FAQ and historical inaccuracies: some odd comments

[Hurin_Rules]

A few things on the latest FAQ for BI seemed a bit... well... odd to me. See what you think:

Q: I was wondering, was artillary actually ever pulled by chariots so they could be moved quickly across the battlefield, or is this just pure fiction?

A: Vegetius mentions wagon-mounted artillery in his texts on the Roman army although, reading between the lines, there's an air in his works of writing about how things should be rather than how they are or were. So, yes, there's evidence of (reasonably) mobile artillery being built by the Romans. They weren't stupid people and had a good grasp of basic engineering, but they were hampered by the materials technology available and - in our opinions - by an inherent conservatism in using new ideas.


Q: Have you changed the pictures of the family members faces in BI? Most importantly, have you removed the face paintings from the "barbarian" factions faces?

A: There are new family portraits in addition to the existing set. And no, not all the face paint has disappeared!

Q: Are most of the Saxon units pure fiction? Oh, while we are discussing historical accuracy vs. fiction, what literary sources (ancient and modern) did you use during the production of BI?

A: The problem with any barbarian force is that their armies were not organised into nicely differentiated units. Most 'barbarian' units were really all the blokes who were prepared to follow a strong man into battle for what they could plunder. If we did them 'accurately' we'd end up with every unit in the game being a variably sized mish-mash of individually equipped warriors. And, at the moment, PCs simply won't handle this kind of level of detail (every man would count as a different 'unit'). So what we have to do is create a unit list that mirrors the type of warriors that a particular people were well known for employing. This also makes the game tactically interesting too, as the chances are that most barbarian battles consisted of both sides screaming 'charge' and then fighting until a victor emerged, which isn't all that satsifying...

A few things I would note:

Though artillery might have been pulled by wagon, it certainly didn't fire while being pulled.

Face paint is inaccurate.

Barbarians were not morons.

And on another note, anyone besides me a bit disheartened that Spartan: Total Warrior gets higher billing on the CA website than BI? To tell you the truth, I hope that game tanks so CA can concentrate on what they do best. Leave the FPS to the console designers. You're not going to outdo Halo, so don't even try.

[Puzz3D]

From the FAQ:

"So what we have to do is create a unit list that mirrors the type of warriors that a particular people were well known for employing. This also makes the game tactically interesting too, as the chances are that most barbarian battles consisted of both sides screaming 'charge' and then fighting until a victor emerged, which isn't all that satsifying..."

Well that's an interesting statement coming from CA considering that the gameplay is just like that with players smashing massive "snowballs" of units into each other. And yes it "isn't all that satisfying".

Also, CA doesn't mirror "the type of warriors that a particular people were well known for employing". Come off it! Pigs that are only known to have been used once? Egyptians from 1000 years before the game's time frame? Ballista chariots after just saying in another answer that it isn't know if they ever used such a weapon system?

[sapi]

You're not going to outdo Halo, so don't even try.

Halo is outdoable - it has been outdone time and time again on pc, and all it would take is a port of hl2/css with the same graphics to '360 to beat it :)

But yes, i am disheartened - spend more time on total war, it'll last longer for gamers anyway than a fps.

[Captain Fishpants]

Another person who needs the gentle rod of correction. Very Roman, the rod of correction.

Though artillery might have been pulled by wagon, it certainly didn't fire while being pulled.

Carroballistae didn't fire on the move? Maybe, maybe not. The basic design certainly wouldn't have made it easy or accurate, but you can bet they tried to use the weapon that way from time to time (sheer terror is the mother of many desperate tactics).

On the other hand, it doesn't make for a fun unit in the game. If you don't like it, don't use it in your battles.

Face paint is inaccurate.

Tattoos, facial scarification, piercings and generally slapping yourself with woad was common. The Huns were regarded as particularly scary people because they did go in an extreme 'look'. It was all about being as terrifying as possible before you engaged with the enemy. Better to stab a man in the back while he's running away than actually have to fight him!

Barbarians were not morons.

Barbarians are not morons. Barbarians are barbarous. This doesn't imply thick, dim, stupid, moronic or lax in any mental department. It does imply a lack of civilized accomplisments, such as an organised military structure or a staff college producing field manuals. It's the exceptional barbarian commanders who did understand that tactics were important who are remembered: Vercingetorix, Attila, Alaric the Goth and so on. The average commander had a loud voice...

And on another note, anyone besides me a bit disheartened that Spartan: Total Warrior gets higher billing on the CA website than BI? To tell you the truth, I hope that game tanks so CA can concentrate on what they do best. Leave the FPS to the console designers. You're not going to outdo Halo, so don't even try.

And finally, thanks for your good wishes on the success of Spartan: Total Warrior. Just to correct a couple of misconceptions, though: it's not an FPS, and it's not like Halo.

[Hurin_Rules]

Ok, the tone of my post was a bit bitter--sorry for that--but come on, you're twisting the facts here and being rather misleading:

Carroballistae didn't fire on the move? Maybe, maybe not. The basic design certainly wouldn't have made it easy or accurate, but you can bet they tried to use the weapon that way from time to time (sheer terror is the mother of many desperate tactics).

No, they didn't. Even tanks in WWII usually stopped to fire. This was with suspensions, rubber and advanced tracking systems. If you can site a single source saying carroballistae were fired on the move, I'll stand corrected. This isn't just about a game, its about historical accuracy. You're perfectly free to design whatever you want in a game, so long as you don't assert it as fact. I might even agree with your playability/fun argument. But pseudo-historical arguments produce only pseudo-histories. Please don't misinform people. As a professor of history, I have to deal with the consequences in my classrooms.

Tattoos, facial scarification, piercings and generally slapping yourself with woad was common. The Huns were regarded as particularly scary people because they did go in an extreme 'look'. It was all about being as terrifying as possible before you engaged with the enemy. Better to stab a man in the back while he's running away than actually have to fight him!

So you are asserting that Vercingetorix wore woad? What sources are you citing in defense of this revolutionary thesis? (Ack, sorry, being exessively sarcastic again; but you get my point.)

Barbarians are not morons. Barbarians are barbarous. This doesn't imply thick, dim, stupid, moronic or lax in any mental department. It does imply a lack of civilized accomplisments, such as an organised military structure or a staff college producing field manuals. It's the exceptional barbarian commanders who did understand that tactics were important who are remembered: Vercingetorix, Attila, Alaric the Goth and so on. The average commander had a loud voice...

Fair enough. But your characterization of barbarian warfare--viz., ''most barbarian battles consisted of both sides screaming 'charge' and then fighting until a victor emerged'--is highly speculative and indicative more of Roman (and Hollywood) attitudes to 'barbarians' than of the barbarians themselves.

And finally, thanks for your good wishes on the success of Spartan: Total Warrior. Just to correct a couple of misconceptions, though: it's not an FPS, and it's not like Halo.

Ok, that was a bit unfair-- I don't really hope the game tanks. But you must realize that many RTW players are intensely concerned that STW represents a reorientation of CA's priorities. This is a genuine concern, given some of the design decisions of RTW. It seems that CA is appealing to a somewhat different audience with both RTW and STW. If you can allay our concerns, please do.

[Barbarossa82]

If you can site a single source saying carroballistae were fired on the move, I'll stand corrected. This isn't just about a game, its about historical accuracy. You're perfectly free to design whatever you want in a game, so long as you don't assert it as fact. I might even agree with your playability/fun argument. But pseudo-historical arguments produce only pseudo-histories. Please don't misinform people. As a professor of history, I have to deal with the consequences in my classrooms.

We don't have a single source to suggest that the ancient Britons could swim either, or that the residents of Carthage were not immune to the common cold. That doesn't make either of those things an unreasonable inference to draw from known facts (i.e. that they were human). If a "known fact" is that carroballistae existed, I can't really see how it's an unreasonable inference that they at least experimented with firing on the move.

If you could find a source saying that, it still wouldn't prove it was true, only support it. And the absence of a source doesn't disprove it, it just makes it less certain.

I appreciate you probably spend your days frustrated and wacky, unsupported theories inspired by popular culture which have germinated in your students' heads, but with respect, you shouldn't fall back on the source as the be-all and end-all of historical inquiry.

[Ciaran]

Well said, Barbarossa
And let´s not forget there´s only so much realism that can be implemented in a game even if we knew what actually is real - which we do not and never will.
Or would anyone like to give up the nice camera sweeping over the battlefield, watching the action close up in favour of a stationary (or almost stationary) first-person view down a hill, having to speak commands (in Latin, or ancient Greek - if realism, then all the way, after all) to a messenger who might or not reach the designated unit that may obey or not... I hope you get my point.

[khelvan]

Anyway, that's my long-winded way of saying that Rome Total Realism should be replaced by Rome Total More Plausible And Better Supported Conjecture. Before anyone bites my head off, I recommend they do what I did and sit down with an old person to watch/read a historical account of something within their living memory, for example World War II. You'll quickly start to read history more critically.

Your excellent argument would hold more weight if it were wholly appropriate to the circumstances. There is a difference between the acceptance that no source can be 100% accurate, and the disregard for period sources altogether. There is a thing one might call due diligence when creating a game that is advertised as not "inspired by," not "loosely based on," but "set in" the time of the Roman Empire, to "bring the world of ancient Rome to life," to "recreate Europe."

So you see, more than other things, this is a question of truth in advertising. Either the game is an attempt to "recreate" an historical time, or it is not. Either it is an historical strategy game, or it is a strategy game loosely based on history. R:TW is advertised as an historical strategy game. Therefore, when I purchased the game, I expected better than to find a faction depicted 1000 years out of period, for instance. This means that either the marketing or the research of the game is off.

If the game had been billed as a whimsical RTS romp through a world loosely based on ancient Roman times, no one would have cared, except perhaps for about a dozen people who can't get past how many bands the first iteration of lorica segmentata was built with.

It is rather akin to, as you say, buying a historical wargame close to our own time and finding anachronistic things. For instance, buying a WWII wargame and finding that the "America" faction has been split in two, into the "Union" and the "Confederacy," which must duke it out while the rest of Europe fights a generally more accurate WWII, because this provides more balance and fun to the game, and is more "cool." And, to follow a VERY appropriate analogy, to describe the military of France (read: Celts/Gaul) as being disorganized, lacking in technology, and having perhaps one leader in a generation who was a grasp on strategy and does more than "shouts loudly."

You see, no one who has truly studied World War II would say that France's army was so horribly bad, that its technology was inferior, or that perhaps one out of all its generals knew the importance of strategy. They were soundly trounced by the Germans for different reasons, not for having a shoddy military. Nor would anyone say those things who has truly examined all of the textual and archaeological evidence available describing the Gauls, and the Celts in general. The Celtic history was just as rich and powerful as that of France, with a Brennus for a Napoleon, with a sack of Rome for the conquering of Europe. Yet the Gauls were soundly trounced by Caesar, and it seems some are content to assume this is because they were "barbarians," rather than to truly examine why they lost.

So; is there something to be said for toning down the rhetoric nitpicking historical inaccuracy? Certainly. The EB team, for instance, doesn't go about stating how bad it is that this tactic or that piece of armor exist in RTW. We are quietly fixing what we can safely fix based on available evidence, and we think the end result will be a mod that has more "cool" and diverse units than vanilla RTW - AND be more accurate. Now, our fans have a tendency to nitpick everything they see, but please don't mistake us for doing the same thing. Rather than bitch about it, we're making RTW into the game we had hoped it was from the beginning, and we DO welcome people to nitpick our choices, as we rather enjoy learning details about history.

[Flavius Clemens]

Or would anyone like to give up the nice camera sweeping over the battlefield, watching the action close up in favour of a stationary (or almost stationary) first-person view down a hill, having to speak commands (in Latin, or ancient Greek - if realism, then all the way, after all) to a messenger who might or not reach the designated unit that may obey or not... I hope you get my point.

Personally I'm all for orders taking time to reach the unit concerned and be put into practice - that's an element of realism that adds to the challenge. Though it is dependent on the AI in command of the individual units being able to act reasonably in responding to circumstances - for instance if an infantry unit has orders to march on an enemy and attack it to have the sense to stop and face an ambushing cavalry unit appearing from cover.

And there of course is the rub - I don't doubt that good AI strategy / tactical programming is damn difficult and to produce a game at all CA are limited by what can reasonably be acheived within a given timescale and cost. There is a difference between a product failing to meet all the requirements that would be desireable in an ideal world and one that has bugs in the functions it does try to provide (I had a very frustrating CTD last night after a critical battle that I'll now have to refight from scratch) or a design that includes things that aren't just not 100% historically verified, but lack any serious credibility.

If it's too hard to code a barbarian unit with varying arms fair enough, make them all swordsmen, falxmen or whatever, but I don't feel comfortable with a one off unit like flaming pigs becoming a standard, or elite units becoming ten a penny once you've teched up to the right level. In that sense I want realism. So for mobile ballistas I want at least some chance that they were reasonably regularly used on the move before it becomes a game feature.

I definitely agree with the idea of building one and seeing what it's like in practice. I saw a documentary about Trajan's Column and the Dacian campaigns a few years ago, and in this they got someone to make Roman saddles based on the technology they had available at the time. They were surprised at how well they coped as a platform for melee against infantry, and made them take some of the illustrations on the column more literally than they had been inclined to. (Not an excuse for all powerful cavalry charges of course!) Try the same with the artillery - lets judge what was feasible. Not that I'm suggesting CA themselves get out the saws and planes, there are limits to how much programmers should get involved with hardware

[CBR]

If a "known fact" is that carroballistae existed, I can't really see how it's an unreasonable inference that they at least experimented with firing on the move.

And there is a long way from experimenting with firing on the move on a cart pulled by donkeys and the ultra fast sniper chariots we see in BI.


CBR

[Hurin_Rules]

We don't have a single source to suggest that the ancient Britons could swim either, or that the residents of Carthage were not immune to the common cold. That doesn't make either of those things an unreasonable inference to draw from known facts (i.e. that they were human). If a "known fact" is that carroballistae existed, I can't really see how it's an unreasonable inference that they at least experimented with firing on the move.

If you could find a source saying that, it still wouldn't prove it was true, only support it. And the absence of a source doesn't disprove it, it just makes it less certain.

I appreciate you probably spend your days frustrated and wacky, unsupported theories inspired by popular culture which have germinated in your students' heads, but with respect, you shouldn't fall back on the source as the be-all and end-all of historical inquiry.

Actually, there are sources that suggest the ancient Britons could swim and the archaeological remains of ancient Carthaginians prove they were not immune to the common cold. On the other hand, it is not a logical inference from the descriptions of carroballistae to assume they were a mobile, tank-like unit that continuously fires while moving. Moreover, there is no evidence that Germans 'chose' groups of axemen and regularly deployed them tactically as an independent unit. Now, as to the axemen, CA has admitted this is fantasy and that the game is simply better with it. I have no problems with that. But for the carroballistae and the woad and their characterizations of barbarian warfare, they are asserting the same fantasies as fact. Sorry, but that is not an historically tenable position.

Your point about not treating the sources as gospel is well taken. But you must also realize that departing from the sources altogether is equally, if not more anachronistic. The other poster's point about having an America divided into the Union and Confederacy during WWII is an apt comparison. There are many things we don't know about ancient warfare. But that does not give us license to invent freely, and claim our inventions as logical inferences.

Again, let me stress, I have no problems with fantasy itself; my objection is when teams like CA claim their fantasies as fact. That's why I originally made the post. They seemed to be defending things that were not logical inferences and perpetuating stereotypes already long discredited by historians. That deserves to be pointed out and refuted.

[Orda Khan]

If you don't like it, don't use it in your battles.

I've been applying this since original STW. It seems that historically inaccurate concerns have only surfaced since RTW. Perhaps less to do with 'carriage ballistae' and more with 'bandwagon'

.......Orda

[Zatoichi]

I've been applying this since original STW. It seems that historically inaccurate concerns have only surfaced since RTW. Perhaps less to do with 'carriage ballistae' and more with 'bandwagon'

.......Orda

Does anyone know if bandwagons can fire on the move?

[Puzz3D]

Historical accuracy and realism both decined in RTW relative to the previous games.

[KSEG]

Historical accuracy and realism both decined in RTW relative to the previous games.

Are you saying that seroisly?
STW, from a view of 1 Japanese history afficianado, is absurd, and I find it even insulting.
Super Ninjas, Geisha Terminators, stupid movies, wrong and wrong units.
STW, as a game, is superb but not so superb in the reallism department.
Let me tell you, IMO CA never cared much about reallism and historical accuracy.
Even in MTW, there was some obvious mistakes, although not bad as STW and RTW.
I really don't understand why peoples suddenly started screaming about historical inaccuracy with the release of RTW.
Maybe because there is much more people intrested in Ancient Rome then Medieval Japan.

[khelvan]

Barbarians are not morons. Barbarians are barbarous. This doesn't imply thick, dim, stupid, moronic or lax in any mental department. It does imply a lack of civilized accomplisments, such as an organised military structure or a staff college producing field manuals. It's the exceptional barbarian commanders who did understand that tactics were important who are remembered: Vercingetorix, Attila, Alaric the Goth and so on. The average commander had a loud voice...

It depends on which "barbarians" you are talking about. Some "barbarians" had very well-developed military structures and tactics. Some had very strong cultural achievements (though we can agree that engineering, in general, compared to the Greeks and Romans, was not one of them).

However, not only "exceptional" barbarian commanders understood tactics. This is the same misconception that has existed for a long time; not unexpected, though perhaps a bit disappointing.

[Kraxis]

Carroballistae didn't fire on the move? Maybe, maybe not. The basic design certainly wouldn't have made it easy or accurate, but you can bet they tried to use the weapon that way from time to time (sheer terror is the mother of many desperate tactics).

Take note of the first part... CF doesn't say that it is historically accurate at all, he says it is possible. And possible it certainly is.
Now if something that was possible and can add a bit of flavour is left out, I would as a publisher be rather dumbfounded. It doesn't make sense at all.

And about it being impossible to fire on the move. Well, all it would need was a proper pivot (I can certainly understand that that is where the trouble begins). Then the 'gunner' could stabilize the ballista with his knees, and yes, knees are absolutely superb shockabsorbers.
Remember the Crusader tank? You know the fast British tank in the desert, that got shot up in huge numbers? Well it was intended to shoot on the move, and had the entire gunmount being controlled by a standing gunner. A trained gunner could easily shoot on the move, using his knees to stabilize the gun. Two things conspired against that, bad training and the tiresome process of standing up shooting the gun. So in general it was a failure, butthe principle was there (and it was useable if you cared to do it properly), and the gun was vastly heavier than light ballista ever got to be.

So I can easily imagine some people gettingthe idea to shoot a ballista like that. Would they have done it a lot? Doubt it. Would it have been done at some point? Think so.

[Hurin_Rules]

Take note of the first part... CF doesn't say that it is historically accurate at all, he says it is possible. And possible it certainly is.

Saying something is possible is a far cry from depicting a unit that regularly uses a weapons system in that fashion in combat. I'm sure it was possible for ancient cavalry archers to ride their horses backwards so they could fire arrows from them. But there is no evidence they did. (The Parthians turned in their saddles, they didn't ride their horses backwards, and they certainly didn't do it regularly.)

So I can easily imagine some people gettingthe idea to shoot a ballista like that. Would they have done it a lot? Doubt it. Would it have been done at some point? Think so.

Did they do it regularly like they do in the game? Definitely not.

[BobTheTerrible]

Saying something is possible is a far cry from depicting a unit that regularly uses a weapons system in that fashion in combat. I'm sure it was possible for ancient cavalry archers to ride their horses backwards so they could fire arrows from them. But there is no evidence they did. (The Parthians turned in their saddles, they didn't ride their horses backwards, and they certainly didn't do it regularly.)




Did they do it regularly like they do in the game? Definitely not.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your main issue here is that CA wouldn't admit it's historically innaccurate. Well, CA never claims it is. All he said was that it was plausable.

[Hurin_Rules]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your main issue here is that CA wouldn't admit it's historically innaccurate. Well, CA never claims it is. All he said was that it was plausable.

Do you still think it's plausible after Simetrical's links to the picture and the archaeological research? There's no room for an operator, and no way to reload.

Now I'm even more convinced these things were never fired on the move.

This is, in fact, even more implausible than the flaming pigs. At least those were apparently once used in the fashion depicted.

[Simetrical]

I don't know how much we know about carroballistae, but I could well imagine that they wouldn't be designed so as to allow someone to easily hang on and shoot at the same time. If it's not designed to be used while moving, perhaps the wagon-thingy wouldn't have any kind of support for the operator—he'd just stand on the wagon and shoot. If it's moving, bumping around, he'd have to hold on to something, and that would mean he might well be physically incapable of reloading.

So look at this image from Trajan's Column, for instance. There seems to be no room for the operator to stand on the cart at all, and they're pulled by mules, not horses (so they'd be slower). Furthermore, according to this page the carroballista was a two-man weapon, according to this it required six to ten men to fire, and that limits your options even more. If it was already preloaded, I could maybe see the soldiers getting off one shot, but reloading with no supports to hold you in place while you do so would be hopeless—you'd have to hold on with the hands you need for firing.

[Oaty]

As far as the carroballistae firing on the run it has more to do with gameplay. Look at how regular ballistas impact a battle. Fire off 3 to 6 shots and then fall back and have no further impact on the battle, unless you can park them elevated from your troops where they can fire over with little risk of friendly fire. Would yoo really want it to take 15 minutes for the frontline troops to engage. If so then theres agood reason why they should'nt fire on the run, otherwise they need to so it's not a useless unit in your limited stack of 20.

[Grey_Fox]

And on another note, anyone besides me a bit disheartened that Spartan: Total Warrior gets higher billing on the CA website than BI?

BI is only an expansion, Spartan: Total Warrior is a new game.

Anyways, if you don't want them to make games like Spartan, why don't you become a shareholder and tell them not to make it?

[Simetrical]

Face paint is inaccurate.

I'm pretty sure some of the Britons used woad.