War crimes - default settings in 0AD

[Gurken Khan]

Recently the Red Cross launched a campaign against committing war crimes in video games; I guess it's more to raise awareness than to actually change gamers' behavior.

Personally, killing pixel-people including pixel-civilians (= genocide) doesn't wake the urge in me to transfer that into real life, but I wondered if you had an opinion about that, maybe changing the default settings to a non-bloody victory condition like a wonder victory?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

People have had this idea that videogames cause violence for as long as videogames have existed. People with normal cognitive function are able to distinguish between the objectives and victory conditions of a game, regardless of how they are achieved, and real life, traumatic violence.

I don't think this is worth our time to be honest, especially not any developer's time. 

Edited May 6, 2023 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Grautvornix]

Neither it does for me ("wake the urge in me to transfer that into real life" that is) but we could certainly think about capturing civilians instead of killing them (in game you certainly need to also reduce economic power of your adversary - markets, traders, buildings - and gatherers).

I believe I've seen that capturing instead of killing implemented in Delenda Est. Not so sure about historical reality though.

Best regards,
Grautvornix

[Gurken Khan]

28 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

People have had this idea that videogames cause violence for as long as videogames have existed.

This thread is not about that. (I don't believe it either.)

 

28 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

I believe I've seen that capturing instead of killing implemented in Delenda Est. Not so sure about historical reality though.

I might be wrong, but I think that historical warfare was usually more about capturing lands and people and not about annihilating a certain people.

[Lion.Kanzen]

9 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

This thread is not about that. (I don't believe it either.)

 

I might be wrong, but I think that historical warfare was usually more about capturing lands and people and not about annihilating a certain people.

Depends.

 

 

They did not annihilate them because they needed subjects and slaves.

 

 

Also the population was smaller all over the world.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

14 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

This thread is not about that. (I don't believe it either.)

Hmm, then are people saying that its unethical to have war crimes included in videogames? Sorry I just read your original post as basically the same idea. especially this part:

1 hour ago, Gurken Khan said:

Personally, killing pixel-people including pixel-civilians (= genocide) doesn't wake the urge in me to transfer that into real life

At this point I'm a bit confused about what you meant in the first post, but I think war crimes can be in 0ad or frankly any game as long as they aren't glorified or justified in a good versus evil or us versus them lens.

[Gurken Khan]

33 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

At this point I'm a bit confused about what you meant in the first post, but I think war crimes can be in 0ad or frankly any game as long as they aren't glorified or justified in a good versus evil or us versus them lens.

I just wanted to ask the forums' members if they think we should keep the default settings as they are, as they are currently encouraging (fictitious) war crimes; those are currently "glorified/justified" as they are necessary to win.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I am sorry but it is not getting any clearer for me. Either way, the default settings should not change since they are reset when mods are changed, so a lot of games will need to be rehosted when people realize they have non-violent game settings.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

non-bloody victory condition like a wonder victory?

I don't think a wonder victory would be without battles, and I would oppose changing it to the default victory condition.

Fighting is the whole point of the game, but I suppose a "trade war" gamemode could be made were one culture has to dominate the map until the other is forced into submission/defeat.

To be honest, this is no less morbid up than normal gameplay.

Edited May 7, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[alre]

13 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

I might be wrong, but I think that historical warfare was usually more about capturing lands and people and not about annihilating a certain people.

mmmh there have been a lot of cases of destruction of whole cities and mass murder in ancient wars, especially preclassic, but also later.

Right now wonders are more like very expensive buildings like any other in 0ad than balanced winning conditions, so, unless that changes I don't think it's a good idea to change default winning conditions.

By the way, I've looked up the red cross page and it seems to me more like a PR stunt for "showing that wars have rules too" than actually a campaign against violence of any kind in video games. Also it's only targeted towards FPS games, and arguably any game set in a time where war crimes didn't exist as a concept it's out of scope for that initiative.

[Gurken Khan]

12 minutes ago, alre said:

By the way, I've looked up the red cross page and it seems to me more like a PR stunt for "showing that wars have rules too" than actually a campaign against violence of any kind in video games.

Yeah, as I wrote more about "raising awareness".

13 minutes ago, alre said:

Also it's only targeted towards FPS games, and arguably any game set in a time where war crimes didn't exist as a concept it's out of scope for that initiative.

The campaign was only a peg. FPS or RTS or any other genre: a war crime is a war crime. And any game is played ~now, a time where the concept is established. I didn't really expect anything to come out of this discussion, other than raising the question if we want genocide as the default setting.

[Grautvornix]

In the end, the game is about warfare; and this involves many activities that are not accepted by today's standards anymore. As an example, chasing and killing fleeing women and traders to satisfy victory conditions (until no one survives) might be changed like implemented in DE (capturing instead of killing). Converted women/traders would not be slaves but become standard citizens.

On the other hand, destroying your own units, e.g. because they are not needed anymore is - bluntly - also murder. I guess we are entering a slippery slope in this discussion.

My proposal would be to introduce capturing/converting of civilians instead of killing them (also creating interesting complications of over population, as well as the option for the adversary to re-capture them). Would that be a way to balance our approach a bit?

[causative]

Capturing and enslaving civilians is also a war crime.

[hyperion]

If it's a war crime go report it to Den Haag as supposed to in a lawful society, I for one think I'm playing a game here.

[Grautvornix]

24 minutes ago, causative said:

Capturing and enslaving civilians is also a war crime.

That's why I suggest "conversion" instead of capturing, i.e. they become your own citizens.

But never mind, I belive this is anyhow a more academic discussion. Not sure I want to live in a OAD world myself.

[Yekaterina]

It's easy to avoid war crime accusations. Just claim that your units are using virtual airsoft weapons that are not lethal. Those who get hit are eliminated from the game. Barracks supply new players. You are the captain of the team. 

To make the argument more convincing, use autociv and set max corps to 0. Then you can say that those who lost enough virtual health instantly quit the game. You can also install no blood mod. 

Furthermore, PUBG makes the dead player vanish in a smoke and leaves behind a box. 0ad can do the same. Killing is not shown so we can claim that there is none. 

In the worst case scenario, you can just say that units are depictions of monkeys who look like humans; the battles are basically monkeys killing each other. Stan was too good. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

9 minutes ago, Sevda said:

It's easy to avoid war crime accusations. Just claim that your units are using virtual airsoft weapons that are not lethal. Those who get hit are eliminated from the game. Barracks supply new players. You are the captain of the team

Blood is strawberry juice?

[Yekaterina]

Just now, Lion.Kanzen said:

Blood is strawberry juice?

Yes! The players were carrying strawberry juice as a drink (or tomato juice), then suddenly an arrow flied onto the bottle and pierce it. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

10 minutes ago, Sevda said:

In the worst case scenario, you can just say that units are depictions of monkeys who look like humans; the battles are basically monkeys killing each other. Stan was too good. 

You could say they are a humanoid alien race, Kryptonian or Saiyan style.

[Yekaterina]

2 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Kryptonian or Saiyan style.

there is a star trek episode in TOS where they found a planet with a Roman empire on there, with the Romans looking identical to humans.

[Yekaterina]

Why should we care about the red cross? What can they do to us? I doubt any red cross members would investigate us. A niche game like this being trialed for war crime while those popular violent games like GTA, Battlefield and Call of Duty stay out of sight is preposterous. Furthermore, these civilisations being depicted in this game don't exist anymore. If anything, we are imagining battles that had never occurred. I can see myself being trialed for war crime for that.

[Gurken Khan]

@scones Dude/Dudette, nobody will be trialing us.

Or anybody else for playing a video game.

In fact the Red Cross could cause us trouble, if we used their red cross symbol. I'm not sure if we actually changed our healing icon from red to green because of that, but I know that no matter how niche a game, they will come after you and make you stop using it.

[Yekaterina]

Firstly, the red cross has no right to forbid the use of red coloured cross symbols in other people's work. We can argue that it is not of identical shape and design.

Secondly, even if they think we are using their symbol, so what? Prosecute the developers and the entire player base? I've seen red cross sprites in other games, none of them have been prosecuted.

Thirdly, there are huge differences between a Greek healer or Carthaginian healer and a Red Cross unit. There is no way one can associate 0ad healers with Red Cross. The Red Cross don't pray in temples nor are they trained in temples.

Lastly, since they cannot trial us: do we even need to take the Red Cross seriously? Their job is to save wounded soldiers on the front line, not staring at people's computer games. Even on the front line: which country has ever obeyed the Geneva conventions in a war?

 

[Yekaterina]

The Geneva conventions can only be a recommendation; no one would obey it in war.

War means total commitment to violence against another country. It  is with hatred and malice in nature. If you are not planning to destroy a country, you wouldn't be declaring war on them. The soldiers are fighting for their lives and their country, so you cannot possibly expect them to observe all of these phony protocals that only slow down their advance. Attacking supplies and civilians is inevitable, especially with explosive weapons. Hence war crimes cannot be controlled by Geneva convention or Red cross. We can at most persuade the soldiers to avoid killing unarmed civilians, but no one can guarantee that an explosive missile won't claim any innocent lives.

[seeh]

On 07/05/2023 at 5:05 PM, Grautvornix said:

On 07/05/2023 at 4:39 PM, causative said:

Capturing and enslaving civilians is also a war crime.

That's why I suggest "conversion" instead of capturing, i.e. they become your own citizens.

But never mind, I belive this is anyhow a more academic discussion. Not sure I want to live in a OAD world myself.

the only way around this discussion altogether is to make animals or galactic beings (borg's ? ) out of it?
or Paintball ? if a being is full of colors then it want go/home out for washing (dont come back)

Edited May 9, 2023 by seeh