point taken
##VOTE CARTHAGE

Yeah, but the Olmecs built massive pyramids and planned cities without the use of iron. Their culture was the foundation for two later, arguably greater, empires. Its not like this is an easy choice.

I'm forgetting. Did Carthage beat Kushan already, or did it beat Olmec? Is there a bracket we can see?

OK, I'm swaying again... the Carthaginians never built anything ambitious, and I feel like their culture was similarly unmemorable. But maybe that's because they didn't last long and were overshadowed by the romans.

can I change my vote?

You can blame men like Cato the Elder for that. Many called for Rome to completely destroy Carthage and wipe it from history, and the Roman Republic was willing to comply. The city was leveled, and records from it were destroyed.

Votes may be changed. I always take the most recent vote into account.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CJXsN4Zv6UhWUXHxrDjQKdDnU41yIj4ELI7W1uV-H_Y

I haven't fully updated but here is the tournament bracket. I still need to add vote counts for several match ups and highlight winners in red.

##VOTE OLMEC

Bump for discussion

Ah, ok. So I voted Carthage over Olmec before. I remember the points I made (internally) in the post that I lost. Carthage wins for me mainly due to the vast extent of the empire, Hannibal, and the fact that there are no written records of the Olmecs, so we know so much less about them than Carthage. It was a close one, but I had Cartage edging the Olmecs.

And personally, I don't think Kushan stand a chance against Carthage or the Olmecs.

##VOTE CARTHAGE

##VOTE CARTHAGE

Final: Carthage 5 Olmec 1 Kushan 0

Carthage progresses to the quarter finals.

Next match. Persia (PER) v Byzantine (BYZ)

##VOTE PERSIA

This is a hard one.

Both empires were multicultural. Both rules large swaths of land. Both contributed vastly in terms of culture, art, and were bastions of scientific knowledge. Both had great and charismatic leaders. However one was done in by malaise, poor governance and a weak military structure. The other was done in by the greatest general the world has ever known.

Despite Byzantium's longevity, I am inclined to ##VOTE PERSIA

##VOTE BYZANTINE

The Byzantime Empire stood for a thousand years. It's contributions to the world are nearly endless. VOTE BYZANTINE!!!!

Persia is older than the Byzantines and live on through Iranian culture.

Well, Prado, you could argue that later cultures have effected Iran much more than ancient Persian culture. I don't think that's quite as valid.

But the sheer scale of what they did - a truly cosmopolitan empire - at the time they did it? Very, very impressive

To which ancient Persians are you referring in that case? The Seleucids, the Parthians, or the Sasanians? They all count by definition of this tournament.

Well, when I nominated them, I was referring to Achaemenid Empire, from Cyrus the Great to Darius

The Persian empire wasn't that long lived. The Byzantines shared and held the region as an empire for a far longer period of time.

Shaped not shared

##Vote Eastern Romans

More of an impact on the world than the ancient Persians.

Current PER 2 BYZ 1

##VOTE BYZ

even more impressive than living as long as it did, is that the Byzantines were almost constantly fighting enemies on all sides.

sheer number of Turkish and Barbarian armies destroyed by Byzantines is fantastic.

Cough, so were the Persians.

and then culturally, Constantinople continued the building projects and other great aspects of the late Western Romans. They also helped preserve our knowledge of Roman philosophy and law, thanks to emperors like Justinian.