aleksander, we understand what you mean...
but honestly we had only a few options.
Lets look at the Northern Italian area for example.
We could potentially have.... 10-30 factions in this single spot alone.
Let me list of a variety of different powers.
Florence, Pisa, Arezzo, Milan, Verona, Pistoia, Genoa, Lucca, Siena, Pavia, Parma , Padua, Venice, Bologna, Urbino, Perugia, Ancona, Mantua, Modena, throw in the Holy See, and some of the other unmentioned "papal state" territories, that were in reality not always under direct control. Then mix in french factions, norman/sicilian factions, along with the HRE, or Austrian types...
Now this is completely possible, I suppose, if we wanted to have an extremely small map, and focus on the "North Italian" theatre, so to speak.
But, this area was not a minute unconnected seperate continent that arose in a completely unaffected situation.
No, events in England impacted the situation, events in Northern, Eastern, Western and Southern Europe also were important to northern italy due to power politics, trade, and not even mentioning the multiple aspects of cultural change that may have occured or did occur due to interactions between these areas.
Now, throw in North Africa, Rus-Asian territories, the middle east, and futher.. all of which either directly, or indirectly affected North Italy.
So... no matter WHAT we would have chosen, something would be inaccurate, or not properly represented even looking at this area.
Now, we are dealing with a much larger map then just north italy, and what do you suppose would happen if we gave 5-6 factions in North Italy? Which is completely justifiable with historical reasons.
I'll tell you what, "not what we want". Whatever the results, we would have to obviously ignore some other regions that would then "piss" off someone else.
So, instead we have a situation where we try to include the most important factions according to historical starting points, and according to gameplay. 6 factions in North Italy, and 1 in the isles would lead to a certain game, that I would not enjoy playing, personally. Now we are getting flak for having 3 (and possible 4) factions in the Isles, and 3-6 factions involved in North italy (France/HRE/Italian factions/Holy See)... because there is not enough "here" or "there" or wherever someone wants a faction.
We made choices, we feel we can back them up with a myriad of reasons, and we wont change our existing faction slots.
SO no matter how many times someone demands "Burgundy Burgundy Burgundy" or Serbia Serbia, Serbia, it wont change.
All of our certified factions have legitimate historical reason to be in the mod. Just because "YOU" do not see them as major players does not mean you are right. In aspects where people may be right due to 'historical' reasons, we may have gameplay reasons for not including "your" faction.
But to go and say that we are not living up to our name, or blandly insulting us is not very nice or friendly... I mean we are doing this with our free time... perhaps everyone would prefer to not have us working on MA?
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