God of Kings
Ruler of all heads of state
Colombo was the capital of Sri Lanka (when it was Ceylon), before it moved to Kotte.
Dubai as a city state
- Thread starter TheRH100
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Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
The Phoenicians were never unified, so there was no capital. Tyre was the capital of the land that Tyre ruled. Byblos was the capital of its land (although they were dependent on Egypt for quite a bit of history). Sidon was the capital of their territory, etc. The only Phoenician city to truly rule an empire was Carthage.
The reason why I'm saying some weren't and some were complicated is that if we go by that definition, then most major cities were the capitals of some entity or another at some point in their past:
Sydney - Capital of the colony of New South Wales
Zanzibar - Capital of Zanzibar
...actually, I'm not going to bother with more lists. Listing city states as capitals of themselves when they are in the game, as city states is ridiculous, hence why I said no to the likes of the merchant republics and city states of Italy, and I thought that was pretty obvious. The same can be said of places like Monaco. If we were to list everything that had ever been a capital by your definition, we'd have one of the longest threads this forum has ever seen, and then some.
Here, for fun here are all the cities that I can think of off the top of my head that have been capitals as part of the process that lead to the formation of Australia and other colonies that declined to join federation at the time:
Canberra - Capital of Australia
Sydney - Colony of New South Wales
Melbourne - Colony of Victoria
Hobart - Colony of Tasmania
Adelaide - Colony of South Australia
Brisbane - Colony of Queensland
Perth - Colony of Western Australia
Auckland - Colony of New Zealand
Wellington - Colony of New Zealand
Levuka - Colony of Fiji
Suva - Colony of Fiji
It is also important carefully to note that Canberra was the one and only capital of Australia, although the seat of Government resided in Melbourne whilst Canberra was being built, it was never officially known as the capital.
So that's just Australia and other colonies at the time that were involved in Australia's federation movement, it's odd now to actually think that Western Australia actually didn't initially want to join, but New Zealand and Fiji were quite close to joining at one point. Anyhow, following your logic back to somewhere like say... India, or anything in Europe, and we suddenly have thousands of capitals. The key point is that when we talk about capitals we should be talking about actual capitals, not self governing cities and surrounding regions, or larger combined holdings, but I guess if we must go down that route it doesn't matter anyhow, as most major cities have been "capitals" at some point anyhow. Come on now, I mean, Dubai, the topic of this thread is not only historically the capital of the Emirate of Dubai and has been an independent "capital" before.
Navelgazer
Emperor
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This doesn't make total historical sense (in that Dubai certainly has seen an uptick in tourism in the past couple of decades) but for whatever reason I see the Burj Khalifa working best as a late-game wonder with a massive cultural bonus, rather than tourism bonus.
Basically a defensive wonder that makes it harder for another player to win a cultural victory. Like, "Oh, you've got the Empire State Building or the Patronus Towers? Well we've got the tallest building now, so, you know, whatever." Less a wonder that makes people come to see it than one that makes other wonders less noteworthy, is I guess what I'm getting at.
Basically a defensive wonder that makes it harder for another player to win a cultural victory. Like, "Oh, you've got the Empire State Building or the Patronus Towers? Well we've got the tallest building now, so, you know, whatever." Less a wonder that makes people come to see it than one that makes other wonders less noteworthy, is I guess what I'm getting at.
SolInvictus
Warlord
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I think it's still too soon for the Burj Khalifa, it's already got several possible challengers being planned in Saudi, China (hideous and on hold), and Dubai. It's still not as culturally relevant or iconic as the Empire State Building, which receives 8x the tourists of the Burj Khalifa. Besides, if Dubai gets a wonder it should be the Burj al Arab, it's a more unique building. The Empire State Building and the Burj al Arab should take precedence over the Burj Khalifa. I don love the idea of a world's tallest quest though, perhaps unlocked after the discovery of steel and the construction of the Home Insurance Building.
The interesting point about the Burj Khalifa was just how much of a leap it was. Taking about as percent increase, the difference between the Burj Khalifa and the previous record holder was a staggering 63%. To put that into perspective, the Empire State building as a jump from the Chrysler Building was a mere 19%. The new Saudi Arabian tower would only be a jump of 21-33% depending on the final height (1000-1100m), which whilst a huge jump, is still nothing on the Burj Khalifa. It is iconic, and it is something that most people would have heard of. I agree that the Burj al-Arab is a more interesting building, and I would rather visit it in truth, but I am truly impressed by the Burj Khalifa. To repeat the jump that we saw from it we would need to see a jump to around 1,350m at this point, and if the Kingdom Tower goes ahead, then around 1,630m.
Also, Sky City might not end up being so... uh... blocky, if it goes ahead:
Also, Sky City might not end up being so... uh... blocky, if it goes ahead:
SolInvictus
Warlord
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My point isn't that it's not an impressive building or iconic, just that as a representative of skyscrapers from a cultural and historic standpoint its status as the greatest skyscraper is far from certain. That status still belongs to the Empire State Building which in both image and name is far more iconic, just as the world's greatest tower is the Eiffel Tower despite being half the size of CN Tower and a third the height of the Burj Khalifa.
I really doubt that the Burj Khalifa has reached the point where most people recognize it by name or by appearance. The change over of World's Tallest has had such a high turn over of contenders over the last decade that I imagine there are still quite a few people who still think that Taipei 101 or Petronas is still the world's tallest and maybe even a few who think that the thwarted efforts of the Shanghai World Financial Center and One World Trade Center might have succeded. The Empire State Building was the world's tallest for forty years, longer than any other skyscraper, yet the Burj Khalifa already has challengers in the works. So the Burj Khalifa really isn't something that I'd consider iconic until almost everyone on Earth reconginzies it and by the time that happens it might not even be the world's tallest building. Bigger doesn't always make for better or more iconic--of the early skyscapers the most iconic and recongizable never even held the title of world's tallest and even at that most people would probably look at it and go, "oh, yeah I've seen that building." Wonder's haven't really been selected for their size, but for their greatness. That's why the Eiffel Tower has been a wonder since Civ II, when CN Tower reigned as the tallest tower and long after the Burj Khalifa has been overtaken, the supertall buildings will still be comparatively measured in Empire State Buildings.
Also, Sky City might not end up being so... uh... blocky, if it goes ahead:
I hope it's redesigned. Changsha deserves a better building and the city planners have raised some very good points about how it and other buildings like it could impact the cityscape of Changsha and other cities in general. Superblocks can easily break the traffic flow and walkability of a city and even when the human scale is taken into account--as Yamasaki tried with the original World Trade Center--it often proves a failure, which is why the new World Trade Center breaks up the Yamasaki superblock by restoring part of the city grid. Ironically, the Burj Khalifa is a supertall structure that makes much better use of its superblock than either the original WTC or Sky City. But our architectural musings are getting off topic, yes Dubai should be a cs!
Well, yes, which is rather the point. I would not include colonies in the list except as "debatable" (at the most) because while they served as seats of political authority, they never actually exercised sovereign power, but the vast majority of the list actually did run sovereign states, and not just as city-states (in the real world; not in the Civ5 definition). The Duchy of Milan exercised real authority over lands from the Swiss Alps to Fornuovo, and Venice had its own petty empire built from trading posts in the East. Sydney is, of course, another such exception; I did not claim otherwise. All I noted is that many of the cities included in Civ5 as city-states did historically maintain self-sovereignty as the capital of an independent political entity. Given that this entire discussion is about the inclusion of Dubai as another city-state, it seems a fitting comparison to draw the link to city-states and smaller powers in the real world throughout history.
As for the actual topic, I think Dubai is a poor example. Not a capital, not a sovereign state, not important at all in a historical perspective. Abu Dhabi or Bahrain, certainly. Dubai, not so much.
Well, we can scratch Colombo off the list of former capitals then at least, as it was never the capital of an independent Kingdom (which had it's capital at Kotte), it was only the capital while a colony.
The next question then becomes about city states though. Are city states really capitals, they were self governing, but would you actually call that a capital in this sense. It makes sense for city states to be included since they are city states of course.
Anyhow, Dubai not being the capital of the UAE certainly isn't a problem considering they have been a capital in their own right and more importantly, cities don't need to be a capital to be included as a city state:
Sydney - Never the capital of an independent nation
Quebec City - Never the capital of an independent nation
Colombo - Never the capital of an independent nation
Hong Kong - Never the capital of an independent nation
Antwerp - Never the capital of an independent nation
After that we obviously have La Venta, which is the name of an archaeological site, but we don't know all that much about the city itself, but we'll just ignore this for now. Past of them, it gets into the debatable areas where the lines between city-state and capital blur and it becomes a bit of a mess to discuss. In any case, that's a fair ol' list of non-city states and non-capitals in the game. That said, Hong Kong in particular works well with the city state title despite not being a truly independent city state at any point.
So yeah, there is nothing in this regard in the way of Dubai being added as a city state.
I think Dubai would make an excellent CS. While Manama (and Bahrain as a whole) may have had more importance in the past, Dubai has become the cultural capital of the Persian Gulf. It's a huge mixing pot of expatriates, foreign workers, and oil-rich Arabs. It's become the icon of what oil money has done for the region. While Qatar and Bahrain may have had the same amount of success, they haven't put it to such extravagances like Dubai. Dubai is the best city that money can buy, and I think it fits really well with Brave New World's focus on the post-war era.
LoneRebel
Emperor
Just wondering, if Dubai, Abu Dhabi, etc. are ever to be included in the game at all, shouldn't they be part of Arabia's city list?
TheMarshmallowBear
Benelovent Chieftain of the Ursu Kingdom
Not really, Hong Kong for example, it's its own nation, but it's mostly Chinese, should it be on China's city list?
There are some cities worthy enough to be independent from city lists, and I think Dubai is one of them.
mitsho
Deity
Nobody would complain if it was on the Arabian city list, but it's not a big deal. I can see them going for Djibouti or Khartoum if they want to avoid an Arab city independent from the Arabs, but it's not a necessity. Remember, civ is not a science and it doesn't create rankings of what deserves to be a civ/city state/etc. and what not. If the developers think, Dubai would be a cool option for a city state, it will be. Otherwise it won't 
There are a bunch of cities on the city state list which the average person would never have heard of. Dubai on the other hand is a major transport and tourism hub of the modern world. From an engineering and architecture point of view the place is a bit of a marvel. If they were adding city states I think it is probably the most obvious example of a modern day city state in action.
YetiHunter84
Chieftain
I'm pretty sure it was actually Melbourne that held the provisional pariliament of Australia between federation in 1901 and the establishment of Canberra in 1913....
Yes but it was never the capital.
It was actually the location of parliament until 1927 if I'm not mistaken, but it was never officially capital, it was only temporary.
