Civ of the Week: Greeks

[The diplomat]

There is a new civ of the week up at www.civ3.com
This time it's the Greeks. There is the little "history lesson" which is always fun.

The Greeks look very cool. They get the scientific+commercial abilities. It seems to me like they will be the best science civs!

The special unit is the Hoplite. Here are the stats.

standard hoplite att:1, def:2, mvt:1
Greek Hoplite att:1, def:3 , mvt 1

As you can see, the Greek Hoplite gets a whopping 3 for defense, making it the best defensive unit until the advent of the pikeman!

[Imran Siddiqui]

News item posted... props given to diplomat .

[Harlan]

I could live with the deeply tanned Cleopatra. But this Alexander looks nothing like the real one. Alexander had long, dirty blond hair, sideburns, bugged out eyes, and many other features not seen here. Follow the link from the Greeks page on Civ3, about the middle of the page, where they say "he demanded it". You'll see one representation of him in the top corner of the page. His hair was usually longer than this, but otherwise this is what he looked like.

Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Harlan
I could live with the deeply tanned Cleopatra. But this Alexander looks nothing like the real one. Alexander had long, dirty blond hair, sideburns, bugged out eyes, and many other features not seen here. Follow the link from the Greeks page on Civ3, about the middle of the page, where they say "he demanded it". You'll see one representation of him in the top corner of the page. His hair was usually longer than this, but otherwise this is what he looked like.

Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

Does it really matter if the leader does not look exactly like the real Alexander the Great? I think the idea is for the leaders to be more like caricatures.

I think that the Greeks look like a great civ to play. Their commercial and scientific bonuses will make them one of the best science civs. And, the hoplite will give them great defense so as to ward off all those pesky militaristic civs.

I think they will be lots of fun to play.

[phildphild]

Originally posted by Harlan
Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

Historical accuracy IS low priority. Firaxis is doing a game, not a history lecture. Anyway, it's all in the past. Who cares?

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Harlan
I could live with the deeply tanned Cleopatra. But this Alexander looks nothing like the real one. Alexander had long, dirty blond hair, sideburns, bugged out eyes, and many other features not seen here. Follow the link from the Greeks page on Civ3, about the middle of the page, where they say "he demanded it". You'll see one representation of him in the top corner of the page. His hair was usually longer than this, but otherwise this is what he looked like.

Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

I can't speak for the art, since I'm not an artist, but as I wrote the text you're commenting on, let me just say I certainly never said he drank himself to death or anything of the sort -- I stated the facts that I found via research -- that he was known to be a drinker and shortly after a drinking binge / banquet, he died.

I certainly try to make the CotW updates humorous, but never knowingly at the expense of known facts.


Dan

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
I certainly try to make the CotW updates humorous, but never knowingly at the expense of known facts.

I love the way you write up the CotW. The humor is great!

I think my favorite line in this one has to be the following:

"Several wars and a few playwrights later, in 399 B.C., Socrates was convicted of making sense and was sentenced to death by manner of lethal kool-aid."

[Harlan]

Dan, I used the word "implies". If one says: "Alexander sat down for a nice, quiet extended banquet and drinking binge. Ten days later, he died", then the implication is that the banquet / drinking binge must have killed him, esp. since the malaria is nowhere mentioned. I appreciate the humor generally speaking, but in this case it reinforces a widely held but erroneous explanation of his death.

But don't bother yourself with a reply to this. You're much more needed answering all those questions about leaders and stacking and such back in the Civ3 General forum!

Anyways Diplomat, I tend to get a little anal about things Alexander cos I once did a big scenario about him. Like the tag line for one of those Rambo movies, "This time, its personal!"

[Imran Siddiqui]

"Several wars and a few playwrights later, in 399 B.C., Socrates was convicted of making sense and was sentenced to death by manner of lethal kool-aid."

Watch it! Harlan might say that kool-aid wasn't around then .

Dan, nice job on the CotW. Very, very funny. I many times during this one .

[YefeiPi]

We should all thank the ancient Greeks: aside from devising really neat and useful things like democracy, the Pythagorean theorem, and the Hippocratic oath

Actually, Pythagorean theroem was discovered by the Chinese hundreds of years ahead of time.

[MarkG]

OH GREAT GODS OF OLYMPUS!

what does this



have to do with this

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Harlan
I could live with the deeply tanned Cleopatra. But this Alexander looks nothing like the real one. Alexander had long, dirty blond hair, sideburns, bugged out eyes, and many other features not seen here. Follow the link from the Greeks page on Civ3, about the middle of the page, where they say "he demanded it". You'll see one representation of him in the top corner of the page. His hair was usually longer than this, but otherwise this is what he looked like.

Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

The man in the picture looks like Macchiavelli, definitely not Alexander.
Apart from this the text gives the impression that the most important thing that Aristotle did was teaching Alexander. NOT. Aristotle was a more important person in history than Alexander himself. He was the inventor of, among a great many other things, logic.

[MarkG]

or this

[OneFootInTheGrave]

To me it looks more like a Roman Protector of the Greek province

[MarkG]

Originally posted by phildphild
Historical accuracy IS low priority. Firaxis is doing a game, not a history lecture. Anyway, it's all in the past. Who cares?

historical accuracy is part of the fun of the game. especially when it comes to "great library" texts where find something that is historically correct is not very hard, or when we are talking about a face that you will be seeing a lot in the game and which is supposed to give you the illusion that you're having hard diplomatic discussions with a great leader!

now if that's the image of someone who conquered the known world in 10 years.....