That all you got?
Yeah, history is a very inexact science, and it's not made any better by some archaeologists and historians deliberately twisting the truth to fit their view, like trying to claim that lesbians didn't exist in the classical era and that the rulers and people of older times didn't act immature and dirty at times.
For instance, did you guys know that there are dicks carved into the streets of Pompeii to point in the direction of brothels?
That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.
What I do think games would be great at isn't necessarily teaching history, but teaching how history can be operationalized. Like a lot of other fields of scientific inquiry, history has a series of tools and methods it uses to examine its own field. For example, the EUIV devs gave a talk about how a lot of how the game 'maps' history were inspired by Marxist theory, since Marxist theory is very linear in terms of how it presents progression from one type of state to the next, and how class intersects with these developments.
Meanwhile, CK 2 has more of a Great Man History take, and while it still involves ordinary people, these are mostly abstracted in favor of focusing on the dynastic struggles and interpersonal drama that tends to characterize Great Man Theory. Coupled with a good science communicator I think it could be a great tool, especially since historical theory, frankly, tends to be a lot more useful than just learning history.
Inherently, history is a field of ambiguity, conversation and interpretation, all things that games don't do very well because they're bad at handling ambiguity. Historical methodology, though, is inherently about trying to systemize these ambiguities.
Edited by math792d on Feb 12th 2019 at 2:05:35 PM
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
Redmess
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It's slightly more complicated than that, I think. Phalusses could just as easily refer to the god Priapus (who is also well represented in Pompeii, for that matter).
Also, is it graffiti, or state sanctioned art?
Optimism is a duty.
Either way, it's a dick used to point at a brothel. Not exactly in line with modern ideas of sexual display (but perfectly in line with Roman attitudes of the time).
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
Redmess
What was the point of that dick again? 
x6
The developers said that agressive expansion will mostly have two negative effects in IR: It will make it more likely for countries of the same culture to form defensive leagues against the agressor, and will also cause unhappiness among people of not integrated people in your own country.
Too much adorableness
Wow, the buff for ME in 2.2.5 really makes ME fun to play again...even if some people said that the buffs are kind of too much.
I do think that Nexus Districts giving Tech Drone job might have been a mistake, though. Not sure. Sure it's only 1 job, but it can feel like it kinda invalidate building Generator district. Also traits that gives reduced amenities generation are a pain. Wish I hadn't take it in the first place...oh well, will mod it out when robomodding is available.
Edited by onyhow on Feb 14th 2019 at 2:03:11 AM
Give me cute or give me...something?
You ever make a mod for your custom nation in EU IV just so you can have a cool flag and unit models?
Because I might have started putting more effort into this than originally intended.
Redmess
I wouldn't mind a mod that lets me pick a country's color from a color palette.
Optimism is a duty.
Redmess
Eurpa Universalis is getting a board game version.
This pretty much brings the game full circle with it's origins.
Edited by Redmess on Feb 14th 2019 at 9:09:30 PM
Optimism is a duty.
Editor of Posts
This has been known for a pretty long time. As you'll see that's the 6th dev diary, and they're pretty infrequent.
Redmess
Could be, I just happened to see it come past on the load screen.
Optimism is a duty.
Hearts of Iron DLC lets players revive the Confederacy, decolonize the British Empire
In a daring bit of counterfactual history, Paradox will allow players to revive the Confederate States of America, commonly known as the Confederacy, and lead them into war against Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.
This tidbit isn’t featured prominently in the launch trailer. Instead, it’s listed at the top of the bullet points in the formal description of the DLC’s content, alongside the opportunity to decolonize the British Empire. Paradox refers to the political party as the Old Confederacy, but there’s no beating around the bush here. The group is intended to be successors to the same white supremacists who fought to preserve the institution of slavery in the 1860s.
This seems like a tremendously bad idea, considering the United States still hasn’t come to terms with its history, that the Civil War and the institution of slavery reverberate through today.
Of course, Paradox has been exploring these kinds of counterfactual histories for more than a decade. The original Hearts of Iron came out in 2002. Its current iteration represents the cutting edge of a long tradition of wargaming that goes all the way back to the Prussians in the early 19th century. If you know your history, or make even the most feeble attempt to read between the lines, the series already allows you to participate in some of history’s greatest atrocities and war crimes. The argument for the inclusion of a revived confederacy seems to be a simple as, “What’s a few more?”
This is an inherent problem with wargames that model off reality. Not everything can be XCOM or Advance Wars. It’s likely that my comfort level with similar games like Axis & Allies and A House Divided has to do with cultural, temporal, and geographic distance. But playing a campaign about the Confederacy returning to power seems fresh, immediate, and disturbing. Thinking about my problems with it have me considering why I failed to be unsettled by other games.
I reached out to the team at Paradox, and asked for an interview to understand why they decided to include this option. Given the timeline to get this DLC out the door, they said it proved too difficult to organize the right people until some time in March. Instead, game director Dan Lind sent me the following statement:
Over the years of its life, Hearts of Iron IV has developed into a game about alternate histories as much as a game about the Second World War, and our expansions to the game have highlighted alternate paths in the ideologically turbulent 1930s and 40s. It is a game where you can restore the Kaiser to the German throne, lead a Communist revolution in France, and fight for Indian independence while Britain is busy at war. Most nations in Hearts of Iron customarily find paths through game decisions to three major ideologies: Democracy, Fascism, and Communism.
In this light, the idea of a revived Confederate States of America in the Man the Guns expansion is very much in line with how Hearts of Iron has progressed. The trope of a sustained or revived Confederacy is an old and common one in alternate history fiction, so it makes an easy foil as the Fascist offshoot of an America that was pursuing policies anathema to the old South.
Just as the presence of the Third Reich in Hearts of Iron (or many other strategy and war games) in no way indicates an endorsement or promotion of Nazi ideas, the fictional construct of a reborn Confederacy says nothing about Paradox’s position on racial equality or the clear injustice of the Secessionist cause in the American Civil War.
Man the Guns also includes paths to quickly desegregate the United States, hasten the decolonization of the British Empire, rule the Dutch colonies from Jakarta and make Trotsky the Communist ruler of Mexico. Earlier expansions dealt with the struggles of South African autonomy, Chinese collaboration, a militant India, and a restored Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Many of the alternate history paths we outline may be controversial in the nations involved. Paradox itself is becoming a more international company, now employing staff from over two dozen different countries, and while we are continuing to improve our understanding of what is culturally appropriate worldwide, this is a subject where we will always have more to learn. We appreciate being taken to task when we slip and are grateful for the honest and direct feedback from our community.
Personally, I’m not sure what to think about this. Germany and Japan participated in WWII. The CSA didn’t, and while fans have been modding them into the game on their own for years, the official inclusion is deeply unsettling.
I’ll need to wait and see what Man the Guns plays like when the DLC arrives on Feb. 28.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Feb 14th 2019 at 12:00:23 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
That all you got?
I wonder if the CSA has the option to ally with Nazi Germany like they've done in a lot of the "Confederacy still exists" alternate history stories that have been out, like in the Timeline-191 verse.
That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.
The CSA are literal fascists in HOI4, so it's very likely.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Feb 14th 2019 at 12:06:16 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
That all you got?
Yeah, plus white supremacy, racism, and the "Lost Cause" could drive them that way.
That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.
Even if they don't have a focus for it, at high world tension, everyone tends to start joining factions. Hell, I've seen the entire Axis rejoin Berlin-Moscow after the formation of that disbands the original Axis.
Random aside but they've just licensed out reprints of the old World of Darkness books to Crossroad Press.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
CK2 Dev Diary: An upcoming free update will allow you to build wonders such as cathedrals, fortresses, and pyramids.
That all you got?
Oooooooh. I wonder what sorts of bonuses and whatnot these will have.
That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.
Redmess
I found an odd bug in EU 4. When a custom nation (not sure about generated ones) in a random world takes a decision to form another nation, it has to recore ALL it's land. Needless to say, big nations get something on the order of 500+ overextension and get ripped up by rebels.
Optimism is a duty.
Kemetism confirmed.
@Drunken Nordmann: HOI has always been an odd duck in the Paradox series due to being about a short period of time and having a lot of its history scripted. The 2ACW is an attempt to break out of that and turn HOI into a more general WWII-era grand strategy game.
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
My pirate republic of Kurohata is going very well. Thanks in part to Fall of Islam's map changes (I'm mostly playing with it because converting Muslims or Broken Cross's Chalcedonians is a pain in the ass), there are fewer starting blobs and I relatively easily became the top great power (China is ruled by the Yuan dynasty for a generous value of "ruled", but they're a lucky nation, so they're reclaiming China, and France starts split between France and Aquitaine and a bunch of duchies).
Edit: I also love how random New World maps are often much friendlier to Asia when it comes to trade. I can gather most of the output of Falkland XL and "North Edge" (actually on the south in this case, but it's meant to accompany an even larger "South Edge", but the province-rich RNW fix mod isn't up to date and the huge province count would cause problems. As it stands, I'm just up to about normal New World province counts, which have gone way up since the current RNW system came out)
Edited by Balmung on Feb 16th 2019 at 4:24:34 AM
My current Stellaris co-op campaign hit a funny note - I'm playing an empire of rodent space communists, while my friend's playing a slaving megacorp.
I got the Caretaker robot anomaly at one point and a year or so later the robot managed to get elected chairman. Not long after that he got the Substance Abuser trait.
So not only do I now have fully automated space communism, it's run by ''Bender''.
◊ ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
I also keep buying up the slaves my friend puts on the market - my capital will soon be turned into an ecumenopolis and I need the workers to run it.
Also they really need to buff the remaining precursors - because right now it's First League > Cybrex > everyone else.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Feb 17th 2019 at 7:45:29 PM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
And on top of that, often we just don't know all that much about what happened in history, especially if it was thousands of years ago, doubly so if the culture in question was illiterate. In these cases, historians can do little more than make educated guesses on what little evidence there is, and different historians can give very different interpretations of that evidence.
I am currently reading The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson, and while he writes a very engaging and compelling history of the Egyptians, some things very much depend on details like the exact date of death of one ruler or another. The exact circumstances around Tuthankamun's reign and death are a prime example of this.
When you have to account for that sort of uncertainty in your documentary or game, it quickly becomes very academic, and undermines any attempt to tell a compelling and coherent narrative.
On another subject, I wonder how the annexation process in Imperator: Rome will work. Ancient empires didn't usually worry about agressive expansion, let alone war scores. When they annexed a country, they didn't do it in bite size chunks. This artificiality of conquering lands bothered me in EU 4, too.
Optimism is a duty.