Is the Civ series racist?

[Leoreth]

In hindsight, yes. But that wasn't set in stone in 1399.

 

[Patroklos]

I know, which is why I said in some areas like China that had all the potential to be as or more powerful than Europe should be left open to be developed as such by the player.

There was no series of events that would have led to the Native Americans being anything other than a "punching bag" given no change in European actions and attitudes. The Central and South American empires may have lasted longer had their initial responses to contact been different, but their fall was inevitable. For example, no change in actions by any party would have prevented the devastation from disease which spelled doom for any major polity in existence in the Americas at the time.

 

[Lone Wolf]

That can't be said for the US East Coast natives for example. There is no combination of events that would have made them a competitive civilization within the time frame played against historical European actions. Its not racist to point that out.

They fall bit too quickly, though. When I play EU3 I make the NA natives unannexable and give them modifiers to actually receive troops with muskets. They are still annexed, but in late 1700's, not in 1500'ies by Portugal.

 

[Traitorfish]

I know, which is why I said in some areas like China that had all the potential to be as or more powerful than Europe should be left open to be developed as such by the player.

There was no series of events that would have led to the Native Americans being anything other than a "punching bag" given no change in European actions and attitudes. The Central and South American empires may have lasted longer had their initial responses to contact been different, but their fall was inevitable. For example, no change in actions by any party would have prevented the devastation from disease which spelled doom for any major polity in existence in the Americas at the time.

Why was it inevitable? I don't disagree that history was weighted pretty hugely against them, but to say that the result we saw today was the only result conceivable seems a very bold claim to make without supporting argument.

 

[Tee Kay]

Why was it inevitable? I don't disagree that history was weighted pretty hugely against them, but to say that the result we saw today was the only result conceivable seems a very bold claim to make without supporting argument.

It is difficult to imagine it happening any other way given the vast organisational and more demographic advantages that European colonists enjoyed. The Afroeurasian disease epidemics that destroyed indigenous American societies were far, far larger in both scale and lethality than the Black Death. Often, more than nine out of ten people died within a few years due to multiple epidemics, even before European contact (disease spreading along trade routes). Experiences like these left entire societies traumatised and in turmoil for generations.

 

[Patroklos]

Why was it inevitable? I don't disagree that history was weighted pretty hugely against them, but to say that the result we saw today was the only result conceivable seems a very bold claim to make without supporting argument.

The exact result? No? Generally the same result? Yes.

 

[ace99]

I think the technological and demographic aspect of the whole thing are overstated compared to say disease. Africa and parts of Asia had tribes of similar technology and social organization to some of those Native American tribes and you do have things like the Hereo and Namaqa genocide but that came pretty late on. Portuguese and Dutch trading post in Africa faced native attacks, and African colonization beyond coastal outposts wasn't possible until fairly late on. There's actually an account of an Ottoman fleet attacking a Portuguese trading post in East Africa, taking the post, then being entirely overrun by some (supposedly cannibalistic) Africa tribe which slaughtered them, and the Ottoman captain of the fleet fled to the Portuguese. Really weird episode, and I think it illustrates that if Native Americans hadn't died in droves colonization of the America's might have looked more like South Africa.

Of course avoiding the disease would have required magic. Or aliens.

 

[Tee Kay]

if Native Americans hadn't died in droves colonization of the America's might have looked more like South Africa.

A victorious Tenochtitlan in 1521 absent epidemics would've been interesting.

 

[kochman]

Is the Rhye's & Fall of Civilization racist?

It takes away that even playing field that Civ4 provides...

 

[Lone Wolf]

Is the Rhye's & Fall of Civilization racist?

No, since it's still possible to win a Space Victory as the Maya.

 

[ace99]

I'm playing a Tibet game and I conquered North India, and most of China.

 

[Traitorfish]

It is difficult to imagine it happening any other way given the vast organisational and more demographic advantages that European colonists enjoyed. The Afroeurasian disease epidemics that destroyed indigenous American societies were far, far larger in both scale and lethality than the Black Death. Often, more than nine out of ten people died within a few years due to multiple epidemics, even before European contact (disease spreading along trade routes). Experiences like these left entire societies traumatised and in turmoil for generations.

The exact result? No? Generally the same result? Yes.

We seem to be reducing European colonisation to an unthinking force of nature, here, which is no more satisfactory than reducing Indians to a feature of the landscape. European colonisation was a far more complex process than that, and was influenced by a huge number of factors, American and Eurasian, colonial and metropolitan, Indian and European. There's no absolute guarantees that Europeans (or, for that matter, Africans) should cross the Atlantic in the numbers that they did, that they should be able to achieve the level of political and institutional control that they did, or that they should be able to produce the reorganisations of Native societies that they did.

To take an example of a relatively limited divergence, would the British have been able to consolidate their control over North America if the French hadn't screwed up the Seven Years' War in Europe, or if they'd preferred a settlement that allowed them to retain New France? And if they hadn't, would the British have been able to attempt the imperial reforms of the 1760s? And if they hadn't, would there have been a Revolutionary War? And if there hadn't, would the Iroquois have been dispersed as apolitical force? Now, granted, it's hard to imagine a situation in which there exists in 2012 a sovereign and independent Iroquois Confederacy, but it's not at all beyond imagining that the Iroquois as a political entity might still exist in some coherent form. Maybe we can call that the "same general result", but doing so would seem to involve stepping back to a level of abstraction which is far beyond that which was implied by the original comment on EUIII's depiction of natives.

 

[Patroklos]

I honestly don't think there is any outcome that doesn't reduce all of the Americas to some version of a European model nation state dominated by said Europeans or their mixed descendants. And by "general result" I think you can't help but be abstract as we are talking about changing events half a millennium ago, and specific predictions to the here and now would be impossible.

 

[Traitorfish]

"Al of the Americas [as] some version of a European model nation-state" is still a hell of a lot of room to work with. It tells us nothing about who is running these states, about how they are run, about they interact, about the status of Natives peoples within them. Far more is possible than the relatively one-dimensional "Natives sit around until they becomes dead and/or French" model of colonisation presented in EUIII. That doesn't encompass what actually happened, let alone what could have had given a sufficient historical divergence.

 

[Patroklos]

I think that general enough description is good enough for the topic of this thread, ie why are the native peoples not made into protagonist player empires with as much clout as the others?

The short answer is: because they weren't and there is no logical way to have been inside the timeline given.

 

[Leoreth]

I think the penalties of, say, Indian factions compared to Europeans are a lot more jarring than those in Native America.

 

[Archbob]

No, Its called reality. People have always been divided among some line or other.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think that general enough description is good enough for the topic of this thread, ie why are the native peoples not made into protagonist player empires with as much clout as the others?

The short answer is: because they weren't and there is no logical way to have been inside the timeline given.

It's not a choice between the Intergalactic Dominion of Huronia and Indians-all-lie-down-and-die-because-reasons. It should be possible with a sufficiently complex game mechanic to achieve a presentation of Indian peoples that is neither objectifying nor ahistorical, given that the historical reality was of Indians as active participants in their own history.

 

[Quintillus]

The Civ series isn't appreciably more racist than everyday prejudices in today's life. It's somewhat Eurocentric in its choice of civilizations, but so is the society where the producers of the game come from (as well as that society's history). But with the pretty much even playing field for all civilizations, it isn't showing favoritism, which is could. If anything, it gives a much more even playing field than history - even terrain is usually randomized. There's conflict, sure, but the game doesn't inherently favor, say, the Mongols over all other races, or make the Russians far less likely to succeed. If there were blatant (and unhistorical) biases like that, then you could say it was racist.

As it is... slightly biased as is most everything else in any given society.

 

[Lone Wolf]

CivIV is rasist against Germans, their UB and UU is one of the most sucky in the game. The Mali and the Zulus, however, have relatively decent UU's and UB's. Therefore, Civ was made by a bunch of race traitors who hate White Aryan Races