Civilizations not nations

[Sandman]

Instead of nations which were around for a limited time in history, why not have proper civilizations which have been around for much longer? Each standard game has eight civs, so I nominate East Asian, European, Indian, South-East Asian, Central Asian, African, Middle Eastern and Pre-Columbian American.

Other options which have been suggested on the Korea thread are Pacific Island and native North American.

Suggestions on which the eight should be?
Special ability and unit ideas?

[Felch]

One could also include the Mediterranean civilization, which would include all the empires that sprang up in the region prior to the fall of Rome in the 5th century.

The overall idea is very good. Scholarly works such as The Clash of Civilizations typically refer to civilizations as super-national groupings, based on religious or cultural connections. This could work in Civ, and could reduce national tensions on the forums. But it is up to us to make such differences.

[jsw363]

There's been a lot of work on these types of issues in another thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26286

Here's part of what I wrote in that thread-

Have you read Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations? I highly recommend it for people interested in civ. But anyways, he defines at present six major civilizational groups:

1. Western civilization built upon Catholicism and Protestantism (Western Europe and North America);
2. the civilization built upon the Orthodox Church (Russia and Eastern Europe);
3. Islamic civilization;
4. Hindu civilization;
5. Chinese civilization;
6. Japanese civilization.

Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa exist as "candidates for civilization," with the implication that they have the potential to become distinct civilizations of their own. Five of these have their respective core state or states: for Western civilization it is the European Union (EU) and the United States; for the Orthodox civilization it is Russia; for the Hindu civilization, India; for the Chinese civilization, China; and for the Japanese civilization, Japan. There is no such core state for the Islamic civilization, nor for Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.

This way the civs fit nicely into your eight civ parameter, though I think this would radically change some parts of the game. The Orthodox civ becomes more powerful (with addition of Eastern Europe). Western Civ is obviously much more powerful (combining US and Western Europe). China becomes more powerful with the inclusion of some APEC countries. Islam becomes more powerful, since it encompases all Islamic countries (including Maylasia and Indonesia).

Sandman, any opinions on this definition of civ?

[mactbone]

You're all forgetting one important thing. What if I want to play a random map? I've got all these region specific civs and I can't identify with the region. At least not geographically.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by jsw363
1. Western civilization built upon Catholicism and Protestantism (Western Europe and North America);
2. the civilization built upon the Orthodox Church (Russia and Eastern Europe);
3. Islamic civilization;
4. Hindu civilization;
5. Chinese civilization;
6. Japanese civilization.

Chinese, Japanese? Shouldn't these be Buddhists, Confucionists?
But, more importantly, where are the Humanists?? The Judaists?? The Shamanists??

And what do you want to do with the old religions of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans etcetera?

[aaglo]

Originally posted by Ribannah

Chinese, Japanese? Shouldn't these be Buddhists, Confucionists?
But, more importantly, where are the Humanists?? The Judaists?? The Shamanists??...

And how about ateists...? Is believing in something superior to us required?

[Sandman]

I consider cultures which build cities to be civilizations. Just like in the game.

As far as I know, city constuction started in the middle east and spread across the world. I believe that the Chinese developed city building separately, as did the Pre-Columbian Americans.

I don't think civilizations should be based on religion, because religions come and go as well, although they do have a longer lifespan than nations. Especially Hinduism.

What makes civilisations different is their surroundings. So in my view, each civilization corresponds to a certain type of terrain.

Northern European: Oak Forest
Mediterranean: Olive Groves? Sorry not sure.
Central Asian: The boundless steppes.
China: Bamboo Forest
Middle East: Cedar Forests
African: Whatever grows in Ethiopia/Mali
Pre-Columbian: Mountains?
SE Asian: Jungle
Indian: Don't know. Probably jungle again.

[jsw363]

Originally posted by Ribannah


Chinese, Japanese? Shouldn't these be Buddhists, Confucionists?
But, more importantly, where are the Humanists?? The Judaists?? The Shamanists??

And what do you want to do with the old religions of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans etcetera?

Ribannah-

Sorry I wasn't more clear. Huntington is referring to the PRESENT civilizations which exist and how they are comprised. About the Humanists, Judaists, Shamanists and Atheists, well they haven't formed civilizations in Huntington's opinion (and I guess in my own too.)

Aaglo-

No it's not "required", but all of the civs present in the world today do have some codified belief system that's a far stretch from Atheism.

Originally posted by Sandman I don't think civilizations should be based on religion, because religions come and go as well, although they do have a longer lifespan than nations. Especially Hinduism.

Sandman-

Religions do "come and go", but so do civs. I think that religion has been one of the most defining characteristics of nations and civs (ironically, since it isn't included in the game). And what was that comment on Hinduism all about? It's a religion that's been around for a while?

I don't especially like your geographically based civs. It might influence architecture in the game in some way, but I don't think that it should be the focus of the game. A bamboo forest civ strikes me as silly.

[Leonidas]

This is a good iea, but it does tend to get a bit complicated.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Yes, nation-states only came into existence (in the modern sense) in the 19th century. Using civs is a better way to go. CivII did a good job of this - the names of peoples were used. For example, Chinese is not synonymous with Han, they just happen to be the most numerous - The game already makes this generalization.

The obvious problem with this new idea is the vagueness of the categories. For example, who wants to play as the "non-aryan europeans" instead of as the Celts? Why make it even vaguer, harder to define? I, for one, would rather play as the Aztecs than as the "pre-european contact americans."

Sandman, it seems odd that you say cities must be built in order to qualify as a civ, but then list forest types as related terrain. Cities require large amounts of FOOD! Crops and ag land were far more influential on city development than the wood used to build them.

If it isn't already clear, I say "poo poo" to this idea.

[Sandman]

jsw363:
Hinduism has been around for the entire scope of the game: 4000 B.C. to now, so it is an exception amongst the younger religions.

Marquis:
The forests are just a starting point.They reflect the climate and what crops grow there as well. Many civilizations made short work of their forests, often with disastrous consequences.

A problem with my idea that I've just thought of.

Having a whole civilization under your control makes the idea of government rather strange, as single civilisations can often have multiple governments. I suppose you could have a set of governmental systems like:

Squabbling kingdoms
Single kingdom
Communist union
Peaceful democracies
etc

But this would make the game very different and weird.

[Arent]

Simple. *bg*
You just pick the civilisation your *nation*
belongs to (for example europeans which
are... say... expansionist and/or commercial)
and then name it for example french... or
germans etc. and name the leader and choose
some picture which fits.
The civ background only determines the attributes (perhaps should affect diplomacy as well)
Nice idea for some mod

Arent

[TCO]

I feel a little hurt that some of my choices for civs were excluded by Locutus from the civ x-pack voting. I had proposed the following be added to the game: kittycats, poodles, Washington Redskins, and Northwestern Wildcats.


Apparently, I was the only person to submit joke civs. This makes me wonder about you all...

Lcocutus was worried that the whole list would turn to crap if he added my joke civs and everybody else followed suit. A simple solution would have been to let my jokes in, but not anybody else's.