What about the historicity ?

[Ankios]

All new on the Paradox Forum but old player of their games I'm a little worried by this new EU...

What about the Historic reality ?

I mean, in historical games, I am looking for realitic informations, a great complexity, etc... but I look for something which will get me really close to the historic reality. you have to have some part of freedom in your actions. For example, in the others EU, Victoria, HoI I and II, historic reality was there, with a real possibility to leave it. Even if it was not perfect, to rule all the Europe with France in 1700 eu EU II is impossible even for a human player ! (with a proper level difficulty)

But I was really decepointed by Crusader kind and Deus Vult. What about the historicity ? You want to have enough glory with your lord ? => go get Spain ! And in a few years, even with the hardest level of difficulty, if you are not crushed, you rule on all the Spain... So next step ? Jerusalem of course !!! The beginning is hard, but when you begin in 1066, you should probably crush every last muslim kingdom around 1200... How is that historical ?

Okay but the subject here is Rome... My point is I was so desappointed with this great Crusader kind that I hope I won't see that again...

And with EU Rome... Well... I read all the AARs, and I saw a lot of screenshots... I am really afraid this could happen again with Rome. The AARs show that expending really fast our empire is really easy (even if, probably, it is because we have to adjust the difficulty level). But I saw so much scrrenshots with the Roman Republic (actually) far in Gaul or on the other side of the Danube around 100 BC...

Am I right to be worried on this ? Or in the final game, with the proper level of difficulty, will I have hard fights before creating the Roman Republic in its biggest extensions in 27 BC ?

Please, tell me I don't need to worry...

 

[Zaku]

I think the main hardness in Rome will not be the military expansion, but to mantain your empire. Constant civil wars, uprising barbarians, corrupt governors will crumble the mightiest empires, if not handled properly.

Even if it was not perfect, to rule all the Europe with France in 1700 eu EU II is impossible even for a human player ! (with a proper level difficulty)

Well thats not entirery true, in eu2(or eu3) one can easily conquer Europe, or even make a WC by that date with a powerful nation like France

 

[unmerged(65487)]

I think so

I play many times EU3 it is very good game but it's one big problem the strong country never fall thay are going stronger and stronger until in the world (europe) we have 2 or 3 superpower. This happened every time. What i see in EU:R is that thay try to neutralize this problem with civil war, i hope this will improve the game play, but i thing it will be necessary to put samo more penaltis for big country not only to more maney for research.

 

[niceta]

in the end: is a game...... and a game is ahistorical.....

 

[unmerged(94593)]

i like rome universalis with historical events and historical figures.
i remember EU2 is a excellent game.

 

[Ankios]

You are right Niceta. But a game can be more or less historical. And that's where the fun is in my opinion. But I understand we don't all think like that.

And Zaru I agree with you and that sould be a good point for this game. In the real Roman history, the first fact that made them unable to win more territories was the intern problems and fights... I hope it'll be enough

 

[Sol Invictus]

In the screenshots that show Rome in control of much of Gaul, they have opted to expand in that direction instead of conquering Carthage, at least in the one I saw. I really don't have a big problem with that since the Romans and Celtic tribes of Gaul had fought each other for many years in the past. It is reasonable to expect that Rome might have wanted to end the constant threat once and for all. I would only be concerned if Rome had completely conquered Carthage, Spain, and Gaul in the first fifty years.

Hopefully the game will make it very difficult to hold an empire together that has expanded at a rapid pace. It seems that is what is intended and in the inevitable patches that follow release, revolt risk and the speed of assimilation can be tweaked if it needs to be.

 

[Snall]

Without cheating you can't make AI as good as a human player. Multiplayer? But this one does look like the smaller kingdoms will have it A LOT harder. I can't wait to TRY and build a great empire from the great 'barbarian' north!

 

[SirGrotius]

All new on the Paradox Forum but old player of their games I'm a little worried by this new EU...

What about the Historic reality ?

I mean, in historical games, I am looking for realitic informations, a great complexity, etc... but I look for something which will get me really close to the historic reality. you have to have some part of freedom in your actions. For example, in the others EU, Victoria, HoI I and II, historic reality was there, with a real possibility to leave it. Even if it was not perfect, to rule all the Europe with France in 1700 eu EU II is impossible even for a human player ! (with a proper level difficulty)

But I was really decepointed by Crusader kind and Deus Vult. What about the historicity ? You want to have enough glory with your lord ? => go get Spain ! And in a few years, even with the hardest level of difficulty, if you are not crushed, you rule on all the Spain... So next step ? Jerusalem of course !!! The beginning is hard, but when you begin in 1066, you should probably crush every last muslim kingdom around 1200... How is that historical ?

Okay but the subject here is Rome... My point is I was so desappointed with this great Crusader kind that I hope I won't see that again...

And with EU Rome... Well... I read all the AARs, and I saw a lot of screenshots... I am really afraid this could happen again with Rome. The AARs show that expending really fast our empire is really easy (even if, probably, it is because we have to adjust the difficulty level). But I saw so much scrrenshots with the Roman Republic (actually) far in Gaul or on the other side of the Danube around 100 BC...

Am I right to be worried on this ? Or in the final game, with the proper level of difficulty, will I have hard fights before creating the Roman Republic in its biggest extensions in 27 BC ?

Please, tell me I don't need to worry...

If someone hasn't mentioned it, yet, welcome to the forums Ankios!

I think others have answered as best one can above, before the game is released. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussions here after people have had a chance to play the game, and maybe that will help inform your decision.

 

[niceta]

You are right Niceta. But a game can be more or less historical. And that's where the fun is in my opinion. But I understand we don't all think like that.

I understand you point. Indeed it is good when in EU2 France conquered by event the whole spain (and empire) but you are rite: as totally ahistorical it caused me a sort of disappointing.
But in some cases the history was respected. Lets see it!

 

[Evans]

It's about balancing the flexible, contextual model with the plausible. The idea is right, why should as Johan says, should Hungary be annexed by Austria if Hungary is a superpower and Austria is not? But, you have to wonder - why they historically in that position in the first place? And then create those obstacles in game for the nation to face. A good example might be, why didn't Austria/France create massive blob superpower empires and duke it out in Europe around 1700? I think EU3 makes makes carving out a large unified empire too easy.

If we're honest, the big empires *did* dominate the continent between them - what EU3 fails to do (atm) is model that quite right. There's no sense of the politics of the time, e.g. alliances don't shift, coalitions just don't form, and the HRE is more like a lot of annexable places. Maybe there should be BB or size related events about forming coalitions to beat down people who threaten the balance of power? Maybe wars should be focused on what wars of the time were about rather than massive land exchanges and conquests.

For EU: Rome the question is whether they have been able to address the balance between what could have happened in a dynamic sense and balanced that with the feel of the times. That's the historical element I think most of us on the "historical" side miss. We don't want to play Medieval Total War because it's an historical farce, and really the model they use was only historically appropriate (so far) to feudal Japan. Similarly EU3 doesn't feel like it fits the period it covers, it's 'just' a good strategy game - but for the graphics and names etc it could conceivably be about any period.

It's clear Paradox have put thought into this, and from what I've seen empire do grow more slowly (there's nothing wrong with an empire growing quickly). But I do worry that they don't put enough of the right variables in to make it a true enough model. E.g. the Seleucids from what I've heard should be structurally set up to make it quite likely they'll fall apart. If IRL the Diodochi were each trying to carve their own empires out, the in-game characters of the Seleucid empire should be Diodochi each trying to carve their own empire. With that, 'historical' type things should emerge, in a fluid manner which makes sense to the game. In any case, I have high hopes for modders to build on what Paradox lay out...

 

[kristoff]

A good bit of history is needed IMHO - not just in form of graphical costumes. Surely, Rome or others could create empire and could not if it wasn't for many different - small and big ones - circumstances. But it's not true everyone could.

The game pretending to be historical grand strategy can't assume that on day 1 of grand campaing every nation/tribe starts from point 0. No national ideas created over previous centuries, no experiences from the past, no specific mentality, culture, social enviroment, political internal relations. If it's not possible to portrait all of these in-game (and it's not) then a bit of artificial intervention a'la deus ex machina is sometimes needed to prevent absurdal results.

 

[Surgünoglu]

It's about the elusive balance, guys.

Sure, it's "just a game." But, as the arguments have gone, does that mean we should have war-dragons or Carthaginian tanks? No. It's not about realism--it's about historical verisimilitude. All games are abstract representations. They have mixed loyalties--to what they represent and seek to model and also to their audience.

We must avoid historically deterministic gaming, because then we're playing out a script rather than controlling the outcome ourselves. At the same time, it can't be a total sandbox, or else Carthage will be the same as Rome will be the same as the Gallic factions and so on. Replayability will suffer as diversity suffers. I know. I've played the recent Total War games, where the units and the colors change but the strategy, all too frequently, is just the same old thing over and over again.

EU2 avoided this. EU3 avoided these extremes, too, for the most part. But then it started feeling static and deterministic in the long game, when states just grew larger and larger. Where was the risk?

 

[hansnery]

Maybe in the updates they fix.

 

[monsterfurby]

I am wondering: why are people speaking of games not entirely going according to history as if they were some kind of bug that needs fixing? I truly agree with Surgünoglu in every aspect.
The fun of the game comes in every way from trying out what one can do with history, how it can be reshaped, not in playing out every pebble that was ever thrown anywhere.
Sure, given the RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES and a proper amount of good or bad LUCK, real history should be recreatable, but the chance for this to happen should be one in a couple of millions, as real history was very much a thing of chance as much as it was one of "executive" decisions.
Thus, having the same event occur in every game at the same time even though the core circumstances are different seems flatout illogical and just not fun to me (for example knowing that, even though I just crushed all opposition in europe, an event will divide up my country without any logical context whatsoever just because it happened in history). An exception here are the HoI-Games which pretty much build on WW2 starting as it did.
What I am trying to say is, that the approach chosen since EU3 seems to be just right, with generic, general events that have equivalents in history, but can happen to any nation if the preconditions are met. I hope to see that in Rome and from what I've read and seen up to now, I will hopefully not be disappointed.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

But a game can be more or less historical.

A simulation, no matter how "accurate", is always merely a simplified model of reality. As such, it will never produce "realistic" outcomes - it cannot, and never will.

What it can do is make a model of reality that is believable to a certain number of players. While this is, IMO, a worthy goal, it does not necessarily include any sort of numerical or statistical "accuracy".

 

[HolisticGod]

Ankios,

While a great many of us are concerned with historicity, this is a function of simulative forces and starting positions more than it is the difficulty of singleplayer.

"Even if it was not perfect, to rule all the Europe with France in 1700 eu EU II is impossible even for a human player ! (with a proper level difficulty)"

This is not true. It's not only possible but relatively easy to conquer the entire world with France by 1700 at the maximum difficulty settings

In the old days, some people made a sport of attempting WCs (World Conquests) with more and more improbable countries. Orleans, Trebzon, Timur, Dai Viet, etc. Check out the AAR forum.

And it's actually harder to do it at Normal/Normal than Very Hard/Aggressive.

 

[Secret Master]

The game pretending to be historical grand strategy can't assume that on day 1 of grand campaing every nation/tribe starts from point 0. <snip>

In fairness, EU, EU2, EU3, EU3: NA, CK, CK: DV, Victoria, Victoria: Revolutions, and probably EU3: In Nomine (unless they are gutting the whole game for the expansion) are all games where no one starts at point 0. We can argue whether they get the historical set ups right in any of these titles, but Paradox doesn't start everyone at the Discovery Age (to borrow from the Age of Empires series) with 6 villagers and X amount of resources.

I'm no expert, but when Paradox titles have problems like those mentioned here (bizarre blobbing), there is a loop-hole or problem in the game system where it is too easy to do some things. In EU3, the problem seems to be that it is far too easy to hold together massive empires, even when you waste time conquering worthless wrong culture/wrong religion provinces that contribute nothing to your bottom line (manpower or wealth). As a result, Ming and Lithuania can partition the steppes between them and not worry about pesky things like civil wars that can actually threaten the player or coalitions of powers who feel threatened. You don't really get Napoleonic Wars if you start in 1453, not because Napoleon doesn't show up or the starting positions are equal, but because there is a loop-hole in the BB portion of diplomacy that makes the AI want to attack badboys, but not create real coalitions like the ones that formed when historical badboys actually formed.

As the rules sets for games improve (and I think EU3 and NA are improvements in rules, which I know some of you will disagree with), they can get more nuanced and better deal with some of the reasons why some countries historically did some things and not others. Using the rules to do this, as opposed to historical events, gives us a better game experience I think.

 

[Asmodeous]

Without cheating you can't make AI as good as a human player. Multiplayer? But this one does look like the smaller kingdoms will have it A LOT harder. I can't wait to TRY and build a great empire from the great 'barbarian' north!

Agreed! I've been watching Gamer's Gate with eagle eyes waiting to order it from them the instant it comes available for download (that's going to happen right away, right? )

First order of business? Celtic or Gallic Conquest! \o/

Me.

 

[unmerged(96081)]

Amen! I'm all for historical accuracy! Even if it makes the game harder, it's nicer to have the game more accurate to history.