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**germanos** · January 9, 2008, 06:12

Re: Civs in Civilization: Americans

Originally posted by Locutus

I personally would eliminate Roosevelt from the leaders, Washington and Lincoln strike me as the best options there. Washington led the US to independence and Lincoln re-united the country. There's certainly a very strong case to be made for Roosevelt, but personally I'm not a fan of having 20th century leaders in a history game that covers 6000 years.

Given the fact that the American Civ by any standards IS a 20th century Civ, Roosevelt is an excellent pick for a leader. He did a wonderfull job with the New Deal and subsequently in WW2. The US emerged from that conflict stronger then even.

Lincoln was in part responsible for the divide in the US that led to the bloodshed in the first place. He could only re-unite with force what he couldn't keep united with politics/policy.

Washington as a father of the nation looks fine, even though the struggle for independence was by no means a one man job.

In a way it's funny you pick the Americans as an example, as this is the only traditional Civ in the game that (probably) hasn't hit it's apex yet.

BTW: what's with the (immigrant)'s?
The game is called Civilization and not Nationality or Ethnicity. So wether or not immigrants contribute to the Civ is not really an issue. In fact it's often the Civ that attracts immigrants to fullfill their 'dream' that they cannot in their 'own' civ (read nation). For example: think of the immigrants the flocked to the Dutch Republic and helped it make great (the merchants and Spinoza f.e.)
In that respect: perhaps Einstein is not in place for the US. Did he not make his most famous research while being resident in the Weimar-Republic? He should probably fall under the German Civ.

As for Great Artists:
Since Cinema (Hollywood) is such an American thing, there should be some actors and directors among them:
Orson Welles?
Alfred Hitchcock?
Stephen Spielberg?
Valentino?
Humphrey Bogard?
Hernry Fonda?
Audrey Hapburn?
Ronald Reagan

?

**Julian Delphiki** · January 9, 2008, 06:43

Re: Re: Civs in Civilization: Americans

Originally posted by germanos

In that respect: perhaps Einstein is not in place for the US. Did he not make his most famous research while being resident in the Weimar-Republic? He should probably fall under the German Civ.

I think he actually made his most famous research when he was living in Switzerland ("Annus Mirabilis"), at the time of German Empire.

**Locutus** · January 9, 2008, 14:51

Re: Re: Civs in Civilization: Americans

Originally posted by germanos
Given the fact that the American Civ by any standards IS a 20th century Civ,

Very true, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that I'm just not a fan of 20th c. history

In a way it's funny you pick the Americans as an example, as this is the only traditional Civ in the game that (probably) hasn't hit it's apex yet.

I would actually argue with that, I think they reached their zenith in the Cold War and basically went into decline shortly after that ended. Doesn't mean they can't peak again in the future of course, plenty of historic precedent for that, but right now they're not where they were 20-30 years ago IMO.

But my main reasons for choosing the Americans is that a good portion of the population on this site is American and everyone else at least has an opinion on them, so I figured that might elicit more responses than a Zulu or Aztec thread

And that I happen to be working on a new city list for the Americans ATM so I have a lot of research about American history fresh in my head (this is mostly for my own entertainment BTW, although should I be invited to work on Civ5 at some point I want to be prepared: many of the existing vanilla Civ4 city lists suck donkey balls and I only had time to revise India's list for BtS on top of all the new civs I was working on).

BTW: what's with the (immigrant)'s?
The game is called Civilization and not Nationality or Ethnicity. So wether or not immigrants contribute to the Civ is not really an issue. In fact it's often the Civ that attracts immigrants to fullfill their 'dream' that they cannot in their 'own' civ (read nation). For example: think of the immigrants the flocked to the Dutch Republic and helped it make great (the merchants and Spinoza f.e.)
In that respect: perhaps Einstein is not in place for the US. Did he not make his most famous research while being resident in the Weimar-Republic? He should probably fall under the German Civ.

I basically agree with you, but I know some people feel otherwise so I figured I should at least list the fact that they're not natively American. Einstein is a perfect example: I know plenty of Americans that would 'claim' him as an American Great Person, while plenty of Germans claim him as German, Swiss claim him as Swiss, etc. A while back TV shows about Greatest [enter nationality] were in swing and I believe Einstein was ranked very high on the American, German and Swiss lists. One could probably put several of these immigrants on multiple Great People lists if one wanted to, but either way I do feel that in most cases the names I listed are indeed perfectly valid as Great Americans (main exceptions to me are Einstein, Fermi and Bell -- I still listed those because I know there are others that might feel differently).

As for Great Artists:
Since Cinema (Hollywood) is such an American thing, there should be some actors and directors among them:
Orson Welles?
Alfred Hitchcock?
Stephen Spielberg?
Valentino?
Humphrey Bogard?
Hernry Fonda?
Audrey Hapburn?
Ronald Reagan

?

Well, I didn't necessarily mean for my lists to be comprehensive (wouldn't leave much room for discussion, would it?), but as I pointed out Firaxis refuses to use any people in the game who are still alive, and generally shies away from ones who died in or after the 1970s (there are a few of exceptions to that, but only a few), so that eliminates most of Hollywood unfortunately. I did list Bogart already and agree Hitchcock's a good choice (even though he's in the grey area as far as date of death goes), I'm not familiar with Valentino's work myself, but to put it bluntly I don't know that all the other ones have been dead long enough.

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