Persia or Persia or how do we implement certain civs?

[mitsho]

I've wondered sometimes now about a question for civIV which I do not seem to get an acceptable answer to. But I hope and am sure that this site will provide me with a solution to the problem. I try to explain it with an example first: Persia.

We all know that Persia deserves to be in the game. We (and civ3 when looking at the leader and city list, etc.) are talking here of the old Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanid Empires with the big famous wealthy cities of Persepolis, Pasargadai, Susa, Arbela, Ctesiphon and so many more. They had huge political, scientific, economical and religious (Zarathustra) influence on our world and had an own distinct culture. But they didn't call themselves Persians (am I right?), that was a name given to them by the Greeks. Nevertheless, we know them as the Persians, and so they are implemented in civ.

When we take a closer look at the civ 'Persia' in civ3, we see that they mix also great scientific persons of the medieval period into the SGL-list. Think of it? Some centuries after the above described big empire of Persia vanished, we have 'another' empire which actually calls itself Persia. The Persia of the Middle Ages is one thriving part of the Muslim world, wealthy, scientific and had some geo-political influence. Just think of the big names of Omar Khayam and Ibn Sina (known in the West as Avicenna) and the big cities of Isphahan, Rai/Teheran, Qum, Schiras, Hormus and - if you extend it a bit - even Samarkand, Merw and others. But it is quite different of Ancient Persia and isnt' the same civ in my eyes.

Both - Persia I and Persia II - deserve to be in civ (and I'll probably mod the later in... ), and shouldn't be mixed, as it was done by civ3! Besides, another muslim nation would be good to counterbalance the European Powers in a civ game. So my question is: How to implement both nations without mixing them and still give them their proper name Persia?

Some may answer now with the argument "civs evolve during the history and thus during the game". My answer: No, they don't evolve, they change. Persia II isn't nearly the same as Persia I. I myself want to see both set of cities in a game!

This leads me to my real question: How do we define the term civilisation? Is Persia (over the whole course of history) a civilisation, or are Persia I and Persia II two distinct civs? I can give you other examples of difficult civs:

Rome/Italy: While Rome certainly isn't modern/renaissance Italy, they're mixed into one in civ3. Can't they be two different civs (one with Rome, Capua, Veii, Cumae, etc. and one with Milano, Roma, Venezia, Firenze, etc.?)

England/Britain: nuff said, go look in the threads!

Germany: Do we take the Middle Age German Empire, the Industrial nation or the modern state?

Russia: The Czars Empire or the Soviet Union?

China: x millenia of history, what version do we take?
India: see above

Turkey/Ottoman: Which names do we take the modern (Izmir) or the old ('ottoman') ones (Smyrna)? Do we call them Ottomans and include the empire and other Turkish states?

Egypt: The medieval state has it's right to exist to (Cairo), am I wrong? Do we stay with the Greek names for most of the egyptian cities (like in civ3: Thebes, Elephantine, Heliopolis, etc.) or do we give them the less-to-not known real egyptian names?

...

Do I need to say more? mfG mitsho

(now it's your turn, sir_schwick and dh_epic! )

 

[stormbind]

There is a marketing aspect to the game which flatters potential buyers.

Scottish consumers want to see England seperate, because the English are saxonised and not pure enough for them

American consumers want to see America seperate from it's ancestory, and to think they started as cave men and are as self-made as the ancient empires

Italian consumers (and Xen) want to dream they are Roman soldiers

Personally, I prefer to start with the true ancient tribe because that is what the game pretends to do. To do that you have to look at ancient populations/civilisations.

Modern civilisations were created by merging and seperating those ancient civilisations. Merging and seperating is what we do when we play the game.

It makes no sense to me to include a modern civilisation in 500BC

It makes perfect sense to me to change history while playing the game, because that is what playing is all about.

 

[stormbind]

If I were making the game, it would start with hunter gatherers 35,000 years ago. This would be completely unbiased because everybody in the world would be equal.

The initial scientific discovery would be: Imagination which resulted in Art and Worship.

Worship leads to gatherings, which results in Agriculture which puts you on the path to building cities.

Art leads to language, writing, and ultimately mathematics which puts you on the path to modern discoveries.

The Civlization series fails to acknowledge the cause and effects of actual Civilisations.

The population dynamics would also be based on ecological science and not fiction.

 

[Kosez]

Yeah, and you could name your own Civilization and its cities. You'd have to invent totally new language, like Tolkien.

About Persia: I dont now if medieval Iran you call Persia named itself Persia. Maybe that name was given to them by Europeans. As I know, regions were named after Caliphates (Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus,...), but I'm not real expert on this.
In one book I read (Alamut by V. Bartol), there seems people didn't look at themselves as on different nations. They were all muslims. But some were Shiite, some Suni, some Izmaelite, and so on. But maybe the book was wrong.

I think, people stayed the same, they just changed religion and with it parts of their culture. But that is not the reason to call them a different civilization, is it?
I mean, European nations were pagan at first, with totally different culture, style of living, style of governing. And that has been changing ever since fall of Rome.

 

[mitsho]

@stormbind, that would be an interesting game, but not civ anymore, right?

@Kosez Never heard of the Shah of Persia (from which the word chess derives)? That's a medieval title: They certainly called themselves Persians up until about the first half of the twentieth century. (just look at your history atlas or book if you don't believe me ).
And I disagree, it wasn't only the religion that changed its culture, but also the 'evolution of culture', the new sciences, the new alphabet, the immigrations of people from everywhere and in addition Islam brought a whole bunch of Arabian culture. It certainly WASN'T the same, e.g. all the names (of cities/persons/etc.) changed. I don't think that the germanic tribes were that different from the French, German, English, etc. where they?

But it seems neither of you could answer my question properly...

mitsho

 

[warpstorm]

American consumers want to see America seperate from it's ancestory, and to think they started as cave men and are as self-made as the ancient empires

Not hardly. We just know that we won a war of independence from the tyranical British

Civ never really handled this situation well :shrug: bfd

 

[Xen]

Italian consumers (and Xen) want to dream they are Roman soldiers

whos dreaming? I am a Roman soldier

(that said, being a Roman is hardley religated to Italians, or those of Italian blood; the provincials, and thier descendends are just as a much "Roman" as the people who lived in the capital itself)

@mitsho- while a minor point, its a point of personal importance; your spelling of "Veij", shoudl be "Veii", and in modern Italian, it is"Veio"

 

[microbe]

You know, I really don't care too much about the CIV names (I do care about traits).

Like in Matrix Morpheus said: You all look the same to me.

 

[mitsho]

I'm sorry, it was a typo, gonna correct it. 1. I know history and Rome and Etruria... and 2. I play enough civ3 as Romans to know that...

EDIT: Do you think you're in the place to correct people because of typing mistakes, Xen, I beg your pardon ...

@microbe, it's not just about the civ names, it's about their implementation and about HC (historical correctness... ) and such stuff. You're a player who wants to win the game, I'm a player who plays for thefeeling of a good and historical game...

mitsho

 

[Xen]

you dont have to correct it or anything, (at least not on my account) just sort of a "future reference" type thing

 

[rhialto]

fwiw, neither Persia I nor Persia II called themselves Persians. Persia is actually a corruption of Farsi, the language and people of a specific region of modern-day Iran. Its kind of like calling people from the USA "Georgians". If you research your history, youll note a point last century when they asked the international community to recognise a name change from Persia to Iran.

The medieval Persia actually has a continuous history with modern Iran, and they did in fact call themselves Iranians in their own language. Im not sure about the ancient empire, but I suspect they did too if the language didnt change too much in the intervening centuries.

 

[mitsho]

yes, of course, I said that they changed their name internationally in the last century (just read my post). And remark, I was never talking of Farsi,the Germans also do not call themselves Germans in their language (but Deutsche, something different). But nevertheless, the Land of Germany is known in the English language (which the game is written in), as Germany, not Deutschland!
The same goes with Persia!

mfG mitsho

 

[Horus Kol]

I've always seen the Civilisations in Civilisation not as direct analogues of real Civ and Empires - a lot of the ancient "civ's" were independent city-states with a common language/culture - how can one man rule a bunch of independent states?

I see them as just groups to provide a "bin" of labels - so leaders' names, cities' names and so on are grouped into a cohesive bunch...

Sure, some of the labelling is done for "politics" sake - the Celts and the English for example, but I don't think they should be taken as serious parallels.

 

[Xen]

I've always seen the Civilisations in Civilisation not as direct analogues of real Civ and Empires - a lot of the ancient "civ's" were independent city-states with a common language/culture - how can one man rule a bunch of independent states?

a verity of ways; the Early Roman empire (th emost convient example known to me, if thier was another example, i woudl use it mind you) had a HUGE amount of territory controlled by vassal nations, strong enough to defend the borders from even rival empires liek Parthia, but not strong enough to take on Rome; the careful balence of force, as well as economic ties give a leader on the right end of the line a verity of options to use when persuing to subdue soem sort of control over thie rnieghbors, without actually annexing, invading, or any other sort of hostile action against said country (that said, it was this set up, which a large article coudl indeed be written on, was why the ealry empire was so strong and expansionist; Vespasians only 'blunder" in his rule as emperor was encorperating a large number of such vassal as direct parts of the empire, but still keeping the empire on a scheme of expansion; I could go on, but wont, as it woudl be off topic)

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually, a possible solution (given that we can start at different times in history) would be to make some Civs as 'default available' only in certain eras...perhaps even changing their picks

So for starting the game in the beginning, one would have only about 1/2 the Civs..The British, French, etc. would only be available in the Middle Ages or later, the Americans only in Early Industrial or later.. The Babylonians/Sumerians/etc. wouldn't be available during the Middle Ages

While this Might work the fact that they only have 19 Civs, means this is probably not it.

In a Future Civ, there does need to be the ability to say start play as the Angles/or Saxons/or Britons, and eventually choose to transfer your 'control' to the newly rebelling/rebelled provinces in the Americas. Or to start play as the Scots and transfer your 'control' to the new United Kingdom that you have formed...with a point advantage in the first case because you are moving from a more to a less powerful position at the time..and a point disadvantage in the second case

 

[Kosez]

This being said, I don't think mitsho's Persia II deserved to be called Persia. As Rhialto said it, they didn't called themselves Persians, and they really didn't possess as unique culture as Achaimenids did. They shared their religion and culture with Arabs, I'm not saying they had the same culture, cause there were probably some influences left by earlier times and they were influenced also by cultures that were north and east of them. I just think, Achaimenids had more unique culture and history, so they deserve to be mentioned prior to Islamic Persia.

 

[mitsho]

If you argue with culture, then we can lump together France, England and Germany into Western Europe. They are as similar to each other as Persia is with Arabia and the Turks... (The above also share the same religion, christianity, If you now want to say that France is catholic, Germany disputed and England protestant, then I may show you that Persia/Iran is pretty shia, and not sunni like (most of) the Arabs.

And you probably have read my answer to the fact that Persia II didn't call themselves Persian.
and I never said that these two sides of one civ need to be played against each other. They are so different, but just have a common name, so we can have both. Of course, ancient Persia is in first, but the later can come shortly after the inclusion of the Ottomans...

@Krikkitone, good idea, but needs to be worked out more (which I do not have the energy to do now (and probably later neither )
mitsho

 

[GoodGame]

ANSWER: Case by case with a realistic culture model.


Rome disintegrated/absorbed by barbarians. Surviving city-states perpetuated the old culture, but only had very visceral empire in name only because the barbarians respected the culture.

The British Isles are one long series of immigrations and quarelling and merging kingdoms.

Germany is much like the British isles, but with some free city-states (the medieval-renaissance trading league).

The Soviet Union was first just a transformation of the Czarist empire, and then an ideological expanding hegemony (about an 'empire').

China would best be represented by allowing regional/cultural factions within a nation (something I'd like). basically flux of factions exchanging top influence, except for occasional strong emperors.

Turkey and India is easily about changing government styles and factionalizing religions, gaining and losing ground.

Egypt represents part of the What If? nature of Civ. As in What if the dynastic monarchy survived? Starting with Alexander, their original culture gradually becomes dominated by foreign culture The old culture pretty much gets absorbed and obliterated by the Romans and Muslims. Industrial Europeans pretty much revived the study of it, AFAIK.

Some may answer now with the argument "civs evolve during the history and thus during the game". My answer: No, they don't evolve, they change. Persia II isn't nearly the same as Persia I. I myself want to see both set of cities in a game!

This leads me to my real question: How do we define the term civilisation? Is Persia (over the whole course of history) a civilisation, or are Persia I and Persia II two distinct civs? I can give you other examples of difficult civs:

Rome/Italy: While Rome certainly isn't modern/renaissance Italy, they're mixed into one in civ3. Can't they be two different civs (one with Rome, Capua, Veii, Cumae, etc. and one with Milano, Roma, Venezia, Firenze, etc.?)

England/Britain: nuff said, go look in the threads!

Germany: Do we take the Middle Age German Empire, the Industrial nation or the modern state?

Russia: The Czars Empire or the Soviet Union?

China: x millenia of history, what version do we take?
India: see above

Turkey/Ottoman: Which names do we take the modern (Izmir) or the old ('ottoman') ones (Smyrna)? Do we call them Ottomans and include the empire and other Turkish states?

Egypt: The medieval state has it's right to exist to (Cairo), am I wrong? Do we stay with the Greek names for most of the egyptian cities (like in civ3: Thebes, Elephantine, Heliopolis, etc.) or do we give them the less-to-not known real egyptian names?

...

Do I need to say more? mfG mitsho

(now it's your turn, sir_schwick and dh_epic! )

 

[Hyena]

Ok, I just want to say this: I am Italian, and I LOVE to play as Rome. Rome's legacy has influenced history on the Italian peninsula for millenia. During the renaissance (and all the middle ages for that matter) Italian authors urged artists, scientists, and politicians to bring back the glory of Rome, and throw off the yolk of foreign domination. Later, during the Risorgimanto (Italain Unification movement of the 19th century), authors such as Mazzini, and politicians like Cavour, popularized the idea of a unified Italian nation by again bringing up the Roman empire. The idea was that just as the Romans unified the various tribes of the peninsula (from Latins, to Umbrians, to the vanquished Samnites), so too should they unify the dozens of petty states into a sinlge, strong, nation. After the fascists took control of the government, Moussolini decided that he wanted to reconquer the old Roman empire, and his attacks in North Africa were just the first steps of his plan, a plan many of us are happy never succeeded. There is also the countless references to the classical period in ALL Italian art forms and current popular culture. A good example of this is in modern-day Rome, thousands of teenagers get SPQR tattooed an their shoulders, feeling that they are the physical representation of Rome's might. What I am trying to get across is that most of the heights Italian culture has achieved in the last 1500 years, including the renaissance, have been, to various degrees, conscious attempts to relive or revive the history of Rome.

As Petrarch once wrote: Against barbarian rage, virtue will take the field, then short the fight. True to their lineage, Italian hearts will prove their Roman might.

 

[Hyena]

OH NO! I misspelled "Risorgimento". Sorry guys, I've written four major essays on it, there's no reason I should have spelt it wrong. Mi dispiace, ma sono pazzo oggi. Ciao.