[2.3.3] Event in SI is incorrect

[Jorlem]

In this event:

"chocolate" is described as sweet. However, the cacoa based drink made by the Mayans and Aztecs was actually rather bitter. In real life, when the conquistadors introduced the drink in Europe, they added large amounts of sugar to make the drink palatable to European tastes, greatly sweetening it. That portion of the text should be reworded to reflect that the sweet version is a European variation, or at least acknowledge that the drink is actually bitter.

 

[grisamentum]

Doesn't mean they could not have done so.

No - just the opposite. People tried it, and it didn't catch on, because it just doesn't work as well. Honey just doesn't pack the same sweetness as refined sugar cane.

 

[Dracko81]

It doesn't work as well doesn't mean it doesn't work.

It could of been done the need of sugar is not a requirement.

 

[grisamentum]

It doesn't work as well doesn't mean it doesn't work.

It could of been done the need of sugar is not a requirement.

This is like saying you could make lasagna with tofu instead of cheese. You could, but most people would not recognize it as the thing you described.

There is no way to get around the fact that chocolate is not sweet. It is sweetened, just like coffee. No one would call coffee a "sweet drink."

 

[Dracko81]

It is still Chocolate or coffee whether you add sweetener or not. If the standard is to add sweetener, than it could be referred to as sweet.

Look up stevia while your at it.

 

[grisamentum]

It is still Chocolate or coffee whether you add sweetener or not.

Exactly. And chocolate is bitter. So it doesn't make sense to call chocolate "sweet," because it isn't.

If the standard is to add sweetener, than it could be referred to as sweet.

Obviously false because nobody calls coffee a "sweet drink" even though the standard is to add sugar.

Look up stevia while your at it.

Irrelevant. It was used by remote South American tribes as a sweetener. We're talking about the Aztecs bringing chocolate to Europe.

Look, at some point you just need to give up and admit a mistake was made. This is like when people had to explain to the EU4 team that coffee comes Africa, not South America. It's totally fine to confuse what products came from where or what the nature of those products is and was, but then just fix the mistake already.

 

[Dracko81]

So your saying chocolate today is a bitter drink?

 

[grisamentum]

So your saying chocolate today is a bitter drink?

Well I don't know why anyone would drink just chocolate, but of course it is. By contrast, the sweet beverage is called "hot cocoa" or "hot chocolate" or "drinking chocolate" depending how it was prepared.

 

[G-Flex]

We still call plenty of sweetened chocolate preparations "chocolate" just like we call coffee with milk and sugar "coffee". You're starting to strain credibility here.

 

[Jorlem]

Coffee is an imported word in the English language. Chocolate, or xocolātl, for the Aztecs, is not. A better comparison would be to a word like sweetmeat.

 

[grisamentum]

We still call plenty of sweetened chocolate preparations "chocolate" just like we call coffee with milk and sugar "coffee". You're starting to strain credibility here.

On the contrary, you call it a "latte", or "cafe au lait", or even, as you just did, "coffee with milk and sugar". If you go to a diner and order coffee, they'll bring out a cup of coffee with no cream and no sugar. Or they'll ask if you'd like "room for cream" or something.

Jorlem is correct that this issue is not about how people drank chocolate centuries later, it's how the Aztecs drank it in the time period of the event. It's just ahistorical to refer to it as sweet.

The entire purpose of the event is historical flavor. It has absolutely zero gameplay value. Could we at least get the historical flavor correct?

 

[Xinkc]

Looking at the event text again, nothing in there says that the Aztec's came up with a sweet drink. It's just that the European nobles like a sweet drink they call "chocolate" that is made from cacao. For all we know, the Aztec merchants discovered and cultivated stevia too which is what the nobles are using to sweeten the normally bitter drink.

It's important to remember that Sunset Invasion gives us a completely ahistorical situation where the Aztec are somehow aware of Europe, find many places there to be holy sites, and can transport large armies across the Atlantic Ocean 300 years before the Europeans were starting to trickle in and colonize the New World. It's less historical flavor and more geographical/cultural flavor at this point.

I'm not getting into the "coffee" semantics thing because I've heard it both ways.