Mali had white workers? Really??

[Veo]

Anybody else wonder about this yet? Where are the civ-appropriate skin tones for settlers and workers? Are there political pitfalls from including this that I don't see?

 

[bioelectricclam]

I agree that there should be different skin tones for workers (and settlers too!). Would make it a whole lot more realistic for a Civil War scenario .

 

[Red Door]

Check out Rabbit, White's Ethnically Diverse Units mod, it has just that. But, why not stop at workers and settlers? Why not have every unit (that's not a armored or a ship) be ethnically diverse?

 

[Veo]

...why not stop at workers and settlers? Why not have every unit (that's not a armored or a ship) be ethnically diverse?

I can understand the descision not to uniquely texture every single unit. That would make for a lot of replications, larger install files, etc.. Plus, with further progressions through history comes more and more racial diversity amongst people groups anyways.

But the workers and settlers are representatives of the people! Having three (at least two) different skin tones would have been a simple and helpful boost to the immersion side of the game, from my point of view.

 

[sepamu92]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=167435

Here is the "Ethnically Diverse Units", made for exactly this reason. There are settlers, warriors and scouts for many culture groups. Although there are no workers as of yet, it is an ongoing project. However here is a black "slave" skin by LittleRedPoint that can work for the Mali worker.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147545&highlight=slave

 

[Veo]

__thanks__

 

[winddbourne]

Just my oppinion, but lets not include a bunch of fluff. I'd much rather have unique CIVS, maybe a change in the UN. So long as we have unique cultures lets not get anal. It's all about emphasis. The goal should be to remove the concept of race altogether, and emphasise the differences between various societies as a whole. So I'm playing mali and I conquer Rome are all my roman workers now black? Nope they are roman, and both roman and mali workers are HUMAN. Members of my society.

Do we REALLY want to go in this direction? Emphasising trivia? So your black for example (the racialist stereotype) are you Othello's sophisticated and exotic foreigner, or a subhuman civil war slave? It means nothing.

Best to leave it out, concentrate on what is important. Sure add in a segregation civic, like the caste system civic, add in a genocide civic, add in whatever you want with some gameplay meaning, but just different colored units? Are you going to give me green units so I can build a little green men civ? lol

Add that in last if you have to, along with the different city styles so I can build step pyrimids or eastern podogas again like in civ II.

 

[Veo]

I understand why it's not essential, and why its be easier just to leave it out.

I just enjoy that part of the game, the differences. I took a look at the UB list on the Warlords page, and while I don't think some of them are all that well thought out, I like that idea.

I think that is the direction Civ's been going, and I was just hoping to see some more of it in this one, now that we have 3D zoom and whatnot. I Liked the far-eastern pagodas from civ 2! I hated the industrial age when everything turned the same ugly red color! I would have loved to see that idea of cultural variance carried through in civ 4, because with 3D you have an infinitely greater opportunity to reveal it.

just my $.02

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

I think it's pointless, but then again, eye candy isn't what I expect from this game.

I rather the developers focus on other aspect in this game, primarily gameplay.

 

[Murky]

Has anyone noticed that many of the unit portraits look like they could be related to each other?

 

[BadHorsie]

Personally, I think this kind of political correctness is stupid and unnecessary. Perhaps they could've built it into the game in the first place but it's not worth doing now.

 

[Veo]

meh, it's not about being PC or anything. I don't think PC-ness is usually worth much of anything. I just think it'd be cool for immersion. I'll just be looking for more Civ specialization in Civ 5, I guess

 

[Thalatta]

While, the settlers may all be the same, there are still two notable areas of racial "accuracy":

1) Unique units. Yeah, I know, stating the obvious...but it you look closely at how detailed the UUs are, it's pretty impressive. Not only do they look different, they behave differently - watch a Jaguar attacking or a stationary Samurai pacing and you'll see what I mean. Making all the units unique in appearance and behavior for each civ would either be an incredible amount of added artistry and programming that would be unreasonable to expect or a letdown in comparison to UUs.
2) Voices. What other game has units speaking in their native language? Even though they say the same set of phrases, I think this sets the civs apart far better than any matter of appearances could.

 

[Eternalsteelfan]

Has anyone noticed that many of the unit portraits look like they could be related to each other?

Maybe they are :-0 . A few thousand generations of warriors in that family.

 

[winddbourne]

I agree about the eastern podogas and step pyrimids from civ II, I also hated the industrial eras and how similiar everything got. What annoys me more than losing that though is how in the current CIV the UN can force us all to adopt the same government, and worse that it is ALWAYS the same government. It's the main reason I always turn the diplomatic win OFF.

 

[bioelectricclam]

2) Voices. What other game has units speaking in their native language? Even though they say the same set of phrases, I think this sets the civs apart far better than any matter of appearances could.

Age of Empires: Age of Mythology definately does...maybe all the other Age of Empires games too, but it has been so long that I've forgotten.

The Warcraft/Starcraft series also has alot of made up languages (Zug zug anyone?)

Now I admit that so far Civ IV has the MOST, but it certainly wasn't the first or the last computer game that has foreign language in it.

Also, they don't all speak the same phrases..I know enough Japanese to confirm that (at least the Japanese) say slightly different phrases from, say, the english or the americans. In the end they amount to the same meaning I suppose, but "Confirmed!" is slightly different from "That is so". But now I'm just picking nits here.

 

[Charles 22]

MOHAA had a LOT of German in it and I would imagine the Pacific equivalent had a lot of Japanses too (there may had been over a 100 phrases or more). That's what you call immersion when you're hiding behind a wall and hear those german voices coming nearer.

While a color factor would be nice, unfortunately what this might amount to in a game is just make it that much easier for somebody to go racial genocidal. In this game I'm never conscious of what race fighting against simply because almost all the units look alike (if only the leader is a different color or race, what does it matter?). The only exception I can think of was in the CIV3 days when you would have that iimpi civ against you early on. There isn't any unit that could spur on a anti-racial outrage most likely than the iimpi since it was produced quite heavy and was very annoying with that extra movement. With seeing so many of them early on it gave you the impression that you indeed had a black race in the game.

 

[BadHorsie]

Age of Empires: Age of Mythology definately does...maybe all the other Age of Empires games too, but it has been so long that I've forgotten.

I always though AOE just used random jibberish... but then I wouldn't know anyway.

I figured Civ uses different languages after hearing the French say "Oui!"