Favourite Civs for an expansion - proper poll using Alexanders research

Ahriman · Mar 25, 2010

* even if we consider american superiority as 100years, it is still a rather short period compared to many other empires in history.

But there are more people alive in the 20th century, and more technological innovation, and more societal change,and more economic growth, and larger military conflicts, than at any other time in history. So its an important 100 years! (More important than any other 100 years in history, by far.)
[Examples: number of people lifted out of poverty, growth of widespread middle class, democratization, creation of Civilization gaming series]

2010-100=1910. before ww2, america was a developing country, not a rare superpower.

The US was not a "developing country" before WW2, it was the richest country in the world.
Take a look for eg at:
http://www.theworldeconomy.org/MaddisonTables/MaddisontableB-18.pdf

1870, China and India have the largest single country economies, followed by UK (ie, UK counted separate from British Empire holdings) followed very closely by US. US was roughly 9% of world GDP.
1870s/80s is the very height of the British Empire, afterwards decline, partly from the devastating costs of colonial maintenance and wars (especially the Boer Wars).

1913, US is the largest economy by far, twice as large as any other, and just under 20% of world GDP.
1950, US economy is 3x the size of any other, and is over 27% of world GDP.

Not really accurate to say that the US didn't matter before WW2.

moreover ussr was slightly stronger than usa; about tech, military, intelligence etc

Not true. Widespread perception partly fed by *US* Propaganda to help encourage anti-communist spending and more defense industry. Technological innovation came from Japan, Europe and North America. Almost *none* came from the Soviet bloc. They were ahead in a small handful of military-oriented areas, and behind in everything else.

usa politicially defeated ussr by the help of nato allies, specifically gladio, not alone.

True, though the Soviets largely collapsed under their own weight. US/NATO outlasted, rather than defeated.

so the only period that usa was the unique power is a 10-15 year period between 1990-2000 or 2010. nowadays it seems russia and china got the advantage back from usa

Russia has almost no influence or importance, its only economic significane is as an energy exporter - its GDP is roughly 10% that of the US, slightly behind Italy and above Spain. To suggest that Russia has "got the advantage back from usa" is somewhat absurd.
China is hugely important, and will eventually surpass the US (as will India).

Any wht does a power have to be "unique" to be a super-power? Can you think of any other period in history where there is a "unique" power in the world? Even in Europe there is rarely a single power, and was that power really more important than China?

[Note, I am not American, I just live here. So, no nationalism stake.]

Tomice · Mar 25, 2010

camarilla said:
yes. germans have a history of 3milleniums but those germans are ancestors and/or partly ancestors of many nations in europe, not only germany.
modern germany founded with Charlemagne's carolingian Empire (not HRE, HRE founded after him) but it also beared France, Austria and some otehr small states; not only today's germany.
anyway, if u don't count 9th century the beginning just because it also included today's other states, then Kingdom of Prussia is the start.

* even if we consider american superiority as 100years, it is still a rather short period compared to many other empires in history.
* 2010-100=1910. before ww2, america was a developing country, not a rare superpower.
* ussr was the main victor of ww2 but america benefited WW2 more and became a global power after WW2
* also after ww2, america was not the unique superpower, moreover ussr was slightly stronger than usa; about tech, military, intelligence etc.
* usa politicially defeated ussr by the help of nato allies, specifically gladio, not alone.
* so the only period that usa was the unique power is a 10-15 year period between 1990-2000 or 2010. nowadays it seems russia and china got the advantage back from usa

camarilla said:
there really must be a particular reason not to have Maya in this list.

First, to answer the maya question: Inca and Aztecs have been in Civ already, Maya haven't. That's the reason. Adding all three would be an overkill except if we had more than 30 civ-slots. I'm not sure which SA native culture is the worthiest. You may open a thread about natives from both Americas if you like, it would be interesting.

Second, in Alexanders "the last of the civworthy" we had a discussion about Germany as a civ. The conclusion is, that there has only been one big German culture, but it was dominated by different dinasties. In Civ 4, they only show the "prussian" heritage, plus an awkward HRE with wrong leader. The German HRE dominated by Austria is no other civ, but it should either be represented in the German Civ (other leader than Bismarck, Vienna, Graz, Salzburg,... as cities) or the HRE should be seperate with Vienna as capital, similar to the existence of Byzantine as seperate civ from Rome.

Third: even if it's true that the US have only been dominant recently, they have influenced the modern world like no other state, and NEVER in mankind a single state had more global dominance than the USA after the fall of the iron curtain. The Romans and ancient Chinese were powerful, but they hardly knew each other, and none had an influence on the "new world". Today, american culture is (really*) everywhere, and the modern capitalist democracies are all shaped partly after the US. TV, Web, Pop Music, Film - modern arts are all shaped with a big chunk of "Americanism". Politics and Economy as well.
Even if the Chinese catched up recently, the US will be a huge global player for many years to come. And Russia? Come on, they have some Oil and Gas, rusty remains of a bloated military and a lot of arrogance. The only influence on culture and economy they have is that they scare their neighbours to hell, and that's it.
China will influence the history (again), and the main questions of the 21st century will be how China handles the information age (can an autoritarian communist regime handle the WWW without blocking it with all his advantages?) and of course the energy question - if things get ugly in this area, then russia might be a major player again. Else, they have nothing to qualify them as leading power.

EDIT: Damn, Ahriman was quicker!

And BTW, I have no connection to the US whatsoever, to the contrary, I hope that in the future they will be less dominant and the EU more united and emancipated. But their strenght is inneglectible!

kivanc · Mar 25, 2010

Ahriman said:
But there are more people alive in the 20th century, and more technological innovation, and more societal change,and more economic growth, and larger military conflicts, than at any other time in history. So its an important 100 years! (More important than any other 100 years in history, by far.)
[Examples: number of people lifted out of poverty, growth of widespread middle class, democratization, creation of Civilization gaming series]

most people think so because they have more info on 20th century than older centuries. OTOH, 19th century was, by far, the era that most technological advance has happened. every engineer/scientist knows this.

Ahriman said:
The US was not a "developing country" before WW2, it was the richest country in the world.
Take a look for eg at:
http://www.theworldeconomy.org/MaddisonTables/MaddisontableB-18.pdf

1870, China and India have the largest single country economies, followed by UK (ie, UK counted separate from British Empire holdings) followed very closely by US. US was roughly 9% of world GDP.
1870s/80s is the very height of the British Empire, afterwards decline, partly from the devastating costs of colonial maintenance and wars (especially the Boer Wars).

1913, US is the largest economy by far, twice as large as any other, and just under 20% of world GDP.
1950, US economy is 3x the size of any other, and is over 27% of world GDP.

Not really accurate to say that the US didn't matter before WW2.

i see your proofs. but economy is not the only parameter in empire power. in early 20th century, UK and russia were the superpowers. usa was considered young and naive by most of the world, not a political power. BTW, usa has small effect on ww1 and ww2 both. i mean usa was like a hidden power and behind-actor or support character of a movie in early 20th century. no insult or underestimation.

Ahriman said:
Russia has almost no influence or importance, its only economic significane is as an energy exporter - its GDP is roughly 10% that of the US, slightly behind Italy and above Spain. To suggest that Russia has "got the advantage back from usa" is somewhat absurd.
China is hugely important, and will eventually surpass the US (as will India).

russia is hugely important and most probably even more important than china. russia had superior effect on mid east and mid asia even in its weak years (1990-2010) and now it has grown bigger and pushes europe hard with its energy "trump".
economic parameters are overestimated. real power is a combo of many things, not only economy. culture, intelligence, strategic alliances etc. even the economic parameters that has been noted are not even all about economy. every country has some "hidden incomes".

Ahriman said:
Any wht does a power have to be "unique" to be a super-power? Can you think of any other period in history where there is a "unique" power in the world? Even in Europe there is rarely a single power, and was that power really more important than China?

there are many. romans during julius, mongols during genghis, france during napoleon, victorian britain etc.
well even if there was a very strong empire in asia during napoleon, we don't know if it was even stronger than france. so no problem to consider france unique power of that era.

kivanc · Mar 25, 2010

u guys really overestimate usa.
@tomice
you are a 20th century guy and that's why you say so. the american cultural power u mentioned (movies etc.) is not bigger than the cultural effect of france in medieval. even in russia (2nd strongest country in europe at that time) many rich people spoke french in art parties. many political, literatural etc. trends are born in medieval france.

Ahriman said:
Any wht does a power have to be "unique" to be a super-power? Can you think of any other period in history where there is a "unique" power in the world? Even in Europe there is rarely a single power, and was that power really more important than China?

u are right about this. it doesn't have to be unique to be a superpower. we can say ottomans during suleiman was a superpower but not unique.

anyway, i hope we may get back to topic.

@tomice
i had already read your earlier comments (when i wrote my 1st post on this thread) on why you hadn't put them in the list but i found those wrong. that'S why i sent a post. you said there are already 3 from america but u forgot there are already many civs from europe. so why not put maya?

i agree maya/aztec is sth like german/hre but that was not your point. if u explained it like that it could be ok for me.

Tomice · Mar 25, 2010

@camarilla

I see your point about the Maya. But how big are the differences between the various precolumbian cultures? Are they distinct enough to justify having them as seperate entities (in a limited roster?). Help me out here, because I lack detailed knowledge!

And yes, let's not go into detail about modern politics, we wouln't come to an end anyway.

Disgustipated · Mar 25, 2010

Just wanted to post to give my props to Babylon. How can they not be in civ5? They're too important to the history of civilization not to be in. I know they are difficult for us modern folk to relate to, and they seem to have fallen out of favor over the years.

kivanc · Mar 25, 2010

Disgustipated said:
Just wanted to post to give my props to Babylon. How can they not be in civ5? They're too important to the history of civilization not to be in. I know they are difficult for us modern folk to relate to, and they seem to have fallen out of favor over the years.

because city-states seem to be included also for this. not the most important reason reason but partly maybe.
i expect some of the ancient civilizations to appear as city-states and i don't expect to have them in EPs neither.

Giordano Léonce · Mar 25, 2010

Dale said:
Civ5 will be perfectly playable, and will be a complete product regardless of whether Spain is in it ...
By stating the game is not complete without Spain you are implying incompetence on Firaxis part for releasing "an incomplete game" as you call it.

Even if regular games are playable in a Spain-less vanilla, there are a number of historical scenarios and mods based on the Earth map that could not be played without Spain. "Playable" need not mean the same as "complete". A vanilla release with only 18-civs is a playable but incomplete release in terms of the choice of available civs. By "incomplete" I mean that some the high-priority civs are going to be omitted. It's hard to see why anyone should take offence at this kind of incompleteness claim. I suspect that what you find offensive is not the claim itself, but the way in which it might be put forward. Perhaps, you want it to be explicitly stated as purely subjective and questionable opinion. You seem to want the locution "I believe that" or "in my opinion" ("IMO") to prefix to the claim that "Spain must be in civ". So, here you are: "IMO", Spain must be in civ, if not in vanilla, and least an expansion pack. However, it should be noted that I take this particular opinion of mine to be objectively reasonable and well-supported: I believe that the need to include Spain is not merely a issue of whimsical and arbitrary personal preference, but one that follows from objectively strong argumentation.

It is highly desirable that, shortly after vanilla's release, an official patch or hot-fix remedies to the omission of crucial features such as Spain. Failing that, user-created mods will partly fix it until an expansion comes out (however, unofficial user-created content is not the ideal solution for it is likely to lead to compatibility problems in multi-player). Once again, this is constructive criticism. It is neither an insult to Firaxis, nor an implication that Firaxis's developers are incompetent people. I am sure that they are knowledgeable enough and realise how much Spain is important to the game. Besides, the choice not to include Spain in vanilla may have behind it purely marketing reasons that have nothing to do with game design. The marketing people at Firaxis know that Spain is a very popular choice and they might have thought any expansion that adds Spain-related content will look much more attractive and desirable to the occasional player.

Dale said:
It is MY OPINION that Spain in the game or not does not change the playing environment for me. As far as I'm concerned the Civs could be called Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, ....., Civ18

Civilization names aren't just arbitrary labels (such as in "Civ#1", "Civ #2", etc.). Each civ is associated to both graphic and game play-features that are history-flavoured and are meant to uniquely represent the civ in question. That makes each civ stand out as more than just an anonymous number in a list. And, by the way, there are mods for Civ 4 which are specifically concerned with changing the standard naming convention in order to make it more dynamic and interesteting (so that, for example, the name displayed on the scoreboard changes according to civics and time period). The way in wich each civilization is named and represented is not a trivial aspect of the game.

phungus420 · Mar 25, 2010

How could a developer who is a history major leave out Spain? That makes no sense, Spain is easily in the top 10 civilizations in terms of global and historical impact on human society. For those who want to claim otherwise, seriously look at a map of the globe showing language distribution. Leaving out Spain is like leaving out England, or Egypt, or America, or Greece. It just makes no sense.

kivanc · Mar 25, 2010

yes. earth sceneries w/o spain may be weird.
i assume a few of the civs may be replaced in earth sceneries/mods.
like germans-->hre
usa out-->spain in
china out-->hungary in
india out-->portugal in
japan out-->dutch in
vikings, etc.

phungus420 · Mar 25, 2010

@ camarilla

You obviously have an axe to grind. No rational person could assert that the US has not had a drastic impact on history. If you were objective you would realize there is no way to give a brief, say 15 minute overview of human history from the dawn of civilization to present without discussing the United States; likewise with a few other civilizations like China, Rome, and Spain.

wolfman1234 · Mar 25, 2010

Well, perhaps what says Giordano is true and its a marketing idea for selling better next expansion. I am sure they have 50 civs developed, but they have to save some of them for the 2 o 3 expansions that will follow the original game.

We have seen that in other civs, we have seen it too en every Paradox game, i.e.

Ahriman · Mar 25, 2010

EDIT: Damn, Ahriman was quicker!

I'll endorse Tomice's comments in this post.

most people think so because they have more info on 20th century than older centuries. OTOH, 19th century was, by far, the era that most technological advance has happened. every engineer/scientist knows this.

There was a great deal of "frontier" innovation in the 19th century (electricity, mass production, internal-combustion engine, etc.), but it reached a relatively narrow portion of the world's population. Only in the 20th century has technological advance had such a widespread global impact.
I'd also add that there are more people alive in the 20th century than in all of the rest of human history combined.

in early 20th century, UK and russia were the superpowers

I don't think either of these really had super-power status by the early 20th century anymore. Britain was the only country that could project power, with the strongest navy by far, but very weak and antiquated land military (partly because it had only been fighting inferior colonial conflicts for so long). Russia was still an agrarian peasant society, with a large army but no ability to project power, and no industrial base.

BTW, usa has small effect on ww1 and ww2 both

Agreed for WW1, not so much for WW2, particularly Pacific theatre.
Obviously eastern front Europe and arguably Japan/China are the main conflicts, but US involvement is significant, particularly once you include indirect involvement through arms and economic supply to the Soviets.
But so what? Since when is "number of casualties" a measure of importance?

russia is hugely important and most probably even more important than china. russia had superior effect on mid east and mid asia even in its weak years (1990-2010) and now it has grown bigger and pushes europe hard with its energy "trump".

Russia *was* hugely important though the Cold War.
But how is it important now? It can bully its neighbors a little, and it worries Europe a bit because of its gas supply, and people pay attention to it a bit on global affairs because of the anachronistic security council veto. But that's it.

Russia will soon be surpassed by Brazil, which is a dynamic growing society while Russia stagnates.

there are many. romans during julius, mongols during genghis, france during napoleon, victorian britain etc.

Rome during Julius dominated Iberia, Gaul, North Africa, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine and arguably Egpyt. It had no impact ont he rest of the world, including India or China, that have massively larger economies and militiaries, or on the huge masses of people moving through Central Asia. Its a big fish in a small pond.
Mongols I'll gladly grant.
France had a big impact on Europe, but it was hardly a global superpower. It couldn't defend its colonies, and it repeatedly lost its European wars.
Victorian Britain is close, but sole? It didn't have that much political power in continental Europe, and little land military power.

you are a 20th century guy and that's why you say so. the american cultural power u mentioned (movies etc.) is not bigger than the cultural effect of france in medieval. even in russia (2nd strongest country in europe at that time) many rich people spoke french in art parties. many political, literatural etc. trends are born in medieval france.

France was the lingua franca of Europe for a long time, among monarchs, artists, aristocrats and philosophers. Unknown outside of Europe. English language/American cultural power now is *global*, and is spoken and consumed by far more than a small wedge of elites. (How many people outside of France do you think spoke French?)

we can say ottomans during suleiman was a superpower but not unique.

Agreed. I'll gladly grant any of your list above as super-power status, I just think that *sole* super-power is less clear.

Disgustipated · Mar 25, 2010

phungus420 said:
@ camarilla

You obviously have an axe to grind. No rational person could assert that the US has not had a drastic impact on history. If you were objective you would realize there is no way to give a brief, say 15 minute overview of human history from the dawn of civilization to present without discussing the United States; likewise with a few other civilizations like China, Rome, and Spain.

actually even as an american, I admit our contribution to history is insignificant. It really only applies to 1942 onward. Which is a small time frame. And it's looking like our time as as superpower will come to a close here shortly (economic collapse). 70 years is not a whole lot of time to be considered significant.

But seeing as we are such a large market for civilization games, it would be kind of silly not to include us.

kivanc · Mar 25, 2010

phungus420 said:
@ camarilla

You obviously have an axe to grind. No rational person could assert that the US has not had a drastic impact on history. If you were objective you would realize there is no way to give a brief, say 15 minute overview of human history from the dawn of civilization to present without discussing the United States; likewise with a few other civilizations like China, Rome, and Spain.

Spoiler :

phungus420 · Mar 25, 2010

Disgustipated said:
actually even as an american, I admit our contribution to history is insignificant. It really only applies to 1942 onward.

[sarcasm]It's not like the constitution of the United States hasn't had a direct impact on political theory, which has had global reprecussions still felt to this day, not at all[/sarcasm]

I don't think you understand just how radical a concept a written constitution ratified by the citizens of a state and formalizing the political ideology of "Consent of the Governed" was. And you certainly don't comprehend what an impact this has had on history and global politics.

Also small player before 1942? The automobile, the Airplane, the Telephone, the Television.... What about the Spanish-American War, do you really think this had little impact on the globe? Or what about opening up Japan, you really think the history of the world wouldn't have been drastically altered had Commodore Perry not forced Japan's hand to opening up to the west (such a historical turn would have meant not Meiji reformation for instance).

Sorry but to claim the US hasn't had a profound impact on global history shows either ignorance, or bias; both of which don't square with the facts.

Ahriman · Mar 25, 2010

noone can say america is the only country that dominated the world so much culturally.

Yes, they can. Medieval Europe is not The World.

It's not like the constitution of the United States hasn't had a direct impact on political theory

A major impact to be sure, though I am sometimes irritated at how some Americans (not pointing at anyone here) like to imply that this was all an American invention, whereas really Jefferson et al were the product of Englightenment Europe (especially England) thinking.
And fairly similar to Revolutionary France.

What about the Spanish-American War, do you really think this had little impact on the globe?

Yes. Other than on the Phillipines and Cuba.

Or what about opening up Japan, you really think the history of the world wouldn't have been drastically altered had Commodore Perry not forced Japan's hand to opening up to the west (such a historical turn would have meant not Meiji reformation for instance).

Eh. I'll give *Japan* most of the credit for this, not the US. If it hadn't been Perry it could easily have been someone else. Japan was ripe for change.

But overall US impact, as a political, industrial, technological, cultural driver is vast.

kivanc · Mar 25, 2010

Ahriman said:
Yes, they can. Medieval Europe is not The World.

in medieval, there was no international broadcasting/publishing.
so that kind of a dominancy may nopt exist anyway.
being a global power cannot be classified by this way.

main actors of medieval europe already shaped the world somehow. so no need for them to contact every nation and influence them cultually.
later they did it indirectly anyway.

the american culture you talk about is already a combo of european culture.
so i don't understand why this culture discussion is going on.

phungus420 · Mar 25, 2010

Ahriman said:
A major impact to be sure, though I am sometimes irritated at how some Americans (not pointing at anyone here) like to imply that this was all an American invention, whereas really Jefferson et al were the product of Englightenment Europe (especially England) thinking.
And fairly similar to Revolutionary France.

The concepts were firmly due to the Enlightenment, for sure. But the US put them to practice, and more importantly established that the political theory was functional.

History majors also focus heavily on the French Revolution, which makes sense, it's much more interesting, and bloody, and dramatic. But at the end of the day France's example demonstrated that "Consent of the Governed" did not work. In fact they ended up establishing an Autocrat at the end just to end the bloodshed. Imagine a world where there was no US example of a working constitutional democracy. The closest functional thing you'd have to it would have been the Netherlands, which wasn't nearly as radical (radical in view of pre 19th century political thought), and what happend in France would have been used, probably to this day, to demonstrate that a Constitutional democracy simply could not work.

Ahriman said:
Eh. I'll give *Japan* most of the credit for this, not the US. If it hadn't been Perry it could easily have been someone else. Japan was ripe for change.

We will have to disagree. In my opinion Japan would have gone the way of China, and been dominated by European interests, probably England for a century, and we would have seen no where near the development occur in it as happened during the Meiji reformation. Though it's impossible for either of us to prove our points of view here.

Ahriman · Mar 25, 2010

in medieval, there was no international broadcasting/publishing.

Right. Which is why no-one had the cultural importance that the US has today; there wasn't the transportation or communication technology.
That's not an argument for your side.

main actors of medieval europe already shaped the world somehow. so no need for them to contact every nation and influence them cultually.
later they did it indirectly anyway.

How significant is France's cultural impact on the world outside Europe? Pretty small, outside its ex-colonies, and maybe classical music and art. France never had that widespread a cultural dominance.

the american culture you talk about is already a combo of european culture.

Not in a very direct sense. Cinema and musical exports (jazz, rock, etc.) are largely American cultural innovations.
English is the international language because of American economic dominance, not European/British.

The concepts were firmly due to the Enlightenment, for sure. But the US put them to practice, and more importantly established that the political theory was functional.

History majors also focus heavily on the French Revolution, which makes sense, it's much more interesting, and bloody, and dramatic. But at the end of the day France's example demonstrated that "Consent of the Governed" did not work. In fact they ended up establishing an Autocrat at the end just to end the bloodshed

Agreed.

Imagine a world where there was no US example of a working constitutional democracy

Why the emphasis on *constitutional* democracy? There are plenty of democracies throughout the world that do not rely on a formal written constitution - ex British Empire in particular.

If the US had not happened, then Britain would have continued to liberalize and democratize further. The English Crown had been losing power for centuries, and would have continued to do so, particularly with the industrial revoluation (which would have happened without the US) which put wealth and power into the hands of nouveau riche capitalists. This could easily have happened elsewhere too, with British liberal democracy as a functional example. Who can say?

There are many modern commentators who argue that the US Constitutional system is increasingly becoming an albatross, because it is too hard to change and leads to sclerosis. Legal debates all focus on "what was the intent of the founders" rather than "what is a rational policy for us to have today". A constitutional focus has the risk of making everything backward looking rather than forward looking.
[Obviously, this is also sometimes an advantage.]

But no argument from me on huge impact.

Favourite Civs for an expansion - proper poll using Alexanders research

PLEASE READ FIRST POST! MULTIPLE CHOICES POSSIBLE! Which Civs should be in an Addon?

Persia (partly confirmed)

Inca (partly confirmed)

Siam (partly confirmed)

Spain (Europe)

Portugal (Europe)

Austria/HRE/other German Civ (Europe)

The Netherlands (Europe)

Poland (Europe)

Vikings (Europe)

The Celts (Europe)

Byzantine (Europe)

Babylon (Orient)

Israel/Hebrews (Orient)

Hittites/Sumerians/Assyrians (Orient)

Korea (Asia)

Khmer (Asia)

Majapahit/Indonesians (Asia)

Vietnam (Asia)

Another Indian Civ (Mughal etc.) (Asia)

Any other Asian Civ (there were a lot!)

North American Natives (Sioux, Iroquis,...)

Carthago/Phoenicians (Africa)

More Sub-Sahara Civs

Any modern state (Canada, Australia, Brazil,...)

AN IMPORTANT OPTION IS MISSING !!!

Tyrant

Passionate Smart-Ass

King

King

Passionate Smart-Ass

Deity

King

Chieftain

Deity

King

Deity

King

Tyrant

Deity

King

Deity

Tyrant

King

Deity

Tyrant

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