ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. The term civilization basically means the level of development at which people live together peacefully in communities. Ancient civilization refers specifically to the first settled and stable communities that became the basis for later states, nations, and empires.
The study of ancient civilization is concerned with the earliest segments of the much broader subject called ancient history. The span of ancient history began with the invention of writing in about 3100 BC and lasted for more than 35 centuries. Mankind existed long before the written word, but writing made the keeping of a historical record possible (see Human Origins).
The first ancient societies arose in Mesopotamia and Egypt in the Middle East, in the Indus Valley region of modern Pakistan, in the Huang He (Yellow River) valley of China, on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea, and in Central America. All of these civilizations had certain features in common. They built cities, invented forms of writing, learned to make pottery and use metals, domesticated animals, and created fairly complex social structures with class systems.
Apart from written records and carved inscriptions, the knowledge about ancient peoples is derived from the work of archaeologists. Most of the significant archaeological findings have been made in the past 200 years. The Sumerian culture of Mesopotamia was discovered in the 1890s, and some of the most important archaeological digs in China were made after the late 1970s. (See also Archaeology.)
Agriculture--The Basis of Civilization
The single, decisive factor that made it possible for mankind to settle in permanent communities was agriculture. After farming was developed in the Middle East in about 6500 BC, people living in tribes or family units did not have to be on the move continually searching for food or herding their animals. Once people could control the production of food and be assured of a reliable annual supply of it, their lives changed completely.
People began to found permanent communities in fertile river valleys. Settlers learned to use the water supply to irrigate the land. Being settled in one place made it possible to domesticate animals in order to provide other sources of food and clothing.
Farming was a revolutionary discovery. It not only made settlements possible--and ultimately the building of cities--but it also made available a reliable food supply. With more food available, more people could be fed. Populations therefore increased. The growing number of people available for more kinds of work led to the development of more complex social structures. With a food surplus, a community could support a variety of workers who were not farmers.
Farming the world over has always relied upon a dependable water supply. For the earliest societies this meant rivers and streams or regular rainfall. The first great civilizations grew up along rivers. Later communities were able to develop by taking advantage of the rainy seasons.
All of the ancient civilizations probably developed in much the same way, in spite of regional and climatic differences. As villages grew, the accumulation of more numerous and substantial goods became possible. Heavier pottery replaced animal-skin gourds as containers for food and liquids. Cloth could be woven from wool and flax. Permanent structures made of wood, brick, and stone could be erected.
The science of mathematics was an early outgrowth of agriculture. People studied the movements of the moon, sun, and planets to calculate seasons. In so doing they created the first calendars. With a calendar it was possible to calculate the arrival of each growing season. Measurement of land areas was necessary if property was to be divided accurately. Measurements of amounts--for example, of seeds or grains--was also a factor in farming and housekeeping. Later came measures of value as commodity and money exchange became common.
The use of various ways of measuring led naturally to record keeping, and for this some form of writing was necessary. The earliest civilizations all seem to have used picture-writing--pictures representing both sounds and objects to the reader. The best known of the ancient writing systems is probably Egyptian hieroglyphics, a term meaning "sacred carvings," since many of the earliest writings were inscribed on stone.
All of the major ancient civilizations--in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China-- emerged in the 4th millennium BC. Historians still debate over which one emerged first. It may well have been the Middle East, in an area called the Fertile Crescent. This region stretches from the Nile River in Egypt northward along the coast of former Palestine, then eastward into Asia to include Mesopotamia. In this area people settled along the riverbanks and practiced field agriculture. This kind of farming depended on the reproduction of seed, normally from grain crops.

Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia (from a Greek term meaning "between rivers") lies between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a region that is part of modern Iraq (see Mesopotamia). By about 5000 BC, small tribes of farmers had made their way to the river valleys. On the floodplains they raised wheat, barley, and peas. They cut through the riverbanks so that water for their crops could flow to lower lying soil.
These early irrigation systems were more fully developed by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, who drained marshes and dug canals, dikes, and ditches. The need for cooperation on these large irrigation projects led to the growth of government and law. The Sumerians are thus credited with forming the earliest of the ancient civilizations.
The land of the Sumerians was called Sumer (Shinar in the Bible). Their origins are shrouded in the past. They were not Semites, like most of the peoples of the region; they spoke a language unrelated to other known tongues. They may have come to southern Mesopotamia from Persia before 4000 BC.
Sumerian towns and cities included Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Kish, and Ur. The cities differed from primitive farming settlements. They were not composed of family-owned farms, but were ringed by large tracts of land. These tracts were thought to be "owned" by a local god. A priest organized work groups of farmers to tend the land and provide barley, beans, wheat, olives, grapes, and flax for the community.
These early cities, which existed by 3500 BC, were called temple towns because they were built around the temple of the local god. The temples were eventually built up on towers called ziggurats (holy mountains), which had ramps or staircases winding up around the exterior. Public buildings and marketplaces were built around these shrines.
The temple towns grew into city-states, which are considered the basis of the first true civilizations. At a time when only the most rudimentary forms of transportation and communication were available, the city-state was the most governable type of human settlement. City-states were ruled by leaders, called ensis, who were probably authorized to control the local irrigation systems. The food surplus provided by the farmers supported these leaders, as well as priests, artists, craftsmen, and others.
The Sumerians contributed to the development of metalworking, wheeled carts, and potter's wheels. They may have invented the first form of writing. They engraved pictures on clay tablets in a form of writing known as cuneiform (wedge-shaped). The tablets were used to keep the accounts of the temple food storehouses. By about 2500 BC these picture-signs were being refined into an alphabet. (See also Alphabet; Writing.)
The Sumerians developed the first calendar, which they adjusted to the phases of the moon. The lunar calendar was adopted by the Semites, Egyptians, and Greeks. An increase in trade between Sumerian cities and between Sumeria and other, more distant regions led to the growth of a merchant class.
The Sumerians organized a complex mythology based on the relationships among the various local gods of the temple towns. In Sumerian religion, the most important gods were seen as human forms of natural forces--sky, sun, earth, water, and storm. These gods, each originally associated with a particular city, were worshiped not only in the great temples but also in small shrines in family homes.
Warfare between cities eventually led to the rise of kings, called lugals, whose authority replaced that of city-state rulers. Sumeria became a more unified state, with a common culture and a centralized government. This led to the establishment of a bureaucracy and an army. By 2375 BC, most of Sumer was united under one king, Lugalzaggisi of Umma.

Babylon
The Sumerians were conquered by their Semitic neighbors. But their civilization was carried on by their successors--the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans.
The Babylonians made distinct contributions to the growth of civilization. They added to the knowledge of astronomy, advanced the knowledge of mathematics, and built the first great capital city, Babylon. The Babylonian King Hammurabi set forth the Code of Hammurabi in about 1800 BC. (This was the most complete compilation of Babylonian law and one of the first great law codes in the world (see Hammurabi; Law).

Egypt
Egyptian farmers had settled in the long and narrow valley of the Nile River by 5000 BC. Within 2,000 years they had invented writing, built massive irrigation works, and established a culture that bequeathed the pyramids and other magnificent monuments to posterity. The primitive farming settlements of Egypt were concerned with the raising of vegetables, grains, and animals. These settlements slowly gave way to larger groupings of people. Probably the need to control the Nile floodwaters through dams and canals eventually led to the rise of government in the region.
By the end of the prehistoric period before 3100 BC, Egypt was divided into two kingdoms. Lower Egypt had its capital at Buto, while Upper Egypt was centered at Hierakonpolis. In this period travelers brought in ideas from Sumeria, including the concepts of writing and the pottery wheel.
Egyptian civilization began with the unification in 3100 BC of the upper and lower regions by King Menes. He established a new capital at Memphis. In this era the Egyptians developed the first 365-day calendar, discovered the plow, made use of copper, developed hieroglyphic writing, and began to build with stone. Trade and exploration flourished.
The Egyptians were ruled by kings known as pharaohs who claimed to be descended from the god Horus. These kings, supported by a priestly class, lived in splendor; and they saw to it that after their deaths they would be buried in splendor. The tombs built for them were designed as storehouses to hold all the things that the kings would need in the afterlife.
The earliest royal tombs foreshadowed the later great monuments, the pyramids. By about 2700 BC the first pyramid was built, in Saqqara. The three great pyramids still standing near Cairo were built between 2650 and 2500 BC.
Early Egyptian history is divided into three major eras: the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 BC), the Middle Kingdom (2050-1800 BC), and the New Kingdom (1570-1090 BC). By the dawn of the Old Kingdom, the characteristics of Egyptian civilization had already been firmly established. The periods not accounted for by the dates are believed to be times of decline known as the Intermediate Periods.

India
The valley of the Indus River is considered to be the birthplace of Indian civilization. Located on the Indian subcontinent in modern Pakistan, the Indus civilization was not discovered by archaeologists until 1924. The ancient history of this region is obscured by legend. It appears, however, that by 4000 BC primitive farmers were raising vegetables, grains, and animals along the riverbank. By 2700 BC two major cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, and numerous smaller towns had emerged.
There is some evidence that Mesopotamian traders reached the early Indian people by sailing from Sumeria to the Indus Valley. While the Indians shared some developments--such as complex irrigation and drainage systems and the art of writing--with the people of Sumeria, they also developed a unique cultural style of their own.
What little is known of the Indus civilization suggests that it had large cities that were well laid-out and well fortified. There were public buildings, palaces, baths, and large granaries to hold agricultural produce. The many artifacts and artworks found by archaeologists indicate that the residents of the Indus had reached a fairly high level of culture before their civilization was destroyed.
According to the Rig Veda, the ancient Hindu scriptures written after about 1500 BC, Aryan invaders conquered the earliest Indian civilization. The Aryans, who were a nomadic people from the Eurasian steppes, imposed on Indian society a caste system, which persists to the present day in Hindu law. The caste system, which divides all people into social classes with differing rights and obligations, was a formal expression of the interdependent labor division seen in all civilizations (see Hinduism). By the 6th century BC at least 16 Aryan states had been established on the Indian subcontinent and Brahmanism was flourishing.

Crete
By about 2500 BC a civilization had emerged on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea. Excavations in 1900 at the site of Knossos revealed the existence of a culture named by archaeologists as Minoan after a mythical king, Minos. Minoans probably settled in Crete before 3000 BC.
There is evidence of outside influence in Crete; apparently Egyptian traders reached the Aegean Sea soon after the Minoans did. Nevertheless, Minoan civilization developed its own unique features, and by about 2000 BC, great cities with elaborate and luxurious palaces were built, and sea trade was flourishing.
The Minoans had a picture-writing system, as had other ancient peoples. The Minoan religion seems to have centered on a mother goddess and on the figures of the bull and the snake. The Minoans are known for their beautiful and colorful wall paintings and their fine pottery. In about 1400 BC Minoan civilization began to decline. The end was hastened by invasions from mainland Greece.

China
The Chinese had settled in the Huang He, or Yellow River, valley of northern China by 3000 BC. By then they had pottery, wheels, farms, and silk, but they had not yet discovered writing or the uses of metals.
The Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC) is the first documented era of ancient China. The highly developed hierarchy consisted of a king, nobles, commoners, and slaves. The capital city was Anyang, in north Henan Province. Some scholars have suggested that travelers from Mesopotamia and from Southeast Asia brought agricultural methods to China, which stimulated the growth of ancient Chinese civilization. The Shang peoples were known for their use of jade, bronze, horse-drawn chariots, ancestor worship, and highly organized armies.
Like other ancient peoples, the Chinese developed unique attributes. Their form of writing, developed by 2000 BC, was a complex system of picture writing using forms called ideograms, pictograms, and phonograms. Such early forms of Chinese became known through the discovery by archaeologists of oracle bones, which were bones with writings inscribed on them. They were used for fortune-telling and record keeping in ancient China.
The Chou Dynasty (1122-221 BC) saw the full flowering of ancient civilization in China. During this period the empire was unified, a middle class arose, and iron was introduced. The sage Confucius (551-479 BC) developed the code of ethics that dominated Chinese thought and culture for the next 25 centuries (see Confucius).

Meso-America
Meso-America is the term used to describe the ancient settlements of Mexico and Central America. Civilization arose in the Americas much later than in the Middle East. Whether Native Americans reinvented the tools of civilization, such as farming and writing, or whether they were brought from older societies is a topic of debate among scholars.
The earliest elaborate civilization known in the Americas is that of the Olmec of central Mexico. The Olmec lived in the lowlands of present Veracruz and Tabasco states from about 1200 BC. They left artifacts ranging from tiny jade carvings to huge monuments such as the volcanic rock statues at San Lorenzo. These monuments suggest the existence of an organized and diverse society with leaders who could command the work of artisans and laborers. Other early civilizations in the Americas include the Chavin of Peru, the Chono of Chile, the Tehuelche of Argentina, the Tupians of Brazil, the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Inca of Peru.

Only four ancient civilizations--Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China--provided the basis for continuous cultural developments in the same location. After the Minoan society on Crete was destroyed, its cultural traditions and legends passed into the life of mainland Greece. As for Meso-America, its cultures were submerged by the Spanish conquerors of the 16th century.

FURTHER RESOURCES FOR ANCIENT CIVILIZATION

Books for Children
Adams, J.-P. Mediterranean Civilizations (Silver, 1987). Atkins, Sinclair. From Stone Age to Conquest (Dufour, 1986). Lambert, David. Ancient Peoples (Watts, 1987). Odjik, Pamela. The Ancient World (Silver, 1990).

Books for Young Adults
Age of God-Kings: Time Frame 3000-1500 BC. (Time-Life, 1987). Boardman, John and others, eds. The Oxford History of the Classical World (Oxford, 1986). Cotterell, Arthur, ed. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations (Penguin, 1989). Howe, Helen and Howe, R.T. The Ancient World (Longman, 1988). Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. and Sabloff, J.A. Ancient Civilizations: The Near East and Mesoamerica (Waveland, 1987). Larkin, P.J. The Ancient World (Dufour, 1983). McNeill, W.H. The Rise of the West (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970) Thomas, C.G. The Earliest Civilizations: Ancient Greece and the Near East, 3000-200 BC (Univ. Press of America, 1982).

All civs in Civ3 should begin in a nomadic state, building only temporary huts or camps, and hunt wild animals for food and clothing. But as time goes by the animals will eventually be hunted to extinction in that area, and food and clothing (from the wool of animals) will begin run out. As it begins to get low, your people will begin to starve and/or freeze to death; your population will begin to dwindle and eventually reach zero and the game will end unless you move somewhere else where there are more wild animals to hunt.

Only when your civ discovers secrets such as farming and domestication of animals does this period of nomadic ways come to an end, and permanent cities may be built. Unlike Civ2, when the discovery of refrigeration allows you to farm land, Civ3 should allow the secret of farming to be discovered in ancient times, because agriculture really is an ancient pastime. Farming should be a prerequisite of irrigation. Irrigation has a positive impact on farming. Perhaps in the renaissance, industrial, and modern ages, instead having to discover refrigeration to farm the land, perhaps discoveries such as pesticides and dry farming could increase the impact of farming, thus helping to grow your population more quickly.

quote: Originally posted by jrhughes98 on 10-31-2000 04:00 PM Personally in my own opinion I believe that Civ3 should originally begin in 8,000 BC, with the player(s) being able to choose to begin at a later date. Because of the gruelling slow pace of advancement in early human history and to keep games from lasting too long, each turn should be about 50-100 years to start instead of 20-50 years as it is in Civ2, depending on the level of difficulty. All civs in Civ3 should begin in a nomadic state, building only temporary huts or camps, and hunt wild animals for food and clothing. But as time goes by the animals will eventually be hunted to extinction in that area, and food and clothing (from the wool of animals) will begin run out. As it begins to get low, your people will begin to starve and/or freeze to death; your population will begin to dwindle and eventually reach zero and the game will end unless you move somewhere else where there are more wild animals to hunt. Only when your civ discovers secrets such as farming and domestication of animals does this period of nomadic ways come to an end, and permanent cities may be built. Unlike Civ2, when the discovery of refrigeration allows you to farm land, Civ3 should allow the secret of farming to be discovered in ancient times, because agriculture really is an ancient pastime.

Time and again I have argued for these proposals! In my opinion Civ should ideally start in 8000BC. Of course a player who doesn't like it should have the possibility to start later. Some time ago a posted this proposal:

"I have always found the settler a rather artificial unit. Settlement organized by a government has always been the exception, not the rule. And in 4000BC, when the current CivII starts, almost the entire world was populated, except for some remote islands like Madagascar, Iceland and New Zealand. I still hope CivIII (orCivV) will introduce a rural population, living in villages. As soon as there are sufficient inhabitants in a particular area, small towns will develop, provided they have an agricultural style of living. Further growth should be caused by population growth, but most by migration.

Starting with more than one settler would only accelerate the development of your Civ. My proposal would be to let a particular Civilization start with several small towns -only one of them ruled by you- that are not politically united. So you would be forced to aim for supremacy within your own Civilization before outward expansion became a realistic possibility. This would result in fierce competition from the start, being also more in accordance with historical reality."

There is only one point where our views vary: in my opinion all turns should cost the same amount of time, whether they take up a hundred or just a single year. Slowing down of the passage of time as the game progresses is absolutely irrealistic!

quote: Originally posted by S. Kroeze on 10-31-2000 07:09 PM There is only one point where our views vary: in my opinion all turns should cost the same amount of time, whether they take up a hundred or just a single year. Slowing down of the passage of time as the game progresses is absolutely irrealistic!

Irrealistic! Get real! As your civilization grows, things start to happen more rapidly than before. That's because with so many people, "there's a lot of action of going on." Money, Science, Productivity, expansion, etc.--all of these things begin to grow at a much faster rate. So turns should become more compressed as time goes on. Though you have brought up a good point; perhaps instead of time slowing down at certain points in the game, it should be based on world population, ie., the game would be very unbalanced if it was 5,000 B.C. to one civ and 100 A.D. to another.

Also, the turns can't all be the same length, simply...if they are all 100, then WW2 would be pretty short, the hundred years war would be...well 1 turn. But, if they are all 1 year, it'd take forever to get to modern day. I do think that ancient time turns should be made shorter, maybe starting at 5 years a turn, and in modern day just one month or so a turn.

8000 BC-1000 BC: New Stone Age, or Neolithic Era
This era encompasses the first 7,000 years of human societies and coincides with the beginnings of agriculture. When people went from being hunters and gatherers to being nomads and herdsmen to being planters, new tools, or at least modifications of old ones, were needed at each stage. A primitive kind of plow was necessary to break the soil for planting. People used a sickle-like tool to cut grain stalks. People made flour by grinding grain between large, smooth stones.

8000 BC-AD 1850: Age of Agriculture
Apart from air and water, the most basic human need is for food. Adequate provision of this need for big populations has largely determined the course of civilization. When a group switches from hunting and gathering to settled farming, its population begins to increase. An increase in population makes it necessary for people to live in stable, permanent societies, such as villages or cities, that have complex social structures. Without food, everything fails. Thus most human societies have devoted huge efforts to assuring a reliable food supply. Ownership and management of land became highly significant in all early civilizations and remains so up to the present. Early governments became powerful because they managed the food supply, making sure the planting and harvesting were on schedule. When floods could wipe out crops or drought scorch the land, famine was an ever-present possibility and fear. In this more than 9,000-year period, food production was the main occupation of most people. Makers of other goods and traders were a small minority. Only in the middle of the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution had shown the way to greatly increased agricultural productivity, did the Age of Agriculture come to an end. In underdeveloped areas of the world it persists, however. It endures wherever more people are involved in supplying food than in other occupations.

8000 BC: Cultivation of grains
With the cultivation of grains in the world's ancient river valleys, the age of agriculture began. This age occupied most of human history, lasting until about AD 1850, when modern industrialism succeeded it.

The basic grains were wheat, rice, rye, oats, millet, and barley. Maize, commonly called corn, was not grown outside of the Americas until after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Western Hemisphere.

8000 BC: Development of fermentation
The processes for making wine and beer are about 10,000 years old. The process of creating an alcoholic beverage from honey or fruit juice or from a mixture of malted barley, hops, and water depends on the use of yeast. The purity of these processed beverages could be controlled by the people who made them.

The fact that alcohol is an antiseptic remained unknown to the ancients, but they benefited from it nevertheless. In modern times, the study of the fermentation process led the French scientist Louis Pasteur to develop a germ theory of disease in the mid-19th century.

7000 BC: Early use of pottery
One of the oldest and most widely used human artifacts is pottery. This term refers both to the art of molding clay and firing it at a low temperature and to the dishes and other products resulting from this process.

Pottery gave people durable vessels to use in cooking and as containers for storing food. Pottery also provided an excellent medium to express artistic ability. From simple earthenware to exquisite porcelain, pottery is still used for both utility and decoration. Ancient pottery is also one of the most useful finds for archaeologists in dating past cultures.

6000 BC: Early use of linen
Linen, which is made from the flax plant, is one of the oldest sources of textile materials. The cloth was used by prehistoric cave dwellers in Europe. Examples of linen cloth have been found in Egyptian tombs, where the material was wrapped around mummies.

***A NOTE ON ARCHERY***

ARCHERY.The sport of archery--shooting arrows from bows at targets--has its roots in prehistoric times. Arrows were used by ancient peoples to battle their opponents and to hunt wild game. In some societies, people still use bows and arrows as weapons.

No one knows exactly when the first bows and arrows were used. Researchers have found evidence of archery that leads many of them to believe that it originated in more than one place. Other evidence has been found that shows the use of bows and arrows by peoples in every part of the world except Australia. The earliest bows and arrows were probably used for hunting rather than warfare. They were very important to primitive hunters, who used them to kill game that could not be outrun.

Archaeologists have found indications that people used hunting bows as long as 50,000 years ago in what is now Tunisia. Those early bows probably were wood branches or saplings cut into a "D" shape. To make the bowstring, primitive archers cut a long thong, or strip, from the hide of an animal. For arrows, they used straight sticks sharpened at one end. At the other end, they cut a notch so the arrow and bowstring fitted together snugly.

Other evidence of prehistoric archery has come from cave drawings in Spain, France, and North Africa. These drawings, which date back thousands of years, show bows and arrows being used for hunting and warfare. Archery was also a sport in ancient Egypt, China, and India. The ancient Egyptians were famous for their skill with the bow. However, the most advanced bows of ancient times came from the Far East. Craftsmen there glued wood, bone, and animal tendons together to make extremely accurate and powerful bows.

As the bow became a better weapon, it gained new importance in warfare. Military leaders began to use massed bowmen, who shot hundreds of arrows toward the enemy at the same time. The use of archery in warfare reached its peak in the Middle Ages with the English longbow. English bowmen used this effective weapon against the French during the Hundred Years' War, and their skill helped England become a world power.

The bow began to have less importance in war after the invention of firearms. In 1595 the British army replaced the longbow with the gun. Through the years, archery in Europe, whether competitive or for hunting, became almost entirely a sport.

The North American Indians, like other ancient peoples, used the bow and arrow for hunting and warfare. After the English and other Europeans settled in North America, the Indians rather rapidly adopted firearms, and archery was left to develop as a recreational activity.

Archery continued in encyclopedia. . .

Fire
Stonecutting
Foraging (exploitation of forests)
Hunting (plains, grassland)
Herbal Lore
Herding
Farming (allows size 1 villages)
The Canoe (river travel)
The Rope
The Fishing Net (ocean)
The Calender
The Council (Town Hall, village can grow beyond size 1)

(And, of course, Roads, Mining and Irrigation)

quote: Originally posted by chrispie on 10-31-2000 07:28 PM Also, the turns can't all be the same length, simply...if they are all 100, then WW2 would be pretty short, the hundred years war would be...well 1 turn. But, if they are all 1 year, it'd take forever to get to modern day. I do think that ancient time turns should be made shorter, maybe starting at 5 years a turn, and in modern day just one month or so a turn.

What does happen in current CivII is as follows:
-it takes two hundred years or more to produce the most simple warriors
-the building of the Pyramids takes about a thousand years, while in real life the Great Pyramid was built in about twenty years and the other two within a century
-Alexanders Conquest of the Persian empire, which was an expedition to the limits of the then known world, should be accomplished in less than a turn
-Magellans Expedition takes about six hundred years to accomplish, while in reality his voyage around the world lasted three years and Marco Polo travelled in less than two years to China
-the Rise and Fall of the Roman empire is represented by less than fourty turns, the much longer lasting Egyptian civilization by less than a hundred, while American history since its independence gets 180 turns
(I could add that Rome had during several centuries 600,000 or more inhabitants, an amount not exceeded by New York before 1850AD)
-most wars in CivII last some hundred turns or more, which corresponds to hundred years or a multiple of hundred; the siege of one city in the Middle Ages takes easily three centuries

It is true that with the passing of time populations will grow, which influences productivity, science output etc. So you will probably have more units, larger and more cities and general activity in the cities will be at a higher level, simply because more land and its yield are used and your cities will have better facilities. But why should a cavalry unit in 1900AD move fifty times as swiftly around as the horsemen did in 3000BC? With more logic one could argue that speed of movement would be slowed down because of gigantic crowds blocking the roads and traffic-jams!
A new founded city in 1900AD will double its population in ten years -improvements or not- while the population of Babylon in fertile Mesopotamia will only grow when five hundred years have passed! Yet large-scale use of contraceptives are doubtless a modern development.

And I can cause the entire planet to suffer as a result of nuclear war, pollution, global warming and famine, yet as I reach 1850AD all movement and production are doubled again! And all will enjoy this benefit, both the wicked and the righteous...

The differences in size between Ancient and Early Modern cities are also much smaller than one would guess: I'll give some lists of the largest cities in the world, made by two rather cautious historians. (T. Chandler and G. Fox)

Largest Cities 1360 BC
Thebes ~~~100.000
Memphis
Babylon
Chengchow 40.000
Chattushshas 40.000
Ninive
Ecbatana
Mykene ~~~30.000
Amarna ~~~30.000
Knossos ~~30.000

Largest Cities 100 AD
Roma ~~~650.000
Lo-yang
Alexandria 400.000
Seleucia ~300.000
Ch'ang-an
Ephesos ~~200.000
Antiochia 150.000
Kavery
Anuradhapura 130.000
Apamea ~~~125.000

Largest Cities 1300 AD
Hang-chow 432.000
Beijing ~~401.000
Cairo ~~400.000
Canton ~~~300.000
Nanking ~~300.000
Paris ~~~228.000
Fez ~~~200.000
Kamakura ~200.000
Soochow ~~160.000
Sian ~~~150.000

As one can see, cities circa 1300 weren't much larger than in 100 AD. And the terrible Black Death, which killed about one third of the population of Europe, hadn't struck yet.

Largest Cities 1750AD
Beijing ~900.000
London ~676.000
Constantinople 666.000
Paris ~~560.000
Yedo ~~~509.000
Canton ~500.000
Osaka ~~375.000
Kyoto ~~362.000
Hang-chow 350.000
Napoli ~324.000

The idea behind this speeding up of time is one of disdain for the civilizations of the past: as the game is now 1750AD is turnwise the middle of the game. History seems to begin when the Americans finally arrive on the scene....
One wonders how a history book written in 3000AD will treat our time. Will the accomplishments of the twentieth century -two world wars, Holocaust, completely profitless social experiments like Communism and the Cultural Revolution- be considered to have been of the same lasting value as the rise of civilization in Sumer, religions like Christianity and Buddhism, Greek philosophy or the poetry of T'ang China?

Linking time speed to world population sounds sympathetic, but will prove to be unworkable in the end. So because the Byzantine civilization flourishes will productivity in backward Australia soar? What would happen when the Black Death strikes or when nuclear winter sets in? Will the passage of time accelerate again?

Though in my opinion CivII is a great game, generally the atmosphere is too optimistic. The more it will portray the harsh reality of history, the more I'll like it. And because the game will be the only history some gamers will ever "read", the picture of history it reflects is not without educational importance.

I really don't understand why time during different periods of history should pass at a different speed. Its against all logic! I can imagine a game having three, 100 or 2000 turns; with some adjustments it could all work. But why on earth will ships double their velocity, will industry double its output, people copulate twice as much etc, because a 'magic date' has been passed?!?

The canoe was the first true boat to be built by primitive mankind. It exists in every part of the world, and excavations have unearthed specimens from the Stone Age. There are three basic types--bark canoes, skin boats, and dugouts. In North America the most important of these native canoes was the birchbark canoe used by a number of woodland Indian tribes.
Large portions of the North American continent were first visited by white men traveling in bark canoes. French explorers paddled from the east coast up the St. Lawrence River, crossed into the Great Lakes region, and from there moved their bark canoes north and west into the vast woodland interior of Canada, or south and west into the Mississippi Basin. In 1682 the French explorer Rene Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, traveled by bark canoe from Montreal on the St. Lawrence River to the mouth of the Mississippi on the Gulf of Mexico, a journey of about 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers).
Close behind these explorers came fur traders, their canoes loaded with beads, blankets, axes, guns, and whiskey. These they traded to the Indians for beaver pelts valued for hat-making. A special large trading canoe, the canot du nord, was developed for this fur trade; and the men who paddled these canoes, the French-Canadian voyageurs, are as much the stuff of legend as the cowboys and mountain men of the American West. (See also Boating.)

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From Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia Deluxe © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc.
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With the above in mind I think that canoes should be the first boat that can be built in Civ3, after all the very first sentence in the above article says, "The canoe was the first true boat to be built by primitive mankind." Canoes will allow fishermen to fish in the deep lakes and oceans, usually resulting in better luck than in the waters near the land, but to be realistic a canoe can only only travel so far from land, otherwise it will become lost at sea. Canoes will also allow tribes to travel faster by taking advantage of river currents, but once again to be realistic canoes can only travel faster downstream, not upstream. And in some places where there are river rapids, it should be impossible to travel upstream. BEWARE OF ROUGH WATERS!!! A canoe can tip over and drift downstream, lost forever. . .

quote: Originally posted by chrispie on 10-31-2000 07:28 PM Also, the turns can't all be the same length, simply...if they are all 100, then WW2 would be pretty short, the hundred years war would be...well 1 turn. But, if they are all 1 year, it'd take forever to get to modern day. I do think that ancient time turns should be made shorter, maybe starting at 5 years a turn, and in modern day just one month or so a turn.

I nearly agree with what chrispie is saying. Still I think that turns should start out at 50-100 years depending on level of difficulty at the beginning of the game.

The way I see it is like this: for example, say it's 8000 B.C. and you have hunter unit. When you instruct that hunter unit to hunt in a particular tile you are making a decision to hunt in this area for the next 50-100 years; you're not just sending one hunter out to the field to bring back a load big enough to feed your tribe for 50-100 years. No, you're making hundreds or possibly thousands of hunts in a matter of 50-100 years with a single command.

quote: -it takes two hundred years or more to produce the most simple warriors

An explanation for this is lack of population. It takes a population to produce units, and as your population grows more taxes are pumped into the economy thus producing units more quickly. Most units also need some type of support to survive, and in Civ2 without a home city with enough resources to support a unit, that unit is automatically disbanded.

quote: -the building of the Pyramids takes about a thousand years, while in real life the Great Pyramid was built in about twenty years and the other two within a century -Alexanders Conquest of the Persian empire, which was an expedition to the limits of the then known world, should be accomplished in less than a turn -Magellans Expedition takes about six hundred years to accomplish, while in reality his voyage around the world lasted three years and Marco Polo travelled in less than two years to China

The only explanation I can think of for this slow development is that in the ancient world, cities populations not only grew slowly, but they also developed their infrastructures very slowly as well. Since populations grew so slowly in the day, the support required to maintain these improvements wasn't available; this goes for wonders, too, even though they require no support costs in Civ2. I suppose that's because they are supported by the people. The periods of time in between in Civ2 when building any kind of city improvement or wonder represent these times of virtually zero infrastructural growth.

quote: -the Rise and Fall of the Roman empire is represented by less than fourty turns, the much longer lasting Egyptian civilization by less than a hundred, while American history since its independence gets 180 turns (I could add that Rome had during several centuries 600,000 or more inhabitants, an amount not exceeded by New York before 1850AD) One wonders how a history book written in 3000AD will treat our time. Will the accomplishments of the twentieth century -two world wars, Holocaust, completely profitless social experiments like Communism and the Cultural Revolution- be considered to have been of the same lasting value as the rise of civilization in Sumer, religions like Christianity and Buddhism, Greek philosophy or the poetry of T'ang China? As one can see, cities circa 1300 weren't much larger than in 100 AD. And the terrible Black Death, which killed about one third of the population of Europe, hadn't struck yet. The idea behind this speeding up of time is one of disdain for the civilizations of the past: as the game is now 1750AD is turnwise the middle of the game. History seems to begin when the Americans finally arrive on the scene....

I thought you said we were not discussing scenarios?

quote: -most wars in CivII last some hundred turns or more, which corresponds to hundred years or a multiple of hundred; the siege of one city in the Middle Ages takes easily three centuries

Have you not heard of 'Three Hundred Years War'? A single city takes one turn to seige. It's getting in there that takes forever.

quote: It is true that with the passing of time populations will grow, which influences productivity, science output etc. So you will probably have more units, larger and more cities and general activity in the cities will be at a higher level, simply because more land and its yield are used and your cities will have better facilities. But why should a cavalry unit in 1900AD move fifty times as swiftly around as the horsemen did in 3000AD? With more logic one could argue that speed of movement would be slowed down because of gigantic crowds blocking the roads and traffic-jams!

In Civ2, it does take extra movement points to pass through cities if you haven't noticed.

quote: A new founded city in 1900AD will double its population in ten years -improvements or not- while the population of Babylon in fertile Mesopotamia will only grow when five hundred years have passed! Yet large-scale use of contraceptives are doubtless a modern development.

This is the difference between a modern fast-growing city and an ancient slow-growing city.

quote: And I can cause the entire planet to suffer as a result of nuclear war, pollution, global warming and famine, yet as I reach 1850AD all movement and production are doubled again! And all will enjoy this benefit, both the wicked and the righteous... The idea behind this speeding up of time is one of disdain for the civilizations of the past: as the game is now 1750AD is turnwise the middle of the game. History seems to begin when the Americans finally arrive on the scene.... Linking time speed to world population sounds sympathetic, but will prove to be unworkable in the end. So because the Byzantine civilization flourishes will productivity in backward Australia soar? What would happen when the Black Death strikes or when nuclear winter sets in? Will the passage of time accelerate again? But why on earth will ships double their velocity, will industry double its output, people copulate twice as much etc, because a 'magic date' has been passed?!?

Here you have a point.

quote: The differences in size between Ancient and Early Modern cities are also much smaller than one would guess: I'll give some lists of the largest cities in the world, made by two rather cautious historians. (T. Chandler and G. Fox) Largest Cities 1360 BC Thebes ~~~100.000 Memphis Babylon Chengchow 40.000 Chattushshas 40.000 Ninive Ecbatana Mykene ~~~30.000 Amarna ~~~30.000 Knossos ~~30.000 Largest Cities 100 AD Roma ~~~650.000 Lo-yang Alexandria 400.000 Seleucia ~300.000 Ch'ang-an Ephesos ~~200.000 Antiochia 150.000 Kavery Anuradhapura 130.000 Apamea ~~~125.000 Largest Cities 1300 AD Hang-chow 432.000 Beijing ~~401.000 Cairo ~~400.000 Canton ~~~300.000 Nanking ~~300.000 Paris ~~~228.000 Fez ~~~200.000 Kamakura ~200.000 Soochow ~~160.000 Sian ~~~150.000 Largest Cities 1750AD Beijing ~900.000 London ~676.000 Constantinople 666.000 Paris ~~560.000 Yedo ~~~509.000 Canton ~500.000 Osaka ~~375.000 Kyoto ~~362.000 Hang-chow 350.000 Napoli ~324.000

The sizes of cities in Civ2 are not added to by the same amount each time a city increases it's size, rather the next city size is added to the previous. For example, from size 1 to size 2, 20,000 people are added to make 30,000 because size 2 adds 20,000. Size 3 adds 30,000, size 4 adds 40,000, and so on. It takes only a size 13 city to reach the population of Beijing in 1750 A.D.; up that to size 14 and you've got over a million people.

quote: Though in my opinion CivII is a great game, generally the atmosphere is too optimistic. The more it will portray the harsh reality of history, the more I'll like it. And because the game will be the only history some gamers will ever "read", the picture of history it reflects is not without educational importance.

The harsh reality of history can be improved by adding more features to the game.

quote: I really don't understand why time during different periods of history should pass at a different speed. Its against all logic! I can imagine a game having three, 100 or 2000 turns; with some adjustments it could all work.

I seriously doubt it!

As much time as we personally devote to playing the game, I think we have time to embrace ancient times a bit more.

Very impressive research on the city sizes!

quote: Originally posted by jrhughes98 on 10-31-2000 09:14 PM 8000 BC: Development of fermentation [i]The processes for making wine and beer are about 10,000 years old. The process of creating an alcoholic beverage from honey or fruit juice or from a mixture of malted barley, hops, and water depends on the use of yeast. The purity of these processed beverages could be controlled by the people who made them.

With this in mind, I think that fermentation should be one the early advances in Civ3. It allows the making of alcoholic beverages, which could be used as a luxury. Alcohol gives drunken souls a mild high, temporarily relieving them of stress, and making them forget about their problems. However, it can also result in an increase in crime and reduced life expectancy. You should be able to ban the use of alcoholic beverages in your "mobile camps" and cities, or ban it completely if it gets to be a problem. But you better do so soon. If you wait long enough banning alcohol could result in increased crime and unhappiness of the people, especially in a Democracy, (this is exactly what happened when the United States passed the Prohibition Act of 1917, which resluted in another act that ratified it 1933).

Since there are many different uses of fermentation besides the making of alcohol, it could be used as prerequisite for such advances as chemistry and medicine. Many industrial chemicals and a number of antibiotics used in modern medicine are produced by fermentation under controlled conditions.

quote: Originally posted by jrhughes98 on 10-31-2000 09:14 PM ***A NOTE ON ARCHERY*** ... The use of archery in warfare reached its peak in the Middle Ages with the English longbow. English bowmen used this effective weapon against the French during the Hundred Years' War, and their skill helped England become a world power. ....

I'm sorry to have to say it didn't. The Mongols developed a bow with composite materials in the 13th century with just a bit more strenght than the long bow, but lighter and smaller which made it a very handy and powerful weapon to be used on horseback. That's one of the reason why they were so succesful on the battlefield about that time. (I've also told about this in the thread War&Progress by RRemus).
But something else. It's a great relief to me to see someone come up with ideas which don't concern the 20th century. I've just made a printout to read things in the train backhome. See if I can come up with some good comment. This looks promising

CivII seems to be geared more towards a realistic development in terms of science and contrary to some previous posts, population. In the modern age scientific developments have been discovered much more rapidly than in ancient times. Furthermore, worldwide population has exploded, not because of an increase in the number of children we are having, but because more and more children are surviving and living long lives. I think the statistics provided on the growth of the largest cities bears that out. Cities barely grew over the first hundred years. From 1350-1750 the population of the largest cities doubled in Asia, but not so much in Europe because the Black Death decimated the population. Now look at the last 250 years. Beijing was the largest city in 1750 with 900,000 now it has 20 times that in only 250 years. Slowing down the number of turns reflects that type of population growth. This of course oversimplifies the argument as there are many other factors involved. Civ does not address the concept of rural populations which during certain time periods in history grew much faster than the populations within the cities.

Don't get me wrong I would like to see more ancient turns and perhaps some more technology from ancient times as well, but I don't think that the structure is that unrealistic. CTP II is going to be 800-1100 turns. I'm very interested to see how they structure the passage of time. I expect that it will continue to be weighted to modern times.

I think no matter how you structure the passage of time it will be skewed without heavy adjustments to scientific development and population growth in the ancient and middle ages. Hopefully, Civ III will be able to at least alleviate some of these difficulties.

In Civ2 there are already 570 turns at Chieftan or Warlord level, 520 turns at Prince level, 470 at King level, and 420 turns at both Emporer and Deity level. One non-multiplayer game takes me about 24 hours of playing time to finish. Multiplayer games take much much longer. Imagine a game of Civ3, with features that make the game even more complex than Civ2, and thus making human players have to think longer each turn. And with 1,000 or 2,000 turns in a single game? You must be out of your mind! That could take months to finish!

Not having enough turns is very unrealistic; there's not really enough time to do anything drastic.

I would be willing to sacrifice any kind of additional realism, in regards to years per turn, for better gameplay.

So, S. Kroeze, if say Firaxis were not to use the "magic date" feature to manage the passing of time in Civ3, then how else can they do it? What's on your mind?

Did you ever notice there are actually a lot of features in the game that do thwart progress? To give you some examples:

-the first tech advance you research requires ten beakers, the second one requires twenty beakers -or maybe eighteen, I didn't check it- the third requires about thirty beakers, etc

-a new founded city with one head=10,000 inhabitants uses two squares on the map for production; a city with two heads=30,000 inhabitants uses three squares for production; a city with three heads=60,000 inhabitants uses four squares for production. So there is a tremendous slowdown of productivity as a city grows larger: in a city of 10,000 people, 5,000 inhabitants are enough to exploit a tile completely;
in a city of 2,100,000 people a 100,000(!) people are needed to exploit that same tile. So productivity decreases twentyfold!! This is absolutely unrealistic and distorts the whole structure of the game.
This problem is still more aggravated because one can be sure that the first tiles used for production will be the best tiles (e.g.Whales or Silk), while one can depend on it that the last tile to be brought in production will be desert or mountain adding next to nothing

-as a city grows, more and more food is needed as surplus to make the population grow: the food box becomes larger and larger

-the first citizens in a city have a positive attitude: without luxuries or cajoling they will perform their daily routine. Beyond a certain point all citizens become lazy, selfish and demanding, thus slowing down research and productivity

-the government you begin the game with, Despotism, is the best in terms of unit support: most units are supported free and for nothing, while settlers need only one food to survive

-the Tech Tree contains an unbalanced amount of discoveries of the twentieth century; one needs more and more advances to make some progress. Horsemen and Chariots -by the way historically in reverse order- are next to one another; one needs about twenty new advances to upgrade from Cavalry to Armour! In this thread I did a proposal of the most important techs to be included in CivIII:

I. Plant domestication
II. Animal domestication
III. The Plough
IV. The Sail
V. The Mill
VI. Printing
VII. Empiricism
VIII. Trias Politica
IX. Nationalism
X. The Arts
To me its no surprise that all are from the time before 1800AD, because CivII neglects Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern History! And when I would be asked to consider ten more new techs, I am sure most would come from the older periods. No one with some basic understanding of history would argue that Radio was more important than the Plough or Printing!

Some critics might point out that some predate 4000BC. They are right of course! My reply would be that it is not written in stone that a Civgame starts in 4000BC. I still hope that more prehistory will be included. And all the same the majority of mankind didn't master Plant domestication in 4000BC.
By the way, several advances in the current TechTree were used before 4000BC: Pottery, Granaries, Archery, City Walls, Masonry, Ceremonial Burial, Temples, Markets, Trade(yes, long-distance(!)trade), Polytheism, Seafaring. Roadbuilding was on the other hand barely applied!

There are many more examples of this organized slowdown of progress I could point out. I think this will do for the moment!

When you would read my previous posts you would notice I did argue for more realism in many aspects of the game. I also voted for Realism/Historical Accuracy as the feature most in need of improvement. And above all I think its important that Firaxis makes clear choices:
When they decide to include Ancient history in the game it deserves more than some feeble hundred turns. And when they would truly acknowledge its importance -and of the early modern period also- many of the progress halting structures now spoiling realism and encouraging ICS could be abandoned. If not, I would prefer to start in about 1500AD.

The argument that such a game would have too many turns is totally irrelevant. It all depends upon what one such turn would contain. As the game is now I hardly ever finish a game, because the beginning is much more exciting than the end. And those twentieth century turns tend to be tedious and extremely long: thirty or more cities to keep an eye on, hundreds of units to move around....

Lets just apply simple logic! Time passes with a constant velocity, and 2 million people can produce two hundred times as much as 10,000 people...

And: I wasn't discussing scenarios, I tried to put in perspective the importance of the twentieth century. The Romans and Assyrians also conducted complicated campaigns and waged many battles. Nor was the Thirty Years' War decided instantly! I doubt if most people in 3000AD will know exactly when and where WWII occurred. Was it before or after the Middle Ages???

Finally a quote of the Diplomat, who in my opinion always adds intelligent contributions:

quote: The player would be able to fully experience each period of History as if it were a game within a game. You would experience a lot more events like wars, revolutions, social changes, new discoveries, etc for each time period. When you reached the techs and fulfilled the prerequesites to advance to the next age, you could save the game, take a rest from the game for a while, and when you felt up to it, take the game up again where you left off, and play the next age as a game by itself. You might spend days maybe weeks playing just one period of History. When you reached the end, the replay would be that much more satisfying as you would recall the ups and downs of your civ throughout history. For example, maybe your civ was mighty during the Bronze Age because of the Legion but lost its influence during the Middle Ages because of the Plague, and regained its prestige during the Industrial Revolution because of a world war that decimated your rivals. I think this would provide a much more fulfilling experience of leading your civ to greatness. The player that does not want to play the game for that much time should be able to play a "quick" mode that would go through History a lot faster (in a lot less turns). Also, since each period would be like a game within a game, I suggest that a player be able choose any Period and play just that Period alone. In this mode, the game would just be that one period. There should be rewards and victory conditions for the player that just plays one Period. How great can you make your civ in that limited amount of time? If your civ does not last all of History, you should still get a high score based on your accomplishments. (even if your civ gets conquered, if you accomplished a lot like building great Wonders, you should still get a high score, and thus still "win"). Victory should be based on your accomplishments. After all, civs did not last all of History and yet a still viewed as Great Civilizations! (ie: Egypt, Rome, Babylonians)

quote: Originally posted by S. Kroeze on 11-02-2000 07:07 PM When you would read my previous posts you would notice I did argue for more realism in many aspects of the game. I also voted for Realism/Historical Accuracy as the feature most in need of improvement. And above all I think its important that Firaxis makes clear choices: When they decide to include Ancient history in the game it deserves more than some feeble hundred turns. And when they would truly acknowledge its importance -and of the early modern period also- many of the progress halting structures now spoiling realism and encouraging ICS could be abandoned. If not, I would prefer to start in about 1500AD.

Well, you and I both agree on something. We both think that Realism/Historical Accuracy is the most in need of improvement. Though I voted for customisability, I wish I hadn't; I just overlooked realism for some reason.

It's sounds like the diplomat wants to kind of use a scenario after scenario kind of way of passing time, by going through different periods. In my opinion, this is like the game is making up it's own storyline without giving the player(s) a chance to intervene with history! You should be able to play a very different game each time. Playing it by periods would be fun at first, but would eventually get very boring. But there is better solution. . .

What if the player(s) were be able to choose how many turns they want in a game: just for example, there could be 500 turns in a short game, 1,000 turns in a medium-long game, and 2,000 turns in a long game. This would be great because some people will prefer a quicker game over realism and vice versa.

quote: Originally posted by rremus on 11-03-2000 10:58 AM I thought Zero was discovered by Indians and brough to europe by Arabs. I might be wrong... In rest, good ideea. Maybe also a wonder, "Julian Calendar" or "Gregorian calendar" that would impose to all civs your particular calendar, whatever that is. I cannot think at it benefits... 1 extra citizen happy? Better attitude of other civs toward you? ! extra citizen unhappy in all other civs ?

This could lead the the development of the 365-day calendar, and other advances. Let's not forget that there have been many different types of calenders used in history. I believe the lunar calendar was the very first. Yes, here it is. . .

CALENDAR. People have kept track of the days by the march of daylight and darkness and of the changing seasons in order to know when to plant crops and to get ready for winter. Sometimes they kept the record by notching a stick or knotting a cord once every day. They also watched the changing positions of the sun and stars, the changes of the moon, and the habits of plants and animals. The making of an exact calendar, however, has perplexed mankind for ages because the divisions of time by days, weeks, months, and years do not seem to fit together properly.

Early Calendars
The Sumerians of Babylonia were probably the first people to make a calendar. They used the phases of the moon, counting 12 lunar months as a year. To make up for the difference between this year and the year of the seasons, they inserted an extra month in the calendar about every four years. The early Egyptians, Greeks, and Semitic peoples copied this calendar. Later the Egyptians worked out a calendar that corresponded almost exactly to the seasons.
The early Romans also used a calendar that was based on the moon. The year in this calendar was 355 days long. The months corresponding to March, May, July, and October each had 31 days; February had 28 days; and the rest had 29. An extra month was added about every fourth year.
The high priest regulated the calendar. On the calends, or day of the new moon, he announced to the people the times of the nones (first quarter) and ides (full moon) for that month. The word calendar is from the Latin word kalendae.
The priests, however, performed their calendar-keeping duties poorly, and by Julius Caesar's time they had summer months coming in the spring. Caesar corrected this situation in 46 BC in the Julian calendar. He adopted the plan of the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes--a 365-day year, with one day added every fourth, or "leap," year. He distributed the extra ten days among the 29-day months, making them identical with the months today.
The month Quintilis was renamed July for Julius Caesar. Later Sextilis was renamed August in honor of Emperor Augustus. An old story tells how Emperor Augustus changed the number of days in his month from 30 to 31 so that it would be as long as Caesar's. The story probably has no basis in fact.
Julius Caesar's correction of one day in four years (1/4 day, or six hours, a year) made the calendar year longer than the year of the seasons. Thus anniversaries began coming earlier and earlier in the year. In 1582 the vernal equinox, or beginning of spring, occurred on March 11 instead of the correct date, March 21.
Pope Gregory XIII remedied this by directing that ten days be dropped from the calendar and that the day after Oct. 4, 1582, should be October 15. He also directed that three times in every 400 years the leap-year arrangement should be omitted.

Gregorian Calendar
The new calendar was called the Gregorian, or New Style (N.S.), calendar. It was adopted by Roman Catholic countries, but Protestant and Eastern Orthodox countries long continued to use the Old Style (O.S.), or Julian, calendar. The new calendar was not adopted in England until 1752, when it was necessary to drop 11 days. The Eastern Orthodox church accepted the New Style in 1923, when 13 days were "lost." The Chinese had adopted it in 1912.
Another reform that the Gregorian calendar effected was general adoption of January 1 as the beginning of the year. Until then some nations began it with December 25, others with January 1 or March 25 (as England did before 1752).

Native American Calendar Systems
Among the Indians who lived in the Western Hemisphere before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, the most complex calendars were those developed by the Mayan and Aztec peoples. (See also Aztecs; Maya.)
North American tribes did not have true calendars, or integrated systems for indicating days and longer periods of time. Usually intervals of time--days, months, and years--were counted independently of one another. The day was a basic unit recognized by all tribes, but there is no record of any names for the days. Longer periods of time were counted by moons, which began with the new moon or conjunction of moon and sun. Years were divided into four seasons. Among settled agricultural tribes, the cycle of seasons was significant, but the beginning time of the year varied. For some it was observed at the vernal equinox, the start of spring. The Hopi Indians of Arizona celebrated the new year, which they called the new-fire ceremony, in November, while the Creek Indians' ceremony was in late July or early August.

Maya calendar
The basic structure of the Maya calendar is common to all calendars of ancient Mexico and Central America. It consisted of a ritual cycle of 260 named days and a year of 365 days. These cycles, which ran concurrently, formed a longer cycle of 18,980 days, or 52 years of 365 days. Called a "calendar round," a designated day occurred at the end of the cycle in the same position. The 365-day year was divided into 18 months of 20 days each, with five "days of evil omen" added to fill out the years.

Aztec calendar
The calendar of the Aztecs was based on earlier calendars of the Valley of Mexico and was similar to the Mayan calendar. It had a ritual cycle as well as a year of 365 days. But the Aztec and Mayan years did not necessarily coincide with one another. The Aztecs also had 18 months of 20 days, plus the five extra days to complete the year. These years were also considered to form a 52-year cycle. The year served to fix the time of festivals, which occurred at the end of each month.

Inca calendar
Very little is known about the calendar used by the Incas of Peru. Some scholars have even said they had no calendar. But most historians believe that the Incas had a calendar based on observations of both sun and moon. Names of 12 lunar months are recorded as well as their association with festivals in the agricultural cycle. Work seems to have been organized on the basis of a nine-day week. Three nine-day weeks, or 27 days, is the approximate time between new moons. Every third year was made up of 13 moons, with the others having 12. This formed a cycle of 37 moons, and 20 of these cycles made a period of 60 years. (See also Incas.)

Other Calendar Systems
There are several very old calendar systems still in use. Three of the most prominent are the Jewish, Muslim, and Chinese. Both the Jewish and Chinese calendars are lunisolar: The years are reckoned according to the sun but the months according to the moon. The Muslim calendar is lunar.
The Jewish calendar supposes the world was created in what is 3761 BC on the Gregorian calendar. The years are designated AM for anno mundi, which is Latin for "year of the world." There is, therefore, no designation of BC or AD as there is in the Gregorian calendar. Because the solar year exceeds 12 lunar months by about 11 days, a 13th month of 30 days is intercalated, or inserted, seven times in each 19-year cycle. This procedure follows the ancient Babylonian tradition with which ancient Israel was familiar. Other adjustments to the calendar are required periodically to make sure that the festival of Passover follows the first day of Spring.
Christianity, for most of its major festivals, adheres to the Jewish lunar calendar. Therefore, many of its feasts are movable. The chief holiday, Easter, always falls on the first Sunday following the full Moon that falls on or after the vernal equinox. Therefore, most of the church year, including the pre-Easter season of Lent, is always adjusted to the date of Easter. Other festivals, such as Christmas and New Year, are fixed.
The Chinese calendar is basically lunar, or based on the moon, consisting of 12 months of alternately 29 and 30 days. This lunar year totals 354 days. To keep this calendar in step with the solar year of about 365 days, intercalary months are periodically inserted in much the same way they are in the Jewish calendar. One interesting feature of the Chinese calendar is the naming of the years. Twelve animal names from ancient times have been attached to years. These names, in order of their occurrence, are: rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, fowl, dog, and pig. This cycle of years is frequently used for astrological purposes, much the same way the 12 signs of the zodiac are used in the West to describe personality traits and to tell fortunes.
Islam's year is entirely lunar, following directives from its holy book, the Koran. The lunar cycles are considered guides for the faithful in their religious observances. The Islamic year has 12 months with, alternately, 29 and 30 days, making a year of 354 or 355 days. Because there is no attempt to align this lunar year with the solar year, Muslim months have no relation to the seasons. The months continually move around the year, so major festival observances may, therefore, occur in any season.

Three Kinds of Years
A true year, as opposed to a calendar year, may be defined as the time the Earth takes to return to the same point on its orbit around the sun. But there are several ways of defining the "same point." Astronomers therefore recognize different kinds of year.
The simplest reference point is one on the orbit in which the Earth aligns with the sun and a particular star. Such a point is fixed: It remains the same century after century. The year measured between two successive crossings of such a point is called the sidereal year, from the Latin word sidus, meaning "star," or "planet." It is 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 9.5 seconds long.
Another reference is a point on the orbit where the Earth's axis is perpendicular, or at a right angle, to a line from the sun. This occurs twice a year, in the spring and fall. A year measured between successive crossings of one of these points is called the tropical year. Its duration is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. The seasons keep in step with the tropical year because both are based on the position of the Earth's axis. For that reason the calendar year is based on the tropical year.
Still another astronomical reference point is the perihelion, the point on its orbit that the Earth is closest to the sun. The time between crossings of this point is called the anomalistic year. Because the perihelion is moving slowly in the same direction the Earth travels on its orbit, the anomalistic year is the longest of the three types. Its duration is 365 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, and 53 seconds.

Months, Weeks, and Days
The word month is derived from the Old English word for moon. A month was originally the time between two new moons. Today astronomers refer to this period of time as a lunar month. Its average length is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8 seconds. The moon travels around the Earth in 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, and 11.5 seconds. This is the sidereal month. Calendar months usually differ in length, and all except February are longer than 29 days in order to accommodate the solar year, which is almost 11 days longer than a lunar year.
The names for the months in the present Gregorian calendar are taken from the ancient Roman months of the Julian calendar. January is derived from Janus, a household god of beginnings. He was often depicted facing in two directions. February was the time of a feast of purification called Februa. March was named after Mars, the god of war. April is of uncertain origin. It may be named after the Greek goddess Aphrodite. May is probably derived from the goddess Maia. June was named after the goddess Juno. July and August were named, respectively, after Julius Caesar and his successor, Augustus. The last four months got their names from their original numerical placement in the year. Septem, for instance, is Latin for "seven."
The seven-day week has no astronomical basis. It may well have originated in the Middle East or in the Bible. By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire was operating on a week of the same length. The days were named after the then known seven planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun (not distinguished from a planet at the time), Venus, Mercury, and the moon (also considered a planet). The names of days in Latin countries still point to these origins, as do Sunday, Monday, and Saturday in English. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, however, are named after the Scandinavian gods Tiw, Woden, Thor, and Frigga.

quote: Originally posted by rremus on 11-03-2000 10:58 AM I thought Zero was discovered by Indians and brough to europe by Arabs. I might be wrong...

Could be, I've always thought that ... But it could be !! Somehow you always tend to overlook things which are furthest away. I've tried to find something on that issue in the Encyclopedia Brittanica which is available in the library at my work. But up till now I haven't found any quote on that. Still, fact is that all over the world nowerdays the arabian numerical notation is being used !! And Algebra, in its ethymological roots, is an arabian word too.

Having tapped the breadcrums out of my keyboard, I'd like to work out a few things which came up since my lunchbreak (I haven't been using my computer this afternoon). I'm trying to elaborated on things Ribannah came up with. Nice set of idea's !!

1st Calendar
prereq.> Astronomy
effect > increased farmingproduction (one shief extra per tile ?!) + increased happiness, only with temple !!(10% ?!)
The calendar gives structure to life. You can plan more accurately what your going do to, f.i. ploughing, sowing, harvest etc.. This cycle of live was also picked up by the clergy/priesthood. All kinds of ceremonies and festivities where developed arranged and managed by them on set dates, Thanksgiving, Sinterklaas (first he visits the dutch and flemish on the 5th of december, and with the left-overs on), Christmas (he's going elsewhere)

2d forestry (Ribannah, I take it that's what you mean with "foraging" ?!)
I don't think that should appear as a single advancement in the game. Forestry, as far as I know, in the antique times, has never been of any concern. It is known that when the greeks started building their large fleets, they just stripped large section of land of timber. That caused heavy erosion and as you might say, an ecological catastrophe. Allthough they were a bit more cautious, the same was with the Romans. There is a theory which says that the Mediterranean is still suffering from the ecological hazards from that time.
Forestry is a phenomenon which developed in the mid-18th century. Shipbuilding in that time and a bit later on mining demanded such high quantities of timber that plans needed to be made to ensure a certain "timberharvest". I've been told during a excursion on a holiday around the harbour of Kinsale (Ireland, some 15 km. due south from Cork), which used to be a British navalbase up to the mid of the 19th century, that for the building of one Man-0-War (the fiercest and largest navalship of its time), about 65 hectare's of timberland needed to be logged down. About half the surface of Ireland has been stripped of its timber for that reason.

I also like the idea of playing with a calendar that begins with the year 0 and would be adjusted by the calendar wonder. Perhaps this could be an option for players to either start at 4000 B.C. or on a calendar that starts with year 0.

I think that part of the reason for the abbreviation of the tech's developed in the ancient and pre-historic times is that they lump them together/or make them automatically part of your civ's knowledge. My hope for Civ3 is the addition of several turns during the early part of the game and adding techs to the tech tree as well. If these time periods are going to be added more attention should be paid to them.

I think its important to note that no matter how many techs are added we will always find more that could have/should have been added.

Now to us modern folk, bronze sword - samurai sword, we don't see much difference, they are both swords. But they are two extremely different weapons, requiring different tactics (thrusting as opposed to slicing), and made of different materials.

Why isn't the distinction between two completely different weapons in the game when we have flight and advanced flight?

If we made the distinction between broadsword and katana sword along with many other 'minor' distinctions, then the tech tree would be much larger in ancient times. Put a penalty on city growth in ancient times and then decrease the number of years per turn in ancient times and we can finally play in ancient history instead of skimming over it.
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- Biddles

quote: Originally posted by Vrank Prins on 11-03-2000 12:58 PM This is something which I believe I've read about in another thread too, erosion. Agriculture in ancient times very often suffered from erosion. Or said in different how to handle it. This sometimes caused whole communities/civs/colonies to collapse. I haven't been able to think of anything of how this could be brought into the game, but somehow I think it's possible. It would be nice to have a few setbacks in the game, makes things more challenging.

Are talking about just erosion or all type of weather calamities? Tornados, Hurricanes, mudslides, storms (could sink ships), flooding...

Is this where the anti-simcity2000 people chime in?

quote: Originally posted by Vrank Prins on 11-03-2000 12:58 PM Could be, I've always thought that ... But it could be !! Somehow you always tend to overlook things which are furthest away. I've tried to find something on that issue in the Encyclopedia Brittanica which is available in the library at my work. But up till now I haven't found any quote on that. Still, fact is that all over the world nowerdays the arabian numerical notation is being used !! And Algebra, in its ethymological roots, is an arabian word too.

quote: Zero was invented (or discovered) in 8th century India and soon came to the attention of one of the great unsung heroes of mathematics Al-Khwarizmi, an Arab Mathematician who published an arithmetic textbook in 820AD. Al-Khwarizmi invented a circle to stand for the number zero.

Thats what I found on it, at a doubious url: http://www.room103.com/archive/q_zeromyhero.htm

Related to the general idea of the thread, we all tend to neglect discoveries and facts happend too far in time. Our ancestors weren't dumber than us! In fact, they were pretty smart. If we take only mathematics, some modern algebric theories were well known in ancient times. I think there still are theories wich we cannot demonstrate today. If I remeber correctly, the ancient greeks prooved that any even number is the sum of two prime numbers. We cannot.
For our europen memory, 'modern' science is the result of last 4 or 5 centuries of research. The ancients had 4 or 5 thousand years to think at they problems...
I think the game should devote more of the play to those glorious ancestors.
Take for instance the city walls and the attacking units. In ancient cities, a city wall would not 'double' the defense force, would make the city inexpugnable unless the attckers were havieng specialised siege weaponry, like siege towers. I heard the romans were quite good in these fields. If the attacker had no siege weapons, they could only try to starve the sieged city.

We also tend to think at huge ammounts of time as a 'short' period. The Egyptians lasted for thousand of years. They final fall is closer to our days than to their beginning! We mix together various migrations, yet they happened at hundreds of years appart!

The idea is interesting, may be funny too, at the first glance, and surely more accurate than message about "things happening 2500 years before something not happening yet" (I remember someone joking about: "look, it is almost year 1: what will happen tomorrow? ).

The true is that common calendar (for modern business, if nothing else) is around Jesus Christ birthday (I'm not speaking about religion, only as current time "milestone", largely accepted "as is" also by different religions).

This is our "link" to real history, almost a kind of "benchmark" about our game: I've just discovered the flight in 1810 a.d.! fine, I'm doing very well in research! or Hmmm, my first chariot in 1950 a.d.? Better put some coins to the scientist, I'm a bit out of business

I know in game term I can be loosing the game on the former example, while winning it on the latter, but a kind of benchmarking with reality help with that sense of accomplishment we love too much in Civ.

If someone can add Mayan or fantasy calendar to actual "handle with history has we learn it" I will vote for him/her!

quote: Originally posted by Shogun Gunner on 11-03-2000 09:16 PM Are talking about just erosion or all type of weather calamities? Tornados, Hurricanes, mudslides, storms (could sink ships), flooding...

I'm talking about erosion as a structural problem, not the single incidents (chaostheory ~ all accidental events together make up a structure). When you don't know how to handle what's happening to you again and again, landslides, dustbowls, floods, etc. (even the most subtle forms of erosion) or non-erosion problems like soil becoming salty or soil getting exhausted, because of wrong ways of irrigation or for lack of fertilizer or a good agricultural merit, you have a structural problem. And that's what happened to a lot of former cultures.
I, most certainly !!, am not suggesting that single accidents should be introduced into the game (maybe one the plaque).
The point is that in earlier days (and why not speak for our own time, pollution) certain ways of doing things had bad effects in the long run. A bit like the globalwarming problem we have now in CIV, but far more severe. I would like it if these structural problems* were introduced into the game. (*from agricultural, hygienical (health), economical or sociological nature (whatever)). Somehow, and it's being said before in this thread, I think too the game is to optimistic.
When these problems occur it should be so that the solution lies a few advancements away. That would mean that in the time needed to get there, slowly but steadily things will start to dwindle over a longer period of time.