My picks:
Great Ancient Civs:
Egyptians
Indians
Chinese
Persians
Greeks
Romans
Mayans (the Greece of the Ancient Americas)
Great Renaissance/Industrial Civs:
England
France
Spain
Mongols
Byzantines (Constantinople was the light of the Western World during the Dark Ages)
Great Modern Civs:
Americans
Russians
Japanese
Germans
Now just try and tell me that the bleeding Celts, or Apaches, or Vikings should be on here, and I'll tell you a little something. None of them affected the course of human history on so grand a scale as any of the civs I listed. The Apaches were just another name on a long list of victims of disease and greed. The Viking raids didn't last that long, didn't afflict many people, and they eventually settled down and were assimilated into the British culture. And the Celts had their butts whooped on their own turf just like so many other cultures around the world. One could make a better argument for the Gauls or Huns as being significant in history (their impact in the early Dark Ages on the rise to power of the Roman Catholic Church was immense), but they still lacked the longevity and magnitude of the other civs on my list. I'll put them on my list of the top five alternate civs:
Huns
Gauls
Carthaginians (I was tempted to put the Phoenicians instead, but they were really just Mediterranean middle men, and made money doing so)
Ottomans (major players before WWI)
Muslims (not really a civ, but Mohammed's Jihad was very crucial to history)
Great Ancient Civs:
Egyptians
Indians
Chinese
Persians
Greeks
Romans
Mayans (the Greece of the Ancient Americas)
Great Renaissance/Industrial Civs:
England
France
Spain
Mongols
Byzantines (Constantinople was the light of the Western World during the Dark Ages)
Great Modern Civs:
Americans
Russians
Japanese
Germans
Now just try and tell me that the bleeding Celts, or Apaches, or Vikings should be on here, and I'll tell you a little something. None of them affected the course of human history on so grand a scale as any of the civs I listed. The Apaches were just another name on a long list of victims of disease and greed. The Viking raids didn't last that long, didn't afflict many people, and they eventually settled down and were assimilated into the British culture. And the Celts had their butts whooped on their own turf just like so many other cultures around the world. One could make a better argument for the Gauls or Huns as being significant in history (their impact in the early Dark Ages on the rise to power of the Roman Catholic Church was immense), but they still lacked the longevity and magnitude of the other civs on my list. I'll put them on my list of the top five alternate civs:
Huns
Gauls
Carthaginians (I was tempted to put the Phoenicians instead, but they were really just Mediterranean middle men, and made money doing so)
Ottomans (major players before WWI)
Muslims (not really a civ, but Mohammed's Jihad was very crucial to history)
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