Refugees

[Imran Siddiqui]

Say wha? And which barbarian was wanting to destroy everything? Alaric?

[Prussia]

The Germanic kind, the ones who pillaged everything and sacked rome, and northern greece and almost sacked Constantinople.

[Imran Siddiqui]

WHICH BARBARIAN? Alaric? Geiseric? Brennus (though Brennus was a Gaul and not Germanic)?

There was no Germanic barbarians which sacked Rome who 'pillaged everything'. Stop reading pop history and start reading real history please.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
... Stop reading pop history and start reading real history please.

Look, this is a game. If you keep insisting we have to know what we're talking about we're gonna stop posting nonsense.

Sheesh, the nerve of some people, demanding facts.



Tom P.

[Prussia]

What do you mean "which" barbarian?

I am talking about the Germanic tribes north of Rome. Over the years they attacked, retreated, attacked, retreated, the forces of Rome until they could destroy the army and sack the city.

I never said that there was one barbarian in particular. There were many, many tribes and you are just putting words in my mouth to make yourself sound as idiotic as possible.

They did not destroy Rome completely. But, I guess if you weren't on crack you would understand the diference between "sacking" and "destroying."

Stop talking out of your ass; if you don't know about those Germanic tribes BESIDES Gaul, (e.g. the Britons?) north of the Italian penninsula then you know NOTHING about ANY history at all, so don't say I don't know my real history if you don't know ANY history.

You obviously do not know anything about anything, so crawl back into the little pit you spawned from and let the rest of us live.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Prussia


Come on, those barbarians wanted the entire world to go up in flames. They were trying to destroy EVERYTHING.

Well, er, Theodoric, a barbarian, later became emperor of Rome. Earlier, the Vandals were kind of passing through, ending up in Spain and North Africa. Gibbon said they were only in Rome two weeks, the Visigoths before them only three days, both "sacks" being considered minor. Brennus' sack with his Gauls actually occurred before Rome became an "empire." The almost sack of Constantinople someone is talking about occurred with the Huns; they avoided Rome allegedly through the intervention of Pope Leo with Attila. The Turks were more successful in the Byzantine lands later later and still, technically, "barbarians," but they never got to Rome.

Civ3 had it interesting where barbs would just sack a city for wealth and leave it there. (I think this is a later mod of Civ3.) It was irritating that, if said barbs had enough troops, they would sack the entire available cash of your civ, without regard for the percentage said captured city comprised of it. Civ 4 had barbs sometimes keeping the city, but since v.161, I seem to have noticed they raze them more often, or maybe it's circumstantial on their "geopolitical" position and whether there's any valuable resource near it. Anybody else notice this change?

[Generaldoktor]

Okay, rather than edit my own stuff again, I'll double-post, (just this once .) There seems to be a lot of unnecessary ugliness here over Roman era sacks and "barbarians."

Theodoric was an Ostrogoth, who defeated another barbarian king for possession of Rome with the connivance of the Byzantine emperor, who was a little short-handed to come running over to get it all back, though Justinian and his man, Belisarius, would later, (for awhile.) Theodoric is generally considered a "king" of Rome; western emperors having gone out of fashion after the preceding sackings.

The two most famous sackings, by the Visigoths and the Vandals, occurred about fifty years apart during the period of West Roman decadency and essentially abandoned succession, just before Theodoric. They were short in duration, as I mentioned above and respected most Roman property rights due either to a pseudo-religious respect for the city's antiquity/"culture"/former predominance and/or because of connivance by some citizens in letting the "barbs" in. (Rome still had walls in the fifth century A.D., when all this occurred, but had trouble manning them.)

The Ostrogoths, post-Theodoric, tried to besiege Rome again in the 500's, but Justinian was now back in charge there and his general, Belisarius, beat them at the gates; they never actually entered.

Rome is probably a lousy example thus of sacking/razing, for game purposes. A lot of the decay of ancient buildings/monuments you see today was the result of periods of poverty or religious zeal during the Middle Ages where the old was torn down for the sake of the new, by the city's own inhabitants. Frequently poor, from 400 A.D. on? Sure. Frequently short of troops to defend it? Yup. But burned to the ground? Unlikely, ever.

Attila and the Huns did almost get to Constantinople, also in the 400's, but the East Roman/Greeks beat them back. Turning west, they suffered some minor defeats at the hands of the West Romans and did meet with Pope Leo and two secular ambassadors from the weakened western state, but black plague in the ranks is one suggestion for the real reason they turned away from Central Italy. Attila died, under suspicious circumstances after a wedding feast, shortly afterward and his empire broke up, due to his generals/offspring's squabblings. Most people consider the Huns to be of Asian stock, similar to Mongols, rather than "Germans," despite analogies to the contrary in World War I propaganda.

Brennus and some rowdy Gauls (Celts? There was little difference back then,) sacked Rome before 350 B.C. Obviously this mattered little as the Latins went on after to subdue Eruscia, Carthage, Macedonian Greece, Egypt and all the rest, including later Gauls. Another inconsequential "sack" that was definitely not a "razing."

[Imran Siddiqui]

*ahem* After Generaldoktor's very nice posts, I think the only thing to say to Prussia is:



Though its ok, many people see 'barbarians' and think they just ransacked things without realizing they were actual civilizations and many had cities and empires.

Oh, and:

[q=Prussia]They did not destroy Rome completely. But, I guess if you weren't on crack you would understand the diference between "sacking" and "destroying." [/q]

[q=Prussia] Come on, those barbarians wanted the entire world to go up in flames. They were trying to destroy EVERYTHING.[/q]

Refer to picture linked above .

You obviously do not know anything about anything, so crawl back into the little pit you spawned from and let the rest of us live.

Oh touchy... sorry to interrupt your rants with actual facts. Those damn barbarians! Sacking Rome and then ruling it? How dare they?!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by yin26
I even had the idea of extending this to life expectancy issues...even within your own empire. So if you currently just make some foul, high-hammer cities with little regard for health, you might see populations shift within your own borders.

Erm, historically, people moved to those cities - that's where the jobs were.

[Prussia]

...

It's funny how you can totally **** up a perfectly good pwned picture and put it their so randomly with nothing to support ANYTHING about what you just said.

Let me lay it out for you:

A) Both of those quotes were talking about different things. READ THE ENTIRE POST AND WHAT IT WAS REFERRING TO, CRACK HEAD.

B) When I say they wanted to destroy everything, I based it off of the fact that they DID PILLAGE AND DESTROY THINGS. You have screwed up the facts so much that I don't even know if they destroyed Rome or not. I will admit that when I said "they wanted the whole world to go up in flames," it was an extreme exageration.

C) I will admit I did not know about the Theodoric part, but they did sack Rome, that's a fact, but it all depends on your definition of "sacking," and "destroying."

D)
Generaldoktor only proved my fact of "almost sacking Constantinople," but I don't know what he did to support YOUR argument.

Please explain.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Though its ok, many people see 'barbarians' and think they just ransacked things without realizing they were actual civilizations and many had cities and empires...

Those damn barbarians! Sacking Rome and then ruling it? How dare they?!

Yeah, I did some more reading in the afternoon (in the States.) There were several barbarian "kings" of Rome, including guys like Odacer, Ricimer and Guildobard, prior to Belisarius taking it back. After the era of Justinian, Italy was lost forever to the Romans.

In deference to Prussia, I will say Gibbon contradicts himself in the chronicle and a summarizing later chapter, as to the severity of the 455 A.D. sack by the Vandals; it was somewhat severe, with a lot of wealth, slaves and two imperial princesses being taken, but by no means was it a "razing." There was another sack in 472, but this was in the context of a civil war, with a lot of the "Romans" on either side really being barbarians, so it's hard to say at this point whether "Romans" are really giving up much, (this anyway being the third "sack" in the fifth century; the Visigoth sack was in 410.) Here too, though, the city evidently survived; the last "emperor" is considered to have abdicated, four years later, in 476.

Some crazy has put all of Edward Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" on the Net; it is probably the best source as Gibbon, writing in the late 1700's, had access to original Latin and medieval documents that nobody has looked to close at since. Nowadays, everybody just quotes him. It is very tedious reading, but as I read it once as a teenager, I figured I was game to try some again this afternoon. Try your luck, it runs numerous chapters in four thick volumes in a libarary.


The thing is guys, we're talking about a generating of refugees from the "razing" of cities. In Civ4, as in some of these "sacks," you keep the populaton, minus battle damage, if you keep the city. The Civ3 model of sacking wealth without disturbing ownership appears closer to what actually happened during these "Sacks of Rome," but regardless; a generating of refugees would come from a razing and historical Rome never had it. Bad analogy.


http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/g/gibbon/edward/g43d/index.html

[Prussia]

This topic doesn't even have anything to do with the history of Rome...

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Prussia
There are some mods people have made where you can't simply destroy a city in one sweep - it takes a few turns depending on how big the city is, so the city's army will come to the rescue.

That's pretty realistic right there.

But think of it this way.

Think of every unit as carrying 10,000 times the number of guys left standing - 3 guys is 30,000, 2 guys is 20,000, etc.

Now depending on how big the city is, those thousands of soldiers could either burn the city before you could blink (for example, the mongolian horde), or it would take them years (the germanic tribes attacking Rome).

Yup, not too much is on topic, but this is how it all got started. Remember?

[Prussia]

Hehehe... Yep.

One misplaced example leads to 9 flame posts.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Though its ok, many people see 'barbarians' and think they just ransacked things without realizing they were actual civilizations and many had cities and empires.

Well, that depends how you define "cities" and "empires".