Why is Mongolia in and not Korea

[Blitz47]

Umm Korea has been a glorified colonial plaything of China and Japan for the majority of its history. It is much less worthy than Spain or Mongolia. I am sure it will be included eventually because the Korean market is so large, but it is not a pressing issue.

Personally I think I would rather see the Phonecians/Carthaginians back in first.

Hmm, I am not sure about that. Korea managed to survive for a long time in a difficult position in its history. Also, Korean went through several dynastical changes, Koryo, Chosen, Korea, with its own romance of the 3 kingdoms (Silla, Gogoryeo, Baekje). When I was reading up on Korean history (at least the English version I can find in my college library), I was surprised to find Korea sometimes preserved "Chinese" culture better than China did when China is going through upheavel. For example, when China was in turmoil and was conquered by Manchu, Korea preserved Confucianism better than Chinese did. Korea also paid a heavy price for backing the Ming dynasty against Manchu because the Ming dynasty bankrupted itself in helping Korea to fight off the Japanese.

China conquered Korea but in general, did not ravage the Korean culture, it was more along the line of pay us tribute, make our emperor feel better and we'll leave you alone or even help you (which the Siamese found out and exploited by kissing up to China and had China help in handling Khmer, Burma, etc. it was interesting to hear that from my Thai friend how the Siamese king was very very shrewd). The 2 Japanese conquests of Korea was much more brutal, both Hideyoshi and later imperial Japan tried to "eradicate" Korean culture, ranging from burning Korean books to other culture "genocide".

I think the current Korean pride is probably a product of necessity but it's still sad for me to hear from Korean who does not want to believe in other version of "history" and only believe in their own version, which could be problematic if you don't agree with them.....sigh

 

[Mango Elephant]

It would be very weird to play a civ game where the only African civ was Egypt. If they replaced Songhai with Korea (which they would never do, thank god), I would be incredulous. I think it's weird how the Zulu were in vanila Civ3, and neither Mali nor Songhai nor Ghana made it in.

I wouldn't mind it if Korea was in. That'd be cool. But not before Mongolia.

 

[Blitz47]

@Blitz
How nice to see you again Blitz. You know how I love to read your post about all kinds of history. BTW I'm still reading "the jungle" if you'd remember it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jagdtigerciv View Post
Mongolia shaped history in a way unimaginable in today's context. Much of what we understand as Chinese culture today was dramatically shaped by Mongolia and, later, Manchu influences.
Can you name one or two of these influences? I can't think of any.

I understand that Mongolians did conquer a large portion of Eurasia and built a (or several) glorious empire at its peak. And the influence of which is truly undeniable.
But in my original post I was asking about "the Chinese culture today that was dramatically shaped by Mongolia". I have no clue about this arguement since as you know the Chinese assimilates almost everything so completely that I can think of barely any such influence.

I've been busy with real life and Civ5. I decided to collect achievements, unlocked 90/120 so far. It's difficult as my system is below minimum spec so I'm trying to earn my achievement for huge map is tediously slow as it crashes so often, argh. (20 crash to desktop and memory dump files already and still going as I am getting close to culture victory or conquest or diplomacy victory) I'm desperate and went for all, partly to explore, partly because I chose Songhai to play on huge map, tried for culture but kept on fighting AI and build cities....it's too irresistable. more cities = more science + money = more playthings for me.

Jungle is a good read, I still try to keep my hotdog intake down after all these years

One thing to consider is to also be a little sensitive sometimes when talking to people about this subject when relating to their native country.

MOST people in the world have trouble simply ignoring the history and information they've understood for most of their lives. Learning history as a Korean person in Korea is much different than learning history as a British person in the UK. Heck, learning history as a white person in the United States is very different than learning history as a black person in the United States. If you come on too harshly or if you're insensitive, most people will just shut you out and ignore anything else you say. People really have a strong reflex towards being told that something they understand is incorrect or distorted.

So you have to be sort of delicate when peeling back layers of situational bias. In the United States, the common and accepted version of American History, as short as it is, among non-historians is hilariously inaccurate. There's a lot of mythology surrounding the birth of the country, and there's a lot of white-washing regarding WW1, WW2 and the Cold War. Mention the Barbary Wars at all, and you're likely to get a blank stare.

It's very similar in other countries, especially for topics like Armenian genocide. I have spoken to people from Turkey who will swear up and down that it never happened at all, or that it was simply a relocation effort where some people happened to die.

hey, I know Barbary war, you mean where Jefferson sent some ships to north africa? I learned that in hmm..8th grade I think. One problem is American education is not "unified", districts to districts vary in what they teach. I took Geometry in one district's high school, then transferred to another distract next year, and learned what took us 4 quarters to learn was taught in my new highschool in just 3 quarters, I had 1 quarter worth of material to catch up....argh!

I learned from germ warfare in my high school US history, where American Indians were exposed to small pox on purpose. I think USA is also generally much better than many other countries in admitting its own past mistakes, just recently, news reported USA apologized to Guatemala for syphilis experiemnt from 1946-48.

Japanese textbook whitewashed so much, including many live human experiment done on the Chinese, or cannabalism in the Pacific, eating Korean laborer, etc. it's not even funny.

 

[logintime]

Japanese textbook whitewashed so much, including many live human experiment done on the Chinese, or cannabalism in the Pacific, eating Korean laborer, etc. it's not even funny.

Yeah, Japanese textbooks are often whitewashed. The ones that make the most news tend to have extremely limited classroom circulation, but most textbooks still like to gloss over certain parts of history.

Mind you, Korean and Chinese textbooks aren't much better. Especially Chinese textbooks, actually.

And the US has its own issue with revisionism too. I point to the new textbook rules passed in Texas which are aimed at pushing a conservative message at students. Basically, no country is exactly free of revisionism.

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

Basically, no country is exactly free of revisionism.

That was really the point I tried to make with my last post, really. Perspective and society play far larger roles in our understanding of history, all over the world, than pesky things like facts.

 

[Wuzetian]

I decided to collect achievements, unlocked 90/120 so far. It's difficult as my system is below minimum spec so I'm trying to earn my achievement for huge map is tediously slow as it crashes so often, argh.

Have you tried to stay in Strategic Mode?
Perhaps that'll be helpful.

Jungle is a good read, I still try to keep my hotdog intake down after all these years

It might be embarrassing to say this, I understand each and every single word in that sentence, but I have no idea what you're trying to say. After all, English is not my mother tongue.

hey, I know Barbary war, you mean where Jefferson sent some ships to north africa? I learned that in hmm..8th grade I think.

You must have been a super history freak. I'm just kidding, no offense.
I mean seriously, 8th grade? How old were you back then, and you still recall that?

 

[risikawi]

Why don't you ask for Korea instead of Alexander the Great ? I mean he also did nothing, but conquested half of the world.

There allready are too many Asian, even too many Oriental nations. I don't mean to be rude, but what impact did Korea (or Siam for that matter) ever had on world history ? There allready are many civilizations no one has heard about, not to mention civs whose leaders are legendary, not historical - if a nation has indeed been great it usualy has had real leaders.

BTW I would much rather like to see Sweden or perhaps Poland-Lithuania than some yellow faced guy from Asia (I am refering to one of East Asian leaders in Civ IV who clearly had a liver desiese, not preceived skin color of Asians). It seems that so far the series have had only European empires who once had large number of colonies and Vikings, who never really were an empire.

The only reason there are more is cause Firaxis deemed it neessesary to have a decent amount of civs from each continent rather than picking the most important ones.

Let's see - no Austalia or Oceania, no South America, 3 North American nations, 2 African civs one of which is from clasical antiquity, 3 European nations + 2 from clasical antiquity+Russia, which is mostly in Asia, where you get another 4 nations, plus 3 Oriental nations plus two DLCs, which makes it 10.

Oh and BTW from Western stand point Carthage was pretty notable empire in Africa

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There are very few countries that did *not* get their culture from other countries.

If you're going down that road, Sumeria should be in long before the likes of England/France/Germany/USA/Korea/Mongolia/Songhai/Siam/etc.

Maybe they're using different (better) criteria, perhaps.

 

[Wuzetian]

That was really the point I tried to make with my last post, really. Perspective and society play far larger roles in our understanding of history, all over the world, than pesky things like facts.

Yes that's quite true. It's not easy to face facts that we choose to forget or erase.
But history is history. How are we supposed to learn anything from it if we choose to forget?

 

[Blitz47]

Have you tried to stay in Strategic Mode?
Perhaps that'll be helpful.


It might be embarrassing to say this, I understand each and every single word in that sentence, but I have no idea what you're trying to say. After all, English is not my mother tongue.





You must have been a super history freak. I'm just kidding, no offense.
I mean seriously, 8th grade? How old were you back then, and you still recall that?

What I was saying is I tried to eat as little hot dog as possible. However, I do like to eat hot dogs Therefore I tried to eat hot dogs as little as possible, but not avoiding hotdogs entirely.

I use strategic view mode 90-95% of the time due to its speed but my system still will crash because it is below minimum spec. It doesn't crash when I play duel or tiny map but some medals/achievements require bigger map

I just like to read history, especially after I learned my 2nd language and discovered how history is subject to the author's view and the same event can be described very differently. In a way, it reminds me of cases in court, where different witnesses give different perspective on the same event.

It's a cold blooded murder! No, it was a victim trying to save its own life and killed the agressor, etc. etc.

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

Yes that's quite true. It's not easy to face facts that we choose to forget or erase.
But history is history. How are we supposed to learn anything from it if we choose to forget?

With study, people can overcome their prejudices. I'm not saying we should 'forget' history, rather that instead we should turn a critical eye to the history we know, and attempt to learn if the history we 'know' is really the history that happened.

Also, I'm sure the decision to include a civilization has many variables. It's not just "these are all civilizations that did ____." There's lots of factors, I'm sure. And one of those factors might even be "we've done that civilization before and we'd like to try something new." I'm sure at least part of that had an influence on Siam and such.

 

[Wuzetian]

What I was saying is I tried to eat as little hot dog as possible. However, I do like to eat hot dogs Therefore I tried to eat hot dogs as little as possible, but not avoiding hotdogs entirely.

I just like to read history, especially after I learned my 2nd language and discovered how history is subject to the author's view and the same event can be described very differently. In a way, it reminds me of cases in court, where different witnesses give different perspective on the same event.

It's a cold blooded murder! No, it was a victim trying to save its own life and killed the agressor, etc. etc.

But I still don't get it, how do you relate "The Jungle" to hotdog intake? Maybe you're prone to eat hotdogs more when you're reading? Well, never mind, it seems I tend to get a little boring by raising irrelevent questions.

I'm also planning on studying another language recently. I think my English is good enough to read most of time. Any suggestions of which language to start with?

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

Wuzetian, the Jungle's historical impact in America is that it exposed the unsanitary and disease-ridden conditions of much of the meat-packing, processing, and butchering in America.

The creation of the Food and Drug Administration in America, which regulates food safety and sanitation, was largely a response to that book, and other factors.

Upton Sinclair is very famous for writing The Jungle, which is a shame because he also wrote a lot of other great things and led a very rich and interesting poltical life.

 

[Wuzetian]

With study, people can overcome their prejudices. I'm not saying we should 'forget' history, rather that instead we should turn a critical eye to the history we know, and attempt to learn if the history we 'know' is really the history that happened.

Also, I'm sure the decision to include a civilization has many variables. It's not just "these are all civilizations that did ____." There's lots of factors, I'm sure. And one of those factors might even be "we've done that civilization before and we'd like to try something new." I'm sure at least part of that had an influence on Siam and such.

You're absolutely right.
But whether a certain piece of history record is true or not can be really hard to tell. Just like Blitz said above. Different people don't share the same view.We can try our best to challenge what we've seen or read. But I don't think it's possible to know what the truth really was.

 

[tifa9292]

There are very few countries that did *not* get their culture from other countries.

If you're going down that road, Sumeria should be in long before the likes of England/France/Germany/USA/Korea/Mongolia/Songhai/Siam/etc.

Maybe they're using different (better) criteria, perhaps.

meh sumeria's overrated. dont forget that korea has 5000 years of history

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

You're absolutely right.
But whether a certain piece of history record is true or not can be really hard to tell. Just like Blitz said above. Different people don't share the same view.We can try our best to challenge what we've seen or read. But I don't think it's possible to know what the truth really was.

That's where the study of history becomes important. There are things we can learn definitively from archaeology and historical anthropology for certain. There are certain definitive things we can conclude are accurate when they are covered from multiple vantage points and writers.

Anything else, really, should be noted as being 'alleged' or prefaced with 'according to ____,'

 

[Wuzetian]

Wuzetian, the Jungle's historical impact in America is that it exposed the unsanitary and disease-ridden conditions of much of the meat-packing, processing, and butchering in America.

The creation of the Food and Drug Administration in America, which regulates food safety and sanitation, was largely a response to that book, and other factors.

Upton Sinclair is very famous for writing The Jungle, which is a shame because he also wrote a lot of other great things and led a very rich and interesting poltical life.

Thanks Licinia Eudoxia. Now I finally get the hilarious part of it.
BTW, just out of curiosity, how do you get your name and what does it mean?

 

[risikawi]

I use strategic view mode 90-95% of the time due to its speed but my system still will crash because it is below minimum spec.

Have you tried the other way around ? I got crashes exclusively from strategic view

 

[TheMeInTeam]

meh sumeria's overrated. dont forget that korea has 5000 years of history

No good, they were influenced by surrounding populaces that are just outside the sphere of Korea, so that doesn't count based on the logic applied earlier in the thread. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Wuzetian]

meh sumeria's overrated. dont forget that korea has 5000 years of history

Care to share your knowledge of the 5000 years of Korean history?