Not the purpose of the thread, but personally to me 'civilization' is about survival against overwhelming odds. The fact that humans have come this far is nothing short of amazing when any one of us could still step outside our home towns and die of exposure in days.
To me, duration of the people is a big part of that definition. The Native Americans have tremendous respect from me. They had some pretty difficult environments to survive in without many domesticated animals and still lasted thousands of years.
China is the longest lasting civilization in history. That's worth a lot to me.
It's part of why I don't love the Aztecs or modern nation depictions. Australia, Aztecs, America and Brazil are all so young (or died out so quickly) that it's unclear how 'successful' they'll be long-term.
It seems very unreasonable to me.
What about forgotten African and Brazilian tribes, who live by the bow and the river until now?
According to this definition, every homo sapiens who still exists is part of a civilisation.
You actually confuse between civilisation and some later elements of natural selection, which is radical.
Civilisation is not about which nations you appreciate or like, it is a certain form of human society and living.
Not being a civilisation is not necessarily a bad or insulting issue. It is just a different way of human existence.
Many people today would favor "living outside of civilisation", even for a short while.
When saying so, would they mean, for example, living among a Native American tribe? Sure they do.
That's a good example for what people mean when they want to "get away from civilisation".
Would they mean living along the Mesopotamian rivers in ancient Eshnuna or Mari? No.
Would they mean having a vacation at the Medieval Baghdad? Again, No.
Would they mean experiencing life in a distant Chinese village? Possibly yes. After all, those villages alone wouldn't have made China a civilisation if they weren't accompanied by a more urban, political or economical society.
Regardless of our view, in the game, specifically, a civilisation is an entity which builds cities, has a government, influences city states and so on (basically a state, yes, let's change the name of the game...).
This is a point to consider, anyway.
Finally, I would bring up an old post by Plotinus, which, in my opinion can sum up the discussion about "civilisation" as a term.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ld-civilizations.467504/page-15#post-11765173
Technically they lasted 150 years as an empire. This was because of the Spanish rather than a natural decline, but still...
As an empire? The Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan and the Kamakura Shogunate of Hojo lasted about the same time.
This is obviously not about the certain prominent state which was led by the certain leader.
It is about the whole civilisation, with a representation of some period, as the alt-Leaders show beautifully.
Aztec (lets call it Mexica) civilisation had its earlier states since the 12th-13th centuries.