Will Civ V have diverse units?

[bonafide11]

One of the things that bothered me about Civ IV was how every worker appeared the same, every musketman appeared the same, every archer appeared the same, etc. It was really annoying how there was no diversity among the units. It's also very Eurocentric since every single unit is white unless it's a UU. Civ Revolution, if I remember correctly, corrected this and Zulu workers appeared different than American workers, etc. So has Firaxis announced if they're planning on making diverse units, or are we going to have to wait for mods to fix this again?

Also, while I love the diverse units to add some flavor to the game, I have to point out it's also problematic. Civ basically assumes the United States (and every other civilization) is homogenous, while the United States has a large black and hispanic population, along with other races as well. It wouldn't hurt for the American civilization to have units of different skin colors. Why can't they have white and black workers?

Thoughts? Please keep it civil so we can have one thread to remain open on the front page.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I don't think civ-specific diversity is necessary, and if anything it's a waste of time and resources, but cultural-specific diversity (i.e. different art for East Asian civs, different art for Middle Eastern civs, etc.) is fine by me. I don't really care about the difference between, say, a German and French knight. But I would find it pretty odd that the Arabic knight would look exactly like his European counterpart.

So - not too much, but just enough for flavour.

 

[ori]

Since they announced that they are aiming for regional differences in the terrain, I would not be surprised if they aimed for some differences between civilizations or civilization groups in terms of units and/or other art (e.g. city/building style) as well.

 

[Gre_Magus]

Beyond the Sword already had some ethnic diversity in the units; I imagine that Civ 5 will have some as well.

 

[bonafide11]

I really wonder how they'll handle racial representation though. That's one of the more problematic and difficult aspects of Civ. How did anyone they ever get away with making every single unit white? Don't they have to advise them on issues of cultural and racial diversity?

If they need someone, I'd be happy to help!

 

[Zhahz]

To me something like this is purely eye candy that has zero impact on gameplay. It'd be nice to see, but it doesn't really matter all that much overall.

I can honestly say that in all my months/years of playing Civ IV I never once noticed the skin color of my troops or thought about it!

 

[grant2004]

I'm not sure they're all white, I zoomed in on a Korean warrior today and it looked pretty asian to me. I'm not sure if I've seen any black units besides UUs, I haven't played with the Zulu or the Mali in a while.

 

[Ahriman]

Yes, units in Civ5 will be 50% female, 5% gay and 25% chinese.

More seriously, I would be strongly against unit variation within a given factory. All American workers should look the same, as should all Indian musketmen and all English frigates.

The primary purpose of a unit icon is to make it immediately obvious to the viewer what the unit is. Starting to make different copies of the same unit look different makes this process more difficult.

 

[Thormodr]

Well, they said they were going to have terrain zones. Asian, African, European, American, etc. They also have different city styles.

I am sure Firaxis saw that these things were quite popular in mods. There is a demand for this sort of thing.

Since they are having leaders speak in their own language I think it's quite natural that the units will look like the Civs they represent. At least their culture groups anyway.

This is good for immersion as well as being a smart PR move.

Civ has been used as a teaching tool in schools before. Promoting ethnic and cultural diversity is a good way to keep that potential market. Ensuring that that continues would be a good thing and help ensure that Civ remains a popular franchise for years to come.

 

[Woodreaux]

Being an a U.S. Army veteran, I can tell you it can be kind of difficult to determine the ethnicity of a soldier when they're in the field. The BDU's cover almost all of your skin. What gloves, helmets, goggles don't cover camo and dirt does. I imagine the unit models will depict military formations deployed, not cleaned up in parade formations. My point being America's multi-cultural identity would only really be apparent with civilian units (workers, settlers, missionaries etc).

So where do you draw the line of cultural/ethnic/racial differentiation? Skin tones could easily applied to races associated with various civs... but what about clothing, armor and gear styles? sort of does that some unit types (archers, spearmen, horse archers) not by civ, but groups of civs (e.i.: Middle East- N. Africa, East Asia, European, New World)... but it becomes generic by the Industrial Era. By that point, you get to differences in uniforms and equipment that historically changed by country by time period (sometimes very frequently). Also, for the Modern Era, there are only a hand full of civs represented that actually produced examples of the units in the game. Would America have Abrams, Bradley's and Paladins, the Russians T-80's, BMP's and 2S19's? Then what do we do for the Aztecs or Carthage? What kind Modern Armor, Mech Inf and SPAARTY models should they get? Is a civilization's equipment not as important as the color of its peoples' skin?

I hope I'm not misunderstood here. I'm not advocating a U.S. or Euro-centric portrayal of everything. I'm all for inclusiveness. But I think if it is done, it should be done right. And no, I don't have a good answer on how to do this.

 

[The_J]

Being an a U.S. Army veteran, I can tell you it can be kind of difficult to determine the ethnicity of a soldier when they're in the field. The BDU's cover almost all of your skin. What gloves, helmets, goggles don't cover camo and dirt does. I imagine the unit models will depict military formations deployed, not cleaned up in parade formations.

That's true...for modern times .
I guess, everyone should be able to see the difference between a european knight and it's asian equivalent.

 

[Ahriman]

Well, they said they were going to have terrain zones. Asian, African, European, American, etc. They also have different city styles.

Across civs? Sure. Within a Civ? Nope.
[Exception; terrain graphics will vary by continent, not by Civ.]

I don't mind if an American Musketeer looks different from a Zulu Musketeer. I do mind if American Musketeer 1 looks different from American Musketeer 2. The primary purpose of icons is immediate recognition.

Civ can tech history, but should *not* be a deliberate mechanism for teaching about "diversity" (or environmentalism...). This is a game, aimed mostly at adults.

 

[Perfxion]

Japan should be different than say Egypt, which both should be different from say France. Which should be different from Aztec. Going for regional spits is one thing. I fully support having that many different regional splits. But, having each civ have different skin gets to the point of having 18 different skins of the same unit. Then lets say that there is 40 different units thats 720 non UUs in the game. That is a crazy amount of wasted time.

 

[bonafide11]

Japan should be different than say Egypt, which both should be different from say France. Which should be different from Aztec. Going for regional spits is one thing. I fully support having that many different regional splits. But, having each civ have different skin gets to the point of having 18 different skins of the same unit. Then lets say that there is 40 different units thats 720 non UUs in the game. That is a crazy amount of wasted time.

Nobody is calling for 18 different skins. How many different skin colors are there? They pretty much can get away with doing a white, black, and something in between. They don't need anything more specific than that.

 

[Craxymaxy]

While your at it why not east asian, south european, middle-eastern, south asian, aboriginal, south american the list goes one
If you do something like this you can't just go white and black and something imbetween.
I think this is a waste of time by the way

 

[bonafide11]

While your at it why not east asian, south european, middle-eastern, south asian, aboriginal, south american the list goes one
If you do something like this you can't just go white and black and something imbetween.
I think this is a waste of time by the way

Yes, you can. Have you ever looked at Civ units? They're not exactly very detailed. It'd be pretty hard to do anything to make them look "South American" or "South Asian." I mean it's basically just a skin tone, which can be done very easily. Several mods have done this and they were very successful and popular. And it's been a while since I played Civ Revolution, but I'm fairly sure they did this too, so I assume Civ V will do it as well. It really doesn't take long at all.

I don't see how it's a waste of time (nor do I understand of who's time? That's what they're getting paid to do...) -- it gives the game much more flavor and a more unique feel. The game looks and feels a lot better when civs actually reflect their civilization instead of all just being white. Trust me, try some mods that do this and you'll be impressed with how much better the game looks having civilizations look different from each other.

 

[Perfxion]

By skin I don't mean the color of someone's skin. I mean the paint job on the unit. The whole outfit being a skin. Having 18 different spearman would be silly. Having like 5 because of the different regions would be fine.

 

[Ahriman]

By skin I don't mean the color of someone's skin. I mean the paint job on the unit. The whole outfit being a skin.

Unfortunately, the OP was proposing* multiple skin colors, so that for example the US would have black and hispanic units.

Huge Waste of Time. (IMHO).

*Edit* Replace "literally arguging for" with "proposing" (More fair to the OP).

 

[bonafide11]

Unfortunately, the OP was literally arguing for multiple skin colors, so that for example the US would have black and hispanic units.

Huge Waste of Time. (IMHO).

I wasn't arguing for it, I was looking for feedback on it since I find having the entire civ be one skin as very problematic. I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not, but I wanted to discuss it with other people. I understand why people might not like the idea -- I'm not sure if I'm sold on it yet either, but I don't see how it's a huge waste of time since it wouldn't take long at all. If they already have the skin colors in the game for different Civs, it would be fairly easy to make it so some units (workers for instance) have light skin and some have dark skin. It'd just be a random thing.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Ethnically Diverse Units is a good thing since it greatly increases the flavour.

Ethnically Diverse Cities a la Civ3 (Greco-Roman, Middle Eastern, Far Eastern, Ameridian, European, one for every era) are required. It's a shame that in BTS we still don't have it - the job feels half-done, which is in a way worse for the flavour then not doing it at all. Thankfully, we can install mods, but it always slightly weird for me to see screenshots of half-done BTS city flavour when lurking online games.