Factual errors/inconsistencies in the Civilopedia

[Prussia]

I stayed in the King David. Nice place.

[iapetus556]

The Civlopaedia entry for Marines seems to be based exclusively on the US Marine Corp. Other countries have marines too, and I think the British and Dutch had were the first.

The entry for Riflemen talks about repeating rifles, while the entry for Infantry seems to describe modern infantry equiped with automatic weapons, etc. However, the unit graphics suggest the Riflemen should be using muzzle-loading black-powder rifles, with repeating rifles for the Infantry. (Still, its an improvement on Civ3, where Infantry were actually described as representing "the first troops with repeating rifles", after repeating rifles had also been mentioned for the Rifleman).


The description of vasselage seems backwards. It says that the lord typically pays his vassel money, in return for which the vassel promised to protect his lord. Normally under the feudal system, the vassel normally pledged to serve and pay taxes to the lord, while the lord pleged to protect him. (Or in the case of vasselage imposed by a conquering army, the vassel paid taxes, and the lord promised not to pillage his land for the forseable future).


I remember the Civ2 and Civ3 civlopaedias stated (correctly) that pikes evolved as a counter to knights, but the technology for pikemen was a prerequesite for the tech for knights. Is that still the case in Civ4?


This isn't just the civlopaedia but the graphics and stats as well: the Ironclad appears to be based on those built in the US Civil War, despite the fact that ironclads developed significantly further over the following decades. Basing the "Ironclad" unit on US Civil War ironclads is IMO a bit like basing the "Fighter" on WWI bi-planes, or the "Machinegun" on hand-cranked Gatling guns (or the "Submarine" on that funny wooded thing that was used in the US Civil War).

[Son of David]

The church of the nativity/Christianity entry talks about how God gave his 'only son' up to humanity.

Notice how the Jew-bashers are quick to ignore this little nugget of 'pious stupidity'.

[johnmcd]

I don't see any Jew bashing, just nitpicking.

It is funny to see you up and trying to point at bigots though.

I think the bit about taking the plank out of your own eye before worrying about the splinter in your neighbour's is new testament though, so you may have missed that.

[Solver]

Keep it calm...

[Prussia]

'Pious stupidity' indeed...

It is actually, "First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s."

I haven't even read the New Testament, and I STILL knew that quote...

[Badtz Maru]

I hope I'm not the "Jew-basher"!


<===Atheist of Jewish descent

[drsparnum]

I think the civlopedia is there to give you a 1-2 paragraph description if you don't know about the topic. They're usually not even as long as a short encyclopedia article so I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to cover everything, and if you read even one book on the topic your knowledge of it will probably uncover alot of generalizations. I mean, I find these posts interesting to read, but did you really expect the civ-pedia to be a major authority on these topics? For example, if the civlopedia contained an entry on the civil war it would just say the cause was slavery and neglect states right.

Proctor: All right, here’s your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War?
Apu: Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter–
Proctor: Wait, wait… just say slavery.
Apu: Slavery it is, sir.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by drsparnum
I think the civlopedia is there to give you a 1-2 paragraph description if you don't know about the topic. They're usually not even as long as a short encyclopedia article so I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to cover everything, and if you read even one book on the topic your knowledge of it will probably uncover alot of generalizations. I mean, I find these posts interesting to read, but did you really expect the civ-pedia to be a major authority on these topics? For example, if the civlopedia contained an entry on the civil war it would just say the cause was slavery and neglect states right.

I don't expect an in-depth article, but I do expect it to have CORRECT information. The statement that Confucianism or Taoism was the state religion of China is not a generalization, it's incorrect.

OK - "The Civil War started in 1861 over the issue of slavery."

NOT OK - "The Civil War started in 1830 over the issue of states rights."

[drsparnum]

Only because in Civ those religions were made into completely distinct entities.

Are universal suffrage and republic completely distinct entities? They are in civ. They are not in real life.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by drsparnum
Only because in Civ those religions were made into completely distinct entities.

Are universal suffrage and republic completely distinct entities? They are in civ. They are not in real life.

They ARE completely distinct entities. Confucianism and Taoism are pretty different - more different than Christianity is from Islam, for instance. And they are both quite distinct from the actual state religion of China.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by drsparnum
I think the civlopedia is there to give you a 1-2 paragraph description if you don't know about the topic. They're usually not even as long as a short encyclopedia article so I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to cover everything, and if you read even one book on the topic your knowledge of it will probably uncover alot of generalizations.

I agree with your point, and some time ago I already suggested to develop a Civilopedia with some game-related info and an external link for deeper info to the Wikipedia (after proper agreement to avoid to infringe any Wiki common creative copyright).

I know Wiki is not the only or the best source on earth, but it's free, it's mostly open and available on many languages, and on these kind of topics it's surely good enough.

[Solver]

And if you have nothing to do, you can create a better pedia mod where the historical data is copied from Wikipedia .

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Solver
And if you have nothing to do, you can create a better pedia mod where the historical data is copied from Wikipedia .

Judging from all the mistakes in the Civilopedia, I'd guess that Wikipedia was probably one of the primary sources for it's articles.

[Prussia]

Come on, people, you have to give Firaxis some credit, I mean they WERE making a multi-million dollar video game with such high expectations, imagine all that research they had to do BEFORE they could start animation and good stuff like that. It's reasonable that they'd just throw in some random facts, isn't it?