merijn_v1
Black Belt
The core switches when you FOUND Carthage. It doesn't switch when you conquer it.
Suggestions and Requests
- Thread starter Leoreth
- Start date
Ivan Preuss
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May I make some suggestions?
I just came here after playing the mod for a second time, and I have to say that it really got me hooked, and impressed with the finesse and completeness of its state. The last and first time I played was when there was no Judaism; instead, it was substituted for Zoroastrianism. It felt kinda senseless, because Zoroastrianism is not that much of a major religion either, to justify substituting Judaism. That, along with many of the new mechanics which I felt were limiting (like the bounding of wonders to religions and civis), made me prefer the old RFC.
But now, I became quite a fan of the mod. Been playing it for some months, at the very least.
There are some things, though, that I would like to suggest or ask; because I don't know if someone has already suggested them, or what is the current state of features planned to be added in the next updates.
That said, immediate things come to mind, like adding South Africa and Australia, which would improve late game a lot. Also, adding WWI tanks, since we currently have WWI planes, and the first tanks we get are WWII-looking ones.
But what I would most strongly suggest is changing a little the core, historical and contested areas for some civilizations, because that is easy to do (or at least seems easy to me) and hugely affects gameplay. Of course, pondering this issue begs the question of what such areas are supposed to mean, that is, what are they supposed to represent as computerized reductions of real world vicissitudes.
If we were to adopt a strict definition of "core area" for the Latin civilization, for instance, we would, in a serious discussion, almost certainly arrive at the conclusion that only the Latium region should be first considered its core; since it was the region that was first inhabited by the ancient Latin tribes. But that, of course, would not be good. Rome, as represented in the game, would never be able to control all the regions comprising the Roman Empire if we only assigned Latium as their core area, because then the empire would have collapsed way before that due to stability issues. In other words: the game mechanics would not allow the existence of the Roman Empire in the first place.
Unless, of course, we increase the limit so that Rome can control much larger areas and populations with a reduced core; or, alternatively, we change the expansion limit to allow for certain civilizations to control a relative non-core population. In other words: we make it so that certain civilizations will be able to control large populations with a small core population, while other civilizations will need a larger core population to control these same, non-core, just-as-large populations; which is also a valid measure.
But, since none of the possibilities above are in the game anyway, one must assume that what "core areas" are supposed to represent is something else quite different. Similarly, the French case also bears considerable resemblance to the Latin one. It is well known that, before Parisian French became the frame with which French, as the national language of the french people, became spoken in all parts of France, other Romance languages were standard languages in most regions of France. Yet, France's core area comprises basically the whole of France
Without delving too much, let us just conclude by stating that "core areas" are apparently and strongly defined by the consummation of the phenomenon known as national states, over certain areas of the globe. As such, France's core are came to be France itself, and Rome's came to be the Italian peninsula - which seems, to me, a consideration based more on modern factors than ancient ones. There doesn't seem to be much ground to support that northern Italy (which was inhabited by Celts) was somehow considered "more Roman" than, say, the Basque country or Portugal.
A second point appears self evident to me as well. The core areas of a civilization are apparently relative to their total expansion, that is, when they reach the apex of their empires; as there also would be no sense in having any major civilization be entirely comprised of core areas and no historical or contested areas. Therefore, a balance, a proportion between such areas (and a proportion in which "balance" is a certain mean between maximum and minimum historical expansion) should be the case; and a measure for judging which areas are going to be considered "core areas" (because, as we've seen, "core areas" are somewhat of an arbitrary category); "historical areas" (which translates into "areas that have been long controlled by a certain civilization, but that are not its core) and "contested areas" (areas that are disputed by civilizations); the maps, furthermore, for France and Rome, all appear to be quite balanced to me.
As such, there are some imbalances - or just imprecisions - that I would like to point out, and argue for a correction as I present them.
First, Brazil.
Areas for Brazil
What I would say about this is map that it is entirely wrong. No Brazilian would ever agree with this allocation of core and historical areas. I must be vehement, because Brazilian history and demographics strongly suggests a different set of core, historical and contested areas.
First argument: Brazilian colonization began in the northeast region, and such used to be one of the most populated and economically developed areas of the colony until sugar processing became a less profitable activity, and the colony's capital was moved from there to Rio de Janeiro.
Second argument: a small deal of the areas considered on this map to be "core areas", were actually occupied practically exclusively by american natives by the time Brazil became an independent nation. How can they be core areas, counting for core population score, if such population is not even Brazilian in the first place?
Here is a map indicating the predominant ethnic group in any given region of Brazil, as it constituted itself demographically by the late 19th century:
Where brown represents white people; green, mixed race (black-white); purple, mixed race (white-native american) or just plain native americans.
Also, it should be noted that most purple areas amounted to an empty wilderness inhabited by natives back then. Most people are, still to this date, and have always been, living in the coastal areas.
Third argument: Uruguay and the Brazilian state of Acre should be contested areas, and not whatever they are represented with in the current map. Uruguay used to be part of the Empire of Brazil until it revolted, and the 1828 treaty of Montevideo, signed by Brazil and Argentina, recognized the independence of Uruguay. However, since Uruguay is not a civilization currently in the mod, it should remain an area of attrition between the civilizations of Brazil and Argentina. The state of Acre was bought from Bolivia after the region was settled by Brazilians and revolted into its own independent government, which was subsequently annexed by the Brazilian government. The government of Brazil, however, decided to resort to diplomacy and bought it from Bolivia. Bolivia, in turn, had difficulties managing the territories invaded by Brazilian settlers, due to the geographical barrier of the Andes, while Brazilian troops only needed the region's rivers to reach and aid such settlers. Due to this inherently competitive nature of the issue, it should thus be a contested area.
All in all, a map which accounts for such qualities of Brazilian history should look more or less like this:
Second, Argentina.
How Argentina's map currently looks:
As for Argentina, I would like to argue for two minor changes:
I. To include Uruguay as a core area, since Argentina's core area should represent, in my view, the core areas of the Spanish provinces of Rio de la Plata.
II. To remove Patagonia from the core and make it instead a historical area. Just as it was with Brazil, most of Patagonia was still inhabited by natives when it became independent. The flip zone, however, should remain the same.
Such as Argentina's map would look more like this:
That's all. Thank you for reading, I know it's quite a wall of text, and I would be glad if it provoked some thoughts among you, as I would be interested in discussing the matter further if you'd like.
I just came here after playing the mod for a second time, and I have to say that it really got me hooked, and impressed with the finesse and completeness of its state. The last and first time I played was when there was no Judaism; instead, it was substituted for Zoroastrianism. It felt kinda senseless, because Zoroastrianism is not that much of a major religion either, to justify substituting Judaism. That, along with many of the new mechanics which I felt were limiting (like the bounding of wonders to religions and civis), made me prefer the old RFC.
But now, I became quite a fan of the mod. Been playing it for some months, at the very least.
There are some things, though, that I would like to suggest or ask; because I don't know if someone has already suggested them, or what is the current state of features planned to be added in the next updates.
That said, immediate things come to mind, like adding South Africa and Australia, which would improve late game a lot. Also, adding WWI tanks, since we currently have WWI planes, and the first tanks we get are WWII-looking ones.
But what I would most strongly suggest is changing a little the core, historical and contested areas for some civilizations, because that is easy to do (or at least seems easy to me) and hugely affects gameplay. Of course, pondering this issue begs the question of what such areas are supposed to mean, that is, what are they supposed to represent as computerized reductions of real world vicissitudes.
If we were to adopt a strict definition of "core area" for the Latin civilization, for instance, we would, in a serious discussion, almost certainly arrive at the conclusion that only the Latium region should be first considered its core; since it was the region that was first inhabited by the ancient Latin tribes. But that, of course, would not be good. Rome, as represented in the game, would never be able to control all the regions comprising the Roman Empire if we only assigned Latium as their core area, because then the empire would have collapsed way before that due to stability issues. In other words: the game mechanics would not allow the existence of the Roman Empire in the first place.
Unless, of course, we increase the limit so that Rome can control much larger areas and populations with a reduced core; or, alternatively, we change the expansion limit to allow for certain civilizations to control a relative non-core population. In other words: we make it so that certain civilizations will be able to control large populations with a small core population, while other civilizations will need a larger core population to control these same, non-core, just-as-large populations; which is also a valid measure.
But, since none of the possibilities above are in the game anyway, one must assume that what "core areas" are supposed to represent is something else quite different. Similarly, the French case also bears considerable resemblance to the Latin one. It is well known that, before Parisian French became the frame with which French, as the national language of the french people, became spoken in all parts of France, other Romance languages were standard languages in most regions of France. Yet, France's core area comprises basically the whole of France
Without delving too much, let us just conclude by stating that "core areas" are apparently and strongly defined by the consummation of the phenomenon known as national states, over certain areas of the globe. As such, France's core are came to be France itself, and Rome's came to be the Italian peninsula - which seems, to me, a consideration based more on modern factors than ancient ones. There doesn't seem to be much ground to support that northern Italy (which was inhabited by Celts) was somehow considered "more Roman" than, say, the Basque country or Portugal.
A second point appears self evident to me as well. The core areas of a civilization are apparently relative to their total expansion, that is, when they reach the apex of their empires; as there also would be no sense in having any major civilization be entirely comprised of core areas and no historical or contested areas. Therefore, a balance, a proportion between such areas (and a proportion in which "balance" is a certain mean between maximum and minimum historical expansion) should be the case; and a measure for judging which areas are going to be considered "core areas" (because, as we've seen, "core areas" are somewhat of an arbitrary category); "historical areas" (which translates into "areas that have been long controlled by a certain civilization, but that are not its core) and "contested areas" (areas that are disputed by civilizations); the maps, furthermore, for France and Rome, all appear to be quite balanced to me.
As such, there are some imbalances - or just imprecisions - that I would like to point out, and argue for a correction as I present them.
First, Brazil.
Areas for Brazil
What I would say about this is map that it is entirely wrong. No Brazilian would ever agree with this allocation of core and historical areas. I must be vehement, because Brazilian history and demographics strongly suggests a different set of core, historical and contested areas.
First argument: Brazilian colonization began in the northeast region, and such used to be one of the most populated and economically developed areas of the colony until sugar processing became a less profitable activity, and the colony's capital was moved from there to Rio de Janeiro.
Second argument: a small deal of the areas considered on this map to be "core areas", were actually occupied practically exclusively by american natives by the time Brazil became an independent nation. How can they be core areas, counting for core population score, if such population is not even Brazilian in the first place?
Here is a map indicating the predominant ethnic group in any given region of Brazil, as it constituted itself demographically by the late 19th century:
Where brown represents white people; green, mixed race (black-white); purple, mixed race (white-native american) or just plain native americans.
Also, it should be noted that most purple areas amounted to an empty wilderness inhabited by natives back then. Most people are, still to this date, and have always been, living in the coastal areas.
Third argument: Uruguay and the Brazilian state of Acre should be contested areas, and not whatever they are represented with in the current map. Uruguay used to be part of the Empire of Brazil until it revolted, and the 1828 treaty of Montevideo, signed by Brazil and Argentina, recognized the independence of Uruguay. However, since Uruguay is not a civilization currently in the mod, it should remain an area of attrition between the civilizations of Brazil and Argentina. The state of Acre was bought from Bolivia after the region was settled by Brazilians and revolted into its own independent government, which was subsequently annexed by the Brazilian government. The government of Brazil, however, decided to resort to diplomacy and bought it from Bolivia. Bolivia, in turn, had difficulties managing the territories invaded by Brazilian settlers, due to the geographical barrier of the Andes, while Brazilian troops only needed the region's rivers to reach and aid such settlers. Due to this inherently competitive nature of the issue, it should thus be a contested area.
All in all, a map which accounts for such qualities of Brazilian history should look more or less like this:
Second, Argentina.
How Argentina's map currently looks:
As for Argentina, I would like to argue for two minor changes:
I. To include Uruguay as a core area, since Argentina's core area should represent, in my view, the core areas of the Spanish provinces of Rio de la Plata.
II. To remove Patagonia from the core and make it instead a historical area. Just as it was with Brazil, most of Patagonia was still inhabited by natives when it became independent. The flip zone, however, should remain the same.
Such as Argentina's map would look more like this:
That's all. Thank you for reading, I know it's quite a wall of text, and I would be glad if it provoked some thoughts among you, as I would be interested in discussing the matter further if you'd like.
Last edited:
Enyavar
Prince
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Welcome to the forums, then! What I value most about this mod is the ongoing, strong modding community around a game that many less fanatic players have long since abandoned. Civ IV is not dead until DoC stops, and I think the mod is in its prime.
That's a deep one. I'm not involved in testing the upcoming but still far away 1.16 release. Instead, I'm stuck playing the 1.15 release, just like I assume you also do.
As far as I know, the next version will provide a completely new (bigger) world map which will replace and abandon the previous map that you also refer to. That means, it will probably be independently balanced from the current map; and the current stability maps will also be redrawn. Currently, the entire map is still very much open for discusion, look here: Map discussion (terrain placement); Map discussion (city placement); Map discussion (resource placement). The stability maps are not on the table yet, although I hear some playtesters already experiment with it. I think, Leoreth might think about your suggestion once the dev version is far enough.
When I played the game, I always felt that the stability maps were just fine to provide a challenge, but I haven't played Brazil or Argentina, yet. I'm planning to do so though.
Have you tested your changes to the stability maps already? I was ecstatic when I found that I could simply edit the stability map for a current game in the World Editor. In several games, I won the UHV and then played beyond the UHV. In those cases, I made subtle+reasonable changes to the stability maps because I felt entitled to some territories: When I held foreign territories for many centuries, not in any other civs foreign core or even disputed areas, I declared 1-3 "foreign" city locations to be "core" and tested what that did for my stability...
The change you suggest for Argentina looks, to me, as just giving up on some core plots and taking others instead. I think that is just reasonable.
The change you suggest for Brazil looks, to my first glance, as if it's going to make Brazil a super-power. Such a large and food-rich core area (while the borders are historically justified, I agree) makes it possible to hold a lot more foreign territories than the current mod allows for Brazil. The AI would be super-stable at the very least; the human player could hold all of South America plus all strategic positions of another continent, like Australia or Africa.
DC123456789
Deity
Contested areas are simply the overlap of historical areas with foreign cores, so it's unlikely that it would actually have the effect you're looking for.
Ivan Preuss
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Thank you! I also agree on that, the mod seems to be indeed in its prime. It was precisely such near-completeness, or simply the refinement of its state that changed my opinions on it.
I've seen some of the discussion on stability maps, and people really have a point in complaining about some small things that are wrong or strange-looking, but these generally are just small things. Some people might complain about China's core area being slightly wrong, but overall the map is mostly correct and/or simply functional, so that China will be able to hold what it historically did and not so much on top of that. Brazil's and Argentina's map, however, are the only cases in my view that are largely incorrect. Argentina's core is historically wrong, and being historically wrong, it is also too big for a country that never constituted an empire, and cannot even take the Falklands from the British while it is sitting right at their side.
About testing, I haven't. I didn't know you could do that with the editor, but now that you've said it, it's something I could do.
That can be tweaked. I believe Brazil's core should be reduced, and not at all increased. My main concern, though, was historical accuracy. If you look at that demographic map I posted, it demonstrates a solution to this possible problem, since purple areas are mainly inhabited; and green ones represent the main center of colonial activity.
Ivan Preuss
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Although that seems to be what it is for most of the cases, that is not a rule. I've checked the maps, and Sicily is both a contested and a historical area for many civs, while it is a core to none.
DC123456789
Deity
It's part of Italy's expanded core.
Ivan Preuss
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Right. Then Acre can be a historical area, if that is the case. Makes more sense than a foreign one.
I think your premise on core areas is slightly flawed in the sense that it assumes that core areas need to reflect some historical starting point instead of a more generalised view on what territory a civilisation controlled throughout history. For example, by the modern era you can factually consider the French core as what it is in the game. Likewise, during the Roman Empire the Italian peninsula even actually had special status within the empire and it makes a lot of sense to consider it the Roman core.
Overall however the stability considerations are more important than accuracy, as you concluded, so it does not always make sense to look for consistency between civilisations.
Overall however the stability considerations are more important than accuracy, as you concluded, so it does not always make sense to look for consistency between civilisations.
For your proposals for these two South American civs, I'm in agreement with the other posters that they wouldn't have the gameplay objectives you've contemplated. Your proposed Brazilian map in particular would put every single Brazilian city, but for inner Amazon 'colonies' and Brasilia, as Core. Currently, Brazil fits three cities comfortably in its core (Sao Paolo, Rio de Janiero, Brasilia), and gets a pretty good core population out of it (~50 is achievable, which multiplies up to ~300 - ~400 in Brazil's tech eras). The changes to have the entire Brazilian coast as Core essentially substitutes Brasilia for Recife and Belem, at least on the current 1700 AD scenario. Both of these cities have considerably higher growth potential than Brasilia, particularly if one is aiming for the UHV, as Brasilia (your likely National Park capital) will not have the option of clearing out the rainforests/jungles around it for food. The result is you take a civ that is already very stable, and make it incredibly stable, as you now have what is likely to be at least ~60 core population to work off of. This is better than several contemporary civs which have conquest UHV's: all European civs, Japan, and Gran Colombia. Only the three civs which are arguably intended to be superpowers - USA, Russia, and China - will have greater Core populations at that point.
Now one could argue that Brazil might reach that point in the future, but at least for the timeframe of the mod, Brazil has firmly been a regional power at best, and its current three city Core reflects that reach.
Likewise, your proposal for Argentina's core actually defeats the objective you've stated: that Argentina is a 'weak' empire that couldn't even win the Falklands. Argentina's current core fits two cities comfortably: Buenos Aires and Viedma. Buenos Aires reaches size 18 - 20 comfortably, and Viedma about size 10. If we replace Viedma with Montevideo, then we're adding a very considerable amount to Argentina's core calculation, as Montevideo reaches populations just under Buenos Aires (15 - 17 is typical). What we therefore have is actually a stronger Argentina from your proposed map.
Lastly, while it's great you took so much effort into typing this out, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with the discussions about France and Rome's cores. Personally I think it's very intuitive that Rome's core - where its support base is and where you would argue the civilization would (and did) 'end' with the loss of the Italian peninsula for Rome and with all of France proper for France. Rome could suffer incredible losses of territory (see the Crisis of the Third Century and the later Empire) while maintaining its Italian core, and still subsist as an entity. Likewise, France lost Paris and all of northern and western France during the middle-ish stages of the Hundred Years War, and continued onwards nonetheless to win the war from what would be Marseilles in DoC's map. Vichy France in WW2 fits better as a vassal rather than a completely collapsed civ, and it likewise only lost half of what is core on the map.
Ivan Preuss
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Think about it semantically. Does not "core" suggests a "starting point", even if just kind of? What does "core" even mean to you, if not precisely that which is elementary? that which is most fundamental; here, an area in geographical space just as much as a population, which comes to be nothing less than the peoples who set the tone for a state's very own tempo? What is a "core", in this sense, if not this most tactile and demonstrable concept? I just do not see how this counter-argument makes any sense.
Of course, by the modern era you can say that France is the core of itself; but has it always been like that? The answer is, quite evidently, no: it wasn't. It wasn't til the late 19th century that it began to be shaped like so. As for the Roman Empire - if we are being strictly historical here -, there is simply not much pertinence to think of it as having a "core area". Foreign elites were incorporated into the Roman elites ever since Rome started to expand, and thus it was a multi-ethnic empire since the very beginning. Here you have a point, because the primeval expansion of Rome was founded over the alliance of Rome with other Italic peoples, but, again, there was no real reason for a Roman back then to think of Italic Romans as any more Roman than lusitanian Romans. If anything, social class would probably play a greater role in defining "who's more Roman", since poor inhabitants of the western parts of the Roman Empire spoke vulgar Latin, which was full of linguistic impregnation arriving from stigmatized dialects just as native languages.
Ivan Preuss
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I understand your concerns, but you have not accounted for the fact that we can still change the core areas to increase historical accuracy, while at the same time preserving the old proportion. I presume we all agree that we must balance the game's functionality with historical accuracy, favoring the first, if necessary. However, accounting for the aforementioned imbalances, what seems licit to me is to remove São Paulo and Brasília from the core areas, and, instead, add two cities in the northeast region - as you've mentioned - to make up for the former. The northeast region is arid, and while it does not have jungles such as the ones near Brasília, its cities should still fail to grow as much as São Paulo; and, that way, we maintain balance. See the demographic map I posted before for reference. I conclude from this, that your observation that two cities in the northeast region would surpass Brasília and São Paulo is incorrect; and in any case, it most certainly can be done without allowing those cities to surpass the former: it's just a matter of where and how many tiles are core ones.
Again, that is incorrect. Montevideo, being too close to Buenos Aires in one side, and the Brazilian border at another, cannot work many tiles and grow too much, without resorting to water tiles for food. The same is valid for Viedma. The desert around Viedma won't allow much food or productivity, so it needs water tiles for food just as well. It is not at all that different.
I was getting to this: core areas. What are they? apparently, the issue was underneath your nose the whole time, but you didn't see.
You are mixing real-world (and for that matter incredibly more complex) political, social and cultural vicissitudes with simple game mechanics. One thing does not perfectly corresponds to the other.
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Ivan Preuss
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I've checked the amount of food for Viedma and Montevideo. Without accounting for what could go for Buenos Aires, Montevideo gets some 5 or 6 population levels more than Viedma. Still more accurate, though, as it promotes larger populations in regions were they did, in fact, occur. You win some, you lose some.
Enyavar
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As I said, these suggestions can be tested by yourself, with the world editor, but are unlikely to find a direct way into the mod as I think that Leoreth has currently other priorities.
The stability maps are not only determined by real world history, but also gameplay/balance concerns. Even adding a tiny desert oasis plot to a core can allow for an additional core pop of 6, and results in allowing +40 noncore population right away.
For example, adding Hawaii to the Polynesian core area looks historically correct but allows the human player to settle and hold the entirety of Australia...
The stability maps are not only determined by real world history, but also gameplay/balance concerns. Even adding a tiny desert oasis plot to a core can allow for an additional core pop of 6, and results in allowing +40 noncore population right away.
For example, adding Hawaii to the Polynesian core area looks historically correct but allows the human player to settle and hold the entirety of Australia...
Ivan Preuss
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I've already described my case to the best of my efforts, but, sadly, most people here just seem to think historical relevance is not of the slightest importance. Either that, or they just don't know/don't care about Brazilian or Argentinian history. I mean, has any one of you ever asked yourselves just what the hell is the Argentinian state? I bet most of you have no idea what I'm trying to get to, because you just don't care. But I'll say this, which is a matter of fact: the Argentinian state is basically Buenos Aires on steroids. Heck, even Karl Marx seemed to get something of this ultimate, celestial truth of Argentina's ambitions, as he famously - and some would claim even prophetically - said that History is the struggle of social classes among themselves. Something to which I can only so modestly claim to have discovered the final gear: and complement, saying that the History of Argentina is the history of Buenos Aires struggling to control the entire **** of its surroundings and Hispanic neighbors. Plus, any historian will back me up on this, and mark my words: one day Argentina will fulfill its destiny in History, and then it will rule the entirety of South America - and when this happens, they'll become unstoppable -. They'll go after you guys, and everyone else, because this is a sublime piece of History's clockwork that I have uncovered right before your eyes. Don't say I didn't warn you!
ozqar
King
@Ivan Preuss ... just out of curiosity, where are you from?
Ivan Preuss
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I come from the glorious land of Funk Carioca, Feijoada and Pretas Gostosas. I wish nothing but peace with you human beings.
Why do I have to think about it semantically? You are adopting a backwards perspective here that I often see people take on the internet and it's always perplexing to me. You do not look at a word and then try to derive what it's meaning could be. You take a concept and look at it in context and then try to understand it. A name given to a concept should be related to it, but the name neither defines nor fully describes the concept. Names are just shorthands for communication.
Core vs. periphery is part of the common parlance in historical discussion and it is not just derived from how things grew from the past. Besides, I did not invent the term core, which is from the original RFC and is mostly defined by convention as being used by the RFC community over time.
This is more arguable than the Roman example but I disagree. Everything in the French core has invariably considered French give or take since the Middle Ages. Of course some territories were not controlled by French polities for some periods but they generally were. Maybe you can quibble one or two plots but that's really below the point of being worth the discussion, especially since you want to prove some principle.
That's just plain wrong. Romans did not conceive of ethnic differences as we do in the modern world but that does not mean that Roman society was egalitarian across all regions of the empire. Unless you were a Roman citizen, many legal and commercial rights were unavailable to you. Citizenship expanded gradually from the city of Rome itself but it wasn't automatically granted to conquered territories. Only the edict of Caracalla in 212 established citizenship for all persons in the Roman Empire. Before that it was basically constrained to the Italian peninsula more or less.
Another argument is the role of Italy in the constitution of the Roman Empire territorially. After the principate was established, provinces were divided into senatorial and imperial provinces, granting some (formal) administrative powers to the senate and the emperor respectively. However, Italy was not regarded a province but a sui generis entity directly administered by the senate. So basically everything was regarded as a province except Italy, which is for all purposes synonymous with the Romans considering Italy the core of their empire.
Ivan Preuss
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Because I've asked you to do so. Is it really that hard?
How is it backwards? My dude, I think you are going way too fast with this. I study linguistics and literature. I am myself a writer. It is only natural for me to see words semantically and etymologically.
Both context and semantics are important. Context without semantic value is literally nothing; but semantic value without context is at least something.
Where have I stated the opposite?
Saussure disagrees.
Two things here:
I. If you're speaking about core and periphery in a historical sense, to my knowledge you're speaking about empires. Brazil and Argentina do not have cores and peripheries, or at least, I've never seen someone deal with such concepts within the perspective of a national state, in a way that the concepts themselves couldn't be easily switched for more appropriate dichotomies, like urban and agrarian, formal dwellings and informal dwellings etc.
II. If you're claiming that the original RFC somehow defined core to a very, or sufficiently strict sense, in such a way that what I consider to be the appropriate definition for core areas is somehow excluded or refuted by this definition; then fine, show me this definition.
You are speaking about power and politics, while I'm speaking about culture. The principal aspect of culture is language. Do not claim I consider it to be such because I study languages; as it might be true, and right because of that, do not dare claiming it.
I did not claim it was, on the contrary.
Have I disputed any of this before? Alright, the only thing I kind of contested here is the matter of the elites. Many among the Roman elites were acculturated natives who saw themselves as Roman. These same elite Latinized natives would probably look at themselves in comparison with the more common folk, which was still less acculturated, more preserving of their original culture, and think "ha! we're more Romans than them!". That's all I claimed. You didn't need Roman citizenship to be among the economic elite of the Roman Empire.
About citizenship, though, I'm not as precise as you are. Perhaps you can show me some sources on that? As far as I know, Rome granted citizenship to every citizen it saw appropriate or necessary, regardless of cultural background or place of origin. You yourself said that they didn't see cultural differences the way we do it nowadays, back then.
If you are referring to this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe..._117-pt.svg/1024px-RomanEmpire_117-pt.svg.png
Then, you can clearly see that many other provinces were also directly administered by the senate, not just Italy.
Not exactly synonymous, but I get what you're saying. However, the crystallization of the Italian peninsula as a "core" for the Romans (though the branding off all other places as "provinces") is something that took a lot of time to happen.
"The pyrrhic war ended in 275 BC, and by 265 BC the establishment of Roman Italy had already been completed (Sicily, Sardinia and Cisalpine Gaul were later added, but they were not considered part of Italy at the time of their conquest)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_expansion_in_Italy
"A província da Gália Ulterior, na época de Júlio César era, às vezes, designada simplesmente pelo termo "província".[1]"
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Província_romana
Etc. We might have some evidence that Romans granted special statuses to Italy and other regions, but we can pretty sure and just as well ascertain that even more important than Italy was the city of Rome itself. Nothing was more important the the city of Rome to a Roman citizen; and their loyalty was sworn to Rome. The idea that Italy, somehow, and not Rome, consisted in this "core" of sorts for the empire is nonetheless a modern interpretation. You cannot - because you won't - find a Roman script stating that "Italy is the core of the Roman Empire", or something of a similar vein to what you're attempting to prove they did thought about themselves, because they did not use such interpretative and modern language, terms and concepts that we - the moderns - use for scholar purposes and for the purposes of advanced theories or dissertations (none of which the Romans had) that the Romans were simply not concerned with. Basically put, the Romans did not know sociology and modern historiography, and the Romans did not consider Italy to be their "core", or anything sufficiently similar.
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Stopped reading here, bye.
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