Rather Large Historical Error

[Incongruous]

The Golden Horde, I believe, was Christian and at one point offered to help Christendom rid themselves of the Muslims in a pincer attack from both east and west, it was rejected.

[KingKnudthebloodthirsty]

The Golden Horde, I believe, was Christian and at one point offered to help Christendom rid themselves of the Muslims in a pincer attack from both east and west, it was rejected.

Yes. Many mongols were nestorian christians See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Mongol_alliance
And yes, though they maintained good relations, they had trouble w/ cooperation. I find out also that the Mongols were originally shamanists, a religion common Central Asian nomads, so it won't be wrong to make them pagan. They were also buddhists, not surprisingly since of their closeness to China and Tibet.

[Megas Methuselah]

No there isn't, in the game. I investigated it a few times by conquering Lithuania. No paganism, just Heresey.

...? That's odd. Maybe it's in a patch? In my games, the Aztecs and Lithuanians are pagans. It even says in the descr_sm_faction.txt file... Unless, FactionHeir made it in his VanillaMod, which I am using?

[Quintus.JC]

Mongols should of been Pagans.

In vanila Medieval II the Aztech were pagans, so did many province in north east Europe.

And yes, the Timurids are muslims, but the Mongols were most definitely not.

[Paradox]

Perhaps they needed more Muslim factions in the game? Since the amount of Muslims and Catholics, the two main religions in the game, are unbalanced. Or maybe the Mongols were required to have the skill to call a jihad in order to uphold their strong momentum of capturing city after city, since other faiths lack the ability and unity to call their own religious campaigns.

The Golden Horde, I believe, was Christian and at one point offered to help Christendom rid themselves of the Muslims in a pincer attack from both east and west, it was rejected.

Might I ask why it was rejected? Why would Christendom pass up such an opportunity to defeat those who have been impeding their expansions and their main opposition of the occupation of the holy land.

[Fisherking]

Perhaps they needed more Muslim factions in the game? Since the amount of Muslims and Catholics, the two main religions in the game, are unbalanced. Or maybe the Mongols required to have the skill to call a jihad in order to uphold their strong momentum of capturing city after city, since other faiths lack the ability and unity to call their own religious campaigns.

Might I ask why it was rejected? Why would Christendom pass up such an opportunity to defeat those who have been impeding their expansions and their main opposition of the occupation of the holy land.

This is mostly guess work but I do recall something about it…

First all those Catholic factions are headed by very jealous kings who wanted any acclaim and lands to be theirs…not someone else’s.

Deciding who should lead such an enterprise would be next to impossible.

The more important aspect may have been that they just didn’t trust the Golden Hoard.

In the end religious wars were just like any other war. A good pretence for the Nobility to take someone else’s land for their own. The fact that someone brought religion into it only made it easier to get recruits.

[Boulis]

I'm far from an expert on the Mongols but I am fairly certain the Golden Horde, at least, was not Christian, but Muslim. The Ilkhan Khanate led by Hulagu was heavily influenced by Nestorian Christianity (his mother and wife were both Christian and there are theories he too was Christian for a while until he chose Buddhism) but was not "officially" Christian.

This article (and the links therein) might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christi...ng_the_Mongols

As for cooperation between Europeans and Mongols against Islam there are numerous factors that complicated matters I believe.

1) As Fisherking stated which Europeans were the Mongols to ally with? Some Europeans were active rivals and despised each other almost as much as they despised Muslims (Frederick II Hohenstaufen HRE vs. the Pope and his French protectors comes to mind or Venice vs. Genoa, etc.)

2) Which "Mongols" were the Europeans to ally with? The Mongol Empire as most of you know fractured rather quickly. Different parts had varying degrees of allegiance to different religions as the example of the Ilkhan Khanate vs. The Golden Horde shows.

3) Nestorianism was a deviant (read: heretical) sect of Christianity from the perspective of the Pope and Western Christians. I'm sure they were preferable to Muslims but not by all that much I would imagine.

4) Again, as Fisherking stated, many Europeans found Mongols untrustworthy (whether rightly or wrongly is irrelevant) and to be fair to medieval Islam, life under Muslim rule was not all that bad for most Christians in times of peace. In such times, Islamic princes also made good money off Christian tourists on pilgrimage to the Holy Land so it was sometimes in their interest to keep those avenues of communication and worship open.

I'm sure there are other points as well but they escape me now. As for Mongols being Muslim in-game, I don't see it as such a huge issue. Clearly, many Mongols were Muslim even as early as Genghis' era and some Mongol kingdoms were too after the Empire fractured. Eventually, the inhabitants of those regions were mostly Islamicized (certainly by 1400-1500 or so most people of Central Asian descent were Muslim in West Asia) as someone noted above.

Still, it would have been nice to have seen Pagan or Buddhist as a designation, though proselytizing (gaining converts) which is the game mechanism that makes religion attractive for the player, is not something most pagan faiths did and Buddhism does not proselytize in the same aggressive and exclusionary way that Christianity and Islam used to gain converts so those factions that would be either "Buddhist" or "Pagan" would be at a severe disadvantage in that regard.

[Aemilius Paulus]

...? That's odd. Maybe it's in a patch? In my games, the Aztecs and Lithuanians are pagans. It even says in the descr_sm_faction.txt file... Unless, FactionHeir made it in his VanillaMod, which I am using?

Maybe you are confusing the religions with BI. They had paganism there.

[Caius]

The whole "sailed west to prove the Earth was round" meme is an outright myth fabricated by the American author Washington Irving.

That is right, Colombus sailed West to arrive to India, but found America instead.

[The Fuzz]

Ever since some of the Turkic groups that lived on the other side of Persia converted to Nestorian Christianity, Christians had always hoped for for some rear attack on whatever empire was threatening them from the Middle East. The Mongols were the next in this line. Though the Mongols were clever - they just pitted their enemies against each other. Nothing like saying 'we're here to help you' and then sack a few cities. ;)

But it still holds true, IIRC some Armenian contingents were put under the control of Mongol armies voluntarily during some campaigns against the Mumluks (or another group..I forget, gah!) at one point. I forget what city that was near...if someone wants to know more I can bother to look up for the source. :P

Anyway, long story short, M2 is ridiculously inaccurate, yes.

[InsaneApache]

A lightheated look at Hollywoods take on WWII.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The escape from Stalag Luft III is one of the greatest stories of the Second World War, an enduring example of raw courage and ingenuity. The story of the making of The Great Escape, by contrast, is an enduring example of the way that Hollywood can twist history to meet the requirements of American patriotism and the demands of pampered actors.

The problem with the true story of the escape, from Hollywood’s point of view, was that it involved no Americans. True, the camp had contained American prisoners, but all of these were moved out before the escape took place. The director, John Sturges (who also made The Magnificent Seven), was told by his Hollywood bosses to write American heroes into the script or abandon the project. The resulting film not only included fictional American characters, but was also dominated by them: Steve McQueen, James Garner, James Coburn and Charles Bronson.

McQueen, who played The Cooler King, insisted that his role be even bigger, with a scene in which he could show off his motorcycling skills. The fictional motorbike escape scene was created, with a growling Triumph 650 — which was not built until 1963. Bud Elkins, McQueen’s stunt double, performed the more dangerous jumps.

This, then, was the Hollywood take on history: an event that never took place, involving an American who was not there, played by a double, on a motorbike that had not yet been invented. No wonder the veterans booed the Steve McQueen character at the 65th anniversary gathering in the 65th anniversary gathering in Zagán.

American film-makers have been invading and occupying feats of British heroism ever since the war, although Churchill himself did his best to repel the invasion. Britain’s wartime Prime Minister strongly objected to Objective Burma! (1945), starring Errol Flynn, because it installed American heroes in a conflict waged by British, Indian and Commonwealth troops.

The film even prompted an editorial in The Times: “It is essential both for the enemy and the allies to understand how it came about that the war was won . . . nations should know and appreciate the efforts other countries than their own made to the common cause.” The film was withdrawn from release here and only reached cinemas in 1952, accompanied by an apology.

Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan has been criticised for depicting Tom Hanks and his American soldiers battling the crack 2nd SS “Das Reich” Panzer tank division, when that conflict was actually fought by British and Canadian troops 100 miles to the east.

Undoubtedly the most egregious example of America’s cultural colonisation of the best war stories is U-571 (2000), which depicts American submariners stealing the Enigma code machine from a German U-boat. The capture and breaking of the Enigma code was carried out by the British, before America had even entered the war.

While Hollywood misrepresents history, it also confers immortality. The Great Escape may not be great history but it is a great film. It may Americanise and edit the facts but without it one of the most remarkable episodes in wartime history might languish virtually unknown.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle5970627.ece