Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour, historical inaccuracy?

StelarCF · Oct 19, 2014

(and geographical inaccuracy, but we'll get to that later)

This thread is specifically about the messed up cultures in the balkans (no, the threads won't stop until it is fixed; would you stop posting threads if France was upside down, english cultured with 3 french provinces in Italy?) as well as the messed up geography. I won't touch up all the inaccuracies, since I'm sure there are more than I know, so I'm going to focus on what I know about and bothers me, greatly.

Let us start with the culture...

First, we have the Vlachs. A culture that from what I could infer is supposed to be romanian culture, which at the time of writing has an estimate of about 28 million total romanians (living in Romania, Moldova and diaspora). They have all been bunched up in 3 provinces, with only a single vlach count in the Old Gods start (867) and no vlach counts in Charlemagne.

This brings us to the avars, who have suddenly become the sole culture in all of Pannonia, all the way up to the Black Sea, even though they were a nomad tribe that pretty much disappeared after the magyars came there; not to mention Transylvania "suddenly" becoming majoritary romanian by 1500-1600, through supposed emigration I'm guessing? It really makes no sense and also detracts from the joy of playing the game whenever I even come close to this region.

Then we have the Dniestr, which between 768 and 2014 has shifted about 400 km east, and is continuing its movement until it will end in the steppes of Mongolia, and the Danube which, incapable of moving east due to being perpendicular to the black sea, has grown a delta instead, trying to grasp for the nearest escape from a horribly inaccurate region.

Yugithzale · Oct 19, 2014

The Geographical inaccuracy was introduced mainly because of the weird map skew to include India without including more of the step hordes.. I beileved this was pointed out by the developers themselves actually- comparing the map's shape to a banana

Equilibrius · Oct 19, 2014

The Vlachs never achieved any serious political power at any point in the entire CK2 timeline, they did become a small state, but even then it was subjugated to the Ottomans. The administration and nobility of the area were heavily foreign and if you consider how lucky the real life Vlachs have been all things considered, an alternate timeline where they die out actually seems quite plausible.

You'd have better luck with EU4 where the significant characters of Romanian culture start appearing for real, but i am quite sure paradox has given you a significantly better position there, with more base tax than most other South Slavs of the region. Really, you're quite fine as it is.

StelarCF · Oct 19, 2014

Yugithzale said:
The Geographical inaccuracy was introduced mainly because of the weird map skew to include India without including more of the step hordes.. I beileved this was pointed out by the developers themselves actually- comparing the map's shape to a banana

That still makes no sense - it wouldn't be that hard to move the dniestr and make the map make sense - heck, Bulgaria and France make sense, why doesn't Romania do?

Equilibrius said:
The Vlachs never achieved any serious political power at any point in the entire CK2 timeline, they did become a small state, but even then it was subjugated to the Ottomans. The administration and nobility of the area were heavily foreign and if you consider how lucky the real life Vlachs have been all things considered, an alternate timeline where they die out actually seems quite plausible.

You'd have better luck with EU4 where the significant characters of Romanian culture start appearing for real, but i am quite sure paradox has given you a significantly better position there, with more base tax than most other South Slavs of the region. Really, you're quite fine as it is.

There are historical chronicles that attest to the existence of small scale romanian rulers in Romania at the time (see Gelu). That still doesn't make it reasonable to make large swathes of land the wrong culture; why don't we make all the english at the start date danish, since after all, danelaw was happening at the time?

Equilibrius · Oct 19, 2014

StelarCF said:
There are historical chronicles that attest to the existence of small scale romanian rulers in Romania at the time (see Menumorut). That still doesn't make it reasonable to make large swathes of land the wrong culture; why don't we make all the english at the start date danish, since after all, danelaw was happening at the time?

All your article speaks of is the massive altaic influences of carpathia, which is already depicted, beyond your nationalism i don't really see a reason to alter the historicity except to please some romanian nationalists, and i don't see that fire being fueled without a flamefest.

Ranjid · Oct 20, 2014

Equilibrius said:
All your article speaks of is the massive altaic influences carpathia, which is already depicted, beyond your nationalism i don't really see a reason to alter the historicity except to please some romanian nationalists, and i don't see that fire being fueled without a flamefest.

Not to mention that he's acting like the eastern Balkans are "inaccurate" on purpose. Or that they are the only inaccurate and hard to depict region. What if I tell you that half the map is made up and inaccurate? That's just how this game works. There is not enough evidental data to depict those regions. So for the sake of the gameplay it is broken down to a semi-made up system.

Jokolytic · Oct 20, 2014

Did you know "nationalism" is hottest new meme curse word of 2014?

StelarCF · Oct 20, 2014

Ranjid said:
Not to mention that he's acting like the eastern Balkans are "inaccurate" on purpose. Or that they are the only inaccurate and hard to depict region. What if I tell you that half the map is made up and inaccurate? That's just how this game works. There is not enough evidental data to depict those regions. So for the sake of the gameplay it is broken down to a semi-made up system.

"Inaccurate on purpose" is almost what I expect of a Paradox game at this point, since it's the only other explanation to why they're not doing anything about it and instead cracking out another expansion for american natives/indians/the principality of sealand.. I'm asking that it be changed. Even if most of the map was made up, this is simply butchered.

Will Steel · Oct 20, 2014

Geographical accuracy was bad from the last few expansions, RoI patch made it even worse because now you have an India that is shrunken to accomodate on the map, and an Arabian peninsula that is larger than in reality, among many other things. And then you have the weirdly tilted map.

It would not bother me though, but they seriously destroyed the Danube river's geography at the point where it turns south. It looks like a stupid smooth circle instead of a sharp turn like it is in reality. It doesn't even offer any advantages or change anything except looking crap, it doesn't make a single bit of sense to change it, but they keep doing this asinine thing in every PDS game (except Vicky2, which was somehow saved, and probably HoI3) and Danube river looks far from reality every time.

What's worse, it was actually realistic in the early versions of CK2. They actually corrupted the Danube later on with Old Gods and the addition of oversized rivers exclusive for the oh so awesome Vikings to sail on.

War_lord · Oct 20, 2014

OP fails to realise many things.

On a gameplay level, he doesn't seem to realise that unlike in EU 4 and Victoria 2, Culture represents the most influential culture in a province, not it's ethnic makeup.

Then of course there's the fact that the Nationalist narrative that their culture has existed since antiquity, that it's free of outside influences and that Language, Ethnicity and Culture are inseparable, is total nonsense. Even the most cursory study of the Middle Ages shows just how absurd this assertion is.

StelarCF · Oct 20, 2014

War_lord said:
OP fails to realise many things.

On a gameplay level, he doesn't seem to realise that unlike in EU 4 and Victoria 2, Culture represents the most influential culture in a province, not it's ethnic makeup.

Then of course there's the fact that the Nationalist narrative that their culture has existed since antiquity, that it's free of outside influences and that Language, Ethnicity and Culture are inseparable, is total nonsense.

No, that is not the impression that culture has given me. What is even the point, when you already have the title holder? It's either it represents the population, or it doesn't exist because we already have characters with culture.

Also, I haven't claimed that my culture exists since antiquity, but you know, cultures don't spontaneously appear out of the ether either.

elpibeuruguayo · Oct 20, 2014

Is there a culture that is missing in the Balkans?

Equilibrius · Oct 20, 2014

elpibeuruguayo said:
Is there a culture that is missing in the Balkans?

I've always wondered where the Albanians are

StelarCF · Oct 20, 2014

Equilibrius said:
I've always wondered where the Albanians are

They're still in the sea, waiting to migrate into modern Albania, like the vlachs.

Ninking · Oct 20, 2014

The ideal would of course be some sort of Victoria 2 simulation of the province populations, but that was deemed outside of the scope for Crusader Kings 2. It's simply not "that important", since the main scene in CK2 is the personal politics, not the movement or behaviour of folk groups.

TheChronoMaster · Oct 20, 2014

elpibeuruguayo said:
Is there a culture that is missing in the Balkans?

It depends on who you ask, and what Balkan state they're from -- a commonality in Paradox games.

Equilibrius · Oct 20, 2014

StelarCF said:
They're still in the sea, waiting to migrate into modern Albania, like the vlachs.

Albanians aren't half slavic like the Vlachs, they don't have a history mingled with them, in a way their uniqueness puts them at the same threat the Basque face.

Straigthtsilver · Oct 20, 2014

elpibeuruguayo said:
Is there a culture that is missing in the Balkans?

Albanians and Romance-speaking Dalmatians come to mind, as do the Slovenes/Carantanian Slavs (though I don't think they like being called Balkan).

I've seen Bosnian get proposed, but I don't think they were distinct enough from Croats and Serbs in the CK2 era to be justified.

elpibeuruguayo · Oct 20, 2014

Equilibrius said:
I've always wondered where the Albanians are

To put a culture in the game, we need names of monarchs and dynasties names if there were any Albanians character sometime covering the game. The most needed are the names of dynasties, or if it would not back the rise of the dynasty "Smith"

One question, when the Albanian culture originated?

War_lord · Oct 20, 2014

StelarCF said:
No, that is not the impression that culture has given me. What is even the point, when you already have the title holder? It's either it represents the population, or it doesn't exist because we already have characters with culture.

Also, I haven't claimed that my culture exists since antiquity, but you know, cultures don't spontaneously appear out of the ether either.

It represents the abbeys, village leaders and other parts of the feudal system too small to be depicted in the game, it represents the population to only a small degree, it's the influential folk in the county, not it's makeup. And it's certainly not Nationalities, that would be anachronistic by about 900 years. Nationality wasn't a thing back in the timeframe of the game. Bosnian, Croatian, French, German whatever. National definitions are a result of Geopolitical factors.

Had history gone differently, what we call Albanians would be Serbs, Bavarian and Occitanian would be Nationalities and Spain and Italy would be limited to Geographical expressions.

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