Evolution????

[Leonel]

...of course they've also been responsible for beginning the widespread provision of free schools in the industrial revolution (something we now take for granted), campaigning to eradicate child labour (which again we now take for granted), and still today run many of the homeless shelters and battered women's shelters, worked for peace in places like Mozambique, and there are still countless church and faith based organisations busily relieving poverty and saving lives all over the world.

But perhaps we're so busy taking everything for granted we can only think of "witchhunts and inquisitions" when we think about religion?

Here here! Well said!

Also, chill everyone! It's just a game! Nothing to get bombastic over. So what if it's primarily American culture? Besides, I don't recall hearing Civ IV being claimed as a picture perfect representation of human history.

 

[theim]

My points to this long and tedious thread:

1) LotR is a New Zealander movie, and arguing it is American doesn't help anyone.

2) Europeans: you have Stonehenge, Globe Theatre, Notre Dame, Oxford University, the Eiffel Tower, and a load of other wonders. Sorry they couldn't put in your giant clock, but try and go on.

3) Cheeseburgers and the like are NOT American culture. I would suggest that you visit here and see that America is more than a yawning nullity or a cultural black-hole.

4) America is the dominant force in the world today, and the instigator of much political action. Ergo putting us in the game makes sense. Besides, it's an American game. Deal with it or go play something else.

5) Like it or not, Africa (save Egypt), the Native Americans, and the Aborigines didn't really do anything on par with Europe or Asia except get conquered and enslaved. Sorry history isn't PC enough for you.

5)American culture wasn't around 2000 years ago, but neither was French, British, German, or Spanish. A culture doesn't need to be old to have an impact anyways.

6) Intelligent Design SUPPORTS Evolution. It's advocates just think it was planned out (designed) by God, instead of occuring by random chance. And besides that, there is a slideshow in the beginning where humans evolve from primates, so chill out.

7) Enough with the future predictions of whos going to kick whose ass 50 years from now. It's utterly pointless. I'm pretty sure that in 1913 not many thought that by 1918 the German, Ottoman, and Austrian Empires would be completely gone. So alot of things can and will happen. An avian flu outbreak might wrack China, or Washington might get nuked. **** happens.

 

[zeeter]

Wingnut films LTD and New Line Cinema co-produced LOTR along with another company. However, New Line basically bankrolled the film, thus making it an American production, albiet filmed in New Zealand by a (I believe) Kiwi director.

I would say that Hamburgers are VERY in tune with American culture. That and Rock and Roll are two of the more predominant things to come out of America.

I believe that Intelligent Design is kind of a way for creationists to say, "ok, we can't deny that we grew from apes, but someone was behind it."
Personally, I believe that the seeds were put in place by some sort of intelligence, but beyond that everything was left to chance. IOW, I wouldn't call it design. I'd call it chance.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I agree with you on one point, Theim-this thread has gotten both long and tedious. My only points were that Major World projects like ToE and The Great Wall deserve a place in the game (alongside Rock and Roll, Hollywood and Broadway) and that I truly hope to see a mod of the Fast Food Industry as a World Project because, whether you like it or not, this industry has had a MAJOR impact on the world.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Crayton]

Nobody thought the German, Austrian, and Ottoman Empires would be gone 50 years after 1913. Nobody thought the British, French, and Russian Empires would be gone either. Much does change.

 

[RobinB]

My points to this long and tedious thread:

4) America is the dominant force in the world today, and the instigator of much political action. Ergo putting us in the game makes sense. Besides, it's an American game. Deal with it or go play something else.

5) Like it or not, Africa (save Egypt), the Native Americans, and the Aborigines didn't really do anything on par with Europe or Asia except get conquered and enslaved. Sorry history isn't PC enough for you.

5)American culture wasn't around 2000 years ago, but neither was French, British, German, or Spanish. A culture doesn't need to be old to have an impact anyways.

@4: No question about that, still does not make sence to have a white European guy around in America 2000 BC. The best solution would be to have some points in the game (new technological eras?), where you could rename your culture. One could go from Germanic over Franks to Germans, or from Saxons to English to American, and so on. Would add much flavour.

@5: Mali and Ghana were great Nations that dominated their part of the world for over 500 years, if you look for 'wonders', you will find some. Besides, I saw noone complain about non-existing wonders in earlier versions so far (JSB Cathedral) The Aborigines have music which is better than Rock'n'Roll and that counted for a wonder ;-)
About PC... If I wanted you to tell me about history as it really was, I would not need to play a game, I'd study history instead. In the 'real game' until now, America just had had a 'golden age', before that Europe, now China and India are coming. The point of a game is to have different possible outcomes, some people (like me) might like to imagine playing with dominating Inkas in the 20th century. Hollywood, Rock'n'Roll, etc. ruins the flair of that. Even India and China will certainly not dominate the world with Rock'n'Roll, etc. in the future.

@6, see 4

 

[GIR]

...

2. The national Wonders "Broadway" and " Hollywood" such as the technology "Rock'n roll" and it's related ressources just are ridiculous and a bit too patriotic for a game that is released all over the world.
It would have been better to build film-studio and instead of "broadway" and "musicals" a "grand opera" and "operas". I absolutely dislike Rock'n Roll. Why do I have to invent this stuff! It's strange that this is a technology at all!

lol - that was my first thought, too.
but "don't panic", we can mod this easily!

i will do this first
(this and "Giant Death Robots") <-- i need them

(just rename it, maybe new pics and it will be perfect )

 

[opkoad]

@4: No question about that, still does not make sence to have a white European guy around in America 2000 BC.

About PC... If I wanted you to tell me about history as it really was, I would not need to play a game, I'd study history instead.

Hmm...

 

[theim]

If I wanted you to tell me about history as it really was, I would not need to play a game, I'd study history instead.

Touche. Point taken.

 

[dh_epic]

5) Like it or not, Africa (save Egypt), the Native Americans, and the Aborigines didn't really do anything on par with Europe or Asia except get conquered and enslaved. Sorry history isn't PC enough for you.

You're mostly right about everything except this point. The native americans and aborigines lacked writing or other factors that counted them as a civilization... but there are a couple of key contributors to history from Africa.

While Europeans were living in mud huts after the fall of the Roman empire, Timbuktu was pretty much the center of commerce and science. Africa was doing pretty well until the middle ages, at which point their leadership really embraced slavery. If you want to simulate this in civ, switch to slavery, and start rushing everything around 1000 AD. By the early industrial age, you'll get easily conquered by the other civs. Africans were not running around in loincloths boiling each other in hot water.

Also, the only country in the world to ever resist colonization isn't Japan. Not China, not India, not Egypt. It's the Abbysians, or modern Ethiopia.

Not to get off topic, but you need to read more than the books written from the perspective of the current powers to get some real knowledge. Until then, you shouldn't really comment on things you don't know about.

But yes, America is on top right now, and yes, Hollywood is a wonder of the world that has generated huge amounts of culture around the world, and even partially assimilated some cultures.

 

[JiggleTheHandle]

Hmmm.. maybe video games should be a Great Wonder.

Oh wait. That's an American invention. That will piss some people off.

 

[theim]

Hmmm.. maybe video games should be a Great Wonder.

Oh wait. That's an American invention. That will piss some people off.

You never know. The CIA probly stole the Pong prototype from a top-secret CERN labratory.

 

[the100thballoon]

This thread is ridiculous and I ask that it be closed. (ATTN: Moderators)

Its almost an entire thread devoted to whining in the form of spam posting. The game came out 7 days ago. Stop whining and mod your ideas into the game. I, for one, would probably download it.

(1) From personal experience, You simply CANNOT make civilization games perfectly realistic and logical. It would no longer be any fun (really says something about the human attention span (or lack thereof) and disgusting fascination with violence and power ). I made a modpack for CivIII that tried to make it more like RL. It is implausable to make CivIV like our real world.

(2) You cannot possibly expect the employees of a company to make a completely logical, unbiased anything. They are motivated first and foremost by their status as employees. They kinda like to make money, thus they do what their company needs (or just wants) them to do so that they can keep their jobs and make some cash. Secondly, is any citizen of any country NOT going to be biased in favor of his nation (disregarding those nations that abuse/oppress/etc their people)? Of course not. (Granted IMHO the Rock&Roll tech or whatever is a bit of a stretch... )

(3) Lastly, you cannot please everyone or be fair to everyone. Thus, if one group is fated to look better than the other groups, why not make your own group be that "best" group?

 

[Markezuma]

From wikipedia: "Rock and roll was an overnight success in the U.S. making ripples across the atlantic, culminating in 1964 with the British Invasion. By the end of the decade, rock had spread throughout the world. In Australia, for example, Johnny O'Keefe became perhaps the first modern rock star of that country, and beginning a long history of Australian rock." That's why Rock and Roll is in the game.

There are a few reasons why things like Hollywood and Rock and roll were put into the game. One, which nobody has mentioned yet, is for gameplay reasons. Wonders are needed for certain time periods and after certain technologies are researched. Classical or barroque music is absolutely not a good substitute for rock and roll because they are hundreds of years apart. The Beatles are not a good substitute because they were caused directly by the explosion of rock and roll. Music itself as a technology makes sense as well. If you disagree with any of this, I suggest studying the history of today's music (starting at the beginning with Pythagoras).

There have been far too many comments containing "facts" that are very inaccurate. Please, do research next time you try to make a point. Your view on the matter might even change.

As for America being included in the game... On the one hand, America is an extremely recent nation compared to all the others. On the other, it has had such an enormous impact on the history of the world in the last 100 years that not including it would be ridiculous. Plus, think about how upset you'd be if America wasn't in the game but you wanted to play a World War II scenario? Like it or lump it, the Americans are in the game, but it's not because the designers are American, end of discussion.

I agree with the100thballoon: this thread should either be closed or get back to the Theory of Evolution discussion.

 

[Sumsum]

Lord of the rings was not american...

The novels were not. But he was referencing the movie which was developed with American technology to adapt the novels to the big screen with all the fancy special effects.

Actually, it was filmed in New Zealand, by a New Zealand director, and used a New Zealand sfx company. The only American influence, as far as i know, was cash from the producer and a few actors (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen - born in Norway and raised all over the damn world, but currently an American citizen i beleive - and Liv Tyler were the main ones).

It was still called a Hollywood Blockbuster because of the Hollywood producer and the sheer magnitude of the film

http://www.slate.com/id/2117309/


discuss!!!!!!111oneelevenelveselves-goulash

/edit

Of course, it's not only Paramount that employs these devices—every studio uses them to minimize risk. Remember all those stories about how New Line was betting its entire future on the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Not quite. New Line covered almost the entire cost by using German tax shelters, New Zealand subsidies, and pre-sales. If studio executives don't crow in public about such coups, it's probably out of fear that such publicity will induce governments to stiffen their rules—as, for example, Germany periodically does with its tax code. When you've got a golden goose, you don't want to kill it while it's still laying eggs.