Alternative History as Gameplay: Civ 6 and EUIV
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- I hadn't seen anyone talk about this yet so I thought I'd do a bit of a "beginner-friendly" dive into how Alternative History gameplay shakes out in these games and how we can read into them.
I've always been bugged a bit by how Civ presents its content, despite being a borederline lifelong fan of the series, so hopefully I've done it some justice here. That's all I can really hope for.
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Intro: 00:00
What are these games: 00:51
What is "What If": 5:18
Caveats: 9:07
Defining a Nation: 12:00
The Player and the People: 15:10
Atrocity: 28:17
What If and Turnabout: 33:40
What is Victory?: 36:06
Symmetry and its Consequences: 40:50
The Enlightenment: 43:10
Conclusion and "Credits": 50:33
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Sources for things:
China stuff:
www.cambridge.org/core/journa...
Fairbank- Fairbank, John K., ed. The Chinese World Order: Traditional China's Foreign Relations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968. Page 9
Columbus
www.theguardian.com/world/200...
Expel
www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
Wizard
davidmattingly.com/fantasy/ - Hry
Small correction. Trade winds are a separate mechanic increasing ship speed in certain directions, and are based on the real-life phenomenon of the same name.
I just looked them up and mention seems rather scant but it seems there actually is a trade wind mechanic that affects coring range. Interesting.
I was using the term to refer to the direction trade flows- represented by the arrows of the trade map.
Thanks for the info, it’s truly assured how many little things there are to learn with this game.
I have not played eu4, but I think that, even if the trade winds are based on something real, the way they seem to be implemented does reveal a bias. Trade winds did not flow all year round with the same strength and direction, and there were more trade winds than just those pointing to europe. There was a wind that blew from europe to brazil, but I think that the game does not simulate that with wealth flowing from europe to south america. Also, even if the wind blew all the way to some location, captains could decide how far they would follow the wind. So wealth did not necessarily accumulated at the end of the wind stream, but could be distributed all along its length.
@@polifemo3967 As I said, trade winds are an entirely separate mechanic that doesn't actually have anything to do with trade. Confusing, I know.
@@polifemo3967 the game does implement the trade winds from Europe to Brazil, it gives the Iberian nations an early springboard to colonize Brazil.
@@seppokajantie9588no, trade winds is absolutely justified mechanic and it exists irl. There was a study of the impact of colonialism on gdp of islands, which were colonised. Since colonists usually settle for richer islands, they used wind direction as an instrumental variable for the chance of an island being colonised
18:03 "Why isn't Eurasia one continent?"
Interesting question, because the answer actually depends on where you live. I live in Russia, and here we were teached since childhood that Eurasia *is* in fact one continent, while Europe and Asia are "parts of the world". But when my little brother have moved to finish his school in Austria, he told me that he was surprised that they don't have a concept of "parts of the world", and consider Europe and Asia separate continents instead of Eurasia. He even jokingly called them "entitled" for "thinking they live on a separate continent".
I had never heard that before. It’s unsurprising that different places would have just as diverse understandings of continents and geography as cultures do their own calendars.
yeah, in latin America, North and South America are just one single continent
In Italy, we have a loose concept of continents, people will accept both Europe - Asia and Eurasia, same with the Americas. In the end continents are large general zones of the world defined by us, they don't hold any important significance. It's fine merging or dividing them based on the context: Let's say Japan wants to enter in the EU, it couldn't just because it isn't in Europe? That's would be really stupid, we would just call the EU "Eurasian Union" from now on, and problem solved.
Continents are like colors on a rainbow, we can distinguish Red and Yellow, but where does one end and the other start? Could we subdivide them in more sub-colors like orange? Or merge them just as "Hot colors"?
The truth is, it doesn't really matter, they are just terms to use in common language to quick and easily express our point, they aren't anything strictly defined, and that's how continents should be treated.
Some even see all of Afroeurasia as one continent. This debate actually dates back to antiquity, where some scholars at the time found the whole continent idea just so arbitrary. After all these landmasses were connected.
@@Cythil well, Suez then did definitely separated the continent
13:46 Ironically, you could call the Aztecs the "Mexican Empire", because in their language, the Aztecs called themselves the "Mexica".
It would be inadequate to call it anything other but the Mexica Empire
Without the “n”, it helps to differentiate from modern Mexico and its 2 Mexican Empires because modern Mexico is not a continuation of the Mexica Empire, but of the New Spain realm
@@Leo-ok3ujIt’s also worth noting that the term “Aztec” largely came from scholarly use after the empire was well and truly gone. The name Aztec is very similar to the name Byzantine in that as a name it’s not particularly true for the period but it does serve use to us after the fact. Especially given that not all who would’ve been called Mexica were apart of what would be called the “Mexica” or “Aztec” Empire.
@@PhoenixStriker1 You are right except for one thing, it is not everyone who could be considered an Aztec would be Mexica, and not all subjects of the empire would be considered Mexica either. Even today, many people call Nahuatl "Mexica" in Nahuatl as in "the language of the Mexicas" or "the language of the people of Mexico" because their ancestors spoke something else before the expansion of the empire and the normalisation of Nahuatl outside of the "Aztec" cores.
What we call the Aztec Empire - more accurately: the Aztec Triple Alliance - is comprised of different tribes/groups known collectively as the Nahuas. The Mexica [mesheeka] is just one of seven or more tribes/groups of the Nahua peoples, the other three (that I can name of the top of my head) were the Tlaxcala, Acolhua and Tepaneca. So, not all of what we now call them as Aztecs would call themselves "Mexica", as that would be specific to the people of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco.
Note that "Nahua" comes from the word "Nahuatl", which is the name of the language that they speak.
tl;dr - Aztec Empire = Nahua Empire, more like (though that's equivalent to calling the Roman empire as "Latin Empire"); the Aztecs aren't just comprised of Mexicas
20:05 devs explained that it's resoult of game limitations. In eu3 you had dynamic trade zones and it was one of the reasons why game was unstable in multiplayer. And since we had static trade nodes they had to end somewhere. Why? Because any goods are gaining value every time they change trade node and it would make an infinite loop that breaks the game. So devs had to decide on endpoints for trade and simply went for global trade centers of the era. Like how trade node would end up in China when historically chinese refused to buy any nonchinese goods exept for gold and silver.
I, for one, would always enjoy an unhinged rant
Maybe someday.
always wanted more long form content about my addictions, never really seen anymore examining pdx games or civ like this so thought Id comment to help in the algorithm, cheers and have a nice day!
Hi. At about 50 seconds I said click the link to "here" and there's nothing there. I was unable to edit in the link with youtube itself, so just go to the "What is What If" chapter section if you want to skip past explaining what the games are.
29:50 Plantation style crops DO get a bonus to their Value via price change events when something approximating the Triangle Trade advents. The events don't actually say anything about slavery, but they do typically only trigger when a european colonial power collects provinces that produce the new good, which means they're a multi-continent empire and probably use slaves. But yeah, I'm not aware of any "use slave labor" estate privilege that reduces development costs in colonies etc. Some of these events where "supply goes up" actually *decrease* the Value of the trade good, because supply & demand.
"Just try to match the Ottomans year-for-year" You *can* do it, they even added an achievement for going beyond, but exploits are almost mandatory, and you're going to run into coalitions.
Culture conversion in eu4 makes countries of said culture lose 30 opinion of u per province, so there're consequences to that (beyond just spending mana on it)
So it is genocide, danm. Ironically its the diplomacy mana even
@@logoncal3001 it is definitly cultural genocide at the least.
but ı wana make the pasific japanes ): @@logoncal3001
@@MouldedMindcultural genocide? It's cultural conversion or settlement, genocide isn't a good descriptor as it's portrayed as, well, conversion. It's more akin to englands conquest of Scotland, a cultural bleed that while the group is still distinct, they speak and act like the English more or less today. It's hard to model that in a game, but the only historical cultural genocide that fits the period is native culture so I don't think it fits outside of the Americas
@@logoncal3001It isn’t genocide in “kill everybody” as development doesn’t go down. It’s more of a cultural genocide, outside cultures moving in diluting the natives. The government banning local cultures, establishing schools of a foreign culture, etc.
Hordes razing a province would be closer to genocide as the development goes down.
The limit to Civ modelling of the world is the reason why I want to for a long time to make my own take on a historical centred 4x game. Funny enough the "Fall" of civilizations would be a core part of what I wanted to make. Even use the work title of "Rise and Fall of Civilization". An important part is however also to make people realize that civilizations do not truly fall. They just transform (Very few cultures have just disappeared. Some really isolated communities are the only ones I know off). And this transformation being natural and not necessarily a bad thing. Rather, it can be a good thing. And in the end, this would be more about your personal journey though time as you embody your own shifting culture. I always like 4X game that were more about the 5th X. Experience.
A lot of this is still a lot of vague concepts, even if I have to work on some of the mechanics on paper. But I really need to stop procrastinating and actually make something. But then again there are so many other things to do. I get easily distracted, sadly... >_
Look up Humankind.
@@riverman6462 Got the game. Not fully what I am looking for. It does not really model the whole idea of fall. It is a steady progression where you pick cultures. And I want something that is more your own story with your own culture. Of course, inspired by history. But more you own thing than a mish mash of history.
Do like Humankind, however. The new, Latin America DLC is pretty cool even if I have not gotten to play it too much.
@@Cythil But what if my empire falls and gets conquered by other empires/cultures? Will it be game over in this game of yoursm
@@riverman6462 I was thinking maybe there would be a way to continue even then.
(Need to work out how such mechanics would work. But the goal is more of a collaborative story making experience then a competitive one. Though one can of course set up once own competitive goals. ;) )
@@Cythil Yes! I fully agree with you! So many games model empires rising... and then rising... and then rising some more... still rising...
...And never falling. These games model history as an inexorable upwards trajectory of power and progress, where the only way to "lose" is to be conquered by another polity that rose faster and sooner than you did. I have never seen a game model something like the end of the Western Roman Empire. Not organically, at least - plenty of games have scripted systems and mechanics to force polities to implode. But I don't know of any where that implosion can occur naturally in the course of a game, just as a result of the game's rules and systems playing off each other.
I've actually been kicking around some of my own ideas for such a game, and trying to cobble something together in Unity. Though one thing I've realised while brainstorming is that to create a simulation of state collapse, one will inevitably have to encode one's politics directly into the game. Because "what causes states to collapse?" is a *profoundly* political question, with equally political answers. And most game devs either don't feel confident in their ability to answer that question, or are too afraid of potential backlash for displaying their politics so openly.
I am confident in my ability to answer that question, and not afraid to reveal my politics. Indeed, I think being honest about my political leanings would be much more productive than pretending that I and my work is somehow apolitical.
I just think that Victoria III will be very interesting in regard of how they will threated some "what if" possibility , where pops , economy and politics are the main focus (honestly since elden ring was out , it's my main waiting game . It seem so refreshing/creative on papers on many aspects ) .
PS: i wanted to add someting for the algorithm of youtube but not just for the sake of it ; great video so far , let see the next one . I like to digest them and not binge-watch them without thinking a little about it .
This is an incredible video that touches on issues I've had with grand strategy games for YEARS!
what you said about reading your own post and finding it suuuper relatable is super relatable
I have played eu4 a lot, and I think you missed 2 important elements that explain a lot of mechanics that you criticised: 1. Eu4 tries to simulate history, 2. Eu4 is an outdated and too simplified game (even with all it's complexity) to do it correctly.
It wants to give results that are more or less what happened during those 350 years unless the player tries to change it. But it can't do it by adding real world reason why it happened, so instead they kind of try to "reverse engineer history" with very simple solutions. And if you assume this, it becomes clear why many mechanics are the way they are: Why trade winds do to Europe? Because European global empires are supposed to dominate the world in like the 17th century and forward. Why are European institutions directly responsible for technology costs? Because Western civilisation became ahead in technology over the rest of the world in n that period , it should be able to get tech the cheapest. Why slaves are a trade good? Because there should be a slave trade as it was during colonial times. Etc
Other solutions closer to the real world would be too complicated to describe and particularly to implement as a mechanic. One of the examples is even doing a small change: allowing players to revert the trade wind. It breaks the trade node graph, making loops in it that creates infinite values of money. To add it correctly it, the entire trade system would have to be rewritten.
Eu4 tries to be a history simulator but also a sandbox that you may alter history to a ridiculous degree. It also wants to be a fun game that has almost 9 years of active development, and adding content to it is more and more different. And most importantly it is supposed to be source of income to a large game corporation, and simplification of mechanics is cheaper than going into details for historical accuracy or more option for alt history.
So overall i think the bias in eu4 is not due to the actual developer's bias, but due to what it tries to be and how it fails.
And no, converting culture is not genocide. Razing provinces is.
Yeah I actually forgot to include razing in the section about atrocity which is admittedly a big oversight given how it’s a fairly obvious one- I don’t play hordes much so it skipped my mind.
My argument isn’t that EU4 is bad at being a sandbox or simulator- I think it strikes a good balance ultimately. When I play I feel I have the freedom to shape the era but it’s also got enough guidance that I can feel like I’m fighting history, so to speak.
I think that’s why posts about “playing outside of Europe” reveals are popular- because that’s when the player had no direct impact and suddenly for no explained reason the AI Croatia took over the Ottomans or something.
I appreciate the feedback.
Forcibly changing the culture of an area is genocide, specifically cultural genocide. Do you think that the alleged Chinese “culture conversion” of people in Xinjiang (to make them more “Chinese”) would be considered something other than cultural genocide?
@@ByzantineDarkwraith Exactly. The original definition of genocide as invented by Raphael Lemkin always considered the genociding of the culture of a people, and not just its living members, to be central to the concept. The only reason there's a distinction today is because the member nations of the newly formed UN, in the wake of WW2, didn't want to agree to erasing of culture being part of this gravest sin of genocide, due to the fact that they would all be guilty of this crime. Thus, everyone who denies that cultural erasure can be genocide are genocide deniers, based on the false and self-serving distinction of implicated imperialists.
Absolutley blasted at the moment. This video rocks borther
16:30:
When you’re talking about quality of life of the people I will generally agree but add that the estate mechanics simulate this for a small portion of the population. By giving privileges to certain people you can ostensibly measure their quality of life especially when combined with loyalty mechanics and events dealing with the monarch and members of these groups.
Interesting ideas about my two favourite games. Instant sub.
As someone who plays both games I really like the idea of comparing them! New sub for you!
I got into the genre in Civ 1, by always playing aztecs on the world map, which ironically has a huge benefit because often, you can freely colonize 2 entire continents by yourself from the start and often can run over europe, fighting spears with tanks. So I *did* gravitate towards that style, even in a game not exactly optimized for it.
I do note that Civ actually *used* to have atrocity points, both Civ 2 and SMAC had mechanics where certain actions (razing a city, using nuclear weapons, etc.) would incur diplomatic penalties. And one of the civs had some kind of council mechanic were you could institute/repeal them, IIRC?
I hope you’re keeping a keen eye on the development of Project Tinto (basically Eu5). A lot of the abstraction found in Eu4 are being mended in Eu5 based on the dev diaries. Whether they’re implemented well or are enjoyable to partake in is left up to be seen.
We’ll have to now actually care about production methods, internal politics, actual population demographics and their demands. It’ll be interesting to see your view on the game with all of this.
One time I installed every animated leader mod for Civ 5 I could find.
I was running around the Pangaea continent I created max number of civs on marathon and max world size of course, and I ran into David of Israel, was very cool.
Then I ran further north and... oh no.... oh no no no.
It was Hitler.
As you can imagine, it was not long before war broke out.
I quickly came to Israel's aid and destroyed Germany.
But of course, this is Civ, so I immediately ate Israel shortly after.
Little bits of chaos like that are... I guess the word is fun?
Though the humour here is extremely dark. I didn't play with the Hitler mod after that, I preferred having David around and Bismarck was just a far better rep for Germany anyway, but it was _interesting_ to try it out once.
When you said that China “unlocked” divine right before everyone by thousands of years before the Europeans i felt like my 3rd eye open. It fundamentally shifted my view of history historical narratives and implicit historical basis I never knew I had.
Granted with China, there is some form of cultural continuity (prevalence, de jure or de facto, of Mandarin or its ancestors, Confucianism, Daoism, and certain Buddhist schools, for the entire imperial period the political concept of the Mandate of Heaven, common care about a few surprisingly long-lasting literary and poetic works also permeates a number of dynasties, also the exam focused method for selecting civil administrators), and most Chinese dynasties have openly insisted that they ARE the successors to previous ones and gone out of their way to make that clear.
Also with Persia which is the next most historically continuous state, I guess part of it is a matter of how culturally Persian a dynasty is vs being strongly attached to a foreign conqueror’s ancestral culture, for example how we would consider the Timurid or Seljuk empires Turkic or A,expander or the Seleucids Greek while the Qajars though having Turkic emperors are seen as a Persian dynasty.
Mexico lacks the cultural continuity from the Aztecs that one might find between say the comparably temporally distant Ming Dynasty and modern China.
Not that China is culturally stagnant, obviously the CCP is in many ways deeply different from the Ming, Qing, and certainly more distant dynasties, but underlying cultural currents either in the government, or among the people, or both, and the claim to succession are definitely more notable than in most other countries. The past is a different country, but compare pre-Roman Celtic Britain to modern Britain and the China of that time to the China of today and the difference is clear. I guess it’s in large part down to how big the population of China’s core is and how hard it thus is for migrating or conquering groups to displace that culture with their own.
I haven't played EU4 much, but I played a lot of Crusader Kings 3 and making a massive empire while playing as Lithuania is super easy while AI always fails at it.
Cool video, found it thru the pdx forum post. I'm sort of torn on whether I like this approach to the topic in order to make it more palatable to a wide audience of Gamers(tm) or if I feel like the message would be a bit stronger by being more explicit--you know references to problematic elements being bad without really digging into the origins and implications of eurocentrism can kinda go over people's heads or just be dismissed offhandedly. Excited to check out more of your content though, it's rare we get people to both address strategy games with this kind of lens of criticism who have actually played them for more than a few hours and are thus intimately familiar with the game itself and the community.
Apparently I broke the rules with that post, though I didn’t know at the time, hah. Yeah I really never see the broader genre discussed with much nuance. I plan on making another one some time possibly more specifically narrowed in on Civ’s “classical liberalism” someday as well as one about the broader concept of “atrocity” across Paradox games (spoiler, I think they’re smart about it)
@@Rosencreutzzz ooo sounds cool. Looking forward to it.
Thanks!
While I like your arguments overall, I think you kinda miss the mark when you talk about slavery not giving a production boost to the colonies.
Because in EU4, none of the events that simulate increses/decreases in production do. They all target the price of the good instead of the amounts produced. Even a vulcanic erruption will not lower your production, it will just sink the price for thats easier to simulate.
The triangular trade does boost the value of certain trade goods, and with what i wrote above, its very obvious that this is the games way of telling you that production was boosted even if the amount produced technicially stays the same - again, this is just the way the game does it with all other events too.
funnily enough the same values you use to judge games like europa are where created in the 1800s a time period that pardox covers with victoria 2, its in this time period where mechanics such as poverty, standard of living, suffrage etc become relevant. Its almost as if the values the games hold follow the time period it represents.
Have you done a video about Alpha Centauri yet?
the definition of nation you provide hasnt really been used for 50+ years
I don't think it's fair to look at eu4 and civ6 through the same lens. Eu4 is actually an alternate history game. Civ6 is an advanced risk. It's incredibly gamified. There is a reason why usa starts in history in the stone age. Eu4 is trying to simulate what history would actually look like if the state took actions that player takes. Which justifies more scrutiny.
It's very funny that in the recomendations for this video is an EU4 Aachen video.
37:16 it's based on ottoman raid of Iceland (Turkish abduction if you want to look it up on wikipedia). It's not without basis
civ IV colonization is so fun it's the civ game i grew up on
Thanks for the insights. I really enjoyed this video. But though being a historian I am also able to enjoy the civ games. It´s a game 😀
7:40 what’s the game 🤔
Civ 4 colonization, and he's right if you can get past the 2005 jank.
I know this is an old video, but there is a mod for EU4 that makes trade nodes and their directions dynamic.
CIV COL IS AMAZING OMGGGG!!!!
I think that Civ’s characterization as a what if game is iffy (pardon the pun). Unlike other what if strategy games (I can’t come up with an example not from Paradox, they really have a stranglehold on the genre), Civ isn’t actually attempting to depict a scenario in history and possible alternatives to what actually happened. It just uses actual states and things that happened in history (or what the Civ devs thought actual states and events in history were like) to create a mechanical basis for the game to develop from and along.
Hey dude! What do you think about «Humankind» ? Have you played it?
I’ve actually got a video comparing Civ and HK but I might have to revisit HK since they updated it a lot since then.
You should do a video about the Endless Universe.
lol just based on the title, why does "what if" gameplay need to be explained? Guess ill find out soon
Turnabout is my favourite thing to do in EU4. Usually by becoming a strong american nation and beating back the europeans. Though I am also partial to playing a romanian state and kicking the ottomans in the teeth.
What's the forgotten, but fun game at 7:46?
I was wondering the same!
X3
Rosencreutz answered below - it's Civ 4’s edition of Colonization
50:53 sounds like a challenge.
The fact that Civ 6 is a video game form of the guys who said history was driven by the “protestant work ethic” is really funny.
7:42 what's this game?
Civ 4’s edition of Colonization, which is based on an older game of the same name
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_IV:_Colonization
@@Rosencreutzzz Oh thank you! I was thinking everything from Patrician to Port Royale
The European and US consumers of this type of games or most alt history youtube channels even, don't actually like alt history that makes European powers or the USA take a back sit. Or even that some other area of the world can "industrialize" in any "realistic" alt history scenario.
In EU4 the playerbase was quite upset when you could get technology almost anywhere in the world. And even more unhappy when AI Native Americans can actually put up a fight against Europeans, even worse when it comes to South American natives.
In another game, Victoria 1 and 2, (haven't played 3 but it seemed to be the same situation) resources relevant for industrialization are only present in USA, Europe, mostly Western Europe, China and a Japan/Korea. Suspiciously coinciding with were most of the players countries of origin will buy the game.
Africa, South America and the rest of Asia or the Balkans have almost no resources to industralize.
Geography dictates history
@@Pandamaster2871 Certainty fake geopgrahy.
@@celdur4635 what is fake geography 💀💀
@@Pandamaster2871 When the games portray an area of the world differently, poorer and more rugged than it really is.
@@Pandamaster2871 It influences history. It does not dictate.
18:23 why Euroasia and not Afroeuroasia?
There is something mildly strange about listening to this while playing EU4.
Changing culture in a province certainly isn't a good thing. But... it doesn't cause any unrest or devastation whatsoever so it can't be done in a too atrocious way. Still not nice of course.
neat
Concrete was not forgotten
Changing culture uses Diplomacy points. It’s clear it’s more on the level of promoted languages, governorship etc. plus who actually uses attack natives??? Like it’s expensive and doesn’t do anything
7:40 bruh you can't NOT tell me what that game is though come on.
My big-picture problem with your critique of Civ's presentation of progression/The Enlightment is that it is, to say the least, incredibly difficult to imagine alternatives that could be implemented into game play. You want Civ to to imagine a progression where China led the way for rationalism/empiricism and was the first to industrialize? Fine, then you explain in detail what that looks like, and how it would be different from the historical Enlightenment.
Colombus wasn't that bad
🌹✖️
I don't think you realy conveyed what CIV actually is. It's an overgrown 80's computerized board game, to play with friends. At it's core it never tried to simulate the "intricacies of euro centrism and colonialization" Its only meant for a group of people to have the same start, same progression, and only the player's skill and knowledge of the mechanics, with a lots of rng to win. It's just complicated risk. If you got rid of the names of the different civs and just called them red, blue, dark blue, gray etc, and gave them a couple of bonuses, it would transform the game from a "historical simulation" to just a game, seperated from "historical events". Like, you don't fault monopoly for it's inaccurate portrayal of capitalism. I love both games, but keep a very seperate view on what each are supposed to be in my mind.
You're right that we can't fault Monopoly, because its depiction of capitalism is correct. It started out as the Landlord's Game, an explicitly anti-capitalist boardgame, and though it ironically got bought up and turned into a heavily-marketed product, it keeps being anti-capitalist in the sheer misery it is to actually play it.
Regardless, not even the simplest boardgame should be above critique, so to change one's approach to Civilisation as you suggest would change nothing.
And the fact of the matter is that Civilisation abandoned the abstractions of "blue team vs. red team" in favour of a historical framing, so your approach would be detrimental to understand the game as it actually presents itself.
Games are political, as all human activity inevitably ends up being, and your example of Monopoly ironically only ends up highlighting that. Try again.
@@jovaniibb "fact of the matter is that Civilisation abandoned the abstractions of "blue team vs. red team" in favour of a historical framing"
"Games are political, as all human activity inevitably ends up being"
Bro pick one, either civ is a-political, or everything is political, you cant have it both ways.
@@SpahGaming They didn't say that Civilization was apolitical. They literally said that Civilization abandoned abstractions - that is, presenting in-game teams and units as utterly arbitrary playing pieces - in favour of something that evoked reality. And in doing so, Civilization invites political scrutiny, because the real-world imagery that it swaddles itself in is absolutely not apolitical.
Aesthetics are not a disposable aspect of a videogame. They are as much a part of the artistic experience as the game's mechanics.
@@tbotalpha8133 7 months ago, i dont even remember watching this video or commenting
@@SpahGaming sounds like a skill issue
I wont stand the Civ4 Colonization slander!!! 😤
Civ4 is the best civ and everything after is garbage
I am not also a fan of the idea that these games often times glorify historical characters who were beyond evil
Cmon the game is called "Civilization"
I don't think having Saladin as a leader of Arabia is as controversial as you say. In fact, I'd say it makes you look ignorant, ever since the rapid expansion of Islam in the 600s, the definition of "Arab" has been expanding, and the majority population of Egypt today is considered Arab, and since there are at least 100 million people in Egypt, you could easily say that Egypt is the country with most Arabs. Saladin himself need not have been ethnically Arab, since he was a leader of Arabs, and not for the most part, Kurds.
31:00
You are digging to far into it.
It's a game, Alternative history game.
A game is not above criticism, or beneath it.
29:45 Your concentration on "atrocity" and "slavery" as a social phenomenon leads me to the view that you are american (from the USA that is) or some kind of anglo. It is unremarkable in the rest of the world, however I have noticed that in the anglospere and the USA in particular intellectuals often feel some kind of a compulsion the denounce something that doesn't exist for quite sometime. As a way to show moral rectitude maybe? They are just part of the human condition.
Anyway, good channel. Subscribed!
While I do think there is a particular emphasis placed on slavery by Americans due in no small part to how it defined the nation and its paradoxes of championing a universal freedom with one massive caveat, I do think that it's also significant to understand the Enlightenment era slavery as an entirely different beast from that of much of history beforehand. Moral contradictions aside, there is the very tangible difference of chattel slavery. When Jefferson spoke in letters on his concerns over slavery, he would often admit to knowing it was a great evil...while also continuing to profit from it, and fearing manumission would leave his heirs saddled with too much debt (as early American culture was a debtor society akin to that of the later Victorian bourgois of England). He also noted that mass emancipation would only be viable if the slaves were more evenly distributed across the country first, so as to not lead the southern states which in some cases had slaves as the majority of the human beings living in them. I think if anything else, that gives a sense of what made the slavery of the 17th century onward so different: scale and the fact people were treated like cattle.
@@Rosencreutzzz Yes, Jefferson wrote about the great evils while profiting handsomely. It is part of the Ego Managment by western people to "feel bad" about something while engaging in behavior they would otherwise find unacceptable. It is still the operation system of the anglospere to this day.
As far as US slavery being different... Different from what the spartan Helots? A race of people subjugated. But you think that since someone feels bad about (because of muh Enlighment) it makes it different? This is irrelevant. Form of western Ego and Self Perception Managment and nothing more.
Still though, good channel. Keep those videos coming. I suspect soon you will blow up!
Cheers. :)
Regardless of their universal presence in history, slavery and atrocity( I do not understand why you put these in quotes) are, in fact, social phenomenon whose causes and effects can be tracked. I see no reason to disregard the suffering caused by the trans Atlantic slave trade and its continual structural effect on American nations just because the Romans or Arabs has slavery. It seems that people try to bring this up as a what aboutism to shut down meaningful discussion entirely rather than broaden the scope of the discussion
@@stouthelm6324 They are put in quotes for emphasis.
What kind of meaningful discussion? My people were under Ottoman rule for 500 years. Now they are not. What is there more to say?
I have noticed a perverse desire in westerners to engage in subjects that are currently considered hot and make moral stands. The only stand that mattered was of the Union men in the American Civil War. All other is moral masturbation for the western bourgeois bugman and entirely meaningless.
@@Rosencreutzzz Chattel slavery? As opposed to what? All slave labor used in hard work was chattel slavery comparable to European slavery. I have heard this before when Rome is used as an example of white people being enslaved and the response is always "that was not chattel slavery". Rome was brutal to its slaves. Massive amounts of people would be conquered, put into carts and sold to massive slave plantations to do the back breaking work. They were treated like cattle in the fields. Conditions were so bad that the Romans had 3 servile wars that nearly ended the Republic.
The problem with interpreting history as "everyone did slavery but not like Europeans, that was chattel slavery" is that it ignores who writes history and our records of it. Romans wrote about slavery in their city and about their house slaves which were practically part of the family. A slave could have more power than a freedman and they could themselves become free. However of course the rich Roman historians would not write about the slave conditions in the field. It would be the same as someone 2000 years from now looking back at US history and saying "slavery in the US was not so bad, look at the house slaves" while ignoring the work done in the field.
If the slave labor was done in a mine, field or any other back breaking work, assume it was chattel slavery with high mortality rate. The only special thing about European slavery is its size in such a short period.
Wtf does "declawing the beast that is colonialism" even mean in context of Civ? What on Earth do you want a video game series to do to fix long past events you don't like?
your content is good but your tone and up-talk is really annoying
t. someone who is parroting off Howard Zinn
I feared you would do a leftist woke rant. But you didnt, your critique is very good.
Civ is just a game. But I hate the hegelian mythos it is based on. I hate it because it brought loads of ignorance and confusion to our civilization.
I see history in a cyclical way, with very few permanent changes (like the discovery of Iron, Axial age, advent of Jesus and Muhammad, the Black Death, the industrial revolution, etc).
If civ didnt have a tech tree but many ideas you could adopt and later devlop it could be much more fun. The chinese would have pick Heveanly Mandate right at the begining while Rome would have pick it much later. The incans would have a gigachad postal system while not even adopting writting.
Columbus was a hero
With those actions he took I seriously hope nobody thinks so