Is the Civ series racist?

[CivNoobie]

8===>~~~~~~0:}

 

[Janig]

What is racism? I think racism is a contrived word, so whether its racist or not is up to you.

 

[Quackers]

Civ doesn't do the dividing, it just copies the history of the past which was full of competing empires, religions et al. If you did anything else it wouldn't be accurate. I don't understand how it could be considered racist i would like to hear reasoning for that, every civ you choose is relatively balanced with the rest even if it's an African empire which i've never heard of or an Asian one. Also, amongst strategy games it's quite pacifistic. In Starcraft you can only win through conquest, in CIV you can win (and i bet borachio does this) through space race, the UN et al.

 

[Tahuti]

Civ doesn't do the dividing, it just copies the history of the past which was full of competing empires, religions

And culture bombs...

 

[Joecoolyo]

I wouldn't call it rasism, its not like its saying certain civilizations are inferior to others (in fact it does a better job keeping an even playing field compared to like, Paradox).

It is simplified though, and it was never designed to be historical. Civ (at least in my opinion) is basically a board game transferred and adapted to the computer, and uses history as its theme. It was never meant to be some complex simulation of history, no game can achieve that.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Civili$ation is rasist since it's the product of AmeriKKKan kkkultural dominance. Did you ever notice that almost all modern unit models come from AmeriKKKa or UKKK?

 

[Quackers]

And culture bombs...

i will never forget the mona lisa drop in 1708, saddest part of British history.

 

[Deaths Advocate]

Personally I am disappointed this wasn't already posted

 

[Tee Kay]

 

[Disgustipated]

Civ doesn't do the dividing, it just copies the history of the past which was full of competing empires, religions et al. If you did anything else it wouldn't be accurate. I don't understand how it could be considered racist i would like to hear reasoning for that, every civ you choose is relatively balanced with the rest even if it's an African empire which i've never heard of or an Asian one. Also, amongst strategy games it's quite pacifistic. In Starcraft you can only win through conquest, in CIV you can win (and i bet borachio does this) through space race, the UN et al.

This

The OP isn't very specific on what it's asking, but like your post says, the game would be pretty cheesy if it tried to whitewash history and make it PC. It's bad enough Civ5 removed slavery.

 

[kochman]

It's the affirmative action of such games, actually...

 

[Crezth]

I think racism is a contrived word,

Unlike other words, which are absolute and God-given.

 

[Dachs]

The games have serious problems with ethnolinguistic identity, nationalism, religious milieu, and the separation of culture and polity. (Among other things.)

That does not make them "racist".

 

[Lone Wolf]

The games have serious problems with ethnolinguistic identity, nationalism, religious milieu, and the separation of culture and polity.

Are they supposed to correctly portray all that?

 

[Dachs]

Are they supposed to correctly portray all that?

Not necessarily, but employing versions of those that are not internally contradictory would help.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I don't see how are they contradictory, though, as opposed to just not corresponding to the real world.

 

[Traitorfish]

The whole monolithic-and-primordial-civilisations-in-eternal-competition thing does seem to use a lot of tropes that racists are enthusiastic about, but I don't think that actually makes it racist in itself. It's more just that the designers aren't really that interested in historical accuracy, and just go with whatever models most lend themselves to the format.

Now, what is kinda racist is Colonization. Which is a good game, I like it a lot! But the whole natives-as-homogenised-landscape-feature thing is just a bit messed up. (I'll let them off for not dealing with slavery, though; I honestly don't know how you'd go about including that without just making it worse.)

 

[Tahuti]

The Paradox games are much worse, as much as I love them. Despite they are historically accurate, or more precisely, because they are so historically accurate, you are just a few mouseclicks away from performing genocide on American natives in EU, to name just one example.

 

[Joecoolyo]

The Paradox games are much worse, as much as I love them. Despite they are historically accurate, or more precisely, because they are so historically accurate, you are just a few mouseclicks away from performing genocide on American natives in EU, to name just one example.

But they tend to not be very historically accurate at all. They fail to portray anything outside of Europe as being anything other than "punching bags" to be trampled on and fall behind. This is especially the case with EUIII.

 

[CivNoobie]

imagine someone from kazakhstan playing this game and seeing their tribe being one of the barbarians...