Those of us with knowledge of discoveries found in Asia have tried to represent them here. I agree that looking at a Civ game primarily from a western perspective limits how much we learn about and appreciate history.

In general, a human-run civ will develop in the game according to how much easily accessable, high quality territory is available.

On a huge map size there is of course more space before expansion is choked off by rival civs fighting bitter wars of attrition.

What I am saying is that with a fixed number of turns in the game, a greater map size speeds up the tech-rate. So trying to anchor the tech tree in a certain time line, this tech in that year, magnetism in this decade etc., will fail unless every gamer plays Civ on the same map size.

My solution:-

Make the number of turns available in a game directly proportional to the ratio of the played map area divided by the "standard-map area."

The "tech rate" [number of units of science output required per tech discovery, i.e. the price of tech advances] proportional to the square of the ratio of map area played divided by the "standard-map area

So if i play on a map twice the area of the "standard map size" i get twice the nuber of turns, but tech costs four times as much per advance.

This cant hold for all maps, but surely a similar formular could be devised to increase turns on larger maps, but stop the tech tree getting "blown away" way too soon.

A fixed number of turns is my pet hate. I want to be able to research tech, build a large military and actually move it against an enemy before the clock runs out.

If we are granted ultra large maps as an option in CIV III, then a balancing formular must surely be applied.

Ko

Bigger libraries, esp. university libraries, should have it, though.

• 1933 as first flight of the DC-2 and first production run of the DC-3
• Hammurabi as 18th c. BCE
• 1687 as the publication of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica including a full description of his 1665 experiments. He had corresponded with several people from 1679 onwards about centripetal forces and elliptical orbits, but let's use 1687 for the record.
• "In 1694 [I was off by a year] the Bank of England was established and almost immediately started to issue notes in return for deposits. The crucial feature that made Bank of England notes a means of exchange was the promise to pay the bearer the sum of the note on demand. This meant that the note could be redeemed at the Bank for gold or coinage by anyone presenting it for payment...
  In 1833 the Bank's notes were made legal tender for all sums above £5 in England and Wales." Bank of England

City Walls:
What's wrong with Jericho?
'At Jericho, 600 feet below sea level in the arid valley of the Jordan, archaeologists have found the remains of what by 7000BC was an eight-acre town, housing 2000 or 3000 people, who made their living by cultivating the fertile zone in the surrounding oasis; their strains of wheat and barley were imported from elsewhere, as was the obsidian for some of their tools. (NB:Trade!!) Only a little later, at Çatal Hüyük, in modern Turkey, a much larger town grew up, eventually covering thirty acres and accommodating between 5000 and 7000 people, living a life of considerable sophistication. Digging has disclosed the presence of a wide variety of imported goods, presumably traded, an equally wide variety of locally produced craft goods, suggesting a division of labour, and most arresting of all, traces of an irrigation system, indicating that the inhabitants were already practising a form of farming previously thought characteristic only of the much larger and later settlements in the great river valleys.

Of key significance to military historians is the structure of these two towns. Çatal Hüyük is built with the outer walls of its outermost houses presenting a continuous blank face, so that even were an intruder to have broken a hole through it, or through a roof, he 'would find himself not inside the town but inside a single room'. Jericho, even more impressively, is surrounded by a continuous wall ten feet thick at the base, thirteen feet high and some 700 yards in circumference. At the foot of the wall lies a rock-cut moat thirty feet wide and ten feet deep, while inside the wall at one point stands a tower that overtops it by fifteen feet, providing a look-out place and, though it does not project beyond to form a flank as later bastions would, a dominant fighting-platform. Moreover, Jericho is built of stone, not the mud of Çatal Hüyük, indicating that an intense and coordinated programme of work, consuming tens of thousands of man-hours, had been undertaken. While Çatal Hüyük's conformation might have been chosen simply to keep out the occasional robber or raider, Jericho's is quite different in purpose: incorporating as it does two elements that were to characterise military architecture until the coming of gunpowder, the curtain wall and the keep, as well as the even longer-lived moat, it constitutes a true fortified stronghold, proof against anything but prolonged attack with siege engines.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993; a brilliant book)

Warriors:
'6800BC The earliest known township of Jericho possesses a protective wall, a sign that organised raiding and warfare has appeared'
{source: H.E.L.Mellersh:'Chronology of the Ancient World')
It may prove to be difficult to object against this argument! Warfare is as old as humanity; organized warfare appears but a short time later.

Temple:
'That southern Iraq had been inhabited long before the middle of the fifth millennium was demonstrated in 1946-49 by the excavations conducted at Eridu (Abu Shahrain, twelve miles to the south-west of Ur). The ruins of Eridu are now marked by low mounds and sand dunes surrounding a much dilapidated 'ziqqurat', or stage-tower, erected by Amar-Sin, king of the Third Dynasty of Ur(2046-2028BC), but under one corner of the ziqqurat Seton Lloyd and Fuad Safar unearthed an impressive series of seventeen temples built one above the other in proto-historic times. The lowest and earliest of these temples (levels XVII-XV) were small, one-roomed buildings which contained altars, offering tables and a fine quality pottery (Eridu ware) decorated with elaborate, often elegant geometric designs in dark-brown colour and presenting affinities with the Choga Mami transitional ware. The poorly preserved remains of temples XIV-XII yielded a slighly different ceramic characterized by its crowded designs and 'reserve slip' decoration, which was identical with the pottery found in 1937-39 by German archaeologists at Qal‘at Hajji Muhammad, near Uruk. This Hajji Muhammad ware, as it is called, is also present on other sites of southern Iraq, notably Ras el ‘Amiya, five miles north of Kish, where , it must be noted, fragments of walls, clay vessels and other objects lay buried under several feet of alluvium and were discovered by chance. Finally, temples XI to VI, generally well preserved, contained numerous specimens of standard Ubaid ware, whilst temples VI-I could be dated to the early stages of the Uruk period(~3750-3150BC). Since the Eridu, and Hajji Muhammad wares are closely related to the early and late Ubaid ware, these four types of pottery are now commonly called Ubaid 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively.

I was reading of Catal Huyuk jsut last night! I can only concur, and feel it is only logical, that advances in masonry, pottery, ceremonial burial, and polytheism are clearly Neolithic, at least 7000 BCE and perhaps as much as two millenia older. The lack of an alphabet means simply that that there were no written records, hardly evidence that they did not exist. Of course, these advances were also very limited in their distribution. 4000 BCE remains a reasonable start date for a civilization game, IMO.

I had posted about the temples of Janna at Eridu and the white temple of Uruk earlier.

I think I made some valuable remark about:

Despotism:
Sargon of Akkad(~2334-2279BC;dates contested), who plundered all the lands of Mesopotamia around his capitol city of Kish, was the first king whose power rested as much on the army as upon religion.

Since Despotism is a game concept in its own right, I think it deserves to have its own headword in the list. I would like to add the following:
'Between 3100BC and 2300BC, as a result, warfare increasingly dominated Sumerian life, leading to the supplanting of priest-kings by war leaders, military specialisation, the accelerated development of a weapons metallurgy and, probably, the intensification of combat to the point where we can begin to speak of it as 'battle'.

These are, of course, suppositions, to be pieced together from fragments of evidence - the appearance of walls at city sites, the discovery of metal weapons and helmets, the frequency of the inscription for 'battle' on clay tablets, records of the sale of slaves, who were perhaps captives, the gradual replacement of the prefix en (priest) by lugal (big man) in the titles of rulers, and so on. Particularly important is the evidence for the infiltration of Semitic peoples from the north, the Akkadians, who first founded cities of their own on the plain and eventually, after some centuries of conflict between their cities and those of the Sumerians, supplied the world's first emperor, Sargon of Akkad.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

Barracks:
Again I would like to suggest the reign of Sargon of Akkad as the most likely period for the development of a standing army, experiencing regular training. After all that's what barracks are all about! The only other far enough advanced civilization at that time to organize a regular army, Egypt, didn't experience the reality of war.

'Sargon, king of Kish, thirty-four campaigns won, the walls he destroyed as far as the shore of the sea...To Sargon, the king, the hand of Enlil a rival did not permit. Fifty-four thousand daily in his presence eat food.'
(source: G.A.Barton, ed. and transl.,:'Royal Inscriptions of Sumer and Akkad',1929)

'Military Egypt had a style as distinctive to itself, and almost as long-lasting, as its own civilisation; quite different from that of Sumer or the regimes that succeeded to dominance in Mesopotamia, it was long marked by technological backwardness and a studied indifference to external threat. Both features had their root in Egypt's unique location. Even to this day, the country is virtually unapproachable by an invader except through narrow corridors to the north and south.

The Sumerian King List has been interpreted to show that Sargon ruled from 2340 to 2284BC; alternatively he is said to have ruled for fifty-six years. What seems certain is that he fought a series of wars against neighbouring cities and then against neighbouring peoples- thirty-four wars are mentioned- and that he eventually succeeded in establishing the boundaries of his empire roughly where those of Iraq lie today. In the eleventh year of his reign he campaigned as far as Syria, the Lebanon and southern Turkey and may have reached the Mediterranean. One inscription suggests that he had an army of 5400(!) soldiers and his army was undoubtedly kept busy putting down revolts among the Sumerians who rebelled against rule by a Semitic incomer; Sargon called himself 'He Who Keeps Travelling the Four Lands", that is the universe, and he certainly appears to have lived toujours en vedette.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

'A perpetual following of 54,000(!?) men no doubt gave the great conqueror an assured superiority over any local rival; hence his thirty-four victorious campaigns. But to keep such a force in being also required annual campaigning, devastating one fertile landscape after another in order to keep the soldiers in victuals. Costs to the population at large were obviously very great. Indeed Sargon's armies can well be compared to the ravages of an epidemic disease that kills off a significant proportion of the host population yet by its very passage confers an immunity lasting for several years.'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

One last remark: Such an imperial structure, as that of Sargon, clearly shows how the introduction of some sort of recruitment system- as proposed by the Diplomat- could add realism to the game!

Palace:
'The earliest-known palaces are those built in Thebes by King Thutmose III (reigned 1504-1450BC) and by Amenhotep III (reigned 1417-1379BC) of Egypt. Excavations of Amenhotep's palace reveal a rectangular outer wall enclosing a labyrinth of small, dark rooms and courtyards, a pattern broadly repeated in Eastern palaces of later ages. In Assyria, for instance, much larger palaces were built at Nimrud, at Nineve, and at Khorsabad, where the palace of Sargon II (reigned 721-705 BC) extended over more than 23 acres (9 hectares), built on a platform within two sets of city walls and containing two huge central courts and a disorganized mass of smaller courtyards and rooms.

At the beginning of the Early Minoan period (3000-2000 BC) they began using bronze and making glazed pottery, engraved seals, and gold jewelry. A hieroglyphic script was invented, and trade with the Egyptians was undertaken. The first palace at Knossos was built at the beginning of the Middle Minoan period (2000-1580 BC). It consisted of isolated structures built around a rectangular court. Knossos produced fine polychrome pottery on a black glazed ground during this period. About 1720 BC a destructive earthquake leveled most of Knossos. The palace was rebuilt, this time with extensive colonnades and flights of stairs connecting the different buildings on the hilly site. The remains of this palace occupy the excavated site in the present day. The administrative and ceremonial quarters of the palace were on the west side of the central court, and the throne room in this area still contains the gypsum chair in which sat the kings of Knossos. This area of the palace also had long narrow basement rooms that served as storage magazines for wheat, oil, and treasure. Workshops were located on the northeast side of the central court, while residences were situated in the southeastern section. An elaborate system of drains, conduits, and pipes provided water and sanitation for the palace, and the whole urban complex was connected to other Cretan towns and ports by paved roads.'
(source: Britannica.com,article 'palace' and 'Knossos')

'Another fact has yet wider implications: of all the buildings of the Ubaid period(~5000-3750BC), the temple was always the largest and best constructed. It therefore looks as though the future Sumerian cities grew not around a palace or a castle, but around a shrine, and it is perhaps not unreasonable to think that the temple was already the hub around which most social and economic activities revolved. It would be bold at this early stage to speak of 'Sumerians', but there is strong reason to believe that the Ubaid period represents the fist stage in the development of the Sumerian civilization.'
(source: G.Roux:'Ancient Iraq',1992)

Though it will always be difficult to define what exactly makes a palace and where lies the boundary with a large residence of the royal family, I think the citations stated above make it convincing that sumptuous royal palaces or secular centres of government are a quite late development. During several millennia the temple, not the palace, was the centre of government and administration. And instead of curbing corruption the palace first and foremost was a place of 'conspicuous consumption'. This was not without benefit for society at large: in this way power and prestige of the monarch/despot and his kingdom were proclaimed and enlarged!

Ceremonial Burial:
'The oldest known burials can be attributed to the Middle Paleolithic Period. The corpses, accompanied by stone tools and parts of animals, were laid in holes in the ground and sometimes the corpses were especially protected. In some cases, the findings give the impression that the dead were to be "held onto." Whether or not that meant that the dead were to be cared for lovingly or that their return was to be feared, it implies, in any case, a belief in life after death in some form. But it is not necessary to infer a belief in separate souls; rather, it could also indicate the concept of a "living corpse."

Evidences for ancestor cult practices were first discovered at Jericho in Palestine, where several skulls were found to have been deposited in a separate room, some of them covered with a plastic modelling of faces similar to that found on the ancestral skulls preserved by present-day agrarian peoples of South Asia and Oceania. An elaborated skull cult is usually connected with the veneration of ancestors. An important theme of ancestral cults is the belief in a connection between the dead and the fertility of the land of their descendants.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'prehistoric religion')

So burial practices predate the Neolithic; according to H.E.L.Mellersh 'Chronology of the Ancient World' the ancestor worship at Jericho should be dated around 6,000BC.

Masonry:
'The agricultural revolution, dated to about 10,000 BC, gave a major impetus to building construction. People no longer traveled in search of game or followed their herds but stayed in one place to tend their fields. Dwellings began to be more permanent. Archaeological records are scanty, but in the Middle East are found the remains of whole villages of round dwellings called tholoi, whose walls are made of packed clay; all traces of roofs have disappeared. In Europe, tholoi were built of dry-laid stone with domed roofs; there are still surviving examples (of more recent construction) of these beehive structures in the Alps. In later Middle Eastern tholoi a rectangular antechamber or entrance hall appeared, attached to the main circular chamber--the first examples of the rectangular plan form in building. Still later the circular form was dropped in favour of the rectangle as dwellings were divided into more rooms and more dwellings were placed together in settlements. The tholoi marked an important step in the search for durability; they were the beginning of masonry construction.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'building construction')

'The Halaf culture(~5500-~4500BC) offers a number of new and highly distinctive features. Pressed mud or mud bricks remain the standard building materials, but rectangular houses tend to be smaller than before while round houses called tholoi (plural of tholos) by analogy with the Mycenaean tombs of much later date became predominant. The tholoi of Yarim Tepe are usually small; some are divided into rooms, others are surrounded by rectangular rooms or concentric walls of pressed mud. Those of Arpachiyah, however, are much larger structures, up to 10 metres in diameter; they rest on stone foundations and to some of them is appended a long antechamber which further increases the resemblance with the Mycenaean tombs. Since they have been built and rebuilt with great care and since they were found empty, it was long thought that they were shrines or temples, but the finds at Yarim Tepe clearly show that most tholoi were simple, beehive-shaped houses such as can still be seen around Aleppo, in northern Syria. In fact, the only building of that period that might be considered a sanctuary is a small, square structure with mud pedestals and an ox skull on the threshold of a doorway, excavated by Mallowan at Tell Aswad, on the Balich river. At Arpachiyah the dead were buried in pits beneath the floors or around tholoi, but there are examples of collective burials of dismembered bodies there as at Tepe Gawra and of cremation, perhaps for ritual purposes, at Yarim Tepe.'
(source: G.Roux:'Ancient Iraq',1992)

Bronze/Copper Working:
'4100BC Copper beads are used by the Badarians. The Chalcolithic Age may be said to begin at the end of this millennium, and to continue for the first half of the next. This is the Age where tools as well as ornaments are made of copper and where copper tools exist alongside stone ones; and it exists over most of the "Fertile Crescent", extending from the Nile valley through Palestine and Syria to the Tigris-Euphrates valley'
(source: H.E.L.Mellersh:'Chronology of the Ancient World')

Horseback Riding:
'No one knows for sure when the practice of riding on horseback first became normal, nor where. But early representations of horseback-riding show Assyrian soldiers astride.
Men occasionally rode horseback as early as the fourteenth century BC. This is proved by an Egyptian statuette of the Amarna age, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The difficulty of remaining firmly on a horse's back without saddle or stirrups was, however, very great; and especially so if a man tried to use his hands to pull a bow at the same time- or wield some other kind of weapon. For centuries horseback riding therefore remained unimportant in military engagements, though perhaps specially trained messengers used their horses' fleetness to deliver information to army commanders. So, at least, Yadin interprets another, later, representation of a cavalryman in an Egyptian bas-relief recording the Battle of Qadesh(1298BC).

It seems likely therfore, that in their restless search for more effective ways of managing armed force, Assyrians discovered how to ride and retain control of a horse while using hands to shoot with a bow. At first they did so by pairing riders so that one man held the reins for both mounts while the second drew the bow. Such paired cavalrymen were, in fact, charioteers sans chariot. Subsequently, man and horse became so attuned to one another that solitary riders dared to drop the reins and use both hands to bend their bows.

Most historians assume that steppe nomads, who benefitted spectacular from the cavalry revolution, were the pioneers of this new means of exploiting the speed and endurance of horseflesh. That may be true, but there is no evidence for such a view. The fact that nomads in later ages became past masters at riding and shooting does not prove that they invented the technique; it only shows that they were in a position to take fuller advantage of the new style of warfare than other peoples.'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

'Horses had been ridden in the civilised world since the second millennium. Riding is represented in Egyptian art as early as 1350BC and reliefs from the twelfth century show mounted soldiers, one of whom is taking part in the battle of Qadesh. None, however, is a cavalryman. All ride bareback, without stirrups, and straddle the horse toward its rump, not a control position. That indicates, indeed, that the horses were not yet strong enough in the back to be ridden in the modern style.

Out on the steppe, however, man may have been riding even earlier than in civilised lands, and it is possible that the use of the bow from horseback bled back from the Assyrians across the steppe frontier and was taken up by peoples better advanced in horsemanship. We know that as late as the reign of Sargon II(721-705BC) the supply of horses still ran from the steppe, where unbroken foals were caught yearly for training and then sale, to Assyria; it is not impossible that the skills of mounted archery went in the opposite direction.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

One thing is absolutely certain though: chariot warfare is many centuries older than cavalry warfare!

Horsemen:
'By the eighth centuryBC, however, selective breeding had produced a horse that Assyrians could ride from the forward seat, with their weight over the shoulders, and a sufficient mutuality had developed between steed and rider for the man to use a bow while in motion. Mutuality, or perhaps horsemanship, was not so far advanced, all the same, that riders were ready to release the reins: an Assyrian bas-relief shows cavalrymen working in pairs, one shooting his composite bow, the other holding the reins of both horses.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

'Even after the steppe nomads took to horseback in sufficient numbers to organize massive raids on civilized lands, several centuries passed before the techniques of cavalry warfare spread throughout the length and breadth of the Eurasian grasslands. The horizon point for cavalry raiding from the steppe was about 690BC when a people known to the Greeks as Cimmerians overran most of Asia Minor. This, incidentally, was nearly two centuries after Assyrians had begun to use cavalry on a significant scale in war. The Cimmerians inhabited the graasy plains of the Ukraine, and returned thither after devastating the kingdom of Phrygia. Subsequently a new people, the Scythians, migrated west from the Altai region of central Asia and overran the Cimmerians. The newcomers sent a swarm of horsemen to raid the Middle East for a second time in 612 BC and shared in the plunder of Ninive.

Those two great raids announced the onset in the Middle East of a new era in military matters that lasted, in essentials, until the fourteenth centuryAD. In the Far East, records of cavalry harassment from Mongolia and adjacent regions do not become unambiguous until the fourth centuryBC, although some scholars think that the collapse of the western Chou dynasty in 771BC may have been a result of a Scythian cavalry raid from the Altai region.

The enduring consequences of the cavalry revolution in Eurasia were far-reaching. Steppe populations, once they had mastered the arts of horsemanship and acquired the skills to make bows, arrows, and all necessary accoutrements from materials available to them locally, had a cheaper and more mobile armed force at their command than civilized peoples could easily put into the field. Steppe warriors could therefore raid civilized lands lying to the south of them almost with impunity, unless rulers were able to duplicate barbarian levels of mobility and morale within their own armed establishments.'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

quote: Originally posted by yin26 on 03-14-2000 05:43 PM If anybody among us has reference materials relating to non-Western discoveries, please speak up!

I'm glad you asked. The Chinese invented...

paper (2nd century BC. although the Egyptians invented it around the same time)

gunpowder

the horse collar (3rd century BC, more efficient than the western version)

Wheelbarrow (1st century BC. The first western Wheel barrow is dated around 1200 AD)

moldboard plow (3rd century BC. Introduced to Europe in the 17th century which began the agricultural revolution in Europe)

paper currency (9th century AD. First western money was issued in around 1650 AD)

cast iron (4th century BC! West - 1380 AD)

the helicopter rotor and the propeller -(their aviation is dated back to the 4th century AD! The science of the chinese helicopter was studied by Sir George Cayley in 1809 and brought the knowledge back to the western world)

the decimal system (14th century BC! West - 1000 AD)

seismograph (measures earthquakes. 2nd century AD. Invented by the man who also theorized that the earth was round and contained about 9 continents and introduced latitude and longitude. Modern seismograph invented in 1848 in the western world - I believe in the US)

matches (6th century AD. No evidence of matches in Europe before the 1500s.)

the circulation of blood in animals (2nd century BC. This goes hand in hand with medicine. West - discovered by William Harvey in 1628. In the middle east 1200s in Damascus)

the kite (not a discovery so to speak but it was invented in the fourth century BC. Used to convey wartime messages)

the rocket (11th and 12th century AD...going along with gunpowder. This led to the invention of something Americans just can't live without on the 4th of july...Fireworks.)

first made brandy and whiskey (7th century AD)

Interesting isn't it? If China had been better organized it could be equivalent to the United States right now in power and might. The Chinese were usually a step ahead of the west when it came to knowledge.

The Chinese also invented the compass and printing press equivalent well ahead of the Western World (sorry Mr. Gutenberg). I am unsure of the dates for there inventions and can not find the source at the moment

quote: If China had been better organized it could be equivalent to the United States right now in power and might. The Chinese were usually a step ahead of the west when it came to knowledge.

Complacency I say. By the time, the European powers could come near China, the Chinese knew it it time to move on but it was too late already. The Europeans were competition-hardened veterans while the China was a content giant who had been seating idealy with the satisfaction of old glory.

quote: Originally posted by OrangeSfwr on 03-26-2000 12:58 AM Interesting isn't it? If China had been better organized it could be equivalent to the United States right now in power and might. The Chinese were usually a step ahead of the west when it came to knowledge. The Chinese also invented the compass and printing press equivalent well ahead of the Western World (sorry Mr. Gutenberg). I am unsure of the dates for there inventions and can not find the source at the moment

Many has blamed Confucianism for the stagnation because it totally neglects science and technology.

I did not mean the "encounter" as a very first one if I meant that as a very first one I would have said that during the time of Mongol China by Marco Polo or perhaps earlier by someone else who knows?

19th century Manchu China was a falling dynasty not a rising one as you know and also it was the time when the Europeans were most active both in trade and partial colonisation of China.

The ancient Sumerian army fielded a standard six-man-deep phalanx; the first line went into battle carrying large, rectangular shields, and the troops bore heavy pikes and battle axes. During the 7th century BC the Greek city-states adopted a phalanx eight men deep. The Greek hoplite, the heavy-armed infantryman who manned the phalanx, was equipped with a round shield, a heavy corselet of leather and metal, greaves (shin armour), an 8-foot pike for thrusting, and a 2-foot double-edged sword. Since the phalanx held in solid ranks and was divided only into the centre and wings, there was generally little need for an officer corps; the whole line advanced in step to the sound of the flute. Such a formation encouraged cohesion among advancing troops and presented a frightening spectacle to the enemy, but it was difficult to maneuver and, if penetrated by enemy formations, became little more than a mob.

The basic Greek formation was made more flexible by Philip II of Macedon and his son, Alexander III the Great. Alexander's core unit in the phalanx was the syntagma, normally 16 men deep. Each soldier was armed with the sarissa, a 13- to 21-foot spear; in battle formation, the first five ranks held their spears horizontally in front of the advancing phalanx, each file being practically on the heels of the men in front. The remaining 11 ranks presumably held their spears vertically or rested them on the shoulders of those in front. On both sides of the syntagma, lending mobility as well as protection, was the light infantry, a disciplined force of archers, slingers, and javelin men. Protecting the flanks and poised to charge the enemy's weak points was heavy cavalry, armed with sword and javelin. Squadrons of light horse were used for scouting and skirmishing.

From the founding of their city-state until the close of the 2nd century BC, the Romans found the Greek-style phalanx suitable for fighting in the plains of Latium. The basic weapon for this formation was a thrusting spear called the hasta; from this the heavy infantry derived its name, hastati, retaining it even after Rome abandoned the phalanx for the more flexible legion.

For a millennium after the fall of Rome, massed infantry was swept from the field by heavy cavalry, but in the 15th century, Swiss burghers and peasants, fighting for their freedom in Alpine valleys where cavalry had little room to maneuver, brought about a return of the phalanx. This consisted of one-fifth missile weapons (chiefly the crossbow), one-fifth spears, and three-fifths halberds (eight-foot shafts with the blade of an ax, the point of a spear, and a hook for pulling a rider out of the saddle). Discarding all armour except for the helmet and cuirass, the Swiss were able to march 30 miles a day and attack with a celerity and discipline that were disconcerting to their adversaries.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'phalanx')

'Phalanx' is a Greek work, meaning 'battle array', nothing more!

'The subject has been hotly debated, but anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that through most of the Archaic period aristocratic power was based on heavy cavalry(sic; what does this author mean by it?).
Between 675 and 650BC, however, a new type of fighting appeared. Massed heavy infantry, known as hoplites and armed primarily with spears, overturned the cavalry, which without stirrups could not hope to generate the power to attack even small formations of food soldiers so long as they stuck together.

This was the key. It is generally assumed that hoplite armament (shield, or hoplon; torso armor, at first a "bell" cuirass and later a metal-reinforced corslet; helmet; greaves; short iron sword; and a six-foot thrusting spear) and phalanx tactics are logically inseparable. This is not the case. They were discrete phenomena- simultaneous, perhaps, but seperate.

For one thing, the heavy panoply of the hoplite was not necessary for spear-based, close-formation tactics. The consistent success of both the later version of the Macedonin grand phalanx and the Swiss pike formations, neither of which used much body armor, proved this. Moreover, there is a tendency to label hoplite equipment as something new and revolutionary when in fact it was a close approximation of the accoutrements of the Iliad.'
(source: R.L. O'Connell:'Of Arms and Men',1989)

2500BC first bronze spears and daggers in Mesopotamia
1700BC first bronze body armour in the Near East
1400BC heavy bronze slashing swords in Europe and the Near East
(source: 'Times Atlas of World Archaeology',1988)

'The Stele of the Vultures, dated ~2500BC, depicts Eannatum of Lagash leading his troops into battle, the hero at the head of his army, yet the infantry behind him is extraordinary indeed. Packed shoulder to shoulder, advancing behind a barrier of locked rectangular shields reinforced with bronze disks, and presenting a hedgehog of spearheads protruding from several rows back, this mass constitutes a full-fledged phalanx.(!) This is an important distinction since there is a decided tendency to overlook or discount the significance of this Sumerian development.

This is not surprising. It is incredibly out of context, coming almost two thousand years before the "advanced" Greeks took up the formation. Moreover, rather than being the product of a sustained technical evolution, it appears to have burst virtually full-blown upon the scene. Why this is so is suggested by the behaviour of Gilgamesh's men. They are clearly people with a stake in society, the very types necessary for a style of warfare which demands that the participants both fight at close range and face danger in a cooperative fashion. Such qualities are impossible to bring out in any but highly motivated troops. Therefore, although the phalanx was clearly an innovation in the technical sense, it is perhaps better thought of as a sort of limited military option, available for those with the right kind of government but otherwise unusable. This type of absolute constraint, whether politically, economically, or sociologically based, would appear to have been a significant factor in the diffusion and development of weapons up to modern times.

The apparent tension in Sumer between the individualized warrior and the phalanx also had political implications. It is interesting that the Stele of Vultures depicts phalangites and the individual warrior as similarly dressed and protected. While this obviously has something to do with both being specialized for close combat, it is also true that possessing and wearing appropriate regalia was a prime determinant of social status in numerous traditional societies. Thus, the phalangite's adoption of aristocratic arms, a phenomenon which would be repeated in Greece, not only reflects the community's growing ability to accumulate metal but implies an act of social mobility.

The Sumerians were shortly to be superseded by a new type of state with a different style of warfare. The phalanx and the endless quarrels between small entities would be replaced by empire, absolute rule, and the bow.

The campaign of Sargon is of particular interest militarily since it has been cited by Richard Humble and others as accounting for the disappearance of the Sumerian phalanx. While it is certainly true that close infantry formations are nearly impossible to maintain in hilly, broken terrain, it is also a fact that Sargon and his empire had removed the political foundations of the phalanx. Though the Sumerian kings had never been above lording their power over their weaker rivals, Sargon had created something else, a new type of dominion which took much fuller advantage of the power latent in military organizations. He was the architect of the world's first predatory transnational tyranny, a political form remarkable for its persistence and steadfast in its reliance on absolute rule, rigid hierarchies, and, above all, force as the major mechanism of expansion and cohesion.

Such a societal structure necessarily influenced the evolution of its military instrumentalities. At the core, Sargon's Akkadian Empire consisted of a small Semitic warrior class living off the labour of a few artisans and an ethnically heterogeneous mass of peasants. Because the latter group had no more than a marginal loyalty to the state, it is logical to assume that they lacked the aggressiveness and steadiness to fight at close range. Indeed, as Stanislav Andreski notes, the proverbial passivity of the peasantry is largely responsible for the despotic penchant for foreign mercenaries. Yet in the ancient world such troops were notoriously fickle and expensive, while economies of scale continued to prompt tyrannies of this nature to field very large peasant-based armies.'

(source: R.L. O'Connell:'Of Arms and Men',1989)

'In this way there existed a certain connection between the internal political development and the military organization of a community. In Greece, with the Italic peoples and in large parts of Europe the tendency was to consider only warriors as full members of the community; a tendency for that matter only partly realized in Greece and Italy, for instance in Sparta and some other poleis where all citizens were hoplites. Besides, meetings of warriors developed into tribal meetings in many places. But only in Greece the idea of the equality of all citizens could become stronger as a result and initiate democracy in some poleis by the end of the Archaic period(~500BC); in Rome and elsewhere that idea was sufficiently enfeebled by the much stronger bonds of clientela and personal loyalty to a leader. Yet almost everywhere in Europe the standard is that only participation in warfare makes a man an accepted member of the community, and vice versa; military service is here, from the Greek polis to the Celtic tribal bond, a duty and right of everyone calling himself 'free'.

On the other hand the world of large empires and monarchies in Egypt and Asia. There warfare is under control of a small, specialized elite which during a campaign is expected to form the nucleus of a conscripted militia of subjects liable to military service. This is, with all sorts of variants, the prevailing pattern from China to the Persian Empire. The court maintains a number of specialized troops- since the second millennium charioteers, since the early first millennium also cavalrymen, besides royal guards-, but however expensive this military force, in times of war it needs to be supplemented mainly by drafted peasants. The population at large is essentially disarmed, because the summoned conscripts receive their arms in general out of the royal armouries and return them at the end of the campaign. According to the Greek these subjects of the Great King of Persia closely resembled slaves!'
(source: F.G.Naerebout/H.W.Singor:'De oudheid',1995;my translation)

In reviewing the armies of the ancient world there are many troops who deserve the classification of Phalanx ranging from Sumerian Spearmen to Saxon great fyrd. In all cases the characteristics of the troops are similar. These were not the battle-winning troops of their armies. Their duties were mainly defensive. Greek Hoplites, Roman Legionaries and controversially the later Macedonian phalanx were different. These troops were the main, and at times, only battle-winning component of their armies. They were very effective too. The Greeks dominated the Eastern Mediterranean for about three centuries and he Roman legionary reigned supreme over the next four or five centuries.

The difference between these troops and the run of the mill spearman was not their equipment, although it was on average better. Instead the successes of the Hoplite Phalanx and Legion can best be ascribed to their moral and tactical doctrine. As such I would classify troops such as Greek Hoplites, Roman Legionaries the later Macedonian phalanx and others such as the Viking Huscarl as a "Legion" in Civ II parlance.

I understand that you are truly busy and of course I have sympathy for it. But if you wish some fanatics including myself to continue our contributions to the Tech Tree, I think you could at least repost the "Master List", so people might possibly read it!

Granary:
'Phase 1B, dating to the 7th-6th millennium, is characterized by the emergence of pottery and improvements in agriculture. By the beginning of Phase 1B, cattle (apparently Bos indicus, the Indian humped variety) had come to predominate over game animals, as well as over sheep and goats. A new type of building, the small regular compartments of which identify it almost certainly as a granary, first appeared during this phase and became prevalent in Period II, indicating the frequent occurrence of crop surpluses. Burial took a more elaborate form--a funerary chamber was dug at one end of a pit, and, after inhumation, the chamber was sealed by a mud brick wall. From the latter phase of Period I also come the first small, hand-modeled female figurines of unburned clay.

The Period I evidence at Mehrgarh provides a clear picture of an early agricultural settlement exhibiting domestic architecture and a variety of well-established crafts. The use of sea shells and of various semiprecious stones, including turquoise and lapis lazuli, indicates the existence of trade networks(!) extending from the coast and perhaps also from Central Asia.

Striking changes characterize Period II. It appears that some major tectonic event took place at the beginning of the period (c. 5500 BC), causing the deposition of great quantities of silt on the plain, almost completely burying the original mound at Mehrgarh. Nearly all features of the earlier culture persisted, though in altered form. There was an increase in the use of pottery. The granary structures proliferated, sometimes on a larger scale. The remains of several massive brick walls and platforms suggest something approaching monumental architecture. Evidence appears of several new crafts, including the first examples of the use of copper and ivory. The area of the settlement appears to have grown to accommodate an increasing population.

While the settlement at Mehrgarh merits extensive consideration, it should not be perceived as a unique site. There are indications (not yet fully explored) that other equally early sites may exist in other parts of Baluchistan and elsewhere on the Indo-Iranian borderlands.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'India, history of')

I have to admit to be a bit sceptical about granaries in India(present-day Pakistan) antedating granaries in the Middle East by many centuries, while the Middle East was in every aspect ahead of the rest of the world. In the Fertile Crescent agriculture became an established way of life from ~8000BC, in western Pakistan from ~6500BC.

About Mesopotamia:
'This Samarra culture(~5600BC-5000BC) was revealed in the 1960s by the Iraqi excavations at Tell es-Sawwan. The inhabitants of Tell es-Sawwan were peasants like their Hassunan ancestors and used similar stone and flint tools, but in an area where rain is scarce they were the first to practise a primitive form of irrigation agriculture, using the Tigris floods to water their fields and grow wheat, barley and linseed. The yield must have been substantial if the large and empty buildings found at various levels were really 'granaries' as has been suggested. The central part of the village was protected from invaders by a 3-metre-deep ditch doubled by a thick, buttressed mud wall. The houses were large, very regular in plan, with multiple rooms and courtyards, and it must be noted that they were no longer built of pressed mud, but of large, cigar-shaped mud bricks plastered over with clay or gypsum. A thin coat of plaster covered the floors and walls.'
(source: G.Roux:'Ancient Iraq',1992)

About Egypt:
'The archaeological remains of these earliest farmers are known as the Fayum A assemblages. They are dated to around 7000 to 6600 years ago. The Neolithic Fayumians cultivated wheat, three forms of barley and flax. The Fayum evidence provides us with exceptionally rich information on grain storage. This was done in groups of subterranean containers (silos) made of plaited straw. It is estimated that each container may hae contained up to 400 kg of grain, which could have represented a yield of a plot of land of about half a hectare. Groups of up to more than one hundred such containers -called granaries- were found in apparent association with the settlement, and may have originally been the 'property' of a given social group. Remains of equipment for transporting, threshing, parching and grinding the grain were also found in or near the containers; these are groups of wide-mouthed vessels for parching which stand in ashes, harvesting sickles, lower and upper grindstones, baskets made of woven straw, linen sacks and wooden sticks for threshing.

The Neolithic Fayumians also participated -as did other Neolithic groups in Egypt- in the large exchange network through which Red Sea shells as well as turquoise and amazonite from the Red Sea hills and the Sinai were acquired.'
(source: 'History of Humanity vol.I', S.de Laet(ed.))

Map Making:
'Centuries before the Christian Era, Babylonians drew maps on clay tablets, of which the oldest specimens found so far have been dated about 2300 BC. This is the earliest positive evidence of graphic representations of parts of the Earth; it may be assumed that mapmaking goes back much further and that it began among nonliterate peoples. It is logical to assume that men very early made efforts to communicate with each other regarding their environment by scratching routes, locations, and hazards on the ground and later on bark and skins.

The earliest maps must have been based on personal experience and familiarity with local features. They doubtless showed routes to neighbouring tribes, where water and other necessities might be found, and the locations of enemies and other dangers. Nomadic life stimulated such efforts by recording ways to cross deserts and mountains, the relative locations of summer and winter pastures, and dependable springs, wells, and other information.

Markings on cave walls that are associated with paintings by primitive man have been identified by some archaeologists as attempts to show the game trails of the animals depicted, though there is no general agreement on this. Similarly, networks of lines scratched on certain bone tablets could possibly represent hunting trails, but there is definitely no conclusive evidence that the tablets are indeed maps.

The earliest specimens thus far discovered that are indisputably portrayals of land features are the Babylonian tablets previously mentioned; certain land drawings found in Egypt and paintings discovered in early tombs are nearly as old. It is quite probable that these two civilizations developed their mapping skills more or less concurrently and in similar directions. Both were vitally concerned with the fertile areas of their river valleys and therefore doubtless made surveys and plats soon after settled communities were established. Later they made plats for the construction of canals, roads, and temples--the equivalent of today's engineering plans.

A tablet unearthed in Iraq shows the Earth as a disk surrounded by water with Babylon as its centre. Aside from this specimen, dating from about 1000 BC, there appear to have been rather few attempts by Babylonians and Egyptians to show the form and extent of the Earth as a whole. Their mapmaking was preoccupied with more practical needs, such as the establishment of boundaries. Not until the time of the Greek philosopher-geographers did speculations and conclusions as to the nature of the Earth begin to take form.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'map')

Trireme:
1500BC warships in Aegean frescoes
~700BC development of the trireme (East Mediterranean)
260BC quinquireme(East Mediterranean)
(source: 'Times Atlas of World Archaeology',1988)

'In the fifth centuryBC, the ship of the line throughout the ancient world was the trireme, and, except for a few centuries of experiments with larger types, it retained this distinction down to the days of the later Roman Empire. "Trireme" is the English rendering of a word found only in Latin literature; the technical name for the ship, in the Roman navy as well as the Greek, was trieres "three-fitted".

The trireme, a galley whose design was particularly suited for fighting with the ram, was the culmination of an evolution sparked by the introduction of that weapon into naval warfare. The ram was invented probably some time after 1000BC. It inevitably brought into being a more powerful vessel, this inevitably led to attempts to improve speed and maneuverability, and the result was the two-banked warship. By 700BC, such craft, now fitted with raised decking over the centerline to carry a fighting contingent, were in use in Greek and Near Eastern navies.

And then, very likely during the next hundred years, the crucial step was taken of adding a third bank of rowers, and the trieres was born. Two-banked galleys were powered by one line of rowers working their oars through ports in the hull and a second working theirs on or just below the gunwale. Greek naval architects created the trireme by adding an outrigger above the gunwale and projecting laterally beyond it to accommodate a third line.

The new design, though it was eventually to dominate Greek naval architecture, was accepted only gradually. The shipwrights of Corinth seem to deserve the credit for launching the first Greek triremes; when they did so is unsure, but sometime during the seventh centuryBC seems a safe guess. By about 600BC, fleets outside of Greece had taken up the new craft. Yet, during the next half century, the penteconter, presumably the two-banked version, continued to serve as the ship of the line. Finally, toward the end of the sixth centuryBC, the new warship, which far outclassed its predecessor, came into its own.'
(source: L.Casson:'Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World',1971)

So I hope it becomes clear that the trireme certainly wasn't the first warship, but was the temporary result of a long development.

Diplomat:
'The late medieval view that the first diplomats were angels, messengers from heaven to earth, is perhaps fanciful, but diplomacy predates recorded history. Early tribes negotiated about marriages, trade, and hunting. Early societies had some attributes of states, and the first international law arose from intertribal relations. War was uncommon, but defensive alliances existed. Messengers and envoys were accredited, sacred, and inviolable; they usually carried some emblem, such as a message stick, and were received with elaborate ceremonial. Women were often sent as envoys because of their mysterious sanctity and their use of sexual wiles to prevail. As peace negotiations were most important, women were assigned this task.

Knowledge of the diplomacy of early peoples depends on sparse evidence. Traces exist of Egyptian diplomacy in the 14th century BC, but none has been found in West Africa before the 9th century AD. China had leagues, missions, and an organized system by the 8th century BC. Proof exists of sophisticated Indian diplomacy in the 4th century BC, implying earlier activity.

The most consistent evidence of early diplomacy, however, has been found among eastern Mediterranean peoples. Records of treaties between Mesopotamian city-states date from 2850 BC. Thereafter, Akkadian (Babylonian) became the first diplomatic language, serving as the international tongue of the Middle East until it was replaced by Aramaic. There exists a diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian court and a Hittite king on cuneiform tablets in Akkadian, the language of neither, from the 14th century BC. The oldest treaties of which full texts survive, from about 1280 BC, were between Ramses II of Egypt and Hittite leaders. There is much evidence of Assyrian diplomacy in the 7th century and of the relations of Jewish tribes, found chiefly in the Bible, with each other and other peoples.

But the tradition leading to the present world system of international relations began in ancient Greece. The earliest evidence of Greek diplomacy is in its literature, notably the Iliad and the Odyssey. Otherwise, the first traces of interstate relations concern the Olympic Games of 776 BC. Later, the amphictyonic leagues, initially religious, became diplomatic centres in the 6th century as interstate entities with assemblies, extraterritorial rights, and permanent secretariats. In the mid-6th century, Sparta was actively forming alliances. By 500 BC, it had created the Peloponnesian League. In the 5th century, Athens led the Delian League against the Persians. By then, arbitration was common among the Greek states.

Greek diplomacy took many forms. Heralds were the first diplomats, originating in prehistory, and were protected by the gods with an immunity that other envoys lacked. Their protector was Hermes, messenger of the gods, who became associated with all diplomacy. The herald of Zeus, he was noted for persuasiveness and eloquence but also for knavery, shiftiness, and dishonesty, imparting to diplomacy a reputation that its practitioners are still trying to live down.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'diplomacy')

Library:
'In earliest times there was no distinction between a record room (or archive) and a library, and in this sense libraries can be said to have existed for almost as long as records have been kept. A temple in the Babylonian town of Nippur(the religious centre of Sumer), dating from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, was found to have a number of rooms filled with clay tablets, suggesting a well-stocked archive or library. Similar collections of Assyrian clay tablets of the 2nd millennium BC were found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. Ashurbanipal (reigned 668-c. 627 BC), the last of the great kings of Assyria, maintained an archive of some 25,000 tablets, comprising transcripts and texts systematically collected from temples throughout his kingdom.

Mass Production - I don't think in Civ2 this specifically applies to the assembly line (a la Ford) but rather interchangeable parts, Eli Whitney's greatest invention. This can be dated to 1797 or 1801. See http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716,78922+1+76879,00.html

what if the chinese were more militarily agressive?

the story of Mongolia and Jingys khan ( I am totally sure I've misspelled it so plz correct me ) shows that science and technology didn't make a big difference .
the truth is the Mongols were illiterate and their ABC is the ABC of another prairy tribe , that was more literate ( perhaps becoz of its proximity to china ) . at the time of Jingys Khan ( or whatever his name is spelled ) China was devided to 3 or 4 separate Kingdoms , one of which he ruined regardless the Huge population and massive City walls . also he oplundered the fertile Valley of the euphrates , a devastation which the Middle East hasn't recuperated from fully even those days! . So saying that using the tech as a the only measure for military superiority isn't true. fierce warriors like Khan's and like the Medieval Europeans ( Skilled from Crusades and bitter Wars with the Muslims which were "playing on their home grounds ") also during those times the reinessance were just at it's cradle and the " Dolche Vida " , "the good life" concept wasnt so deep inrouted inside the population of europe .
as it's known the same concept led to the destruction of the Mighty Roman Empire , because of the change from a relatively small comunity of Hard-Working Peasants and Fierce Warriors the Romans transfered into Luxury Eating (50% Luxury ) lasy City life Civilans .

I thoroughly agree that most of our sources are West biased, and overlook many eastern achievements. However, we should try to keep a balanced view, free from propaganda. I don't know what the source of your info was, but if the rest of it was as inaccurate as the "Cast iron" section, then it is certainly propaganda, IMHO.

Cast iron weapons were used by the Dorians as they swept through Greece, starting around 1000 BCE.

MASONRY - I personally think that pressed clay does not constitute masonry. Working stone with tools, and/or using fired clay brick, is masonry. As both S Kroeze and I have posted previously, that development is first known with the Temple of Janna, in Eridu, Temple of Al Ubaid in Ur, and the White Temple at Uruk. ABout 3100 BCE.

Bronze working- Eqyptions used bronze alloys around 4000 BCE; I don't know if they had tin or made something approximating bronze. Bronze became a widespead technology in Britain and western Europe about 2000BC.

I agree with you that its very important to keep a balanced view and to avert a silly debate about the 'superiority' of East or West. That the Middle East with offshoots in Egypt and the Indus valley was for millennia the most advanced civilization is a fact beyond dispute. Irrigation technique, the first cities and writing did all originate in this region. Especially the Sumerians contributed more to the development of civilization and mankind than any other people, though unfortunately they get rarely the esteem they deserve. The dominance of the Middle East lasted until about 500BC.

My opinion, which is the prevailing view of most historians, has nothing to do with being 'Western' or nationalistic feeling. The Sumerians were neither western nor eastern; they lived in Mesopotamia, the 'cradle of civilization', which happens to lie in the middle of the great Eurasian-African landmass. When Gilgamesh built the walls of Uruk, probably most of my ancestors walked around as cavemen, dressed in bear skins.

Road building

'Ancient roads of the Mediterranean and Middle East

The first roads were paths made by animals and later adapted by humans. The earliest records of such paths have been found around some springs near Jericho and date from about 6000 BC. The first indications of constructed roads date from about 4000 BC and consist of stone-paved streets at Ur in modern-day Iraq and timber roads preserved in a swamp in Glastonbury, England. During the Bronze Age, the availability of metal tools made the construction of stone paving more feasible; at the same time, demand for paved roads rose with the use of wheeled vehicles, which were well established by 2000 BC.

Cretan stone roads

At about this time(I suppose this means ~2000BC) the Minoans on the island of Crete built a 30-mile (50 kilometre) road from Gortyna on the south coast over the mountains at an elevation of about 4,300 feet (1,300 metres) to Knossos on the north coast. Constructed of layers of stone, the roadway took account of the necessity of drainage by a crown throughout its length and even gutters along certain sections. The pavement, which was about 12 feet (360 centimetres) wide, consisted of sandstone bound by a clay-gypsum mortar. The surface of the central portion consisted of two rows of basalt slabs 2 inches (50 millimetres) thick. The centre of the roadway seems to have been used for foot traffic and the edges for animals and carts. It is the oldest existing paved road.

Roads of Persia and Babylon

The earliest long-distance road was a 1,500-mile route between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. It came into some use about 3500 BC, but it was operated in an organized way only from about 1200 BC by the Assyrians, who used it to join Susa, near the Persian Gulf, to the Mediterranean ports of Smyrna (Izmir) and Ephesus. More a track than a constructed road, the route was duplicated between 550 and 486 BC by the great Persian kings Cyrus II and Darius I in their famous Royal Road. Like its predecessor, the Persian Royal Road began at Susa, wound northwestward to Arbela, and thence proceeded westward through Ninive to Harran, a major road junction and caravan centre. The main road then continued to twin termini at Smyrna and Ephesus. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in about 475 BC, put the time for the journey from Susa to Ephesus at 93 days, although royal riders traversed the route in 20 days.

In Babylon about 615 BC the Chaldeans connected the city's temples to the royal palaces with a major Processional Way, a road in which burned bricks and carefully shaped stones were laid in bituminous mortar.

The Indus civilization in Sindh, Balochistan, and the Punjab probably flourished in the period 3250-2750 BC. (This is a somewhat unusual early dating) Excavations indicate that the cities of this civilization paved their major streets with burned bricks cemented with bitumen. Great attention was devoted to drainage. The houses had drain pipes that carried the water to a street drain in the centre of the street, two to four feet deep and covered with slabs or bricks.

Evidence from archaeological and historical sources indicates that by AD 75 several methods of road construction were known in India. These included the brick pavement, the stone slab pavement, a kind of concrete as a foundation course or as an actual road surface, and the principles of grouting (filling crevices) with gypsum, lime, or bituminous mortar. Street paving seems to have been common in the towns in India at the beginning of the Common era, and the principles of drainage were well known. The crowning of the roadway and the use of ditches and gutters was common in the towns. Northern and western India in the period 300 to 150 BC had a network of well-built roads. The rulers of the Mauryan empire (4th century BC), which stretched from the Indus River to the Brahmaputra River and from the Himalayas to the Vindhya Range, generally recognized that the unity of a great empire depended on the quality of its roads.

China had a road system that paralleled the Persian Royal Road and the Roman road network in time and purpose. Its major development began under Emperor Shih huang-ti about 220 BC. Many of the roads were wide, surfaced with stone, and lined with trees; steep mountains were traversed by stone-paved stairways with broad treads and low steps. By AD 700 the network had grown to some 40,000 kilometres. Traces of a key route near Sian are still visible.'
(source: Britannica.com, article 'roads and highways')

Units (and why not buildings) shouldn't be bounded to advances, neither should adcances be bounded to units.

A good example is that Mathematics require Masnory (and Writing). Maths doesn't even really require Writing and especially not Masonry. However, it's understandable that the unit Catapult requires Masonry. But therefor the unit Catapult should be available when both Mathematics and Masonry isdiscovered and discovering Mathematics wouldn't require Masonry.

quote: Originally posted by The Mad Viking on 04-24-2000 01:12 PM OrangeSfwr: I thoroughly agree that most of our sources are West biased, and overlook many eastern achievements. However, we should try to keep a balanced view, free from propaganda. I don't know what the source of your info was, but if the rest of it was as inaccurate as the "Cast iron" section, then it is certainly propaganda, IMHO.

Well I triple checked my soure with other sources. I first heard that the Chinese first developed Cast Iron during class one day, than I verified that online at two different sources and asked an expert on Chinese history. i am not saying I'm right but do me a favor and re-check your source again. Maybe there are two different definitions of cast iron.

As for the most recent comment "no wheel, producing armor..." how about advances through trade? That's one way that civs have spread information throughout history. Maybe there should be some sort of bonus for trade with a country. One advance for every 100 gold aquired from trade? Or less, something along those lines. Just an idea...