Civilizing requirements

[Darkrenown]

Nation with 0 military score: Hey Europe, we are civilised now! We are your equals, respect us!
European powers: Ha, as if! *Sends 5 guys + a machine gun down there* Nice new colony we've got ourselves here.

Nation with decent military score: Hey Europe, we are civilised now! We are your equals, respect us!
European powers: Bah, well ok, we suppose so.

 

[Darkrenown]

To create a analogy:
Peter is a person who wants to become a good swimmer, but his bullies across the street keep taunting him by telling him he is a terrible swimmer and that he will never be able to swim like they do. Peter however ignores them and works long and hard to become a good swimmer. Then after a long time he succeeds in his goal by winning a local swimming contest, however in spite of that his old bullies still hurl insults at him and keep insisting that he is not as good a swimmer as they are, but Peter ignores them yet again since he already knows that he is and has a trophy in his hands that proves it.

In case you failed to understand the analogy above, Peter gets called a bad swimmer by his bullies who insist that he is a bad swimmer, but Peter doesn't care, because even though his bullies may insist that he isn't as good as them he has already proven them wrong even though they refuse to admit it.

By the logic of the people who insist that other nations opinions are important to nations who want to modernize, Peter's trophy should have been taken away from him for no reason because his bullies still considered him inferior to them even though Peter had proven himself good at swimming and won the contest.

Counter-analogy:
Peter wants to become a swimmer, but some bullies hang out at the local pool and will beat him up unless he impresses them enough to be allowed to join the swimming club. The bullies won't really want more members in their club because they enjoy showing off their trophies to people who don't have them. Peter is able to swim a little in a nearby river, but he can't compete in the swimming trials because he's not allowed in the pool. Peter works out every day until he is very strong. The bullies don't want to risk fighting him and he is allowed to join the club. He shows off his swimming skils and is awarded a trophy.

In case you failed to understand the analogy above, it doesn't really matter how good a swimmer Peter is once he can float a bit, it all depends whether he's allowed in the pool or not.

By the logic of the people who insist that other nations opinions are unimportant to nations who want to civilise, the pool should only be knee-deep and there should be a table full of trophies sitting in the middle. Anyone in town should be able to wade through the shallow water and take one whenever they feel like it. Pretty soon everyone in town has a trophy, the entire trophy system becomes worthless, and the major of the town wonders why he even bothered founding the swimming club.

 

[Darkrenown]

Although if you really hate the idea of a mil score requirement, I estimate it'd take about 27 seconds to remove it in your own game.

 

[Darkrenown]

Anyway, let's say Zululand has every POP in it's tiny country working as craftsmen, laborers, or capitalists to even meet the industrial requirement. It can only muster 1 regiment to spare. Despite having the entire country modernized, how can they civilize if they just don't have the POPs, but relatively speaking(per capita), they're more industrialized then the British?

There's no industrial requirement to be civilised, which is just as well because uncivs cannot build industry.