EUIV and the Discipline of History

[The Minsky Moment]

One way you could address the problem would be to create a model of the underlying population, perhaps identifying them by different cultural and social attributes, and have that population model be a driving force in the overall game structure.

Oh wait, they already did that, it was called Victoria.  And ... it didn't sell as well as EU.

So at the end of the day, Paradox is doing a good job at modeling capitalism in the meta sense.  People are getting what they vote for with their dollars.

[Oexmelin]

I would imagine that the less frequent case is teachers using it uncritically but fans of the game taking some of their knowledge of historical events and interactions from the game.

So far, over the course of my teaching career, I have only had three students come up to me and ask me if I knew Europa Universalis (the much more frequent case was Assassin's Creed). For those three, it had two different effects: they knew a lot more about early modern polities than their colleagues; and, much like Devereaux remarks, they tended to see history through the lens of state power.

Which, from conversations with colleagues, is usually what historians who do not know video games assume from such games. As Devereaux notes, state-focused history has a long (and troubled) pedigree in history - so it's not utterly foreign. In university, because of the current lull in political history (and especially early-modern political history), students often get courses that undermine notions of centrality (and all-knowing) character of the state. It's more in the interested general public that this notion endures.

[Jacob]

(i.e. the Clausewitz engine is not necessarily a good paradigm for analyzing whether Imperial Rome should've built a Suez canal equivalent).

You made one small post in that thread and then I find you shit talking me like this in another thread!

For shame! 

I have never played Imperator. Maybe I should. Is it possible to mod in a canal digging event? Or is the map hardcoded. 

 

[Josephus]

Not overly controversial, I don't think... but you never know on languish

Controversial enough, I guess, that it's been linked in, to my count, three separate threads on Languish

(I'm guilty of taking it from one thread to another)

[Josephus]

Bret Devereaux (of A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry) is doing a series on Paradox games, specifically EUIV. Given the roots of Languish, I thought some of you might find it interesting.

https://acoup.blog/2021/04/30/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-univeralis-iv-part-i-state-of-play/

2nd post is up and even better than the first in my opinion
https://acoup.blog/2021/05/07/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-ii-red-queens/

It's like an AAR written by an academic

[Razgovory]

Haven't read the article yet, but I always wished numbers like badboy score, war exhaustion and stability were hidden, so you never quite know when you're pushing things too far. Being able to calculate the effects of your diplomatic actions to a decimal point just seems similar to switching off fog of war.

I have often thought that Crusader Kings II would be more fun if I couldn't see other character's stats.  Instead you would get an estimation of the stats based on your on Intrigue skill.  When you look at another character you would see a rating like "Good" or "awful" instead of seeing the actual number.  A "good" rating might mean 8-12 and an "awful" rating might mean 1-4.  But here's the thing:  The higher your intrigue skill the more accurate your estimation of a character's stats.  A character with a poor intrigue skill might see another character as "good" in skill x, but the real number is 2.

[jimmy olsen]

That sounds good Raz, but doesn't it unbalance the game? Intrigue becomes the most valuable attribute by far.

[Razgovory]

That sounds good Raz, but doesn't it unbalance the game? Intrigue becomes the most valuable attribute by far.

Maybe.  Honestly I haven't played for several years so I don't remember how everything worked or how stuff was balanced.  I also thought it might a good idea to have a new government official called the "Justiciar" who would handle plots and crimes committed in your kingdom while the Spymaster dealt with plots in foreign courts.

[viper37]

Conversely, if you are a teacher of history you may well get students whose love of history is rooted in Paradox games. Now you know what it is built upon (if you don't play Paradox Games yourself) and can adjust your teaching appropriately.

they're more likely to have learned their history from Total War or Age of Empires games, and that is really dramatic

[jimmy olsen]

Conversely, if you are a teacher of history you may well get students whose love of history is rooted in Paradox games. Now you know what it is built upon (if you don't play Paradox Games yourself) and can adjust your teaching appropriately.

they're more likely to have learned their history from Total War or Age of Empires games, and that is really dramatic

Is Age of Empires still a thing?

[Jacob]

Yeah, AoE is definitely a thing. Legacy AoE is still very popular, and there's a new one coming (or out?).

I know because dev is/ was done in Vancouver.

[jimmy olsen]

Yeah, AoE is definitely a thing. Legacy AoE is still very popular, and there's a new one coming (or out?).

I know because dev is/ was done in Vancouver.

Did not know about this

[The Brain]

I get my knowledge of the world wars from the Battlefield series. Is that wrong?

[FunkMonk]

I get my knowledge of the world wars from the Battlefield series. Is that wrong?

No. Everyone knows suicide jeeps and unlimited tickets won the war for the Soviets in the East.

[viper37]

Conversely, if you are a teacher of history you may well get students whose love of history is rooted in Paradox games. Now you know what it is built upon (if you don't play Paradox Games yourself) and can adjust your teaching appropriately.

they're more likely to have learned their history from Total War or Age of Empires games, and that is really dramatic

Is Age of Empires still a thing?

yes, the have Definitive Editions of all 3 games now. #2 is good and as decent player base, 3 is smallish and buggy as hell.  I didn't like the remastered #1 and I haven't looked at it.