Historically Innaccurate Civ Traits?

[capnvonbaron]

Commercial & Scientific, imo.

Right now, I'd agree. Back in Lincoln's time, though, my vote is still expansionist (for the movement westward at the time) and industrious (because of the rise of the industrial era happening at the time, at least in some areas of the states). And in Washington's time? I'd say religious and agricultural, since nearly the entire population of the states was basically puritan or protestant farmers. Does "this nation, under God" sound like a familiar phrase to anyone??

 

[Aegis]

Right now, I'd agree. Back in Lincoln's time, though, my vote is still expansionist (for the movement westward at the time) and industrious (because of the rise of the industrial era happening at the time, at least in some areas of the states).

If we're doing it based on the leader's timeframe, I would agree with Expansionist and Industrial.

If the US were mainly a Religious country, there would not be such huge amounts of debauchery in our media and entertainment.

Our religious officials speaking about God is just them pandering to the religious voter base. A lot of Americans may say that they're Christian, Jewish, etc. but they certainly don't attend church on a regular basis or practice what the church teaches. Religious holidays have been commercialized to the point where they have all but lost their religious meaning. Christmas is about Santa Claus, presents and being together with your family. Easter is about candy, bunnies and springtime. America is mildly religious, at best.

There is no way we can seriously compare the USA to a real religious nation, such as Iran, while maintaining a straight face.

 

[Pyrrhos]

IF you want any sort of accuracy, some tribes would have several traits, others but a single one or even none. A few examples:

Greece should be Scientific + Religious + Militaristic + Seafaring
Rome - Militaristic + Commercial + Agricultural + Industrious + Religious
China - Scientific + Agricultural + Industrious + Commercial
Scandinavia - Militaristic + Scientific + Commercial + Seafaring
England - Seafaring + Militaristic + Commercial + Scientific
Aztecs - Religious + Militaristic
Iroquoise - err, nah! Extinctionistic perhaps

Then again, it's just a game...

 

[Cattivo]

True enough Aegis.

 

[capnvonbaron]

There is no way we can seriously compare the USA to a real religious nation, such as Iran, while maintaining a straight face.

Oh yes -- I agree completely with your point. Right now the US is hardly religious. It is moreso than many European nations though, at least in intention... but I'm saying "religious/agri" back in the time of our founding fathers. Back then, half of the immigrants to the US were seeking religious freedom, and thusly took their religion VERY seriously. But this all just goes to show that most civs go through many cycles of changing their "traits" as the years go byand also further emphasizing the point that CIV IS NOT REAL LIFE. Frankly, I don't even know why I keep checking this thread since it has morphed into something that has absolutely nothing to do with gameplay anymore.

 

[Aegis]

But this all just goes to show that most civs go through many cycles of changing their "traits" as the years go by

Yes, that certainly does happen when hundreds/thousands of years go by. And yes, I would agree that the US is more religious than it's European neighbors.

Back on-topic, I have wondered some combinations as well but game-play should come before realism. I like that there are so few nations that share a certain combination of traits.

I always thought China should be Agricultural/Industrious.

 

[Argetnyx]

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

Yes, probably the Inca. They were pretty advanced for an American civilization, they did have farming, and had quite advanced road systems and construction techniques. Who says that you need to be as advanced as the 'Old World' people to control large areas of land. Being a Civ3 player, im sure you already know this, unless you've just started...

Oh man, we had to watch those Guns, Germs, and Steel videos in school a few times while there was a sub, it wasn't all that bad, just kinda boring.

 

[Spoonwood]

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.

The spirit of a country's citizens preferably will not get confused with positions of a State *especially in a constitutional democracy like the United States of America*. If you took the time, you could probably find a majority of citizens would have a spirit such that the "good" of the many would outweigh the good of the few to the point where they would vote to trample on basic rights of individuals in many, many cases (tyranny of the majority). However, as it stands, the law of the State (largely) prohibits this. The position of the United States has almost always overtly come as one to prevent cases which fall under tyranny of majority.

 

[Snarkhunter]

Yes, probably the Inca. They were pretty advanced for an American civilization, they did have farming, and had quite advanced road systems and construction techniques. Who says that you need to be as advanced as the 'Old World' people to control large areas of land. Being a Civ3 player, im sure you already know this, unless you've just started...

Oh man, we had to watch those Guns, Germs, and Steel videos in school a few times while there was a sub, it wasn't all that bad, just kinda boring.

No, probably not. They would have had real difficulty expanding through the Amazon watershed, for example. And they were in the throes of a dynastic struggle when the Europeans showed up. And their crop selection was fairly limited, as was the case in all the Americas. I don't know anything about those videos (& wouldn't recommend them if I did); I'm talking reading the books. If you do, you'll wind up with a whole new appreciation of the obstacles native American civs faced compared to European ones. And you'll be depressed as hell after reading Collapse, but if you want to cut it in the 21st century, you'd better know what it is saying--your way of life is about to end, like it or not (& whether anything better comes along to replace it or not).

kk

 

[Argetnyx]

And how many times did the Europeans encounter dynastic troubles?

 

[capnvonbaron]

I don't know anything about those videos (& wouldn't recommend them if I did); I'm talking reading the books. If you do, you'll wind up with a whole new appreciation of the obstacles native American civs faced compared to European ones. And you'll be depressed as hell after reading Collapse, but if you want to cut it in the 21st century, you'd better know what it is saying--your way of life is about to end, like it or not (& whether anything better comes along to replace it or not).

Collapse is very depressing that way, yes. But is definitely a worthwhile read, if just for the perspective. G,G&S just makes me want to play Civ more

And I've seen the video version... it sucks, doesn't do a great job at conveying the book's finer points, and is very preachy about "human caused global warming", which J.Diamond thankfully doesn't prod into beyond what is readily observable. Read the book, skip the vidjas.

 

[capnvonbaron]

And how many times did the Europeans encounter dynastic troubles?

All the time. But they didn't ever have a civilization that was hundreds of years ahead in technology, armed with advanced warfare tactics and germs and bent on their societies' destruction descend on them during those times. They also had the advantage of being settled for thousands of years prior to the time the Incas and Aztecs really got going.

 

[Argetnyx]

That was kinda my point...

 

[CarthageFTW]

I have to say I've greatly disagreed with the traits of America in Civ. I think they should be commercial and militaristic, and that the leader should be not Lincoln, but in fact FDR. While sure, during the time of Lincoln we were expanding westward and you could argue expansion, most of U.S history has been surrounded by war and economics: War of 1812, California gold rush, Civil War, WWI, WWII, The Great Depression, Oil Production, just to name a few. One could also argue that America should be Scientific, considering we are behind most modern inventions dating almost back to 1800: The telephone, the internet (although the Swedish could claim this one as well), electricity, airplanes, the atomic bomb, the elevator, modern hair products, the traffic light, the list goes on and on and on and on.

 

[battleaxe]

Commercial & Scientific, imo.

I agree. I think in determining a civ's traits you have to look at what got them to and sustained them in a powerful position in the world, or what typified their culture during their golden age. For me, America got to where they are now via wealth and a technological edge. I think being the first to develop The A-Bomb and the way they showed off their technical leadership through the space race with the USSR demonstrates their scientific trait very well. In the modern era, I can't think how a civ could be scientific without being commercial seeing scientific leadership is really just a matter of pouring more money into education and research.

Also worth considering when you're assigning a trait to a civ, is can you think of a 'wonder' associated with the trait that the civ posses?

EDIT: And furthermore, I'd also suggest that as a first step we should agree when a civ's golden age is. Is America included in Civ because of its dominance post WW2 to now, or because of its expansion in the times of Lincoln? I'd go with the former and suggest that picking a leader is really just a matter of choosing between the various prominent leaders in a Civ's lifetime. The existance of a prominent leader doesn't necessarily have to coincide with the era in which a civ was considered to be in its golden age.

The leader/golden age/civ trait arrangement also raises the question of would Civ5 be better if players could not only pick a civ but also pick a leader, and that the traits were associated with the leader, not the civ. E.g. I could play as America as Lincoln (say expansionist, religeous) or as America as Bush (say militaristic, religeous) or as JFK (say commercial, scientific) or as Roosevelt (scientific, industrious).

Please don't bother arguing about which trait should go with which president, or which presidents should be in the game...

 

[Jokeslayer]

Please don't bother arguing about which trait should go with which president, or which presidents should be in the game...

Didn't you just sit there and argue about what america's traits should be and which leader they should have?

Personally, gameplay is far more important to me than realism. As long as it's reasonably balanced and varied, I don't care. The names are really only labels.

 

[Snarkhunter]

. . . . One could also argue that America should be Scientific, considering we are behind most modern inventions dating almost back to 1800: The telephone, the internet (although the Swedish could claim this one as well), electricity, airplanes, the atomic bomb, the elevator, modern hair products, the traffic light, the list goes on and on and on and on.

I don't think I would argue that inventiveness = scientific. . . especially if one of the supports for the argument is "modern hair products" Certainly, Europe was inventive during the 19th century & easily led in both pure & applied science until the diaspora surrounding Hitler's Germany--many of the Manhattan Project theorists were transplanted Europeans (& the key experiments had been done in Europe). Although even that was more an instance of technology rather than basic science.

I've just finished my 3rd semester of basic physics. The only important early experimental result achieved in America that I can recall is Millikan's oil drop electron charge experiment. Well, maybe Michaelson-Morley's negative result for aether should count. And Americans get much better represented in astronomy, IIRC. But cutting edge physics--that was all Europe until well into last century. Maxwell, Faraday, Kelvin, Hertz, Rutherford, Thompson, Einstein, Planck, Bohr, Helmholtz, Heisenberg, Schroedinger--all Europeans.

kk

 

[Pyrrhos]

One could also argue that America should be Scientific, considering we are behind most modern inventions dating almost back to 1800: The telephone, the internet (although the Swedish could claim this one as well), electricity, airplanes, the atomic bomb, the elevator, modern hair products, the traffic light, the list goes on and on and on and on.

Err...

I think you'll find that most of the great scientific advances of the 20th century actually stem from the immense investment in education made by Imperial Germany during the late 19th Century. A good example of this is Velcro and Computers. Both originate with the Space Race and all the important research, with the exception of Tsiolkowsky, was done by German scientists at Peenemünde captured by the USA or the USSR at the end of the war. Stalin reportedly once said "Are their Germans better than ours?".

The Atom Bomb - spot the genuine American in this list:
* Bohr (Denmark)
* Rutherford (Great Britain)
* Fermi (Italy)
* Teller (Austria-Hungary)
* Fuchs (Germany)

Historically, there are three traits that fit America (USA):
1. Religious. The reason most colonists emigrated to the New World was in order to be able to practice their beliefs. Up until the mid-18th Century, religious belief was the driving force behind the settlement of the North American continent.
2. Commercial. The reason the USA was born was purely commercial and the USA has remained faithful to Mammon ever since. Today, it's the chief trait.
3. Expansionistic. Of all the Civ civs, America is the one that fits the description most closely. A whole continent was settled in less than 50 years (1830-80). Chicago is a great example of this - in 1830 a small trade post of 200 souls, by 1844 a small town of some 5,000 and a city of a million by 1865.

 

[Pyrrhos]

Scandinavia is an example of how difficult it is to determine exactly which traits a civ should be assigned.

c. 800-1200AD Three main branches of "vikings" - Dane, Norse and Swede. All three were extremely religious, but their religion was a battle religion. The Dane and Nors vikings could be said to be expansionistic and seafaring as they settled Normandie (literrally "Nord mand", North Man) and Anglia a.k.a Danelaw. The Swede vikings were mainly seafaring and commercial and founded a vast empire of trading posts in the east along the great rivers leading to Byzantion from the Baltic. Words such as "Russia", "Gorod" and "Novgorod" are of direct Swedish origin.

c. 1500-1850. The Scandinavian countries were, like most of Europe, in the grip of a religious movement known as pietism, only more so. They believed that whatever happened, feast or famine, was a direct result of Divine reward or retribution and that the only way to react to national disaster was atonement and prayer. Furthermore, during the 17th Century, Sweden was a Great Power in European affairs based on its military prowess.

c. 1750-1950 Per capita, Sweden and Denmark produced more outstanding scientists and engineers than any other nation on Earth before or since. Not even Great Britain or France can compete (national pride has insured the school children in Anglo-Saxon countries learn the name Priestly as the discoverer of Oxygen and not W Scheele).
[Norway was a Danish province up to 1814 and part of Sweden 1814-1905. Finland, which had been Swedish for almost a thousand years was lost to Russia 1809 and gained its independence in 1918]

So, in Civ terms, what would you choose for Scandinavia? Militaristic? Religious? Scientific? Commercial? Seafaring? Expansionistic? A case could be made for any of them...

 

[Snarkhunter]

Historically, there are three traits that fit America (USA):
1. Religious. The reason most colonists emigrated to the New World was in order to be able to practice their beliefs. Up until the mid-18th Century, religious belief was the driving force behind the settlement of the North American continent.
2. Commercial. The reason the USA was born was purely commercial and the USA has remained faithful to Mammon ever since. Today, it's the chief trait.
3. Expansionistic. Of all the Civ civs, America is the one that fits the description most closely. A whole continent was settled in less than 50 years (1830-80). Chicago is a great example of this - in 1830 a small trade post of 200 souls, by 1844 a small town of some 5,000 and a city of a million by 1865.

All 3 of these are suspect. Number 1 is more true of New England than anywhere else, but New England isn't the majority of America. Jamestown certainly wasn't founded for religious reasons; I'd put the cut off date a good century earlier than you for religion as an important driving force behind colonization. And while much is made of American religiosity today, it differed little from Europe throughout the 19th century; even today, it is more a surface show than anything else.

Number 2 is a canard; there are many more commercially driven societies than America in the world today, & America is certainly too complicated to be tagged with commercial as its chief characteristic.

Number 3 has merit, but Spain spread further than America, and England spread faster in the late 19th century. (If it comes to it, Ghenghis expanded faster than anyone.) So I wouldn't say that America is the most expansionistic of the Civ civs, though expansionist would be a reasonable game trait to give it.

To go along with expansionist, I'd go with ag as well. America was definitely an agrarian society until the last quarter of the 19th century, and even then, most people were in the country if not outright on the farm until, o, WWII-ish. The expansionism you talked about was fueled by land hunger, a plentiful supply of land, and government policy that made it easy to settle. Even the industrial expansion of the 19th moved first to support the agrarian nature of the country with improved tools & infrastructure to move goods from farm to market.

I suppose you could add industrial as well, but no more so than many other civs--do we have an expansionist/industrial civ in the game? If not, then maybe that would be a better (and moderately justifiable) change for the game.

kk