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The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

leidenmedievalistsblog.nl

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Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

#121

Post by semperdark »

mmcdermott wrote: post #105
gspr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider yourself warned: all Paradox games are highly addictive drugs. What you must have experienced with Stellaris is representative of most their games. EU IV is indeed a good choice if you liked Stellaris (I usually explain Stellaris to people as EU in spaaaaace).

I've been meaning to revisit Paradox games for a minute. Crusader Kings II hooked me the most. I never really delved into EU. The big problem I had with Stellaris is that I usually lose interest in the mid-game. I love the exploration, the building and even the initial diplomacy, but I just lose interest when everything levels out. I understand from AARs and the like that there are late game effects to disrupt the st…

You should adjust the "mid-game start year" and "late-game start year" sliders at game setup. Note that those are just the earliest possible start times, and the chance starts rolling yearly.

Definitely frustrating that you have to try to predict the game trajectory in advance. A game going well is almost a bad thing - you end up ahead of the curve and sit around doing nothing.

Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

#122

Post by depaya »

rebuilder wrote: post #83
larsiusprime wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's cool! Does it say what exactly you are taxing (labor, land, capital, income, wealth)?, or is that left abstract?

There were times that the Romans auctioned off the right to tax a region. So you’d pay the state some sum and then have the right to extract whatever you can from the population. I’m sure the whole story is much more nuanced than that outline.

This is how parking enforcement works in some major cities (e.g. Chicago).

Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

#123

Post by skmurphy »

A realistic Medieval city game could do a good job of teaching key aspects of history. I learned a lot from SimCity about thinking in systems. I think well-designed games can teach quite a bit.

It would also be an interesting challenge to model the Industrial Revolution accurately. The Civilization tech tree is a good first approximation but in reading

   "The Lunar Men" by Jenny Uglow
   "The Lever of Riches" by Joel Mokyr
   "Turning points in Western Technology by Donald Cardwell
you get a very different impression. This could tie in to "Science of Progress" thinking in https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/we-need-...

Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

#125

Post by JoeAltmaier »

After the Black Death, many villages were too small to be functional. You needed a cobbler, smith, cooper, farmers, bakers etc. So Lords just moved peasants around like pawns and consolidated villages. Also they changed from farmholds to large grazing areas and obsoleted some villages. Obsolete villagers were just 'let go' meaning "Load up the wagon and leave! Good luck finding another home!"

The Scottish Highland Clearances resulted in the wholesale exportation of entire populations to Nova Scotia. At least they had a chance of finding some land to homestead.

These kind of arbitrary actions served more to sculpt the landscape of villages and towns, than all the Villager's efforts ever did.

Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

#126

Post by brutus1213 »

I love this genre and RTSes. I want to recommend a game called Northgard (really an RTS and if you into vikings, norse mythology) but has some interesting and novel game mechanics. These include the effects of Winter and periodic calamities (fire, frozen waterways).

Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

#127

Post by [deleted] »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #6

I 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 s…

[deleted]

Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

#129

Post by bspammer »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #6

I 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 s…

Frostpunk kinda does this - you build roads later on but in the beginning people leave deep tracks in the snow as they go out to collect supplies. It looks really cool. The whole game has an awesome aesthetic.

Re: The historical accuracy of medieval city-builder video games

#130

Post by lovecg »

mmcdermott wrote: post #105
gspr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider yourself warned: all Paradox games are highly addictive drugs. What you must have experienced with Stellaris is representative of most their games. EU IV is indeed a good choice if you liked Stellaris (I usually explain Stellaris to people as EU in spaaaaace).

I've been meaning to revisit Paradox games for a minute. Crusader Kings II hooked me the most. I never really delved into EU. The big problem I had with Stellaris is that I usually lose interest in the mid-game. I love the exploration, the building and even the initial diplomacy, but I just lose interest when everything levels out. I understand from AARs and the like that there are late game effects to disrupt the st…

Under no circumstances you should get Crusader Kings 3. If you value your time at all that is.
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