Does anyone else have some problems with the civ specific abilities?

[- Groucho -]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Canada isn't expansionistic since all the territories were given to it by the Brits.

Britain didn't really give anything to Canada, they just ran out of desire to run the place. The Fathers of Confederation got together in 1867 and for what seems like mostly commercial and anti-american reasons, patched together a country out of 6 former British colonies (4 atlantic provinces and Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec)). After that, they were "expansionist" in one sense - Rupert's Land was bought in 1869-70 from the Hudson's Bay Company (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the 3 northern territories (Yukon, Nunavut and Keewatin) were eventually carved out of it). 1871 saw B.C. voluntarily join and then in 1873 Prince Edward Island joined. The map was complete in 1949 when Newfoundland joined Confederation. Most of this was done at the colonials initiative - the UK merely acquiesced and encouraged someone else to take over the administrative burden (not exactly the stuff of firey legend but hey, I still love the place).

Was that expansionist? Not the way I think of it, but the method of growth was very similar to the addition of over half of the US through the Louisiana Purchase and Seward's Folly (the Alaska purchase). As for Texas - didn't that state voluntarily join after declaring independence from Mexico? Maybe the addition of California was expansionist, but economic colonization followed by a takeover without a shot fired is not exactly the same as the crushing of all foes under the bootheels of Napoleon's Grand Army (well, almost all ).

If you look at the amount of geography that was added after Canada was formed in 1867 it is pretty close to what the US added to the 13 colonies after the War of Independence (it may even be more, since Canada ended up being the larger country and I suspect the original 6 were smaller than the 13 Colonies that formed the US - not sure about that though).

So if the US is expansionist - Canada is too. Which seems so absurd that I object to either being called "expansionist".

But hey, if Firaxis figures the game effects of the US being labelled "expansionist" makes the country act most like "the American way", so be it. I'll just make sure I don't give the same label to the Canadians in my own games.

[joseph1944]

Originally posted by Eddin
Err.... as in nuclear science,

1896 Antoine Henri Becquerel, a French physicist, discovered natural radioactivity.
1905 The great German-born scientist Albert Einstein published this theory that matter and energy are equal. He lived as a American.
1911 The British physicist Ernest Rutherford announced his discovery of the nucleus of the atom.
1932 James Chadwick, a British physicist discovered the neutron.
1938 The German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann produced the elements barium and krypton by bombarding uranium with neutrons.
1939 The austrian physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch showed that Hahn and Strassmann had produced the first known artificially created fission reaction.
1942 Scientists headed by the Italian-born physicist Enrico Fermi produced the world's first artificially created chain reaction at the University of Chicago. the achievement made possible the development of the atomic bomb.
1945 The United States exploded the first atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
1952 The United States exploded the first Hydrogen bomb at Eniwetak, a small island in the Pacific Ocean, and so produced the world's first large-scale fusion reaction.
1956 The first full-scale nuclear power plant began operations at Calder Hall in England.
1957 The first full-scale U.S. nuclear power plant opened in Shippingport, Pa.
1962 Canada's first full-scale nuclear power plant began to produce electricity in Rolphton, Ont.

rocketry (yes americans, if it weren't for fund problems, they'd have beat you to the moon 5 years earlier), many Chemists... it was just the oppressive (DESPOTISM, high corruption, low science) regime that cut it down all those years. But some of the most brilliant people came and still come from Russia.

Actually if the US would have used the Redstone rocket, we could have put up a satellite in 1955, but the Eisenhower Admin. wanted to do it with a civilian rocket and not a military rocket. After the Russian did their, we finely used a military rocket to shoot up ours.
The Russian were in a race with us to build their Moon Rocket. Their Rocket would not work (it blew up a few time) and that is why we won the race. Plus in Russia money was not a problem, their Scientics had two choices, work for some money or be shot for not working.

[Urban Ranger]

Echinda,

The Hudson Bay Company was a Crown Company (now a department store ) so all that land in essence belonged to the British Empire.

[- Groucho -]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Echinda,

The Hudson Bay Company was a Crown Company (now a department store ) so all that land in essence belonged to the British Empire.

The "Governor and Company of Adventurers trading into the Hudson's Bay" wasn't a crown corporation any more than any other company of the time. It was incorporated by royal charter but that was how incorporation worked then. There was no "Division of Corporations" to go to. If you wanted to incorporate you went to the Crown and got a deed of incorporation.

The HBC was encouraged by the British Crown, no question, to go out and exploit, but it wasn't part of the British government. It was more like a tax farm - as long as the cash was rolling in it was largely left to its own devices. As part of its incorporation it was granted "Rupert's Land" (so named because Prince Rupert was the figurehead of the HBC) and that land was eventually acquired by the Dominion of Canada. So sure, Canada acquired it from a British corporation, but that doesn't change the fact that it was acquired - much like the Louisiana purchase and Alaska.

[Grumbold]

I think this just shows how having a set ability for 6,000 years is a bust. England was so expansionist it stayed on its own little island except for quarrels over small parts of the European mainland and the short flowering in the colonial period when any country with a coastline, spare wealth and willing emigrants was exploiting the new possibilities. Russians have many admirable traits but for most of their history I would not have put scientific highest on the list. Perhaps someone will manage to make a mod that allows these bonuses to shift gradually over time.

[KrazyHorse]

Echinda, It's not the colonisation of the American West (which was inevitable); it's the fact that the US had this annoying tendency to grab as many other people's colonies as they could, too. Louisiana (agreed to, but expansionistic), Mexican War, the "54-40"ers, etc. Monroe doctrine, baby; they enshrined hemisphere hegemony into a revered document of foreign policy.

[Zor]

Don't forget the Spanish -American war....

[d_dudy]

ok, the spanish american war was pretty offensive on our part. the sinking of the main was an accident that the press blew up putting public pressure on the president to go to war. but, this was only because the country wanted to show that we were a major power now too. getting a bunch of spanish islands wasn't that bigof a deal.

as for the mexican-american war: we wouldn't have had to kick their asses and take the western half of our country if they would have just left our texans alone.

[Swissy]

Firaxis has taken what could have been a multitude of civ specific attributes and boiled them down to six. So an attribute could be interpreted based on the civ. Expansionist for the Germans refers to their historical obsession with expending eastward. For the Americans it refers to the swiftness of the exploration and settlement westward. The English were expansionist based on the need to find raw materials.

Also, the assignment of civ specific attributes looks to be linked to how the civ rose to greatness. The German Merchant Guilds of the late Middle Ages thru the renaissance laid the foundation for the mighty corporations on the industrial and modern ages. England, due to its location, could only become great due to commercial enterprise. One may say the scientific breakthroughs were a by-product of the booming economies of those civs. While the Japanese have regained world power status thru commercial endeavor. Their initial rise was due to the two attributes Firaxis has assigned to them.

The one civ specific attribute I question is assigning commercial to Greeks. Alexander was not trying to open new markets when he invaded Persia, Egypt and India.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by d_dudy
as for the mexican-american war: we wouldn't have had to kick their asses and take the western half of our country if they would have just left our texans alone.

Right...just the US standing up for minority interests...not a land grab

A successful land grab, mind you.

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Echinda, It's not the colonisation of the American West (which was inevitable); it's the fact that the US had this annoying tendency to grab as many other people's colonies as they could, too. Louisiana (agreed to, but expansionistic), Mexican War, the "54-40"ers, etc. Monroe doctrine, baby; they enshrined hemisphere hegemony into a revered document of foreign policy.

Don't forget the "Open Door Policy." The US only wanted to stop the European powers from colonizing China so they could get a piece of the pie (but were unsuccessful).

[d_dudy]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Right...just the US standing up for minority interests...not a land grab

A successful land grab, mind you.

yeah, actually that's it exactly. mexico wouldn't recognize the rio grande as the southern border of texas and so we went to war. when we won we took what we damn well wanted.