Sichelgaita, really Paradox?

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According to the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, she was "like another Pallas, if not a second Athena,"

I'm reading a book about the Normans in Southern Italy, and the famous wife of Robert Guiscard was a prominent key to his control of the unruly southern duchy. She's of Lombard nobility, travels with him on campaigns, she conducted the siege of Trani; she even wears armor and rallies the broken Norman troops at Dyrrhachium. Playing a campaign as Roger Hauteville in CK2, I had a glance at Robert's wife.

Flamboyant schemer, 1 Martial!

Uh, what - really Paradox? Unless you're trying to act historical revisionist, this is a glaring error. There's been scores of articles on her. She is one of the prominent warrior-women of the era and one of the few examples we DO have of women who campaigned. She seriously needs a stat boost accordingly...

 

[A_Dane]

you are aware that there's so many characters who could be argued should be much better?

take a look at the welsh rulers, like Rhodri Mawr - it was pointed out in another thread just the other day..

It's too much scripting for too little gain i think...

 

[JonStryker]

Girl with random stats has random stats....

 

[unmerged(640936)]

Girl with random stats has random stats....

Except she's not a random girl, but a well-established, well-known historical character, on the same level as her husband, Robert the Guiscard- a real poliitical powerhouse in Italy at the game's start. This isn't really obscure stuff - it's all pretty google-able within seconds.

 

[A_Dane]

Except she's not a random girl, but a well-established, well-known historical character, on the same level as her husband, Robert the Guiscard- a real poliitical powerhouse in Italy at the game's start. This isn't really obscure stuff - it's all pretty google-able within seconds.

ofcourse it is, but you'd have to code it in, and then you'd have to code in the likely stats and education of every other important female in the game.

And then you'd have to do it with all the men, which there's quite a few more of in the game files.

It really isn't them trying to rewrite history...

 

[aitaituo]

Except she's not a random girl, but a well-established, well-known historical character, on the same level as her husband, Robert the Guiscard- a real poliitical powerhouse in Italy at the game's start. This isn't really obscure stuff - it's all pretty google-able within seconds.

This is unacceptable, but Robert Guiscard starting with 50 prestige and 10 piety is fine?

There are thousands of historical characters, most of them are not going to be all that important to game play.

 

[SignedName]

Well, the Normans have pretty lackluster stats that are actually hard-coded, so there's that.

 

[unmerged(640936)]

To be honest, starting prestige/piety isn't that important to me. I look at the stats. Guiscard's stats seem pretty accurate (although I'd argue his Intrigue is overboard). If they hard coded him and all the other Normans, it seems pretty odd to leave out his legendary wife, that's all.

 

[unmerged(640936)]

It's not like there's scores of well-known and established martial women leaders/wives in the game. It would have taken Paradox like, uh, 5 seconds to realize that she was an important character at the game's start.

 

[A_Dane]

It's not like there's scores of well-known and established martial women leaders/wives in the game. It would have taken Paradox like, uh, 5 seconds to realize that she was an important character at the game's start.

Perhaps not martial, but some were great scholars, some were great diplomats and so on, it really is an extremely unimportant part of the game compared to so many other things?...

 

[SBolshevik]

There are many characters which are perhaps even more important who are relatively weak. (Genghis)
Of course, there are no Norse characters which are incorrect, they're all Genius and Strong and Fair as they were historically.

 

[Chamboozer]

The sheer number of historical characters in the game probably meant that they couldn't spend much time on any particular one of them. Most likely they just coded her in after finding out her name and family relations and left it at that. It's nothing to blame them over, but suggesting that she be changed is a good thing.

 

[unmerged(640936)]

Perhaps not martial, but some were great scholars, some were great diplomats and so on, it really is an extremely unimportant part of the game compared to so many other things?...

I don't think representing real historical characters with a high martial stat is unimportant in a game based around war and conquest and stresses marrying into good families/getting wives with good stats (they affect your realm score after all).

 

[aitaituo]

I don't think representing real historical characters with a high martial stat is unimportant in a game based around war and conquest and stresses marrying into good families/getting wives with good stats (they affect your realm score after all).

A spouse's stats have a pretty minimal effect, actually, because state attributes don't do much except for diplomacy. Spouse stewardship is the most important, because the demesne limit formula is .15(personal stewardship+0.5(spouse stewardship)).

If Sichelgaita had high marshall then Robert's troops would have a barely perceptible increased rate of morale recovery and any wards she educates might get better martial. And that's it, zero other effects.

 

[unmerged(640936)]

A spouse's stats have a pretty minimal effect, actually, because state attributes don't do much except for diplomacy. Spouse stewardship is the most important, because the demesne limit formula is .15(personal stewardship+0.5(spouse stewardship)).

If Sichelgaita had high marshall then Robert's troops would have a barely perceptible increased rate of morale recovery and any wards she educates might get better martial. And that's it, zero other effects.

The whole 'it doesn't matter' response is a bit hopeless when in game they try to represent other historical characters with stats that somewhat reflect their personalities. Those differences, however small, may make the outcome better or favorable for a player as Robert the Guiscard, for instance.

 

[Talq]

Except, he's right. There are a lot of historical characters.

 

[unmerged(640936)]

Except, he's right. There are a lot of historical characters.

I agree. But she's one of the few females in all of medieval history that documented to have had been in battle, led sieges and had a high martial skill. I just hope this catches their attention for a fix sometime down the line.

 

[Haccoude]

Except, he's right. There are a lot of historical characters.

Yes there is, but the amount of EXCEPTIONAL characters who were both famous and strong, and who are also present at the vanilla start date of 1066, is not really that large.

The argument that "Paradox can't think of every historical character" become quite a bit weaker when you remember that the leaders of the First Crusade, in a game called Crusader Kings, are unhistorically weak compared to their real-life capabilities.

 

[Tufto]

Except she's not a random girl, but a well-established, well-known historical character, on the same level as her husband, Robert the Guiscard- a real poliitical powerhouse in Italy at the game's start. This isn't really obscure stuff - it's all pretty google-able within seconds.

Annoyingly, the game is littered with such things. Offa of Mercia's randomised stats in 769 are particularly annoying, given how awesome he was in real life. Same with the Chinggisids, and dozens more.

This is an annoying example you present, but it's more important (to my mind, anyway) that playable chars are better modelled before we go into famous non-landed chars.

 

[Pyoro]

Most players just won't notice this, let's be honest. You could probably hire some guy to spend a year or more to get all the characters, well, maybe not even correct but at least somewhat consistent. But is it really worth the money and time?

Maybe if CK2 was more rail-roaded, and it had some system where historical characters would somehow appear even outside the start date, but as things stand char stats matter for the first generation and then they basically don't ever again, except for the few scripted invasions ...