Gaming and Historical Context
One of the bizarre things about the last while is I don't think I've been doing much in the way of gaming. So, while I'm feeling a bit delicate, I thought I'd try and do some interesting gaming.
One of the cool things that I learnt through being male is that, sometimes, playing games can be a really good way to work things out for myself in historical contexts. For example, playing Civilisation and Rome: Total War taught me why invading Russia from Europe is really, really silly. I know people talk about the really bad winter, but there's also the problem that, once you get past certain boundaries in Europe by going east, your borders increase and your neighbours increase at a geometric rate. There are some natural boundaries between the Russian steppes and the south, in the form of the Himalayas and the Chinese desserts, but once you get to Moscow, if you don't hit the Pacific, you're screwed, pretty much.
One of the fun things playing Europa Universalis 3 taught me is why England and France never conquered each other. Basically, they couldn't. England always put its resources into the navy and France had to put her resources into the army. The net result was usually stalemate. The French would kick the arse of the English every time they took territory on the continent and the English would destroy any French navy before it could land.
It's also taught me why England had such a major colonial influence. England is exceptionally placed to colonise the New World, with only Spain and Portugal better placed (thanks to the Azores and the Canaries). Because of England's focus as a naval power and the lack of land threats that France and (to a lesser extent, Spain and Portugal) had to deal with, it left them perfectly placed to control the seas and therefore access to the colonies. Also, the way England carefully colonises with strategic ports around the world is pretty vital to its ability to control much of the world's seas. Whereas other powers tended to go in and try to grab territory and exploit it, the English tended to grab a small well-defended island or area of land with good ports and bad land access and they'd use that to extend their control of the seas. Because of that, they managed to get nearly 100% coverage of the globe.
Sometimes, though, the games also tell a lot with the way things don't happen in the game that did in real life. One thing that irritates me is that most games, because they're designed for a deliberate target audience, are designed around conflict. One of the things that would never happen in EU3 is the Union between Scotland and England and the creation of the United Kingdom. In fact, playing games tends to underscore just how extraordinary an achievement that was. Usually, in games, you conquer a territory and you exploit the conquered. Eventually, they give up struggling to get away and you forge a new, larger nation. The Union between Scotland and England didn't go that way. Although it was more one sided towards England than I've usually heard it told, the takeover was extraordinary in the sense that the English gave up being English and the Scottish gave up being Scottish, all in order to become part of a new identity, the United Kingdom politically, and British culturally.
It's extraordinary because, well, messing around with your culture is very dangerous and it can blow up in your face. I like the way in Civ, culture determines your boundaries. Therefore conquering a nation always creates a problem because you're imposing your culture on them and destroying their own. Unless you destroy the whole nation in one go, you are unlikely to be able to keep culturally different cities. In EU3, there's a similar mechanic, but cultural differences increase the revolt risk. So differently cultured provinces revolt first when your nation ends up in trouble, and will split first. I've been thinking about the mechanic that would allow something like the Union in Civ and I thought that a good model would be to create a new culture which appears where the old culture was, in a fraction that is given by the percentage of the old culture of the state divided by the sum of the cultures of the two countries entering the Union. It would model why it's easy for large countries to absorb small ones but why a union between two nearly equal countries would be very bad for both. The new culture would be very vulnerable next to an older, established neighbour. But in the long term, the effects would be very advantageous.
Anyway, all the musing is just basically a way of saying that I've grabbed Victoria 2 from Steam. I'm interested in playing with it because I'm a little interested in industrial and colonial history.
One of the cool things that I learnt through being male is that, sometimes, playing games can be a really good way to work things out for myself in historical contexts. For example, playing Civilisation and Rome: Total War taught me why invading Russia from Europe is really, really silly. I know people talk about the really bad winter, but there's also the problem that, once you get past certain boundaries in Europe by going east, your borders increase and your neighbours increase at a geometric rate. There are some natural boundaries between the Russian steppes and the south, in the form of the Himalayas and the Chinese desserts, but once you get to Moscow, if you don't hit the Pacific, you're screwed, pretty much.
One of the fun things playing Europa Universalis 3 taught me is why England and France never conquered each other. Basically, they couldn't. England always put its resources into the navy and France had to put her resources into the army. The net result was usually stalemate. The French would kick the arse of the English every time they took territory on the continent and the English would destroy any French navy before it could land.
It's also taught me why England had such a major colonial influence. England is exceptionally placed to colonise the New World, with only Spain and Portugal better placed (thanks to the Azores and the Canaries). Because of England's focus as a naval power and the lack of land threats that France and (to a lesser extent, Spain and Portugal) had to deal with, it left them perfectly placed to control the seas and therefore access to the colonies. Also, the way England carefully colonises with strategic ports around the world is pretty vital to its ability to control much of the world's seas. Whereas other powers tended to go in and try to grab territory and exploit it, the English tended to grab a small well-defended island or area of land with good ports and bad land access and they'd use that to extend their control of the seas. Because of that, they managed to get nearly 100% coverage of the globe.
Sometimes, though, the games also tell a lot with the way things don't happen in the game that did in real life. One thing that irritates me is that most games, because they're designed for a deliberate target audience, are designed around conflict. One of the things that would never happen in EU3 is the Union between Scotland and England and the creation of the United Kingdom. In fact, playing games tends to underscore just how extraordinary an achievement that was. Usually, in games, you conquer a territory and you exploit the conquered. Eventually, they give up struggling to get away and you forge a new, larger nation. The Union between Scotland and England didn't go that way. Although it was more one sided towards England than I've usually heard it told, the takeover was extraordinary in the sense that the English gave up being English and the Scottish gave up being Scottish, all in order to become part of a new identity, the United Kingdom politically, and British culturally.
It's extraordinary because, well, messing around with your culture is very dangerous and it can blow up in your face. I like the way in Civ, culture determines your boundaries. Therefore conquering a nation always creates a problem because you're imposing your culture on them and destroying their own. Unless you destroy the whole nation in one go, you are unlikely to be able to keep culturally different cities. In EU3, there's a similar mechanic, but cultural differences increase the revolt risk. So differently cultured provinces revolt first when your nation ends up in trouble, and will split first. I've been thinking about the mechanic that would allow something like the Union in Civ and I thought that a good model would be to create a new culture which appears where the old culture was, in a fraction that is given by the percentage of the old culture of the state divided by the sum of the cultures of the two countries entering the Union. It would model why it's easy for large countries to absorb small ones but why a union between two nearly equal countries would be very bad for both. The new culture would be very vulnerable next to an older, established neighbour. But in the long term, the effects would be very advantageous.
Anyway, all the musing is just basically a way of saying that I've grabbed Victoria 2 from Steam. I'm interested in playing with it because I'm a little interested in industrial and colonial history.