How many European Civilizations!?!

[mastertyguy]

To me, this would be the top ten:
1. Rome
2. Greece
3. France
3. England
3. Germany
3. China
3. Mongols
3. Arabs
3. Persia
3. Mesopotamia
3. Egypt

 

[Urederra]

I think the problem is not that there are too many european civilizations in the game, but that there are only 18 civs. They should add up to 24 civs.

Honestly, I find very difficult to remove any of the european civilizations from the list. All of them have done something significant to the world history.

 

[mastertyguy]

24? 240 is better!

 

[Nyvin]

Spot on. What more can i add to that. The facts remain England did do it and thats that. With that kinda logic you can start to dismiss many cultures and groups. One thing to keep in mind was an old English policey. It went something along the lines of do not become like them make them like us. Which is why the English language is the most excepted language in the world. Thats quite something. French is actually way down the list (still in the top ten) I found that surprising at first but after looking into it it started to make sence.

What I was trying to say about the 'someone else would've done it' is meaning that it's not enough of a reason to say that they are more 'qualified' to be in. That the empire was created doesn't do much to improve their standing, especially since you mainly just see an all out western european domination of the globe going on anyway at the times.

If the Nuclear bomb wasn't developed at that time, it isn't necciarily true that it would've happened anyway, it could've gone differently. If England didn't go out and conquer the lands that it did, they would've been anyway by some other country in Europe.

You should also note that about 80% of the 'English' spoken in the world is in the American form. It's the USA that truly made the language widely known, especially when your talking about using it as a second language like in your post. Britain didn't have as much of an impact as it would seem, except (maybe) in Britain itself, where the actual 'brittish' form is still used, and (maybe) Canada.

United Kingdom or Britain, England or whatever you would prefere to call it.
Germany again could be used under another name but Germany will suffice.
Spain
Greece
Romans

I still say France would be better then the UK. It's been around longer, it has 'just as much' of an impact modernly, and much more of one earlier on, and England draws it's culture from France, not the other way around...France is larger, there's the whole 'Napolean' thing, and overall has just more of a dynamic history to it.

 

[sassoundwave]

I still say France would be better then the UK. It's been around longer, it has 'just as much' of an impact modernly, and much more of one earlier on, and England draws it's culture from France, not the other way around...France is larger, there's the whole 'Napolean' thing, and overall has just more of a dynamic history to it.

How about stopping discussing about history when you seem not to know enough about it? England and France are eachothers opponents through complete history. There is no such thing as England drawing its culture from France. They are different. You focus on Napoleon and think that that is it. Who owned almost half of the world? The Brittish, who owned the other half? The French.
And you want to claim that the Brittish had no specific role in world history?
Are your ancestors French or something?

 

[Himalia]

A focus on Napolean and seems to forget who was the main force behind defeating him and i think you will find that England has been around for just as long as France. France at one point were the Gauls effectively and during this period England had a different name. Ever heard of Albion ? Sometimes associat in the 4th-6th century but the Romans and Greeks were using this term long before that back to 2000-3000 BC.

As for claiming that the "American" version of the English language is the worlds dominating language is absurd both languages are similar to the point of if you speak one you can basically speak the other. Where did America get is English language from ? Hmm England i think so in that respect the English language dominated America so it changed alittle languages do that. Next thing you will be suggesting is that English will soon be a forgotten language and everyone will speak American. America certainly didt spread English around he world.

But lets keep in mind if England went out of the game by this kind of logic it would take certain othr countries with the msuch as say America. Which of course removing either would be daft.

 

[brennan]

AFAIK the French imperial holdings never extended far outside Africa and some areas of the far East, there were minimal territories in South America and Canada. The British Empire coverd half of North America, chunks of Africa, the Middle East, China, India, Australia... It was the largest empire in history and kickstarted the Industrial Revolution. If that doesn't make the grade then exactly what standards are we setting? Oh 'people speak American English'; could it be that the US speaks English because they were a British colony, well duh.

As for this 'the English are half French' thing... the period known as the dark ages was an age of mass migrations, the inhabitants of the british isles, such as the picts and celts were invaded by the Angles (German), then the Saxons (mostly Danish), much as other parts of western Europe were invaded by other tribes from the East. The Normans invaders themselves, whom I believe you are referring to, were a migrant scandinavian tribe (see here). It is worth noting that the Norman invasion of England in 1066AD was the last successful invasion of the british isles by outsiders and that the claim this gave the English Kings over French lands led to English invasions of France in subsequent centuries (ever read Henry V by Shakespeare?)

The English and French cultures are deeply intertwined and we have a bizarre love/hate relationship, like quarrelling siblings, one of my best friends is French (the smug git) and it is amazing how alike and yet unlike we are.

Who spanked Napoleon at Waterloo? Hey, wasn't it some English guy?

France is larger? what kind of argument is that? the populations are about the same, and the UK has a bigger economy (currently 4th in the world according to the World Bank)

Here's the sort of list I would like to see:

European: England, Russia, Denmark, either Germany (as the Holy Roman Empire) or Spain.

Mediterranean: Greece, Rome, Phoenicia

Middle Eastern: Persia, Assyria, Ottomans

African: Egypt (the Egyptians deserve a whole category to themselves IMO), Great Zimbabwe, Mali

Oriental: China, India, Mongols, Khmer (the people who built Angkor Wat)

American : Choose one: Aztecs, Inca, Mayans (Or whoever actually built Teotihuacan)

I shrank that down to 18, but I could easily name a whole lot more, I find myself especially picking on the poor American civs, mainly because they were out of the worlds eye for so long, then got obliterated by European culture.

 

[Atrebates]

(personal ignorance here: what's AFAIK?)

Yes, English and French history is rather complex. Who was raised to nationhood first? Dunno, not enough evidence; British coastal and estuary towns have been found from way before Roman invasion containing evidence of extensive trade (ie. things were happening pre-Romans) and loathe as I am to say it there may be (well... probably is) similar evidence in France.

When it comes to England being a creation of France, well that's not really true. Assuming this refers to the 1066 Norman invasions

England on the other hand, was much more established as a country. Although it was still divided into larger versions of the counties which exist today, it had a much more sophisticated level of central government that had been developed over the previous six or seven hundred years. England was renown for being a centre of culture and learning. The King of England was the king, and all were his subjects. As usually happens, religion takes a back seat when people become prosperous or learned, Piety was not considered to be of the utmost importance.

That's from battle1066.com in comparason to the Normans.
Anyway the Normans won (I like to think that if they had come earlier they would have been beaten but never mind). This set up England and France in a position to beat the merry hell out of each other for several enjoyable centuries and England succeeded in attaining total control of France. Its not entirely one way you see

 

[Crayton]

FWICT, AFAIK means As Far As I Know.

I'm surprised not many people mentioned that the Ottomans' capital, Istanbul, is in Europe. This being the case, I too am in favor of a more encompassing Turkish civilization, not just the one that affected Europe the greatest.

Maygars interest me a great deal and deserve to be in if the Vikings are in. However, Scandinavia, through history, has consitently played a hand in Europe. Hungary was all but silent between the Mongols and Napoleon.

This being said, a hybrid Austro-Hungarian civ would do quite nicely. The half century existance of this empire may disqualify it; but, Civ makers should at least try to put a Habsburg civilization in the game, or at least a Habsburg leader.

 

[Atrebates]

I certainly wouldn't call the Turks European though, the vast majority of their land possessions are not in Europe (Ignoring the Ottoman's hold of Greece) and they do not fit [in Europe], in cultural or moral terms.
It could be argued that historically they were a bridge between Europe and the Middle East but I'd definitely chuck them in with the latter.

 

[DAv2003]

To put it bluntly, I believe that Britain and France needed each other to constantly push themselves to greatness. Without the catastrophic defeats during the War of the Spanish Succession you may never have had the decline of France and the French Revolution. Which in turn would have meant no Napoleon, no Continental Blockade, no desperate search for new markets by the British and as a result, no Empire to the extent of which it became.

 

[frekk]

Personally I'd redo the European civilizations away from an idea of nations and more towards an idea of cultural groupings of nations. To that end, I would have this list:

1) Hellenic
2) Latin
3) Celtic
4) Germanic
5) Norse
6) Slavic

I think that would pretty much cover all the bases without there being too many civs in Europe.

 

[Robi D]

This is a post i made in civ should stop being racist. It pretty much explains why there's a high percentage of euro civs in the game.

Civ is not racist, this is a simple case of a thing called marketing. The civs they choose to include in the game are there for two main reasons.
1) They have a big market in that country/region (english people like to play as the english ect.)
2) The civs are well known in these markets ( like the zulus mongols ect)

As an example in the other game i love to play, champoinship manager, they included leagues that you can play from india, singapore, hong kong, but in sth. america, a strong football (soccer) continent they have only 2, brazil and argentina. Where's the logic in that, what have india, singapore or hong kong accomplished in football that warrants their inclusion above colombia, uruguay (who have 2 WC), chile ect. The answer is nothing, but they sell a hell of a lot more games in s.e asia then they do in south america.

Civ, cm and other games don't operate in a vacuum, its a very competative market, so they have to look for every edge they can find over other games so people will buy their game and not another one, and if it means including the dutch or koreans before an african civ, then so be it, because at the end of the day they have to make money on their investment. If you want to blame something for the lack of african civs, then blame the education system in western countries (i'm speaking generaly since i don't know for sure but from what i know the uk, us ect. are similar to aust. in this respect) in that they don't teach much about african history or africa generally, most of the teaching is around western history in europe and nth. america. Have you noticed apart from the russians there are no civs from eastern europe, why? same thing as with africa, its not a big market, and the people in the big markets don't know much about the history of the countries there, so there isn't the appeal to buy the game to play those civs. The only way you will get more civs from africa in the game is if africa becomes a big market for computer games or you change the way history is taught in the countries that have a big computer games market.

 

[Himalia]

I agree with you no need to convince me its a product at the end of the day and its good buisness. Would be nice to have a huge list to choose from tho.

 

[Kyriakos]

It depends on the amount of work done to make a civ in civ4. If it is considerable then there is some logic to them not having a huge number of civs. Also i dont think that there are tens and tens of civs which played a *major* role in world history.
From the sceenshots anyway it appears that a civ needs a special banner, apart from the rest of the stuff it needed in civ3.
Ofcourse firaxis doesnt care about presenting any value of the civs, it just wants to sell x-packs with more of them, which is why it has the first game only have 18 civs.

 

[Pounder]

No Celts and no Vikings is a major disappointment, especially the Celts that I personally think is one of the most important civs/cultures of all time.

BTW, they have found that Norseman with white skin and Red hair, had settled in Peru and the Easter Islands, they had a big write up on it in the National Geograhic two months ago, many bodies found buried/wrapped with Incans. They came across they Atlantic from the Canary Islands area and then somehow made it to Peru, then a few generations later made it to the Easter Islands and may explain the statues with the red hair.

 

[Crayton]

frekk: That is a very logical way to divide up Europe.
What would be the next civilizations to add or divide, if you wanted more civs?
What would be the next civilizations to remove or combine, if you wanted less?

It looks like a plurality of us voted for 5 to 6 civs; yet, there are also many of us who voted for the 50% and up category.
I’m still waiting for a majority!!

 

[Kyriakos]

i voted for 9+ but i thought that this was for the final x-pack. I think that 7-8 are enough for the first 18. Perhaps Spain could go to leave space for Babylon.

 

[Japanrocks12]

The European civilizations should be as general as civilizations from other regions of the world.

 

[Israelite9191]

Has anyone even read my post?!?! I think it includes enough European civs to cover everybody who was important without being overly dominant because I raise the number of total civs without making it ridiculously long by not including civs that aren't large enough or overlap with a more important civ.