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

[Thormodr]

Yes. Definitely. Take away the colonised realms of the British Empire and Victoria is a nobody.

Aside from the historic argument for including the conquered as well as the conquerors, there's the fact that many people like to play on a real life map. Civ 6 Earth maps are going to be an absolute joke, with a barely populated Africa and Montezuma's only only North American rival will be Stone Age Roosevelt.

This.is.not.the.final.map.

There are many more Civs to come in the expansions and in the DLC. The designers even told us that TSL was an important consideration for them but it wouldn't be in effect with vanilla.

Have some patience and eventually they will have TSL balance.

 

[cakes]

Being from Germany, living in a (low-income) neighborhood with people literally from all over the world (A multicultural paradise - of course the crime rates are as high as one would expect them to be.) I can ensure you I do not need to be "eased into" other Cultures. I've gotten to know other cultures all my life - hell, two of my best friends in kindergarden(!) were turks, that's how early I started getting into contact with other cultures.

great, so now you think whole cultures are represented by the lowest incomes and criminals? is that why you don't want them in the game?

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Please cease discussion of problems in the real world and return to the core topic of this thread (Regional Balance of Civilizations in Civ VI)
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[jye42]

Anytime the developers of any game choose a civilization over another, they are making a choice which will upset some people. Perhaps they are Eurocentric but they are also businessmen who are marketing their game to a predominantly Eurocentric audience.

If they chose an even spread of nations across the world say 3 from each continent/region, then many people would complain who the heck are all these Civs why did they include the Anasazi? I have never heard of them when they haven't even included Spain.. or whoever. Ultimately their decision has to be a marketing one, be annoyed all you want it is as simple as that.

Additionally, even if you made choices on some empirical basis like the 20 largest civilizations in land area or population or some other arbitrary measure, there will still be geographical gaps. Even if you decide to include a native tribe of North America you are then deciding that the native peoples of North America were somehow more significant than the native peoples of Australia, Polynesia or South America so the developers cannot win no matter what they do.

Therefore, the only choice open to developers is an obvious one choose civilizations based on two factors only. 1. the majority of Civs MUST be nations and leaders that the majority of customers are familiar with and 2. Choose civilizations and leaders which will be interesting from a Game-Play perspective. I believe that the developers have done this successfully.

 

[HeliosDisciple]

Any arguments about how non-Euro civs don't 'deserve' to be included are null because Brazil is in.

Blah blah blah they have no wonders or advancements or culture or or or so they don't deserve to be included alongside Glorious Brazil and its amazing accomplishments like







Well trust us, they don't deserve it.

For Civ I'm interested in .. countries that mattered in semi-recent history and/or had great influence on the world as it is today

Like Brazil!

 

[Gangrin]

Any arguments about how non-Euro civs don't 'deserve' to be included are null because Brazil is in

And a large portion of historical significance-based representation crowd is baffled by this inclusion as well. I am sure as hell most of the people here would swap Brazil for Incas any day

 

[Red Pearl]

And a large portion of historical significance-based representation crowd is baffled by this inclusion as well. I am sure as hell most of the people here would swap Brazil for Incas any day

Not if I am trying to maximize sales. My guess is that 90+% of people here complaining about the civ selection are going to buy the game and all the expansions.

 

[Ryika]

Any arguments about how non-Euro civs don't 'deserve' to be included are null because Brazil is in.

[...]

Like Brazil!

I never asked for them to be included.

And I personally also never made an argument about who "deserves" to be in the game or not. What I talked about is:
- In terms of marketing it makes sense to include certain Civs.
- It is due to my personal ideas of what I want out of the game, not because of some form of xenophobia, that I'm happy that the game is indeed centered around personalities that I'm somewhat familiar with.

In fact, I find this whole idea that certain Civilizations "deserve" to be in the game rather toxic. Some people seem to think Firaxis is causing great injustice in the world by not including certain Civilizations. That they have some sort of "moral duty" to be neutral or something.

 

[HeliosDisciple]

Not if I am trying to maximize sales. My guess is that 90+% of people here complaining about the civ selection are going to buy the game and all the expansions.

During a Steam sale, sure. I'm not paying full price for a game that excludes Mongolia or Persia in favor of Brazil.

 

[Thormodr]

During a Steam sale, sure. I'm not paying full price for a game that excludes Mongolia or Persia in favor of Brazil.

Meh. I am a huge fan of Mongolia, having studied their history a fair bit and having traveled there once. Wonderful country with wonderful people! They've always been my favourite Civ down through the iterations.

Them not being included in Civ VI Vanilla is disappointing but it'll hardly keep me from buying the game. Plus, Brazil looks like they'll be a lot of fun to play in the mean time.

Anyway, Sounds to me like you just want to buy the game on sale (nothing wrong with that) rather than some temporary boycott of the game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

During a Steam sale, sure. I'm not paying full price for a game that excludes Mongolia or Persia in favor of Brazil.

This means you're in those 1-10%. We all have favorite civs and are upset if they are missed. But not buying the game because of this is quite uncommon.

It's not the case with sales between casual players, though. Inclusion of some countries may lead to much more sales there - through internet hype and ad campaigns. And Brazil is much bigger market for computer games than Mongolia or even Iran.

 

[Battlehelm043]

I have to say these complaints about certain cultures or civs being included in the vanilla version is just plain silly. Heck if they yanked Rome out I'd still buy the game. Some people it would appear would like a complete game with everything included from the get go, but in the end the way things go now is DLC additions to the game. I remember when CiV rolled out with this style of sales method an people grabbed pitch forks trying to rally up others to boycott the new sales method.... It fell flat on its face. In the end Firaxis will release the game with the civs they choose, and begin to watch an learn what needs to be expanded upon and what civs need tweaking. Which in turn will give them ideas for other civs they plan to add with DLC.

 

[GermanSettler]

I find the general use of the workd "deserving" rather awkward in this context. Imho, it always seems to be a mere attempt to objectify what remains highly subjective.

 

[Firebug]

less then half the confirmed (i'm including the civilopedia leak) civilizations are European. Stop complaining, and wait for DLC and mods. Europe just happens to of been the most well known (or atleast mainstream) area of history, making it easier to market.

How in the hell can you say Pedro is Eurocentric anyway? jesus christ, of course he's European, Brazil was founded by Europeans!
and everyone knows who Cleopatra is, she makes an interesting leader for the agenda system, and she's easy to market.

 

[jekke]

Baby steps. Not everyone is born into a diverse community and I don't think one should be forced onto them. So if you're used to European (Western) neighbours and family then introducing them slowly to similar but slightly exotic people reduces culture shock. The Kongo is a good example of that as they had strong connections to Europe and have a distinctly African feel.

Thank G-d we have people like you who are so nice and righteous that they never miss a chance to tell us how things should be in an ideal "equal", "free", "just" world and how we, an ignorant, racist, chauvinist, uneducated etc western crowd are deluded by our stereotypes into a terrible, oppressive, ugly mindset claiming that the inclusion of Spain and Vikings at the cost of Iroquois and Zulus is an outrageous act of eurocentrism and many other -isms.

Yes. Definitely. Take away the colonised realms of the British Empire and Victoria is a nobody.

It's a bizarre idea per se but I notice it pretty often nowadays: first a new word comes up out of nowhere, such as "diversity" in this case, meaning some blurry and totally impossible to quantify concept, and then suddenly this concept becomes a new figure of merit for everything, and all things in the world should become as diverse as possible, just because - actually, you know, diverse is good because well, it is good and modern.

 

[Ricard.Bossle]

Any arguments about how non-Euro civs don't 'deserve' to be included are null because Brazil is in.

Blah blah blah they have no wonders or advancements or culture or or or so they don't deserve to be included alongside Glorious Brazil and its amazing accomplishments like







Well trust us, they don't deserve it.

As a Brazilian, this kind of text upsets me. I read these things about my country and wonder: "Do human beings like this even bother to read about Brazil and its culture before writing this kind of grumbling without any concrete argument?"


The obvious answer is "No". Some people are completely ignorant about Brazil, Poland, the Chachapoyas, the Pygmys or whatever country or ethnic group they judge "unworthy" to be in this game. If they had any (and with any I mean ANY) instruction in anthropology, sociology or history you wouldn't be here writing these nonsenses.

You could retort: "Oh, so tell me great works os art, writing, music, blah blah blah were made in Brazil which is worldwide known?"

First: Mass Media isn't a scale to measure competence or success or whatever "virtue" that makes this or that work of art more or less important than others. Taylor Swift and Stephenie Meyer are out there making my point very clear.

Second: Your overall ignorance of the history, culture or acomplishments of any country, be it a nation-state, ancient city state or ethnic group, it's your complete fault. Go read and get some knowledge about the things you don't know instead of blaming the unknown for your own ignorance.

Third: Modern status of a country is not an "entry ticket" for this game. I completely agree that international game market is an important factor in the devs choice of countries, and I am OK with that. Because this is not a game to replicate history; it is about rewriting it. All civilizations in this game starts in 4000BC with a settler and a warrior, and have the same chance to win.

Civilization is not the Oscar of the best Civilizations Earth ever made. It is not the Valhalla of dead nations, where only the most glorious could be in, chosen by the valkyrie inside of us. Stop treating the game like that and just enjoy it's diversity.

 

[Stringer1313]

Therefore, the only choice open to developers is an obvious one choose civilizations based on two factors only. 1. the majority of Civs MUST be nations and leaders that the majority of customers are familiar with and 2. Choose civilizations and leaders which will be interesting from a Game-Play perspective. I believe that the developers have done this successfully.

Factor #1 can be satisfied easily without having like 10 different civilizations all from Europe. Factor #2 is not at all dependent on Civ, since you can invent unique attributes from any Civ to make gameplay interesting.

I don't understand why many people don't see the value of having a diversity of civs from a simulation perspective. I don't find a game with 6 out of 7 civs to be european to be fun at all from a simulation perspective.

 

[Xandinho]

As a Brazilian, this kind of text upsets me. I read these things about my country and wonder: "Do human beings like this even bother to read about Brazil and its culture before writing this kind of grumbling without any concrete argument?"


The obvious answer is "No". Some people are completely ignorant about Brazil, Poland, the Chachapoyas, the Pygmys or whatever country or ethnic group they judge "unworthy" to be in this game. If they had any (and with any I mean ANY) instruction in anthropology, sociology or history you wouldn't be here writing these nonsenses.

You could retort: "Oh, so tell me great works os art, writing, music, blah blah blah were made in Brazil which is worldwide known?"

First: Mass Media isn't a scale to measure competence or success or whatever "virtue" that makes this or that work of art more or less important than others. Taylor Swift and Stephenie Meyer are out there making my point very clear.

Second: Your overall ignorance of the history, culture or acomplishments of any country, be it a nation-state, ancient city state or ethnic group, it's your complete fault. Go read and get some knowledge about the things you don't know instead of blaming the unknown for your own ignorance.

Third: Modern status of a country is not an "entry ticket" for this game. I completely agree that international game market is an important factor in the devs choice of countries, and I am OK with that. Because this is not a game to replicate history; it is about rewriting it. All civilizations in this game starts in 4000BC with a settler and a warrior, and have the same chance to win.

Civilization is not the Oscar of the best Civilizations Earth ever made. It is not the Valhalla of dead nations, where only the most glorious could be in, chosen by the valkyrie inside of us. Stop treating the game like that and just enjoy it's diversity.

All true, the best comment I've read in this thread.

The ignorance of people about some places allows them say many stupid things, unfortunately I have read many nonsenses here.

 

[Staler87]

As a Brazilian, this kind of text upsets me. I read these things about my country and wonder: "Do human beings like this even bother to read about Brazil and its culture before writing this kind of grumbling without any concrete argument?"


The obvious answer is "No". Some people are completely ignorant about Brazil, Poland, the Chachapoyas, the Pygmys or whatever country or ethnic group they judge "unworthy" to be in this game. If they had any (and with any I mean ANY) instruction in anthropology, sociology or history you wouldn't be here writing these nonsenses.

You could retort: "Oh, so tell me great works os art, writing, music, blah blah blah were made in Brazil which is worldwide known?"

First: Mass Media isn't a scale to measure competence or success or whatever "virtue" that makes this or that work of art more or less important than others. Taylor Swift and Stephenie Meyer are out there making my point very clear.

Second: Your overall ignorance of the history, culture or acomplishments of any country, be it a nation-state, ancient city state or ethnic group, it's your complete fault. Go read and get some knowledge about the things you don't know instead of blaming the unknown for your own ignorance.

Third: Modern status of a country is not an "entry ticket" for this game. I completely agree that international game market is an important factor in the devs choice of countries, and I am OK with that. Because this is not a game to replicate history; it is about rewriting it. All civilizations in this game starts in 4000BC with a settler and a warrior, and have the same chance to win.

Civilization is not the Oscar of the best Civilizations Earth ever made. It is not the Valhalla of dead nations, where only the most glorious could be in, chosen by the valkyrie inside of us. Stop treating the game like that and just enjoy it's diversity.

This game is somewhat of a historical simulation and Brazil has had a low impact on world history. To me it is not interesting to play a civ game with a whole bunch of civs that were fairly meaningless in the grand history of civilization. I understand how the authors comments could be taken the wrong way but in a way I see what he was trying to say.

I'm from Canada and am perfectly willing to admit that my country should not be in a base civ game (as excited as I'd be to play Canada) and, arguably, Canada has had a significantly more impact on modern world history than Brazil has.

Please don't interpret this as a statement saying that Brazil has accomplished nothing of note, I'm merely saying that they haven't influenced the course of world history and thus shouldn't be in a game trying to re-simulate-ish world history.

 

[Xandinho]

This game is somewhat of a historical simulation and Brazil has had a low impact on world history. To me it is not interesting to play a civ game with a whole bunch of civs that were fairly meaningless in the grand history of civilization. I understand how the authors comments could be taken the wrong way but in a way I see what he was trying to say.

I'm from Canada and am perfectly willing to admit that my country should not be in a base civ game (as excited as I'd be to play Canada) and, arguably, Canada has had a significantly more impact on modern world history than Brazil has.

Please don't interpret this as a statement saying that Brazil has accomplished nothing of note, I'm merely saying that they haven't influenced the course of world history and thus shouldn't be in a game trying to re-simulate-ish world history.

Yes, like Zulus, Iroquois, Polynesia, Shoshone, Sioux ... The inclusion of these civs shows that the collection of games civilization was never concerned to include only "historically important civs."

And what to speak of Indonesia, Songhai, Khmer, Siam, Sweden, Austria...? All these nations have/had regional/continental impact, which does not make them different from Brazil.

Finally, you can say "I do not like modern civs," ok, it's just your opinion. Now say that Brazil does not have enough historical importance to get into a game that has included Native Americans, it is a great injustice, honestly.
And who says that civ is more worthy than another? We are in a strategy game, we are not in a historical simulation game. People here are using their own personal beliefs to define which civ is more worthy than another.

We have another issue here, the marketing importance, and if Brazil shows a significant attractiveness of the game market, developers will not neglect it. Developers will not pay attention to nonsenses discussions about which civ is more worthy and enter and bla bla bla...and to neglect one of the biggest market of games of the world

EDIT: I do not want to stretch this discussion, we have discussed much about it here and apparently not arrived anywhere, the fact is that Civilization not only restricted to historically important civs (we had Zulus since civ1), then any claim on this subject is lose time. Civs without great historical impact will continue to be included, especially if they have marketing importance (As is the case of Brazil).