Historically Innaccurate Civ Traits?

[Theov]

You could also make the argument that America should be commercial & agricultural because of how much trade we participate in and how rich we are, combined with our farming tradition and great grain producing capabilities - but that just contributes to the point earlier by Overseer that every civilization has been each trait at some point in their history.

It's what poppes to my mind when I thin about it.
Commercial? Yes.
Rich? I will not make the joke.

 

[templar_x]

ok, at least you are going so far to accept the importance of byzantine science for the world. size was not a point of discussion. regarding the byzantines having themselves/being called "greeks" i already uttered it´s useless to discuss things everybody could learn from a mere wikipedia-article... i even looked it up for you, this time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantines

i didn´t understand the lincoln argument, then. he was elected to be the leader, so what? but then, taking into account your alexander-argument, it would be quite absurd to call lincoln the "ruler" or "leader" of the confederate states of america, right? even at a time when most of the south was taken by yankee troops, nobody would seriously say that.
and not to forget, sparta HAD a king while under macedonian supremacy and even the attic democracy lasted until macedonian troops took the city a second time and destroyed it...

and the difference between roman soldier kings and sweet joan is simply that the latter never actually CLAIMED power...

The Eastern Empire was a center of culture and science, but it was never as great as the Roman Empire itself. The decay of the Western Empire helped in that description. It was never called the 'Greek' part either.


ok, you got me there.


Joan d'Arc was the 'saviour' of France. leading armies can definitely make you a ruler, many Roman emporers were generals who overthrew the last emporer by force.


if you work by that logic, then Lincoln shouldnt be ruler of America.


There was never a unified ancient Greece, youre right there, but Alexander ruled Macedonia which conquered all of the other Greek city-states. therefore, Sparta was not a kingdom and Athens was not a democracy, they were under the control of Macedonia, not their own governments.

 

[Cattivo]

Commercial? Yes.
Rich? I will not make the joke.

I'm not sure I follow you. Our economy (and the rest of the world's) might be in a periodic downturn at the moment, but we still have the highest GDP on the planet and a very comfortable GDP per capita.

 

[capnvonbaron]

I too don't get why all of the "Native American" civs are agricultural. I guess Firaxis found it necessary to add a powerful trait to the heathen civs for parity purposes.

A large part of the RL mesoamerican tribes success was due to their farming practices and ability to draw a lot of food out of unfavorable terrain. They domesticated corn and some varieties of beans and gourds, including cocoa and vanilla which ended up being world hits. Really its the reason they actually grew into civilizations and didn't remain nomadic jungle tribes. I'm sure that if Cortez and Pizarro and the bunch didn't show up, the Aztec and Inca tribes would've done fine in expanding throughout the new world (the Maya died out for presumably for other reasons), although for other reasons they probably would still be immensely backwards technologically compared with old world civs. Anyways my argument is that they really were agricultural if not anything else. The agri trait in C3C is probably a bit unbalanced, much like industrial is in vanilla.

 

[Optional]

A large part of the RL mesoamerican tribes success was due to their farming practices and ability to draw a lot of food out of unfavorable terrain...Really its the reason they actually grew into civilizations and didn't remain nomadic jungle tribes.

Although that's true for every civilization that made it into our history books. A successful food cultivation lies at the start. You're touching here on how we understand the word 'civilization'.

 

[Theov]

I'm not sure I follow you. Our economy (and the rest of the world's) might be in a periodic downturn at the moment, but we still have the highest GDP on the planet and a very comfortable GDP per capita.

I wrote that at a bad moment. The US is religious now, but the constitution didn't want anything to do with religion.
I think the Americans are Commercial and Militaristic.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Although that's true for every civilization that made it into our history books. A successful food cultivation lies at the start. You're touching here on how we understand the word 'civilization'.

Well... yes and no. Some civs are branches of other more successful civs and don't have any farming claims to fame. Germans? Dutch? Romans? French? English? They all robbed grain and livestock practices from earlier civs and showed little agricultural innovation of their own. Americans included. Really many of the aforementioned probably rely more on commerce to keep them fed than any kind of agricultural means. Really in most cases those civs with agricultural might were just gifted with fertile land or natural, domestication-worthy crop and livestock starters that put them ahead of the game. Some civs made it into the history books because their agriculture abysmally failed and the whole civ split up or went under! Just more reasons that the agri trait in civ is somewhat controversial.

 

[Optional]

I think the Americans are Commercial and Militaristic.

I can see how you get to that view, but I have a different take on that. Sure, the USA is the world's number 1 military power now, and they're not afraid to use that power either, but still their society is not really much based upon their military organisation. While if you look at Sparta or Rome or the Mongols in their day, then you see that the whole civilization was much more structured around the military.
America always seems to have a commercial agenda. I would call them just commercial, and not much else. They're expansionist in the game, but why? They've only actively engaged themselves with the world around them for about 50 years just now, before that they were quite happy just being independant America, probably still looking for their own identity. Not surprisingly; the whole country as an independant nation only exists for just over 200 years, that's nothing in world history terms. Should they be in civ, you could ask.

And Capnvonbaron, you're of course right to say that the modern western European nations are not exactly the inventors of many basic agricultural techniques as they borrowed lots. But now they're forerunners, and have become exporters of knowledge, breeds, orginisational techniques and engineers. The Dutch are Agricultural in the game, well, you can hardly go anywhere in the world without seeing those Friesian-Holsteiner cows, they do a lot of groundbreaking engineering with their crop growing and manipulating - not always good - and their engineers are hired everywhere for drainage projects. Although it's not a very agricultural society. More commercial, like you say. It seems very hard to get around the commercial bit these days.

But I agree with Turner; this is a game and history is an inspiration for it, but it doesn't need to be a harnass. I'm also more concerned about agricultural being a bit too strong than which civ should have it and which not.

 

[Spoonwood]

They're expansionist in the game, but why? They've only actively engaged themselves with the world around them for about 50 years just now, before that they were quite happy just being independant America, probably still looking for their own identity. Not surprisingly; the whole country as an independant nation only exists for just over 200 years, that's nothing in world history terms. Should they be in civ, you could ask.

It does indeed come as true that America did not engage much in world affairs until the "great" wars. However, before that America certainly had an expansionist policy. The phrase "Manifest Destiny" often gets used to indicate this. America started off as 13 states and then took/bought/stole/whatever you want to say as to how America did it, and has 50 currently. The amount of territory annexed comes as larger than the 13 states and probably competes with many territorial expansions of any other world power throughout history. The game got made by Americans and probably originally had Americans as its target audience, so they've been in every version of civ.

Speaking of tribes in civ though, why in the world did it take until the civ III conquests expansion for the Sumerians to show up in any civ game, when they had a civilization before anyone else? I can hardly believe that Sid Meier and his crew just causally forgot about them, but who knows?

 

[capnvonbaron]

But now they're forerunners, and have become exporters of knowledge, breeds, orginisational techniques and engineers. The Dutch are Agricultural in the game, well, you can hardly go anywhere in the world without seeing those Friesian-Holsteiner cows, they do a lot of groundbreaking engineering with their crop growing and manipulating - not always good - and their engineers are hired everywhere for drainage projects. Although it's not a very agricultural society. More commercial, like you say. It seems very hard to get around the commercial bit these days.

But I agree with Turner; this is a game and history is an inspiration for it, but it doesn't need to be a harnass. I'm also more concerned about agricultural being a bit too strong than which civ should have it and which not.

That has much more to do with being scientific... yeah I said Dutch didn't I, whoops. Of any of the Europeans, they're about the only one I would probably say are agriculturally minded as a civ in general. But my point still stands with the rest. And your reiteration of Turner's point is still noteworthy. I wholeheartedly agree.

 

[Optional]

It weren't so much agricultural developments that lifted the western European countries out ot the middle ages and made them rise to prominence, if that's what your saying. By that time you had to do a bit more than grow a bean, bake a bread and go to church on sunday to be considered an advanced civilization, yup.

 

[Marsden]

America would never be religious because of the freedom of religon it has always had. Only civs with a very distinct state religion would be religious. Hinduism is very associated with India, but they have freedom of religion too, so I've contradicted myself there, but they have a much longer history were that kind of freedom didn't exist. Japan's society for many years was very much influenced by Shinto. In ancient Egypt, the one in the game which is not modern Egypt, the Paroh was supposed to be a god or elevated to one after death implying a strong link to a religion. Spainish were strongly Catholic, Arabs were strongly Muslim. I could go on but I don't want to.

Basically, the traits are things just so everything is not exactly the same as everything else. In Civ 2 I always played Germany because I liked the dark blue. In Civ 3 there's a little bit more to it than that.

 

[Cattivo]

The US is religious now, but the constitution didn't want anything to do with religion.

The US has always been religious (although secularism has reduced it somewhat recently, but compared to other secular countries, we're still very much more religious). Look at the quotations from every president in our history. Very early on, there were many state programs that sponsored religious education, and our founding fathers often spoke enthusiastically about the benefits of knowing the Bible well - in spite of any argument that they were more deist than Christian.

People seem to confuse freedom of religion with freedom from religion. The constitution's passages on religion are more to prevent the establishment of a state religion in order to avoid international wars based on religion and to allow people freedom of choice. We don't tell people what religion to practice, but we encourage the lessons learned from any sort of religious worship.

 

[Spoonwood]

The people of the U.S. may have and actually have had more religiousity than those of any other nation. However, Marsden's point makes them non-religious in terms of civilization, as the State itself has not (m)any official ties to religion (ones that have existed qualify as unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court, as well as lower courts, has heard such cases on more than one occasion... you really only need a cursory knowledge of Creationist history to know this). Quotations tell you the opinions of presidents... not necessarily the position of the State that they serve. Knowing the Judeo-Christian collection of books well certainly doesn't make you religious, as you can know it well and not really believe it... or you could know it well and have beliefs in some sort of other organized religion.

Freedom of religion means freedom from religious imposition.

 

[Argetnyx]

If you just look at the US, America can be considered all of the traits except religious and agricultural. It is (or was) industrious, expansionist, scientific, commercial, agricultural, and seafaring.

 

[Jokeslayer]

to prevent the establishment of a state religion

Wouldn't this make them non-religious as a country (basically equivalent to a civ for the modern ones) by definition?

 

[Cattivo]

Perhaps, but I would argue that a country can be religious without mandating the practice of one specific religion.

Quotations tell you the opinions of presidents... not necessarily the position of the State that they serve.

With the president being a leader and representative of the people, I find it hard to agree with that statement. The presidential inspiration for the very ideas of "thanksgiving" & manifest destiny, combined with the religious statements they have made to help the American people through tough times seems to indicate & reflect a religious spirit to the country's citizens themselves.

One or two presidents making religious statements is one thing, but once it becomes a pattern that has existed from the formation of the republic up to the present day, it becomes a characteristic of the country itself.

 

[Snarkhunter]

I'm sure that if Cortez and Pizarro and the bunch didn't show up, the Aztec and Inca tribes would've done fine in expanding throughout the new world (the Maya died out for presumably for other reasons), although for other reasons they probably would still be immensely backwards technologically compared with old world civs.

The Algonquin Federation, perhaps, but probably not the Aztec or Inca. And the Maya died off from eco-collapse, combined with a total lack of political unity. However, native American cultures would still have been hundreds (or even a thousand) of years behind the technical or political level of Europe or Asia, even had no one ever shown up on their doorsteps until the present day. Read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse for a full explication of these ideas.

kk

 

[Snarkhunter]

It weren't so much agricultural developments that lifted the western European countries out ot the middle ages and made them rise to prominence, if that's what your saying. By that time you had to do a bit more than grow a bean, bake a bread and go to church on sunday to be considered an advanced civilization, yup.

Well, in the first place, there wasn't really any "lifting" out of the Middle Ages, since they represent a higher level of achievement than the Renaissance in many important areas; it is not for nothing that Huizinga wrote about "the waning of the middle ages." And secondly, the agricultural developments post-Romans were indeed fundamental & vital in boosting the population & sustaining it. Bloch & Braudel can give one about a thousand year look at the subject, if combined, although Braudel is writing well after the period; still, his survey of what the agricultural situation was like depends on what came before.

kk

 

[Aegis]

America should be Religious and Militaristic.

Commercial & Scientific, imo.