Firaxis and the Gross Misrepresentation of Non-Western History?

[Socratatus]

As a writer with a considerable background in East Asian history, I am wondering whether Firaxis is guilty of a gross misrepresentation of East Asian history--and by association, perhaps non-Western history simply. To make the argument succinct, as it is late: It appears to me that Firaxis has done very little serious research in picking East Asian leaders. The formula seems to have been "Let's just pick those leaders who *snip"
.

I just popped the paragraph in, no need for me to paste the whole thing again...


Didn`t read the whole 50 pages because I still want to have vision afterwards....

But I guess I learned something, and that is China and Korea have a rich past and history, little which we of the West know about. Be thankful that while I`ve only learned 0.1 % of Chinese/Korean history, that Civ4 galvanised you to post this and help just one guy - me - to start reading a few books on that history.

Of course, China/Korea isn`t the only history and am I to be expected to know the FULL African history? Full American Indian History? All of the other sidelined nations, then accurately place the least mean and nicest leaders? I`m sure there are a dozen experts of each and every Country we barely know of that could do a 10 page accurate thesis on the correct, most representative leaders to place in CIV4, but can the CIV 4 developers really put them all in, within their deadline. They can`t just do your nation, they must do ALL nations.

Let`s be realistic, my friend.

 

[m9x]

hmm.. I wouldn't really call it "Gross". Persia is pretty damn good represented, 'cept the immortals but that's arguable (and moddable! for the better).

but then again, Persia deserves to have a good representation cause it was one of the biggest powers known to the world, without even properly touching europe.

one thing tho, they could've added a 2nd leader to Persia a bit earlier than BtS. Xerxes would have been a fine 2nd choice to have in the main civ4 game instead darius in the 2nd (and last) addon. but hey better now than never.

moving on, I think that korea indeed is a bit misrepresented, as well as china. japan is fine though.

mind you that's my personal view I am not quite aware if these last three nations lack anything important because I didn't study that yet.

 

[vicawoo]

Since this argument has already been beaten to death in previous threads, I'll simply post a quick list on the reasons for Korean being in the game:
-1. Korean civilization (not "Korea" as a nation-state,) is one of the oldest surviving civilizations in the world with a history stretching back 3000 years. Very few civilizations can boast that.
-2. Korea is a distinct and unique East Asian civilization that represents early Northeast Asia. From the Gojoseon Period up to the Samguk Period, in a stretch of several centuries, northeastern China was dominated and shaped by the development of Korean civilization.
-3. Korea is a necessary component to representing East Asia, one of the most populous regions in the world. Korean civilization was responsible for the development of Japanese civilization (even the samurai sword was originally a Korean import; Japanese initially used straight swords).
-4. Modern Korea (both North and South) is highly important in today's world. South Korea is highly important economically and North Korea remains at the political squabbles involving many major players.

The "money talks" argument has been pretty much ignorant. As big as Korea's gaming market is, "Civilization IV" is *not* popular nor is there even a legal Korean version of Civ4.

Use the search feature on "Why is Korea in the game" and the thread should pop up for more details.

Anyways, on the whole Firaxis misrepresenting non-western history thing, I do agree that Asian and African histories are poorly represented, but I don't think that it is anything seriously major. Civilization IV is meant to be cartoony and fantastical, more like a "historical epic" as opposed to a real "historical."

Ok, so my mother's a professor of Korean art history, so I'm somewhat familiar with korean history. In terms of actual states, korea isn't 3000 years old. The first of the 3 kingdoms was founded around 37 BC according to the samguk sagi, in part of Puyu. The other kingdoms were reportedly founded a few decades later, but there's one american scholar who disputes this in terms of lack of cross-referencing from Japanese/Chinese sources.

My other gripe is that this thread is about western bias, so the argument is a little different. Except for Celts and the Vikings, all of the european powers in the game were among the largest empires in the world at some point or another, so it would be ridiculous to ignore them.

Let's say they were voting between leaving in the korean civilization and adding in another of the Indian empires. There is a much greater argument for supporting the latter. However, I think that the game is well-represented enough as it is (except for another chinese and indian leader) that it's allowed to have "flavour civilizations".

But I think it's illogical to think Civilization has a western bias and still support Korea, the Vikings, and Ethiopia in the game.

PS I say phonetic script is better, especially now that we have computers. I've seen how chinese is written on computers, they have to use pinyin to write an alphabetical equivalent, and then choose the characters. And this is doubly true in terms of cultural exchanges.

 

[vicawoo]

And one of those persons who's name begins with an R (there were 2, sorry), I was going to explain about some of my western bias posts. But instead, I'm going to point out another thread, which demonstrates really western (actually american) bias: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5753123#post5753123

 

[gettingfat]

PS I say phonetic script is better, especially now that we have computers. I've seen how chinese is written on computers, they have to use pinyin to write an alphabetical equivalent, and then choose the characters. And this is doubly true in terms of cultural exchanges.

FYI, Pinyin is only one of the several ways to input Chinese characters, and this is considered for novices. Any experienced Chinese doesn't use pinyin, but based on the abstract structural components of the characters.

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

Taiwan uses the Zhuyin system, which serves as a phonetic alphabet and an input method for Chinese characters.

 

[AThousandYoung]

Interesting scenario - Earth but without the Americas...

 

[sdwillie]

He would have a better place as a great prohpet than a leader of an actual civllization. He never lead the country, lead a movement nothing more and when the government actually came to power he resigned. Leaders in civ should be leaders that actually LEAD their nation.

Also Akbar wasn't just a conqueror though he was greatly distinguished on the battlefield he was also an incrediable adminastrator and it was under him the Mansabh System developed and he was tolerant going so far to have a Hindu wife, and he had his own religon known as Din-Il-Ilhai which sought to blend diffrent aspects of Hinduisim, Islam and other religons into one. He also made contributions to architecture with places liek Fatephur Sikri the capital he built.

He is a far more fitting leader then Ghandi.

Furthermore his foolish idealistic beliefs only served to weaken India.



Yeah some Indian leader he is. And not only that he was a complete hypocrite he opposed partition on one hand and then supported it on the other. And he furthermore only protested against things when it suited him. Not a word of support did he give to the Indian sailors that mutinied against the British, or freedom fighters liek Baghat Sing, did he do anything to prevent them from being hanged? He could have but no, he didn;t. He was nothing more than a bloody hypocrite and India would be better off without him.


And not only that he wanted to implement direct democracy in INDIA! Bloody hell. Do you have any idea what a disaster that would have been for the country if that actually happened? We're fourtnate we didn't adopt more of his retarted ideals. Hell we were stuck with his swadeshi ideal of "be Indian, buy Indian" till 1990 which stunted India's potential economic growth.



His international impact doesn;t matter, the impact on India is what matter since he is the one who is supposed to be the leader for India, not for some international confederacy or something. As it stands Akbar had a far greater impact on India than Gandhi ever could.



I have bad spelling.



He wan't evil, just hoplessly idealistic. Nehuru was also idealistic because he was influenced by Gandhi but fourtnatley not to such an extent, though still badly enough that he ended up losing Aski Chin and the Thang La Bulge and Azad Kashmir.

Spoken like a true Sikh/Muslim/colonial.

 

[dh_epic]

Except for Celts and the Vikings, all of the european powers in the game were among the largest empires in the world at some point or another, so it would be ridiculous to ignore them.

For the most part, it's not that they chose bad western civilizations to go in. England, Germany, Spain, Rome, Greece -- you just can't front on that. Nobody is saying we should ignore them.

But they clearly chose those at the expense of other non-western empires. There have been at least 7 great empires in the Indus valley, but you just get "India", with two leaders. There have been at least 5 great empires in East Asia, but you just get "China", with two leaders. At least 4 great empires on the Iranian plateau, but you only get "Persia", and then both leaders are from the Archamenid dynasty.

On the other hand, you get Germany *and* the Holy Roman Empire. You get Greece *and* Byzantium. You get America, but you don't get Brazil.

And that's just focusing on sheer size.

Admittedly, there's only a finite number of resources for development, and the game is largely being sold in Western markets. They can only put in so many civs. But just because that explains the western bias, it doesn't mean the bias is somehow explained away. The bias is there.

 

[cybrxkhan]

^ bravo.

the bias i think is still a tad too much. it can exist, i can live with it, but i think perhaps it can be lessened.

weeks ago, before BtS was released, some guy propsed a mathematical model of determining the amount of civs and leaders shoudl be in - it still had a bias, but from what i seen, it was much more better. i forgot where it was.

anyhow, for example, how about replacing the HRE, Byzantines, and possibly Carthaginians with maybe something like Brazil, Polynesia, Swahili, Nubia, Vietnam, Kongo, Poland, Hungary, Hittites... there are a whole slew of options out there...

 

[vicawoo]

I think including Poland would increase western bias. I'm guessing HRE and Byzantines were included because people wanted charlemagne and so forth. Introducing popular civ/leaders is what's creating this bias in the first place.

And I've only seen evidence so far that Qi is a good choice. When someone gave me examples of good Chinese historical fiction instead of high flying martial arts/fantasy, they were both about Qi.

 

[dante alighieri]

This is 'merica pal. Perhaps you've heard of it, it's the center of the universe. We won both World Wars single handedly, destroyed those Evil Communists, liberated countless countries from bad guys, invented everything, first on the moon, stopped Iraq from using it's WMD, and will kick anyones ass who says otherwise. Take your "history" and shove it.

USA IS #1!

Why is it okay for everyone else to say things about Americans that are kind of insulting?

If an american were to say something less than flattering about your country here it would taken as a grave offense. (as it probably should be). But that doesn't mean its okay to fling insults at americans.

 

[Evil Twin]

or take Cleopatra/Hatshephut + Ramses II for example. Cleopatra wouold be an okay leader, only problem is she is not Egyptian. Hatshephut? didn't do much for Egypt. Ramses II? Egyptian version of Bush - pretty much lost a war, said he was all awesome and victorious, built a lot of monuments for nothing. there are a myriad of Egyptian leaders that are possible, STILL using the Egyptian pharaoh stereotype!

Excuse me? What? The Egypt in Civ is *Ancient* Egypt. The builders of the Pyramids, conquerors of northern Africa. Modern Egypt is completely insignificant compared to them. Thus, the only logical candidates are Pharoahs.
Cleopatra not being Egyptian by blood is a non-issue. She was the rightful heir to the established Ptolemy dynasty. Yeah they were all Greeks but guess what? The Greeks conquered Egypt.
Not that this changes the fact that she was a worthless ruler. Hatshepsut and Ramses on the other hand were historically important leaders responsible for many great works.

I mean who would you have as leader of Egypt? One of those modern day despots who are widely known for allying with Muslim fanatics and losing to Israel? Yeah, great lot there.

 

[Barry Bonds]

I don't know jack sh*t about Korea, so I won't pretend to. (xD) However, despite the fact that Mao Zedong and Qin Shi Huang were evil men and butchers, fact is, they were still great leaders of China....

This is 'merica pal. Perhaps you've heard of it, it's the center of the universe. We won both World Wars single handedly, destroyed those Evil Communists, liberated countless countries from bad guys, invented everything, first on the moon, stopped Iraq from using it's WMD, and will kick anyones ass who says otherwise. Take your "history" and shove it.

USA IS #1!

Actually, if I am not mistaken, this is http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=228607.
Secondly, you did not win any of those wars "single handedly." If you truly thing you did, you are extremely ignorant. You had alot of help from Canada, some from France and TONS from Britain. In YOUR opinion, communists are evil (and in mine). Name one country you've "liberated" (George Bush's idea of liberating something is to drop bombs on it and kill its citizens......) Also, Iraq had no WMDs. At least, no one ever found any.... I'm not saying I'm anti-American, I just don't like how you seem to think that America is better than everyone else.

 

[Saim]

Excuse me? What? The Egypt in Civ is *Ancient* Egypt. The builders of the Pyramids, conquerors of northern Africa. Modern Egypt is completely insignificant compared to them. Thus, the only logical candidates are Pharoahs.
Cleopatra not being Egyptian by blood is a non-issue. She was the rightful heir to the established Ptolemy dynasty. Yeah they were all Greeks but guess what? The Greeks conquered Egypt.
Not that this changes the fact that she was a worthless ruler. Hatshepsut and Ramses on the other hand were historically important leaders responsible for many great works.

I mean who would you have as leader of Egypt? One of those modern day despots who are widely known for allying with Muslim fanatics and losing to Israel? Yeah, great lot there.

If the Ptolemies are an Egyptian dynasty, the Seleucids are a Persian dynasty. Which they, y'know, aren't. Also, they're Ancient Macedonian, not Greek.

Arab Egypt =/= Macedonian Egypt =/= Ancient Egypt

 

[GenocideBringer]

Secondly, you did not win any of those wars "single handedly." If you truly thing you did, you are extremely ignorant. You had alot of help from Canada, some from France and TONS from Britain. In YOUR opinion, communists are evil (and in mine). Name one country you've "liberated" (George Bush's idea of liberating something is to drop bombs on it and kill its citizens......) Also, Iraq had no WMDs. At least, no one ever found any.... I'm not saying I'm anti-American, I just don't like how you seem to think that America is better than everyone else.

Why do you hate Freedom?

 

[dante alighieri]

I don't know jack sh*t about Korea, so I won't pretend to. (xD) However, despite the fact that Mao Zedong and Qin Shi Huang were evil men and butchers, fact is, they were still great leaders of China....

Actually, if I am not mistaken, this is http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=228607.
Secondly, you did not win any of those wars "single handedly." If you truly thing you did, you are extremely ignorant. You had alot of help from Canada, some from France and TONS from Britain. In YOUR opinion, communists are evil (and in mine). Name one country you've "liberated" (George Bush's idea of liberating something is to drop bombs on it and kill its citizens......) Also, Iraq had no WMDs. At least, no one ever found any.... I'm not saying I'm anti-American, I just don't like how you seem to think that America is better than everyone else.

Barry Bonds, the person that said that above message from his signature is canadian. Thats why i posted what I posted above. A lot of times its not an American saying crazy things like that. If I as an American tried to defend the USA in any way here i'd probably get flamed, but it wasn't an American that started slinging mud here in the first place. As I said, its not fair, and its not funny. I'd apologize for what the poster said as being arrogant and confrontational, but since it seems that he's not even an american I don't think I should have to.

 

[Barry Bonds]

I'm just making a valid point. It's true that America had lots of help, therefore so did everyone else. It's ridiculous to think that America is liberating Iraq, as precious little good is coming out of the American prescence in Iraq. And actually, there were NO WMDs. Please get that through your heads. There were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq. EVER.

 

[dante alighieri]

I'm just making a valid point. It's true that America had lots of help, therefore so did everyone else. It's ridiculous to think that America is liberating Iraq, as precious little good is coming out of the American prescence in Iraq. And actually, there were NO WMDs. Please get that through your heads. There were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq. EVER.

And I was explaining to you that the person that said the statement you were responding too is not an American. So your valid point is in fact invalid in context. No one said anything in the post you are responding to about Iraq. Why are you bringing it up? Get this through your head: NO ONE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT WMDs. You wanna badmouth the US, this is probably the wrong forum to do it because the AGAIN the poster that fanned those flames is NOT AMERICAN. But I forgot....its okay to bash on the US right now, its just not okay for us to say anything about it without getting flamed or having Iraq thrown in our faces. Even though a canadian said the stuff that got your riled up in here.

Precious little good is accomplished by attempting to rub the crap policy of Bush in the American forum goers faces, now is it? You can always go to the straight Dope message Boards for that.

 

[SickCycle]

It's not our fault if your countries are run by dictators lol

You want to cherry pick some great leader you had out of 1,000. You should of immigrated to the U.S.

Fact is that China is run by a bunch of dictators and it suppresses it's people, your leaders fit perfectly.

I always hear about how the inner city is prospering so much for the middle class teens and yatta yatta what about the 800,000,000 peasants that are left with nothing in the country side so a 100,00,000 can feed propaganda to the rest of the world.

Gold medalist that are discarded after there prime to become servers in restraunts

China has a long history and it has made a huge impact culturally but the fact is it's still a dictatorship as far I'm concerned and your leaders fit the current political system perfectly.