What I would prioritize above all else if I made a game like this is fluidity. Fluidity of borders, fluidity of government, fluidity of culture and fluidity of religion. That's really what makes the idea of a game on this period so appealing to me.
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I don't think you've read my post very closely. I never said that it would be impossible to model the rise of Islam, but that the effects of this rise were such that the period after around 700 is in many ways a separate period of history, much as the Classical Period and the 5th century are separate. Indeed, that's why historians started studying "Late Antiquity" as an era in its own right, rather than splitting it between the Ancient period and the Dark Ages.
Again, you haven't been reading properly. The ridiculous part was the Franks of this period upping sticks and migrating, not the idea of Greece being conquered by Germanic tribes.
We've already discussed mechanics that encourage you to switch over from migratory societies to more stationary ones.
And I was saying how I think it should be one game and talking about how it could be modeled rather well in such a game.
The Middle East may have changed in that time but Europe was pretty much continuing along the same path it was before (from Classical and Tribal (Barbaric and Nomadic) societies to Feudal ones).
My reading is just fine, the problem is that people cannot properly understand what you are trying to say unless you put all of what you're trying to say. We can't read your mind.
Once the Franks conquer their land, they will become feudal. When they are feudal they cannot migrate.
Now, if they were still barbaric and were going to migrate (as they did from modern Western Germany into modern France) then they would move where it was easiest too. It would be very unlikely that the easiest place would be Greece but it would be possible (but again, very unlikely).
My point is, this was a pretty crazy time in history, a time before cultural borders became set in stone and that should be simulated in game.
I am interested to something like this: the only other game that covers this period of time is Invasions, but, other than that, there are none.
Plus, fluidity of movement? The possibility to do a Grand Campaign spanning from the 467 to the 1965 in basically one session? I salivate!
Plus, fluidity of movement? The possibility to do a Grand Campaign spanning from the 467 to the 1965 in basically one session? I salivate!
I think that would be well over a day's worth of time to go through so I doubt it could really be one session.
Other than that, this is why I love this idea as well.
The thing is that I would only be satisfied if a Rome game also focused on the republican era. Ideally I'd like it to start within a century of the overthrow of the the last Roman Rex. It would also need to be able to provide an authentic experience of possibly transforming into an autocratic government. A lot of posts this far on this thread seem to be focusing on Imperial Rome, and it's downfall. Yes, I would probably play such a game, but I would be severely disappointed with it's failure to portray a fascinating and critical period in Roman history.
just thinking that if there might be decision like "send warriors to rome" because german or whatever fight in
roman troops and get higher rank and maybe become general and get some land from roman empire. and then they might revolt and join back german tribes, or culture...?
roman troops and get higher rank and maybe become general and get some land from roman empire. and then they might revolt and join back german tribes, or culture...?
I think the fluidity could best be represented by a non-province style map (or at least, one where the provinces are essentially quite tiny!) with open ended movement (in the style of MTW2).
All "units" being moved could effectively be treated as military, although in reality except for the more organised "countries" they would in reality be whole tribes. Different locations would have different benefits (agricultural land quality, defencibility, mineral resources, game) and as a tribe stays settled in an area, its population, and the area it exerts control over grows.
If a population can keep up a sufficient growth over a long period of time, it would end up moving towards town/city status and then be able to control a larger area - if it grew large enough but growth rate slowed too much then it would split into two allied tribes (with the ally settling nearby, if territory was available).
If you moved a tribe into an area where someone else was present already, you could choose to assimilate or refuse to assimilate. If both chose to assimilate then the POP of both tribes is mixed, if either chose not to then there is a conflict, and the loser can choose to flee, or be subjugated (and potentially enslaved/exterminated) by the victor.
The unpredictability of other tribes movements, combined with long and short term environmental impacts should keep it relatively fluid, until more and more fledgling nations start to form.
This sort of thing would work pretty well for a right up to non-TOG CK2 start, I think.
The calculations requirements would probably be too high though.
All "units" being moved could effectively be treated as military, although in reality except for the more organised "countries" they would in reality be whole tribes. Different locations would have different benefits (agricultural land quality, defencibility, mineral resources, game) and as a tribe stays settled in an area, its population, and the area it exerts control over grows.
If a population can keep up a sufficient growth over a long period of time, it would end up moving towards town/city status and then be able to control a larger area - if it grew large enough but growth rate slowed too much then it would split into two allied tribes (with the ally settling nearby, if territory was available).
If you moved a tribe into an area where someone else was present already, you could choose to assimilate or refuse to assimilate. If both chose to assimilate then the POP of both tribes is mixed, if either chose not to then there is a conflict, and the loser can choose to flee, or be subjugated (and potentially enslaved/exterminated) by the victor.
The unpredictability of other tribes movements, combined with long and short term environmental impacts should keep it relatively fluid, until more and more fledgling nations start to form.
This sort of thing would work pretty well for a right up to non-TOG CK2 start, I think.
The calculations requirements would probably be too high though.
I suppose none of you ever played "Great Invasions" the Dark Ages game from 2006 designed by Philippe Thibeault, the same man who designed the game that Europa Universalis was based on.
Haha yeah. I mean it was a really ambitious project and they made an honest attempt at getting the period portrayed correctly but its obviously a challenging game to make. I think with better financial backing (leading to better bug fixing, etc.) and a stronger interface it would've actually been really good. They attempted a lot of the things being discussed here though. Nomadic cultural groups, multiple "society" stages including tribal/kingdom/empire, religious spread, etc.
Again, my point wasn't that the Islamic invasions would be difficult to model, but that by turning what had been a Christian lake and reasonably culturally-unified area into a battleground between two warring civilisations they brought about enough change for the period after the eighth century to be a separate period in its own right, and hence deserving its own game. If you think that the Muslim conquests could be modelled, fine, but that's irrelevant to my point.
It's not just the Middle East, it's the entire Mediterranean and beyond. Besides, according to your logic, we might as well extend the game to the present day, since Europe was pretty much just continuing along the path from classical and tribal to feudal to early modern to modern societies.
Here's what I said again:
<I> "It [i.e., tribes migrating to avoid conquest and setting off a domino effect] did early on in the period, but not (or at least not nearly so much) in the later Dark Ages. Which is part of the reason why I think that the early Dark Ages and later Dark Ages should be separate games, so we don't have (e.g.) Carolingian France getting conquered and migrating off into Greece or something ridiculous like that."</I>
How exactly did you get "The Franks should never migrate into Greece" from that?
OK, so how many migrations of the kind we were talking about happened after the 8th century? The Slavs had already colonised most of their eventual territories, I think, and I can't recall anybody else who was moving around en masse in this period.
I get what you're saying, I just disagree.
I feel as though the dynamic of a new religion rising from nothing and eventually becoming one of the largest religions in the world is lost if a game separates it from a rather chaotic period where different countries, cultures, and religions were created and destroyed.
That's an absurd leap you just made there.
It's really not even worth a response (although I already gave it this one so...).
I think the you need to use [ and ] instead of < and >.
It seems that I mentally replaced Carolingian France with Franks so I will concede that but I still disagree with the separation of the two time periods.
There were the Magyars. Even though that's represented in CK2, there's overlap for CK2 and EU4.
There was also Kievan Rus' (Norse Vikings who conquered a large chunk of what became Russia) which did not replace the population of the land or anything but did have an affect on the culture of the people there (culturally making Russians differ a fair bit from the other Slavs, which would only be driven further by the Mongol conquests).
I think the rise of Islam might be best reserved for an expansion, if only because there are already quite a lot of things for a Dark Ages game to try and model.
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When the World Stopped Making Sense, the CKII mod, is a good prototype model idea of what a Dark Ages game should be like. It should be very dynamic with infinite political, religious, civic, and historical possibilities.
Also, please make a population system based off Victoria II. And dynamic cultures and culture blending, please.
Also, please make a population system based off Victoria II. And dynamic cultures and culture blending, please.
The main questions remain:
What will you play as?
a dynasty...
a single character...
a cultural group...
a proto-kingdom...
i'm really not sure
What will you play as?
a dynasty...
a single character...
a cultural group...
a proto-kingdom...
i'm really not sure
My thoughts exactly. I'm not dead against the idea of a game covering the entire Dark Ages, but I think it would need to try and model so many different things that it's unlikely any of them would be modelled well.
I don't think it would be doable or at least not even close to any other strategy games made by paradox.
Each paradox games has a generalisation on how the different cultures work to make the game works. That way playing France, Byzance or the Golden Horde in Ck2 or Eu4 is mostly the same thing with only some flavour to each to make them a bit different even tough playing any of those 3 states should be radically different.
However its (for me) impossible to make general mechanics that could work for the dying classical empires (Rome/Byzance/Persia) and the Barbarian (all of them from the celts to the huns and the germans).
Even worse the barbarian alone have at least 3 completly different sytem that has to be included to make them work:
- tribal: the way most of them were before they're migration, they were less a centralised state than a federation of tribe like a bit how the North American are portrayed in EU4.
- Nomadic: the way they work when they start the migration, I have no idea how paradox can make a "moving" state work.
- Feodal: After they achieved the migration and start their integration in their new home altough its really not like middle-ages feodality with still many "tribal" mechanic present.
That would be like paradox including how CK2 and EU4 governement works in Victoria for "Uncivilized" states. Not gonna happen.
And that not even talking about all this religious and culture mess that period was.
Each paradox games has a generalisation on how the different cultures work to make the game works. That way playing France, Byzance or the Golden Horde in Ck2 or Eu4 is mostly the same thing with only some flavour to each to make them a bit different even tough playing any of those 3 states should be radically different.
However its (for me) impossible to make general mechanics that could work for the dying classical empires (Rome/Byzance/Persia) and the Barbarian (all of them from the celts to the huns and the germans).
Even worse the barbarian alone have at least 3 completly different sytem that has to be included to make them work:
- tribal: the way most of them were before they're migration, they were less a centralised state than a federation of tribe like a bit how the North American are portrayed in EU4.
- Nomadic: the way they work when they start the migration, I have no idea how paradox can make a "moving" state work.
- Feodal: After they achieved the migration and start their integration in their new home altough its really not like middle-ages feodality with still many "tribal" mechanic present.
That would be like paradox including how CK2 and EU4 governement works in Victoria for "Uncivilized" states. Not gonna happen.
And that not even talking about all this religious and culture mess that period was.