The whole 'but we slaughter vast populations' comparison is not apt. None of that is shown; the violence shown in game is very subdue compared to real war. Only if people were objecting to the text on the unit card saying "these men don't wear trousers" or whatever would the comparison be appropriate.

Who would want to see their soldiers in game slaughtering and cutting down the pixelated peasants as they ran in terror? No, we don't see that, the game shields us from it, and I don't see people clamoring for being able to see peasants being slaughtered for historical realism.

I don't like films like Saw with gratuitous gore and I'm not keen on having a bunch of naked men running around my monitor either. There's a lot of historically realistic stuff not depicted in the game; it's not like having a loincloth patch is the last bastion of ahistorical content in the game. We're playing a game, there's no need to subject one's self to something you don't want to for the sake of "realism".

CR