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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:23
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The civs have been chosen to have some in each continent (thus the iroquois to represent Northern Americans, even though they didn't achieve much).
Conquests are also an important factor, thus Rome, Russia, France or England, with their big colonial empires, and Mongols of course.
Size and current power also matter, thus India, the U.S. or China.
And the civs chosen also reflect what the players want to play, which often includes their own (thus the U.S. are in and the modernity og that civ is discounted).
Last, the scientific or cultural advances brought by a given civ are included: Babylon, Greece, Egypt.
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lebensraum
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg They´ve done nothing worthwile, hunter gatherers like the ... aborigines ... |
nah!
the kooris are way cool!
40,000 years is a long, long time
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lebensraum
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ooh, don't get me started
songlines, medicine, inter-tribal harmony, trade systems, environmental sustainability, humility, code of laws, philosophy, mysticism, polytheism, music, compassion, ...
from a more civ-centric point of view, think of it as one of those deity starts where you're on an isolated land, far from any contacts, and surrounded by desert. research is slow, population is very limited, and by the time your opponents show up, they have cavalry. you start with no iron or horses, so they wipe you out.
you did everything right, but you still got creamed.
i think, even in terms of civ, they are remarkable. hey, you don't get to be the oldest surviving culture in the world for nothing. ok, it's partly due to isolation, but as we all know, isolation is a mixed blessing.
it's one of those civs like india. they look like calm peaceful little walk-overs, but if they get a chance to build up a bit, look out!
in more human terms, overlooking the extra-ordinary treasures of such people only reflects one's own ignorance.
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lebensraum
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hey, don't go trying any of your sneaky crustacean tricks on me. at least the kooris didn't go through 23 different larval stages in their development!
i know, the "one's own ignorance" bit sounds a bit harsh. but how else can i succinctly point out that this panoramic, polydimensional weirdness of creation is made immeasurably deeper by the presence of such (to classical, western thought) challenging societies.
not trying to put any posters down here, but i really do think, even from the narrow perspective we are considering, koori 'civilisation' (in the firaxian usage of the word) is well worth consideration.
ie. in answer to your original question. the kooris are definitely a "great civilisation."
in terms of great works, just consider the songlines,..basically, an oral map of the entire continent, including hunting grounds, camp-sites, oases, social rights-of-passage and so on. and the amazing thing (to me) is a given song tells the story in many different languages. so someone who learns the song in his own language could travel across the continent and communicate with someone who speaks an entirely different language, despite being thousands of miles from home.
of course then there's the question of the actual cosmology of such songs, but let's not go there,..
so go ahead and get an argument going if you like, but sooner or later you, like all the others will come to realise that i, and i alone am right!
hooray for zoidberg!
and did i mention?..
 theocratic police state!!!
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lebensraum
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg
If they actually built Ayers Rock on the other hand... |
according to their cosmology, they did!
actually the dream-time characters were responsible for the appearance of uluru, but without ongoing generations "singing up the land" it would long ago have vanished into nothingness.
yes, i now, you look at it and see one big rock, composed of known molecules, composed of known elements. what can i say,.. "one's own ignorance" is a difficult cage to escape.
as far as uu's go, i propose something like a "woomera thrower" (yes, padster, i know, no-one actually throws a woomera - unless you've fallen off your coolabah). a woomera is a device used to launch spears. i've seen people put a spear straight through a coconut at 50 metres. so we're talking about something with roughly the range and accuracy of a traditional archer, but significantly more lethal.
there's a discussion running at the moment ("simple supply system") about limiting the operational range of units. the proposal is something like - if a unit goes more than 8 tiles from the nearest friendly city, it runs the risk of starving, similar to galleys sinking at sea.
in that context, i would recommend a uu similar to the javelin thrower, but in place of the enslave ability, they have the ability to live off the land. that would make for a great barb basher. it would also give you the ability to explore way beyond the limits of other civs, and in a much earlier time-frame.
all of that strikes me as quite appropriate. and i'm sure you can see, a civ like that could be quite powerful given a decent starting location.
as far as civ traits, i'm not so certain. i know religious is the first thing people would think of. but i propose scientific (yes, really) and agricultural. reasons as follows
1. kooris are a spiritual people, certainly, but they do not build temples in our sense of the word. ie. a permanent "bricks and mortar" edifice.
2. no libraries? - only from a certain point of view. the landscape itself is actually used and interpreted as one vast library. and the song-lines represent an immense store of knowledge, dating back beyond any other form of knowledge ever umm, known.
3. no irrigation - ok, i'll admit, there was no sedentary agriculture as such. but, firstly, they survived in the driest continent on earth, which is quite impressive in itself, and, secondly they did practice agriculture and environmental management. but they did so according to a wide-ranging, nomadic principle.
it'd be interesting to see where they would have ended up if they'd had access to gunpowder and metal-working. and if they'd had a decent popuation base to work with. i think you'd have to agree a civ like that could be a real b#stard to deal with if they got off to a good start.
quote:
Unfortunately, spirituality is not rewarded in terms of civilization. Such "weak" civs tend to get their asses kicked by more aggressive civs... |
not wanting to draw any conclusions on this one, but here's some food for thought. the kooris were in contact with the malays and the chinese long before europeans showed up. they didn't get wiped out then.
and when they actually did get their butt kicked, so did japan, china, indo-china, india, etc, etc...
they survived just as long as the "powerful" civs in that respect.
what can i say? if being the oldest surviving society on the planet doesn't make you a "great civ," what does?
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lebensraum
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quote:
Originally posted by GeoModder
They 'evolved' like that due to their long time of isolation. It's like you're telling us they came to Australia and in the blink of an eye, sociologically spoken, became this culture in tune with their environment. It must have taken several millennia, at least, to spread out over the whole continent and develop their culture and ability to survive in the predominantly harsh environment. |
no, i'm just mixing my metaphors
historically speaking, it's impossible to say what any given society would have become under different circumstances. (would genghis have been cuddly if he started by the indus? would the poms have been able to play sport if they didn't get an island start?)
my point is more along the lines that, under historical circumstances, koori civilisation comes out looking like a weakling. civ allows us to play with the variables. would they have ended up as a buncha mofos if they started on floodplains? it's pure speculation and hopelessly ahistorical.
the fact that they seem like a pushover as a civ also kinda demonstrates the accuracy of the (very simplistic) civ modelling. in civ, population is power, and contacts are crucial to tech development.
i think, playing any given civ, with a start on the aus continent, very few of us would have an easy time of it.
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SCUrfer
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The Koori weren't a civillization because they didn't build cities. Doesn't mean they didn't have an impressive culture, but no cities=no civillization. And no, that's not narrowminded, it's simple etymology. The word means something like "in service to the city" in Latin. You cannot be in service to the city without cities. In Civ game terms, they are goodie huts, not even barbarians.
I don't believe there is any proof that the Chinesse had serious contact with Australia. That 1424 book is a load of bull, from everything I've seen. Too many holes, Chinesse scholars who aren't hostile to the thesis think it's incorrect. The Malay might well have known about them, though. The difference is that the Europeans are the first ones to decide that Austrailia had anything worth taking.
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SCUrfer
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Nope. I don't think they should be in either. Barbarians, all the way. Though I always played the Vikings in Civ II.
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SCUrfer
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True enough, I suppose you could count the Vikings then.
The Mongols only ever had encampments or captured cities, though. They would best be simulated by a beefeed up barbarian system, honestly. And the Celts never really had a system of cities, either. They also could be accurately simulated by dense settlement of barbarians. Maybe it would be best if Barbarian tribes developed technologically and built higher pop. densities over time, so you could actually have regions crowded with minor civs like the Celts.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:23
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Celts had many cities too. Bibracta, Lutetia, Lugdunum, Condate in Gaul for instance. Budapest was initailly a celtic city (named Ak Ink) too.
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Vince278
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A "Great Civ" would stand "The Test of Time". In our history China would be first, possibly followed by Egypt.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:23
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quote:
Originally posted by GeoModder
If having building cities in history is a prerequisite for being considered a civilisation in civ, then I wonder what Zulu's, Celts, Vikings, mongols and probably some more like that are doing in the game. |
Well the Vikings did found cities in Ireland- Dublin, Limerick, Wexford, Cork, Waterford- first founding longphorts, or fortified raiding camps, which of course happened to be in bays or on navigable rivers.
They also managed to establish an integrated trading sytem which stretched from Greenland to Baghdad, enter the Varangian guard of the Byzantine emperors, establish a Norman dynasty in France and England, and a Norman kingdom in Sicily- and raid from the west of Ireland to North Africa and Italy.
They were literate peoples with a great literature, and stunning metalwork and created a hybrid Viking-Celtic artistic style.
The Celts in Gaul almost got off the ground with oppidas, but Roman militarism put paid to any Celtic city building there. However, scratch a Roman city site in England, or south Wales, or France, and you'll find a site sacred or of strategic interest to the Celts- such as Lugdunum, named after the Celtic god Lugh, and now Lyon.
Celtic sites associated with the salt trade across Europe usually are associated with cognates of words for salt, such as Hallstatt, Hallein, Salzburg and Alesia.
As for what constitutes a 'civilization', there was a conflict in ancient times between settled 'city' builders and the mobile nomads- from Iran, China, Greece to the Middle East.
It doesn't mean that the peripatetic peoples didn't have a civilization, it just means they didn't have the kind of civilization most of us are used to.
The Mongols did indeed build 'cities'- Sarai and Kara Korum, for instance:
The Mongols, like the other peoples of Central Asia, used large tents and yurts. According to thirteenth-century reports, there was a gigantic yurt in Mongolia, built on a cart, to which 22 bulls were harnessed. Traces of many towns and settlements have also survived, however, the most striking example being the old Mongol capital of Karakorum. This was a large city boasting 12 temples of different religions (including Buddhism), the palace of Ögedey Khan and residential quarters around the central trading area; we have a description of it from the only known European traveller who visited it, William of Rubruck.
http://www.unesco.org/culture/asia/.../chapitre12.htm
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29-05-2005 16:23
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