EUIV and the Discipline of History

[Jacob]

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/

[Admiral Yi]

The stuff I read was interesting as hell, but he's one of those writers that doesn't give anything away and counts on the reader to follow along inch by inch.  I much prefer a hook line at the beginning to pull me in.  And I still didn't know what goddamn point he was making about the goddamn state lacking perfect information.

Gave up after maybe 6 screens of text

[Valmy]

The stuff I read was interesting as hell, but he's one of those writers that doesn't give anything away and counts on the reader to follow along inch by inch.  I much prefer a hook line at the beginning to pull me in.  And I still didn't know what goddamn point he was making about the goddamn state lacking perfect information.

Gave up after maybe 6 screens of text

The point of the entire exercise was EUIV's shortcomings as a way to learn history, even with the understanding the point of it is to be a game. And that actually EUIV and the other Paradox Games, despite being games, have a set of assumptions and theories of history that can be critiqued from a historical angle. That seems like having perfect information would support that goddamn point

He points to some things that I do not particularly enjoy about EUIV. I did not really like how I was some kind of spirit of the state or whatever with the ability to select what ideas people in my state were going to think, I vastly prefer having a set of issues I have to deal with rather than have too much agency. I think this is why I kind of preferred the more deterministic EU2, you really felt like Poland was doomed and it was going to take some brilliance on your part to save it. In EUIV I feel like your ability to mold events is a little too extreme.

I like how in CK2 almost every game I start is doomed. Eventually all my plans are likely to become undone by dynastic problems, disease, shitty vassals, mistakes in laws and titles and the list just goes on and on. My best games start late because when I start in the 8th the more disasters I have to survive. I never have that kind of excited feeling knowing that my empire is probably going to fail in EUIV because there is a lot you can do to optimize and specialize your nation and stay ahead of your rivals. In CK2 events are going to start playing you eventually. I always play ironman just because I know if I didn't the temptation to go back and save my ass would be too strong and that would ruin the fun

In EUIV I have an amazing level of control that no absolute monarch at the time enjoyed...well ok maybe some of the Prussians or Peter the Great...

[Admiral Yi]

Well yeah, I got the metaargument.  But then he starts building a subargument about the lack of fog of war, so to speak, the fact that information about your state is too perfect.  Then he seems to go nowhere with it.  Starts digresssing.

That was my point.

[Jacob]

I think his point is something like this (kind of simplified):

EUIV looks at history as being shaped almost entirely through state actions.

1) This means it completely deemphasizes the agency of non-state actors and/ or put non-state actors in to state-shaped boxes.

2) EUIV ascribes a high level of control (over things like culture) and information (their own manpower, never mind the manpower of rival states) to the states that they in fact did not posses.

3) The game largely ignores the human impact of a bunch of those state decisions. F. ex. converting the culture of a province is a little timer that ends with a celebratory sound when in real life it often looked a lot more like China's actions in Xinjiang (or took longer, or were driven by things that states did not control in any significant way).

Therefore, if you are someone who is drawn to history because of games like EUIV be aware that it is a very specific, sometimes limited and sometimes incorrect lens to use to understand history (i.e. the Clausewitz engine is not necessarily a good paradigm for analyzing whether Imperial Rome should've built a Suez canal equivalent).

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.

Also, he likes playing Paradox games and pontificating about history as a discipline.

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

[Admiral Yi]

gotcha  thanks

[Jacob]

Well yeah, I got the metaargument.  But then he starts building a subargument about the lack of fog of war, so to speak, the fact that information about your state is too perfect.  Then he seems to go nowhere with it.  Starts digresssing.

That was my point.

I enjoyed the digressions... those Prussian forests were fascinating to me.

[Oexmelin]

Scott's book is worth one's time.

[garbon]

While I liked it when I read the posts in gaming forum, I feel like some of this has been long discussed on the paradox forums by players. As in exactly what are you playing as because monarchs come and go but you also no way more than a state or nation would know.

Similarly the brushing aside of unpleasant/darker implications of player actions has also been discussed a lot.

All of which makes sense, as he says, in a game so if there are teachers using this series uncritically, thst certainly is a problem.

[Syt]

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.

[Maladict]

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.

[Syt]

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 agree and I would also disable the ledger for countries you have little or no knowledge about or at the very least make the numbers unreliable until you have more information (most sports management games have that figured out for athlete abilities, so I feel Paradox can, too). I feel like there'd be an angry REEEEE from the map painting crowd, though.

[jimmy olsen]

(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. 

[jimmy olsen]

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 agree and I would also disable the ledger for countries you have little or no knowledge about or at the very least make the numbers unreliable until you have more information (most sports management games have that figured out for athlete abilities, so I feel Paradox can, too). I feel like there'd be an angry REEEEE from the map painting crowd, though.

Just add a difficult setting that restricts player information.

[jimmy olsen]

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/