Thoughts on the replacement of Fundamentalism with Nationalism

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Why are Communism and Nationalism 'bad'?
Because in Civ games, Communism is the USSR/China. Those are the only types of Communist government to exist on Earth.

There are and have been quite a few more, but it doesn't answer the question.

Nationalism seems like Fascism.

It does a little in Civ3 from the tech tree and some speculation in this thread, but in the real world they are rather unrelated ideologies (Nationalism would be an early prereq for Fascism, but with much in between). I guess we won't know until the game is released (Dan?).

So both seem 'bad'. But does it really matter?

That's for Ralf to say as he brought it up .

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Ribannah
That's for Ralf to say as he brought it up .

Oh God, yet another historic relativity-debate? With civers who just cannot see the forest because of this or that tree standing in the way?

No thanks!

[monkspider]

Ralf was obviously making an over-generalization in saying that Communism/Fundamentalism are the "bad guys" and Demo/Rep the "good guys". Calling them the most war-prone is slightly more apropriate, though still not all encompassing. A good civ player may prefer Communism for it's production bonuses, while still being a relatively peaceful, science-driven country, using "We love the comrade days" to keep up pace with foreign Demos/Reps.
In real life however, there truly are no "good" or "bad" guys in the world. There have been without question, HIGHLY intellectual Soviet/Chinese thinkers who consider the United States to be the bad guy in the world scene. While this may be unthinkable to most citazens born and raised in the United States, these foriegn opinions are certainly valid and no better or worse than our own.

On topic though, I am simply hoping this whole "nationalism" thing turns out to be some joke by the game's programmers, akin to calling Julius Caesar "Brother Bluto".

[genghisvick]

Nationalism is going to represent the govenments Germany, Japan, & Italy before & during World War II.

[N35t0r]

If you read the civilopedia, it mentions that communism is such and such way, but that in real life it is not much so due to corruption; so i understand that civ is actually mixing both the utopic view of communism with what it was IRL to base their govt. type.

[Ilkuul]

I say BOOO to Nationalism and all these theoretical arguments. Give me good ol' Civ2 Fundy any day!

[Soren Johnson]

I'm not sure where all this started, but Nationalism is NOT a form of government in Civ III. Nationalism is a Tech which allows you to draft citizens and switch to a war-time economy.

Hope this clears things up...

[monkspider]

Wow, that certainly does. Thanks a lot Soren!
Just remember, you heard it here first folks. An offical declaration from Firaxis stating that Nationalism is *NOT* a type of government in Civ 3

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis
I'm not sure where all this started, but Nationalism is NOT a form of government in Civ III. Nationalism is a Tech which allows you to draft citizens and switch to a war-time economy.

Hope this clears things up...

Whoa! This IS news. So what replaces Fundamentalism? Theocracy? Or is it only 5 Gov-typers in Civ-3? Pleace answer this, because it would clear things up even further.

[korn469]

hehe where is UberKrux? i'm sure tech wins for one might want to share this piece of information with him

Ralf,

from the screen shots it looks like there will only be five forms of government

despotism is the default

then monarchy, republic, democracy, and communism are all techs on the tech chart (enabling those forms of government)

besides theology, there is nothing that theocracy could fit under, and fundamentalism isn't a tech in civ3

almost makes you wish they had SE doesn't it

EDIT:

Soren the Nationalism replaces Fundy rumor came from the pc.ign May, 25th preview

The solution to this lies in the game's new government, Nationalism. Available later in the game, Nationalism is analogous to the ideology of early nineteenth century Europe. Think Napoleon here. To switch to Nationalism your culture rating must be quite high.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by korn469
almost makes you wish they had SE doesn't it

No, I can assure you - I would never go that far.

But I wouldnt cry either, if they added some few weighted Sim City-style ordinance-options to each Gov-type. But some of these tweaks can already be done by allocating specialists.

[BlackStone]

I liked the Fund-da-mental option but i think that both it and nationalism are abstract concepts. I don`t believe that there are or have ever been and fundy govs in the world. It is a term angled at certain religious groups throughout the world as a stigma based label to imply backward ideas and the justification of anything. As somebody posted earlier a true fundy gov would represent the virtues of whatever faith it followed, the govs and groups associated with it today could be more accurately described in terms of facist gov label.

[d_dudy]

that's the impression i've always had of nationalism.

i said that in some earlier thread, i'll try to find it.

if anyone remembers me posting that, let me know.

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by BlackStone
I don`t believe that there are or have ever been and fundy govs in the world.

Afghanistan? Iran? The US in 10 years?

But I do agree with you that fundamentalism is not a form of government. Fundamentalism is, if anything, a characteristic of a government, i.e. Afghanistan believes deeply in the Qur'an but that doesn't say how the government should be structured, but it is more often used as a quality of certain close-minded individuals and groups. It (as well as Nationalism) are not governments in themselves but qualities governments can have.

As for the other governments, Democracy should be discovered in ancient times, i.e. the ancient Greeks, and be structured like their government. Republic might represent the modern republics rather than the Roman republic just for the sake of introducing a form of government similar to many, many countries' today, to be introduced at the end of the Middle Ages or the beginning of the Industrial Period (the French Revolution). Communism should be discovered at the beginning of the Modern Period (the time of Lenin) and should represent a Soviet-esque government because true Communism (Marxism, not Leninism-Stalinism) would be WAY too efficient and beneficial for balanced gameplay . Despotism is good as the default/ancient government.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by BlackStone
I liked the Fund-da-mental option but i think that both it and nationalism are abstract concepts. I don`t believe that there are or have ever been any fundy govs in the world.

Both is true for Democracy as well.