And there’s also a place for films such as Roots, or even fictionalized alternate-history epics such as Django Unchained, that take the past head-on and stare at it unflinchingly. I think there’s a place in literature for honest, accurate stories portraying the reality of 19 th century slavery in the world. If we can’t approach the idea of slavery in a sober, meaningful way in a video game, what business do we have depicting war or murder? On the other hand: I don’t think the debate boils down to “ should a game have a slave trade system?” I believe it’s a question of “s hould historically accurate simulation games exist?”īecause, as any historian will tell you, humanity’s ascension from caves to skyscrapers is (and remains) an endeavor of blood, horror, and suffering.
And “people are going to do it anyway” isn’t a logical reason to embrace something that could potentially aid in the proliferation of bigotry. On the one hand: This game could potentially serve as a campfire around which white supremacists and other bigots gather to explore their daydreams, build community, and spread their hideous morality.Īnything that can serve as a platform by which bigots might organize, recruit, or thrive should be given deep consideration. Games weren’t as popular then and the Black Lives Matter movement wasn’t at the forefront of mainstream politics and media coverage. Victoria 2 had a similar system, but it released way back in 2010. This is a tough one to wrap my head around. Also, it appears as though abolitionist nations will have automatic casus belli (the right to go to war) on nations that allow slavery.įrom where I’m sitting, it appears as though Victoria 3 will force players to deal with the ramifications of slavery as an ongoing, multi-faceted issue, rather than a static number to manage. This means abolitionist factions will rise, slaves will naturally rebel and revolt, and more progressive nations will view states that truck in slavery in a negative light. Instead of, for instance, picking the ancient Egyptians and getting a moderate bonus to industry, as is common in strategy games such as Civilization and Humankind, Victoria 3 players will have to manage their slave policies manually. Unlike titles such as Civilization, which take a roundabout approach to slavery, this one expresses the “pros” and “cons” in more than just a basic cost/risk format. Slaves can only work in certain types of building – and manufacturing jobs are beyond their scope.Īnd you can’t just choose the slavery civic to gain a blanket benefit to production either.
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You can’t, for example, cover your land in factories and fill them with slaves so you can pump out a thousand tanks using free labor. You, the player, or more specifically the nation you control, don’t receive a direct benefit from slavery. The other, and most important reason, is that through our Pop system we are trying to represent every individual human on the planet from 1836, so what statement would we be making if we simply wrote all enslaved individuals out of history, or reduced them into an abstract set of modifiers?īackground: The blog post is really long and detailed, but there’s a few points that matter: The first reason is … it was an important political issue of the day and was a major catalyst for several significant conflicts, most notably the American Civil War which would be bizarrely contextless if slavery did not play a significant role in the game. Slavery is, obviously, a horrific crime against humanity and precisely for this reason, many games that have a slavery-related setting or mechanics will either leave it out of the game or abstract it into something that’s less ‘on the nose’ … For Victoria 3, we don’t think these options work for us for two main reasons. It’s a complex sandbox that attempts to imitate real history as accurately as possible so that players can then see how things would play out if they (or the nation they control, to be more specific) did things differently.Īnd this is not the first time a slavery simulation system has appeared in a video game – a similar system existed in Victoria 2. Up front: It needs to be said that Victoria 3 is not a slavery simulator. It also means you could play through as the British and re-embrace slavery or choose not to intercede in the Atlantic slave trade, thus allowing it to prosper. This means you could play through as the US and attempt to abolish slavery immediately as a means to both free people and avoid the civil war. These policies can be changed and, at least theoretically, it should be possible for any nation to embrace or eschew various forms of slavery. Players who choose to play as the US, for example, will inherit a policy wherein existing slaves remain enslaved but new slaves are no longer imported.
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