...But I saw the GOP completely stonewall Obama right from the start, and I'm not really too keen on seeing that happen again with the tables turned...

I know this is now off topic and it's singling out one sentence from a much larger statement, but I wanted to get your take on this. I first heard this idea in a trailer for Mary J. Blige's interview with Hilary Clinton (weird place, I know) and the statement was more or less that the stonewalling of Obama was due to racism. At first I blew it off, but then I realized that sentiment was more widespread than I realized.

I saw the stonewalling of Obama as more the result of his arrogance (strong word, but I chose it carefully) and a lack of willingness to compromise. My reasoning was that Obama had control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives for the first two years of his presidency during which time Obamacare was passed. And in that timeframe, I remember a lot of statements coming from the White House that could be boiled down to "I won the presidency, so I know what the people want." Whether that was accurate or not is beside the point. This gave the impression that he didn't need to compromise with Republicans and was able to pass Obamacare without any Republican support (not a single Republican voted for it, looking back at the record). During the next Congressional election, the House of Reps swung heavily towards the Republicans (from 255 Democrats:179 Republicans to 193 Democrats:242 Republicans). And for that, I've always likened Obamacare and the subsequent Republican stonewalling to Woodrow Wilson and his failure to have the US join the League of Nations.

However, I realize that this isn't necessarily a common view, and I'm honestly interested on how others saw this play out. Obama's presidency spanned probably one of the most partisan periods in politics what with multiple threats of government shutdowns and all of that fun stuff and I'm interested in other people's views on that period.

I'm pretty sure this is what Ovi is thinking right now.

(Also wanted a chance to show off my awesome paint editing skillz)

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EDIT: Also got my first chance to look at this map in Google Earth and it's intense. Very difficult to get my bearings down, although I'm sure biome colors will help with the cardinal directions. I'm very excited for this!

I like the currents and biomes setup. Feels like it's coming together. Below is another jump ahead, but it was something I was thinking about while at work.

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Lengthy post ahead, looking forward to some discussion around it!

I was looking back at Ovi’s breakdown of Eras and Ages and I liked the organization, but then I got to thinking. I’m not sure if this is the same for everyone else, but when I look at periods of time, like the Medieval Era or the Age of Gunpowder, it defines a pretty specific ‘Euro-centric’ model of history for that time. Most of the history I’ve read is based on the ‘Euro-centric’ view point so I’ll admit that’s what I’m most familiar with, but I don’t believe a culture like China defines their past with similar terms. Given their more isolationist view on the world, the Age of Sail doesn’t seem an appropriate descriptor for their section of history, except for maybe Zheng He and the Chinese treasure ships which lasted for all of a century at most. Again, I’m not well versed in Chinese history and they may very well have a period labeled similar to the Age of Sail. My point is that using some of these labels could pigeon hole our ideas into specific time periods that might limit our creativity. This might make the world more Earth-like than we intended.

My suggestion is somewhat based on Ian Morris’ Why the West Rules – For Now which has some similarities with Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Both are pretty decent reads for a project like this.  One of the underlying principles was a series of high points for civilization and then subsequent crashes (not necessarily low points). Once we’re out of the Prehistoric Era (I think that timeline still makes a lot of sense since it’s pretty generic despite its reference to technology) I suggest we label time periods as either ages of Convergence or Divergence. The idea here is that this designates a time period as a rough guideline for the conglomeration of peoples under larger governments (empires, federations, etc.), or the breakup of these empires into smaller polities (city-states, kingdoms). You could think of it like bubbles that continue to merge before finally popping and restarting the process. This way, we can come up with our own ‘Age’ names based on the history we’ve created. Maybe we have a massive singular empire that discovers the new world or city-states that undergo the industrial revolution.

These time periods can even be specific to certain geographical areas once the initial culture groups are placed and it becomes clear which cultures are in contact with each other. While one area is converging into larger nations, another area could be fragmenting into kingdoms.

I think there’s a good premise for this based on Earth’s history. In a grand generalization, there is the creation of the Roman Empire and the eventual breakup into European kingdoms. These started to solidify back into nations over time until the world wars which followed another period of fragmentation, etc. That’s a very basic overview that skips a lot of history, but I hope it gets my idea across. The lengths of convergence or divergence can be varied based on our tastes. This can allow us to stretch out the game as long as we like since we could slow down human advancement with more divergent setbacks like Pat’s suggestion about natural disasters, disease, angry beavers, etc.

I knew my PCP senses were tingling.

I want in on this as well since I always enjoyed these kinds of projects. I was actually checking out the old DoW threads a few months ago so I'm glad to see this moving forward. However, my contributions will be limited until after Christmas due to things.

If we're voting on it, I'd rather stay away from the more fantastical side of things and go with a realistic approach.

Salvarian the Created God - Turn 9
Summary
Power Available: 19
Actions taken:

• The Klisura Spread- [Command Civilization x3, 12 cost]

Power Remaining: 7
Running Bonus: 0

Actions
The Klisura Spread
As Salvarian slept, the Klisura spread further down the canyon systems, marching all the way to the southern sea. They were still a disorganized race, living in smaller family groups that were spread throughout the canyons. In the south, the land was much harder to work, given the lack of fresh flowing water. It was not long before the Klisura referred to one another based on their living location within the canyons.




ARCS: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_cGk276c7oGiEfLy9IrDZ38bGYxfeJ8EMOcoo-yZ2_E/edit

My mistake, just fixed it. I thought it was either one territory square or one city to start them off.

Probably more detailed than you were thinking, but I loves me my PCP.

Blah, blah same.

Does advance race mean they are the best of the best at a specific topic, or does it just mean they're just really good at it? I always thought that it was a little too over the top to say that one races architecture was the best, when that can be pretty subjective.