The difference between Athens and Sparta

[Your.Master]

Whoa! History has changed!

Sparta was a dictatorship? Funny. Yesterday Sparta was an Oligarchy.

No offense to the perpetrator of this heinous crime against history, most people don't even know what Sparta was, except that maybe, just maybe, it might have been Spartan

But his point stands. Athens was a democracy. It wasn't originally military, until the confederacy of...was it Delos? Just pretend it was, anyway...the league of Delos was formed to protect Greece from Persia. Some city-states decided to withdraw from the federation which Athens, lead member, was abusing, and they were promptly conquered. Their dues became tribute at that time. Athens went military, specifically in the naval sense, despite some who were outspokenly against it.

Sparta was an Oligarchy, which means "rule of the few" as opposed to democracy which is "rule of many". Oligarchy is basically a toned-down democracy where only a select few vote on all the decisions. Not surprisingly, this happened to be the Spartan upper class (the warrior class - in this way Sparta was under military rule). Still, oligarchy is considerably more civilized than many dictatorships (they had a slave class for a long time, which is bad, but they were freed by the government's grace).

Sparta was definitely military, and headed a Peloponnesian league.

Athens and Sparta bumped heads, but the reality of the whole thing is that Athens military spike was just that - a spike. Before and after that, Athens was predominately a scientific and cultural community.

Still, it shows how quickly a nation can change attitudes, and therefore I say that culture is culture (in game terms), not a bunch of sub-cultures.

[CygnusZ]

Well, aside from the historical view of your subject matter, I do have a few ideas about your game concepts...

Your game ideas sound like they build upon the concepts that were started in Alpha Centauri. While its true that culture expressed in the cumulative manner you suggested would provide more direction I find myself sort of disagreeing that any one civlization is bound as tightly to single ideologies as your suggest.

It seems to me that it is more realistic that a country should be able to shift from being a primiarly miltary based civilization to a consumer or science based civilization in a mere matter of turns. Remember how quickly the United States jumped from consumer science to commerical/science to consumer/science in a manner of 5 years during WW2.

So, I'm saying that the ideology of a civilzation should have more basis in its internal social factors rather than upon the external influence that the culture has ressonated. It should be forgotten at no time that civilizations are made of men and not materials. A revolution should represent exactly that, a radical change in the mindset of those whom are running the civilization. In doing so the felxibility of the game would increase giving room for the more realistic (and fun) world situation where the civilization would have to adapt to the situations that the world presents it with.

Bottom Line: Internal Factors should determine Culture, not external ones.

[Mars]

just because athens developed a gigantic and powerful navy doesn't mean that it got ride of science and aristry. It actually flourished during this time. Athens spread its empire to colonies and became extremely wealthy through trade. During the polpenisan wars (spelled wrong, i know) Athens refused to engage spartas well trained hoplite army in battle resulting in the long drawn out war it was. Instead of being a quick hoplite battle the spartans would come to athens sit outside the walls for a couple of weeks and then be forced to return to their farms, because athens built a wall all around them and had their navy defend the port where they were getting food. The war wasn't over until the spartans (bankrolled by the persian) built a navy as well and beat the athens navy in combat.
To get to the point of all this Athens still retained all of its poets and philosphers even though they built up their Navy.
Also Sparta started out as the lead member of the persian wars until the athiean navy tricked the persians into going through the narrow strait of Salimas(i believe that's what it was called) and many a crushing blow to the Persians did the Athieans start to lead the unity of greece against persia.

[Mars]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
Well, aside from the historical view of your subject matter, I do have a few ideas about your game concepts...

Your game ideas sound like they build upon the concepts that were started in Alpha Centauri. While its true that culture expressed in the cumulative manner you suggested would provide more direction I find myself sort of disagreeing that any one civlization is bound as tightly to single ideologies as your suggest.

It seems to me that it is more realistic that a country should be able to shift from being a primiarly miltary based civilization to a consumer or science based civilization in a mere matter of turns. Remember how quickly the United States jumped from consumer science to commerical/science to consumer/science in a manner of 5 years during WW2.

So, I'm saying that the ideology of a civilzation should have more basis in its internal social factors rather than upon the external influence that the culture has ressonated. It should be forgotten at no time that civilizations are made of men and not materials. A revolution should represent exactly that, a radical change in the mindset of those whom are running the civilization. In doing so the felxibility of the game would increase giving room for the more realistic (and fun) world situation where the civilization would have to adapt to the situations that the world presents it with.

Bottom Line: Internal Factors should determine Culture, not external ones.

I do agree but i think thats what lorizeal is saying as well, if your society does this your societies culture will change to this

[Zopperoni]

Funny sidenote: the brand of my bike is Sparta and the modelname is Athena...

[CygnusZ]

That's another interesting point... Athen's wasn't exactly developing military science that would have helped them in the war (remember Alexander the Great's phalanx formation? That must have been the only great innovation). Instead the Athenian developed philosphy and art. Which meant the war became seperate from the progress the Athenian's made.

So, I guess if we were to depict Athenian culture we would say that they gain a bonus to scientific development which is not associated with military capacity or that they can develop science at a hightened level but cannot build military units for that technology until another civilization shows them how to apply that technology?

Still then, that leaves Sparta high and dry. I'm tempted to say that they were in all ways an inferior civilization (Ethnocentric me) that just happened to possess military might that was equivical to the Athenian empire? Maybe in terms of game play we might say that the Spartan's can produce 1.5 Units per 1 that Athen's could produce? But that still is contradictary because the Athenian's are militarily based too. Athenian developed both humanties and military yet Sparta only invest in military. Perhaps Spartan's should be given a higher strategic planning in war bonus so that they are slightly more likely to win a battle than the Athenians? Sparta wins the war of course and it is mostly due to stratedgy....

So, Spartan's gain an advantage to tactics and Athenian's gain increased speed of gaining Humanities? I disagree with this model of game-playing but if we were going to use a static cultural basis this might be a good tradeoff?

[CygnusZ]

Originally posted by Mars


I do agree but i think thats what lorizeal is saying as well, if your society does this your societies culture will change to this

Lorizeal links culture to physical establishments whereas I'm saying all that is in the mind of the beholder. To me,the concept of a revolution changing the entire outlook of a nation regardless of previous physical development make sense. Although it would be on my wish-list to have something like a period of "Enlightenment" or "Great Awakening" shape the mind of the people (IE. They might trigger the revolution for you

[Akron]

Actually, I remember hearing this idea about shaping your traits with a point system of this sort a few weeks ago. Interesting, though difficult to implement.

Originally posted by Lorizael
I've also felt that religion should have a bigger role in Civ. What does everyone else think?

I think that culture portrays religion well enough already. There was a thread on putting religion in civ not too long ago, but we concluded that it was probably a bad idea.

[Lorizael]

I don't want that much control of your civilization, Cygnusz. If you want good stategy do it yourself. But I think within the confines of the six traits present, Sparta would have been more militaristic, and Athens more Scientific.

Here's the thing, enlightenment and revolution always comes from something. Usually becuase things are bad the way they are. In Civ terms, if your civ is not doing well, you might gear it in another direction, and by doing this change it's culture and society.

And what the US did during WWII was not change it's culture the way I am thinking. Instead, it used the neat little trick in Civ 3 of activating a War Economy, the enemy being Germany and Japan.

[Bostic]

your.master: It was called the Delian League. Just had to correct you.

[CygnusZ]

Yes, but I'm just pointing out that the actual difference between their cultures is that both are equally militaristic but the Spartan's have a slight edge in military organization. This doesn't reflect well in a fictional game... although I guess we could say that a Spartan 1-1-1 unit that goes up against an Athenian 1-1-1 unit should win 60% of the time due to greater strategic prowess.

Revolution is not controlled by the ruler, which is why I thought it would be neat if Revolution was caused by social facotrs (but it *IS* just a game). Philosophy has a tenedency to sprout up in societies which are doing quite well.

All of which is off the point anyway The main point was just that I thought that cultural development shouldn't be something which sprouts up "over time", but the nature of revolution was to cause radical change in the mindsets of men over short periods of time. In a way, it's like agreeing with the current model where if you have a revolution, the next government has completely changed the face of the nation.

[Mars]

All of which is off the point anyway The main point was just that I thought that cultural development shouldn't be something which sprouts up "over time", but the nature of revolution was to cause radical change in the mindsets of men over short periods of time. In a way, it's like agreeing with the current model where if you have a revolution, the next government has completely changed the face of the nation.

to manage that with Lori's system you could make it so that every time you conquer another civ, change government, or lose like 1/3 of your empire, culture changes are ampliflied.

[Lorizael]

I don't think having them win more often is a good way to do it. At least in Civ II it would be represented by the fact that Sparta would have a barracks (which they had many of) and Athens would not. This way Spartan units would start out as veteran and have an advantage. I'm betting Barracks will have a similar effect in Civ III.

And in my cultural system the Spartans would be Militaristic at least in part because... they had those Barracks. And it is true that the Spartans cutlure could be seen in the fact that their city was covered with military bases.

I do like the idea of revolutions being caused by unhappy citizens within a civilization, but I think that would be difficult to program. The question is, what factors exactly would cause a revolution, and what would be the result of this revolution (in game terms)? And as always, this takes a little control out of the hands of the player, which many (including me to some extent) do not wish to do.

Changes in cutlure though, still happen as a result of decisions made by government over a long period of time. I don't see why both of our ideas could not be implemented.