What the hell is up with the historical researchers at firaxis?

[bigvic]

I heard Sid was a history major. makes sense in light of his game. all i can say is he must have nothing to do with his games any more other than lending his name. How anyone with any historical knowledge could classify Spain as commercial or the Ottomans as scientific is totally beyond my comrehension. Wow.......

For that matter, Persia - scientific? China - militaristic? Well, think i'll be doing some modding when ptw is finally on my hard drive.......

[monkspider]

I agree there are few anomalies. Namely the two you mentioned, China and Persia and IMO scientific Russia as well. Ottomans as scientific makes a bit of sense, they did start some of the first universities in Europe after all and Spain's new world conquests were all built around commerce. They were extremely rich there for a while.

[bigvic]

Originally posted by monkspider
I agree there are few anomalies. Namely the two you mentioned, China and Persia and IMO scientific Russia as well. Ottomans as scientific makes a bit of sense, they did start some of the first universities in Europe after all and Spain's new world conquests were all built around commerce. They were extremely rich there for a while.

Actually, spain had the most backward, medieval economy of europe. they got rich by plundering the native americans (ability to plunder does not equate to commercial), then blew it all on the militaryy while true commercial powers like england and france were developping joint stock companies and banking. portugal, maybe, as commercial, but not spain. in fact few european powers could be considered less commercial than spain, perhaps albania.......

are the arabs scientific? they should be. but the ottomans.......well, they were shooting arrows when europeans were using firearms. just think something like militaristic/expansionist would have fit better. hmmm.....

[Cyclotron]

Persia originated the decimal system and was at the forefront of medical advances in the Islamic world for some time. The Persian university at Jundishapur was one of the greatest of the time and actually received greek scholars after the close of Plato's academy.

Chinese and militaristic... Sun Tzu's Art of War, anyone? Have you ever heard of the warring states period?

[Tiberius]

There was a huge thread about the ottomans and why are they scientific/industrious. Almost everybody would have made them militaristic/expansionist.

Btw, why are the french industrious?

Some civ traits are so not because historical realism, but to achieve a good balance of the game.

[Coracle]

Re: What the hell is up with the historical researchers at firaxis?

Originally posted by bigvic
I heard Sid was a history major. makes sense in light of his game. all i can say is he must have nothing to do with his games any more other than lending his name. How anyone with any historical knowledge could classify Spain as commercial or the Ottomans as scientific is totally beyond my comrehension. Wow.......

For that matter, Persia - scientific? China - militaristic? Well, think i'll be doing some modding when ptw is finally on my hard drive.......

Modding won't be enough considering the limitations of the editor.

Sid had nothing to do with the game, and whether anyone at Firaxis ever took a single History course remains unknown even though that question has been raised many times. I doubt if they did.

Classification of civilizations incorrectly is a minor historical problem. Lack of histotriciity and the appearance of realism has been a main complaint about the game for almost eleven months.

But if you can mod it, after giving them even more money for PTW, be my guest. Just remember, it's History at a very rudimentary level, at best.

Hopefully, PTW won't be another beta, for those who get it.

[notyoueither]

But will you buy it Coracle?

[statusperfect]

Miltaristic/industrous china is perfect. That was the way Maos china was.

I dpn't know anything about Osman though. Could someone please enlighten me?

Originally posted by notyoueither
But will you buy it Coracle?

It takes a tiger to ask such a question.

[WarpStorm]

And will Coracle complain about his purchase for 9 months afterwards.

Sid has said repeatedly that historical accuracy takes a backburner in his games. In an article I seem to remember reading a while back he said if this stuff isn't in a kiddy book on the subject, it probably won't be fun and therefore won't sell. Fun over accuracy every time.

[I am Ruler]

expansionist/scientific is the way china should be afterall they were the first to invent firearms paper steel and many more

[Tiberius]

Many civs could have more than 2 traits. Like the chinese that could have been scientific or the germans industrious, the romans industrious, the americans scientific, etc. They had to choose only 2 for each civ.

I've never modded civ traits, but in PtW I will definitely change the turks to mil/exp and the spanish to exp/religious.

[alva]

If you look hard enough, I guess every civ has more then 2 traits

Every site does need a Coracle IMO, but 1 is enough

[Lord Zalzabad]

Chinese and militaristic... Sun Tzu's Art of War, anyone? Have you ever heard of the warring states period?

Also the three kingdoms period

[aahz_capone]

Russia beintg scientific actually makes sence, the dude who invented the periodic table was russian, and lets not forget getting the first man in space, and the first satellite.

[KaiserIsak]

My mods when the game come out:

America should be religious and militaristic
China should be industrious and scientific
Spain should be religious/exp
Arabs should be religious/scientific (or commercial)
Romans should definatly be religious, after all it was they who made us all christians/exp