Which civ LEAST deserves to be in the original 18?

[Jonathan]

The current 55 votes for America with only two people even attempting to justify their reasons is proof enough that there are many petty and childish people who visit these forums.

The people who voted for America but didn't post messages were more sensible than me. They realized in advance that it would be a waste of time and that all they'd get would be tomatoes thrown at them by indignant American patriots.

 

[Ephor]

OF COURSE there are differences between America and England, everyone knows that! All I'm saying is that these differences are hardly enough to call them totally seperate civilizations - at least not when your job is to divide the whole world into only 18 civilizations.

-- Roland

Damn, I can't see why you're being hounded so bad for a fairly simple point, but I disagree nonetheless. Similarity isn't reason enough to choose a civilization, if that were true, Sparta, Athens, and Macedonia would never be subsumed into a single "Greek" civ, their ways of governing politically, militarily, and economically were as different as you can get. Problem is what's prominent today is the Athenian tradition of education and the memory of Alexander conquering the known civilized world, and they don't conflict, so they're easy to put together.

Even though they're similar, there are enough differences between America and England that America has become the dominant world civ (though China's starting to nip at our heels in a big way), while England's days of near world dominance are long gone.

So you say B, America and england should be combined, I say that your assertion of B implies the notion that similarity is the main criteria for choosing civs, B > C to use symbolic logic, I also say that similarity is not terribly important, ~C, and from that we get the conclusion that they shouldn't be combined, ~B. It's called modus tollens.

I'm arguing that prominence in the modern world (including how much their history captivates us), D, is the main criteria for sperating England and America, A, and that D applies in this situation because the relative prominence of England and America make their potentially slight difference enough to distinguish them.

D > A
D
_____
A

You seemed to be just randomly assigning variables to argument points without illustrating their relation or lack thereof, so I hope this clears some of that up.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

i wasn't arguing for america's inclusion due to it's preeminence in the modern age. i was relating that fact to roland's 'historical accuracy' farce of an argument.

Exactly what "farce of an argument"?

To me personally, it feels much more reasonable not to include America at all (and instead imagine that one part of the English civilization is in fact modern America, in the late stages of the game) than to have America appear in 4000 BC, at the same time as all those civs which today make up modern America.

I fail to see what's so ridiculous with holding this position?

-- Roland

 

[CrazyMrLeo]

Yes, but is America really a civilization? To me, America is a product of the English civilization. Having both America and England as seperate civilizations with seperate history seems weird to me.

I can understand where this logic comes from, but I must respectfully disagree. I don't believe that America was ever truly a part of the English civilization. It was founded by English settlers, certainly. And it was under the political control of England until the late 18th century, but from the moment settlers began coming over, I believe they were establishing a new nationality. Just look at John Winthrop and his "A Model of Christian Charity" sermon, or the pilgrims that sailed over on the Mayflower. These people were aiming to create new distinct societies in new territories, not acting on behalf of the English civilization. Furthermore, America was not just based on English colonization, but also the colonizing efforts of several other nations, like France and Spain, but also the Netherlands, Germany and even Sweden.

At least, to me personally, that's easier to imagine than imagining a history of the world in which New York was founded in 3800 BC.

New York before 1664 may be a little ahistorical, but no more so than, say, Tenochtitlan before 1325.

Anyway, as for the original question of the thread, every one of those 18 civs deserves to be in the game. Be it for reasons of longevity, location, or flavour. Removing any of them would severely detract from the experience of the game. We've already lost Babylon. Do we really want to lose another great civ?

 

[Jonathan]

Define ancient. Is ancient 1000 years or older? 2000 years or older? By todays standards, ancient is at least 1BC. Then there should only be about six civs on the list. No more.

I think there were a lot more than six civs in the world before Christ.

 

[Alistic]

Do those of you voting for the Mongols realize how much of the world ghengis khan conqured?

 

[Alistic]

I think there were a lot more than six civs in the world before Christ.

In the estimated 62 billion years of the earths existance, im willing to bet there has been a million civ's before christ. Or more.

 

[Evie]

Do those of you voting for the Mongols realize how much of the world ghengis khan conqured?

Do you realize how quickly the mongols lost all that?

Do you realize how much of the conquered territory (ie, pretty much everything but China) was inhabited by fairly primitive civilizations?

 

[trotskylite]

Exactly what "farce of an argument"?

your selective adherence to historical accuracy insomuch as it coincides with removing america from the game. you are completely committed to the idea of it being historically viable that the civ could possibly exist at the beginning of the game, but when you move time forward, for whatever reason historical accuracy means nothing to you.

 

[MRM]

Do those of you voting for the Mongols realize how much of the world ghengis khan conqured?

I haven't voted for them ( I haven't voted here at all so far ) but do you relly think, that this made the mongoles a civilisation ? btw does anybody know if they had even a town before they started the conquest ? Or lived they still in tents ?

 

[Roland Ehnström]

Hey, thanks Ephor for a very good post! (I mean that seriousely.)

I fully respect your position that prominence in the modern world is important when chosing which civs to merge and which to seperate, but to me other similarities/differences are more important, especially the similar/different history of the respective nation. What we have is simply a difference of opinion (I say C, you say ~C), no more and no less. I wish everyone else could argue as well as you do - it would save us all a helluva lot of time!

btw, the reason I'm "randomly assigning variables to argument points without illustrating their relation or lack thereof" is (a) because I'm lazy, (b) because modus tollens is, well, logical ( ) to most, if not all, human beings without actually needing to spell it out for them using symbolic logic, and (c) because after all most people havn't read theoretical philosophy, so they won't know what ~C means (which is why they instead say stuff like "your farce of an argument is ridiculous").

-- Roland

 

[Varelse]

America is less similar to England than England is to France. Or as France is to Spain. Or as Spain is to Germany. They all share a common western culture, the biggest difference being language and slight variations in ethnicity. America IS an offshoot of England, obviously, but it has evolved into so much more since then. America has many similarities to European cultures, england included, but it also has dinstinguishing charateristics that are not shared by any of the Euro-nations. At least a quarter of our population is descended from hispanics from Central and South America. These people have a mixed Spanish-meso-American heritage. Few people from England or any part of Europe can claim meso-American ancestry yet a quarter of our population can. And another 15% or so of our population is of African heritage. Parts of the American South are mostly African in heritage. Another 5% or so have Asian heritage, particularly in the Northwest. Also in many parts of America spanish is spoken as often as english is. As a further divergence, Europe's biggest group of immigrants is Middle Eastern, up to 20% of their populations in a few nations, while there are only 6 million or so in America, a nation of nearly 300 million people. It is clear that most western civs have common roots, but just as Germany and France have diverged to the point where they can be considered separate civilizations and cultures, so have America and England.

 

[crazybeard]

Let's face two inescapable facts:

1. The number of civs in the game is finite (18)
2. The developers are (for the most part) Americans

Therefore, any list of civs is going to have a European bias. America, England, France, Germany, and Spain will always be included in the list of civs. [Note that the list is in alphabetical order. I omit Egypt, Greece, and Rome because, IMHO, they are there by right.]

 

[Varelse]

Oh and please try not to be too hard on us Americans who get a little defensive when you try to lump America and England together. We did, after all, fight two wars to make our independence from England official. In fact "we're not England" is one of the very foundations of our society!

If the British Empire of the 18th century couldn't force us to be a part of England, what chance do you folks have?

 

[trublsumtrotsky]

A Civilization is defined by the development of complex political and social institutions. America is civilized yes but it is not a civilization, America started life civilized and therefore is part of the current global western civilization, of which nations such as Canada, Australia, France and Germany etc are all part of. None of these countries currently stands as a civilization on their own as their cultural and political values and institutions are effectively the same. For any modern nation to be classed as a civilization it would have to develop a seperate and new political and social system seperate from all other nations. As the world currently stands America is part of the 'Western' civilization.

 

[trotskylite]

that really has nothing to do with the game

 

[Jonathan]

I think there were a lot more than six civs in the world before Christ.

According to a book plucked from my shelves here, Mesopotamia (the Sumerians, mostly) was civilizing around 4000 BC, then Egypt, then the Phoenicians (around 3000 BC). The Minoans in Crete 2500 BC, and apparently something happening in England at the same time. Stonehenge was built about 2000 BC (three cheers for the Ancient Brits).

Around 1800 BC the Babylonians took over in Mesopotamia. The Aryans destroyed the Indus civilization.

1700 BC the Hittites (Aryans) grew powerful in Anatolia.

1600 BC the Chinese developed writing and an urban civilization. The Hittites plundered Babylon. Mycenaean civilization growing in Greece.

1500 BC the Assyrians and Hittites both powerful.

1450 BC Minoan civilization destroyed, probably by an earthquake.

1250 BC Moses led the Jews from Egypt.

1200 BC the Sea Peoples came from the Caspian Sea area and destroyed the Hittites. Some then settled down and became the Philistines. The Canaanites settled in Syria.

1100 BC the Assyrians conquered Mesopotamia but were then defeated by the Aramaeans. The Philistines conquered the Jews.

1000 BC Greek city states (Athens, Sparta, Thebes). Aryans ruled in north India. The Jews defeated the Philistines.

800 BC the Medes make an appearance. Phoenicians found Carthage.

753 BC Rome founded.

And so on and so forth.

 

[Alistic]

Do you realize how quickly the mongols lost all that?

Do you realize how much of the conquered territory (ie, pretty much everything but China) was inhabited by fairly primitive civilizations?

This maybe true for the european side, yet they still ruled russia for 250 years. If we want to get into comparison's of other civilizations, this is a major feat. I mean compared to half the civ's in the list.

As for primitive civilizations, its all relative. They were all primitave. Its a hard stance arguing that the mongols aren't one of the great civ's of the past. Im glad im arguing the other side.

Besides every civ that ever tried to take over the known world went through the same situation. Greedy hasty expansion followed by collapse.

Nobunaga's ambition for NES is one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Kyriakos]

Rome: from 753 Bc to 476 AD: 13 centuries (if you take Italy too 28)
Aztecs: about 1 century (need to look up the dates here)
France: from around 500: 15 centuries
Germany: from 1871 (1 1/2!) or better: from 843 (verdun) 12 centuries
Persia: from 529 BC to 642 AD: 12 centuries (with Iran: 26 centuries)
Spain: around 1000: 10 centuries or 1479 (union of castilia and aragon): 5 centuries
Mongols: 1196 (union of the tribes) to 1405 (death of tamerlane): 2 centuries, or if you want up to today (as a small insignifant country): 8 centuries!
Arabs: 570 AD to today: 15 centuries
Egypt: 3000 BC to 50 BC (absorption into Rome, afterwards an independent islamic state which is clearly not meant with the way it is represented in civ): 30 centuries.
Greece (THE definition of civilization): around 1200 (Doric mix with Mycenae )= Greeks) to 148 BC (Macedonia gets conquered by Rome): 10 centuries.
And then there are Japan (I estimate around 15 centuries max!), the Turks (around 10 centuries), the Hittites (6 centuries), Sumer (9 centuries), Assyria (around 10 centuries with gaps! [without 12]) Phoenicia (with Carthage around 8 centuries) and then there's BABYLON: 2 centuries!

Now, I just counted from the foundation of the state, as you have done with the USA (you took the date of 1776). If we want to take the dates of the people (makes more sense, he?), we should start with the Mayflower or Columbus for America, which gives us around 5 centuries, which is not that many under par!

That argument is worth nothing, sorry!

m

interesting how Rome gets to be added to Italy, but (ancient) Greece not with Greece I am not saying that it is unreasonable/reasonable to do the first, but then you should follow through with the second Also if you include all of the turks as one civ, why not include all of another people's civs as one too?

 

[mitsho]

Well, I just have to have one last post in here (it's getting too ridiculous and funny, it starts being annoying):

One argument of the anti-Americans is that the Americans are the civ that is the farthest away from the 4000 BC starting point. But now, with civ4 - we are talking about civ 4 in here, right? - we gained the option to start the game in the industrial or even modern era. Anyone wants to say America doesn't make sense there?

mitsho

PS: YES, you can start with the Aztecs in the industrial era.

EDIT: @varwnos Sorry, As you see I put the Italy thing only in brackets. That means I don't like it, but I had to include them into Rome because that is popular among the people on this forum. Obviously, I should have done it fro Greece too, but I simply forgot it. So, I have nothing against Greece, remind you...