How about CIV stop being RACIST!!!

[brennan]

I believe I shall buck the trend and post on-topic!

I for one would like to see the ancient Zimbabwean and Ethiopian civilisations represented, in addition to the Malinese.

And just to throw in some confusion check this website out. Some particularlt interesting lines include:

"An African tribe in the extreme north of South Africa, the Lembas, has a tradition that its male ancestry originally comprised "white people from over the sea who came to southeast Africa to obtain gold".

A few years ago, Tudor Parfitt and his colleagues at the University of London established a DNA match between the Lemba tribe and people in the Hadramaut region of the Yemen. Particularly surprising was the discovery that members of the most senior Lemba clan displayed the Cohen Modal Haplotype, which is a distinctive feature of Jewish priesthood. "

I have to say, this website, and some others connected to it look decidedly biased to me and I would not wish to state in any way that I believe or endorse the conclusions they have made. This was the first thing that caught my eye in a quick internet search for 'Ancient Zimbabwe' on Google.

 

[henry k c]

I think it's unfair that the majority of civs in the game are european. There are too few african civs, that is true. The reason is not because africans were uncivilized, but because americans descended from europeans know little about african civilization.

 

[Atrebates]

... Out of this evolved the manorial system of fiefs and serfs and later the feudal system of vassals, but in essence serfs derived from slaves, who derived from the free coloni farmers which could only flourish under the Pax Romana, until the time of the freeholder and Yeoman-type classes.

Which is why I said slavery in its true form. I'm not saying the serf system was great fun for the serfs but they were not slaves. Once Rome (and the immediate effects of its downfall) are out of the way I do not believe there was slavery (generally) in Europe, I might be wrong.

But note that serfs were not property of their lords (and therefore not slaves- you could not go to market and buy one) and serfdom was the eminent system in europe (or at least the european nations included in the game)

 

[Hengest]

It sucks because the game is so easily modified to whatever civilization you want. I usually call my civ 'the cosmonaughts' with 'cosmonaise' as an adjective. I name my cities bizarre names like 'morley safer' and 'north morley safer' and 'Blegenstadtbergenhausenjurgenblergen.' My leader is 'Sanchez El Magnifico.'

Also, the Zulu civ seems to represent what historians call the 'bantu' people. They originally came from present day Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, etc.. They spread all over the entirety of subsaharan Africa and became every group, tribe, etc of modern subsaharan Africa. I'm so sick of racial politics and immensly dissappointed that they have wormed their way into this website. Oh yeah, and I cite "Traditions and Encounters. Volume 1: From the Beginnings to 1500." by Bentley and Ziegler. This was my textbook for world history 101.

 

[Warlord Sam]

The original post was wrong on many accounts. The celtic peoples had a rich culture, and no modern historian considers them cultureless savages. Likewise, the mongolian tribes of the steppes had a culture of their own, based entirely on their horses. besides which, I really do believe that if a group of peoples can conquer half the world, and topple the greatest empire of their day and age (china), then I do believe they deserve their own tribe in any Civ game.

Irregardless, the original poster has a valid claim; there were several sub-saharan african tribes that deserve to be among Civ tribes as much as other civilizations. Their names escape me, as I am primarily an East Asian historian focussing on modern cultural studies. In any case, it is completely incorrect to have the poll as-is; it is not in question whether or not Africa had more cultures than the "zulu", but rather it would be more appropriate to ask if people think that there deserves to be at least one additional sub-saharan african tribe.

In reality, however, not much is known about these sub-saharan african tribes. For one, the environment is not very conducive towards preserving structures and items left behind by vanished civilizations. Egypt's dry climate with sparse vegetation is perfect for leaving behind artifacts, but as you go further south and get into the lush jungles, ancient ruins tend to disappear into the jungles and/or underground as it sinks into the moist soil.

Its not some racist conspiracy that keeps these tribes from the forefront of history, at least not totally. A large part of it is a simple lack of knowledge, due to the difficulty in finding remnants of the civilizations, and also because of the lack of infrastructure that would assist in searching for those civs. Which naturally is because of the same reason in the first place.

 

[brennan]

I think we have to resign ourselves to the fact that there will be a limited selection of civs, and hope for either an official expansion with more, or that we can trust CFC modders to post some good stuff. I think we rely on that

 

[DrMadd]

The Problem with Roman Accounts of the Celts was that Rome liked to make up stuff about countries that they fought.

Actually, if you read "Ivanhoe"-(And yes, I know it was written long after the fact, but Walter Scott was pretty good at research, and You do read of it in historical accounts)- Black Slavery seems to have originated in the Middle East. Many crusaders brought back "Moorish" servants. Hmmm.. Wonder where they got that idea?

To the Leprechaun: I'll ask you this, now: What became of said sub-Saharan empires?
Where did they go? The same could be said of the Maya, but we know the Maya are still around in small Pockets in Yucatan and in Central America. What became of the Songhai, the Mali, and some of the others? The Nubians I can see, the Zulu-(As they are the first major culture outside Egypt and Carthage on the continent to make waves outside Africa. )


Moderator Action: DrMadd, this is your final warning to stop posting multiple posts after one another. The other posts have been deleted and merged. Next time I see that you will get 3 days ban.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[brennan]

The same thing happened to the African cultures that happened to the American ones: they got colonised by ravening European Christian Empires and forgotten.

 

[DrMadd]

Then what effect did they really have outside Africa?

 

[brennan]

The Malinese civ that is being featured in Civ4 were an important link in the trade routes of the ancient world, they produced Salt, which was literally worth its weight in gold as a commodity, and exported it to Europe and the far east via Egypt and Asia Minor. In the (european) middle ages the city of Timbuktu was the cultural centre of Islamic Sub-Saharan Africa and a forbidden city to Europeans for hundreds of years.

The Nubian civilisations South of Egypt also existed from antiquity and warred and traded with the Egyptians, so also were on the trade routes. I believe ivory was an imortant commodity here.

They were as important in terms of trade as the Chinese in the East, but they were just too distant to make much of an impact on European history, not because they were a long way away, but because they were on the other side of the sahara and in return they did not benefit from the renaissance in technology that followed, they fell behind and were eventually swallowed up by the colonial powers.

 

[frekk]

Which is why I said slavery in its true form. I'm not saying the serf system was great fun for the serfs but they were not slaves. Once Rome (and the immediate effects of its downfall) are out of the way I do not believe there was slavery (generally) in Europe, I might be wrong.

Well, the Roman social order didn't break down all at once, like the collapse of communism or something like that. The Roman way of life continued along as the central and social order slowly broke down, gradually evolving into feudalism. So, there was plenty of slavery out in the provinces even after the Western Empire's control of these areas was only notional, and even after the complete collapse of Roman institutions.

Serfs were not slaves because by that point, the institution on the estates had changed and serfs won a number of concessions over time by appealing to a kind of custom system of precedence. Too, slavery as an institution depending on an institutional structure for it (otherwise slaves might just wander off and away from the estate and become free, in effect, since there was no authority to which owners might appeal to track down and return their property and they would have to go out and re-enslave these individuals).

However, there were slaves even after the Roman style institution of slavery had disappeared or transformed, largely being acquired from Slavic populations rather than local indebted farmers or the like. This was of course a different kind of slavery than Roman slavery, and would conform more strongly to the brutal images we associate with slavery. Roman slaves were sometimes treated brutally but also had certain rights and protections, were paid for their labour, could buy their own freedom after a time, and even functioned in important capacities at times in junior administrative positions. The majority of the Roman slave population more resembled the kind of indentured white slavery of the early colonial period, which is why it was able to evolve into serfdom.

But note that serfs were not property of their lords (and therefore not slaves- you could not go to market and buy one) and serfdom was the eminent system in europe (or at least the european nations included in the game)

Yes, but this was a development which occurred over time, not suddenly, much like the collapse of Rome itself, it was a gradual transformation.

 

[Warlord Sam]

What effect did the native american cultures have outside of their regions in n. or s. america (respectively)? What effect did Carthage have outside of the mediterranean? What effect did the celtic peoples have outside of Europe? Korea, outside of the Korean penninsula (and to a smaller extent, China and Japan)? Many, many peoples did not have impact on the entire world, yet they were a culture that was distinct and rich (culturally speaking) enough to be included as a notable civilization of the world.

In reality, no culture has achieved greatness through their own merits. Read a book by Jared Rice, "Guns, Germs, and Steel", if you are genuinely curious about what I mean.

Basically, its all about the location. Peoples cultures were shaped by their environments, and some environments were suited just right for dominance in a particular era. The progression of technology has made it so that the more recent a culture, the more possible it was for a larger, broader impact on the world at large.

As for what happened to those cultures, they fell for various reasons, be it internal conflict or the arrival of European powers. Does that for some reason make them no longer valid as civilizations? Just because they didn't have the impact of the Roman Empire? I daresay they did have such an impact, on the area in which they existed. Many modern African tribes have changed little from their ancient predecessors, in terms of culture. Excepting the changes due to technology, of course; I am speaking in general terms of "flavor" rather than "practice".

 

[DrMadd]

Well, The Iroquois influenced a certain group of English settlers, when they sat down one day to write a constitution. Let's see. John F. Kennedy was an Irishman. Rockefeller was a Scot. It was mostly Irishmen and Chinese who built the Trans-continental railway in the United States. Korea fought a war that dragged England, the US, France, China, Turkey, Greece and numerous others into it. Japan declared war on a North American Power. It doesn't invalidate them as Civilizations. What it does do, is disqualify them as Civ-4 worthy civilizations.

 

[Civlord]

The zulu, the xhosa, the ku****es (from Sudan) and Mali. These should be the African Civilizations, along with Egypt and Carthage.

I would say that Civilization has too few civilizations at all, for marketing reasons. They want you to buy their expansion packs, and in the end you only feel frustrated because a particularly important civilization still is not in the game. My suggestion is not to wipe out some civilizations for other, "more important", cultures. Portugal was very important because of sea exploration, the Hittites were the first people to work the iron in the Mid-East, they had signed, with the Egyptians, the first Peace Treaty ever documented in the world. Surely the Koreans were also important too. You should not wipe them, rather only adding more civilizations. It's an absurd that the "vanilla" version of Civ IV will only have 18 civilizations, because we need a lot more in the game to accurately represent all the important peoples and societies that once lived in this world.

 

[Civlord]

There is something wrong with the "shi" combination of letters.

 

[rhialto]

There is something wrong with the "shi" combination of letters.

If you consider the letter you wrote immediately after those three, you'll understand why the smut filters went berserk.

 

[Atrebates]

I understand the frustration of being limited by 18 cultures but chances are most people will never use all 18. More than that is great for accurately representing civilisations but won't necessarily offer any significant gaming improvement

 

[FieldMarshall]

Well, I haven't been here in 10 days (looked around, yes, but only for a moment). I'm happy to see that this thread has, for the most part, gotten off of the whole Hannibal thing.

Now, time to rejoin to discussion.

I myself haven't seen the list of the civs that will be included in Civ IV, but mind you all, these 18 civs need to be abe to accuratly cover 5 different [general] cultures; American, European, Asian, Arab, and African. Though that'd mean that each region would automatically "recieve" at least 5 civs, not everyone of these regions had 5 civs that played a pivitoal part in the course of history. As I see it, all of the civs in Civilization are in the game because each contributed to world history, whether it be the Romans, the Greeks, the British, etc.

 

[Ghafhi]

When you play a world map you truly see how ridiculous it really is. You have egypt, Carthgians and Zulu so I guess everyone in Africa was one of those three ethnic groups. I think Egypt is presented as a mediterrain civ so africa really has two. If Mani says Ethiopia is one of the 4 great powers of his time and all the three other powers are inlcuded then Why not Ethiopia. I also think that Ethiopias achievement surpass that off any other African nation. Yes Egypt did have alot but I don't see any great historians documenting them as a world power. Ancient Ethiopian seafaring ablilites surpass that of most other countries until 1400's. Ethiopia also had the only military strong enoughto fend of Europeans and invade and control foreign territories beside a two or three other african civs.

 

[DrMadd]

I beg to Differ. I was reading a while back that they found a Phoenician Galley near Bermuda. And We know Carthage Circumnavigated Africa. And the Vkings, Polynesians and Chinese found North America. All done before the 1400's.