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/
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
Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 06, 2021, 11:02:25 PM
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 :P
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 :P
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...
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 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 :)
gotcha thanks
Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 06, 2021, 11:42:22 PM
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.
Scott's book is worth one's time.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Maladict on May 07, 2021, 03:33:31 AM
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.
Quote from: Jacob on May 06, 2021, 11:49:34 PM
(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! :o
For shame! :mad: :lol:
I have never played Imperator. Maybe I should. Is it possible to mod in a canal digging event? Or is the map hardcoded. :hmm:
Quote from: Syt on May 07, 2021, 04:16:33 AM
Quote from: Maladict on May 07, 2021, 03:33:31 AM
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.
Quote from: Jacob on May 06, 2021, 09:32:52 PM
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/
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.
Quote from: Syt on May 07, 2021, 02:26:56 AM
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.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 07, 2021, 04:42:32 AM
Quote from: Jacob on May 06, 2021, 11:49:34 PM
(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! :o
For shame! :mad: :lol:
I have never played Imperator. Maybe I should. Is it possible to mod in a canal digging event? Or is the map hardcoded. :hmm:
:lol: :hug:
Quote from: Jacob on May 06, 2021, 11:49:34 PM
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 :lol:
(I'm guilty of taking it from one thread to another)
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 07, 2021, 07:47:20 AM
Quote from: Jacob on May 06, 2021, 09:32:52 PM
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 :D
Quote from: Maladict on May 07, 2021, 03:33:31 AM
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.
That sounds good Raz, but doesn't it unbalance the game? Intrigue becomes the most valuable attribute by far.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 07, 2021, 08:23:42 PM
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.
Quote from: Jacob on May 06, 2021, 11:49:34 PM
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 :P
Quote from: viper37 on May 07, 2021, 08:48:23 PM
Quote from: Jacob on May 06, 2021, 11:49:34 PM
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 :P
Is Age of Empires still a thing?
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.
Quote from: Jacob on May 07, 2021, 10:17:34 PM
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
I get my knowledge of the world wars from the Battlefield series. Is that wrong?
Quote from: The Brain on May 08, 2021, 07:41:13 AM
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.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 07, 2021, 09:31:49 PM
Quote from: viper37 on May 07, 2021, 08:48:23 PM
Quote from: Jacob on May 06, 2021, 11:49:34 PM
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 :P
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.
This guy's blog is excellent. Really enjoyed his series on way Sparta is hideously overrated and currently reading and loving his break down on the assualt on Helm's Deep.
Read the Sparta series as well. It really was the North Korea of the ancient world.
Quote from: Solmyr on May 09, 2021, 03:01:27 AM
Read the Sparta series as well. It really was the North Korea of the ancient world.
That analogy would work if the Korean War lasted 3 decades and ended in a crushing victory by a North Korean-led alliance and the establishment of a North Korean communist puppet regime in the United States.
Mr. Pedant makes some good points, but this is polemical writing, not strict historical writing. For example, in listing Spartan victories and defeats, he lists Mantinea as a victory and Orneae as a defeat. But these are not remotely equivalent - Mantinea was a significant pitched battle where the regular Spartan army played the critical role. Orneae was a city taken by Sparta and then left with a garrison of exiled Argives; the "defeat" consists of these exiles being driven out by an overwhelming Athenian force.
And yes I am aware that Spartan victory in the war was as much do to Athenian self-inflicted injuries, but a weak, hapless power would not have been able to survive to that point, much less capitalize on those mistakes when they occurred.
I think the comparison was more about the Spartan child indoctrination program and the general nastiness of their society even by ancient standards.
Reading it in a bit more detail than when I glanced before some further thoughts:
State based views of history has been something that has bugged me for some time. These days when paradox's games are becoming very popular and internet communities heavily influenced by them when history topics come up its particularly iffy. There's an overly large obsession with maps from different periods of history and so many people just fail to understand that the modern nation-state is not the natural order but a pretty modern blip.
I get the impression that many people imagine say Ancient China as basically just a big country. Less advanced than the modern day but in other ways the same.
The fundamentally different world view and the way in which they operated just doesn't compute.
Interesting story about the Prussian forests and screwing themselves long term for short term gain. Would be nice to see more games doing this. All too often in games there's obvious right and wrong choices.
It annoys me when story-driven games give you choices that are too grey but in a strategy this absolutely should be the case for most decisions.
EU4 showing you full data on provinces- yes. A problem for sure. There does need to be some level of extraction between the actual wealth of a province and your tax efficiency. It should be very possible that you rule the richest city in the world but fail to extract much in the way of taxes for it.
The way war taxes work could do with an overhaul- perhaps something like if its been a while since you've gone to war or you have a particularly good CB or an event then you can raise a huge amount of war tax as a bulk amount to go start a war.
The point I made in the other thread on this also comes to mind again here as he talks about people. Victoria 2 pops are the best thing ever. Though I guess this leads into the issue of provinces being too static. It should be very possible that a independent town in your CK2 county manages to become a major power in its own right.
The talk of screwing over the little man...another outside the box thought of maybe we could introduce kharma. A sort of prestige/piety offshoot which refers to whether you're a good ruler or not. Launch a war and conquer half of Europe and you're prestige is going up but your kharma is way down.
As I started writing this I was thinking this is an irrelevant gameplay stat which only shows up at the end of the game and is something purely for players who are so inclined to challenge themselves with and teach a little lesson to genociders... though there could perhaps be a gameplay implementation with this score acting like actual kharma albeit for a state rather than a person and influencing the quality of future rulers and events you get (gamey and unrealistic but hey ho).
Culture...definitely needs to be more dynamic and not so obviously controllable. Culture naturally turns depending on the wealth and success of neighbouring provinces et al.
Thinking here Imperator might have had the right approach on culture with its not immediately obvious best solution and nuanced different rules.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 07, 2021, 08:23:42 PM
That sounds good Raz, but doesn't it unbalance the game? Intrigue becomes the most valuable attribute by far.
Could link it to the stats themselves- a skilled warrior can spot who is a good warrior or not.
Experience could feed in too- somebody actually uses their skills, particularly with your character there to see it, and their skill becomes more visible.
Will stop players from randomly marrying their king to a martial 19 Swedish peasant but everyone will know your world famous master general is a 16.
Quote from: Solmyr on May 10, 2021, 03:08:56 AM
I think the comparison was more about the Spartan child indoctrination program and the general nastiness of their society even by ancient standards.
Pedant is on stronger ground there using contemporary moral and ethical standards but he glosses over the fact that Spartan institutions were widely admired in their own time notably by Plato who used them as a model for his Laws. And while Aristotle was critical - in many cases it was for the opposite reasons we would be. His main complaint is that the Spartans give their women too many rights and too much power and influence. Secondarily, he complains that men of limited means are allowed into the ephorate. The mistreatment of the helots is not a consideration other than to point out that controlling the helots is an annoyance, and that Sparta faces a dilemma over treating the helots favorably - which will make them insolent and disobedient - or harshly, which will make them rebellious. Neither Aristotle nor any other ancient writer I know considers the matter from the helots side of things.
I think it is appropriate to criticize Sparta using anachronistic criteria from our own times to counteract ill-played present day Spartan fanboyism; at the same time, if one is providing a historical POV, consideration should be given to the mores of that time as well.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 10, 2021, 07:44:41 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on May 10, 2021, 03:08:56 AM
I think the comparison was more about the Spartan child indoctrination program and the general nastiness of their society even by ancient standards.
Pedant is on stronger ground there using contemporary moral and ethical standards but he glosses over the fact that Spartan institutions were widely admired in their own time notably by Plato who used them as a model for his Laws.
He actually mentions this in the blog entries. The sources we have on Sparta were mostly written by people who personally favoured the Spartan way of life or wanted to pump up Sparta's reputation for one reason or another. So if read uncritically, it could be inferred that Sparta was somehow excessively admired. Yet actual events seem to show that they had few if any friends in Greece, and their actions didn't put them in the best light (e.g. essentially giving Ionian cities to Persia in order to expand their personal influence).
Quote from: Solmyr on May 10, 2021, 08:58:10 AM
He actually mentions this in the blog entries. The sources we have on Sparta were mostly written by people who personally favoured the Spartan way of life or wanted to pump up Sparta's reputation for one reason or another. So if read uncritically, it could be inferred that Sparta was somehow excessively admired. Yet actual events seem to show that they had few if any friends in Greece, and their actions didn't put them in the best light (e.g. essentially giving Ionian cities to Persia in order to expand their personal influence).
Yes I found that rather unconvincing.
The sources we have were written by an array of people with different views at different times, expressing different positions. What they all had in common was that none of them had any moral objection to Sparta's brutal treatment of its helots. The reflects the reality of ancient thinking on the subject, thinking that doesn't even begin to change for several more centuries.
A fair reading of the sources that address the period of the Peloponnesian War is that neither Sparta, nor Athens, nor any other city-state, was loved or excessively admired. Both Athens and Sparta were would-be hegemons and thus naturally would have been viewed with suspicion by other city-states jealous of their position. However, it is clear that Sparta was able to rally and mobilize allied cities to the anti-Athenian cause throughout this period. Pedant glosses over this fact in a glaring way, skipping from Sparta's alleged diplomatic slight to Athens in 461 to its conflict with Corinth in 394. In between that long hiatus, Pedant criticizes not Sparta's treatment of Greek allies - which holds up pretty well compared to Athenian high-handed treatment of its de facto vassals - but their supposed lack of tact in dealing with the *Persians*. Even that claim is highly questionable - we can't know for certain what happened, but it is at least as credible to argue that Tissaphernes' failure to provide consistent support for the Spartan cause had more to do with his own intrigues than some failure of Spartan diplomacy. Darius certainly thought so - once Tissaphernes' apparently fecklessness became apparent to all, he was replaced and Persia followed a pro-Spartan line for the rest of the war.
Interesting. :) Maybe we should invite him to post on Languish!
Quote from: Solmyr on May 11, 2021, 02:54:17 AM
Interesting. :) Maybe we should invite him to post on Languish!
Maybe. Does he have any social skills?
Quote from: The Brain on May 11, 2021, 02:55:48 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on May 11, 2021, 02:54:17 AM
Interesting. :) Maybe we should invite him to post on Languish!
Maybe. Does he have any social skills?
Is that a requirement to post here? :unsure:
Quote from: Solmyr on May 11, 2021, 02:58:11 AM
Quote from: The Brain on May 11, 2021, 02:55:48 AM
Quote from: Solmyr on May 11, 2021, 02:54:17 AM
Interesting. :) Maybe we should invite him to post on Languish!
Maybe. Does he have any social skills?
Is that a requirement to post here? :unsure:
It's frowned upon. Hence my question.
Quote from: Solmyr on May 11, 2021, 02:54:17 AM
Interesting. :) Maybe we should invite him to post on Languish!
Nah, he's not attacking anyone commenting on his posts.
Part III is up: https://acoup.blog/2021/05/14/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-iii-europa-provincalis/
It was focused almost entirely on trade and slavery, which makes sense because those are not the best parts of EU4 from a historical perspective even if trade is kind of fun as a game mechanic sometimes. But I was kind of hoping for discussion on Asia a bit more. Ah well maybe later.
I am enjoying this guy's blog.
Part IV is very interesting
https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-iv-why-europe/
QuoteWhat [Pomeranz] argues is that the key difference was the colonial empires that the European states had spent the previous two and a half centuries building (and also the use of coal instead of timber as a heating material) which by the 1700s brought in tremendous resources in primary products (raw materials and agricultural goods) which freed up land in Europe's interior to produce other goods more intensively, leading first into the second agricultural revolution and then the industrial revolution, which would provide European states with insurmountable economic advantages (which in turn enabled more colonialism).
This actually pinpoints the precise point IMO where Pomeranz's argument goes off the rails. European colonization in the 18th century did NOT bring in "tremendous resources in primary products" - it brought in large profit from luxury and prestige goods like sugar, tobacco, and precious minerals. Pomeranz raises NAmercian timber exports to Britain but admits that such exports were negligible until 1800. Britain of course had other potential sources of timber - Scandinavia, the Baltic, Russia. There is a big increase in American timber imports in the early 1800s but the cause there is not a European shortage but the Napoleonic Wars and the Continental System, and then the subsequent system of trade preferences that benefitted the Canada trade.
If the argument was that ability to exploit the New World resources was the key differentiating factor than logically Spain should have emerged the dominant world power and maintained that power . . .at the same time France should have collapsed into the sick man of Europe after losing much of its American colonies. The argument simply doesn't work.
Britain does not suddenly emerge from nowhere to become a dominant power in 1820. Britain was a second rate power throughout the 1600s but clearly a first rate one in the 1700s. A key development is the formation of the Bank of England and the development of British credit markets - a financial "force multiplier" that enhances Britain's ability to expand and finance trade and military enterprise alike., following and improving on similar innovations in the Netherlands.
You are not counting the overwhelming importance of fine beaver pelt hats. Clearly, these were the most significant source of European dominance!
I missed this from Part III:
QuoteAs an aside, this is not a great model for actual trade. The mechanics seem to imply something closer to extraction with the main goal being to ship resources home (fitting with the mercantilist philosophy of the time, but remember that mercantilism was a deeply flawed economic theory; that needs must stressing: mercantilism was wrong)
Given two possibilities: (1) 17th and 18th century Europeans who adopted mercantilist policies and gave mercantilist explanations were ignoramuses who made stupid mistakes out of ignorance of basic economic theory that we all know better today and (2) the 17th and 18th century Europeans who adopted mercantilist policies and gave mercantilist explanations that we reject today did so because they were acting in a different institutional and economic context than early 21st century Europe - I would be far more cautious about leaping to conclusion 1.
The 17th and 18th century European economy was an emerging commercial-monetary economy, with - by modern standards - a rudimentary credit system. What we call "mercantilism" is actually a variant of what we call today "monetary policy". If the supply of credit depends on sufficient supplies of specie and if economic actors and states lack the means to create or expand specie, then the logical and *rational* response is to pursue policies that conserve specie and guard against its net outflow.
Mercantalism was not "wrong" - it was a commonsense response to real life institutional limits and economic realities.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 28, 2021, 01:52:04 PM
Britain does not suddenly emerge from nowhere to become a dominant power in 1820. Britain was a second rate power throughout the 1600s but clearly a first rate one in the 1700s. A key development is the formation of the Bank of England and the development of British credit markets - a financial "force multiplier" that enhances Britain's ability to expand and finance trade and military enterprise alike., following and improving on similar innovations in the Netherlands.
Shamelessly stolen from In Our Time - but I think the interregnum is also key. The state at that point is the first that's really capable of projecting power outside of these isles since Henry V, and the military expenditure is, I think, quite important in developing the state. And in addition Ireland becomes a sort of experience of colonisation with training wheels.
But I think that state-building side, which is a world away from the early Stuarts, is essential for the later 17th and early 18th century imperial growth.
So all the credit/blame for the British Empire goes to Cromwell? I presume that is what you mean by interregnum.
Quote from: Valmy on May 28, 2021, 03:53:39 PM
So all the credit/blame for the British Empire goes to Cromwell? I presume that is what you mean by interregnum.
:lol: No, obviiously not.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 28, 2021, 02:31:21 PM
I missed this from Part III:
QuoteAs an aside, this is not a great model for actual trade. The mechanics seem to imply something closer to extraction with the main goal being to ship resources home (fitting with the mercantilist philosophy of the time, but remember that mercantilism was a deeply flawed economic theory; that needs must stressing: mercantilism was wrong)
Given two possibilities: (1) 17th and 18th century Europeans who adopted mercantilist policies and gave mercantilist explanations were ignoramuses who made stupid mistakes out of ignorance of basic economic theory that we all know better today and (2) the 17th and 18th century Europeans who adopted mercantilist policies and gave mercantilist explanations that we reject today did so because they were acting in a different institutional and economic context than early 21st century Europe - I would be far more cautious about leaping to conclusion 1.
The 17th and 18th century European economy was an emerging commercial-monetary economy, with - by modern standards - a rudimentary credit system. What we call "mercantilism" is actually a variant of what we call today "monetary policy". If the supply of credit depends on sufficient supplies of specie and if economic actors and states lack the means to create or expand specie, then the logical and *rational* response is to pursue policies that conserve specie and guard against its net outflow.
Mercantalism was not "wrong" - it was a commonsense response to real life institutional limits and economic realities.
The downside of mercantilism wasn't that it didn't work, but that it worked so well that the colonies got tired of its effectiveness and rebelled. Mercantilism transferred wealth from the colonies to the homeland. The American Revolution was one of the results of British mercantilism.
This thread should be merged with the full unmitigated pedantry thread.
Quote from: Sheilbh on May 28, 2021, 04:04:46 PM
Quote from: Valmy on May 28, 2021, 03:53:39 PM
So all the credit/blame for the British Empire goes to Cromwell? I presume that is what you mean by interregnum.
:lol: No, obviiously not.
Only in Ireland.
I'm really enjoying the current series on premodern generalship
https://acoup.blog/2022/05/27/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-i-reports/
https://acoup.blog/2022/06/03/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-ii-commands/
https://acoup.blog/2022/06/17/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-iiia-discipline/
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 17, 2022, 10:15:45 PMI'm really enjoying the current series on premodern generalship
https://acoup.blog/2022/05/27/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-i-reports/
https://acoup.blog/2022/06/03/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-ii-commands/
https://acoup.blog/2022/06/17/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-iiia-discipline/
Read the first one and it got me wondering back on something I've considered of how to better represent battles in games while still making it fun.
Strikes me it'd be like some kind of basic programming. Setting up if then statements for your generals, higher ability generals being able to take more on board and deliver them well, and then the battle basically plays out.
I did find the battles of the original suikoden entertaining diversions. They seem more realistic than more complex war games.
Quote from: Josquius on June 20, 2022, 09:47:04 AMQuote from: jimmy olsen on June 17, 2022, 10:15:45 PMI'm really enjoying the current series on premodern generalship
https://acoup.blog/2022/05/27/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-i-reports/
https://acoup.blog/2022/06/03/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-ii-commands/
https://acoup.blog/2022/06/17/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-iiia-discipline/
Read the first one and it got me wondering back on something I've considered of how to better represent battles in games while still making it fun.
Strikes me it'd be like some kind of basic programming. Setting up if then statements for your generals, higher ability generals being able to take more on board and deliver them well, and then the battle basically plays out.
I did find the battles of the original suikoden entertaining diversions. They seem more realistic than more complex war games.
I liked the take that Spartan (and its predecessor, Chariots of War) had, where most of the planning goes into the mix of units you bring into the battle, the disposition of your troops, and the initial orders you give (wait for a bit, then advance, etc.). Kind of similar to the first Gratuitous Space Battles. With some more unlocked advances, you would also get some additional commands for use during the battle, but they would be simple stuff like "all charge", "all halt", "flanks advance" IIRC, and so on. I enjoyed that type of battle immensely, though I think it's not "hands on" enough for mass appeal. Besides the mentioned games there's only the Dominions games and its close relatives, the Conquest of Elysium series who do something similar, though the latter is completely hands off while the former lets you set "scripts" for your units and army dispositions.
Incidentally, I feel like the Total War games handle it quite badly, at least where Romans and Greek Phalaxes are concerned, because the engine focuses on one on one combat rather than (maintaining) formations, so having two phalanxes clash immediately devolves into tons of single combat (if they even maintain any cohesion until they meet).
Quote from: Malthus on May 28, 2021, 01:58:46 PMYou are not counting the overwhelming importance of fine beaver pelt hats. Clearly, these were the most significant source of European dominance!
they started a damn war because of these hats and then told us we were only a few acres of snow. <_<
Quote from: Syt on June 20, 2022, 10:42:23 AMIncidentally, I feel like the Total War games handle it quite badly, at least where Romans and Greek Phalaxes are concerned, because the engine focuses on one on one combat rather than (maintaining) formations, so having two phalanxes clash immediately devolves into tons of single combat (if they even maintain any cohesion until they meet).
yeah, visually, it does not resists contact with the enemy. I think some of the mods, like DarthMod attempted and somewhat succeeded at mitigating this problem. The unit cohesion were much, much improved after that.
As for the base game, I think it wasn't until Warhammer II that I've seen real spearman formations holding the lines and cavalry battles being somewhat more realistic and these units being less overpowered than they used to be. Heavy cavalry used to be god-like units on the battlefield against anything but heavy spearman units.