The Settler

[Gemini1706]

never mind

 

[Charles 22]

So that's what I've been doing wrong. All female must have long hair.
Try not to read too much into any particular game units. I'm sure if you do, you'll find half of the units with something strange about it. It's a game, not a bible story.

Despite that, you have no more idea than I do whether those two boys were supposed to secretly be Cain and Able. Despite this being a game, if you hadn't noticed, religion has a great deal to do with this game, including a creation story right from the start; including the Our Father sang in Swahili (sp). Nope, Cain and Able represented in those boys isn't a stretch in an already decidely religious civ game. If it hadn't been for this being a decidely religious game already, particularly the "in the beginning" reading, say if it were Civ3, I never would've drawn that conclusion.

 

[Willowmound]

...religion has a great deal to do with this game, including a creation story right from the start...

If you're thinking of the slideshow story narrated by Leonard Nimoy, that would be evolution, i.e. science, not religion.

 

[oagersnap]

Despite that, you have no more idea than I do whether those two boys were supposed to secretly be Cain and Able. Despite this being a game, if you hadn't noticed, religion has a great deal to do with this game, including a creation story right from the start; including the Our Father sang in Swahili (sp). Nope, Cain and Able represented in those boys isn't a stretch in an already decidely religious civ game. If it hadn't been for this being a decidely religious game already, particularly the "in the beginning" reading, say if it were Civ3, I never would've drawn that conclusion.

It specifically says in the start of a game that it's the dawn of civilization, and that your people had been nomadic for a long time. In the "in the beginning" reading, there is nothing religious beside those words, everything else is based purely on evolution.

 

[Kamamura]

I magnified the graphics and I think it's a homosexual couple (the "woman" is actually a crossdresser) with two adopted orphans. That's what I like about the game - it's really avant-garde and open-minded.

 

[Zydor]

Ok - so far we got two homosexual crossdressing parents who live in sin that emigrated from Krypton before the dawn of Civilization, sporting marine crewcuts, who - due to defective bellybuttons - produced two boys incapable of propagating the species but are the original great Swahili singers

And a graphics designer who is probably still in hysterics that the images provoke profound discussion to rival that of Monthy Python and the search for the Holy Grail

 

[Charles 22]

If you're thinking of the slideshow story narrated by Leonard Nimoy, that would be evolution, i.e. science, not religion.

So evolution uses the Genesis account in the Bible of creation? If there's any evolutionary phrases in the opening narration, it sure isn't at the start.

 

[Charles 22]

What a gyp. I tried to start the game to see just how much of Nimoy's 'in the beginning' sounded evolutionary and the start thing wouldn't play beyond these first opening words (paraphrasing): In the beginning, the earth was without form and void. Next, the game starts. I suppose since I have movies off that effects the opening. Oh well, it's not worth resetting it for that.

Anyway, just from that one sentence, I'm afraid you guys may be right. I look in my Bible and it says "In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

Notice the game says nothing of God just from the small quote I have. However, to back up the religion that's in the game, if the opening, even if evolutionary, weren't enough, there's plenty of Biblical quotes therein (such as the bit about he who takes the sword shall fall by it) with the chapter of the Bible it came from mentioned. Of course there are lots of other religious quotes such as from the pagan philosophers like Aristotle.

I do find it 'fascinating' that the opening by Nimoy sounds so Biblically similar, despite not mentioning God, and somehow that construes evolution (what I think it most likely means, is that they decided to take the Biblical creation account and make it sound neutral). IOW, I find it fascinating that somebody who would claim to believe in evolution would bother to make a creation account, that at least from the beggining portion sounds very deceptively Biblical. What would be the point of that? Unless, as I said, that account isn't evolutionary and instead is the Biblical account turned into a neutral mush.

 

[Willowmound]

So evolution uses the Genesis account in the Bible of creation? If there's any evolutionary phrases in the opening narration, it sure isn't at the start.

Why don't you try watching the whole thing.

 

[Kieran]

Despite that, you have no more idea than I do whether those two boys were supposed to secretly be Cain and Able. Despite this being a game, if you hadn't noticed, religion has a great deal to do with this game, including a creation story right from the start;

So where is Noah's Ark and the Great flood?

 

[calyth]

religion has a great deal to do with this game

On the contrary. Religion is basically a mechanism that the developers had chosen that would add conflict in diplomacy, and add happiness and some small bonus research. That's basically it. All the religions in the game behaves similiarly, because the game developers have said specifically, in the manual, that they're game developers, not theologicians.
Is the intro story thing sound bible like, maybe, but it can be the case that both the game developers and the Bible wants to be theatrical.
And besides, there's at least 1/4 chance that a couple would have their first 2 children to be boys, 1/4 chance for the first 2 to be girls, and 1/2 to be one boy one girl. Could be the case that the settler family simply had two boys (and frankly game developers aren't going to waste CPU cycle to make sure the two kids are different every time you have a settler).
Is every 4-member family you know that has two boys must be Adam and Eve, with Cain and Able? I doubt that's the case, or I might have to start calling my Polish-Canadian friend Cain.

 

[Mrdie]

Ok - so far we got two homosexual crossdressing parents who live in sin that emigrated from Krypton before the dawn of Civilization, sporting marine crewcuts, who - due to defective bellybuttons - produced two boys incapable of propagating the species but are the original great Swahili singers

And a graphics designer who is probably still in hysterics that the images provoke profound discussion to rival that of Monthy Python and the search for the Holy Grail

Greatest post in this thread.

 

[Kilroy]

Anyway, just from that one sentence, I'm afraid you guys may be right.

Perish the thought that a video game doesn't contain a passing reference to the biblical account of the creation of man.

I'm trying to figure out why this is so important to you and I've come to the conclusion that you've somehow discovered that, unless Civ4 contains references to creation in the early game, there is no God. I thought it was Nietzsche who killed Him, but all along it was Sid Meier.

 

[riadsala]

The intro narritive explicitly mentions men evolving from apes. Even has pictures.

That's not very religeous.

It treats evolution as fact too, as it states that it happens.

 

[rabottens]

Speaking of the first family and religion the concept of creation by a divine creator versus evolution Darwin style brings an interesting point. Rememeber the earlier opening of Civ I & II the typical Genesis passage in the beginning God... and the opening on Civ 4 with the Darwin creation. It looks like this version has gotten with the times. I found it interesting that this game pushes religion to the forefront and opens with a Darwin Evolution of Creation. I really don't know where I stand on the creation issue anyway whether Divinely guided or Evolved from nothingness. The new issues of intelligent design the old issues of Darwin theory whats the difference it got here somehow deal with it. Does the existance of a universe prove or disprove God or Darwin? There is a lot more to discover before we can really intelligently answer any of it.

 

[Willowmound]

The Civ4 intro is lifted entirely from Civ1, word for word. It's a little treat for us veterans

 

[Point13]

I have my game on single unit graphics for now I think. I intend to change it though.

It wouldn't be perfectly biblically accurate. They had a third son named Seth too.

 

[Charles 22]

I have my game on single unit graphics for now I think. I intend to change it though.

It wouldn't be perfectly biblically accurate. They had a third son named Seth too.

Where did Seth come in? He wasn't alive when Able was, was he?

 

[Charles 22]

Why don't you try watching the whole thing.

I have once or twice. I was thinking he was reading Genesis, but apparently he isn't if he doesn't even mention God by name.

 

[Charles 22]

So where is Noah's Ark and the Great flood?

It has a great deal of religion in it, not only the Biblical sort as I alluded to earlier, but certainly you wouldn't include everything. There's no Moses either.