germans - attributes

Arent · August 20, 2001, 13:17

If you are in favor of a more peaceful combination like industrious/scientific or industrious/commercial please vote "Other"!
...

There have been some complaints about the german attributes -
let's make a poll. Just pick the combination you're most comfortable with.
(couldn't include all - sorry)

Arent

KrazyHorse · August 20, 2001, 13:39

Where's the "I'm not voting because this thread is going to be moved to the "civilizations" forum in under 30 miutes" option?

Arent · August 20, 2001, 13:45

Yes, you're right, sooorry... my mistake - it'll never happen again.
I was all the time trying to get my excuse here but my connection is perhaps slower than yours

Please, someone move it to civilisations, this got wrong, sorry...

Arent

KrazyHorse · August 20, 2001, 13:57

Don't worry so much...once your bowels are removed, the rest of the punishment's almost painless.

Other than that, I vote for the Germans as Industrious/Scientific and the Japanese as the "missing" Military/Scientific civ.

Arent · August 20, 2001, 14:15

gnnnn, I knew I forgot some important combination

Sorry, would you mind voting for "Other"?
(Hey you could start a poll: "Which civ should be militaristic/scientific?")

Arent

Arent · August 20, 2001, 14:15

double post

lord of the mark · August 20, 2001, 16:33

Other

Well obviously Germany from 1871 to 1945 is militaristic, and 18th c Prussia as well.

And the Germany that dominated nobel prizes from 1900 to 1933, that made German the international language of science, that was so important in chemistry, physics, archaeology and other fields has to be scientific.

The post-1945 BundesRepublik is industrious (ossies excluded

)
and this fits well with Germany 1871 to 1914, and general stereotypes.

Hanseatic league Germany should of course be commercial.

And teh Germany of Luther, Bach, cathedrals and psalms should be religious.

And the Germany of the medieval settlement wave to the east (the drang nach osten) should be expansionist.

Maybe we should do what any good Weimar German critical intellectual would have done - go back and examine the entire concept to see if it makes sense.

LOTM
"the spirit of Weimar lives on"

KrazyHorse · August 20, 2001, 16:53

Arrgghhh!

Don't you ever give up?

You're turning into a real Yin, you know.

Kc7mxo · August 20, 2001, 20:46

I've said it before and I'll say it agian. I think that if they're going to be egotistical enoguh to arbitralily assign racial attributes in civ3, they should at least have the decency to do it randomly.

patooie.

Stryfe · August 21, 2001, 00:57

I think that if I were to assign any attributes to a civilization it would have to be assigned based on what attributes that civilization has most made itself felt upon the world through. With Germany this is problematic as there has only very rarely been a German nation; the Holy Roman Empire, for instance, was not really a nation, but a league of princes; only in the modern time is a German nation.

For their attributes however, I would choose either Expansionistic / Religious or Scientific / Religious. German expansionism is behind the whole of Europe being the way it is; I don't know if there is much of Europe not affected by the migrations of the Germanic tribes to a high degree. But the power of German Science and Philosophy is so powerful late in the country's development--especially Philosophy--that it seems a crime to not represent that in the Scientific attribute.

The Religious attribute I would assert is indisputable (yet seems least popular). But what can you say about the nation that has produced the most influential, innovative, and important religious thought of the modern era? From Martin Luther, who produced the Reformation, to Schleiermacher, who introduced Liberal Modernism (not to mention Feuerbach and Strauss), up to Karl Barth, the most important voice of Evangelicism, Germany has consistently produced the greatest and most original voices in the sphere of religion. Today, if you examine the most influential theologians, they are, by and large, Germans--Jurgen Moltmann, Hans Kung, etc--or German Swiss. And it's not just that these have been "just" big thinkers in religion; these aren't thinkers who've only influenced an erudite few, but have been extremely influential as well throughout the world.

For some reason Firaxis wants Germany to be 'Commercial', which seems anachronistic to me. At no point in Germany's history until the post-WW2 era does Germany seem to be a Commercial powerhouse, and this era hardly seems to be the height of Germany as compared with, say, 1770-1938 (Am I missing something? Was Germany some great trading nation all that time like the Dutch or English? Has Firaxis mixed up meanings of the word "Dutch"?).

And for a final rant...Why isn't France represented as Scientific?

Tiberius · August 21, 2001, 01:06

I voted "other", but with "commercial/industrious" in mind.

I agree though that they could be easily fit into the scientific, militaristic or religious attributes, depending on the era. I prefer them like they are now: commercial/industrious.

Arent · August 21, 2001, 05:39

There are a lot of "Other" votes considering such options like "Other"
are rarely picked in polls. We'll see. Considering the number of votes and that this poll
startet yesterday it seems to be of interest.

Arent

Wernazuma III · August 21, 2001, 19:02

industrious/scientific

JellyDonut · August 22, 2001, 02:38

I agree with Tiberius. We should be commercial/industrious, like today. Come on, we've cleaned up our act since '45

Arent · August 22, 2001, 03:40

Yeees, perhaps you're right - I can't edit
the poll

but I'll edit the first post and
give some remark to help your cause

(Although it's a little late)

Arent

StSz · August 22, 2001, 04:05

uhm, if you look on this table:

http://www.civ3.com/devupdates/abilitiespopup.cfm

you would see that they made 2 double pairs:
English/Germans and Aztecs/Japanese

They forgot the Militaristic + Scientific combinations
(there are 15 unique combinations!! - 14 are used)

changeing the germans to Militaristic + Scientific would solve two problems:

1) The Germans _ARE_ militaristic (they are nowadays the same as they were '45), and they have great impact on world's technology (the _BEST_ example: MP3 from the "Frauenhofer Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen" (Frauenhofer institute for integrated circuits) ) - however, they are nowadays NOT THAT great expansionists

2) We would kill one double pair, and leave only one pair: Aztecs/Japanese (weird similarity)

Martinus · August 22, 2001, 06:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Stryfe

The Religious attribute I would assert is indisputable (yet seems least popular). But what can you say about the nation that has produced the most influential, innovative, and important religious thought of the modern era? From Martin Luther, who produced the Reformation, to Schleiermacher, who introduced Liberal Modernism (not to mention Feuerbach and Strauss), up to Karl Barth, the most important voice of Evangelicism, Germany has consistently produced the greatest and most original voices in the sphere of religion. Today, if you examine the most influential theologians, they are, by and large, Germans--Jurgen Moltmann, Hans Kung, etc--or German Swiss. And it's not just that these have been "just" big thinkers in religion; these aren't thinkers who've only influenced an erudite few, but have been extremely influential as well throughout the world.

If anything, Germans should NOT be religious. The history of German philosophy and German political thought is a history of breaking away from religious fundamentalism. From Martin Luther indeed (yes, he created his own religion, but back then everybody was religious, and his religious act was the most anti-religious of the era). But then through Heideger, Nietzsche, Drescher and poets like Goethe and Schiller the German intellectuals were humanists if not atheists. Indeed, the romanticism was strongest and most anti-religious in Germany, not to mention modernism or the after WWII period.

The fact they were "Holy Roman Empire" in middle ages and organised crusades has nothing to do with that, as everybody did it. But indeed, if any nation may be seen as questioning the Pope all the time back then, it was Germans.

As for what I think should be used - if the ruler is Frederick the Great of Prussia (and I think it is him) or Otto von Bismarck, then obviously militaristic and industrious.

JellyDonut · August 22, 2001, 14:39

Quote:

Originally posted by StSz
uhm, if you look on this table:

http://www.civ3.com/devupdates/abilitiespopup.cfm

you would see that they made 2 double pairs:
English/Germans and Aztecs/Japanese

They forgot the Militaristic + Scientific combinations
(there are 15 unique combinations!! - 14 are used)

changeing the germans to Militaristic + Scientific would solve two problems:

1) The Germans _ARE_ militaristic (they are nowadays the same as they were '45), and they have great impact on world's technology (the _BEST_ example: MP3 from the "Frauenhofer Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen" (Frauenhofer institute for integrated circuits) ) - however, they are nowadays NOT THAT great expansionists

2) We would kill one double pair, and leave only one pair: Aztecs/Japanese (weird similarity)

1945 was the death of a VERY militaristic government (the Nazis) and the country is much much less militaristic than it was back then, in case you didn't notice. And Firaxis didn't *forget* the militaristic/scientific combination; it would simply be too powerful for balanced gameplay.

StSz · August 22, 2001, 14:52

Quote:

Originally posted by JellyDonut

1945 was the death of a VERY militaristic government (the Nazis) and the country is much much less militaristic than it was back then, in case you didn't notice. And Firaxis didn't *forget* the militaristic/scientific combination; it would simply be too powerful for balanced gameplay.

EDITED BECAUSE IT WAS TO ANTI-GERMANISTIC

You are right.. scientific + militaristic seems to strong.