Featurette 2- How's your German?

Al-Iskander said:

I'm just going to throw out there my distress at the Kremlin being the Order wonder. It was built ages ago, and only put its modern form under the Russian Empire, whose great ideological slogan for a time was "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality. See: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy,_Autocracy,_and_Nationality

Therefore, it is strongly arguable that the Moscow Kremlin was built under an autocracy.

The Moscow Kremlin (btw, кремль is pretty close to the unique building Крепость - one is basically "Castle," the other "Fort") in time did become a quintessential emblem of Communist rule. However, the idea that Order must precede the Kremlin is ahistorical and a little silly. The Motherland Calls would have been a much better Order wonder.

You can minimally rationalize the Kremlin b/c the famous mausoleum complex on its outer walls (partially seen in the intro video clips) was a total USSR thing. Still, at least China, Mongolia, Vietnam and North Korea also did communist mausoleums, so making this a unique wonder isn't ideal.

I'll still buy the game, but I'll be grimacing when I see order civs build the Kremlin.

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As long as Big Ben is still the same, the Kremlin is not going to be the most ahistorical wonder in Civ5.

Al-Iskander said:

It was built ages ago, and only put its modern form under the Russian Empire, whose great ideological slogan for a time was "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality. See: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy,_Autocracy,_and_Nationality

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As a Russian I could say the translation of this slogan isn't well. The term "Самодержавие" is much closer to "Monarchy" than to "Autocracy".

P.S. I also have some concerns about the term "Nationality". It reflects only part of the original meaning.

nunor said:

Should we tell them the video's online already?

EDIT: Nevermind, a dozen people have done it already.

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It got more than enough shares either way.

Re: The Kremlin. I agree that Motherland Calls is more appropriate both for Wonder effect and for Order. That being said, I don't think people have a right to expect the Kremlin to be accurate considering what its logo has been the whole time

I already miss mother

Veneke said:

I'm happy enough with the Prora but I was kinda hoping for something like a war museum with a culture/tourism bonus based on wars/battles fought, casualties inflicted, great generals generated or something of that nature. That would be interesting and different. The Prora is a bit mundane for my tastes given the alternatives. Not sure of any specific European examples, but perhaps something along the lines of the Yushukan?

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Yushukan or Yasukuni Shrine in general would actually fit the bill pretty well for Autocracy, wouldn't it? If you want European, there's Franco's Valley of the Fallen, like I already proposed (okay, somewhat facetiously, but I'd still prefer it to Prora). Other candidates: Mussolini's Colosseo Quadrato, the Nuremberg rally grounds, or that weird Stonehengey thing Hitler built to honor a bunch of Saxons executed for refusing to convert to Christianity (can't remember the name of that one).

Anyway, my point about Prora is that implementing it in the game—in the form Hitler envisioned for it—accepts and validates that vision, which I think is ridiculous. It might be true, I guess, that "if the war had started later, there really is no good reason why they would have not finished it," but the war didn't start itself like some kind of natural disaster. Hitler started it.

Video has sadly been removed.. we saw nothing

Calouste said:

As long as Big Ben is still the same, the Kremlin is not going to be the most ahistorical wonder in Civ5.

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Well, if you're talking about the effects of a wonder, I will quickly concede that most wonders make very little sense

stealth_nsk said:

As a Russian I could say the translation of this slogan isn't well. The term "Самодержавие" is much closer to "Monarchy" than to "Autocracy".

P.S. I also have some concerns about the term "Nationality". It reflects only part of the original meaning.

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Привет парень! I'll give you the point on народность. Народ is more like "people" than "nation," but really the word has no direct analogue in English. However, I'll have to respectfully disagree on самодержавие. If you look at the word's roots, it's pretty clear. Само- = Self = Auto. -держав- = state/government/administration = -cracy... and ие is a verbal noun ending. Also my big ol' Oxford Russian-English Dictionary lists only one translation of "самодержавие" as "autocracy." If you go to the English side, the only translations of "autocracy" are "самодержавие" and "автократия."

You are probably right in the sense that Russian Imperial "autocracy" was not the scary pseudo-fascism that parts of the BNW autocracy ideology tree seem to be invoking. Certainly when Nikolai I used the word, he had an "ideal" Empire in mind, and not a fascist state. However, in view of the broad long-term historical view of what "autocracy" could have been, I think the Empire counts. The Empire had secret police, it had very little political freedom, and it [usually] answered to a single leader instead of the masses or a political party.

But that's just my long-winded two cents. You're free to disagree with me

TheKingOfBigOz said:

Video has sadly been removed.. we saw nothing

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg_cwI1Xj4M

wigwam said:

Yushukan or Yasukuni Shrine in general would actually fit the bill pretty well for Autocracy, wouldn't it? If you want European, there's Franco's Valley of the Fallen, like I already proposed (okay, somewhat facetiously, but I'd still prefer it to Prora). Other candidates: Mussolini's Colosseo Quadrato, the Nuremberg rally grounds, or that weird Stonehengey thing Hitler built to honor a bunch of Saxons executed for refusing to convert to Christianity (can't remember the name of that one).

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Nuremberg rally grounds is somewhat problematic, but I like both the Square Colosseum and the Valley of the Fallen. I still see why they might want to go with something touristy, though.

Anyway, my point about Prora is that implementing it in the game—in the form Hitler envisioned for it—accepts and validates that vision, which I think is ridiculous.

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See, this is where I disagree. The whole thing is to represent the three ideologies of the 20th century. And to make them valid gameplay options, you have to do so without moral judgment to the extent possible. It's not saying that, in the real world, you have to accept it, just that these are all supposed to be valid ideologies to choose from.

The Prora, at least, is a less controversial part of the Nazi state. It's an almost quasi-Lacedaemonian attempt at social engineering by having a martial society with a state sanctioned relaxation location. Apparently strength through joy was one of the largest tourism operations in the world. The Prora is a part of that.

Menzies said:

...and most other countries that like to make sense. There are two logical, and widely used date formats:

1. Day - Month - Year
2. Year - Month - Day

Either of these make sense, and are used by most countries. There is another one used, and it is put bluntly, quite a silly one:

3. Month - Day - Year

Here is a map of countries by date format used:



Here:

1. Cyan
2. Yellow
3. Purple
1 & 2. Green
1 & 3. Red
1, 2 and 3. Grey

Source

America just has to do everything their own bizarre way don't they?

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Canada and Antarctica are the only two jurisdictions in the world to use all three.

We are going to be using this thread for any additional discussion on today's featurette, right?

@Eagle Pursuit, you should change the thread title to drop the "How's your German?" part

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eN2xWuizUk&feature=youtu.be

it has been released again! XD

kingchris20 said:

We are going to be using this thread for any additional discussion on today's featurette, right?

@Eagle Pursuit, you should change the thread title to drop the "How's your German?" part

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It was a joke about how the "German" version is still in English.

Anyone able to make out the logo on the top of the tank at the end?

This is sort of random but do the railroad tracks look different at 0:22? They look like they got some polish. It could be just me though.

The icon in the Liberty tree where we currently have Collective Representation has been changed from a torch to a flag. It seems unlikely that they'd make a purely cosmetic change when the current icon is fine, so I'd suggest it's likely that that social policy has been replaced. There are no such changes to Tradition, Honour, Piety, Patronage or Rationalism, though this doesn't mean they haven't changed of course.

Bisqit said:

This is sort of random but do the railroad tracks look different at 0:22? They look like they got some polish. It could be just me though.

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They've got a lot of Polish. Just look at those cannons!

In all seriousness you're probably right, though. Nice touch by Firaxis.

loserforsale said:

The icon in the Liberty tree where we currently have Collective Representation has been changed from a torch to a flag. It seems unlikely that they'd make a purely cosmetic change when the current icon is fine, so I'd suggest it's likely that that social policy has been replaced. There are no such changes to Tradition, Honour, Piety, Patronage or Rationalism, though this doesn't mean they haven't changed of course.

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I think that's just a bit of tidying up. Collective Rule gives you a Settler, and the icon for a Settler is a flag. Just as the icon for Citizenship, which gives a free worker, is the same as the icon for a worker.

Calouste said:

I think that's just a bit of tidying up. Collective Rule gives you a Settler, and the icon for a Settler is a flag. Just as the icon for Citizenship, which gives a free worker, is the same as the icon for a worker.

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I don't really care about the change one way or the other (how could you?). I really like what that implies though--the care they're taking to make sure such small details are "right."