06-03-2001 23:37									#1
	Racism in Civ games? Get a bigger avatar today!

It seems that Civ game developers have to be careful about accusations of racism. In SMAC/X it isn`t really an issue. Obviously the faction leaders have to belong to a particular racial group, but their followers are presumably drawn from all sections of society. One of the shortcomings of Call to Power is that the races all play the same way regardless of history (I don`t know about CTP2). But if each race had its own character then some might consider it racist. In the first Civilization I seem to remember that - in my amiga version anyway - the manual mentioned Turks. These were replaced in the final game with some other race. The manual referred to the Turks as being an "unpleasant neighbour". I thought that could have been rephrased!

	08-03-2001 13:42									#2
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Well, I agree that SMAC doesn't have much in the way of racism, tho having Morgan, (of African orgin) as capitalist, can conjure up images of a futuristic "gansta-pimp" but that might be far fetched...

Now Call to Power 1 on the other hand.... CTP1 has the "warrior" unit who is basically modelled after the "Native American" chieftan. The "insult upon injury" part of it being the .WAV dialog consists of comment like "Me Tired".... That is just plainly racists.

In CTP2 the warrior has been fixed. One thing I would like to see is a reasonable graphical representation of the various groups in the game. For instance the Zulu units having a darker complexion that the English. Currently everyone is white. Another aspect that annoys me is the "Samurai" unit [forgive spelling]. This is an appropriate unit for the Japanese, and maybe a few other southeast asian cultures represented in the game, but that is about it. If they had a unit unique to each culture with the same attributes that would be great.

Well I'll stop there before I really get worked up.

	08-03-2001 14:47									#3
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(double)

[This message has been edited by Horus (edited March 08, 2001).]

	08-03-2001 14:50									#4
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I only have to agree. My opinion is that Smac(X) is rather balanced according to race and gender perspective. The specific settings for different factions are based rather on their 'approach' than race or gender. e.g. Morgan is a capitalism and his likings is based on that very fact, not on the fact that he is coloured or male. The same is true with the rest of the bunch, the scottish Miriam is a fanatic on the first hand, not on the fat that she is a female North West European.

[This message has been edited by Horus (edited March 08, 2001).]

	08-03-2001 17:10									#5
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Just to nitpick, Miriam is American. Dierdre is the Scot.

	08-03-2001 17:29									#6
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And we all know how THEY are.

	09-03-2001 12:58									#8
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And Dierdre is a "cutie"... but that's sexist, right? ;P


------------------
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	09-03-2001 15:57									#9
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I had to stifle a smile when I saw that they'd made the Collectivist Militaristic Tyrant a man of ethnic Chinese origin. What's even more surprising is that he looks quite a bit like my paternal grandfather, who has more in common with Morgan than Sheng.

	10-03-2001 14:09									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Yeah, "Chairman" Yang is pretty played out, eh? It erked me quite a bit, I mean why do so many associate socialism with the Chinese?? It is such a tiny chapter in the book of an amazing culture. They may as well have used Lao Tzu, as the "leader" Daoist Immortalists... or something.

Hmmm that gives me an idea....

	10-03-2001 17:32									#12
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I guess they already did their best at SMAC/SMACX but I still Have a small notification about the "race" representation. There are as I see it 6 "white" factions (not white as in ideology but picture and background story representations), university, pirates, beliviers, gaians, cyborgs and drones. 2 asian, hive and cult (well sounds asian right). 1 middle east, PK. 2 african orgin, morgan, dataangel. 1 "latino", spartan. 1 Plus two non earth associated.
I would say hardley the correct representation of the earth pop. Although it could be the representation for wealth and frontier nations. Any thoughts?

	12-03-2001 05:24									#13
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Oh, come on guys. Jeeze....

Don't ruin these games with your PC bull****. The games aren't racist or sexist or anything else.

	12-03-2001 14:30									#15
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

The truth, the dark one:

The different faction leaders most certainly be choosen, according to their engrossed inability to see and accept another persons (i.e. faction leaders) point of view. That is their single strongest ability which they all got in common. The term "U.N." must - of course - be an abbreviation of "Unaccommodating Nations".

The faction leaders were packed into their spacecraft as they all were unbearable to the faction leaders who stayed at Earth, disregarding, sex, race or hygienical habits.

	12-03-2001 20:34									#16
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Walt,

I fully understand your point of view but I beg to differ when it comes to whether or not UN in reality means US/Europe. Economically and techically Japan should probably have a representation on the Unity. But then again it's all speculative since we talking about 50-60 years or so into the future, who would really know which are the dominating nations in the world. Anyway, I think you're observation about the marketting is right on target. It's probably more compelling to the marketting group with this ethnical divisions(?). White males 18-35 americans/europeans. Especially since all female representattion are young women with he exception for Scary Miriam (looks liitle bit like a frightning teacher of mine from the past).

Still grants me a nightmare from time to time. wrtiers note.

	13-03-2001 09:27									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I think Walt has the right idea. The makers of the game looked more at their target market's ethnicity rather than that of the world's.

This issue has come up before. This is just a game and sometimes I think people take the whole thing a bit too seriously. On the 'taking things too seriously' front, one thing I haven't much commentary on the 'religious message'. This whole Transcendance thing is more Zen than Christian. As well, I suspect many fundamentalists of a lot of different religions (& I am not one, honest!) wouldn't be too impressed about the object of a game being to achieve godhood.

	14-03-2001 15:05									#19
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Yikes, I liked the Buddhist connotations better. I don't want remain in this body forever. THAT is like the seed which is afraid to destroy itself by becoming a tree.

	15-03-2001 02:19									#20
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Now Call to Power 1 on the other hand.... CTP1 has the "warrior" unit who is basically modelled after the "Native American" chieftan. The "insult upon injury" part of it being the .WAV dialog consists of comment like "Me Tired".... That is just plainly racists

Hmmm...my only anwer to this...and this is after playing CTP again...HOPING for a decent gaming experience...is that activision wasn't really being racist in making the old warrior character. They just didn't put any thought in it. It seems activision didn't put a lot of thought in a lot of things. (Like CTP2)

I don't think the SMACX factions were ever created to cause any racial bias. Having written one or two stories for the fiction section, I've always thought the future humans had gone beyond the concept of racial differences. Far fetched? Maybe. But the concept is far fetched.