I always wonder if such content (and no functional improvements) would even be welcome in a pull request, not to mention how controversial adding slavery to a game might be.
By the other hand - to facilitate contributions - using Java is not optimal but it certainly made sense at the time, this is already an old project.
On the contrary many open source games use Java (or CSharp) and it helps them be moddable, discoverable and testable in ways that JavaScript would not give you for free. Additionally, the web ecosystem is built around a marketplace of external services and opaque, bundled offerings, which makes people not paying those bills (ie modders, open source contributors) second class citizens in the development process.
I like the idea of morally ugly things in games, but often they minmax away or are forced on you by great difficulty. For instance, in Bioshock it's optimal to be nice to the little girls. The bad option is minmaxed away. And in Frostpunk it's kind of forced on you since the tech tree is all authoritarianism.
I wonder what it would be like if in the same game I could end up either the North or the South and still put up a good fight.
I like how Witcher series does it. You have established character presented with hard dillemas with no obvious good option, implied bad side effects, and the actual effects are only seen after hours of gameplay, so you can't just reload.
And it's not "pat the puppy or kill it", because the character wouldn't kill the puppy and it makes no sense, it's "feed this puppy or save the food because you have long way to the next city".
The fact that you don't have perfect knowledge+delayed effects make all the difference. But it's best suited for story-heavy games like RPGs, I'm not sure it would work as well in mechanics-based game.
If you're talking about the Book of Laws, you get different endings depending on what laws you enable like "we didn't cross the line" or "we went too far", or something like that.
I think also that depending on the scenario you can avoid most of the "ugly laws", with the notable exception of child labour, because it gives a boost in manpower at the beginning of the game, and that makes really a difference.
If you prefer, choosing a single ugly law lets me avoid all the others.
But allmost everything is authorian in the book of laws. Even if you play soft - you play a soft dictator. But this is the game mechanic, and to play as a anarchistic syndicate would be hard to implement, or rather impossible, as you are indeed the only human.
But sure, if we were talking about historical games set in europe, there would probably be things missing that paint europe in a bad light... But that's not what we (or atleast I) are talking about here.
The game did feature a form of slavery with indentured servants from Europe, many of those ended up being literal slaves with no end to their contract once in the new World.
Regarding the issue of slavery, Colonization would have been criticized both ways: had they included it, they would have seen as condoning it. Removing it makes it seem like they did not care or are trying to hide it from History.
There's no good solution that will satisfy everyone.
But having read several books on what colonisation actually means I would be reluctant to play it again.
For some reason for me Civilisation the game keeps it at a fictional enough level that you are not re-enacting whereas colonisation does not keep that level of separation.
The big question in the room is should you be re-enacting historical slavery for fun?
I could probably play a game where it wasn't historical and feel ok with it like a science fiction game but when it's something as insanely terrible as the trans-atlantic slave trade and you want to 'play' that game it feels morally wrong to me.
The same is true (if not worse) for murder. Should war be allowed?
For some reason I would want to show some reverence for historical events. It probably comes down to whether I have emotional connection to the event.
I wouldn't feel comfortable carrying out atrocities in a war video game for entertainment but the unrealistic killing that is depicted in video games and Hollywood is not the same calibre. But you are right to ask the question it's an interesting topic.
Is that glorification of murder and violence a positive thing? What do you think about it all?
That is allmost never the case. It is important to keep this in mind. I for once want a historical game to be trul historical. As close to the facts as possible.
I don’t disagree with you wholly because I think a video game that didn’t have slavery as a subject but did educate about it in this kind of way would be very effective at for example teaching kids and adults about things like Juneteenth or the only coup to ever happen on US soil. But unless the game is on rails, the historical facts will always be just one of the possible choices.
Sure. Thats why I am talking about the general setting. I start at a time, which I like to be somewhat historical correct. And from there it is free playing. Otherwise those strategygames would not be possible.
So in the example of collonization, there definitely should be the option of slaves, as it was done. But there should also be the option of avoiding it. Basically, playing nice, without the game mechanics pushing you to be a slaver. (I do not remember how it was actually implemented)
But I would not mind the game to be harder playing it nice. Which is probably more to historical truth.
What I'm trying to say is that I can see why americans see it as a sensitive issue, but as a non-american it would makes as much sense to remove indians or the parent country from the game.
Anybody remembers the GTA hot coffee mod? It was a mini sex game, added by a mod, or rather, unlocked by the mod. And it caused an outrage. Because, the whole game was about killing and stealing and exploiting. No problem. Just violence.
But having sexual content? No way. That goes too far.
Things are not compared rationally and emotionally on the same level.
[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsASpecialKi...