"English" Empire?

[Mao]

Originally posted by peterfharris


Quite frankly, I couldn't give a damn what they called China. I would still buy the game even if they had called it "ooga ooga booga".

Exactly. It just doesn't matter. *shrug*

[Mao]

Originally posted by zorrofox


Typical Yank foreign policy - ignorance!

Are you seriously contending that a poster's response to a game is tantamount to the State Department's foreign policy? Wow...good thing only Americans make sweeping unrealistic generalizations

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Is Toronto in the American city list?

That may or may not have been a troll hoping to catch some innocent Settlers

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Brutus66
British history isn't my best subject, but it seems to me that the English were the people that created the British empire.
People like Edward I did it by subduing the Welsh and Scottish.
In 1803 Ireland was formally annexed, and they didn't merge with the British empire by choice.

You'll find that Edward I didn't create an 'English' empire.

The closest there came to an 'English' empire was after the union of Wales with England in Henry VIII's reign, when the English crown also held the Pale around Dublin. But that's a personal empire based on the dynasty holding the crown of England.

Great Britain was formed by the personal merger of the crowns of Scotland and England under James VI and I, then after the Interregnum and the reigns of Charles II, James II and William and Mary, the separate kingdom of Scotland joined in political union with England in the 18th Century- by vote of the Scottish parliament.

Scotland retained a variety of distinctive features- its laws, which are different from English laws, a separate non-Anglican Church of Scotland, and so on.

The creation of the Bank of England was mostly thanks to a Scotsman, and its first governor was the son of a Huguenot refugee.

Thanks to Acts of Parliament concerning education passed in Scotland (and not in England) in the 17th Century, Scotland had some of best educated people in Europe- shown by the number of Scottish scientists, philosophers, economists and writers produced in the 17th & 18th Centuries.

So in short, the civilization (and the state) is 'British', not English- and of course that's not even going into any great detail about the contributions of the Irish and the Welsh.

[Fuzzyhead]

Well, I'm sooooo glad that there actually was a German Empire, so we don't have such problems. The flag's all wrong, though (it's actually the flag of the German Templar order).

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Fuzzyhead
Well, I'm sooooo glad that there actually was a German Empire, so we don't have such problems.

No, just other problems, as Europe in 1914 showed.



It's simply laziness- like the game's description of Persia were bore only a tangential relationship to history, and was wrong on many points.

The idea that the ancient culture of Iran became Arabized was absurd- if anything, the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphate were influenced by Iranian culture- in poetry, courtly life and art and architecture.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by zorrofox
Note that Scotland was not subsumed, but was in fact an equal partner. That's sadly not the case anymore unfortunately.

Not an equal partner?

Let's see - Scottish voters influence the British Parliament in Westminster, which makes English law. English voters have no influence over Scottish law, which is decided by the Scottish Parliament. So, Scots are constitutionally stronger in the Union than the English.

You're right, Scotland is not an equal partner, it's the dominant one.

btw - I've wanted to see the English 'Empire' correctly named as the British since Civ 1. Maybe in Civ 5 ...

[Havard]

Re: "English" Empire?

Originally posted by zorrofox
Hi folks. The title says it all really. There was no such thing as an English Empire. There was a British Empire. This is not an unimportant detail. Try playing this game as a Scot and see how it feels.

As a Scotsman: Invoke the Auld Alliance and play France, crush the English, have them driven before you and to hear the lament of their women...

[Cort Haus]

Re: Re: "English" Empire?

Originally posted by Havard

As a Scotsman: Invoke the Auld Alliance and play France, crush the English, have them driven before you and to hear the lament of their women...

Or invoke the new alliance and play Germany. I expect sales of German footie shirts to do well up there next summer.

[LzPrst]

the english here include the scots and welsh, possibly also the irish. the american empire includes all the different cultures and minorities in the USA, the russian empire includes all their minorities, probably even including the baltic nations (dunno, is Riga still a russian city in civ4?) the spanish empire includes the basque, the catalans and whatever other people live there. the vikings (when we pay for the expansion pack) will include norway, sweden and denmark although they spent most of the last millennium fighting eachother, the greek empire includes macedonia, the list goes on and on.

its just the way its been done. the empire has been named after the dominant culture within the empire. sorry scots, you've been colonized by fornicational selfstimulators (****ers wasnt allowed) (spot the quote). but heres a FLAW in civ that has always been there, no room for minor civs. you should have a list of 100 civs to choose from not 18. in paradox games you can choose from ALL the nations of the earth at the time and in crusader kings even duchies and counties within countries (though only european ones).
UU's for 100 civs might be a pain in the neck, but if you designate some civs as minor (sorry to all I offend now) then those civs wouldnt have a UU, but they could replace their flags with a major civ and get their UU.

example. Laddie McScotty wants to play the scots, the scots are included as a "minor" civ containing leaders, city names, and flags. they then choose what flag to replace (say the malinese) then the scots would have their own flag, their own city names and their own leader. the mali wouldnt exist in that particular game as they were replaced by the scots. of course the scots would then get the mali UU, but thats just because the firaxis boys are too lazy to make a 100 UU's...

[Fuzzyhead]

Re: Re: Re: "English" Empire?

Originally posted by Cort Haus




Or invoke the new alliance and play Germany. I expect sales of German footie shirts to do well up there next summer.

I recently saw a GERMAN with a GERMAN shirt that said: "Go Krauts!" That really made my day!

[marvinkosh]

Civ can never be entirely historically accurate from the first turn. The idea of throwing an assortment of tribes onto a board and seeing how they measure up after a few hundred turns is a 'What if?' scenario. It doesn't matter what you call them, as long as they resemble the civilizations they are intended to be.

[Brutus66]

Originally posted by molly bloom



You'll find that Edward I didn't create an 'English' empire....

I have heard Scotsmen say that James VI was a sell-out to the English, that it galls them to see the Union Jack flying over Edinburgh castle, and they are still sore over the matter of Glencoe.
There are more than a few Scot historians who would argue that Scot parliametarians were coerced or bribed into signing the Act of Union.
The Scottish poet Robert Burns certainly felt that it was an English empire when he wrote “A Parcel of Rogues”
“But pith and power, till my last hour, I'll make this declaration, we're bought and sold for English gold, Such a parcel of rogues in a nation."
There are a lot of agitators for independence in Scotland who would relish debating this subject with you more than I.
I honestly don’t have a dog in this fight and I think this thread in general is silly.

[redstar1]

I'm not sure what the Scottish think Independence will get them, they are already more independent than many countries in the world. The English, Welsh and Irish get no say in Scottish domestic policy where the Scots are over represented in Westminster. It could be argued that its a Scottish 'Empire'

Also, she isn't the Queen of Great Britain, theres no such thing. She is the Queen of England, and head of state of the UK and various other countries.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Brutus66


I have heard Scotsmen say that James VI was a sell-out to the English, that it galls them to see the Union Jack flying over Edinburgh castle, and they are still sore over the matter of Glencoe.
There are more than a few Scot historians who would argue that Scot parliametarians were coerced or bribed into signing the Act of Union.
The Scottish poet Robert Burns certainly felt that it was an English empire when he wrote “A Parcel of Rogues”
“But pith and power, till my last hour, I'll make this declaration, we're bought and sold for English gold, Such a parcel of rogues in a nation."
There are a lot of agitators for independence in Scotland who would relish debating this subject with you more than I.
I honestly don’t have a dog in this fight and I think this thread in general is silly.

I fail to see how any sensible Scotsman could argue that James VI and I 'sold out' to the English.

The crown of England was his by inheritance- are you suggesting he should simply have ignored his ancestry and the 'gift' of a financially viable kingdom to the south, along with the crown of Ireland ?

Your other objections have more validity, in that some Scottish parliamentarians were undoubtedly aware of the financial opportunities offered by political union with the southern kingdom, especially after the collapse of Scottish colonial enterprises such as the Darien colony.


I still however fail to see what the Act of Union of 1707 or Robert Burns's poetry have to do with Edward Longshanks creating an 'English Empire', because he didn't.


And as I've already stated, many Scots profitted from the political union with the neighbouring kingdom, and from the British (not English) empire that came after the formation of the new, united Kingdom of Great Britain.

The history of Empire and Commonwealth reflects this.

the empire has been named after the dominant culture within the empire.

That's very easy to state, but rather less easy to prove.


You're confusing state with civilization and with culture. What exactly is 'English' culture, and what makes it distinctively English ?

As opposed to say literature in English written by a Scots, or music or architecture created in the Commonwealth or Empire by the non-English ?

Also, she isn't the Queen of Great Britain, theres no such thing.

Daft.

I suggest you have a look in a British passport. It says:

'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.

Queen Anne's proclamation, 29th April 1707:

"...by virtue of the Acts of Union... the Lords of Parliament of England and the Sixteen Peers of Scotland and the Members of the House of Commons of the said Parliament of England and the Forty Representatives of Scotland...should assemble and meet...in the respective Houses of Parliament of Great Britain... and should be the two Houses of the first Parliament of Great Britain."

There has in fact been a 'Great Britain' since the days of James VI and I.