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Koramei posted:Yeah I don't think the historians should be writing the game or that the devs should have to listen to them 100% of the time, just that there should be some people who genuinely know their poo poo regarding the periods represented, that are consulted about some of the choices. Like it or not (nobody seems to like it, I've noticed) games like these are one of the main ways historical knowledge seems to get pushed out to the general public, at least in younger generations. When they're pushing an outdated/ regressive model of history then there's clearly a bit of an issue there. They can peruse this thread, among other locations, for historical tidbits, though 
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Nov 10, 2015 23:24
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I have a degree in Serbian and Bulgarian studies with a focus on historical geographic boundaries. Also baristas chat itt
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Nov 10, 2015 23:32
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RestRoomLiterature- posted:I have a degree in Serbian and Bulgarian studies with a focus on historical geographic boundaries. The worst thing about Paradox games and the mapgame playing community is that I automatically assume that this is a joke.
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Nov 10, 2015 23:35
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Dibujante posted:They can peruse this thread, among other locations, for historical tidbits, though Yeah, and the Paradox forums aren't really universally garbage either. The approach they have has clearly been working to some degree, I just think it could be a whole lot better. Especially on a more foundational level rather than event chains etc, I think when they're in planning stages for a game, having a historian could be really valuable so it doesn't push a massively outmoded view of a certain period. For instance, Europe clearly came out well on top over the rest of the world over the course of EU4's period, but was it because the colonial powers could ship hundreds of thousands of soldiers from Europe, which had a population that exceeded China, India, and Southeast Asia combined? Or was it for other reasons, that could have the design based around them instead? Honestly I don't know, I'm not a game designer or a historian, and EU's model is admittedly extremely fun and well designed. But maybe there would be a better way. Koramei fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Nov 10, 2015 |
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Nov 10, 2015 23:37
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Koramei posted:Yeah, and the Paradox forums aren't really universally garbage either. The approach they have has clearly been working to some degree, I just think it could be a whole lot better. I do a lot of history but I think the best kind of history for a strategy game comes from that outmoded view, though. Twilight Struggle is very explicit in acknowledging that its Dulles-ish view of the Cold War was outmoded but it did make for a wonderful 2-player game that captured a lot about the period(For example, events involving Islamism tend to be pro-Soviet events).
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Nov 10, 2015 23:44
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Koramei posted:And of course print encyclopedias aren't any better, but nobody was ever pretending those were authoritative. 
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Nov 10, 2015 23:45
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Well, I don't think a perfectly historically accurate game is even possible, let alone fun. The number of factors you'd need to model to even get close to some degree of historical plausibility is absurd; let alone how fun it'd actually be (Mostly because a lot of the factors that drove history were things completely out of hands of contemporary rulers, but that's an entirely different matter). I think the closest you're ever going to get to a "Historically Accurate" game is to get a rough understanding of the historical processes, and then try to present the player with a heavily abstracted/mechanized model which provides a general overview of what was going on and the kind of attitude it resulted in. IE: When the player wages a war, instead of going out of your way to model obsessive model every possibly important detail and result of it, you should just deal with enough of the factors to give the player some kind of understanding of the reasons they were waged and the consequences they ended up having. I'm not a game designer though, so I can't really claim this is tried and proven advice.
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Nov 11, 2015 02:05
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Dreylad posted:There's a legion of unemployed/underemployed history PhD students out there too, so, you know, it's not like it'd be difficult to find someone. Alternative question. While these underemployed/unemployed history majors would be better off working on the things they love, would they truly enjoy working in the video game industry? An industry (not talking about paradox specifically here) that hires and fires willy nilly, refuses to offer many/any benefits, requires long grueling hours with little reward, will underpay or in some cases not pay for overtime, and much more. I mean, if you're doing something that's a "hobby" or something that you love, then clearly you can be underpaid and cast off at a moments notice. There's plenty more fish waiting to bite! I think the gaming industry is where young, hopeful programmers go to have their souls die. Among others. Dreylad posted:Yeah pretty much. It's getting easier and easier to do research on-line and most video games don't require archival-level research. And yeah, usually profs are happy to field a few questions. This. They don't need to do this. You'd have to demonstrate how this would increase the quality of their games for the luxury, because it's not a cheap thing to do in lost productivity for meetings alone. The consultant has to inform a team of people about the era, and often on a constant basis. This means distilling complex history into soundbite meetings and one-on-ones to get things done for deadlines... So you're back to beginner's history level information among team members. Also keep in mind, even the most historically accurate movies get things wrong all the time, and they have a armies of historians. It's just not feasible. Paradox has a good method now. It could be better, but honestly most of their worst mistakes are searchable on wikipedia alone (hello, west african religion in CK2).
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Nov 11, 2015 06:51
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Bel Monte posted:Alternative question. While these underemployed/unemployed history majors would be better off working on the things they love, would they truly enjoy working in the video game industry? An industry (not talking about paradox specifically here) that hires and fires willy nilly, refuses to offer many/any benefits, requires long grueling hours with little reward, will underpay or in some cases not pay for overtime, and much more. I mean, if you're doing something that's a "hobby" or something that you love, then clearly you can be underpaid and cast off at a moments notice. There's plenty more fish waiting to bite! You basically just described grad school, so I'm pretty sure unemployed PhDs would jump at the chance to do that only make way more money.
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Nov 11, 2015 07:00
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vyelkin posted:You basically just described grad school, so I'm pretty sure unemployed PhDs would jump at the chance to do that only make way more money. Oh. I didn't know. When I graduated I had two to three degree related jobs as the economy nose-dived way back when and it's been retail ever since.  However, as an artist (not my degree), I've been told repeatedly to never undersell your worth, because people don't know the real worth of the skill and expertise you have. I don't think they gaming industry really values it's employees as much as it should. I don't think history majors should settle for poo poo treatment and wages, but then you have them chronically under/unemployed...so...
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Nov 11, 2015 07:11
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Koramei posted:I just think it could be a whole lot better. Don't fix what ain't broke. Worst thing that could happen is that we get a Historian that is one of those "You can only be an empire if you derive yourself from Rome because Rome, you know Rome is loving awesome ohmygod Rome I am so wet right now" Erhm... I forgot what point I wanted to make. Right! It works as it is right now and pretty well so why change it? Would a Historian actually provide anything that we do not already supply? An overwhelming majority of the players won't even be able to spot the difference, even if there were any difference at all. I also believe if you look from the perspective that as it is now we have developers directly being passionate about history and involving themselves in it when making the game is worth so much more. Passion over accuracy. Also a question to be raised, where would this accuracy be placed? In the History/Bookmarks that nobody ever touches? The Jean d'Arc events which has been made so they can spawn anywhere and expanded on to let the player have influence in the whole thing and choose himself what to do with Jean? Or the 30 year war in EU4 where the world can look completely different from history and the major participant in the war might be Muslim? Groogy fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 08:52
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Paradox you fukkbois! Give me a job in a warm office reading pop history books all day.
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Nov 11, 2015 09:24
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I think historical accuracy is a hard thing to do in these games while still having a game, especially as the game time span gets longer and longer. As soon as the first day has passed the games start to spit in the face of history, and as such, form a totally distinct path to what actually happened and thus the causes of our history become increasingly improbable. If Denmark is one province sitting out in Gotland, then the Count's Feud in EUIV makes little sense, as an example. The accuracy just becomes meaningless and it turns into a wasted effort to some extent. (also, the Count's Feud is a pretty rubbish 'disaster' anyway) But things like that are a pretty rare case to occur anyway. I really like what CK2 seems to do, where events can happen, like the Joan of Arc event, in most any area that makes enough sense, and lets the player choose where to go from there. I think these games already do a pretty fine job of including just enough actual history while not being overbearing on the agency of the player or the dynamism and reactivity of the AI nations. The only way to really do high accuracy while not limiting player freedom is to do a more Victoria 2 style game, where the timespan is a great deal shorter where it becomes much more difficult to really expand without limit. (unless you pull of a Scandinavian Africa like I did in which case all sense goes out the window - I am still shocked that I got so much of Africa on what was basically my first game to get past 1850) These games do a good job of striking the balance between historical setting and gamification in my opinion. For example, lord knows what would happen if you tried to actually represent CK2s timespan in a more accurate manner, given how polities and power relations changed over that timespan. You would not have a fun game at all, to say the least. The abstraction, simplification and generalisation is necessary to actually make it a game you could play by using a more familiar feeling 'feudal' template of how the Middle Age kingdoms worked, which is definitely not the historically accepted conception of how a polity from that time worked today. If you were to be more accurate with that period of time then you would need to create unique or at least radically different mechanics for each individual kingdom, as the understanding of power relations in each of those kingdoms was radically different, more so than say "we don't tax the church much here, but over there they do". It would be extremely difficult to make, extremely difficult to learn, and extremely tedious to learn. My thinking is that if you want a totally historically accurate representation of the world, then you won't really find one in a videogame. Pick up some history textbooks and get reading instead. Another Person fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 09:35
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I'm just mad because my dream job doesn't actually exist. Hopefully Kaiserreich will look good on my resume for someone...
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Nov 11, 2015 09:57
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Historical accuracy is a concept that fluctuates with drat near every gamer. Unless you're building the spergiest of games that requires such detail, such as games like WitE/WitP/etc, you see those excessive details glossed over or modified to make the actual game fun.
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Nov 11, 2015 10:02
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While perfect historical accuracy is both an impossible and not really desirable goal, I think there is value in historical inspiration. Digging down into how things actually played out in real life and what drove various decisions can often bring up interesting scenarios - scenarios that can be gamified into something that feels historically appropriate and interesting even if it isn't really all that close to what truly happened in history.
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Nov 11, 2015 11:29
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Groogy posted:Don't fix what ain't broke. Worst thing that could happen is that we get a Historian that is one of those "You can only be an empire if you derive yourself from Rome because Rome, you know Rome is loving awesome ohmygod Rome I am so wet right now" The finest example of historical accuracy is when I'm playing this mod for Civ 4 col called "Dawn of a New Era." So, this guy has the idea that the colonies didn't send manufactured goods back to europe, so raw resources sell for about the same price as manufactured goods, making manufactures only good for trading to Natives. This makes the optimal approach to just spam the poo poo out of colonies anywhere and everywhere and not improve them at all except to make tools and guns so you get a much more boring gameplay. (I do recommend civ 4 col with mods, by the way, give them all a try- Dawn of a New Era is the only one that lets you have trade routes automatically drop off resources in Europe, which is great. just everything else sucks). It's not even all that accurate, but then that's usually what happens- some guy gets an idea in his head and he tries to bend the game around it. I do a lot of history, but I think the game has to come first and the history can come organically from that.
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Nov 11, 2015 11:40
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"historical accuracy" is an unattainable goal and trying too hard to achieve is probably the best receipt for bad gameplay. At the same time, I do have some problems with the "historicity" of EU4 model. Specifically: monarch points. This is some kind of magical energy which is required to do almost anything in the world, like improving or technology and infrastructure, defining you culture, fixing you economy, making peace deals, developing your cities. Anything. And basically the only source for this mystical fuel is your current ruler's rear end (that and advisors, but their contribution is a lot less). I just cant understand what in the real world this system is supposed to represent. It does works very well as gameplay mechanic so who cares anyway. The old ledger system was probably more realistic, but also a lot less fun. Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 12:19
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Elias_Maluco posted:"historical accuracy" is an unattainable goal and trying too hard to achieve is probably the best receipt for bad gameplay. Monarch points aren't mana. They specifically are supposed to model the competency of your nations administration. More competent leadership let's you progress faster.
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Nov 11, 2015 12:27
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Demiurge4 posted:Monarch points aren't mana. They specifically are supposed to model the competency of your nations administration. More competent leadership let's you progress faster. Well, I dont know, to me it seems is more like mana really. Competent leadership alone cant develop provinces or advance technology level nationwide, to cite a few examples. Your nation riches, resources, institutions, population (and population education level) etc, it all should have an impact on your capability of progressing technology or developing infrastructure etc. But it dont, its all about your ruler, plus few extra points from advisors. Nothing else is represented in the game but the "competent leadership" factor. So basically the only difference between France and any lovely one-province western nation is that France can raise more armies (the one thing that is not derived from MP). EDIT: vvvvvv I know it is, and I said it above. I just dont like it from a "historical realism" point of view (from a pure gameplay perspective, it works pretty well). And no, I dont know what could be better, but maybe something between the old system and the new. Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 12:43
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It's a fuckton better than the system that preceded it. What would you use instead that would be better?
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Nov 11, 2015 12:53
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Just give me some other ways to generate it- let the military academy spawn an extra point of military power per month, let republics get bonus points from the legislature itself on top of the elected leader, etc.
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Nov 11, 2015 13:07
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Mana is good.
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Nov 11, 2015 13:33
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Elias_Maluco posted:Well, I dont know, to me it seems is more like mana really. Competent leadership alone cant develop provinces or advance technology level nationwide, to cite a few examples. And it doesn't. Monarch points won't give you buildings, or colonies, or more land, or open up the opportunities to get those by allowing you to expand your army or navy.
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Nov 11, 2015 14:40
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Kavak posted:Just give me some other ways to generate it- let the military academy spawn an extra point of military power per month, let republics get bonus points from the legislature itself on top of the elected leader, etc. Then we are kinda progressing slowly back to the old system though.... The monarch points being a very finite source is also why it is working so well in gameplay terms. Either way towards mid-late and late game I have more points than I ever need anyway so don't see why I would need to generate more, if anything I need more sinks. (Though Development is filling that in very nicely)
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Nov 11, 2015 14:43
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Is HoI4's provisional release date still "Q1 2016" or has it been bumped back to later quarters?
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Nov 11, 2015 14:48
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Groogy posted:Then we are kinda progressing slowly back to the old system though.... How so? I'm kind of the opposite- I need tons of Monarch points for ideas, research, etc., but most of the buildings available have such a long RoI time, especially in later scenarios (You need to get buildings set for those, it's kind of stupid to be building a Temple in a 1790's European capital) that I end up swimming in gold with nothing really worth spending it on except forts. And there needs to be something other than your leader to generate points- it's very Big Man theory, and while it works for absolute monarchies and the like, it doesn't make a lot of sense for countries with less concentrated power to be totally dependent on their leader. *Mostly manufactories. Have those things ever been useful?
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Nov 11, 2015 15:09
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Until development came around I used to think monarch points were the worst thing in the game since they didn't involve much decision making (tech up now or then on its own is not a big decision - I tech up then and save the points) and the fact that they were appointed arbitrarily. Adding a strong element of decision making has largely fixed that with development. There are only really a couple things I don't like about monarch points now, and one of those is that it still costs milpoints to hire a general and the forced march cost. That feels a bit outdated now, there should be other ways to generate generals on top of milpoints (giving a lot of land to a militarily focussed estate, for example), and forced march should just use a different currency like manpower. There never really feels like there is an incentive to actually develop provinces with your milpoints, since they are arguably the most important points, so maybe shifting around some costs could bring more genuine decision making on that front. For some nations it can be really rough just to matter militarily as it is, and lucky nations will just roll around with 5/6/3/1 generals on forced march all the time. Also, to absolve some of the moaning about monarch stats being randomly assigned, why not have monarchs 'level up' with experience like a Republic, but way weaker? Like every 20 years they can get one extra point in a single field of the players choosing. It would make sense that older monarchs would be more experienced in their role as a national figurehead. That way a trash tier 18 year old monarch with a 4/1/2 stat layout could become a very nice 4/3/2 or 5/1/3 if given time. It doesn't change the values too much, so it shouldn't be a huge balance issue. Perhaps the biggest balance issue would be making it so that a monarch can only be randomly rolled with a single 6 and then two 4s at the very highest end. You are already super lucky to get a 6/4/4 right now anyway. It would also add greater decision making to the thought of making your monarch into a general, since you could either put him on the battlefield and get a free general out of it, or you can try and keep him alive for the 1 or 2 extra points that they may get over their lifespan. e; I don't look at buildings as a 'RoI' situation. I look at them as "increases total monthly income, allowing me to field a bigger army or employ better advisers". I never get people looking at RoI. They are more about maintaining a stable economy and staying in positive income at all times than making a profit. National economies are not about sudden profit, they are about growth in a stable manner. Another Person fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 15:09
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A historian would be more of a cool thing to interview over dinner a couple times while preparing a design document than any sort of required ongoing support member of staff. However they desperately need a historical geographer. Again, it wouldn't be useful for any sort of ongoing support, but I think it would be a good penance option for the tragedies of past maps.
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Nov 11, 2015 15:14
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Another Person posted:e; I don't look at buildings as a 'RoI' situation. I look at them as "increases total monthly income, allowing me to field a bigger army or employ better advisers". I never get people looking at RoI. They are more about maintaining a stable economy and staying in positive income at all times than making a profit. I tend to play countries that already have a budget so large I'm constrained by the force limit instead, if that helps. I also need a decent balance for events and such.
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Nov 11, 2015 15:25
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Kavak posted:I tend to play countries that already have a budget so large I'm constrained by the force limit instead, if that helps. I also need a decent balance for events and such. Ah, okay then. I tend to play tiny upstart dipshits like Loango, Frankfurt and Ulm, which is probably part of what moulds my viewpoint towards buildings.
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Nov 11, 2015 15:33
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Drone posted:Is HoI4's provisional release date still "Q1 2016" or has it been bumped back to later quarters? Johan's word was that it would take six months, minimum, to go from beta to release, and as far as I know the beta hasn't actually started yet. I'd say that points to an August-ish release.
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Nov 11, 2015 15:50
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Kavak posted:I tend to play countries that already have a budget so large I'm constrained by the force limit instead, if that helps. I also need a decent balance for events and such. If you have a such big budget then FL doesn't matter, lategame Mp I usually see people paying +50 a month from the over forcelimit penalty alone. Groogy fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 16:04
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Autonomous Monster posted:Johan's word was that it would take six months, minimum, to go from beta to release, and as far as I know the beta hasn't actually started yet. I suppose there's a distinction between the limited beta it seems they were doing up till now, and the more general beta that's just starting. Still, I'd suspect Q2 at this point.
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Nov 11, 2015 16:15
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Groogy posted:If you have a such big budget then FL doesn't matter, lategame Mp I usually see people paying +50 a month from the over forcelimit penalty alone. Yeah, once you reach the size where you can dominate a large line of trade nodes, the force limit becomes more of a force suggestion.
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Nov 11, 2015 16:45
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Groogy posted:Don't fix what ain't broke. Worst thing that could happen is that we get a Historian that is one of those "You can only be an empire if you derive yourself from Rome because Rome, you know Rome is loving awesome ohmygod Rome I am so wet right now"  but I do still think this: zedprime posted:A historian would be more of a cool thing to interview over dinner a couple times while preparing a design document than any sort of required ongoing support member of staff. And I mean, even then, when it's a genuine gameplay conceit I think it's totally understandable- EU and Civ (and so on) style progression of technology as a linear thing is kind of destructive to our understanding of civilizations e.g. in Mesoamerica, but it works so drat well gameplay-wise. But then things like the development levels in EU4 giving off the impression that the rest of the world was a whole lot poorer than it actually was, which, if changed, wouldn't really have any gameplay ramifications (especially with the new protectorate warring system in Cossacks- I really hope the AI makes use of that, incidentally, it could pave the way to so much more). And things that some of us might not even consider, but a historian could point to and say "yeah this is actually really important for our understanding of the period". It could be useful. Or maybe it would be worthless, I dunno, lots of historians seem to obsess over the wrong things. e: unrelatedly, it's the last day of beta handouts for HOI4 isn't it? anyone here get in? I didn't but I shouldn't have expected much considering I haven't even done a single bug report or anything Koramei fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Nov 11, 2015 |
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Nov 11, 2015 17:53
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Koramei posted:but I do still think this: Oh definitely. But if he even so dares to mention rome....  My little sister got assignment to compare the Roman Empire with another Empire, I told her to compare it with the Habsburg Empire
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Nov 11, 2015 18:20
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When will we know who got into the hoi4 beta?
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Nov 11, 2015 18:26
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zedprime posted:A historian would be more of a cool thing to interview over dinner a couple times while preparing a design document than any sort of required ongoing support member of staff. I hope they have a few historian buddies they can ping ideas off of. I also am not sure that having a professional historian would make sense, despite the fact that I would find that job fun as hell.
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Nov 11, 2015 18:48
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Crash74 posted:When will we know who got into the hoi4 beta? When the world media wonders why half the population of Serbia failed to appear at their jobs. As excited as I am, I don't want to be in the beta because as these games grow and develop and my game time reduces as I finally grow up, I have less time. I haven't gotten around to an EU4 game since release because I buy each DLC intending to start a new game but then things happen and before I know it, I'm putting off the new game until the next DLC comes out. I'm not even sure I want to get HoI4 or Stellaris at release when I haven't touched CK2 and EU4 in such a long time.
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Nov 11, 2015 18:55
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