The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
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The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
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Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#2The city builder has its origins far back in the 1990s in the combination of the strategy genre and the management genre, leading to games such as Sim City (1989), Caesar (1992) and Age of Empires (1997).
Utopia for Intellivision/Aquarius came out in 1982. It was one of my favorite games growing up. I highly recommend it if you're into these kinds of games, or retro gaming. I guess I was retro gaming when I played it in the late 80s/early 90s, but we didn't call it that then. Some caveats, It's a 2 player game, you need to read the instructions, and it's annoying without the overlays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(video_game)
edit: When Sim City, and Populous made their way to Super Nintendo, I remember explaining to my older cousin that they were kind of like Utopia.
Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#3It’s interesting and most likely not applicable - for the very same reasons you cant get realistic sword fighting (or even street fighting) in most Hollywood movies: realistic fighting doesn’t look as exciting as the fake thing.
Glad the author sees into that very clearly.
* Could be an interesting art game tho as someone pointed out below
Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#4Even modern city builders are inaccurate in the sense that timelines of how long it takes to build things aren't Modelled correct. Plus organic city growth is rarely simulated. Cities skylines for example has no concept of slums.
Also the annoying Western/Eurocentrism.
Eg: See the recent game Dorfromantik, its aesthetically pleasing, it is rustic european scenery, but why isn't it not set in Indonesia or Ecuador or Uzbekistan?
Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#5It’s interesting and most likely not applicable - for the very same reasons you cant get realistic sword fighting (or even street fighting) in most Hollywood movies: realistic fighting doesn’t look as exciting as the fake thing. Glad the author sees into that very clearly. * Could be an interesting art game tho as someone pointed out below
There's a really great scene in HBO's Barry (Bill Hader) with an attempt at a more realistic fight scene. It's quite interesting actually!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MjQRqEk5M Spoilers possible if you haven't seen the show. Definitely recommend it btw.
Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#6I would love a building game where you can't build roads. All of those building games so far allowed that, but I think it would be more fun to just allow for constructing building, and roads/pathway would form depending on their connectivity inside the production chain. I.e. you wouldn't connect your farm to a butcher, but pathways would form and eventually turn into street based on the amount people from dependent shops walking to it (also depending on terrain and usage of i.e. horse carriages).
Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#7It’s interesting and most likely not applicable - for the very same reasons you cant get realistic sword fighting (or even street fighting) in most Hollywood movies: realistic fighting doesn’t look as exciting as the fake thing. Glad the author sees into that very clearly. * Could be an interesting art game tho as someone pointed out below
> Medieval villagers were often living on the edge of subsistence. Agricultural surpluses were skimmed by the church and the feudal lords. Bad harvests, banditry, warfare and disease might decimate a village community at any time.
Dwarf Fortress has shown that this would in fact be quite exciting, but it would probably be a lot more niche.
Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#8The basic problem is the disparity in control mechanisms. As a city-builder player, you have central planning capabilities that would make Stalin jealous--and were completely unattainable in the relevant time period due to poor communications technology.
One solution is to make "social power"/"control"/"influence" an actual gameplay mechanic, rather than leaving it entirely to the players cognition/dexterity. Lack of player control is counterbalanced by powerful AI.
For example, at the start of the game you might play as a local authority that manages land rights. You merely specify who owns what land and have limited control over how they use it. Eventually, the peasants build organic settlements, and if they get big enough, you can get transferred there and act as mayor--with the ability to set more precise local policy and therefore begin to shape the town... And so on and so forth.
Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#9This just in: video game discovered that doesn't completely adhere to . More at 11.
Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games
#10This is probably one of the better reasons why I like 0AD [1] more than anything (besides being open sourced [2]). If you read the forums and traverse the amazing artwork it's like a history lesson and there was no 0AD so they can mix/match.
[1] - https://play0ad.com/ [2] - https://github.com/0ad/0ad