Turks

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by Hagbart


What does this have to do with science?..

Absolutely nothing.


Read molly bloom's first post.


I am accused of bias against the Turks.

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by XOR
Let's just put it in general Terms, because really, Chinese made much more impressive scientific breaktroughs than the Ottomans, let's leave the nowadays Turks behind and speak about the Ottoman empire.

What was their level of sophistication on:

a- Manufacturing: Not their great infrastructure as to build 1000 battleships, just what level of complexity it had. If they barely built hand tools or if they actually build more complex machines like cars and trains (no matter if they actually invented or not).

b- Education: Did they have an above-contemporary-average educational system? How was their literacy rate compared to the rest of the world? Did their educational system include highly technical material (like engineering institutions) or just basic things and bureaucracy (acounting/laws) in general?

c- Exportable technology/discoveries/invention: How much of the techniques developed by the turks ended up being relevant enough for the rest of the world to copy them? How much in our biology/chemistry/physics books comes from their discoveries?

You certainly must get one or another thing, with the huge numbers of things invented in the world some of them must have been invented by Ottomans, but I seriously doubt that Ottomans were any more scientifically productive than their contemporaries.

The mere fact that 54% (maybe more) of the Turks is still illiterate proves that it is definetely a scientific nation and patrons of the arts.

My specialty is military history XOR, so my answer will be based on that.

Turkish warships were greatly inferior in construction and technology than the Venetian's or even the Byzantine's of the previous years.And combined with the "traditional Turkish seamanship"....
The Turk's use of cannons although innovative at first, quickly fell behind from Europe's. The Burgundians and French quickly surpassed them.

They were quite advanced in bureocracy though.
And their infrastucture was more or less sophisticated, a heritage of the conquered Roman Empire.

ALL Turkish technologies have been copied by others and reached even the modern era. Both of them. Sofa and toilets.

Some people don't seem to understand that since Fireaxis classified the Turks as Scientific, they are put into the same category as the Greeks and Germans.

Molly bloom, Spiffor you really don't want me to bring quotes and links to support this statement, do you?

[XOR]

Well, judging by the rest of the new civs:

Carthaginians: Commercial/Industrius
Koreans: Commercial/Scientific
Mongols: Militaristic/Expansionist
Vikings: Militaristic/Expansionist
Spanish: Religious/Commercial
Celts: Religious/Militaristic
Arabs: Expansionist/Religious
Turks: Industrial/Scientific

Spanish should have been expansionist religious and the arabs religoius commercial. Of this I am sure. The Vikings seem to me to have been better commercial instead of expansionist. But of this I am not so sure, it would, at least, reduce the number of Mil/Exp.

The Ottomans are totally unbelievable, Scientific... and, Industrial... both... are probably the things that the Ottomans were the least.

Militaristic I'd believe, as their UU description seems to be part arsenal and part social status. Then I'd give expansionist if expansionist served something, since expansionist is worthless I would not mind Militaristic/Scientific or Militaristic/Industrial, even if none of the 2 traits actually reflect anything they are better than the worthless expansionist trait. But they could be Mil/Rel (there's 3 already) or even Mil/Com preferably as well.

There's also the fact that Zulus and Mongols are already going to be Mil/Exp. If they leave Vikings as they are (I hope not) they will leave us with 3 Mil/Exps. Not good. We will probably end up with 3 Mil/Rels, but Mil/Rel is a good combination.

I know, someone will probably come in and say "the editor blah, blah, blah", but some of the specifications seem a bit absurd. The only actual reason I'd see to make the Turks Ind/Sci is that there is only 1 Ind/Sci ATM. But there is also only 1 Mil/Com, only one Sci/Com and only one Mil/Ind. But it would probably be more apropriate to make the Americans the other Ind/Sci.

[Hagbart]

Originally posted by Palaiologos

No hagbart, no.

Kalinicus, Herodotus, Archimedes, Colombus, Gallileus(not sure how it's in English), are just a few of great innovators and thinkers that did not come from the upper class. They came from the middle class.

I am sure i can find many more if i think of it but these come first to my mind.

Yes Pala yes..
You can think of a lot more in the upper class. Just think of all the great physics, chemistry and matematics people. Newton, Pascal, Kepler, Coulomb, Joule, Brahe etc. Most of the time only people in the upper class could get the education needed to be great scientists...

[Hagbart]

Originally posted by Palaiologos

You can't be serius.

Are you trying to raise your postcount or something?

All african tribes made some kind of art. You can't deny that. Cannibals or not...

[Hagbart]

Militaristic/commercial would be perfect for the Vikings..

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by Hagbart


Yes Pala yes..
You can think of a lot more in the upper class. Just think of all the great physics, chemistry and matematics people. Newton, Pascal, Kepler, Coulomb, Joule, Brahe etc. Most of the time only people in the upper class could get the education needed to be great scientists...

I agree Hagbart.But how many of these were Turks?

And how many were in the middle class?

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by Hagbart


All african tribes made some kind of art. You can't deny that. Cannibals or not...

And all people can think.

Does that make them philosophers?



And for God's Sake i didn't mean to insult Africa...
I just thought of a kind of peoples that have nothing to do with Art.
I offered an extreme example in an attempt to strengthen my arguments.

And yes Vikings should be militaristic\commercial. That's ideal for them historically.

[Palaiologos]

And i really hope that those who argue with me take a look at the previous posts, not just those on page 7.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by XOR
Spanish should have been expansionist religious and the arabs religoius commercial. Of this I am sure. The Vikings seem to me to have been better commercial instead of expansionist. But of this I am not so sure, it would, at least, reduce the number of Mil/Exp.

The Ottomans are totally unbelievable, Scientific... and, Industrial... both... are probably the things that the Ottomans were the least.

Militaristic I'd believe, as their UU description seems to be part arsenal and part social status. Then I'd give expansionist if expansionist served something, since expansionist is worthless I would not mind Militaristic/Scientific or Militaristic/Industrial, even if none of the 2 traits actually reflect anything they are better than the worthless expansionist trait. But they could be Mil/Rel (there's 3 already) or even Mil/Com preferably as well.

I agree with almost all of that. If the list remains the same I'll change them as follows:

Vikings: Militaristic/Commercial
Spanish: Religious/Expansionist
Arabs: Religious/Commercial or Religious/Scientific
Turks: Militaristic/Expansionist or Militaristic/Religious

[KaiserIsak]

Still getting nowhere with this thread? Sorry i left, but i did take to much time (=

[Palaiologos]

Don't worry Kaiser Issak.

Please accept my apologies for i mistook your absense as abdication.

Have you read all the arguments that were posted after you left?

I have written some of them but i find them all quite interesting.

I am still waiting for some sort of counter-argument to continue this very interesting discussion.

[Gauke]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=57738



Some info about The Turks & The Ottomans written by me if you'd like to read...

Thanks

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by Gauke
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=57738



Some info about The Turks & The Ottomans written by me if you'd like to read...

Thanks

I have already read that. I don't think Huns were your ancestors, however.

[The Pioneer]

This thread is a perfect example of how each of us interprets an already biased history. I as a Greek had to through school and read all kinds of biased books about how bad our neighbors the Turks were. Nowof course where there is smoke there is a fire andf I am not saying that they have not done horrendous acts against some people. Now I've come to the belief that you cannot judge a country solely on its past. If that was the case the Germans would never had a chance, neither would most countries today. Turkey still needs to work on its human rights (funny thing is they are accusing us of not recognizing the muslim minority in Thrace despite the fact that they at one time or another had reps in our Parliamnet, something that would never had happened for Greeks, Armenians, Kurds in Turkey).

Fact is though that they are trying and that anybody deserves a chance. They are a secular gov't with its problems, I grant you that but still a secular country that has made leaps towards becoming a "western country" and they should be praised for that. We achieve nothing by bashing on them unless provoking them is your intention.

Another thing about the muslim world of the past, AFAIK they promoted science and arts and they had cleaner and more sophisticated cities than the ones in the christian world where people in cities were dying of filth and plaques and only clergyman and the nobleman enjoyed the arts. It was the crusades of the Catholic church that brought the same jihad that we are still fighting today. It was the Crusaders that killed and massacred children and women despite the fact that the muslims abstained from such monstrosities. Again this is the vertsion I know and thoroughly believe and it may well be that your version is different and you have every right to believe in that.

So long...

PS: OT I will turn the Turks in my PTW into militirastic/expansionist since in my book that would be the more suitable traits.

PSS: A lot of the arguments in this thread confused the muslim and the muslim world with the Turks and that is not all together right. There were muslims around long before any Turk set foot on the european continent.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Gauke
Turks first lived in the middle asia. They were named as 'Huns' then.

They were probably related, but saying that the turks are the same with the huns is nothing less than a turkish fabrication.

First of all, the Huns were not a single civ, but were formed from different tribes. In the years of the decline of the Hun empire (in the 6th century) , the turks conquered the white huns, the avars, the kutrigur huns, the ogurs, etc, before coming to power in Asia. So, maybe you wanted to say "they conquered the huns", instead of "they were the huns".

OK, I don't want a fight on this one, so read "exaggeration" instead of "fabrication".

[Gauke]

Originally posted by Tiberius

They were probably related, but saying that the turks are the same with the huns is nothing less than a turkish fabrication.

First of all, the Huns were not a single civ, but were formed from different tribes. In the years of the decline of the Hun empire (in the 6th century) , the turks conquered the white huns, the avars, the kutrigur huns, the ogurs, etc, before coming to power in Asia. So, maybe you wanted to say "they conquered the huns", instead of "they were the huns".

OK, I don't want a fight on this one, so read "exaggeration" instead of "fabrication".

I meant that in 400AD there were many tribes living in the middle Asia. two of them were the Huns and the Turks. when I said they were called Huns, I wanted to say that The Turks and The Huns came from the same origin. I mean they have the same ancestor. but neither Turks nor Huns are ancestors of each other. .I am sure that The Turks and The Huns have a relationship.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Gauke
I am sure that The Turks and The Huns have a relationship.

This is what I've said. That they were related, not the same.

[KaiserIsak]

Sorry Palaiologos i have not read anything of it. I should, because it is very interesting, but my studies take so much time now, that i really cant take the time. And also i guess i would have to write so much afterwards that i would use at least a week. And then there would be even more to respond to again. So sorry, i stand for what i said, but i will not argue anymore. Maybe another time (=
Guess we will be arguing against each other again

[Zero]

so.. ive been coming to this forum time to time reading one or to post and I never really got to finish the whole 9 pages of it, but it seems as though many of you are bashing the Ottomans as being evil militaristic empire (maybe not evil but militaristic) that doesnt deserve scientific and industrious traits... I'm not gonna pretend that I know alot of mideastern eastern european history but I know certain things:

Some traits in civ3 are whacked. And alot of the traits appropriate for civ could be entitled to one's opinion cause you only have 2 traits. What if on civ was militaristic, religious and expansionistic? Civ did their best to choose two traits for each civ and sometimes I believe they choice also based on the balance of game sake. If all civs were militaristic and religious... that would suck.

Also, you can't just merge different centuries of same empire. For example, Russia and Soviet Union would be a different empire. So would the modern day Russia. So when discussing, try to limit yourself to which "civ" firaxis chose.

Lastly, history is largely left to one's interpretation. This allows each ethnic groups to use propaganda (biased education, media etc.. all = propaganda dont u think) to bash each other ethnic groups. This is not a wrong thing, since alot of the information is based on facts. But there is alot of fabrication and exaggeration involved. Lets be aware that even the most univerally accepted "axis of evil nations" of WW2, Germany and Japan doesnt deserve some of bashings. Im not gonna go into germany right now cause first, I don't want to denounce things such as holocaust never happened (and I assure u it did happen) cause if I start softening crimes for germany thats wat most people usually accuse of. But in Japan's case, Both China and Korea always accuse Japan as being extremely cruel to them and always point out imperialism as slavery and Rape of Nanking incident as examples to condemn Japan's behavior in the twentieh century. The fact of the matter is The same situation can be looked at a different light and would look the opposite. I could go so far as to portray my own country as the evil doers, using suicidal bombing, assasination and engaging in guerilla warfare to target Japanese civilians and officials etc just so they want there "independence" and Japan was fully willing to assimilate their ethnic group into their own. (Japan did use alot of effort to erase Korean cultures so they could be more manageable and be assimilated into Japanese empire). So, this whole thing got really long real fast and my fingers are on fire... I lost my track of thoughts but I hope u got my message that .. oh yea, my conclusion is, When you hear of accusations and condemnation from one ethnic group to another, you always have to find yourself understanding that history cannot be just understood from one point of view. Always doubt yourself when things look obvious in history, for often it is the winner (not necessarily the conquerors) that write the history.

[Zero]

holy... %(^%$* .......

that looks longer now that its posted...

EDIT: And now I realize that the whole lasyt paragraph could be summed in one easy sentence:

"Nationalism is retarded." but that would piss off alot of people and I don't have anything agst patriotic people so dont fame me... plz~

[The Pioneer]

A healthy dose of Nationalism is a good thing the more appropriate word would be fanaticism of any kind and for any reason!

So long...

[KaiserIsak]

The pioneer, could you please explain me what you mean that nationalism is a good thing. I dont ask because i deisagree, but i am curious for your explanation.

[Palaiologos]

Cool Portrait Tiberius!!!

I agree with you on the Huns.


And Pioneer don't confuse Muslems in general with the Turks.The Turks never promoted science and culture. Those were the Arabs.

And Muslems did not abstain from cruelties during the Crusades.

[Palaiologos]

I have just heard that the Ottoman's favorite goverment will be the Republic.

If this is true then the people at Fireaxis are obviously playing a joke on us.

No other explanation is logical.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Palaiologos
Cool Portrait Tiberius!!!

I use it to look more fierce in heated discussions. It is called intimidation
Not that I had any succes whatsoever

Back to the topic:

Why would they get right the ottoman's government? I mean, when you do something wrong, at least keep it wrong till the bitter end.

[Ekmek]

Oh, Palaiologos how is that job going in the Geek office of propaganda? Now I understand that you could be so upset at the Turks, since Greece has been repeatedly beaten by them, but being a sore loser doesnt earn much respect. Of course the Greeks are great complainers, but I'm also hapy that Greeks are are equal-opportunity haters since they not only hate the Turks, Americans are high on the hate list too.

Lets keep some of your "facts" a little more accurate. First "ethnic-cleansing" in the 1920s was actualy an echange because A LOT of Turks were kicked out of Greece too, remember Piraeus has the "Turkish Harbor" since so many were kicked out, just like Greeks left Izmir/Smyrna. And the term ethnic cleansing was used then, that was when it was first used ad done by Greeks and Turks to describe the moving of masses after the treaty so that thGreece and Turkey wouldn't be "Balkanized"like Bosnia. But it is far different from ethnic cleansing known today.

As for the Armenian genocide, its amazing how whenever a group rebels and is defeated they run to the world and cry genocide. It obviously was not genocide because a majority of Armenians already lived in the Soviet republic of Armenia, and plenty of Armenians live their today.

And since you are so found of history's incriminating evidence of evil, how about the Greek genocide of the Minoans and the subsequent occupation of Crete. Damn! the Minoans had such potential.

Or how about the establishment of the Ionian states and the Greek massace of the Lydians.

Or most atrocious of all the GENOCIDE of TROJANS Also known as the ILIAD by Homer. And Greece parades this as a masterpiece yet it is only a testament to Greek barbarity and genocide! Oh the splendor Troy would have been if it was not razed by Achilles, Odysseus, and his Nazi-like brethren who plundered the city, raped and kidnapped women at leisure, and all because the Mycenean's wife ran off with a younger man.

But thank you for voicing your concerns about Turkish treatement of the Kurds, Greece has done well in supporting their cause mainly since they let the communist PKK set up terrorist camps all over the Greek Islands, so many camps it makes Afghanistan look like disneyland.

But for how much the Greeks hate the Turks, Turks aren't so negative towards Greeks, because Turks are not as blood thirsty as your parents or teachers say they are, which is funny since they probably never met a Turk or been to Turkey.

Oh I have so much more to add, but I 'll let you moll this over.

But the great irony is that every Greek I met in Turkey, loved it! and this includes a Greek two-star general. So before you get ready to foam at the mouth, first pack your bags and take a trip to Turkey and you'll find that Turks and Greeks have more in common than you think and should be better neighbors.

[The Pioneer]

Originally posted by KaiserIsak
The pioneer, could you please explain me what you mean that nationalism is a good thing. I dont ask because i deisagree, but i am curious for your explanation.

Ok, this may be a bit tricky to explain but bera with me.
First of all being a little nationalistic does not mean you have to dislike others nor do you have to disapprove of others because of your beliefs. Let me explain further, being "a bit nationalistic" means to me to be proud of your citenzenship, to bring forward or project your country and your culture to others. Like when I was an exchange student in the States, I tried to tell people about my country, show them who we are and where we come from but never in a manner "we are better than you" but to promote it in a way no other means advertisemnet is able to. It also means to keep alive of the traditions as much as one can. It is by no means a blind thing by which I mean that you oversee things that need to be criticized and it also means that you should better yourself (and in a big picture your culture and country). To examplify this during the Christmas 1992-93 I was in yet another exchange student event where more than 30 countries were represented we were all very proud of our country and tried to share a bit of our culture with the others. I am not sure if you catch my drift.

Also, some may argue that ones country, culture and tradition may not mean one thing but in this case, for the sake of expaining, I used it as one.

So long...

PS: Nationalistic by no way means what I saw and felt in the States during the Gulf War where Americans were claiming they were better and stronger than everybody, in my book that's called hubris and arrogance.

[molly bloom]

Nationalism and patriotism- not quite the same thing. That astute British writer, George Orwell, summed it up quite neatly in his essay, 'Notes on Nationalism'- written at a time when the pernicious effects of nationalism were at least as obvious they are today:

http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/nat.htm

I find it perfectly acceptable to be proud of one's country's achievements, or the achievements of famous men and women from one's ethnic grouping, but that does not mean that one has to denigrate another country or race or religion in order to highlight one's own successes.

[Zero]

Best way to distill fact from this froum is
- look at the flag and location of the writer. if it is greece for example, and sounds like a bias about turks are evil, (or start sounding like it) I just ignore the entire post. and vice versa for turks.

-Anyone who doesn't really state counterarguement for his own theory couldnt be trusted since thats how you methodically base out facts, thats how historical research is done and MAY suggest the author is blindly biased if he does not present two sides. (That may being critical so once again do not flame me)