If real life were Civ3, who'd have the highest end score?

[notyoueither]

When I asked I guess I was assuming increased borders, more happy people, etc. ie things that increase score. OK. Let me rephrase the question.

Would the China voters count Taiwan's population and land area as part of China's score?

Salve

[nato]

I'm a China backer, so I'll answer, for myself at least...

Well for most of history Taiwan was insignificant. It was kind of a backwater wild area, then it was a base for Japanese pirates. It only became significant after the GMD took it over. Since the GMD was definitely a different political entity than the CCP, I would say it was a seperate civ (civ in the Civ3 sense) from China. If Taiwan does eventually join the PRC, I think that would be another rare perfect example of a culture flip.

So I would say no, Taiwan is not part of the Chinese civ (in Civ3 sense), but it is composed of the same ethnic population units and is high potential for culture flipping.

[nato]

My feelings on some of the US topics ...

The US is supposedly much more religious than say Europe. However we are not religious at all compared to say some Muslim nations.

For instance, in the US religion is a once a week affair. In a Muslim nation, its a 5 times a day affair. Thats 35 to 1! (Yeah praying isn't exactly equal to church, but you get the idea.)

So I would say the US is religious compared to other Western nations, but the West is so unreligious compared to non-Western nations that the US still isn't super religious, considering everyone.

Universities have taken PC too far. It was very thick during orientation I remember, and every sociology class I took was swamped in it. It has reached the level of dogma, where anyone who thinks different is not allowed.

However I have never encountered the things Thrawn05 lists. On the contrary Christianity was pushed at me pretty hard by some vocal people, and a Christian prayer was part of an orientation ceremony.

IMHO, PC went too far, made people sick of liberalism, and now Christianity and conservatism is on the rise. When conservatism inevitably goes too far, people will get sick of it and liberalism will be back in. Just how I see it!

I just realized how OT this is, so I'll stop here. If we want to discuss this more maybe we should start a thread in OT.

Anyway the US does have a high culture. Culture = culture generating buildings. We have plenty of temples/cathedrals, lots of libraries, and the best universities in the world (lousy schools, but the best universities). We also have a couple of Wonders. So culture is high.

The whole obvious problem with the US is only being around for 200 years. When you look at it in terms of turns instead of years its not so bad, but its still not very long. Even with our decent population and high culture, its not enough turns. On a top 10 list we would probably be like 6 or something maybe.

All right enough from me. Thanks for reading.

[notyoueither]

Book 4: Fusion; The Frankish and Lombard Kingdoms

Following their settlement in Italy the Lombards established their kingdom along firmly German lines. Roman citizens lost their rights and Roman administration was abolished. By the early 7th century the Lombards had made peace with the Eastern Empire and were able to develop their new kingdom. The initial Lombard efforts to eliminate all things Roman were not successful in the long term. They almost immediately adopted Latin for written language. By the mid 7th century they had mainly converted to Christianity.

The Lombard kingdom itself was interrupted. In 774 Charlemagne conquered the kingdom and added it to his Frankish possessions. The Lombards remained part of the Empire of the Franks until 891 when the Lombard Wido, Duke of Spoleto managed to force the pope to proclaim him Emperor. The extent of his empire was not great, in fact being limited to Italy. However, the significant fact is that by the late 9th century, the Lombards had been thoroughly Romanised. They had become Italian and identified themselves with the Empire.

Charlemagne is perhaps the most famous of the Franks. His accomplishments are important to us, however to begin with the Franks were not an impressive lot. By 250 CE the Franks inhabited the Eastern side of the Rhine in what are now the Low Countries. By 360 they had moved into the Empire as clients and were settled in Belgium.

The power and territory of the Franks grew steadily until 486 when, under Clovis the Frankish Kingdom conquered the Roman Kingdom of Syagrius. At this point the Franks controlled most of Northern France. Clovis continued this expansion while in 496 he converted to Christianity. In addition to a large Frankish kingdom, the result of the reign of Clovis and his successors was an blended kingdom of Roman and Frank. In other words, the Franks too were being Romanised.

The Frankish Kingdom continued to grow. However, it was hampered by divisions between sons at the passing of a ruler. Periodically, the parts would be reassembled only to be split again with the passing of the capable ruler.

Despite the turmoil, the Franks became the largest power in the West. In 750 pope Stephen II appointed the Frankish ruler Pepin as *Patricus Romanorum* (Protector of the Romans). By 768, the stage had been set. The Franks had been thoroughly Romanised. The grip of the Eastern Empire on possessions in Northern Italy had been seriously weakened. The Lombard kings were threatening the power of the pope in Rome once again.

[Captain]

Okay, we seem to have some pretty good arguments here but some folk seem to be missing the point. And I hate to say it, but certain others just seem to have no clue. I'm being a pompous jerk by saying so but certain posts just peeved me off. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and far be it from me to try to stifle anyone's voice.

In no way do I mean to say that certain civs are insignificant or that they have not contributed in large ways to our society, but we are not remotely talking about the same scale of score as China, India, GB. Since new developments have come to surface and we are getting sidetracked, let's recap from the beginning.

---

The question is, if IRL was civ 3, who'd have the highest end score. The question is not which civ do you like best. Add that on afterwards, but admit the victor. And denying the existence of other civ's during the Roman heyday is ignorant. Let's have no more of that.

Score.
None of the victory conditions of Civ 3 are met by ANY existing Civs. Space is out. Conquest is out. Domination is out. Claiming 2x culture won't be agreed on. 20000 points in a city means what IRL? Thus we are left with a score of retirement now. Predicting the future is notoriously inaccurate and the more time we project, the less accurate we get. Consider some of the commonly held yet outlandish beliefs people held about the year 2000 only 50 years ago. So because the future is unknown, it is poor practice to consider what "might" happen. That leave score from the inception date of the Civ to the current date. (Please propose an alternate method with support, if you disagree.)

As Aeson points out, territory does not count for as much as population does. Unhappy is 0, content is 1, specialist is 1, happy is 2. On the scale of population we are examining, territory score is rather negligible. See Aeson's first post for concrete numbers. I'll assume you've read it.

I will go through an analysis for each of the following.

We must use the SAME definitions and rules for each. No special treatment. I have already done an analysis for the Civs as though the Chinese and Indians were a "continuous" civ. If as NYE contends Rome is still alive and kicking, then they would be a contender there. I maintain that treating China and India as continuous is more robust than treating Rome as continuous. Thus if China and India are "broken" into eras, then Rome cannot consider its score unbroken either. I hope we can agree on that.

This leaves us with a larger choice and a tougher one. The most likely contenders, in no order, are:

Ancient China
Modern China
Modern China + Taiwan
Ancient India
Modern India
UK + colonies
UK + colonies + British Empire (India)
Western Rome
Byzantine Rome
United States
Russia (just for good measure)

First, we must establish the number of turns that elapsed. Modern era years count for more than ancient ones, thus the newer Civs, such as the USA may be stronger than previously thought (still can't believe it's got as many votes as it does).

According to this:
4000BC - 2750BC 25 turns, 50 years each
2710BC - 1750BC 25 turns, 40 years each
1725BC - 750BC 40 turns, 25 years each
730BC - 250AD 50 turns, 20 years each
260AD - 1250AD 100 turns, 10 years each
1255AD - 1750AD 100 turns, 5 years each
1752AD - 1950AD 100 turns, 2 years each
1951AD - 2002AD 51 turns, 1 year each

Then we can translate dates into approximate years. I will be generous as equally as I can.

Ancient China 4000 BC - 1279 AD, 25 + 25 + 40 + 50 + 100 +5 = 245 turns
Modern China 1368 AD - 2002 AD, 51 + 100 + 76 = 227 turns
Modern China + Taiwan 1368 AD - 2002 AD, 227 turns
Ancient India 5000 BC - 1526 AD, 25 + 25 + 40 + 50 + 100 + 54 = 294 turns
Modern India 1947 AD - 2002 AD, 53 turns

UK + colonies 1066 - 2002 AD, 51 + 100 + 100 + 18 = 272 turns
British Empire (India only) BE 1827 - 1947 AD, 60 turns
This is a lot tougher. Either Norman Invasion of 1066, or Magna Carta of 1215. I can't see any earlier date being representative of England's inception as a civilization in the same sense that we use for Rome or China. What do you suggest? I used the earlier dates for all.

Western Rome 753 BC - 476 AD, 50 + 23 = 73 turns
Byzantine Rome 753 BC or 284AD - 1453 AD, 50 + 100 + 40 = 190 turns
United States 1776 - 2002 AD, 87+51 = 138 turns
Russia 860 AD or 1689 AD - 2002 AD, 51+100+12=163 turns OR 51+100+100+39 = 290 turns

It can be generally agreed upon that modern day people are "happier" or "more content" than ancient era people. We have a much superior standard of living and arguably a better quality of living too. Better food, hot showers, better housing, fun sports, electronics, the internet, more churches & temples & mosques than ever, etc... in Civ 3 terms, we'd be considered "happy". And certain democratic civs that didn't exist before this era, we mostly feel secure walking the streets, owning property and businesses, we have civil rights (ok, not all of us), representative government, employment insurance, social welfare benefits. In plainest terms, we don't struggle for existence, we struggle for better living (I know it doesn't seem like it sometimes). In Civ 3 terms, we have built up an infrastructure that keeps us "happier". We have built those roads to luxuries and built marketplaces, banks, temples, to keep us happy. Ancient era people had none of those. They often worried where the next meal was coming from or whether the king would conscript them to fight in a war they didn't care about. (ok, so many countries are still like that). Please post solid reasons if you disagree.

Furthermore, the ancient era population was substantially lower than the population in the last century. See ANY population history to get an idea of how much difference there is. It's exponential growth this last century. Except for certain civs like China and India which have had consistently large pops in the 10's of millions since ancient times, and Rome which may have topped the 10's of millions at its peak, we can discount all ancient eras as having sufficient pop to match the present. Again, solid reasons please if you disagree.

So, any modern era Civ with an equal or greater number of turns of score - would easily trump old civs with the sheer average population and the number of happy people. A double whammy against ancient civs that have not lasted til the present. (And none really have. If you insist on designating one as continuous, you must give China and India the same option, and that would automatically make your proposal lose.)

So this leaves us with:
Ancient China 245 turns (can't compare to modern China due to happiness or average population)
Modern China 227 turns
Modern China + Taiwan 227 turns
Ancient India 294 turns
Modern India 53 turns (this would be out if not for big pop score)
UK + colonies 272 turns
BE India 60 turns (add to UK score)
Byzantines 190 turns
USA 138 turns
Russia 290 turns

Taiwan's current pop is ~20M. Probably at least as happy as US or UK citizens. Taiwan is part of Chinese Civ (unification is the stated aim of both govts). But may not be significant. We'll come back to that if need be. Leave it out for now.
Modern China's score will be the base. Assume all content, no happy, no unhappy or that they cancel out.
Ming Dynasty 50 turns * 110M plus Manchu period 106 turns*140M plus modern period (1910-2002) 71 turns * (400M*0.75+1.2B*0.25 = 600M)
gives a total of 62940. I don't think we'll need to add Taiwan but for completion, tack on 20M *1.5 for some happy folks, that's 30M*50 turns = 1500 points. That gives 64440. Not much change.

Modern China outdoes Modern India without having to crunch numbers. Modern India is only 55 turns. With a smaller pop than China these past 55 turns, it can't beat China. So it's out of top stop.Still, for completeness, it's score is 55 turns * (300M*0.75+1B*0.25 = 550M), which gives 30250. About half of China's score.

Moving on to Russia. Pop was never greater than 100 million during its main Imperial period (about 100 turns). that's less than China's 140M minimum in same period. In the last 55 turns, China's population far outstrips Russia, even adding in all the satellite states for 45 turns that won't top 300M. Russian pop not any happier than Chinese over same period. Both despotic/monarch, revolutions, wars, and then communist. No big difference in happiness.
Early Russian period 140 turns * 30 M plus Imperial age 100 turns * 100M plus modern age 50 turns *300M. That gives 29200. Less than half China's score.

Byzantines just didn't have a large enough population, 34 million. Though descended from Rome, they were styled as an "Oriental" despotism/emperor cult - thus their population would be no happier than normal. You Roman fans out there can confirm or correct me on this. But AFAIK, this is true so the Byzantines are out. 34 M * 190 turns = 6460. One tenth modern China's score.

Last two contenders are USA and UK versus modern China. Note that population growth is typically exponential, thus you cannot average by simply adding the start pop and end pop and dividing by two. It would be best to get an actual graph and take the area under the curve, but these are hard to find. Thus, a simple linear approximation is 3/4 weight on initial pop, 1/4 weight on final pop. Assumes exponentially increasing curve. Let me know if you have a better way of solving this.

Moving on to the USA. Pop is currently 280M. At inception, about 10M. Assuming an exponential rise (all pops do this in modern era, but show me a reference if I'm wrong), that would average at most 10*0.75+280*0.25 =78M . For the sake of argument, let us assume that the average US citizen is somewhat happier than the Chinese one (democracy), despite having a large Civil War and many other serious social issues. Let's be super generous and say they're all happy! Thus giving an effective average 156M pop. Multiply by 138 turns that gives 21528. About 1/3 of China's score.

Moving on to the UK + colonies. Pop is currently 60M. It hasn't had major colonial holdings since 1947 and has been dumping them since it lost the USA. From the beginning until the Imperial age, UK population was between 3 million and 8 million. Let's just use 8M. It's hard to come by this information, but estimates are around 30M for Imperial period (excluding India). If we subtract the 10M Americans, that's 20M. For sake of generosity, give UK + colonies the early Americas and double the amount to 60M. Don't forget that the Black Plague struck during these periods and England was in constant warfare. Its citizens were not likely any happier than the Chinese ones until perhaps the modern era. The industrial era may have been a huge production boost and goods increased, but most descriptions of the period indicate increasing unhappiness. England was also involved in two huge world wars (and their colonies made disproportionately large contributions), so they can't be considered to have a bonus until say the last fifty years. But we'll be generous. Let's say all modern era pop is happy, thus making UK's effective average modern pop 120M.
Thus their score (without BEI) is medieval turns 121 turns* 8M plus Imperial turns 100 turns* 60M plus modern era 51 turns * 120M. That gives a score of 13088.

If we now add in British India (gained in a piecemeal fashion, then from ~100M*0.75 + 300M*0.25 = 150M). 150M* 60 turns gives 9000 points.
This would add up to give an English total of 22088 points. Just over the same amount as super happy USA.

Now, it would seem the rankings deserve to be:

Modern China (moderate assumptions, no happys) 62 940
Modern India (moderate assumptions, no happys) 30 250
Russia (generous as to age and size, no happys) 29 200
UK (very generous as to size, bonus India, happy moderns) 22 088
USA (very generous double happy for entire period) 21 528
Byzantines (moderate assumptions, no happys) 6 460

not calculated because I'm so tired now...Ancient China, Ancient India
Note:I was actually surprised by some of the results! I didn't think Russia would be so high, or that the USA would almost tie the UK. I also didn't expect modern India to rate so high since it only had 55 turns, but that mega population is a huge bonus. Apparently ancient Rome just isn't around long enough. The Byzantines are, but even witha huge 34 million population, they're leaps and bounds below modern civs.

Now, if someone wants to factor in territory, be my guest! Or if anyone wants to take issue with the way I've organized the population.

BTW, I notice that China's vote is hovering constantly at 33%. The English and Americans are tied in voting.

As for actual Civ accomplishments, we can't break it down so easily and it would be expected that the "winner" is more disagreed upon. But, that should prevent us even more from making blanket statements without foundation. An "image" of what you think a civilization was, is no substitute for a solid understanding of reality.


Now, I really need to get a sense of priorities! It's freakin' 3 am!

[notyoueither]

Book 5: The Bishop of Rome

By the second century CE. Christian life within the Empire had evolved around individual city based organisations. Each city would have its bishop. These bishops were charged with overseeing the affairs of their respective Christian communities. In seeking unity and fraternity, links between city based churches were maintained by meetings of bishops. Efforts to create one Church became common.

Some bishops of large centres became more infuential within the internetworked community of Christianity. Bishops from Jersusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome came to be considered Patriarchs. They were leaders within the community of bishops. When some Christians towards the end of the third century began to seek one supreme bishop for the entire Church, the bishop of Rome was a natural candidate. Rome was indeed a prestige address. However, the claim of the bishop of Rome went further than that. Rome was the seat of the vicarage of Peter. According to Gospel, Peter occupied a special place as Christ's personal vicar on Earth. According to some theories those who succeeded Peter in Rome also inherited his mandate. By the mid-third century the bishop of Rome was commonly addressed as pope (*papa*). Here, a quote. Ahem, *A kind of second Roman Empire was being born, subdivided into well-governed local units and headed by a spiritual emperor.*

The bishop of Rome steadily increased in prestige and power between the fourth and eighth centuries. More and more, the blessings of the pope were required to cement kingship. By 754 the pope became a temporal lord in his own right as Stephen II was guaranteed as lord of the Papal States by a Frankish Protector of the Romans.

Western Europe by 770 was still thoroughly Roman. The German influence had not displaced the accomplishments of Rome. Latin was the lingua Franca. Christianity was the only religion. Roman law, blended with German custom ruled most of the land. Philosophy was not a lost art as the Church fathers carried it forward. The Germans had in fact, brought a new vigour that was aiding the West to withstand the encroachments of powerful aliens. The advance of Islam in the West was checked. Their furthest advance met with defeat at Tours in 732. By the late stages of the eighth century the Franks succeeded in establishing a no mans land in Spain South of the Pyrenees (the Spanish March).

In many ways, the evolution of the West was progressing well. However, the absence of an Emperor had been a problem leading to anarchy for centuries. At the instigation of the bishop of Rome, that was about to change.

[notyoueither]

Good job Captain. BTW, I am not arguing that Rome should win. I voted for Panama a long time ago. Dey got Bananas maan!

I am arguing against the cultural ignorance of seeing China and India as 2 big happy civs through all times, while Rome is consigned to the dust heap due to the dearth of guys wearing togas running around after 500 CE.

Actually, at this point my curiosity has been peeked and I am wondering whether I can do a half-assed job of explaining the continuity of Roman civilisation to a bunch of people who grew up with it all around them.

Just a point about your scoring system. And not to be a nit-picking freak, but... You are counting Byzantium as seperate from Rome. Fine. How much do you deduct from China (ancient and modern) for the chunks carved out by different governing areas? China has been ruled by 2 or 3 or as many as 5 rulers at various times during it's history. Shortly before the time of the Monguls, it was 2. A Northern and a Southern Kingdom. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Just asking.

Salve

[Ribannah]

India is the obvious winner by culture, because of their many temples, far more even than Greece.
They also produce more movies than the rest of the world put together.

[Aeson]

That's a very nice analysis Captain.

I was thinking that the 1 pop point = 10,000 population didn't match up well with end game results I could remember. I went and looked at populations for cities sized 1 thru 12 to determine what the true relation is. The results.

1 - 10,000
2 - 30,000
3 - 60,000
4 - 100,000 (see the pyramid?)
...
12 - 780,000

Anyways, it held up till size 12 at least, and I would assume it would continue to hold up at any size. I forget the proper mathmatical representation. This formula works though:

LastPop + (10,000 * CurrentPop)

This introduces some real problems in estimating population scores. Just exactly what is a city in Civ3 terms, and how should population be distributed amongst cities in a civilization?

As long as we are comparing modern population scores against other modern populations, it doesn't make much difference. It can make a noticable difference when comparing a rural type civilization to a more urban one though. The urban civilization will have more people in it's cities in general, which devalues their population when converting to Civ3 population points. The rural civilization has its population spread across smaller cities, keeping each pop point at a "cheaper" level.

I think that this benefits Russia (more territory to spread population out in) the most. England's Imperial era and the non-modern scores would benefit as well. It probably is enough to give the Russians second place (which they would have gotten with territory figured in) over the modern Indians by at least a small margin, but shouldn't change much else. I think Captain's analysis of population scores is still sound, just the scores would all be proportionately lower. It still isn't enough to make territory much of a factor though, except in cases where population scores were already very close.

[Aeson]

In Civ3 terms, the Victory Conditions all specify a set of circumstances where the rest of the world decides that one Civ is the winner.

Conquest - obvious.

Domination - one civ is so big that no others can compete, conquest is inevitable.

Cultural - culture becomes so powerful that in effect the whole world "flips" the the victor.

UN - the world unites behind a single leader.

Spaceship to AC - the hardest one to understand how it would achieve victory, but also one that is easy to tell if it has happened.

None of these victory conditions has been close to fulfilled. The only case would be the UN, which doesn't function anywhere near the same way as in the game. Trygve Lie of Norway was the first Secretary-General of the UN, but in Civ3 game terms, only the US (which built the UN) or the most powerful country could have been included in the election. The Nations that would have qualified were on the Security Council, and so couldn't be elected. In any case I think it's safe to say that no UN vote for uniting the world behind a single leader has ever happened.

[Harovan]

Interesting posts. I'd like to add 2 cents to the space race victory. In Civ3 that civilization wins, that first launches a spaceship to AC. With no word is mentioned, when this ship shall arrive. Every space ship, that's able to leave our planetary system, would be the winner, even though it may need several 10000 years to arrive. If consider small space probes like Voyager and Pioneer 10 "space ships", the USA would have won.

But the question in this thread is, what civ would have the highest score, the other victory conditions are not even mentioned, and if we're pedantic (are we? ), the winner is with no doubt China.

[Ninot]

Ok, quick notes

There WERE happy people in the ancient era. Now, this doesnt help my Rome argument, cuz Rome had trouble integrating the happy Sicilian people into the empire. But, every nation has happy people,unless its a really bad system of rule. The slave-holders of Rome weren't exactly bad-off.

Oh, and as a note, I by no means insinuate that there were no other civs during the time of the Roman empire. I agree, that is one of the worst things to think. Actually, from a Canadian point of view, its very similar to how us Candians think Americans view the world. But, to be fair, that seems to have been changing since 9.11 . And i mean no offence by that, im just trying to set a relative point.

Now, just a humourous point. Although it can be said that China is the obvious winner by 2050, just look at it this way. By 2049-50, our children, and our grandchildren will all be on some kind of future-net civ16 forum, arguing over whos should be victor if life were set to the rules of civ16. And by then, im guessing the game would end in 2100, or 2200, something like that.
Don't go thinking this argument has the deadline of 2050. It will continue FOREVER!!!!

[nato]

Wow killer analysis Captain. Great work!

I have to say I am stunned that Russia is so high. I would have figured them for top 10 maybe, but not top 5. Wow.

I'm also surprised Rome isn't higher.

It really hurts your score to be an ancient civ! Turn length, population size, and happiness...

Anyway Captain's analysis seems really solid to me, and the results are for the most part pretty intuitive, so that pretty much closes it ... for me at least.

Of course it helps that I was voting for China to begin with, so I might be biased...

[Brutus66]

Alexander the Great's conquests spread Hellenism (greek culture) to all corners of civilization.

I'm with Johnny Canuck on this, but unfortunately Alexander left the game just as he was about to win.

The Romans had a heck of a good run, but the corruption really got them and the barbarians finally sacked the place.
The only folks who speak latin in my town are the catholic priests. I believe that it is usually referred to as a dead language.
Sorry, Ninot, but Julius Cesaer knew he had lost the game- that's why he was crying at Alexander's tomb.

The Indians lost when the English took the place. I guess you could say they respawned after they got independence.

The English, God love 'em, had a hell of a late game thing going, but somewhere along the line changed governments and lost most of it.

So far, that puts China in the lead, but the US might pull off the spaceship win if they really put their backs into it.

Ultimately, it will probably be the barbarians who get the win in a post apocalyptic world if things keep going the way they are.

[Akka]

I have to say I am stunned that Russia is so high. I would have figured them for top 10 maybe, but not top 5. Wow.

Moving on to Russia. Pop was never greater than 100 million during its main Imperial period (about 100 turns). that's less than China's 140M minimum in same period. In the last 55 turns, China's population far outstrips Russia, even adding in all the satellite states for 45 turns that won't top 300M.

Don't forget two things :
1) The population points do not represent a linear progression, but a cumulative : one pop point symbolize a CUMULATIVE 10 000 inhabitants.

2) Russia was MUCH lower in population as it's evaluated by Captain.
By 1789, it only had 30 million inhabitants.

I don't really get the high score that everyone gives to GB by the way : it gets its colonies lately, hold them not very long, and had a very small population until very recently. The peak of british power was the end of XIXe century, but it did not last long enough to allow GB to even try to compare to civ like China.
Remember that at the start of the XIXe century, England was no more than 10 millions people big (15 with the Ireland). Yes, no more.