What constitutes a great civ?

[Zoid]

When I looked at the confirmed civs and others floating around in the discussion I came to wonder what really constitutes a great civilization? Since you can´t put in every tribe or civ that existed for the last 6000 years you have make some sifting.

And what criteria do you have for greatness? The ability to conquer and build great empires like the mongols or the romans et al?

Or the refined culture and high scientific level of the Mayans, Incans, Celts or the Babylonians?

The Khmer/Angkor built impressive structures and had great influence over most of mainland South East Asia for over 600 years but are they a great civ?

The same goes for the Karanga (Zimbabwe) people who ruled a great inland African empire from about AD1000 to AD1600.

If we go by the standards of achievment, the Zulu are out so are the Iroquois and other indigenous north american tribes. They´ve done nothing worthwile, hunter gatherers like the eskimoes, aboriginies and saami lapps.

Discuss!

[1889]

How about we start with era and region, then select Miss Civilization from them?

The Zulu may only have been a regional power for 80 years, but they had a tremendous effect on Africa's development none the less. They are also super cool.

How about:
Ancient World: 4,000 BC - 500 BC
Classical: 500 BC - 500 AD
Middle Ages: 500 AD - 1500 AD
Renaissance Plus: 1500 - 1800
Modern Age: 1800 - right now

Name a few from each era on each continent.

Do it. Com'on, do it.

[LDiCesare]

The civs have been chosen to have some in each continent (thus the iroquois to represent Northern Americans, even though they didn't achieve much).
Conquests are also an important factor, thus Rome, Russia, France or England, with their big colonial empires, and Mongols of course.
Size and current power also matter, thus India, the U.S. or China.
And the civs chosen also reflect what the players want to play, which often includes their own (thus the U.S. are in and the modernity og that civ is discounted).
Last, the scientific or cultural advances brought by a given civ are included: Babylon, Greece, Egypt.

[Terra Nullius]

Re: What constitutes a great civ?

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg They´ve done nothing worthwile, hunter gatherers like the ... aborigines ...

nah!

the kooris are way cool!

40,000 years is a long, long time

[Zoid]

Yes, but what have they achieved in those 40,000 years? Just some rock drawings...

[Terra Nullius]

ooh, don't get me started

songlines, medicine, inter-tribal harmony, trade systems, environmental sustainability, humility, code of laws, philosophy, mysticism, polytheism, music, compassion, ...

from a more civ-centric point of view, think of it as one of those deity starts where you're on an isolated land, far from any contacts, and surrounded by desert. research is slow, population is very limited, and by the time your opponents show up, they have cavalry. you start with no iron or horses, so they wipe you out.

you did everything right, but you still got creamed.

i think, even in terms of civ, they are remarkable. hey, you don't get to be the oldest surviving culture in the world for nothing. ok, it's partly due to isolation, but as we all know, isolation is a mixed blessing.

it's one of those civs like india. they look like calm peaceful little walk-overs, but if they get a chance to build up a bit, look out!

in more human terms, overlooking the extra-ordinary treasures of such people only reflects one's own ignorance.

[Zoid]

I´m not putting down any civs here. Just trying to get an argument going

[Terra Nullius]

hey, don't go trying any of your sneaky crustacean tricks on me. at least the kooris didn't go through 23 different larval stages in their development!

i know, the "one's own ignorance" bit sounds a bit harsh. but how else can i succinctly point out that this panoramic, polydimensional weirdness of creation is made immeasurably deeper by the presence of such (to classical, western thought) challenging societies.

not trying to put any posters down here, but i really do think, even from the narrow perspective we are considering, koori 'civilisation' (in the firaxian usage of the word) is well worth consideration.

ie. in answer to your original question. the kooris are definitely a "great civilisation."

in terms of great works, just consider the songlines,..basically, an oral map of the entire continent, including hunting grounds, camp-sites, oases, social rights-of-passage and so on. and the amazing thing (to me) is a given song tells the story in many different languages. so someone who learns the song in his own language could travel across the continent and communicate with someone who speaks an entirely different language, despite being thousands of miles from home.

of course then there's the question of the actual cosmology of such songs, but let's not go there,..

so go ahead and get an argument going if you like, but sooner or later you, like all the others will come to realise that i, and i alone am right!

hooray for zoidberg!

and did i mention?..

theocratic police state!!!

[Zoid]

Nah, I still don´t see it as a great civ. If they actually built Ayers Rock on the other hand...

[1889]

The Koories do sound kinda cool now. Besides there are civs from every other region of the world but Australia and the South Pacific.

Got any suggestions for city names or civ traits though?

[GeoModder]

If having building cities in history is a prerequisite for being considered a civilisation in civ, then I wonder what Zulu's, Celts, Vikings, mongols and probably some more like that are doing in the game.

[Zoid]

Well, they were all fearsome warriors and the Vikings and Celts built vast trade empires. It´s hard to compare to the aboriginies since they were isolated until the arrival of the english. The social interaction of competing for land and resources in Europe might have brought greatness to the "koories" as well. But there is no doubt that spiritually they were above and beyond most of the civs on the planet.

Unfortunately, spirituality is not rewarded in terms of civilization. Such "weak" civs tend to get their asses kicked by more aggressive civs...

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg
If they actually built Ayers Rock on the other hand...

according to their cosmology, they did!

actually the dream-time characters were responsible for the appearance of uluru, but without ongoing generations "singing up the land" it would long ago have vanished into nothingness.
yes, i now, you look at it and see one big rock, composed of known molecules, composed of known elements. what can i say,.. "one's own ignorance" is a difficult cage to escape.

as far as uu's go, i propose something like a "woomera thrower" (yes, padster, i know, no-one actually throws a woomera - unless you've fallen off your coolabah). a woomera is a device used to launch spears. i've seen people put a spear straight through a coconut at 50 metres. so we're talking about something with roughly the range and accuracy of a traditional archer, but significantly more lethal.

there's a discussion running at the moment ("simple supply system") about limiting the operational range of units. the proposal is something like - if a unit goes more than 8 tiles from the nearest friendly city, it runs the risk of starving, similar to galleys sinking at sea.

in that context, i would recommend a uu similar to the javelin thrower, but in place of the enslave ability, they have the ability to live off the land. that would make for a great barb basher. it would also give you the ability to explore way beyond the limits of other civs, and in a much earlier time-frame.

all of that strikes me as quite appropriate. and i'm sure you can see, a civ like that could be quite powerful given a decent starting location.

as far as civ traits, i'm not so certain. i know religious is the first thing people would think of. but i propose scientific (yes, really) and agricultural. reasons as follows
1. kooris are a spiritual people, certainly, but they do not build temples in our sense of the word. ie. a permanent "bricks and mortar" edifice.
2. no libraries? - only from a certain point of view. the landscape itself is actually used and interpreted as one vast library. and the song-lines represent an immense store of knowledge, dating back beyond any other form of knowledge ever umm, known.
3. no irrigation - ok, i'll admit, there was no sedentary agriculture as such. but, firstly, they survived in the driest continent on earth, which is quite impressive in itself, and, secondly they did practice agriculture and environmental management. but they did so according to a wide-ranging, nomadic principle.

it'd be interesting to see where they would have ended up if they'd had access to gunpowder and metal-working. and if they'd had a decent popuation base to work with. i think you'd have to agree a civ like that could be a real b#stard to deal with if they got off to a good start.

Unfortunately, spirituality is not rewarded in terms of civilization. Such "weak" civs tend to get their asses kicked by more aggressive civs...

not wanting to draw any conclusions on this one, but here's some food for thought. the kooris were in contact with the malays and the chinese long before europeans showed up. they didn't get wiped out then.
and when they actually did get their butt kicked, so did japan, china, indo-china, india, etc, etc...
they survived just as long as the "powerful" civs in that respect.

what can i say? if being the oldest surviving society on the planet doesn't make you a "great civ," what does?

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by lebensraum
it'd be interesting to see where they would have ended up if they'd had access to gunpowder and metal-working. and if they'd had a decent popuation base to work with. i think you'd have to agree a civ like that could be a real b#stard to deal with if they got off to a good start.

They 'evolved' like that due to their long time of isolation. It's like you're telling us they came to Australia and in the blink of an eye, sociologically spoken, became this culture in tune with their environment. It must have taken several millennia, at least, to spread out over the whole continent and develop their culture and ability to survive in the predominantly harsh environment.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by GeoModder


They 'evolved' like that due to their long time of isolation. It's like you're telling us they came to Australia and in the blink of an eye, sociologically spoken, became this culture in tune with their environment. It must have taken several millennia, at least, to spread out over the whole continent and develop their culture and ability to survive in the predominantly harsh environment.

no, i'm just mixing my metaphors

historically speaking, it's impossible to say what any given society would have become under different circumstances. (would genghis have been cuddly if he started by the indus? would the poms have been able to play sport if they didn't get an island start?)

my point is more along the lines that, under historical circumstances, koori civilisation comes out looking like a weakling. civ allows us to play with the variables. would they have ended up as a buncha mofos if they started on floodplains? it's pure speculation and hopelessly ahistorical.

the fact that they seem like a pushover as a civ also kinda demonstrates the accuracy of the (very simplistic) civ modelling. in civ, population is power, and contacts are crucial to tech development.

i think, playing any given civ, with a start on the aus continent, very few of us would have an easy time of it.