Why is Mongolia in and not Korea

[Minmaster]

thats wut im asking you...

wait r you trolling?

 

[Wuzetian]

somehow I found this in another similar thread

mattigus wrote:

Anatomy of "Why is _____ not a Civ" threads.

Page 1: OP writing about the Civ in question, citing the feeble inconsequential achievements they have made throughout history.

Page 1-3: Members of sound mind acknowledging the merits of the civilization, but stating that only a limited number of Civs can be included, and this one isn't big enough to be considered.

Page 2-6: OP and members of the Civ working up a nationalistic rage, insisting the Civ is worthy of the game.

Page 2 - 7: Facetious and sarcastic posts related to the civ.

Page 5 - 10: OP and members of the Civ respond, flaming begins. nationalistic rage persists. OP may or may not accuse others of racism or demand bans.

Page 4: Dale makes a Sealand joke.

Page 6 - 15: Flame wars are in full force. Rational members leave thread. Activity in the thread is completely driven by the OP and the members of the civilization in question, those who are locked into heated debate about its merits compared to China or Egypt, and posters who are just making joke comments.

Page 16: Moderator has locked this thread.

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

edit: Whoops, I responded to something from two pages ago, because I didn't notice the new pages. Sorry!

 

[Wuzetian]

edit: Whoops, I responded to something from two pages ago, because I didn't notice the new pages. Sorry!

I happened to have read your post, I don't think you've done anything wrong, and there's nothing to be sorry for.

 

[Dachs]

These are some of the quotes from the link above.
It seems that quite some of these culture achievements in Yuan Dynasty are accomplished by Chinese people under Mongolian reign.
I would like to know under such circumstances, should these achievements be attributed to Mongolians or rather Chinese?

I have no intention of promoting anything about China or Chinese cultures here. I'm just raising a simple question.
Similarly, I think we could raise some other questions ,like should achievements accomplished by occupied France be attributed to France or the Third Reich during the time of WWII?

Sticky question.

Take a lot of Roman art, for instance. During the Late Republic, most of the sculptors who were worth anything were Greek, the materials used were mostly Greek (Pentelic marble for the real upper-crust senatorial nobility; there were marble sources in Italy, but they weren't opened up until Augustus), the subjects often as not tended to be from the Greek religion or Greek history...but the money was Roman, and the people who ultimately decided what would be made were also Roman. I have a hard time turning "Greeks made a lot of Roman art" into a statement that Rome's artistic accomplishments were negligible. If the Romans hadn't been buying, would the Greeks have been creating, say, the Farnese Herakles? Or if the Romans hadn't been saying what the Greeks should be making, would the trend of art have developed in that way? It's a continuation of the Hellenistic explosion in Greek art, and the natural development of it: if art was no longer a civic and religious thing, but could be created for the people with the cash, how the people with the cash wanted it, it's not a very far step to change the identity of the people paying for the art from Greek to Roman.

Now, I don't really know about Yuan-era art or how it compares with Ming- or Qing-period stuff with which I'm more familiar. But even if the Chinese were the ones making the art and writing the books, they were doing it in a setting defined by the Mongols, under rules set by the Mongols, at the direction of the Mongols. Doesn't that give the Mongols a share in what the Chinese produced?

Ah, nationalism...

 

[RustedCorpse]

Rain? Original?! He's like every other K-Pop group out there... except he's alone. K-Pop, isn't too original either.


Korea's a fun country and all, but compared to the effect of Mongols on warfare and culture... sorry, just panned out differently.

 

[Catastrophe90]

Hey, give the OP some slack. Threads about Korea are much more funner to read about than threads about, say, Canada or Spain (not saying that those countries are bad or undeserving or anything, but Korea seldom pops up). The 19 pages have been quite interesting to read (admittingly, I don't know much about Korea), I learned some new stuff.

However, far from me to lower Korea's past achievements, but I have to side with the "not historically significant enough" faction. Not that it's Korea's fault though, being wedged exactly between China and Japan for 4000 years kinda sucks (I doubt the Brits or Germans or whoever would have fared better in the same situation).

Yi Sun-sin was a pretty badass dude, but that doesn't really justify Korea's inclusion. Every country has war heroes. Heck, even Albania has this guy, who pretty much smacked the Ottomans left and right when they were at the height of their power for two decades.

Samsung's important, yeah, but, once again, Nokia is too. Sweden's not in Civ 5 either. I also tend to think about Hyundai before Samsung, but that's because they make those cool K2 Black Panther tanks.

Also on the Sino-Japanese relations bit, coming from a Chinese guy, it's a whole mess. The old guard fervent resents the Japanese for their actions during WW2 (you should hear my mother talking about the Japanese), while the new guard finds Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, anime and all that stuff cool. Besides, I'd rather have China and Japan team up against the white barbarians

 

[Morningcalm]

However, far from me to lower Korea's past achievements, but I have to side with the "not historically significant enough" faction. Not that it's Korea's fault though, being wedged exactly between China and Japan for 4000 years kinda sucks (I doubt the Brits or Germans or whoever would have fared better in the same situation).

Yi Sun-sin was a pretty badass dude, but that doesn't really justify Korea's inclusion. Every country has war heroes. Heck, even Albania has this guy, who pretty much smacked the Ottomans left and right when they were at the height of their power for two decades.

Samsung's important, yeah, but, once again, Nokia is too. Sweden's not in Civ 5 either. I also tend to think about Hyundai before Samsung, but that's because they make those cool K2 Black Panther tanks.

I don't know, Korea had many other military badasses. Jang Bogo, for example. Yi Song-gye, and Gwanggaeto the Great: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwanggaeto_the_Great_of_Goguryeo And that's just touching the surface. Korea's Three Kingdoms period was filled with military heroes.

In terms of ancient influence: Celadon, Buddhism, the unique Hangul alphabet (unique enough that it merited fairly extensive analysis and mention in Guns, Germs and Steel), the Hwacha (featured in a Mythbusters episode which concluded the claims about their deadliness are true), Turtle Ship and being the world's first country to create metal type and weaponize gunpowder (the Chinese invented it, but Korea was the first to use them as weapons). Oh yes, and extensive cannon and mortars used in the Imjin Wars. Read Stephen Turnbull's books on the samurai invasions for more on those.

Modern day? Not just Samsung, but the fact that Korea is economically powerful, and one of Asia's "four tigers". It retains diverse cultural influences, and is rapidly modernizing. Seoul was named 2010's Design Capital of the World (check out interiors in any of the new restaurants opening up, or the mix of train station and mall and cinema that is the polished postmodern glory of the Seoul train station I went to yesterday). Seoul is also one of the world's top 10 cities in size.

Also, Korea is famous for its high literacy, emphasis on education (most kids go to "hagwons" where they spend hours learning stuff beyond their school curriculum), and commercial enterprise. Computer, TV, and other such electronics market exports are helping Korea's economy immensely, as are stock exchanges and the like.

Frankly, I think Korea deserves to be included. Sweden does, too, and I expect Vikings will be in, so. Of course Swedes and Vikings are distinctly different categories, but the medieval Swedes are going to be in, and Oslo and Seoul will be removed as CSes, I expect.

 

[Wuzetian]

Isn't Oslo in Norway?

 

[Thormodr]

I don't know, Korea had many other military badasses. Jang Bogo, for example. Yi Song-gye, and Gwanggaeto the Great: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwanggaeto_the_Great_of_Goguryeo And that's just touching the surface. Korea's Three Kingdoms period was filled with military heroes.

In terms of ancient influence: Celadon, Buddhism, the unique Hangul alphabet (unique enough that it merited fairly extensive analysis and mention in Guns, Germs and Steel), the Hwacha (featured in a Mythbusters episode which concluded the claims about their deadliness are true), Turtle Ship and being the world's first country to create metal type and weaponize gunpowder (the Chinese invented it, but Korea was the first to use them as weapons). Oh yes, and extensive cannon and mortars used in the Imjin Wars. Read Stephen Turnbull's books on the samurai invasions for more on those.

Modern day? Not just Samsung, but the fact that Korea is economically powerful, and one of Asia's "four tigers". It retains diverse cultural influences, and is rapidly modernizing. Seoul was named 2010's Design Capital of the World (check out interiors in any of the new restaurants opening up, or the mix of train station and mall and cinema that is the polished postmodern glory of the Seoul train station I went to yesterday). Seoul is also one of the world's top 10 cities in size.

Also, Korea is famous for its high literacy, emphasis on education (most kids go to "hagwons" where they spend hours learning stuff beyond their school curriculum), and commercial enterprise. Computer, TV, and other such electronics market exports are helping Korea's economy immensely, as are stock exchanges and the like.

Frankly, I think Korea deserves to be included. Sweden does, too, and I expect Vikings will be in, so. Of course Swedes and Vikings are distinctly different categories, but the medieval Swedes are going to be in, and Oslo and Seoul will be removed as CSes, I expect.

In my previous post, I discussed how Hangul wasn't actually very unique at all. It was an impressive feat but their inspiration was largely drawn from the Mongols.

As far as hagwons go, many South Koreans have told me that if the regular school system was better, there wouldn't be any need for private schools. Certainly the English education taught in regular South Korean schools is woefully inadequate. As well as this, it's actually a bad thing to have children in school 10-12 hours a day. Many children frankly don't get enough sleep causing diminishing returns.

Frankly, Korea will be added to the game because Firaxis knows how nationalistic Koreans are and that many people would buy the game just because Korea is included. It's a smart marketing decision.

South Korea does face an uncertain future though economically. Not having oil and gas is a big problem and they are highly susceptible to price increases.
South Korea is also becoming increasingly uncompetitive simply because they are more affluent now and goods cannot be made as cheaply there anymore. The big chaebols won't be able to rely on their slave labor 3D workers for much longer. As it stands, most chaebols are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. I think the future is a lot more grim for South Korea since they want to have free access to other countries' markets but largely refuse to open up their own. They'll have to be better in that aspect or they will be left behind.

I think Vietnam for example, will be much better off in the future since they are self sufficient in oil, have a much larger population and are a lot more willing to not dwell upon the past. They also should be included in the game and would be just as worthy, if not more so than Korea. Vietnam has a long and glorious history as well. Defeating 3 major military powers in the 20th century being their most recent success.

 

[Blitz47]

I'm going to post more than one post due to too many posts I would like to respond to.

The consensus among economists is that the traditional "basket of goods" (Laspeyres-type) CPI overestimates inflation because it ignores substitution effects. The price of steak may rise 20%, but if the price of pork or chicken rises less, then you'll just buy less steak and more pork or chicken. So keeping your eye on a small set of prices isn't a good way to "guess" what inflation is really like. The current CPI is adjusted downward for this reason, so it's not going to track the basket of goods you're watching.

Unemployment though is always underestimated. They need to make a blanket assumption about when people exit the workforce. So they just set it to be the length of time they're eligible for unemployment benefits. It's a pretty crappy measure, but even if the absolute number isn't accurate, there's a good chance the "direction" and relative sizes across time are reflective of the "real" story.

In any case, inflation is a pretty necessary evil. You don't want deflation, where people can increase their buying power just by stuffing their money in a mattress. Inflation encourages investment, which is the lifeblood of capitalism. And capitalism rules.

I think it's a difficult task to create that basket of goods. While I agree substitution effect should be counted, one should also consider the elasticity of some goods or service. For goods and services which are not very elastic, substitution really isn't part of the equation. For goods and services that are essential to one's survival, you should not factor in substitution that much.

Case in point, basic food is very inelastic. Yes, you can substitute beef for chicken, chicken for pork, etc. but when milk, egg, cereal, many of the basic food staples are all going up in price, there is a problem. When people complain bread is too expensive, you need to look into what's the cause of bread price going up. If it's the raw material price going up due to poor harvest or stronger demand, people will have to choose another cereal such as rice. One problem we have in the past couple years is many of the basic food staple, such as wheat, rice, and corn are all going up in price due to several factors (source is mostly from economist as that's one of the few magazine I still subscribe to due to time, etc.) such as weather causing poor harvest, higher demand for meat from BRIC countries, which in turn caused animal feed to go up = more demand for basic cereal to make those feed. ethanol and other fuel demand also drive up price of grain.

I suppose we can eat more vegetable, problem is some vegetable prices have gone up due to fuel cost going up, etc. If you are working with kids, you have to have child care service. You can't say, wow, child care service is too expensive, I won't have them, that's not a choice nor option.

On the other hand, I think there is deflation in high technology goods. We are getting a lot more "features" and "functions", essentially more "utility" for the same $$$. My problem is some of those goods are not "essential to survival". In those areas, I think substitution should be used as it is proper to substitute. Of course, some people may argue those are essential to their survival as lifestyle differences. I don't think you can argue you can substitute food when a lot of the food prices are going up, you have to have food, water, and air to survive, unless you plan to introduce vitamin, mineral and calory pills to human kind bread is too expensive? No problem, eat cake! wait, cake is expensive too? Here, pop a pill! It's made in India due to India's cheap and good pharmaceutical manufacturing!

Disclaimer, the last macro course was about 20 years ago and I think the textbook we used was an older edition of this one
Hall and Taylor book with IS-LM model

I have not had the time to go back to school and study economics again so if there are any major breakthrough in theories, I won't know them very well.

My beef with some economics is theory is theory, after working for a while, reality is reality and there can be some disconnect.

In the future Civ6, I think, there shall be only 4 civilizaitons in vanilla version with on arguments ---- America, China, English and Rome.
More civilizations will be voted on the net to decide whether fill in the vanilla version.

If there can only be 4 civilization, I think we need China, India, one of the middle eastern civilization, sumerian/babylonian/assyrian/Egypt and Greek as I think those 4 civilizations more or less represent the major civilizations for the past couple thousand years.

This is true. I agree that independent thinking plays an essential part in the acquiring of new knowledge.
But have you give it a slightest thought this way, maybe, just maybe these students are not there to seek true knowledge.
Instead, a diploma of any kind will satisfy quite some of them just fine.

Yeah, I know, but I wish they are more willing to challenge. Diploma means a lot more in east Asia than here as far as I know. Where you go and what major often determine how people view/perceive you. While a pedigree is important here as well, it's not as strong.

I'm doing my PhD in Korea. It was quite a transition to what I'm used to, but has it's advantages and disadvantages like everything else. It's great to have a different background from the people I work with since I will almost always have a different perspective on the problem than the others, that is however not an advantage when you are answering standardized exams...

Even though some might wonder how the lack of questioning affects research, it seems to work well for engineering intensive industry such as Samsung and LGs. Maybe Korea's civ should have a bonus to high tech production instead of a bonus to research

yeah, part of the Chinese darling influence, standarized exams from the Tang dynasty and on.... lack of questioning affects research somewhat but it's not determinative. You can easily make small incremental improvements without questioning authority. However, it's just the way I was trained and encouraged to "not take no for an answer" for a long time and when people in graduate school level who don't want to challenge at all makes me cringe a bit.

Case in point, while in college, various professors in different discipline encourage us to challenge ourselves. One MIT student who was a math genius showed up late for a math exam. It was not a timed exam (god, how I hate those exams without time limit, they are the worst by far), when everyone else in the class turned in the exam, he stayed behind and finally turned it at night or past midnight (it's been a while so my memory is a bit fuzzy). He was awakened by his professor with a congratulations, you solved a math riddle. Apparently, there were bonus questions on the exam, containing unsolved math problem, the student did not know and thought it's part of the exam and did it.

Recently, a Russian mathematician solved a problem that's unsolved since 1904.

We had upper classman who told us "horror" tale of their final the year before. It's not until later that I learned one of the final problem for a 2nd year college course and took an entire blackboard to solve, was Eistein's thesis paper.... I was encouraged to do a research paper in one of the upper division class. I picked a topic out of interest but as I dove into it, it was getting more and more complicated and my math simply cannot handle the necessary modeling need. My professor encouraged me to work on it. I turned it in, "unfinished" in a sense that my modeling did not quite work. I got one of the few A in the class and it's not until after I turned it in, my professor told me I picked something nobody solved before and if I did solve it, I might have a chance at Nobel prize.

These are some of the quotes from the link above.
It seems that quite some of these culture achievements in Yuan Dynasty are accomplished by Chinese people under Mongolian reign.
I would like to know under such circumstances, should these achievements be attributed to Mongolians or rather Chinese?

I have no intention of promoting anything about China or Chinese cultures here. I'm just raising a simple question.
Similarly, I think we could raise some other questions ,like should achievements accomplished by occupied France be attributed to France or the Third Reich during the time of WWII?

I would attribute it to Mongol if Mongol was the one who "controlled" the "projects". However, I believe Chinese seem to treat Yuan dynasty as "Chinese" while keeping Mongols separately, it's an interesting dichotomy.

 

[ravingrodent]

I stopped being a lurker just to say that this thread is both hilarious and educational.

 

[Meeber]

so the mongols are out, but i believe that korea is more important than mongols

mongolia got most of its culture from the turks, who are already represented by the ottomen, so their civilization is not a real civilization

while korea did have lots of its culture from china, we also have a lot of our own culture that influenced the world (hangul, tae kwon do, kimchi, calligraphy, korean drama, yi sun sin BoA, Rain, TVXQ, mp3 players, ban ki moon). mongolia today is far poorer than korea so it makes no sense at all

i believe that korea should be in

leader: taejo
second leader: yi sun sin
unique building: pavilion - +2 happiness
unique unit: peace keepers - double defence when aftacked
unique ability: endurance - other countries cannot declare war on korea

As has been said on this thread the Mongols had the largest Empire that has ever exsited so to not have them in the game would be just plain silly.

Now I would love to see Korea as a civ in the game. But then I want a lot of civs in the game.

 

[Darth Caesar]

so the mongols are out, but i believe that korea is more important than mongols

mongolia got most of its culture from the turks, who are already represented by the ottomen, so their civilization is not a real civilization

while korea did have lots of its culture from china, we also have a lot of our own culture that influenced the world (hangul, tae kwon do, kimchi, calligraphy, korean drama, yi sun sin BoA, Rain, TVXQ, mp3 players, ban ki moon). mongolia today is far poorer than korea so it makes no sense at all

i believe that korea should be in

leader: taejo
second leader: yi sun sin
unique building: pavilion - +2 happiness
unique unit: peace keepers - double defence when aftacked
unique ability: endurance - other countries cannot declare war on korea

The UA is stupid and overpowered, the Peacekeepers are overpowere, and the pavilion is good but not overpowered.

 

[Thormodr]

Lol. The Mongols are not a real civilization because they got most of their culture from the Turks?

That makes about as much sense as saying Korea isn't a real civilization because it got most of its culture from the Chinese.

I am pretty certain the Op is having us on now and isn't even really Korean.

 

[Blitz47]

somehow I found this in another similar thread

Can you give me the url? I'm curious about that thread now, sounds like funny to read.

I hope we don't get locked but honestly, I'm tempted more and more to jump into the fray and start cracking jokes myself (or at least attempt to with my bad sense of humor)

Isn't Oslo in Norway?

Norway is part of the Viking empire. At its peak, the Viking essentially control the Baltic and any parts of northern Europe that is not too far away from the sea/ocean.

Denmark, Norway, Sweden all used to be the kingdom of Denmark. Sweden broke away from the "Kalmar" union, but Norway and Denmark still kinda stayed together a bit longer.

 

[pagh80]

Sweden does, too, and I expect Vikings will be in, so. Of course Swedes and Vikings are distinctly different categories, but the medieval Swedes are going to be in, and Oslo and Seoul will be removed as CSes, I expect.

LoL sweden? I dont see what they have done to deserve that.
The fact that you think Oslo lies in Sweden also shows that.(Maybe you are thinking on Stockholm.)
Id say its a toss up between Sweden and Denmark, but imo neither should be included officially in the game. They should both be under the Viking civ instead.

Just a note.
At the peak of the viking empire it was ruled by danish kings and controlled from Denmark.
At that point it included, the whole of scandinavia, the baltic countries and england. The rest of the british island, poland, part of germany and part of france was vassals at that point.

Vikings was also the ones that discovered America first.(No it wasnt Columbus)
They just called it Vinland(Wineland)

 

[pi-r8]

So looking through the list of civs in this game, I realized the real reason why they picked Mongolia over Korea or anyone else. Every single civ in the game is a civilization with a famous military history. They did not pick a single civ with a peaceful history- in fact almost all of them and almost all the leaders were famous for conquering large territories. I guess this is appropriate for Civ: Total War V.

 

[Meeber]

So looking through the list of civs in this game, I realized the real reason why they picked Mongolia over Korea or anyone else. Every single civ in the game is a civilization with a famous military history. They did not pick a single civ with a peaceful history- in fact almost all of them and almost all the leaders were famous for conquering large territories. I guess this is appropriate for Civ: Total War V.

Well except for India which has Ghandi. I have always thought it was odd adding Ghandi in CIV. I don't see him as a Empire builder. I laugh when I see him threaten me in the game. They should have used a more aggressive Leader for India.
I wish Civ would adopt more from Total War.

 

[Dizzy75]

I think it's a difficult task to create that basket of goods. While I agree substitution effect should be counted, one should also consider the elasticity of some goods or service. For goods and services which are not very elastic, substitution really isn't part of the equation. For goods and services that are essential to one's survival, you should not factor in substitution that much.

Definitely hard to pick a good basket. I mean, I consume a ton of tech and similar goods, so I've actually been pretty happy during this recession as prices for a lot of those things have gone down. I eat out almost all the time, too, so I don't really notice when milk or bread gets more expensive. And not only is my basket going to be different from yours, but my utility function is, too - and at the end of the day, the primary aim of CPI is to measure changes in the cost of a fixed level of utility.

So none of the price indices are really going to reflect any particular individual's experience where buying power is concerned, but the point is to get at some sort of broad measure that applies to the average person. Totally agree that theory is most definitely theory, but the whole reason behind using it is because people figured out at some point that one person's observations regarding the price of milk et al. don't really give a good picture of what's happening to the whole economy.

As for the past 20 years, the only major thing I can think of that's relevant to this is the Boskin Commission, which was put together to analyze problems with the CPI. I think it was in the mid-90s or thereabouts. (There have probably been other developments, but I only really notice the micro stuff as I don't really study macro.)