I would agree with that.
Why are the Zulu always in Civilization
- Thread starter volbound1700
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r_rolo1
King of myself
A lot of people recognize the name of the Native American civ 
And I do remember how was the reaction when they announced the name of the portuguese leader on Civ IV ( was something like : "Who?" )....
And I do remember how was the reaction when they announced the name of the portuguese leader on Civ IV ( was something like : "Who?" )....
volbound1700
Emperor
I didn't like the Native American Civ. I thought they should have made Iroqous or Sioux or by tribes but not lump them together into one civ.
IMO, the civ should have been the Iroqous and they may want to think about adding Seminoles, Cherokee, Sioux or Apache later on.
IMO, the civ should have been the Iroqous and they may want to think about adding Seminoles, Cherokee, Sioux or Apache later on.
volbound1700
Emperor
USA has done more in history then the following Civs currently in Civ4:
1. Japan
2. Babylon
3. Egypt
4. Khmer
5. Ottoman
6. Portugal
7. Netherlands
8. Celts
9. Carthage
10. Mayans
11. Aztecs
12. Incans
13. Native Americans
14. Korea
15. Viking
16. Mongolia
17. Mali
18. Zulu
19. Ethopia
20. Persia
21. Byzantines
Arguable done more then:
22. Russia
23. India
24. Germany
25. Holy Roman Empire
Nations that have argument over USA
26. England
27. China
28. France
29. Spain
30. Greece
31. Rome
32. Sumeria
33. Arabia
I am taking account factors that benefit mankind which are
1. Technology (what did the nation invent)
2. Religion/Social/Society improvement (what philosophies, governmental ideas, or religions did the nations bring to the world)
3. Shaping the current world (Arabs, England, and Spain get huge points here as most of nations cultural and formation trace to developments caused by these three nations - South America is mostly Spanish for example)
4. Time at the top (How long world power)
5. Literature/Art/Culture - This is placed under Culture in game
6. Intangibles (curing diseases, landing on moon, building wonders).
America invented most of the inventions here today including Computers (which we are on now), Internet (how we can chat here), and Video Games.
USA has invented the following notable inventions: Air planes, Telephone, Cell-Phones, Assembly Line, Submarine, Light bulb, Electricity, Nuclear Energy, Atom Bomb, League of Nations/United Nations, Bicameral Legislatures, Motion-Picture, Television, Radio, Vacuum Cleaner, Repeating Rifle, Toilet Paper, Microscope, Elevators, Escalators, Telegraph, Machine Gun, Dish-Washer, Soda, Traffic Light, Recycling, Microchip, Superconducter, etc.
90% of the technology in the modern age on this game was founded by America first.
Lets do World Wonders:
I will give Statute of Liberty to France but US still has:
Smithsonian, Mount Rushmore, Golden Gate Bridge, US Interstate System, The Hermitage (it is in the game), Internet, SETI, Silicon Valley, St Louis Arch, Sears Tower, Empire State Building, United Nations, (Did have World Trade Cener).
US has had some of the best writers:
Knickerbockers of New York (look them up), Ernest Hemingway, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickenson, E.E. Cummings, Robert Frost, Upton Sinclair, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, T.S. Elliot, Walt Whitman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Walker, Harper Lee.
America also has a produced a good deal of art.
Lets not even get into Music or Motion Picture because United States dominates all in that.
1. Japan
2. Babylon
3. Egypt
4. Khmer
5. Ottoman
6. Portugal
7. Netherlands
8. Celts
9. Carthage
10. Mayans
11. Aztecs
12. Incans
13. Native Americans
14. Korea
15. Viking
16. Mongolia
17. Mali
18. Zulu
19. Ethopia
20. Persia
21. Byzantines
Arguable done more then:
22. Russia
23. India
24. Germany
25. Holy Roman Empire
Nations that have argument over USA
26. England
27. China
28. France
29. Spain
30. Greece
31. Rome
32. Sumeria
33. Arabia
I am taking account factors that benefit mankind which are
1. Technology (what did the nation invent)
2. Religion/Social/Society improvement (what philosophies, governmental ideas, or religions did the nations bring to the world)
3. Shaping the current world (Arabs, England, and Spain get huge points here as most of nations cultural and formation trace to developments caused by these three nations - South America is mostly Spanish for example)
4. Time at the top (How long world power)
5. Literature/Art/Culture - This is placed under Culture in game
6. Intangibles (curing diseases, landing on moon, building wonders).
America invented most of the inventions here today including Computers (which we are on now), Internet (how we can chat here), and Video Games.
USA has invented the following notable inventions: Air planes, Telephone, Cell-Phones, Assembly Line, Submarine, Light bulb, Electricity, Nuclear Energy, Atom Bomb, League of Nations/United Nations, Bicameral Legislatures, Motion-Picture, Television, Radio, Vacuum Cleaner, Repeating Rifle, Toilet Paper, Microscope, Elevators, Escalators, Telegraph, Machine Gun, Dish-Washer, Soda, Traffic Light, Recycling, Microchip, Superconducter, etc.
90% of the technology in the modern age on this game was founded by America first.
Lets do World Wonders:
I will give Statute of Liberty to France but US still has:
Smithsonian, Mount Rushmore, Golden Gate Bridge, US Interstate System, The Hermitage (it is in the game), Internet, SETI, Silicon Valley, St Louis Arch, Sears Tower, Empire State Building, United Nations, (Did have World Trade Cener).
US has had some of the best writers:
Knickerbockers of New York (look them up), Ernest Hemingway, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickenson, E.E. Cummings, Robert Frost, Upton Sinclair, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, T.S. Elliot, Walt Whitman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Walker, Harper Lee.
America also has a produced a good deal of art.
Lets not even get into Music or Motion Picture because United States dominates all in that.
Powerslave
Prince
Volbound, I have about a 50/50 chance of agreeing with you or thinking that you're totally freaking crazy.
This time, I'm going to say that you're crazy.
This time, I'm going to say that you're crazy.
Melon Smuggler
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2009
- Messages
- 1
Wow... I was not aware of the annexion of St Petersburg by the mighty U.S. of A. How they could miss that in the news? 
"Prime Minister Putin has given control of St. Petersburg to President Obama"
*cheers*
"Prime Minister Putin has given control of St. Petersburg to President Obama"
*cheers*
Zylornck Davis
Lazy engineer
Remember everybody, nothing significant has occurred anywhere else in the Milky Way galaxy since 1776. America dominates all of that too.
Get a grip.
Most inventions have complex histories and multiple contributors but just a couple things I recognise(I don't have time to look up the items on that list) as being "invented by america":
Computers - no
WWW - no
Airplanes - no
Submarines - no
Electricity - no way in hell
Television - no
Radio - no
Toilet paper - far too late
Microscope - absolutely not
Elevators - no
Telegraph - no
Soda - no
Traffic light - no
Superconductor - no
90% of of tech was done by america? You massively overstate the USA's contribution. What you just said is so factually incorrect it defies belief how you could arrive there. There's no arguing the USA contributed hugely, but what you just did was blow off most of those talented individuals who worked to give you those things on your list.
Nationalism is foul.
The contempt of American leaders goes much deeper than that for some of us. Many presidents committed horrible atrocities under the guise of doing good and wrote the history books to make them good. I feel that can be about as deplorable as being outwardly ruthless. Personally I believe that two of the American leaders portraied in this game, Lincoln and Roosevelt, were two of the worst presidents in American history. (Way worse than anyone we've had recently.) Yet they are hailed and praised so much that one even has his face carved into a mountain. While they were both not quite the ruthless cold blooded killers that Genghis Khan was, they had their own problems and what's worse, history recorded them as mostly heroes.
Perhaps I judge the American Presidents a bit more harshly because I am an American. Perhaps because their deeds took place in more recent history, where as one could argue that during Khan's life his attitude was more acceptable. But I hold the deeds of Lincoln and Roosevelt in contempt as near as I do the deeds of Genghis Khan.
This is called history. Usually you conquer another nation, kill as much as you can, rape their women, demolish their culture and than you write the history books claming that they are barbarians and you are civilized. This is not invented by the US, the name of the game is WAR.
dannythefool
King
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2009
- Messages
- 657
Not by a long shot. First computers were built in Germany (Zuse), programming was invented in the UK (Lovelace), the architecture that modern computers use (von Neumann) was patented by Zuse 10 years earlier, and Zuse also invented the first high level programming language. While the internet was invented in the USA, the WWW was invented in Switzerland, by a British scientist. The first video games were built in the UK (either a NIM game or a Tic Tac Toe game, not sure which was the first, both in early 1950ies). The cathode ray tube was invented in Germany (Braun).
I contest aeroplanes, telephone, submarines, light bulbs, electricity, nuclear energy, league of nations, bicameralism, motion pictures, television, radio, vacuum cleaners, toilet paper, microscopes, elevators, telegraphs, possibly machine guns, carbonated beverages, traffic lights, recycling, and superconductors.
Please state who you think invented those and I will show you someone (or in some cases, an ancient civilisation) that had them first.
The Hermitage is in Russia. (No it's not the St. Petersburg in Illinois.) The Smithsonian was established with money the USA inherited from a British scientist who had never visited the USA himself. Go figure. Anyway, like most of the other buildings you mention, there are counterparts in other nations.
Pretty much pointless to give a list of names without comparing them to other people from elsewhere. I do notice that none of these people lived more than a few hundred years ago... (no big surprise there though)
Wow! This is the most subjective posting i think i have ever seen on Civ fanatics. And you call yourself a history student? If i were to write something like that and my professors saw it id quite rightly be kicked out on my backside. This post is nationalist, egocentric and idiotic all at the same time. There is simply no way of measuring what you are claiming. Its simply your opinion and quite frankly it looks to me as though its symptomatic of a particularly nasty vein of arrogance.
As for the rest of your post, you appear to have a vastly simplified view of what history is. You pay no attention to the hopes, desires or aspirations of the people who did these things in history. You are merely using them to satisfy your own selfish political philosophy. It is true that pure objectivity in history is impossible. All that you have are competing ideologies and interpretations of the past. But there is such a thing as good and bad history. By all means criticise and by all means raise objection. But the moment you start placing value on something that has no relevance to you individually, and placing your own history above that of other peoples, is the moment you cross that line and start offending people. Good history takes a complete look at the past and reports all of its facts. Bad history involves cherry picking or glossing over certain aspects in favour of satisfying your own personal ideology. Usually I would not take offence to a post such as this. However, seeming as you claim to be a student of history, I feel obliged to tell you exactly what i think of your position. Hiding behind that academic barrier gives the illusion that you have an added degree of credibility on such matters. A credibility i scarcely belive you deserve.
thekaje
Godless killing machine
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2009
- Messages
- 474
Really? The MOST subjective? lol - I have no idea what that means.
I think this thread raises some interesting questions as to the meaning of "invention".
Regarding computers, for example, Wikipedia gives credit either to the USA, Germany, or some combination of the two.
"George Stibitz is internationally recognized as a father of the modern digital computer. While working at Bell Labs in November 1937, Stibitz invented and built a relay-based calculator he dubbed the "Model K" (for "kitchen table", on which he had assembled it), which was the first to use binary circuits to perform an arithmetic operation. Later models added greater sophistication including complex arithmetic and programmability.[11]"
On the other hand, Konrad Zuse invented "the world's first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer ... in 1941."
So "the first" computer is in question, and the US and UK share subsequent technical accomplishments. Of course, no one would question that the US put a PC in every household. But is that invention?
Maybe the whole concept of isolated national "invention" is absurd. But I do think it's hard to argue the extent to which the people, culture, society, and economy of the USA enabled the fact that you're typing on a web forum about video games on a compact personal computer. Whether this matters or not I don't know.
GrayingGamer
Prince
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2008
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- 565
I'm interested in hearing about the terrible deeds of Lincoln. Please back up your statements =)
I had a similar debate with one of my friends a while ago. In England they sometimes have programs on TV like: "the top 10 national dishes". Now, most of these are what you would consider traditional: like fish and chips. However, coming in at number 3 is a chiken tikka masala, which was invented in Glasgow (Scotland). Now this may lead you to believe that the dish is in fact British (or Scottish.... whatever). Indeed, Indian people refute the claim that it is a curry at all, indicating it cant be because it was invented in Scotland. However, the guy who claims to have invented it was a pakistani immigrant. Now, is the dish Pakistani or is it British (it might very well be neither)? People squabble over who invented what, but in all honesty i think its a bit childish. Nations dont physically exist except in our imaginations and on paper. A nation doesnt consciously decide to invent something. People do instead. And these people had inspiration from a potentially large area. Furthermore, their identity is often not as straight forward as some would make out. Did the inventor of the Tikka Masala consider himself Pakistani or did he consider himself British? Does this even matter? If I went on holiday to China and invented time travel, does that make the invention chinese? I think you are right, the whole concept of national invention is flawed. There are very few cases in history when a nation can effectively lay exclusive claim to something. To pick one id say the US putting a man on the moon. The irony is, however, that many things we consider to be quintessentially British, French, German, (insert country here), often tend to be derived from other cultures and places. I guess thats the nature of causality
p.s. perhaps i should not have said "the most subjetive". A better phrase would have been "a very dubious piece of subjective reasoning"
Badtz Maru
King
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2001
- Messages
- 674
It's due to our public education system, honestly. Back in the 19th century people in the USA identified more by their state and less by the nation as a whole. The federal government did not like that, as it could lead to civil wars, so they started a program of mandatory public education with a curriculum heavy on propagandized US history. The purpose was not to educate so much as to give the population a common national identity. It continues to this day (see the lengthy thread about judging civs by their military history to see how distorted the view on the USA's achievements is). We have people who think that Nazi Germany would have been able to conquer the USSR if it wasn't for the help of the USA and that we didn't lose the War of 1812.
hah not at all. I am by no means a confederate sympathizer. However that does not mean that the side I agreed with* was all candy and rainbows...
*it's so hard to use the correct verb here. I don't necessairly agree with the northern state's actions, subsiquently I don't agree with the southern state's actions either, I just moreso agree with the northern states.
From Lincoln's first inaugural address (spoiler because it's big):
Spoiler :
Lincoln's inagural address was basically a decleration of war, at the same time stating that he would come in and occupy only government facilities. This was far from the case. Lincoln was the only President to declared war on the United States of America. He just didn't make the same formal decleration that (most) other wars were fought under.
"...unlawful to leave the union." Does he not understand where his own country came from? The American colonies were so vastly different and under represented than the British motherlands that they waged war to secede from their motheland. Why is it so horrible if states now wanted to secede from you? Even today the southern culture is very different than the rest of the union. I would see no shame in having a southern USA and northern USA (although, irony of irony, the name USA wouldn't really fit anymore.)
Also let's not forget that "unlawful to leave the union" was a flat out lie. Lincoln lied to the country to keep the southern states in the union. Lincoln declared war to keep the southern states in the union, perhaps because he thought it was the right thing. But the road to hell is paved in good intentions. Regardless, his actions were contemptable.
While I don't want to get too deep into this particular subject here, as we're already way off topic as it stands, I'll cut it short. Licncoln started the war, and knew he was going to start the war since before he was inagurated. He manipulated people into thinking that it was the south which started the way, and while it may be true that the south fired the first shot, it was Lincoln who started the war. Most history books remember it differently. Same as FDR. People tend to remember the good deeds of the victors, and the bad deeds of the losers.
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