Expansion Pack PREVIEW!

One last note, cause I know this has gone longer than it needs to.

I do agree that there are far better rulers than Constantine as Xen noted.
But some of the other leaders on this game are at most just fair as such, and are solely on this game by reputation or notariety.

I was just making the point that Constantine fits into this game because of the way we play it we tend to do the same sort of decision as he did, and he is also one that is easely recognized. That was all.
 
I just noticed something (so forgive me if someone else has already mentioned it). Go back to the original post, look at the "Augustus" drawing, then the "Prototype Alexander" drawing, and finally, scroll down to the third reply and look at skadistic's "Alexander" avatar.

Is it just me, or does the Alexander leaderhead look a whole lot more like the "Augustus" drawing? My guess is they created the Augustus leaderhead first, but perhaps they ran out of time to create the Alexander leaderhead, so they decided to use the Augustus leaderhead for Alexander instead.
 
Alathan said:
I just noticed something (so forgive me if someone else has already mentioned it). Go back to the original post, look at the "Augustus" drawing, then the "Prototype Alexander" drawing, and finally, scroll down to the third reply and look at skadistic's "Alexander" avatar.

Is it just me, or does the Alexander leaderhead look a whole lot more like the "Augustus" drawing? My guess is they created the Augustus leaderhead first, but perhaps they ran out of time to create the Alexander leaderhead, so they decided to use the Augustus leaderhead for Alexander instead.

Wow, that's a VERY good point. I hadn't even considered that. But you are correct, I would not be surprised if what we know as Alexander was originally intended to be Augustus.
 
There are several far better choices for Roman leader if you want to choose one of the 2 only real "caesars". Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Marius, Sertorius, Scipio Africanus, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius. Even non-warlike icons such as Cicero or Cato.

Augustus held on to the semblance of empire; he was dictator in name but emperor in reality. on announcing that he was to stand down his emergancy dictatorial powers the senate basically asked him not to. Also; the romans had been rediculously powerful as soon as they got a hold of Gaul thanks to julius caesar, which went along with spain, greece, north africa, syria, turkey and so on.

oh, interesting tib bit - Caesar was a roman nickname as such; The father of Pompey the great (Pompeius Magnius) was known as "Strabo" - Squinty. Caesar actually means "Hairy".
 
Another interesting little tidbit about the name Caesar is that us English-speakers all pronounce it wrong. In Latin it was pronounced "kay-sar", not "see-zur". But I don't expect everyone to change how it's pronounced anytime soon (if ever). :rolleyes:
 
Alathan said:
Another interesting little tidbit about the name Caesar is that us English-speakers all pronounce it wrong. In Latin it was pronounced "kay-sar", not "see-zur". But I don't expect everyone to change how it's pronounced anytime soon (if ever). :rolleyes:

depends on when actually; late latin woudl have said "See-Zur", and I have heard thier are provision sin early latin for such a pronounciation; particrually in the Vulgar (common form, think of the slang speech used in most countires as street speak, rather then the formal speech of politicians) woudl have pronounced in that fashion.
 
GoRy said:
There are several far better choices for Roman leader if you want to choose one of the 2 only real "caesars". Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Marius, Sertorius, Scipio Africanus, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius. Even non-warlike icons such as Cicero or Cato.
My personal favorites are Scipio Africanus, and marcus Aurelius, but out of the two I prefer the former, but expect the latter to have a better chance at being made aleader head.

Augustus held on to the semblance of empire; he was dictator in name but emperor in reality. on announcing that he was to stand down his emergancy dictatorial powers the senate basically asked him not to. Also; the romans had been rediculously powerful as soon as they got a hold of Gaul thanks to julius caesar, which went along with spain, greece, north africa, syria, turkey and so on.
well, the Roman empire itself is split into two periods, the "Principate", and the "Dominate"

the difference between the two is that During the Principate the Office of Emperor (Imperator) had the Official Title of "Princeps", which in english means "First Citizen", and in theory the Emperor himself was not immune to popular law; in practice that section didnt pan out under the insane emperors, and the good emperors respected and upheld the law anyway; under this sytem, the Empire was constitional monarchy, where citizens had specifics rights that even the emperor himself could not trod over without real reprecussions in terms of popularity with the senate and people, which woudl have had a real effect on how long he lasted as emperor; the senate still held soem power of governing and administration in this sytem.

The Dominate, ushed in By Diocletian, and solidified under Constantine was no where near such a noble beast as the constitional monarchy of the early Empire; the Empire became what is known as an "Priental Monarchy" which is a fancy was of saying a despotism where the ruler makes what ever laws he wants to, and is the comple dominator of everyone below him, it is this abusive system that saw the downfall of the Roman empire.



oh, interesting tib bit - Caesar was a roman nickname as such; The father of Pompey the great (Pompeius Magnius) was known as "Strabo" - Squinty. Caesar actually means "Hairy".
well, Caesar appears ot have been a proper last name descended from what was at one time a nickname
 
True enough; Although I'm quite sure his father was the first to actually have the name Caesar; Being that they were actually from the Julii family rather than the "Caesares" as it later became known. The main downfall of Rome IMO was not the part of the system taht you describe but the practice of naming 2 actual rulers to each half of the empire - Augustus (Senior) and Caesar (Junior). It resulted in so many civil wars and was so utterly corrupt it annhiliated any chance the roman empire had of succeeding. its interesting to note that the eastern roman empire had actually abandoned this by the time the west fell.

Also; agreed on the pronunciation. It had became fashion in the time of the late republic (2nd triumvirate era) for the posh to speak as the plebians. It was most likely pronounced with the soft C rather than hard, although the tendancy for romans to speak greek rather than latin does throw some doubt on this aswell.
 
Well did I start all of this by suggesting Constatine, maybe he was not the perfect emperor that I know all of you would be and I never said he was who cares about his politics or religion he did what he had to do to stay in power, did anyone ever look at the line of emperors most of them were murdered or deposed very few died in there bed like Constatine. He should get some credit just for doing that, he is just one of the more well known emperors that is all I was saying.


And XEN 14,700 POST!!! dude you have ALOT of spare time don't you WOW
Moderator Action: Not sure if you are being sarcastic, trolling or simply making an observation.

Regardless, we are all equal here, regardless of postcount.
 
@Brinawolfe- woow l33t haxxos are teh Kixa$$!!!111 Listen buddy, I've "been here" several years, and am an active member in the comminty; in this one topic, I've already made a good deal of posts; it dosent take much time to do at all really, and it takes even less time and effort to actually think over what your going to say, somthing you dont quite seem to have mastered yet. grow up a little, and then mabey I can take you, and your opinions seriouslly,Moderator Action: Don't stir it up.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

until then, you migh also consider learning a little proper history, as you will note that a good deal of emperors did have "good deaths" and that emperors far, far for able to lead then Constantine ever was, such as Aurelian (not to be confused with Marcus Aurelius) were murdered out of jealousy, or decite.

@GoRay- Hard to say, though I'd bet the name goes backl even further; the way it works is that I think Caesars father, or an acestor of married into the greater familly of the Julii. As for the fall of the empire, it wasnt just due to the political splitting; it had worked well under dioclatian, and a little known fact is that it was employed fairlyl early on; Marcus Aurlius himself had a similer system of where a trusted and capable general was given high command of the east while he went in and conqored a great deal of Germany (of course this was all given up when Commodus came to power), in the end, my own thoughts are that the empires falling apart are due mainlly to economic, and social reasons- the rise of the upperclass/lower class differencesin law that woudl set up th emiddle ages system, instead of the citizen/non citizen differencesin law, where all romans, regardless of wealth had the same rights was one, as it lead to abuses of power by the wealthy and powerful agianst citizens and non-citizens alike, and otherwise the collapse of the Roman economy was the single biggest factor in terms of economy, to these factors religious strife and even civil wars where the iceing on the cake, or rather, the single straw more that broke the camels back for too much weight.
 
Oh please XEN it is my life long ambition for you to take my post seriously. I could care less what you think I was not saying it to insult you I was being sarcastic. If I need to study history you need to study grammer b/c your spelling sucks "buddy" can't take a joke no problem. There is just to much sensitivity on this topic for me and I know why you have got to be a WOMEN no man could be so sensitive or so touchy and yes unable TO TAKE A JOKE. So with that I am done with this topic.
 
not sensitive about the topic, its just the subject in quesntion (late roman history) is a specialty feild, and interest of mine, and I enjoy shareign what i know about it, though if you feel the need to try to call me a "woman" (speaking of spelling you should take a look at your own) then I suggest you take a look in the mirror, as its only you who are over reacting.
 
I agree that Augustus should be included as one of the Roman leaders as he WAS the most influential and successful Roman leader in history. during his 40 some year reign he completely transformed the roman government from republic to empire, he was the first emperor, and he expanded the roman border to 90% of its height (excluding only brittain and mesopotamia). Not to mention he managed to rule for 40 years without assassination or civil war, an amazing feat in itself given the time. But personally I would prefere for him to replace ceasar, who didn't really do anything more than Marius or Sulla did (except conquer Gaul, which plenty of other romans conquered land). I would then put Cicero in as the second leaderhead after Augustus, personally finding him to be the pinnacle of the Republican leaders (though this point is arguable, the Grachii were also pretty cool, though they were assassinated after their terms of office).
Considering that they are unlikely to remove Ceasar though, I vote for Cicero as Augustus would be very similar to his predecessor, the traits for Ceasar actually match the historical Augustus better than the historical Ceasar.

(1/4 of my life devoted to study of Latin, Yeah!)
 
Just to comment on the discussion of the Fall of the Empire. It can't be pinned on any one thing. Internally: corruption, weak agrarian economy, social inequality and unrest, faulty political system to begin with and inept emperors often at the helm.
Externally: Barbarians underwent major social reform (mainly due to contact with Romans and service in Roman army, which became almost exclusively barbarian towards the end) which gave rise to powerful confederations and "kingdoms" of barbarians which stood a decent chance against Roman Legions unlike all the undisciplined mobs the Romans had been used to dealing with in the past.

Rome caused itself to fall through it's own actions and inadequacies, but it fell to outside invassions, it did not self distruct as ancient greece did in the pelopenesian war.

Plus Byzantium continued afterwards until 1400.
Plus the eldest daughter to the last Byzantium emperor married the Russian Czar, who proclaimed himself heir to the Roman empire, which did not fall untill the early 20th century.
So when did Rome fall anyways?
 
Quoted by Alathan
Is it just me, or does the Alexander leaderhead look a whole lot more like the "Augustus" drawing? My guess is they created the Augustus leaderhead first, but perhaps they ran out of time to create the Alexander leaderhead, so they decided to use the Augustus leaderhead for Alexander instead.

Yeh, it's just not you too. When the pics of Alexander first came out for CivIV, i thought, wow, that is odd. That's not the Alexander I've known from history and books. He had long, blondish hair right? And Macedonians didn't wear olive wreaths on their heads, unless they won the Olympics or something like that, but i associate wreaths/power symbol with the Romans. As for the backbround, you can easily tack that on.

This is what you get when you have to ship a game early!!!! I told you so!
Well, in the expansion pack, what they might do is hopefully replace Alexander with the 'rightful' face. Don't know how hard that could be, since all the games saved need to be edited and fixed up.

hey monkspider, can you enlarge the little pics of the other various leaders if possible?
 
kasner said:
Yeh, it's just not you too. When the pics of Alexander first came out for CivIV, i thought, wow, that is odd. That's not the Alexander I've known from history and books. He had long, blondish hair right? And Macedonians didn't wear olive wreaths on their heads, unless they won the Olympics or something like that, but i associate wreaths/power symbol with the Romans. As for the backbround, you can easily tack that on.

This is what you get when you have to ship a game early!!!! I told you so!
Well, in the expansion pack, what they might do is hopefully replace Alexander with the 'rightful' face. Don't know how hard that could be, since all the games saved need to be edited and fixed up.

hey monkspider, can you enlarge the little pics of the other various leaders if possible?

Even if I do enlarge them, they still look like crap. But don't worry, I will try to post larger pictures of them tommorrow.
 
zeeter said:
I don't like Augustus as the second roman leader. Augustus (nee Octavianus or Octavian) was basically Caesar's successor. His lasting contribution to Rome was that he ruled long enough to keep the "republic" together.

Are you kidding me? Augustus should be leader of Rome rather than Julius Caesar. He crushed every rebellion and ended every civil war, ushering in years of "peace" (the Roman way). He did far more than Caesar ever did toward forming what became the Roman Empire. He replenished Rome's treasury out of his own pocket, was the first Roman leader to pay landowners for their land rather than just kicking them off, instituted one of the earliest forms of welfare, created the Praetorian Guard, and opened trade up with East Asia. He held absolute power with the consent of the Senate (since he eliminated his political enemies early). He also reigned much longer than Caesar. The only reason Caesar is Rome's leader in the Civ games is he's easily identifiable.

I also think Augustus should replace Caesar. The other should be Trajan, or for a Republican leader, I'd go with Scipio Africanus.
 
I don't know if anyone else noticed this but the thumb of supposed Muhammad probobly really wasn't Muhammad. I'm sure the folks at Firaxis are aware that a depiction of Muhammad is um...slightly unorthodox in the Muslim world. In fact it can be really offensive. Muhammad actually banned any pictures of himself to be made. It probobly has something to do with the no idol worshipping creed. Anyway, Microsoft pulled a stunt like that with showing images of the Qur'an in a video game a few years back...lets just say it ended up in a Middle East wide boycott of Microsoft products.... So the question is who is that picture of?
 
Lucky The Fox said:
Naah. Almost all games have some unused junk in their files, no matter how finished it is.

Et tu, Coffeegate?
 
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