Remove the Americans

[Gromit]

Shake hands Barnacle Bill?

[Barnacle Bill]

Originally posted by Gromit
It's possible I went a bit overboard. The point I meant to make (but kinda left behind), was that if the Americans deserve to be in (given that you could argue that they were an extension of sorts, of many European Civs and later the rest of the world), so then, do the Iroquois and the Zulus.

Shake hands Barnacle Bill?

Not exactly - it is not my intention to be contentious, but the Americans built cities while the Zulus & Iroqois did not.

BTW, the Zulu "city" names in the game are either place-names of places which were not cities or the names of cities in Africa never built or ruled by the Zulus.

ANY culture COULD have built cities someday, if left alone lone enough or given the right sort of contact with other pre-existing civilizations.

Only a handful of cultures invented cities all on their own - Egypt, Sumer (southern Iraq), and the Harrapan culture of the Indus Valley (in modern Pakistan) were the only ones to do so by 4000 BC. China did so a little later, but not by much (in Civ terms, given the length of early game turns in years, think of it as the Chinese settler wandered a couple of turns before planting that first city). Much later (into AD dates), the cultures of the central Mexican Plateau and the Andes did so. I think the most likely group in NA to have eventually done so would have been the "Mound Builders" in the SE, but the Iroquois are maybe a candidate. Neither group was left alone long enough, though.

A wider group of cultures built their own cities after contact with other cultures that had already made the leap. Greece, Rome, Persia, Arabs, etc... This also was the case with Ethiopia & various Islamic civilizations in NW Africa (Mali, etc...). This may have been about to happen in the SW US with the Pueblo due to contact with Aztec civilization to the south. They did not last long enough, though. A number of North American tribes could have done so if European contact had been less devestating - no plagues, less rapacious European expansion. Had the contact been limited to the way the French traded for furs (and no plagues), the various powerful groupings (including the Iroquois) may have built cities and become true civilizations. In fact, the Cherokee came very, very close before Andy Jackson got 'em - even their own Alphabet. That's not what happened, though.

Then there are those cultures which got their first cities by conquering somebody elses, some of which later built their own & some did not. This includes the English, Germans, Mongols, Turks, etc... The Bantu tribes (including the Zulus), in terms of technical & social development, were (when found by Europeans) about on par with where the above examples were when they came in out of the North Woods/Central Asian Steepes to pester civilization. Had the Bantus gone north instead of south, and earlier (their migration into what is now South Africa started about 1200 AD), they may have gotten the existing cities of North Africa instead of (or from) the Arabs. However, they moved south instead, into an area populated by people about on par with the Australian Aborigines, and made little progress until Europeans arrived.

Finally there are cultures which never built or conquered cities, but have them today courtesy of foriegn rulers that built them. All cities in southern Africa were built by (or under the direction of, at least) European colonists. The same applies to Pacific Islands (possibly except the Phillipines - I'd have to look up whether they had cities already when the Spanish got there). You can possibly look at France that way, too - the Gauls (pre-Roman Celtic people of what is now France) did not have cities until the Romans conquered them and built some. The Franks (a German tribe) then took those cities away from the Romans. The Franks were then assimilated by the Romanized Gauls, producing the French.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Barnacle Bill

I think the most likely group in NA to have eventually done so would have been the "Mound Builders" in the SE, but the Iroquois are maybe a candidate. Neither group was left alone long enough, though.

Cahokia?

https://www.gorp.com/gorp/publishers/countryman/hik_stl2.htm

medicine.wustl.edu/~mckinney/cahokia/cahokia.html

https://www.siue.edu/CAHOKIAMOUNDS/

[Gromit]

cheers molly

Much later (into AD dates), the cultures of the central Mexican Plateau and the Andes did so.

?????
Monte Alban and Oaxaca, Zapotec - Founded 500ish B.C.
Tenochtilan, Aztec - Founded 150ish B.C. (eventually abandoned A.D. 800)

Finally there are cultures which never built or conquered cities, but have them today courtesy of foriegn rulers that built them

Does that include Rome?

[Oligarf]

This is already discussed somewhere else

So keep the discussion there please:America isn't old enough to be in Civ

[hacksaw]

UMMMM.... Just a note, The United States, (don't say America. The whole Western Hemisphere is America) does have culture. Jazz, country music, one of the most inventive societies, various pieces of literature (Gone with the Wind, Uncle Toms Cabin, Last of the Mohicans, Grapes of Wrath, the Poems Edgar Allen Poe and many many more), great paintings&painters (Hennery Ossaw o'Tanner, John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Nancey Noel and many many more). And a short (in comparison to other nations, however if you really wanted to be a slicker, we could include colonial history which had a huge impact on our nation today) but rich history. We done things wrong, and we've done things right. However, no one can accurately say that the UNITED STATES lacks culture.

[Evil Robot]

Re: Re: My Point again

but they all could talk together, live together and therefor they were more united than the americans and mexicans are today.

I don't know where you get the idea that Mexico is part of the US, because that's simply not true. And no, the peoples of the Holy Roman Empire could not live together. When your lord is having a war with the lord over yonder, you aren't going to move over yonder. The Empire was divided, culturally and economically, from the very start. Could this be the reason why it so quickly broke apart into various nations (Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, etc.) when the HRE was in a position of military weakness? I think so. (Note: For all intents and purposes, the Emperors from the treaty of Westphalia on did not have any sort of real, immediate control over their subjects.)

Therefore, although German provinces in and of themselves are older than the US, the concept of Germany AS A CIVILIZATION (i.e. as we're discussing it here) did not come around until the 1800s.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Gromit
O.K., that's a fair point. Especially considering that their history is a kind of 'chinese whisper' hisory, for want of a better analogy.

The situation is a little better than that.
The main historic events of the Iroquois confederacy, including all laws and treaties, were all recorded in Iroquois script. In addition, oral history of the Iroquois has been proven 100% correct when compared to written sources.
While the Iroquois had no large cities (too small a population for that), the size of Iroquois towns (up to 4,000 people) at the time of contact was comparable to that of European towns for that age.

[Caesar2760]

I guess it all comes down to what one would consider a city. Perhaps we should limit it to a large group of people (3000+?), living in sedentary housing, under some sort of local government which exercised control over all citizens, containing some non-residential buildings, and within which were performed religious, mercantile, and industrial actions. I guess I don't know the history as well as some of you, but I would venture that the Iroquois towns probably did not fill all of these requirements, but did fulfill some.

[orange]

Originally posted by Jason
I won't touch "do they belong in Civ" with an 80 foot pole

Why not. You wouldn't be alone. And it's been done, btw. I would say we (we=Iroquois should not be in the game) effectively won that debate.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Caesar2760
I guess it all comes down to what one would consider a city. Perhaps we should limit it to a large group of people (3000+?), living in sedentary housing, under some sort of local government which exercised control over all citizens, containing some non-residential buildings, and within which were performed religious, mercantile, and industrial actions. I guess I don't know the history as well as some of you, but I would venture that the Iroquois towns probably did not fill all of these requirements, but did fulfill some.

They did fulfill all of these requirements even before contact, i.e. before the start of their Golden Age.

[Fresno]

I've started a similar thread some time ago, and I wonder why this thread has been started while the other one is still alive. To go to the other thread, follow this link.

[Barnacle Bill]

Originally posted by Caesar2760
I guess it all comes down to what one would consider a city. Perhaps we should limit it to a large group of people (3000+?), living in sedentary housing, under some sort of local government which exercised control over all citizens, containing some non-residential buildings, and within which were performed religious, mercantile, and industrial actions. I guess I don't know the history as well as some of you, but I would venture that the Iroquois towns probably did not fill all of these requirements, but did fulfill some.

I think another key criteria is the degree of specialization. In a true city, you have a fairly high percentage of people who do something other than food production for a living - professional craftsmen, merchants, entertainers, scholars, etc... As societies progress, they fairly quickly acquire a professional priests and rulers (the later typically arising out of either the priesthood or war leaders), so those are not enough. By no means does a professional warrior class cut the mustard - some pretty primative societies have been based on a division of labor between professional warriors and those who labor to feed them. The key thing is to have professionals who, in Civ3 terms, are producing "commerce" and "culture" rather than food. Then you have a city, as opposed to a big village. I do not believe that the Iroquois or Zulus qualify. If anyone disputes that, please support it by citing publicly available sources.

[nationalist]

It is true that American Civilization has existed for a relatively short time, but I would argue that they deserve to be included just as much as any other of the included Civs. The Zulus only existed as a united people for less than a century. The same goes for the Aztecs. The truth is that America has been one of the most influential civilizations of all time. We pioneered modern democracy, perfected capitalism, introduced the information age, and have been the dominant force in world affairs since 1918. Our abscense from the League of Nations helped cause WW II. Our position in the cold war and leadership after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. has set the stage for the new international system. We are the leader of the world, and will continue to be for the forseeable future. We know next to nothing about the Inca and there has never been a unified African civilization, therefore it would be illogical to suggest removing the Americans in order to incorporate those civs. I advocate the addition of more civilizations ( Especially the Spanish, The Mongols, Vikings, and Celts!), but not at the cost of removing an existing civ. If you still insist on the removal of the Americans due to their relatively short time of existance, than I would suggest you seriously consider removing the Zulu and the Aztec.

[Panzer]

Hmm, strange that all my fellow dutchies seem to be anti-USA (in Civ3 terms of course). As far as I am concerned USA can stay in the game. They are just another nation about to be conquered by my glorious German empire!