Dev blog #3

[gollum]

Originally posted by Beskar
So completely bashing RTW and M2:TW.

Your opinion is worthy of respect, as is though mine.

No doubt you feel targeted because you believe that:

While there are some gameplay elements which needed improving on, they were very good games.

and because...

R:TW was the game that got me into the series, and I enjoyed it and still do.

My point of view comes from a certain part of the fanbase that started playing TW well before RTW arrived on the scene. I dont claim to be "enlightened" or "superior" or the "true fan" or anything, and i try to offer factual evidence wherever possible and available for what i say and imply.

As far as i am concerned "joy killers" should have been people who liked the gameplay offered by RTW/M2TW; but this is making it personal and i firmly believe that such an approach does not have a place in the .org because it polarises things uneccessarily - people are who they are and like what they like; my resentment and critique is with the developer, not with anyone else. You feel like praising CA for their games past RTW because you sincerely like them, please go ahead; i just feel like criticising them though, because i sincerely dislike them. Calling names and branding people though isnt particularly wise or just.

Different parts of the fanbase enjoy different things, and disagreeing as to what we like and dislike is by no means excuse for making it personal, for example i respect econ21 and enjoy reading his posts, despite squarely disagreeing with him on a number of things.

As for historical accuracy, it doesn't completely have to either, by the very definition of a Total War game, it evolves Ahistorical.

No it doesnt - it evolves in an alternate history path that isnt necessarily the one that took place, as history could and can go down various different paths depending on various factors and outcomes of key events (battles, political reforms, power structures, leader personalities, social structures, economic conditions etc). Modelling history means modelling the forces that control its dynamics and check the simulation for this; it does not mean forcing it to behave as real history did - this would be a recreation and not a simulation. Many people commonly brand alternate history paths "ahistorical" and then try to shut off people who mind historical plausinility with the argument that the game would be "ahistorical" anyway as you do here. This is false.

In that context, i talk about historical plausibility and not accuracy per se, because although history could have taken different turns there are also limits as to what could have happened set by the technological, cultural, political and other conditions of the period the simulation is set. Modelling such conditions properly as boundary values for the problem is also part of making a good, historically respectful simulation.

This has nothing to do with the "standard" historical accuracy complain relative to the shade of light in the viking helmets being wrongly depicted in Denmark during spring time Sunday afternoons in 1087AD. You just misunderstood the point.