The civ games have always been extreme amounts of liberal, especially since the entire game mechanic relies on a Pinker type "everything is constant improvement and advancement" narrative. The franchise was started in the early 90s and very much shaped by the outcome of the cold war. I remember they explicitly made Communism a useless government style in Civ2 outside of a WW2 type scenario (max waste and corruption, so that your economy, production and science will be shit and you are doomed to fall behind if you stay communist too long, but max militarism, so you can still recruit huge hordes of soldiers and your people will not be unhappy about total war). All the game mechanics in the modern era were strongly premised on Liberal Democracy = peaceful and prosperous and your people will hate you if you ever contemplate a war of aggression, Communism = cruel dysfunction that relies entirely on war mongering and oppression to operate.
I am willing to give Alpha Centauri a pass, because even though it is kind of blinded or hobbled by the authors liberalism it was kind of trying to gesture at some transcendence and something beyond the End of History. But yeah the Chairman Sheng-Ji faction just being horseshoe totalitarianism is very cringe. And the downside to the explicitly communist/syndicalist faction is "bad at science because me don't tolerate free thought" is also very liberal.
The civ games have always been extreme amounts of liberal, especially since the entire game mechanic relies on a Pinker type "everything is constant improvement and advancement" narrative. The franchise was started in the early 90s and very much shaped by the outcome of the cold war. I remember they explicitly made Communism a useless government style in Civ2 outside of a WW2 type scenario (max waste and corruption, so that your economy, production and science will be shit and you are doomed to fall behind if you stay communist too long, but max militarism, so you can still recruit huge hordes of soldiers and your people will not be unhappy about total war). All the game mechanics in the modern era were strongly premised on Liberal Democracy = peaceful and prosperous and your people will hate you if you ever contemplate a war of aggression, Communism = cruel dysfunction that relies entirely on war mongering and oppression to operate.
Then there's Alpha Centauri with 1984 Animal Farm chicom. At least the union guy is cool.
I am willing to give Alpha Centauri a pass, because even though it is kind of blinded or hobbled by the authors liberalism it was kind of trying to gesture at some transcendence and something beyond the End of History. But yeah the Chairman Sheng-Ji faction just being horseshoe totalitarianism is very cringe. And the downside to the explicitly communist/syndicalist faction is "bad at science because me don't tolerate free thought" is also very liberal.
I think it's more because they're dumb blue collar factory workers, which is of course also very liberal.