What's strictly a civilization?

I don't know what do other people think about this, but... which should we consider as effective prerrequisites to constitute a civilization when building historic scenarios?

Many scenario designers have to face this problem when they want to depict a wide part
of world History, say, the Middle Ages or so. Furthermore, Civ2 only allows seven
civilizations. I know each designer is free to take its own choice, but, is there a
"official" way of solving this kind of problems?

I think the strict game civilization concept should stand for an independent human group, with any form of centralized government, and with its own technology and culture. This has happened only a few time in History. A good example would be the Roman Empire, I guess, but what about the Hellenic Civilization? Each single city had its very own government, and even new colonies founded by a city were effectively independent from its metropolis! European feudalism would be another interesting example of what I am talking about...

Does anyone know how to properly depict in a scenario these uncentralized civilizations?

[This message has been edited by jgv_fiera (edited March 22, 2000).]

[Hendrik the Great]

To depict uncentralised civs remove the Palace for one thing. To controll crime, etc.. give them (cheap?) Courts if you want to.
Give them a from of government that wont allow them to use the potential of a centralised civ.Like despotism...

Make internal transport and infrastucture relatively weak and units, with one or two exceptions, expensive.

If the civ is not meant to be played or is not that important use the barbarians for it
and use some events to make them look look like something.

But their aren't really set rules or so to do that. Just use your own judgement for what you think is best.

P.S. You site looks really nice now. Beautifull units on that sreenshot! Did you make them yourself? I'll put down a link to it with the next update...

Danke schoen, Hendrik!

Yes, I made myself all of the "Pizarro" units, and I can really say I am proud of them (spent a lot of time, you know, but I think it's worth it).

I agree with your suggestions. Do you think the Despotism is the government form which better suits to European feudalism, or maybe to the Holy Roman Empire?

Thanks again, Hendrik! And thanks for that link!

Well, I'd like to do something about European renaissance, but just thinking how it would be for the moment... Maybe a weak Monarchy with some cities in disorder could do fine for 15th century Holy Roman Empire...

P.S. Ich studiere Deutsch als Fremdsprache in Spanien, und ich bin einmal in Deutschland gewessen.

[tobyr]

I'm responding to the original question -- what IS a civilization? I think the answer is the same as for this question:

What is a language, as opposed to a dialect?

The classical answer to this question is:
If you have and army and/or a navy, you are speaking a language, not a dialect. (And, I would say, you are a civilization.)

- toby




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toby robison
criticalpaths@mindspring.com

Thanks, tobyr

I was looking forward to hear more civers' opinion about this.

I think you're right, but... Civ2 deals with something else apart from armies. Technology, science, culture, whatever... Taking this in mind, you can't say that the Republic of Florence and the Republic of Pisa were different civs at the 15th Century -but, in fact, they were several times at war!

[Hendrik the Great]

It can be seen that you spent a lot time on them!

I would use Despotism for the Feudalism and Monarchy for the Holy Roman Empire. But that depends on what you want the civs to be like in the scenario. Stronger: Monarchy I would say; weaker: Despotism.

So, you do speak German...where did you learn? School?
Oh, and I put a Link to your site on my page.

[Hendrik the Great]

I think you have to make a difference between civilization and states.

If you take the Mayans for example. They all were one single Mayan civilization, yet there were possibly hundreds of independent City States fighting each other often for decades.

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Mathias' Civ II Page
http://members.xoom.com/thalys/index.html