Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to post or if there's a rule I missed about "self-promotion"
I made a video (warning it's 55 minutes long) on the subject of Alternative history and how gameplay facilitates it, comparing EU4 and Civ 6 (sorry if mentioning Civ is taboo), and how the eras depicted in these games and mechanics allow for deviations from real history. Any discussion or critique is welcome.
[Link removed by moderation]
For a TLDR(or TLD....W I guess?), this is my conclusion:
The way these games seek to model specific things and the manner by which things are *grounded* to history in EU4 actually do a lot to enhance the "what if/Alternative" history narratives. Put simply, a game with symmetrical starts and paths and conclusions like Civ is, despite appearing more freeform and open, only going to ever result in pallet swaps, that is, World History but this time the Cree played the role of Britain, etc. Whereas Eu4 allows for complicated narratives because of its grounding. It *matters* that a player could do somthing like defeat Britain as the Cree, there's narrative stakes introduced by virtue of the conceit of the game.
I made a video (warning it's 55 minutes long) on the subject of Alternative history and how gameplay facilitates it, comparing EU4 and Civ 6 (sorry if mentioning Civ is taboo), and how the eras depicted in these games and mechanics allow for deviations from real history. Any discussion or critique is welcome.
[Link removed by moderation]
For a TLDR(or TLD....W I guess?), this is my conclusion:
The way these games seek to model specific things and the manner by which things are *grounded* to history in EU4 actually do a lot to enhance the "what if/Alternative" history narratives. Put simply, a game with symmetrical starts and paths and conclusions like Civ is, despite appearing more freeform and open, only going to ever result in pallet swaps, that is, World History but this time the Cree played the role of Britain, etc. Whereas Eu4 allows for complicated narratives because of its grounding. It *matters* that a player could do somthing like defeat Britain as the Cree, there's narrative stakes introduced by virtue of the conceit of the game.
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