game design, 4x games and colonialism
had a thought about 4x games, civ in particular
you always have the generic "barbarians" faction who are in game design terms meant to just give you some fodder to train your early military against before you meet other civilizations
what if you had a game where, instead of that, or perhaps in addition to that, all other players' civilizations and all city-states appear as barbarians until you research the appropriate technology to communicate with them
*in particular*, ones who start close to you (perhaps on the same continent?) would be easier to initiate contact with, while ones who are far away you won't be able to have your civilization view as equals until well past the age of exploration, on the grounds that their culture and language is much too different for your age-of-exploration colonialist empire to recognise as civilized
it'd also help if starting times and/or technology costs were staggered or different for each player, so that there can be a significant imbalance even for players who know how to play the game
this would definitely give the player a bit more of an understanding of how Bad colonialism is in general by giving a more realistic simulation of how it happens, i think
game design, 4x games and colonialism
@Felthry This is very much my kind of thing, these days.
In the early 2000s there was a 4x build-the-Roman-Empire game where *every* province was part of a coherent state. No generic 'barbarians', nobody that you couldn't play. Granted all had the same structure of buildings/units/diplomatic options, and it didn't have that learning-to-see-the-civilization aspect you describe, but it was a step toward that kind of empathetic gaming.