Censorship and Ideological Crusades

[unmerged(189386)]

Edit: The title should be "Censorship and Ideological Crusaders"

How much of Germany is censored in this game?

How much of China is censored in this game?

I've always found it somewhat hypocritical that a company will censor the entire holocaust to comply with German regulations, while they will refuse to comply with the Chinese.

As someone of Jewish background with relatives killed in the holocaust, I find it somewhat offensive that one claims to be historically accurate for WWII and strives to be in every possible way save for the holocaust.

I understand wanting to avoid glorifying the holocaust, and that given the high% of Germany players in previous games (judging by AARs) there is some cause for concern.

My recommendation would be attempting to cover the holocaust in a way that respects its victims in at least one mod. One doesn't have to use graphic imagery or even have Germany events relating to it (so one doesn't need the player directly responsible for committing attrocities). I think a lot of the reason there are so few people playing the allied powers (judging by the AARs) is that its hard to enjoy crusading for human rights in a game when none of the game has events relating to it. But could we at least have something like the following for at least one scenario distributed with the game:

i) A gearing up for war event related to human rights violations by foreign powers (Doesn't have to be just Germany).

ii) A/Several event(s) that provides a dissent reduction or other morale related bonus relating to rescues from prison camps/death camps. Again this can relate to any human rights violation in the war, including say the Japanese 'liberating' U.S. and Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry shipped into camps away from the pacific, or Chinese capturing Japanese Internment camps, etc..

iii) Something else

Edit: The main reason I post this is I want to enjoy the sense of righteous and justice that the allies enjoyed as they wiped out the evil powers. I want the events in the game to reinforce this feeling or experience. Otherwise the allied play will be hollow and this will be another game where 90% of AARs are about Germany.

 

[Titan79]

1) Did you read the rules regarding threads about Holocaust/POWs/etc. ? This one will soon be closed I think...

2) The main and most valid reason for which we don't have the Holocaust in HoI series would be, IMHO, that these are games about war and we don't gain anything by adding that to the game.

 

[unmerged(140265)]

This thread will be closed, sadly. I think it's a valid discussion.

I dislike the hypocrisy that some atrocities are absent, but the Rape of Nanking is present. As someone who lost family to Soviet atrocities, it feels rather as if the crimes are being whitewashed; certainly not that anyone is being respected or honored or remembered. Quite the opposite of remembered, in fact.

I dislike that censorship overlooks the fact that the actions in question weren't incidental - they were central aspects of war strategy for certain countries. I don't see how a game can proclaim accuracy in any sense whilst this is absence. Yes, the Nazis fighting France was pretty much a normal fight between two belligerants. But the attack to the East was deeply ideological in nature. Nazis prioritized the realization of their racist policies over actual military need on the frontlines. The ideologies of various powers informed both the run-up to the war and the war itself; one of the reasons Britain got involved so late is because Britain had never gone in much for ideology, and we were much more concerned with running our trade empire. Which meant we had to keep an eye on the French as much as on the Germans. Contrary to Titan79's supposition, it is quite frankly, akin to making a WW2 game without air power.

I also think it's rather unpleasant because the absence of atrocities means that the Axis powers just look like warmongers, no worse than the many others the world has seen, and not even worse than any other power in the game.

 

[unmerged(189386)]

Gains vs No Gains

So 90% of AAR's are about Germany because the allies are fun to play, and the experience is rewarding?

I think playing the democracies right now feels hollow, the events don't drive an ideological crusade or any sort of moral validation. Without that storyline, and no battle of good and evil its no surprise players pick a nation that sets out to conquer the world.

I'm also not going to glorify the holocaust in any way shape or form, and I'm not trying to suggest they put in events that make any German player feel like a monster.

But is it that unreasonable to not have the holocaust be an experience for the German player but allow the allies to have events like rescues from prison camps or decisions about refugees?

I know it would add a lot to my experience playing say the United Kingdom. There are ways to make the allied experience as rescuers feel noble and invigorating without taking away from the experience of playing Germany, and that's what I'm hoping the developers will strive for.

 

[Mrdie]

The Chinese situation is not nearly as controversial. Basically the PRC has two problems with the game:
1. Tibetan flag used in the game is illegal in the PRC and Tibet itself as an independent state isn't viewed very nicely by the government.
2. The various warlords in the game are portrayed as basically having de facto independent states. Since a lot of these warlords and "states" were ethnically based, and since there really weren't states in this period (although Sinkiang was almost a state under Soviet tutelage) the PRC is a bit worried about the implications, considering that I doubt the censors office employs hip young people and also considering ethnic tensions as of late (with Tibetans and Uighurs).

Neither involves the deaths of millions via genocide.

 

[monsterfurby]

The Chinese situation is not nearly as controversial. Basically the PRC has two problems with the game:
1. Tibetan flag used in the game is illegal in the PRC and Tibet itself as an independent state isn't viewed very nicely by the government.
2. The various warlords in the game are portrayed as basically having de facto independent states. Since a lot of these warlords and "states" were ethnically based, and since there really weren't states in this period (although Sinkiang was almost a state under Soviet tutelage) the PRC is a bit worried about the implications, considering that I doubt the censors office employs hip young people and also considering ethnic tensions as of late (with Tibetans and Uighurs).

Neither involves the deaths of millions via genocide.

Uhm... uh... have you ever asked someone from Nanjing about what happened 1937? Have you ever followed the diplomatic trouble Japan and China go through every time a new Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni-Shrine (which is, in part, dedicated to leaders and soldiers of WW2)?

Then, of course, those are issues the Chinese government would not censor and the Nanjing Massacre is actually in the game. However, this is one of the major atrocities committed in the Asian theatre of war (second only to the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and still appears to be somewhat downplayed. Also, there were certain camps for Japanese in North America as well which somewhat resembled today's Guantanamo Bay facility. Those are not mentioned either.

 

[Dichromate]

So 90% of AAR's are about Germany because the allies are fun to play, and the experience is rewarding?

I think playing the democracies right now feels hollow, the events don't drive an ideological crusade or any sort of moral validation. Without that storyline, and no battle of good and evil its no surprise players pick a nation that sets out to conquer the world.

I'm also not going to glorify the holocaust in any way shape or form, and I'm not trying to suggest they put in events that make any German player feel like a monster.

But is it that unreasonable to not have the holocaust be an experience for the German player but allow the allies to have events like rescues from prison camps or decisions about refugees?

I know it would add a lot to my experience playing say the United Kingdom. There are ways to make the allied experience as rescuers feel noble and invigorating without taking away from the experience of playing Germany, and that's what I'm hoping the developers will strive for.

Part of the reason why so many people play Germany is because it's basically the underdog in the long run. Playing as the USA is too easy, and the AI isn't good enough at invasions to really give you much of a scare as the UK.

 

[unmerged(189386)]

Event Driving

I still think a large part of it is that Germany was event Driven well, and captures the entire feel of a marginalized superpower spreading its wings and taking off, without all the atrocities. The fact that they made Germany fun to play is good, and they shouldn't destroy that by bringing in some of the depressing actions of real life. Players don't want to recreate the holocaust (or if they do the company shouldn't be supporting that).

But a large part of the good story for other countries involved ending the holocaust. The allies would capture the emotions of a player much more dramatically if they had events relating to rescues, refugees and the like that captured the pivotal story of D-Day. When TIME tried to capture the experience, they showed a photo of an American soldier helping a frail thin man out of a concentration camp. The photo was so overpowering it made the cut when they did a book of their best journalistic photography in 50 years. When I play as the allies I want to feel this deeply moving powerful experience. I want to be on the edge of tears, to feel pain that such a thing could happen, and at the same time tears of joy that I was able to stop it. That kind of emotion is what is necessary to have a powerful enjoyable game experience as an allied power. And if you do it by allied driven events you can have it, without detracting from the experience of the German player at all. You could even make the events conditional on the German ideologies for instance, so if a player was disturbed at those events being under the hood so to speak, they merely had to switch away from race-based nationalism.

If people wanted a challenge and to feel like an underdog I think Italy is a much more difficult major than Germany.

Also worthwhile are: Poland, Czech, France, Spain, and a sizable portion of the minors.

 

[General Guisan]

Uhm... uh... have you ever asked someone from Nanjing about what happened 1937? Have you ever followed the diplomatic trouble Japan and China go through every time a new Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni-Shrine (which is, in part, dedicated to leaders and soldiers of WW2)?

Then, of course, those are issues the Chinese government would not censor and the Nanjing Massacre is actually in the game. However, this is one of the major atrocities committed in the Asian theatre of war (second only to the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and still appears to be somewhat downplayed. Also, there were certain camps for Japanese in North America as well which somewhat resembled today's Guantanamo Bay facility. Those are not mentioned either.

There were more people murdered during the massacer/rape of Nanjing by the Japanese than both A-bombs killed together. It was THE event that showed the world that the japanese didn't behaved as anything "human", if you want it so. The A-bomb drops are maybe something you can discuss about, but the alternative - invading the japanese home islands - would have cost probably 100x the amount of lifes than the A-bombs did.

The japanese policy of still cheering their war-criminals who killed no less than 30 million of humans (probably much more) during the period from 1937-1945 isn't giving them only tensions with China, but also Korea, Philippines and the other countries who had to suffer during their brutal regime. They're teaching their kids in school that japanese soldiers were liberating (yes, without " ") asia and welcomed by the other nations. That's whats happening in year 2010. While it's logical that each nation might see their history in a better light than it was, just teaching obvious lies as truth is stretching the line wayyyyy too far.

Problem with the sitation about China is that the game doesn't support "semi-independent" states, e.g. states which were locally existing but had no international acceptance at all (Well, in the case of Tibet, their Nazi-German friends did supported them, but that's it)

I think some mods have some acceptable solutions, like giving the semi-independent warlords the same flag as Nat. China has - as it was in reality - and some other fixes.

 

[Titan79]

I think playing the democracies right now feels hollow, the events don't drive an ideological crusade or any sort of moral validation. Without that storyline, and no battle of good and evil its no surprise players pick a nation that sets out to conquer the world.

I think morale issues should stay out from this game. There shouldn't be any "good" or "evil" - remember: we're just playing a WW2 game.

Otherwise, we'd need to tell the relatives of the 650.000 German casualties of Allied terror bombing campaign (Mr. Churchill's own words, not mine) why didn't we include events regarding the annihilation by air of cities like Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Köln and many, many more...

 

[unmerged(140265)]

The Chinese situation is not nearly as controversial. Basically the PRC has two problems with the game:
1. Tibetan flag used in the game is illegal in the PRC and Tibet itself as an independent state isn't viewed very nicely by the government.
2. The various warlords in the game are portrayed as basically having de facto independent states. Since a lot of these warlords and "states" were ethnically based, and since there really weren't states in this period (although Sinkiang was almost a state under Soviet tutelage) the PRC is a bit worried about the implications, considering that I doubt the censors office employs hip young people and also considering ethnic tensions as of late (with Tibetans and Uighurs).

Neither involves the deaths of millions via genocide.

As pointed out, Japan's actions do involve the deaths of millions via genocide, and one of the most notorious events in this entire sordid period is an event in-game. Why the c. 300,000 dead in the Rape of Nanking is okay, but the c. 170,000 dead in Sobibor is not, I do not know, except that this is intended for sale in Germany more than it is in China. Which doesn't seem especially ethical or principled to me.

As for Tibet, there were around 600,000 dead when the PRC first reasserted control, if I recall my book-learnings correctly. The idea that Tibetan independence doesn't involve serious violence and widespread killing is pretty ill-informed.

 

[Dichromate]

If people wanted a challenge and to feel like an underdog I think Italy is a much more difficult major than Germany.

Also worthwhile are: Poland, Czech, France, Spain, and a sizable portion of the minors.

Oh definitely. Italy is my favorite nation to play.

On Germany though - I do realize it isn't that much of a challenge (AI, ect ect), but as the US and even the UK it's essentially impossible to lose.
The Allies/Comintern taken together have significant advantages in manpower, industry, and overall in the units they start with (The US and UK navies are the largest in the world at the start of the game - Japan and Italy are sub par in comparison while Germany is a joke).

 

[kunadam]

This thread will be closed and for a good reason. War is hell. Period.
It might seem heroic from an armchair general's perspective, but down there people are dying, cities get destroyed, lives ruined.
I don't want to play a game like that.

I have learn WWII in a black and white manner. In elementary school we sang for the liberation by the Soviet. After the changes the allies were regarded as the GOOD guys. Budapest was bombed by the Americans, sacked the Soviets. (don't forget: sacked by the Germans).

WWII is not black and white.

 

[unmerged(12556)]

And to be totally frank, this is a very very very very dead horse around here. It is an old debate going back to 2002 and bringing it up again will settle or solve nothing. P-dox owns the game, they make the standards, they decide what's in the game. Let. It. Go.

 

[unmerged(52751)]

why are threads closed when these topics are raised? This isn't a flame war or racist, it's FANS and SUPPORTERS of Paradox games discussing how to make their favourite game more realistic and encompassing.

I would really like the addition of more events for a German human player on the darker aspects of the war. As another poster stated, these weren't periphery events for Germany, but an essential part of the total sum that was Nazi Germany. And I would like to see a human player tainted, or at least made to realize, that they can't have their perfect little aggressor-war without (simulated) moral consequences. Or they can chose the ahistorical path, but there should be penalties for that, too (personally I usually get Hitler assassinated ASAP).

The title of this game is "Arsenal of Democracy". Why should a player care to be the arsenal of democracy if there is no crusade? The title may as well be "WWII Simulator 2.5". Or is the title just marketing?

cheers,

kilolima

 

[Gringoesteban]

A Bombing was not an Atrocity

....The Nanjing Massacre is one of the major atrocities committed in the Asian theatre of war (second only to the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

I disagree that the systematic slaughter and rape of civilians in Nanking is in any way comparable to the US dropping the A Bomb. Nanking was drunken and out-of-control soldiers going mad with violence along the lines of the armies of Genghis Khan, rather than behaving like a modern, professional army. I know of no tactical, operational, or strategic benefit that the Japanese realized based on their sack of Nanking.

Regarding the A-Bomb, the Japanese refused to surrender despite being blockaded by subs, being cut off from their resources, having their industry in shambles, their navy sunk, and most of their cities burned to the ground. Any sane government would have given up at that point, but instead of asking for peace, the Japanese began training civilians -- including women and children -- to charge Allied soldiers with sharpened stakes in the event of an amphibious assault. Spears against machine guns, not a good idea.... Anyway, the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa had tremendous casualties on both sides, with the Japanese losing more people than the Americans. So by dropping the bombs, the US did kill a lot of civilians, but it brought the war to a quick end and saved not just American military lives, but probably many hundreds of thousands if not millions of Japanese lives as well.

Don't take me out of context -- I am NOT saying that using nuclear weapons is something to be proud of. What I am saying is that the two A Bombs were weapons used to end the war, whereas the rape of Nanking, mistreatment/execution/torture of POW's, the Holocaust, etc. served no practical end and these were true atrocities.

 

[kunadam]

The A-bomb was not an atrocity. It was the highest crime against mankind!
We all know that. But victors do not need to answer for their crimes.

 

[Mjarr]

The A-bomb was not an atrocity. It was the highest crime against mankind!

Before this thread gets closed, I want to say one quite hilarious (atleast on my part) thing about the nuking and the after effects:

Which one is worse? Human rights organisations howling about the A-bombs and how much they killed or human rights organisations howling about many millions japanese which would've been probably slaughtered (I am quite positive they weren't going to welcome americans with open arms, not even the civilians) during the invasion? Two shitty options, both of them resulting in some sort of controversy.

Oh yeah, and simply letting the situation be as it was and let the japanese mainland simply starve to 'death' would also cause more or less casualties, and it would probably be perceived as planned strategy to kill more japanese and that would be also under howling today.

As someone of Jewish background with relatives killed in the holocaust, I find it somewhat offensive that one claims to be historically accurate for WWII and strives to be in every possible way save for the holocaust.

To some degree, it's a valid question. The problem however is this: it's very taboo in nature to really even talk about other than making every german and their grandchildren feel quilty about it. It's same as with E.G. foreign policy regarding refugees: you can't really say anything negative (in case if the government has screwed it up, which is the case in where I live) or neutral about it without being labelled as 'racist', and a game that would have even minor implication of holocaust (even as a separate sidenote) would get steamrolled by complaints from diffrent parties and result into major controversy.