Why include Portugal???

[Blackdragon]

: ) nice strike yank,

but.... portuguese people dont need its history to be proud of, the are proud of its countryside, its beaches and hills. most portuguese people has never been outside there village, but they are happy bout there live couse portugal got a tiny strong economy u have motorways there electrizity and world TV since 1960 u have all the first world infra strukture u can imagine. there a 1-2 TV stations and the TAP air Portugal and the worlds anti-consume youth is meeting every summer on the beaches of zambujeira or lagos. it sright that portugal have minor then nothing influence but the people itself realy dont need influence or domination to b eproud and happy. futhermore to counterattack: lisbon has a underground system and the world exebition took place there in 1998. I just count this to block our attack!!

i love portugal and they should be encluded in CIV3
they are expansionists and ..............hm?
its special unit is a caravel that is much faster

always thing about it, without portugal, spain would never conquested america and history would be another, maybe we still think the world is a disc............

 

[Megaton]

hmm yeah expansionist would definately have to be one of them.

As for the US never falling out of Power... hehe well once Persia was probably the most important place in the world, and lets zoom back to today, how much have you heard about persia other than carpet talk?... exactly zilch.
Its a little known fact but a year or 2 ago a portugese Submarine the size of my bedroom managed to get itself right under a modern US aircraft carrier without detection.
It is also said that the Portugese discovered many places LONG before they were "discovered" and claimed by the British. Australia is one such example, they have found actual evidence to prove this.

 

[zeeter]

Look, I've got nothing against the fine people of Portugal. Most of what I've said is in jest. I do have a problem with all of the irate people who are insisting on Portugal's inclusion in Civ3. My point is that virtually any country can claim inclusion based on the arguments made by the Portugese.
I could say the same about the Vikings. Sure, they "discovered" America first (after the indians, that is). But they didn't do a whole lot with it, plus they didn't tell a whole lot of people about it. I think that the Vikings are in this game because Americans think that they're cool.
The Etruscians didn't start the Roman Empire, but without them there would never have been one.
They've been fighting for so long in the Middle East that they cannot even claim a country to be the greatest of all. I certainly think that they could have included a civ called the Arabs. Think about it. The Middle East has an extremely large impact on society around the world today, and has for most of recorded history. If we can include the Iroquois, who have no impact on society today other than a few discoveries that they may have passed on to the English, why not the Middle East.
However, if we think about the history of the world, and what is relevant today, there are only a few civs to choose from.
We certainly have to take the civilizations which were prevelant during the Roman era - Romans, Egyptians, Greeks. We also need to take the civs prevelant to the history of the US - England, France, Spain, Germany. We need to include civs prevelant to modern society - USSR or Russia, China, Japan. We already decided to keep the Vikings because Americans think that they're cool.
We need to represent every continant that we can, so we have the Zulus and Aztecs (although in Africa, during their heydey the Egyptians are more famous for their dealings with Rome and the Middle East). For some reason, the Babylonians are in there. Not sure why.
India and China hold over half of the world's population so you have to include the Indians.
I think that the two civs which have the least claim to Civ3 are the Iroquois and the Babylonians. The Babylonians because not too many people know who they are, nor do they care, and the Iroquois (start the anti-native american flames now) because their claim to recorded anglo-saxon history is limited to a very short time. I think that a better choice would have been one of the western tribes like the Apaches or the Souix.
So we have a choice of ridding ourselves of the Babylonians or Iroquois for the Portugese. They just chose not to make that choice. We can't have everything.
Remember, this is an American game. We have to choose Civs that the Americans will want to play.

 

[Blackdragon]

..

 

[Megaton]

hehe true true, well I guess if someone wants to make the Portugese a civ, go ahead
How the heck did the Portugese become a topic in the first place is what im really curious about?

 

[fsume93]

portugal is a part of the European Union, the most powerfull liga in this world, the most demokratic liga in this world and i think the first mission to land on the moon will take of from courou/france/guyana and there is the tiny possibility that the first human on the moon could be a portuguise cosmonaut raising the star banner of the European Union

Feeling a little anti American there Blackdragon?

We can only wonder in amazement (and amusement) as to the difficulties your life has encountered and failures your life has experienced to bring you to such a spiteful and biased outlook. I imagine your glass is always 'half empty'. Of course, that is the price for buying into socialism.

If Portugal is so great, why does it have to involve itself in a socialist union to accomplish great feats? You mean they cant achieve them on their own? In your eyes I guess that signifies the greatness of their culture.

You would fit in well here in America with the loony liberal socialist Democrats who like to, among other things, revise history. Your poor grammar and spelling wouldn't be a hindrance either. It would just be a sign of our 'aim low' public education...

Anyway, we digress...back to the subject at hand. The real travesty isn't who is or isn't included in Civ3. It is that ONLY 16 civ's are included. Why the cap?

 

[geake]

Originally posted by fsume93
If Portugal is so great, why does it have to involve itself in a socialist union to accomplish great feats? You mean they cant achieve them on their own? In your eyes I guess that signifies the greatness of their culture.

Is European Union a socialist union? Gee, I didn't know that! Wow that's cool! I'm feeling a lot better about EU now.
And I don't think that greatness has to be tied to power. Greatness can be achieved by many ways, including finding ways to cooperate with its neighbours, getting close to them to ensure peace. Thanks to the union (it may not be the only reason but...), europe has so far known the longest peace period ever I guess.

Your poor grammar and spelling wouldn't be a hindrance either. It would just be a sign of our 'aim low' public education...

How many foreign languages do you speak yourself? That may be another sign your 'aim low' public education.

 

[knowltok]

Define peace. Wasn't there a little bit of fighting in the former Yugoslavia not too long ago? Don't get me wrong, by in large Europe seems to have become a more peaceful since WWII, but I don't think that that is a result of the EU. I'd rather think that the EU was the result of the peace. The peace being the result of the world being terrified of the consequences of a next war. Europe became more unified by what always unifies people: an outside threat. Hopefully the EU can help to maintain peace in Europe, and hopefully help out in the world, but as yet it is still forming and is untested. It merits and shortcomings have yet to be fully determined.

 

[Megaton]

acutally wouldnt it be arguable that Yugoslavia is part of Asia (hehe I know im a nit picker)
The UE was a positive move.

 

[geake]

Originally posted by knowltok
Define peace. Wasn't there a little bit of fighting in the former Yugoslavia not too long ago? Don't get me wrong, by in large Europe seems to have become a more peaceful since WWII, but I don't think that that is a result of the EU. I'd rather think that the EU was the result of the peace. The peace being the result of the world being terrified of the consequences of a next war. Europe became more unified by what always unifies people: an outside threat. Hopefully the EU can help to maintain peace in Europe, and hopefully help out in the world, but as yet it is still forming and is untested. It merits and shortcomings have yet to be fully determined.

Yeah but Yougoslavia was not part of the union, and it was a civil war, and civil wars happen everywhere, if there are inequities in the country, like there was in kosovo, or for belief or cultural reasons. But nowadays a few countries from former yougoslavia, like slovenia, are about to join the EU.
I mean, the idea is, why a country in an economic union would attack its partners. Peace is a consequence of unions.

Remember that the plan the fathers of europe had in mind when they created the european coal and steel community is to make france and germany come together and have mutual interests so they would never fight each other again. Therefore ensuring peace in europe.
This community was imagined before soviet union had the bomb, so maybe the cold war pressure wasn't as big at that time.
But of course, your arguments are to be considered too, that it actually was a necessity to unite.

 

[fsume93]

longest peace ever...except for civil war...except Yugo isnt part of EU and therefore not part of europe and therefore doesnt count...except for...

And you begin to see the flaw of his logic...

 

[knowltok]

Good points all, Geake. I am in favor of the idea of a united Europe. I don't know enough of the internal politics of the union and how it is bieng formed to say that this is the right or wrong way though. Anything that can keep the English, French, and Germans from fighting each other is a good thing. To that end we may have to abolish football.

Megaton: I don't think that it is arguable that Yugoslavia is part of Asia. It is firmly part of Europe geographically.

 

[Blackdragon]

sorry for my bad spelling, realy sorry bout that but i just cant do it better, but i try : )

there are indeed 16 civs and u can do nothing about it.
portugal is a topic couse there are some portuguise people in here who made it a topic.

the european union is the only chance for us europeans to survive the next big clash.

iam anti american couse they do global escalation and the NWO under construction is a fashistic-militaristic and kapitalistic world rule by the white man. this is why there is a very need to put the usa down before they can realise there (plan)

this is a sozialist point of view i know but wisdom is red, think about it in 2050 or 2080

 

[Dario]

I think the discussion here is why doesn't CIVIII include portugal as a playable CIV.

First of all let me clear out that i am portuguese, but i'm not in any way hurt or troubled with the fact that portugal is not a playable civ (i was pretty pissed off when sid didn't include portugal as a playable nation in colonization...but civ is a diferent game)...however i think it would make sense to include it in the bunch.

In fact portugal was the first expansionistic civilization in history. There's a general tendency to confuse militarism with expansionism, and although portugal was far from being militaristic it was sure as hell expansionistic. Militaristic civs grow armies and attack their neighbours. Expansionistic civs look for space, not necessarily by the force of arms...Portuguese were the first to look to the ocen as a road instead of a barrier. The discovery of the sea route to india, all the exploring in the far east (did you know portuguese where the first european civilization to make contact on a regular basis with the chinese, the japanese, the indians, etc, etc, etc), the discovery of brazil, and possibly north america (there's a theory in history that it wasn't columbus - who was portuguese by the way, just working for spain - who discovered america, but a portuguese guy called gaspar corte-real some years before) give us some credit, i think. Also, all the exploring and colonizing done later by england, spain, holland and france was possible thanks to the sea routes discovered by the portuguese. The first brave sailor who looked to the vast endless sea, and decided to risk is life exploring it, without knowing if he would ever return home, was portuguese. The moment the first ship left sagres in portugal, heading to the unknown was perhaps the most important moment in world history since the conquest of rome by the barbarians until the steam engine.
When spanish (or english, or dutch, or whatever) sailors set sails they already knew that there was land on the other side, because the portuguese had discovered it...
The portuguese ended the myth of the big abiss on the end of the ocean that would swallow every ship foolish enough to come close to it. After that everybody rushed to the sea, using portuguese routes, portuguese developed navigation devices, portuguese pilots...we were then the greatest world power due to the transformation we caused in the world. Tordesilhas treaty dividing the world in half is the proof of what i'm saying (the world was devided between portugal and spain, not between germany and france, or holland and...the USA )

Even today, portuguese influence in the world is far more than the portuguese language being the 6th most spoken language in the world (ahead of the german...). You can see portuguese marks in the portuguese fortresses in africa, in portuguese cooking in japan, in portuguese churches in india, in portuguese words in japan. Portuguese is spoken in every continent, except north america.

If D. Henrique (he was behind of the whole sea exploring thing) wasn't fascinated by the sea, and son of the king,
I think, i don't say this because i'm portuguese, that portugal was one of the civilizations that most contributed to the world we have today, and our marks are present everywere...

As a side note, the invincible armada was not spanish alone, but the portuguese and spanish fleets put together (at the time, portugal was being ruled by a spanish monarch).

 

[Hamlet]

Originally posted by geake
Is European Union a socialist union?

Not particularly. Many socialists originally opposed the whole idea as being a plan to create a capitalist 'Rich man's club', indeed many more radical socialists still do. Moderate socialists are generally in favour, though.

 

[vulture]

Originally posted by Dario

In fact portugal was the first expansionistic civilization in history. There's a general tendency to confuse militarism with expansionism, and although portugal was far from being militaristic it was sure as hell expansionistic.

It was the first of the Great Ocean navigators. The only reason there was no great wars in Portugal's great expansion was they picked on people that had no defence against steel and gunpowder.

Alexander was the ultimate expansionist. He conquered ever nation he had ever heard of. I don't believe you can limit expansion to exploration. Expansion is about growing and any nation that wants to rule EVERY nation in the world has to be defined as expansionist.

As a side note, the invincible armada was not spanish alone, but the portuguese and spanish fleets put together (at the time, portugal was being ruled by a spanish monarch).

At the time the Portugese were a lesser partner to the great Spanish empire. For much of Portugese history they have been in dire fear of being swallowed up like ever other pricipality of the Iberian penninsula.

 

[Dario]

Originally posted by vulture

The only reason there was no great wars in Portugal's great expansion was they picked on people that had no defence against steel and gunpowder.

You are completely wrong here. The main reason that there are no wars in the beginning of the portuguese expansion, is that portugal had no colonization purposes whatsoever. For years portugal just traded with both indians, africans, chinese, etc, never trying to gain land, just money.
Only later, portugal adopetd a more spanish like atitude, and started colonizing what was once only trade ports. In that period portugal was as bad as the others, killing and enslaving like everyone else.

Alexander was the ultimate expansionist. He conquered ever nation he had ever heard of. I don't believe you can limit expansion to exploration. Expansion is about growing and any nation that wants to rule EVERY nation in the world has to be defined as expansionist.

I might agree with you here. But that please notice that that kind of expansionism is inherent to militaristic civs (no one builds a big army to sit at home reading). Portugal on the other hand had a rare atitude: it was an expansionist civ without being militaristic...like the early greeks and fenicians...

At the time the Portugese were a lesser partner to the great Spanish empire. For much of Portugese history they have been in dire fear of being swallowed up like ever other pricipality of the Iberian penninsula.

Sorry to say this, and i don't mean to offend you here, but you clearly don't know what you're saying here.
At the time portugal and spain were united (against the will of portugal) portugal was far from being a lesser partner to anyone. Portugal had the biggest navy in the world (yes, more than half the ships in the invincible armada were portuguese) ; it's territory included brazil (one of the richest countries in south america), several african possessions (angola, mozambique, most of south africa, among others), malaca, ceilan, several trade point in china, several cities in india, and several possessions in the asian southeast. Portugal was at least the #3 power in the world (probably number #2)...that's hardly a lesser role. The reasons it united with spain had to do the death of the king and subsequent political turmoil (smartly conducted by the spanish crown) and not with any kind of weakness...

 

[Adamski]

Portugal. Oh Portugal.

Portugal was a very powerful nation in it's day, which was for a longer period than the USA has enjoyed thus far. It is also a very beautiful and wonderful country in this day. Go to the Algarve and check out the beautiful beaches, while you can wander down to the southwest corner of Europe at Sagres and marvel at the castle/ navigational school where Henry the Navigator raised such brilliant seafarers as Vasco de Gama. You can get a bloody good Sangria and Tuna steak there too. (For any of my old travelling companions who may be remaniscing on this site - you know who you are - you got too pissed and stole the car - got bitten by the dog - remember?)

Also - the Maories did actually navigate their ways to New Zealand from places as far away as Hawaii and Easter Island. But I wouldn't fancy them for a civ as they didn't so much as colonise the place as eat everything and eveyone to extinction. There may have been some Portuguese who landed here, but where never heard from again.

Finally - wasn't Christobal Colon Genoese? not Portuguese - sorry about that!

 

[Cippin]

Ola!

This is my first post, but I can feel it...I'm going to offend someone.

Portugal contributed a lot. We have, in no particular order:

1. Cork (Yes, they produce the great portion of this odd little product)
2. Architecture (A lot of Muslim influence, but unique)
3. The Caravel (That, amigos, would be their unique unit)
4. Interesting wines
5. Several years of domination
6. Exploration
7. Language spoken in: Portugal (Portugal), Brazil (Brasil), Cape Verde(Cabo Verde), Mozambique (Mocambique), Angola (Angola), Guine Bissau (Gunie-Bissau), Sao Tome and Principe (Sao Tome e Principe), Macao (Macau), Timor, and last but not least, areas in India and malay.
8. One of the oldest Empires (dates back to 1143)
9. A very impressive Capital, dates back to well before the 12th Century
10. The Sagres built by Prince Henry the Naviagtor. It was a school of navigation, and many Spanish and Italian navigators were taught here.
11. A very diverse economy (Ot is not in financial ruin, as some would have you believe)
12. Freedom...That's right, freedom. Portugal isn't a thrid world country forgotten by everyone else.
13. Introduced many spices to Europe.

By the way, I'd say expansionist and commercial...They have always expanded and explored, and thus traded as a result of this. Not really militaristic. The Portuguese people are very religious, though.

Ate logo, amigos.

 

[Toecutter]

Portugal used to have a very strong navy (Vasco Da Gama)
Does Brazil ring a bell?
What about the colonization of African countries like Angola, Mozambique and .Guine Bissau Their involment with the insurgency in these colonies during late sixties and early seventies, where at it's peak they had betwenn 45-60000 conscripted men involved in the conflict. They still have Macao and Portuguese Language Heritage in Asia, Goa, Timor, lores etc.
In Ceylon, for example, Portuguese was used for all contacts between the Europeans and the indigenous peoples; several Kings of Ceylon were fluently in speaking it, Portuguese names were common among the nobility.
The Portuguese some of the oldest Catholic religious orders with military missions, these Orders were founded during the severe conditions of the Reconquest of Iberian Peninsula from the Moorish invaders, the Crusades of the West.