Once again, that's very disappointing.

If someone is offended because their virtual race is enslaved in Empire:TW, they need to see a psychologist.

The medicine prescribed: Sitting down and playing Empire:TW.

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Half the world would need that treatment, there are that many do-gooders and genuinely offended people.

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The funny thing is, slavery had nothing to do with race. Yes more blacks were slaves, because their countrymen or enemies would sell them. There were a lot of white slaves as well who could not pay off debts and were treated as such. They were whipped ect, not granted that attitude change in America later in the 1800's but there was still white slaves in America, Just as there were slaves of every ethnicity in every corner of the world. They represented slavery in both Rome and Medieval 2, In Rome you can Enslave the populace giving your population boosts in cities and represented by ankle shackles in the province, in M2TW it was a resource that you Merchants could collect. I see no reason to include it the same way, as long as you never single out any specific ethnicity.

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For all the plain counter-factuality that the above comment may display, I think it is good to remember that TW games are games that are loosely set against the background of history, not historical simulations. White slavery, black slavery is a story of suffering and oppression and I am happy that it is being left out of the game.

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And what do you think war is? If it is a conscripted army, it IS slavery. Even if it is not, the conditions that soldiers endure is often much worse than what slaves endure. Slaves had some value, so they were often treated as expensive property. A soldier's job was to endure the unendurable, and to make the ultimate sacrafice in the end. People's limbs were blown off, people were eaten alive by diseases, starved to death, froze to death, died of dehydration. When they took a city, people were mercilessly raped and butchered, men women and children.
That is war, and the entire game is about war. The game represents war without delving into those more gruesome aspects. They could have represented slavery as an economic venture, with chances of uprisings, and with humanist, antislavery opposition. If they did that, they would have also avoided the more gruesome aspects of slavery. It was an important moral issue, just like war, and so it deserves to be represented in the game. In a way, by not including it you are denying the suffering of every victim of slavery, just as by pretending that there were not wars you would be denying the suffering of every victim of war. You cannot shy away from representing something because it was harsh and horrible, esp since war is the most harsh and horrible of them all! If you are too sensitive to be playing a game with slavery, then how the heck could you play a game called "Total War"?!



*rant over*

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Some excellent points there Vuk.

However I think that it is impossible to ignore the racist aspects of the slave trade for this period, and I just prefer that be kept out of the game.

the suffering and violence of real war differ from the drama of battle simulation, although people in battle doubtless do get an adrenaline high, esp. the commanders, and then there is endomorphine buzz for the less seriously wounded.

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Slave traders and owners throughout history tried to justify what they did by saying that the people they traded were inferior. With the ancient Romans it was that they were evil barbarian races (again, racism), with the enslavement of Christians by Muslims and Muslims by Christians it was the religion. With the enslavement of debtors and criminals it was that they had done something to deserve it or that they were of a lower class, etc. Wars though recieve those same justification. Empire Total War is all about colonialism, what do you think that is? These people are inferior, so we need to exploit them. You see what I mean? That is what it is all about. These are the things that make Imperialism, war, and slavery horrible for those who experience it. If the world was perfect, you could not have a game because there would be no challenge! The player is supposed to be able to choose, and moral choices are part of that. They included that in RTW and M2 with allowing you to slaughter and sack. That is just as horrible, it is a moral call. And as I said above, it would be too typically European to brush it under the carpet and pretend it did not happen. The fact is that it did, and it should not be hidden from gamers.
As for you idea that combatants like battle, I think that you will find that most early armies were unwilling conscripts, and the later armies were often composed or people who so so far down in the dumps that it offered the only chance to rise. Was is NOT and enjoyable thing. Ask anyone who came home from Iraq.

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