"I won it as a door prize at the Star Trek convention, although I find their choice of prize highly illogical as the average Trekker has no use for a medium-sized belt"
I suspect that you're making too much of this. Protestants and Catholics had many wars. Thrty Years War. English Civil Wars. Many other examples. The Pilgrims came to Amrica to escape persecution by other Christians.
And its just a game.
Of course Civ 4 is liberal. When you win the game it ranks your score and awards you a title, like "You have the leadership qualities of Ghenghis Khan," or something to that effect. But if you beat the game and do so without many extra points, it tells you that you have the leadership qualities of Dan Quayle. Dan Quayle is the worst ranking you can recieve.
It's still a fun game.
Let me take a weird role and defend the liberalism claim:
see Classical Liberalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
Classical liberalism is a political and economic philosophy, originally founded on the Enlightenment tradition - established by thinkers such as Adam Smith -, as well as on the tradition of a Nordic school of liberalism even slightly before that, set in motion by a Finnish parlamentarian Anders Chydenius. Classical liberalism tries to circumscribe the limits of political power and to define and support individual liberty and private property. The phrase is often used as a means of delineating the older philosophy called liberalism from modern liberalism, in order to avoid semantic confusion.
Under modern liberalism or American Liberalism we see a little change:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Liberalism
Main distinction: Modern liberalism, as a branch of liberalism, contends that society must protect liberty and opportunity for all citizens.
In this case I believe they are referring to Constantine who proclaimed Christianity to be the religion of the Roman empire. And of course there were competing arguments and fighting afterward that led to the first council of Nicea (spelling?). Anyway you are right about how they downplay the Muslim part. How about that Saladin hmmm?
You need to read up on your history. Apparently you did not know of the religious wars which occured as a result of the Protestant Reformation. Now the above:
In the 18th century, at the time of the Scottish Enlightenment (Adam Smith, capitalism, etc.) and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (James Watt, steam engine) a powerful political philosophy was "liberalism" (note small "l"). This was based on the belief that people should be free of government intrusion. It is central to our own history. Now, in the 20th Century, the philosophy of "Liberalism" (note large "L") is a variant of communism.
The game may spell "liberalism" wrong (or perhaps you typed it wrong) but it seems to provide appropriate benefits to the advance.
And its just a game.
"Liberal" as the term was originally used in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries did indeed refer to a person who believed in the (new and radical) ideals of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc. were liberals in their own time.
It is a historical accident that in the United States we now use the term "liberal" to mean "authoritarian left-wing". "Liberal" still has its original meaning in every other English-speaking nation. In Great Britain or Australia, for instance, you would see a contrast between "liberalism" and "socialism".
Made up my mind. Aint buying it.
During the 30 years war, between Protestants and Catholics, something like 1/3 the population of Europe died -- either killed outright or starved to death.
All the Civ games pander to the politically correct, because if they didn't, they would be toast.
They attract conservatives, because they involve economic building and warfare. They attract liberals, because they are politically correct. For instance, all that business about pollution and global warming, and all those female rulers. There have been some splendid female rulers in history, but hardly at a ratio of 50-50.
If you want to play computer games, you'd might as well put up with it, because that's the way the cookie crumbles.
"He and his followers were reviled and attacked by those who did not believe, but they were following the path that God had set for them and emerged triumphant, eventually unifying all Arabia under one rule."
Not a word about how Muhammad is documented to have been a highway robber, hostage taker for ransom, attacked towns and cities and murdered people in cold blood.
No mention either of Muhammad's penchant for pre-teen girls for rape.
At least some people here didn't sleep through history class.
Most people who buy Civ IV are probably fans of the Civ III and Age of Empires games(and Sim City games perhaps). Most of us know what these games look like and the "3D" perspective is more like a 3D board game not 3D like Doom. I he is not being a cheat and fraud here because quite frankly if you changed the game too much from the original way it played it would not be the same game.
I think you are reading too much into the anti Christian and liberalism idealogy here. The term liberalism (in Europe) is backwards from what it means here. Think more along lines of Libertarian which in itself is not so bad.
Like I said before the only thing I agree with you on is the fact they and everyone else is exceptionally nice to the Muslims. Of course... Sid Meier doesn't want a Fatwa against his head now does he?
"I won it as a door prize at the Star Trek convention, although I find their choice of prize highly illogical as the average Trekker has no use for a medium-sized belt"
Actually scientific method makes monasteries (not temples etc) obsolete. Also, that Al Gore thing is a joke.
Lighten up, Francis.
Scientific Method makes *Monasteries* obsolete, not religion. Cathedrals and temples still work fine, only the science boosting elements of the monastery no longer function. (The monasteries still produce culture and missionaries.) Religion still continues to spread.
When I play Civ, I'm concerned about the gameplay, not
the flavor text in the Civilopedia which 95% of the people playing the game will never even read. (Frankly, I suspect that the Civilopedia was written by whatever employee whose coding wasn't quite up to snuff but wasn't bad enough to fire outright.)
Don’t go dissing Sid Meier. I still play Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire. That game has some unfortunate “assumptions” also (primarily about the character, Morgan), but the day I stop playing that one is the day I can no longer partition a hard drive to run Win95.
Seriously? Did you sleep through the part of history class which touched on the Inquisitions? There were four distinct periods of Inquisition, you know (Medieval Inquisition, Spanish Inquisition*, Portuguese Inquisition & the Roman Inquisition)
Were you skipping school the week they covered the Crusades? Not "a" Crusade, but The Crusades. With an 'S' at the end. As in, it wasn't just against the Muslims. There were Crusades against the Eastern Orthodox Church (Christians), the Russian Orthodox Church (Christians), Jews, the Pagans, the Cathars (Christians), the Waldensians (Christians), and the Hussites (Christians). Oh, and the Mongols the Prussians and the Balts. If I left any groups out, my apologies, but I hope you get the point that at various times, the Christian Church has been "quite hostile to others", which is a definite understatement.
Did you happen to be sick the days they covered Iconoclasm? It occurred in the Eastern, Western and Protestant Churches and much of it was bloody. People are funny that way, when you forcefully destroy their churches and tools of worship.
Did you skip over the Dissolution of the Monasteries? Monks were slaughtered wholesale.
Do the Acts of Supremacy ring a bell? Embrace the C 0f E or face treason charges and all that goes with them?
Did you miss the part about why people came to America to start with? Hint: it wasn't because the cable TV was better.
Did you miss out on the Mormon Wars? I know I'm missing more than I've mentioned, but you get the idea.
As a Catholic Christian, I know that there is no benefit and every harm in not recognizing the crimes of the past. Never whitewash it. Never gloss over it. I didn't take part in these acts. The only way I can be culpable is if I deny them or fail to learn from them.
Denying sin is sinful. Denying history is not an option.
As for this video game, I have no idea if it is worth playing or not, but wouldn't base my decision on how historically accurate it is. If it doesn't have Mario, talking animals from Japan (街へ行こうよ どうぶつの森, Machi e ikō yo: Dōbutsu no mor), or a Scrabble board, I probably don't play it.
* which no one expects