Turks

[Dinner]

I don't know about the blonde haired, blue eyed thing. In "The Republic" Plato described the average greek as being dark haired and fair skinned so I imagine they looked much like southern French or northern Italian.

[Lord Merciless]

Turks should be Militaristic/Expansionistic.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by dnassman
The Greek people were mainly blonde haired and blue eyes and so are many of the other nations around that area.

like the italians, the spanish, the egyptians...

all blonde, all blue-eyed....

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by Hagbart
Palagionos: You still hate the Turks for what their ancesters did?

Yes.


You westerners fail to realize that the last incident of the Graico-Tukish struggle occured in 1996 when the Turks occupied a tiny Greek border island.Then there was one in 1982, in 1974, in 1955(They expelled the Greeks of Constantinople) and the genocide of 1922.The Ionian Greeks who first colonized Asia Minor in 800Bc were forced to leave the homes they held for 2700 years by the victorious "tolerant" turks under the leadership of their "benevolent" ruler Mustafa Kemal.When the Turks first appeared in Asia minor in about 1000AD the first Greeks they made contact with were the Ionian Greeks and hence Greece is still called in Turkish Yunanistan(land of the Ionians).Their genocide of 1922 efectively destroyed 3 thousand years of history.

These were the actions of a scientific and industrius people.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by KaiserIsak
First, does anybody care to tell me the how the development have gone on the Balkans AFTER the turks left?

They needed quite a few years to recover, and after that (between the 2 world wars) the region made considerable advances, just like Oerdin said it. It is another story that later they became (generally against their will) communist countries and because of that were thrown back with decades (at least) in their developement.
Btw, the turks didn't leave Turkey, did they? So, tell me, how the development have gone in Turkey, with the turks still there?

Second, does anybody care to tell me were going on on the balkans before the turks arrived?

I can tell you. Hungary was one of Europe's most powerful and well developed kingdom before the ottomans conquered it. After the turks were beaten out, they needed 200 years to recover and when finally the country was developing and prosperous again, the world wars and later the comunist era and the Sovjet occupation destroyed it again.
And now, after only 10 years of democracy, they are lightyears ahead of Turkey in development and are joining the EU in 2 years.

[Galvatron]

Originally posted by Tiberius

And now, after only 10 years of democracy, they are lightyears ahead of Turkey in development and are joining the EU in 2 years.

Yes Hungary is the most advanced nation on the balkan. I'm not sure if they are really joining EU in two years but it wouldn't take too long actually. Concerning the other states the situation looks really bad. A friend of mine tried to set up business in Romania but after half a year he gave up. All that his partners in Romanian wanted was take out as much as possible from the deal and than they did nothing more. Infrastructure is really bad in most of these countries and they have many many things to do before they could be a competitive partner in world trade. Bulgaria is in a similar bad condition and the war ravaged succession states of Yugoslavia needs to build up their countries again before they could only think about global markets. And yes Turkey is more or less in a condition were everything is lost more or less: Corruption everywhere, no infrastructure and no foreign investments due to the more than bad situation. Perhaps they will catch up one day but I'm pretty sure that none of us will see it as we all will be gone a long time ago.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Galvatron
Yes Hungary is the most advanced nation on the balkan. I'm not sure if they are really joining EU in two years but it wouldn't take too long actually.

In 2004, actually. However, I'm not sure if it is going to happen on the 1st of january or later.

[Palaiologos]

Actually i think Greece is the most advanced nation in the Balkans.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Palaiologos
Actually i think Greece is the most advanced nation in the Balkans.

But only because Hungary is not really considered to belonging to the Balcans

[XOR]

Ottoman traits are shocking.

Ottomans Scientific? Wasnt their obsolete weapons the reason why they lost like, all of their empire in WW1? Amazing.

Ottomans not Expansionist? Ya right, as if they didnt want more lands, they just conquered all they could grab for imperial commerce purposes (as with the Romans and the Carthaginians as well as most ancient mediterranean Civs).

Ottomans should be, IMHO, expansionist, but the Expansionist trait needs some improvement, like cheaper settlers or something expansionist, in order to be useful. Otherwise, I prefer letting Firaxis do it's mistakes and give something else than expansionist to all expansionist Civs.

[Hagbart]

Originally posted by dnassman
The Greek people were mainly blonde haired and blue eyes and so are many of the other nations around that area. The Turks are dark skinned and dark haired. The majority of Greeks that I meet in australia these days are dark haired and skinned. Very rarely do I meet the blonde/blue eyed Greek. So pretty obvious how that eventuated.

In fact Norwegians first lived in Greece, but the evil Turks threw them out and took the land.

[MarkG]

Hagbart

[Dinner]

Don't get me wrong Turkey is the only fully functioning Democracy in the entire Islamic world but it has a very large proportion of Fundamentalists in its population and the only reason the country hasn't decended into chaos is because the westernized military periodically has a coup to remove the fanatics. The fundimentalists are always trying to ignore the constitutional seporation of church and state by setting up medieval Koranic law.

[Dinner]

For a supposedly scientific people what exactly did the Turks invent? It wasn't the fire arms because a Bulgarian made the cannons the Turks used to attack Constantinople. They didn't preserve any ancient Roman knowledge that was lost in the west because the West was already in the Rennaisance by the Time the Turks became a great power.

The only things I can think of that they invented was the Sofa, the Turkish water pipe (hooka), and Turkish Baths (which were really greek/roman baths). Surely, there must be something else.

[Palaiologos]

Actually a Hungarian Engineer named Hurvanus, constructed the Great Bombard that tore down the walls of Constantinople, not a Bulgarian.

I will repeat my argument of Fireaxis swallowing Turkish propaganda.