World History in 4 mn!! Really cool video!

I found this really cool video that shows how the boundaries of civilizations changed from 3000BC to 2013AD in 4 mn. Enjoy!


Link to video.

I can see why you posted it here

not really accurate tbqh

stormtrooper412 said:

I can see why you posted it here

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Well, the video definitely made me think of civ.

But the video also illustrates how empires rose and fell a lot in real life which civ games do a poor job of emulating. In real life, a civs borders would expand, contract and shift over time but in civ, each player's empire usually grows continually and if they shrink, it usually because they are about to get wiped out.

SupremacyKing2 said:

Well, the video definitely made me think of civ.

But the video also illustrates how empires rose and fell a lot in real life which civ games do a poor job of emulating. In real life, a civs borders would expand, contract and shift over time but in civ, each player's empire usually grows continually and if they shrink, it usually because they are about to get wiped out.

Click to expand...

That's because civ isn't really a historical simulation and doesn't even try to be. It's a 4X game with a history theme on it. It's as much a history game as 7 wonders is a history board game.

That is Geacron. It's not 100% accurate.

SupremacyKing2 said:

Well, the video definitely made me think of civ.

But the video also illustrates how empires rose and fell a lot in real life which civ games do a poor job of emulating. In real life, a civs borders would expand, contract and shift over time but in civ, each player's empire usually grows continually and if they shrink, it usually because they are about to get wiped out.

Click to expand...

Well I'd disagree. Have you ever been sacked by barbarians and/or rebels? Most of us are good enough in these games to know how to stop that from ever happening, but I wonder how it looks

The only way that could happen is by really having a city under siege and then somehow allowing a barbarian melee occupy.

Pretty arbitrarily done, but I'm a sucker for maps.

Yes, I'm having horrible flashbacks to that 'what is a civilisation?' conversation a while ago.

Civilisation - "a method of a system of community life" - one of many proposed definitions:

"Civilisation pertains to the norms according to which a society is organised. It is the method of organising communal life."

"Culture is a way of adapting this method to a specific community of people."

I cringe when I see "3000 BC" and "borders" together in one sentence without the accompanying word "nonexistent"

To be fair, until Alexander, the map would be more or less blank. Maybe with a shrugging man saying "We, alongside my colleagues, have no bloody damned idea.". That could be also expanded to the Medieval, too.

But Alexander could tell you precisely where his borders were and had passed that information on to everyone living there?

Yeah, since Alexander took over from others, his borders are only as definable as the borders of those he conquered. So it really doesn't make sense to have him stand out.

Borders did exist but in places without natural obstacles (like rivers, mountains), they were quite fluent.

For example there were frequently wide "no man's lands", usually forested, along those boundaries.

It doesn't mean that you cannot make an accurate map showing borders, unless your map is in large scale.

To be fair, until Alexander, the map would be more or less blank.

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So you basically claim that the Persian Empire did not know from which areas did they collect their tribute ???

Domen said:

Borders did exist but in places without natural obstacles (like rivers, mountains), they were quite fluent.

For example there were frequently wide "no man's lands", usually forested, along those boundaries.

It doesn't mean that you cannot make an accurate map showing borders, unless your map is in large scale.



So you basically claim that the Persian Empire did not know from which areas did they collect their tribute ???

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Yes, thank you for rephrasing the thing I just said.

Louis XXIV said:

Yeah, since Alexander took over from others, his borders are only as definable as the borders of those he conquered. So it really doesn't make sense to have him stand out.

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Even then, Cyrus might well have known that 'the Medians' paid him tribute, but I doubt he could have walked through Media and known the exact point when he crossed 'his borders' - or even, given the general level of ancient cartography, exactly where 'Media' was with enough precision to draw a line on a map that bore any resemblance to reality. Furthermore, it's unlikely that many of the people living in the various parts of central Asia had any meaningful interaction with 'Persia' or 'Alexander', and some of them might not even have known they existed.

There's a good story about when the Greeks won their independence from Turkey and riders were sent around the villages to inform everybody that the Turks were gone and the Greeks were now free. One rider, so the story goes, was met by a rather confused shepherd who asked him 'who are these Turks you speak of? We're Roman subjects here.'

Domen said:

Borders did exist but in places without natural obstacles (like rivers, mountains), they were quite fluent.

Click to expand...

Rivers are actually a particularly poor boundary in a pre-treaty age: most ancient borders (eg. the northern borders of the Roman empire) had rivers behind them as arteries of supply and the limit of military occupation (which is about as close to a discernible 'border' as you get at the time, but not necessarily the same thing) was somewhere beyond them.