POLAND!!!
I fail to understand why Poland was not included in any previous civ games, and why it wasn’t included in any of the 2 CivIII expansions. Poland was one of the largest, richest, most scientifically advanced, and powerful kingdoms in Europe. Just because Poland’s economy and world strength and influence today aren’t as big as Frances or Germanys doesn’t mean that they weren’t once powerful. I guess the game designers didn’t do enough of their history homework.
Poland was united as a kingdom in 966, over a thousand years ago. They grew into a powerful, influential, and incredibly wealthy kingdom, founding one of Europe’s first universities almost 700 years ago, and forming a very disciplined, capable, and powerful military. They were allies of many other Christian kingdoms, and their society was one of acceptance - the king allowed Jews, Gypsies and many other minorities live peacefully and add to Poland’s prosperity, while almost all other European nations exiled them.
Poland faced persecution by the German Teutonic knights, who pillaged and exploited the country with the excuse that they were spreading Christianity, even though Poland was Christian. Poland forged an alliance with Lithuania, and defeated the Teutonic knights at the Battle of Grunwald, where over 250,000 knights fought.
After being broken up by the Mongol Horde, Poland and Lithuania reunified and formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and from there, they expanded enormously. They had a “golden age” in the 16th century, and they won many battles and wars. They set up one of the first representative governments, where the powers of the king were handed over to the parliament that represented the nobility. At the height of the kingdom, they owned all the land that is today’s Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Poland, and most of Ukraine, and a large portion of western Russia (take a look at a map of Europe). To get an idea of the size, Smolensk, Kiev, L’viv, Minsk, Riga, Vilnius, were at one point Polish cities.
Poland went on to fight off the Swedish invasion, and then under King Sobieski they defeated the Ottoman Turks at Vienna after 250 years of Ottoman expansion. Because of that victory, the Christian forces were able to drive the Ottomans out of Europe for ever. In the 17th century, Russia’s power started to grow, and Poland-Lithuania’s power began to fade, and in the 18th century, after a lot of political manipulation and 3 partitions, Poland ceased to exist on the world map, divided between Austria, Prussia, and Russia in 1795. Poland’s culture, language, and personality remained with the people though, and under General Pilsudski, a Polish army was organized to fight in WW1. At the end of the war, after 123 of not existing, Poland became an independent nation in 1918, owning a large portion of its centuries old territory. Then came WW2, after which Poland was occupied by the soviets, until 1989 when the USSR collapsed, and Poland was a free independent democracy once more, with about 1/6th of its ancient territorial lands.
Some of the world’s most important people were Polish too. Nicolas Copernicus was a Polish astronomer from Torun, and he developed the theory that the earth orbits the sun. Marie Sklodowska Curie was a Polish researcher that moved to France, where she discovered radiation, and the elements Radium and Polonium. Frederick Chopin was Polish, he one of the greatest pianists in the world.
If you wanna tally that up, that’s 3 major invasions (not including countless smaller conflicts), 2 world wars, 123 years occupied by 3 different countries, and 44 years of communist occupation, and Poland’s still here! The language, culture, and personality of Poland has changed little over the last 1000 years, regardless what the world throws at them. That’s how resilient the people of Poland are.
So does any of that qualify Poland as a civilization?