Poland as a new civ in Conquests

[Vince278]

Why not the Holy Roman Empire? It was bigger and was around longer and includes all of those cities and more. Then of course there was the Byzantine empire just to the east of that.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Vince278
Why not the Holy Roman Empire? It was bigger and was around longer and includes all of those cities and more. Then of course there was the Byzantine empire just to the east of that.

Its in the game, its called Germany.

And yes there are quite a few more European candidates like Austria/Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Ireland that could be added and be given city lists that don't crossover existing civs.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Loui
I find it funny that everybody talks about Poland as a new civ, even mentioning the Austrian/Hungarian Empire, but not nominating it.

The Austrian/Hungarian Empire was one of the major political powers in Europe until WW1. I do not vote for another European power to be added, but if there is one it should be Austria/Hungary, not Poland. Then you could even have Prague and Bratislava as cities, plus Vienna as the Capital, Budapest, Graz, Linz, Maribor, Zagreb, Salzburg, Innsbruck......

I agree, but I think the reason why no one nominates the A-H empire is because it is largely seen as merely a sum of its parts. Unlike other large, land based, mulit-ethnic empires, such as Russia or Rome, the A-H empire isn't synonimous with any leading ethnic group. (except for perhaps Germans, and they already have a civ) There wasn't an A-H cultural that was shared by all; rather there were a dozen separate cultures held togther by one King. In other words, A-H isn't seen as a civilization so much as a group of dynastic holdings held by German royalty.

I know that the Austrians were very significant historically, but I personally add Austrian cities to the German list, and any city in which I build the Forbidden palace I rename Vienna. There was no group of people that identified themselves ethnically with Austria: they were either German, Hungarian, Czech, etc. Basically, adding A-H as a civ would be like adding a civ and naming it Hapsburg. Germans are ethnically & Culturally distinct. Poles are ethnically & culturally distinct, as are the other Slavs as a whole (thogh a weaker case can be made for a pan-Slav civ than for a Polish civ). The A-H would be like putting Prussia in as a civ, i.e. subsituting a dynastic state for a nation or a civilization. Poland is a separate nation and a civilization in and of itself.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I actually have a list of cities by region. One list for Bavaria, one for Saxony, one for Austria, one for Prussia/Brandenburg, etc.

When I play Germany, I name a central city in a regional areas one of the above names and then name the surrounding cities appropriately.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
I actually have a list of cities by region. One list for Bavaria, one for Saxony, one for Austria, one for Prussia/Brandenburg, etc.

When I play Germany, I name a central city in a regional areas one of the above names and then name the surrounding cities appropriately.

I do the same type of thing using a German Atlas.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I do the same type of thing using a German Atlas.

And when I take cities I name them along the same lines, like if I am Germany and taking Egyptian areas I will rename the cities to names that were involved with Rommel and what not.

When England I name stuff along the lines of the British Empire, etc.

[Cort Haus]

Australia? Gimme a break!

A great country, but they haven't even fully shaken off the trappings of the British empire. (I wish they'd ditch the Monarchy and design themselves a proper flag). Wycoff has presented a case for Poland in terms of historical achievement and regional representation. It might be argued that Australia are a regional power today, but apart from dominating at a sport that only 12 countries play, and sacrificing countless young men for the British Empire, I don't think they have been historically influential.

All this debate about whether too many european civs are on the board resonates with the debate about representation in the (football) World Cup. Should candidates be selected by region, or merit?

[Loui]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Australia? Gimme a break!

I guess you have an 'al' too much, we were discussing AUSTRIA.

And I guess chosing countries for football championships by merit alone would result in great qualification problems as teams would have to travel the globe to find their counterparts for qualification matches.

[Cort Haus]

Loui, read ISTANBULs post. It says "Southeast Asia, Australia and Israel "

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Loui
And I guess chosing countries for football championships by merit alone would result in great qualification problems as teams would have to travel the globe to find their counterparts for qualification matches.

No, regional qualification applies, but regions get a quota of the 32 depending on their strength. The problem is that great teams like Holland and Czech Rep can go missing from the WC because the competition is tougher and quality higher in Europe. Australia will get an effective freebie into the next WC by beating tiny pacific islands 36-0 at the expense of genuine European and S. American contenders.

(I think this tangent is still tenuously connected with the thread subject!)

[Loui]

Oh, ok, sorry.
I guess neither Australia nor Israel deserve their own CIV. Some might say that the US could be used for Israel, but that might be a very biased view of things, I guess.

If we want equal chances (and civs) for all parts of the world the problem propably is in our westerly view of the world and it's history. I studied History myself, but I can tell far less about African or Asian history than about European or even American history. Being from Europe my focus was on south-eastern Europe during the middle ages. I could tell you more about the Hungarian invasian in Europe than about African or South American history as a whole...

[Loui]

That would be fair, but who in Asia would watch the WC then ?

Would Japan and Korea, who did very well in the last WC have been able to qualify at all ? They had auto-qualification this time, but what about the next time ?
I guess we need those teams from less football-related countries to make the Europe-vs.-South America Championships called WC more interesting and colorfull.

[Cort Haus]

I for one do not want a more 'colourful' WC. I want quality football, not a carnival. Handing out freebies to weak but privileged teams at the expense of the deserving does nothing to make it more interesting. It actually damages the tournament.

Japan are a good side with many players working in Europe, and will get better. I expect to see them competing well in future tournaments on merit. If S.Korea wish to maintain their Stalinist-style nationalised team that is their business, but their domestic game will suffer.

(I apologise to posters who are finding this football talk OT - but its a civ-trait of many europeans and we can't resist!)

[Loui]

We could make you Brits 'snobistic' and 'footballistic' ;-)

How would you like that ?

Yes, I agree with you that Japas has good chances, unlike Austria :-(, even though our u17 and u19 teams rock !

What traits could we use for Austria ? 'small' and 'unimportant', maybe...

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Loui
Oh, ok, sorry.
I guess neither Australia nor Israel deserve their own CIV. Some might say that the US could be used for Israel, but that might be a very biased view of things, I guess.

If we want equal chances (and civs) for all parts of the world the problem propably is in our westerly view of the world and it's history. I studied History myself, but I can tell far less about African or Asian history than about European or even American history. Being from Europe my focus was on south-eastern Europe during the middle ages. I could tell you more about the Hungarian invasian in Europe than about African or South American history as a whole...

This is a serious problem with Civ, in my opinion: it's western bias. Partially, it's understandable: no African "empire" that we know of was ever built, with enough written records, to compare with European empires... the city-state of Sigilmasa was impressive of course, as was Timbuktu... Ethiopia is a long-standing, impressive culture which is worthy of inclusion, and the Berbers would make a great addition to the game as they have often had an impact on European/Middle Eastern history... then there's the Malinke, the Yoruba, etc... maybe not as important as Rome, but certainly the equals of the Aztecs, Celts and Vikings...

...still, due to lack of memorable written histories, Africa is understandably overlooked. The same is true of the Americas.

But Asia?

Asian history is fascinating and very well-documented. One would be a fool to state that Europe has had more of an impact on history than Asia... sure, the Chinese and Japanese are included, along with the Koreans, but where are the southeast Asians, and for God's sake, where are the Central Asians? It's nice to have the Mongols and Ottomans in there, but the Seljuk, the Turkomans, and the Afghans have all had as much impact on history, arguably more, than the Celts.

If "forgotten people" such as Hitties, Celts, and Mayans are to be included, how about peoples that are still around, if not superpowers?

And, in terms of the Americas, it's good that Incans and Mayans are being added, but there's a whole sleiugh of multi-ethnic nations that have now been established for a long time, and that do play a notable role in history and in the current world's economic sphere, notably Mexico, Brazil, Columbia and Argentina.

Of course, with only 31 civs playable, not all these civs can be included, but insofar as the Portugese and Dutch chiefly contributed to civilization by building overseas empires that didn't last too long - and I do not mean to denigrate Portugese and Dutch culture, only to put them in historical perspectice - and, yes, the different Europeans can all be traced back to Germans/Vikings, it does not seem right to be adding more Europeans at this point.

And, of course, there's always that undeniable but contentious candidate, Israel, which will probably never be added to any Civ because of pressure from various groups (unsubstantiated charge, just my theory), and yet is the "moral" basis of the majority of civs in the game.

Of course, to sum it all up, one might say that the Civ bias is simply a reflection of the audience. I've never seen a breakdown of who exactly plays Civ, but it does seem to mostly be Europeans and European-descended Americans. Still, European dominance of the world constitutes less than 1/12th of written history and will not, clearly, last forever.