Civ3 site just updated.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS


There weren't any Americans in America until they were exported from Europe, either, but you can still start a game of Civ III as the Americans...

We wanted the Iroquois to be representative of all the indigenous tribes of North America. When you play the Iroquois, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, and Tecumseh are some of the potential great leaders who may appear, even though none of them were Iroquois. This is not accidental, it's the best compromise.

Dan

Dan,

First, think ya do great work.

However, I would like to get your perspective on why no Islamic culture was included or ever has been included in Civ? No Ottomans or Arabs. Doesn't this strike you as being an egregious omission, considering there are 4 Western-Christian civs alone? (English, French, German, Americans) And 2 Sinic cultures, Japan and China? Why were they excluded?

Cheers.

[RedWhiteArcher]

HisMajestyBOB:
Well I do. But I Civ gives me more control.

I don't ask for it to be really historicly accurate but I want at least some of this. And one of the Civ3 new additions is making each civ more coresponding to its own history and they really have a big mistake in this point.

[Crouchback]

Or the Iroquois just trade for horses (if they can't steal them as they did in reality) from the Europeans.

David.

I mean the plains tribes, not the Iroquois. Problem with lumping all Native Peoples into one unrepresentative tribe.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Dan,

First, think ya do great work.

However, I would like to get your perspective on why no Islamic culture was included or ever has been included in Civ? No Ottomans or Arabs. Doesn't this strike you as being an egregious omission, considering there are 4 Western-Christian civs alone? (English, French, German, Americans) And 2 Sinic cultures, Japan and China? Why were they excluded?

Cheers.

I really couldn't tell you, to be honest, because I don't know. I would suspect that it comes down to trying to select Civs that have good "name recognition" and that balance out others in geocultural terms (i.e., what part of the world the Civ is from, what time period the Civ was dominant in, etc.)

The one thing I have learned is that you can't please everyone, and no matter which civs had made it into the game, there would still be a few angry people who feel that "their Civ" had been slighted.



Dan

[civcop]

...someone posted a satire about playing an extremely historically accurate version of Civ 3 (and about how it would be the same game repeated every time because, well, it was historically accurate!). Everyone raved and cheered the post. Now we have complaints about an Iroquois on a horse because it isn't historically accurate. If every civ were entirely historically accurate then gameplay would suffer vastly and some civs would have dramatic advantages over others. The only way to rectify such a problem would be to equal out units to compensate. For instance, if the Egyptians and Chinese would have great advantages with their UUs and compensation would have to be made on behalf of the other civs, then you would have to give those other UUs qualities that were not historically accurate (like giving foot units the movement rate of horses, as but one example). You cannot claim to realize the error of a game with a completely historically accurate engine and gameplay, but then decry the bastardized historic realism of an Iroquois on a horse (or a Roman legion being a ripped-off copy of the Greek phallanx). If we want a purely historic Iroquois civ then they cannot possess firearms before the 1800's and must find the unnatural resource of Dutch traders in order to "manufacture" them.

And, Boris, wouldn't the Persians be considered an Arabic people?

[Steve Clark]

Ironic, isn't it, civcop? (thanks for mentioning my thread again).

Dan, why are you taking to the time answer fools in this thread? Shouldn't there be better ways to spend your time?

[RedWhiteArcher]

civcop
We are talking on a very major issue of historicaly correctness. What if we put Egyptians in Australia. Who cares? We don't want it to be historicly correct. Yes offcourse some play random but many people like it to see the basic historic accuracy.

[Boris Godunov]

[SIZE=1]
And, Boris, wouldn't the Persians be considered an Arabic people?

Nope, they are not. They are a Iranic people. Notice that Iran and Arabia are in two different geographic spots.

While the Iranians of today are Islamic, the Persian representation in the game is the old Archaemid Persia, under Xerxes. The people of the Persian Empire then and the people of Iran today have in much in common with each other as the ancient Egyptians and modern-day residents of Egypt have: none except that they happen to have occupied the same space.

I would just like to have gotten some acknowledment to the enormous impact on the world and history that Islamic culture has had. I think the enduring legacy of the Ottoman Turks make them an appropriate choice for one of the 16 civs.

I mean, in Civ I, when you won and were compared to other great leaders, who was the highest? Sulayman the Wise, a Turkish ruler...but no Turks in the game?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by HisMajestyBOB
Maybe we could say that its a what if horses never died out in N. America? Jeez, if you want a game that is very historical, get EU (well worth your money )

Horses didn't die off in America. Horses were never in America to start with.

This is true, but resources appear on the map when its corresponding technology has been discovered.

I think people would notice horses, even without horseriding technology!

[kolpo]

oh posted in wrong topic

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Big Crunch


Horses didn't die off in America. Horses were never in America to start with.

Check out
http://www.pbs.org/wildhorses/wh_origin/wh_origin.html

"The very first horses evolved on the North American continent over 55 million years ago. Over millions of years they roamed the grasslands slowly extending their range to most of the continents on earth"

Quote:

This is true, but resources appear on the map when its corresponding technology has been discovered.

I think people would notice horses, even without horseriding technology!

This may be true, but we're dealing with an abstraction of reality that works in the framework of the game.


Dan

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
This may be true, but we're dealing with an abstraction of reality that works in the framework of the game.

Fun gameplay over realism. Thank god.

[Dauphin]

The very first horses evolved on the North American continent over 55 million years ago

I stand corrected! I thought they were an old world exclusive.

This may be true, but we're dealing with an abstraction of reality that works in the framework of the game.

Fair enough. Gameplay is more important than strict adherence to facts. Where possible I would like to have things accurate though. I was more interested in knowing how the horse resources would be distributed.

Are resources going to be geographically accurate. Eg Saudi oil, South African diamonds etc..

[d_dudy]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS


We wanted the Iroquois to be representative of all the indigenous tribes of North America. When you play the Iroquois, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, and Tecumseh are some of the potential great leaders who may appear, even though none of them were Iroquois. This is not accidental, it's the best compromise.

Dan

gee, then why not call them "native americans"?

[Nemo]

why only ONE screenshot a week? thats kind of weak IMHO

[Nemo]

Originally posted by d_dudy
gee, then why not call them "native americans"?

given the way they are going to be played...i fully agree that they should be called "native american" instead of a specific tribe. i mean, SOME of the tribes formed alliances against the Europeans during their arrival and during the developement, too.

[splangy]

Originally posted by Nemo


given the way they are going to be played...i fully agree that they should be called "native american" instead of a specific tribe. i mean, SOME of the tribes formed alliances against the Europeans during their arrival and during the developement, too.

Its probably becouse it would be ahistorical and people would be critisizing it much like they are now critisizing the horse thing. Sure YOU may not but ALOT of people would, it would be like calling Zulus "South African unorganized tribes" or the Aztecs "central to south American tribes".

Also, they most likely made there UU a horse becouse so many people use warrior-uniques and they needed some early unit good at attack. This worries me becouse I like the world map and I dont want all my games to start with "Iroquoise destroy Americans!"...

[Nemo]

Originally posted by splangy

Its probably becouse it would be ahistorical and people would be critisizing it much like they are now critisizing the horse thing. Sure YOU may not but ALOT of people would, it would be like calling Zulus "South African unorganized tribes" or the Aztecs "central to south American tribes".

True...we complain about everything...no matter what decision they make. but, hey, what are fans for

i just like playing devils advocate.

[KrazyHorse]

Everybody watch Dan squirm...

[Wernazuma III]

Although I strictly oppose the inclusion of the Iroquois or any other native american tribe, in this point I have to "break a lance" for the general idea. In those centuries since the import of horses, they had become an extremely powerful factor in the indian warfare and life in general, so it's OK that they have a mounted UU.
But why in 3 devils names did FIRAXIS choose the Iroquois if they wanted to have a typical plains tribe?????????

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by splangy


Its probably becouse it would be ahistorical and people would be critisizing it much like they are now critisizing the horse thing. Sure YOU may not but ALOT of people would, it would be like calling Zulus "South African unorganized tribes" or the Aztecs "central to south American tribes".

And to begin with critizising: There is a fundamental difference between Zulus and Iroquois on one side and Aztecs on the other: Aztecs were a real urban society with a centralized state, infrastructure and administration. They knew codified writing etc.: So don't call them tribe

[Sarxis]

Dan, don't let anyone give you a hard time about the game. The true CIV fan knows where to draw the line between 'REALITY' and 'PC GAME'.

[java4me]

Originally posted by Anunikoba
Dan, don't let anyone give you a hard time about the game. The true CIV fan knows where to draw the line between 'REALITY' and 'PC GAME'.

He is right, if it was all real life, then the game wouldn't be as fun!!!

[Wexu]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
..there would still be a few angry people who feel that "their Civ" had been slighted.

Dan

Where are the FINNS? This game suuuuuucks!

But hey, really, it's stupid enough to have Americans as a civilization anyway, so stop whining about some damn Iroquis (I think I mispelled it..). If you care so much about how historically accurate this game is, why are you not whining/laughing 'cause Americans are in? At least I have laughed since the Civilization I, because it is and it always have been the most ridicilous thing in any Civilization. It's sad to see Firaxis still hasn't got the balls to leave Americans out. Thank God there are those good editors so we can make/remove any civilization(s) we want to? Right?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS

I really couldn't tell you, to be honest, because I don't know. I would suspect that it comes down to trying to select Civs that have good "name recognition" and that balance out others in geocultural terms (i.e., what part of the world the Civ is from, what time period the Civ was dominant in, etc.)

The one thing I have learned is that you can't please everyone, and no matter which civs had made it into the game, there would still be a few angry people who feel that "their Civ" had been slighted.

Dan

Thanks, Dan, your response is appreciated.

If that's the case (name recognition), I am a little disappointed in those who made the choice, but can say I understand. I can only feel that it is somehow feeding into a stereotypical dismissal of Islamic culture as a significant force out of prejudice and ignorance.

I for one would most likely not PLAY the Turks, but would like to match wits against them. I'm a predominantly German civer!

Cheers.

[MarkG]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=28439