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Cree Nation's concern with Civilization VI and the nature of the 4X genre

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tankdrop24

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Cree concerns hammer home why Civ needs to reject its own traditions

In Civilization, civilization is a competition. Land and resources are limited, and even those nations that don't expand through military might are attempting to climb to the top of the league table in other ways. Geography, technology, culture, religion, diplomacy – they're all, to some extent, weapons to be deployed, or at least arenas where an advantage can be gained. Culture and history are the clothes that Civ wears but it's not really about building an empire or a nation, it's about sharpening a knife.

The upcoming Rise and Fall expansion for Civ VI introduces several new playable nations, but the introduction of one civ has led to criticism from an unexpected source. Yesterday, Milton Tootoosis, an elected headman-councillor of the Poundmaker Cree Nation, spoke to CBC News about the inclusion of the Saskatchewan First Nation. He acknowledged excitement about the news and noted that historical chief, Poundmaker, is to be portrayed as working to build "a bridge between settlers and First Nations". But he also voiced a fundamental concern about the portrayal: "It perpetuates this myth that First Nations had similar values that the colonial culture has, and that is one of conquering other peoples and accessing their land." It's a concern that cuts to the heart of what Civilization has always been and – I hope – to what it could become.
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I'm not sure I fully agree with this article, Civilization is basically a digital board game after all. But I think it does raise points worth of discussion. Do we really want to portray history and humanity as merely a game of accumulation?

I love Stellaris, but I do know that players tend towards role playing galactic conquerors that would make Hitler blush.
 
I think it's a bit like how Monopoly was meant to be a game that instructs the players on why capitalism sucks, but instead it morphed into like the perfect exemplar of why capitalism sucks (it's one of the most popular board games in history despite being a pile of shit and not really all that fun to play).

Civilisation is the same. It turns out 'civilisation' is a misnomer term for what the strong do to the weak. The game captures that well, but there's still that same element of cognitive dissonance in it and the marketing does try to portray it as better than it is.
 
Civ is a really good example of how games often reflect the values of their creators, even if their creators aren't necessarily aware of it. People probably didn't really think about it very much at the time, but the idea of being able to 'win' at 'civilisation' is kind of wonky. Of course, you make allowance for the fact it's supposed to be a game, but as the article notes there's been an increasingly clear conflict between the aesthetics of the series and its mechanics.


In this specific example we see how it's created a framework, and that not every identifiable culture really fits that framework.
 
Ford Prefect said:
Civ is a really good example of how games often reflect the values of their creators, even if their creators aren't necessarily aware of it. People probably didn't really think about it very much at the time, but the idea of being able to 'win' at 'civilisation' is kind of wonky. Of course, you make allowance for the fact it's supposed to be a game, but as the article notes there's been an increasingly clear conflict between the aesthetics of the series and its mechanics.


In this specific example we see how it's created a framework, and that not every identifiable culture really fits that framework.
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The main problem is cities and victory conditions, what started off as a simplifiction to make for better gameplay has been grandfathered in instead of being re-evaluated.
 
As i have played the original civilization, i still remember the time where you had to take into account the level of pollution you produced, and if you was going to use nuclear weapons or no, because you could get a extremely dangerous global warming and them a even worst nuclear winter on top of that.
 

Being friends? You are here to win. Winners don't have friends, only mountains of corpses to stand on.

Malevolo said:
As i have played the original civilization, i still remember the time where you had to take into account the level of pollution you produced, and if you was going to use nuclear weapons or no, because you could get a extremely dangerous global warming and them a even worst nuclear winter on top of that.
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Yeah game mechanics can translate into values in all sorts of interesting ways. Are units valuable and personalized, or do you they are disposable tools you sacrifice en masse? Do you steadily build a mighty infrastructure, or do you just empty a region of its resources than move to the next? How risky is an assault, how risky is a retreat? Does the defender have the advantage, or is a preemptive strike key to victory? Can you win a war while losing most every battle? Is the game competitive or cooperative or both? Is this a game with a singular win condition, or a scoreboard? Does it go on for minutes, or hours, or until you lose? Do you spend a lot of time on bureaucratic upkeep and maintenance or is the focus mainly on more overt forms of conflict?
 
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Kind'a reminds me of settlers of cattaan. Where it's probably a bit less gratuitous because even if we all oppose eachother we are competing more or less with infrastructure and who gets to be king of the hill vs a game system which ultimately goes for war and expansionalism with the end goal of uniting mankind.

Like weirdly enough even science involves settling a world where only your culture exists.

Also silly Stellaris webcomic, pacifists can only declare wars of liberation(changing government to be like yours) and that's the specie si always use for ruthless expansionalists corpocracies(just like how butterflies are always fanatic purifiers and or devouring swarms).
 
The biggest loss for peaceful victories in Civ was when they removed allied victory as a thing, IMO.

In Civ V and presumably VI, even 'peaceful' victories are often hugely aggressive. You don't get elected world leader without playing a lot of dirty tricks and fucking with your rivals etc etc.

I actually like how Endless Space 2 lets you straight-up win alliance victories, and even Stellaris makes it so that winning diplomatic victories requires you know, actual peaceful diplomacy.
 
From what I've seen of the introduction video the benefits to the Cree are all about trade and exploring. Not really the game's fault if a player takes a peaceful faction and start putting heads on spikes. I'm honestly surprised this matter didn't come up long before now since the game developers must have consulted with members of the Cree about this, especially if they're going to have Poundmaker speaking his native tongue. Was this issue raised when the Iroquois were introduced to the Civ series?
 
The Iroquois WERE expansionist conquerors so the same issue likely doesn't exist. The different tribes, confederation, and empires all had their own political and economic structures.
 
When the core game mechanics heavily reward literally putting heads on spikes and the entire game is about metaphorically putting heads on spikes in the way to be the one winner, being a "peaceful faction about trade and exploring" is a cold comfort. You are still being put on a stage with the single goal of dominating all your opponents.

As for the Iroquois, they are a different people with different values than the Cree. What one group may dislike may not bother the other.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I actually like how Endless Space 2 lets you straight-up win alliance victories, and even Stellaris makes it so that winning diplomatic victories requires you know, actual peaceful diplomacy.
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In retrospect, the increased requirements for ES2's alliance victories not only serves as a way to balance out the power of an alliance, but it also asks the player to trust their partners enough to exchange valuable strategic resources and technology in order to achieve victory faster. While one could probably wrangle a quid pro quo from an AI, with human players it still requires that one trust that the other person doesn't stab them in the back with fleet positioning and technology leaking.

In other words, cooperation is required to efficiently achieve victory with an alliance in ES2 if one is not resorting to war. A small wrinkle of course is that the AI is war-prone and makes decisions out of a black box, but it does mean that the stronger powers in an alliance should transfer resources and technology to their smaller, weaker partners if they are committed to an alliance victory as a solo moderate power can easily meet the victory conditions far faster than a strong partner in an alliance trying to do it solo.

(On that note, fuck space trees they steal your black holes and asteroid fields even if their vines give you increased travel and increased resource output. :p )
 
From my experience with endless legend, there are a few different ways to win there, most of which do not involve the conquest and slaughter of your foes, and there's even a pure diplomatic victory one. Hell, you could just sorta, not war beyond defending and battles for quests and just fuck off off-planet for a quest win (I also think it is a far better game than civ in that it makes the factions radically distinct from each other in how they play.). So it's a bit better than other games in that regard.

As for stellaris, as mentioned above, it lends itself to "how can I be the most atrocious" lines of thought. But as is, all it really supports is war- there's no other victory forms which dont involve some degree of expansionism and conquest by force. If the game had meaningful and interesting ways to interact with other empires outside of wars, then I'd stop playing space hitler or galactic conquest to give them a shot. But since it doesn't, Imma pick the playstyle which is fun, and that means murdrin.
 
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Rodyle said:
The Iroquois WERE expansionist conquerors so the same issue likely doesn't exist. The different tribes, confederation, and empires all had their own political and economic structures.
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mr_stibbons said:
When the core game mechanics heavily reward literally putting heads on spikes and the entire game is about metaphorically putting heads on spikes in the way to be the one winner, being a "peaceful faction about trade and exploring" is a cold comfort. You are still being put on a stage with the single goal of dominating all your opponents.

As for the Iroquois, they are a different people with different values than the Cree. What one group may dislike may not bother the other.
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Yes, I'm aware but it does play into the question of how much consultation the company does before moving a head with including factions and leaders to the game. Plus the objections being raised don't seem to be specific to the Cree but rather to portrayal of First Nations in general, that conquest is a colonial idea not a Native one. Thus my wondering if similar objections were raised with the Iroquois as I would assume that the company would be following the same policy to get permission to add in a faction and to use the likeness of a historical leader.

As for dominating your opponents yes you're competing against other factions but this doesn't automatically mean military conquest. The Civ games have always had several paths to victory. You could easily win the game without getting into any wars, unless other factions attack you first. The objections don't seem to be about being in a game, because in a game you're always going to have a goal of domination your opponents, but rather that military conquest is an opinion in the game. And seeing how the developers have made a point of making the Cree far better for peaceful playthroughs rather than conquest I personally don't see the objections as having much weight to them as any possible negative results would be outweighed by the positive benefits of having international exposure of Cree history and culture.
 
I mean not to put too fine a point on it, but what matters is that the CREE have a problem with this, not whether you do or not.
 
Rodyle said:
I mean not to put too fine a point on it, but what matters is that the CREE have a problem with this, not whether you do or not.
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And no where did I say that my view outweighed theirs, I was offering a personal opinion. Plus it's an open question oh how much the Cree object to this. The company brought in Cree singers to help with the faction theme and they were thrilled to be involved (link below). The whole question that needs to be answered is just how much consultation that company did with the Cree. Who did they talk to and who gave them permission to use Poundmaker in the game? That should help to determine if this is a case of a company not following through with ensuring that the people they put into their game were properly represented and had the support of the community as a whole or if this is a small group who have objections and just happens to include a chief who was able to bring more attention to these objections. If it's the latter then this isn't that big of an issue since you can't please everyone. If it's the former than the company should remove the Cree from the expansion and they need to answer some hard questions.

Poundmaker singer says crafting music for Civilization game an 'awesome experience'
 
Vehrec said:
I mean, even Space Race is still a 'victory' at the game of 'civilization', by exploiting the earth and pillaging it's secrets most effectively.
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Also winning a race of colonization by being the first to land on an unspoiled planet.

Which if Alpha Centauri is anything to go by is a horrific deathworld that was probably a mistake to ever land on.
 
Vehrec said:
I mean, even Space Race is still a 'victory' at the game of 'civilization', by exploiting the earth and pillaging it's secrets most effectively.
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I mean, same thing with when you establish universal healthcare.

Really, there's nothing keeping you from having an infinite game where you just keep your borders nice and small. The issue is that players have an idea of what victory looks like and the game enables them, be it through bullying, map painting, or blue jeans. Really, just slap Defcon's tagline on there and you have a perfectly realistic game of nihilism
 
I understand that there are two themes. The presentation of the Cree people in the game and the related topic of the problems of what the game mechanics of civilization are.

On the first topic I have little to say. The article has a link to an interview with Poundmaker Cree Nation Headman Milton Tootoosis. I do not understand enough about the history of the First Nations to refute or confirm his statements about the Crees. Аlthough judging by the interview, he does not require the removal of the nation from the game, but rather more consultations. Which is quite reasonable.Maybe if the creators talked to the representatives of the Crees, then the question would not stand. An article in the OP assumes that the very nature of the game would leave Cree unhappy, but I'm not entirely sure of it.

The second question is more complicated in practice. And in my opinion the question here is more whether the competitive nature of civilizations in the game is any relation to reality, is it desirable such an attitude in our culture.

Mutton said:
Really, there's nothing keeping you from having an infinite game where you just keep your borders nice and small.
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I think from this premise you can make an interesting game on its own. On independence, external absorption and what constitutes the nation.

Editing: thinking about this further, I think that the potential solutions for problems can be individual conditions of victory (As in the endless legend), a smaller level of victory conditions (to achieve economic security for the country, to secure borders) and scenarios with certain goals. However, I do not think that this will be a distance from the foundations of civilization as a game.

I also do not think that limiting options is the solution. If a player wants to play Mongolians as a diplomatic power, the game should not prohibit it. Rather, the game should give the opportunity to play so as to represent a variety of possibilities.

And I think it's important to determine what victory means in such situations. World domination, eternal cultural influence on humanity, becoming a stable state, the continuation of the existence of your civilization? I can easily imagine a game where the goal is to survive until the year of X, where they invent space travel and send the ark together with other nations, for the survival of humanity in the long run.
 
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The irony is that I can do a Total War Warhammer game as say, the Wood Elves and win a campaign without ever expanding beyond my initial borders, just making friends and occasionally defending my forest. Winning isn't making everyone else lose after all, it's about achieving your own goals.
 
You wouldn't believe how many nerds and techbros seem to think the world is like a game of Civilization or Alpha Centauri: "All that matters is researching new tech and getting science points so we can get a Science Victory! Screw everything else!"

Then there's the a priori assumption that all nation states are, by virtue of their mere existence, in perpetual state of zero-sum competition.
 
The Victorian said:
You wouldn't believe how many nerds and techbros seem to think the world is like a game of Civilization or Alpha Centauri: "All that matters is researching new tech and getting science points so we can get a Science Victory! Screw everything else!"

Then there's the a priori assumption that all nation states are, by virtue of their mere existence, in perpetual state of zero-sum competition.
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This propagates even into the lowest levels of diplomacy within the community. Simple person to person interaction within non-civ quests often gets bogged down and poisoned by what I can only call player entitlement, even though I honestly dislike using that word in such contexts.
 
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