Quote Originally Posted by WinsingtonIII View Post
OK fine, absurd is a strong word. Look, if all the Dark Ages did was represent the black death and the concurrent economic crash, I would be fine with it. That aspect is fine. It is the automatic declarations of war that come with it that bother me. Given the stubborn nature of the AI, this feature means that you will end up at war with specific factions every time you play certain factions and most likely continue to be at war with them (unless you do not directly border them). That sort of ruins the spontaneity of the game and takes away your ability as a player to make your own diplomatic decisions. Roleplaying and increasing historical accuracy is great, but you shouldn't be forced into the same diplomatic relations every time you play as the same faction.
the script can be removed manually. im not a big fan of it either, but i think it adds a bit to the game screwing your plans and making it more of a challenge to survivel if playing a smaller faction. you will be at war with every neighbor and plague will ruin your every region for some time. then its over and its time to rebuild.

There are a couple other features that I think feel "gamey," as in though they are an attempt to increase the the historical accuracy and roleplaying, they sort of backfire and reduce the realism of it. The major one is the use of hording to keep factions alive. Now, this is fine when it is a faction that I could see hording, the obvious example being the Mongols. I however, cannot imagine a historical situation in which the Venetian Republic, after losing their last city, gathers together a vast horde of troops and goes rampaging off across Northern Italy to eventually settle in Milan. A settled people whose wealth, power, and livelihoods are based around a combination of agriculture, trading, and manufacturing are simply not going to up and leave en masse. Now, I realize that this is certainly a good faith effort to represent the survival of governments in exile and allow factions to survive and potentially re-emerge, but unfortunately, it really takes away from the realism for me to see a nomadic Venetian horde.
agreed. thats another thing that with could do without. though there are plenty of people who really love this feature and think it makes the game harder and gives dumb AI an extra chance for survival.

I actually like DLV a lot, and I think most of the features they implemented are great for the roleplaying aspect of the game. But a couple of them, despite being implemented with good intentions, actually reduce the realism in my opinion. I am certainly not trashing the mod though, it is very well done.

By the way, if you wish to play DLV without the Americas, download DLV Europa, it takes them out and adds Wales and the Kingdom of Ghana as factions. I don't think it expands the map east though, and it's based on DLV 5.0 I believe, so some of the newer features are not in it.
i havent tried that. i do not think that adding such a minor semi-independent (?) faction as Wales will bring anything to the game though.

luckily, at the start of the game a player given an option to enable/disable most of the games unique features so everyone is able to play it the way he likes.