Good Medieval Game?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Well, within the context of strategy games where you can alter the course of history, accuracy largely boils down to accuracy of starting conditions and the logic with which you can alter history. Obviously, a game that perfectly re-creates its starting point at 1066 but lets you quickly develop lasers is not historically accurate (though it may be entertaining!). I wouldn't dismiss EU or TW as "mickey mouse" simply because you can change history in an hour. There's not much point to playing a strategy game when you are limited to the exact outcomes of history.

[Axalon]

There's not much point to playing a strategy game when you are limited to the exact outcomes of history.

My thoughts exactly! In fact its no real meaning to refer to history at all since it will still just end up as fiction in about 10 minutes anyhow (at least in the conventional use of the term). “History” can only serve in this context as means to set various things into some sort of perspective I think (nobody has ever managed to conquer Europe or any other continent in its entirety for instance, while we as players are expected to do so in order to finish up a TW-game in style essentially). Also, there is nothing wrong in being inspired by various bits and pieces of “history” while you create a setting for a game, or a feature/element for that matter. We are dealing with PC-games here, that means various simplified representations of things in order to get it manageable for the game-program (the degrees of that varies from game to game), and as such they can never be accurate – so the whole assumption and notion of “historical accuracy” and referrals to “history” is thus pretty screwed up in the first place.

Personally I don’t understand the usual history-craze I all too often see around the Org (and elsewhere) regarding TW-games, since history barely has any recognizable meaning at all in TW-games – It never had essentially. It’s all fiction basically and I think it is about time that we finally started to treat it as such. The EU and TW-games is Mickey Mouse alright, however it’s damn fine and entertaining Mickey Mouse – and there is nothing wrong with that either (feel free to quote me on that as well).

- Cheers

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I think you're overlooking the Glorious Achievements mode in Medieval, which is absolutely my favorite gameplay in the Total War series.

[Meneldil]

Personally I don’t understand the usual history-craze I all too often see around the Org (and elsewhere) regarding TW-games, since history barely has any recognizable meaning at all in TW-games – It never had essentially. It’s all fiction basically and I think it is about time that we finally started to treat it as such. The EU and TW-games is Mickey Mouse alright, however it’s damn fine and entertaining Mickey Mouse – and there is nothing wrong with that either (feel free to quote me on that as well).

- Cheers

Pretty much because if I bought Rome Total War, it's because I expected the starting situation to be somewhat similar to what it was really at that time. I expect to field the armies fielded at the time, to be available to do the things that were done at the time (among other things).

If a game decides to allow a Roman to summon Jupiter, hordes of mythical monsters or sneaky battlefield assassins (ie. Arcani), or to turn the Ptolemaic kingdom into ancient age egyptians, then it shouldn't even try to label itself as historical (which RTW devs did).

Yeah, this kind of game allow the players to do things that weren't done in-real-life, or that were done under exeptional circumstances. Obviously, you could hardly expect to sell a mainstream game if it took 10 hours to conquer a settlement among the hundreds available.
On that matter, I think EU system (with peace deal) is much better than the TW series one (settlement captured = settlement conquered). While it doesn't prevent a tiny faction to conquer half of the known world, it still makes things a bit more tedious for non-hardcore players.

[Axalon]

Hello Meneldil,

Well.... If that belief makes you happy by all means knock your self out with RTW. No offence but personally I fail to see how RTW is more accurate than any other TW-game. Having said that, just because we got speculative simulations and various degrees of fiction does not mean that we instantly get a horde of snarling dragons all over the game, now does it? Fiction is more diverse than that as a general concept. It can get very believable and plausible if it is done properly – that in a way so that most of us won’t even notice the difference or that it is there at all. There are tons of examples of that in the movies for instance (of course there are tons of the opposite as well).

We have simplified representations of various things in PC-games that usually are intended to be recognized as “Roman” or “Medieval” or some other concept etc. etc. However that is one thing, being "historically accurate" on a meaningful level is quite another. Anyway, I don’t see how that is truly important at the end of the day since it is all about having fun and entertainment as we play the game whether or not it is declared as “historical” or “fictitious” by the developers or others (CA can declare whatever they want - it wont make their games any more historical anyhow). As far as “history” goes it can basically only serve as some sort of inspiration and familiar reference for a setting and various elements of a game so we can feel more at home with the context as such – whatever it may be and utterly regardless how much we try to be true to known historical material to various degrees while we are confined to the artificial and limited framework and possibilities of any game….

Anyhow, that just the way I see these things. Personally I embrace fiction and speculative circumstances as an opportunity rather than something I frown upon - usually anyhow. To me, rigid and misplaced concern to history just strikes me as silly, that’s all. After all, it has no true and significant bearing in TW-games – it simply doesn’t work very well with how these games are designed (and these circumstances can’t be changed much either). Besides, the concept of history on a conventional level generally is regarded to be pretty fixed while the concept of games are by definition are the exact opposite in nature. Thus these two don’t work well together anyhow (at least as far as events go). If you and others don’t like these simple views, by all means pay no mind to them….

- Cheers

[Meneldil]

RTW was not historical. That's one of the reasons I found it disappointing.

I'm by no means an expert, but the way the egyptians were portrayed made me go 'wtf?' and so did the 'uber cool' kinds of units (screeching women, druids and assorted).

As to why history can be fun and entertaining, I point you to EB. I would have stopped playing RTW altogether after maybe 15 hours if it weren't for EB.

[Prussian to the Iron]

well, in city building/rts, i like the stronghold games, and sometimes i'll even play the settlers: rise of an empire.

neither are historically accurate (though they dont have fantasy units or anything)


also, if you like RPG's, The Guild 2 is an amzing game. basically, you create a person, choose their religion and skills,then decide what kind of occupation they can have:

Patron: farming, innkeeping
Scholar: churches, herb gathering, magical arts (but its not really magic, its really chemical mixes that you sell for a ton of money)
Rogue: Bandit camps, killing, stealing
4th one i forgot name of: smithing, jewlry-making, woodcutting


you shoudl do some research into the game. its not strictly a "build up a business" sort of game. everyone, for example, can kill people, own houses, get mistresses (only at higher levels), and hire employees for anything. anything. including robbing and killing.