Americans ?

[Akka]

Originally posted by Kryten

True. But the game is based on history. For example, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I assume we all agree that England/France/Germany (and America for that matter) shouldn't be allowed to build elephant units. Why...because it's not realistic. I think that just about everyone agrees with this. We all want the game to be 'realistic'.

No, we don't agree about the "elephant shouldn't be allowed". Or else we would agree that Romans can never build any gundpowder unit nor that english can start on a continent. Dumb.

But you can't just pick the bits of reality you want and discard the rest! When I play on a real world map, I want to be able to colonise the New World. I don't want to find a massive civilisation already established there.

Don't see the point of playing to Civ3 if it's only to face the exact same history that is in our books.
If you say that native Indians should not have fully colonised the America, then I can answer you that you should not have started as English in -4000, but only in 1066. I also can tell you that you're forbidden to play on any other map than Earth, as in history France and Egypt were on Earth.
You're shooting yourself on the foot.

On the other hand, I also like to play "what if" games, where I have a random map with random civs, and I play to see what happens.

I suppose I just want the choice of sometimes just playing a game and other times recreating history, just to see if I could do better.

That's what scenarios are about : putting you in a particular situation. Yes, actually it's impossible to have a good scenario, as there is no tool for that.

 

[Afromelonhead]

That's what scenarios are about : putting you in a particular situation. Yes, actually it's impossible to have a good scenario, as there is no tool for that.

Hopefully PTW will help change this situation.

But both of you are right in your own ways. I'm kinda ambivalent on the issue here. Sometimes I want to play a realistic game (or as realistic as Civ3 can be). Other times I want to play a game that's completely fantasy. I think THAT concept is the most important idea about Civ3: you're free to reshape history in whatever form you choose. Whether or not this history is realistic or fantasy is a personal choice.

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Kryten
Please forgive me for coming into this discussion so late

That's quite OK, you're welcome

So, here are two scenarios:-

Scenario 1:
At the end of the 15th century the Europeans reach North America (the "New World"). They find a continent covered by roads/irrigation/mines/fortifications/bridges/cities, and have to fight a major war just to gain a bridgehead.

Scenario 2:
At the end of the 15th century the Europeans reach North America (the "New World"). They find a continent pratically untouched, with masses of 'unclaimed' game/forests/resources, and have to build all their own cities/roads/mines/fortifications/irrigation/bridges, while sometimes fighting nomadic natives but mostly other European colonises.

Actually, there is a third scenario.

Scenario 3:
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Europeans reach North America for the second time. They find a continent much like their own: inhabited by people who are intelligent and usually friendly. They have roads, mines, fortifications, polyculture and irrigation, some very elaborate and advanced. These people also have a very interesting attitude towards life: they try to live with nature, instead of fighting it.
The natives help the colonists survive by teaching them about crops and methods of agriculture that are entirely new to them, by giving them seeds and good places to settle, by allowing them to chop wood and hunt game in their forests, by healing their sick and injured, and by trading freely for anything else the colonists need and even by providing a currency to facilitate that trade.

 

[Kryten]

A nice 3rd scenario Ribannah, but unfortunately it never happened in reality. I'm sorry that the europeans raped the New World, that the Mongols massacred whole civilisations, that the Nazis existed, but they did.

I am not against having the USA in the game. Of course they have to be there, or the whole of the 20th & 21st century would be wrong. And in a random game of civ, anything goes. But I've read many, many threads over the past several months about how spearmen defeating tanks is 'unrealistic', how cruise missiles are not accuratley portrayed, how longbowmen should be an English UU, how naval warfare is all wrong, how culture-flipping is 'unhistorical', and so on and so on. Many people think that lots of things in civ3 are 'unrealistic', and many things are. But when it comes to playing on a real world map and finding a massive technological civilisation already established in the New World....well that's different....that's ok.

I just find this all a bit hypocritical. People want units to be 'realistic', and combat to be 'realistic', even ICBM's to be more 'realistic', but not the fact that North America had no roads/cities etc when the europeans arrived (as I said, in a random or "what if" game, then yes, anything goes).

But you're right, tough luck Kryten! You'll just have to wait for the XP and a decent editor, so stop moaning

 

[Damien]

Natives americans had roads,cities,irrigation etc when the europeans arrived.Y shouldn't the europeans have elephants(if there are elephants on their lands)?When i said that natives were not at the same level i was talking about technology.
About the fact that Europeans dominated,i don't buy the following scenario:Natives were as advanced as europeans in everything except war because they were cool guys who liked nature.As i said b4,natives had no wheel and were not so good in metallurgy;they used to hunt.They didn't have some advances dating back to the neolithic.What do u call polyculture?Europeans used to practice it for a long time and let one parcel rest.
As for the fact that a civ is simply people living in a cities,idon't agree on that.The major factor is its accomplishments.the others are requirements(cities,writing etc),not accomplishments.
What's writing:to draw sounds;to encode the spoken language.
What's a city:a place,where there's an amount of families with their houses.Some are peasants,some work on metals,some are merchants and some work for the administration.
i don't hold mining and irrigation for achievments as well.

 

[Kryten]

Please forgive me for quoting myself, but.....

Originally posted by Kryten
Civ3 is about cities. If you have cities in civ3, then you have a civilisation. If you don't have cities, then you are a barbarian (hey, don't blame me, I didn't invent the game!). This makes it difficult to portray nations such as the nomadic Huns or native Americans.

I agree with Damien entirely, the native Americans were advanced in many things except war when compaired to the europeans. And as for roads, well, the european 'roads' of the 16th/17th centuries were not much better than dirt tracks anyway! But, as I quoted above, civ3 is about CITIES ("hey, don't blame me, I didn't invent the game!"). In civ3 you have to have cities to generate technology, and it is this that makes it hard to portray nomadic civilizations like the Huns and native Americans.

You see, when I reach the late Industrial Ages in civ3 and can build tanks/aircraft/battleships, it not only 'looks' like I've reached the WWII period, it actually 'feels' like it. I'm sorry but when playing on a real world map, I just don't get that same elusive 'feel' that I've reached the 'New World' when my computer screen shows me that it is already covered with citys/roads/irrigation, and looks exactly like the europe that I just left!
In other words; all civilisations in civ3 look like europe. They have to, because civ3 is based on technology, which in civ3 can only be generated by cities. I don't like it either, but it's how the game has been made.

As for the elephant thing, yes, in a random game anything goes. But on a real world map all the civs should start roughly where they did in reality, and as we all know, elephants don't live in northern europe! So the game designers, quite rightly in my opinion, decided not to let the English/French/Germans build any elephants. By the same token, why can't the French build Samurai?....because they never did in reality. Why do the Germans in the game have Panzers and are militaristic/aggressive?....because for part of their history they were, and the game is trying to portray them in a 'realistic' way.

So civ3 IS trying to be realistic and not just a game. And as I keep saying, in a random or "what if" game anything goes. But, boats float, and aircraft fly, and north America didn't have any cities untill the europeans arrived. I didn't write the history books....I just read 'em!

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Kryten
A nice 3rd scenario Ribannah, but unfortunately it never happened in reality. I'm sorry that the europeans raped the New World, that the Mongols massacred whole civilisations, that the Nazis existed, but they did.

What are the Mongols and the Nazis doing in this thread? Jeez.

The scenario I sketched is exactly what happened in the woodlands area. Only after they had established themselves, with the help of the Amerinds, and this took about a century, did the Europeans start to 'rape' the region. Which was still not a big deal compared to what the Americans did once independent.
Elsewhere in the Americas, however, there were totally different scenarios, with different Europeans.

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Damien
When i said that natives were not at the same level i was talking about technology.

And?

About the fact that Europeans dominated,i don't buy the following scenario:Natives were as advanced as europeans in everything except war because they were cool guys who liked nature.

I agree. Many Amerind tribes were very skilled at warfare.

As i said b4,natives had no wheel

And as I said before, they did fine without it.

and were not so good in metallurgy

Neither were the Europeans, compared to the Japanese.

they used to hunt.

So did the Europeans.

What do u call polyculture? Europeans used to practice it for a long time and let one parcel rest.

Polyculture is using several crops that support each other on the same fields, either simultaneously or by crop rotation. Yield is up to 50% higher than with the European custom of leaving fields fallow.

What's writing:to draw sounds;to encode the spoken language.

No, that's the definition of a phonetic script, just one of several ways of writing.

What's a city:a place,where there's an amount of families with their houses.Some are peasants,some work on metals,some are merchants and some work for the administration.

I think you're saying that specialization is a necessary part of civilization. But specialization is much older than that. In fact, nomadic tribes tend to have more specialization than agricultural communities.

i don't hold mining and irrigation for achievments as well.

They're a given in the game, but in the real world you don't get this knowledge for free. Also, remember that there are lots of gradations within any given skill. For instance, Coal Mining was a recent and very significant advance in human history, and we still have to find out how to mine the moon.

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Kryten
In civ3 you have to have cities to generate technology, and it is this that makes it hard to portray nomadic civilizations like the Huns and native Americans.

It would be if they were indeed nomads. But the Amerinds had towns that were just as permanent as European towns.

I just don't get that same elusive 'feel' that I've reached the 'New World' when my computer screen shows me that it is already covered with citys/roads/irrigation, and looks exactly like the europe that I just left!

Well, I can't help you there. The feeling you're looking for is simply not historically accurate.

north America didn't have any cities untill the europeans arrived. I didn't write the history books....I just read 'em![/B]

You have two options: if you count a town of 3,000 people as a city (about the optimal size of an agricultural comminity), then North America had lots and lots of them.
If you think a city should have at least 10,000 people (generally requiring taxes to maintain it), then the entire planet looked very empty in 1492.

 

[Damien]

Kryten,ur talking about a real world scenario whereas that thread is about the game in general.
Europeans were very good at metallurgy i think.To make a gun is not so simple.
The europeans hunted for fun(it was reproached by the Sioux) but bred the animals to eat em later.Pigs,dogs,oxen etc were made by human hand during the neolithic era and come from boars,wolfs and orochs.
crop rotation was used by europeans and only 1 field was let in fallow.phonetic writing is the universal writing and is used to know the pronounciation.Every writing is used to draw sounds.
The western writings come from the aramean language i think.
About the cities...my point was that sedentarisation is no achievment.
There were many many cities over 10,000 inhabitants around the world in 1492.Rome had 1 million inhabitants during the antiquity then the cities fell but got bigger from the agricultural revolution.
There were 200,000 inhabitant-cities in South America.

 

[Kryten]

Hello, me again

Originally posted by Ribannah

What are the Mongols and the Nazis doing in this thread? Jeez.

The scenario I sketched is exactly what happened in the woodlands area. Only after they had established themselves, with the help of the Amerinds, and this took about a century, did the Europeans start to 'rape' the region. Which was still not a big deal compared to what the Americans did once independent.
Elsewhere in the Americas, however, there were totally different scenarios, with different Europeans.

I only mentioned the Mongols and Nazis to compare their actions to what the white man did to the native Americans. Maybe I overemphasized the case a bit (....or did I? Hmmm.....this is a good moral point worthy of the History Forum.....).

And I do agree with your '3rd scenario' about how the early colonists were helped and tried to live in harmony with the natives. You're quite right, this IS how things happened in reality. Unfortunately, it is not possible to simulate this situation in civ3, because you are not allowed to establish new cities within some else's city borders.

Again, it all comes down to the way cities work in civ3. If the natives have cities, then they have borders, so the only way the europeans can establish themselves in civ3 is by launching a massive military invasion (a sort of 16th century 'D' day if you will). Did this happen in reality.....no.

So although civ3 tries to be historically correct, when it comes to the colonisation of north America it is woefully inaccurate.

Would you at least agree with me on this point?

 

[Kryten]

To Damien,

Can I assume that you feel that the native Americans would be best represented in civ3 by 'barabarians', while Ribannah wants them to be a fully fledged normal civilisation (please correct me if I'm wrong....I usually am! ).

If so, then I am sort of in the middle. I have nothing against the native Americans; I just want to play an 'historical' game of civ3. And because of the way the city system works in civ3, I have no choice but to agree with you; in order to simulate the colonisation of north America you have to deny the natives cities. I don't like it, but the game mechanics forces this solution on us (if anyone else has a better idea, please post it!).

As for a random or "what if" game of civ, yes I've said it before, "anything goes"!

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Damien
Europeans were very good at metallurgy i think.To make a gun is not so simple.

Well whaddya know, the first handheld guns were made of wood. Arabian invention, not European. The very first shot arrows instead of bullets, too.

crop rotation was used by europeans

Only after they learned about polyculture from the Iroquois.

phonetic writing is the universal writing

No.

The western writings come from the aramean language i think.

???????????????????????????????

About the cities...my point was that sedentarisation is no achievment.

Nobody claimed it was.

There were many many cities over 10,000 inhabitants around the world in 1492.Rome had 1 million inhabitants during the antiquity

1492 is hardly the antiquity but yes, even in 1492 Rome had probably over 10,000 citizens. That's one. I'll keep counting when you can think of more.

Originally posted by Kryten
Again, it all comes down to the way cities work in civ3. If the natives have cities, then they have borders, so the only way the europeans can establish themselves in civ3 is by launching a massive military invasion (a sort of 16th century 'D' day if you will). Did this happen in reality.....no.
So although civ3 tries to be historically correct, when it comes to the colonisation of north America it is woefully inaccurate.
Would you at least agree with me on this point?

The Amerind nations did have established borders, that is one knew whose territory one was on, but they also believed that the Earth was there for everyone to share. So it's a little ambiguous.
Of course after the diseases had decimated the Amerind population, there was plenty of room for new settlers.
Maybe in Civ4 we'll have health rates and the ability to simulate diseases like the black plague, smallpocks and ebola.

 

[Akka]

Originally posted by Ribannah
1492 is hardly the antiquity but yes, even in 1492 Rome had probably over 10,000 citizens. That's one. I'll keep counting when you can think of more.

Paris, London, Genae, Naples, Madrid, Barcelona, Bordeaux, Athens, Moscow, Lyon, Glasgow, Montpellier, Milan, Turin, Venice, Marseille, Vienna, Constantinople, Cairo, Jerusalem, Damas, Alexandria, Lisbonne...
Do you REALLY need that I add more ?

 

[Damien]

Originally posted by Ribannah

Well whaddya know, the first handheld guns were made of wood. Arabian invention, not European. The very first shot arrows instead of bullets, too.

I think spaniards and others came with metal guns and powder.

Only after they learned about polyculture from the Iroquois.

I think crop rotation belongs to the agricultural revolution..

I repeat it again;there were 200,000 inhabitant-cities in South America.

 

[Bamspeedy]

So, someone wants to 'discover' america and have it empty, or with just a few civs without all the land being irrigated/mined? Simple. Just download a civ placement tool that allows you to set starting positions. Go in the editor and make the Aztecs and Iroquois never build workers. With only the initial worker it gets at the start (which will usually get killed by a barbarian at some point), the new world will be left with nothing but tiny villages all over the place. You could also set those civs to never build improvements, so they will be far behind in tech, along with the handicap of not getting income from roads.

But god forbid if they happen to build a city directly on an iron resource and make it to Fuedalism. People will be whining because the native americans never had Pikeman!

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Kryten
Hello, me again

I only mentioned the Mongols and Nazis to compare their actions to what the white man did to the native Americans. . .

Don't like white men, eh?

How about what the Mohawks did to the Hurons in the 17th Century? They exterminated them. Or what the Aztecs did to various surrounding peoples - pile there heads in giant pyramids in the square at Tenochtitlan.

Etc.

 

[Pygzilla]

Originally posted by Ribannah

Only after they had established themselves, with the help of the Amerinds, and this took about a century, did the Europeans start to 'rape' the region. Which was still not a big deal compared to what the Americans did once independent.

Actually the Noble savage is a myth. The die out of the large mammals in North America (those from the tatr pits in la brea etc) seems to coincide with the arrival of the native americans. Living with nature is something all peoples have had to learn usually after making some significant mistakes and causing a few extinctions. Most civs in existance are there because they pushed someone/thing else out.

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Zouave


Don't like white men, eh?

How about what the Mohawks did to the Hurons in the 17th Century? They exterminated them. Or what the Aztecs did to various surrounding peoples - pile there heads in giant pyramids in the square at Tenochtitlan.

Etc.

Well, I do prefer women

What I don't like is 18th & 19th century white men with all their strict social laws and sense of justice, with their pride in how civilized they were, with their religion which says "thou shalt not kill" (which is always conveniently forgotten when it's time to murder somebody), braking treaties/massacring/stealing land/selling smallpox infested blankets/herding natives onto poor land so that they can't support themselves, while all the time loudly proclaiming how morally superior they were compared to the 'heathen savages'! You could say that the 'savages' didn't know any better....but the 18th/19th century white man did, and deliberately chose to ignor this while he engaged in what we now call 'ethnic cleansing'.
(And I agree with some of your posts in the History Forum: the British Empire was not the worst, but it was no paragon of virtue either.)

(BTW, I AM a six foot blue eyed white man with a blond moustache and beard, but my hair....well, what's left of it....has slowly turned brown over the last couple of decades! )

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
So, someone wants to 'discover' america and have it empty, or with just a few civs without all the land being irrigated/mined? Simple. Just download a civ placement tool that allows you to set starting positions. Go in the editor and make the Aztecs and Iroquois never build workers. With only the initial worker it gets at the start (which will usually get killed by a barbarian at some point), the new world will be left with nothing but tiny villages all over the place. You could also set those civs to never build improvements, so they will be far behind in tech, along with the handicap of not getting income from roads.

But god forbid if they happen to build a city directly on an iron resource and make it to Fuedalism. People will be whining because the native americans never had Pikeman!

What a brilliant suggestion! This means that when the europeans arrive, they would have to colonize in the bits of land ouside of the native settlement areas. And good relations and even trade with the natives would be a bonus. The europeans could even give technology to the natives to help them fight other colonial powers. I like it! I like it a lot!

Of course, this does mean that the Iroquois and any other native American nation is being crippled and turned into a sort of collection of civ3 super barabarian nations. But it seem to solve my colonisation problem. And that is what the editor is for, to allow us all to mod the basic game into what we each perceive as being 'historically correct'. Thanks for posting Bamspeedy

(The daft thing is....I made EXACTLY the same suggestion for the ancient Gauls/Celts/Germans only a week ago! (see Troquelet's "Ancient Mediterranean Mod!! What civs?" in the Creation Forum). But I never thought of applying it to north America. Good thinking matey )

Now then, back to the original purpose of this thread, how can we incorporate the American civ into this new suggestion? (I do have some ideas..... )