America. One nation, under God?

[Beren]

America is a hard one. I think it has been argued enough that America shouldn't be religious. At this moment they are more religious than Europe, but if you take that for a measure, everybody but Europe is religious (except the communists, well maybe they religiously believe in communism. Ok, the former communist states, I don't think they believe anything? Poland does..... How about the rest of Eastern Europe. Anyway, back to topic.)

All the other traits have a reason.... I wouldn't go for expansionist. Ok, they expanded into Indian country, but they also supported decolonisation and gave the Philipines independance. The US are not seeking expansion now (who is? Well, Saddam is... Osama is.... And all other freaks.....) Or is expansionist meant to represent going into unknown areas to explore and make settlements...... Maybe, but I am not convinced. The expansionist trait is not really of applicance to twentieth century America.

Scientific, well I think this trait was only circumstantial. America is such a good economy and thanks to that science concentrates in America.

Commercial and Industruous would represent the American dream. Commercial trait is a bit strange, it gives gold from cities. You could maybe see it as taxes. How do you represent a tax cut? Or a tax raise? I think industruous is more for hierarcic civilisations where the people are virtually slaves to the government (such as Egypt, in a less degree China/Japan/Korea (Confucius)).

Maybe America should be militaristic. Don't get me wrong: militaristic does not mean agressive, it means you buy a lot of military.

Conclusion: I haven't made my mind up, but I wouldn't go for Religious and Industruous. And I feel I should reject expansionist (for modern America, at least...) Commercial should be in, I think... and militaristic or scientific. I am not sure.

[gsmoove23]

Well I'll give in on the religious bit I guess. Perhaps I should say its more religious then I would like(In saying that I mean religious in its politics, I have no problems with religious people or christians) and it certainly IMO has a clearly christian heart but its done so many other things that perhaps this wouldn't be considered a primary trait.

I disagree with militaristic because we have a long history of being non-militaristic, a position of strength or leadership in the world due to our economic power has put us in the position of intervening in different areas in the world. I don't think we have a very large military compared to how much money we have either and we certainly don't have a very military culture compared to say Germany who still has a national service although their militarism has been largely expunged.

Industrious is a tough one, I guess I don't really understand the trait but I don't think there is anything special about our workers. The really amazing feats we have made I think are more due to revolutionary management techniques then anything else, plus normally we are famous for using immigrant workers, slaves.

So we come to commercial, our revolution was fought over taxes after all and I think this is the key. Our history is full of innovative business techniques even up to the present day.

Scientific is much like religious, certainly played an important part in our history but it is overshadowed by other aspects and more due to the commercial succes then anything else.

Expansionism, true we are not expansionist today but what country is? Iraq? It is an integral part of the first half of our existence, even beyond the conquest to the west coast to our success in the Spanish American War which turned us into colonialists in the truest sense of the word.

Yeah Commercial Expansionist even though I think this is way to simplistic to really describe our civ.

[Serb]

Commercial and... commercial. Best choice.

[Beren]

It's too bad they didn't include extra traits in the expansion pack. I had some ideas:
Nationalistic: when conquered your people will easier revolt against their oppressor, also less likely to be deposed (definately for Greece and some European nations as well.)
Cultural: Reduces border expansion from let's say 10 to 9. Your cultural affect region expands more rapidly (I don't know what civ this should be.)
Cosmopolitistic (or something like that): Counterpart of nationalistic. Other nationalities will integrate easier and conquered people are less likely to revolt. This last one should be for America (one big melting pot) in combination with commercial. This one is definately for the Romans as well, so we can replace commercial (it doesn't make sense with the Romans.) Romans were true masters in integrating conquered nations in their empire and make them feel 'Roman'.

If anyone has any alternative ideas for new traits throw it into the groop discussion. (Maybe we should start a new thread.)

[Serb]

Cultural: Reduces border expansion from let's say 10 to 9. Your cultural affect region expands more rapidly (I don't know what civ this should be.)

France.

[Beren]

I have thought of another trait, but I don't know a correct name for it. Something like agricultural or fast-growing: reduced grain ammount needed to let cities grow (Once again, I cannot think of a civ who would be like this)

Someone suggested in a different thread that the Incas should be able to build on mountains. Maybe you could make that a trait as well.

[Apep]

As an outsider (a Kiwi). I would think of America as militaristic (In 300 or so years look how many wars America has been involved in) & expansionist (Goes hand in hand with militaristic really) after all it is known as 'America' even though it's a relativly small portion of the American Continents.

[Apep]

There is also that high-and-mightydom which everyone outside America so despises, could that be a trait? Extreme nationalism perhaps?

[Serb]

Extreme nationalism means nazism btw.

[Beren]

Apep, thank you for your anti-Americanistic intermezzo. You are right, the current American foreign policy is a plague to the world and solely based on America's industry interests. (And I don't just mean the wars. I also mean all the treaties they refuse to acknowledge. But let's end this here and now. I don't feel like starting a 500 reply forum again.... today at least.)

But if you look at the large view of America, I wouldn't call them expansionistic. I think it is meant to refer to the 19th century expansion against the Indians, but I don't see 20th century America has done great things since the Second World War for dekolonisation, which I would consider anti-expansionistic.

[gsmoove23]

England also went through an anti-expansionist period and they certainly haven't expanded much since WWI, but what defines them is empire and I would have to say what partly defines America for me is manifest destiny and the idea of "taming" the frontier.

But expansionism and militarism do not have to go hand in hand. America through most of its existence has actively tried to avoid foreign entanglements and has not been known maintaining a very impressive military. Its main advantage in this area is its ability to outspend opponents and its extremely efficient and strong industrial base.

[Beren]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
England also went through an anti-expansionist period and they certainly haven't expanded much since WWI, but what defines them is empire and I would have to say what partly defines America for me is manifest destiny and the idea of "taming" the frontier.

England anti-expansionist period was much later than America's. Remember the Suez-crisis in 1955. England choose to attack a former colony for their economic advantage. America choose idealism (Ok, honestly: fear that all former colonies would choose for communism did play a part.) and supported Egypt. Anti-expansionism was never so strong as in USA. They saw themselves as a former colony and thought all these colonies in the world all have the same potential as we have. The expansionism in America in the 19th century against the Indians does not really mean much to me. They expanded in a period when all European countries choose to expand their colonies. The territorial gainage in the ninteenth century as a result of expansionism was much higher in France and Brittain (or even Belgium or Germany) than it was in the USA.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
But expansionism and militarism do not have to go hand in hand. America through most of its existence has actively tried to avoid foreign entanglements and has not been known maintaining a very impressive military. Its main advantage in this area is its ability to outspend opponents and its extremely efficient and strong industrial base.

I think militaristic is a different point and I haven't made my mind up about that one. Today America, I think, can be considered militaristic. But that doesn't count for long periods in American history. On the other hand a lot of the American dream is pretty recent (in originated in the last decades of the ninteenth century.)

[gsmoove23]

19th C? It started in the 18th C. One of the issues of the American Rev was the British desire to limit the expansion of the colonies which is part of the reason many native tribes allied with the British and it wasn't only what we did to the natives. Americans also out-expanded the Mexicans, pulling off a nifty little cultural conversion of sorts. When the "Wild West" died in the late 19th century America also tried its hand at colonial ambition with the trophies of the Spanish American War, Phillipines, Cuba, Puerto Rico(still a colony of sorts) and was seriously involved in divying up China. Post-WWII their has been little in the way of expansionism in the traditional sense anywhere, but the Cold War has been a nifty little excuse to bring as much of the world as we can within our sphere of influence, placing military bases all over the world and protecting the interests of our capital investments.

[Athitis]

I think America's traits should be either: Industrous/Militaristic

or:
Commercial?Expansionist

Exp/Scientific would work too. What do u thinl

[Beren]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
19th C? It started in the 18th C. One of the issues of the American Rev was the British desire to limit the expansion of the colonies which is part of the reason many native tribes allied with the British and it wasn't only what we did to the natives. Americans also out-expanded the Mexicans, pulling off a nifty little cultural conversion of sorts. When the "Wild West" died in the late 19th century America also tried its hand at colonial ambition with the trophies of the Spanish American War, Phillipines, Cuba, Puerto Rico(still a colony of sorts) and was seriously involved in divying up China. Post-WWII their has been little in the way of expansionism in the traditional sense anywhere, but the Cold War has been a nifty little excuse to bring as much of the world as we can within our sphere of influence, placing military bases all over the world and protecting the interests of our capital investments.

OK, at the end of the eighteenth and start of the ninteenth century you Americans were pretty expansionist. The example of the colonial ambition doesn't really count, because it was at a time the great European powers had much more expansion/ambition. I think we can say it was just America's modest response.
Since World War II America is a superpower and has to act sometimes, because they wanted to stop communism. But there is no denying America did have an anti-colonial policy. I don't think you should see the military bases as a form of expansionism.
So the only thing that pleads for making America expansionistic is the revolution story.