New Civilizations

[PeteAtoms]

I think that for Africa they should add the Hutus and the Tutsis, but this might be a little controversial, the Hutus were cattle herders and the Tutsis were farmers (i could have this backwards) The hutu could be commercial/industrious and Tutsis could be Agricultural/Militaristic

 

[sir_schwick]

The beauty is that it is not fixed. You would be able to choose what the next civ was. So Greece could become Byzantine, Ottomans, and maybe Hungary. Then in the industrial age if you were Byzantine you could be whoever was in that region afterward. Then whoever was there could be your next choice. Of course if you don't want to be restircted by history, you could just choose anyone to be next(go crazy).

 

[PeteAtoms]

so would the people in your cities suddenly change cultures?

 

[sir_schwick]

As illogical as it sounds, yes. Or maybe you could have a change-over period of twenty turns. But basically it would be assumed the culture switches over.

 

[daimajin]

you could also split up the greeks into some of these: Athens, Sparta, Illion(Troy), Macedonia, Corinth, Beotia, Ithica, etc.

 

[sir_schwick]

I guess it would be splitting hairs to point out that Macedonia is not really Greek. Their cultures are different even to this day. Calling either the other would be the same as saying the Scottish are English or Pakistanis are Indian or Bengali. Although Alexander was sent to Greece for education, Phillip was Macedonian.

 

[Alone]

One voice for SERBIA
I know it's not possible but I just had to apply

My sugestion:

Since there will be 32 or so place in Core game for most important (bigest) nations, we need more scenarios!!! And not to wait for 2nd, 3rd expansion for that, or to wait for moders here at site to do that!

Scenarios would enclude diferent place and time from History. So many "small" nations can be encluded in!

As for Serbia MidAges scenario, Revolution time 1804, WWI will be good!

MidAge in Conquest was GOOD, but without Serbia. ... currently playing EuropaUniv.II, so some stuff, like Religious convert of population, state religion, more diferent tech,etc ... could be good to enclude in it... Do IT AGAIN, PLEASE! This time better!

And please for scenarios original leader heads or flags and such things, be more complete, that way you could place 100 nations in game (in 10-15 sceenarios )

THANKS

 

[El Loco]

Scotland instead of the celts should be a civ and William Wallace its leader!!!

 

[Keirador]

Sir Schwick-
Though today Macedonia (formally called the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia) are seperate nations, during the time of Alexander the Great, it is not unreasonable to say that the Macedons were Greek. This is because *none* of what we consider the Greek city-states can in any way be called one nation. They were governed as entirely seperate political entities, and were commonly at war with each other. The only things they shared were a common religion and culture, which they also shared with Macedon. The reason Macedon is often not considered part of Greece is because the Kingdom of Macedon was not one seperate city-state, but rather a large territory encompassing several cities. However, many city-states classically thought of as Greek did themselves at one time or another control local and over-seas empires, so the question of "Are the Macedonians Greek or not?" becomes eclipsed by a more important and more diffcult question, "What defines ancient Greece as being Greece?" If you look at political boundaries, then surely there was no nation that could be called ancient Greece. If you go by cultural influence, which is what most scholars do, then Macedon is just as much a part of Greece as Crete. The question of whether or not the Macedons were Greek is still lively debated today.
I would direct anyone interested to these websites:
http://www.macedon.org/anmacs/frame.htm - in favor of a seperate Ancient Macedon
http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm -in favor of ancient Macedon as a Greek kingdom.

 

[Alafin]

Keirador is essentially correct. Ancient Macedonia was populated by people who spoke a dialect of Greek (more properly Hellenic, as the ancient Greeks called themselves Hellenes (think: Helen of Troy)) that was difficult for the Classical Greeks to understand. So much so that the CG's treated it (and them) like a foreign language.

However, the differences go deeper than just language to the fundamentals of culture. All the Classical Greeks city-states shared had more in common with each other than with the earliest Macedonians for one simple reason. They emerged in an area that had been previously settled and civilized by Neolithic farming people for at least 4000 years before the Classical Period, in an area that saw the rise and decline of one of the world's earliest great civilizations, the Minoans (they had flush toilets, don't you know). Prior to the decline of Minoan Civ, however, Greek-speaking tribes moved into and took over most of mainland Greece. Which doesn't mean the original population was wiped out! Most likely, the original inhabitants were absorbed into a Greek dominant population; we call this culture Mycenaean after the chief settlement in Argos.

In contrast, the Macedonian Greeks moved into an area that was not built up by an advanced culture and so never acquired the arts of civilization that their more southerly cousins did. They remained at a much more culturally primitive level up to and including the Classical Greek City-States Period. They didn't advance beyond kingship as a form of government.

The modern Macedonians, in contrast, are entirely Slavic in language and culture, speaking a language very closely related to Bulgarian. They are the end-result of a separate wave of immigration in the 600s on the heels of the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Alafin Bahahotep

 

[eternal_empire]

I scanned through most of the 11 pages here, and didn't happen to see any mention of it, but I believe that the English civ should be replaced with a 'British' civ. This isn't for p.c. reasons of inclusiveness, merely that Britain as a whole had a far more profound impact on the course of history than England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales seperately. England on its own was a powerful European nation whereas the British Empire was the global power of the 19th century. Perhaps even if England was to become Britain at some point during the game?

Just as an afterthought, perhaps a Red Coat as its UU?

 

[Milan's Warrior]

I think that the key to solve the problem of "which civ" is not adding this or that civ. It is in making it easy to add civs yourselves. At the moment the Editor does not allow to add civs easily. With the Editor you can rename a civ easily into another civ, and you can rename the unique unit easily, but that's all what you can do easily.
I think it should be made easier to add civs from within the game itself. As I see it, the only technical problem is that each civ at the moment requires an animated leaderhead. If we dispose of the animated leaderhead, we can conceive a system in which new civs can be created and then saved into a file and circulated among the community, that way one could have all civs that ones feels important. Including the most important of all: the Milanese

 

[Keirador]

Alafin-
Though entirely right about the modern Macedonians being in no way descendants of the ancient Macedons, I'd like to address a few minor points. Least important of all, the Greeks are not called Hellenes because of Helen of Troy, that myth came much later. They call themselves Hellenes because they believe (or at one time believed) themselves to be descendants of Hellene, a survivor of a massive ancient flood.
Also, while there was indeed a language barrier between Classic Greeks and Macedonians, saying this out of context is misleading. There were language barriers between *most* city-states, sometimes even completely different languages, their only similarity being their alphabet. Over time, the Attic (Athenian) version of Greek became dominant, and most other Greek dialects were wiped out. Because of this, there is today an idea that ancient Greece was linguistically homoegenous, which is a fallacy.
Finally, the ancient Minoans had only limited influence on the Greek mainland, the Minoans themselves based on the island of Crete. While Minoan influence did not in fact spread to Macedonia, nor did it spread to city-states like Thessalonica or Olympia, yet these places are never disputed as not being "Greek".
As for the Macedonian government never advancing past Kingship, that is true of many classically "Greek" city-states, like Corinth. Besides, for their time, the Macedonian Kingship was an extremely effective government. They *did* manage to take over most of the Known World, didn't they?
The idea that most people miss in addressing this topic is that ancient Macedon can be considered *both* a seperate political entity *as well as* part of ancient Greece. This is because ancient Greece did not exist in specific, defined terms, but rather as a broad reference to a geographic area and a common culture. As Macedonia shared these two features, I personally see no reason why they could not be referred to as Greeks, especially as modern comparative anatomy and other such sciences has shown the ancient Macedonians to be just as biologically similar to any Greek city-state as Atticans (Athenians) and Spartans.

Also, I realize the probability that no one really cares at this point. I couldn't help myself. I'm sorry.

 

[Alone]

I think that the key to solve the problem of "which civ" is not adding this or that civ. It is in making it easy to add civs yourselves. At the moment the Editor does not allow to add civs easily. With the Editor you can rename a civ easily into another civ, and you can rename the unique unit easily, but that's all what you can do easily.
I think it should be made easier to add civs from within the game itself. As I see it, the only technical problem is that each civ at the moment requires an animated leaderhead. If we dispose of the animated leaderhead, we can conceive a system in which new civs can be created and then saved into a file and circulated among the community, that way one could have all civs that ones feels important. Including the most important of all: the Milanese

mmm...Yes. Just to add... no need for CivFanatic moders to do that... Atari should solved that. They can filed a special library with a lots of Civs and there's leaders head /flags/ (and, why not, even there's UUs).
If Atari thinks that's too expensive let them charge for that in special edition CD wich should came as an option with Civ4! I would by that. (or still my idea for lot of scenarios with diferent nations and periods - completed)

 

[Alone]

I realize the probability that no one really cares at this point. I couldn't help myself. I'm sorry.

Your post is very interesting, there are carefull readers onthis site.

Just a sugestion: There is HISTORY FORUM were you can disscus things like that. Several threads were on the same subject, or you can start your own on that or other issue. Enjoy this site (and prepare for fight with lots a people who things that know everthing about history and politics much better than any of rest ). GOOD LUCK!

regards Dragan

 

[Keirador]

I like the idea of more easily creating custom civilizations, but how would one create unique units? It would be ridiculous to allow players to completely customize their own UU, because we would see a lot of 99 attack/ 99 defense/ 99 movement point warrior-replacements that cost one shield and had incredible bombard ability. Even if there were some method of dividing shield cost by the sum of A/D/M and making sure the result was in a certain range in order to regulate Unique Units (or some such method, I've put no thought into the actual calculations), you would still see players willing to spend hundreds of shields on a unit that could boast ridiculously high stats, as just a few of them could anchor an army and provide an easy victory. Maybe there could be a large pool of unique units, just as some have proposed pools of generic leaderheads?

 

[Yuri2356]

If a Unit workshop system were included in CIv4, Unique Units could be replaced with Unique Equipment. So the Romans could have acces to the gladius, or tower shields, to make swordsmen into leigonaries. If that were so, you could choose from a number of improved weapons/armors/accesories to give to your civ. The would eb a lmit on how many you could have, and that would keep people from creating a 99(99)/99/99 Warrior that costs 1 shield!

 

[Milan's Warrior]

I like the idea of more easily creating custom civilizations, but how would one create unique units? It would be ridiculous to allow players to completely customize their own UU, because we would see a lot of 99 attack/ 99 defense/ 99 movement point warrior-replacements that cost one shield and had incredible bombard ability.

One way could be to have a pool of points for each civ, say 3 points, this points could be distributed to create a UU as a mod of a basic unit.
So if I want to create a UU for the Milanese, I could create a "Giussano swordman" as a modification of the swordman and I could either make it +3 attack, or +2 attack +1 defence, or +2 attack -1 cost, and so on

A system of multipliers could be used to make the points be equally valuables in each era. Obviously 3 points in the first era are worth much more than 3 points in the last era.

Mutiplier could be used also for weigting spent points among attributes. e.g. 1 point spent to attack could be worth +1, but 1 point spent on shild cost could be worth a saving of 5 shilds.

This system of pool of points and multiplier is typical of the set up phase of many RPG games

 

[Alafin]

Keirador-

I'm sure you're right about the Hellene thing. Thanks for the correction.

Also right about the linguistic landscape of ancient Greece being very complex. I am no expert on the differences between Attic, Ionic, and Doric Greek and cannot really say if they differ more from each other than they do from Macedonian. What I do know is that the Greeks themselves made a distinction between their culture and everyone elses, and defined the conceptual border to their culture region at the southern border of Macedonia. (It really pissed the Macedonians off, by the way, not to be considered true Greeks.)
What is clear from archaeology is that the lands that developed into the Greek city-states were first settled by a palace-making culture that was almost certainly not Greek speaking. This palace culture was contemporaneous with the Minoan culture, but, as you correctly point out, not itself Minoan. Then the Greek speaking tribesmen moved in in successive waves. The first two waves resulted in the creation of the Mycenaen Greek culture (the one that participated in the Trojan war), the last wave, several hundred years later destroying the Mycenaean palaces (burn layers and abandonment of most major sites) leading to the collapse of civilization for a time. When civilization reemerges, everyone in the area is speaking Greek and living in one or the other Greek city-states. It is this blending of pre-Greek culture, with its arts of civilization influenced by Minoan (which was definitely influenced by Egyptian) culture and the tribal Greek culture brought in with invading warrior/horse-owning people from the North that the Macedonian Greeks did not experience; ie the Macedonians were, I believe, Greek culture unadulterated by pre-Greek civilization. Not to say that as Classical Greek culture of the city-states began to take shape that they started to become more influenced by their southern neighbors; they just didn't start out that way. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

Alafin

The idea that most people miss in addressing this topic is that ancient Macedon can be considered *both* a seperate political entity *as well as* part of ancient Greece. This is because ancient Greece did not exist in specific, defined terms, but rather as a broad reference to a geographic area and a common culture. As Macedonia shared these two features, I personally see no reason why they could not be referred to as Greeks, especially as modern comparative anatomy and other such sciences has shown the ancient Macedonians to be just as biologically similar to any Greek city-state as Atticans (Athenians) and Spartans.
Also, I realize the probability that no one really cares at this point. I couldn't help myself. I'm sorry.

I agree with you, & I couldn't help myself either

 

[Ryth]

AUSRALASIA AUSTRALASIA AUSTRALASIA - not Oceania.


Anyway....

I love how many people are calling for a Maori Civ, 'cept there are 7 tribes which came to NZ from 'Hawaiki' and settled seperatly but at the same time, so a single leaderhead would be hard, maybe Tane Mahuta (think Hercules). Seafaring to get here, but militatistic/religious after arrival. UU as the Taiaha Warrior - bonus to health, 2/2/2 to replace the basic Warrior. These guys are the only 'native' group with whom the English ever signed a treaty rather than continue to fight with - plus the Maoris basically invented trench warfare (all village sites on hills with layers of walls and trenches surrounding them). I'd've loved to do up a mod with this group, but don't know how to.

For those who've seen 'Whale Rider', no, Paekia is too localised to be a leader representing all the iwi, hapu and whanau. Maybe Peter Jackson (LOTR Director)....

More generally I think the 'Polynesian' group needs to be broken down into Fiji, Tokalau, Samoa, Nieu etc. Indonesia is definatly a differant culture group, and needs way more representation. The Aborigines, well, there is so little known about them, but there is a lot of evidence suggesting they were in Australia for a long time, possibly even a couple of thousand years! Religious/Agricultural?

Okay, I'll get off the soap box now. Next?