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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

#161
post #32
post #3

It’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

When creating an entertainment product, be it a movie or game, your user’s expectations are the canvas you paint on. In some places you deliberately violate them, in others you accommodate them at the expense of “realism.” An amusing example: In the Sly Stallone rock climbing action movie “Cliffhanger,” they shot a scene where he ice climbs without an axe. To get past a certain section, he dips his gloved hand in col…

Imagine the products of a culture with less tolerance for untruth than our own. It might see more films with postscript reality checks, like Jackie Chan's making-of "if you do this, you will get hurt". More children's picture books with errata pages, like Penny Chisholm's. I wonder if some such might be encouraged somehow?

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

#162

> And finally, something that would, in my opinion, really add to the realism and historical flavor of a medieval-themed city builder would be the introduction of mechanisms in which agricultural surpluses are skimmed by the church and the feudal lord. Tithes, taxes and rents! Instead of merely abstracting the taxes into an income modifier or letting the player be the extractor himself, we could be shown the tax coll…

>EDIT: As a follow-up, I found this history of land & tax policy in Denmark going back to the middle ages to be quite fascinating and might be a useful point of contact for this sort of thing: https://bibliotek1.dk/english/history/centuries-of-experienc...

Tangentially, there's a remarkable painting of a tax collection in medieval Denmark:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdemar_Atterdag_holding_Visb...

("Valdemar Atterdag holding Visby to ransom, 1361", by Carl Gustaf Hellqvist in 1882)

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

#163

> And finally, something that would, in my opinion, really add to the realism and historical flavor of a medieval-themed city builder would be the introduction of mechanisms in which agricultural surpluses are skimmed by the church and the feudal lord. Tithes, taxes and rents! Instead of merely abstracting the taxes into an income modifier or letting the player be the extractor himself, we could be shown the tax coll…

I always figured that game makers didn't do this because it wouldn't actually be fun to play with. Reminds me of when I played Medieval: Total War and spent most of my time dealing with uprisings. Like, do we want to deal with regulation bloat that causes greater infrastructure costs, so you have to pay billions to build a big road or whatever? Can you account for a Whiskey Rebellion sort of scenario in a SimCity sort of game?

Plus, most of these are predicated on the idea that you're the supreme despot. People can protest if you increase taxes, but they can't vote you out/execute you in public and put in new leaders who knock down the tax rate.

Maybe it's the difference between Kerbal Space Program and Galaga. There are certainly markets for both, but less for the former.

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

#164
post #57

I'd be curious to hear this professor's take on the villages of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is a medieval RPG that attempts to bring some aspects of realism. It even has a DLC where a lord appoints the player to be the bailiff for an effort to rebuild an abandoned fort town, and you work with the "master builder" to choose what industries to foster, while bringing in money and skilled workers from elsewhere.

Clearly the environment in KC:D is historically accurate because it's derived from extant historical records.

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

#165

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…

The settlers.did this AFAIK

I recall in settlers 2 you put down the initial walkway, but it widening into a 2-way path and eventually a carriageway that donkeys would traverse was down to how much traffic it saw.

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

#166
post #55
post #21

I’m actually beginning some informal research on 17th century Europe for a small game right now. There are some village life and village builder aspects. It’s the beginning of the “modern” period and just after the renaissance. What is life like for the local business owner? Who would they be? What extent is it still feudal serfdom in during ? It’s an interesting time with massive social, scientific, and religious ch…

ACoUP is incredible, though not specific to that time period: https://acoup.blog/resources-for-world-builders/

I was waiting for ACOUP to pop up in this thread - surprised it took so long :D

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

#167
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When creating an entertainment product, be it a movie or game, your user’s expectations are the canvas you paint on. In some places you deliberately violate them, in others you accommodate them at the expense of “realism.” An amusing example: In the Sly Stallone rock climbing action movie “Cliffhanger,” they shot a scene where he ice climbs without an axe. To get past a certain section, he dips his gloved hand in col…

Imagine the products of a culture with less tolerance for untruth than our own. It might see more films with postscript reality checks, like Jackie Chan's making-of "if you do this, you will get hurt". More children's picture books with errata pages, like Penny Chisholm's. I wonder if some such might be encouraged somehow?

Why would you want such a culture? People love movies and probably can learn how untrue or true they are by just googling stuff. I certainly do.

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

#168

> And finally, something that would, in my opinion, really add to the realism and historical flavor of a medieval-themed city builder would be the introduction of mechanisms in which agricultural surpluses are skimmed by the church and the feudal lord. Tithes, taxes and rents! Instead of merely abstracting the taxes into an income modifier or letting the player be the extractor himself, we could be shown the tax coll…

Government is always abstracted in games, rather than being material. If a game had a tax collector, it would have to figure out what would happen if you killed the tax collector. What if the tax collector is actually a tax farmer[1]? Would his gang go after you? If the gang was too afraid of you, would they raise taxes on your neighbors to compensate? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_(revenue_leasing)

Majesty had tax collectors, a market economy, and a hands-off governing policy: You funded creation of main buildings, but they were or were not occupied based on demand for those buildings. You put up rewards for actions, but those were or were not acted on based on whatever your citizens were doing. You funded (from treasury) upgrades to goods producers, but nobody got those upgrades until they went and purchased those things from their own money.

You had a little tax collector dude (or dudes) that went around knocking on doors and collecting a % their on-hand assets (which you set). You could exclude areas if they were too far away, or too dangerous. Your tax collector(s) could be ambushed, which frankly was the primary reason to build defenses.

And, you could tolerate some thievery so that you could occasionally extort money from the thieves guild in sort of an unofficial tax collection of unreported income.

All that in a fantasy game. It can be done.

I believe there's a modern revamp version for mobile: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/majesty/9nblggh1850p

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned so much from that game as a kid: Taxes, real estate values, city planning issues, money management, so many more

Pharaoh, Cleopatra, Zeus, Poseidon, Stronghold, Tzar: The burden of the crown, Theocracy, Settlers, SimCity, Cossacks, AoE2, HoMM3... There were many great city builders/strategy games back when we were kids :) and I owe them a lot as well. I'm glad we havent been raised in an era of battle royals.

Mmm, Stronghold. Tax and ration tiers were an interesting mechanic for morale management. That game also had perhaps the most intricate siege simulation I've seen (ignoring the fact that many historical sieges had attrition as the goal). Had quite the large community of map and castle makers.

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

#170
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tropico has this component of elections.

Tropico has one of the funniest "speech generators" ever. * Praise a faction (ex: Religious, Academic, Military) * Chastise a faction * Praise a superpower * Acknowledge an issue. * Make a promise ------- For example: * Praise the Military * Blame the Religious * Praise the USA * Acknowledge housing is a problem. * Promise better housing. Then the voice actor comes out and says the lines associated with your selectio…

> otherwise the people will remember

This breaks the immersion.

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