Technologically Backwards Civs

[ancient]

no i dont agree..
with an example of america; america is a nation of english people (mainly) who whiped out the natives not natives who were colonized and eventually became great.
The nations that are in lower technologically are not so because they are on their continent but because of varying features including isolation, the enviroment they live in and others.
And if your refuring to europe as the technologically advanced continent its not.. china was way more technologically advanced than europe for many years and so were the mayans....


I think that different continents should have an advantage in certain fields at certain times.. so like maybe for 500 the americas (an example could be any area seperated by water) have an advantage in purely scientific fields while asia could have an advantage in militaristic sciences and europe in domestic sciences..

[JMarks]

Originally posted by ancient
I think that different continents should have an advantage in certain fields at certain times.. so like maybe for 500 the americas (an example could be any area seperated by water) have an advantage in purely scientific fields while asia could have an advantage in militaristic sciences and europe in domestic sciences..

No no no. This gets into the same trap as polypheus, only more complicated. Both ideas get away from the generalization and abstraction that is civ. such ideas can be made into scenarios if wanted but, the rise and fall of civs technilogicly should remain more or less as is. It should be dependant on research and trade. The exchange of ideas is very important to tech. Europe wouldn't have gotten into its groove if it weren't for China. Enough said. At most mabey give research bonuses for trade with other cultures, or possibly limit research if you don't have at least two other cultures' in trade (or trade with someone who has contact with, etc). This would give the desired effect, but is probably not needed.

Ioanes

[Lung]

If you want Civ3 to play out like the history of the world, make a scenario! The suggestion to enforce certain things on certain civs or regions is ridiculous, as it only serves to reduce gameplay. No gameplay, no game .

One thing that occured to me after playing Civ2 for a while, was that civs developed according to their environment, just like in the real world! What becomes apparent to you when you learn enough about human history is that we are all inherently the same, and perceived superiority over other people and countries is an illusion. "Superiority" in any sense, is only temporary, meaning that you are merely fortunate to be born in the right place at the right time. In any case, any advantage a civilisation has over others is always lost if they don't continue to improve - just like in Civ2

In other words, the most realistic setup for Civ3 is the way they already intend it to be, not by any false "tilting of the playing field", as proposed by Polypheus.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

grrr...

Be careful how you formulate your ideas. To say that Indians and Africans were conquered because they were backward belies your ignorance. TechWins makes an excellent point - no amount of technology will help you when 3 of every 4 of your people die to a new disease. Whites only managed to even survive in the americas because the Indians kept them alive, showed them how to feed themselves in an alien environment, and were hospitable to strangers. In return, they were backstabbed endlessly and massacred. They were inferior to whites militarily, but were more advanced in other facets of knowledge - agricultural, mathematics, medicine. The white way destroyed the land - the Indian way of balance with nature couldn't keep up with the desecration, and they were unseated.

Africans were also victims of inferior military technology, but you would be very hard pressed to convince anybody that superiority of europeans extended beyond the guns they carried. Africans were also bullied into succumbing to the rule of the invaders.

Learn more about this age of "discovery." Colonization was a cruel process that benefitted only the colonizer at GREAT expense to the victims. The europeans and their decendants were cruel, arrogant, and short-sighted, and won because they were better armed. NOT because they were technologically superior in a more rounded sense.

(Edited to tone down the vehemence a bit...)

[Marquis de Sodaq]

(okay, now I'm decompressed...)

Besides, for gameplay, what you describe is either scenario material, or reason to improve your play. You want to bash inferior civs? Improve your game so that you lead enough to do so. Don't build it into the game, because the AI will need all the help it can get. Setting some civs to a disadvantage will spoil the potential challenge.

[Grumbold]

The key is trade and all the shared knowledge that goes with it. Any area of the world that was able to hold itself together for any length of time experienced great growth in wealth, culture and scientific achievement, even if fighting minor wars in the process. Often these gains were completely lost when revolt or invasion swept everything into anarchy but Civ cannot represent that properly. However it does allege to deliver great benefits to a continent that can get trading and stay out of wars for a time, which has to be the next best thing.

[KrazyHorse]

Re: grrr...

Marquis de Sodaq, I was going to use quotes, but I realized that I would have had to quote your entire post. It is true to say that if the Native Americans had not been so divided and had been initially more hostile, the story in North America might have been slightly different. The early attempts at European colonization were not backed up very well, and would have been easily dislodged. Later attempts could not have been so trivially dealt with, as the European technology advantage was growing yearly. Regard New Zealand. Whites were attacked whenever they showed their faces there, but by the middle of the nineteenth century, Europeans controlled more than half of the island, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, the Maoris were simply a disadvantaged minority group living in a white colony. In the nineteenth century, there were largescale "Indian Wars" in the American West, which were unwinnable on the native side. The simple density of population made possible by your "white way" allowed the whites to sustain an industrial production orders of magnitude larger than the natives. I have no clue where you got the idea that Native Americans were somehow more advanced in mathematics, agriculture, or medicine at any time after 1000 A.D. Native agriculture was either nonexistent (in the case of the nomads), practiced at the level of slash-and-burn horticulture (by the sedentary native North Americans), or pacticed with basic irrigation skills by the true "civilizations" (the word comes from that for "cities", after all) of Central America. Mathematics? In the mid-seventeenth century Europe had discovered calculus. Medicine? What was the average life expectancy of natives? What was that of Europeans at the time? The answers are around 30 and 45 respectively. Finally, don't presume to state that Europeans are somehow "crueller" than Native Americans. Men are what their circumstances make them, and if the Native Americans had had the chance to plunder Europe, they would have done it as swiftly as the Europeans plundered their continent. If you want to continue this discussion, why don't we move to the Off-Topic forum?

[JMarks]

Re: grrr...

Originally posted by Marquis de Sodaq
Be careful how you formulate your ideas. To say that Indians and Africans were conquered because they were backward belies your ignorance. TechWins makes an excellent point - no amount of technology will help you when 3 of every 4 of your people die to a new disease. Whites only managed to even survive in the americas because the Indians kept them alive, showed them how to feed themselves in an alien environment, and were hospitable to strangers. In return, they were backstabbed endlessly and massacred. They were inferior to whites militarily, but were more advanced in other facets of knowledge - agricultural, mathematics, medicine. The white way destroyed the land - the Indian way of balance with nature couldn't keep up with the desecration, and they were unseated.

Africans were also victims of inferior military technology, but you would be very hard pressed to convince anybody that superiority of europeans extended beyond the guns they carried. Africans were also bullied into succumbing to the rule of the invaders.

Learn more about this age of "discovery." Colonization was a cruel process that benefitted only the colonizer at GREAT expense to the victims. The europeans and their decendants were cruel, arrogant, and short-sighted, and won because they were better armed. NOT because they were technologically superior in a more rounded sense.

(Edited to tone down the vehemence a bit...)

Please, let us be careful that we don't fall into another pitfall here. Native bashing is bad, but hey, even inavader bashing is bad. Any power hungry leader can use general ignorance (particularly ignorance of faith) to get 'right' on ones side. And to generalize all Europeans that way, while making the natives 'peaceful' and 'enlightened' humans, only inferior in weapons, is to invite uncalled for biased. The natives were just as corruptable as Europeans, because they were both humans. Power does NOT corrupt. Power reveals corruption.

While a few of the natives, particularly in Mexico, might have at one time been particularly ept at Mathematics, I don't know if it is true that the inhabitants of that region at the time of European conquest were any better than the invaders. Take the Pueblo. Their ancesters knew tons of stuff about the stars and sun and built whole towns based on astronomical alignments and what not. But by the time the Europeans came along, the people themselves knew little or nothing. Technology doesn't just advance, it regressess too! Unfortunatly Civ is to evolutionary to do this at all! Every race that can be thought of has at one time or another, thought themselves superior to all other races based on ignorance to the fact that we are all one blood. The Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Native Amercians (I hate that term because it somehow infers that I don't belong here, even though I am a native to America), the Arabs, etc, etc, etc, even among themselves!

So to conclude, leave the playing field level. This makes for a much more interesting game. If it is tilted, then it will always fall in a predictable way!

Ioanes

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Okay, I knew I'd get hit for the rant. That's fine. Stuff like this gets me riled up.

Krazyhorse, the Indians of the americas were many civs - saying that they were advanced in several areas, I didn't mean to imply that all tribes were such. That was not the case. A blanket reply to a blanket statement that all were backward.

Regarding the tide of whites who came here, you are correct that the overwhelming of the Indians may have been inevitable. But up until well into the 17th century, that was not the case. After that period, yes, the europeans made great leaps ahead of the rest of the world in many fields, and their sheer numbers would have won out even without these advantages.

Indian agriculture was actually very well developed in terms of productivity, which is why it came to mind in my rant. The slash-and-burn was not always so, but the eastern woodlands Indians of north america, the central american peoples, and the northers south american peoples had (some still have) farming methods even more productive than western ag methods until the advent of massive chemical use. More varied crops, more nutrition, more calories produced per acre. Incan ag was fairly advanced, as well. You are right that europeans were on par. My point was that the Indians were not "backward."

Mayan mathematic accomplishments are well documented, and calendrical systems throughout the hemisphere also relied on higher math. Europeans surpassed this, but again, as time went on.

Indian medicines practices of south and central america have almost been wiped out, but fortunately for you and everybody else here, they have persisted. Countless modern commercial medicines originated there. Most have been isolated by whites only after the Indians showed them what plants to use for what conditions. Searches without the aid of knowledgable locals have proven amazingly difficult and often fruitless effort.

No, cruelty is not a quality unique to any people, you are correct. What was carried out historically earns this word, not the potential any people might have for it.

JMarks, you are correct that real civs advance and decline with time. Many anecdotes could be brought up of people amazed by what their ancestors accomplished, but who have absolutely no concept of how they did it. Same people, same place, but times had changed, knowledge was lost. BTW, Indians (in the US, anyway) usually prefer "Indians" to "Native Americans." (Okay, another generality, let it slide...)

[KrazyHorse]

The only reason I try not to use the word "Indian" is that it promotes confusion in communication. "Native American" is an artificial term, no doubt, but at least it's fairly precise. On a slightly different note, I hope that the North American civilization ends up being the Iroquois, with a capital of Oka. Go Montreal! After all, the Sioux got the first two civilizations to themselves.

[Your.Master]

Your.Master, I don't think the lack of time really mattered.



Don't try to get this meaning out of my statement. I had no intention or showing of me believing Natives as being this way.

It did matter b/c civs start late in civ II too.