The main point is that the dances in general aren’t meant to be discussed outside the dances themselves. I’m not meant to ask my gramma about those dances outside being there or while she’s there (modern technology means calling her and asking isn’t as bad).
This is from the in game description itself:
“Long before recorded history, Native peoples have celebrated the mysteries of life, death, and the universe through the medium of dance. Many complex dance ceremonies emerged over the centuries, each with their own meaning and purpose. The ceremonial dance served as a way to unite people to face the day’s challenges, while at the same time linking with the honored traditions of generations past”
So it isnt based on the ghost dance. If they didnt use dances in a spiritual or religious way then it would be wrong/stereotype, so then I would like you to provide sources which state that Native Americans didnt do this.
The stereotype is the dancing around a fire. The origin of that stems from racist depictions of indigenous people in media throughout the last century.
Yes, we danced. But not only do we not want it depicted in a video game, but the origin of this specific portrayal is from racist depictions intended to imply indigenous peoples as savages with no culture.
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A lot of things are depicted in media that people dont want to and I dont see what is wrong with it being depicted in a game.
There is no single imply by the fire pit that the natives are savages with no culture. Because others have decided in the past or present to do that doesnt mean everyone does. Sure if the fire is inaccurate change it to something else but I dont see how dancing is a stereotype especially if its so important that you dont want it in the video game, if anything that is not a stereotype. Besides almost every civ is based on stereotypes anyways.
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If you’re going to look at a community and choose to include and monetize something after that group explicitly states not to, why even bother discussing the design with them? That seems to make it pretty clear you have no intention of following cultural standards when making it - might as well go full Indians are savages! route and make a pure stereotypical depictions because you know it’ll sell.
This was a standard for American media for about a century. Just because you personally have never seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Yes, they are. Now let’s design the Hauds and Lakota around stereotypes that aren’t actively harmful to those communities and taking into consideration what people of those nations have stated explicitly.
If the gov’t of Germany came to Microsoft directly to ask that the Germans be depicted in a specific way, or that certain aspects be changed, don’t you think Microsoft would comply? It seems like it’d be a lot simpler to, and it’d make things more historically accurate.
So why is it any different if tribal representatives do it?
Did they in 2005/2006?
They are depicting history in a game setting. If it was something they did historically, then they can add it.
Where did the Warchiefs promote this?
I know about it, Peter pan comes to mind. However I specifically asked how the fire pit in AoE III is doing this?
Has AoE III the Warchiefs harmed your community? Because I severly doubt anyone playing AoE III thought while seeing the fire pit, “well look at those savage Indians, no culture at all!”
I dont know if Microsoft would, but the thing is they would listen if the government threatened to not let the game sell. How unfortunate it is that you do not have such a government, you are not the only one. Do you think Catalonians on their own have the power? Or Basque people? Frisians? Bretons? Uyghurs? Because personally I dont think those people could either demand it. It depends on weather you can make Microsoft not earn money.
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No, and they deliberately came in this time around to help because the original depiction was terrible.
“I know the stereotype exists, but this example of the stereotype isn’t the same as that example of the stereotype.”
Depictions that are stereotypical only serve to further the Indians are savages stereotype. This stereotype directly feeds into the crime on Reservations by non-Natives, as they come onto the Reservations with the intent on committing a crime because they know the tribes can’t enforce laws against non-Natives for crimes committed on the Reservations. So while this exact game hasn’t done anything (most likely), stereotypical depictions absolutely do make an impact on the tribal communities - fairly substantial ones that often end in death. MMIW exists for this reason.
People have literally been banned on this forum because they came to the community with those beliefs because of this game.
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make here - but the point is that the tribes reached out to try and help correct depictions because - as I pointed out above - these stereotypical depictions can have very real and very harmful results in our communities.
You all have gone a bit off topic. This is not about if firepit/plaza should be ingame (as it will do cause is a core mechanic of natives). Its about balancing it to be fair for inca and aztecs
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Yes and I have the best solution to buff aztec community plaza. I ran tests and came up with the best solution.
You know we’re all tired of the “historical accuracy” problem that this game presented and even though the developers try to do their best, the comments and forum posts from people who feel so “lakota or haude” and with right to speak for all of them, they ruin what is in theory a VIDEO GAME and not a history documentary, it is what I believe and hopefully the developers ignore silly requests and return to the old Sioux and Iro with simpler and more specific changes according to a “VIDEO GAME”!
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If they are supposed to be political, religious or community leaders, it should be some kind of temple or administrative building.
The square is just a cheap attempt to replace the bonfire.
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Man, I don’t ignore the Asian stereotypes and historical inaccuracies, I complain about them near constantly. Particularly with regards to China and India. India is my most hated civ because there’s so much wrong with that civ, like “India”, what’s that, you mean the Mughals? Or the British Raj? Or the Marathas? They tried to give a flavor of each but ended up making something goofy.
They did the same with China, trying to blend the Ming and Qing, but cosmetics are mainly the problems there. Though the use of Shaolin monks is ridiculous. Should be a Confucian scholar or a Qing bannerman commander. The Japanese shouldn’t even have their monks, their daimyo should be their heroes.
But at least the game is still fun to play, at least for me. That makes me tolerate some of the issues. Though I wish they would go fix the female Haudenosaunee voice clips. It is sooooo quiet that I can barely hear them and they sound like a demure girl, like, just talk.
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My main issue with the community plaza is its hard to select. The firepits all had a central structure (The firepit itself). Now its just a random space that has no ‘core’ to it when it has a lot of units tasked to it it can be hard to actually click on it and not a villager.
I make a note to bind it to a hotkey now but I think when they designed it they should have had some kind of structure or monument remain in the appropriate to each civ so there was something to click on.
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They could add a firepit to that model. Not sure what’s the problem preventing that.
Not as big as that previous firepit, that dwarfed fire beacons from Lord of The Rings, but still a decently-sized one that would make not only selecting it easier, but also prettier. Fire and lightning (for obvious technological reasons, but also some technical, engine is ~20yo) is very underused outside of combat. It would just make things prettier and fancier.
And these architecturally primitive civs could use all fancy things. Their structures are all about wood, twine, cloth etc. It’s fine and accurate and sensible but a bit bland. And was that even before introduction of jaw-dropping civs like Italy.
Still not sure what was the problem with original firepit. Various forms of community dancing was a thing, not universal, but still. It looked cool.
Instead of removing it, they could make building switch visuals:
- unit production/exp&resource generation: fire is smaller, assigned vills slack around like they do now
- combat-related modes: fire gets bigger, vills form a circle and chant and dance.
These civs, that were squished by colonial powers, were made powerful and able to compete 1 on 1 with said powers. Wasn’t that a good enough gesture of good faith and appreciation for these cultures and realms (not sure ‘country’ or ‘state’ is universally applicable). Making their coolest building look lame helped who?
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I might remind you that the Lakota controlled a territory over twice the size of France at their height. They were an empire by all measures, complete with vassal “city-states” in the Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa, etcs., and largely controlled nations like the Cheyenne and Arapaho through both influence and trade manipulation.
They’re in the game because they were some of the largest forces that fought the encroaching colonials - even heavily outnumbered, many of the nations never conceded defeat, the Americans simply stopped trying to fight and let them have the land they were on because it was too bloody and too costly to try and fight any further.
I really don’t want to go through the problems in your statements, but suffice it to say, your statements are pretty much exactly why they were changed.
ADD: I have to clarify that “over twice the size of france” is honestly vastly underselling it - they entirely controlled trade from mid-Saskatchewan to southern Nebraska and had a significant say in trade from north Texas to the Northwest Territories.
The Seven Fires were an empire by every right. They weren’t “squished”. It took the US breaking a peace agreement by ambushing unarmed women and children repeatedly to push the Lakota onto Reservations, and even then, as I stated above, they simply stopped trying to fight the Lakota because it was too costly and too bloody an effort.
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I did not present my opinion, I stated the fact. All these countries and empires crumbled at a relatively swift pace, one by one, and very little of them remains to this day. Invading forces presented challenges no one in the New World was prepared for, and as a result, they assured dominance over these land, and in the vast majority of them- a complete one. It doesn’t imply there was no opposition and resistance, but their presence didn’t change the end result I described.
Things you brought up are irrelevant to all of that:
Land on its own means nothing. It’s size didn’t change anything, besides making taking over lenghtier. If it means anything in this context it would be against the point you want to make.
Australia is huge, but the majority is either uninhabitable hell and/or barren nomanlands. Russia is huge but the majority of non-European part is either barren frozen wasteland or sparsely populated steppes, that why these lands are so EASY to conquer. Land mean nothing and here it also didn’t prevent all these countries, empires from erosion and vanishing to history book pages.
Same as above, but it relates to something I’ll write further down.
If you want to present counterarguments you are free to do so.
I don’t say anything that is a lie, and certainly nothing that justifies some of the changes. Most of them are for the majority of players alright/fine/‘wouldn’t notice’/sure.
Some of them are not, regardless of the point of view.
This is a game, not a school book and fun and attractiveness is the primary design foundation. Firepits were present because they were attractive looking, distinctive, pretty and fun. Sensitive middle ground between game design issues and historical improvement would be as I’ve said:
- making fire pit more realistic, but also present like it is in the model of the town center and others
- adding community structures like small houses/abodes/market stalls
- tieing warfare modes with war ceremonies around the pit, eco modes around normal, idle mode.
Wooden boats with a couple of archers can bring down galleons (that endure Atlantic travel and it’s beyond crazy), because it’s game and it needs to be fun and balanced. But I don’t see anyone fighting for just representation of the native navy, it’s a boring talking point, despite being much more nonsensical than Indian ceremonies.
That’s why instead of making sure game is polished, netcode optimized etc. (hint- it was a bit of a mess for some time after the release) they made sure everybody knows they removed the concept of colonialism from a game about… establishing colonies from empire’s cappital city.
It’s ridiculous beyond the point of self-parody. Because what’s the implication? People just sailed there, landed, and went their way to grab free real estate and establish new countries?
There was no opposition? Lands were barely inhabited? These people couldn’t or were unwilling to fight?
No, it was often a very bloody and ruthless colonization. Using euphemisms and cotton baling it no less spitting in the face of people that lost their lives, culture and home as a result of it.
‘Commerce Age’. What does that even mean? Original owners of these lands sold them to colonial powers, traded? Some things like that ofc happened in the New World, sometimes.
Markets and trading posts are available since the beginning so it doesn’t make much sense in this way either.
Simply put- it’s solving a problem that doesn’t exist, causing more issues along the way. All that is to make self-righteous, arrogant people feel better about themselves, to make them believe they are doing something, where all they do is wage flame wars across the Internet and hollow out their own society. NOT talking about you, just in general about the state of things.
And it’s everywhere you look in USA. It was a normal thing in cultures across the entire world, and certainly in both Americas, to paint your body for various reasons. Native people that inhabited these lands were often fierce and hardened and very able in waging war in their own ways.
So for example what is wrong with the image of a painted Indian warrior? I’m from Europe not US, but I’m pretty sure there were few cases between baseball and American football leagues (maybe even some team in NBA) where images, symbols, and names relating to original Americans were removed and buried. How was that offensive?
Painting your body and face to give yourself more courage and intimidate opponents wasn’t a thing? People do that even now, although officially it’s more often for specific reasons like camouflage (well, it was also a factor then, especially in South America).
Their bravery and fierceness weren’t a thing?
So great. Invading people slaughtered them, destroyed their cultures, took over all their realms AND now are removing the very last connections to them from popular culture, so in broad consciousness, they don’t exist at all. Putting someone’s face in place like that was honouring if anything. From what I can see Washington team had a normal profile of a Native American, with a calm, dignified expression.
It wasn’t a chopped-off head on a pike or anything. I would say it would be like removing your founding fathers from the public image because they do not line up with currently enforced political narrative, but I guess Americans are already doing that.
In Europe empires often were trying to completely suppress the countries and peoples they conquered. It would be counter-intuitive to put them as symbols in prestigious spots if it was done as a result of malice, ill will.
And it’s happening everywhere.
Even stupid butter. Native people were and still are associated with a more harmonic, natural, more genuine and healthier way of living, closer ties to nature, all good things. How removing an Indian lady from butter wrapping makes anything better? It’s beyond parody. Where is their place? On Amazon delivery boxes? Roof tiles? Toilet papet cellophane? Special editions of Coca-Cola?
Looks like there are lesser humans who don’t deserve to appear anywhere.
And just like with mentioned Redskins - these things are replaced with nothing. Just an act of self-righteous destruction of own culture and unintended further erasing of these groups from pop culture and public image.
People all around the world put their heroes, presidents, gods on the currency and other representative places like that. I can’t imagine the sheer amount of brainwashing and delusion that leads to the general perception of that as negative.
Historical and cultural revisionism is one of the many faces of cancer that is hollowing the country this game was made in (HQ-decision making of FE is in USA). But that’s a topic for another thread.
How about giving one of their representative (there must be some great council or something like that) every other or third term of US presidency?
Hell, I’d like to have some wise Indian making decisions in my own country, instead of some empty suit political careerist.
I guess it’s easier to remove war dancing from a structure model in a game. Life of handfuls of Indians that play AoE 3DE surely got better and more dignified and all historical injustices slightly made right.
O tempora, o mores!
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i remember when this thread was about the implications of the new healer mechanic on supremacy vs treaty
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Is someone preventing you from talking about it?
I replied to a post. Should I make a new thread with a single reply and link to this one, or what’s your idea?
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love the confrontational tone 
It’s not a confrontational tone. I asked you a question. If this is a problem, then what’s your solution, please do tell.
Should I hide it in a spoiler, create new thread, link to a .txt file on Google Docs?
As fair as I can see the title is about the community plaza. And post I made and replied to are about its representation. It’s not offtopic.
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