The need for diversity and inclusion in the CK3 community

[Darderus]

Let me just start off by saying that I love CK3. I just have one little issue...what's up with all the artwork being so white?
Almost everything I see is either white christians or norse pagans, what about everyone else?? Africans, Muslims, Asians, hello??? And don't even get me started on the deus vault stuff. The crusades were not glorious, they were just one of many acts of needless cruelty done by whites. It's so bizarre how we have people glorifying this stuff in 2022.

inb4 "they're just jokes!!" Oh, please...

Anyway, sorry that turned into a rant. I know it's not people's fault for having unconscious bias. I just wanted to call it out because there's so many more colors in the rainbow than just white, white, white.

In the interest of making this community more inclusive, I propose that we acknowledge our bias towards whiteness and have more diverse representation in our art and dialogue.

Devs are taking a step in the right direction with the Iberian Peninsula DLC, but we, the players, have a lot of room for improvement, too. So maybe we should cool it with the racist dues vult stuff and constant art depicting the crusades and try to also represent other groups of people. Anyone else feel the same way?

[Flybox]

Oh man, are you in for a ride.

[MerlinTheGameWizard]

OP was never around for CK2 clearly.

[[EASY] Johnny Reb]

You realize it's a game right?
Trying to find some greater philosophical truth in a game is likely not to yield any benefit and stay away from chess, white always moves first.

[Darderus]

Originally posted by EASY Johnny Reb:

stay away from chess, white always moves first.

Wow, that's actually very insightful. Reminds me of how african americans are wrongfully murdered by racist police

[cdplayer906]

why complain? why not just go play AfroAsian Kings..... oh wait nvm

[garthurbrown]

It's literally called Crusader Kings, so it doesn't make much sense to complain that there's a lot of white artwork, and yet you can play as many other ethnicities and religions.

I'm going to bet you'll get more non-white artwork as they come out with more flavor packs.

[Darderus]

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

I'm going to bet you'll get more non-white artwork as they come out with more flavor packs.

The flavor packs probably have something to do with it, good point.

[Chuck Jiggles]

You're perhaps trolling, but I'm going to actually write you some kind of an answer as your post was interesting to think about and I need to practice my English.

This game has a lot more diversity and inclusion compared to its predecessors, but the vanilla versions of the series' games have always been centered around Europe during a specific historical time period with other regions and areas getting fleshed out with expansions or downloadable content.

That's why at the moment you see a lot more "white christians" (eurocentric vanilla) and "norse pagans" (Northern Lords), as that's where the best content at the moment is and that's also what's popular at the moment (or always has been) as a setting regarding medieval media in western countries with shows like Tudors, Vikings etc. running for many seasons.

Like you noticed yourself with the release of Fate of Iberia, the game itself will move to more exotic and diverse locations in time and the artwork and community content will reflect this for the most part. There's no hidden bias or agenda here, it's just how the game is at the moment.

Regarding the "deus vult" content. It's a common notion that Steam community is probably the worst when it comes to community content posted and users themselves, as it lacks moderation on many areas and its sheer size is so big that it attracts the most extreme end of users from any political, theological and ideological viewpoints, whom are also often the most "loud" ones in the community as they want their views to been seen and shared.

This is why there is so much certain kind of content shared in certain type of gaming communities; games with an actual historical setting or those that take inspiration from certain eras or events of our history are the worst, as they attract these kind of ideologically charged people like flies given that the games' content contains something that piques their interest and agendas.

It's easy to be racist, for example, when your casual racism is just memes shared on videogame community page or matchmaking server.

Crusader Kings ain't even that bad of a community, as it seems to attract people more interested in carnal ideals and desires than ideological ones. For the truly raunchy and bad stuff you should check Company of Heroes, Hearts of Iron, Chivalry II and Mordhau communities. Fine people all around that make "deus vult" memes and jokes seem quite tame in comparison.

[Ashling]

The loading screens are just based on dlc. It's why the first five loading screens were so generic (crusade, crusade, reference to teaser video, crusade, traveling knights). Once we get a Raja's of India or, for perhaps the second time in Paradox history, an Africa DLC, we'll get more unique loading screens.

Originally posted by Chuck Jiggles:

as that's where the best content at the moment is and that's also what's popular at the moment (or always has been)

Yep, Paradox picks its DLCs based off of who's playing what (and there is internal discussion). So the reason We got Spain and Britain/Sweden as DLCs is because people liked playing in Spain and Britain/Sweden. I guess you can blame the player base for being too Euro-centric, but Paradox did get T-Pain to do a sponsorship so I don't know what more you want 'em to do (joking).

Originally posted by Darderus:

I propose that we acknowledge our bias towards whiteness and have more diverse representation in our art and dialogue.

Be the change you want to see in the world, draw the Ghanaian knight.

[WeenerTuck813]

Originally posted by Darderus:

Let me just start off by saying that I love CK3. I just have one little issue...what's up with all the artwork being so white?
Almost everything I see is either white christians or norse pagans, what about everyone else?? Africans, Muslims, Asians, hello??? And don't even get me started on the deus vault stuff. The crusades were not glorious, they were just one of many acts of needless cruelty done by whites. It's so bizarre how we have people glorifying this stuff in 2022.

inb4 "they're just jokes!!" Oh, please...

Anyway, sorry that turned into a rant. I know it's not people's fault for having unconscious bias. I just wanted to call it out because there's so many more colors in the rainbow than just white, white, white.

In the interest of making this community more inclusive, I propose that we acknowledge our bias towards whiteness and have more diverse representation in our art and dialogue.

Devs are taking a step in the right direction with the Iberian Peninsula DLC, but we, the players, have a lot of room for improvement, too. So maybe we should cool it with the racist dues vult stuff and constant art depicting the crusades and try to also represent other groups of people. Anyone else feel the same way?

Dude 🤦‍♂️

[echoes222]

i mean... if we have ability to play outside of feudal Europe, I wouldn't mind "not white christian" artwork. Not sure why anyone would be against it to be honest. Not that it is very important issue. Would prefer some slavic flavour pack over new artwork :P

[AytaL]

very poor troll and lack of inspiration.

[Sputnik]

Pretty soon some moderator is gonna deem us unfit to discuss this topic. Brace for the thread-lock lobotomy.

[vortex_13]

Like the majority of the map is filled with non white people.

[Uhrenkerl]

Before this gets locked I want to greet Trinexx, since he is like the only person I ever see moderating the steam stuff

Also make CK3 run better on Switch using moonlight. Or games in general