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Entries Tagged as 'Feature:Nations'

Epilogue: Nations as Characters

August 14th, 2011 · 17 Comments · Design, Feature:Nations, History

What this is about, including full list of posts. When I started the national character series last fall, I didn’t expect it to take this long to finish (things refused to cooperate for quite some time) and I certainly didn’t expect it to become one of my most popular series. The popularity is largely connected […]

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The Also Rans of National Character

August 12th, 2011 · 9 Comments · Feature:Nations, History

What this is about, including full list. Lists suck because they are open to the easy criticism that something was left out or that the list maker didn’t consider X. Even when I stated openly my reasons for the list I chose (using the original nations in Civilization because it was easy and final), I […]

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The Zulu National Character

August 10th, 2011 · 8 Comments · Feature:Nations, History

What this is about, including full list. In the opening chapter of Making Empire: Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Africa, Richard Price notes that even though the Xhosa are the most politically powerful tribe in South Africa and that British African policy in the 19th century was largely in response […]

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The Russian National Character

August 7th, 2011 · 4 Comments · Feature:Nations, History

What this is about, including full list. Though I never believed the Soviet Union to be an unmitigated evil full of Commie robots ready to destroy all that we in the West stood for, it was impossible to grow up in the 1980s and not have a sense that Russia and Russians were weird. The […]

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The Roman National Character

August 1st, 2011 · 11 Comments · Feature:Nations, History

What this is about, including full list. Long time readers will know that I extensively covered Roman games in my first ever feature series, one that did not take nine months to write because life was better then and I wrote more quickly and I played more games. The epilogue to that group of essays […]

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The Mongol National Character

July 30th, 2011 · 18 Comments · Feature:Nations, History

What this is about, including full list. Genghis Khan was dude who, 700 years ago, totally ravaged China, and who, we were told, 2 hours ago, totally ravaged Oshman’s Sporting Goods. So Sid Meier had to make him and his furry hat one of the iconic Civs in his classic game. The Mongols did, after […]

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