History to Follow

[SlickNicaG69]

No, read it again Mr. Moros. I'm saying to base it upon the primary sources.

[Moros]

No, read it again Mr. Moros. I'm saying to base it upon the primary sources.

Oh so we're not supposed the overvaluate certain sources above those which are founded to be more credible? Well we don't do that either. Happy?

[SlickNicaG69]

I would have to take your word to be happy Moros, and for some reason I can't be convinced it is true to what you say...

[Moros]

Evaluation of sources, theories,... is an important part of history. And of course this evaluation is subject to the historian and hence can differ. So quite possibly you might not agree on all of our assessments, but that doesn't mean we don't take it seriously. But then again on most historical topics there are multiple theories in the academic world, of course we always only chose to represent one. That however doesn't mean we never mention other possible theories.

[SlickNicaG69]

There can only be theories about that which is not certain. My point is that, where things are uncertain, we must defer to the sources that started the discussion in the first place. Why would there need to be an evaluation of theories for something as basic as what is relevant to this mod? What such theories could this mod seek to debate or challenge?

[Moros]

There can only be theories about that which is not certain. My point is that, where things are uncertain, we must defer to the sources that started the discussion in the first place. Why would there need to be an evaluation of theories for something as basic as what is relevant to this mod? What such theories could this mod seek to debate or challenge?

Where possible we base our mod on the status questionis. When there's not one single theory that is most commonly accepted we of course evaluate the current theories and chose the one with the most credible case. Of course this often discussed and debated in our internal forums. Often we need to make dicissions on certain things (due to the game's design) which there's no or barely any sources on, in which case the educated guess is there. There however times when we need to reconstruct the past almost completely ourselves in which case we use sources, relevant studies and the likes. For example when reconstructing specific units. Of course we don't reevaluate and question everything to the smallest detail, especialy when generally academically accepted theories are already there. We don't have the time for it, nor the manpower, nor would it be much of use for our mod.

You were talking about how we should handle sources. I was responding on how we deal with sources. I didn't claim that we didn't use academic journals, monograph's, or modern theories in general... However we do evaluate these theories when there are multiple theories in circulation as well. How in depth depends on the subject, relevance,...

[Zarax]

Sources are pretty much always the same or at least most authors share a great deal of those.
Interpretation of the sources from different authors can produce different results, especially as most authors are going to put more emphasis on the sources that seem to agree more with their own point of view.
Aside from what we get by reading and interpretating the classical authors we also get our data from excavation reports, musem exhibits, books by specialist historians and sometimes even by talking with/having academics on the team.

To put an example, EB1 Carthage was heavily influenced in many aspects by Polybius and Livy, whom are the main authors on the punic wars plus reports on findings in north africa like pottery and pieces of panoply.
In EB2 many things on the faction have been changed because of more recent research, which greatly integrates (and in some cases partially contradicts) the works of the classical authors and gives a pretty different picture overall.

Inside the EB team itself there are historians that supports different visions of the meaning of a source and that is in itself a source of internal discussions and compromises over the interpretation of certain aspects, not to mention how we decide to fill in the voids left by the sources.
The mod in itself does not debate or challenge any theory, it merely represents the implementation in game of our interpretation of the various theories.

[paullus]

SlickNica, I'd never thought of actually using the primary sources...

And I guess I should stop using my Clausewitz to design EB2... you do grasp, right, that that's what Dodge is arguing against? He's railing against extensive, revisionist anachronism by modernists and armchair historians entertaining inquiries into antiquity. Is there some reason you think we're guilty of that?

C'mon dude, what's the beef? Upset about something? We make extensive use of primary sources. In fact, Polybius in most respects is just an early secondary source (he can also be read as a primary source, and is a primary source for some things). Alongside our ancient historians, we use archaeology, epigraphy, papyrology, and scholarly works in various fields of inquiry to craft our depictions of the ancient world.