Greateat civilization in history (Debate I)

[Will9]

I will first explain why I there will be debates. To help get rid of personal biases and let people know some facts they didn't know. This is a time for people good things about civs they think are being underrated or bad things about ones they think are overrated.

Here is the current list.

USA
Inca
Mayas
Italy
Germany
England/Britian
France
Spain
Rome
Greece
Byzantium
Egypt
Persia
Hebrews
Arabia
Babylon
China
India
Mongols
Japan
Khmer
Ethiopia
Mauritania

I would like to start of by defending Italy. Italy lead Europe cuturerly and technelogically for over 500 years. They had some of the greatest Architectural Achievements of their time. The City States were built on their massive trade economies. These large economies let them defend themselves from the much larger nations surronding them.

[Traianvs]

Are you crazy? The Italians were rich, but that's mostly thanks to their sleazy commercial machinations. They were battlefield of Europe for centuries, not being able to establish a real power for themselves politically. The cities were usually not destroyed, but that's mainly because French or Spanish never really had an interest in doing so. It's a bit like the ancient Levant during the Egyptian-Hittite conflict. It too was quite wealthy, but what good was that if armies invaded all the time, imposing exactions on the populace etc etc.

[Wernazuma III]

Where are the African candidates?

[Kuciwalker]

wtf Inca, wtf Maya?

[Will9]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
Where are the African candidates?

Fixed. I had only been looking at the polls which didn't include Africa.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
wtf Inca, wtf Maya?

wtf kucispam.

why aren't you finally banned?

[LordShiva]

Mauritania

[Eli]

Not that I have anything against pointless debates, but why don't we just make a poll with Greece, Rome, China and England and be done with it?

[DAVOUT]

Civilization was defined in the OP as a sum of 8 significant criteria. I gave 1 to 5 stars to each criterium, and made the total.

Italy
1. Historical Significance -
2. Military Power - *
3. Political Power - *
4. Cultural Power - *****
5. Economic Power - ***
6. Scientific Development - ***
7. Architectural - ***
8. Centraliztion- *
Total : 17/40

This could make a bit clearer the comparison between basically (and literally) incomparable civilizations.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Eli
Not that I have anything against pointless debates, but why don't we just make a poll with Greece, Rome, China and England and be done with it?

Add India and we have a deal. However, the point is that we love pointless debates.

[Proteus_MST]

Why would someone include England in this Poll?
the country wasn´t more special than other european states of the time,
for example the Holy roman empire (Germany), Spain or France.

I would include Egypt, China, Greece, Rome and Byzantium in this poll

[Patroklos]

7. Architectural - ***

Certainly they deserve at least four if not five stars in this category. Venice alone warrants it.

the country wasn´t more special than other european states of the time

Their colonial empire makes the special. There is no European power that comes even close to this. Not to mention their complete dominance of the sea for about 150 years with a none to shaby army.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Their colonial empire makes the special. There is no European power that comes even close to this. Not to mention their complete dominance of the sea for about 150 years with a none to shaby army.

I agree that their empire was larger than other empires of this time, but germany as well as france, holland or spain had oversea colonies (germany only in Africa and on some small islands however), so the english were just a little bit more successful in this than other nations.

Nothing IMHO that would make them stand out as greatest Civilization in history

[Eli]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Why would someone include England in this Poll?
the country wasn´t more special than other european states of the time,
for example the Holy roman empire (Germany), Spain or France.

How about spreading today's dominant language, culture and political institutions around half the globe?

[Proteus_MST]

I think this is more the merit of the USA.

Had the USA adpted german as unofficial official language (which could´ve been the case as a large percentage of the immigrants in the USA came from germany) half of the globe would nowadays speak german

(Before WW1 and WW2 german was also the language used internationally in science)