Incas didn't used wheels

Trifna · August 13, 2001, 20:26

Incas didn't used wheels, but didn't they had good astronomers? A simple comment, but I think it may change some things about the wheel in the tech tree, no? Wheel could be necessary for more advanced mathematics. Pretty hard to get something good about the "pi" number without wheels. Hard to get to good roads since they aren't needed, etc.

KrazyHorse · August 13, 2001, 20:28

You're the only other Quebec poster I've seen. Comment ca va?

Inverse Icarus · August 13, 2001, 21:25

oui oui. FRENCHIE IS PINK.

Trifna · August 13, 2001, 21:34

Ça va bien. But I'm not going to start a conversation here, since I guess it wouldn't be the place

XarXo · August 13, 2001, 21:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Trifna
Incas didn't used wheels, but didn't they had good astronomers? A simple comment, but I think it may change some things about the wheel in the tech tree, no? Wheel could be necessary for more advanced mathematics. Pretty hard to get something good about the "pi" number without wheels. Hard to get to good roads since they aren't needed, etc.

Well Egyptians didn't used wheels to make the pyramids too, I can't imagine the life of a pyramid-worker

!!!

Incas [, but but but, ] had an enormous road net in the Andes, they used llamas as us the horses, but they small size only allows kids or slow transport (better than horses, we must consider them like asses).

And we don't need the wheels for the PI number, is better imagine it for architecture (and... Architecture is included in the knowledge list???? I hate the "Bridge Building" name, is a "Discover this to make this" name).

Trifna · August 14, 2001, 09:18

Didn't egyptians had charriots early on?...

PS: I aknowledge you on that bridge name and some others... I'm kindda worried for tech tree these times...

Nikolai · August 14, 2001, 09:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Trifna
Incas didn't used wheels

Well, they could have used wheels, couldn't they?

This is a game about re-writing history, you know!

Al'Kimiya · August 14, 2001, 10:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Trifna
Incas didn't used wheels, but didn't they had good astronomers? A simple comment, but I think it may change some things about the wheel in the tech tree, no? Wheel could be necessary for more advanced mathematics. Pretty hard to get something good about the "pi" number without wheels. Hard to get to good roads since they aren't needed, etc.

But the Incas aren't in the game, so the tech tree is fine

Trifna · August 14, 2001, 10:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Al'Kimiya

But the Incas aren't in the game, so the tech tree is fine

Well... doesn't change anything. Maybe they aren't in the game, but it does change what is possible to do or not.

Grumbold · August 14, 2001, 12:11

The tech tree seems to have been designed this time round to provide a choice of paths rather than to be an accurate representation of which sciences or discoveries were direct foreruners of others. If you aggressively persue the path to advanced government you will fall behind militarily. If you persue military techs you will lack culture etc.

Marquis de Sodaq · August 14, 2001, 13:23

The Inca were surprizingly advanced astronomers. They incorporated into their stories and knots many intricate long-term observations about stellar and planetary movements. As for mathematics, there is one big circle all people could see and use - the sky "rotating" above. The Inca knew the world was round, could identify where their constellations were while not visible at that time of year, kept time by astronomy. Who needs a wheel?

They didn't use the wheel because it wasn't practical to do so. Llamas and peasants took care of hauling things. Very rough terrain limited their use.

BackdoorMan · August 14, 2001, 20:01

Quote:

They didn't use the wheel because it wasn't practical to do so. Llamas and peasants took care of hauling things. Very rough terrain limited their use.

Bull.

They didn't use the wheel because they hadn't discovered it. No American Indian tribe had. Which also, by the way, calls into question the Aztecs and Iroquois. They also didn't have writing, which as far as I'm concerned disqualifies them as a civilization.

DrFell · August 14, 2001, 20:43

Incas had actually discovered the wheel, but it was only used in children's toys etc. not for any useful purpose.

BackdoorMan · August 14, 2001, 23:50

You could say they never actually "discovered" the wheel, in that they never figured out how to use it.

Grumbold · August 15, 2001, 03:09

They had discovered the wheel. They used it. Had their terrain been more amenable to hand drawn wheeled vehicles or had they had domesticated horses or oxen they might have put it to greater use.

KrazyHorse · August 15, 2001, 03:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Marquis de Sodaq
The Inca were surprizingly advanced astronomers

Not to mention masons. I was amazed at the stonework in Machu Pichu when I saw pictures. The Incas were, without any doubt, a civilisation, though admittedly not as advanced as some on Europe/Asia/North Afica (due to the "late start" of civilisation in the Americas caused by isolation from the rest of the human family). They were light years beyond most of sub-saharan Africa (though the Kush Empire had made an excellent start) and even farther than that ahead of most of the Pacific island/Oceania cultures.

Grumbold · August 15, 2001, 03:29

Their stonework was so advanced and universal that I was tempted to speculate in my last post that craftable wood may have been a rarer commodity than stone. However it would only be speculation.

Trifna · August 15, 2001, 11:45

Quote:

Originally posted by BackdoorMan

Bull.

They didn't use the wheel because they hadn't discovered it. No American Indian tribe had. Which also, by the way, calls into question the Aztecs and Iroquois. They also didn't have writing, which as far as I'm concerned disqualifies them as a civilization.

Well when conquistadores came, they didn't burnt all "heretical" stuff?... Wasn't it written stuff?

KrazyHorse · August 15, 2001, 12:35

Um...the Incas never developed writing in the formal sense, although they had developed the ability to pass messages on using knotted ropes.

Marquis de Sodaq · August 15, 2001, 14:04

Another Incas plug: They made the best cloth known to man. Cashmir wool is the king of fabric today, and this was run-of-the-mill in the Inca world. This was in part due to having the right beasts to breed and trim, but they did it, nonetheless.

Backdoorman, you seem like an uninformed bigot with your responses. The amerindians had no writing?! There are still extant writings (that survived destruction by europeans) from the Aztecs and Mayans. Krazyhorse is right, the Incas "wrote" using a 3-D alphabet of knotted rope.

Besides, how does illiteracy disqualify a people from being civilized? Maybe you are unable to remember things, but people with an oral tradition (as it's called by whites) have just as well-developed laws, stories, histories, astronomy, etc, as any people who wrote things on paper. By your criteria, the ancient greeks were uncivilized? The Illyad and Oddessy were strictly song/poetry for centuries before the greeks wrote them down. The Iroquois happened to teach the Americans how to organize a representative government. Does that make you the inheritor of uncivilized ideas? Learn more before you spew nonsense. (Note my signature line, too.

)

Ozymandias · August 15, 2001, 21:27

There is also a significant theory that the "origin" of the wheel is actually the potter's wheel -- which would make Pottery a reasonable prerequisite for the Wheel.

-Ozymandias

Laszlo · August 16, 2001, 03:39

Quote:

Originally posted by XarXo

Incas [, but but but, ] had an enormous road net in the Andes, they used llamas as us the horses, but they small size only allows kids or slow transport (better than horses, we must consider them like asses).

Actually, the Inca Empire was remarkably well connected because of the Andes road despite being so strung out up and down the continent. Other civilizations have crumbled because of their size limiting fast enough communication.

The Incan's solution was to have runners stationed along the road every mile or so, and each runner knew their stretch intimately enough to run it in pitch black or through storms. With this infrastructure in place, messages from the farthest corners of the empire would pass into the emperor's hands within 24 hrs (or vice versa) and kept the civ from breaking up.

Ironically, what enabled their prosperity also aided their downfall.

When the Spanish conquistadors landed, they followed the road straight through to the capital before the Aztecs recognized them as a threat and the Spanish defeated them despite their vastly smaller force.