Upsetting Topics

[Surgünoglu]

Alright, so Hearts of Iron deals with the politics and tactics of World War Two. Though we know what's going on, we get no mention of the camps, bad and worse, inside the borders of the Axis, the Western Allies, and the Communist International.

So, say, in this game, you're fighting in World War One as the Ottoman Turks. I could say anything about the events on the Empire's front with Russia and someone would disagree about it. Of course, that would be a debate concerning history, because in a game, it's the player's choice.

Seeing as though it was an event based on so many circumstances--the three Pashas, Russian aims, Kurdish presence, the Emperor's attitudes, Armenian nationalism, among others--will Victoria even deal with it?

 

[kurtbrian]

well I think that since it has been longer sonce the timespan of victoria more things will be allowed, most people from that period are dead now.

also, as far as I know there aren't the same sort of symbols connected with the atrocities committed back then

 

[unmerged(10945)]

Yeah, it wasn't so much that they were upsetting topics(face it, history has been filled with atrocites) as much as they still were fairly modern. People are still alive from the WW2 era in great numbers across the world, so potraying the world as it was in it's most base form would have caused probably a bit of backlash. And that doesn't even begin to touch the topic of legality of symbols and such in certain countries.

There won't be that problem for this timeperiod. It isn't like Paradox is going to glorify these events, but there are obviously a few that spring to mind that should be dealt with.

 

[unmerged(6073)]

My guess: the Paradox team will include it for the same reason they included the Spanish Inquisition and the forced exile of Moors and Jews in EU2. Yes, it's a historical tragedy that caused a great deal of suffering and death.....but it's far enough back that it's viewed with less passion than, say, the Holocaust.

The Armenian Genocide will probably show up as an event (or events) in the game if the Young Turks take charge.

 

[swilhelm73]

Well, as Kurt mentions, the greater passage of time, and the less well known atrocities in the VIC time frame or less likely to cause heartache and outrage in the way those of WWII would, so Paradox will have a freer hand both legally and economically in the earlier time frame.

As importantly though, some of the atrocities of the VIC time frame have a direct bearing on the military/economic situation of the time.

Soviet Gulags, German Death Camps, and Japanese medical experimentation, to take some of the more obvious examples, had only a marginal effect on the progress of WWII to most mainstream analysis, and their exclusion in HOI doesn't change much.

OTOH, ethnic cleansing/extermination, the use of chemical weapons, and slavery, to again pick obvious examples, are all fairly important to the military, social, and economic progress of various countries in the VIC time frame. It would seem to me the exclusion of such would lessen the game overall.

 

[Vynd]

If nothing else it seems to me that it would be impossible to have the Russian Reovlution, or something like it, without including a lot of unsavoriness. Nor can I imagine them having WWI-style warfare without poison gas. Of course, just because they include some unpleasant facts doesn't mean they're obligated to put in all of them, or to cover them in great detail. Its not as if in EUII they went out of their way to remind us of the raping and pillaging that took palce during war, or the slaughter of innocent natives during the conquest of the New World. It simulated the effects, yeah, but without drawing any particular attention to it.

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Some events have to be in the game, Slavery for one has to be in the game IMO.

As far as HOI I agree with what has been said here about people being alive and so on, but there is also legalities in some countries with the depiction of the Holocaust in WWII.

Yes it was left out of HOI, and I dont have a problem with that even though its impact on WWII was dynamic and had a much wider range of effects on social, political, and economic for many nations.

I personally would not be offended with more graphic content in the game, however I do empathise with those that may not want it in, in the end I trust Paradox to make the call on what goes in, what comes out and what the impacts are.

Also the games can be modded to replicate many historical elements that are unsavory to some, and this way those who arent offended can choose to try the game in a way that they choose but dosent offended those that have an issue as they will have the choice not to try the mod.

 

[unmerged(5920)]

Just thought i would say that I dont think you can add the Armenian Genocide as Turkey still denies it happened, so that puts foward legality issues.

 

[unmerged(9528)]

Originally posted by Rommulan213
Just thought i would say that I dont think you can add the Armenian Genocide as Turkey still denies it happened, so that puts foward legality issues.

Legality issues? It seems to me that the worst the Turkish government can do is ban the game in Turkey in an Orwellian attempt at controlling information - they can't possibly have any bearing on Paradox.

 

[Surgünoglu]

Originally posted by Kristian Thy
Legality issues? It seems to me that the worst the Turkish government can do is ban the game in Turkey in an Orwellian attempt at controlling information - they can't possibly have any bearing on Paradox.

Even the Turkish old guard aren't that foolish. At least, I hope not. Besides, it's a Greek thing to ban video games.

Regardless of Armenian allegiances (there were many on both sides, I assure you), I hope the game treats it as a choice, not as a fixed event. It should be made clear that whether or not we know what happened in reality, there were men in power who called for brutal acts against civilian targets.

I think the least a player deserves is a choice in what happens in his or her game.

 

[swilhelm73]

Originally posted by Rommulan213
Just thought i would say that I dont think you can add the Armenian Genocide as Turkey still denies it happened, so that puts foward legality issues.

Well, including more NAZI era stuff in HOI, and you might not be able to sell in Germany, and perhaps other parts of Western/Central Europe - a major market.

OTOH, I'm guessing that the Turkish market isn't quite so rich...

Further, I'm not aware that discussing the Armenian genocide in Turkey is illegal, whether the government acknowledges it occured or not.

 

[Surgünoglu]

Originally posted by swilhelm73
Further, I'm not aware that discussing the Armenian genocide in Turkey is illegal, whether the government acknowledges it occured or not.

Don't know how things are now, but maybe an actual resident can solve that. I'd say that it depends on who you talk to. Make conversation, that's one thing. Write a book, make a speech, might be quite another.

I don't want to start a flamed post, here, but I don't think any Turk would dispute that Armenians died. Of course they did. Any idiot knows that. It's a small step, but a step nonetheless, to say that innocent Armenians died, which certainly many did.

It's just that matter of the word "genocide," I think, because it wasn't like the archetypal German Holocaust. You had Kurds, Turks, and Armenians, all in towns they considered homes, you had foreign intervention. Turks, Kurds, and Armenians had years of complaints against each other. Revolutionaries and fanatics crowded the ranks of every ethnic group. It gets very messy, especially since so few people were on the Russian front.

So the Ottoman government hushes the issue and the Turks in the west don't know any better--they've never been there. I mean, Izmir was one thing. Tons of people were there, many wrote about it, and still, to this day, between Greek and Turk and Armenian and Jew, no one knows who lit the fires. If the truth is difficult to find there, how can one say for certain what happened in the east?

You'd think the Armenian thing would be settled. Atatürk himself apologized for the massacre, saying that it was deplorable and evil. But governments never settle things, and now here we are, arguing things we've never seen yet for which we must make amends.

I have no idea what to do, and I'll respect Paradox for the responsibilities they have and carry admirably. Of course, if the Armenian massacres are in, I would like to see more of the Armenian separatist movements and the assassinations that occurred, but I probably won't.

 

[unmerged(9563)]

I think the Armenian Genocides should only happen if certain coditions happen, but the leader of Turkey shouldn't wake up the same day every game and decide to kill off mass amounts of people.

 

[Surgünoglu]

Certainly. I think the massacres resulted from World War One almost entirely (Enver Pasha, one of the Young Turk triumvirate, was almost completely responsible for the alliance with Germany.)

Of course, then there's that matter of who's going to play Turkey and ally with the Central Powers during the Great War. That's going to be one of the suicide campaigns for players better than me.

 

[degenerate]

Originally posted by swilhelm73
Well, including more NAZI era stuff in HOI, and you might not be able to sell in Germany, and perhaps other parts of Western/Central Europe - a major market.

i don't think that many people would not buy the game because it did or didn't include the holocaust, it would just cause much unneeded negative publicity, and a rather more unpleasant game as germany. easier just to leave it as a non-issue, since it had little noticeable effect on the war..

 

[draco]

Originally posted by degenerate
i don't think that many people would not buy the game because it did or didn't include the holocaust, it would just cause much unneeded negative publicity, and a rather more unpleasant game as germany. easier just to leave it as a non-issue, since it had little noticeable effect on the war..

It's not the fact that people wouldn't buy the game but the fact that including content recreating the holocaust would mean that the game would quite likely be banned in several European countries.
Personally, I say that if they do include such events as the Genocide of the Armenians that it should simply fire is certain pre conditions are met and not give the player any more control than that. Simply because most people would find it morbid if a game gave you the option to simply slaughter an entire race and actually make it so that there would be a reason to go ahead with it.

 

[Surgünoglu]

Originally posted by draco
Personally, I say that if they do include such events as the Genocide of the Armenians that it should simply fire is certain pre conditions are met and not give the player any more control than that. Simply because most people would find it morbid if a game gave you the option to simply slaughter an entire race and actually make it so that there would be a reason to go ahead with it.

But it's not as simple as that. First, it wasn't an assault on the entire race. Second, it wasn't a historical inevitability because certain people were responsible. Third, there were, terrible though it sounds, reasons for the acts. The benefits of leaving the Armenians alone is clear; we are all aware of that. But as for the massacres of Armenia, think about Sherman and the scouring of the south in the American Civil War. If you didn't fight the base of power, you would be threatened with secession. But similarly, there were Southern families who fought on the North who were completely ignored.

 

[IEX Totalview]

Originally posted by Surgünoglu
But it's not as simple as that. First, it wasn't an assault on the entire race. Second, it wasn't a historical inevitability because certain people were responsible. Third, there were, terrible though it sounds, reasons for the acts. The benefits of leaving the Armenians alone is clear; we are all aware of that. But as for the massacres of Armenia, think about Sherman and the scouring of the south in the American Civil War. If you didn't fight the base of power, you would be threatened with secession. But similarly, there were Southern families who fought on the North who were completely ignored.

Sherman massacred Southern civilians as he marched through Georgia? Did I miss something in history?

 

[Surgünoglu]

Originally posted by IEX Totalview
Sherman massacred Southern civilians as he marched through Georgia? Did I miss something in history?

Well, you certainly caught that flawed analogy.

No, we don't often think of it in this light, but they killed whoever they perceived to be a threat. Confederate soldiers, who were often little more than militias. Irregulars out to be heroes, or get rich. I would, however, say that the burning of Atlanta was similar to the destruction of the homes and villages of Armenians within eastern Ottoman territory.

Now maybe Americans, on the whole, spared Americans the worst of atrocities. Maybe the soldiers in Ottoman armies had racial hatred behind them that Northern armies did not. But most likely those Anatolians knew Armenians back home, some they liked, some they didn't. They had lived together for centuries. Armenians were spread throughout their government and institutions.

Now, you're an invading army. You see people ready to fight back. Why? Because you've invaded their homelands! It's justifiable! Armenian or Southerner, who cares if you've been part of the same union for years--times have changed, right?

But think about the soldiers. They're told they're fighting enemy soldiers. They're told they're fighting collaborators. Now, whether or not those people are truly insurgents, what is the duty of a soldier? It's stupid, but blame the Turkish as you blame American soldiers, because it's mindless obedience that wins wars, both right and wrong.

It's a bit different than shoving someone in an oven, which is a much bigger leap of logic than fighting in a nation's army.

That was my point, that although the command's intentions may have been different between Turkey and the American Union, the actions were much the same to its soldiers.

--Added, to actually clarify my reply to Draco: Most importantly, to understand the desperation that made the Sultan and triumvirate decide to act as they did, one must realize that they were dealing with secessionists. Though argument remains as to whether or not there was a genocide, we can all agree there was fighting and killing. But that fighting and killing was necessitated, in the leaders' eyes. So, though perhaps morbid, it is only just to provide the player with a choice: rule over others at great cost, or respect for their sovereignty.

 

[Surgünoglu]

I don't know. My guess is that this thread is in danger of being off topic. Please rebutt, if you wish--it'd be awfully rude of me to reply and then end the discussion--but I think I should shift this back onto the game by saying that I think it'd be realistic if Armenia revolted toward the end of the 1800s to the end of the game, maybe. Maybe just a revolt risk in the east, maybe even in the Kurdish provinces too.

Of course, when the Russians roll in, that revolt risk could be lessened or nullified completely. Regardless of what that says of allegiances in the Caucasus, that was certainly how it happened in history. Thoughts?