New poll: Number of civs

[Yakopepper]

Ata your way off base.

I totally disagree with you. Empires like persia were more significant that any modern day country.

>>United States of America, Canada, Mexico, Brasilia, Argentinia, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and the northern ones (I dont know their english names), Soviet Union, China, India, Mongol(sp?), Iran, Iraq,<<

They should only include the most important civs in the 6000yrs of know history. And Most of the ones you mentioned dont make the top 20. Thats why they made it where you can type your one civ in, so you could practically make any civ you want. Several Ancient civs were very important in the long run of history and would be greatly discouraging to see them left off.

I also think they will atleast keep the ones they had on civII. They definitly should add Sumer.

Adding all the countries that it sells to is a complete waste of their time.

HAVE ONLY THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CIVS FORM BOTH ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.

Daniel

[Imran Siddiqui]

I also dont think Countries such as Canada, Australia, Poland, Denmark, Brazil and the Ethiopians should be on there, basically because I dont think of them as Civilizations!

Poland was one of the greatest nations in Europe in the 1600s, Denmark controled Norway and was King of Scandinavia, Brazil is the major South American nation, Ethiopia was the only African nation to resist European rule, and Canada and Australia should be there because we don't want them to yell at us .

[Atahualpa]

Ancient civs suck. I only play modern ones: Germans, French, Spanish, Russia, but not those damn Persians or Sumer that dont interest me at all.

Ata

P.S.: Thats what I think and not a general thing!

[Theben]

"Poland was one of the greatest nations in Europe in the 1600s, Denmark control[l]ed
Norway and was King of Scandinavia, Brazil is the major South American nation, Ethiopia was the only African nation to resist European rule, and Canada and Australia should be there because we don't want them to yell at us."

Not only was Poland a great (large) nation, but at the time it was considered a center of learning, enlightenment, and was possibly the most tolerant of racial/ethnic diversity in all of Europe. As for Ethiopia, maybe they should use Kush/Nubia instead, a nation which played a vital role in sub-sahara trade and conquered the Egyptian Empire for a while. Sure, the Ethiopians resisted European rule, but more specifically they resisted Italian rule in the 1930's, which ain't saying much. No disrespect ai miei fratelli italiani, but they literally couldn't fight to save their lives! How do tanks lose to men with rifles (and poorly organized riflemen at that)? And in the Spanish civil war, they were the ones regularly getting beat up by the Lincoln Brigade.

As for Australia and Canada, we only need fear dissing Dominikos and Alex's Horse; no threat there...

[Yakopepper]

Imran

So what if Ethiopia was the only African nation to resist European control. What the hell does that account for?

It really doesnt matter if Denmark controlled scandinavia or not. A lot of peopled control it.

I agree Brasil is a major SA country, but only major to SA and not Civilization. Its done piddly squat!

And I really coundnt care less if Canadians and Australins screamed at anyone, because thats why you can create your own civ!

Poland they can add, at least they've been around long enough to be apart of history.

And about Ata<-- I really dont give a **** what he thinks anymore.

Daniel

[Atahualpa]

I'll take that as compliment

Ata

[Yakopepper]

I'm not trying to make an enemy here so Ill clear things up. We merely have a difference of opinion here. I think we can all agree that they will at least have the same 21 civs from civII. And then (hopefully) add a dozen or so(this is all depending on how many civs they will allow in a game). Im hoping they will give us a choice of like 50 civs to choose from. Woundnt that be great.

I also had a brainstorm. How about if they allow about 10 slots for the player to custom and save his own civs which then could be used as the players civ or as a computer opponet? Understand? So essentially I could add another 10(?) civs cusomized to my own liking(civ name and perosnality, city names, ruler names, city icons and so forth). This would be of course on top of the civs they have already on the game. This way each person could have what they like--whether its modern countries or ancient civs.

Daniel

[Atahualpa]

Yep. Look, when there are French, Germans, Brits, Spanish, Americans (although I dont play them and Russians in I am already satisfied. When there are Austrians I am happy. I just wanted to express that I almost never play ancient civs. In civ2 I remember playing Japanese, Sioux, Germans, English, French, Spanish, Russians and Chinese. In Ctp I play Canada, Irish and Jamaica in addition to the ones mentioned above.
So, I dont really care, if there are Sumerians or Persians in the game, if they are in, its good for many other players, I dont care. Or lets say, I am neutral about that.

Ata

[Theben]

Yako,
You can already do this via the cities.txt file in civ2. Of course, you'll have to get appropriate names and city icons on your own, as well as possibly changing the info in the game.txt and labels.txt. I assume you want these interchangable from within the game itself?

[Yakopepper]

Im well aware that we're able to do it already. Im saying when we start the game there should be an option to create own civ. This way we dont have to eliminate existing civs. This way each person can add a civ(s) if they feel like they deserved it but was left off.

They'd make the game with 10(or how ever many) of the civs blank. There would be no obligation to fill these in as they game would(should) have ample civs to play with.

Daniel

[MarkG]

final results(877 votes)

Number of Civs in a game?

More than 32	385 / 43%
Up to 32	237 / 26%
Up to 16	183 / 20%
8 is enough...	70 / 7%
No opinion	12 / 1%

------------------
Markos, Apolyton Civilization Site

[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited October 16, 1999).]

[S. Kroeze]

Because there are many intelligent remarks made in this thread (especially by Matthew and Maniac) I think it should be brought to everyone's attention again. It's a pity it deteriorates later to the level of Atahualpa not liking the Incas and other people disagreeing. (Why does he call himself Atahualpa one may ask?).
I begin with a quotation:

"First of all, what major civ did not start out as a minor civ? At the time the small city of Rome liberated itself from Eutruscan rule around 500 BC I would say that it was a pretty minor entity compared to China, the Persian empire, or even some of the Greek confederations.
Want realism? Make it possible for a small, insignificant city state to become a major power in 200 years and the greatest economic power in history, up to that point, in another 200. Make it possible for a few tiny cities on a far off continent to revolt from their mother country and then in 150 years time dwarf that mother country in population and industrial might, all without conquering any major population centers. Make it possible for a minor civ confined to an island chain the size of California with few natural resources, still in the iron age when the major powers are for the most part quite industrialized, to in 50 years be able to compete with those industrialized civs militarily (Russo Japanese war, Japanese won), 50 years later conquer half the pacific, get throttled and bombed back into the stone age, and in another 40 years have the 2nd largest economy on earth and be #2 in industrial output, all without (succesfully, anyway) expanding beyond its original borders or skyrocketing in population.

Actually the story of a minor civ becoming a great power, sometimes even overshadowing older civilizations, is the rule, not the exception. Of course this degree of realism would be hard to impliment, so for practical purposes we should probably content ourselves with the myriad of China type eternal civs that we have gotten so far. (Yes, I know that some of these success stories can be achieved against the AI (artificial idiot), but not likely in MP." (Matthew)

So the important question: how to limit the research progress of large populous empires and favouring small, perfectionistic civilizations should be considered again!

One intelligent suggestion I want to support: the education level of a civilization. What percentage of people in a civilization actually have mastered the art of reading and writing? As we all know it will only increase very slowly with time. My suggestion for the moment is the following:
Only that amount of research points counts as positive that's proportionate with your current level of skilled workers.

Another idea: make exchange of knowledge more dependent on trade and other contacts. In Civilization and SMAC you can trade knowledge with civilizations while you don't even know their geographical position and have never established an embassy. This should be forbidden: without an embassy and regular trade contacts cultural exchange just becomes impossible. Neither should it be possible to develop Flight without having knowledge of the Wheel.

I know this problem is recorded many times before; we should all of us work on a solution!
I cant resist the temptation of including a historically correct list of the Great Civilizations of History. Most people identify a civilization with a nationality; I'm not against a national element in the game, but everyone should understand the enormous difference separating these concepts.
1. Sumerian/Babylonian
2. Egyptian
3. Indus/Dravidian
4. Chinese
5. Greek
6. Roman
7. Mayan/Meso-American
8. Inca/Andes
9. Byzantine/Orthodox
10. Latin/Catholic
11. Islamic/Near Eastern
12. Germanic/Protestant
13. Russian/Slav
14. Indian/Hindu
15. Japanese
16. Tibetan
17. South East Asian
18. sub-Saharan civilization??

Of course every list is open to debate. As one should acknowledge its religion that identifies all civilizations! One could still argue the existence of a Celtic, Persian or Turkish civilization. But that would be the limit. McNeill, the authority who more or less introduced the concept of civilization in historiography, recognizes even less: Mesopotamian, Egyptian, merging into Near Eastern, (3)Indian, Chinese, Japanese and (6)Western, which he only divides into Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic.
Those asking for Hunnish or Mongol civilazations absolutely miss the point: those were the barbarians!

[The Joker]

And so we meet again, Kroeze!

This is all a part of our huge "let's make it so large civs aren't stronger than smaller ones" project. Perhabs the most important breakthrough Civ3 should include.

Having read this post I think that Maniac's 3 ideas (libraries needed for real research (of cause inventing the wheel or ceremonial burial wouldn't be tough without libraries, but inventing stealth or superconducter should require it), advances spread slowly across your empire (with a speed of maybe 3 squares per turn, roads and railroads would increase this speed) and that a prerequisite advance is required for a city to work on the following)) combined with your idea that a part of your research would have to be used for education to preserve advances, with this amount raised with a larger population should do the trick.

Maniac's ideas wouldn't work in modern times (most cities are developed and railroads make research spread instant), but there your idea would be even more important as your population grow with time.

Another idea I would like is more advances. So many that you as one civ could never discover them all. This would encurage research trade and would make it neccesary for you to be friend/allied with at least a few civs. It would also solve the China-stagnation-problem: If you are the only developed civ in your area you have noone to trade research with and so you stagnate, unlike those small civs with lots of neighbors.

For your civ list I am a bit frightened about criticising it due to your enormous historical knowledge, but here goes:

What is the Indus/Dravidian civ?

I would say that the Azecs were mightier than the Mayans.

I would like a Civ3 with about 20 civs at first. As time goes these would split up (with reasonable names for the new civs created: A German fragment would be called the Brittish or the Vikings, a Viking splitoff would be called the Danes or the Swedish, a Brittish splitoff would be called the Americans or the Canadians etc. These names would not really matter gamewise, but would be extra spice) and civs would emerge at unpopulated parts of the world. In modern times there could be perhabs 50-60 civs, most of these being small ones with just 3 or 4 cities, and as many colonies and protectorates.

[Hanuman]

I agree that there shouldn't be 2 categories of civ, major & minor. Minor civs will become (or stay) minor for no other reason than that they do not progress along with the civs which become major; they do not have to be designated as such and limited by the designation. And historically everything is in flux anyway. Besides, you shouldn't be able to take it for granted that some civ will never rise in power and become a threat to you. The Greeks, Carthaginians, or Egyptians weren't able to take for granted that the Romans would remain minor. One way to ensure that some civs stay minor (if that's what you want) would be to have an option that allows civs (including the player's civ) to start at different times (you could set a date or let it be random). So the Egyptians and Sumerians/Babylonians/Akkadians start earlier than the Greeks and the Greeks earlier than the Romans, and so on. I don't mean something like the advanced start option in Civ II; rather, let the game play itself out as usual, then, at the appropriate time, poof, a settler appears and founds Rome. If you found a city where Rome is supposed to be, perhaps Rome should never appear at all, or perhaps it appears somewhere else (another option?). This would make a big difference for a civ appearing some 4000 years later than the earliest civs, as the Aztecs did. They won't stand much of a chance, no matter how brilliant their achievements in the short span of their existence. It would, however, make a nice challenge for players who find the game too easy to start off that late and see how they can do.

There should, though, be nomads and pastoralists, who would be like barbarians except that they wouldn't appear out of nowhere but would always be there, carrying on in their stone-age ways. Perhaps this is more like what is meant by 'minor civ'? Call it a marginal civ, maybe. Anyway, these might have their own (simplified) personalities: peaceful, warlike, neutral. You can either gradually nudge them, or forcible push them, onto less prodctive lands (reservations, perhaps, or just poor land) or wipe them out (or both). You would do this by talking to them like any civ and demanding that they withdraw. Maybe they can also join your civ (adding to the population of your nearest city, if the city is within a certain number of squares). It would all depend on your personality and theirs. I think this scheme could replace goody huts (goody huts must die!), which conceptually represent sort of the same thing-- minor barbarians/indigenous populations who attack you, join you, give you bribes/gifts (in the form of gold), whatever. As long as they don't turn into cities. I hate coming across, for example, Bombay out in the middle of Siberia-- when all the rest of India is in southern Asia-- all because Gandhi discovered an advanced tribe there. That's not how civs expand, historically. And then from the player's end, I hate finding an advanced tribe in possibly hostile territory, far away from my armies. It's annoying and stupid, and anyway it doesn't make sense; if the people in the goody hut were so advanced, why aren't they a civ?

Also, I vote for playing as many civs as you want at the same time (as long as there are enough colors-- and please, make sure colors are distinct even to those of us who suffer from common varieties of color blindness! Maybe have a color wheel?), with the option to limit the number of civs if you want. And you should be able to play whatever civs you want at the same time without the hassle of editing rules.txt! It's ridiculous that you can't play Greeks and Carthaginians at the same time. Maybe you want to play only a certain subset of civs-- all ancient civs, e.g. You should be able to do so through the interface.

Another thing to consider, besides history, is gameplay. There need to be more civs in the Americas and in Africa and southeast Asia, if only for the sake of balance. If for no other reason (which is not to say there aren't other reasons), I'd like to see Canadians & Australians admitted into the roster of Civs. Again, there should be the option to pick exactly which civs you want in a game, so if you don't like them you can choose not to pick them.
[This message has been edited by Hanuman (edited December 27, 1999).]

[S. Kroeze]

Please don't exaggerate about my knowledge of history. It's certainly true that I have at least some basic understanding of history, but there are many subjects (African or American history for instance) about which my knowledge is very superficial. And the twentieth century certainly isn't my specialism, which you will probably have noticed! One should always remain critical.

A quotation about the Indus civilization:

"There followed a long period of slow evolution, which gathered momentum towards the end and resulted in the spectacular Indus Valley Civilization (or the Harappa Culture as it has been more recently named) in c. 2300 B.C. The antecedents of the Harappa Culture are the village sites of the Baluchistan hills - the Nal Culture, and of the Makran coast to the west of the Indus delta - the Kulli Culture, and certain of the village communities along the rivers in Rajasthan and Punjab.

The Harappa Culture was the most extensive of the ancient civilizations in area, including not only the Indus plain (the Punjab and Sind), bus also northern Rajasthan and the region of Kathiawar in western India. It was essentially a city culture and among the centres of authority were the two cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. These were maintained from the surplus produce of the country, judging by the elaborately constructed granaries found in both cities. Another source of income was the profit from a flourishing trade both within the northern and western areas of the sub-continent and between the people of this culture and those of the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia.

The cities show evidence of an advanced sense of civic planning and organization. Each city was divided into the citadel area, where the essential institutions of civic and religious life were located, and the residential area where the urban population lived.

Among the many remains of the Harappa culture perhaps the most puzzling are the seals - small, flat, square, or rectangular objects with a pictorial motif, human or animal, and an inscription. The latter remains undeciphered and holds promise of interesting information when it can be finally read.

By 1700 B.C. the Harappa culture had declined and the migration of the Indo-Aryans from Iran in about 1500 B.C. introduced new features into the cultural background of north-western India.

There is evidence of the Proto-Australoid, the Mediterranean, Alpine, and Mongoloid in the skeletal remains at Harappan sites. The Mediterranean race is generally associated with Dravidian culture.
The last to come were the people commonly referred to as Aryans. Aryan is in fact a linguistic term indicating a speech-group of Indo-European origin, and is not an ethnic term."
(R. Thapar: A History of India")

As you will surely notice this civilization meets all criteria of a true civilization: agriculture, cities, writing and organized religion! Of course some consider it only a forerunner of the Indian/Brahmanic civilization. Because of the great gap in time -roughly a millennium- I would argue otherwise.

The Maya and Aztecs were in my opinion both part of one Meso-American civilization. It is true that the Aztecs were more powerfull. Their relationship is more or less the same as between Babylonians and Assyrians: the first created a civilization (actually the Sumerians did), the second were a nation of warriors who conquered most of the Middle East but were culturally nothing but a continuation of their betters. And of course the Babylonians survived longer. I wonder what would have happened to the Aztecs if the Spanish hadn't arrived.
But such conclusions will always be debatable.

If there are nomads/pastoralists - which I would applaud- they should be aggressive, disagreeable and military superior. They will be tamed by cultural integration.

An idea that I strongly support is that of a later starting date of some civilizations, especially to frustrate the advanced player. Order of appearance doesn't need to follow history as it happened. Give the poor Incas their chance!

Since the game will create every game an other map there is no need of Australians or Canadians; what argument would justify calling them a civilization? Someone pleaded for more African, American and Asian civilizations. Adding Europeans will not solve such a problem! Adding Sioux, Aboriginals and Zulus or Ethiopians would do, though none of these people could write. Australia and Canada are just ex-British (-French) colonies, while the English are only a minor nation of the many branches of Western Christianity; even if they may have ruled the waves!