Some light on my rather silly question, please?

[Mad Hab]

I like Civ 3 very much (as much as I liked Civ and Civ II). But I am still puzzled by the absence of the Arab (or any other muslim) civilization in the three editions. I don't think anyone would put the Arabs out of a top-10 (even less a top-15!) list of the more influent civs of all human History. Even then, they are not there. Can someone help me find the reason why?

Some possibilities:

- Arabs are not liked in America (hard to believe, since the Russians always made the final cut, he, he).

- There is not a strong arab leader that could be used in the game (also hard to believe).

- The creators of the game believe the Carthaginians and Zulus made a larger contribution to humankind (are they mad?).

- They tried to avoid any trouble that putting a fundamentalist civ on the game could cause.

- Allah does not want it's chosen people in a western-capitalist game.

- Arabs are barbarians and should not be considered 'civilized'.

As a History-lover, I still dream of seeing arabs in Civ 4. Should I lose my hopes?

Thanks

Mad Hab

[cassembler]

I'm pretty sure that once the editor is fixed, you'll see all sorts of civs. As far as why they weren't included, well, you got me. I'm sure is was a combination of many of the things you listed. (Who knows? Maybe they were taken out in response to Sep. 11?)

[Simpleton]

Originally posted by Mad Hab

- There is not a strong arab leader that could be used in the game (also hard to believe).


Mad Hab

I think it is partially due to this. The world arab community is presently and historically has been rather fractured and never united under one leader. I think it would be difficult to take one leader or arab faction/country and have them represent the entire world community. Due to these difficulties it was probalby easier to leave them out. Besides, given the uproar/whining/ranting that has gone on over what Firaxis has included in the game it's probably good that they didn't included them. I don't think we need another thread about why the Firaxis sucks I think there are more than enough (it's shameful the amount of whining that goes around). Oh well. That's my thought on this.

[Mr. Socks]

Well, the selection of which "civs" to include has always been somewhat arbitrary in the civ games. I think that the main reason the Arabs have not been included is that the games have been based on a view of civilizations as nationalities, whereas Arabs are a more cultural / less political grouping (strictly speaking, a linguistic one, though such a narrow use of the term is not really the norm). Some players might also feel that it would overlap with the Egyptian and Persian civs. I don't think the issue of choosing a leader would be important in determining their inclusion.

[Raleigh]

Um egypt is there, and Egypt for thousands of years has considered itself the Arab leader. Now, if you mean that Egypt is technically in Africa not the middle east, I can't blame you there.

However, I should point out that the Hebrews, the founders of monotheism and an incredibly small but influential group over the last 5000 years, has also been omitted, so there is plenty of equal opportunity omission

[kailhun]

Well, you can't put everyone in. So choices have to be made.
Although, all things considered the choice is rather small. Would it have been difficult to have one screen for choosing your civ and have say 50 choices? If I had designed the game I would have expanded the civs. Coming up with civ specific units would probably be the most labour intensive part of that job.
I wonder what the civ-spc. unit of the Dutch would be?

But if you limit the possibilities then it's best to orient the game to the civ's most people-who-buy-the-game will know. That's gives you the americans, some europeans (somewhat overrepresented perhaps), and other biggies nearly everyone knows of: greeks, chinese, romans and the zulu (from the movies Shaka and Zulu).
The persians and babylonians are a stretch from this point of view.

Islamic or Arab nations don't stand out in this sense (Egypt is of course the Egypt of the Faraohs, not the Islamic one. Same goes for Persia). As to a leader Saladin would have done nicely.

Robert

[Akka]

I agree. Arabs are probably one of the best representatives of a CIVILIZATION (opposed to a mere nation), and one of the most important in the history. Just could never understand why they were never put in any Civ. And it's right that Europeans are slightly over-represented, though it's not as bad in Civ3 than in Civ2.
Removing Mongols is also something strange.
And Byzantines are the second biggest lack in the Civ choices.

[Robert Plomp]

persians and babylonians are arabs, aren't they ?

[Easy Rhino]

I would have to agree that the Muslim world is a bit lacking in terms of great STATES. I mean, you could pick some things:

- Ataturk and the Turks
- Sulemain (?) and the Ottomons
- Nasser and the Egyptians.

And Mohammed it out, since he wasn't really a leader of a particular state. Pure religious leaders would require the inclusion of the Pope, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and a bunch of other guys.

Those would be interesting choices, and arguably better than the Iroqouis, but still not really obvious choices.

But still, there's Egypt and the Persians... that ain't too bad.

Finally, I think if Firaxis really, REALLY wanted to get in big trouble , they could create a tribe of barbarians called the "Jews". Actually, the more I think about that, the more comically evil the idea seems.

ER