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Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

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Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#91

Post by wasfgwp »

throwaway676712 wrote: post #86
modo_mario wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>edit: in fact, it is illustrated by the ridiculous recent Elon Musk fit about "the odyssey" cast, itself fueled by the misconceptions that "having black guys in a roman army is woke because everyone knows the romans are not black". What roman army are you talking about ? Also yeah the vast vast majority of the romans were not black just like how in some african kingdoms later one could see a very rare arab trader or…

There are reports of black legionaries in Romain Britain as late as the reign of Septimus Severus (himself not very white if you look at portraits). Black people in the Roman empire isn't that far fetched when you consider Rome had a huge presence in Africa and the Trans-Saharan slave trade was thriving at the time. Rome also had contacts with Merowe (Kush) through Egypt and other client kingdoms in North Africa. It'…

Equating North Africans who genetically, culturally more interlinked with other Mediterranean people with Sub-Saharan Africans is not exactly right. After all before the Indo-European invasion Europe was almost exclusively settled by middle eastern immigrants (and largely remained so in Southern Europe genetically).

> It's not a stretch to imagine

It’s not a stretch to imagine a lot of things but there is no evidence that was true to any significant degree (besides the demand for slaves in Roman Egypt was likely substantial enough to absorb most of the demand)

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#92

Post by wasfgwp »

onraglanroad wrote: post #43
complianceowll wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Have you ever watched The Gladiator? How many of them were black? They were slaves. Do you know how many slaves were black in the Roman empire? More than had American accents I assure you. None of them spoke English either.

> Do you know how many slaves were black in the Roman empire

In the Western Mediterranean? Most likely diminishingly few. It’s hard to imagine why would that might not had been the case.

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#93

Post by rsynnott »

complianceowll wrote: post #57
cauch wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "out of context". The initial article is literally explaining that there is a misconception around the diversity of culture during the antiquity. This anecdotal event, that I picked because it was recent (sorry to disappoint you, I don't really care for Musk), was just a concrete example that the exact misconception we are talking about is real and still present today. The fact that the culprit is Mu…

> I don't really care for Musk I'm laughing so hard right now. You resoundingly do care about Musk; you're obsessed with him. Second, who said anything about me alleging that "they depicted a roman army that was no entirely Rome-inhabitant looking"? Those are your words not mine, and if anyone is looking for the king of strawman arguments, we have a winner with you. Rome was a very ethnically diverse place, including…

> You resoundingly do care about Musk; you're obsessed with him.

"Care for" doesn't mean the same thing about "care about"; "I don't care for" means "I dislike", perhaps with a certain degree of implied contempt.

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#94

Post by [deleted] »

wasfgwp wrote: post #90
rsynnott wrote: post #84

> I have absolutely had well-meaning people quite confidently inform me that Roman military strength was a consequence of their cultural and ethnic cohesiveness. ... Wait, how? I mean, I think popular culture _does_ generally gloss over the Italy-is-not-Roman dynamic, but movies and so on often depict auxiliaries. And certainly anyone who looked at the history would struggle to come to this conclusion. Maybe those pe…

Italy was Roman though. Or rather by making Italy Roman (to such an extent that other Italians would be willing to fight a war just for the right to be treated as other Romans) was basically what enabled their success by giving them a huge pool of manpower (and most importantly of people who had a vested interest in the success of the Roman state). Other ancient states like Athens were inherently exclusionary which p…

[deleted]

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#95

Post by complianceowll »

onraglanroad wrote: post #61
complianceowll wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you are telling me (someone you don't know) "...you know far less than I do" and "You don't know what's historically accurate" and all the other "you don't know"s, tells everyone everything they need to know about who they're speaking to. Thank you for confirming my suspicions!

Check out if my statements were accurate. I realise it's not ego confirming to be told you're wrong but you could really see it as an opportunity to learn.

> I realise it's not ego confirming to be told you're wrong but you could really see it as an opportunity to learn.

It is a fact that you have no idea whether you know more than me, but you affirm it with no foundation because you have no integrity.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the elephant telling someone else their ears are big.

Unfortunately, your parents didn't really put that much time into you and it shows.

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#96

Post by cauch »

complianceowll wrote: post #95
onraglanroad wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out if my statements were accurate. I realise it's not ego confirming to be told you're wrong but you could really see it as an opportunity to learn.

> I realise it's not ego confirming to be told you're wrong but you could really see it as an opportunity to learn. It is a fact that you have no idea whether you know more than me, but you affirm it with no foundation because you have no integrity. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the elephant telling someone else their ears are big. Unfortunately, your parents didn't really put that much time into you and it…

Stop crying, the situation is simple:

You said something that is a beginner's mistake (and it is objectively incorrect, your interlocutor even invites you to try to prove otherwise, that's how confident they are you will not be able to do so because it is simply not true). Based on that, your interlocutor just said "I know better than you". Not because they invented it, but because you gave them all the indications that it is true by making beginner's mistakes.

So, no, they don't "have no idea": they saw you struggling with basic elements that people who know this subject have already acquired.

Funnily enough, you genuinely have no idea of what their parents have done, and yet you don't hesitate to do exactly what you pretend is so shameful. You don't make any sense. Honestly, just take one step back and stop being so angry. Just breathe, stop being so emotional and think a little bit. You don't have to apologize or lose face, you can just stop writing answer (stop digging your own hole) and do better next time.

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#97

Post by cestith »

I have never played an AoE game. In Civ, though, if you’re not at least considering conquering other players' cities and adding them to your country you may be playing the game wrong. Sure, in Civ 6 you can win on science, culture, religion, or economics. Conquest is still one method of winning, and those cities you conquer are not your subjects until they are. Cities along a border can even choose to switch loyalty based on your culture’s influence overriding theirs.

The Master of Orion series includes mechanics for your conquered planets being less productive at first if they are mostly peopled by an alien race. In the WG reboot at least, there’s even a government agency you can build on a planet to get it to assimilate faster. It also supports the idea of low-morale planets rebelling.

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#98

Post by modo_mario »

throwaway676712 wrote: post #86
modo_mario wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>edit: in fact, it is illustrated by the ridiculous recent Elon Musk fit about "the odyssey" cast, itself fueled by the misconceptions that "having black guys in a roman army is woke because everyone knows the romans are not black". What roman army are you talking about ? Also yeah the vast vast majority of the romans were not black just like how in some african kingdoms later one could see a very rare arab trader or…

There are reports of black legionaries in Romain Britain as late as the reign of Septimus Severus (himself not very white if you look at portraits). Black people in the Roman empire isn't that far fetched when you consider Rome had a huge presence in Africa and the Trans-Saharan slave trade was thriving at the time. Rome also had contacts with Merowe (Kush) through Egypt and other client kingdoms in North Africa. It'…

They would be an oddity. That's often why one got reports of them. Because they were incredibly rare

Most of them like septimus severus you mention and the maurorum are north africans and then the historia augusta mentions a single black ethiopian. And it gets some weird amount of focus seemingly purely due to modern sensibilities in an anti racism drive and to create a sense of belonging. Same with how a lot of the story around the HMT windrush is wildly stretched or downright myth.

"It's not a stretch" .... "possibly manumitted later"....

Colonial era europe fairly certainly had many times more and outside of a few hotspots...they were still an oddity. They didn't just go back, didn't get selected out so that they didn't routinely show up in genepool research. They just aren't there in the demographic data. Fuck this is not that long ago. My great grandparents never saw one in the flesh.

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#99

Post by throwaway676712 »

wasfgwp wrote: post #91
throwaway676712 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reports of black legionaries in Romain Britain as late as the reign of Septimus Severus (himself not very white if you look at portraits). Black people in the Roman empire isn't that far fetched when you consider Rome had a huge presence in Africa and the Trans-Saharan slave trade was thriving at the time. Rome also had contacts with Merowe (Kush) through Egypt and other client kingdoms in North Africa. It'…

Equating North Africans who genetically, culturally more interlinked with other Mediterranean people with Sub-Saharan Africans is not exactly right. After all before the Indo-European invasion Europe was almost exclusively settled by middle eastern immigrants (and largely remained so in Southern Europe genetically). > It's not a stretch to imagine It’s not a stretch to imagine a lot of things but there is no evidence…

>Equating North Africans who genetically, culturally more interlinked with other Mediterranean people with Sub-Saharan Africans is not exactly right. After all before the Indo-European invasion Europe was almost exclusively settled by middle eastern immigrants (and largely remained so in Southern Europe genetically).

No, I mean that North African client kingdoms and tribes, or the Roman themselves, would routinely trade in slaves and hire mercenaries or bring in merchants through the trans-Saharan trade routes.

>It’s not a stretch to imagine a lot of things but there is no evidence that was true to any significant degree (besides the demand for slaves in Roman Egypt was likely substantial enough to absorb most of the demand)

There literally is, as pointed out at the top of my comment. You can look it up.

Re: Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)

#100

Post by throwaway676712 »

modo_mario wrote: post #98
throwaway676712 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reports of black legionaries in Romain Britain as late as the reign of Septimus Severus (himself not very white if you look at portraits). Black people in the Roman empire isn't that far fetched when you consider Rome had a huge presence in Africa and the Trans-Saharan slave trade was thriving at the time. Rome also had contacts with Merowe (Kush) through Egypt and other client kingdoms in North Africa. It'…

They would be an oddity. That's often why one got reports of them. Because they were incredibly rare Most of them like septimus severus you mention and the maurorum are north africans and then the historia augusta mentions a single black ethiopian. And it gets some weird amount of focus seemingly purely due to modern sensibilities in an anti racism drive and to create a sense of belonging. Same with how a lot of the…

>And it gets some weird amount of focus seemingly purely due to modern sensibilities in an anti racism drive and to create a sense of belonging.

What does it say about people who relentlessly push back on it? It's not like people are arguing Rome had the same make up as the US. The thesis is fairly weak ("a small trickle of black people shows up because Rome was diverse and a unified empire that favors large scale population movements") and yet a large contingent of people seem intent on saying "no, not even that". I didn't mention anything about anti-racism drive, that's odd of you to bring it up.

>They didn't just go back, didn't get selected out so that they didn't routinely show up in genepool research. They just aren't there in the demographic data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnfBYO53jhg

(Africans in Anglo-Saxon England)

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