Racism in Civ games?

[RobN]

It seems that Civ game developers have to be careful about accusations of racism. In SMAC/X it isn`t really an issue. Obviously the faction leaders have to belong to a particular racial group, but their followers are presumably drawn from all sections of society. One of the shortcomings of Call to Power is that the races all play the same way regardless of history (I don`t know about CTP2). But if each race had its own character then some might consider it racist. In the first Civilization I seem to remember that - in my amiga version anyway - the manual mentioned Turks. These were replaced in the final game with some other race. The manual referred to the Turks as being an "unpleasant neighbour". I thought that could have been rephrased!

[ssoszka]

Well, I agree that SMAC doesn't have much in the way of racism, tho having Morgan, (of African orgin) as capitalist, can conjure up images of a futuristic "gansta-pimp" but that might be far fetched...

Now Call to Power 1 on the other hand.... CTP1 has the "warrior" unit who is basically modelled after the "Native American" chieftan. The "insult upon injury" part of it being the .WAV dialog consists of comment like "Me Tired".... That is just plainly racists.

In CTP2 the warrior has been fixed. One thing I would like to see is a reasonable graphical representation of the various groups in the game. For instance the Zulu units having a darker complexion that the English. Currently everyone is white. Another aspect that annoys me is the "Samurai" unit [forgive spelling]. This is an appropriate unit for the Japanese, and maybe a few other southeast asian cultures represented in the game, but that is about it. If they had a unit unique to each culture with the same attributes that would be great.

Well I'll stop there before I really get worked up.

[Horus]

(double)

[This message has been edited by Horus (edited March 08, 2001).]

[Horus]

I only have to agree. My opinion is that Smac(X) is rather balanced according to race and gender perspective. The specific settings for different factions are based rather on their 'approach' than race or gender. e.g. Morgan is a capitalism and his likings is based on that very fact, not on the fact that he is coloured or male. The same is true with the rest of the bunch, the scottish Miriam is a fanatic on the first hand, not on the fat that she is a female North West European.

[This message has been edited by Horus (edited March 08, 2001).]

[Chowlett]

Just to nitpick, Miriam is American. Dierdre is the Scot.

[Sikander]

And we all know how THEY are.

[Horus]

[ssoszka]

And Dierdre is a "cutie"... but that's sexist, right? ;P


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Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, hate me because I'm a rat-bastard.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I had to stifle a smile when I saw that they'd made the Collectivist Militaristic Tyrant a man of ethnic Chinese origin. What's even more surprising is that he looks quite a bit like my paternal grandfather, who has more in common with Morgan than Sheng.

[ssoszka]

Yeah, "Chairman" Yang is pretty played out, eh? It erked me quite a bit, I mean why do so many associate socialism with the Chinese?? It is such a tiny chapter in the book of an amazing culture. They may as well have used Lao Tzu, as the "leader" Daoist Immortalists... or something.

Hmmm that gives me an idea....

[Sprayber]

quote: Originally posted by ssoszka on 03-10-2001 04:09 AM Yeah, "Chairman" Yang is pretty played out, eh? It erked me quite a bit, I mean why do so many associate socialism with the Chinese?? It is such a tiny chapter in the book of an amazing culture. They may as well have used Lao Tzu, as the "leader" Daoist Immortalists... or something. Hmmm that gives me an idea....

The thing about SMAC/SMAX is that you can change things to suit your tastes. If you don't like Yang or Miriam, edit some text and change some pictures. I created a faction that is basically the Hive with a different picture and name to it. One thing about Yang though. In the game he, like most of the others, is protrayed in a one dimensional way. I have toyed with the text so that he isn't as flat as the original makes him. And to be honest, I play the Hive more than most of the other factions.

[knowhow2]

I guess they already did their best at SMAC/SMACX but I still Have a small notification about the "race" representation. There are as I see it 6 "white" factions (not white as in ideology but picture and background story representations), university, pirates, beliviers, gaians, cyborgs and drones. 2 asian, hive and cult (well sounds asian right). 1 middle east, PK. 2 african orgin, morgan, dataangel. 1 "latino", spartan. 1 Plus two non earth associated.
I would say hardley the correct representation of the earth pop. Although it could be the representation for wealth and frontier nations. Any thoughts?

[OzzyKP]

Oh, come on guys. Jeeze....

Don't ruin these games with your PC bull****. The games aren't racist or sexist or anything else.

[Walt]

quote: Originally posted by OzzyKP on 03-11-2001 07:24 PM Oh, come on guys. Jeeze.... Don't ruin these games with your PC bull****. The games aren't racist or sexist or anything else.

Oh, quite colorfully put!

And knowhow2 wrote:

quote: I would say hardley the correct representation of the earth pop. Although it could be the representation for wealth and frontier nations. Any thoughts?

What makes you think it's supposed to represent the earth's population? The ship is launched in mid C.21 ostensibly under a U.N. charter. Translation: The U.S. and/or Europe build it and call it a U.N. project for any number of reasons (P.R. being the most likely). They choose a crew which will inevitably be an attempt to represent the population of the earth in proportionate numbers (the attempt will also inevitably fail, thus adding to the tensions which eventually turn Earth into a cinder). Of this immensely vast crew, some officers (not crew -- and therefore not chosen from a representative pool) go on to lead factions, and then some of /their/ officers (again, not chosen representatively) splinter off to form other factions. Now the number of factors contributing to the ethnic makeup of the faction leaders is so large that pop distribution on Earth is essentially not a significant contributor.

From a metagaming standpoint, the faction leaders' ethnicities were no doubt chosen to be interesting to the target audience for this game: mostly western, mostly male, mostly between the ages of 18 and 35. Seeing a cast of characters made up mostly of Indians and Chinese would be boring and alienating to most of such an audience. The current mix appears exotic to the target audience, as intended. A representative distribution would actually allow the game to convey /less/ flavor.

Walt

[Horus]

The truth, the dark one:

The different faction leaders most certainly be choosen, according to their engrossed inability to see and accept another persons (i.e. faction leaders) point of view. That is their single strongest ability which they all got in common. The term "U.N." must - of course - be an abbreviation of "Unaccommodating Nations".

The faction leaders were packed into their spacecraft as they all were unbearable to the faction leaders who stayed at Earth, disregarding, sex, race or hygienical habits.