Why does Firaxis still use BC and AD?

[KayAU]

I say keep BC/AD, and I don't think that is because I happen to be a Christian. It is just the most familiar frame of reference.

 

[Perseus Gold]

I say keep BC/AD, and I don't think that is because I happen to be a Christian. It is just the most familiar frame of reference.

What's the point of the frame of reference when the tech and civics tree don't even make sense in the context of a world that didn't have the same historical conditions as ours? ie: Stirrups showing up on the tree when Europe was introduced to them but far after asian nations did, etc.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

BCE/CE is the common terminology nowadays

It really isn't though. I've never heard anyone except college lecturers use it.

 

[kryat]

I think the most fun solution would be to have the year display system dependent on the civ being played. Use the Japanese calendar for the Japanese; the Gregoria’s system for the Spanish, Brits, Russians, French, etc; the Julian calendar for the Romans, and let the weird quirks just propagate. We have each leader speak in their spoken tongue, why not use their own dating systems?

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Also an atheist but personally have no issue with BC/AD. However, I wouldn't bat an eyelid if they switched to BCE/CE; it's the same thing but with slightly revised terminology, not 'political correctness gone mad' or anything silly like that.

 

[BenZL43]

As much as I'd love to see each civilization to use their own dating system, it will only add unnecessary burden to the developer at the time being.

Think of difficulties coding Javanese, Kongo or Cree dating system. Perhaps, this could be a great DLC feature idea, though.
*Ahem, read this Firaxis*

 

[pgm123]

Well now, instead of crediting the Christians for giving the world an extremely useful dating system let's downplay and discredit their contribution for the sake of political correctness. Perhaps you would like to rewrite the moral code that many countries based their legal system on because it was influenced by the Judaeo-Christian world view as well.

I don't know what makes the years of the Christian calendar extremely useful compared to the Jewish, Hindu, Islamic, etc. calendars. It counts from an arbitrary point. It counts with negative numbers before that point. It's only particularly useful because it's so ubiquitous.

 

[kryat]

I don't know what makes the years of the Christian calendar extremely useful compared to the Jewish, Hindu, Islamic, etc. calendars. It counts from an arbitrary point. It counts with negative numbers before that point. It's only particularly useful because it's so ubiquitous.

It’s useful because it solved the leap year problem. Ancient calendars tended to drift.

More specifically, to my knowledge (though admittedly I haven’t thoroughly researched it) the Gregorian calendar, which coincidentally used the Christian dating system, was the first to reconcile the timing of days and years in a simple, consistent system, so that every year ends up approximately the same length with a long-term solution.

As much as I'd love to see each civilization to use their own dating system, it will only add unnecessary burden to the developer at the time being.

Think of difficulties coding Javanese, Kongo or Cree dating system. Perhaps, this could be a great DLC feature idea, though.
*Ahem, read this Firaxis*

As a programmer, I would say calendars are substantially easier to program than AI behaviors. In a way, calendars were the first mathematical algorithms, making them trivial to code. It would take maybe a few hours of research and a half hour to code each for any competent programmer.

 

[WillowBrook]

As a programmer, I would say calendars are substantially easier to program than AI behaviors. In a way, calendars were the first mathematical algorithms, making them trivial to code. It would take maybe a few hours of research and a half hour to code each for any competent programmer.

And given that there's already is not a one to one relationship between year and turn number, and no requirement that annoying happen on any particular turn our in any particular year, no precision is required. You just want a rough alignment. And it probably wouldn't take much additional work to do a better job than Firaxis of pacing the year with the tech/civic progression.

The option to start a new calendar on founding a religion would also be cool.

As for the original question of the thread, I really don't care. In my experience, most people continue to use BC/AD, except in some academic circles. If forced to choose I'd probably go with the traditional usage. Probably.

 

[Ever Adrift]

I am surprised at the poll results - I expected CE/BCE to be preferred given the widespread interest in history by posters here. BC and AD are essentially anachronistic now - they are not the proper abbreviations in academic writing. I'd prefer the proper CE/BCE or just having a 'year counter' rather than tying everything around an arbitrary date (that is already running before we research Calendar).

 

[Duuk]

I am surprised at the poll results - I expected CE/BCE to be preferred given the widespread interest in history by posters here. BC and AD are essentially anachronistic now - they are not the proper abbreviations in academic writing. I'd prefer the proper CE/BCE or just having a 'year counter' rather than tying everything around an arbitrary date (that is already running before we research Calendar).

You've just discovered what many people in my country are also discovering: Just because everyone YOU know or interact with share common beliefs does NOT in any way indicate that those beliefs are standardized. For example, if I was to take a poll of the two cats and the rabbit I own, I can be reasonably certain they would vote to ban dogs. Ergo, there is 100% support in my poll for the banning of dogs.

When I expand that circle to include my daughters, you gain 1 vote to let the dogs live and 1 person abstaining. Still a 3-1-1 win for murdering all dogs.

Be careful attributing your circle's beliefs to the world at large, as the world at large often is not what we assume it to be.

 

[Ever Adrift]

You've just discovered what many people in my country are also discovering: Just because everyone YOU know or interact with share common beliefs does NOT in any way indicate that those beliefs are standardized. For example, if I was to take a poll of the two cats and the rabbit I own, I can be reasonably certain they would vote to ban dogs. Ergo, there is 100% support in my poll for the banning of dogs.

When I expand that circle to include my daughters, you gain 1 vote to let the dogs live and 1 person abstaining. Still a 3-1-1 win for murdering all dogs.

Be careful attributing your circle's beliefs to the world at large, as the world at large often is not what we assume it to be.

Your 'friendly warning' assumes a lot. My point is merely that within academia, at the international level, CE/BCE are the standard, most widely used abbreviations. In Australia and parts of the US, the education system mandates the use of these. Beyond that, if you want to publish an academic article in a history journal, an anthropology journal, a political science journal, then you are almost certainly going to be required to use CE/BCE. Given that this is a game tied to the study of history, it would make sense to actually use the proper terms accepted by modern historiography.

 

[stinkubus]

My best guess as to why Firaxis chooses to do so is that even casual players with limited knowledge of history understand what they mean and can relate to them. Part of the fun of the game, imo, is launching a spaceship when actual humanity was still going through the dark ages. If I, as God-King of my fictional empire, cannot improve upon the historical performance of humanity there really isn't much point to the game.

 

[rastak]

Isn't it strange that a game embracing so many different cultures, and one that allows a rewrite of history, still uses BC, instead of a different counter?

I wouldn't mind seeing the counter start at 0 and tally up till 12.000, or simply them changing BC to BCE and AD to CE, just to forego the obvious connection to Christianity.

What do you guys think?

I would say of all the things in my life to get concerned about it ranks dead last.

 

[Kyro]

It was dedicated to preservation of knowledge because it was trying to control it, from the 4th through 6th centuries it was Christian mobs that destroyed the majority of libraries built throughout antiquity.

Oh this, let us discredit the fact that the preservation and study of scripture was the very basis of education that allowed scientific progress to occur in the first place. Did you know that Isaac Newton, the father of modern day science was a theologian as well? Even Gaileo Galillei who was wrongly persecuted by politicized religion, Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Johannes Kepler, they were all Christians. The study of the gospel and the rational laws of the bible was a deeply intellectual process that honed minds for great achievements, contrary to what you are advocating. There is no conflict between unpoliticised Christianity and the advancement of Scientific Knowledge.

By the way, two of the most important figures directly responsible for the high fantasy genre, J.R.R.Tolkien and C.S.Lewis were Christians as well. Tolkien himself is arguably a major contributor to the game industry without which we won't be here talking about games.

What you are saying of Christianity is true of the Christian revisionism of the Enlightenment era in which the leading philosophers of the day reinterpreted nearly everything about the faith and the modern conception of Christianity you have inherited is a product of those men, not the original version of the Faith.

Have you heard how the current bible came to be and the Seven Ecumenical Councils that determined what was authentic and what was not? There was only one major "revision" called the reformation led by Martin Luther by which the protestants came to be and the fact is, nothing about the bible was changed. Sure if they "retconned" and rewrote the bible perhaps the integrity of the Christian faith would be undermined but that was not so. The Christians inherited the faith as it was established thousands of years ago on the basis of the gospel which remains unchanged to this day.

It does not take a philosopher to understand the gospel, fishermen could do it.

 

[Ryika]

Your 'friendly warning' assumes a lot. My point is merely that within academia, at the international level, CE/BCE are the standard, most widely used abbreviations.

Well, there's your problem. Outside of academia, nobody cares about academia.

 

[God of Kings]

I notice that Wikipedia has no firm rule on the issue, and a given article contributor (or editor) may use whichever terminology set they wish (and thus you see both sets of terms used, inconsistently and sporadically, throughout different contributors' articles).

I believe that Conservapedia was created because its founder was upset Wikipedia was using BCE/CE. Some people like to cherry-pick.

 

[conorbebe]

It would be more culturally inclusive to use CE/BCE, and doesn’t require any changes to the dating system. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice the change.

As for people saying it’s the norm so it should remain the norm, change doesn’t come about through repetition.

 

[God of Kings]

I abstained from voting, because I prefer one based on the system the civ you're playing as uses, which is not listed.

 

[Ever Adrift]

Well, there's your problem. Outside of academia, nobody cares about academia.

It's the closest thing there is to an international standardization at this point - BC/AD are increasingly rare; you won't see them in most textbooks nor virtually any history books made in the past decade - it will get to the point that BC/AD are not recognized by younger people. Moreover, for a game that is more than nominally about history, diversity and representation it is odd to use abbreviations explicitly tied to a particular religion and set of predominantly European cultures - especially when those abbreviations are no longer appearing frequently in books, articles and other media.