Civ of the Week: Greeks

[The diplomat]

There is a new civ of the week up at www.civ3.com
This time it's the Greeks. There is the little "history lesson" which is always fun.

The Greeks look very cool. They get the scientific+commercial abilities. It seems to me like they will be the best science civs!

The special unit is the Hoplite. Here are the stats.

standard hoplite att:1, def:2, mvt:1
Greek Hoplite att:1, def:3 , mvt 1

As you can see, the Greek Hoplite gets a whopping 3 for defense, making it the best defensive unit until the advent of the pikeman!

[Imran Siddiqui]

News item posted... props given to diplomat .

[Harlan]

I could live with the deeply tanned Cleopatra. But this Alexander looks nothing like the real one. Alexander had long, dirty blond hair, sideburns, bugged out eyes, and many other features not seen here. Follow the link from the Greeks page on Civ3, about the middle of the page, where they say "he demanded it". You'll see one representation of him in the top corner of the page. His hair was usually longer than this, but otherwise this is what he looked like.

Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Harlan
I could live with the deeply tanned Cleopatra. But this Alexander looks nothing like the real one. Alexander had long, dirty blond hair, sideburns, bugged out eyes, and many other features not seen here. Follow the link from the Greeks page on Civ3, about the middle of the page, where they say "he demanded it". You'll see one representation of him in the top corner of the page. His hair was usually longer than this, but otherwise this is what he looked like.

Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

Does it really matter if the leader does not look exactly like the real Alexander the Great? I think the idea is for the leaders to be more like caricatures.

I think that the Greeks look like a great civ to play. Their commercial and scientific bonuses will make them one of the best science civs. And, the hoplite will give them great defense so as to ward off all those pesky militaristic civs.

I think they will be lots of fun to play.

[phildphild]

Originally posted by Harlan
Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

Historical accuracy IS low priority. Firaxis is doing a game, not a history lecture. Anyway, it's all in the past. Who cares?

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Harlan
I could live with the deeply tanned Cleopatra. But this Alexander looks nothing like the real one. Alexander had long, dirty blond hair, sideburns, bugged out eyes, and many other features not seen here. Follow the link from the Greeks page on Civ3, about the middle of the page, where they say "he demanded it". You'll see one representation of him in the top corner of the page. His hair was usually longer than this, but otherwise this is what he looked like.

Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

I can't speak for the art, since I'm not an artist, but as I wrote the text you're commenting on, let me just say I certainly never said he drank himself to death or anything of the sort -- I stated the facts that I found via research -- that he was known to be a drinker and shortly after a drinking binge / banquet, he died.

I certainly try to make the CotW updates humorous, but never knowingly at the expense of known facts.


Dan

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
I certainly try to make the CotW updates humorous, but never knowingly at the expense of known facts.

I love the way you write up the CotW. The humor is great!

I think my favorite line in this one has to be the following:

"Several wars and a few playwrights later, in 399 B.C., Socrates was convicted of making sense and was sentenced to death by manner of lethal kool-aid."

[Harlan]

Dan, I used the word "implies". If one says: "Alexander sat down for a nice, quiet extended banquet and drinking binge. Ten days later, he died", then the implication is that the banquet / drinking binge must have killed him, esp. since the malaria is nowhere mentioned. I appreciate the humor generally speaking, but in this case it reinforces a widely held but erroneous explanation of his death.

But don't bother yourself with a reply to this. You're much more needed answering all those questions about leaders and stacking and such back in the Civ3 General forum!

Anyways Diplomat, I tend to get a little anal about things Alexander cos I once did a big scenario about him. Like the tag line for one of those Rambo movies, "This time, its personal!"

[Imran Siddiqui]

"Several wars and a few playwrights later, in 399 B.C., Socrates was convicted of making sense and was sentenced to death by manner of lethal kool-aid."

Watch it! Harlan might say that kool-aid wasn't around then .

Dan, nice job on the CotW. Very, very funny. I many times during this one .

[YefeiPi]

We should all thank the ancient Greeks: aside from devising really neat and useful things like democracy, the Pythagorean theorem, and the Hippocratic oath

Actually, Pythagorean theroem was discovered by the Chinese hundreds of years ahead of time.

[MarkG]

OH GREAT GODS OF OLYMPUS!

what does this



have to do with this

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Harlan
I could live with the deeply tanned Cleopatra. But this Alexander looks nothing like the real one. Alexander had long, dirty blond hair, sideburns, bugged out eyes, and many other features not seen here. Follow the link from the Greeks page on Civ3, about the middle of the page, where they say "he demanded it". You'll see one representation of him in the top corner of the page. His hair was usually longer than this, but otherwise this is what he looked like.

Furthermore, he did not die of a drinking binge, as the Civ3 site implies, but of malaria. Grr. Historical accuracy seems to be a low priority for Firaxis.

The man in the picture looks like Macchiavelli, definitely not Alexander.
Apart from this the text gives the impression that the most important thing that Aristotle did was teaching Alexander. NOT. Aristotle was a more important person in history than Alexander himself. He was the inventor of, among a great many other things, logic.

[MarkG]

or this

[OneFootInTheGrave]

To me it looks more like a Roman Protector of the Greek province

[MarkG]

Originally posted by phildphild
Historical accuracy IS low priority. Firaxis is doing a game, not a history lecture. Anyway, it's all in the past. Who cares?

historical accuracy is part of the fun of the game. especially when it comes to "great library" texts where find something that is historically correct is not very hard, or when we are talking about a face that you will be seeing a lot in the game and which is supposed to give you the illusion that you're having hard diplomatic discussions with a great leader!

now if that's the image of someone who conquered the known world in 10 years.....

[MarkG]

well hopefully this will be somehow be editable(Dan, please say it is so!), and i'll puting something like this instead, and i dont care if the "face" doest move during diplomatic negotiations....

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by YefeiPi


Actually, Pythagorean theroem was discovered by the Chinese hundreds of years ahead of time.

As I understand it, the basic concepts were known to the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese well before the time of Pythagoras, but the Pythagoreans were the first to really detail the intricacies of it, as well as to provide a mathematical proof of it.

Dan

[kolpo]

Again the myth that the Greece where democratic. The biggest part of the populations wasn't allowed to vote: the poor, the slaves, the womans...

A system where only a part of the people are allowed to vote and where the poor are excluded is not democracy but aristocracy.

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
As I understand it, the basic concepts were known to the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese well before the time of Pythagoras, but the Pythagoreans were the first to really detail the intricacies of it, as well as to provide a mathematical proof of it.

Both the Babylonians and the Egyptians knew the theorem to hold for specific values, the Egyptians even provided proof for these values. But they did not know the concept of a "variable" and hence gave no proof that the theorem held in general, like the Pythagorians did - for integers, that is. Studying this theorem, they discovered the existence of irrational numbers and it took a while before that was mastered. AFAIK it is not exactly known how much the Chinese understood at the time.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by kolpo
A system where only a part of the people are allowed to vote and where the poor are excluded is not democracy but aristocracy.

the poor? care to explain that?

[Harlan]

Markos,
Gotta be careful with those statues of Alex - they tend to be overly idealistic and handsome, cutting out things like his buggy eyes. At least the first one got his longish, wavy hair right. The first pic you showed (the mosaic from Pompeii) is widely agreed to be the more accurate representation.

As far as the Civ3 "Alex", he reminds me of the main senator character from the movie Gladiator. I think his name was Gracchus. Only younger, and thus without the beard and greying hair. Does anyone else see that?

[red_jon]

C'mon, Firaxis - we want a fit leader


I think the artists at Firaxis are having a competition to see who can make the scariest leader - Liz and Cleo are the winners at the moment...

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Harlan
Markos,
Gotta be careful with those statues of Alex - they tend to be overly idealistic and handsome, cutting out things like his buggy eyes. At least the first one got his longish, wavy hair right.

true. but from a thiny roman, i'd rather have an idealistically looking greek

[BeBro]

Originally posted by kolpo
Again the myth that the Greece where democratic. The biggest part of the populations wasn't allowed to vote: the poor, the slaves, the womans...

Hm, from today that is right, but from their (ancient Greeks) viewpoint it was democratic when all free men could vote - that was simply their definition of democracy. And it was a big steo forward compared to a one-man-rule like in Persia.

[Comrade Tribune]

Sorry, Mark, I pressed the wrong button!

Here we go: Macchiavelli is our Pseudo-Alexander.

[Eddin]

Well I think the Greeks are represented well, wiuth their hoplite and all... except for Alex of course, who is a bleeding monstrousity...


But seriously, about the posts in "civ of the week" by good ol Dan, they lack historical value and have a lethal overdose of humour I could only laugh at once I'm on drugs or seriously dunk. Probably only when I'm both. This civ game is not meant to be humourous, it's meant to be brilliant (just not humourously brilliant, but realistically brilliant when Civs descriptions are concerned). Even when it would have been a game for humour, Dan's remarks wouldn't fit in...

Now I may sound mean, but this is my opinion, just as it is my opinion that the game is really looking VERY good, and the site too, just not your remarks... I hope people wont shoot me for saying this.

Anyway, if I wanted humour I'd go and watch Monty Python instead of listening to pathetic jokes made by people who should be giving Apolyton'ers answers to their questions.

[star mouse]

Hmm, the Hoplite is the special unit that triggers the Golden Age. I guess we have to be a bit creative about starting the golden age because it's a defensive unit. Because you have less control in defensive battles, how are you going to provoke an attack on your Hoplite? Will we hope that some enemy civ attacks a city, or will we wander the map with Hoplites and hope to provoke a fight?

[Leonidas]

Poor old Alexander - he sure isn't looking like the tough, fearless conqueror of the world I have read so much about. In fact, he looks kinda whimpy. It also looks like he plucks his eyebrows. . .

Could this be a picture of Alex as a young lad, before the thoughts of global conquests seized his brain?

I think it would have been great to see Alex looking slightly battle-scarred, maybe wearing a hoplite helmet, and looking like he just stepped off the battlefield. . . Try negotiating with a leader like that. . .

As for the hoplites - a defense of 3 is good - but it was also an OFFENSIVE unit as well. Remember Marathon? The 10,000 hoplites CHARGED 25,000 Persians and defeated them soundly. They didn't stand on a hill waiting to be attacked. Nor did they sit in a city waiting for the enemy to fall on them.

The hoplite phalanx was the equivalent of the ancient tank. It should have a higher attack value.

Frankly, in this game I don't want humour at the expense of history. We have been playing the past civs BECAUSE they deal with history. So please, for Civ3 - lets make the leaders LOOK like leaders, and not something out of an artist's imagination.

I realize that you are trying to appeal to people of all ages - but, surely the library is not that far away - it contains a ton of pictures about the leaders of history. . .


Now here is a tough, athletic-looking leader:




Alexander's physical accounts show that he had a strong and athletic build, but was shorter than the average Macedonian. He was fair skinned, and his clean shaven face had a ruddy tinge to it. His eyes were gray and he was said to be a very handsome man. While leading his army he would always wear something so the enemy troops could recognize him from long distances. His brightly shining armor would glisten in the sun and he wore two large white plumes in his hat to distinguish him from the other soldiers. While not in battle, the Macedonian actually wore Persian clothing, at least during his late twenties and early thirties. His silk Persian clothing consisted of a long robe, cape, sash and headband in the royal purple and white colors.

The Macedonian King loved drama, music, poetry, and wine. Alexander also liked various exercises such as hunting, ball games and running. He was said to be an Olympic quality runner, but declined to run unless he was matched up against other kings. His pride was so great that it would not allow the possibility that someone might let him win. Though he generally liked to play sports, he disliked athletic competitions.

I realize that we live in politically correct times - but no modern interpretation can alter how people looked or acted in the past.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you don't have open beta testing - you don't get the benefit of a wide range of opinions based on playing the actual game.


Ah, well. . . back to reading. . .

[KrazyHorse]

I'll agree that the Alexander seemed more Roman than Macedonian when I first saw it.

Can't remember the source, but Alexander grew a full beard at the age of 17 to hide the acne on his face (so he wouldn't look like a fool when he spoke). Unless I'm mistaken, he kept the beard for most of his life.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Can't remember the source, but Alexander grew a full beard at the age of 17 to hide the acne on his face (so he wouldn't look like a fool when he spoke). Unless I'm mistaken, he kept the beard for most of his life.

I've heard that - with pock scars though - about the roman emperor hadrian. are you sure? because alex is always depicted w/o beard.

The Alexander picture is horrible !! He looks like a decadent, degenerated Ptolemean or Roman.

And about the hoplite: I agree partially with Leonidas that the Phalanx should also be an offensive unit. But Alexander's successes against the persians lived from the fact that the phalanx held the lines together while the cavalry made the decisive assaults. I'm still not happy with the term hoplite. While maybe some mesopotamians had a phalanx tactic, it was especially the macedon phalanx with the long sarissa-spear made it so unique. The hoplite on the other hand was never a unit, but a soldier within the phalanx...