would like to see it more like 3 (Polish, GDL, Commonwealth) ), it's simply too much for a real game. And for an indie approach - yes - there could be made a very nice scenario :)

--------
P.s. Acutally this our discusion may be the biggest approach to a Polish, Lithuanian, Blearusian history in about 50 years :) (because there was only one small discussion between different historians in the times of USSR )

I'm sorry for not typing same huge posts (kinda busy times in Belarus:rolleyes: ), but if anyone is interested in Belarus and Belarusian point of view on the History of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, please check this site:

http://www.belarusguide.com

Thnax in advance for the time you spend to get some new info about Belarus:)

I'll cut most if it 'cause it's impossible to discuss with so huge posts...

Well in a dominating role Polish very like suceeded (that's one of the reasons todays lithuanians don't like your commonwelf (zezczespolita or whatever it was called) like polish do :) (we like GDL times more) ).
Oh boy, it is "Rzeczpospolita" and it is simply a polish version of 'Republic', which in time gained meaning of Polish Republic (there is also a word 'Republika' which is used to describe other republics than Polish). Currently we have Third Republic, so it is "III Rzeczpospolita Polska".

And that part about "strongly polonized Vilnius" - can't agree. Polish allways tried to put that in this way, but then it is said so - they speak about noblemans and some part of Vilnius citizens, while closing eyes for peasantry...
I would agree that Vilnius district was polonized at about the rate of ~30% - but for any bigger number, I would like to see strong facts, not just words...
Here you go - facts: (I've already put in in other thread) those are official data of Lithuanian Statistical Office: http://www.std.lt/en/pages/view/?id=1732
Take a look at last rows: Vilnius county has over 26% of Poles _today_ - what do you think about numbers 60 years ago? I think that there was more than 2/3 of Poles then. Even today there are districts like 'Vilnius district municipality' - the last row in that table, where there is 63% of Poles _today_ or 'Salcininkai district municipality' - 80% of Poles, according to official, Lithuanian data. I hope that you will agree with those facts?


About Grunwald:
* There weren't any russian, belarusian or other slavic troops on the battlefield which would have come outside GDL.
What do you mean??? There were almost only Slavs there! Do you forget that Poles are Slavs? Comparing to whole army there was not so many Lithuanians (together with Belarus and Ukraine the number was much bigger), but still - it was Polish Knighthood which was the core of the army, because it was heavy cavalry. Forces from Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Tatars were light cavalry and infantry.

(BTW - as I understand polish see Commonwealth as something positive, but for Lithuanians - it's something there the country died... (in some aspects - yes it grew up - cities, culture... but by goting this - it lost its internal united power) )
I never understood that point of view - Lithuanian Duke married Polish Queen and became King of Poland, for hundreds years Lithuanian dynasty ruled our both countries, yet Lithuanians always complain that were ruled by Poles :-) I simply doesn't understand it. About the way we think about Commonwealth you are right - we think of it as our Golden Age - Poland stretched from Baltic See to Black See, was really multiethnic (Poles, Jews, Lithuanians, Belarussians, Ukrainians, Russians, Germans) and multireligious (Catholics, Protestans, Jews, Orthodox) state. And we are proud that there was no burning of witches or killing of Jews in our country as it was in Western Europe (that's why so many Jews came to our country in years about 1000-1200). The only error that some Poles do is that they think 'Poland' instead of 'Commonwealth', but they are justified by two things: the most of citizens were Poles, the capitol was in Kraków, most of lands belonged to Korona (Polish part of Commonwealth), not to GDL, but as I wrote the King was Lithuanian.

Well it's hard to introduce belorussians - because, they were divided russian tribes... (anyway - if they can do so - why not, just please - don;t put a lot of Lithuanian towns into that :lol: )
So that's 4 different mods.
It would be really nice to have such mod :-) ! Although I really look forward to see Poland in next version of civ or in an add-on...

Best regards!
Leszek

I'm sorry for not typing same huge posts (kinda busy times in Belarus:rolleyes: ),

Are you in that square in centre of Minsk right now? We are watching you in tv and wish you all the best. There is few of you, but two years ago it would be impossible for me to even think that Belarussians will awake, yet you are awakening... Keep the spirit and you will win! Maybe not this time, but in one, two years I think that Lukaszenko will step down.
There were many observers from Poland in Belarus - even some of them get arrested also many of the ZPB (Union of Poles in Belarus) activists were jailed for the time of elections. Militia didn't even respect immunity of MP (Member of Parliament), one of our MP was jailed for one night, because they were not letting militia to the office of opposition candidate - Milinkiewicz, where militia arrested the staff of office and conduct a search of this office.
Sorry for off-topic, the the History (with great 'H') is right now written in Belarus.
Leszek
P.S. Sursum corda!

Well in a dominating role Polish very like suceeded (that's one of the reasons todays lithuanians don't like your commonwelf

You can say Polish dominated the Commonwealth. But I can see that nothing could be done without Lithuanians. It is sad that you dont feel as a part of this. It is your choice that you split from your own heritage.

And that part about "strongly polonized Vilnius" - can't agree.

Well, I don't feel offended if you say e.g. "Warmia and Mazury (north-eastern part of Poland) wasn't Polish in XIV cnt.". They weren't, as they were inhabitated by some Baltic tribes and conquered by Teutonic Order. I would even say more - every single square meter of Polish territory wasn't Polish once upon a time. We have come to this country in VI-VII cnt. Earlier there were other people here. And what does it change? IMO anything.
Vilnius was purely lithuanian, then become even more polish than lithuanian (thats why some Poles 80ty yrs ago claimed it), and now is lithuanian again. This war 80yrs ago wasn't surely right thing, because Vilnius never stopped to be lithuanian (even when lithuanian temporarily become minority). I think that both sides have had their reasons, and denying it is pointless.
I cannot deny rights of Germans visiting Wroclaw, Szczecin or Gdansk, however I disapprove of their contemporary claims. As I said, Vilnius is lithuanian and should be lithuanian, nor I have any claims towards this city now, so why dont you agree that there were some moments in the past that number of Poles who came to the city was bigger then Lithuanians actually, and some important for Polish historical and cultural events happend just there?

Well - that domination which you mean, was nothing else like "incorporating into the country". How's that different from occupation?

Well, occupation can last for hundreds of years (see Polands partition, or history of the Balkans)... Exactly THAT was the smart of your rulers, that they convinced Rus people to feel not as an occupied nation. Yet you negate their political sense all time.
However, you are right saying it wasnt alliance. Lithuanians get all this land through diplomacy and conquest as well, and they were the dominating group.
When I am talking about Slav superiority, I think mainly of numbers of slav inhabitants. This is what makes me think, that Lithuanians ruled the conquered nations with wise politics rather than a raw force. What doesnt belittle your achievments anyway, IMO.

actually one of the highest inheritance of high duke Vytautas - was a strong ruling mechanism

Vytautas was an absolute ruler, but the ruling mechanism wasn't strong. There were impressive possibilities of raising huge amounts of troops, but possibilities of keeping them continuosly under arms and besieging of well built fortifications - almost none. There was practically no administration, bureaucracy, or even places for training ppls to perform administrative tasks. Craftsmanship wasnt well developed. Distants were huge, road network poor and cities very small. News was arriving with more than a one-year delay. Thats why Teutonic Order was so superior in fight with GDL.

BTW: Answer yourself, where would be Poland and Lithuania now if they hadn't cooperated then. IMO, maybe with a lot of luck Poland would be a weak and small survivor...without Pommerania, Silesia and Mazury. Maybe. I hope but don't belive. Would be there anything left of Lithuania? Teutonic Order had already taken Samogitia, and intended to crusade further. Baltic tribes on the lands they conquered were exterminated without a trace. Could be this alternative fine enough to perceive Polish-Lithuanian union so negatively?

Position of Grand Duke against other nobles was much stronger than in Poland indeed, however subsequent successions were causing more and more troubles over time. All uncles, cousins etc. - look how many plots there were in times of Vytautas and Jogaila. IMO Lithuanian state was in constant danger of civil war among members of royal bloodline.
I reffer to the thesis of Pavel Jasienica, polish historian, who thought that Lithuania grew in land faster than its administration could handle, which caused the general unstability. However expansion rate was great, there was practically no internal development. So it was giant, but on the mud feet. Every, even the slightest pressure from surrounding countries could have force this baloon to explode. And such threat appeared finally - Muscovy and Teutons were both aggressive and dangerous opponents.

P.s. Acutally this our discusion may be the biggest approach to a Polish, Lithuanian, Blearusian history in about 50 years :) (because there was only one small discussion between different historians in the times of USSR )
Yes, I think it is very interesting experience to face so different oppinions. It is important to wipe off USSR propaganda from our history. Remembering the western audience (in this case Firaxis :) ) that there is something else after Russia in the Eastern Europe, is a part of this. And I am talking here, because I hope of finding some kind of consensus. Hope you do too.
Best regards.

You can say Polish dominated the Commonwealth. But I can see that nothing could be done without Lithuanians.

For example: you (polish) could elect King without participation of Lithuanian noblemans :)


It is sad that you dont feel as a part of this. It is your choice that you split from your own heritage.

Let's look from my side:
1. How can I fell part of this if my country nearly lost it's nationality
2. When we made that commonwealth stuff - we gave you Ukraine, and what did you? You lost it.... damn polish :) (ee - no offencive from me).
3. From whic part you would look into the history - commonwealth ended by being divided to parts and occupied (anexed - shoudl I say) by other countries - so it actually - didn't stand test of time.

Now look from Lithuanina view:
* Polish can say - commonwealth was the bigest stuff they were part of by their own will. Lithuanian - can say - it was GDL :)
* After some time (after WWI) - Polish tried to ocuppy and anex Lithuania as their "internal part". (only the force was enought to do so with Vilnius...) - and what was the main their reason? -> Commonwealth.

(I'm not putting the good things that were given to GDL by commonwealth - there were such - but they were off under the stuff i written above )


Vilnius was purely lithuanian, then become even more polish than lithuanian (thats why some Poles 80ty yrs ago claimed it),
<....>
(even when lithuanian temporarily become minority).
I think that both sides have had their reasons, and denying it is pointless.

I understand that you don't claim Vilnius, I just question the thing that most Polish allways say "once Vilnius was more polish than lithuanian" - actually can you give any facts, that it was so?
I'm asking of this, because in wikipedia, I found only one number telling about that time, and it was........ 2% !!! :eek:
After that I was so stunned, that took my time to check facts... and I didn't find any neutrall survey information (the one is mentioned on wikipedia even wasn't accepted by League of Nations - because it was done by braking all international rules - and we know that when an army organizes any poll/questionare - it can show, that "elephants can fly"...).
The next thing that I remmeber of the surveys - was made in 195x (in USSR - when it wasn't any reason to corrupt it) - there were about 40%-45% percent of lithuanians in Vilnius (about 30% of polish and else - russians).

So - I didn't find any real fact/survey, that could let anybody to say, that in one time "there were more polish than lithuanians". So it's only my own involvement to find "do you know any reall survey on this question?" (I believe that in polish school books there can be put numbers, or so (in Lithuanian ones there aren't any numbers - only polish claims) - but is there really any fact letting us to say so? )

The saying "because there were more polish than lithuanians - we occupied Vilnius" - isn't an argument for the number at all, reasons:
* Polish claimed all Lithuania as thei internal part (they were putting such stuff in foreign conventions)
* Even - they tried to make a power gap (and then polish army got to come and to stabilise the country....) all this is clearly know, because a lot of documents were confiscated and decrypted... (I'm talking about your P.O.W (Polish Organization Army) work in Lithuania)
* Polish disagreed any requrement (made by League Of Nations) to make an independet survey of the nationality of Vilnius region.
* I'm not talking that each and any independent inquiry assigned Vilnius to Lithuania.

So have you any independent numbers, any knowledge of such survey?


Vytautas was an absolute ruler, but the ruling mechanism wasn't strong.
There were impressive possibilities of raising huge amounts of troops, but possibilities of keeping them continuosly under arms and besieging of well built fortifications - almost none.

Stop. "Ruling mechanism" isn't the same thing as "strong economy". and yes - Lithuania didn't had a strong economy.
What I'm trygin to say here: the "ruling mechanism" can only dispose resources, but even the wonderfull mechanism - can't use what it don't have (and GDL economy was really weak, and hardly could grow...).

So you are just prooving other thing (weak economy), not the "weak ruling mechanism".


There was practically no administration, bureaucracy, or even places for training ppls to perform administrative tasks.

Actually there were such things. That's why belarusians now try to claim GDL as their own - all chancellery, beuracracy text left - were in belarusian writings (if there would be no byreaucracy - there would be totaly no writings left from GDL times).

The other thing - bereucracy can't be bigger than Economy, and that GDL economy was at low level (becaus all it's resources were used for defense - possibility for growing economy was very small).


Craftsmanship wasnt well developed. Distants were huge, road network poor and cities very small. News was arriving with more than a one-year delay. Thats why Teutonic Order was so superior in fight with GDL.

It sounds more like theory put like a tale..... (no facts, only the wrong ones...)
And the ending part is even far from theme (wasn't here "any ruling mechanism") ?! (Teutonic Order was superior at a lot of things - and the ones you described aren't even the major ones).

Now let's go back to the theme - rulling mechanism:
* Some chancelor or even bureuacracy writings are left - there aren't many of them, but they are (in Vytautas and Jogaila time - it wasn't something new).
* The tale about 1 year delays of news... Actually there are several mentions - that in a big need - messengers ride from one "castle" (those wooden stuff can hardly be called castles...) to another by changing horses there. So if there was a need - news could reach, not in one year, but in a month - yes.
* GDL was a big thing, and there are known facts then some regions near the border declaried independece, or alliance with other faction... After Vytautas - such things vanished. So - if even in the border someone feels the rulling power - this shows, that some rulling mechanism is working.


BTW: Answer yourself, where would be Poland and Lithuania now if they hadn't cooperated then.

Like my grandfather liked to say "jei suo but nesikes - but zuiki pagaves" it translates like "if dog wouldn't be pooping - he would have cauth a rabbit".

Only the hell knows what would have happened. But I should remmeber you how everything ended - commonwealth was occupied and divided by foreign forces. Maybe without alliance - it would have hapened faster, maybe everything would have acted diferently... Or maybe - we would be in the some place like we are now :)


Would be there anything left of Lithuania? Teutonic Order had already taken Samogitia, and intended to crusade further.

Actually a lot of stuff about Samogitia aren't said or put nicely. :)
* First of all Teutonic Order got castles only about 10% deep into Samogitia territory - so it's hard to say that it was occupied.
* Other facts - that Gediminas, Kestutis, Vytautas and other GDL Dukes used Samogitia warriors against Teutonic OPrder - shows something too.
* Even the Duke Vytautas often made a deal with Teutons "to give Samoigitia to them".

So all those claims about conquared Samoigitia aren't truth... There is even a joke - "we give Samoigitia to Cristians, then - it revolts and comes back to us, so after 10 years - we make another good deal for us, by giving Samoigitia...." - Samoigita it was german's first Staliningrad :D They took it, they claimed it, but never had it.


<...> and intended to crusade further.

You forgot to mentions, that Lithuanians got troubles with 2 orders: Teutonic and Livonians ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades ).
The second one was to the north of Lithuania, and after wars with GDL very weakened in military power.
So the story about cristians and GDL isn't "game to one side". More than that - both orders lost big battles against GDL (both battles in Samoigitia). After that Teutonic order (Livonians allready dind't have enought power to make problems...) - changed it's tactics from "conquering" to "pillaging". That is to invade country, to burn somthing, and then to run back into safe castles...
All talks about "totally weak GDL" - is kinda of nonsense. (Even more - while we were constantly invaded (it was period od 50 years, in each of it 80-120 invasions to our lands) ) - GDL managed to invade to east, and also - to attack Teutons too (about 30-50 invasions into their lands per year) (all these things are writen by german chroniclers). (Even Lithuanians managed to push to some Polish teritories... - but more in diplomatical way)


Baltic tribes on the lands they conquered were exterminated without a trace.

Great nonsense with one esception:
*In the north Latvians were conquered - but till these days they have their language - their nationality wasn't destroyed at all.
*In the soth - Prussians were conquered - after their big revolutio agains Teutons - germans tried to erase that tribe - and succeeded - Prussian language is no more. But other thing is strange: from those times (13xx) - till German Empire (Bismark) MOST of Prussian population will be speaking lithuanian language (only Bismark organized acitvities and Black Death (plague) - changed the face of nationality...).


Could be this alternative fine enough to perceive Polish-Lithuanian union so negatively?

So as you see - your scary tale isn't so scary....
And yes - we needed paretner to destroy Teutonic power and to get christianized... You also need to dispose germans (well wasn't it Poland which lost war against Teutons in 1408?)... So yes - an alliance for this ok. - 1410 all goals are nearly achieved. And after that I say - thank you, and no to a commonwealth. A short alliance looks like better thing than a long one...


however subsequent successions were causing more and more troubles over time. All uncles, cousins etc. - look how many plots there were in times of Vytautas and Jogaila.

IMO Lithuanian state was in constant danger of civil war among members of royal bloodline.

Actually - saying "more and more" is overstating. Vytautas and Jogaila relations - is the only one known big trouble. And even during it - GDL was growing. (There are more known cases from before - but everything ended with one strong duke crontrolling all GDL...)
IMHO - your opinion is overstating, even the biggest "civil war" didn't weaknesed the country...


I reffer to the thesis of Pavel Jasienica, polish historian, who thought that Lithuania grew in land faster than its administration could handle, which caused the general unstability. However expansion rate was great, there was practically no internal development. So it was giant, but on the mud feet. Every, even the slightest pressure from surrounding countries could have force this baloon to explode. And such threat appeared finally - Muscovy and Teutons were both aggressive and dangerous opponents.

As I shown before - this is a scary tale, maybe to scare kids.
Livonians - weaked.
Teutons - unable to make any strong invasion for conquer.
Polish - even they lost some of their lands to GDL.
Muscovy - expansion was not from them, but from our side:
Grand Duke Algirdas 1368, 1372 besieged Moscow. Last time - he take tribute from them and come home...

So no - putting Lithuania as anything that could be blasted by any small push - it's more like a tale, not a historian reality... (and there are a lot of historians, each of them tends to have their own poitn of view - some of them - even crazy...)


Remembering the western audience (in this case Firaxis :) ) that there is something else after Russia in the Eastern Europe, is a part of this.

I very heavily query if firaxis would read such a lot ::lol:
But yes - Russian were a small thing for a long long time.... :)


And I am talking here, because I hope of finding some kind of consensus. Hope you do too.

Well you can think we have some kind of consensus on point of Belarusians in GDL.

2. When we made that commonwealth stuff - we gave you Ukraine, and what did you? You lost it.... damn polish :) (ee - no offencive from me).

Well, you should rather say Lithuanian, Polish and Ukrainian nobles lost Ukraine. You still tend to blame Polish for Commonwealth weakness, forgetting about Lithuanian part.
Many Polish peple says "It would be better, if we hadn't ally with Lithuanians that time, because many things could go better - instead of political reorienation to the east, leaving Silesia and Pommerania matters, changing country's economy into agricultural one, nobleman's privileges, which Jogaila used to buy a succession right for his son, etc.
You seem to do the same think with GDL - what good is Lithuanian, but what wrong - was not your fault.


3. From whic part you would look into the history - commonwealth ended by being divided to parts and occupied (anexed - shoudl I say) by other countries - so it actually - didn't stand test of time.

I don't think that commonwealth was sth wrong - there were simply bigger sharks in the area, thats all. And look - there are very few european nation, that didn't lost their independence at least once for last thousand years. Italy,France,Germany, even Russia - they all have had such periods.
We [polish, lithuanians and rus] made some errors, which caused Commonwealth's partition. I think those errors weren't undone after WWI, because instead of cooperation we started to play against each other, what only faovoured Russia interests.

I'm not putting the good things that were given to GDL by commonwealth - there were such - but they were off under the stuff i written above.

It is hypothesis, which cannot be verified. Anyone knows how would the alternative history look. I presented pessimistic version, you had optimistic - so we have draw, in fact.

I understand that you don't claim Vilnius, I just question the thing that most Polish allways say "once Vilnius was more polish than lithuanian" - actually can you give any facts, that it was so?
I'm asking of this, because in wikipedia, I found only one number telling about that time, and it was........ 2% !!! :eek:

I found the number of 5% of Lithuanians in Vilnius in 1922. Please reffer to "God's Playground" by Norman Davies. He is a british historian, and I hope he knows his job well, or at least checked his demographic data at many sources. For me, his oppinion is much more reliable than Wiki.
BTW: I think it would be nonsense, if Polish started to prove Szczecin(Stettin) and Wrocław(Breslau) to be polish city during 30's using data from late 50's. So, please, don't use soviet data from the same period concerning Vilnius.
There is one more problem, however: a large number of polish speaking Lithuanians considered themselves Commonwealth's citizens (in XIXcnt. such Lithuanian was Adam Mickiewicz). Most of them in 1920 were loyal to revived Poland rather than Lithuania.


* I'm not talking that each and any independent inquiry assigned Vilnius to Lithuania.
Really? Which one? Ribbentropp-Molotov or Stalin-Churchill-Truman in Yalta?
I don't negate Lithuanian's rights to Vilnius (I consequently use "Vilnius" form instead of polish "Wilno"), but - please - be fair, and dont call those examples from above "independent" inquiry. Besides, Lithuanian rights are sanctified sufficiently by medieval history and current status, you don't need soviet's grace.

* The tale about 1 year delays of news... Actually there are several mentions - that in a big need - messengers ride from one "castle" (those wooden stuff can hardly be called castles...) to another by changing horses there. So if there was a need - news could reach, not in one year, but in a month - yes.

It was exaggeration and simplification, based on the fact that any military action required about one year for exchanging informations and preparation, for example war 1409-1411. The same problem was present later in Commonwealth - most small local conflicts have ended before army reached borders.


* GDL was a big thing, and there are known facts then some regions near the border declaried independece, or alliance with other faction...
And you still consider it strong ruling mechanism ??? By talking of possible weaknessess in GDL I really didnt want to offence Lithuanians, but rather explain why GDL has formed an alliance with Poland (or, at least, for what reasons from mine, polish point of view).

After Vytautas - such things vanished
After Vytautas, Jogaila became Grand Duke again. And after him Grand Duke of Lithuania was always King of Poland in the same time.

Only the hell knows what would have happened. But I should remmeber you how everything ended - commonwealth was occupied and divided by foreign forces. Maybe without alliance - it would have hapened faster, maybe everything would have acted diferently... Or maybe - we would be in the some place like we are now :)

In this we completely agree. Only the conclusion is different - it seems to me you say all the time that Commonwealth was wrong, while I would rather say it was good, but had gone wrong. You say - it should be finished right after 1410 - I say it is only hypothesis, as we cannot prove if it would have been better. Thus I have to admit, that you can call my oppinion hypothesis or over-optimistic as well.
In fact I seek a way to calm down our nationalisms because I think cooperation and agreement (about the past as well) is better than lone-wolf strategy. And was hoping that power of Commonwealth in its origins (not in the end, of course) was a proof of this. If you think it is not sufficient, what more can I say?
Uff, I started talking about ideology, and this forum is not place for this.

All talks about "totally weak GDL" - is kinda of nonsense.

I didn't mean it was totally weak. But Lithuania, despite its size, having lost Samoigitia or not, was weak enough to need this alliance...as well as Poland did. Conclusion - talking GDL was stroooong that ho ho!, and all its neighbour weak, seems to be a wishful thinking of yours. Especially, if you take into consideration that Lithuania was biggest under the rule of Algirdas, Vytautas couldnt get tribute from Muscovy, was defeated by Tartars near Worskla in 1401, couldn't get Samoigitia back after he had given it to Teutonic Order in 1398 [till the Grunwald's victory in 1410], fusion of Teutonic Order and Livonian Knights was only a matter of time [as they gained land connection through Samoigitia], and Pope could nearly in any moment call a crusede against Lithuania - last Pagan country in Europe...

Hope some folks of Firaxis browses through Civ-fan forums frome time to time. Even if not, we can add some points in the Firaxis wishlist bulletin - I have no idea where can I find sth like this, but have read it exists.

We have gone little far away from the main topic, but this discussion can cast a proper light on the mod case, and give it some depth. At least it may be used in description.

Best regards (Pozdrawiam)
Eskel

whow!!! Cara sempre que for nos teus posts eu vou escrever em portugues... acho uma merda fica escrevendo em Ingles para brasileiros... tipo eu ja falei que tu e o cara? porra so tu ta criando Civs animadas aqui que naum sejam meros skins... e se forem saum skins bem feitos :-) flws

Well, you should rather say Lithuanian, Polish and Ukrainian nobles lost Ukraine.


I'll just put down your words written nearly one month ago:
"What had gone wrong? Rus and lithuanian nobles were strongly polonized, what caused them to separate from their peasantry, which thought of them as of polish oppressors. Knowledge of this fact come to the noblemen too late, what resulted in wars with Khmielnitsky's Cossaks, Ukraine defection to Russia"

I can only add that after creation of "Both Republic" - Ukraine and a lot of other lands were given to Poland. Polish brought it to the situation, that Ukraine joined Russia, so yes - the loss was for both, but brought by Poland


Many Polish peple says "It would be better, if we hadn't ally with Lithuanians that time, because many things could go better <...>
You seem to do the same think with GDL - what good is Lithuanian, but what wrong - was not your fault.

My position is simple - GDL wasn't strong, it was loosing lands so was looking for allies the bad thing - Commonwealth only helped (or maybe even didn't do that) to slow down the process (process of loosing lands and power).
Commonwealth didn't help to GDL to become stronger, that's my point. The only good things were brought by Commonwealth were:
* culturial things
* and some modernisation
But on the other hand:
* the biggest loss was not Ukraine, or some other lands, but Lithuanian culture too
* and modernisation - was good, but some reforms made the country only weaker (the things connected with GDL army and growing influence of noblemans, and Grand Duke loosing it's influence)

So I don't see Commonwealth as something great. It just traded some problems to others, and didn't stop the proceses which it had to do.


I found the number of 5% of Lithuanians in Vilnius in 1922. Please reffer to "God's Playground" by Norman Davies. He is a british historian, and I hope he knows his job well, or at least checked his demographic data at many sources.

Well historians very often just put down were they get the data. And I really don't have a book (nor it is translated to Lithuanian), so if there is no mention "where he took data" - so numbers can be taken from anywhere, the thing that is more concerning in 1922 there was Polihs census organized by polish army... so... as I said before "when army is in town - census can show, that elephans can fly".


BTW: I think it would be nonsense, if Polish started to prove Szczecin(Stettin) and Wrocław(Breslau) to be polish city during 30's using data from late 50's. So, please, don't use soviet data from the same period concerning Vilnius.

Well actually it isn't as big nonsense as you want to show, why?
* When polish occupied Vilnius (and it's region) - some of Lithuanians fled to Lithuanian controlled teritory ("living under polihs oppresion - wasn't easy"). So the percentage of polish could only increase.
* USSR occupied Lithuania and gave Vilnius back to us. I belive some polish fled Vilnius now, but haven't heard of any mass lithuanina movement to the city... yes at this point percentage of polihs decreased.
* In the start of WWII a lot of poles ran to Lithuania (at that time we controlled Vilnius). So the percentage of polish could only increase.
* One week before Germany started war on USSR, and after the war, russians deported thounsands of lithuanians into Siberia (also such deportations were made in Latvia, Estonia... - they deported people based on their nationality). So the percentage of Lithuanians could only decrease.
* After the War USSR started industrialization in Lithuania, this needed a lot of qualified workers, and at that moment A LOT OF russians arrived to lithuania (also to Latvia, Estonia - that's why half of all LAtvia are russians). So the percentage of lithuanians could only decrease.

And in all this period, the percentage of Lithuanians in Vilnius increased by 33% ?! How is that possible? It;'s only one thing:
* either the Russian census in 1959 was lying (it put 33.6% Lithuanians, and 20% polish)
* or Polish census in 1931 was lying (it put 0.8% lithuanians and 65.9% as polish)

Where is no reason to think, that till 1939 Polish census would show different numbers (well the population part of polish could only increase). So how it was possible in 20 years to change situation so much? If we got only stuff not good for lithuanians?
The thing I'm pointing at - polish claimed more than they had, and cheated a lot about the numbers of populations in Vilnius.
But the funniest thing - all data I gathered and saw, and that fit's reallity - the majority population of Vilnius was...... JEWS :D


There is one more problem, however: a large number of polish speaking Lithuanians considered themselves Commonwealth's citizens (in XIXcnt. such Lithuanian was Adam Mickiewicz). Most of them in 1920 were loyal to revived Poland rather than Lithuania.

Adam Mickievic wasn't more loyal to Poland, he was loyal to Commonwealth, and really that man was a real multinational (that's why even Ukrainians claim him 8) ).
But yes there were poeple speaking polish and thinking about old commonwealth, and truth there is that some Polihs speaking caled themselves Lithuanians, even a large part of russian speaking people caled themselves Lithaunians :)
So your saying is only used for speculations :)



I'm not talking that each and any independent inquiry assigned Vilnius to Lithuania.

Really? Which one? Ribbentropp-Molotov or Stalin-Churchill-Truman in Yalta?

1. 1919 December 08 - "Conseil Supreme" (the one that organized war against communists) draw a Curzon line - Vilnius in Lithuanian side.
2. 1921 May 20 under the rule of The League of Nations Hyman offered compromise, again puting a border as Curzon line.
3. 1921 June 28 - another project from League Of Nations (and the final one too, because both sides got reasons to disagree with it), in it ALL members of council voted that Vilnius should be recognized as part of Lithuania.

I even didn't mention such small facts like:
* In the late 1920 after Lithuanian army stoped it's march toward Vilnius - the special commision of League Of Nations, send Spanish and Japan delegations, they find that "Polish by occupying Vilnius has broken treaties and should leave Vilnius to Lithuania" (Polish as we no - dind't do so)
* Council of League of Nations in 1920 late October, offered to solve problem with census made by and controlled by League of Nations. (polish disagreed to make such census! WHY? If there would be such majority as they say - there shouldn't be problems...)

As you see there is no talk about "Ribbentropp-Molotov or Stalin-Churchill-Truman in Yalta" :) I take that your saying as a big joke :D


It was exaggeration and simplification, based on the fact that any military action required about one year for exchanging informations and preparation, for example war 1409-1411. The same problem was present later in Commonwealth - most small local conflicts have ended before army reached borders.

Oh... 1409-1411 war there was the BIGGEST battle in the whole Europe of medieval age. So it's not surpsigin that armies were gathered coordinated, but slowly :)
And when you talk about commonwealth - as I said before you talk about other think, than simple GDL (in commonwealth in GDL there was a very big reform how army should be gathered - they followed Polish example that wasn't a good one).


And you still consider it strong ruling mechanism ??? By talking of possible weaknessess in GDL I really didnt want to offence Lithuanians, but rather explain why GDL has formed an alliance with Poland (or, at least, for what reasons from mine, polish point of view).

Eskel - when we talk about GDL, we talk about a big country with long history. Where is difference if you talk about 1200-1430 period, or if you talk about 1430-1570, and also a big one if you talk about 1570-1795.

Once you said, that "Lithuania grew too fast" - I dind't comment that, but actuly I have to do now it - that's a greatest nonsenss. GDL was growing from about 1200 till 1430. It took 200 years for it to become a Kingdom from the Baltic see till the Black see. That happened not by rule of one Grand Duke, but by several of them (several knwon and few unknown). In the first one period GDL was a strong and powerful kingdom. The fact, that western Teutonic order was unable to conquer Samoigitia (in 200 years it only entered 10% of it, and the whole border was full of their defencive castles) only shows these facts. Also in the first period - GDL was cemented from inside - created a ruling mechanism, rules how to gather army and so - all such things dind't happened in one short time.
After Vytautas, and the end of Gediminaiciai and the start of Jogailaicia dynasty - GDL changed too - it was loosing it's strenght. So the second period was something there GDL lost about 33% of it's lands (well it took more than 100 years to loos them, but that was hapening)...
The 3rd period started and Commonwealth was created with idea to strengthen Kingdom and to stop that decay proces (that was seen no only by gaingin military power, but also economical too because Polish were more advanced...).

So - whne we talk about first perido - we see a powerfull illiteral country with really weak economy, but able to controll big lands, and to gather army in a fast "cheap" way.
In second period - we see a country loosing it's power and in the end of it - we have no right to call it strong.
In the 3rd period - we see the same thing we saw in second, just everything is done in different way, but the results are the same. And even worse - the last 100 years of Commonwealth was something there enemy armies marched through Lithuania (for the first time in the whole history Vilnius was captured - 1655, for some miracle reasons, Commonwealth lived till 1795... a long period, should I say, but full of bad news to it's readers... ).

This isn't because of "any" polish fault, it was fault of lithuanians who were unable to keep up with other countries. But being together with Polish in Commonwealth - didn't make us (lithuanians, polish, russians) stronger, not in "military power". That's why I'm not rising and celebrating Commonwealth - that faction was stronger in words, but not in power and last hundred years looked like dead creature which don't know that he is dead...


In fact I seek a way to calm down our nationalisms because I think cooperation and agreement (about the past as well) is better than lone-wolf strategy.

As some kind of historian I give priority to any point of view which is more near real history (whatever it was - good or bad...).


And was hoping that power of Commonwealth in its origins (not in the end, of course) was a proof of this. If you think it is not sufficient, what more can I say?

Well Commonwealth made in 1569, half of Lithuania occupied in the first time in it's history: 1655. So where is that power? That it couldn't last vene for 90 years?
If you could point out moments where Commonwealth was strong - we could make discussion about power.


I didn't mean it was totally weak. But Lithuania, despite its size, having lost Samoigitia or not, was weak enough to need this alliance...as well as Poland did.

As I pointed out before - GDL was really weak when we made alliance. And actually I don't know why polish made alliance :)


if you take into consideration that Lithuania was biggest under the rule of Algirdas, Vytautas couldnt get tribute from Muscovy, was defeated by Tartars near Worskla in 1401, couldn't get Samoigitia back after he had given it to Teutonic Order in 1398 [till the Grunwald's victory in 1410],

Okay, let's look at every point you made:
* Vytautas here is often seen as the ruler of the strongest GDL. Why?
** Land question - Vytautas was the man who made a Kingdom between Baltic and Black sea, not Algirdas.
** Land question - Algirdas could have bigger territory only in that case, that you count in all lands which time at time paid tribute to GDL. Then yes - but such lands made their own foreign policy, so it's impossible to count them as part of GDL.
* Power question. Power is calculated not by the lands, but by the ability to use those territories, one very big merit from Vytautas was that he made a stable country, changed a lot of smaller dukes, that where could be only one policy. For exapmle - Vytautas could bring to Grunwald more troops than Algirdas...
* Muscovy question - Vytautas was more freindly to them, and was moving against Tatarians. Algirdas - wasmore frindly with Tatarians and was moving agains Muscovy. I think it is smart to fight only against one...
* Tatars question. In 1401 Vytautas got a very strong defeat (that was a united army, of GDL, Teutonic order and poles, if I'm not lying). And yes - after that defeat he didn't make any more conquers to that side, but he also dind't lose the land he got. So - in that battle GDL expansion toward Tatars was stoped. And Worska don't show GDL as weaker country, even vice versa - in that battle there were about 2-3 times more army on Vytautas side :) Just few Tatarians tactical manoevure changed the luck of battle... (btw - the same thing latter happened in Grunwald...)
* "Couldn't get back Samoigitia". Actually Vytautas "gave" Samoigitia 2 times to Teutonic order :) In the last treaty, he agrred to give Samoigitia to Teutonic when he will be the ruler of GDL. As we all know - he broke realations with Teutonic, by comming back to GDL and burning few of their castles... So there wasn't anyting like "we gave them Samoigitia".
The other thing is that nor Vytautas, nor his Father was unable to push Teutons back from what they have captured 50 years ago... All that Samoigita thing was a stalemale front.


fusion of Teutonic Order and Livonian Knights was only a matter of time [as they gained land connection through Samoigitia], and Pope could nearly in any moment call a crusede against Lithuania - last Pagan country in Europe...

Oh... tales... :)
The first thing - land connection wasn't something what Teutons would be using. They allways used sea. So there was no strategical advance or I should say any "land connection".
The most entered part to the north and to the "land connection" was Memel - build in 1252 - since that Teutons were unable to push any more...
About crusedes - Pope was doing them for 200 years - and what? They were stuck. More than that in 1401 Vytautas led a crusede called by Pope against Tatarians :)
So please - no more dreams and fairy/scary tales. I know, that some polish historians don'tlike Vytautas, but personal dislikes - isn't a reason to create tales.


in the Firaxis wishlist bulletin - I have no idea where can I find sth like this, but have read it exists.

Strange, once I found it, but it was a lot of time ago :)

Im trying to port this civilization to Beyond the Sword, but its not working. Can someone help me?

Here are the modified files:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/123773/Lithuania.zip

Thanks in advance.

I am Lithuanian too. And Undeadas is right about all the wrong facts. Our biggest mistake was creating one republic with Poland, our dukes started to speak polish, think that lithuanian is a language of peasants, we lost our lands. And then, Austria, Prussia and Russia divided the republic three times, becouse Poland king was afraid of other countries. And our best times was after the Battle of Zalgiris, when united armies of Lithuania and Poland (afcourse there was other countries armies, becouse the Lithuanians weren't the last pagans at that time, so it was kinda like Sacred War) defeated army of Germany (Kryziuociai), but it contained mens from other countries, becouse the pope did everything to destroy the last pagans. The United Armies of Pagans were loosing, then Vytautas and his men "fled" from the battlefield to the woods, the regrouped, and returned killing every christien in their way. So after 1410 war, our Duke Vytautas expanded GDL all the way to Black Sea. When Vytautas died, Lithuania and Poland created one republic, and then we became weak. But it is true that we didn't have good horseman, becouse there were lots of swamps in our land, so horses and heavily armed warriors could easily drown. So we mainly had light armored warriors.

GERAS DARBAS !!! :DDDDD
Im lithuanian too :D

im suggesting to create Vytautas the Duke (almost the king) leader. He was creative and charismatic (or expansionist). And he is has more achievement neither Mindaugas .

Sveiki
Lithuanian empire wasn't really developing it self only because it was absolutely bad in trade. So, I think ur chose to make it "Expansion" and "Financial" isn't really correct :)
It's definitely "Expansion" and may be more "Religion" since it was under huge Polish catholic influence.

False.

Perhaps Lithuanian may be the oldest language still in use in Lithuania, or maybe even in the Baltic region (I'm not sure), but as for the whole of Europe the oldest language still in use today is the Albanian language, followed by the Greek language.


No language is older or newer than any other, unless of course they're invented.

But to the point, Lithuanian and Latvian are definitely the two most conservative Indo-European languages, in that they are closer to the way PIE (Proto-Indo European) is supposed to have been like than any other Indo-European languages.

Just to add my bit; Lithuania is cooler without Poland being involved. 19th and early 20th century Polish romantics and nationalist historians have done a great deal to diminish the achievements of the "Grand Duchy" of Lithuania, claiming credit for instance for the mostly Lithuanian victory at the battle of you-know-what. But Lithuania would be the coolest and most distinctive civ that firaxis could add to civ4.

Anyways, the "Grand Duchy" was pretty Rus'ianised by the late 14th century (its silly to talk about Belorussians, Ukrainians and Russians as if they were separate nationalities then); naturally given that something like 9/10ths of the population ruled directly or indirectly by the High King of Lithuania were Rus'ians. To illustrate this, the German chronicler Henry of Diessenhoffen reported that when High King Kestutis agreed a treaty with the Hungarian king, the men with Kestustis' swore an oath "in Lithuanian", which was recorded as Rogachina roznenachy gospanany ... Rus'ian, not Baltic Lithuanian.

That's not to say Lithuania-proper was Rus'ianised; it wasn't, and Samogitia was especially staunch in its Baltic pagan culture, but the state was certainly becoming so. Jogaila himself, son of a Rus'ian mother, and little known to Poles these days, had actually been an Orthodox Christian in his youth, presumably nominally converting to paganism to become High King, before then converting to Catholicism to gain dominion over the Poles.

HEY!!!

Don't forget the Lipka Tartars!!!

You could have Charles Bronson as a leader type! :lol: His Father and Mother were Lithuanian immigrants and of Lipka Tartar ancestry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bronson

The Tartar Nobility spoke Polish, but the burghers and lesser nobility spoke Belorussian.

The Tartar Princes were only recognised if they were decended from the ruling house of the "Golden Horde".

The non-royal Tatar nobility in order of precedence:

Called Hospodar's Tatars. Princes of the blood, sometimes called "carewicze" (tsarevitje) meaning “sons of the tsar,”

Next, the begs or beys. The use of the princely titles of bey or beg (kniaz and 'tsarevij') was subsequently abandoned from the 17th century.

Then the murza (mirza or murza from emir-zade, literally a “son of emir” i.e. "a son of the ruler"). This is what the Tatar princes used in Poland.

Finally the uhlans (oglan or ohlan meaning “brave” - dominus or miles would be fairly correct translations into medieval, feudal Latin). This is what I take my name from... well, actually the Prussian Uhlans, but many were of Polish decent anyway.

Thanks for this civ.
Uniqe unit should be forest swordman or somthing like that.(huge bonnus in deffence).Or call it Zemaitis:DCouse in the begening we won alotof battles just becose of forests and swamps.(One of the famoust is Saules,about 2000lithuanians deafeated crusaders ordin in the forest.5000or more soldiers was slugtered).
mayby some unique buildings:
Basketball hall(+3happeness -1work:d)(in modern era)

I think of the 2 leaders for Lithuania - King Mindaugas or Gediminas the Great Duke and Smetona

I'm from Lithuania.And i glad that you make this mod.

Don't dig up old threads! Please.

Is this for BTS or Warlords or regular civ4? I downloaded it and it plays alright, but the flag dosen't show up and the Hagia Sophia and the 3 Gorges dam have weird text things going on. I would give it a 7.5/10.

It actually might be worth digging up this thread to advertise The Capo's new Lithuanian leaderhead in his Diplomacy Mod. Perhaps it could be incorporated here as well.

It actually might be worth digging up this thread to advertise The Capo's new Lithuanian leaderhead in his Diplomacy Mod. Perhaps it could be incorporated here as well.

Well I have a module too Vrenir! Download my Lithuania module in the database!!! Yay!

does anyone know how to run this mod in BTS?