Is Civ3 Racially Biased?

[dikwhit]

is civ3 racist.????????????????? and you expect no idiotic comments palehorse?of all the things to whine about,,, racism raises its ugly little head. Give it a rest, its a game. But then again if you can find racism as the biggest issue to gripe about, ya probably dont like the game much to begin with.

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

Originally posted by Akka
I don't know if the world is becoming paranoid as a whole, but I'm kind of tired about people jumping all over the place, looking for things that could be considered "racism".

Yep - you're right ...

2) The reason is extremely simple : each "culture group" (mediterranean, mid-est, european, asian and american) has got its own faces. What happen is just that Firaxis put the Zulus in the mid-east culture group, as it's the closest one. And then they got the faces of mid-east group (Persia, Babylon), which means that they look more caucasian than they should. You can yell that they should have made a African culture group, but this neverending "it's racism ! Look !" stuff is just tiring.

This is probably the best explanation readed here - congratulations !!

Regards

 

[wohmongarinf00l]

i suppose there is a good reason why the Zulus were included in the Mid-east culture group and it probably was resource conservation nonetheless if one were inclined, one could see it as racism. i wouldn't necessarily disagree. the work involved in
establishing one more culture group does not sound that great.
for the pains Firaxis went to include off mainstream leaders like Catherine and Tokugawa (who was errm, a murderous maniac - read the story of his succession to hideyoshi), it is a disappointing oversight. if making a culture group with 1 civ seems
a bit wasteful, one could always include the ashanti or the ethiopians and remove one of the european civilisations.
it's merely a game but in service to fairness it would have harmed
few.


the egyptian debate never ceases to crop up so this is probably a good time to point out that recent archaeology seems to suggest that the first egyptian settlements were probably by people from
mauritania (south of the sahara). the discussion is moot anyway because egypt has been settled by plenty of people.



racism does not automatically equate to racial hatred. it's more of an undercurrent of themes, suppositions and assumptions. u can be racist without spreading a message of "racial hatred"...that post was utterly superficial.

 

[Tassadar]

Latest research in genetic say that there is no race in human, we are only 1 race, that all. Does a black cat have a different race than a white cat, no of course, same for human. But human nature tend to beleive that very small difference in physical aspect make you different, but there is no logic there. We are more brother between us human than 2 monkey of the same tribe. I f everybody could understand that less war in the world.

And remove religious notion and then you get the perfect world.

 

[Flak]

Originally posted by Pointman
First off. I think you are severely misusing the term racism. What you are doing is a cheap way of getting attention to your thread.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dictionary.com said
rac·ism Pronunciation Key (rszm)
n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

racism

n 1: the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races 2: discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race [syn: racialism]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you see racism as explained above in Civ 3? Well i sure don't.

According to the suggested definition above, Yes. Very simply and obviously put, they have assigned traits and characteristics according to their own personal beliefs about these different peoples. Some are superior in culture while supposedly inferior in military, and so on and so forth for every 'race' in the game. Simply because of their race. Simply because some people at Firaxis have prejudiced views on history and on the various peoples of the world.

I argued this before the game even came out, correctly.

One mod I always play with is to go through and assign all of the attributes to ALL of the civs. The game is more challenging ofcourse. But it's also far less predictable and interesting and doesn't subscribe to a racist view of the past or even the present.

 

[SvenSlayer]

I think you guys are silly (please don't ban me, moderator; I'm using a very mild word here). You're worrying more about how the Africans look than they do! I bet you they don't mind. If they do mind, they can make their own Civ 3 game.

I'm not a racist; I'm just sick of people bringing it up all the time.

Now, back to how they look. Fine, Shaka looks stupid, but so do all the other leaders.

And don't say Firaxis is racist. They're taking views held by most historians, and I think some of them are correct - like science, for example. I definitely think the Germans were normally more advanced (scientifically) than the Iroquois. You compare axes to guns! But anyway, that isn't even the point, is it? IT'S NOT RACISM! Different CIVS have different attributes in the game, not different RACES.

BTW Americans made this game (mostly); of course they're going to see things from a European's point of view. Do you guys want the game to be boring?

 

[Falcon02]

BTW Americans made this game (mostly); of course they're going to see things from a European's point of view. Do you guys want the game to be boring?

And then take into concideration that the American Civ has Native American faces when only about 5% of the American population now is Native American(sad result of disease and racism in the past), and the vast majority of the population today is Caucasian.

So now I guess you could claim that Firaxis is racist against Caucasians, but look at the Middle Eastern Culture group in Civilization. Look the Black Civ looks almost like caucasians.

The only logical awnser is the Culture groups, they just grouped different Geographic groups together and gave them the most common face of those groups.

I also agree, and know about the Genetic studies. If I remember correctly (BTW I got this from a religious source which was showing how racism is wrong) about 2% or 0.2% of our genetic code is the difference between any human being on the planet. Then around 2% of that is actually what denotes between the "races." Which comes up to a Very small amount. And as was pointed out before, it's just the same kind of genetic difference between a Blonde man and a black hair man. It's just an issue of lineage, in fact now that people aren't as isolated groups anymore, the world, given enough time, will likely turn into a single "race" which is a mixture of all the races in the world.

 

[wohmongarinf00l]

Originally posted by SvenSlayer
I think you guys are silly (please don't ban me, moderator; I'm using a very mild word here). You're worrying more about how the Africans look than they do! I bet you they don't mind. If they do mind, they can make their own Civ 3 game.

how would u know this? u are assuming there are no
africans playing civilisation??? is this supposed to make
an african embrace the brotherhood of man?...it's a
minor thing but if one were to think about it......

BTW Americans made this game (mostly); of course they're going to see things from a European's point of view. Do you guys want the game to be boring?

and there are no blacks in america of course and if there are,
they are more european than african.....hehe

 

[Tweedledum]

All this stuff about racism strikes me as a crock, but while we're at it try this:

It is overly complimentary to the Zulus to include them at all.
How do we usually define "civilised"? By reference to great cities, literature and philosophy/science.

There is little or no historical evidence to suggest that the Zulu even developed a system of writing let alone anything else apart from running around in loincloths chucking spears at things

I feel a moderator looming...

 

[GeneralTacticus]

how would u know this? u are assuming there are no
africans playing civilisation??? is this supposed to make
an african embrace the brotherhood of man?...it's a
minor thing but if one were to think about it......

He's not saying that there are no Africans playing Civ 3, he's saying that they probably don't mind.

 

[The Troquelet]

First, people who think Shaka is mis-represented obviously haven't played against Lincoln or Ghandi. Talk about caricature.

Falcon02, I have no idea about the accuracy of your claims, but I do know we share more than 98 percent of our genetic code with primates (that includes orangutans, etc). So I would doubt if that's correct.

Actually, each human is distinct from another by up to 3 million characteristics, if I remember that correctly, and as I seem to remember there are 6 billion characteristics making up the human genome, then that would mean a 1/2 of a percent difference. Sounds about right.

I'll pass on the "civilized" issue. I think it's begging the question to start out with. After all, England has no right to be included compared to China: when the English first started trading for silk in China, they found the Chinese so advanced civilization wise that they had no need for foreign imports and wouldn't trade with the British because they were already self-sufficient! The English had to introduce opium to get the Chinese to buy SOMEthing from them.

You may say that England NOW is much more of a power than China, or it was at sometime BEFORE, but nonetheless I've shown you a moment in time where your prejudices don't apply. And if I remember correctly it was the Yoruba that first invented Iron-Smelting in Africa...

 

[Alexnm]

This is the funniest thread I've read recently around here...

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by Alexnm
This is the funniest thread I've read recently around here...

It is amazing what people will argue about. I never even noticed what the faces looked like, there were people to me.

Originally posted by dikwhit
is civ3 racist.?????????????????

Well, I would like for there to be a serious discussion and no flamming, but I am a realist. I also have the power to bring the conversation back around, delete it, or whipe out the inappropriate comments. I choose to try to bring the conversation about with warnings and if need be temp bans. While I feel that Firaxis is no more racist than me (which I am not BTW) and that this idea is crazy, the rules say nothing about a thread like this. The rules do say no flamming and I mean to see the rules upheld.

Originally posted by SvenSlayer
I think you guys are silly (please don't ban me, moderator; I'm using a very mild word here).

Don't worry, I am not that much of an Ogre. I too think that the belief that Firaxis is racist is silly, but ppl are allowed to say their piece/peace....to a point. The ability to speak your mind stops when you insult other posters.

 

[Northstar5757]

Personally I think that these posts are a good thing. It means that people are running out of legitimate complaints. And judging by how 1.21 is working (at least for me) it seems rightly so.

BTW when i turned off autosave the game runs fine for me on huge maps with 16 civs (was very slow before). Any idea if this is because of the new patch or just because of the autosave off?

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by Northstar5757
Personally I think that these posts are a good thing. It means that people are running out of legitimate complaints. And judging by how 1.21 is working (at least for me) it seems rightly so.

Good point

BTW when i turned off autosave the game runs fine for me on huge maps with 16 civs (was very slow before). Any idea if this is because of the new patch or just because of the autosave off?

Not sure. I would suggest that you turn it back on and then run the game like that for awhile.
If it slows down to the pre-1.21 patch speed then you will know it was removing the auto save feature that sped the game up.
If it runs faster than pre-1.21 with auto on then you will know it was 1.21 patch that sped the game up.

 

[wohmongarinf00l]

real sorry i got suckered into this thread.

there is no point discussing racism here and i have avoided these lines for the longest time because it's about as useful as eating
live snails and just as much fun.

how can anyone know how africans/blacks /native americans
feel about these things unless they were in some measure of empathy with these groups?

anyway, this is all i have to say about this.

 

[Selous]

Originally posted by dikwhit
is civ3 racist.????????????????? and you expect no idiotic comments palehorse?of all the things to whine about,,, racism raises its ugly little head. Give it a rest, its a game. But then again if you can find racism as the biggest issue to gripe about, ya probably dont like the game much to begin with.

perhaps this is just another aspect people are complaining about? rather then the only thing ... zuaves (SP) list is still as relevent now as when first conceived .... and that would suck to have to disguss that one every day/week

and to keep this thread somewhat relevent .... i want to be able to a complete bastard in the game and be able to move populations around! ... with a degree off accuracy and control! ... when i invade and take over the citys ... i want to be able to build workers and in a multi-ethnic city i want to be able to choose what races i want that worker to be! i want to be a racist bastard in the game but the only way i can do this kind of stuff (great way to stop culture flipping) is to just raise ... perhaps the new abandon city will also work?(how many citys have every been abandoned?) but is that going to transfer the unhappyness from whipping ??

 

[Zouave]

perhaps this is just another aspect people are complaining about? rather then the only thing ... zuaves (SP) list is still as relevent now as when first conceived .... and that would suck to have to disguss that one every day/week

Selous, my list is indeed still relevant as Firaxis hasn't addressed the problems even with 1.21 - a patch which makes the game even slower than before.

As for this whole "racial" issue, well

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by SvenSlayer
I definitely think the Germans were normally more advanced (scientifically) than the Iroquois. You compare axes to guns!

The Germans had axes, too, before they had guns.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

First i felt tempted to reply, then i thought don`t bump it, but now i simply can`t help it:

there`s a very smart book out htere msot people here might be better off reading it:

Jayred Diamond:
Guns, Germs and Steel

I guess, afterwards many here would feel quite silly