Whilst I'm not in favor of a vanilla migrations era bookmark, I dream of a true nomadic gameplay...
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Whilst I'm not in favor of a vanilla migrations era bookmark, I dream of a true nomadic gameplay...
Paradox won't visually represent him as a character in-game, so that is a definitely no.
In CK II he is represented with Arabic calligraphy, not an actual portrait.
I didn't actually see that, I only saw the Muhammad bit. If it's the same situation as before, with the earlier 769 scenarios then it's fine - I was thinking more those Age of Islam scenarios people like to ask for.
That's what I was originally thinking when I mentioned the Muhammad problem but wasn't clear in my comment. Nut jobs would throw a fit, possibly even violently, if a character representing Muhammad converted to another religion/became homosexual/enjoyed a blot/ect.
I can understand the appeal of wanting to play as far back as even as Clovis but there simply isn't enough of a historical record to base off of, especially the further east we go. Not to mention that feudalism isn't established, especially in areas that were not influenced by Roman or Teutonic social customs . There are always mods though....
I agree with all of this, but arguments against pre-769 scenarios are much better founded simply on the fact that there is almost no comprehensive data available for most of the map, and only a handful of actual dynasties existed. We don't even need to entertain the religious aspect of all this - it's simply the case that a lot of the map would be made-up placeholder characters and we'd be guessing at where borders were, who the king and emperor-tier titles were, and even which religions a lot of people were.
Personally I was never in favour of 769 and played it maybe twice in total, but given that it lets you play as Charlemagne and his brother I at least understand the rationale behind Paradox adding it. Before then, however, is just a bad idea for all kinds of reasons, and especially that these games just don't represent pre-feudal mechanics very well and clearly isn't their focus anyway.
Pre-Charlemagne start dates fit Imperator: Rome much better than CK in terms of mechanics. CK is (or originally was) based on feudal system.
The clamor for earlier start dates comes from the fact that the few centuries preceading CK2's start are incredibly interesting and practically untouched in terms of historical strategy games, Who doesn't want to play as king Arthur or Justinian the great? That being said I agree ck2/3 are not the games for this, but do not expect clamor for these dates to be added to die down soon. Depending on locations there can be quite a good bit of data on rulers. There is enough granularity in Welsh and Saxon king lists to somewhat plausibly populate a 500 ad scenario for Britain complete with King Arthur as he is in the histoy files, hell a good portion of England has historical landed characters in 500 ad! Its just before a confederation of British kingdoms retook Northumbria from the angles and almost annihilated them at Bambraugh. The heir apparent of the old pre saxon kingdom of Northumbria then had the king of Rheged assassinated and the whole alliance collapsed.
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I would love to have the entire Early Middle Age in a PDX game... But I think it should be its own separate game rather than a part of Crusader Kings. Even the earliest time periods of CK2 should be split from the main game.
By 700, Muhammad had been dead for decades, the Rashidun Caliphate was over, the schism between Shia and Sunni had happened and even Muawiyah I wasn't around anymore. I don't see any Muhammad problem...
By 700, Muhammad had been dead for decades, the Rashidun Caliphate was over, the schism between Shia and Sunni had happened and even Muawiyah I wasn't around anymore. I don't see any Muhammad problem...
I know that PDOX isn’t going to add anything earlier than 867, but I would personally prefer them to add 936 (Iron Century), 1066 (William the Conqueror), and a couple of the Crusades (1st and 3rd, maybe?). That way, we’d have one start date with good pagan gameplay yet still mostly historically accurate, one to keep the 1066 tradition, and two to emphasize the Crusades (it is in the name, after all). I know the 769 and 867 crowds will be displeased, but I’d much prefer a historical later date. Then again, that’s just me.
not just you.
Also I would trade 867 for 936 and then only have later start dates
I don't understand this aversion to fictional characters, even in areas we have no record of rulers we generally have a pretty good grasp on what was going on there at the time. Whats so wrong with adding someone made up to to fill in a blank?
I understand that for many people it might be hard to understand. But let me try to explain my point from several points of view. And let me tell you that it's far beyond aversion against fictional characters.
I did several mods and researched and filled the map with characters myself... which probably brought me to some sort of aversion towards made-up placeholders. I mean it's fun if you make up one or two dynasties, or several rulers for a dynasty which you know was there, but not when you fill 30th county next to each other this way and you need to do that for 150+ years for each. Then it's annoying beyond imagination.
We can use lists of historical characters and extend them by semi-historical or legendary ones (still plausible characters, many of which can get really fun*), but from my experience even if you stretch the timelines by pro-longing their lives to almost ridiculously unrealistic lengths, you will hardly get to year 900-950 in large areas of the map. There are many where you can get even little farther back, but OTOH in other areas you only know about a tribe living there and one or two rulers for the entire timeline. For 867 it's often very hard, for any date before that it is almost impossible and you end up with what I described above. I prefer if this game would be more about historical or at least semi-legendary characters rather than completely random ones.
* and I mean it's fun reading about them, creating them for the game/mod as well as then playing them
I don't consider this the primary issue though.
The main issue for me is that the devs of this game have dedicated 4 years on developing a game which is - as they say - designed around feudal lords and their world. The graphics -the look of things, the immersion, everything is set to certain time period. For propper simulation of the entire world it also requires well-done simulation of their contemporary non-feudal societies, but studying medieval history of various parts of the world I realized that all those people with their various systems and variations of feudal, imperial, or tribal societies all used very similar technologies etc.
In the earlier start dates you won't find any of this. Before Charlemagnes reforms, you won't have a single feudal realm, the tribal or semi-feudal societies of late 9th and 10th centuries were already closer to their contemporary feudal societies than they were to tribal societies of 700's. And since I am a maps lover, I can't ignore the fact that this game uses static map based on static system of de-jure countries. And the world in 1066-1400 despite its own dynamisms and minor changes was somehow stable, but for anything before 900 you need very different map. For pushing it before Charlemagne's administrative reforms, you'd need to completely re-paint the entire map of Europe - it can either fit the era of 700-900, or 1000-1400, you simply can't have both
I absolutely love the period of the "Dark ages" - the transformation of Late-antiquity societies into pre-feudal and later into propper feudal systems, the mobility and dynamics of that era, the reforms and energy of the Byzantine world, the energy and absorbtion of Ancient world's cultures and knowledge into Islamic medieval civilization in the 8th and 9th centuries...
but the way I see this game to be heading, it simply feels like different era. I'd rather have the earlier era being depicted by total-conversion mod for I:R. Perhaps even total conversion mod for CK3 could work, but not the same game with same graphics, map, lifestyle etc.
A separate game would be the best solution IMHO.
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I actually would like to see a ~722 start date in which you can play as the last Christian resistance against the muslim invasion, or as the newly found emirate of Cordoba in an attempt to subjugate the entirety of Hispania and maybe even procceed into French territory.
Obligatory will never see a Start date where Byzantines control Rome.
Also a real fan of 1014 as a potential date now.
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There's a fairly respectable way to represent mohammed in game I think but he has to kind of be a non entity and unplayable. Basically he'd have the seal, a set of reasonable traits, and event stacks to unify arabia around the time he did with a set death date the same as in real life an exclusion from all standard events.
Basically a seljuk or genghis khan you can't interact with other than fighting in conventional war.
Is it worth it?
Honestly islamic fundamentalists are making it harder to depict a very very interesting time in history and keep us from sharing the interesting and unfortunately misunderstood time in history. If anything they're just making it harder to share information on their history and religion with the rest of the world.
I guess that's not what they care for though.
Iconoclasm is kind of a bandaid solution if praising false images is the real problem.
Basically a seljuk or genghis khan you can't interact with other than fighting in conventional war.
Is it worth it?
Honestly islamic fundamentalists are making it harder to depict a very very interesting time in history and keep us from sharing the interesting and unfortunately misunderstood time in history. If anything they're just making it harder to share information on their history and religion with the rest of the world.
I guess that's not what they care for though.
Iconoclasm is kind of a bandaid solution if praising false images is the real problem.
I'm at the edge of my seat for Imperator Kings: Barbarian Boogaloo
3rd Crusade and the Latin Empire for the later dates. Those are both already bookmarks, and have interesting starts in crusader lands (Kingdom of Jerusalem/other Crusader states and the Latin Empire/other Byzantine successor states, plus their various Muslim adversaries), as well as various interesting European characters. The only downside is that they aren't particularly far apart, chronologically.
I'd be sad if the Alexiad start was removed, because Alexios Komnenos is such an interesting and significant character in the time period. It should also be not that much work to implement since it is so soon to 1066 and consequently a lot of the work will have been done already.
I am also not really interested in anything prior to the 936/Iron Century start. CK2 does not do a good job of modelling Carolingian Europe, which had not yet become quite the feudal system it had by 1066. I'd rather a more focused time period where each bit was modelled in more depth.
I am also not really interested in anything prior to the 936/Iron Century start. CK2 does not do a good job of modelling Carolingian Europe, which had not yet become quite the feudal system it had by 1066. I'd rather a more focused time period where each bit was modelled in more depth.