The least deserving civilization?

[DroopyTofu]

Straight from American Heritage Dictionary
n.

1. An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.
2. The type of culture and society developed by a particular nation or region or in a particular epoch: Mayan civilization; the civilization of ancient Rome.
3. The act or process of civilizing or reaching a civilized state.
4. Cultural or intellectual refinement; good taste.
5. Modern society with its conveniences: returned to civilization after camping in the mountains.

US has all of that...
HRE had most of it in some , esp. complex political institution...
Native Americans as a whole, no marked progress in art and science, no record keeping, occational goverments, etc....

please consider this in the future when judging a civ.
Hope this helps clear up some questions

 

[frekk]

Aztec: Not a true entity, really just a bunch of loose city-states that were easily collapsed by the Spanish Conquistadors. Really a terror of Meso-America.

A Triple Alliance of three city-states, actually, with a vast empire of subject states. Did you know that Rome was also a city-state with an empire? Numerous empires were actually city-states ruling over an external, subject territory, including Babylon, Athens (during her time as an empire, during and before the Peloponnesian Wars), and Carthage.

Maya: They made grand cultural acheivements, the main reason they deserve to be in the game. I think they are only slightly less deserving than Inca. a true empire.

The Maya were not an empire, but a collection of dozens of city-states, as well as literally hundreds of rural tribes. There were over a dozen different languages (eg Itza, Acateco, Cakchiquel, etc) and many dialects: the Mayan language tree is roughly as diverse as the Latin and Germanic segments (combined) of the Indo-European language tree.

Vikings: Really "Fanservice" here. They were loose villages that raided Medieval Europe, not much cultural landmarks.

Not really ... the Danes influenced England's language, laws and government in fundamental ways that continue to have impact on the modern world. Their trade region was vast, covering everything from Iceland to the Middle East, and was responsible for movements of peoples and cultures (via slave trading) as well as exchange of material culture. They revolutionized ship building: the stunning advances in shipbuilding in late medieval Europe were due to a marriage of Meditteranean and Norse techniques.

Carthage: Might be deserving as they were Rome's main early threat. But that is all they were. They had a few towns, but were in truth an "Early Rome", that couldn't beat the budding Latins.

Carthage was, without doubt, the greatest port and centre of trade in the entire Meditteranean for centuries. Also, Carthage is there to be representative of Phoencian culture as a whole, which was vitally important in spreading culture and ideas in the early ancient world.

 

[frekk]

Straight from American Heritage Dictionary
n.

1. An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.
2. The type of culture and society developed by a particular nation or region or in a particular epoch: Mayan civilization; the civilization of ancient Rome.
3. The act or process of civilizing or reaching a civilized state.
4. Cultural or intellectual refinement; good taste.
5. Modern society with its conveniences: returned to civilization after camping in the mountains.

US has all of that...
HRE had most of it in some , esp. complex political institution...

What modern state doesn't? Even middling African states generally have art, writing, cities, and complex political structures.

Anyway, dictionary definitions don't work like shopping lists. Each of those things is a discrete meaning. That is to say, meeting any one of the 5 listed definitions meets the qualification for the term. Given def. 2, the scope is pretty broad and the dictionary definition doesn't really suit us for these purposes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I voted mali/native america, but have no problems with them in the game so picked that option also...more civs the better...but these 2 did the least in terms of relevant known history.

Of course, I have slight bias against Native America, because their leader and traits make them an extremely annoying presence in my games. Nothing like a crappy, tech poor neighbor who won't trade with you, always seems to have important cities on hills, and begs for stuff constantly until you kill him, which tends to take a while since he gets super archers. Very annoying.

 

[Dryhad]

Meh... you're always going to get the "anti-American" vote... that's not interesting, that's just the way things are. The OP should have included America as an option because there's always going to be some yahoo who thinks of America as a bunch of renegade European barbarians... that just comes with the territory of realizing how many outside America view the US.

Don't flatter yourself. This is not about the public image of the US (at least it's not for me, I can't really speak for anyone else), there are plenty of civs that certainly deserve to be in the game in spite of (or perhaps because of) worse regimes than the worst American Presidents could even dream of. It is because the US is, in my view, much too young a nation to be included in a game such as Civ.

The thing is, Anti-American votes or no, it would never be anywhere near the top of "undeserving Civs", so it's kinda silly to put so much heat on such a small piece of the "undeserving civ" pie.

The whole point is that it should have been on the list. Why are you so insistent that something can only be interesting if it relates directly to the poll? I consider it immensely interesting that Germany, which the OP didn't want to put on the list but "had to" (whatever that means) recieves no votes while Mongolia which is "obvious" gets 5 (and I rather think it would have gotten more if it had been on the list).

It's not just about America, there are several others there which are most certainly not obvious. Greece was a collection of city states united by culture, and doesn't really fit the game definition of civilisation (and Alexander was Macedonian). India was, IIRC, several different empires throughout history, not one continuous one. England, it could be argued, ought to be Britain. And we've already discussed American and Mongolia.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Why did you vote for this poll option then? Hypocritical. I guess you didn't notice this was a public poll...

Poll Option that PimpyMicPimp chose = I think every Civilization deserves to be in the game

How is that hypocritcal? I chose the option that I agree with; that you can't pick any civ and say "YOU DON'T BELONG".

I fail to see the hypocrisy in that, it's the only option that I can agree with.

 

[Iranon]

As avid players of a game that's meant to be a celebration of civilisation but allows players to work most of their population to death in a few short years, raze world wonders en masse or simply turn the world into a radioactive wasteland, I think we should leave our sense of outrage at the door in these discussions.


Since my country has been brought up... you know, in the last 100 years it went from authoritarian monarchy to one of the most liberal democracies ever attempted to a particularly frightening dictatorship to the respective testbeds for socialism/capitalism to something almost resembling a normal country.
I should know better than to look at 'recent' affairs when it comes to stating whether a civilization deserves to feature in 6000 years of civ.

As an aside to the above, if someone argued that a stable and unified leadership is an important criterion for inclusion and thus Germany should be on this list, I wouldn't cry 'foul' - in fact I'd agree.

As the results show, however, plenty of people are missing the option of America. How many for legitimate reasons and how many due to political bias I don't know; but most attempted refutations in this thread are of the latter variety.

 

[Stoney the I]

How is that interesting? If "10" votes is interesting, what do you consider the "48" votes the Holy Roman Empire has racked-up, blowing away everybody else in the poll?!?!?!

Seems quite clear, an interesting 10 votes for America still pales in comparison to the unity that is the anti Holy Roman Empire vote

dont forget that if US was on the list, the america-haters would create 15accounts each just to get the votes in!

Just kidding
seems the ammies have long toes when it comes to anything theatening their country, even if its a poll
(The dutch do too i see, couple of annoyed post by some dutchies)

love this thread

 

[jorissimo]

Yeah, but you guys have herring vendors on the street and eat pancakes for dinner. -1 point for the weirdness factor

You are crazy

 

[Turquoiside]

Because I've read enough of these posts to see how unintelligent they become.

There is no way to measure a Civ's relevance in the game. It isn't just opinion, because people just wave flags without and shred of critical thought.

These threads suck.

Yeah they do seem to downgrade into mindlessness after page 3.....

 

[Turquoiside]

A Triple Alliance of three city-states, actually, with a vast empire of subject states. Did you know that Rome was also a city-state with an empire? Numerous empires were actually city-states ruling over an external, subject territory, including Babylon, Athens (during her time as an empire, during and before the Peloponnesian Wars), and Carthage.

But was Rome destroyed when Carthage realized they only needed to take Rome

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NO

 

[mboettcher]

Mongolia was just a bunch of herdsmen who united and killed 30 million people. They themselves contributed nothing in terms of art, culture, or technology (and don't go all "ooh but Kublai Khan..." on me because all his works were built by enslaved artists and thinkers from other cultures), and their empire lasted less than two centuries. Sounds more like barbarians than a civilization. Zulus are pretty much the same way: a massive warband whose only claim to fame was how many innocent people they killed or enslaved. Their empire lasted what, two generations?

Amen to that. Just cause they lived 700 years befire the Nazi's doesn't make them any better. Well, at least the Nazis managed to give us some technology.

Any culture who's entire purpose was warfare and mass murder (they killed everyone in the cities they took..) doesn't deserve to be revered in any way.

 

[mboettcher]

What I find interesting, is that the History of the Holy Roman Empire is way longer and more important than the German one. A lot of people voted America, even outside the poll... well, Germany isn't much different. Yet, 40 votes for HRE and 0 for Germany. Makes a lot of sense, heh...

Excellent point about the HRE and why I think they should be included and Germany not excluded. The HRE was a central driving force in the evolution of war (landsknechts), politics (they were in/ the cause of almost every war) and religion (reformation) throughout the medieval era up to the start of the romantic era. It was HRE military tactics that was greatly responisble for the transition from medieval warfare to the gunpowder era.

 

[mboettcher]

I easily voted HRE without thinking twice. The game is called "Civilization"... before you even open the box, you've already ruled-out the HRE... because it wasn't a "Civilization", anymore then NATO, the Warsaw Pact or the United Nations is a Civilization. The HRE was a series of treaties and pacts between different kingdoms and principalities... it was not a Civilization, it was a system of pacts. The very fact the cities it's granted in-game are the exact same cities that compose of Germany and Austria is just the final nail in the coffin. It's neither Germany, nor Austria... it's not any nation or ethnic group, and it's certainly not a civilization. It's just some pacts and treaties slapped together... it's the medieval equivalent of NATO. It's not a Civ... and the very fact it dissolved into it's base-civ... aka: Austria... is very telling as well. Firaxis should have just skipped HRE and did the right thing... include Austria... a real Civ.

Technincally you just described the medieval system of government and national organization. Most "nations" were not so in this time period. This is ed feudalism my friend which means that all principalities at this time are organized in a similar manner. It was mroe than a series of treaties and pacts but socially stratfied politcal state and figure head.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Excellent point about the HRE and why I think they should be included and Germany not excluded. The HRE was a central driving force in the evolution of war (landsknechts), politics (they were in/ the cause of almost every war) and religion (reformation) throughout the medieval era up to the start of the romantic era. It was HRE military tactics that was greatly responisble for the transition from medieval warfare to the gunpowder era.

Pfft... the very name itself is as contradictory as the entire concept of them being a Civilization... they weren't Holy, they weren't Roman, and the weren't an Empire. Different ethnic/national parts of the alliances which fell under this HRE term did the accomplishments you speak of. Giving Landscknechts and political influence credence to the HRE as being a true civilization, is no different then giving Nimitz class carriers and intervention in Bosnia credit to NATO being a true civilization.

Why isn't NATO a civilization? It's done all the same things the HRE has done!

Technincally you just described the medieval system of government and national organization. Most "nations" were not so in this time period. This is ed feudalism my friend which means that all principalities at this time are organized in a similar manner. It was mroe than a series of treaties and pacts but socially stratfied politcal state and figure head.

Yeah, and technically you described every alliance as being worthy of being called a civilization... NATO, the United Nations, the Warsaw Pact, the League of Nations, the Kyoto accords... lets make them all Civs too! Just as deserving as the HRE.

 

[mboettcher]

Why isn't NATO a civilization? It's done all the same things the HRE has done!

NATO is a treaty not a governing politcal entity with laws and subjects etc. And NATO doesn't develop any weapons, the nations in NATO do. The military developments of the HRE were created by the leaders of HRE. The landsknect were part of the army of the HRE not members of a different "national" army (nations didn't exist yet remember) fighting under one flag by treaty. The army attached to the HRE was attached to it just as much as the armies of France or England. Hell you could argue that Spain, france or even england as politcally organized during these periods were not more centrally held together.

 

[scu98rkr]

Im surprised that Khmer and Mali have so many votes.

I think we definitely need to spread the Civs around the world as this is meant to be a "What if ?" game.

So its a bit rubbish having so many western nations.

 

[EweezE]

How can you judge whether an entire civilization deserves to be in a video game or not? Really, these discussions always degenerate into flag waving and don't offer anything constructive.

How can you? You sure passed judgement though with your vote...

How is that hypocritcal? I chose the option that I agree with; that you can't pick any civ and say "YOU DON'T BELONG".

I fail to see the hypocrisy in that, it's the only option that I can agree with.

Your vote says "They all belong." That includes: America, HRE, Natives, all of them! Had you abstained; I wouldn't have called you a hypocrite. Any vote on the matter passes judgement, whether positive or negative.

 

[SneakY BenjI]

American civilization not being among the most deserving is silly, Imo. The united states contributed greatly to civilization. The bill of rights is one of the first documents where a civilization recognizes it's citizens have rights.......

Also (directed at Europeans, who are making this claim) you have extremely short memories. You would all be bowing to swastikas if it weren't for the united states(well and russia but for this purpose we are going to pretend like the U.S.S.R. was useless ). xD

 

[SneakY BenjI]

btw i voted that all civilizations deserve to be in the game. I think that firaxis knows best what criteria is involved before a civilization is added. Yes i do realize that some of them are kinda insane like the native Americans. ( i think that was more likely added because of the political situation in the united states, tbh)

I would like to see Vietnam added though. Vietnam has had an extremely long history as a civilization(Although they were living primarily under foreign rule for a large part of their history.