Verdict of BI by a TW Vet.

[KRALLODHRIB]

I like it.
Why?
It's more of the same, generally.
The total war series is singularly unique because of its glorious emphasis on the tactical battles. The ability to zoom into those battles and engage in them directly and in an intuitive, intelligent manner is the hallmark of this series. In the BI those batles have come to life and are smooth flowing, almost as smooth as MTW.
My congrats to the developers!
I completed the Roman (western) campaign on M/H and found it to be an absolute delight; well ballanced, continually provocative, and requiring of reasonably judicious use of resources and management strategy. This is what games are supposed to do. It's what tabletop does and ADnD used to do for me.
The ability to fight against Christian cultural/religious elements and remain pagan could have been a bit more dynamic in terms of ways to do it, yes a happy contented apostate ~:cheers:. Still, to be able to be Roman in the 5th century of the Common Era (C.E.) and WIN is what these games are all about, imo. Changing history simply for the sheer fun of it.
What would have happened if Rome had not adopted Christianity?
It would have created an EU 1500 years ago; and we would have skipped Christian inspired hatred, warfare and religous intolerance that lasted 1000 years and plunged Europe into a darkness called the Medieval period.
Well done CA!
PS-I dont care what the next TW title is or the period (I'd love really ancient history or the 30 years war or Napoleonic, -AHHHHHHHH-can't decide!) y0u have earned yourself a lifelong supporter in KRALLODHRIB.

[Kekvit Irae]

Religion is definately an enjoyable strategy part of BI. As the Romans, will you shun your Emperor and remain pagan, just for the experience/morale/weapon bonuses you gain from the temples? Or will you face the very real possibility of civil war by converting your settlements to Christianity and tearing down the pagan shrines?
Both, at the very start, are lose-lose situations. However, if you stick with it, Pagan rulers can produce better troops than Christian rulers, while Christian rulers will have happier settlements than Pagan rulers.

Choices like these make BI a fun, enjoyable experience.

[Nelson]

I like it.
Why?
It's more of the same, generally.
The total war series is singularly unique because of its glorious emphasis on the tactical battles. The ability to zoom into those battles and engage in them directly and in an intuitive, intelligent manner is the hallmark of this series.

Amen

[screwtype]

I completed the Roman (western) campaign on M/H and found it to be an absolute delight; well ballanced, continually provocative, and requiring of reasonably judicious use of resources and management strategy. This is what games are supposed to do.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. While I'm sure that BI is an improvement over RTW (I haven't actually played it yet) it seems clear to me that as a strategy game RTW/BI still leaves a lot to be desired. The campaign game is pitifully shallow and glaringly silly in its logic, even to a casual observer. A single example will suffice.

You don't have to go any further than look at the way food and population are handled. Common sense dictates that the bigger the population, the more food you need to maintain it, right? You don't have to be Einstein to understand that.

And yet in RTW, you are actually rewarded for supplying the least possible amount of food to your growing populace. Unless you want a population explosion, you are never going to build any of those farm upgrades because you know what they do to the population growth rate. In RTW, people don't eat. And they still multiply like rabbits. Perhaps CA thinks the ancients could photosynthesize?

CA's food and population model is totally arsed about. You should have to supply MORE food to keep a growing population alive, not less! And food should therefore be the primary management task, not some loopy artifice called "squalor". If you can't deliver enough food, your population implodes. If you deliver enough, your population grows. And if the population grows too fast, you outrun your food supplies and the population implodes again.

Management should therefore be about maintaining the right balance between food reserves and the needs of a growing population. CA could learn a lot from looking at the old Impressions game Lords of the Realm II. They certainly don't need to implement an economy as complex as in LOTR, but it should at least be sophisticated enough to reflect basic reality.

[player1]

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. While I'm sure that BI is an improvement over RTW (I haven't actually played it yet) it seems clear to me that as a strategy game RTW/BI still leaves a lot to be desired. The campaign game is pitifully shallow and glaringly silly in its logic, even to a casual observer. A single example will suffice.

Hmmm...


P.S.
If game leaves a lot to be desired, that doesn't make bad game. A lots of games leave a lot to be desired.

Food system in Civilzation games was far more absurd, but that didn't made a bad game. It make a great game.

[screwtype]

If game leaves a lot to be desired, that doesn't make bad game. A lot of games leave a lot to be desired.

True. I was just objecting to the other guy's implied conclusion that the game is rich in a strategic sense. On the contrary, I find the RTW game world to be shallow, one dimensional and emotionally unengaging.

That's not to say the game can't be fun to play. RTW is kinda fun, in a beer and pretzels sort of way. And BI by all accounts provides more challenge. I just think the game could be so much more than it is. So it remains a disappointment to me.


Food system in Civilzation games was far more absurd, but that didn't made a bad game. It make a great game.

What was absurd about the food system in Civ? I don't remember it in that much detail, but it never struck me as absurd.

[player1]

That population growth depends from the extra amount of food produced.
The bigger the extras, the bigger the growth.
If that was true in real world there would never be hunger.

[dismal]

If there's not as much food, the population doesn't grow as fast.

Don't see why that's a big problem.

If you that want something more complicated should try Rome:Total Agriculture.

[Hurin_Rules]

What would have happened if Rome had not adopted Christianity?
It would have created an EU 1500 years ago; and we would have skipped Christian inspired hatred, warfare and religous intolerance that lasted 1000 years and plunged Europe into a darkness called the Medieval period.


That 'darkness' called the medieval period saw the harnessing of wind and water power, an agricultural revolution, the invention of the university, the development of gunpowder, the discovery of the New World, and the begninnings of parliamentary democracies. Without the Middle Ages, the Europe of today could well have been a repressive totalitarian state that openly practiced slavery.

But I guess that's a topic for another thread. ~:cheers:

[Puzz3D]

That population growth depends from the extra amount of food produced.
The bigger the extras, the bigger the growth.
Maybe extra food draws people from the countryside to live in the city.

[Lord Armbandit]

Actually, i reckon the Civ food system was as simple as it could be without being absurd, which made it very effective given the number of cities you ended up controlling.

One thing to remember about the Civ system was that it allowed the city to grow to the size of the food supply. there is nothing unreasonable about this. Improving your land, or setting up food trades (with caravans) allowed you to grow your population. The population would start to fall if the food supply was inadequate, whether this occured through enemy interference, lack of workforce etc.

The only absurd thing about the system was the size of the granary (food store) so that when food supply ran short it took too many turns for poipulation to start falling.

A similar system could easily work in Total War, which does have a truly bizarre system at the moment. Doesn't stop it being a great game though!

[screwtype]

Actually, i reckon the Civ food system was as simple as it could be without being absurd, which made it very effective given the number of cities you ended up controlling.


I agree. I thought the Civ food system was quite logical, albeit a bit clumsy. It certainly didn't offend common sense the way the RTW system does.

[screwtype]

That population growth depends from the extra amount of food produced. The bigger the extras, the bigger the growth.

But that's exactly how it *does* work in the real world! ~:) Modern agricultural techniques have allowed us to sustain a far larger population than at any time in history. But stay tuned, because the world population is now growing at such a rate we may soon discover that Malthus was not wrong, just ahead of his time...


If that was true in real world there would never be hunger.

Hunger occurs in the world today not because of insufficient food, but because of unequal food distribution caused in turn by political factors. There's enough to feed everyone today, it just doesn't always get to the places it's most needed.

[screwtype]

If there's not as much food, the population doesn't grow as fast.

Don't see why that's a big problem.

Why should the population growth rate change just because there is a food surplus? A food surplus just means a bigger sustainable population, it doesn't mean a change in the actual rate of growth of the population.

The problem with the model in RTW is that there is *always* a food surplus, no matter what. You begin with a food surplus that enables you to sustain a growing population. And that food surplus remains regardless of how many people you have, or how much you neglect your agriculture, or natural disasters, or warfare and pillage, etc etc.

The problem you're met with in RTW is not one of providing enough food to sustain a growing population, which is how it should be, it's about deliberately neglecting your agriculture so as not to trigger unsustainable growth rates. That's just silly.


If you that want something more complicated should try Rome:Total Agriculture.

I've already tried it ~:) . It's called Lord of the Realms II, and it has a far better and more engaging economic model than RTW. But I don't really want a replica of the LOTR II model in RTW. All I want is a model that's challenging and that conforms to common sense.

And BTW, I agree that not everyone would want a more complex economic model. But that's easy to fix - you just give players the choice between simple and complex economic model in Options. Then those who want to manage a realistic economy in order to bash heads can have it, and those who just want to bash heads, period, can also have it.

[Mongoose]

i think i agree with Scretype. The RTW campaign is so bland compared to SMAC or Civ~:handball:


Though i admit that i haven't played BI. maybe it changed something to make the campaign if not much more complex, more interesting.

[HarunTaiwan]

In RTW, as Screwtype mentions, you sometimes will not supply more food to your people in order to control population growth rates.

That's plain silly and completely ahistorical: in ancient Rome one of the problems was supplying the people of Rome with food, not starving them.

Grain fleets were very important and many political issues were about grain...who controls Sicily, protecting Egyptian grain fleets, etc. They even had elected officials (quaestors) who had to go on foreign grain buying missions.

In RTW, there could have been Senate missions to secure grain, and if you let too many pirates exist, you would run into grain issues.

[Butcher]

I agree, the fact that building farms is counter productive is daft.

[Puzz3D]

I agree, the fact that building farms is counter productive is daft.
It isn't counter productive if you want to increase the population faster. I actually don't care what the game calls it. It's just a trigger to get more people to come to the city. But you are right, the unrest isn't being caused by a lack of food. It's being caused by overcrowding, lack of water, lack of entertainment, lack of organized religion, etc.

[SpencerH]

I wasn't impressed with RTW and I'm not impressed with BI. So far (playing my first campaign as the Saxons) I see very little difference between the two. Some technical problems have been fixed but new problems have been introduced. I also have to wonder where some of the 'eye-candy' glitz (that I enjoyed a little) such as 'weather effects' have gone? Hordes are an interesting idea, but when my strategy for dealing with them is not to eliminate their last city (so as to avoid spawning a much much larger enemy), I have to be critical of the ideas implementation.

So far, the challenge in BI has been to manage money. Tactical combat, the essence of TW, remains poor in BI in comparison to STW and MTW.

[dismal]

I wasn't impressed with RTW and I'm not impressed with BI. So far (playing my first campaign as the Saxons) I see very little difference between the two.


I think, when it comes down to it, the only major difference in game play between BI and RTW is the hordes.

If you play as a horde, the game plays very different than RTW.

If you play as Romans, the primary difference is dealing with the hordes. My ERE game felt very much like a vanilla RTW game most of the time, particulary the long war in the east vs. the Sassanids.

I imagine the Saxons aren't affected much by hordes (they tend to like to go south), so playing them will feel a lot like playing RTW.

[SpencerH]

I imagine the Saxons aren't affected much by hordes (they tend to like to go south), so playing them will feel a lot like playing RTW.

Actually I have had two hordes to deal with, the Franks and the Vandals (who are again 'hording' right now). I came up with my "no final elimination strategy" after fighting the Vandals for many turns.

[dismal]

Did they attack you or just mill about?

[Nelson]

I also have to wonder where some of the 'eye-candy' glitz (that I enjoyed a little) such as 'weather effects' have gone?
I too wish the Rome weather was like it is in Shogun but my suspicion is that weather effects went by the boards because rain, fog and snow become too intense graphically now that so many polygons are getting tossed around. As it is virtually no one can play with all options maximized and use the largest unit size. At least I have yet to see anyone claim that they can while still enjoying a smooth frame rate at all times.

[SpencerH]

Did they attack you or just mill about?

The Vandals migrated through my lands and they eventually attacked me and took a city. Later, after beating off their attacks at other cities, I took back the weakly defended city and I was lucky that the much more powerful horde migrated further west. Thats when I realized it's better to let 'sleeping dogs lie'. Hordes are much less hassle when they are no longer hordes. If they control one small city they are no risk.

[SpencerH]

I too wish the Rome weather was like it is in Shogun but my suspicion is that weather effects went by the boards because rain, fog and snow become too intense graphically now that so many polygons are getting tossed around. As it is virtually no one can play with all options maximized and use the largest unit size. At least I have yet to see anyone claim that they can while still enjoying a smooth frame rate at all times.

I miss those effects too but I was refering to the flooding, volcanos, storms etc that I had with RTW. I havent seen one with BI.

[dismal]

My first campaign I was ERE and had about 7-8 hordes swing by. I cobbled together a couple armies and put them on the bridges and this was enough to get most of them to pass on by.

I had to fight only 2 hordes.. One was a goth horde that appeared inside my borders that I had to scramble to break on the walls of Constantinople. The other was a Lombard horde that sent a stack after one of my bridge armies, was beaten badly and never tried again.

Other than the extra attention paid to the hordes, like you, I mostly played the same way as I did in RTW and got basically the same outcomes as I did in RTW.

Playing as a horde has been very much different. I tend to be a builder by nature, and the hordes are all about plundering.

[ChaosLord]

I keep hearing "Farms are unproductive" being tossed about again now that BI is out. I must be crazy, since I always build them. They do indirectly increase squalor, but squalor decreases population growth. So a balance can be met. Their only use isn't just growth as farm income can be quite nice. In any case I don't think extra food represents the primary reason for city growth, but rather economical growth.

More farms=more trade, more jobs, etc... This is why Markets and the like also increase population growth, but not on the same scale as farms since they're smaller in scale. Eventually growth becomes too much for the city to handle though(as is seen in any major city) and squalor becomes a problem. But if you prepare for it(with health and happiness buildings) you can go for max growth and still end up with a manageable city.

[dismal]

I keep hearing "Farms are unproductive" being tossed about again now that BI is out. I must be crazy, since I always build them. They do indirectly increase squalor, but squalor decreases population growth. So a balance can be met. Their only use isn't just growth as farm income can be quite nice. In any case I don't think extra food represents the primary reason for city growth, but rather economical growth.

It's probably fair to say that in the original pre-patch release squalor was out of balance and you needed to be careful not to overbuild farms. There were cities that would grow beyond your ability to control. Some people seem to have been horribly scarred by the experience.

Now, I think most cities can be kept in balance even with farms.

I still tend not to build buidlings that add to pop growth in cities that have high pop already (> 24,000 or close to 24,000 with growth) just because you're going to lose the extra value of doing it by having to garrison more, build very expensive order buildings, hold games, or lower taxes (which perversely causes more growth). It's also just extra hassle. At some point your time is better spent going out and winning the game than tweaking your cities.

In cities that aren't going to make it to 24,000 farms are the first thing I build. More income and faster growth - what else could you want?

[CountMRVHS]

In some of my cities, Squalor is the only negative factor of civil order. No unrest, no religion problems -- just the place is so filthy, apparently, people are ready to take up the pitchfork and shake it at their governor if they get the chance.

Not really sure what sort of buildings can counteract the effects of squalor... Happiness buildings, obviously, but there's only so many of those you can make. With Health buildings, I don't really understand how they work. Building the Sewer line of buildings, for example, won't decrease Squalor. Does it decrease the chance of plague or something?

CountMRVHS

[player1]

Thye couter-effect it.
5% of squalor reduce both growth and pulbic order for 5%.
Health gives 5% to both growth and pulbic order.

[Grifman]

I like it.
What would have happened if Rome had not adopted Christianity?
It would have created an EU 1500 years ago; and we would have skipped Christian inspired hatred, warfare and religous intolerance that lasted 1000 years and plunged Europe into a darkness called the Medieval period.

Somebody needs to go back and read their history. It wasn't Christianity that caused the Dark Ages, it was the barbarian invasions and collapse of the empire - and that would have happened whether the empire was still pagan or Christian. You act like paganism would have kept the empire from collapsing which is not true. In fact it was Christianity that gave the various barbarian tribes a common faith which kept things from getting worse than it might have been and aided their acculturation - they certainly weren't going to adopt the Greco-Roman gods. And it was the Christian monks who kept alive what learning there was that set the stage for a later recovery.

BTW, editorial comments such as this really have no place here.

[screwtype]

Thye couter-effect it.
5% of squalor reduce both growth and pulbic order for 5%.
Health gives 5% to both growth and pulbic order.

Yes, and you've just put your finger on another anomaly in this game.

If you don't want your population to grow too fast, you not only don't build farm upgrades, you don't build sewers either! So there's actually a *dis*incentive to not only feed your population but also keep them healthier.

Bloody stupid if you ask me.

[CountMRVHS]

Well, that one seems to make a bit of sense to me, Screwtype... One of the things that Squalor does is reduce pop growth, and building a Health building counters that. I didn't know Health actually helped public order, though, but that's a good reason alone to build a sewer.

It is kind of a catch-22 or paradox or whatever: we're so afraid of squalor that we don't build things like farms or sewers, because they contribute to squalor by increasing pop growth... but squalor *itself* DECREASES pop growth... so in a way, it's like the only thing that can actually *stop* the increase of squalor is squalor itself.

Gugugh.... now my brain hurts.. too early in the morning..

CountMRVHS

[screwtype]

It is kind of a catch-22 or paradox or whatever: we're so afraid of squalor that we don't build things like farms or sewers, because they contribute to squalor by increasing pop growth... but squalor *itself* DECREASES pop growth... so in a way, it's like the only thing that can actually *stop* the increase of squalor is squalor itself.

Gugugh.... now my brain hurts..

LOL, that's pretty much how I feel about it. You have to get just the right amount of starvation and disease to keep your population in check :dizzy2:

[KSEG]

My capital city playing as the Julii in 1.3 has over 40000 population with 85%squalor but the health bonus, games, races all counters that and I have 215%loyalty in normal taxrate, and I have all of my other citys, royaltys above 130%.
The only thing I do is to build public health buiding as soon as you upgrade the city and build the food production building only after you built every other building.

[dismal]

My capital city playing as the Julii in 1.3 has over 40000 population with 85%squalor but the health bonus, games, races all counters that and I have 215%loyalty in normal taxrate, and I have all of my other citys, royaltys above 130%.
The only thing I do is to build public health buiding as soon as you upgrade the city and build the food production building only after you built every other building.

You should probably have higher taxes. At that point, I don't think there is any reason not to.

But you reinforce my earlier point as well. Squalor is not the problem it used to be in V1.1. Your home cities will tend to have low distance-to-capital and no culture penalty and be manageable throughout the game.

When you get a bunch of things working against you (squalor, built-in unrest, distance to capital, and culture penalty) because you've conquered a big city half-way across the world, exterminate, then win the game already!

[KRALLODHRIB]

I love the discussion that this post has garnered.
This game still blows all other games away in terms of the depth of it on a comprehensive level.
If you prefer exclusively economic games then purchase those but RTW is great in terms of the whole picture but with a focus on the tactical level especially. Nothing out there has been created to rival it-period!

I do take exception to any suggestion that I do not "know" my history. I have studied it for years and regard my knowledge of European history as largely comprehensive as well as informed.

In terms of the saving effects of Christianity. Hmm. . . let's start with learning-the classics were preserved by the Arabs not the bloody Barbarians. It was Arab interpretations of the Classsics that spawned the learning of the Renaissance (rebirth). The monks of the Dark Ages (and they are called that because the light of knowledge was snuffed out after the Barbarian invasions) only preserved Christian literature, which incidently is rather lmited in scope. The extent of their contribution to knowledge was facsimlies of the bible, over and over and over again. Very little interpretation or new ideas were churned out-that says it all. Dark? Indeed, very, very dark in fact.

It was the Chinese who discovered gunpowder (and perhaps had beaten the Europeans to North America in the early modern period as well), while the Americas were of course NOT a terra nullis (empty land) thus it is impossible to consider Europeans as truly "discoverers" since it had been colonized 15000 years before Columbus and his ilk! Slavery was in practice well after the Dark Ages. It was certainly not the preserve of the Romans and Greeks. In terms of politics, I suppose hiserarchacal feudalism is a step towards democracy. It actally paved the way for the despots and autocrats prior to the Reformation, which was around the time that Europeans really began to emulate the free thought of the Greeks, ie Martin Luther, etc. (Note this was not done during the Dark Ages but around the 16th and 17th centuries).

It's amusing to note that also it was the Christian Europeans that persecuted the Arabs who held the remaining versions of the classics which would introduce the Reanissance.

Very little in the way of advancements were brought forth from the absolute night that was the Dark Ages. I tend to think of Europe as the centre of a pig-slop during the Middle Ages. Compared to the rest of the world, especially the Chinese, aside from some coastal cities, Euope was the proverbial backwater filled with stagnant filth.

LONG LIVE PAGAN ROME AND CONSTANTINE THE APOSTATE. REMEMBER THE OLD GODS ALWAYS!

[CountMRVHS]

Hrm....... Constantine the Apostate? Trying to be funny, I assume?

I think it's funny how people get all uppity about the medieval period. It's certainly easy to gang up on Christianity, I guess. I think people get a little excited by it too -- they feel like they're "sticking it to the man" somehow. Oh well.

It's also interesting that you bring up all the wonderful "advancements" -- gunpowder?? Please. Not to mention the irony that someone who claims to know something about history is throwing around terms like "Dark Ages" and "stagnant filth". Clearly not a sign of a balanced mind on this topic.

"Facsimiles of the Bible." I can only shake my head at that; only someone who hasn't seen even a reproduction of the Lindisfarne Gospels or the Book of Kells - to name only a few, from the most "backwater" part of Europe, you might say - would make such a ridiculous statement.

The exquisite jewelry and metalwork from the Sutton Hoo ship burial also dates from this "very very dark" time.

What about the literary works: Beowulf, the Dream of the Rood, the Wanderer, the Seafarer, Wulf and Eadwacer, Deor; Chaucer's works, the works of the Gawain-poet, not to mention the many lovely anonymous medieval lyrics.

What about the quiet scholarship and learning of Bede, a man who ended his life the way he lived it -- by teaching. He spent all his life in a "stagnant" monastery in a "stagnant" country in a "stagnant" century. Didn't invent the light bulb, either.

What about the countless marginalia -- poems written around the edges of barbarous Christian manuscripts by Irish monks; poems which reveal a life of the mind that too few of us are fortunate enough to touch in our much more "civilized" world. What about the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, a man practically unknown outside his native country, whose complexity, warmth, and humanity can still teach us today.

Is Christianity free of intolerance? Of course not. Is Islam? Intolerance is part of humanity, not part of the medieval Christian period.

You're right -- these filthy barbarians didn't even have indoor plumbing. But I would suggest you make even the smallest inquiry into the art and literature of this time before you write off a religion, a continent, and a period spanning several centuries. To fail to do so is only to continue to reveal your ignorance.

CountMRVHS

[KRALLODHRIB]

We would be irresponsible and pehaps guilty of an "imbalanced" approach if we didn't add that these examples, cited above, are the exceptions not the rule in the medieval European world.

Keep in mind that they are referred to the Dark Ages of European history for a reason.

[CountMRVHS]

Sir, I'm sorry, but that's not an argument.

They are called "the dark ages" because historians in the past several hundred years unquestionably preferred the Greco-Roman period to the medieval. You're simply perpetuating their bias by continuing to use that term.

As for my examples being the exception rather than the rule.... of course they are the exception. But the Arabs who (I agree with you here) kept the Classical heritage alive were *also* the exception in their own culture. While some Arabs translated Aristotle, others were busy tearing down the Library of Alexandria (admittedly already probably somewhat dilapidated). What I argue is that the richness of medieval art and literature rivals that of today.

However, I can't continue this conversation until you begin to do some honest research instead of falling back upon Victorian stereotypes. Get back to me by PM or some other method when you've read some literature from the period (even translated literature) that wasn't part of a high school course. I'm sorry to sound so harsh here, but I simply can't let you get away with making these sorts of statements without any backup. Do some reading and we can continue this later. No hard feelings, even. ~:cheers:

CountMRVHS

[The Stranger]

i think RTW is a very good game, but it just missed the magic that MTW had for me.

[Throb]

Er I think the Roman Empire if Pagan religion followed, would have been crushed remorslessly by either the Arabs or one of the other Islamic factions, for not of the book.

No Eu they would not have created, communism and facism would previal before the idea of EU.

Your forgetting India and China, XVICM and L nothing compared to the mighy 0 ~D

[The Stranger]

yeah another stupid thing in BI,,,the BERBERS HAVE FRIGGIN CHRISTIAN FAITH, THEY BUILD CHRISTIAN CHURCHES>>>THATS NOT RIGHT

[TB666]

yeah another stupid thing in BI,,,the BERBERS HAVE FRIGGIN CHRISTIAN FAITH, THEY BUILD CHRISTIAN CHURCHES>>>THATS NOT RIGHT
Yes it is

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

I thought that the early medieval period (seriously, this is what the period is generally called now just in case anybody thinks I'm mixed up) was known as the Dark ages due to the lack of sources compared to other periods.

Edit: i.e. they were called dark because the information was not there to fully illuminate them.

[rebelscum]

yeah another stupid thing in BI,,,the BERBERS HAVE FRIGGIN CHRISTIAN FAITH, THEY BUILD CHRISTIAN CHURCHES>>>THATS NOT RIGHT
Are you sure?, christianity was rife in the middle east and north africa around this time.
Born in Mecca, in western Arabia, Muhammad (ca. 570–632), last in the line of Judeo-Christian prophets, received his first revelation in 610.
Islam began around 632.
But paganism would probably be more appropriate.

[TB666]

But paganism would probably be more appropriate.
Nope, they seem to have been christians during this time.

[NodachiSam]

The Berbers were once Christian, they converted later.

[screwtype]

Keep in mind that they are referred to the Dark Ages of European history for a reason.

Actually, historians no longer refer to this period as "The Dark Ages" because they believe it is a misnomer. It's now officially referred to as the Early Middle Ages.

[Hurin_Rules]

Actually, historians no longer refer to this period as "The Dark Ages" because they believe it is a misnomer. It's now officially referred to as the Early Middle Ages.

Quite right. You also now see the term "Late Antiquity', which refers to the period up to as late as 800 CE (AD).

[TB666]

Actually, historians no longer refer to this period as "The Dark Ages"
Depends on the historian.
I'm studying history at Lund's university and the professor called it the "dark age".
But she also said that the term "Early Middle Ages" is also acceptable.

[eire1130]

because the world population is now growing at such a rate we may soon discover that Malthus was not wrong, just ahead of his time...

Malthus said Population *Tends* (keyword) to grow geometrically while food supplies grow arithmatically.

He was proven wrong by Henry George in book two of Progress and Poverty. So, if your basing your theory of roman population controls on the "dismal theory" then you need to reasses your hypothosis.

Secondly, most populations will cap at a certain level with only one farm built, sometimes 25K, sometimes 32K, sometimes some other level. It depends on the productivity of the local area. However, if you upgrade they can sustain a higher population. This does not contradict Malthus.

Those farm upgrades do not say that there are no farms out there at all. The Latifundia are large landed estates while the smaller landed estates become dispossed citizens. The farms are still there, just not as efficient as they could be. George also wrote about the Latifundia in his book P&P.

[Hurin_Rules]

Depends on the historian.
I'm studying history at Lund's university and the professor called it the "dark age".
But she also said that the term "Early Middle Ages" is also acceptable.

Sure, but look at the latest books published by respected authors in university presses. The term 'Dark Ages' is falling out of use (except for the odd comment on the dust jacket, which the editor usually has control of).

e.g.: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:jRj5P7PM8uYJ:www.britannica.com/eb/article-9028782+%22dark+ages%22+historiography&hl=en

[Trithemius]

Malthus said Population *Tends* (keyword) to grow geometrically while food supplies grow arithmatically.

He was proven wrong by Henry George in book two of Progress and Poverty. So, if your basing your theory of roman population controls on the "dismal theory" then you need to reasses your hypothosis.

Secondly, most populations will cap at a certain level with only one farm built, sometimes 25K, sometimes 32K, sometimes some other level. It depends on the productivity of the local area. However, if you upgrade they can sustain a higher population. This does not contradict Malthus.

Those farm upgrades do not say that there are no farms out there at all. The Latifundia are large landed estates while the smaller landed estates become dispossed citizens. The farms are still there, just not as efficient as they could be. George also wrote about the Latifundia in his book P&P.

It seems to me that the big problem is not with farms, per se, but with the side effects of the results of improved farming: population growth that leads to squalor.

This is actually reasonable, since very few cities of the period could actually sustain a population without major migration, and people tended not to migrate to areas with insufficient food-supply. Disease and emigration rapidly depopulated those urban areas that became less attractive to migrants.

If the farming improvements are taken to represent development of the provincial hinterlands to provide the main centre with a steadier supply of food, thereby encouraging migration from rural and other, less popular, urban areas then I think the farms are quite effective at modelling things. RTW doesn't permit for variable spending on sanitation or urban policing, instead relying on the structures, but there clearly are upper limits to the population of cities of this time period (given sanitation, town planning, and transportation technology). The game just attempts to "model" this in a simple way, so people don't have to commit huge amounts of their budget to maintaining water supply, roads, and sanitation facilities.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a more complex simulator of this sort of thing, but it has been done (or at least attempted) in other games and it would detract from the military experience of Rome Total War. If I was going to nitpick the game, I would quibble about the manner in which troops are recruited; I would not complain that vast masses of humans tend to give rise to diseases and mob-violence. ~:rolleyes:

[Bel]

Sure, but look at the latest books published by respected authors in university presses. The term 'Dark Ages' is falling out of use (except for the odd comment on the dust jacket, which the editor usually has control of).

e.g.: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:jRj5P7PM8uYJ:www.britannica.com/eb/article-9028782+%22dark+ages%22+historiography&hl=en

Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, as I really have no knowledge of history, as I avoided it like the plague in college, but the relabeling and renaming (maybe even revisionist if you're a cynic like myself) of terms by modern politically correct university professors is neither a new trend nor exclusive to this field. The label used should really not be used as "proof" of anything.

[Hurin_Rules]

Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, as I really have no knowledge of history, as I avoided it like the plague in college, but the relabeling and renaming (maybe even revisionist if you're a cynic like myself) of terms by modern politically correct university professors is neither a new trend nor exclusive to this field. The label used should really not be used as "proof" of anything.

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But should we then also do away with other revisionist interpretations, like, say, the theories of evolution and relativity? Should we go back to thinking the sun revolves around the earth?