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Popoto posted:Most of Rome’s history is mired with patrician families trying to plunder as much as they could from the empire, sowing the seeds of discord, while simultaneously trying to keep the realm whole. Ah, the more things change...
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Dec 2, 2021 21:57
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I mean cracking down on lockboxes and gacha is all well and good, the three hours a week thing is still hilariously repressive bullshit though.
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Dec 2, 2021 22:00
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Sure, behind Rome's façade of electoralism and large white pillars, there was an entrenched oligarchy of wealthy families in the pay of Big Javelin. But the similarities don't end there!
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Dec 2, 2021 22:00
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Cantorsdust posted:I can't speak too much to it, but from my limited historical reading, one thing that I don't think Crusader Kings as a series has ever captured particularly well is the low level, endemic violence of the Middle Ages. The very strict hierarchy of CK is also a simplification of how real life feudalism worked, although this is probably a thing where it makes for a better game to not aim for accuracy. Like in real life, you could have things where the king of England was both an independent king with vassals of his own, and also a vassal of the king of France, because he was the Duke of Normandy, which was a title under the French crown, and the specific laws about land ownership and subject/overlord relationships were extremely regional. CK goes for more of a broad strokes approach, generally trying to create the feeling of being a feudal lord without really aiming to accurately recreate any specific system from the period.
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Dec 2, 2021 22:31
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Sinteres posted:Tbf imperator was a title used during the republic too, and imperial Rome is a super boring setting until it's falling apart since they were so dominant. I guess you could do a 'be the one to topple the Roman Empire' thing, but Rome is clearly the selling point of any classical title, so an imperial setting where they've already won from day one isn't very interesting. I agree that it feels weird to leave it out, but maybe all of this just means the setting isn't as ripe for exploration as classical history nerds want to think it is. A game about the Imperial era from the Principate (until the late second century) would need to be entirely set within the empire, and focus on the wheeling and dealing involved in trying to seize or maintain power. Makes much more sense as an RPG than a grands strategy game until maybe the Crisis of the Third Century, or more realistically, the Migration Period, given how relatively little the empire's borders moved between then and the fall; and that's not even accounting for the number of kingdoms and other territories were left to Rome in the wills of (especially) eastern monarchs. Even a straight focus on the Migration Period seems hard to do justice or with authenticity with the current design of the Clausewitz engine. Before that, the Parthians/Sassanids are the only real viable external opposition to Rome until the arrival of the Huns (and those in flight from them), and given the collapse of Western Rome and the factors at play in that series of upheavals are still held as a contentious topic in public discourse, and frequently (simplistically) alluded to in decline narratives, Paradox would have to plant a flag on some kind of interpretation, even if only implicitly, and those are almost always seen in the light of political commentary nowadays. It should go without saying that any direct connections between now and late antiquity should be taken with a generous heap of salt if not disregarded wholesale -- but that's a conversation that Paradox wouldn't be able to escape, and I'm not sure how much they'd be willing to deal with that; ironically something much more obviously inflammatory like the Holocaust in HoI4 can be completely avoided as it's not particularly relevant to the gameplay concept beyond maybe slave labour. Such a sidestepping wouldn't be possible with the fall of the WRE, and aside from that I'm not even confident that they'd see it as likely to promote good gameplay. (Some aspects of my negative presumptions can be experienced already through the CK2 mod, When the World Stopped Making Sense. I say all this as someone who'd love Paradox to cover the the Crisis of the Third Century and Migration Period through to late antiquity (with Justinian, Heraclius, and the rise of Islam). I just don't hold my breath for it. Kaza42 posted:As someone who is not very well versed in the Classical Era, what should its focus be? I think the goal of IR as a "civilisation builder" is about the best effort they could attempt, but the nature of city-states and the much lesser degree of alienation (compared to now where politicians are impersonal faces with no real relevance to, or interest in, most of us) makes it hard to implement this in a conventional way. It's a general issue with antiquity being more than a step removed for most of us; many of our anchors and notions of how society and "states" function just aren't really relevant. I mean they're not really relevant in the medieval or even the early modern, but there's different degrees of separation. There is a much wider gulf than usual between historicity and what makes intuitive sense to the average potential player. As far as it concerns "the state" or a very early form of it, it long precedes any professional bureaucracy (Rome's was run by slaves, and on a scale far less than anything today), or the wide class interests by which we relate to the emergence of modern states. On that level it's less state building and more culturally orientated, which is partly why I think 'civilisation building', even if highly syncretic in nature, works as a defining terminology.What's crucially different is the human element at the fore given how many fewer humans were alive back then, and how inseparable prominent families and characters were from the course history took. Such strays into philosophy of history, but I struggle to see how single figures didn't massively shape history back then in a way that seems near impossible for any of us today, or even 500 years ago. Accounting for this without promoting misleading myths about history is no insignificant challenge.
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Dec 2, 2021 23:39
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The Cheshire Cat posted:The very strict hierarchy of CK is also a simplification of how real life feudalism worked, although this is probably a thing where it makes for a better game to not aim for accuracy. Like in real life, you could have things where the king of England was both an independent king with vassals of his own, and also a vassal of the king of France, because he was the Duke of Normandy, which was a title under the French crown, and the specific laws about land ownership and subject/overlord relationships were extremely regional. CK goes for more of a broad strokes approach, generally trying to create the feeling of being a feudal lord without really aiming to accurately recreate any specific system from the period. This is a good point, too. I wonder if there would be a way for a future CK to tie feudal duties to the title rather than the holder. So if the title is vassalized to France, the French king can call levies belonging to that title, but not the rest of your holdings.
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Dec 2, 2021 23:57
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Yeah the split fealty thing could be neat, especially after a war that sees big titles change hands. After King Dumbass (I've heard some sources claim his name was John but I've yet to confirm this) lost Normandy the English nobility was pretty divided on what to do. A lot of them, especially the older Norman families whose ancestors crossed the Channel with the Conqueror, owned just as much land in Normandy as in England. All of a sudden Phillip Capet was calling the shots back home so they had to decide whether to stick it out with the Plantagenets or switch sides. But that's also really specific and I don't know if this kind of thing happened enough for it to be anything other than like a one-off event.
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Dec 3, 2021 00:19
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SlothfulCobra posted:The PRC does not like accurate depictions of history, and they have weird feelings about people saying anything good about previous Chinas, so odds are low that they'd be okay with a game about trying to accurately depict history. what the? when has Paradox ever put accurately depicting history over their bottom line? (not that that’s even necessarily a bad thing!!) they even went so far as to rage against anyone demanding the Taiping Rebellioj be represented in V2. where is this noble Paradox vs terrible Chinese censor narrative coming from??
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Dec 3, 2021 02:56
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The Taiping Rebellion is in V2 though.
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Dec 3, 2021 14:57
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Lady Radia posted:what the? when has Paradox ever put accurately depicting history over their bottom line? You do know like all of our games are banned in China except Stellaris? edit: Also I need to get used to not saying "our" anymore 
Groogy fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Dec 3, 2021 |
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Dec 3, 2021 15:01
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And yet every game has a prominent steam workshop mod translating it into simplified chinese.
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Dec 3, 2021 15:04
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The Taiping Rebelion isn't on vanila vicky 2??? Holy moly, I never played vanilla and it shows.
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Dec 3, 2021 15:05
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Mans posted:The Taiping Rebelion isn't on vanila vicky 2??? It is tho https://vic2.paradoxwikis.com/The_Taiping_Rebellion
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Dec 3, 2021 15:07
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Groogy posted:You do know like all of our games are banned in China except Stellaris? Stellaris is banned too, we could've had it not banned if we'd watered down the politics in the game but nah.
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Dec 3, 2021 15:52
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shoulda just made bribes smh
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Dec 3, 2021 15:57
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Wiz posted:Stellaris is banned too, we could've had it not banned if we'd watered down the politics in the game but nah. Watered down the... politics in Stellaris? What is even there to water down?
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Dec 3, 2021 18:23
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Staltran posted:Watered down the... politics in Stellaris? What is even there to water down? There's democracies and factions with opinions on things, which isn't OK.
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Dec 3, 2021 18:32
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Discussing Chinese censorship laws on the internet is like the dumbest thing because they're vague on purpose.
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Dec 3, 2021 18:34
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I love this page: "A paradox china game would absolutely be banned in china" "no it wouldn't come on that's just a meme that says china bans everything, the laws are very misunderstood in the west and China is only going after predatory games to protect children" "Actually pretty much all paradox games are banned in China, even Stellaris simply for including the concept of democracy and internal political factions"
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Dec 3, 2021 18:53
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Baronjutter posted:I love this page: i never said paradox games wouldn't be banned in china, i was well aware that they already are china's video game policy serves several purposes: trade protectionism, ideological censorship, and restricting predatory games. they have broad and opaque censorship policies primarily to justify banning any western game at any time so that chinese gamers aren't sending their money to western developers instead of domestic ones, while also justifying not banning some games to build economic ties to some companies in the west. however, they also view some things as ideologically dangerous, and this is probably the category paradox games fall into. any kind of alternate history that isn't couched in a suspiciously-familiar-feeling fantasy world is viewed suspiciously by the censorship board, even without the inclusion of democracy or other specific ideological concepts. finally, they genuinely view certain types of games as too exploitative to allow (although they are perfectly content for companies like tencent to export exploitative games) the "three hours a week" law is in the final category but western media, out of ignorance deliberate or otherwise, has been portraying it as a restriction on all video games. which it simply isn't.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:12
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Wiz posted:Stellaris is banned too, we could've had it not banned if we'd watered down the politics in the game but nah. Collectivism vs Individualism, closed after 69690 pages of heated debate by Xi Jinping. genericnick fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Dec 3, 2021 |
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Dec 3, 2021 19:28
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genericnick posted:Callectivism vs Individualism, closed after 69690 pages of heated debate by Xi Jinping. "It is every SomethingAwful goon's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the posters." -Chairman Xi Jinping, "Ethics for Tomorrow"
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Dec 3, 2021 19:34
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Wouldn't a ban in China essentially preclude any GSG during the RotTK? The setting obviously has its fans in the west, but I doubt even Creative Assembly's take would've succeeded without the Chinese market if it wasn't for the Total War branding attached to it.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:34
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Wiz posted:There's democracies and factions with opinions on things, which isn't OK. Can't have the people demanding the president build 4 new mining stations.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:40
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Maenad posted:Wouldn't a ban in China essentially preclude any GSG during the RotTK? The setting obviously has its fans in the west, but I doubt even Creative Assembly's take would've succeeded without the Chinese market if it wasn't for the Total War branding attached to it. I don't see why not? Koei's been doing Three Kingdom era games since the NES. There is at least some market for them even outside of China.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:47
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Baronjutter posted:I love this page: Didn't know we had so many tankies here.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:50
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Baronjutter posted:I love this page: The bolded part is specifically about the more recent headlines about the limited hours of play allowed for minors on online games.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:57
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Baronjutter posted:I love this page: can't believe two different but similar topics were discussed on the same page. just crazy
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Dec 3, 2021 20:08
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But why did someone say the Taiping rebellion wasn't present on Vicky 2 when it was there?
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Dec 3, 2021 22:17
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Mans posted:But why did someone say the Taiping rebellion wasn't present on Vicky 2 when it was there? Chinese censorship probably
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Dec 3, 2021 22:21
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It wasn't in the launch version of the game, but that was more due to old Paradox not knowing much about Asian history. It got added with A House Divided iirc.
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Dec 3, 2021 22:36
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I don't know if I would play a middle ages China grand strategy game, but an RPG / management sim about Zheng He's voyages would be dope.
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Dec 3, 2021 22:50
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Mantis42 posted:It wasn't in the launch version of the game, but that was more due to old Paradox not knowing much about Asian history. It got added with A House Divided iirc. It wasn't in initially and was
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Dec 3, 2021 23:01
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Mantis42 posted:It wasn't in the launch version of the game, but that was more due to old Paradox not knowing much about Asian history. It got added with A House Divided iirc. The good old days of China being two cultures ("Northern" and "Southern") and having CELESTIAL as its special empire type in EU3
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Dec 3, 2021 23:17
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Celestial empire sounds dope
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Dec 3, 2021 23:18
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The northern/southern culture type is still in china in Vicky 2
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Dec 3, 2021 23:21
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Lady Radia posted:what the? when has Paradox ever put accurately depicting history over their bottom line? (not that that’s even necessarily a bad thing!!) they even went so far as to rage against anyone demanding the Taiping Rebellioj be represented in V2. where is this noble Paradox vs terrible Chinese censor narrative coming from?? uh, the Hearts of Iron series is banned in China for literally this (specifically having an independent Tibet since China noticed it in HOI2 and independent warlords since HOI3)
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Dec 3, 2021 23:36
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Hellioning posted:Discussing Chinese censorship laws on the internet is like the dumbest thing because they're vague on purpose. before last year, 90% of them were just an excuse to pay off a bureaucrat/use a fixer to navigate the system. Now it's being taken far more seriously.
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Dec 3, 2021 23:38
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Jazerus posted:the "three hours a week" law is in the final category but western media, out of ignorance deliberate or otherwise, has been portraying it as a restriction on all video games. which it simply isn't. it actually applies to all online games - Chinese regulators differentiate between games mostly played offline/single player (danji) and online/massively multiplayer (wangluo). The split is mainly to keep esports producers happy (they qualify as danji for ~~reasons~~). The three hour a week ban is for wangluo games which by far are the most popular in the Chinese market. Paradox games would qualify as danji but due to political considerations as well as being a Western developer are banned without recourse.
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Dec 3, 2021 23:41
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Also, for everyone feeling superior about the horrible state of Chinese gaming regulation (and it really is horrible, arbitrary, protectionist, *and* corrupt) the Apple IOS app store is even worse. Apple takes an *extremely* paternalistic view of games and has blocked some history sims from the app store for "depicting violence against real-world individuals". A Civil War wargame got blocked for this reason, and an education game on the Syrian civil war had to remove everything about Syria to get past Apple's censorship -- which of course made its useability as an educational tool pretty useless! https://venturebeat.com/2013/03/21/endgame-syria-back-on-ios-app-store-with-new-name-and-no-references-to-real-places/ This is a big reason there are almost no decent GSGs/wargames on iOS. Some get through; the enforcement of the rules really depends on who's reviewing applications that day.
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Dec 3, 2021 23:55
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