I've been lucky enough to have already finished (by finished I mean I was killed off the planet, so I had no possible way of continuing) one game of Civ. While some of my classmates have entered the modern age, I managed to have my city raped and pillaged by barbarians.
My game started in India. The people were very productive and usually remained happy, but I think this is because I took every one of their suggestions; which means I wasn't a very good leader but it kept the people from staging a coup. My city was able to 'give birth to' two important people, but because I followed the game's suggestions one of them died off. I think this is a bad thing, because it pissed some of my people off.
I followed the 'big picture' map and my people learned every type of craft before advancing too far in any given area. I built a library and Stonehenge - this threw me off a little bit, because Stonehenge is not located in India. And neither Taoism nor Judaism were founded there either. So the fact that we were not playing on an alternate Earth universe took some getting used to.
Ultimately, my problem was that I focused too much on advancing my civilization and not protecting it. I forgot to send out warriors with my settlers. I ended up creating a city without an army to protect it, so the barbarians were easily able to destroy my settlement.
According to wikipedia.com the only country to recently have no army, no police force, and no agreements with other nations who would provide military support was the Solomon Islands. However, in 2006, Australia and other Pacific Rim nations had to step in to try and resolve an 8 year civil war. This is brought about the re-establishment of police force.
No civilization can survive without the protection of a military system. However, this brings up another question. Will there ever be such thing as world peace? So long as every country maintains an army, there will be the threat of war; and so long as there is the threat of war, every country will maintain an army. Historically, no civilization has succeeded without the protection of 'warriors' which essentially shows that there is historic evidence that world peace is nothing more than the dream of every Miss America.
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Monica brings up a very interesting point in the last paragraph of her first post: "No civilization can survive without the protection of a military system." At first this seems like a pessimistic, bleak view of human nature, but when it comes down to it, humans are first and foremost interested in their own security. No citizens are going to care about their country's wonderful freedoms--free speech, free press, free religion, the list goes on--if they live in constant fear of an external attack. Free speech isn't much use when you're trying to fight off bloodthirsty invaders.
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond argues that “all other things being equal, technology develops fastest in large productive regions with large human populations, many potential inventors, and many competing societies” (261). He has already established that large human populations are best sustained by food production, as well as the fact that in order for a society to have specialized citizens it must reach a certain level of sophistication in food production, growing enough surplus food to feed non-farming specialists. Since military developments are merely a branch of technology, it follows that societies with the greatest food surpluses will tend to have to most advanced militaries.
Yet Diamond’s final feature of technologically advanced societies—that they are located near many other competing societies—is perhaps the greatest determiner of how much technological research is devoted to defense. An isolated nation protected by natural barriers (mountains, bodies of water, etc.) would be less likely to invest in military development because external threats are minimal. Internal unrest could be quelled largely with existing military technology. In contrast, a nation existing in close proximity to other nations (whether hostile or not, though particularly if they were hostile) would wind up in a perpetual arms race, propelling military technology forward because of the competing nations’ determination to at least match—if not surpass—the military capabilities of their neighbors. None of them would even dream of abandoning their pursuit of bigger and better weapons, let alone of disarming completely. Thus, since few civilizations exist isolated from other civilizations, Monica’s observation that "No civilization can survive without the protection of a military system” is almost universally applicable.
Although I am still on my same game, in the beginning I faced similiar issues with the size of my army. I was very concentrated on increasing the knowledge of my cities because of what I read in Diamond. I didn't want my cities to be left behind unable to create a food surplus. With all of my eggs in one basket I soon realized that warriors were important to have as well. The few warriors that I started with were killed off by other cities' warriors soon leaving my cities unprotected and easy targets. Fortunatly, the game suggested that I focus on building the strength of my armies to avoid take over. If I would have ignored this suggestion I most likely would have been in your situation. Once I built the strength of my armies I could again focus on my cities' education and production. Now I am the stongest city in my game. Good Luck with your second game!
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