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I was complaining about the choices of civs in the votes for expansion pack civs thread and MacTBone said I should make a new thread to air my views. So here goes:
Looking over the top 16 civs i was quite surprised by some of the choices.
I don't see why everybody is so keen on the Mongols. IMHO they were just a very sucessful barbarian horde. They briefly took over half the world, and then immediately collapsed into lots of little, rapidly distintegrating fiefdoms. They didn't found any cities and they didn't lead to any progress.
I also don't think the Celts or Vikings should be civs for the same reason. The Celts is just very loose term used to a very widespread culture which never come close to being united. The Viking is just a word which means "pirate" and applies to two seperate, rival cultures - the Norwegians and the Danes. These cultures formed independant fiefdoms which usually quickly dissapeared so I don't think they can be considered proper civs either.
I don't know enough about Arab history to say whether they should be included but as far as I'm aware when people talk of "the Arabs" they are referring to a culture not to any historical, unified empire. So I don't think they should be included either.
The one that surprised me as the Byzantines. They are just the eastern-half of the Roman Empire after it split in two. We may as well have another civilization called "the Roman Empire in the West".
The criteria I would use for selecting for civs would be:
1) Must have been a unified, organised state.
2) Must have built cities - there is no real-life example of any culture being able to progress scientifically or economically without cities.
3) Must have represented a distinct culture.
4) Must not have been formed as an off-shoot of another civilization with political structures and culture simply being inheritied from the founding culture.
5) Must have excelled on either a global scale or on a continental scale.
According to these principles, I reccomend voting for the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Ottamon Turks. I simply don't see how these civilizations can be ignored considering what a gigantic impact they have had. The Spanish and the Portuguese are essentially the creator's of the whole of Latin America and also conquered regions many times bigger than their won size in Africa and Oceania. The Dutch were less sucessful but still managed to create a very significant world empire. The Ottamon Turks meanwhile created an empire that included the Balkans, North Africa and most of the Middle East and which easily rivalled the Roman Empire in size. For the entire imperial era they were a vital component of world politics and were the main bloc against Russian expansionism in Asia and the Middle East.
As for my other votes, I made sure they were all non-European civilizations. Although countries like Italy, Austria and Poland were all signficant forces with strong cultures I feel there is already more than enough European civs in the game. The Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese cannot be ignored due to their massive impact on world history but on the scale of world, rather than european, history, the central and eastern european civilizations were pretty unimportant.
With this in mind I would reccomend voting for the:
The Incas - South America should have at least on civ and the Incas represent an entirely unique, highly sophisticated (certain in comparison to surrounding cultures) and powerful civilization. The speed with which they were crushed by the Spanish suggest they were pretty insignificant but this ignores the fact that the Spaniards arrived in the midst of a civil war and the Incas had essentially decided to be defeated because they astrology-obsessed civilization had predicted it would come to an end at around this date.
The Mayas - Same reason as for Incas. I don't they were a properly unified state but since there were only three city-based cultures in the Americas, allowances have to be made.
The Ethiopians - Sub-Saharan Africa has relatively few viable candidates and Ethiopia stands out because its Christianity and ancient imperial dynasty makes it stand out and because it managed to resist European conquest for so long.
The Koreans - Because they forged a long-lasting, distinct and sophisticated culture.
The Khmers - The Khmer Monarchies of South-East Asia also represent a culturally distinct, relatively advanced civ in a region which needs a few more civs
Mali - Africa needs more civs and the Mali empire fits the credentials of a proper civilization
Assyria - The Assyrians were very powerful ancient empire and they help populate the Middle East, which historically was very important.
But please, please, please don't vote for the Celts, Vikings or Byzantines! They aren't real civs and Europe has too many as it is!
So here's my reccommended voting strategy for everybody who wants genuine major historical civilizations and doesn't want Europe to be too overcrowded (remember that means homogenous-looking city styles and leader faces):
Spanish: 5
Inca: 5
Turks: 5
Maya: 5
Dutch: 20
Ethiopians: 20
Portuguese: 20
Koreans: 20
Mali: 20
Assyria: 20
Khmer: 20
I gave the Spanish, Incas, Turks and Mayans only five points because since they are very popular already they didn't need much help staying in the top 16.
Don't let the mindless Vikings and Celts win!
On a completely unrelated topic. Does the little date under everybody's name signify when they joined the forums? If so, that means I joined before the invention of the internet and a good twelve years before I was even born. Cool!
Looking over the top 16 civs i was quite surprised by some of the choices.
I don't see why everybody is so keen on the Mongols. IMHO they were just a very sucessful barbarian horde. They briefly took over half the world, and then immediately collapsed into lots of little, rapidly distintegrating fiefdoms. They didn't found any cities and they didn't lead to any progress.
I also don't think the Celts or Vikings should be civs for the same reason. The Celts is just very loose term used to a very widespread culture which never come close to being united. The Viking is just a word which means "pirate" and applies to two seperate, rival cultures - the Norwegians and the Danes. These cultures formed independant fiefdoms which usually quickly dissapeared so I don't think they can be considered proper civs either.
I don't know enough about Arab history to say whether they should be included but as far as I'm aware when people talk of "the Arabs" they are referring to a culture not to any historical, unified empire. So I don't think they should be included either.
The one that surprised me as the Byzantines. They are just the eastern-half of the Roman Empire after it split in two. We may as well have another civilization called "the Roman Empire in the West".
The criteria I would use for selecting for civs would be:
1) Must have been a unified, organised state.
2) Must have built cities - there is no real-life example of any culture being able to progress scientifically or economically without cities.
3) Must have represented a distinct culture.
4) Must not have been formed as an off-shoot of another civilization with political structures and culture simply being inheritied from the founding culture.
5) Must have excelled on either a global scale or on a continental scale.
According to these principles, I reccomend voting for the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Ottamon Turks. I simply don't see how these civilizations can be ignored considering what a gigantic impact they have had. The Spanish and the Portuguese are essentially the creator's of the whole of Latin America and also conquered regions many times bigger than their won size in Africa and Oceania. The Dutch were less sucessful but still managed to create a very significant world empire. The Ottamon Turks meanwhile created an empire that included the Balkans, North Africa and most of the Middle East and which easily rivalled the Roman Empire in size. For the entire imperial era they were a vital component of world politics and were the main bloc against Russian expansionism in Asia and the Middle East.
As for my other votes, I made sure they were all non-European civilizations. Although countries like Italy, Austria and Poland were all signficant forces with strong cultures I feel there is already more than enough European civs in the game. The Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese cannot be ignored due to their massive impact on world history but on the scale of world, rather than european, history, the central and eastern european civilizations were pretty unimportant.
With this in mind I would reccomend voting for the:
The Incas - South America should have at least on civ and the Incas represent an entirely unique, highly sophisticated (certain in comparison to surrounding cultures) and powerful civilization. The speed with which they were crushed by the Spanish suggest they were pretty insignificant but this ignores the fact that the Spaniards arrived in the midst of a civil war and the Incas had essentially decided to be defeated because they astrology-obsessed civilization had predicted it would come to an end at around this date.
The Mayas - Same reason as for Incas. I don't they were a properly unified state but since there were only three city-based cultures in the Americas, allowances have to be made.
The Ethiopians - Sub-Saharan Africa has relatively few viable candidates and Ethiopia stands out because its Christianity and ancient imperial dynasty makes it stand out and because it managed to resist European conquest for so long.
The Koreans - Because they forged a long-lasting, distinct and sophisticated culture.
The Khmers - The Khmer Monarchies of South-East Asia also represent a culturally distinct, relatively advanced civ in a region which needs a few more civs
Mali - Africa needs more civs and the Mali empire fits the credentials of a proper civilization
Assyria - The Assyrians were very powerful ancient empire and they help populate the Middle East, which historically was very important.
But please, please, please don't vote for the Celts, Vikings or Byzantines! They aren't real civs and Europe has too many as it is!
So here's my reccommended voting strategy for everybody who wants genuine major historical civilizations and doesn't want Europe to be too overcrowded (remember that means homogenous-looking city styles and leader faces):
Spanish: 5
Inca: 5
Turks: 5
Maya: 5
Dutch: 20
Ethiopians: 20
Portuguese: 20
Koreans: 20
Mali: 20
Assyria: 20
Khmer: 20
I gave the Spanish, Incas, Turks and Mayans only five points because since they are very popular already they didn't need much help staying in the top 16.
Don't let the mindless Vikings and Celts win!
On a completely unrelated topic. Does the little date under everybody's name signify when they joined the forums? If so, that means I joined before the invention of the internet and a good twelve years before I was even born. Cool!
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