About The TURKS

[Durallan]

I'm not assuming anything, I'm just saying that its a game, relax and don't take it so seriously. If they said on the Medieval 2 box that this would be a politically, technically, historically correct simulation of medieval warfare and the political intrigue that went with it, then you would probably have a case to get so upset at them about it. They do the game to make money and to have fun making it and to enjoy seeing people playing the game they made. Unfortunately they don't have 30 years to spend researching each faction's history, where they came from how they arose and everything else. Thats alot to ask of a group of people who are making a game let alone any one person.

They don't make the game to be so historically correct that your eyes will water reading large pages of text about what happened before the time you have started in. I'm just playing a great game that is really entertaining except for a fair few niggles.

Now I don't really care that much about it. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to start seeing spells and mages and monsters from the underworld appearing in the next expansion but its not that important to get every single fact right when it is only a game. Plus half of history is about tales that people heard, some of it is first person evidence the rest is third person evidence.

One of the best things about Medieval 2 is its moddability, at least thats what I like calling it. If you really want to make everything absolutely historically, politically and techinally correct, make a mod! I'm not sure how far you can get with it but I'm sure its possible.

At least then it will be constructive and you can show everyone else and CA how much better an apparently historically correct game would be (because nobody knows for absolute certainty unless they lived in that time period.)

[Raziel17]

Of course this is a game, not a history book but its subject is history. We are not expecting it to be correct compeletely or play a game that is progressing just like in history books. However there are some mistakes that souldn't have been made even in a game. For example Turkish names. Everybody knows that Nuzhet ed-Devlah can not be a Turk name. Instead of this they could use names such as Kilijarslan, Alparslan, Porsuk, Alptegin etc. and finding these names doesn't take 30 years or instead of researching for these they could ask for Totalwar fans help. But they didn't do anything and now the game is full of bad mistakes. These mistakes is not only for Turkish faction, also other factions Like Mongols or Timurids have some mistakes. In my opinion they should be corrected by the producers of the game not by modders. A small patch can be acceptable.

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

Eh?

It took EB -- a development team made out of volunteers without pay -- about one and a half to two years to make a historically accurate game. We're talking modders, not professionally educated, spending their free time to make stuff. Sure, they started with an existing foundation, but that one was so ill-suited we had to throw tons out.

Compare that to the (well-)paid, professional, 9-to-5 Creative Assembly developers. Surely they could pump out something historically accurate and fun to play (which EB is, infinitely more so than RTW) within the deadlines demanded in the software manufacturing market if a bunch of amateurs could do it?

Yes. It took EB developers one and a half to two years to mod a game that spent 3 years or more in development just to make it mostly historically accurate. Eb didn't *make* the game, they just took a game that was already made, changed some numbers in a file, and made some new models. Of course, I'm simplifying it, but the point is they didn't build an engine, and they didn't have to build their game from the very first line of code. The metaphor doesn't work.

You think game developers work 9-5 shifts? Dang. Talk to someone who works in the industry, man. Many developers have to stay overnight, unpaid, in order to finish on time. During the closing days of development, most developers get into a crunch, where they might work for an entire day or more at a time. It's a rather inglorious existance, most of the time.

Creating an entirely historically accurate game is not an easy undertaking, and the rewards of the finished product are almost nil. First of all, a 100% historically accurate game is aiming for the same target audience that watches the History Channel and reads famous historical works on a regular basis, which is a woefully small percentage of the population. The costs of developing such a huge game would greatly outweigh the profits of selling it.

Look at Medieval 2. It took about a year and a half to two years to develop, and it was built on pre-existing engine that took another three years to make. And just look at all the "egregious" historical inaccuracies we can all come up with after 5 years of development. Seriously, I think that addressing the fact that AI-controlled armies never fight back is a much bigger issue than making sure you got the title for the 14th-century Turkish ruler correct. There are much bigger issues that need to come before historical accuracy.

Splitting factions up into cultures is necessary. Do you really expect CA to individually create 21 different factions with exact, flawless, spot-on historical accuracy? It's an absolutely absurd expectation. There's neither the time nor the money to do so. Nor is it even a real factor in the face of the many gameplay problems and bugs the game is currently facing. Seriously, when they fix the AI never fighting back, my units not responding to orders, and wanton AI stack spammage, then I might, just might, start to care about the historical implications behind the effectiveness of Sipahis versus Crusader Knights.

Even if a company does try to make a historically accurate game, you're still going to find problems with how they portrayed history, because history does not translate into a game. It's not that easy. Many units are entirely theoretical, and sometimes the military of an entire tribe or significant regional power is represented by one or two units, cases in point being Tuareg Heavy Spearmen (the Tuareg were a fairly major tribe) and, even better, the Numidian cavalry from RTW. Numidia was a fairly powerful realm, and it seems odd that that the nation's entire military power is represented by a single unit of javelin-throwing light cavalry. If you wanted to make everything historically accurate, then the game would have a thousand different units. Oh, we need to differentiate between Sipahis in the 14th century as opposed to the Sipahis that were raised by the Askljac;na98a35 system of land grants and taxation in the 13.5th century, because the latter incarnation of Sipahis wore a red uniform, while the former wore scarlet! Thus we have to create two separate units, otherwise it's historically inaccurate! Oh NOES!

My point is that historical accuracy is impractical and does not sell in the commerical world, and that is what Medieval 2 Total War is - a commercial product.

[Raziel17]

If you wanted to make everything historically accurate, then the game would have a thousand different units. Oh, we need to differentiate between Sipahis in the 14th century as opposed to the Sipahis that were raised by the Askljac;na98a35 system of land grants and taxation in the 13.5th century, because the latter incarnation of Sipahis wore a red uniform, while the former wore scarlet! Thus we have to create two separate units, otherwise it's historically inaccurate! Oh NOES!

Aren't you reading messages or aren't you able to understand them. I am writing again, read carefully:
--Of course this is a game, not a history book but its subject is history. We are not expecting it to be correct compeletely or play a game that is progressing just like in history books. However there are some mistakes that souldn't have been made even in a game. For example Turkish names. Everybody knows that Nuzhet ed-Devlah can not be a Turk name. Instead of this they could use names such as Kilijarslan, Alparslan, Porsuk, Alptegin etc. and finding these names doesn't take 30 years or instead of researching for these they could ask for Totalwar fans help. But they didn't do anything and now the game is full of bad mistakes.--
Now think again, hope you understand that we aren't talking about 100% accuracy, we are talking about the mistakes which were made obviously and can be corrected easily.

[Durallan]

I agree with you about the names, there are some definite errors there, but some people in this thread did go a wee bit overboard I think. I know you would like them corrected but I don't know if it will happen. It all depends on what comes out of the February patch oh and happy new year everyone!

[econ21]

Everybody knows that Nuzhet ed-Devlah can not be a Turk name.

I suspect you mean "every Turk knows that", not "everybody". I am afraid most Brits like me, and probably the Ozzie CA developers are totally unaware of it. Things like names of random fictional figures are probably very low on a game designer's priorities - conjuring up lists is probably something they give to the new kid who makes the coffee - and arguably rightly so. Should they have gone and looked for a Turkish medieval historian to check something like that? Seriously, if I were CA, I would use their limited time and money for other things.

The upside is that is probably very easy to correct by modding. And teams like EB have done a great job of getting historians to check out details like that, even with languages that are long dead.

I would focus your complaints on big things, not names or the derivations of them. A rose by any other name smells just as sweet. My question to Turkish players is more functional: does the M2TW Turkish army play in a reasonably authentic way? My, not very knowledgeable, impression is that seems about as historically accurate as most other factions (way better than the Russians, for example) and not too bad for a mainstream strategy game. I haven't picked up any major complaints on that angle in this thread so far. But, as I said before, we all have our own standards for what we can accept in terms of historical accuracy.

Aren't you reading messages or aren't you able to understand them. I am writing again, read carefully:

Comments like this are unnecessary - no bickering or hectoring, please.

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

Aren't you reading messages or aren't you able to understand them. I am writing again, read carefully:
--Of course this is a game, not a history book but its subject is history. We are not expecting it to be correct compeletely or play a game that is progressing just like in history books. However there are some mistakes that souldn't have been made even in a game. For example Turkish names. Everybody knows that Nuzhet ed-Devlah can not be a Turk name. Instead of this they could use names such as Kilijarslan, Alparslan, Porsuk, Alptegin etc. and finding these names doesn't take 30 years or instead of researching for these they could ask for Totalwar fans help. But they didn't do anything and now the game is full of bad mistakes.--
Now think again, hope you understand that we aren't talking about 100% accuracy, we are talking about the mistakes which were made obviously and can be corrected easily.

Well, Killer, I was kind of responding to the post I quoted, and posts similiar to it, not yours specifically, even though I do think some of the things you pointed out are completely absurd to expect to be added in a patch "immediately." Oh well, to each his own wishes.

For the record...you could easily pass off Nuzhet ed-Devlah as a Turkish name to me. Heck, you could probably tell me it's an Algonquin name and I'd believe you. Raz, are you Turkish?

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

No, I'm wondering if you are Turkish, because most of the time posts about the detailed inaccuracies of a single faction are the product of nationalism. You know, the whole "My native country is not represented correctly! Grr!", that sort of thing, whatever the poster's country of origin may be. Having made a post about the Turks, I assume you are of Turkish descent. Most of us here don't learn Turkish history, because we aren't Turkish. Oh, and the whole assuming that everyone knows Turkish naming patterns and patronymics gave it away too. So, I have nothing against you, I just take issue your suggestions and the priority you think they should have (which I detailed above ^^^)

Again, my point is that every faction is portrayed inaccurately, not just the Turks. So why should the Turks get the priority?

[Raziel17]

Again, my point is that every faction is portrayed inaccurately, not just the Turks. So why should the Turks get the priority?

Of course they souldn't, read my old messages please:
But they didn't do anything and now the game is full of bad mistakes. These mistakes is not only for Turkish faction, also other factions Like Mongols or Timurids have some mistakes. In my opinion they should be corrected by the producers of the game not by modders. A small patch can be acceptable.

[econ21]

Well, I tried.

This thread just seems to be stirring up bad blood between Org members, with not many new points of significance being made after the original post.

Let's have a group hug and close the thread.