Announcement

**Guynemer** · June 20, 2007, 09:39

We could mod them into Franks. And NA into Lakota. City lists would need tweeking, but it is an option.

**Will9** · June 20, 2007, 12:12

I was very happy to know that discusstions had been left to the CFC where they have ~8 threads about this (that is spam even by Poly's standerds). The HRE was an Empire and was Christian (Holy). It was called Roman to claim protection of the Pope and to rival the Byzantine Empire. When it dissolved in 1806 was because it was Neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. That quote describes the HRE at the end of its life not during the Middle Ages.

German was only largest the culture in the HRE (I'm not sure you could call German a single culture at the time) Dutch, Austrians, Italians, Poles, Burgundians, and French (the last 3 were only on the edges for much of the HRE's life) Probably half the HRE was not German. You may use the excuss that the full name of the HRE was The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. "of the German Nation" was in the late 1400s by the time it wasn't a real a country (more of a union). Frederick was a ruler when the HRE was still in exsistence, but as I just said, it wasn't a real country at that point. The HRE was far more that German.

About De Gualle and Lincoln, let your voice be heard!

Apolyton Civilization Site

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=167066

**Alexander I** · June 20, 2007, 12:38

Re: The Holy Roman Empire? Seriously?!

Originally posted by monkspider

Oh, and De Gaulle and Lincoln instead of a second Japanese or Spanish leader? Utterly shameful.

Well, I guess those will have to go on the modding list too.
I'd pick Meiji for Japan and El Cid for Spain.
(My reasons for choosing them instead of say, Nobunaga and Philip II are that Meiji's and El Cid's behaviors would be diametrically opposed to the current leaders, whereas those other leaders would basically be behavior clones of Tokugawa and Isabella). Anyway.

So now adding them to the list beside the Hebrews, Moors, and Barbarossa. I guess Barbarossa should go with the HRE instead of Germany, huh.

Just think of Charlemagne as the third German leader. With his own flag, UU, and UB. Extra diverse.

**Will9** · June 20, 2007, 14:04

Re: Re: The Holy Roman Empire? Seriously?!

Originally posted by Alexander I

Well, I guess those will have to go on the modding list too.
I'd pick Meiji for Japan and El Cid for Spain.
(My reasons for choosing them instead of say, Nobunaga and Philip II are that Meiji's and El Cid's behaviors would be diametrically opposed to the current leaders, whereas those other leaders would basically be behavior clones of Tokugawa and Isabella). Anyway.

So now adding them to the list beside the Hebrews, Moors, and Barbarossa. I guess Barbarossa should go with the HRE instead of Germany, huh.

Just think of Charlemagne as the third German leader. With his own flag, UU, and UB. Extra diverse.

I think you should start talking to Dan about your own sub-forum. BTW, the Franks should be a separte civ with Charlemagne as its leader.

**LDiCesare** · June 20, 2007, 14:06

Charlemagne is a leader of both France and Germany, and the HRE is Roman, French and German. You might mix in Spain since Charles V was a Holy Roman Emperor too... This civ is just out of place.

**Alexander I** · June 20, 2007, 14:50

Re: Re: Re: The Holy Roman Empire? Seriously?!

Originally posted by Will9

I think you should start talking to Dan about your own sub-forum. BTW, the Franks should be a separate civ with Charlemagne as its leader.

I wish. I need a team first, as I have neither coding nor graphical skills. I'd work as the coordinator, (I actually have a lot of ideas mapped out) and as the writer for any text (civilopedia, diplomacy, etc.). I don't plan on starting until after BtS comes out at any rate.

The point is basically to include any facets of the game that would make Civ4 a "complete" experience. As such, I would plan on including several aspects of different mods. However, this would not be a mod for including crappy things, such as caravan units or random unbalanced features.

Here's just a little of what I have planned:

New Civs/Leaders
Hebrews: Solomon (Spi, Fas)
Moors: Yakub al-Mansur (Cre, Fas)
Arabs: Harun al-Raschid (Phi, Fas)
Spanish: El Cid (Cha, Fas)
Japanese: Meiji (Ind, Fas)
HRE: Barbarossa (Org, Pro)

"Fas" stands for Fastidious, my current idea for a new trait. This is still tentative, and can be changed as the ideas solidify.

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Charlemagne is a leader of both France and Germany, and the HRE is Roman, French and German. You might mix in Spain since Charles V was a Holy Roman Emperor too... This civ is just out of place.

I'm thinking the HRE is the catchall European civ. It wouldn't fit entirely with France, Germany or Rome, so they made it its own.

**Dis** · June 20, 2007, 14:59

wonder what the city lists for hre will be

**DrSpike** · June 20, 2007, 16:29

It really doesn't matter which civs are in - as soon as they decided to put America in all historical discussion became moot, as it's obviously about including Civs Firaxis thinks people want to play.

HRE sounds kinda cool.

**Locutus** · June 20, 2007, 17:05

Originally posted by monkspider
Although it did include small portions outside of modern Germany, there is no doubt that the essential character of this confederation was German.

You are absolutely right that the HRE was very much German, but much of the time they controlled huge territories outside Germany. If Firaxis' intention was to add a pan-European civ to the game in the HRE (which their UU also supports, the Landsknechte were sort of a Renaissance version of the French Foreign Legion), they would have a very strong case. Of course, wanting to add a pan-European civ to an already very crowded Europe would be a bit silly to say the least...

And it wasn't really a civilization anyway, it was just an artificial construct of the pope.

That's not true, for a long time they were a very powerful force in European politics. However, you are right that they weren't a civilization, they were a state (of the German civilization).

How on earth it ever came so far as to having the HRE as a separate civ, i will never know.

Isn't that obvious? They wanted to add Charlemagne to the game, that's got to be the one and only reason. And I think most of us can agree that Charlemagne is a great choice for a leader in Civ. However, that does create a problem: was Charlemagne French? German? Neither? Both? Assigning a civ to him is pretty much impossible and you're bound to piss of a lot of people no matter what you do -- a lose-lose situation for Firaxis, despite Charlemagne himself being such a good choice.

If you make Charlemagne French you (a) have 4 French leaders while lots of other civs still have only 1, as you pointed out yourself (and you need De Gaulle for the WW2 scenario) and (b) you piss of the Germans. If you make him German you piss of the French and that wouldn't be terribly accurate as he wasn't German at all, he just conquered a lot of territory in Germany and created the foundation for what would 200 years later become the HRE. You could make him Frankish but since the Merovingian and Carolingian Franks were the first French that doesn't make any sense at all, the late Franks and the early French are one and the same people. Since Charlemagne was a Holy Roman Emperor and created the foundation for the Holy Roman Empire you could make him leader of the HRE, but that's not accurate since the HRE wasn't created until 200 years later and was mostly Bavarian-Saxon, not Frankish/French.

So there's no good solution for Firaxis. Either making Charlemagne French or leaving him out of the game altogether would probably have made the most sense, but they decided otherwise. It rather smells like a compromise to me, which means everyone's equally unhappy. I know both Alexman and Trip (two of the main designers of course) well, they're both big history buffs and I highly doubt either of them would've lobbied for this situation, but making a game like Civ involves hundreds of people so unfortunately sometimes such decisions are unavoidable. If you don't like it, you can always mod it...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Firaxis. There can be no doubt that this was a bad call. But I at least understand how a decision like this came to be. They still got 8 out of 10 civs right though (VERY right even with civs like the Khmer and Ethiopians), which is frankly more than usual.

Frankly, this decision infuriates me to no end. Although BtS may be fated to receive high review scores because of the sheer amount of new content they dump on the player, it will always be a zero with me just for the unbelievable braindead idiocy that has been shown in some of their creative decisions.

That's preposterous. Just because of the HRE you give BtS a zero no matter what else they do and without having even played the game? All the other stuff is worth nothing at all just because of one tiny little decision that a single edit in the XML files can fix? Just set the bPlayable and bAIPlayable values for the HRE in CivilizationInfos.xml to 0 and you never even need to be reminded that the game shipped with the HRE, while you still get to enjoy all the other good stuff that's in there.

And even if it wasn't moddable, in the end the civ, wonders, building, unit, etc names are all just flavour. They don't determine how good or bad the game is, they can just make an already good game slightly better (or worse). Coming from me, one of the biggest whingers when it comes to this stuff (even if I do all my whinging away from the public eye these days) that's saying something

**Kuciwalker** · June 20, 2007, 17:09

I'd rather have Charlemagne left out and the Hebrews in.

**Locutus** · June 20, 2007, 17:11

I'd rather have 10 HREs than 1 Hebrew civ...

**Solver** · June 20, 2007, 17:12

If you make him German you piss of the French

Sounds like a win-win to me

All the other stuff is worth nothing at all just because of one tiny little decision that a single edit in the XML files can fix? Just set the bPlayable and bAIPlayable values for the HRE in CivilizationInfos.xml to 0 and you never even need to be reminded that the game shipped with the HRE, while you still get to enjoy all the other good stuff that's in there.

Or better yet, just change the name to something you enjoy more. For example, rename the HRE to the Frankish Empire, and you have a different civ for which Charlemagne fits well.

**Pinchak** · June 20, 2007, 17:13

I agree... HRE is redundant and stupid.

What is next? Post-comunism Russia?

**Alexander I** · June 20, 2007, 17:13

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I'd rather have Charlemagne left out and the Hebrews in.

So let's properly mod the Hebrews in already! Anybody want to volunteer to help? If not, don't complain any more about it.

Announcement

The Holy Roman Empire? Seriously?!

The Holy Roman Empire? Seriously?!

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment