America isn't old enough to be in Civ3

[SlowwHand]

The U.S. has done more in some over 200 years than most Civilizations have done in a thousand.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by squeeze truck
That is false. Hitler lost WWII during the Russian campaign. (He was a better orator than strategist.) The the Americans and Brittish had an easy time landing at Normandy because Germany didn't have much left to send West.

Right! If the Americans and English really would have wanted to finish up with Hitler as early as possible, they could have done this in 1942 or 1943, when they were asked to by Stalin. But they preferred to wait till Russia weakened Germany a lot (and suffered enough own losses) and except for the Ardenne offensive (a laugh compared with the eastern front and even with the German offensive in 1940!) there was not much Germany could do against the invasion.

No, the main purpose of the American+British landing in 1944 was not to lose hold of Western Europe. If it would not have happened, the Russians would have easily punched through to the Atlantic in 1945. The result would be a communist Europe without an inner-european confrontation of both systems.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
The U.S. has done more in some over 200 years than most Civilizations have done in a thousand.

May be, but I miss a word between "more" and "in".

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

No, the main purpose of the American+British landing in 1944 was not to lose hold of Western Europe. If it would not have happened, the Russians would have easily punched through to the Atlantic in 1945. The result would be a communist Europe without an inner-european confrontation of both systems.

I wonder how hard a time the Russians would have had trying to maintain control of the whole of Europe. No nation has ever been able to control or vassalize countries for very long. Like squeeze truck says, trying to control 300 million people with only a home population of a 100 milion would be no easy feat.

The revolts in Hungary and Czechoslavakia, in the 60s and 70s would have probably occured in France and Germany aswell. It could probably have meant the collapse of Communism a few decades earlier.

[jsw363]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
No nation has ever been able to control or vassalize countries for very long. Like squeeze truck says, trying to control 300 million people with only a home population of a 100 milion would be no easy feat.

Well the Romans managed a pretty good size empire. As did Britain. Also considering that the Russians controlled all of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as well as non-European Satellite countries for many decades, I'd say that they were able to "vassalize" these countries for quite a while.

Also I'm not really sure that the French would have submitted to Russian rule. Most of the Eastern European countries didn't have their own nation-states prior to WWI, so they hadn't had thier independence for that long. It would have been extremely difficult or impossible to subjugate a country like France, Germany or Austria which had a long history of self-rule.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
The revolts in Hungary and Czechoslavakia, in the 60s and 70s would have probably occured in France and Germany aswell.

In Eastern Germany a revolt occured June 17th, 1953 and was brutal knocked down by Russian tanks. Nevertheless the Communism helt till 1990. An earlier landing of the British and American could have prevented this.

But a divided and weakened Europe guaranteed the US hegemony over the Western hemishphere and practically over the whole World. Hopefully, the European unification (including Eastern Europe) and a strategical alliance with Russia (resources) will bring up a bit more competition. Competition is good for business.

[Harovan]

Let's stop this thread

I think we should bury this war and peace discussion, it is off topic and leads nowhere.

America may be not an old civilization, and some think it's not a civilization at all, but the home of all uncontent people from other civilizations, but it's definitely worth to be in Civ3.

[Ecthy]

Yes. Terminons la discussion

[squeeze truck]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Right! If the Americans and English really would have wanted to finish up with Hitler as early as possible, they could have done this in 1942 or 1943, when they were asked to by Stalin. But they preferred to wait till Russia weakened Germany a lot (and suffered enough own losses) and except for the Ardenne offensive (a laugh compared with the eastern front and even with the German offensive in 1940!) there was not much Germany could do against the invasion.

No, the main purpose of the American+British landing in 1944 was not to lose hold of Western Europe. If it would not have happened, the Russians would have easily punched through to the Atlantic in 1945. The result would be a communist Europe without an inner-european confrontation of both systems.

*sigh*

Sadly, that is the reason for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan as well. If Japan had surrendered to the USSR rather than the US, it would have been reconstructed as a communist state.

[Grandpa Troll]

Ok, back on topic so no one gets **penalized** for thread-jacking,..........


I believe since this is an American game, and although we are only barely 225 + years old. I still feel we should, by default, have a slot. It isnt the end of civilized civilization, and certainly cant take away from the gameplay anymore than some of the bugs in the game. I reckon for some of the anal-retentive folks out there, America is a farse for a selection, but me, being proud to be an American, I say its ok, if you dont, then edit the files and take us out.

I reckon you can, at least!

Have a great day!

Yours in Civin!

Troll-Meister!

[Fresno]

I haven't had the time to post here during the last week, but now I'm back I must say this thread is still very interesting. Wonder why people keep saying it should be stopped - just look how popular it still is.

squeeze truck:

The problem here, it seems to me, is that people don't know how to distinguish a civilization from a nation-state.
America, England, France, and Germany are nations, not civilizations.

I've started a thread about this; you can find it here.

And of course all European nations and the USA form one civilization together, but since in the game nations and cultures are treated as the same thing, you can't merge them, or you would have to change the whole concept of the game.

However, even without Russia, Germany's "empire" was spread so thin and managed so poorly, even if they could have gotten off the continent I don't believe the "1000-year-reich" would have lasted more than 10 years. Armor is good for taking territory, but not very good at holding it.

Boris Yeltsin said: "You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long."
But I don't think bad organisation would have been the biggest problem for the Reich; what do you think about the people hating their oppressor? The resistance and so on?

jsw363:

Well the Romans managed a pretty good size empire. As did Britain. Also considering that the Russians controlled all of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as well as non-European Satellite countries for many decades, I'd say that they were able to "vassalize" these countries for quite a while.

You can't compare the Roman era with the modern one. One of the typical things developed in European history is nationalism - every tiny people wanting independence.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

Right! If the Americans and English really would have wanted to finish up with Hitler as early as possible, they could have done this in 1942 or 1943, when they were asked to by Stalin.

I've gotta disagree with you there, Ralph. The Allies were not ready to attack Europe in 1942 or 1943. I think the raid on Dieppe showed how much the Allies still had to learn about amphibious assaults (much to the misfortune of the Brits and Canadians involved in that operation). The American troop and arms buildup in Britain took time. The North African operation was begun first, probably because it was a lesser operation than the invasion of France, and because much could be learned from it, and then applied to France. Keep in mind that many of the U.S. troops and commanders who were involved in "Torch" were recalled and used in Normandy. Once "Overlord" got going, Germany was actually fighting on 3 fronts: East, West, and South (Italy, the continuation of the N. Africa campaign).

I'm sure the Allied leaders were concerned about a communist Europe. Obviously, they were - look at the Marshall Plan, Churchill's speeches after the war (one of which coined the term "Iron Curtain") and the formation of NATO. But I seriously doubt that the U.S. and Britain held back the Normandy invasion to let Russia and Germany beat each other up first. In fact, as I recall, there was quite a debate in 1943 between the U.S. and British generals. The Americans wanted to go charging in, guns blazing (sound familiar?) and the Brits were concerned that an invasion of Europe was still premature, and needed more planning and more troops.

As for the use of the atomic bomb on Japan... well, I suppose it's possible that the Russian declaration of war influenced Truman's decision. I think the main factor was the casualty estimate for an invasion of mainland Japan. The Pacific war was a nasty shock for America - our foe fought fanatically and often to the death, and was a much more capable enemy than our propoganda lead people to believe (I've seen old pre-WWII and WWII posters with monkeys dressed in Japanese uniforms... stuff like that).

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Good point, Arrian. Guess this one goes to you.

But the result of the WWII with all other (especially European) countries weakened and the USA strenghtened (in Civ3 terms I'd call it a Golden Age) makes it hard to believe, that it wasn't planned this way. At least I was taught so, and it's the opinion of many German and most Russian historicians (I had military lessons in Russia).

What shall I believe? I think, the truth must be somewhere in the middle, as it's in most cases.

[Arrian]

I agree, the truth is somewhere in between. One of the best courses I took in college was called historeography (essentially - the method of history). The central message was this: examine your source material critically. Often, when there are multiple sources relating to the same event, you will find discrepancies. It is up to you to attempt to determine which version is closest to the truth. That can be very hard. With events near to us, like WWII, it is especially difficult in that cultural & national pride is involved, and so is ideology.

It is clear, if you look closely at the Allies' actions, that the USSR and USA/Britain were jockeying for position before the war ended. I have no doubt that the USA and Britain were very concerned with preventing Russian and/or communist control of Western Europe. I also have no doubt that Russian leaders were equally concerned about how much power and influence the western democracies gained, since those nations were typically hostile to the USSR because of the ideological differences between capitalism and communism (as well as democracy and totalitarianism).

I do not believe that the USA deliberately planned to weaken Europe so that it could gain power and wealth. I do believe that, presented with an opportunity to sell weapons to combatants in both World Wars (neither of which the average American wanted to get involved in, hence our late arrivals in each) and thus make a profit, we went for it. But the flow of money out of Europe and into the USA is only part of the equation. The destruction wrought by those wars was a major factor in the weakening of Europe's power and wealth, both in terms of physical property destroyed and the manpower that was lost. Both World Wars were European creations.

Are we opportunistic? Absolutely. But not every world event that ends up benifitting us is a conspiracy hatched by the U.S. government.

-Arrian

p.s. Some insight to American attitudes toward WWII: I think part of the arrogant "we saved your asses" mindset comes back to the fact that both World Wars were begun in Europe by Europeans, and the vast majority of Americans wanted nothing to do with them. Yet we ended up getting sucked in to each. So, to an extent, there is a feeling that we ended up helping to clean up a mess that we didn't make.

[Bereta_Eder]

dp