Who brought Christianity to Brazil, eh? No Portuguese help, but the influence was all Portuguese.
And who brought Christianity to Portugal, to Spain, to France? T'was the Romans/Byzantines. Shouldn't we then credit the Notre Dame wonder to Rome? Clearly it was their influence that established it and therefore it shouldn't be considered French. Right? Or how about the Church of the Nativity wonder? That's Roman too, right?
Ehem. The Incas had a hereditary monarchy. 'Nuff said. And hereditary monarchy alone doesn't make a civilization or an empire, it only makes a hereditary monarchy.
Except the Incas weren't a country. Notice how I specifically used the word "country" exactly because I am well aware of the Incas and of the other Mesoamerican peoples that weren't a country but had hereditary rule.
I mentioned it simply because it adds to the status. Most civilizations in the Civ games were Empires at one point. Brazil was one too. It adds historical context. Not because I think an empire automatically makes a nation a civilization or because I think it makes them important, but because it just gives the nation a more "classically historic" side if they have it.
Precisely why Brazil could be in it. New game, new civilizations. What was in Civ 3 (ie Portugal having Sao Paulo and Rio as cities) should have no effect on what will be in Civ 4. That's my point.
___________
Like I said in some other thread, let us just include every friggin' 170+ modern nation-states (not civs,
nation-states) in Civ4 as their own "civilizaitons." That will make
everyone happy.
Don't stop there, though -- look into the history books and add every single nation-state in the known history of mankind, and you have one helluva expansion pack.
It's funny how everyone seems to think that only world-affecting civilizations should be in the game. Because when you consider it, most civilizations did not affect the world. They affected their region.
Does anyone object to Mali? Zulu? Korea? Babylon? Carthage? No. And yet none of those had world importance. But they had tremendous regional importance that is
remembered by the world. That's why they're there.
Why are the Inca so important? Because they were an "old" civilization that conquered parts of Eastern South America? Never affected much else than their relatively small region. They didn't do much, really. Ah, but they were "ancient" so that makes them great.
If one takes South American history, then one sees how monumental the Brazilian Empire was in the shaping of the entire continent. It had tremendous impact and a lot of history. But it's not ancient. Nor did it ever become a world power. Therefore it should just be ignored?
Then why aren't we ignoring the Zulu? Why aren't we ignoring the Sioux (which will be in BTS since Sitting Bull is a confirmed leader)?
Because of representation.
South America and Oceania need representation.
Africa needed representation and so we got Zulu and Mali. North America has USA and Aztecs, and we're getting Sioux and likely Maya to add to their representation.
Now it's South America and Oceania's turn. Or will they continue to have 1 and 0 civilizations, respectively?
We can keep pumping out Europeans and Asians, or we can get some diversity and maybe learn something about the Polynesians and the Brazilians...
or a native brazilian civilization, like the guaranis or the caigangs 
How embarrassing
