Civs included. Just the facts madam 2.

[TechWins]

Tech go back to page 4 of this thread and start from the top and you will see that I did mention the Polynesian and Locutus did ans.

Oh, sorry about that. I may have just missed your post.

[tniem]

Originally posted by JamesJKirk
Maybe you should include the color, if it's been seen of the confirmed and even unconfirmed civs.

While it has been said before, I just would like to add that I certainly hope that civ is not tied to color. To not be able to have two civs in a game due to color is going to be hard for MP games. And it is also not as fun to be able to narrow down the leaders you are going to face simply because you know who you have already met with. Please, Firaxis do not tie color to civs.

[JellyDonut]

It seems most likely (to me at least) that civs ARE tied to color . The Americans and Chinese have been light blue in all screenshots so far and unless they're all from just 2 games or its just a big coincidence it will work like Civ2. On the plus side, they can't stick 3 civs to a color (unless 16 isn't the magic number).

[Gramphos]

Locutus:
I'm just glad to help you
I think you can remove the '?' after the Hoplites, as the text reference of Greeks says that Hoplites will be their unique unit. (I'm 99% sure, but I don't remember where that text reference is).

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Um, sorry for bursting in like that, I just got my password after a year of not having access to my registered email address...
I am not going to reply to things in the entire thread (which I've just read ), but I am going to blatantly ignore all logic and evidence and remark that despite certain remarks by noteworthy individuals here, the Arabs are certainly not a meager, unimportant civilisation. How about 600 years ruling (eventually) a quarter of asia (can't generate the map of the top of me head, it's not very important anyway.), all of northern africa, half of spain, influencing central africa and all the while sitting at the top of Old World culture while Europe sat in it's pitiful Middle Ages? Granted, the Chinese were also prominent at the time (and, in fact, long before and after the fall of the Arabs at the hands of the old Khan), and the Japanese, Koreans and Indians also made singnificant advances throughout that time period and before it, the Arabs were at the top of the world for at least 400-500 years. They're a formidable foe even now, though not united and totally disgraced culturally.
Also, as much respect as I have for my American friends, America, as was previously said, is hardly a civilisation worth mentioning. Although I must admit that it's grand campaigns and achievments during the 20th Century have certainly bought them a place in History.
The Israelis? As much as I'd love to see them in, I think that it would be best to remove them from the list. After all, we all know that our favorite rough nation will not be included. I'm sure that we're fanatic enough to make a custom civ about a week after the game is out . But do remove them and avoid embarassment. For us.
Lastly, I must do what I've longed for in the past year, commend you all on your marvelous work here, on the website and in the forums. Indeed, you are a bunch of fanatic fans. I like that, esp. when it promotes interest and study in History, Society and Military.
BTW, what's AFAIK?

May the Force be with you,
~Mark.

PS. Goody, now it allows unregistered ppl...

[Colon™]

Re the Arabs I think including them isn't possible because it stumbles on practical problems: they'd have to start in the desert.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Locutus
.

That's true, joseph, but the way I'd like to see it is that the Nigerians were just a subgroup of a much larger civilization, the Bantu, a civ that pretty much lived in the whole of Africa below the Sahara. I'd like the see the Bantu in as a single civ; one could argue that including the Nigerians and not the Bantu is like including the Texans but not the Americans. The only difference is that we know fairly little about Bantu culture and the connections between various tribes were probably much weaker than the connections between American states.

Well er there never was a STATE that incorporated all the bantus, as there was one which incorporated all the Americans. so if we're talking states than a west african coastal state is appropriate, as is Zimababwe, and the Zulu state.

If we're talking languages than bantu still doest cover most of coastal west africa - bantu is a seperate sun grouop of the niger/congo family. if we're talking large language families than we could include all niger congo speakers - but then why seperate vikings, english and germans - or French. Spanish, and Romans?

But then its not very clear what the hell we are talking about.

Which is why it would be better to go back to generic civs, and lots of em.

LOTM

[lord of the mark]

[SIZE=1]
Also, as much respect as I have for my American friends, America, as was previously said, is hardly a civilisation worth mentioning. Although I must admit that it's grand campaigns and achievments during the 20th Century have certainly bought them a place in History.

America, despite the shared language with britain, is really as culturally distinct as France, Germany, etc. If you want to focus on civilizations, rather than nation states and national cultures, you should just lump america, britain, france, germany, spain in as a europeans or western civ.

which just further points up how silly these discussions are, how unclear the concepts behind them are, and why we were better off with generic civs.

As for israel, how about getting the best of both worlds with your arab civ, and lets have us a mizrahi jewish civ - an eastern counterpart to the "yiddish" civ i posted about some time ago.

makes as much sense as most of whats posted on this topic.

LOTM

[Kenobi]

Originally posted by Mark_Lipovrovskiy
the Arabs were at the top of the world for at least 400-500 years. They're a formidable foe even now, though not united and totally disgraced culturally.

I agree that the arabs should get in, though I think you may have exaggerated the reach of the empire, given the "Arab" empire stretching from Spain to India was not totally "Arab", but Muslim. The people who conquered Spain (or should we say Hispanica, as the Romans called it, before they were routed by the visigoths) were muslim, but mostly moors and berbers, not arabs. Yes, there is a difference, just like the Iranians (i.e. Persians) are not arab, though they are muslim.

I think your comment that the arabs are "totally disgraced culturally" is a little harsh. A couple of decades of terrorism from a frustrated and desperate people should not cause us to discard the contributions that Muslims have made to astronomy, mathematics (remember these:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9? They came from the arabs, as did the zero and algebra), medicine and poetry. In terms of religion, there are more muslims than christians in the world, so there has to be something going for the culture.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems that they're not in.

I think Colon's point on them starting off in a desert is good one, but the coastal area around Mecca (where Muhammad was born) on the Red Sea is not a total desert, and we could easily place one or two oasis tiles to get the arabs going.

[joseph1944]

Originally posted by Kenobi


In terms of religion, there are more Muslims than Christians in the world, so there has to be something going for the culture.

My Encyclopedia (copywrite 1982) said there was 1 billion Christians back in 82 and they were the larges religion. There was only 500 Million Muslims then.

In order to replace Christians they would have to increase over 6 to 700 million, while Christians stay about the same. All of the America are Christian. All of Europe is Christian except for Albania and the piece of Turkey that is in Europe. The Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and several Pacific Islands are Christian.
The Muslims world are North Africa, the Middle East, and Indonesia.
The Hindus may now outnumber the Christian with their Pop. in India.

[Kenobi]

Originally posted by joseph1944


My Encyclopedia (copywrite 1982) said there was 1 billion Christians back in 82 and they were the larges religion. There was only 500 Million Muslims then.

In order to replace Christians they would have to increase over 6 to 700 million, while Christians stay about the same. All of the America are Christian. All of Europe is Christian except for Albania and the piece of Turkey that is in Europe. The Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and several Pacific Islands are Christian.
The Muslims world are North Africa, the Middle East, and Indonesia.
The Hindus may now outnumber the Christian with their Pop. in India.

I'm happy to be corrected on this one, joseph44, but the 1bn number looks pretty high for 1982. What was the world's population back then? Four billion?

Maybe if you add in the population of all the "Christian" countries you could get to something like that, but not all the inhabitants of the USA, Brazil, Russia, European Union etc. are Christian (i.e. actively practice Christianity). On the other side, Islam has Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and lots of Central Asian (ex-Soviet) republics to include. There are still a lot of muslims in India, China and Africa. Also, Muslim countries have tended to grow at a rapid rate (due to a high birth rate), so it's possible they could overtaken the 1bn figure you quoted.

Not all Indians are Hindu - there are Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs etc. in the mix.

Anyone out there want to settle it with up to date numbers?

[joseph1944]

Originally posted by Kenobi
What was the world's population back then? Four billion?
Maybe if you add in the population of all the "Christian" countries you could get to something like that, but not all the inhabitants of the USA, Brazil, Russia, European Union etc. are Christian (i.e. actively practice Christianity). On the other side, Islam has Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and lots of Central Asian (ex-Soviet) republics to include. There are still a lot of muslims in India, China and Africa. Also, Muslim countries have tended to grow at a rapid rate (due to a high birth rate), so it's possible they could overtaken the 1bn figure you quoted.
Not all Indians are Hindu - there are Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs etc. in the mix.
Anyone out there want to settle it with up to date numbers?

The book said Hindu then was 445,000,000 million, Muslim 45,000,000 million, and Christian 14,000,000, did not list buddhists in India, just said they were there. Those ex-Soviet Republics population are not that big. In 1982 there was Azerbaijan 6,000,000, Kazakh 14.6 million, Tadzhik 3.8 million, Turkmen 2.7 million, Uzbek 15.4 million. 42.5 m for the region. The other ex-Soviet states in the region are Christian.
I don't think the people who are Muslin double their population in 20 years. India only grew 150 to 200 mil in 20 years and they had a base of 600 to 700 mil to start with.

[Colon™]

"I think Colon's point on them starting off in a desert is good one, but the coastal area around Mecca (where Muhammad was born) on the Red Sea is not a total desert, and we could easily place one or two oasis tiles to get the arabs going."

Maybe, but their nearest environment is also desert which restricts their expansion. (unlike the Romans or Chinese for instance)
I'm sorry if this has been mentioned in this thread before (haven't read all) but you also have to consider that they build their empire by swallowing other which isn't an option in 4000BC.
Maybe you can make them viable using fudges but that complicates things and you'd risk unbalancing the game.

[Grumbold]

Quality of historical terrain is no reason to include or exclude a civilisation from contention. Comments have been made in the past about the impracticality of having nations like England on a world map because you'd be lucky to get one decent city on the British Isles tiles. In fact the same applies to almost any European nation. Conversely the traditional Arabic stomping grounds were vast (if we are talking Arab in the wider sense) and a combination of trackless wasteland with astonishing pockets of fertility that Civ tiles fail dismally to represent. With almost all games of Civ likely to be conducted on random maps it could be the Arabs stuck in the arctic circle and the Germans learning how to survive sandstorms.

[Colon™]

Well if you insist on playing the Arabs because of their historical importance, why play on the random map, which somewhat lacks historical references?

Besides, if you can squeeze 3 cities into the British Isles as in civ2 and modify the AI to focus on shipping technologies and units, you can have a perfectly viable, even powerful English civ.
It was already possible in civ2 (provided there wasn’t competition in continental Europe) so I don’t think it would give much problems in civ3.