Adhesive86
Warlord
In principle, I completely agree with the new list. Any other objections? If not, motion passed. Good, now who wants to change the civs XML to fit all of this in? Once that's done, we'll start testing it.
So we're changing all the civs again? After a year on the project and much of the work that people have done now needs to be redone because Mattygerst doesn't like the 'balance'. I've read and re read these posts and what was written on the diplo thread i set up and can only come to the conclusion that they convey a real arrogance and little faith in or regard for other people's work.
There is absolutely no good reason to be ripping this map up at this stage to save civ space whilst also creating a load of new civs. We could all do new maps. To have argued and better argued about it and now to be changing it within 24 hours after at most 3 people including the new author are in favour seems pretty ridiculous, but hey.
To tackle some of the points raised in favour of the new map, which I had rather hoped to have avoided doing:
1) Canada is the 2nd biggest country in the world and a G7 economy. It is far from unreasonable to expect it will feature independently whether the civ count is 48-53.
2) The EU:
This has been argued over and over and there are arguments on both sides, but it is not clearly the best thing to split up the EU mainland.
a) With the exception of the UK and some of the new accession states (e.g. Poland) most of Europe is incredibly ideologically aligned with regard to foreign policy. Granted, with 27 states the EU find it hard to agree much re defence, but to say they have very different distinct policies it not true, most are pretty kantian. The EU has a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), with the security pillar being in place since 1992 (from memory) and security missions enacted.
b) The EU is a massive and growing power, a counter balance to the US and China. To remove it and cut it up will emasculate it and is not representative of how EU trade (internal and external) and the EU economy functions.
3) ASEAN: ASEAN is much less integrated than the EU, but Mattygerst wants to represent this bloc, but not the EU? Doesn't make sense.
4) EU vs US vs China vs Russia: Why is this a problem? This is quite representative is it not? Having read Kai's city list i would not discount India, Brazil or Japan. I'd even fancied myself with Britain after a swift bit of recolonising. However I really agree with Joecoolyo that there are many factors that are to be taken into account before deciding on 'balance', if we are to decide that balance is more important than realism anyway which seems at odds with the notion of a 2009 mod.
Ultimately I'm not saying Matty has a bad map, although I don't agree it's quite as great as he's saying. I agree that the important thing is to get a release ASAP and I can't see how changing the map at this stage helps. I won't say anymore on the subject though, my opinion has been made clear.