COTW - Japanese

[Shadowstrike]

I don't think I've ever gotten so angry over any single thread then this one. Not only the selective use of education to exclude details that would affect natinal allies and paint a nation's rival as a victim.

I will say this again: The Chinese people have been a victim of the century, and yet their suffering is being scoured from history for the mear fact that they have not been friends of America? How many of our generation would even know that the Japanese killed millions of innocents for the sake of killing, because they felt like it and because of raw brutality? Who even gives that a passing mention? The Japanese? Hell no. The Americans? Yeah, and the Earth is flat.

Yet in the very same vein, the massacres of Mao are painted as black as Hitler and Stalin. No, I am not defending Mao, for he was an evil man, but I find it repulsive that for the mear purposes of propaganda, our history has been erased, and that two equally bad masacres and epitaphs of human suffering, that one is knocked over and forgotten, while the other remains as a symbol of the rightousness of pursuing a crusade against a certain nation.

If you ask any Chinese person who experienced the second world war, they can litterally tell you stories of brutality from that period that could make anyone shiver up in fear, and thank God/any deity that you did not live in that period. In the same straw, those who survived Mao can tell similar tales. The generations after us must be taught these stories and this dark piece of history for they must know. The needless deaths of hundreds of millions throughout the century from cruel masters who had no more compassion thenone would have for termites in their house. They must know this, for we must never allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated in the future. We cannot edit the truth to fit our needs, not pretend that such events never happened, for they did, but instead, the tale must be taught and generations to come horrified by them enough never to do so again.

[joer]

A quick comparison:

standard knight: 4-3-2, horses + iron
Indian elefant: 4-3-2, no ressources
Japanese samurai: 4-4-2, iron
Chinese rider: 4-4-3, horses+iron

I guess all of these UU's look balanced. Each unit has 2 bonuses from the standard knight, where a bonus can either mean a point or a ressource they don't need.

However, comparing the three UU's, I think the Japanese still looks like the most unimportant from a strategic point of view.

If you want to be totally independant from ressources, take the Indians and build elefants. If you think you will have access to ressources anyways and just want to get hands on a huge, powerful unit in that era, use the Chinese. But the Japanese samurai looks to me like one of those awful 'things in the middle' which can't really fulfill a strategic purpose all that much better than other units.

Sure, it can act as a better (costy) defender, but wouldn't speed be much more important than added defense value, making the Chinese UU so attractive? Also, I am not completely sure if any knight derivative will be powerful enough to take down a walled city in that era. A base defender can have a defense of 3. If 'fortify' and city walls work the same way in Civ3, he's gonna get a real defense rate of 3*1.5*3 = 13.5. Not much use banging an attack 4 unit against it.

[ruckus9]

Off topic

I read something in this thread that mentioned a comparison between knights and samurais.

I just wanted to say that I've always wondered who would win between a European knight and a samurai of the same time period. I kind of think a samurai would win because of their fierce loyalty and skill with the sword but I'm not sure. Does anyone know of a book that discusses this?

I'm looking forward to pitting my samurais against some knights

[Shiva]

Originally posted by knott
I hope they mention Dresden when the americans come...

Well they should really harp on the english then for Bomber commands leader Harris since the wholesale bombing of cities was his plan from the start. He pushed and pushed along with Lord Cherwell for firebombing of cites right from the start of the war and thats what bomber command did night after night.

As for the A-bombing of Nagasaki, Hiroshima all I can say is its too bad that it happened but you ask any America soldier or the family of one who was going to have to hit the beach to invade Japan and they'd say the right call was made.

[Ironwood]

Originally posted by joer
A quick comparison:

standard knight: 4-3-2, horses + iron
Indian elefant: 4-3-2, no ressources
Japanese samurai: 4-4-2, iron
Chinese rider: 4-4-3, horses+iron

Sure, it can act as a better (costy) defender, but wouldn't speed be much more important than added defense value, making the Chinese UU so attractive? Also, I am not completely sure if any knight derivative will be powerful enough to take down a walled city in that era. A base defender can have a defense of 3. If 'fortify' and city walls work the same way in Civ3, he's gonna get a real defense rate of 3*1.5*3 = 13.5. Not much use banging an attack 4 unit against it.

I have a feeling, due to the considerably higher defense numbers (defense 4 didn't appear before riflemen in Civ2), the mechanics won't be the same. Not only is there not much use banging an attack 4 unit against, it, there's not even any use banging an attack 6 (catapult) unit against it! Everything is going to be different, but if you look at the actual numbers, the Samurai *is* better than the best of the defensive units of their era. (Aren't pikemen defense 3?) That has to count for something.

[IBNobody]

Shadowstrike,

My original point (and the point of many others) was that every culture has been on both the swinging and receiving end of the sword. I posted the factoid about Mao because China was being painted as the victem and was made to seem "clean" from committing any atrocities.

While I don't disagree that we shouldn't forget acts of mass murder, I DO disagree about needing to hear about them in the official Civ3 documentation. Rally against history textbooks and their publishers, not against entertainment software designers.

- Nobody

[Imran Siddiqui]

Whereas it's quite all right to describe Shaka's "massacres", a minor point in Zulu history compared to Japanese imperialism in Japan's, in excruciating detail the like of which I've never read before? Oh, it's all right, they're vicious Darkie brutes, obviously. Can't trust the ******s!

What else are the Zulu's known for, except slaughters and war? Zulu's don't have a history and shouldn't even be in the game at all! Mali is different.

And btw, the Japanese aren't white either (neither are the Indians) , so don't get all sanctimonious on me, you little pissant!

[Ecthy]

psshht, we don't want to get insulting now do we?

[splangy]

I guess ill throw my lot into this thread...

Versailles- Unfair? yes. Does it condone the slaughter of all those Jews? NO! simple as that...( besides, It was the Frenches idea, not America/Britons

Pearl Harbor- Geee, I guess America should have just let them capture the whole of Asia. Im sure sorry that we cut there oil off to try and stop there bloody expansion

Japenese containment camps- Just the U.S. getting a little Jumpy, but its not like they were death camps, certainly nowhere near as bad as China...

Dresdon- Part of the plan to lower german moral, but it was still REALLY pointless... But don't come in here and say "how dare you bomb Germany like you did!" when they started the whole thing and were bombing Civilians WAY before we were.

The simple point is that all nations have commited atrocities. However, you must remember that few atrocitries were commited that the people who carried them out didn't see as "fair" or "Just"

[Imran Siddiqui]

psshht, we don't want to get insulting now do we?

Well, when someone calls me a rascist (even though I, myself, am a minority), they aren't getting any respect back from me.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by splangy
Dresden - Part of the plan to lower German moral, but it was still REALLY pointless... But don't come in here and say "how dare you bomb Germany like you did!" when they started the whole thing and were bombing Civilians WAY before we were.

after fixing spelling mistakes as well...

Well, we might have started the whole thing, but it is also a question of the amount always. We didn't to carpet bombing to your cities as you did, at least not in the amount you did it. You bombed like every German city, whereas we limited it to industrially important sites, and to the industrial areas as well.

Look, whenever I mention the Indian wars as a counter-argument against the Holocaust, I'm told about immense differences in figures... that is true, but we don't want to forget about this when it comes to city bombing, eh?

Imran - it's racist

[The Templar]

Originally posted by splangy
Versailles- Unfair? yes. Does it condone the slaughter of all those Jews? NO! simple as that...( besides, It was the Frenches idea, not America/Britons

Agreed, 100%.

Pearl Harbor- Geee, I guess America should have just let them capture the whole of Asia. Im sure sorry that we cut there oil off to try and stop there bloody expansion

Somewhat agreed. Again, Japanese initiated the violence - and its not like they were playing nice with the rest of Asia.

Japenese containment camps- Just the U.S. getting a little Jumpy, but its not like they were death camps, certainly nowhere near as bad as China...

A little jumpy? Fine our camps were nowhere near as bad as Hitler's and Japan's. But do we really want to defend our actions by saying "well they were like Hitler's but far better." Wrong is wrong, whether you are jumpy or not. I would also point out that German descent Americans were not placed in camps, nor Italians. It was racist and wrong, and if anyone who was in any way responsible for implementing those camps is alive today they should be thrown in prison as a message to future would-be leaders that everyone has to pay the price - even if it seemed right at the time.

Dresdon- Part of the plan to lower german moral, but it was still REALLY pointless... But don't come in here and say "how dare you bomb Germany like you did!" when they started the whole thing and were bombing Civilians WAY before we were.

Wrong is wrong - another unjustified allied atrocity.

The simple point is that all nations have commited atrocities. However, you must remember that few atrocitries were commited that the people who carried them out didn't see as "fair" or "Just"

Yes, and slave-holders saw their practice as just. Big deal.

Nobody got through WWII with clean hands. Admit it, rectify the problem if possible, and do not repeat. Yes, the Axis were far worse than the Allies, but the Allies could have and should have acted better than they did. Sorry, its a fact.

[knott]

IIRC the day in history most people was killed was Dresden, Tokyo or Hamburg. And don´t come with any excuses of Dresden.

[gopher]

I see that tempers are high on this thread. However, we must remember that ALL of our nations have done reprehensible things in the past. That is a given. What matters is how the nations have dealt with that history. And it is here that I believe that the U.S. and Germany have done the best.

Yes, the U.S made internment camps, had slavery, and killed Indians. However, we teach our children about that in the most direct way. Ask any of the Americans here about their schooling, and I guarantee the topic of Indian genocide, slavery, and japanese internment has come up a lot. We deal with it. What does that mean? Look at now, after Sept 11th. The govt. has said over and over that this is the act of a small minority group, that Muslums are not to blame, etc. Looks like we learned our lesson a bit. I know its not perfect, but it's a start.

Now lets look at other places. Yes, bad things have occured. But in some areas, it's hard to look at the past and reflect, especially when you've done some pretty bad things. (I will use Japan here, but this has no reflection on my feelings twords that nation or peoples). There has been a kind of public denial over a lot of the WW2 stuff, such as Korean sex slaves, Chinese biological testing, etc...so much that it hasnt even been included in Japanese history textbooks. Now I dont believe that we should only teach our mistakes and not the sucsesses, but still, ignorance leads to a repeat of history.

And guess what? Bad things will still happen. Its human nature, or more precisly, government nature. But only through our history and learnings can we try to combat (and hopefully minimize) it. Every nation has its skeletons, those which confront them are not left to the dustbin of history.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by knott
IIRC the day in history most people was killed was Dresden, Tokyo or Hamburg. And don´t come with any excuses of Dresden.

Funny how you only seem to want to whine about the americans

Especially seeing as how bomber command was bombing population centers night after night as a strategy and they also was involved in Dresden