The least deserving civilization?

Which is the least deserving civilization?

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Edit: I don't expect to change your mind so for the sake of realigning this thread with it's original purpose I'm going to stop participating in this debate/argument. I will just state that I don't believe in vengeance as a righteous or humane philosophy in wartime or otherwise, nor do I feel that hundreds of thousands of civilian lives are something to be used as a currency in bargaining the end of a war, no matter the side.
 
How about we just ban all war, Period

Now on subject

@siam Please see my second post, i agree that the rest of the world was doing alot of great stuff, but that's the way alot of US textbooks are laid out.
 
frog3 said:
Yeah that makes sense, let us name inventions after the people who didn't invent it. Stop trying to give more credit to something the arabs didn't invent.
Click to expand...

Fine, I'll call them Indian numerals, but that wasn't the point. The point was that the Arabs brought the numbers over to the Middle East and the West, allowing mathematics esp. algebra to flourish. It also laid the foundation for further advancemnts in mathmatics in the West, consindering math is MUCH harder to do with Roman numerals than "Indian".
 
Is someone really denying the fact that our "english" numbers are actually Arabic or Arabic influenced or a result of what Arabs did? Did that guy go to a private religious school? Probably, God only knows what they teach in those things (pun intended).

Arabs also were the keepers of any books and knowledge of Europe during the Middle Ages. We can thank them for knowing about the Greeks, Romans, etc. After all, in Europe during the Medieval Era, the only books that were allowed to be printed and kept were the Bible and any related religious materials and only Priests, Nobles, and Kings could read anyway. Peasants (majority of the population, probably about 90%) knew nothing of history, culture, etc etc. They knew agriculture, fishing, maybe masonry, and how to worship the Catholic God.

:goodjob: thanks, Arabs! We here in the west need to say that more often
 
I voted every civ deserves to be in for 2 reasons.

1) I like a lot of civs in my game.

2) This poll is biased and isn't an accurate depiction of the entire game and people's actual choices given every civ to pick from. So, for the admins, let the polls have more options please! :)

And to blitzkrieg....

You are very right my friend. Much of what people believes is western learning actually came from the Arabs and further east. It's sad to see how ethnocentric people can be. Generally you get a lot of history buffs on this site, so the numbers aren't quite as reflective as every day life though.
 
DroopyTofu said:
I meant in (at least US) textbooks. I agree that during the middle ages Arabia and China and even the Aztecs were alot better off than Europe

In my World History text book, it had a chapter about Egypt and Mosopotamia, a chapter about China and Indis, then a chapter about the Greeks and Romans, then another chapter about midevil Europe. Next it through in a chapter about midevil China Japan India Korea and the native americans, then took off about the New World. I think it was a very inacurate text book, but that's how alot of Western people view history, all European, with the rest of the world not doing much...
Its actually kinda sad:(
Click to expand...

lol, as badly distorted your book may be, i taught history for a very brief while in india this last year.
in particular in a state called maharashtra, where a bandit by the name of chattarpati shivaji is lionized beyond belief.
he ruled over an inconsequential strip of land between the sea and the western ghats (modern kokan area)...
not very large at all, he couldnt even take mumbai, and the mughal empire viewed him as no more than a bandit. but the amount of CRAP the kids get fed there is absolutely ridiculously about the man. there history has no basis in fact, but rather what the politicized government bureaucracy would want them to learn. i'd basically have to tell them, this is what you need to know about history for your exams....
and this is what really happened.
(the history book says that portuguese terrorists were posing a threat to india so tahts why they invaded goa...errr right :lol: )

speaking of india by the way guys, there really should be another indian civ or two in the game...
with the paucity of muslim civs too, i think that the Mughals would and should be a great inclusion. i think they represented the very peak of islamic influence on the indian subcontinent (muslims have been in india since the 7th century)...they have had many many great leaders, but they truly deserve their own civ, indian muslims certainly had larger and more important empires than the HRE..
for some reason their recognition is limited to the taj mahal, and tipu sultan (an amazing general and indian nationalist) being a great prophet..
now it would be great to have them on board.
to be honest i come from a non-moghul muslim indian state, hyderabad was once considered one of the richest cities and their ruler (nizam) was actually the world's richest man till he died.

ps. if interested, look up info about hyderabad nizamate and golkonda fort (the world's biggest diamond mine for hundreds of years)
 
celts. they lost about every battle they ever fought never founded an empire, had failure women rulers. they are like the mongols without the good military or leadership or victories .
 
Dvalin said:
While survival time is important imo in determining who deserves to be in and who not (HRE ~1000 years) some these poll choices are a bit silly...why would Spain ever be left out of Civ? Also I am as an American a little peeved at some of the comments...America is on it's way out? :rolleyes: We may not be the #1 power for all time but we aren't just going to disappear or become something different from Americans/USA. Imagine all the complaint threads you would see if Civilization V came out and there was no American civ? Seems to me that maybe some are just unhappy with the fact that USA has demonstrated the realistic future of the world: diverse populations and countries not defined by race or language but human spirit. Despite some of the terrible propaganda in this thread, America despite it's shortcomings, is one of the most diverse/free countries with people from every other country on earth in the mix.

Really these posts about nazism and death are just unproductive and plain foolish. The Third Reich should not be implemented if this has been brought up because it is a minuscule fraction of German history, same goes for Soviet Union as you don't want USSR or Nazis fighting old German/Russian empires etc. They are too modern/short lived to fit outside of historical period scenarios.

The problem is not too many civs, it's too few. What is needed is POLAND for one! Poland in her various forms was actually quite large at one point (Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, even after Polish-Soviet war) and this justifies the ahistorical possibility of them growing larger, an important factor imo in choosing included empires.

After Poland some minors that should have been/in the future be included are Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Denmark (was quite large once, if Mali is in why not Denmark), and maybe Austria/Austro-Hungary...and/or Hungary alone!

@Eweeze, Ammar and others: Your American bashing (there are no other words for it) are unjustified. If someone says something ignorant it doesn't make all their countrymen ignorant. Saying Americans feel like that is complete bunk, America is a unique entity in history and we have much to be proud of even in a short time span of ~230 years. This does not overshadow the lengthy, rich histories of most other countries (US has rich history too, research it) so what we should really be doing is getting along here as gamers/history buffs instead of having a nationalist pissing contest.

@Eweeze specifically: Why don't you turn off the lights in your room, sit there with your eyes shut and envision a plane in the air...then a large silhouette drops from the bottom and a brilliant flash...a massive cloud. Now zoom in to the ground where the shock wave is spreading and the dust is rising...can you envision a mother holding the hand of her child being vaporized and turned to bone, then dust? Why don't you think about what you write before writing it, think about the actuality of your thoughts. You throw around nuclear destruction like it's just good payback or something. It's really a sick thing to wish on people from any perspective.
Click to expand...
Yay, let's have a billion more European civs!

Honestly, Denmark a better/equal choise than Mali? Are you serious?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MALI_empire_map.PNG the Mali Empire at its greatest extent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Denmark-Norway_and_possessions.png Denmark-Norway colonial empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:England-878ad.jpg Danelaw in Great Britain

Denmark-Norway may have been bigger, but Mali's importance in medieval West Africa (in fact, it was even more important to the Middle East and Europe due to the trans-saharan trade) is far greater than that of Denmark in medieval and colonial Europe.

Having Austria is redundant. I don't want three German civs. Hungary, Poland, Denmark and Sweden are all fine, but I'd rather have the Songhay, Kushites, Axumites, a Berber civ or two (or three), the Tibetans, Uyghurs, Khwarezmids, Seljuks, Parthians, Medes, Assyrians, Akkadians, Phoenicians, Thais (or even Ayuthaya and Siam as separate civs), Burmese, Malays (just think about the influence of Malacca and Srivijaya - these two states even deserve to be in on their own), and many, many more.

Yes, you can't deny the Poles, Magyars, Danes and Swedes their place in European history, but in worldwide history, when we still don't even have great empires like the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Parthians, Kushites, Thais, Mughals, Seljuks, I'd rather they not be in.

frog3 said:
Yeah that makes sense, let us name inventions after the people who didn't invent it. Stop trying to give more credit to something the arabs didn't invent.
Click to expand...
Indian numerals isn't just one set of numerals. Yes, the Indians invented zero, but can't you at least give the Arabs some credit for causing one of their numeral sets to be the main one in Europe?

The Indian family of numerals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numerals

Brahmi (lead to Arabic and modern Indic numerals):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_numeral

Eastern Arabic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals

Western Arabic (Maghrebi/Andalusian) numerals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Arabic_numerals

DroopyTofu said:
How about we just ban all war, Period
Click to expand...
Agreed. Unfortunately, its not going to happen for a while.

Now on subject

@siam Please see my second post, i agree that the rest of the world was doing alot of great stuff, but that's the way alot of US textbooks are laid out.
Click to expand...
Ah, OK, never mind then.
 
troytheface said:
celts. they lost about every battle they ever fought never founded an empire, had failure women rulers. they are like the mongols without the good military or leadership or victories .
Click to expand...

Maybe you should check this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celt

Read carefully, you will see that they were quite powerfull around 300 BC. They had expended from Britain to 'Iraq'. Not bad. Their 'Brennus' leader also pillaged Rome and Athen. Not bad again.
 
Dryhad said:
Ah, see, but since they lived in France all battles they won don't count.
Click to expand...

Depends if they were attacking or defending.
 
I agree about the Mughals perhaps though they are sort of represented already by the Arabs and they occupied India and we have India. The problem with the Phoenicians is they were already absorbed by other powers in BC times. You have to ask the question what UU/leaders would they have? They wouldn't fit very well in the second half of the game. Assyrians and the rest of those ancient empires you mentioned seem to me to be too centered on representing the ancient world over the larger picture. Scope must be considered in all of this. Offering up Berbers as a serious Civ in Civilization as the game is a bit hard to take seriously. There must be a certain balance maintained between diversity and pertinence to overall history. I will agree with you about the Malays I think an islander Civ is needed and this is the perfect choice. I would also agree about the Thai/Siamese, I would like to see them in too.

Poland
Sweden
Hungary
Siam/Thailand
Malaysia
maybe the Mughals

Edit: Celts should be represented, Ireland/Scotland/Wales/Breton, they distinguished themselves enough and have the history for leaders etc so why not?

Edit2: I'm not saying Mali shouldn't be in I'm saying going by the same reasoning of including Mali, why not Sweden and Poland? Denmark was an important Kingdom for a while too! Just 'cause Europe is/has been balkanized for a long time (a Yugoslav/Slav Civ would be nice now that I think about it) doesn't mean there's something wrong with a lot of European civs!
 
Is someone really denying the fact that our "english" numbers are actually Arabic or Arabic influenced or a result of what Arabs did? Did that guy go to a private religious school? Probably, God only knows what they teach in those things (pun intended).
Click to expand...

Try reading some posts instead of typing yourself self-righteous crap. I did not deny the arabs influenced these systems.

Fine, I'll call them Indian numerals, but that wasn't the point. The point was that the Arabs brought the numbers over to the Middle East and the West,
allowing mathematics esp. algebra to flourish.
Click to expand...

I know that wasn't the point of your post, but it's the point I was arguing about (as you know). Anyway paper was invented in China and spread but don't call it an arabic invention.

It also laid the foundation for further advancemnts in mathmatics in the West, consindering math is MUCH harder to do with Roman numerals than "Indian".
Click to expand...

doesn't mean the arabs invented them (but you know that) so I don't see what you are trying to prove except that the arabs gave the 'west' some technology.

Indian numerals isn't just one set of numerals. Yes, the Indians invented zero, but can't you at least give the Arabs some credit for causing one of their numeral sets to be the main one in Europe?

The Indian family of numerals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numerals

Brahmi (lead to Arabic and modern Indic numerals):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_numeral

Eastern Arabic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals

Western Arabic (Maghrebi/Andalusian) numerals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Arabic_numerals
Click to expand...

Of course I give them credit for transfering the idea, but it is still the indian system

thanks, Arabs! We here in the west need to say that more often
Click to expand...

No 'we' don't, I doubt they do.
 
EweezE said:
AfterShafter has a way with difusing situations nicely. One last comment on this if I may. When you say---

That is if I consider them to be human beings.. Technically speaking they are humans, but their actions reflect them to be something other than humans. I'm not trying to stir up these inflamed responses either. It is merely coincidence, my choice of words, or perhaps the subject being discussed that stirs it up.

It's over SilentHunter. You win. 2 on 1. I'm fascist :confused:. I am going to vote for Germany now though on the poll..
Click to expand...


Let me make one last comment as well. If you don't consider the Germans of WWII to be humans, because their actions reflect them to be something other than humans, you should have no problem whatsoever, and see very few ties, between them and the Germans of today. Simply put, the actions which you hold against the 1940's Germans are not in any way present in Germany today. Unless you're going to go so far as to say that the Germans of today are as inhuman as you consider of those the 1940's, you really should have no problem whatsoever with today's Germans.

As such,

Also, concerning his fascist comment - let me quote you:

"The US is a good sized country and you can't claim it if you can't defend it. So sure we stole their (the Native Americans) land, but did we not give them reservations? We did not put them in a concentration camp, slave them, and then trick them into entering a gas chamber! You, German, have a twisted sense of morals. I know you're proud of your Nazi past too, with that U-boat avatar.. How can you be proud of a country like that? "

This is a far cry from making you a fascist, but it is one of the most distasteful comments I've ever seen in this forum. Let me explain why...

First off, "you can't claim it if you can't defend it"... Might makes right - if you have the power to take something, take it. That's all good and fine, but later in the thread you say...

"Sure we stole their land, but did we not give them reservations We did not put them in a concentration camp, slave them and trick them into entering a gas chamber."

You do realize that both are perfectly realistic implementations of the same "might makes right" philosophy? The German leadership didn't like the Jews, they weren't strong enough to defend themselves, so they rounded them up and killed them. The Brits/Americans decided they wanted land occupied by the Natives, the Natives weren't strong enough to defend it against the Brits/Americans, so the Brits/Americans came in and took it - killing those who resisted their incursions into already occupied land. You think stuffing the survivors of those incursions into reservations is a badge of honour, and somehow gives you reason to be proud of what your country did? And I notice you don't even mention the veritable kidnapping of Natives to go to boarding schools which were little better than concentration camps themselves.

Or let me put it in terms you might recognize and understand. You, American have a twisted sense of morals. I know you're proud of your murdering-pioneer past too, with that Sitting Bull avatar.. How can you be proud of a country like that? But then, I wouldn't hold that against you - you didn't do these things.
 
I'm sure if ancient Europeans or Asians instead inhabited the crossroads of the world, the Middle East, they would have transferred mathematics and many other things to the west and/or vice versa. Geography has more effect on civilization than anyone here seems to acknowledge. The positioning of mountains, seas, rivers etc are vital in the rise of advanced/organized civilization and the spread of it. There is a sort of corridor leading from China, India, Persia, and Arabia then up into Russia, over to the Balkans, and North Africa. I think there is an irritating hint of racism here in these arguments over who 'invented' what. I'm sure if the Indians or Arabs or whomever didn't do it first someone else would have soon enough.

@AfterShafter: It's pretty hypocritical in my opinion to go after someone demonizing all Germans for the holocaust by demonizing their people and their past. I didn't have any say in how to cope with/coexist with native Americans...so it's offensive to be told I probably have a twisted sense of morals because I was born in America. "How can you be proud of a country like that?" is as fallaciously applicable to Germans and the holocaust as American settlers and American indians, Turks and Armenians, Japanese and Chinese and so on.
 
@SharpMango

I liked the teacher of the class, but 2 days before the test, she'd give us a list with all of the questions from the test, and then the answer(they were always multiple choice). The day before the test, we review the questions/answers in class. the day of the test, we get 5-10min to "review" the answers before the test.
Just in case you were wondering, this was in a 6th grade world history class
All this to say,IMHO, the educational system is "slightly" scewed:rolleyes:

I agree with adding a lot of the civs Dvalin said.
 
Dvalin said:
@AfterShafter: It's pretty hypocritical in my opinion to go after someone demonizing all Germans for the holocaust by demonizing their people and their past. I didn't have any say in how to cope with/coexist with native Americans...so it's offensive to be told I probably have a twisted sense of morals because I was born in America. "How can you be proud of a country like that?" is as fallaciously applicable to Germans and the holocaust, American settlers and American indians, Turks and Armenians, Japanese and Chinese and so on.
Click to expand...

Dvalin, that's exactly my point. I don't hold these things against the Americans of today... This is "his own medicine" treatment. The fellow demonized the Germans while openly defending and saying "Oh, it's OK - we gave them reservations" concerning the Native Americans. That "twisted sense of morals" is his quote. I more or less just copy and pasted it, substituting American for German and murdering-pioneers for concentration camp. My whole point was... He went out and said that to a German as if it were perfectly OK to do so, and was quite aloof as if the German just deserved it. By your response, I'm going to venture a guess that you're American, and you are perfectly right in pointing out how unfair my statement was. Now that you've defended yourself, throw Silenthunter a bone. Neither Americans nor Germans of today deserve that type of bile leveled at them - my original sentiment.
 
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