TRPG General Chat

kviiri

9:00 PM

@KorvinStarmast I visit it from time to time, I even asked a question there once (about the doctrines of the Waldenses)

BESW

I've tried to engage with a number of other Stacks but I'm too spoilt by this one.

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, Laestadians/Lestadians/whichever spelling you prefer :)

Happy to have provided something of interest ^^

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri heh, I'll double check the spelling before I ask a question there ... :)

SPavel

I like reading all the weird religion stack questions on the sidebar

I imagine that the things we talk about on RPG.SE sound exactly like that to non-gamers

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast I think there's about a dozen correct spellings, don't worry about it

(exaggerating only a bit here)

In one of my circles, a group focused on strategy gaming, history and RPGs, the extinct Christian-Gnostic denomination of Paulicianism is something of a meme

SPavel

9:05 PM

@kviiri In the grim darkness of kviiri's gaming group, there is only Paulicianism

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri Anything like the Albigensian Crusade folks, in Southern France, or a more Nordic version?

SPavel

Everyone knows that Arian Christianity is the best

KorvinStarmast

Cathars. that's the word was searching for.

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast Quite similar to the Cathars of Southern France, yes. The Paulicians were in Anatolia and Eastern Europe, and their faith essentially equated the Old Testament God with the evil demiurge of the Dualistic Gnostic faiths.

(disclaimer: I'm not an expert, and Paulicianism is not very well documented anyway)

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri Something for me to do some light reading on. Thanks! :)

kviiri

9:07 PM

And the reason it became a meme was, I played a Crusader Kings 2 mod which enhances the flavor of the various minor religions and Paulicianism is frankly quite overpowered there.

KorvinStarmast

Hmm, and now I have to look up that game and see what it is. (at which point I thank google for the speed with which I can do that ..)

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast It's a huge timesink. Not the best strategy game there is, but has a large potential for immersion and silliness.

KorvinStarmast

Hey, I have a steam account, maybe I can play it someday in the future.

Sir Cinnamon

@KorvinStarmast I have not played it but my understanding it it is a larger scale and vastly more complicated version of Civilization, or any 4X game

KorvinStarmast

@SirCinnamon Heh, I was halfway through Civ 3 a few months ago and lost immersion. (And my wife kept telling me to do something productive ... fair cop ... the weather was nice ...)

kviiri

9:11 PM

Basically you play a succession of characters in a dynasty in a sandboxish style. You lose the game if your line becomes landless or extinct, but apart from that it's pretty much "do what you want coz' a noble is free".

Sir Cinnamon

@KorvinStarmast I find Civ to bee too much of a time sink, hence I have not dared to get myself addicted to CK

kviiri

and then the Pope founds the Teutonic Knights on the Kola peninsula...

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose @doppelgreener Hmm, a quick shout out and "thank you" for the comments that made me keep trying to improve my answer here. your poking got me to revise it a few times.

@Kviiri Hmm, I don't recall the TK's ever getting that far north, but maybe that's a gamism?

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast I don't recall the exact specifics, but given the game starts as early as the 8th century, it makes sense that there's some dynamic logic involved in where the knightly orders are formed. I guess the Norwegian king happened to be a good Catholic and wanted to give away an excellent slice of land...

KorvinStarmast

@SirCinnamon When my son was playing Civ 3 a bit, it got him to ask me a lot of history questions. Kind of useful in that regard; I seem to recall an old friend spending time on the CivFanatics web site

heck, back in the 1970's D&D got me to start reading up on Medieval History ... which led to all kinds of other doors in inquiry. Avalon Hill's Waterloo got me looking into Napoleonic history ...

Sir Cinnamon

9:16 PM

@KorvinStarmast Certainly they can be something of a who's who in world history, learn about some famous world leaders - other than that they might not be completely historically accurate

I recall something about gandhi nuking new york...

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast Overall the best part of CK2 is, in my opinion, that the AI characters feel reasonably human. And there's a lot of them. You're running a feudal realm after all.

KorvinStarmast

@SirCinnamon I recall something about ghandi nuking new York There's since been a coverup ... don't tell anyone with a tin foil hat ...

kviiri

Being friends with one's most powerful vassals is excellent, for instance. Being enemies with them can be hugely dangerous to one's person or the entire realm. It is recommended to conspire at all times to hinder the power of individual vassals - even that good friend of yours might churn up an ambitious son who'd fancy being a king rather than a duke...

BESW

Who Gets to Be a CIVILIZATION? - Between the Lines

►

kviiri

@BESW This is something that has always bugged me. In addition to civilizations like "American" existing in 4000 B.C.E.

Sir Cinnamon

9:23 PM

@BESW Using actual culture's names as "barbarians", oof thats quite a move there firaxis

kviiri

Another particular pet peeve was that in Civ IV one had "Holy Roman Empire" and "German" as separate civilizations.

BESW

@kviiri Kyle talks about that one in particular a little.

kviiri

@BESW Yeah, I just got to that point :)

The India point is really good too.

I personally found City States a nice way to extend representation to smaller countries who would be difficult to represent in large numbers (as well as a good game mechanic)

I also agree that Civilization is a poor representation of history or politics (and it irks me to no end when people refer to it as a model of such). It's a gamey game, a chess with additional mechanics.

There's peace, but it's not the absence of conflict. Only a single civ will win the game regardless of in-game diplomacy. There's collaboration, but it's never wholesome. If it helps the other side win before you, it's a bad trade.

KorvinStarmast

A few years ago, I seem to recall that there is an assumption that civilization starts with "city" as it's building block. Can't remember where that comes from ...

... it's like a basic thing from a Western Civ class decades ago?

kviiri

9:39 PM

Overall, if we consider the representation aspect of the Civilization series, I think it's one thing that there's a limited number of playable civilizations, and another that the entire game is built around playing an European-style superpower.

In some Civs, there's even the option to have a "New World" continent that's unsettled at start so you can have a proper colonization spree (whereas in normal civ you typically won't have low-tech natives to exploit)

I think these are acceptable simplifications for game mechanics, but should be acknowledged as such.

David Coffron

Aw did I miss CK2 discussion? Dangit

@kviiri The Holy Roman Empire was not entirely German and not every "historically German" region was a part of the HRE

KorvinStarmast

@BESW Neat video, thanks! :)

kviiri

@DavidCoffron I know, but neither of those really changes the weirdness of its presence

Although it's still quite low on the Civ style of weirdness... in Civs 1 to 3, you'd have to research Alphabet first and then Writing... what would you do with the alphabet before knowing how to write?

BESW

@kviiri Calculus.

KorvinStarmast

He's wrong about chess, though, it can end in a stalemate?

David Coffron

9:45 PM

@kviiri Not to mention they used Charlemagne as the ledaer of the HRE which makes no sense

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast True

KorvinStarmast

@DavidCoffron Uh, didn't he start it, or was it called that after he died? (Memory fuzzy on that one)

David Coffron

He did start it, but it wasn't what most people think of when they hear HRE

(and it was named the HRE later)

kviiri

Yeah

KorvinStarmast

Really? When I see/hear HRE, that's where I start, though in time in mutated into a Hapsburg thing .... and much other oddness in between ...

David Coffron

9:47 PM

I think Otto I of Saxony was the first "Holy Roman Empire" by title

KorvinStarmast

Prolly right .... I'd need to go back and find my old time line notes ...

David Coffron

Before that it was more like Frankish kings ruling over Western remnants of the Roman Empire

(and Italians later)

KorvinStarmast

And in Charlemagne's case, laying a can of whoopass on the Saxons ....

doppelgreener

@KorvinStarmast Glad I could contribute.

KorvinStarmast

We had the darnedest time in a 1e campaign trying to get an HRE feel to work, and then the DM had something like Charlemagne's Paladin's come down to where we were to "civilize" us. We were fighting against any number of Paladins and high level Fighting Men .... hey, wait, aren't we the good guys? In their eyes, we weren't. Made for some very interesting battles and decision to "get the heck outta here!"

David Coffron

9:53 PM

@KorvinStarmast Well yeah, but I was more impressed with his success against the Gascons and Basque. They had powerful backing while the Saxons were mostly on their own and the Carolingian Empire was already a powerhouse

(Then again The Abassids did a great deal distracting the other Iberian powers)

KorvinStarmast

I was under the impression that the Basques contributed to his defeat at Ronceval .... is that revisionist history, or well documented? Been years since I read up on that.

Yuuki

The real reason why Charlemagne was defeated was because he tried to go for a Domination victory when the French are clearly better suited for a Culture victory.

KorvinStarmast

@Yuuki Heh, good crossover to Civ ... :)

David Coffron

@KorvinStarmast True, during an uprising later IIRC. But his initial conquest of Vasconia was a powerful play

KorvinStarmast

yeah. Empire building takes a bit of power. The longest OD&D campaign I was in continued after I left. We had gotten to the point of building armies ... I heard later that it became a bit of a new game ... battles between armies, which D&D doesn't do well. (They used the swords and spells supplement IIRC)

It looks like later versions of Traveller get into empire building, but I never got to play those.

kviiri

10:01 PM

It's kind of weird to think of these ancient empires and the sheer complexity of managing one without the highly advanced systems we have for record-keeping and communication.

Joel Harmon

@KorvinStarmast Thanks for the feedback on (and styling edit for) my Devils answer. Was there something in particular I did there that I can do more of in future answers?

David Coffron

@KorvinStarmast Empire building is easy. Just get the Charlemagne DLC and start as Leon. You can pick up 3 kingdom titles super easy.

Joel Harmon

I worry that the best part of that answer was half cribbed from kryan; I hadn't realized how similar they all were before I read his answer and looked into it.

@kviiri I'm astounded they did all of that without double-entry bookkeeping.

kviiri

@JoelHarmon So true

David Coffron

@JoelHarmon Mad props to the Roman Censors (highly underappreciated) ;)

Joel Harmon

10:05 PM

The basics of administration through delegation seem pretty straightforward. I recall (faulty memory alert here) that Alexander's approach was to mostly leave local cultures intact, just collect modest taxes and borrow the young men for a few years' worth of military service. The Romans as well, now that I think of it.

@DavidCoffron But what have the Romans ever done for us? (lately, that is!)

David Coffron

@JoelHarmon Calcutta is from Rome

This song of his is super catchy: youtube.com/watch?v=pOKaXSyeKaA

BESW

Quipu

Quipus, also known as khipus or talking knots, were recording devices historically used in a number of cultures and particularly in the region of Andean South America. Similar systems were used by the ancient Chinese and native Hawaiians, though this article specifically deals with the most familiar Inca system, and knotted string records are often generically referred to in English as quipus after the Inca term. A quipu usually consisted of colored, spun, and plied/waxed thread or strings made from cotton or camelid fiber. For the Inca, the system aided in collecting data and keeping records,...

Census data!