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[CobaltKobold]

50/500 rule

[Reese]

Just pointing out that human tribes were not isolated from each other, and there was interbreeding between groups by... various means

[Eagleon]

Speaking of my little side note above, and granted it's a bit further into the fortress future than the next release,  will other civilizations ever eventually react to you building a fort within their geopolitical boundaries?  I'd like to think there will eventually be repercussions if a group of dwarfs just started digging in in the middle of human territories, especially if they are digging up all sorts of valuable minerals and gems that technically belong to the humans... I'd like to see something like the humans annexing your fortress by defeating your military, allowing you to continue running it, but swapping your parent civ to human and stationing NPC human guards.  maybe you could even rebel against the humans and kill their guards by training and arming new troops in secret...  That'll need some pretty sophisticated AI on the human guards, though, and some way you keep you from dealing with the human guards like caravans and nobles currently can be dealt with... Or maybe not

Would make more sense if they tried to tax you first, and watched for very profitable trade. If that's not provided, then they should have that nagging thought of taking over your mines. Any good ruler in history knew that it's better to let other people do the drudge work if you can set up some artificial values to keep them going.  Dwarves seem to love making things and digging up treasure, enough that that should offset their perception of what they're actually handing out ("This ≡steel short-sword≡ is so plainly engraved, and there aren't any spikes or rings at all! Export this craftsdwarf's work to the humans."), but if you have less civil and more hoarding dwarves, like Tolkien did, it makes a lot of sense for there to be tension.

[Lord Shonus]

Perfectly modern humans lived in hunter-gatherer bands for 100,000 years at least before starting to settle down in the past 10,000 years.  We took up civilization eventually, but not quickly.  We'd have once fit the "no groups with more than 30 members" pretty well.

Hunter-gatherer bands ARE a civilization. They're density limited because of food issues (hunting and gathering can support much less population per mile than herding and farming) which limits complexity, but they're just as much a civilization as we are. Compare an Amerindian village from the 1600's with a a chimpanzee grouping and you'll see the difference.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

an historian would tell you that civilization starts with cities, i believe :\

[Dakk]

Do not mistake nations for civilizations. Nations are a wide range of groups and individuals that share a common cultural link, with a sense of identity and a history. Civilizations are that plus the technology, large settlements (mostly cities), governmental system, religion, art, sense of sovereign, etc.

A tribes of hunters-gatherers are not a civilization for they have no significal government, large settlements, similar religious beliefs and much less sense of sovereign. While they may compose a nation (even if not united in a single group), they lack the unity to be considered a civilization.

[Lord Shonus]

What "historians" are you referring to? Every history I've read on the subject (hundreds) judged the cornerstones of civilization to be religion, culture, and art. Nations are extensions of civilizations, not the other way around.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

What "historians" are you referring to? Every history I've read on the subject (hundreds) judged the cornerstones of civilization to be religion, culture, and art. Nations are extensions of civilizations, not the other way around.

transliterating from wikapedia

"Civilization is usually taken to presuppose the presence of agriculture and urban settlements"

"The word civilization is sometimes defined as "a word that simply means 'living in cities'""

"The relative security and increased productivity provided by farming allowed these communities to expand. Surplus food made possible an increasing division of labor, the rise of a leisured upper class, and the development of cities and thus of civilization."

"Proto-civilisation (British spelling) is the transitional state between a society structured as a collection of tribal chieftains, perhaps owing allegiance to a paramount chief, and the development of a full urban civilisation"

it is hard to get direct quotes stating that "civilization starts with cities", but i found it is often implied on wikipedia articles, as if it was common knowledge, atleast thats what i understand from my last minute research


though i agree that the term nation isn't very apropriate, why can't we simply use the word culture? nations are too associated with territory and state

[Neruz]

The word 'civil' means 'of, pertaining to, or consisting of citizens'. Guess where the word 'Citizen' came from.

(Hint: City)

[Sean Mirrsen]

Me being me, I'd say it's a portmanteau of "city denizen".

[Neruz]

For once, you're actually correct.

The original meaning of Citizen was 'one who lives in a city'.


In fact you'll find that is still the 2nd definition of Citizen, beat out only by 'a legally recognized subject or national of a state or commonwealth.'

And when you realise that states and commonwealths grew out of city-states. It all makes sense.

[G-Flex]

Etymology is sort of beside the point here. The words "citizen" or "civilization" coming from some particular etymological origin doesn't mean much about what the word means now or what that entails.

[Neruz]

Civilisation is of pertaining to Citizens. Citizens are people who live in Cities. This shows a fairly strong link between Civilisation and Cities, or Urban Settlements.


Religion, by the way, leads itself to organisation, which leads itself to cities. So it is technically correct to consider Religion a cornerstone of Civilisation, Art finds difficulty arising without culture and cities, as in order to truely persue Art you need to have Artists, who are people that naturally contribute little or no physical worth. In order to get to a point where you can support people who are not contributing physical worth, you need to have a fairly solid organisation in place to funnel physical worth (which in ancient terms would be defined as food) from the people who produce it to the people who don't. This, again, tends to require Cities.


As for 'culture' well, define 'culture'. Hunter Gatherer society is technically a 'culture'.



Suggesting that any can exist stand alone is a bit rediculous however. Religious leaders usually fall into the 'nonproducer' category that Artists do (in fact, leaders in general fall into this category), Cities tend to grow along with Religion, Art and 'Culture', they all feed off each other in a symbiotic (or parasitic, depending on your point of view) relationship.

[G-Flex]

Civilisation is of pertaining to Citizens. Citizens are people who live in Cities.

What in the name of God are you talking about?

Look up "civilization" on Wikipedia, or any discussion about the concept, and you will not see academics defining "civilization" as "someplace where there are citizens" unless "citizens" is circularly-defined as "people living in a civilization".

Also, your own definitions would discount people in rural communities (even in, hell, the US or any other developed nation) from being citizens of that nation and from even living in a civilization to begin with.


Civilization tends to be defined as having complex social/political structure, agriculture, and division of labor. Of course, it all sort of depends on who you ask, since the line between "civilization" and simpler cultures has to be defined somewhere, and that point is likely to be somewhat arbitrary.

[Lord Shonus]

The earliest evidence of religious activity yet found is probably the Stone Age burials of Neanderthals, thousands of years before the first cities. Likewise, many objects that could only be either ceremonial objects used in religious rituals, or pure art, have been found in Cro-Magnon camps and mounds.  Many of the tools and weapons excavated are decorated as well.

There you have religion and art, dating back beyond the modern human species.