Solving the First Conctact dilemma

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When I wrote -20% growth, I meant -20% in EU terms which I don't know exactly in what base it is, but it is large enough to have the population rapidly decreasing. Perhaps it should be population halving (as in the plague event) and then a -20% penalty for a few years.

As for Guns Germs & Steel, I am aware of it, although i haven't read it. There are some people somewhere that are trying to make a civ-type game, inspired by that book.

 

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history

Originally posted by Heyesey


Heaven forbid that a history-based game would have any basis in history....

That's the point: a base in history. EU has a great deal of history, but a discussion on how many natives ought to die because of the europeans arrive is too detailed for a game only based on history.

There will always be a conflict between "history as we know it" and "flexible gameplay".
This is a very small issue compared to other aspects of the game.

 

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Vikings

This is a game
is it possibel that play with
history so that the vikings
has alredy explored and has citizens
in Canada?

 

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Re: Vikings

Originally posted by Jorgen
This is a game
is it possibel that play with
history so that the vikings
has alredy explored and has citizens
in Canada?

The vikings got tired of saying "eh" and went home before EUII begins.

 

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Originally posted by Demetrios


I'm not sure where you're getting your history from, but the English had permanent settlements at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and in Plymouth, Massachussets in 1620. Both of these beat the Dutch in New Amsterdam by several years. Of course, the Spanish had them both beat, having settled St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and in New Mexico in 1598.

Didn't the Spanish have early settlements in Mexico also?

 

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Religious fall

Originally posted by McHrozni
And about 100,000 native allies for logistic and arrow fodder (Id say cannon fodder, but..) during the siege of the Tenothitlan (sp?).

But you dont oppose my point, really. It was the cultural differance that played the most important role.
Aztecs belived Cortez was the god Quetzelkotl (sp?), the Feathered Snake.
Incas belived that their empire was going down due to prohpecies.

Come to think of it, those prohpecies were pretty much real: Cortez looked exactly as predicted, came at exactly the right time and also behaved as a god in most respects. He also took control of the Aztec empire.
Same for the Incas: their empire did collapse.

And about the numbers - I didnt mean that Europeans were able to conquer because their armies so vastly outnumbered the Indians, but because Europe was more densly populated and this lead to both increased number and severity of the conflicts. Europeans couldn't get along even if they shared the same religion, the Roman Catolichism, for example. When it came to Moslems, ...
Inquisition, should I say more?

Yes, the Aztecs were violent and bloodthirsty but not that much.

McHrozni

Those allied Cortez had was a result of "diplomatic skills" and he was lucky and got quite a few.
I think we're on the same page here, because as you say it was Cortez' look-alike to the prediction that porbarbly was the reason the Aztecs were so "friendly" to him.
We can just imagine what had happened if Cortez didn't look like on of their Gods.

 

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Originally posted by Sonny


Didn't the Spanish have early settlements in Mexico also?

I think they're only arguing about the area that now forms the USA. Why, I don't know, unless they are Americans - a lot of whom either forget or ignore the fact that other bits of the world exist.

 

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Re: history

Originally posted by Mr.Motzfeldt



That's the point: a base in history. EU has a great deal of history, but a discussion on how many natives ought to die because of the europeans arrive is too detailed for a game only based on history.

There will always be a conflict between "history as we know it" and "flexible gameplay".
This is a very small issue compared to other aspects of the game.

Too detailed how? All it needs is a flag to be set that once Europeans have turned up on american soil, smallpox&co. establish their trade and natives start dying regularly. In fact this already happens whenever a conquistador moves into a new province, so it's not like Paradox ignored the issue.

"History as we know it" has no place in EU. What we need are historical principles, not historical events. People dying because of no resistance to foreign diseases is a well-established historical principle; Europe got it in the neck in 1348, the Americas in the early 16th century.

 

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Originally posted by McHrozni

Come to think of it, those prohpecies were pretty much real: Cortez looked exactly as predicted, came at exactly the right time and also behaved as a god in most respects. He also took control of the Aztec empire.
Same for the Incas: their empire did collapse.

Prophecies of imminent failure and disaster are almost always self-fulfilling. If people expect to lose, they don't try so hard, which means they lose.

 

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Originally posted by Heyesey


I think they're only arguing about the area that now forms the USA. Why, I don't know, unless they are Americans - a lot of whom either forget or ignore the fact that other bits of the world exist.

Must be Americans. Since Mexico has a culture/language like Central and South America most of us think of Mexico as not belonging to North America. Considering those differences, I too will make Mexico part of Central America when I become king and geography be damned.

 

[Cakravarti]

Re: Re: history

Originally posted by Heyesey


Too detailed how? All it needs is a flag to be set that once Europeans have turned up on american soil, smallpox&co. establish their trade and natives start dying regularly. In fact this already happens whenever a conquistador moves into a new province, so it's not like Paradox ignored the issue.

"History as we know it" has no place in EU. What we need are historical principles, not historical events. People dying because of no resistance to foreign diseases is a well-established historical principle; Europe got it in the neck in 1348, the Americas in the early 16th century.

The flag should be activated due to contact with any non-american race who had contacts with diseases. i.e. the Asian nations as well.

 

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Re: Re: Vikings

Originally posted by Sonny
The vikings got tired of saying "eh" and went home before EUII begins.

LOL

But seriously - in EU there is the Danish colony in Iceland. Also the screenshots of EU2 show coastal Greenland provinces. Perhaps some of these will have minor Danish colonies also. I think IRL the Greenland colonies were abandoned prior to 1419. I'm sure that someone will make a scenario where minor Viking colonies are possible in or around Newfoundland.

 

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Re: Re: Re: Vikings

Originally posted by Jiminov


LOL

But seriously - in EU there is the Danish colony in Iceland. Also the screenshots of EU2 show coastal Greenland provinces. Perhaps some of these will have minor Danish colonies also. I think IRL the Greenland colonies were abandoned prior to 1419. I'm sure that someone will make a scenario where minor Viking colonies are possible in or around Newfoundland.

I thought they were Norwegian. Maybe I'll learn some more.

 

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Yes they were technically Norwegian but in the current EU timeframe all of modern Norway is part of Denmark.

 

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Re: Indian nations

Originally posted by Mr.Motzfeldt
Does it really matter what the history-books says about how many natives died after the contact with europeans?
We want the game playable and open to different outcomes every time you play. If they include all kind of facts it will be a pretty boring game.

What if the Aztecs did kill the first europeans upon arraival, and not greeted them as kind of gods according to their religious viewpoint?

The Aztecs could have decided to expand their territory to produce more food for an increasing popultaion?

Would be kind of meaningless to play any of the indian nations if they all die after the europeans arrive.

re: The Aztecs...

It is possible of course that the Aztecs may have chosen not to view the Europeans as Gods, even though this would have been in direct violation of somewhat fundamentalist religion that was prevalent in the Aztec empire during this period.

However, the fact remains that the LARGEST single factor allowing the Spanish to conquer and then hold onto the Aztec Empire was certainly the influx of diseases that wiped out an estimated 50 million (estimate from circa 1990 4th yr. university course on Native American studies...) Native Americans in North and South America over the period of less than 100 years.

The second largest factor, of course, were the Tlaxcalan Indians, who devoted some 20-30,000 warriors to the paltry 500 or so soldiers that Cortes had brought with him, thus enabling the Spanish to meet the Aztecs with a degree of parity on the battlefield.

I definitely would like to see an EU II where it is possible to be an Aztec Empire that is successful, etc. However, it is quite true that somewhere between 85-90% of Native Americans were NOT immune to diseases such as 'General Smallpox' and as a result, huge epidemics resulting in vast drop-offs in population shortly after Europeans were encountered.

To remove this factor from the game would ignore that it was (extremely unfortunately for some of my ancestors' relatives) inevitable that upon European contact with Native Americans, the Natives were going to experience a tremendous, cataclysmic drop in population.

This is far more inevitable than, for instance, the emergence of a Netherlands, or the unification of Aragon & Castilla... why? Because these later two events depend upon political/social/economic factors while the scenario that I am describing is based purely on physical and genetic factors that COULD NOT be simply mitigated.

 

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Agreement

Heliumgod, I could not have said it better myself.

So I wont. But I agree completely.

 

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principles

I agree with you there Heyesey that historical principles are important.
The natives did die due to lack of resistance to deasises, and because therefore it should be in the game somehow.
I still think that IF you play the Aztecs, then you are the nation leader and see things differently than their historicl leader, as with all nations you should decide to play. IF you decided to kill the Europeans upon arrival, then the population shouldn't decline until you make contact again.

 

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Originally posted by McHrozni
Come to think of it, those prohpecies were pretty much real: Cortez looked exactly as predicted, came at exactly the right time and also behaved as a god in most respects. He also took control of the Aztec empire.
Same for the Incas: their empire did collapse.

And about the numbers - I didnt mean that Europeans were able to conquer because their armies so vastly outnumbered the Indians, but because Europe was more densly populated and this lead to both increased number and severity of the conflicts. Europeans couldn't get along even if they shared the same religion, the Roman Catolichism, for example. When it came to Moslems, ...
Inquisition, should I say more?

Yes, the Aztecs were violent and bloodthirsty but not that much.

McHrozni

I think you raise a fascinating point, McHrozni, which is that these oft-mocked prophecies of the Aztecs and Incas did *in fact* come true, just as they were predicted to. Very interesting series of 'coincidences'.

Also: Aztecs were violent and bloodthirsty, true... compared to Europeans? Pretty much comparable. A lotta folks may think that the whole 'human sacrifice' thing makes the Aztecs a lot worse, but from the average Aztec's mentality, this is a matter of 'Sacrifice people, or the sun will cease to rise and the world will die'... if _I_ really believed this, I'd probably be trying to toss folks on the chopping block too. To me, this is ideologically comparable to the idea of 'We have to go and murder/abuse/mistreat/colonize/convert non-Christians because they'll go to hell if we don't save them'...

In matter of fact, the average Aztec citizens life was comparable to the average Europeans life, which is to say -- pretty crappy.

McHrozni, I'm definitely *not* saying that you were advocating anything for/against what I'm writing -- I'm just elaborating on a few points that your message made me think of!

 

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Re: history

Originally posted by Mr.Motzfeldt



That's the point: a base in history. EU has a great deal of history, but a discussion on how many natives ought to die because of the europeans arrive is too detailed for a game only based on history.

There will always be a conflict between "history as we know it" and "flexible gameplay".
This is a very small issue compared to other aspects of the game.

Believe me when I say that re-writing history to make the Native Americans a stronger force would be peachy-keen as far as I am concerned (esp. if this was fact instead of revisionism ).

However, as true as it is that after spring will come summer, after the Europeans encountered the Native Americans for the first time, it was *INEVITABLE* that eventually a massive epidemic would occur among contacted populations. This is partially due to the fact that many Europeans were carriers of the virus and accidental contact occurred and partially (once the United States enters the picture this becomes almost entirely the case) because the Europeans/U.S. encouraged the spread of disease among Native American populations to ease the process of ethnic cleansing.

 

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Originally posted by Sonny


Didn't the Spanish have early settlements in Mexico also?

People seem to forget pretty regularly that Mexico is part of North America, it seems to me.