Interesting Civilization Discriptions...

M

Mangas

Chieftain
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Feb 26, 2008
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I happened to start a new game tonight as the Chinese and noticed something a little peculiar about their civilization description. "You are the leader of the Chinese, the oldest and the greatest civilization that humanity has ever produced". Pretty high praise I must say. I just finished a game as America, so I had seen that description at every load. It always felt strange to me. "...in the 20th century, that the United States reached the height of its power"

/tinfoilhat on!
 
In the 20th century America was an industrial powerhouse. We could build the biggest army ever seen in a few months, and possessed all the latest tech.

Now we have declined quite a bit. Our military operations are overextended, and cost is too much $$$ to maintain, and we are not an industrial powerhouse anymore, which IMO has hurt us the most.

Right now we are in a decline, which I'm not saying we are going to fall, or America sucks, but we are not as strong as we were say 50 years ago.
 
In 1969 you put men on the moon. Now you can't even put men in orbit; you have to hitch a ride with the Russians.
 
And those are pretty accurate. Where's the problem? It also never said America has come down from the height of its power, if you want to interpret it that way.
 
Aren't the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Indian civilizations older than the Chinese? :hmm:
 
India no. Mesopotamia, maybe. Chinese city sites aren't as well excavated as the fertile crescent. They're generally about the same time, I think Mesopotamia gets about 1000 years earlier, tops. But those empires died out, China is still going. I think that's part of it.
 
teks said:
In the 20th century America was an industrial powerhouse. We could build the biggest army ever seen in a few months, and possessed all the latest tech.

Now we have declined quite a bit. Our military operations are overextended, and cost is too much $$$ to maintain, and we are not an industrial powerhouse anymore, which IMO has hurt us the most.

Right now we are in a decline, which I'm not saying we are going to fall, or America sucks, but we are not as strong as we were say 50 years ago.
Click to expand...

The proper description for US should read:
Although our forefathers worked their ass off to secure us the means for cultural, diplomatic and science victories, for some dumb reason we decided to go for the most ******ed one - domination. Since were good at whatever we set our mind to, we had the best army too. However, by some fanastic political decisions, we failed to capitalize on the fact that our military schools and equipment were one of the best in the world, as we managed not to properly win any war since 1945. In the meantime we successfully chased off the best, most educated and most brilliant military cadre (that cost innumerable billions to train) that the world has ever seen into the private sector by stupid political decisions, low wages and by filling the ranks with criminals and low-lifes.

How am I doing so far? :D
 
BTW, the way the description works is really odd all things considered. It keeps making me think the game takes place in some far post-apocalyptic future where everyone has been reduced to stone age technology and are rebuilding society (which is why they say your civilization died out and needs to be brought back).

It would explain how you get rifles from ancient ruins, though... :mischief:
 
Louis XXIV said:
India no. Mesopotamia, maybe. Chinese city sites aren't as well excavated as the fertile crescent. They're generally about the same time, I think Mesopotamia gets about 1000 years earlier, tops. But those empires died out, China is still going. I think that's part of it.
Click to expand...

Ya right, and Iraq has been such an archeology friendly state in the last 100 years they have excavted all over the place! rofl

I think china stopped digging when they started digging up red headed white people in ancient china.


Anyway getting back to the OP. That voice over in the game is like your own personal sychophant. he also says ramses causes the nile to flow and sun to rise I think. Don't take anything he says too seriously.
 
Mangas said:
I happened to start a new game tonight as the Chinese and noticed something a little peculiar about their civilization description. "You are the leader of the Chinese, the oldest and the greatest civilization that humanity has ever produced". Pretty high praise I must say. I just finished a game as America, so I had seen that description at every load. It always felt strange to me. "...in the 20th century, that the United States reached the height of its power"

/tinfoilhat on!
Click to expand...

Sadly we are past our peak. It just isn't evident yet as it will take years for our built up wealth to drain away. But slowly our wealth is being drained to China and the middle east (buying oil), soon we will have none left. There is very little ingenuity left in the U.S. anymore (although we still do a pretty good job creating internet things like Facebook), and our days as the worlds leading economy (and subsequently-military) are limited.

China is clearly the world's next world superpower and I expect the U.S. to fall into more in line with the prosperity of Mexico (considering most of our population will be mexican in 50 years this isn't as far fetched as it seems). I predict China will surpass us around 2030, and we'll hit our bottom around 2060 or 2070.
 
I feel like your last paragraph has no facts or evidence to support your 'projections'. Except maybe FOX. . .
 
Bibor said:
The proper description for US should read:
Although our forefathers worked their ass off to secure us the means for cultural, diplomatic and science victories, for some dumb reason we decided to go for the most ******ed one - domination. Since were good at whatever we set our mind to, we had the best army too. However, by some fanastic political decisions, we failed to capitalize on the fact that our military schools and equipment were one of the best in the world, as we managed not to properly win any war since 1945. In the meantime we successfully chased off the best, most educated and most brilliant military cadre (that cost innumerable billions to train) that the world has ever seen into the private sector by stupid political decisions, low wages and by filling the ranks with criminals and low-lifes.

How am I doing so far? :D
Click to expand...

We won the Gulf War!

Sorta...

(But you should give us some credit as a nation: our leaders sucked)
 
The real problem with the civ descriptions is that they list out the various achievements of the civ's past, and then say you are beginning your game from that end-point.

E.g. "your civilization has experienced many ups and downs over its thousands of years of history, can you lead it back to glory"? Er, Firaxis... the game is starting in 4000BC, how could the leader of the civ know any of this stuff?
 
Louis XXIV said:
India no. Mesopotamia, maybe. Chinese city sites aren't as well excavated as the fertile crescent. They're generally about the same time, I think Mesopotamia gets about 1000 years earlier, tops. But those empires died out, China is still going. I think that's part of it.
Click to expand...

Well, died out, it's not as if civilized culture has disappeared from Egypt? I looked it up and it seems to me the Harappan civilization predates the first Chinese dynasty (Xia) by quite a bit. But I admit you could argue that the cultural continuity makes China the 'oldest' now.

stannis said:
The real problem with the civ descriptions is that they list out the various achievements of the civ's past, and then say you are beginning your game from that end-point.

E.g. "your civilization has experienced many ups and downs over its thousands of years of history, can you lead it back to glory"? Er, Firaxis... the game is starting in 4000BC, how could the leader of the civ know any of this stuff?
Click to expand...

Yeah it feels a bit weird to me. I think the premise is that history is somehow starting over in a new world, but with you and your advisors magically transported into it with knowledge of the present. That's not how I have imagined the idea behind playing Civ at all :p
 
I would much prefer a straightforward, well-informed history of each civilisation and its leader before the start of the game rather than this emotive "you are the leader" stuff. The general tone of this game seems to be aimed at 12-year-olds.

Seriously, please put the dignity and respect for history back into this series, it was one of the best things about it - previous games actually inspired me to read a load of books about ancient civilisations, and I'm so glad I did. I can't imagine CiV doing the same for anyone else :(
 
You Yanks need to be a little more optimistic about your current situation. At least you're not in such a huge decline like Europe and Russia, if things keep going like now we'll reach the state the Western Roman Empire had around 410 A.D. in a decade or so. You Yanks just need to be more optimistic and stop the warmongering.;)

@Topic:
The text before each civ are told to the player by their personal herald or something because of that they sound always very glorifying. Personally I like them since they give you better feeling of immersion then just having to watch a loading screen. ;)
 
@Art Grin : The US has really started declining like Europe now, I think nobody doubts this anymore. They've even got a 10 % unemployment rate like European countries. Analysts now start talking about "the old US" like they did about "the old Europe".

They can't force China to do anything anymore either. China continues to put their money rate where they want unpunished, ignoring anything the US asks, as they should now they're in front.

US supremacy is definitely over. Demographics took over and China doesn't seem to want to look back any day...
 
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