Who am i to question the design choices of great game programmers?

What only matters is that i can go back into "rules.txt"... make them all "1,1,-1"... and crush their cities one by one with a fleet of Bombers.

Sure, Romans >HAD< to deal with the Celts and others in the real history books. Greeks, too.

You MUST have romans or egyptians or greeks in order for the game (named civilization of all things!) to be «catchy».

Plus the game goes on untill the future (like the greeks before during and after the Byzantine -known also as the Eastern Roman Empire - )so you CANNOT leave out people like the americans or the germans or the russians or the english (really why not british?) because you would lower the level of involvement of huge markets and because they play big roles in the world and have big achievements too even if later in history. And civ begins with colossus and goes on to the statue of liberty so things patch up in a way in the end.

I like the idea of Assyrians.

Where are the Turks? Talk about impact on history.

Salutations,
Exile

Why remove civilizations?! I say *ADD* civilizations while keeping the original roster. I am hoping Civ III will do something along those lines.

Add:
Phoenicians, Indus-culture (well, this is difficult, since there's not much knowledge left of them, and they're almost the same as Indians), Arabs, Incas, Mayans, Khmer(also not very much knowledge left on these, either), Sumerians(well, they later became Babylonians...), Assyrians

Well, I wouldn't delete the Celts. Although they were loose organization, they still controlled half the Europe, and the Romans really had a hard time beating them, and never throughoutly conquered whole Britain. I think they're far more realistic than the French or Germans.
As I've told before, I have myself edited the rules and city.txt, and deleted: Americans, Spanish(well, they're ok, but I just had to make room for one more civ), Sioux, Zulus.
And added: Incas, Mayans, Arabs, Assyrians.
So, there are 3 civs in America, which is good, and the game seems more realistic otherwise, too. If you wish I'll post the leader names and cities for added civs (well, there already exists those for Arabs and Incas).

And oh, yes, about the Phoenicians: Carthago was actually a colony of theirs, so basically Carthaginians are the same thing. Their starting place is just "really" in Libanon(next to Israel in north).

I also like the idea of adding the Hebrews. It's just too small map for them, with Babylonians, Arabs, Assyrians and Egyptians around. And phoenicians, too...

quote: Originally posted by cpoulos on 01-20-2001 06:26 AM I'd be happy to check out your site, but were is it?

Cpoulos click on «profile» then «homepage» of Promitheas. Some cool celts senarios! and more

1. Greece(The western world owes everything to us!)
2. China(invented more things then anyone)
3. Rome(longest continual government in history.Before someone says that's eygpt, I said continuous.Egypt had breaks and gaps in it's history).
4. Sumerian(civilization began with them)
5. Eygpt(most lasting manmade objects in the world).
6. American(most inovative society in human history)
7. Spain(Jay bee is right. spain's effect on the two americas is larger then any other influence).

1. Greeks. Founded so many new ideas and concepts that the european and later to a lesser degree american world (I don't like the term western) would be unrecognisable if not for those achievements. With Alexander and the unification of macedonia, attika, ipirus, peloponese and the agean communities into an unprecedented all greek military machine, the conquest of persia was truly awe - inspiring and forged one of the biggest empires in the world. Though I wished Alexander would have chosen to go west but that's another story Plus Alexander's moto of equality between greeks and «barbarians» inside its empire was unprecedented.

2. Romans. Perhaps the name that comes to everyone's mind when talking about empires. Democracy was a mocqeury in Rome but still the longlivity of it is bewildering. Rome was itself «captured» intellectually by hellenistic culture but had none of the inherent disabilites of true athenian style democracy. Forged Europe into a whole and gave it its first «unified character». Made civilizations based on greco-roman principles that later became autonomous communities and later nations. Latin is the basis nearly all «western» languages, roman roots can even today be found in the judicial system etc etc. Perhaps THE empire when it comes to strength and longlevity.

3. France. Yeah, came untill the scene much later BUT: French revolution. Humanistic principles, respect to human descency and equality no matter how flawed at their initial french concption became the basis of modern democracy.

4. Israel. Where did we get the idea that god was only one huh?! Plus their culture that became the principles of christianity was SO MUCH different from what was known in rome and greece. Austerity, enduring the suffering waiting for the after life, denying the body of pleasures in order to obey rules of morality and the word of god etc etc.
Try saying that to Dionysos! or any of the greek or roman hedonistic characters!

5. China. In the Past but also Today. Ideas so different from anything in Europe that overwhelm the mind. Capale of treatening whoever the hell it pleases.

6. USA. Sheer power. May be the only country that «nationality» does not constitute an obstacle. Has huge democratic flaws and humanistic errors but in that sense is more democratic than any other.

7. Russia or more precisily USSR. The only country to «produce» the first «communist» community and showing the world that a viable (as was seen at the time) alternative to capitalism existed. Managed to become a superpower in just 70 years. Gave ALL of its citizens social welfare altough at the huge cost of the loss of much of their freedom.

i.e. Who else but the ottoman turks managed to make the whole of Europe shiver and fear of being occupied and make europeans join together to stop them at Vienna?

Also Persia is in it but Iran - Irak is not!!!
One more example of the «problem» of mixing old civs with new ones.

Just asking,
Exile

1. the sumarians. they started civilization, invented the wheel, and had the first writting.
2.babylonians, under hammurabi, invented the worlds first written code of laws and punishment, and was the first empire.
3(tie). romans-aqueducts, republic, colum, language, civilizing europe, etc.
3(tie). greeks. direct democracy, the trieme, upset persian power, great myths.
5.chinese-gunpowder, bunch of other stuff.and smartest midgets.
6.USA-NUKES !!!!!! modern democracy, breking old monarchies, seperation of church and state, blah blah blah. AND NUKES
7.post-roman europe- as a whole, no one european country contributed much more than another after the fall of the roman empire. colonization of america was due to the british, spanish, french, portugese, and the netherlands. advances were pretty much the same from one tto another, so i group them all in one classification.

quote: Originally posted by cpoulos on 01-21-2001 02:30 PM Greek civilization's roots go back to it's three antecendent groups: The Thracians, the Illyrians, and the Mycenaens,all three of witch predate Phonicean culture.

Well this conversation is drifting more and more away from civ (the game ) but one more observation: don't forget gramiki beta and gramiki alpha of the Mycenaens which are the OLDEST recorded writings in history. Before Phoenicians (a great trading empire although a bit of a «phantom» due to lack of historical evidence) came around.

I can't remember in which museum the circular writing of gramiki beta and alpha are though...