Eurocentrism to the Max!!! What we gonna do?

[Ryika]

I was simply arguing with the premise (an all-Euro civ) that you made.

Yes, but that's what I'm saying. It could still be a game that celebrates human history even with only European Civs. The game would obviously fall short on that one thing, but overall it would still be a game that delivers on its premise.

You haven't been, but plenty of people have come into this thread, basically said that, without having read any of the previous pages, never to return.

I actually haven't seen anyone declare your opinion invalid, and I've been reading the thread all along. What I have seen however is people coming in saying that they think the Civ selection is fine the way it is and that there's no need to change it, but that's not them discarding your position, that's them giving their own opinion, probably in some cases in an overly dismissive tone because of the aggressive "We must change this!"-tone you took in the headline and your first post.

 

[Soronery]

Why do you hate Europe?

 

[Miravlix]

To the people claiming racism, you obviously have no understanding of what it actually is.

Nice of you to not read the post, so you could make a totally wrong comment inflaming it.

People where saying that because all European countries is the same in REAL LIFE, it's wrong to have so many in the game.

Sure most has stayed on eurocentrism westernfocus or whatever you want to call it, but a couple of post took a nasty turn.

 

[Stringer1313]

Nice of you to not read the post, so you could make a totally wrong comment inflaming it.

People where saying that because all European countries is the same in REAL LIFE, it's wrong to have so many in the game.

Sure most has stayed on eurocentrism westernfocus or whatever you want to call it, but a couple of post took a nasty turn.

That's a huge straw man. I'm against having so many European civs in the game not because all European countries are the same, but because it is not fun to play a world simulation game where the vast majority of civs are Europeans.

 

[True_Candyman]

Well first off, I'd like to apologise for being a donkey in my last post, I don't wanna make it out like I think my argument is better than anyone else's, and I certainly don't want this thread to turn into a giant flame-athon. The 'y'all' in question was not this thread or the people who are taking part in a good discussion on either side within it, but a moment of frustration with accusations of racism being thrown around against people who are just trying to have a chinwag, so I hope you can excuse me.

First I wanted to say this less kindly but I'll be nice:

European, Asian and Colonial civilization were and are the most influential civilization during our history, not Native American or African.
Be honest with ourselves: How many civilization from Africa is really important in the grand picture? Which one of those created very important technologies, had a serious cultural influence or played a great part in world history? Egypt. And maybe Kongo but only because of the Slave Trade. In my book civilization like Zulus would not even be good enough to be city-states. And the Native Americans? Most of the that didn't even build permanent settlement (what is important in a game built around cities) and outside of Central and South America you can't even see major cultural influence from them.

And I don't even saying we should not have African or American civs but we should not act like they were that important in our history.

And as for this post, I would tend to agree with you. The reason we get civs like the Zulu cropping up time and again is (wait for it) (yep you guessed it ) Eurocentricism. The Zulu and the shoshone in particular are well known in western culture for battling so hard against colonization and sometimes even winning before eventually succumbing. The 'noble savage' mythology around them contributes to the idea that they were somehow stronger or better than other groups around them, when really they are just the one's we recorded for being problems. The gained prestige because they attempted to take on the mighty western empires and did ok for a while.

This is still a game that relies on public perceptions to succeed of course, so classic antagonists like Shaka with the Zulu are always gunna be popular in this series. It's still more than just a game where you're reenacting history because each time you play you get whipped up in the politics and the story too, and big characters like Shaka in civ V play a big part in that.

 

[Miravlix]

That's a huge straw man. I'm against having so many European civs in the game not because all European countries are the same, but because it is not fun to play a world simulation game where the vast majority of civs are Europeans.

Uhm, but that makes you one of the people staying on eurocentrism, so not sure why your jumping down my throat for thinking it's way out of line when people start saying all European civ is the same in the real world, except for some minor culture difference.

I think the word samey was used, if you want to search for it.

 

[shyPiano]

First I wanted to say this less kindly but I'll be nice:

European, Asian and Colonial civilization were and are the most influential civilization during our history, not Native American or African.
Be honest with ourselves: How many civilization from Africa is really important in the grand picture? Which one of those created very important technologies, had a serious cultural influence or played a great part in world history? Egypt. And maybe Kongo but only because of the Slave Trade. In my book civilization like Zulus would not even be good enough to be city-states. And the Native Americans? Most of the that didn't even build permanent settlement (what is important in a game built around cities) and outside of Central and South America you can't even see major cultural influence from them.

And I don't even saying we should not have African or American civs but we should not act like they were that important in our history.

But what's most important in history isn't the only reason to pick a civilization. Otherwise, why don't we have Persia, nor the Ottomans, nor Mongolia, for example?

Civilization, at least to me, is a game about the history of mankind. The history of the world.
It's about cultures and nations from all around the globe, and how each one is unique and different in their own way.
It's a celebration of the great ones who led those nations, and the great achievements those cultures produced.
Are we really going to argue the cultures that did these [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9] do not get a place on the roster?
Europeans did a lot of cool stuff as well, but the cool stuff is not just concentrated in Europe. Cool stuff was made all over the world, by a large variety of different cultures and peoples. By simple fact of numbers, the large majority of cool stuff was made outside of Europe. Europe is very very tiny indeed.

And that's why I get disappointed when the base game decides to forgo all representation of those to allow more European civilizations in the roster. It's not that Europe is a bad evil place, it's that everywhere else is pretty amazing too - and not seeing any of that in the game is sad.
And I know these (might) come along sooner or later. And I know they need to market their game. But to me (and I speak only of myself here), the initial roster of Civ VI is on the weaker side, because it fails to represent vast areas of the world and a slew of incredibly unique cultures that can be found worldwide.
The devs didn't have a whole lot of space, but they had as much space as Civ V (18 civs + 1 preorder bonus), and Civ V did a better job at representing different parts of the world than Civ VI did.

 

[JimmyBanks]

Nice of you to not read the post, so you could make a totally wrong comment inflaming it.

People where saying that because all European countries is the same in REAL LIFE, it's wrong to have so many in the game.

Sure most has stayed on eurocentrism westernfocus or whatever you want to call it, but a couple of post took a nasty turn.

That's still not racist. It's not racist to say that England, France and Germany are similar civs. Yes in modern day they mave their differences, with different languages and different customs, but they were all led by the same families who married into each other to try and keep peace. That's History, not Racism.

There were the Celts, the Saxons, the Slavs and the Iberians before, to name a few, but they aren't in the game - It looks like we are getting the Norse or Norway, which I'm a fan of.

No one (Zero. Nil. Zilch. Nada) has made any degrading comments to any culture or civilization. We have the EU, the countries must have some similarities or that organization would not exist.

All people have done in this thread is point out that whilst Europe has heavily influenced the world, there are other - equally as interesting, equally as important, equally as worthy - civs outside of Europe that could have been included but appear to have been ignored for whatever reason, to the detriment of the game. That to me is the antipathy of racism.

In regards to the person who mentioned "samey"I believe he was saying that the devs make all the european civs the same in previous games they just change the colour. I don't believe he was speaking about the real life cultures. I might be wrong though.

shyPiano is much more eliquant than me, read their post and understand what I'm trying to say

 

[ToothedBomb]

European, Asian and Colonial civilization were and are the most influential civilization during our history, not Native American or African.

So? You think influential civilizations are more worthy of this game? I disagree.

Besides, it's entirely subjective what civs you or I find more interesting. So there should be a nice balance. Even in the base game. So everyone can enjoy it roughly equally. Then they can expand upon it later with DLC and expansions.

 

[Gangrin]

By simple fact of numbers, the large majority of cool stuff was made outside of Europe. Europe is very very tiny indeed.

Oh really? Damn, somebody forgot to tell this to Nobel prize winners, UNESCO world heritage list, and that's not even looking into inventors and philosophers of the pre-20th century

 

[UWHabs]

I'd love to see more civs from around the World, but there's a limited number of slots. The initial Civ 6 list of civs is a little more Euro-heavy than 5 was, but not by much. Not counting the ones that are identical at release, you basically traded Babylon/Iroquois/Mongolia/Ottoman/Persia/Siam/Songhai for Brasil/Kongo/Norse/Scythia/Spain/Sumer (counting Babylon and Mongolia which were DLC within a month of release).

You can "match" up Babylon/Sumer, Songhai/Kongo, and Persia/Scythia, as all civs which are somewhat close geographically. So they basically replaced an American native civ with an American modern civ (Iroquois to Brasil), and then replaced 3 Asian civs (Mongolia, Ottoman, Siam) with 2 European ones (Norse, Spain).

So I'd agree that the civ 6 initial roster is a little more concentrated than the initial civ 5 roster, which did spread out more. But on the other hand, it's hard to really argue against the 2 "new" European civs, since Spain has been in every version but 1, and the Danish/Norse/Vikings have also been in all but 1 (and the Rev games). Hopefully it simply means that they'll focus on the other areas for the DLC.

 

[JimmyBanks]

I actually really like the Spain Civ in this game, and I'm looking forward to the Norse/Norway announcement. I don't have an issue with any of the civs per se, but as you point out -

Not counting the ones that are identical at release, you basically traded Babylon/Iroquois/Mongolia/Ottoman/Persia/Siam/Songhai for Brasil/Kongo/Norse/Scythia/Spain/Sumer (counting Babylon and Mongolia which were DLC within a month of release).

They traded out 7 non european civs and traded in 2 european civs and 4 non european civs. Scythia could also be included as it includes parts of Poland/Ukraine/Russia and the like but I can understand if people didn't include them as "European".

 

[Bamboocha]

If I can add my two cents, the game is called Civilization, so it will be centric towards civilizations. This doesn't mean Eurocentrism per se, but it will mean a clear bias towards the areas in the world where the first and most influential civilizations arose. This means the Mediterranean bassin, the Fertile Crescent, the Indus delta and the Yellow River delta. Unsurprisingly this is also what we see in most civ games: emphasis on the Mediterranean Empires and their offshoots, the Middle East, India and China/Korea/Japan/Mongolia. Even Songhai and Ethiopia could be considered part of the Mediterranean bassing, as their civilizations only really got started (especially Songhai) after trans-Saharan trade became viable. Then there's also the Meso-American civilizations (Aztecs, Inca and Maya) and that's it. We should expect a bias towards these civilizations.

Any Civs that don't fit this pattern are mostly included there for the sake of padding, such as the Iroquois and Shoshone being the token North Americans, and the Zulu being African padding (even though Songhai, Mali and Ethiopia exist and are valid options). They never truly evolved into civilizations for a variety of reasons, the most important probably being geography (I consider myself a geographical determinist). It's funny how this concept is so difficult to understand for (fans of) a game franchise that emphasizes how important starting position is for the success of your civilization. Imagine a start on deity level with just grasslands and no luxury or strategic resources. Welcome to the Civ V version of the Great Plains. While you're still fiddling around with warriors and trying to get Optics going, you'll be invaded by longswordsmen and crossbowmen from a continent with ample luxury resources, other civs to trade with and form research agreements with etc. This is of course very simplified, but this is how you should see it in a Civ context.

 

[cools0812]

When would the mighty Hittites be added again？ I miss them so much ever since Civ III.

 

[LordProtector]

I can only hope that when the World Congress expansion comes out - which I'm probably going to wait for - it is joined with a full cohort of 12 or so civilizations which are entirely African, Asian and First Nations.

This is what worried me about multiple leaders, that they'll be in place of, instead of strengthening the case for, more diversity.

 

[GIO888]

I agree it does seem a bit "Vanilla"

Maybe some nice Asian and Pre-European Civ's in the Expansion pack? Not being cynical, but Firaxis DO want to hook us and reel us in first, don't they?

Irony is, if you know your pre-history, the Indo-Europeans went a LOT of places and founded a LOT of Civs.........just sayin'

 

[Civ'ed]

it is joined with a full cohort of 12 or so civilizations which are entirely African, Asian and First Nations.

As the good microsoft told us, Portugal is an african civ, and I wouldn't put it past firaxis by now to make the glorious all-asian/african/first nation civ of Singapore, South Korea, Australia, the Boers and the Pieds-Noirs.

 

[SMcM]

And as for this post, I would tend to agree with you. The reason we get civs like the Zulu cropping up time and again is (wait for it) (yep you guessed it ) Eurocentricism. The Zulu and the shoshone in particular are well known in western culture for battling so hard against colonization and sometimes even winning before eventually succumbing.

Yes, completely true. Along the same lines is the reason why we always have Arab Civs lead by people like Saladin and Harun Al-Rashid; we actually have pictures of them and more complete information due to them having come into contact with Europeans who would make paintings showing them- their own cultures condemned paintings of rulers to prevent idolisation, meaning we have less in the way of pictures of them, and so accurately depicting other rulers is harder, such as Caliph Umar, seen by many as being the most successful Caliph.

 

[isau]

FWIW I think part of the reason Euro civs tend to get a lot of representation is you can poke fun at them and get away with it. Apart from parts of Civ V, Civilization has never been a serious game. And even in V there's a comedy element to it all, with pre-historic George Washington leading a tribe of Warriors carrying clubs. A joke about some other civilizations carrying clubs could come off as meaner (at the very least).

You can make that joke about America and get away with it. You can also get away with making fun of British poshness, France's pretensions, the Viking's zeal, Russia's heavy handedness. They kind of get away with it with the Aztecs, altho "bloodthirsty Monty" still upsets some people. It's a lot harder to make fun of, say, Mali or Ethiopia.

All of this said there are two things I want: 1) more representation from around the world, in spite of the risks and 2) varied ethnic representation for soldiers in young countries like USA and Brazil. Those armies should feature a variety of races to represent the actual nature of the countries.

 

[Depravo]

Irony is, if you know your pre-history, the Indo-Europeans went a LOT of places and founded a LOT of Civs.........just sayin'

Kushan civ would be fun but I won't hold my breath...