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.