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What do you think CK2 (and other Paradox games) taught you about history?

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|emon said:
What did CK2 taught me about history? My answer is: not enough. There should be more historical events and/or some summary about the state of the realm you're gonna play in. Right now it's just encouraging me to learn more and that's not enough. :) I'd prefer learning through playing. Not after or before.
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I agree

I remember, in Rome I Total War, Barbarian Invasion, they had events pop up in historical dates. It did not do anything, but it told you what happened on that date. It just helped show what was happening in that time.

You could for example have events pop up when your playing, speaking about certain schisms that occured, or any wars, or the date the crusades started. thinks like that.
 
CK2 merely presented us with characters and countries, the database itself lacks a lot of history as of now. Characters, titleholders, intrigues and conflicts. The history you learn comes from your own research on the side.
 
History in General is really wrong because Winners are those who are writing IT!

All Paradox games are fun but you can't use them to learn history for many reasons and one of them is that there are many different views on History! Not everyone agrees with historical "facts".

As for CK2... I think there is a lot of wrong historical writings in it... like previously mentioned Roman Empire being called Byzantine Empire... Romans being called Greeks? and many
other wrong identifications among Europeans e.g. Normans being identified as "Latins" but we could all argue ALL day who is wrong or who is right...

In the end... CK2 is a great game... but it's just that.
 
Nyrael said:
Huh? The Catholic Church in this period was far more powerful than the one after the Middle Ages. The later Popes could neither force Europe into Crusading, he could not enforce secular law upon them, etc. (hell, he even came to be a Detective in my country XD) while it was more or less a norm in the Middle Ages that everything somehow leads to the Church.
The only thing that the later Catholic Church had but earlier didn't was the larger amount of money and a larger degree of corruption.
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I think it depends on whether you think the crusades were owing to the power of the Church or the greed of the secular world. I don't think the Pope ever actually "forced" Europe into Crusading. It's true that there were true believers among the crusaders (sorry for retreading old ground) but a lot of them were going for secular reasons.

In the period depicted in EU4, as the centralized monarchies of Europe grew still more centralized, and Catholic rulers (in France and Spain in particular) grew more brutally oppressive to their subjects, the Church at the very least said nothing, and in most cases passively or actively supported the excesses in the name of religious unity.

"Power", especially for a religious organization is nebulous and hard to define, however. It was the Church's greater oppression, greed, corruption, and the cruelty of its greastest adherents among the monarchs of Europe that eventually led to the schism.

Of course, that's my interpretation. Yours may be different.
 
I've learnt a heap about various religions from my time in CK2. Even excluding the in-game notes about them all, it's lead me to look them up. I wasn't aware of how deep even my own faith goes, let alone other faiths.

It came to a head when I met someone wearing a Zoroastrian symbol and started talking to him about it.
 
I learn more from mods than from the base game. For example, SWMH combined with a throwaway reference to Berber tribes in a class reading of mine to make me sit down and figure out the differences between the major Berber tribes. I do think that my interest in history mostly precedes my Paradox gaming. It's more likely that I learn something cool and then look to see how the game portrays it than the other way around.
 
My real historical interest has always been in World War One (and I'm a bit of an expert on aviation immediately preceeding, continuing through, and immediately following World War One.) It's a shame there isn't really a Paradox Game that covers "The Great War" in much detail. By the time you get around to 1914 in Victoria II, history has gone completely bananas.
 
|emon said:
What did CK2 taught me about history? My answer is: not enough. There should be more historical events and/or some summary about the state of the realm you're gonna play in. Right now it's just encouraging me to learn more and that's not enough. :) I'd prefer learning through playing. Not after or before.
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I learned that being a king isn't all sunshine and rainbows, you have your whiney selfish vassals, sons who make questionable life choices, and crossing your fingers that when you die the kingdom doesn't do its impression of the 15th century Holy Roman Empire
 
General Karthos said:
I think it depends on whether you think the crusades were owing to the power of the Church or the greed of the secular world. I don't think the Pope ever actually "forced" Europe into Crusading. It's true that there were true believers among the crusaders (sorry for retreading old ground) but a lot of them were going for secular reasons.

In the period depicted in EU4, as the centralized monarchies of Europe grew still more centralized, and Catholic rulers (in France and Spain in particular) grew more brutally oppressive to their subjects, the Church at the very least said nothing, and in most cases passively or actively supported the excesses in the name of religious unity.

"Power", especially for a religious organization is nebulous and hard to define, however. It was the Church's greater oppression, greed, corruption, and the cruelty of its greastest adherents among the monarchs of Europe that eventually led to the schism.

Of course, that's my interpretation. Yours may be different.
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I don't agree "a lot of them were going for secular reasons". I don't know what evidence there is that it would be the case. Where is the evidence? So many of the crusaders who had property literally donated it to the local churches or monasteries. I think it is securely the power of the Church and religion in the minds of the population in the middle ages that allowed the crusades, especially the earlier ones. I do not believe even the peasants crusade, which was lead by a ecclesiastic could have possibly been pushed by secular greed. If the crusades main object was greed, they would have went directly to lands in Egypt (which they attempted in later crusades in an effort to relieve that pressure off of Jerusalem), to Baghdad, and to Damascus. They did not do that though. They went on a route to jerusalem, a fairly insignificant city in a secular view point
 
Chevaresqye said:
Game should not be a tool to learn history. If you want to learn history, read book.
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I don't think anybody seriously plays CK2 for the purpose of learning history. I suppose it could be conceivably used as a reference on medieval geography etc. I think when I ask what CK2 teaches you about history, I'm not really asking about what factual information one would learn, but understanding of how the feudal system works. For example, I never did have an idea what the hierarchy is of the various titles (barons, counts, dukes etc). Then again, that could be a gross simplification and not mirror the reality of the time at all. I'm not sure, but things like that could really be educational.
 
The crusades weren't an either/or. Some crusaders only went out of a sense of piety (this obviously includes crowned heads and princes, they can hardly be looking for land when they already have enough trouble with the lands they have or will get). Some (most notably the normans in the first crusade) were hoping to get lands (or wealth) out of the deal. At the footsoldier level it breaks down even more (nobody was going to pretend your average groom was going to get insanely wealthy from going on crusade, but if they wanted a change of scenery...) Additionally, the second factor starts to fall away - if you aren't expecting to conquer anything new, you can hardly expect wealth from it.

The crusades ran out of steam for a number of reasons, but 'very likely to get yourself killed or sold into slavery' does feature among them, along with the greater control the secular heads could employ over their vassals and the potential soldiers in their territory.
 
I have an M.A. in History. My university taught me that the "vikings" were not an unusually violent civilisation whose focus was as much on peaceful trade as it was on the stereotypical "viking raids". But CK2 taught me that vikings were more like Star Trek klingons.
 
Most of all this game has taught me about historical geography and dynasties. I'm a historian but focused on much more recent history (20th century mostly).
 
CK2 taught me to hate vikings. Before CK2 I thought they were kinda meh not my thing, but now I can't stand them in any context.
 
Paradox games have given me many interesting things to look up over the years. I could read one hundred books about history and never stumble upon the Khazars, the Zunbils, or all those weird puppet states Napoleon created. You don't know what you don't know.
 
Mh, as a history student at university the only things I've ended up learning is that I find the vikings even more annoying than before. Like yes, they've always been the big "plebs history-topic" (combined with American action in WWII), but geez, this game just makes it personal. Otherwise it's like Kapitalisti says, dynasties and some historical geography, things you don't need to know.

But still in the end the game is enjoyable. It is counterfactual history, and that is one of the most enjoyable kinds.
 
Gunnarr said:
I agree

I remember, in Rome I Total War, Barbarian Invasion, they had events pop up in historical dates. It did not do anything, but it told you what happened on that date. It just helped show what was happening in that time.

You could for example have events pop up when your playing, speaking about certain schisms that occured, or any wars, or the date the crusades started. thinks like that.
Click to expand...

it struck me as strange i was being told about certain events when the factio0n it was talking about was under muslim subjugation or fully part of the kingdom of spain :p
 
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