yellow skin like The Simpson then
RacistWell they used to and it was better before.
all those people are white lol
Even if the units look Indo-European once you zoom in on them, the fact that their armor, clothing and fighting style portrayed is predominantly European, says that the game is pretty white washed. To me that's a huge reason to seek an increase in diversity.
To be fair, a reasonable interpretation of Bean's concerns would include differences for other races as well. But given the already monumental concerns in implementing changes to vils, this conversation should probably move beyond that to be more diverse in terms of armors and fighting styles.
Being able to recognise which unit line your opponent is fielding at a glance is an important part of game functionality, especially for new players.
My point has gone way over your head - they are not any specific ethnicity. Their skin tone is an intermediate colour which is around the mean of Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern, East Asian, Central European and Northern European skin tones. The functional reasons for this have been explained numerous times. It seems that you are conflating "white" with "Eurasian", which would explain why you are unable to see the difference between the skin tone of a militia and a woad raider.
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I would be in favour of some Celtic units being redheads and some Viking units being blonde. However, it is clear from Bean's posts that she is taking selective offence to African units not being black enough while not being particularly bothered that the rest of the game's units use an intermediate template. Then again, she thinks a yellowy-brown skin tone is "white", so if they did re-skin East Asian units, I think it's highly unlikely that she'd notice.
No, giving civilisations the same unit templates is not whitewashing. Being able to recognise which unit line your opponent is fielding at a glance is an important part of game functionality, especially for new players. A much more important measure of civilisation diversity is their set of civilisation bonuses and technology trees. Does anyone think the Mongols and the Vikings are remotely the same in-game?
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You're contradicting yourself here...But what they clearly aren't is black African, and that was the point of Bean's original post. So yes, the problem is more specifically to do with the two or more black civilizations because the sprites are clearly much further from black African than they are from northern European or east Asian.
Rather than acknowledge this point you're just nitpicking her use of the word "white" (which in this context means "European" and not "the colour of Casper the Friendly Ghost").
Okay I'm sorta losing my **** at this 'we wont be abke to recognize units' argument...
Just because you have a small brain and are not able to make out the difference between (widely) different buildings and appearances does not mean other people cannot.I already struggle with WK architecture becuase sometimes it's hard to see house vs milll, barack vs ranges, walls too big (short wall doesn't work for WK), some idiotic units and you guys want to have black vils.
It would be completely stupid to have diff looking militia, xbow, kts for different civs.
I enjoy playing the game and not just looking at it.
Okay I'm sorta losing my **** at this 'we wont be abke to recognize units' argument. This is plain ridiculous. Of course nobody can figure out exactly what sprite belongs to what unit when they just pick up the game. But that's precisely the point. Everything in this game takes time to figure out.
We recognize unit sprites because we se them ALL THE TIME. I don't see how the same phenomenon that led to us getting used to the new monk sprites wouldn't apply to reskins of other common units. You'd be confused for a short while, yes. How long could it possibly take you to figure out the new skins though? This couldn't possibly be a legitimate long term concern.
I already struggle with WK architecture becuase sometimes it's hard to see house vs milll, barack vs ranges, walls too big (short wall doesn't work for WK), some idiotic units and you guys want to have black vils.
It would be completely stupid to have diff looking militia, xbow, kts for different civs.
I enjoy playing the game and not just looking at it.
I think you might have solved racism.Yes, when you zoom in they're clearly not African, but when zoomed out, a militia could very plausibly be African.
Actually I said they looked European to me but that this wasn't relevant for the purposes of this discussion. It still isn't. The point isn't so much bias toward white people but bias against black people. Again you are nitpicking her use of language in order to miss the wider point.she made reference to "white privilege" and continued its use as an implied premise yet went on to conflate "white" with "Eurasian". Her insinuation that generic unit skins have a racial bias towards white people does not hold water if those units could plausibly pass as Asian or American, which you agree that they could.
She "went after" villagers before the difficulty of changing them was pointed out. And her original question was addressed to all units, villagers were just an example.I agree that villagers look whiter than other units, but she is going after the one unit in the game you can't change without considerable difficulty.
Like smarthy said, they made monks that have darker skin, so why couldn't they have done the same to villagers? And also, the mod that Hyuna linked turns all villager units, in all civilizations, to black skin. Even if I did download this (which I did) there are still thousands of people out there playing with white African villagers thanks to Microsoft. I just don't see why they couldn't have made the African villagers black before releasing a pack literally titled African Kingdoms. I doubt it would have cost them anything or taken them very long at all to change. Even if it does, it would be worth it to have the African civilizations represented by their own skin color. It seems like it's just ignorance on their part
I already struggle with WK architecture becuase sometimes it's hard to see house vs milll, barack vs ranges, walls too big (short wall doesn't work for WK), some idiotic units and you guys want to have black vils.
It would be completely stupid to have diff looking militia, xbow, kts for different civs.
I enjoy playing the game and not just looking at it.
If I invited my black neighbor over to play Age of Empires II African Kingdoms, and the first thing she sees is white villagers/units, I would honestly be so embarrassed.
Also when I mentioned white privilege, I meant in terms of society outside of the game, not inside of the game. Some of you seem to have thought I meant the villagers had white privilege, when that is not what I was implying at all.
And that's the issue. It's not "the dumbest topic on aoe zone." It's a legitimate issue.
It is the dumbest post on aoczone. Its really simple, if you are going to spend time thinking about aoc then at least spend time worrying about the game and its balance. If you aren't going to do that then worry about real life. Spending active thought worrying about the color of a graphical unit inside the game which in no way adjusts the balance and claiming that its important because it demeans black people is just ridiculous. If you actually care about such things you can spend your time in the real world campaigning for equal privilege and stop wasting your time on the graphics of a computer game.I've read everything, and Trirem is the only person who came up with an actual counter argument. If it's not possible to have different colored villagers, then so be it, but most people are arguing that it's "not important" that the African villagers are white, when to the black community it would be. If I invited my black neighbor over to play Age of Empires II African Kingdoms, and the first thing she sees is white villagers/units, I would honestly be so embarrassed.
Also when I mentioned white privilege, I meant in terms of society outside of the game, not inside of the game. Some of you seem to have thought I meant the villagers had white privilege, when that is not what I was implying at all. I meant that white privilege is being able to go out, buy your favorite video game, and the majority of the time having your skin color/ethnicity represented by the characters. This goes for other things in society, such as movies, tv shows, advertisements, and so on. So on top of not having this privilege, black people aren't even being represented in an expansion of a game that advertised African units. And that's the issue. It's not "the dumbest topic on aoe zone." It's a legitimate issue.
Huh? Short walls does work for WK, you just need to click the checkbox for it in the installer.
Also when I mentioned white privilege, I meant in terms of society outside of the game, not inside of the game. Some of you seem to have thought I meant the villagers had white privilege, when that is not what I was implying at al