Unfortunate geographic losers

[Bowsling]

Well, unless I'm badly mistaken, Savoy and Piedmont were all part of the same entity until Italian Unification.

 

[Steph]

At some point yes. But then you need to be more careful about "geographic area". Are you speaking of Savoy, west of the Alps? Or the house of Savoy on both side? But then it doesn't apply before Savoy got Piemont.

 

[Alexius08]

The Sentinelese are the perfect example of this. Having nowhere to expand to in the middle of the ocean, let's just say that their teching stagnated.

 

[Racsoviale]

Compared to some of the tribes in the Amazonas the Sentinelese have a pretty good deal going.

They have no real resources that can get exploited from them, noone really claims their land as their own and they have the backing of a superpower for international protection.

But ofcoarse if you think in civ terms then Germany is much more unfortunate since it is surrounded by so many other civs, making it impossible for it to expand. And even when they had the tech lead they couldnt overcome the production of the nasty defensive pact all its neighbours signed with each other.

 

[TheLastOne36]

The Sentinelese are the perfect example of this. Having nowhere to expand to in the middle of the ocean, let's just say that their teching stagnated.

Au contraire.

The fact the Sentilese were isolated meant that they didn't get conquered and annihilated by South Chinese farmers like the rest of their SE Asia cousins.

 

[Masada]

Eh? I can guess where your going with this and its wrong. Just saying.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Eh? I can guess where your going with this and its wrong. Just saying.

Eh? You have better theories?

 

[Masada]

Eh? You have better theories?

There's no theories that deal with the assumed conquest and genocide of the orang asli. We don't know enough to draw those kinds of conclusions and never will. Archaeological evidence is like that. Besides, the orang asli still exist all over Southeast Asia. Besides, the prevailing wisdom is that the orang asli weren't all that numerous to begin with and got assimilated out of linguistic existence.

 

[Sofista]

Savoy managed to expanded until it controlled Northern Italy.

Wait, what?

 

[Steph]

Kingdom of Piemont Sardinia, and then kingdom of Italy: whose house was the king from?
However, what I said is not really correct. Savoy didn't really controlled Northern Italy. The house of Savoy grew beyond Savoy, until it "became Italian" and finally abandonned Savoy. The evil traitors.

 

[rollo1066]

I guess any country which is landlocked with no access to the sea is at a disadvantage.

 

[TheLastOne36]

There's no theories that deal with the assumed conquest and genocide of the orang asli. We don't know enough to draw those kinds of conclusions and never will. Archaeological evidence is like that. Besides, the orang asli still exist all over Southeast Asia. Besides, the prevailing wisdom is that the orang asli weren't all that numerous to begin with and got assimilated out of linguistic existence.

I still don't see why the 'orang asli' are different from every other group of assimilated people in history?

 

[J. pride]

Pretty interesting thread, but what it focuses on is countries/regions that succeed (or failed) due to their geographical "blessing". Well there is one country that "failed" despite all the resources and defenses in the world. That being India; they had one of the most fertile and resource rich lands in the world. And they were protected by the Himalayas (the tallest mountain range) in the north and west, dense jungles in the east, and the Indian Ocean from everywhere else but somehow they still managed to screw it up. Curious if anybody has a reasonable insight into this?

 

[Bowsling]

The fact that India, unlike today, was not one big country.

 

[Glassmage]

Nobody likes 1 tile island start and tundra start and desert start.

 

[Oerdin]

When you read through history there are generally certain people's or series of people's who seem to get the short end of the stick. Not necessarily because they are militarily weak, poor or technologically backwards, not because they are particularly hated, but rather because if where they are located constantly putting them at the crossroads of conflict.

We all know about the Poles, the Baltics. Some are unfamiliar with the various trials of the Low Countries. Most are unfamiliar with the history of Armenia and Korea.

We have a lot of history addicts around here, what unlucky groups have you encounters who seemed doomed by geography?

Ultimately, prehistoric people in the America's, Africa, and Australia were geographic losers and that's why they ended up getting colonized instead of being colonizers. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a great book.

 

[Oerdin]

There's no theories that deal with the assumed conquest and genocide of the orang asli. We don't know enough to draw those kinds of conclusions and never will. Archaeological evidence is like that. Besides, the orang asli still exist all over Southeast Asia. Besides, the prevailing wisdom is that the orang asli weren't all that numerous to begin with and got assimilated out of linguistic existence.

There is a pretty much accepted theory that Negritos are a relic population of the hunter gather population who got displaced by farmers who ultimately came from Southern China and who now make up most of the population in the area. It's pretty much accepted as fact based on a ton of evidence.

 

[Bowsling]

You have a very loose definition of prehistory.

 

[Masada]

I still don't see why the 'orang asli' are different from every other group of assimilated people in history?

That's rather short of being 'conquered and annihilated' amirite? What historical evidence we have suggests a shift to Malay-Polynesian prestige languages in the Archipelagic oikumene; much the same process happened on the mainland with Tai', Burman and Khmer being the prestige language equivalents. What we call orang asli are just those groups who for whatever reason didn't adopt a prestige language. Those orang asli who did, ceased to be orang asli. Even some of the more unusual culture features of groups which were asli speakers could be begged off on the grounds that these were authentic, albeit localised, expressions of the dominant cultural-linguistic construct. Hunter-gathering? Blame some proximate historical event. Different looks? Blame some relevant historical/mythological figure. In the long run inter-marriage and cultural shifts made effective differentiation impossible; orang asli groups became other groups and on occasion the reverse occurred. The end result is that orang asli are closer genetically to their neighbours than any other group. The process was so pervasive in the Archipelago that the sole 'major' language (with more than >1 million speakers) left that could be called 'odd' is Acehnese and that's freaking Chamic not asli.

There is a pretty much accepted theory that Negritos are a relic population of the hunter gather population who got displaced by farmers who ultimately came from Southern China and who now make up most of the population in the area. It's pretty much accepted as fact based on a ton of evidence.

Negrito ('little black person') is considered to be rather impolite, being racist and all. Kind of like 'bushman', 'pygmy', 'negro' or 'n-bomb' in that respect. Orang asli ('original inhabitant') is considered to be rather more polite and a great deal more useful because it tells us something that 'he-looks-like-an-african' doesn't. But w/e. I'm aware of all those points, which doesn't change what I said.

 

[bombshoo]

Compared to some of the tribes in the Amazonas the Sentinelese have a pretty good deal going.

They have no real resources that can get exploited from them, noone really claims their land as their own and they have the backing of a superpower for international protection.

But ofcoarse if you think in civ terms then Germany is much more unfortunate since it is surrounded by so many other civs, making it impossible for it to expand. And even when they had the tech lead they couldnt overcome the production of the nasty defensive pact all its neighbours signed with each other.

Funny enough, in my last Civilization III game, the Germans ended up just like Sintinelese. They were somehow unfortunate enough to spawn on a tiny isolated island without resources (I made a custom map and I somehow missed a player spawn point on some 4 tile island of nothing but hills and tundra). By the time I discovered them, I was getting ready to move into the industrial era and they were basically still at the beginning of the game. I decided to run an experiment with them and protect them from any other civilization, but not interfere in their affairs to see where they would be at by the end of the game. Basically by the time I had nukes they were in the early middle ages. Poor Bismarck in that one.