A new civilization from the bottom of the world.

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

A country because is big, in geographical terms, is not necessarily the most powerful or advanced in a continent.
In the case of the technological development, Brazil has had several advances in the last years, but Mexico, Chile, Uruguay and even the small Costa Rica has shown much more and important technological advances.

Ranskaldan tomorrow I'll post a thread explaining the pros and cons that the Mercosur, the Andean Pact and the AFTA have.

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
btw, can you explain the Andean Pact & Mercosur? How strong/weak/effective/meaningless are these organizations? Also, the concept of "AFTA"?

Ranskaldan, you asked me which are the strengths and weaknesses of the Andean Pact, Mercosur and the AFTA. I'll explain to you each one of them for separate.

Andean Pact: Initially it has been founded by all the countries of South America for where it passes the Andes (to that their name is owed). In a principle their objective was to become the "European Union" of South America, however the hostilities among many of its members (Chile-Argentina, Peru-Ecuador, Colombia-Venezuela) didn't allow that many advances took place. In the beginnings of the decade of the 90, and due to the obtained economic growth, Chile and Argentina decided to retire of the pact. At the moment the pact is very weak and the annual meeting of presidents that is carried out in one of the countries is only a formality. Due to the lack of stability of the nations that compose it and to the lack of the rulers' will, the Andean Pact was never able to reach the first of all its objectives; to create an area of free trade for those countries.
Now, Peru and Venezuela would be trying to transform the Andean Pact and to change the name to "Merconorte" and to carry out similar policies to those that have settled down in the Mercosur.

Mercosur: It was founded in the middle of the 90 by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Their mission was similar to that of the Andean Pact; become an Area of Free Trade for South America and to reach common policies among the states members of the pact, the same as in Europe. The internal stability of the countries that conform the Mercosur and theirs economic development allowed to negotiate, as a block, commercial agreements with Europe and the United States, being the current goal (that their expect to reach before the 2010) an agreement of free trade with Europe and the ratification and setting in march of the AFTA with the United States and Canada.
In 1998 two countries were added as associated members to the Mercosur. Bolivia (that cannot be a full member because it's a member of the Andean Pact and their policies and economic development is to far behind the Mercosur's countries) and Chile (that has not been totally interested to have full power in the Mercosur due to the success of their economic policies, which has allowed Chile go ahead of the countries members after signing an free trade agreement with Europe and other with the United States without considering the AFTA). The above-mentioned provoked frictions between Brazil and Chile. The first one believes that the bilateral agreements that Chile has signed could deteriorate the position to negociate of the rest of the continent. On the other hand, Chile doesn't consider Brazil like an emergent economic power after the recession in which Brazil fell.
The reality of the problems among Chile and Brazil that has delayed the incorporation of Chile to the Mercosur and the signature of the AFTA is, due to the constant growth of the Chilean economy, Brazil feels that their advantage, prevalence and leadership in the continent is affected, plus the recent economic problems that Brazil have due to the Argentinean crisis. On the other hand, Chile has clear aspirations to become the economic power of the continent, considering Brazil as a direct rival to such aspirations.
The problems between both countries can be understood better with a quote of the Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin, before he visit both countries: "I'll go to Chile because it is an island of stability in a dark continent and in spite of the small size of their market it is our stronger business partner in the region. The last year, the commercial exchange beetwen China and Chile was 2 thousand million dollars. And I'll go to Brazil because, although the commercial exchange was only of a Thousand million dollars, it is the biggest market in South America, and we have great expectations of the future of Brazil".

AFTA: Americas' Free Trade Agreement or Americas' Free Trade Area. In 1997, Bill Clinton and Jean Chretien (prime minister of Canada) conceived a plan to enlarge the Agreement of Free Trade of North America or NAFTA (USA, Canada and Mexico) to the rest of the countries of the Americas. The idea is to create an area of free trade that embraces all the countries from Canada to Chile, with the exception of Cuba.
The deadline for the beginning of the conversations is 2005. However the countries members of the Mercosur want to hurry the start of the negociations, 'cause they believe that the signature and application of the agreement could be signed in 2010, or perhaps later, that which would be disastrous for the economy of Brazil and Argentina.
Due to the attacks of September 11, Bush left aside the latin american isue and it didn't exist many expectations that the conversations can be restarted soon, but due to the agreement signed, a couple of weeks ago between Chile and the US, the doors of the beginning of the conversations have been opened up again, that which is ratified by the words of Bush that is considering the AFTA as a goal that his government should achieve.
The AFTA would have excellent repercussions in the economy of the Americas, however the biggest problem in its implementation is that the countries fewer developed of the area should modernize their legislations, improve effective economic policies and eliminate the corruption in a really short period of time.


again..excuse my orthographic and grammatical mistakes.

[AFH]

Why not a Venezuelan Civilization ? If you look the history, ( Not present-day venezuela, of course) you will see great things. Simon Bolivar, a venezuelan, is the Padre de la Patria ( Father of the Country) of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia y Peru. If we use a UU like a Libertador (Liberator). The 19th Century Venezuela will be a great Civilization. Maybe (And don't take this wrong) Venezuela is the Latin American Nation wit more chance to go in Civ4.

[Wernazuma III]

Oh, isn't South American nationalism just cute?

[ranskaldan]

Chilean President:


nice nice. thanks!

[AFH]

One day we will be powerful enough, and firaxis will have to put us in Civilization.

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Oh, isn't South American nationalism just cute?

Well AFH, sure Bolivar was a great leader from Venezuela.. or I should say, from Gran Colombia (I believe that was the name of Colombia and Venezuela in the first half of the 19th century), but I don't believe that a nation is a great one due to only one guy. I think that a nation, empire or civilization, must have on their background an history of development or something like that and not follow only great warlords.

At this point I believe that no South American nation has achieved the right to be on CIV4... of course a few of them are on the right path, but we should see what the future say.

[Barfus]

i for one say why not. i really want to overhaul all the civilizations. some shouldnt be in there

[Beren]

Why don't you pick Peru and make Cuzco their capital. And you know what. Let's rename them to Incas.

Ok, Ok, A Latin American civ could be used in a scenario about how the decolonised states were developing in the ninteenth century. Ok, USA won that one.

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

Yeah it should be an American (as te continent not the country) Independent War Scenario. But we should see what UU are better for each country... in those years the army of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay were from the same size and types of units. Peru and Gran Colombia were also similar.

Other countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador (I think) did not exist has independent countries in the early 19th century.

[Bonaparte]

The heck with South America you all know that the most influential civilization that's ever existed belongs to the people of Luxembourg!!!

OK...I'll shut up now

[Beren]

What I was more thinking about was an industrial race between the decolonized countries of America. (Which I think we can all agree on that one the USA won..)

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

I agree Beren, America did won the industrial race, but not in the early XIX century, but in the final years. The victory over Spain in 1898 (I believe that's the right year), transform the USA in a developed nation.

Thats why the scenario must have the first independent countries; USA (1776), Chile (1810), Mexico (1816), etc... and each one the strenght of that historical moment, the "birth of a nation" scenario with the internal (political unrest) and external (Spain / Britain) menaces.

[Az]

The victory over Spain in 1898 (I believe that's the right year), transform the USA in a developed nation.

you've got it wrong. USA won the war because it was a developed nation. (unlike spain)

[Chilean Presidentâ„¢]

Ok. USA already was a developed nation, but wasn't a world power yet. After the victory over Spain they become a important piece of the international board. Spain was a developed nation at that moment, but after the war with so many countries in South America, they didn't have the strenght to fight a war against a consolided new nation. We must remember that the "American Squad" that the Spanish had in South America was destroyed in Peru, Argentina, Chile and Gran Colombia, by the forces of San Martin and Bolivar. And the Spanish naval fleet was destroyed first in 1818 and later in 1860 by the Chilean Naval Fleet, under the command of the great Lord Cochrane (1818-1819) and the command of the admirals Blanco Encalada and Juan Muller in the Chilean-Spanish war of the 1860.