Guns, GERMS, & Steel?... and CROP CITIES?

[Becephalus]

delete this duplicate

 

[Becephalus]

He was starting from about 11,000 BC when both areas were approximately equally well developed.

But this isn't true????

 

[Koheleth]

others, notably, many jungle civilizations in central and south america, as well as islander civilizations, not only had to contend with dense jungle, but the low calorie diet from the jungle fruits/ low calorie game/high calories required in subsiting in those environments, and also most importantly, a lack of animal muscle power. (no horses in the new world)

I thought it was pretty well accepted that hunter gatherers actually ate better than early "civilized" commoners. Hunter gatherers got nutrients, vitamins, proteins and fats from fruit, nuts & meat. Most people in early "civilized" societies subsisted on empty calories like bread and grains.

 

[Louis XXIV]

But this isn't true????

I'm pretty sure the New World migration period was over by then. The thing to keep in mind is that, for the overwhelming period of human history, speed of progress was glacial. Actually, this is a misnomer, since glaciers were common back then and we know that they moved at a speed faster than human progress Level of advancement before large stable human populations were about the same in the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa (this is before the Polynesian expansion, iirc). They certainly were similar enough where, for the purpose of such a broad book, it was reasonable to simplify them as being equal for comparison afterward.

I think (limits of current science aside) there's a pretty good argument to be made for the north-south axis of the Americas plus the greater difficulty in domesticating plants were big factors in a so-called late start for American civilizations (greater than any impact of migration time). The migration was actually more useful in the lack of domesticated animals, since it seems quite likely that humans killed off most large mammals in the Americas.

 

[1889]

Hate to be simplistic but everyone above is correct in the overall idea that this is a game. While smallpox and all the other diseased the Europeans brought with them helped them out immensely in taking over the Americas, it wasn't all that "fun" for the indigenous people.

So the idea has already been play tested really and found to be unenjoyable and unbalancing.

 

[ChaplainDMK]

I don't like the pandemic idea you have, but i would still like to have Civ IVs healthiness come back so you could have pandemics (late game maybe even have an ability to launch a biological weapon that starts a pandemic?)
But I totaly agree with the global food and moving of livestock.
They should make a tech, somewhere in the classical age where you could start to plant special resources like cattle and wheat around. Maybe have it so that cattle and wheat are like strategic resources and you have a limited ammount of them, but they would increase each turn, and you could order cow pastures to focus on either food or new cattle.
So that would also balance out the early game but increase the speed of the late game.

 

[Becephalus]

The first recorded settlements in the majority of the Americas are from 12,000bc or so. You are really going to argue that there wasn't a technological advantage for the people living in an area where humans had been living in decent densities for 100,000 years?

Almost all of the foundational advancements we can find occur immediately after this period in the three hearths.

I think it is easy to think after the fact that these areas were somehow easier to domesticate, but I think the ease of domestication had more as much to do with familiarity and heavy competition as it did the native features of the environment.

 

[Tee Kay]

Totally ignoring the fact that most diseases were, are and will be spread via vermin and pests. Heck even Bill Gates talked about what great germ warfare carriers those flying syringes , the mosquito makes.

AIDS, smallpox, influenza, cholera?

I think Diamond underestimated the simple effect of time. The people who settled the Americas were more primitive culturally than the people living in the middle east at the same time. They were still growing horizontally across the landscape, not competing for limited resources in the established communities of the middle east or lowland china.

Were they? Mesoamerica and the Andes suggests otherwise.

 

[cr0ws]

The advancement of Europe was mainly fueled by thirst for breathing space, long history of greco-roman colonization mindsets, and the brutal advancement and abuse of ships and gunpowders. This is augmented by the christians zeals to spread their faiths (or churches?) that have been many times perverted by making churces act like colonial forces (albeit without weapons, but money and faiths).

Wrong wrong wrong, europe's plutocracy and elitists and it's need for resources and control over them is one of the main reasons why europe spread, christianity is just an excuse to prepare other indigenous people for colonization, also europe's diversity and ethnic struggles for power within itself forces many people to migrate to other lands.

After the world war 2 they came to a conclusion that it was not necessary to land grab for resources, but far more effective for global conquest to just go for the resources (which is why "capitalism" and "democracy" was so widely advertised) especially energy resources since it is a deciding factor of a third world transition into a market competing industrial nation.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The first recorded settlements in the majority of the Americas are from 12,000bc or so. You are really going to argue that there wasn't a technological advantage for the people living in an area where humans had been living in decent densities for 100,000 years?

Almost all of the foundational advancements we can find occur immediately after this period in the three hearths.

I think it is easy to think after the fact that these areas were somehow easier to domesticate, but I think the ease of domestication had more as much to do with familiarity and heavy competition as it did the native features of the environment.

The problem is Africa vastly invalidates that hypothesis, while it is much less of a gap, you don't see the most advanced civilizations in the world appearing in sub saharan Africa... where "people" had been dwelling for as long as there were people. (there is less of a gap partially because SSAfrica was better than the Americas, but also becase it was slightly connected with Eurasia... idea bled back and forth... even though their wasn't competition between the two groups.