why aren't Israelits a tribe in Civ4?

what I'm wondering is how come Israel has never been included as a tribe?

it's only a foundation point of 3 major religions and was a nation under King's Saul, David, and Solomon...as well as the modern state of Israel?

could the reasons for its exclusion be political?

I mean, how could Mali be included as a tribe and not Israel?

I can't tell you why Israel isn't in, but Mali is included for reasons of flavour and geographical balance.

Israel isn't in as a civ because it's in as a religion (which as you point out is Israel's biggest impact) [also there are ~200 nations in the world today which means over 90% had to get the axe to fit in to 18 civs...so just being a modern nation, even if it was an ancient one as well, doesn't count]

(plus if you want get really technical Israel was 12 tribes.)

krikkitone, that is true about the 12 tribes but they were united under King Saul, David, and Solomon

yeah, 200 down to 18 is a big difference

and i just saw the screenshot of the religion selection, that works for me, i can't really complain that much now

and you can still modify the names of your civ, right? so I can just pick egypt (which, i'm learning in my middle-eastern studies class, gave Hebrews the idea of Monotheism in the first place possibly) and then change the name to Israel.

ok, i'm better now

Well just make sure you get Monotheism first or you won't be Jewish Israelites (of course one of your neighbors could get monotheism first and the Israelites could then mass convert to Judaism.)

Ah, the age old question, posed again and again and again and again and again: why isn't my civ in it? It's one of life's great mysteries, alongside "why does the toast always land butter-side down" and "do I look fat in this".

There should be one Sticky thread for all these questions, or at least one for the question of "my civ". That would alleviate the tediousness of encountering thread after thread concerned with the exact same repetitive issue. Or so one would hope.

In my humble opinion, if Israel can't be added, I'd remove the Americans and put the Israeli in their place. The US is there just to sell more copies.

I've already gone through this elsewhere, so I won't repeat my reasons.

Krikkitone said:

Israel isn't in as a civ because it's in as a religion (which as you point out is Israel's biggest impact) [also there are ~200 nations in the world today which means over 90% had to get the axe to fit in to 18 civs...so just being a modern nation, even if it was an ancient one as well, doesn't count]

(plus if you want get really technical Israel was 12 tribes.)

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If we were to follow that guideline, we'd have to remove Arabia since it's the home of Islam.

Willowmound said:

Ah, the age old question, posed again and again and again and again and again: why isn't my civ in it? It's one of life's great mysteries, alongside "why does the toast always land butter-side down" and "do I look fat in this".

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Yeah, and why is France not represented? Oh shoot, it IS represented.

Lord Shadow said:

In my humble opinion, if Israel can't be added, I'd remove the Americans and put the Israeli in their place. The US is there just to sell more copies.

I've already gone through this elsewhere, so I won't repeat my reasons.


If we were to follow that guideline, we'd have to remove Arabia since it's the home of Islam.

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Yes but the Arabs had a much bigger impact than just exporting Islam, they exported Islam through empire bulding... Empires that were far larger than any Israeli empire. (although I do agree that Islam and Arabs are almost as closely interlinked as Israel and the Jews.. due to the 'nontranslation' policy for the Koran)

This complaint is becoming totally insane. Yes, it would be great if every single country and/or ethic group could be represented, but, unfortunately, we're only given 18. Firaxis created this list using whatever criteria they thought was appropriate. They were the final arbiter. Period. Until the release of mods and/or ex-pacs, we pretty much have to deal with what we're given, no?

To me, it's really sad that there are people who feel the worth of their country/nationality is dependent on whether it appears in a particular computer game or not. It's almost pathetic. If the USA wasn't in the game, I could care less, 'cause I know it's largely cosmetic and has virtually no bearing on the underlying gameplay.

Volstag said:

This complaint is becoming totally insane. Yes, it would be great if every single country and/or ethic group could be represented

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Actually, no, it wouldn't be great at all. It would be ridiculous.
It's called "Civilization", not "Every Nation on Earth", and part of the feeling of grandeur of the game is to lead famous, great (or once-great) and influential CIVILIZATIONS. If every little country/ethnicity was in the game, it would considerable cheapen all the feelings.

Mali is included as a country not a tribe. Maybe it has something to do with them being extremly wealthy and on the cutting edge of islamic scholary at their time. Maybe it has to do with their control of trade across an entire contient something Israel has never achieved. Maybe it has to do with they conquered people and did not become sub-servent to every nation they were in contact with like israel. You need to pick up a qu'ran or talk to a muslim because all the people who we say are jewish they say are muslims. A muslim will tell you adam was muslim, jesus and moses were all muslims

To put it bluntly, I don't believe Israel should be a civ.

Wow, that was bland.

OK, here's my reasoning.

Yes, Israel is an ancient nation, and it founded a great religion, which influenced various others to found religions, which became the largest ever. It has a fascinating history, and it is one of the more interesting nations in history.

But...

It has never ruled a great empire. Nor did the Israelites truly make the great religions what they were. The doctrine, yes, that was supplied from Judaism, but much of Christianity borrowed from others like Zoroastrianism and the old pagan religions.

These religions were spread by other nations. Christianity had the good fortune of Constantine, Islam had the great fortune in that the Byzantines and Persians were too busy killing each other to resist Arabs.

In short, they never really hada great empire, they never had much of a trading merchantile bent (unless you count the scattered bankers... which, if you look at it honestly, doesn't count. They were hardly united)... they just don't have any really big qualities beyond the fact that they've survived (which is an impressive achievement, really), and that they founded a founder religion.

They'd be a great civilization to include if we had about 40 (which is about how many I'm going to mod in if I can), but we don't yet.

Naokaukodem said:

Yeah, and why is France not represented? Oh shoot, it IS represented.

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???

I'm not French.

maybe include jews as a barbarians?)))

Akka said:

Actually, no, it wouldn't be great at all. It would be ridiculous.
It's called "Civilization", not "Every Nation on Earth", and part of the feeling of grandeur of the game is to lead famous, great (or once-great) and influential CIVILIZATIONS. If every little country/ethnicity was in the game, it would considerable cheapen all the feelings.

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It would be nice in fact that it would eliminate these threads.

I was thinking as I read this thread, "Why not have a civilization that the gamer can design themselves?" Since you can rename a civilization, why not determine what goes into the civilization? Pick a name, chose a unique unit, pick two characteristics, determine a geographic area, pick a generic leader/pick a unit-building design/etc
Might be a programing nightmare but would solve the problem of not having your civilization included in the game.

For unknown reasons.

oldtimer said:

I was thinking as I read this thread, "Why not has a civilization that the gamer can design themselves?" Since you can rename a civilization, why not determine what goes into the civilization? Pick a name, chose a unique unit, pick two characteristics, determine a geographic area, pick a generic leader/pick a unit-building design/etc
Might be a programing nightmare but would solve the problem of not having your civilization included in the game.

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That's an excellent idea!

You'd get to pick any of the 18 civilizations, or Custom, which'd let you customize your own civ to use in the game, with all the options stated by oldtimer.

And North King, Israel is not only the home of Judaism, but also Christianity.

Willowmound said:

???

I'm not French.

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No but I, am.