Kalimakhus
Emperor
- Joined
- May 8, 2007
- Messages
- 1,249
Wow! This thread has got way long! So allow me to jump in.
If the question is “Do the Hebrews deserve to be represented in the game?” my answer is clear, Yes! As any other historic people that made their contributions to the human civilization.
On the other hand if the question is put a little differently as in “Firaxis must include a Hebrew civilization”, I should answer No. there is no “Must” here.
Of course the discussion here has gone so far beyond the simple question put either way. In fact some parts of this thread are way beyond the spirit of the game as I understand it. In my view Civilization is about one sole civilization aka the Human Civilization that evolved through history by the accumulation of an endless number of contributions that people of all races, cultures, countries, religions, … have made.
If it occurs to you to play at say Settler difficulty your civ would establish all religions and build all wonders! This is not a pointless concept. Human accomplishments are “well” human. It happened that this or that people was in the right place, time, mode, and circumstances to make such and such achievement. There is nothing genetically magical about ancient Egyptians or Sumerians that aided them in being the oldest sedentary civilizations that left their mark on history. There might have been older civilizations that went out of existence without leaving enough evidence of their achievements.
In my view, there is no unique people. There are people under unique circumstances that accordingly acted in a unique way. Let’s take the Hebrews. Imagine that no major religion was based on the Hebrew tradition. If there was no Christianity, nor Islam. Would Hebrews attain the same recognition of their achievements? They would still had these achievements but less people would have recognize them.
A great deal of history as we know it depends entirely on one turning point here and there. If things went a little differently at one or more of these points we would have quit a different history to debate right now. On the other hand many human achievements were possible under different circumstance in different places of the world so much to say that they were inevitable. That is to say if one people failed to accomplish this achievement another would have done sometime later. To conclude this point, there was a great chance to have a different sequence of events i.e. history, but there was a little chance that we wouldn’t make the same scientific, philosophical, and moral achievements.
History is circumstantial, Civilization is inevitable. That is it!
Oh! By the way don’t forget to enjoy the game the way you like. If you miss this or that civ, get a mod pack that includes it. If none has it, request it and there may be someone who would do it for you. Otherwise go learn some modding it is not that hard to add one or more civs. For Israel in particular, it is already in more than one mod pack. Being an Egyptian I let lose my irrational feelings and I enjoyed conquering Israel razing Tel Aviv and keeping Jerusalem!! I was playing ViSa mod pack of course. So people are welcome to play Israel and conquer Egypt or Arabia, it is a game after all.
If the question is “Do the Hebrews deserve to be represented in the game?” my answer is clear, Yes! As any other historic people that made their contributions to the human civilization.
On the other hand if the question is put a little differently as in “Firaxis must include a Hebrew civilization”, I should answer No. there is no “Must” here.
Of course the discussion here has gone so far beyond the simple question put either way. In fact some parts of this thread are way beyond the spirit of the game as I understand it. In my view Civilization is about one sole civilization aka the Human Civilization that evolved through history by the accumulation of an endless number of contributions that people of all races, cultures, countries, religions, … have made.
If it occurs to you to play at say Settler difficulty your civ would establish all religions and build all wonders! This is not a pointless concept. Human accomplishments are “well” human. It happened that this or that people was in the right place, time, mode, and circumstances to make such and such achievement. There is nothing genetically magical about ancient Egyptians or Sumerians that aided them in being the oldest sedentary civilizations that left their mark on history. There might have been older civilizations that went out of existence without leaving enough evidence of their achievements.
In my view, there is no unique people. There are people under unique circumstances that accordingly acted in a unique way. Let’s take the Hebrews. Imagine that no major religion was based on the Hebrew tradition. If there was no Christianity, nor Islam. Would Hebrews attain the same recognition of their achievements? They would still had these achievements but less people would have recognize them.
A great deal of history as we know it depends entirely on one turning point here and there. If things went a little differently at one or more of these points we would have quit a different history to debate right now. On the other hand many human achievements were possible under different circumstance in different places of the world so much to say that they were inevitable. That is to say if one people failed to accomplish this achievement another would have done sometime later. To conclude this point, there was a great chance to have a different sequence of events i.e. history, but there was a little chance that we wouldn’t make the same scientific, philosophical, and moral achievements.
History is circumstantial, Civilization is inevitable. That is it!
Oh! By the way don’t forget to enjoy the game the way you like. If you miss this or that civ, get a mod pack that includes it. If none has it, request it and there may be someone who would do it for you. Otherwise go learn some modding it is not that hard to add one or more civs. For Israel in particular, it is already in more than one mod pack. Being an Egyptian I let lose my irrational feelings and I enjoyed conquering Israel razing Tel Aviv and keeping Jerusalem!! I was playing ViSa mod pack of course. So people are welcome to play Israel and conquer Egypt or Arabia, it is a game after all.
I don't think anyone thought they were good choice, though the UU ( forgot spelling) looks really cool =]
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