Quote Originally Posted by desert View Post
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0_0 Never heard that one before.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, it was kind of ambiguous.
No wucks. There's a general information defecit on Chinese history thats pretty embarrassing, so I understand if you react to just another guy seeming to downgrade the acheivemnets of a major world culture.

I think interest in Chinese history is increasing and games on the subject will become more viable commercially.

Comparisons are invidious of course but its hard not to "line 'em up" and rank "Rome vs China vs Persia" etc and its hard to position them in my mind. Not that i want to rank them from 1 to 10 or anything...actually I do. maybe in amore complex or appealing way, but I want a top 10. Top 10 what? I don't even know.

Part of the probelm is the Yellow Rivers relative isolation from the other 3 great cradles of the Old World (the Indus, Mesopotamia and Nile). A great culture like persian has cast a cultural shadow over central Asia and Northern India, and heavily contributed to Islamic, Turkic, Greek and numerous other cultures and subcultures. Of course they are the heirs to preexisting Mesopotamian and Indus cultures. When Greeks and persians collide, first Cyrus wins a partial victory, then Xerxes gets stymied, then Alexander scores a Heroic Victory, so if you want to rank them militarily, theres a clear outcome. Culturally you can talk about Persia's amazing literary legacy (esp. poetry) and as a court language across many cultures, vs Greeks tradition of systemic thought which is so important in science. Which one wins? Maybe Greek but by golly its a close run thing.

With China the outside contacts are more tenuous and you can't say Legions ftw vs crossbow chariots. China famously absorbed anyone who ever conquered them (well mostly) so were they militarily weak, culturally strong, or what? Definitely worth exploring those ideas in a game format. How do you model Manchu or Mongol overlords becoming Sinicised? Not to mention the interesting ideas of trade-as-diplomacy, and the mandate of heaven.