Reavers seem a little....

[Soft-Hands]

EDIT 2: I would appreciate it if people did not unearth this old thread. Anything that could be said most likely already has. If you absolutely must, please read through the whole thread and make sure whatever point you want to make has not already been made.

EDIT:

Originally posted by Soft-Hands:

Originally posted by Balekai:

-Large block of text-

Thank you for that rather reasonable post. That's actually what I'm asking for is a balanced, nuanced take, and I've fully admitted (multiple times) in this thread that yes, I am overly sensitive to these things. It's hard not to be when you've been through the kind of sh!t that I have, seen the kind of sh!t companies try to pull, and had the kind of slurs hurled at you that I have. I'm able to say that because I have actually have done quite a lot of self-reflection, well before this post even. I just wanted to see if anyone else saw what I was seeing, and the answer is largely 'no'. Fair enough.

Now I've only scratched the surface of the new DLC, but I noticed something even when they first announced the reaver culture. Is it just me, or does anyone else find it a little, uh, 'current year'-y that the the culture with advanced tech, metallurgy, flintloc- er- 'magelocks', 16th century fashion and conquistador-style morian helmets is also the one all about total war, plundering cities, enslaving natives, rapacious abuse of natural resources, and an inability to engage in mutual-beneficiary diplomacy without using massively heavy-handed intimidation tactics? It all seems a little 'on-the-nose'. And maybe a tad hypocritical especially when the dev team's refusal to give racial forms any kind of inherent traits has been taken by some as a stand against pigeonholing fantasy races into harmful stereotypes.

This isn't a rant or a troll or a even really a complaint. Overall I think the reavers seem cool and fun. I just wish they didn't give off such 'evil forces of Mordor' vibes. Or at least didn't mix that with so much Black Legend-style 'evil Palefaces' vibes. I don't know. Maybe my brain's just rotted from too much culture-war crap and I'm seeing this stuff behind every bush.

[Fendelphi]

I dont see it at all. Sure, their initial standing is "we dont have a nearby free city to easy vassalize", but that does not mean that you cant play peacefully if you want to.
They are no more "aggressive" than the Barbarian or Dark Culture in the context of the video game.

War Spoils can be gained from fighting other factions that declare war on you, so you can play as a Hermit Kingdom, and then you can use the spoils to jump start diplomacy with other factions, including free cities.

As for the aestetic, AoW series always had some weird mix of aestetics, from low and high fantasy, to the various "punk"-themes(gun powder and steam tanks), and further over to the occult.
Part of that had been missing, until recently, in AoW4, and people have been waiting for it.

That you find the timing of the release "convenient" with real world events is just projection on your part. A natural thing, since the human mind is wired to look for patterns(even when there are none).

[Wolpertinger]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

I dont see it at all. Sure, their initial standing is "we dont have a nearby free city to easy vassalize", but that does not mean that you cant play peacefully if you want to.
They are no more "aggressive" than the Barbarian or Dark Culture in the context of the video game.

War Spoils can be gained from fighting other factions that declare war on you, so you can play as a Hermit Kingdom, and then you can use the spoils to jump start diplomacy with other factions, including free cities.
).

There's even a 'good' reaver faction as a default leader. It's as you say, for the most part - it's not very hard to get into a war with someone else, but war spoils are an extremely powerful diplomacy tool, and comically it makes them the best background for diplomacy as long as you can afford it.

[SBA77]

Originally posted by Soft-Hands:

Originally posted by Blanch Warren:

Now take your peaceful guns and go spread your high minded ideals to the natives or whatever.

Thank you, I think I'll do that.

The whole world shall learn of our peaceful ways.... by force!

Sounds like someone just recreated the Blorg in bird form (I think you said you were going make bird race faction with them).

[mintymind]

i wouldnt expect that much depth or nuance from a publisher whos developers often larp as communists openly in dev-clashes. Also, sweden.

[Soft-Hands]

Originally posted by Wolpertinger:

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

I dont see it at all. Sure, their initial standing is "we dont have a nearby free city to easy vassalize", but that does not mean that you cant play peacefully if you want to.
They are no more "aggressive" than the Barbarian or Dark Culture in the context of the video game.

War Spoils can be gained from fighting other factions that declare war on you, so you can play as a Hermit Kingdom, and then you can use the spoils to jump start diplomacy with other factions, including free cities.
).

There's even a 'good' reaver faction as a default leader. It's as you say, for the most part - it's not very hard to get into a war with someone else, but war spoils are an extremely powerful diplomacy tool, and comically it makes them the best background for diplomacy as long as you can afford it.

Well the British Empire was quite successful with it's international diplomacy and getting everyone to play nice with each other. Having the largest and most advanced navy the world had ever seen sitting just off the coast ready to bomb the involved parties back to the stone age must have done wonders at the negotiating table.

[Soft-Hands]

Originally posted by mintymind:

i wouldnt expect that much depth or nuance from a publisher whos developers often larp as communists openly in dev-clashes. Also, sweden.

I don't get this resurgence in people openly and confidently claiming they're communists these days. It's akin to openly admitting 'yeah I'm a literal nazi, what of it?' without any hesitation. As someone who has a passing knowledge in both history and political science, it just baffles me to no end to champion one of the most murderous ideologies in history like that.

[MattStriker]

The irony of the same people demanding "historical accuracy" when it comes to medieval fantasy populations and then being annoyed by this will never fail to make me smile.

[Aurumworks]

Conquistadors being mass murdering marauders has been an archetype for decades. Just look at the game Colonization where the specialty of Spain was attacking and razing native villages. It's definitely not "current year".

[GrandMajora]

Just because Merciless Slavers was added with the Reaver culture update doesn't mean the culture trait is specifically catered to them.

You've got Barbarian culture too, who's theme is pretty much synonymous with raiding their neighbors and kidnapping their women.

You could even say that it fits Dark cultures too, since they're all about oppression and don't give a damn about troop morale.

Originally posted by Blanch Warren:

They're commonwealth remnants. The commonwealth was at war in AOW 3. The Commonwealth has probably always been at war. There's another culture called feudal, wtf you think they do. Now take your peaceful guns and go spread your high minded ideals to the natives or whatever.

Yes, the Commonwealth from AoW 3 was pretty much forcing all of Athla to join its ranks, regardless if the people wanted to or not. Those who resisted their forceful integration policies were persecuted as being 'supremacists' or 'outdated' by an emperor who claimed that all races could contribute equally to the prosperity of the Commonwealth.

Even though a major part of the Elven Court campaign was exposing that the Commonwealth had become corrupted at the highest levels of office, and was trampling on the cultures and traditions of those brought into the fold.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Soft-Hands:

True.... except if you want to have guns and fancy morian helmets you're automatically forced into being a rapacious coloniser. Isn't that being forced into stereotyping?

You're not forced to do that at all. You're just incentivised to play that way.

Barbarians get a bonus to Nature and Chaos affinity by default, but during the gameplay trailers, they showed them going down the Order route to transform themselves into Angelic beings, which gave me a sort of Nordic mythology vibe from it.

---------------

The major selling point for AoW 4 is that we decide how our races and factions evolve during the course of play. The only impact our faction creation has is determine what our starting point is. From there, the faction begins to grow and change based on our selection of tomes.

I do wish they would add in the ability to give us custom descriptions for our faction, though. All the pre-made factions have one, but the custom factions have a pre-written setup.

[Soft-Hands]

Originally posted by MattStriker:

The irony of the same people demanding "historical accuracy" when it comes to medieval fantasy populations and then being annoyed by this will never fail to make me smile.

I'm all for historical accuracy, including having conquistadors be violent marauders. I just think it's hypocritical to hide behind the shield of 'it's just fantasy, bro. It doesn't need to be accurate' only to then insist on being hyper-accurate when it comes to things like this.

[Soft-Hands]

Originally posted by Aurumworks:

Conquistadors being mass murdering marauders has been an archetype for decades. Just look at the game Colonization where the specialty of Spain was attacking and razing native villages. It's definitely not "current year".

I meant it was 'current year' to make a big deal about doing away with negative stereotypes only to then turn around and make an incredibly negative stereotype against a group of people it's apparently ok to hate on.

[Timmy, the Bounty Hunter]

Originally posted by Soft-Hands:

Originally posted by Aurumworks:

Conquistadors being mass murdering marauders has been an archetype for decades. Just look at the game Colonization where the specialty of Spain was attacking and razing native villages. It's definitely not "current year".

I meant it was 'current year' to make a big deal about doing away with negative stereotypes only to then turn around and make an incredibly negative stereotype against a group of people it's apparently ok to hate on.

Why do you hate 30 years war veterans?

[Washeek]

Look I haven't really followed this huge discussion, but I fail to see the issue.
What, do you want me to colonize people in some plumed native headdress?
IDK this game series started as evil vs good, old fantasy style, you're born evil kind of deal. When they made 2 (esp. with the expansion) it was all about power corrupts kinda deal with the big phat white pope - dude being the insidious evil behind everything oh and his second in command was a Roman officer.
When they made 3 they said well evil vs. good is boring, we're gonna make it sorta tradition vs. progress, with tradition being tradition and progress being essentially industry + capitalism + all bad that it brings.
When they made 4 they stayed with the trend of 3 of lets hate on colonialism.

My point is, where in the world do you find this game series not being "stereotypical"? Where is the woke agenda this studio is supposed to be pushing? They're from f*** Holland... The conquering mofos look like spanish conquistadores, cause that's what everyone imagines under conquering mofos with flintlocks.

[Soft-Hands]

Originally posted by Soft-Hands:

This isn't a rant or a troll or a even really a complaint. Overall I think the reavers seem cool and fun.

A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding me. Some innocently enough, others seemingly wilfully so. My 'critique', if that's even what it is, is not specifically about this game, its gameplay, or Age of Wonders as a series, but more on a macro, big-picture view of gaming/media. I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy of bemoaning older media for it's 'harmful stereotypes' (like the whole idiotic real-world racial comparisons people make about orcs being blacks and goblins being jews) and dramatically taking a stand against it, while simultaneously deeply entrenching others even more so and then claiming it's just a game and doesn't matter. You shouldn't have it both ways.

Yes, previous versions of the Commonwealth were very conqueror-y, no doubt about it. But they weren't covered in spiky metal armour like they just walked out of the fires of Mordor, than go catch a bunch of slaves in nets like that infamous scene from 'Roots'. On it's own, sure why not. But in a game where you're forced to pick your pro-nouns (yes, forced because it keeps glitching and never remembers my choice so I have to keep reminding it again and again and again) and the final campaign missions is all about 'kill the old ways so we can become the gods we're meant to be' and involves the ultimate force of good which just so happen to be angelic brown-skinned super orcs divinely chosen by the Gods, it starts to paint something of a particular picture. A faint one, and not even a bad one per se, but it's definitely there and definitely visible.

I've put a lot of time into AoW4, and I probably will continue to do so. It's a fun game. It just is a little off-putting that when I see something and point it out people keep telling me I'm either imagining it or am a bigot. Or usually both.

I asked a question, and got an answer. Fair enough.