Something Not Eurocentric?

[Mazdaran]

Strategy games tend to be super Eurocentric, and I am finding it boring. I mean, sure there are difference between English and French Knights but unless you're playing the 100 Years War it's pretty damn irrelevant set of military differences. Then you look at something like Civilization where 'India' is treated as a country, instead of a huge subcontinent with people who are barely even related to each other. How many games featuring Persians have them as anything other than 'bad guys'?

Now I am personally averse to the 'Greco-Roman' narrative of the West in general, but it's really just boring to play the same civilizations of nearly identical arms and equipment over and over. And the actual differences between, say, Lombardy and Germany are almost never represented because the level of political detail is ignored in favor of 'kill things and rob them' D&D playstyle in most game.

Tabletop games tend to do better in this regard, whether it's DBA or Field of Glory there are detailed and historical approaches to Persian armies and differentiation between various states in 'China' (sort of an anachronistic word in the ancient world).

I'm not saying this because of some political correctness issue, I can perfectly well understand why Europa Universalis is Eurocentric, because real history at that point was Eurocentric, too. But I am so tired of playing video games that will distinguish between the Dutch and Flemish (WTF?) and then divide all of Asia into 6 countries - assuming they even let you play Asia!

I am very interested in the Iranic peoples, from the Sarmatians to the Il-Khan, and most strategy games - no matter how global - have extremely generic and detail-less 'Persia' whose sole historical source seems to be Greek propaganda.

I guess, in some sense, this is just one of those 'Western armchair general' cultural things, where Rome, Napoleon, WW2 and England constitute 90% of their subject matter; which is also a pet peeve of mine - of that list Rome is the only one I'd actually be interested in playing around with whereas WW2 just gives me flashbacks of stock footage pretending to be a program on the History/Hitler Channel.

In any case, two areas I would REALLY like to see covered in a detailed strategy/grand strategy/tactical computer game are: The Ancient Near East. And I mean ancient. Not Roman, not Alexandrian; but 3200-500BC. The city-state god king politics and loose control/dependency on foreign support in these extremely NON-NATION STATE empires would be a wonderful change from the autocracy most video games portray the ancient world as (ancient political power was able to summon less men than a modern state's post office); trying to figure out what is going on in Nissapur presents plenty of 'written order/chain of command' style opporunities quite outside of the battlefield.

Likewise, and related, any game that puts detail into the Aryan plateau and that area of Central Asia would be quite welcome. I really enjoy Iranic peoples, both their arms and their art, and would love to play around with Satrapies; or even the Il-Khanate or Shah of Kwarizma. Just anything that would acknowledge that Persia is anything than a freakin' desert. Ancient games in general fail to portray how much more fertile Anatolia and the Near East used to be, which really screws up the historical reality in a game where Sugadu/Sogdiana should be richer than all of Europe put together.

There is the _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ series, but that game is very mythical in its orientation - it's basically turn-based Dynasty Warriors with an RPG interface. Many Chinese/Japanese themed games, other than Shogun: Total War are focused on a bunch of mythical/mystical stuff (which was probably invented by Westerners, see Egodeath.com) whereas I would just like to play a nitty-gritty zero propaganda game set in Asia.

Also, I'm not saying I am not interested in Europe - post-antiquity Europe and its armored conrois are a favorite subject of mine; I am particularly fond of the Lotharingian and Occitan chevaliers, but I think that maybe the entire rest of the planet might be worth researching and playing.

[Jar-Tur]

Hi. You have raised a very interesting topic in your post.

The issue here could be the fact that even the "computer gaming industry" itself is the product of the Western culture. And you should know (being Western) that ideological moment takes big part in this culture. Westernization or "globalization" (just another name of the former one) is not only the obvious technological supremacy of the Western world of Modern but also it's a war in the ideal sphere. History is the one of the fields of this war. Western history tends to be shown as practically the only history that is decent to learn, as the "universal history". Moreover, the western science usually tends to distort history of other parts of the World, and to show it from western point of view exclusively (and there are only two possible point of view - western one and wrong one). The very sense of term "science" and all the paradigms of this science is the product of Western culture. But scientists now are more PR-staff of the ruling oligarchy than seekers of truth.

From the other side, Eastern culture tends to be rather meditative and self-absorbed. It learns the western way with great difficulties and little by little easterners begin to realize that they have their own way in Postmodern world. But the East due to its own nature is not inclined to promulgate its ways as the unique or only ones. The easterners may never understand why they should produce historical PC games...

So the only way I see to change the situation is the realization of fact that West is only one of four directions. And West is similar to East, it is busy only with narcissism and with admiring its own (largely imaginary) greatness.

Sorry for slightly declining from the gaming matter of your post and for my English (I studied French in school long ago).

Best wishes from Russia (it explains a lot, is it? ).

[Mazdaran]

But scientists now are more PR-staff of the ruling oligarchy than seekers of truth.

Heh, I am surprised to see someone acknowledge this. but you know, Universities have always been religious in their orientation, now they're just dishonest about it!

Best wishes from Russia

Russians, at least, tend to be able to find Central Asia on a map, lol. I am utterly amazed, hearing people talk about 'Iran' for political reasons lately, how nobody seems to realize that it's a gigantic and technically advanced country of tens of millions of people and not some podunk third world village full.

Even the ancient Greeks, as biased as they were, seemed to have a much more realistic/accurate/detailed picture of the Orient when compared to modern people in the Anglosphere. And the Anglosphere is by far the worst of these offenders; despite having ruled almost the entire world it seems like English speakers deliberately ignore anyone who doesn't speak English. Their grasp on continental philosophy, for example, is borderline retarded.

[Jar-Tur]

Russians, at least, tend to be able to find Central Asia on a map

Oh, it's a quite temporary unpleasantness! Present ruling Russian oligarchic gaz-oil regime hurries to wipe all the rest of USSR legacy off. And the USSR's education was deep, complex and was aiming to form a "thinking man" (despite of prejudices about "commies"). Soviet science is a good illustration for it. But not only science. Even the most of common people of Soviet epoch (to which I have the honor to belong though I am witness of the decline of this era only) have knowledge in wide range of spheres of sciences. Putinism needs only staff to service the pipelines, so what good education will be for? It's dangerous when your people know things that they must not to know.

Even the ancient Greeks, as biased as they were, seemed to have a much more realistic/accurate/detailed picture of the Orient when compared to modern people in the Anglosphere. And the Anglosphere is by far the worst of these offenders; despite having ruled almost the entire world it seems like English speakers deliberately ignore anyone who doesn't speak English. Their grasp on continental philosophy, for example, is borderline retarded.

So, as you can see, situation in West and situation in Russia are similar. Greeks were not ruled by moneybags as we all are now.

[shunwick]

Chariots of War is one of my favourite games. That's beginning at the dawn of history -2500 BC and with the earliest civilizations North Africa, Anatolia, Caucasus, and Mesopotamia.

It is a shame that it doesn't extend to the far east or India but I love that game nevertheless. I keep hoping that Slitherine will make Chariots of War II but, as far as I know, CoW was not one of Slitherine's biggest sellers. Wargamers the world over should be ashamed of themselves for not buying the original. Great game.

Best wishes,
Steve

[IainMcNeil]

The problem is that historically games with a more Eastern theme struggle to sell. We do experiment with smaller periods from time to time but have to keep coming back to the most popular ones as these sell better.

As Western Developers we struggle to make games that appear to an Eastern audience. its not just setting, its an entire approach and style. Different look and feel, game mechanics and narrative. It is something we'd like to get better at but its not going to happen overnight. We can see the future potential of these markets. We really need some good development partners from these areas and we don't really have any right now.

[MrsWargamer]

I can relate to the OPs plight.

One suggestion is to play a nation in Civ and pick settings that are so utterly not what was the actual course of human history. Good example play something decidedly not European origins and in a world very hot wet and rainforest like with very limited ferrous materials and a victory condition that plays down cliche colonialism.

Alas, the only other way to completely ditch the euro centric effects of Europe on the last few centuries is to migrate to a science fiction based setting or something fantasy genre. You get the same sort of dynamics, but it isn't yet another game of europeans being europeans in cliche ways.

Pandora for instance or one of the Panzer Corps looking fantasy designs.

[Pixel]

Doubt OP is still around but Jomni's Sengoku is wonderful: https://www.slitherine.com/game/sengoku ... the-shogun