Are the black settlers in European Civs, slaves?

As an African I feel like its really weird that their are black settlers in the European Civs. not because it doesn’t make sense their where slaves at the time, BUT that is exactly the issue. Are the developers just ignoring slaverly by calling them settlers? do they support it? how are we meant to interpret this? I honestly think the developers must be having some inside or something, like they know the black settlers are slaves but just laugh at us for never getting it.

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No, just the devs thinking it would be a great idea to infuse affirmative action and inclusivity into a history-based game.

They removed the plantation …

Ok remove now Turks because I am offended by how they treated my ancestors hahaha (much longer than the African Slave Trade btw was the Turkish Slav trade)

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It seems insensitive to let Euro civs make black villagers and put them on a building to work for gold in a map set in the Americas during the 16th century. The reason for this is that historical most black people working in cities in the Americas were at the time slaves. If the dev team were more multi cultural then this would have not happened, was there really one who thought that this was a bad idea. You can call the building that vills work on to get gold estates but we all know what they were before DE and what they were Historically. Some one should send VOX an email about this!!!

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Now that I think about it this game could get pulled off steam if this got out.

Watch out the devs are probably just going make it so that black settlers cant work on plantations. Only our beloved Age of empires devs would think that is a good fix.

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Sorry I did not think that far, I don’t want the game to be pulled, I just wanted this addressed and not some weird thing to just please woke white people that know nothing about our country or continent.

What is a “plantation”? It’s obviously an “estate” with nothing at all to do with slavery or colonialism :upside_down_face:

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they can be slaves. why not. slaves were settlers too as they were brought there from africa and settled in the new colony.

No, black settlers existed in AoE III before all the inclusivity rhetoric.

Yes. When the game came years ago, they refused to show slavery straight on, but they seem that it was okey to mix all the non-American population into a vague “settler” idea at the same level.

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Technically all your settlers are slaves, regardless of color.

Low buy price? check.
Don’t get a paycheck? check.
Do they work literally non stop? check
Do they die on the field of battle unarmed? check
Do they revolt? check.

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The original devs have always said AoE is a game with historic flavor, but not a simulation. Fun is above all, they have always said.

This is the reason why there are no slave slaves.

However in the original game there were darker skinned (note darker, not necissarily black) people. Its harder to tell because of the lower graphics. But in DE it seems like both the number is increased and the skintone to darker.

Now I would understand to some point of including them, to not entirely put away the horrors of slavery and acknowledging that black people were also in the New World. But civs like Russia also have them, which just feels wrong.

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Slaves were not settlers. More like slaves were property of the settlers. It’s offensive to put black Villagers on what is essentially a plantation to work for European countries/civs.

Please don’t tempt Forgotten Empires.

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Alternatively people could be complaining there are no black settlers.

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You forgott about the LGBTQ+ people. Why are there no female french settlers ?
Why has noone dyed hair ?
Why did they rename the Firepit ?
Why did they rename the Plantations?
There is always someone who will complain.

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Remember when almost every single preview we got for the game before and after release was how the native civs were changed to make them more " historically accurate" which in reality were just minor changes yet none of the other civs were given the same respect.

Meanwhile the game was released in a such a mess it never recovered from it (playerbase wise). Priorities.

Huh.

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The only significant change was the fur trade thing, which did impact balance and game design.
Removing slavery and insulting things from representation of history is worse than the things you’re trying to remove. Behaving like slavery didn’t happen and removing traces of it is worse than the actual slavery. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, which is exactly what happens now.

Also, remember all the civs in this game employed slavery in a way or another (especially the Ottomans, they probably employed slavery in much larger absolute volumes than the Americans ever did), and slavery wasn’t just in the Americas. Some people simply moved on though, dwelling on the past isn’t healthy.

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The real question is why do you even care?

It doesnt change the game play. It doesnt change your perspective on history. The game never set out to be a historically accurate game. Take a look at the single player campaign…fiction.

Any time someone brings up arguments like this, you really just have way too much time on your hands bringing up a non-issue.

Then a bunch of people reply in angry tones about how AoE3 tried to be politically correct and how damaging that is to history.

This is nonsense.

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They are not traditional meaning of settlers. But they come from another continent and settled in a new place then they’re technically settlers.

The original game had darker skinned settlers.

I wouldnt be surprised if that is to not entirely ignore black people in the New world as they were still in the European colonies.

Also the coreur des bois is different, as there were simply never female coreur des bois. Even if there were it would be a handfull.