Anyone else looking forward to Dragon Age? (Spoilers and plot discussion here)

[Faeelin]

Wouldn't rapid development be insanely difficult for any kind of society dependent on magic though?  You have a natural nobility capable of making heaps of mud in to ungoldy killing machines and controlling ravens and shit.  Why would they suffer the common people's complaints or maintain an interest in their development?  Development would only be possible if the technology was "adopted" from other quarters (like in Arcanum) or had become sufficently rare as to be effectively be extinct (Jonathan Strange).

A few points. First, the natural nobility should use magic to improve their profits, no? Magic is usually portrayed in civlizations as rational, based on study and learning. If that's so, then there should be experimentation.  Once you turn magic to, say, digging a deeper mine...

Secondly, even if the nobility are ignoring what those pesky merchants and farmers are up to, they'd sill improve things. If mages control all literacy and places of learning, and have a disdain for anything not magical, okay, it makes some sense.  But how likely is that?

[Queequeg]

Europe seemed to do pretty well between 526 and 1526, no?

It was in a very dramatic decline from about 400 to 800, stabilized, another dramatic decline with the Plague, and I don't think a level of civilization comparable to that of Rome was reached until the Renaissance.  It was a long dip.  Granted, it wasn't a *total* dip-there were some obvious technological advances, but to be fair, Mad Max's Australia had a technological advantage over Renaissance Florence, but I would call the latter more civilized.

[grumbler]

A couple of peeves:

Was anyone else annoyed with the fact that they'd been at a medieval level of civilization for millenia?.

I don't know...my ancestors in 1600 AD didn't live that dramatically different from my ancestors in 600 BC.  They still farmed by hand.

  Where were your ancestors?  New Guinea?

[Caliga]

Jesus, you guys make me look cool. 

IT'S A STORY.  THE WRITERS DON'T CARE IF IT HOLDS UP UNDER HISTORICAL ANALYSIS.

[grumbler]

Jesus, you guys make me look cool. 

IT'S A STORY.  THE WRITERS DON'T CARE IF IT HOLDS UP UNDER HISTORICAL ANALYSIS.

Irony.  It's not just the opposite of wrinkly.

[Valmy]

I think Valmy and I are talking about something different than what you are refering to.  We're talking about lifestyles that are more or less similar throughout long periods, even though there might be constant micro evolution in material conditions during said periods.

This is particularly obvious when you compare certain past (or even current) lifestyles with ours.  Our modern societies are used to constant, visible changes; look only at communications for instance.  I'm 42 and my grandomother remebered a time with no phone while I'm still alive to see the wireless micro phones.

But in agrarian or hunting/gathering societies change comes slowly.  And tilling the soil or doing the rounds of herding grounds remains similar from one century to the next; whether the earth is tilled with an iron plow or a wooden one - or whether you ride bareback or use stirrups.

And of course, as other have said, in fantasy settings magic often trumps everything - and prevents further developments. 

Yep.  This is what I was getting at.

[Valmy]

  Where were your ancestors?  New Guinea?

I guess I missed the tractors and combines in 1600 but your historical knowledge may be different...because if that is not what you are saying you missed my point completely.

[Valmy]

Jesus, you guys make me look cool. 

IT'S A STORY.  THE WRITERS DON'T CARE IF IT HOLDS UP UNDER HISTORICAL ANALYSIS.

We will use any excuse to talk history

[Caliga]

We will use any excuse to talk history

[grumbler]

I guess I missed the tractors and combines in 1600 but your historical knowledge may be different...because if that is not what you are saying you missed my point completely.

You point was that your ancestors' "didn't live that dramatically different" from 600 BC to 1600 AD.  That would not be true, unless they lived in a truly isolated region, because medicine alone (and thus child mortality) changed a great deal during that time period, as did clothing, let alone land ownership tendencies or farming technology that dramatically changed food availability (sometimes for the worse, to be sure) even in places like rural Russia or, FFS, Poland.  Besides, your comment was referencing a medieval lifestyle lasting millennia, which happened (to the best of my knowledge) nowhere.

I don't know why you mention tractors or combines, because they were not medieval.

If you were referencing, say, 3500BC to 1500 BC, I could buy not much change.  But that wouldn't be medieval.

[Razgovory]

If you were referencing, say, 3500BC to 1500 BC, I could buy not much change.  But that wouldn't be medieval.

This is possibly true but less is known about this period so it's harder to judge.  The movement of different crops from their origin to and the methods of cultivating them difficult to figure out in those day.

[Faeelin]

Europe seemed to do pretty well between 526 and 1526, no?

It was in a very dramatic decline from about 400 to 800, stabilized, another dramatic decline with the Plague, and I don't think a level of civilization comparable to that of Rome was reached until the Renaissance.  It was a long dip.  Granted, it wasn't a *total* dip-there were some obvious technological advances, but to be fair, Mad Max's Australia had a technological advantage over Renaissance Florence, but I would call the latter more civilized.

You think Europe in 1100 was really less civilized than Augustan Rome? Latifundia, slavery of the Gauls, the sack of Carthage.... Doesn't look much more "civilized to me."

Meanwhile, compare the soaring Gothic cathedrals. The free cities; the Flemish wool trade. By 1200, Europe was unambiguously superior to Rome in pretty much every field.

[Alatriste]

And what do we find in Europe in 1100 or 1200 if not latifundia, slavery (by the way, I don't understand what you mean with 'slavery of the Gauls'), and sackings like Jerusalem's and Constantinople's... if by 'civilization' we understand 'ethics' there is little ground to recommend one over the other.

A Gothic cathedral is the pinnacle (pun intended) of medieval technological achievement, and indeed many fields saw dramatic progress (architecture, clock making, shipbuilding, agriculture... ) but there is a reason a system of roads comparable to the Roman one wasn't even dreamed of until the XVIII century... and probably not achieved until the XIX century.

I'm, in fact, against the notion of the Middle Ages as a uniform Dark Night of 1000 years that lasts until the Renaissance (actually I'm not a fan of the term 'Renaissance') and there were some bright spots (Flanders, North Italy, Southern Germany) but it's difficult to maintain seriously that the wool trade was comparable to the scale in which Romans traded, or the Free Cities more civilized than the Greek city colonies, for example. . It's very difficult to deny that the fall of the Roman Empire was an unmitigated disaster for Europe/the Mediterranean World, very probably the worst ever to fall on the region.   

[grumbler]

...but there is a reason a system of roads comparable to the Roman one wasn't even dreamed of until the XVIII century... and probably not achieved until the XIX century.

So long as we all agree that this was because there was no need for such a road system (militaries became cavalry-based and so found roads of much less utility) I don't think anyone would dispute this.. but I don't think it says as much as you imply. 

I am ambivalent on whether one would call the late Roman Empire more advanced than anything equivelent in Twelfth Century Europe, but my ambivalence has nothing to do with relative skills at road-building.

[Alatriste]

I partially agree, but I think the problem is more complex than that.

a) I don't think the Romans built their roads mainly for military reasons, but
b) Certainly European powers could have built such a road system during the XVI, XVII or XVIII centuries but they didn't.

I think that means the demand for road transport simply wasn't high enough to justify the expenses involved. And, while I'm not 100% sure, I think that was due to two reasons: during the true Dark Ages the collapse of trade, lower population levels, cavalry armies and weak central governments meant no roads were either needed or possible, and afterwards technological advances had made sea transport a cheaper, faster alternative, making a vast high-quality roads system an investment too expensive in relation  to its limited potential benefits.