No Russia in the Base Game?

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I don't want to speak on behalf of Ukrainians, but here in Poland we mostly don't give a damn about playing video games with Russians/Soviets (even playing as Russians/Soviets) despite past 300 years of our constant fight with Russian empires. The red line is only explicit relevant modern Russian imperialism expressed by the game or its devs, such as supporting Putinism, or invasion of Ukraine, or claiming that Poland and other countries were indeed justly under Russian rule in the past and should be reconquered, or the game claiming Ukrainians = Russians etc. Rest is history, even if it would have been nice if Russia had apologized for a few bits, but we had been fine waiting patiently and playing games in the meantime.

I really don't want the exclusion of Russia because it would open the doors for moralist censorship of history itself, so no ability to play as authoritarian regimes (especially fascists), or holy wars, or any country currently being ruled by evil gov (see again: Qing->PRC and Uyghurs, Iran and Kurds and everybody, Burma and Rohingya etc).
Just don't advocate for the evil government and ideology in the game and it's fine. Stalinism/maoism and nazism etc are fairly unique in this regard in that it is impossible to conceptualize them without their inhumanity, so they had to go as well, but it's absurd to associate *the concept of Russia* with evil.

This is really well put. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

 

[RedCourtJester]

By this logic that game should not contain Qing or modern China at all, since their inclusion "validates the narrative" of Xinjiang with its Uyghurs being conquered, which led to their past and modern persecutions, which are even frequently named genocide. Your game contains Qing or PRC? You legitimise imperialism and genocide
And yet not only nobody complains in that case, nobody even considers giving Uyghurs their own civ. Perhaps because this is video game, not UN statement on human rights.

The solution to the Russian quandary is stunningly simple and I'm surprised Firaxis didn't go this route
1) Make Slavs for the ancient era and Kievan Rus/Rus for the latter era. Alternately there may be two separate exploration era predecessors of Russia and Ukraine without overlapping cities.
2) Add both Russia and Cossacks-Ukraine as separate modern era civs without overlapping cities.
3) Make Russian design slightly softer and more peaceful this time, less proud of its conquests, focusing more on culture, science, settlement etc; give them one of the earlier or less expansionist leaders

Done. Do you think Ukrainians and we Poles and related nations have refused to play video games with Russian and Soviet history in it because Russian gov at the moment is evil? History is history and games are games, we didn't burn Firaxis HQ in 2004 because the game had no Poland but only Russia with freakin Stalin (100,000+ Poles genocided) as a leader.

I think we will see something like this. My prediction:

1. At launch we have Rome/Greece -> Byzantium -> Russia (and Han -> Mongolia -> Russia) as pathways. Very likely to have a Russian leader, I am hoping for Elizabeth, with preferred pathway Rome -> Byzantium -> Russia. Slightly less odds than a British leader or Maria Teresa, because I am also expecting a Byzantine leader, maybe Irene of Athens, with a preferred pathway of Greece -> Byzantium -> Russia/(Bulgaria?), but I do still think both Byzantium and Russia could squeak by with leaders at launch. There will also be a slight possibility of a modern Bulgaria civ at launch just to give Byzantium other options to progress toward.

2. We will get a Slavic Europe DLC. Civs will be Slavs (antiquity), Poland (exploration), maybe Bohemia (exploration), maybe Bulgaria (modern) if it isn't in base game, maybe Serbia (exploration), maybe even Muscovy or Novogorod or even Kievan Rus' itself(exploration). One of the two leaders will be Olga of Kiev, with a preferred leader progression of Slavs (she conquered some Slavs) -> Byzantium/Poland/Muscovy/Novgorod/Kievan Rus' (her general territory) -> Russia (she is revered as a Saint in Russian and Kievan Orthodoxy). That is how we will get Kievan Rus' representation, at minimum with Olga as a kind of magnet leader for the western Slavic heritage. And then for a second leader, I think Simeon would be great for Greece -> Byzantium -> Bulgaria, but there are probably other options.

 

[Patine]

I think the best scenario would be to have Kyiv, or the Ukrainians, as an independent power.

Because having Kievan Rus transitioning into Russia, or even Ukraine as a civ, to me isn't going to help the situation.

Kyivan/Kievan 'Rus was not a, "Ukrainian," civ, but an, "Old East Slavic," civ. There were no separate Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Ruthenians, Carpathians, Gallycians, Rusyns, or any other such thing back then, and one modern Belarussian and several modern Russian cities were part of the city-state-based structure. Saying the Kyivan/Kievan 'Rus was specifically a, "Ukrainian," civ, and not a general ancestral, "East Slavic," is about as revisionist as Putin saying, "Ukraine never existed." Both Russia or Ukraine - or the Soviet Union - should be able to easily transform from the Kyivan/Kievan 'Rus.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Kyivan/Kievan 'Rus was not a, "Ukrainian," civ, but an, "Old East Slavic," civ. There were no separate Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Ruthenians, Carpathians, Gallycians, Rusyns, or any other such thing back then, and one modern Belarussian and several modern Russian cities were part of the city-state-based structure. Saying the Kyivan/Kievan 'Rus was specifically a, "Ukrainian," civ, and not a general ancestral, "East Slavic," is about as revisionist as Putin saying, "Ukraine never existed." Both Russia or Ukraine - or the Soviet Union - should be able to easily transform from the Kyivan/Kievan 'Rus.

The term "Ukrainians" was meant as a possible name for the Modern Age, not for the Exploration Age. Kyiv could still exist in the Exploration Age, maybe even under the name Rurikids. I do understand that Kyivan Rus was the progenitor East Slavic state, but honestly, I'd be surprised if they do make it a playable civilization or use the term "Rus".

 

[Fummy]

No Russia in the base game in any of the three eras is reason to not buy the game.