Turkey should be added?

[Swein Forkbeard]

None of the Turkish dynasties, save for the Ottoman and possibly Trojan dynasties, did enough to make it into the game. I could see debate towards Sejluks, but could you honestly see the Seljuks and Ottomans legitimately being in the same game, similar to Rome and Byzantium?

Okay, this absolutely wrong. In 1071, the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, and afterwards Christians felt their faith was in danger, so in 1099, the Crusades began to regain holy Christian sites led by Muslims. And you all know how much that changed Western history, right?

 

[Dominico]

Does anyone know turkeys are called turkey caus they were mainly bought from Turkey?

Wow, now i said turkey so many times it doesnt sound right any more...

 

[LightSpectra]

Okay, this absolutely wrong. In 1071, the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, and afterwards Christians felt their faith was in danger, so in 1099, the Crusades began to regain holy Christian sites led by Muslims. And you all know how much that changed Western history, right?

The Moors did more damage than the Seljuks did. Your argument is based on the fact that they won a victory. Ooh, fantastic. I guess that means the Papal States should be in the game.

At that point, they were basically in an unwritten vassalage-alliance to Arabia anyhow.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

The Moors did more damage than the Seljuks did.

The moors also did a lot more positives than the Seljuks (or most of Europe for that matter- barring Byzantine Europe) did anyways.

 

[Ormur]

I don't think that Turkey should be added or The Ottomans changed into Turkey. Turkey in it's modern form hasn't been a great power while the Ottomans most certainly were (even the greatest power). Besides the Ottoman empire is the direct predecessor of modern Turkey and was ruled by Turks so I see no reason for them to feel put-down.
As for Turkey being over represented it may be true in purely geographical terms but the Byzantine Empire was much more Greek than it ever was Turkish.. Even though the two empires ruled much the same territory at the height of their power the conquest of Constantinople represented a dramatic break with the past. Therefore I'd rather say that the Greeks were overrepresented as a people although I do believe that all three civs deserve to be in the game.

In my view Civilizations should avoid having civs that overlap too much and focus on Empires when they were at the hight of their power if they can't group them together.
When you think about it it's rather strange to have Asoka and Gandhi (overlooking the fact that Gandhi never ruled India) as rulers of the same civ but it's still better than having China and India represented by half a dozen civs each. It would be rather confusing having to pick either the Zho, Han, Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties or the PRC when playing China.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

Byzantine Empire was much more Greek than it ever was Turkish

So ? Its the very same people, mostly intermingled in ! I hate this kind of nerfing history on purely racial basis. history of Turkey is the history of the land known as Turkey! And it is very well represented, if not over-represented than any other !
Turkey and Germany are the last people who should be demanding more civ of their own !

 

[Ahimsadharma]

the conquest of Constantinople represented a dramatic break with the past.

Yeah. As in who lived in the big damn palaces. Whopee ! turkey still had a huge population of non-turks, many of whom have inter-married with turks through the centuries. But in terms of tech, arts, trade, etc, Ottoman Turkey was hardly a break from Byzantine past, much more like a slow evolution into a newer cultural sense with Islamic identity being the single biggest different factor.
Most of Turkish art, architecture and beurocracy reflected byzantine base for many centuries after constantinople fell.
Please do not racialize history- history is simply history of the land, that is all.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

Yeah. As in who lived in the big damn palaces. Whopee ! turkey still had a huge population of non-turks, many of whom have inter-married with turks through the centuries. But in terms of tech, arts, trade, etc, Ottoman Turkey was hardly a break from Byzantine past, much more like a slow evolution into a newer cultural sense with Islamic identity being the single biggest different factor.
Most of Turkish art, architecture and beurocracy reflected byzantine base for many centuries after constantinople fell.
Please do not racialize history- history is simply history of the land, that is all.

History is about land? No, history is about people, because land does nothing but be there. Land isn't dynamic(in our scope, anyways). Ottomans were Turks. They conquered land, and made it their own. And even though their empire is dead, some of that land is still named for them, and still live and rule over it. They didn't become Greek or Kappadocian or Ionian or Phyrgian or Galatian like the people already there. If what you say is true, then they would've become the same as all the other people living there, but they were different, and have mostly assimilated(and, in some cases, exterminated) the other people. Turkey today is Turkish. It isn't the other way around. Nomadic peoples make sure of that. History is about people and their culture...and the Byzies and the Turks were very different culturally....

 

[Ahimsadharma]

and the Byzies and the Turks were very different culturally....
__________________

Uhhh....no they were NOT. Turkey still retained its byzantine core for much much later, making byzantine culture slowly meld into the Turkish cultural seams.
It is very well noted that the Ottoman granted considerable autonomy and religious independence to Greeks & byzantines living in Ottoman lands for much of early Ottoman turkish history. The guy who conquered Constantinople gave considerable orders NOT to pillage, loot and rape the public. Simply because Ottomans took over an empire that was weak in finance & exhausted by many catastrophic wars but was still *the* center of knowledge & techonology in Europe/Mediterranean. Yes, Turkey is mostly Turk today, but that is after centuries of cultural and bloodline assimilations.
Turks should be proud of their links to Byzantine that make them the inheritors of Byzantine culture today (along with Greece & Cyprus) instead of seeing it as a 'different and alien' to their own history.

Many of the Turk's ancestors are byzantine people of antiquity.

 

[Ormur]

It may certainly be true that perhaps most of the inhabitants of Little Asia remained the same whatever happened at Constantinople, and the same thing goes for the Spanish reconquista and the migrations period in Europe after the fall of Rome, but I think the focus of Civilization is much more on the Empires themselves than their inhabitants which through most of history have had little influence on their rulers.

When I say that it was a break with the past I mean that the Greek Christian ruling elite that traced it's origins to the Roman Empire was replaced by a Turkish Islamic warrior elite. Of course the Ottoman Empire owed many debts to the Byzantines but it still had a totally different system of governance, a different state religion and a different self image.

Lastly history is not about the land (that's geography) it's about society, governments, institutions and of course people. There is surprisingly much continuity between the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman considering that they were of different religions, but having a single civ representing Turkey with both Justinian and Suleiman as leaders would be a pretty bad distortion of history.

Edit: Especial considering the time frame. You said that it was a slow evolution but in the time between the height of the Byzantine empire and the height of the Ottoman empire slow evolution could have changed quite a lot.

 

[Spearthrower]

Does anyone know turkeys are called turkey caus they were mainly bought from Turkey?

Wow, now i said turkey so many times it doesnt sound right any more...

That's completely false.

Turkeys are from central/north America.... the reason they were named "Turkey" in English is because at the time of British colonisation of the Americas, all things Turkish were very haute-couteur in Britain. Further, the turkey was incorrectly identified as a type of guinea-fowl which had been traded around Europe by Turkey.

Turkeys most definitely do not come from Turkey.



Edit: and to reply to the OP---- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! That is now my answer to all "Include X civilisation because it's mine!" type posts.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

but I think the focus of Civilization is much more on the Empires themselves than their inhabitants which through most of history have had little influence on their rulers

This is where i disagree. I do not see the word or the game 'civilization' to reflect an empire, but rather reflect a society. And society is about people, not just who rules from the Palace.
Barring genocides, society is continuous and breeds/mingles into one another, thus making BOTH societies one and their discendants inheritors of BOTH their legacies.
That is why i do not see why Bzantine and Ottoman cannot both be seen as turkey's history and cultural representations.

 

[Ormur]

Well I'm really only talking about them deserving to be separate civs in Civilization because both were great Empires on their own accord and had different characters as states.

Before the birth of nationalism the Empires weren't based around nations even though the elite of some state could be said to have been of one nation rather than the other. The question of nationality therefore had less relevance in the governance of past empires than it has now.

 

[dragodon64]

The Turks didn't just take the Byzantine culture with the exception of Christianity; they took the good and combined it in with their own culture. Much like what the Japanese did in the Meiji Era with European customs and economics.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

Much like what the Japanese did in the Meiji Era with European customs and economics.

True. But my point still stands- there is continuous cultural intermingling and inter-marriages. Why do people rule this out ? From total societerial perspective, this is what happened with the Byzantine-Turkish empire transition: The ethnic Turks gradually moved westwards, into Turkey over several centuries and they gradually absorbed most/many ethnic communities into their fold. There is evidence from Ottoman Turkish writings itself that there was considerable inter-marriage in society, as significant % of byzantines married into the Turks, especially since a significant % converted to Islam ( the protection to Orthodox church wasnt extended at first, so many Byzantines converted to Islam. Turks were Muslim at this point and Muslims rarely discriminate based on race on marriage issues- its usually limited to religion only). Yes, there were some killings, some tensions, etc. but most of anatolia was effectively converted(except for Armenia & Georgia, both kingdoms in the Caucasus back then & quite hard to control) and intermarriage was extensive. Particularly since most byzantines were fairly rich (having a settled & trade based civ for 1000+ years).
This makes it a common heritage- many turks today in reality are mixed byzantines, ( they wern't exactly Greeks- more like few Romans mixed with Greeks & anatolians- who at that time, from know history, were mix of Iranians, Greeks, Hittite & possible semetic tribes) atleast, in some part.
I am sure there are some 'pure-bred Turks' in Turkey but i am also fairly confident that if each person from Turkey today looked back atleast 30-40 generations(if they can, i doubt many can), they will find atleast some Byzantine descendence to the story. A lot of Ottoman art & architecture is directly influenced by Byzantine architecture- and stuff like that you don't just learn from mimicry or holding a slave army at swordpoint for X # of years.
Stuff like that is learnt when your people mix with ( live side by side, sometimes, marry into, etc) the conquered people over time. That is the vehicle of cultural exchange- intermingling.

All this 'ethnic nationalism' forgets one thing - we are all mixed people- nobody is 'pure' anything, unless you happened to be a tiny tribe stuck on some dot in the middle of the pacific for the last 10,000 years, that is, you somehow got there during low sea levels of ice-ages and then got stranded once sea level rose.
Its just a question of who mixed with whom and how far back our historical knowledge goes on cultural basis.
Look back far enough and you will find practically every major old world tribal/ethnic/cultural imprint.
Turkey's people should be proud of their Byzantine heritage really- and its rather saddening that there are some who'd define history so narrowly on who sat on the throne and who didn't to form an opinion on an entire society.
Rather saddening to see people deny a part of their identity & heritage for silly and weird reasons.

 

[Titus001]

Ok, seriously, this is just ridiculous. I dunno if anyone here's noticed or not, but Turkey, if anything, is OVER-REPRESENTED in the game.
It has TWO civilizations representing it : Ottomans and Byzantine ( which was based in Constantinople, run mostly out of TURKEY!) and has 3 leaders representing it !
And someone wants even more Turkey in the game ? WTH ?
At this rate, we'd have Indians and chinese demanding half a dozen more leaders each !

lol 3 leaders representing the country Turkey. If anything 3 leaders represent the Roman civilization with Justinian, Augustus and Julius. And two civilizations represent the Roman civilization, Rome and the "Byzantines". Of course you should stop using the made up name "byzantine" because that empire never existed, it was the Greek speaking Roman empire. They never called themselves "Byzantine" but called themselves Roman all the way to 1453 when the eastern roman empire was conquered by the turks.

 

[Titus001]

History is about land? No, history is about people, because land does nothing but be there. Land isn't dynamic(in our scope, anyways). Ottomans were Turks. They conquered land, and made it their own. And even though their empire is dead, some of that land is still named for them, and still live and rule over it. They didn't become Greek or Kappadocian or Ionian or Phyrgian or Galatian like the people already there. If what you say is true, then they would've become the same as all the other people living there, but they were different, and have mostly assimilated(and, in some cases, exterminated) the other people. Turkey today is Turkish. It isn't the other way around. Nomadic peoples make sure of that. History is about people and their culture...and the Byzies and the Turks were very different culturally....

Agreed....

 

[Bastian-Bux]

OK, lets see:

Anatolya was first dominated by the Hatti (ca. 2000 BC till 1000 BC, which aren't in-game). Later the Syths took over (a few decades or a century, neither in-game). Then Anatolya was split between the Greek and the Persians (900 BC till 60 BC, both are in-game). After that the Romans conquered Anatolya (60 BC till ~330 AD, also in-game). The Byzantinian Regency over Anatolya lasted from approximately 330 AD till 1071 AD, when the Seldjuks conquered most of it (Byzanz, in-game, Seldjuks represented by Ottomans 1071-1453 AD). One seldjukian Dynastie, named after Osman I, made short work of Byzanz in 1453, and thus became the next to last owner of Anatolya: Ottomans (1299 AD till 1923 AD). Only in 1919 a separate anatolyan political entity formed, which is today known as Turkey. It had a very great and famous leader, which isn't present in Civ 4. The modern Turkey isn't independently represented in game. (1919 AD till 2007 AD).

In essence Anatolya is represented by Civ 4 from 900 BC till 2007 AD. The times 1071-1299 AD and 1919-2007 AD are subsummed under the Osman Empire (319 out of 936 years). So 2900 years of its history is represented, with only 3-10% of that time being "questioned" by some people here.

Now lets compare this with 2 other european countries, which are very often used as examples:

Germany:

Germany was settled in ancient times by both Germanics (not in game) and Celts (in-game). The frankish kingdoms (486-880 AD represented by the HRE) can be counted to several countries, including Germany (and France, Italy, Czechia ...). Still it covers enough of Germanies modern territory to suffice as a representation. Given the questionable decision of Firaxis to not differentate between the early frankisch kingdoms, Charlemagnes HRE and the later HRE of german nationality, we have to take the Civ 4 HRE as a lump summ representation of the habsburgian rule as well, which covers all the time up till the 30 years war (1618-1648 AD) and the "prussian times". From then on Germany is represented by the german Civ, which covers both the prussian development as well as the unification under Bismarck.
20th century Germany isn't independently represented in-game. Neither the facsist times between 1933 and 1945, nor the (half-)democratic times between 1918-1933 and 1945-1990. And especially not the unified times of the last 17 years.

In essence Germany is represented by Civ 4 from 500 AD till 2007 AD. The times 500-800 AD (frankish kingdoms) and 812-1648 AD (divided karolingian kingdoms plus HRE of german nationality) are subsummed under the HRE. So 1500 years of its history is represented, with as much as 70-80% of that time being "questioned" by some people here.

Poland:

Easy one: Nope, Russia is NO representation of the slavs, and especially not for the historical central, west and south slavic nations. In essence, Poland isn't represented at all.

So tell me again, whit all the whining going on about overrepresentation of Germany: do we realy need another representation of Anatolya? A region that has almost 3000 years of its history represented by an almost continuous group of Civs?

About Kemal Atatürk: in my opinion he is the Bismarck of Turkey. To exclude him from the leaders is a mistake. Especially if you remember that such murderers like Stalin, or "mythical persons" like Gilgamesh made it into the game. Kemal Atatürk would have been a worthy 2nd leader for the Ottoman epmire, much more so then Süleyman. He isn't in, and thats a shame. But neither is Gustav Vasa (and the swedish empire), nor Sobieski (and the polish-lithuanian empire). And lets not even start about non-european nations.

Summa: there is no reason to overrepresent Anatolya anymore then it is. Having Kemal Atatürk in as a osman leader would be nice, but there are many other leaders and nations missing.

 

[Quildavyr]

My question was,should firaxis remove Ottomans and put Turkey in the game?

It wasn't,What did the Turks achieve?

Only yes or no

 

[Julian Delphiki]

That would be no.