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"This is the second part of a three part series (I) examining the historical assumptions of Paradox Interactive’s 19th and early 20th century grand strategy gam
by D-Coder 5y ago
"This is the second part of a three part series (I) examining the historical assumptions of Paradox Interactive’s 19th and early 20th century grand strategy game, Victoria II."
So it's about a game (which is fine), not real life (which one might assume from the title).
- kiba 5y agoIt is using a game to teach real life.
- dragontamer 5y agoI've seen this play out so many times though. If you use SimCity and play optimally, everyone's life-expectancy sucks and remains uneducated, because those two stats literally don't matter. So you end up never building a hospital or school. So people then point out mega-cities or whatever, and argue that the dystopian future has terrible health care and education. But... this is more a function of the game rather than the actual real world.
- kiba 5y agoIt is more like comparing the game to real life to see how they hold up and teach how real life works than using a game simulation to say that's how life works. It's like asking a master spy for his opinion on spy movies. They tell you what's real and what's bunk.
- rrsmtz 5y agoThe author's previous series on Europa Universalis IV greatly emphasized that the game simulates a specific model of states, rather than trying to portray reality perfectly. This model is very similar to fields in Political Science such as realpolitik. Sim City is the same thing for high modernism in urban planning. I'd guess the reason for the division between optimal Sim City cities and cities in reality doesn't come from the game being a poor model, but that the high modernism model of urban planning has ridiculous conclusions.
- jcranmer 5y agoWell, what the author is doing is a) using these games to explain themes of history (e.g., interstate relations, internal political tensions within the Long 19th Century), and b) critiquing how mechanics in these games do or do not reflect the history. It's the same vein of a city planner explaining how SimCity does and doesn't reflect real-life city planning, and such discussions absolutely do exist. Of course, one of the challenges of a historical game is that pop history does exist to a larger degree than other subjects, and you can get ferocious arguments of the historicity of the game where people use incorrect pop history as the basis. For EU4, colonization is absolutely in that boat; after the most recent patch, there is a vocal crowd about how ahistorical it is that North America is now filled with lots of natives that have to be conquered rather than empty land to be passively colonized.
- aidenn0 5y agoJust research the "smallpox" tech-tree and watch the americas depopulate (/s I think, I haven't actually played any paradox games)
- Ericson2314 5y agoSimCity is neoliberal propaganda because elementary school me would keep on impatiently taking out big loans, making bad investments with them, and loosing in a debt doom spiral. The experience did warp my thinking for quite some time I think.
- WalterBright 5y ago> It is using a game to teach real life Monopoly was devised as a game to teach the evils of the free market. But Monopoly-world's rules don't match real life rules, enough so that its "lessons" have no bearing. Some of those rules are 1) a finite board 2) finite number of players 3) no possibility for creating more products
- bitbckt 5y agoRead more of the article, and challenge that over-eager assessment.
- vkou 5y agoThe author is a real-life historian that analyses depictions of history in popular culture - and contrasts them with what actually happened / how historians currently look at history.
- int_19h 5y agoAs others have already noted, the game is used more as a prop to explain real history. However, if you don't like this approach, there are posts on ACOUP that approach history more directly. For example, here's an excellent recent series that tackle the issue of the Roman ethnic identity: https://acoup.blog/2021/06/11/collections-the-queens-latin-or-who-were-the-romans-part-i-beginnings-and-legends/ https://acoup.blog/2021/06/11/collections-the-queens-latin-o...
- tuatoru 5y agoIf you don't like games, read War In Human Civilization by Azar Gat. Note: it's over 800 pp. Bret's piece is about how this game somehow manages to reflect Gat's theory (and actual history).
- Ericson2314 5y agoHey, be the sound of it in the piece, I'll take this game over some DSGE bullshit as a macro simulation any day!
- aidenn0 5y agoI'm in the middle of that book now. It's dense, but other than that not a super difficult read (my 14 year-old daughter saw it on the coffee table and is reading it too now). If you're wondering how it's 800 pages, the first 100 pages or so are about evidence for warfare in pre-agrarian society.