Real-Life Civilization

[Oldlamehand]

Putin is a nasty bastard, but he would be much better Civ IV player than Obama and many european politicians. Currently, he is effectively using espionage and causing city revolts in eastern Ukraine.

 

[Pangaea]

The US economy must be struggling though. Having military bases so far away, and waging wars there, must be torture on maintenance costs and unit supply. At least Russia only have to cross one cultural border to get to their target.

 

[Oldlamehand]

The US economy must be struggling though. Having military bases so far away, and waging wars there, must be torture on maintenance costs and unit supply. At least Russia only have to cross one cultural border to get to their target.

Maybe it is the reason, why Obama is trying to switch to state property. However I think, war weariness is worse than unit supply and maintenace cost.
Economy of EU countries is crippled by environmenttalism.

Putin has easy job. He is running police state and conquering cities, where he already has strong russian culture.

 

[Pangaea]

Yeah, could almost argue some cities have culture flipped rather than through military force.

 

[Oldlamehand]

Yeah, could almost argue some cities have culture flipped rather than through military force.

I think, it is some kind of weird combnation of culture, diplomacy, espionage, and military actions.
Putin has created new vassal state, and he is trying to persuade western countries, that he has nothing to do with the vassal state and advanced units in army of the state. However, he is getting diplomatic penalty from EU and USA: "You declared war on our friend."

 

[Lexicus]

Whereas it's obvious that European countries and USA only want Ukraine as a friend so they can use Open Borders with Ukraine to put units right up Russia's butt if need be.

Of course, Putin's been running deficit research by selling excess oil resources which can't last forever....

 

[Mizar]

Ukraine tries to vassalize to Europe, Russian spies destroy improvements in Eastern Ukraine.
America cancelles Hitsingles deal with Russia but leaves Iron, coal, weed and uranium deals in place.

"Attila the Hun" uprising in Middle East.

 

[Seraiel]

Russians don't need Hit Singles, they had "The Pirate Radio Station" special event.

Russians also don't need Iron, Coal, Weed and Uranium, they got all of that theirselves.

 

[zuwzuz]

Same thing happened in Britain, no doubt Britain being prepared to support US lead wars in the interest of Anglo-American Energy companies, has lead it become one of the biggest police states in the world.

One thing Britain did in the 16th and 17th century was to support Privateers. The old pirate accent originated from the Southwest of England (still many of them speak like that today). The pirates recked havok on Spanish/French/Dutch ships and it was a great way in how the British dominated the seas and expanded their empire.

I loved the use of Privateers in CIV IV.

The other thing is false flags. I think that is one thing which is missing in Civ IV. Creating an event in which your citizens would support a war. But no doubt if that happened I think every Civ player would turn into a "conspiracy theorist".

I've just been thnking about this missing theme in the game. It would add more realism into the management of one's empire. False flags are common place and there always is a 'random' event which is used as justification of a war or some Patriot Act or whatever
Bless to all

 

[plasmacannon]

I've just been thnking about this missing theme in the game. It would add more realism into the management of one's empire. False flags are common place and there always is a 'random' event which is used as justification of a war or some Patriot Act or whatever
Bless to all

Like this out today?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rt-attacking-burn-unIslamic-drums-desert.html

Random Event: "Drum enthusiasts unite against ISIS!
Your Civilization supports a War to bring back Drums!"

Requirement: Must have researched Music.

 

[reddishrecue]

Barbarians appear near carthage, sumeria and Babylon in an earthly map near Isis . Rome asks NATO for help, whoever they are.

 

[vincentz]

Like this out today?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rt-attacking-burn-unIslamic-drums-desert.html

Random Event: "Drum enthusiasts unite against ISIS!
Your Civilization supports a War to bring back Drums!"

Requirement: Must have researched Music.

ISIS started out by beating the musicians with wooden sticks. When they were finished they started to beat the drums. That backfired

 

[reddishrecue]

Civilization does have drums in its music..

 

[Pangaea]

Just saw a documentary about old African civilizations/empires. The Ashante (in current Ghana) used drums to communicate over vast distances. Pretty cool.

As with much else in Africa, the Europeans pretty much ended them Well, at least their reign. The culture still lives on, of course, and I suppose there has been a resurgence after the (formal) end of colonization.

 

[reddishrecue]

Just saw Ukraine protesters asking Putin to please get Russia military out of Ukraine a couple of days ago.

 

[FlorbFnarb]

China discovered gunpowder 900 - 1300 AD.

...and then promptly failed to build any muskets. o_O

 

[FlorbFnarb]

It amuses me that my fellow Americans don't seem to realize that in elections you have the choice between the somewhat-far-right (Republicans) and the center-right (Democrats). I'd hate to see what kind of reaction an actual progressive/liberal party (with mainstream support) would garner if it emerges.

edit:

For example, consider this picture:

Spoiler :

This image is from www.politicalcompass.org, where one can fill out a survey and be listed on a two-axis political graph. As you can see, on both economic and social issues, Barack Obama and all the major Republican candidates are very close together. An actual person who supported State Property would find him self more or less completely opposite of Obama on the economic scale, while a mere socialist would find himself more towards the center.

tl;dr American politics are incredibly right-wing compared to most other countries (but especially the 1st world) on Earth, Democrats/Obama are not socialists/communists.

That graph is, of course, absolutely absurd.

 

[traius]

That graph is, of course, absolutely absurd.

That graph isn't absurd at all, if compared to all nation's political parties and fringe groups. Obama put through tax cuts for the rich, and leads the only industrial nation that doesn't have socialized medicine. Despite the propaganda against him, he has no intention of pushing for true socialized medicine, and most certainly is NOT a communist. So that deals with his right vs left economic policy.

Next is authoritarian vs libertartian. He spies on the people at large, he thinks courts no one knows about ruling on said spying is "fair oversight," he didn't close gitmo, and he thinks using flying robots to drop bombs on people which _always_ involves killing innocent people on the grounds of "these people might be terrorists, and these maybe-terrorists MIGHT be in that building" is perfectly fine. When it comes to the espionage, he wants to capture everything everyone is doing all the time. That is the goal of the NSA.

That all sounds pretty damned authoritarian. So up and to the right on that graph is very reasonable. I would even say a little higher would be fine too.

 

[FlorbFnarb]

That graph isn't absurd at all, if compared to all nation's political parties and fringe groups. Obama put through tax cuts for the rich, and leads the only industrial nation that doesn't have socialized medicine. Despite the propaganda against him, he has no intention of pushing for true socialized medicine, and most certainly is NOT a communist. So that deals with his right vs left economic policy.

Next is authoritarian vs libertartian. He spies on the people at large, he thinks courts no one knows about ruling on said spying is "fair oversight," he didn't close gitmo, and he thinks using flying robots to drop bombs on people which _always_ involves killing innocent people on the grounds of "these people might be terrorists, and these maybe-terrorists MIGHT be in that building" is perfectly fine. When it comes to the espionage, he wants to capture everything everyone is doing all the time. That is the goal of the NSA.

That all sounds pretty damned authoritarian. So up and to the right on that graph is very reasonable. I would even say a little higher would be fine too.

He is by no means to the right of anybody except Communists. He's on record as being in favor of socialized medicine - the only reason he hasn't pushed for it is because he knows it's politically impossible, and would not succeed.

Nor is dropping bombs on terrorists "authoritarian".

 

[traius]

He is by no means to the right of anybody except Communists. He's on record as being in favor of socialized medicine - the only reason he hasn't pushed for it is because he knows it's politically impossible, and would not succeed.

Nor is dropping bombs on terrorists "authoritarian".

Dropping missiles outside of war on people without any due process is extremely authoritarian. State-sponsored extra-judicial killing is actually pretty much as authoritarian as it gets, especially when you know for a fact, every time, that you'll be killing a bunch of innocent people at the same time as your extra-judicial killing. What right could the state reserve for itself that is more authoritarian than killing you without explaining their reasoning at all to you, your family, or anyone, and killing everyone within 50ft at the same time they do it? Remember, one man's terrorist is another man's revolutionary, and it's what the founding fathers of the USA understood, and that is why they believed that no state should have the right to kill without due process, including a jury of his peers. They wrote in the preamble that the people should rise up and kill them should the state be lead by tyrants (excuse me if it's not in the preamble, I'm not American).

And communists don't support big bailouts for private companies or tax cuts for the rich. He is as far right as Canada's conservative party, which is in about the same position on that map. The sum of obama's actions don't even come CLOSE to communism. He doesn't think everyone is owed a job, he doesn't give everyone health care or post-secondary education, he doesn't attempt to gather up production capacity under the state (the true key tenet to communism), and he thinks private enterprise is the way to develop natural resources and even construct weapons of war. He is not remotely a communist. Also, socialized medicine doesn't make you a communist, btw. Every other industrialized nation has it, and none of them are communist. Even British right-wing icon Margaret Thatcher refused to dismantle the British system of nationalised medicine (BNH?). British and Canadian people receive better health care on average and pay less for it as a function of GDP than the US. The system is simply one that is better delivered by the state. It is rife with market failure without it.