The timescale is certainly part of the problem. As an example of the problem their timescale creates is that, while the Western Roman Empire declined and well in the early 5th century, the Indian subcontinent was in a golden age under the Guptas. I would rather the designers had just divided things into X year blocks, with blocks of time becoming progressively smaller as the rate of technological advancement increases. The limitations of a game using a 4x format is that: 1) Societies need to be less porous and more distinguishable than they really were in earlier periods, and 2) They must "progress", that is, move towards greater complexity and enlightened thought. Whig history, essentially.  Given the framing of the game and the (European) studio making it, a European frame of time and historiography is defensible, a choice had to be made somewhere, after all. 

The thing I really take issue with, however, is the choices of culture which have been revealed so far which, as Zhugejingqi pointed out, reflect an extremely narrow view of history, even by European standards. Going back to my Mediterranean vs South Asian example, it is worth mentioning that at no point in all of pre-modern history did the Mediterranean ever come close to the prosperity and economic power of either China or India, yet we get 3 Mediterranean cultures and only 1 South Asian in the Classical, and no East Asian culture at all. History, as told by Humankind, is the story of "Civilization" starting in the Ancient Near East, then moving into Southern Europe, then slowly moving into Western Europe, where Civilization will no doubt reside in perpetuity into the late game.

 - In the Ancient Era the breakdown is:

a) Be from the Nile or Fertile Cresent (Babylon, Assyria, Phoenicia, Egypt, Nubia)

b) Be another Mediterranean culture that is heavilly influenced by the Fertile Crescent (Myceneans, Hittites). 

c) Be a culture from one of the 4 remaining cradles of civilization (Harrappa, Zhou, Olmec)

The 3rd oldest cradle of civilization after Egypt and Sumer, the Andeans, are not represented. Tough cookies.   

There is this notion that the design team chose the cultures for each era to emphasize specific points of contact, so that players can re-enact the cross-pollination or conflict that specific culture had with other cultures in that same era, but then made certain concessions to ensure representation in other parts of the world (ie. Mesoamerica with 1 culture off on its own). I find this a deeply unsatisfying explanation for the cultures chosen, because it is very clear that intra-European conflicts were heavilly upweighted in the Classical and Medieval. 

• If this were true, why are the Mongols in the game, but not a single culture that fought the Mongols is? And there are dozens. Abbasids? Khwarezmians? Jin? Song? Hungarians? Poles? etc. etc. etc.
• Why do the Goths, a culture displaced from Eastern Europe by the Huns, who went on to form heavilly latinized kingdoms in Italy and Spain, a culture so insignificant that we have no records of their original religion or language, get a Classical slot? 

It's because, in addition to the Celts, the Huns, the Carthaginians, and the Greeks, they fought the Romans at some point. Thank the Lord for the Roman-Persian wars, or we might not have gotten an Iranian culture in this game at all! It seems the only criteria for inclusion in the Classical age was:

a) Be Greco-Roman (Greece, Rome)

b) Fight the Greco-Romans (Celts, Huns, Goths, Persians, Mauryans, Carthaginians)

c) Token Sub-Saharan culture (Aksum) and Amerindians (Maya)

In the Medieval period, the emphasis is much the same: Be Germanic, or fight the Germanics:
a) Be Germanic (Franks, Teutons, English)
b) Fight Germanics (Byzantium, Umayyad, Norsemen)

c) Token Sub-Saharan culture (Ghana) and Amerindians (Aztec) and now East Asian culture (Khmer)

c) Special extra bonus for the largest contiguous land empire ever (Mongols)

The medieval is where things really break down for me, because this is where adhering to eurocentric Whig history levels up from merely ignorant to overtly racist. Whig history purports that civilizations inexorably progress towards greater technological, philosophical, economic, and moral achievement; time is a march toward a more intelligent, complex, connected, and ethical world. Nowhere in the story of Europe's past does this view of history depart further from reality than in the Medieval. For 800 years, while other parts of the world created great societies and marvels of technology, philosophy, and commerce, the entire continent of Europe regressed to be more violent, ignorant, disconnected, intolerant, and impoverished. And yet, to the European, Whig view of history, even this backsliding is seen as "progress" because only this dark time could see Europe burst forward into a glorious Age of Reason and colonialism. Whig history views Europe today as the pinnacle of civilization, commanding global empires in the 18th and 19th centuries. To do so, it reaches back in time and draws a straight line on progress between classical antiquity and the present day. The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe is justified either as an inconvenient delay of Europe's destined preeminence, or even as progress of a different kind, even necessary; how could any part of Europe's sweeping self-narrative show them falling behind the other places in the world when they are so obviously worthy of the global empires that they have made? Europe's millenium as an insignificant backwater in no way contradicts the self-evident, Scientifically verifiable fact of their innate racial superiority. To say or think otherwise might suggest that Europe didn't deserve to kill, maim, rape, and pillage the rest of the world under the pretext of a grandiose civilizing mission. That the Enlightenment was thanks, in no small part, to Chinese ingenuity, South Asian mathematics, and Islamic philosophy does not even merit discussion. 

So, what could the design team have done? 

• Maybe they could have set out geographical or linguistic "coverage" as a main criteria for inclusion? With this as a priority, perhaps we could have seen an Austronesian, Melanesian, or Polynesian culture in the first 3 eras. Maybe we could have gotten more than 1 culture per era from the two American continents? I have no doubt that if cultural diversity were prioritized, we would have seen at least 1 Andean or Patagonian culture prior to Early Modern.
• Maybe they could have specifically down-weighted the direct cultural predecessors/descendents of cultures that are already present in other eras (Greek/Mycenean/Byzantine)
• Maybe they could have prioritized cultures which had as many inter-cultural contacts as possible, to emphasize the blending and merging of cultures that Humankind seems to market itself on? The Magyars/Hungarians or Srivijaya seem like particularly glaring omissions from this lens. Even from the choice of Medieval Islamic entities, the Abbasids would have been a more satisfying choice, since they were a persianized Caliphate that ruled at the time of the Crusades and the Mongol invasions. This demonstrates to me how heavilly the battle of Tours weighed on the design team's minds when they chose which culture to add. 

No doubt this trend will continue, because the first four eras precede the Industrial revolution, which started in Europe, and catapulted Europe into total global economic and military dominance. The first 4 eras were periods where one could imagine different geneologies; before colonialism and genocide snuff out the alternatives.

TL;DR - These French game designers needed to read some Foucault.

For the very long and interesting thread of pineappledan, there is a lot to say.

It is true that they prioreties european cultures, for the simple reason that they are european. They learned and lived with a certain education that will undoubtedly influence their vision of the world. Simply because in every shcolar system of the world, on history courses you mainly focus on what happened in your country. Of course they will put their own cultural groups. But indeed, it doesn't change that a game called "Humankind" represent mainly Europe. But there is a very important thing for me behind this choices, it is in part an economic and marketing choice. 

Video game is art, and Amplitude is full of talented and invested people, I am sure of that. But no one can denied today the importance of marketing and communication, or the image of your company. It became a huge part of the industry, sadly, but this is how things are today. Your game can fail before it is even realesed. But there is also for me an economic reason behind this choice.

The public who purchase video-game is mainly from north-economic regions. Even if you love history and new things, you want to see your own contry and civilization in the game. You want to be in part on knowed terrain. If there was less european civilization, maybe people will be less intersted or maybe not. 

But when most of the countries where there is no (or very little) censoreship and where most of people have a computer, is in Europe and north America, knowing you game is playable only on one device and aim for a small public, it is an evidence that certains cultural groups will be chosen in consequences.

It could be seen like a bit cowardish or something else, but it is sure they will later had more cultural group. It doesn't excuse that yes, the game is mainly focus on Europe, and that bringing more diversity through DLCs could not be very moral, but they had to make a choice anyway, and I am happy with the choices they makes for now, even if I completly agree that there could be way more asiatic and oriental cultures, espeacially for Middle-Age.

@meganos714

I agree with you. It is a pity that the free access to no information on this issue. It is interesting to look at the numbers on similar games, including TW, which was focused on China. These data would show the economic feasibility, and then pure mathematics. In General, for me the main thing is the game in which the developers put their heart and soul. Absolutely no matter what are of the country and whether there will be my country.

pineappledan wrote:

The medieval is where things really break down for me, because this is where adhering to eurocentric Whig history levels up from merely ignorant to overtly racist. Whig history purports that civilizations inexorably progress towards greater technological, philosophical, economic, and moral achievement; time is a march toward a more intelligent, complex, connected, and ethical world. Nowhere in the story of Europe's past does this view of history depart further from reality than in the Medieval. For 800 years, while other parts of the world created great societies and marvels of technology, philosophy, and commerce, the entire continent of Europe regressed to be more violent, ignorant, disconnected, intolerant, and impoverished. And yet, to the European, Whig view of history, even this backsliding is seen as "progress" because only this dark time could see Europe burst forward into a glorious Age of Reason and colonialism. Whig history views Europe today as the pinnacle of civilization, commanding global empires in the 18th and 19th centuries. To do so, it reaches back in time and draws a straight line on progress between classical antiquity and the present day. The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe is justified either as an inconvenient delay of Europe's destined preeminence, or even as progress of a different kind, even necessary; how could any part of Europe's sweeping self-narrative show them falling behind the other places in the world when they are so obviously worthy of the global empires that they have made? Europe's millenium as an insignificant backwater in no way contradicts the self-evident, Scientifically verifiable fact of their innate racial superiority. To say or think otherwise might suggest that Europe didn't deserve to kill, maim, rape, and pillage the rest of the world under the pretext of a grandiose civilizing mission. That the Enlightenment was thanks, in no small part, to Chinese ingenuity, South Asian mathematics, and Islamic philosophy does not even merit discussion. 

TL;DR - These French game designers needed to read some Foucault.

 Your thesis seems really biased by your very personal point of view.

1) Put all european culture in one bag don't work.The majority of European countries did not take part in the colonial period.

2) Most of the historians in the world thinks now than "The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe" is over exagerrated. Mostly in the Renaissance period. The Medieval Dark Age is for a great part : a cliché. There is the same amount of "ignorance and brutality" in other period of the history or other geographical zone.

3) Europe's millenium as an insignificant backwater in no way contradicts the self-evident, Scientifically verifiable fact of their innate racial superiority

   wtf ... Most of the countries in the all world, on ALL periods of history are convinced of their superiority. It is not a European trait but a human one, coming from communitarism and    nationalism.

4) killing, maiming, raping, and pillaging is not an european invention. And try to justify a mischief neither. It's like slavery, existing since the begin of humanity, all around the world. And the main justification of slavery is mainly to take off poeple which don't have your religion. It's the most common "excuse" for a poeple to enslave another one.

And why speaking about the French designers. They don't entirely decide all of this. They are helped by competent historians.

Yeah it's disapointing to don't have the cultures you wanted in a videogame, but that doesn't justify despising the cultures that interest you less.

You are asking to down-weighted the culture "over represented", but I think they will be even more people disapointed to don't have both of greeks and byzantine for exemple.

Humankind is just a 4X with an historial theme, it don't have the pretension to be the official memorial of the whole humanity. There is a lot more of unhealty games with historical theme to criticize.

Some of your suggestions will maybe be added in the game later with regionally themed dlc. A lot of people want to see the Andeans, the Incas, the Abassids, the Ayyubids, etc.. in the game. But these poeple appreciate the cultures we already have.No need to be so hateful about european cultures. Because, I see a lot of political debate here, more than an historical one

Starbound wrote:
Yeaa I wouldn't go as far as to accuse the devs to be racists.

It's a little more complicated than that... I'm saying the game mirrors a constructed historiography invented in the Victorian Era that persists largely to explain and justify scientific racism and colonialism. It's unconcious, and I'm sure it isn't willful, but this is a historical narrative that is rooted in white supremacy. This view of history makes value judgements: 1) There is a goal, an "end-point" to history. 2) That certain actions like technological advancement count as "progress" towards that goal. 3) The West made the largest single contribution to historical "progress". This has some nasty connotations for non-Europeans, because smallpox blankets is therefore "progress". Smuggling billions of pounds of opium into China is "progress". Killing tens of millions of Irish and Indian peasants in half a dozen separate manmade famines is at best a little oopsie-daisy on the way to "progress".

Starbound wrote:
One limiting thing seems to be their design choice of having exactly 6 eras and 10 cultures for each.

I am saying that with only 10 slots per era, not only are there non-European cultures places that deserve to be included, there are European cultures that certifiably do NOT deserve the spot they occupy. 

Thus, we get cultures like:

• (Ancient) Myceneans - The nucleus around which Greek culture would bloom hundreds of years later, but who were effectively hill tribes living in unproductive, rocky soil, making bad Phoenician fan-fiction and pillaging the more culturally and technologically sophisticated cultures like the Minoans, Luwians, and Canaanites. The Phoenicians are credited with making their alphabet, giving them various gods, and even settling a handful of their cities for them, like Thebes. Anything noteworthy or remarkable about the Myceneans came from somewhere else.
• (Classical) Goths - A small, semi-nomadic tribe that moved from southern Scandinavia into Eastern Europe, who were then displaced/vassalized by the Huns, re-settled by the Romans and hired as foederati in Roman armies. A notable Visigoth commander of a Roman division rebelled, rampaged through Greece and sacked Rome. They were Given kingdoms in the Italian peninsula and Iberia by Rome, under the foederati status, and had such deep admiration for Roman culture that their own religion, culture, language, and ethnicity evaporated and left no historical trace whatsoever. 
• (Medieval) Plantagenet English - A full-blown historical fiction. A combined Norman(Viking)/Anjou/Brittany Duchy of France, ruling over Anglo-Saxon and Danish subjects, among others. 'Englishness' as a cultural/political entity was embryonic; the Hundred Years War was a civil war by any standard. This is why we get a Welsh unit and a Norman quarter in a melting pot pseudo-culture backwater-inside-a-backwater. England is only in this era because the Industrial Revolution would begin in England 2 eras later, creating a post-hoc justification for England's inclusion here, in a period where it barely existed.

Narcisse wrote:
wtf ... Most of the countries in the all world, on ALL periods of history are convinced of their superiority. It is not a European trait but a human one, coming from communitarism and    nationalism.

By acknowledging and emphasizing that "everyone's a little bit racist" as justification for why European cultures are represented at 3-4x the rate of other regions of the world, you are effectively saying that, yes, this is racist, but it's okay because it's white racism. This isn't an excuse for why the game's representation is so unbalanced as it is a tu qoque justification of racism. 

I think that Britain in the Late Modern would have been the best time to include their Civilization, at the height of their power. The inclusion of English in Medieval is an odd decision, but I think the motivation is pretty clear. They are probably going to include British in Early Modern, and USA in both Late Modern and Contemporary. This gives American (US) players a clear path to play the game leading into our own country, following the roots of our language. You can do Mycenaeans > Romans > English > British > USA > USA, which I'm sure a lot of American (US) players would want to do, and it's to appeal to that fanbase to sell more copies.

I'm sure that they will 'fix' it with the DLC by adding in the major missing cultures. Since a culture is a lot less complex than a Race is in ES2 in terms of new game assets, I imagine the DLC will probably add another 30+ by the time the game has run it's course. There will be plenty, I'm sure.

Narcisse I think you're misunderstanding Pineappledan's point. The sentence "Europe's millenium as an insignificant backwater in no way contradicts the self-evident, Scientifically verifiable fact of their innate racial superiority" was not stated as Pineappledan's perspective, that was the perspective he was criticizing. He was saying that by including so many European cultures, the devs are implicitely condoning that line of thinking.

Ok,  I maybe partially misunderstood. But associate the high amount of european cultures with an eventual "white racism" of the devs is a dumb idea. Put all europeans in a "white"  blob is dumb. Associate all european cultures to colonianism is not really smart too.

And the statement about "The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe" is so wrong.

For the choice of cultures, we can always discuss. I'm ok with Myceneans, being conqueror of sophisticated cultures need to be represented in the game. I will remind you that's a 4X game, there is militarist/expansionist factions. Because it's needed in term of gameplay.

Goth, I agree than there are not so "important", but anyway, they are here now.

For the English, I suppose than they doesn't take Anglo-Saxon, to make something more different than Norsemen and Slavs. Again just a question of game design, not of historical importance

I'm not as concerned with the idea of Amplitude becoming a mouth piece as much as I'm concerned by what such accusation imply for the dev. First of all i find that funny that you'd criticize the Eurocentrist approach of the dev on the basis of it only taking into account an European lens but then go on to make an affirmation as to which culture should or should not be in. You're not the holder of truth, just as I am not and nobody else is, and the subject is sadly not one that can be looked purely on fact, mainly because the said fact doesn't exist.

Let's take the example of the Myceneans, your argument lie in the fact Myceneans were culturaly and scientificaly not as advanced as other were, it doesn't take into account a variety of other parameters. First of all this game is not about culture it's about fame, it's about being recognized. Considering that, there is certainly an argument to be made that Myceneans might not be the greatest choice, but the opposite might be true too, I don't know about you but I don't have the pretense to live in all countries at the same time and knowing what is or is not considered famous there. However if I consider only my own pov, the one of an European then I can say that Myceneans can be considered famous, more than other that you have quoted ? Maybe not, I would for one said Minoans are better known and Canaanites are as well known but Luwians ? I can say for sure that for the common people it's not a culture that would be more known than the Myceneans. Are they more deserving of being famous ? Maybe you could make this argument, but once again it's not the premise of the game, the game look at culture that ARE famous, not the one that should be. Also the reason for their pressence is also linked to other factors, such as the fact this medium is a VIDEO GAME. As such an important part of the choice is the gameplay. In the game each culture get a legacy traits and one EQ and one UU. It means that culture with little to no archeological evidence that could support the creation of these two unique mechanic would be a no-go from the start, a good example is the Minoans for example that have not much on this front. Not only that but there's also the question of the balance of the game in and of itself. For all we know the dev might have made 15 culture by era and only decided to ship the 10 that made the game fun to play.

@Starbound yeah, but there is no way to "drop" a culture. Goth are in the game now, there is no drop :p We can just discuss about the future additions.

Eulogos hit the nail on the head. 

I would add to what he said by saying that racism doesn't necessarily require malice. By way of example:

• Were the engineers at Kodak intentionally being racist when they calibrated photographic technology to use white people as the default, so that taking pictures of dark-skinned people was harder and more expensive? Of course not.
• Were VR engineers intentionally misogynist when they developed and mass-marketed a technology that most women can't use because it gives them motion sickness? Don't be silly.
• Is Amplitude Studios intentionally and maliciously racist for adding 5 white European cultures for every 1 culture they add from any other region? Perish the thought.

They aren't hurting anyone, and I am glad that the game is being made. However, These kinds of design choices happen because people don't interrogate their own assumptions about the world. They don't think about how other people might interpret or interact with their work differently from themselves. Humankind's reproduction of World history is primarily European history, even when depicting eras where white Europeans discovered less, made less, and were fewer in number when compared to other regions. Implicit in the worldview that Amplitude reproduces, intentional or not, is that European History IS World History, and histories of other cultures are, at best, a curiosity. It's reductive, it's exclusionary, and it sucks.

The ship has sailed and the ink is dry. The cultures in those eras are what they are. I hope they do eventually fill out the roster of non-European cultures. I just think it's a mistake that maxmimizing diversity was not a higher priority from the outset, and I think it is unfortunate that entire continents  have been pushed back to ancilliary DLC.

Eurocentrism is racism. Plain and simple. Call it whatever you want. I read and re-read all of my posts multiple times before and after posting. I meant what I said.

Edit:

I must say, as someone who can trace their lineage back to the Norman conquests, being put into a position where I need to argue that England was not one of the top 10 most important political entities in the world between 400CE-1400CE is truly strange. Previously, I thought that was self-evident

Also, "bringing politics" into a discussion of a 4x game that uses real-world historical cultures. Wow. Yeah, how dare I infuse politics into a discussion of the next addition to the genocide-simulator genre; That's never been done before. /s

• History was a competition, with progress being the goal
• Parts of the world with more progress were more important
• Progress means technological and legal developments
• Europe had more progress than the rest of the world
• The rest of the world contribute little to progress

Sublustris wrote:

• History was a competition, with progress being the goal
• Parts of the world with more progress were more important
• Progress means technological and legal developments
• Europe had more progress than the rest of the world
• The rest of the world contribute little to progress

Isn't that what the game is about? I mean, not the "Europe" part, but this is 4X, goddamit. It IS competition. Progress IS the goal here. It's a historical game, not a game of history,

I fully agree here. Moreover, not only progress, but Fame point is the goal, which means every player (either human or AI) will have to pile up Fame to WIN. Humankind is a GAME. The main (only) goal here is to play and have fun.

I can understand people being disappointed because such civ/culture is not present with the base game, but, really, are we going to endlessly debate on the topic, just like the aesthete topic, whereas Devs have been pretty clear and honest about their "train of thoughts" and civ/culture selection ? And have also made it clear that further contents will most likely come, either geographically themed or "strategically" themed  ?

Again, sorry to be so down-to-earth, but as it as already been said, the main audience, the people who are most likely to buy/play/enjoy the game, is to be taken into account. What if, let's say, there weren't any mediterranean/european cultures at all in the base game ? I would bet that a lot of players would just pass the game on, because they'd feel the game would lack such cultures. And this debate wouldn't be about the game being eurocentric, but the other way around : the game isn't representing any european culture at all !

Last thought : we're just beginning to see the Early Modern Era cultures, which means there are still 29 cultures to be revealed. Since a lot of european cultures have been revealed so far, my guess is that there'll be a lot more diversity in the next cultures to be revealed. 

mobster_san wrote:

I've been reading this thread with great interest, especially the excellent and though-provoking posts by @pineappledan.  It really made me think about the views and assumptions we hold without ever realising it.

Any discussion that mentions rasicm or cutural bias is prone to be filled with all kind of connotations and are never easy.  Nevertheless, I believe that pineappledan did a very good job relaying their thoughts in a very respectful and objective manner that would hold up to a high degree of acedemic scrutiny. 

As to the topic itself, I agree that Humankind over-represents the Eurocentric perspective. I am not sure whether this can be described racism in its narrow sence, but a certain reflex of racism is undeniable. I also want to emphatise that this is not the "racism" as commonly used nowadays, nobody in their mind would accuse Amplitude (or any other fine people in this thread) of actively following or promoting a racist narrative. Instead, this is about how we are used to interpret and organise information based on our culture, which is not nessesarily fair or representative of others. I do not believe this is making Humanking an objectively worse game. But it would certainly be interesting and refreshing for a game to break the Eurocentric shackles and try to accomodate various cultural traditions in a non-biased fashion. 

You see, the way you present thing is actually way better, it leads us to a discussion.

First of all I'd like to clarify a thing, the stance the dev take is indeed focused on Europe, but it's not Eurocentric, to understand that you have to understand how Eurocentrism is described as an ideology. Eurocentrism is not just making Europe the center of your art, if it was the case then let's just imagine how many book would be eurocentric; Acknowledging that defining Eurocentrism as simply having Europe as the center of your narrative is too wide of a definition allow us to narrow the deffinition a bit. Eurocentrism is having Europe at the center of your narrative AND pushing the idea Europe is better than the rest, it's a fair deffinition, after all it's litteraly what Eurocentrism is ! The belief that Europe > Rest of the world. Once we agree on this deffinition (if you so accept) we can then realize that Humankind is not eurocentric for two reason :

1. First Humankind doesn't, ever, explicitly push the idea of Europe being better than the rest, all of the cultures are created with the aim of being equals.
2. There is indeed too much representation for Europe compared to other region of the world and therefore one might make the fair argument that it could be an implicit proof of eurocentrism. However to argue that one would have to not realize that the culture in Humankind aren't choosen for their intrasec value but for their Fame. Realizing that make you understand that an European bias is sadly a natural effect of two things :
-TRUE eurocentrism being applied in the world education, therefore making smaller european cultures more prevalent in westerner mind than bigger non-european cultures
-The fact that Europe was, arguably, at the top of the world for some time, for example the simple fact that the european had colonies all over the world and that these colonies are now independant make it so more people world wide know about European history than African history (as an example).

Trying to justify the replacement of some of the selected cultures by other on the basis of merit is also a deaf argument, let me ask you the following, how do you judge the "merit" of a culture ? Surely there is many way, one might look at their technological or social advancement, another might look at their war prowess, yet another might look at their importance into the economic landscape of their time. So, why would you say any of these method are better than looking at their fame ? My first guess would be that, where fame can be altered by propaganda the archeological evidence, them, stay a true testimony of the greatness of one culture, and in my opinion, you'd be write ! But I'd tell you that sadly, they're not writing an history book, they're creating a game ! Therefore they needed game mechanic, they ended up choosing the idea of Fame as a victory condition, and because of that picking culture based of fame went from a possibility to an obligation.

Beside, I'd like to point at out that the simple idea of judging other civilizations worthiness might be implicitly eurocentric, after all on what basis do you judge other cultures ? The most likely answer is on your very own morals, morals you have constructed through an eurocentric education. Who is to tell that human sacrifice is bad if not our Western morals ? Therefore wouldn't you say it'd be a bit eurocentric of you or me to consider that we can legitimately choose who is worth and who isn't through our morale ? Of course I'm not implying any bigotery on your part, I just wish to further the debate and actualy show that Eurocentrism isn't something armchair Historian and ideologist such as us can truly grasp, thus making the idea of us taking such a harsh stance (both in defense and in critics) of Amplitude kind of silly, moderation is due for both of us, and I admit that I might have been a bit rude to you

Another point I seems to disagree on with Pineappledan is the concept itself of culture. I might totaly have misunderstood his/her stance on the matter as I am extrapolating from their posts and if it's indeed the case, I apologize. Pineappledan seems to think about cultures are monolithical entities that have for only importance what they end up becoming. I'm getting this feeling by the fact they often refer to cultures as embryonics, or, in other word, as still in their infancy. To that I'd ask, does it make it less of a culture ? Sure the Myceneans would end up being the grassroot of the Greek culture but both still had differences, especially since getting Greek during the Classical Era actually mean we are getting the Classical Greek as in tthe "cultural" greek and not Greece as a state which make the difference between Myceneans and Greeks even more obvious. Whether these difference are big enough to justify having both of them is indeed a debate to be had, but for a game that pride itself on showing the evolution of culture it seems only natural to have iterations of the same culture as to show the 'evolution' of those; That being said I certainly agree that showing this should not have been the priority.

Finaly I'd like to say Zhugejingqi is definitly right, a calm discussion is needed, it why I apologise for letting my frustration getting the better of me. It's also why I'd like to point out a few thing that make Pineappledan's argument hard to read from my perspective. 

1. I don't see how being condescending actually help the debate, there's a difference between pushing an interesting argument and overtly demeaning other's arguments by being condescending
2. Changing the meaning of word as they wish. Words have a definition, sure this definition can evolve but we still need to abide by the word definition when we actualy try to debate or else the debate will be fruitless as more time will be spent on debating "what the world SHOULD mean" rather than the real argument.
Case at hand, "racism", because no, eurocentrism isn't a form of racism, it's a form of bigotery. Eurocentrism doesn't care for race, it cares for the idea of cultural europe, meaning you don't need to be a white caucasian, you can be a black european as long as you adhere to the idea that european are better than the rest. 
3. Using logical fallacies when calling other people out on that. To be fair I was relunctant on bringing that, after all I'm fairly certain it wasn't Pineappledan intention, after all we all sometime fall for these easy fallacies and I wouldn't be surprised if someone would end up pointing one I might have missed out of my argument ^^'. 

Surely we can all do better and actually bring a constructive debate to the table, but being condescending or/and making inflamatory statement that can lead to bad repercussion both for the devs as individuals and their company as a whole. 

There are two points to be brought up discussing the "eurocentric" concept and influences: historical influence and the characteristic of organization/video games.

 Firstly, the influence that Europe has had on the global stage and across the undeniable. It was Europe who established colonies in South America and Africa. Europeans would also establish control of the Asian islands with institutions like the Dutch East India company. They would also establish the Australian colonies that still act as the country's primary representative culture besides the Aboridginals into present day. Of course it is also from European colonizers that the modern identities of countries like Mexico, Canada, and the United States would be fundamentally established. From a purely expansionist/physical perspective of influence, Europe's hand in history is undeniably the most pronounced as almost none of these aforementioned examples of expansion were reciprocated to Europe as a continent, barring Spain's identity as a Muslim controlled country in the Middle Ages or the expansions of Genghis Khan's empire from the steppes which in game is already accounted for by the Asian nomadic tribes' prevalence through multiple cultures. Additionally, many cultures have been accounted for from other very influential cultures as well. The Ancient era is almost entirely dominated by Middle-Eastern cultures which is entirely respectable considering many of the first civilizations trace their roots there. China has also already been confirmed several times over to possess multiple representative cultures spanning the ages.

Secondly, from a organization and DLC perspective, favoring a single continent is a respectably strategic way to divide and prepare future content. It is probable that the primary method of approach Amplitude will use when releasing additional cultures to the game will be categorical, that is to say each expansion will likely be focused on the cultures of a specific continent. This method of release is entirely conjecture on my behalf however so take it with a grain of salt, but it would not be surprising if that is how things ultimately shake out.

I agree that Humankind is quite Eurocentric and follows an outdated idea of historical progress, but if anything its a result of compromises made for the sake of the medium and not an adherence to specific ideas or narratives. For example, if you don't follow "Whig History" you can't make a 4x spanning three or so millenia. You'd have to create a complex simulation of the rise and fall of empires. That would be cool, but also a completely different game. Or rather, five different games over the span of 20 years.

Most historical strategy games are heavily biased towards European history, because they're made by Western Europeans and North Americans for a Western European and North American audience, although both are changing rapidly. On the other hand, you couldn't make a game about The World without including cultures outside of Europe. The result will be a compromise that doesn't really sit well with anyone, but is also kinda inevitable. (And I bet that the Goths are in here because they're featured prominently in other historical strategy games.)

Personally, I have been very excited initially about the inclusion of "unusual" cultures like the Harappans and Aksumites, but am a bit disappointed by the heavy European tilt lately. Expecially South & East Asia need a lot more love. I imagine a lot more cultures will be included through DLC, either region-specific or gameplay-specific (seafaring cultures, postcolonial cultures, land empires...).

Narcisse wrote:
Most of the historians in the world thinks now than "The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe" is over exagerrated.

Yep.

Let's not forget that one way Europeans elevated themselves was via moral highground, which they may have invented (Kaaaaaant!). It could be argued that this whole line of reasoning is eurocentric aggrandising. You're even using the word "eurocentrism" instead of ethnocentrism. Have you checked to see if other cultures even consider this? Is ethnocentrism even a concept outside of european cultures?

Starbound wrote:
The Maori ate you. The pre-Colombian South Americans ripped your heart out and offered it to their gods. The Ottomans took you hostage and worked you to death. None of those people were any better or worse than "the evil white people". Should they had the edge that the colonial Europe had, they would've done the same and 'took over the world'.

* the Maori ate you and preserved your head to prove that they had done so  :)  Lest ye be thinking of invading Aotearoa.  (Taking liberties for the sake of a laugh, calm down.)

Eulogos wrote:
He isn't saying whites are more evil than other cultures.

Are you from North America (not intended as a slur)? If so, had you realised that most other english-speaking countries don't use the term "white" and many the term "race", which doesn't make sense in countries where everyone except migrants has mixed ancestry. I'm just pointing this out since it supports the idea that an argument about ethnocentrism is a pretty bloody european thing to worry about  :)

pineappledan wrote:

I would add to what he said by saying that racism doesn't necessarily require malice. By way of example:

• Were the engineers at Kodak intentionally being racist when they calibrated photographic technology to use white people as the default, so that taking pictures of dark-skinned people was harder and more expensive? Of course not.
• Were VR engineers intentionally misogynist when they developed and mass-marketed a technology that most women can't use because it gives them motion sickness? Don't be silly.
• Is Amplitude Studios intentionally and maliciously racist for adding 5 white European cultures for every 1 culture they add from any other region? Perish the thought.

I would say Kodak and Amplitude are examples of bias rather than prejudice. In both cases this is probably related to their customer-base. Whether racism, sexism or any other related perjorative can be derived from bias rather than prejudice is another argument. I don't think this argument is particularly relevant because these are perjorative terms rather than definitional; technically/commerically motivated bias is the actual thing. Given the audience of this game, you would think that we'd all prefer more diversity simply because it would make the game more interesting (and perhaps because our baseline includes monstruous factions that eat everyone). For this reason I think it's probably due to resource limitations and perhaps ease of access for the devs.

The reasoning of the author of the VR article is a clear example of sophistry. I find it shocking that the author sounds sincere and also apparently fails to perceive the distinction between intent, bias and causality. The author even identifies that the VR technology was not created with any bias, let alone intent for such, and that the motion sickness is due to gender-associated biological causes. I would say that this unconscious departure from reason towards rhetorical fallacy is a consequence of social media and asynchronous communication in general (somewhat ironically).

mobster_san wrote:
As to the topic itself, I agree that Humankind over-represents the Eurocentric perspective. I am not sure whether this can be described racism in its narrow sence, but a certain reflex of racism is undeniable. I also want to emphatise that this is not the "racism" as commonly used nowadays, nobody in their mind would accuse Amplitude (or any other fine people in this thread) of actively following or promoting a racist narrative. Instead, this is about how we are used to interpret and organise information based on our culture, which is not nessesarily fair or representative of others. I do not believe this is making Humanking an objectively worse game. But it would certainly be interesting and refreshing for a game to break the Eurocentric shackles and try to accomodate various cultural traditions in a non-biased fashion. 

Nah, Amplitude is on the hook for this. It might be alright but could also involve breaking changes to add it in later on.

KurouRingo wrote:
Surely we can all do better and actually bring a constructive debate to the table, but being condescending or/and making inflamatory statement that can lead to bad repercussion both for the devs as individuals and their company as a whole. 

Your whole post is gold  :)

I don't think the reee is intentional. I've witnessed many of my friends losing a previously held ability to reason over the last decade and a half and, to re-iterate, I don't think it's intentional. My conjecture is that most of our reasoning was embedded in our cultural approach to conversation and that the absence of conversation has destroyed reason for people who don't use it professionally or recreationally. I'm sure we'll learn more about that in the future. I'm reluctant to go so far as to join a social media platform but it's nice to participate in stuff like this.

It's also super hard to keep track of whether we're pushing a fallacy when english itself is often at fault and we're just not very good at keeping track of logic anyway. I feel that's an easy one to forgive (if it isn't I'm going to have a lot of unresolved guilt about my many mistakes).

Artisaan wrote:
Secondly, from a organization and DLC perspective, favoring a single continent is a respectably strategic way to divide and prepare future content.

Zealandia DLC confirmed  ;)

I originally started writing this thread to mention the role of geology and climate change in creating the first civilizations and how some of the cultures mentioned are thousands of years apart in pre-history.

Now I just think everyone should watch "Deep Time History" on Curiosity Stream. I don't work for them or have any stake - I just got my Nebula membership via them and then discovered that it's an awesome site.

At the end of the day, I think it's a good idea for Amplitude to do the cultures it has the best chance of succeeding with then, after the game is released and presumably succeeds, look at the others - which will probably be more expensive to develop due to distance and language.

That being said, this thread could also be a preview of potential PR problems.