Are the black settlers in European Civs, slaves?

Original game had dark skinned people, next to that I agree the plantation and such should have never been changed.

However the game never had slave slaves in it, plantation as a term does not mean slavery. The original devs have always said the games are not historical simulations, but just games were you have fun. History is one of the themes, but fun and gameplay goes above accuracy.

They specifically stated that they didnt want to include the transatlantic slave trade as that is not fun, and if you do find that fun, idk what to say to that.

So in short, I agree plantation etcetera shouldnt have been changed, but dark skinned settlers were in the original game aswell, I would prefer though, for them to remove them from civs like Russia.

i dont see any problem there even if they are slave if its historically accurate… do we want to make the game historically inaccurate just because it could hurt someones feelings?

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Do we?

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not so sure i agree russia having it is historically correct.

probably whose are ethipians as they actually went to russia at sometime

No Age of Empires game set out to be historically accurate.

no, it’s historically accurate. Learn the difference.

Enjoy:

Please, did you see this wonderful message when you loaded the game?
YES OR NO?

Enough of this absolute bullshite excuse of “AKtuaLy Dey AunT TrYiNg to Beee accue rat” crap.

I hated the changes because they were only made for political reasons and all the original stuff is still in data files. They said they made these changes on the premise of historical authenticity, but this is not true for the simple reason that they did not bother touching any other civilization to fix their inaccuracies. When developers are this damn discriminatory and hypocritical in the plain open, there is cause for serious concern and topics such as this.

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Now that the historical consultants aren’t watching anymore can we get the nature friendship abilities back? Were people really that triggered by Disney’s Pocahontas?

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It was such a fun mechanic!

I really dont see a point in removing them, because its not historically accurate, but then change other things to ahistorical because reasons.

The original devs had a way better moto of gameplay first and history second. Its not a simulation.

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There is a difference between not pursuing high historical accuracy, and actively providing false image, especially when we are talking about unnecessary and uncalled-for changes for existing material.
I’ve played AoE III almost since day1 and I haven’t read or hear a SINGLE complaint about anything being offensive or ‘problematic’.

It’s more than fine to change flag of native indians after years of extra feedback that came since 2005, it’s another to do things like mentioned in a post above mine.
It’s hurting the game. For no reason at all. If anything they should double down on recruiting natives.
I mean we are doing the same thing when recruiting them from build native posts, paying some resources to use poor native souls as meat to throw at our enemies.

So it’s better to slaughter some native ‘guarding’ a pile of timber, than to befriend him? Is conversion ‘problematic’ in a circus called modern US of A? Conversion is a core mechanic since AoE I.
Maybe it should be available only for darker-skinned hero explorers, since only white skin allows to commit morally questionable acts?
It’s a tragicomedy. This game is about colonialism and conquest. Removing some of these aspects and pretending nothing happened is faking history. It’s literally dooming people to repeat the same mistakes.

‘Colonialism’? Never heard about it! :thinking: :confused: It was an Age of Commerce
Same with previous one. What’s wrong with discovering New World? It was discovered, right? Did Europeans know about Americas before? Can somebody point where calling discovery of these continents ‘offensive’?
Exploration Age

Or should we also make up story about Native American ships arriving in Europe/Africa around the same time, so they won’t feel lesser because European ships arrived to them? I’m trying to see the place from where these postulates come form.
And I don’t want to even mention these Native Americans. When you look at similar cases majority of people pushing that stuff are well-placed white people professionally dealing with being offended in the name of others.

Exploration… you can explore caves. Those overseas trips were extremely dangerous, costly and time-consuming. Almost nobody did it, and certainly not funded it, out of boredom.
The main impetus for them was money - blockades of trade routes in the Eastern Mediterranean.
These people were looking for an alternative, safer trade route to Asia, and discovered these lands on their way there. How they could ‘explore’ New World when they didn’t know about its existence?

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You guys need to go outside and touch grass respectfully.

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Great argument. I can see your point now. Thanks for the feedback.

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Technically, even if they did not know about its existence, they did “explore” by exploring the planet in that direction.

The Europeans believed for some time that the earth was flat. When it was finally accepted that it is not, in fact, flat, they imagined there was another way to china and india. They also believed that there was no other land there, but sea and probably rocks, sea monsters and the like, so they went exploring on the sea. They accidentally found the new world, which they mistakenly believed it was India, just like they mistakenly believed the world was flat. So at this point, this is all a bunch of trial and error, pretty much like how science works today anyway.

They also had no idea on the impact they would have on the populations there. Wars and slavery didn’t kill nearly as much as the diseases that Europeans carried with them. This was also a trial and error, since we tend not to do this anymore. Think of space exploration - we really take care to sanitize everything as not to wipe out potential alien life.

It is also interesting to see that only in the US the colonists did not blend with the natives, a process which did happen in almost all the other colonies (except Canada, but there wasn’t much to blend with there anyway).

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I would have liked to see France get a female version of their villager just because its a bit weird seeing their towns only made up of men. They probably don’t have voice lines for female French villagers though.

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I imagine there’s black settlers because if there wasn’t people would complain and say they’re racist etc so they can’t win really.

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Its not even worth an argument because a video game isnt a record of history. It should only inspire players to learn the real history because the game is fun. They are not faking history by having dark skinned settlers. They are not faking history by changing the Colonial Age to Age of Commerce. This isnt a history book changing names or facts to hide the ugliness of history, this is just a video game trying to make a fun game in a time in modern society where people do get offended by things too much BUT it doesnt change the game play in a significant way AND it definitely does not change history. Just enjoy the game or dont if a couple black settlers cause you to meltdown.

Actually there are female french villagers voice lines ! (You can heard them when you rescue a female villagers from treasures).

Personnaly, I don’t mind the ambiguity about the presence of black settlers in the game. This game didn’t want slavery as a game mechanism and therefore, there is no point of having units with different names. At the start of the game, it’s probably slaves, but at the end (1850-ish) it’s very likely there aren’t anymore. Plus, it acknowledges the contribution of black people in the establishment of north/central/south american nations.

I find strange that some people here find it offensive to have white and black settlers working on an estate. It’s not like you could only select for black settlers and send them to work on the plantation (this would be problematic).

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In Canada, a school commission has been burning books with “hurtfull” representation of ameridians (like asterix, tintin and probably pocanhontas). It was a nice story with a twist at the end.

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I looked into what you said and I was absolutely flabbergasted to find it was true. Shame on that school board. I imagine that same school board would be burning copies of AOE3 en masse if they could.

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