France better than Germany?

[bongo]

Re: Re: France better than Germany?

Originally posted by solodar
The problem with the civs that still exist in the real world is that they have enough history to have had different characteristics at different times.

Firaxis seems to have picked one era and based the traits and the UU on that era.
solodar

Good observation, I'll call that a direct hit

An idea for civ4 would be to extend the current trait system a bit. Let every civ have a set of possible traits and UU's to choose from which were activated(and even changed) during the game.

For the Germans, when they discover religion why not let them have an unique wonder like 'reformation'(Remember Martin Luther?) which upon completion changed their trait to 'religious'.

Just a thought.

[The Pioneer]

Re: Re: France better than Germany?

Originally posted by solodar


The problem with the civs that still exist in the real world is that they have enough history to have had different characteristics at different times.

Firaxis seems to have picked one era and based the traits and the UU on that era. Germans have the Panzer UU so their traits fit the WWII era (trying to take over Europe and best scientific establishment on the planet -- check). France has the Musketeer and fits Sun King/Revolution period (cottage industry and mercantilism -- check).

solodar

I agree with Solodar on t his, although I do have believe that countries like France, Spain, Japanese and England with their colonies where more expansionistic and militaristic for much longer periods in their respective histories. They were very aggresive and have their own share of blood on their hands. But no memories of that part of history exist in the way the tho WW do and thus Germany is being stamped as that.

So long...

[TacticalGrace]

Re: Re: Re: France better than Germany?

Originally posted by bongo



For the Germans, when they discover religion why not let them have an unique wonder like 'reformation'(Remember Martin Luther?) which upon completion changed their trait to 'religious'.

Just a thought.

but arguably Germany was MORE religious as the Roman Holy Empire than it was after the reformation.

[bongo]

Yes they were(bad example from me) but Martin Luthers thesis had great impact on christianity. Maybe the effect would be to make neighbouring civs loose 'religious' as a trait?

Anyway my point was that traits can change over time, depending on your actions(and priorities). Say, if you build lots of libraries in a short time you may trigger an age of enlightment, something like that.

[brianshapiro]

boris ,
i was half joking about alsace lorraine and the austrians. so i didnt really mean it (i called them poopooheadsafter all !!) . but anyway i would still anytime say that austria had a culture more academically oriented in the way france was and in fact was very close in ties to france for some period. germany had some intellectual worth but this stemmed from religion and politics , and for instance if you look at any list of 'important' germans, some are very important, most others are second-rate and some are obscure. and it happens that the important ones stand out from a very otherwise bleak cultural landscape. anyway i dont want detail my opinions in this topic

[brianshapiro]

acton ,
yeah and you could logically fit any list of traits with any person. but sometimes when you do that you miss the personality entirely. so for instance, with your list:

expansionistic : germans felt pressure to expand because europe was filled with major powers that had masses of overseas colonies. there is a theory that goes this way which terms the german pressure towards an 'internal empire'. for most of its history it was a set of dissociated states then only came to be n the 19th century and from then on for a short while tried to expand further.

militaristic: i mostly agree thats why i didnt complain about it.

scientific: some scientific breakthroughs over the last 100 years, many of them under military or industrial control, many of them in the long run will seem 'minor league' compared to other breakthroughs like 'the earth isnt the center'. but there are some very important ones, and it isnt altogether a bad trait.

industrious: military controlled industry became important in the 20th century, started industrial revolution late though and lacked before that a strong industrial foundation.

commercial: also a game trait

religious: it doesnt only sort of fit IMO, after all , most of the religious wars took place in germany, most of its important artworks, literature, etc were religious. this onmly ends modern day.


america wouldnt fit religious easier just because it had religious settlers and today there are debates which politically people tie to religion! after all the debates today about those issues move between freedoms and cultural values , and religion is just brought into this secondarily; any values at all which are argued to be cultural, moral, universal, are either by people ascribed to religion or otherwise explicitly support freedom. and many settlers were religious but most of these settlements were taken over by commercial ventures. there is a strain of religious sentiment in america but, it seems secondary to other cultural forces, ie they make religion come into play as an issue, and then religion never becomes too powerful or overbearing except through other issues

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by brianshapiro
boris ,
i was half joking about alsace lorraine and the austrians. so i didnt really mean it (i called them poopooheadsafter all !!) . but anyway i would still anytime say that austria had a culture more academically oriented in the way france was and in fact was very close in ties to france for some period.

While Vienna was indeed a cultural center, overall what became unified Germany held far more cultural instutions, learning centers, etc. than the Austrian empire ever had. Leipzig, Nuremburg and Cologne were all major cultural centers. I think you're going on a false modern misconception that, pre-unification the German states were backwards. They certainly were not.

germany had some intellectual worth but this stemmed from religion and politics ,

Um, music, science and philosophy? Any list of the greatest names in science is going to have more Germans than probably any other nationality.

and for instance if you look at any list of 'important' germans, some are very important, most others are second-rate and some are obscure.

Who among those was second-rate or obscure? Not a single one of them is. Just because you may be ignorant of them doesn't mean they are less important. And certainly that list is a LOT longer than names you could muster for Austria.

and it happens that the important ones stand out from a very otherwise bleak cultural landscape. anyway i dont want detail my opinions in this topic

Bleak? You've got to be kidding me. You're going to back that assertion up, because it's just not true. Prior to WW2, Germany had always had a reputation as a center for culture and academics. It was seen as one of the most progressive lands in the world.

Germany has been a land of extremely important cultural, scientific, religious and social movements for well over a thousand years. Certainly on a par with the other great European powers.

You may not want to detail your opinions, but you're going to have to. I'd recommend reading some history on it first. An excellent book is A Handbook for Western Civilization by William H. MacNeil. While dry in style, it shows the parallel cultural developments in outline format for Western European civilizations. You'll see you couldn't be more wrong about Germany's cultural climate.

[Kingof the Apes]

Originally posted by TheStinger
The first FW190 were better then the spitfire at the time, latter versions(of the spitfire) matched it and from then on little improvements gave each fighter an advantage until a new one was thought up.

The Battle of Britain was not lost because of a lack of a long range bomber. It was lost because of superior stretery and tactics by the British and because of Radar.

The BOB was not about bombing it was about gaining air superiority to invade England.

If the Germans had a heavy bomber, radar would not have mattered so much. As you said, th battle was not about bombing, but you cannot achieve air superiority without bombing. Huge bombings wreck infrastructure, lower morale, and make it much easier to achieve air superiority. The Germans were using Me 110s and the like to bomb Britain.
These were barely bigger than the fighters that escorted them. They could not do sufficient damage to the British infrastructure, enabling them to withstand the fighter onslaught. if the Germans had invested into Heavy bombers instead of light fighter/bombers, the BOB would have turned out very differently.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by brianshapiro
scientific: some scientific breakthroughs over the last 100 years, many of them under military or industrial control, many of them in the long run will seem 'minor league' compared to other breakthroughs like 'the earth isnt the center'. but there are some very important ones, and it isnt altogether a bad trait.

Have to disagree there. First, German scientists were leading the industrial world in the 1880s and 1890s, so there wasn't a military control factor. Second, you can hardly say that German scientist contributions will be considered "minor league," unless you're prepared the invention of the automobile, jet engine and theory of relativity will someday be seen as minor league...

industrious: military controlled industry became important in the 20th century, started industrial revolution late though and lacked before that a strong industrial foundation.

Actually, by the end of the 19th century Germany was the leading industrial power in Europe, outproducing Britain in most regards. It also had the largest and most efficient rail system in all of Europe, easily surpassing Britain's unplanned system. By 1913 Germany had the 2nd largest economy in the world, behind the UK.

religious: it doesnt only sort of fit IMO, after all , most of the religious wars took place in germany, most of its important artworks, literature, etc were religious. this onmly ends modern day.

One could also argue that it was German philosophers who helped destroy the stranglehold of religion, as many of them challenged the religious ideas of the nature of man and moved towards secular humanism. Certainly Marx and Engels helped in this regard.

And did most of the religious wars take place in Germany? I don't think you can really say that. After all, up until the Renaissance, almost all European wars took on religious connotations, and the most famous of them were the crusades, which didn't have much to do with Germany.

[brianshapiro]

boris,

i know about germanys academic institutions mostly notable because of teaching and teaching and scholastic methods , were very politically and religiously involved, and often didnt go beyond that to foster development sometimes because the methods were too stifled; no need to refer me to books its easy just looking at the reformation period to see how much during centered around universities and the main universities in europe actually, disciplined academic structures in the 19th c, then modern german economic theory and literary theory in the 20th c.

i know much of german theory is ignored by other western cultures for various reasons and also much of the historical culture , me i would say theres a reason for that other than mere politics

im not trying to belittle germany (the first two poopoohead posts were jokes) though i would when discussing germany historically underscore certain things i have about how german institutions were grounded and other facets of the culture surrounding them. to me someone pointing out the impressive list of philosophers and musicians in germany sounds like someone using copernicus as an argument for poland being an intellectual power or someone arguing rome was as intellectual as greece because of its many philosophers and literary figures. im only arguing personality characteristics not actual product. some might want to argue america as intellectual , and certainly its has many merits in this way, is the reason it sounds funny just because we talk of it in different ways or because of the way the culture fits
but then you have other cultures where it looks like children are inculcated in its values more directly [this i would ascribe to france at certain periods of history.]
also im not forgetting that any large power will have is share of important people.

austria has a small history of importance so i was joking about > germany as i said. but what i was serious about was the values during those periods

anyway i just dont think the argument im making is that important and is also halfbaked anyway espcially for here thats why i dont want to make this a full fledged debate

[brianshapiro]

[unless you're prepared the invention of the automobile, jet engine and theory of relativity will someday be seen as minor league...]
no i said there were some major ones, the theory of relativity was one . i dont think the invention of the automobile and jet engine though major social developments are major scientific breakthroughs in themselves

[Actually, by the end of the 19th century Germany was ]
Yah Germany and America both started the industrial revolution late and ended up being large players i wasnt arguing against that/ though that happened a lot because the countries developed more forceful institutions

[religion]
yes but even when religion was in italian culture it was the 'humanist' features that were more dominant popes collecting art etc. as i tried to half argue i think much of the german philosophy and art ,etc and academic tradition were grounded very steeply in religious and political language more than other countries.

germany helped over turn religionism and is no longer so religious . i was just arguing for the game feature of religious based on historical presence..


btw, i dont know if you see this too but to me it seems even now germany has as much a spiritual bleakness to it, transplaced from religion to existentialism then to absurdist art movements and theory later in the century.

[bobbo008]

"Yes, he did all these things because they gave France more of a voice on the international scene which he thought was a good/necessary thing"

All countries want that, but at what expense?

"I am not trying to justify this disastrous treaty, but just to understand how it came to be."

Obviously. When you get people, and they may or not be too bright, who lose so many people, you'd like them to pay as much as you can make them.

"Germany, though it may not have started wars, finishes them and examining any of the conflics gives germany a 4 to 1 kill ratio. They may have lost some of those wars but it was obviously due to attrition not from lack of skill. Militaristic is most definetly a trait they possess."

In both World Wars, over 2/3 of the casualties were Allied.

"Agressivness of 5 is only relevant it you are thinking of the ancient germaic tribes."

Might we go into Roman history, which travelled North and slaughtered peaceful Germanic villages. Does a name Julius Caesar ring a bell?

"I actually give the most credit for the French defeat to the French, the Germans were just lucky."

The French may deserve some credit for the loss, but I don't think the Germans were lucky, unless you say they were lucky all across Europe, like the two week battle for Poland.

"You know what? France is still around (could that be a good example for culture flipping? ), largest country in Europe, and leading the EU with Germany. People do learn their lessons.
As for the cheese, you just don't know what you are missing... "

France is the largest country in Europe with the exlusion of Russia, obvoiusly, and I think it's larger than Russia. And the French and Germans working together is great, even though some of the locals may not think so. As for cheese, I live in Wisconsin, so us and France form like...an axis of cheese.

"As a result the military leadership was worshipped and stayed in place 'til WWII"

Nice reasoning. Isn't that the trouble with contentment?

"Planes, well, who was better is up for debate, I maitain they were equal in everything by tactics"

Most people who flew both claimed them to be equal, with the obvious exception of German jets.

"This thread is stupid."

what? MY thread??

"Almost any of the civ traits could be applied to Germany"

You now fill my heart with pride, although I already pointed this out.

"The Germans had 2 planes that were the staple of their air force"

I agree, and they never even attempted a serious long-range bomber, just a lot of stupid multi-purpose things, etc.

"which upon completion changed their trait to 'religious'."

Hmm...maybe an internal struggle between Protestants/Catholics?

"By 1913 Germany had the 2nd largest economy in the world, behind the UK."

Tis now 3rd, after the U.S. and Japan and the 2nd largest exporter.

"the crusades, which didn't have much to do with Germany."

Our lovable Barbarossa drowned during the Crusades!

[Akka]

I'm just a bit amazed to see how most of this thread is based much more on a priori and clichés rather than true understanding of situations and knowledge...

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Yea, but twice in the past 90 years it have been the French, who declared war. They should have said: "We declare war, but please please please don't attack us, we're French!" May be this had helped.

France was allied with Poland. And they would have been next anyway. Who declares war has nothing to do with who is more aggressive.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Kingof the Apes
The Germans were using Me 110s and the like to bomb Britain.
These were barely bigger than the fighters that escorted them. They could not do sufficient damage to the British infrastructure, enabling them to withstand the fighter onslaught. if the Germans had invested into Heavy bombers instead of light fighter/bombers, the BOB would have turned out very differently.

Actually, the Me 110 was a fighter-bomber. Germany had some better level bombers, like the Ju 88, the Do 17 and the He 111. But they could in no way compete with the British and American ones.