Firaxis stereotyping Orientals

[boazman]

I didn't want to get into the subject itself, as it has allready most likely stated everything I would say anyway on both sides of the fence.
I did however want to point out that the silk road was a result of Ghengis Khans murderous ( yes I said murderous, the man commited genocide succesfully ) Rampage.
Ok a less opinionated way... is to say.
Mongols made the silk road... not the chinese.

No single nation/tribe 'made' the silk road...It is just a name for a sets of trade routes across Asia. Silk was known to Romans, thousands years before Genghis Khan began his expedition, so perhaps it indictates that trade between West and East existed at that time already.

 

[Alistic]

well im not reading 11 pages to find out if this has already been said and i apologize for that. But technically they are stereotyping every civ in the game.

Most of us would take game balence over whatever may or may not be particularly true about each civ.

Point being - its a game If this ever turned out to be a real issue, it would be easily solved by the creators making up civ names, like the Bababooies or something, and I think we can all agree that we don't want to see that happen.

 

[leftisthominid]

My fiance is from S Korea and she said using the term 'Oriental' is incorrect. One is supposed to say 'Asian'

And I think you are reading into things. Relax, it is a game.

Though the term Asian would weaken his claim
Gandhi and Asoka are not protective
Remember Indians are Asian, We're SOUTH Asian

And plus atleast for East Asia they took some historical background when generating the Genghis mod...
India on the map is ruled by some Arab sounding leader. 1206 is well before the Muslim invasions
Plus they annihilated Buddhism from India in it. 1206 is some time after the death of Palapāla, the last Pāla king.
The Pālas fostered the growth of Mahayāna Buddhism. The time period the mod takes in place does not fit with idea of a Buddhism-less Indian

 

[The Q-Meister]

WOW. You my friend do not know your history at all. Warfare is not a Western/White/European invention. .

Never said it was.

Almost every single country, race, creed, and empire on every major continent has a violent, war-mongering era that they can point to...some shamefully so. And there are violent conflicts happening right now all over the world...without any western influence..

Again, never said that other parts of the world did not have their own wars. Where do I disagree with any of this? Can you read?

Us crazy-eyed western white folk have only been warmongering on a global scale for only the last few hundred years...small blip on the historical timeline if you ask me.

Alexander the Great was only within the last few hundred years?
The Roman Empire, which lasted for centuries and whose territory spanned 3 continents was in the last few hundred years?

Looks like someone else needs to be learning some history.

What I said was, and which you have dutifully ignored is that Western countries have conquered more through war, on a global scale than any other civilization. At the very least, they have been much more successful at it.

Nowhere do I deny that other parts of the world have their own wars, which were often brutal, nowhere do I state that other parts of the world were pacificistic or non-violent. Think of it this way - Someone makes the assertion that Germany was the most war-like/aggressive country in the 1940s. The ultra-nationalist German responds by saying "What! You don't know anything! What about all the other nations that had their wars! What about all the other countries that invaded each other!"

This is exactly what you are doing but on a much larger scale. If you want to address the assertion seriously then feel free to do so, but simply stating that other nations had their own wars and conquered others, which I never denied and quite readily attest to does nothing and points to your own ignorance of history.

 

[The Q-Meister]

The West is not the most violent. Only the most competent in winning outside conflicts.

"Competent" hmm...interesting verbiage you are using. Some would use a different choice of words such as "brutal."

Euros killed millions of Euros. Asians invaded Europe, massacred 100s of thousands, maybe more. Asians have massacred countless millions of Asians.

You love to speak in generalities. Care to be a bit more specific? Note that I am not denying what you are saying but would like to see the specific historical instances that you are referring to. Once again however, I never have denied that Asians or other groups of people did not kill Euros at one point and time.

The Middle East has continually been fighting for thousands of years and was actually comparatively peaceful doing Euro occupation.

Do you think people like being colonized?? There were many uprisings and rebellions throughout colonial rule, these were often put down with brutal savagery. I don't think it is me that needs to be learning some history. I hope you are not defending colonialism by the way.

Africans and Americans (ancient. North/South) fought all the time and regurlarly wiped out rival groups.

Actually, most Native American groups, while they did have their own violent wars, conducted war in a very different manner than the Europeans did. When the Native tribes went to war it was not usually to conquer ones land or ones people in its entirety, but to subjugate them so that they would give tribute, accede to trade demands, etc. The goal was not to completely "wipe them out." Does this mean they were not at times brutal? Of course not, wars are a brutal thing. But don't believe that the European style of warfare is the one that can be practiced universally all over the world. There are more humane ways to conduct a war (also less humane ones) and some nations did in fact do so.

The human nature is warfare. .

Cannot disagree more strongly.

If the 'human nature' is warfare then why must governments constantly fool, maniuplate, fabricate, propagandize and outright lie to their people in the process of conducting one? From WMDs to Tonkin Bay to remember the US Maine to the Persians killing my father to Hitler's assertion that the Poles have violated German sovreignty, we have seen time and time , again and again, how governments have lied and fooled their people in order to gain their support for whichever military adventure they have in mind.

Also during wars, it is common for government to engage in fierce repression of dissidents and curtail civil right and liberties.

If war was simply a matter of human nature then there would be no need for governments to lie to their people as all they would need to say is "Hey everyone! It's war time! Let's go! After all, it's our nature right!!" But they don't. Instead they employ deceitful and at times repressive methods in order to manufature (often temporary) support for a war.

BTW-I'm not going to get drawn into this pointless debate.

They why are you here engaging in one?

I only did this post to show that the West isn't the only warlike place. Don't hold fantasies about how the West is so violent. Everyone is. And now Euros are fairly peaceful.

Don't know how many more times I need to say this, I never once said that the West is the only warlike place; it clearly is not. Many other nations and other peoples all over the world conducted brutal and savage wars. This is not in dispute, at least not by me.

What I am saying is that on a whole, Europeans have conquered more of the world's population, or at least have been more successful at it then any other. With all due respect, I really don't see why this is so controversial, it is historical fact and as I said in my very first post, we can argue about the reasons why this is, but that Westerners conquered more of the world than any other group of people cannot seriously be disupted.

 

[VeXeD]

"Competent"
but that Westerners conquered more of the world than any other group of people cannot seriously be disupted.

Ummmm Maybe you need to read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire

And i Quote "The Mongol Empire (1206–1368) was the largest contiguous empire in world history, covering over 36 million km²

And lets not get going with Westerners... Middle Easterners.. And Easterners

WE are Humans.. All of humanity's History is war... Since day one we have been fighting with eachother.. Even this thread is a war...... can't we all get along and learn from our mistakes.. or shall history repeat itself...

BTW.. China is the Next super power... So stop picking on the USA. Right now they are the superpower and with that The world revolves around them. DEAL!
And no i'm not an American. I'm Canadian

 

[StarWorms]

Ummmm Maybe you need to read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire

And i Quote "The Mongol Empire (1206–1368) was the largest contiguous empire in world history, covering over 36 million km²

And if you put together civilizations in Europe like England, Spain, France I'm sure all their colonies at one point added up to far more than that. I'm not disputing that the Mongolian empire was huge but the guy you quoted from was talking about westerners, not a single civilization.

 

[brianshapiro]

And if you put together civilizations in Europe like England, Spain, France I'm sure all their colonies at one point added up to far more than that. I'm not disputing that the Mongolian empire was huge but the guy you quoted from was talking about westerners, not a single civilization.

the mongols conquest was also fundamentally different from european colonizing, in general europeans believed they were not harming natives. in mexico for instance the europeans made an alliance with the local tribes to overthrow an oppressive aztec rule. in other cases the local society didnt really have a strongly organized civilization which they could arrange commerce with. im not even defending what took place, i'm just pointing it out as different from plain land conquest, so its hard to link it to being 'warlike'.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm amazed that this thread is still going.

 

[magfo]

the mongols conquest was also fundamentally different from european colonizing, in general europeans believed they were not harming natives.

Oh no, us europeans were not at all harming natives, lol! In general we viewed natives as inferior beings that had no right to live - apart as slaves. No, the nazis were not the only ones speaking about "arians" and lesser races. ALL of us were talking like that. It's just that propaganda and changed history has made some of us believe the lies they tell today. In that sense WWII was really good, since it made us (in order to make us want to fight the germans) take a GIANT step away from everything the nazis said. Thus we're now a very very nice type of people. Especially since we've rewritten history as well.

 

[gettingfat]

I did however want to point out that the silk road was a result of Ghengis Khans murderous ( yes I said murderous, the man commited genocide succesfully ) Rampage.
Ok a less opinionated way... is to say.
Mongols made the silk road... not the chinese.

Silk road is basically referred to the intercontinental trade route(s) at ancient time. Significant intercontinental trade activities occurred way earlier than the rise of Mongols. Even we ignore the pre-BC time trades, which were more poorly documented, the trade activities in Tang dynasty were much more substantial than most people today can imagine. In fact, in the capital of Tang dynasty there were nearly a half million of immigrants, many of them merchants from European and Arabic regions. The trade activities in Silk Road flourished again in Mongol's era, but the Mongols were not its founder.

Personally I don't think the Silk Road belongs to any particular civ. I mentioned Chinese just because ancient Chinese were clearly a major shareholder of this real Great Wonder, and as a little piece of evidence the ancient Chinese were not the isolationists as most Europeans or Americans (and Chinese themselves) are led to believe. Chinese became much more protective and complacent after the policy change in Ming dynasty.

And in terms of the game, I truly believe this super trade network carries a much more historically substantial weight than most of the so-called wonders already in the game, regardless of its owner, which never existed.

 

[brianshapiro]

Oh no, us europeans were not at all harming natives, lol! In general we viewed natives as inferior beings that had no right to live - apart as slaves. No, the nazis were not the only ones speaking about "arians" and lesser races. ALL of us were talking like that. It's just that propaganda and changed history has made some of us believe the lies they tell today. In that sense WWII was really good, since it made us (in order to make us want to fight the germans) take a GIANT step away from everything the nazis said. Thus we're now a very very nice type of people. Especially since we've rewritten history as well.

no, europeans didn't view natives as inferior beings who had no right to live apart as slaves. i dont know where you learned your history from, but i can direct you to first hand sources (spanish intellectuals during the age of exploration) which will show that idea to be silly. some spaniards argued that native americans were more sophisticated and moral than ancient greeks. if history is not accurate its not accurate in the other way, we ARE tought that europeans were just these evil murderous people.

its not a matter of being a good people or bad people. even during nazi germany most europeans didn't hate jews and want them dead. a lot of people were interested in the notion of a jewish conspiracy, including winston churchill. but people didnt generally support anti-jew laws, the pope spoke against discriminatory laws, the swedes mocked the nazi program, etc. how nazis thought differently wasn't just psychosis they rationalized everything through a philosophy that was inimical to practical life. i don't think a whole society and culture will ever consciously support cruel or immoral behavior, whether europeans 200 years ago or today. yes, there was slavery, but that was just a social institution that developed and started out similar to indentured servitude; when slavery became more cruel more people turned against it. when it was discovered there was exploitation of natives in the congo, the british public was aghast. why do you think history changes--because suddenly people become enlightened to morality? do you think we're all more enlightened than everyone who lived before us. history is often a struggle between social institutions and moral forces.

at any rate you didn't read my whole comment it seems. i didnt say the europeans didn't look down on native americans, they did. the point is their intentions weren't bloodlust or warlike. it wasn't about subjugating a peoples.

 

[Elhoim]

I'm amazed that this thread is still going.

Yeah, me too...

 

[MacDeepBlue]

OK, I only got half way through the post so maybe someone already mentioned this but...

It seems like we are associating protective with isolationist, and if that is the case why the heck do not the Americans get it. Washington would be a superb canidate. It must be that the developers are trying to perpetuate the stereotype that Americans try to meddle in foreign affairs or something, when in fact for 3/4 of its existance it was very isolationist. Washington gave some famous speech on staying away from foreigners. And look at how they all try to keep the immigrants out even today.

Come on people, this is just a game. It is nice when the traits match up to the actual leaders (I do miss getting to choose them like in Civ 3 though), but in order to get a good spread of the traits there has to be some pick and choose.

 

[incubuspawn]

Silk road is basically referred to the intercontinental trade route(s) at ancient time. Significant intercontinental trade activities occurred way earlier than the rise of Mongols. Even we ignore the pre-BC time trades, which were more poorly documented, the trade activities in Tang dynasty were much more substantial than most people today can imagine. In fact, in the capital of Tang dynasty there were nearly a half million of immigrants, many of them merchants from European and Arabic regions. The trade activities in Silk Road flourished again in Mongol's era, but the Mongols were not its founder.

Personally I don't think the Silk Road belongs to any particular civ. I mentioned Chinese just because ancient Chinese were clearly a major shareholder of this real Great Wonder, and as a little piece of evidence the ancient Chinese were not the isolationists as most Europeans or Americans (and Chinese themselves) are led to believe. Chinese became much more protective and complacent after the policy change in Ming dynasty.

And in terms of the game, I truly believe this super trade network carries a much more historically substantial weight than most of the so-called wonders already in the game, regardless of its owner, which never existed.

Actualy that is very interesting. I often wondered about how silk got to europe ( if in fact it ever did ) before Ghengis Khan made his massive empire connect the east and west. I kind of like to think that he did because without that .. the man has no redeeming values. Save I feel sorry for him while he was a kid

 

[dexters]

Time to close this thread?

 

[Flak]

It's just a game

I just wonder how many insults to your culture, race, and background, those of you who quote this mantra, would actually take before you decided that hiding behind this excuse was simply not acceptable.

Time to close this thead?

If you think a thread should be closed, report it to a mod and give your reasons. They are a bit busy, but they don't seem too unreasonable most of the time.

... (paraphrase) Firaxis stereotyping racists...

I hate to say I told you so, but I do believe that I did mention, about 2000 pages earlier, that you wouldn't get much sympathy here. See what I mean?

 

[dh_epic]

The people at Firaxis have some of the most screwed up stereotypes and perceptions of history that anybody could possibly have. You'd think they would have bothered to have talked to atleast a few historians or something before programming some of this garbage in. Also, although I'm far-and-hell away from being much of a fan of political correctness, some of the racist stuff in civilopedia descriptions is pretty appalling.

I think you have to appreciate that the average history that the majority of people are taught in their classrooms IS full of prejudices, biases, and (sometimes) racism. That's for two reasons:

• Winners write the history. That is, the loser's libraries are burned, and the winner's victory is celebrated with every value the winner prizes as being responsible for their victory. Some of these values may be the reason for the winner's victory, but not all of them. And just because the loser's history is destroyed, it doesn't mean that loser has no history of consequence.
• History doesn't just happen, it's constructed. That is, history edits out events that it doesn't feel are relevent to the outcome. The same way that a biography of Mahatma Gandhi might leave out how he wiped his *** after taking a ****. Most of this stuff might actually be irrelevent, but some of it might be quite important. The 'ending' usually what's important from 'the middle'. If Europeans came to dominate the modern era, then you talk about the dark ages -- and you ignore the Golden Age of Arabia, or the innovations of China, and the Islamification of Africa.

The Civilization series bases its history on the kind you can find in a 3rd grade classroom on purpose. That's because getting into University level debates and nuance would cause too much contraversy with some gamers, confuse a whole other set of gamers, and bore another set of gamers to death. That's why they have to sometimes deal in "conventional wisdom", rather than facts.

The Civilization franchise had the Zulu representing Africa for a decade and a half, with Africans running around half naked, using spears when Europeans had firearms. They add Mali -- a medieval power with castles and literature -- and yet they still give them an ancient era UU. ... and half the Civ-playing population says "who the heck are Mali"? Trust me when I say that the "Orientals" got off easy.

 

[Dida]

Actualy that is very interesting. I often wondered about how silk got to europe ( if in fact it ever did ) before Ghengis Khan made his massive empire connect the east and west. I kind of like to think that he did because without that .. the man has no redeeming values. Save I feel sorry for him while he was a kid

By the time of Genghis, the Silk Road had already been a thing of the past. The high time of Silk Road trade was from around 200 BC to 700 AD. Silks go first from China to Middle Eastern merchants, who then brought them to Europe. The Muslims were very commercially active during that time, and with their camels, were probably the only persons capable of cross the deserts. The ancient Parthian for example, played important middleman role between the Han Empire and the Roman Empire. It was said that the Han Empire was so curious about this mysterious civilization in the West who kept on buying their silks; they actually sent a large emissary to Rome. They reached as far as the western edge of Parthia, but the Parthian, afraid they might lose their lucrative middleman role, persuaded the Chinese to turn back, allegedly by feeding them lies about how long and perilous the journey would be.
Starting from the Song dynasty, sea trade route gradually replaced Silk Road as China’s main mean of trading with the outside world, apparently, because the Song did not control the western edge of China proper, and had no mean of using the Silk Road.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

By the time of Genghis, the Silk Road had already been a thing of the past. The high time of Silk Road trade was from around 200 BC to 700 AD. Silks go first from China to Middle Eastern merchants, who then brought them to Europe. The Muslims were very commercially active during that time, and with their camels, were probably the only persons capable of cross the deserts. The ancient Parthian for example, played important middleman role between the Han Empire and the Roman Empire. It was said that the Han Empire was so curious about this mysterious civilization in the West who kept on buying their silks; they actually sent a large emissary to Rome. They reached as far as the western edge of Parthia, but the Parthian, afraid they might lose their lucrative middleman role, persuaded the Chinese to turn back, allegedly by feeding them lies about how long and perilous the journey would be.
Starting from the Song dynasty, sea trade route gradually replaced Silk Road as China’s main mean of trading with the outside world, apparently, because the Song did not control the western edge of China proper, and had no mean of using the Silk Road.

It was more than that. The Chinese actually warred with Parthia, but met with no more success than their Western counterparts. They eventually gave up, but the Han were indeed very curious about the Romans, probably far more curious than the Romans were about them. They also had dealings with Sassinid Persia and the Byzantines(the Tang, I believe). The Tang and early Ming emperors sent expeditions to much of Southeast Asia, and the famed Admiral Zheng He is believed to have landed in Africa, and undoubtedly met with the Indians and Arabs. Soon after, China turned inward and didn't turn outward again until it was forced to...