Hi. I forgot to include the citation for the text about Spengler's academic integrity and voting record, which, in specific was from this website, which itself cites a particular edition of Decline and a biography: campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/oswald-spengler/ I did not have the means to look at those editions but I have no reason to believe that paragraph lied to me (or any of us, I suppose).
If you're concerned about it, just check any edition of the cited work. Chances are one specific paragraph wouldn't have changed. It might be on a slightly different page though.
I know you're a bleeding heart liberal but even me who lives in Africa feels far less for you, your kind and even less for your brothers the Africans and yes there was vacant land do not believe me? ok read about the genocide called the Mfecane by all means. it was so bad that it did leave the land vacant and barren.
I don't get why people keep vomitting this shit. They are not playable because being able to lead a nation of people who are by definition "decentralized" is a contradiction. They exist, they are a culture, here is where they are on the map, but they care little for european definitions of civilization. They aren't gonna be playable, its like asking if every NPC in GTA will be playable.
@@BlueHawkPictures17 have you played paradox games before? It doesn’t matter if they are decentralized you can still figure out a way to play as them and centralize the nation and it’ll cost $20-$40. Just because a nation is decentralized doesn’t mean it is impossible to make it playable 😂😂
I think the true simulation present in Paradox games isn't the simulation of historical events, but the simulation of historical mindsets. This is something I first noticed when playing Crusader Kings. When I was in my history classes, I looked back on the Hapsburgs and Henry VIII and all the kings of Europe with a lot of judgement. I thought they must have been psychopaths, ones who did all their unsavory things because they went wild with the power of their state being at their beck and call. But then you sit down and try to play the ruling dynasty of Hungary for 600 years-- and you suddenly get it?? Why people married their siblings, called crusades, tortured and executed, didn't give a shit about average people-- by putting you in the decision making chair, Paradox games MAKE you re-evaluate your modern lens on the past. And I've definitely had times where I stop and realize that wait.... EU4 doesn't really have an explicitly stated goal? And oh lord I just killed like 500,000 Ming Chinese, not to mention half as many of MY OWN COUNTRYMEN, all for a handful of provinces?! Good God! Is this REALLY all worth it, just to build a "great nation" on the backs of the dead? And... that's a cool open question to ask yourself as a result of gameplay! It's the difference between judging the actions of a stranger who died 400 years ago, and judging the choices you literally just made. So I think the Vicky 3 approach of saying to the player "Oh yes there are nations here, but decentralized and open for the taking!" is actually quite smart. Because if you DO decide to partake, then you do it to get a leg up or to prevent someone else from threatening your state-- you're never under the illusion that nobody is there and you're doing no wrong. But you're also in a position where, given the circumstances and the powers that be, you can JUSTIFY that wrong in service of your own self interests. That change of mindset doesn't (and shouldn't) make us blindly agree with the past... but it does perhaps make it easier for us to understand it on its own footing.
I would also agree with this comment and add apon this, As "Narrative" of the game in GUI text form also feels like the mindset of the history In Eu4, all actions you take are considered by the GUI text (kind of like a narrator) as a Positive action with a flair of self-centered imperialism When your ally joins your war: "X nation has joined our invincible armies into battle!" When an ally breaks an alliance: "The treacherous X has broken our alliance with our noble nation." every action you take is considered pragmatic, noble, and ingenious. and every action taken by foreign nations are actions of obvious ploy, greed, and immorality Victoria 3 supports this by it's main core mechanic, Prestige. A measure of how prestigious your nation is, and it makes you mimic the historical great powers at the time's callousness. Support the poor when they're starving? I'd rather not lose 12 prestige, so... Colonial cruelty that might become a scandal? Cover it up before we lose prestige! Inching towards a Great War with multiple great powers because you won't back down on a claim for a couple miles of land? I'd rather kill millions of my own citizens than lose face in the global community!
when i killed all those portuguese and south america tribe native in eu4, i paused for a little and think in my mind. is it worthy to kill all of those people for mere profit pf my nation? build up all those money from these people misery? killing people for their homeland so your people can live in it? after 30 seconds of thinking.....i resume the slaughter and continue to colombia and mexico (yes it's worth it)
The games lack many of the payoffs for being a large country, especially in a world where people do not care about annexation as much. They would be hard/impossible to implement without people getting mad for what they suggest. The only nations that big are modern and no one can agree on why/what good/bad things with did/do/will do. Also really important religious things like making Catholicism without a set hierarchy and destroying/letting be destroyed the Kaaba to avoid annoying religious blocks pushing whatever random nonsense they just came up with would be too controversial. Although why the Abbasid Caliphate is not a formable nation in Eu4, despite still existing and having been one of the most important nations in world history ever is beyond me.
I always felt that Victoria 2 was so focused on the Great and Secondary powers in Europe that Africa was intentionally only partially filled out to represent how it was viewed by a lot of Europeans at the time. This does seem to match my knowledge of African exploration by Europeans, which didnt really take off in earnest until after Victoria II's start date. Either that or they just ran out of budget and having a developed africa was an afterthought which never came to fruition.
I generally side that it was a conscious choice of lens rather than a developer resources constraint- and I do understand the lens they chose, because it facilitates the euro focused gameplay. I think Victoria 3 has found a pretty ideal balance (and has the budget to create more nuanced systems). You’re very right about the primary and secondary focus- the dream of the game is never to just “do okay” get sphered, and not have access to half the mechanics, after all.
It seems odd that Victoria 2 didn’t really represent the African states that existed historically or in EU IV. I think it could have perpetuated a view among those not as historically educated as others on the continent that was inaccurate.
@@durianjaykin3576 you’re right that EU IV is very Eurocentric (perhaps unsurprising considering the name) but with the DLC especially it’s does a better job than Victoria but the bar is low
I mean, to a degree with any historical game, Eurocentrism is necessary to a degree. The reality is, in the roughly 100 year timespan of the game, you could take the God-Emperor of Mankind, give him control of Ethiopia, and he wouldn't be able to match the power of the British Empire, Germany, or France. I think Vic 2 took the shortcut of neglecting central Africa because it wasn't really economically vital to the functioning of the 19th century great power politics, except for the prestige of African colonies. None of the African colonies were ever remotely profitable, and didn't really contribute to the overall power of their overlords except as occasionally useful naval bases and for reprovisioning (and later refueling) of naval vessels. Raw materials were just so much more easily collected in the Americas, India and Southeast Asia at the time.
I always felt that the "land for grabs" mentality the game makes you adopt is intentional. After all you're (usually) playing as a colonial power who historically had this view of the world and didn't give a hoot about the natives. The scramble for Africa really was a race against your rivals to secure as much land and resources as possible. I feel like vic2 simulates this mentality very well.
@@SketchyHippopotamus Why would it need me to question it? It's a video game. I play it for fun. When I click a button to form a protectorate and instantly see the borders of my chunky African colony grow, I'm not thinking in my head "colonialism was justified". I just get the dopamine rush and think about how profitable my factories are going to become. Same thing when I capture Constantinople as the Turks in Age of Empires 2. It doesn't make me think it was a good thing. It's just really fun to play and experience it through the format of the video game.
@@SketchyHippopotamus Maybe it's just a game, a game where you colonize Africa. Or did you want a game over screen with a giant "YOU'RE RASCIST AND IMPERIALIST, BEGONE FOUL IMPERIALIST, I SHALL HAVE NO MORE OF THEE!" It's a historic game set in the 1800's, if Africa isn't conquered or it's somehow a major power, it's suddenly a fantasy game more than anything.
The African continent was empty to make it easier and more accessible for the AI to colonize it. It was a mechanic necessity. Not to mention the AI was very bad at naval invading foreign lands
It would be nice if they could just make the AI work properly, and vic 3 is actually suppose have the AI control your military exclusively, which is fucking scary.
To be fair accuracy isn’t the bread and butter of these games. It’s common to see someone like GB conquer all of Zanzibar or Spain getting all of West Africa before Europeans were remotely involved in Africa in EU4.
People whining about Berber Coring Costs and the lack of Trade Companies being sock puppets for European Countries for eating Africa/India/China (before Vicky 2 as well) really... well... showed that the player base doesn't care much about history. Is it any wonder why Paradox gave up on the historical mapbook in favor of two-to-four starts?
I am pretty sure the reason why Africa was so empty in Vicky 2 was because PDX is lazy, even european stuff was barely accurate. Later mods like HPM and HFM did a way better job and also populated most of Africa with states (and a way to conquer them without spending infamy).
It would be pointless to play as a tribal nation in Africa because you would have a Stone Age tribe fighting off machine guns and dreadnoughts, it’s not worth the effort of implementing.
@@GelloWello Those countries were either ancient like Ethiopia and Egypt and were only behind the Europeans by a generation or two and the Boers already had European technology, they had a base which could be built upon which tribes do not have. It's possible a tribe in EU4 could modernize because the technological gap isn't overly advanced (medieval to colonial) but the gap a stone age tribe would have to overcome is impossible, you would spend the entire game trying to reach the level of a Napoleonic nation before 1900 and there is no guarantee of success or independence because even a minor nation like Belgium or Portugal would steamroll.
The entire point of making the region "empty" is to slow down conquest of the region. I'm not sure why this makes people so angry it's a game mechanic and it plays out much better than what we currently have in eu4. Unless they are going to model the negative aspects of those regions malaria/isolated populations/limited trade connections it's going to just make things worse.
"Unless they are going to model..." the malaria, at least, I am pretty sure they said they were going to model for expeditions. Which does make me wonder if this is more akin to terra incognita in EU4 where you need to send expeditions first. Big difference is it would seemingly have these groups unplayable at all, unlike EU4 where you just can't interact yet. As for isolated populations, it looks like a lot of similar mechanics will be implemented.
well also there is little info and the political organisation pattern doesn't match that of other 'clickable' things, and the mechanics reflect more settlement however, it is also inaccurate bc obviously there was interaction with population, centralised centres of power rwanda etc
@@clintharrisjr.6999 It ain't misrepresntation if there really was no big population center relevant enough to be represented as a nation on those places. Also, they take a lot of land to represent those decentralized places, which makes it funny to see the whole Patagonia seem like a united population before the Desert Conquest xD
I think it has more to do with the impracticalities of inputting literally thousands of individual tribal states. But I think the Victoria Realism mod did a good job including major supra-tribal indigenous powers in Africa and North America that were not in the vanilla game.
well we don't even know what these tribal states would be at different times, and simulating their itneraction would be more difficult and would still be v different
@@mareksicinski3726 Okay, everyone brings this point up, but when they do it doesn’t seem they know all too much about the layout of contemporary African states (ie. not counting the people you could actually count as tribal) in spite of it. If you looked into it just briefly you’d find only the most obvious parts of the continent left empty of state societies.
Self centered perspective is a common falling point of most people. I have no issues with viewing history through the lenses of your own culture and country history,and it often leads to pretty funny results. As an example, I'm Portuguese, and my entire history class consisted of stone age tribalism to bronze age to Roman Empire to Portugal. The rest is just Portugal. The Holy Roman Empire wasn't mentioned once
That is because you don't have infinite time to teach kids about history, making sure they know what their country has done and some of the big things other countries have done is most important. The HRE as a feudal state is not that intresting or special except for the reformation, which didn't directly spring up in portugal in any meaningfull sense. I see no other reason to mention the HRE in the average Portugese person's understanding of history.
@@bgs2004 To add to that if you have ever talked to any person not particularly interested in history that got through high school history. You can testify that even the little we teach them quickly falls off and they probably only remember the stuff they saw in movie and very broad strokes about general history.
@@bgs2004 Yes, precisely my point. Humans have have to manage limited resources, including time, so it makes no sense to dwell on things that have no bearing either on pragmatic action or personal identity. The HRE probably matters a great deal to Germans, but not to me. Same way the Fifth Empire doesn't matter to them, but it does to me. I guess this reality sucks for Africans, because nationalism didn't have its origins in there and their cultures are still largely influenced by tribal and clan ties rather than national ones. Hell, given how arbitrary the borders of African countries are, a lot of them probably only exist, at least in their present state, by the West's influence. So it makes perfect sense that they'd define their own identity based on their relation to the Western world.
@@Swenthorian In Central Florida, the Spanish are briefly mentioned then we fast forward to the Civil War. Ironic that we don't talk about the Spanish where I live despite it being a majority Hispanic community.
I think it's kinda weird how people generally treat Africa. Sure the Vic2 map is too empty, but you can't expect it to function exactly like Europe because Africa is fucking massive and its geography overall is very different from that Europe, among other regions. It has a lot of regions with a merciless climate, fauna or landscape and we can expect a place like this to work exactly like every other region in the world, for better or for worse.
It's okay to view the world from a European perspective. Every civilization makes sense of the world through their own subjective point of view, which makes the world more interesting.
@@Jay_Johnson hopefully from the Victorian perspective, the setting would imply that. Besides, todays perspective is so inconclusive and sensitive that the gameplay would be simply unenjoyable.
@@Jay_Johnson for the sake of a game based on the Victorian Era I hope from the Victorian lense. Not to mention gameplay wise lesser nations and tribal states little only serve the purpose of being food for major powers, and Flashpoint zones for major war. Having Africa full of its historically accurate tribal states would cause it to be colonized at a ridiculous rate, and not have land claim Flashpoint that break out in total war.
@@frogking5573 those are specific issues with EU4 and if you applied the same ahistorical version that vic 2 uses. This is an attempt to make the game more realistic of a simulation. You can get around that with a CK3 style de jure and de facto map. Sort of an extension of the spheres map mode and including mechanics for challenging that de jure map such as with Britain taking portugals unfulfilled claims on Zimbabwe Zambia and Malawi. Ideally I’d like a more detailed game when it comes to indirect rule maybe in a DLC where you can continue to play the game even as a protectorate of a European power. Be it the Indian or Arabian princely states. Egypt never ceased to exist, it was just under British occupation. The power struggles of control between a local government and their European ‘protector’ is an interesting and unexplored concept for time period.
Great video but I feel left hungry for more now. Don't be afraid to make longer videos. I got here thanks to your post on the Vic3 subreddit, thanks for sharing it there I will definitely watch your other stuff.
I've only got one more for the series this is part of and after that I might pivot to a weird video about the Fable series, but I will absolutely return to GSGs and Historical Strategy pretty often, and definitely when Victoria 3 comes out.
Honestly I don't see a problem with eurocentrism in the west, it reflects the civilizational behaviour of the west. It talks about how European civilization expand to the world. In Eastern countries like China, they also have a separate Chinese history as a distinct subject from world history. The way they teach Chinese history also reflect its civilization Characteristic, as Chinese history are seen as very distinct from world history. Enthasising the isolationist nature of the Chinese civilization.
@@michadomeracki5910 This is part of the American globalists agenda. They are playing this diversity and inclusion shit to make step in establishing a one world government. Because if every other culture are presented to be included in the American culture, people of other culture will accept American subjugation. Only if Europe put European culture first and don't try to include every other culture as part of European culture. We can have a multipolar democratic world order.
I’d have to say I really do think you miss the point of Vicky2. It’s the Victorian Era from the European perspective. Not adding detail to Africa was kinda the point. The game is best experienced through a western power, which in turn viewed all of Africa as one big empty land-grab. Giving Africa plenty of playable states may of course be fun for gameplay, but does begin to feel rather silly in the 1800s’ historical context. The reason Africans weren’t invited to the Scramble for Africa is because they were not respectable from a military perspective. Our wokeism can’t blur us from the reality that African technology and institutions were hilariously behind the times.
I counter this with the mods for the game which present many nominally playable states especially in west Africa and it actually better represents the colonisation in my opinion.
You should see Europa Universalis 4 when it first came out 2013, before all the updates and DLC’s, Africa was just as bare and empty there as it was in Victoria 2.
I know the center of Africa was made up of several wastelands that were fairly large, but from what I remember, and am seeing looking it up, there was at least a few countries in West Africa. Most notable among the absence, to me, is always any remnant of a post Malinean state or Jolof rump states. They were more than just villages and all.
@@RosencreutzzzI just like to remember how far Eu4 has changed over the years and how different the map was from the start with Africa being one of them. North and South America were especially weird too in 2013, there were only 3 Native American tribes that were just blobed next to each other, same with Meso-America, and Inca was there all alone in South America.
@@brandonlyon730 EU4 still has a problem with Native Americans tbh. There are a lot of major state level tribes that are at least acknowledged as provinces with significant populations and some with cultures but they aren't actually in the game for some reason. Most notable being the Tainos, they have a lot of provinces with their culture in game and historically had multiple states and there are events you can get that deal with them but the entire Caribbean and Florida are just empty.
@@hyperion3145 It was kind of necessary with the way colonization works in EU4. It would be hard to add in all the tribes without filling the map making picking the colonization idea groups pointless when theirs barely any land to colonize with a colonist. Similar with Victoria 2 with 80% Africa being empty for the sake of getting the way colonization works to properly set up the African Scrabble. Hopefully it eventually changes in EU5 where they overhaul the colonization system.
@@brandonlyon730 yeah I was disappointed they didn't overhaul colonisation in leviathan. As they kept adding more and more natives to the new world then needed to nerf colonisation or at least conquest. The fact they still haven't fixed Europeans conquering tribal land not colonising into it really annoys me as it is such a simple fix.
Though Spengler was not the most clear representative of this, he certainly played a large role in forming an idea that you did not explicitly mention unfortunately. There was a large trend in what could be called the "reactionary" ideology, where they were rarely, if ever, supportive of 19th century colonial ventures by their countries. Many of them believed that they should much rather care for the internal contradictions and issues that were brewing under the surface in their countries. This led to a later development that could be called "ethno-pluralism", where, as a reaction to the universalizing and totalizing hegemonic tendencies of capitalistic liberal democracy asserting themselves over every country in the world, the idea was formed, that each group of people being allowed to develop themselves in accordance to their own cultures and customs instead of having to conform to a universal system of doctrines and rules. This is fundamentally why Spengler's views are not exactly Eurocentric, they can be applied to all civilizations. The bit before the outro is honestly too dismissive. One does not need to be reactionary or fatalistic to recognize that we are living in a state of profound confusion, in most countries that can be called western by the definition laid out in the beginning of the video. This understanding can even be found in the works of post-modernists, where they criticize the last vestiges of modernist optimism. The people of Europe and the English-speaking colonial nations don't know what they believe or what their role in the world should be. This nihilistic chasm is precisely where the appeal of "reaction" comes from, it offers a direction that is familiar, something they recognize as part of their own culture and heritage, it provides a strong bulwark against nihilism and ideals that go beyond the petty self-interest and narcissism of the age. Dismissing it out of hand does not provide an answer to any of this.
@@geraldfreibrun3041 first rule that there are no solutions in an imperfect world only trade offs. Think of a slave escaping his master and what does he have outside? nothing but a desert of confusion and likely damning his children and next to the same fate until that crucible forges a new people.
@@riverman6462 Socrates would've laughed Sartre out of the room. At no other point in history were existentialists taken seriously, as they should not be.
Two additions to your story from someone that studied the book for a thesis: There is actually a second volume of the book that was published in 1922. Spengler wasn't as pessimistic in the first volume (which was published during the war), but this all changed with the second volume. In short, he stated that total war was the only way to conclude the rivalry between the only two remaining variations of Western civilization that still existed: the German and Anglo-saxon. Moreover, the distinction between culture and civilization doesn't come out of nowhere. In this time period, there was actually a huge debate between German intellectuals on the different concepts of culture and civilization, which started with Kant. Read the German Wikipedia on civilization for this.
i must say i like the scramble of africa how it is presented by some vic2 mods the best, because the rid Africa from the empty state in vic2, while still having the micromanaging aspect of having to conquer these nations or having to go through a longterm diplomatic strategy to first sphere them and then having to wait for the event to make them a protectorate pop up. Really gives you the feel of a race against your rivals, while the effort of colonizing becomes more than just a click, just like in real history, where it wasn't sure that easy to conquer the whole of africa.
"The gameplay is prioritizing the western experience" - no shit? In a game about industrialization and economy, during a time mostly only Europe and the Americas industrialized? Colour me fucking surprised And miss me with that shit about erasing people, it's a fucking 12 y.o. game dude go look at CK2 on release and tell me how many people should get offended CK2 didn't represent them correctly. This is literally the most pointless video I watched, the simple fact is that it's an old game and represents the period where Europe was the unmatched hegemon of the world, hell both China and India were taught that but somehow it seems to complicated for online intellectuals, also too much philosophy in a video about a damn video game lmao bro calm down
If you think that the video was commenting on whether Europe was powerful at that point in history, then you missed the entire point. The question isn't what, but rather how things are represented.
Bruh, I dont think Victoria 2 present Africa with blank map would cause people to think it's really a unsettled land wait for colonist to take it. Victoria 2 is kinda hard strategy game, the one who play it would have much more brain to understand that.
No, it being a hard strategy game doesnt make sure of that. HoI is a hard strategy game and that community has struggled with stupid nazis , all the time. And as you can see in this very comment section there are tons of people that misrepresent or ignore africa to reduce it all to basically uncontested land.
5:52, No, that isn't a problem. History wasn't equal, and people should just deal with it. Relevant figures should get their spot in games, regardless of geographical location.
Relevant to whom? You think nothing was going on outside Europe at the time all those Civ leaders were alive? For most of history, Europe hasn't been especially relevant - the Indian Ocean is where the good stuff happened
It'd make sense if he wanted places like Asia to be better represented, etc. But Africa? Most of Sub-Saharan Africa didn't even have written language or wheels, those were hunter-gatherers who didn't even record their own history, they had no business ever rivaling the Europeans at the time, if they were weak in game it'd be historically accurate.
@@nerdsoft9964 >For most of history, Europe hasn't been especially relevant. Perhaps, but during this time period europe was the most important area by far. The industrial revolution and the golden age of scientific discovery. The modern world was created by europe during this time period and the non-european nations for the most part were at the whim of European empires.
@@incognito-px3dz Yeah, but the timestamp above is specifically complaining about Civ, saying that a game which tries to portray civilisations from all across world history shouldn't have such a high ratio of European/Western civs compared to everyone else. At present, I think Civ VI is slightly under 50/50 Western/everyone else, with fewer Western civs depending on where exactly you draw the line from Western to non-western.
I hate when philosophers use convoluted and complex sentences and less common words. It's as if they just want to show off their wringing skills to prove how smart they are. I can understand when some philosophers write complex sentences like lawyer would in order to cover their point, but even that can go too far. People like Stephen Hawkins or Einstein (I know physicists not philosophers) partially became famous, because they used simple language to describe completed phenomenons and concepts.
I’d offer a bit of pushback here in that jargon and academic language are very useful for speaking between people with established terms-creating a shorthand for entire concepts and not having to start every conversation with a discussion of free will or whatever… but Spengler does not do that. In fact he muddies things, as with the “Apollonian” example- he cites Nietzsche as a massive inspiration and then used the term to mean something entirely different and it’s like…why are you doing this?? That said, I do also think that some writers get trapped within their obtuse language or genuinely don’t expect their writing to leave academia, or perhaps expect it to trickle down somehow. I don’t know how often people ever try and “sound smart”- I’m sure it happens but I would default towards them being more…caught up in the language than tedious for the sake of word count or whatever. I do massively respect the writers who can “translate” their own work from academic to “pedestrian”(for lack of a better term).
I thought this as well until my friend let me watch some of his uni philosophy lectures and the level of layering of concepts means that cannot reasonably describe concepts without condensing the concepts it is based of into terms. As a Biochemist it is done for exactly the same reasons in science. For example chemical reaction mechanisms can be complicated but we just name them after their discoverer so rather than having to explain all of the individual steps I can just say it is a Pictet-Spengler Reaction and move on to what I actually want to talk about.
I'm interested in seeing what they do for Victoria 3, because eu4 did do quite a bit for non European nations being powerful. It leans to the European side after thr 1700s though like it did in reality, but they did try, and it is still fun and interesting to play with an American tribe, or an African nation or a rising Asian power. I'm hoping they fill out the map as it should be based on the reality of the situation in the next game, we'll see by the end of the month what the base game is and what they'll leave for dlc.
This is a very bad "video essay" 40000 views were surprising, I tought that quality was really declining on youtube. Then I opened the channel saw the little views on other videos and it made more sense.
Africa was populated with states back in EU3. In fact, playing as an African state, you'd be encouraged to develop and "colonize" nearby "stateless" provinces earlier than the Europeans would arrive. And, when they would, to Westernize your tech by going through painful reforms.
Interesting that a video that talks all about "framing," the conclusion is framed in a way that presumes "reactionary fatalism" to be false. Just as Africa wasn't truly empty, there wouldn't be so many reactionaries if there wasn't a shred of truth in it.
Ironic bias is always my favorite. I love it when people are guilty of the exact thing they criticize. We all do it to some degree and I always find it genuinely fascinating.
To whoever made this video: Please, for the sake of your own soul, do not copy academic sentence structure. It's not clever, it's not fun. The point of this kind of talk is, more often than not, to mask the fact that you're either not saying anything new, or you're trying to hide the fact that you don't know what you're talking about.
No its just a linguistic mode. It is a way of fitting into the establishment and an expected use of language that varies by field. Which I find to be a bad thing but its not intentionally written to mask anything. For a video essay it is useless and alienates an audience, being detrimental in trying to communicate clearly. The style of writing doesn't hide anything and shit writing is still shit writing its just written in a different convention. The real way to hide shit and feign knowledge is to claim you will look into doing further studies in the future, simply labelling your findings as preliminary or exploratory. Academic writing is just a way to signal to other academics that you know what the expected norms of the field are, with most just doing it subconsciously as reading papers slowly warps their style of writing through osmosis.
Obviously not the direct topic of this video, but i started decline of the West once and I was very impressed with some of the initial ideas, specifically the cultural/civilizational conceptions of time and history itself being central to understanding the cultures and civilizations. Like it's really easy to project ones own base level conceptions into historical people, but realizing that people viewed history and time and their place in it drastically differently across time and space really helps nuance the decisions and practices taken in history. Idk if he was 100% accurate but it's a good factor to keep in mind.
Idk when i saw it i was sure he was smoking weed or something, he got ideas some are good but i feel like he knows what he's saing only half the time .
@@Adam-wg2rf yeah exactly, like idk if the ancient Egyptians actually viewed time as a very momentary present bookended by infinities of future and past necessarily or that medieval euro people viewed themselves as inhabiting the waning days of a sort of dying world(which I believe is true though) where new technology or prosperity was not a promise of the future, but the idea that people don't/didn't view time as an orderly march forward or that history is knowable or that the future will contain significant changes is important to understand why people did/do things.
How would having 300 tribes that WILL be steamrolled by even mediaeval nations really benefit the game? It’s just easier and better to leave it uncolonized land because it won’t be by the end of the game.
@Phillis "Dick" Black There is a massive difference between fighting off Turks which nearly happened and fighting a pre dreadnought with stone arrows. Constantinople nearly held off and the Turks could have been broken in Europe, the Pope was building momentum for a 10th Crusade which could be increased with a victory at Constantinople, The Order of The Dragon (Skanderbeg, Vlad The Impaler, Vuk Lazarević, Konstantin and Fruzhin) was rampaging across Ottoman Europe which would have been disastrous for the Turks. A tribe in Africa has no chance at stopping the Europeans, even victories like Isandlwana required an incredible numbers advantage and incompetence by the Europeans which only resulted in a fleeting victory by the next day. There would be no way to make playing a tribe fun or possible because you would spend all game trying to modernize to a Napoleonic level while Europe is devolving howitzers and tanks. The rest of the world is playing a grand strategy game while Africa is still playing a survival game. Diversity brings no benefit here either because every tribe would have the same problem of trying to make "The British Grenadiers March" stop playing.
why wouldn't you? it would be a more realistic experience both from european and african persepective. fun from games like these comes from a historical experience
@@Zen-rw2fz It wouldn't add anything, there would be almost no fight for Europeans because their massive technological gap. In Victoria II there are mods that add tribes but they are easily over run by a few brigades and only act as free colonial regions that you don't have to risk getting into competition with other colonial powers for.
@@coatofarms4439 do remember how the army has been completely revamped by know the game is more about politics than it is about conquering everything with your infinite ammounts of units. it makes a colonialism more realistic.
@@Zen-rw2fz That has been the greatest and most foolish mistake paradox has made and will also make it even more impossible to play in Africa because they specifically said it is only possible to win with superior industry and technology which Africa has neither at the start of the game and realistic colonialism WILL involve all of Africa being taken by Europeans. You can easily tell the massive power imbalance when Bismarck is able to establish a congress to allow Europeans to make claims largely before Europeans would ever set foot on 80 percent of the territory and there was no challenge by the natives that changed the results.
I think you oversimplify Spengler to a fault. His belief is a German nationalist one, he defends and romanticizes German history (in the Goethian rhetoric) and that Germany's progression into a Protestant Industrialized nation was due to a superior cultural direction than the dominantly catholic/orthodox and colonialist nature of the rest of Europe. That if German culture was to be minimized and contained, it would be a cultural detriment to Europe and the world. Spangler isnt saying "Eurocenticism is wrong", he is saying "A Eurocentric view which aborts the German cultural progression is wrong". That the unification of German states due to external (European) security pressues ended the 'German cultural period'. Spengler blames the rest of Europe for all of Germany's problems.... Something that German intellectuals at the time unfortunately embraced.. "Germany is right and all of Europe is wrong, we must free Germany and end the current order in Europe.... for culture" ^Sound like a certain person you read about in history class?
While I agree Spengler, like 90% of the intellects of the *fin de siècle*, was extremely nationalistic, and therefore still heavily embraced his German nation, I doubt one can really call him proto-fascist, because he puts the main focus on the German culture, rather than the German ethnicity. To Spengler, what made Germany so great was the fact that it had brought forth great minds in music, philosophy and art, and the fact that Europe now was squabbling with each other for power was a sign (for him) that that phase of culture was now gone, and after this only decline could come. That also explains both why he decided to vote the NSDAP in 1932 (after all, that was a party who recognized that decline and proposed a change of course, and he probably was not fully unaffected by the Dolchstoss theory either) and why that same party decided to burn his works for being against the party (as squabbling for power is the only thing that party was for, you can imagine books telling people such behaviour leads to decline doesn't sit well with the 'take back what's ours' message)
@@the_tactician9858 If his beliefs sound fascists... and he votes fascist, he is at the very least proto-fascist. Saying he was betrayed by the party he voted for isnt an exception, consider the Nazi Brownshirts. Many of whom were purged once the Nazi party gained power, did them being purged by fascists make them less fascist? Certainly not.
@@dimitriantanov3150 Still, Spengler did not advocate for racial superiority nor did he call for a crusade against other cultures or races. I struggle to see how he is more nationalistic than the average European from his time, and what can be defined as proto-fascism rather than chauvinism and fascism itself.
@@the_tactician9858 If you struggle to see how Spengler differs from other nationalists at the time, consider the following points: - A typical nationalist at the time desired for their ethnic lands to be apart of their ethno-state. -A typical nationalist, at the time, supported autarky from their neighboring countries. Now, consider Spengler: -Spengler has little to do with advocating an ethnostate -Spengler has little to do with advocating economic policy -Spengler DOES however advocate for Germany to remilitarize and ofr its foreign policy goals to be a complete upheaval of the 'European Order", for Germany to reduce and diminish the great powers of Europe, until Germany could be insulated and secure enough to re-enter a cultural period. ^^Do you see the difference between Spengler and a typical nationalist? Not only did he vote Nazi, but everything about his political statements lean in favor of the Nazi's latter.. less initially expressed goals, to goto war with all of Europe. For sake of "culture".
@@dimitriantanov3150 You make some good points here. I think I agree that he has proto-fascist elements in his reasoning, and as such we should be mindful of that with his works, but I think that is not necessarily his main point he is trying to make.
Conquering states is a million times faster than colonization in vik3, if there were no states then it would be basically impossible to conquer all of Africa
the second option is the more likely. to look at history you need to have a lens to look at it and that lens can only look so broadly because of regional and cultural limitations. like for example, im brazilian and we pass trough eurasian history quite fast mainly because of the second wave of immigrants that came by the end of the 19th century before diving deep into south america history but still really focused on the happenings of brazil with events around the hispanic america being mainly big side notes. to be able to look at history as it probably actualy was you need multiple lenses from multiple cultures.
Yeah for example in the video he contrasts a eurocentric lens vs a realistic when it loads the term for a "more correct" Youd spend more time defining terms then to actually make any sense for example dark africans wouldnt be classed as a geopolitical states at all Basically he is using a eurocentric lens to view a non eurocentric lens to view a eurocentric lens to view a non eurocentric lens
@@knownothing3364 "Youd spend more time defining terms then to actually make any sense for example dark africans wouldnt be classed as a geopolitical states at all" What does this section mean exactly? Sokoto were geopolitical state
@@vercot7000 i forgot the great sokoto how could i Sokoto is known historically for bring peace stability and freedom to their new empire with vast colonies stretching from china to america and great social innovations such as common law and consitutionalosm
Good video, although I couldn't really grasp a single, straightforward conclusion from what you discussed. Perhaps this reflects Spengler's work the best given your depiction. As an EU4 player, these are my thoughts based on what the video shared. I love how Paradox is moving towards simulating historical "forces" that shaped our real-world history. These forces do not make anything "inevitable" persay, but they represent the various benefits and drawbacks that weight history in certain directions. You as the player are dropped into this environment, and you must take advantage of the benefits that your political entity, ruler, or nation has in the fight against others, who have their own advantages (which may be greater than yours). By populating the rest of the world with their own peoples, structures, technology, geography, and political situations, Paradox is doing a better job of simulating these forces. When a land is empty, there is no entity to represent the situation of people from that region. It's just passive, like a piece of wood with no will of its own. Even in the era of European colonization and imperialism, nothing passive like this existed. For example, the Spaniards didn't take down the Aztecs by just being "awesome Europeans" or showing up and impressing the natives into submission; they had numerous definable advantages (technology, regional novelty, group organization, etc.). The Aztecs also had their own advantages, like having the home turf and a far more numerous fighting force. The Aztecs lost in part because the Conquistadors took advantage of the Aztec's unpopularity and political frailty. This was not inevitable: the conquistadors could have been wiped out if the Aztecs had managed to break up the coalition or isolate and ambush the conquistadors. However, this is not how that played out. With more detail, there arises more ways to win and more ways to fail. The rest of Europe's imperialist projects follow this pattern. Europeans consistently took advantage of local situations. Yes, sometimes they didn't need to because their advantages weighted it so far in their favor, but it never went to the point of "inevitability." This is true of every political and social entity from around the world. I like it when instead of barring a "primitive" nation from doing something, there is instead a game mechanic rooted in history that makes it difficult, sometimes really difficult, but still possible to do it. I like it when each region has their own social and political climate defined and given agency. It gives respect and awareness to the people that lived/live there while making it more interesting to play, either as a colonizer, native, trader, conqueror, or something else. I suppose you can differentiate what I said from Spengler's ideas in this way: I talked mainly about external forces, whereas he was concerned with internal forces (at least that's how I perceived the portrayal in this video). However, both internal and external forces in this sense are not exclusive to one people, nation, or race. If I'm wrong in this assessment, I'd like to hear someone else's thoughts who knows much more about the subject than I do.
My world history class mainly focused on America. Yeah, it was 6th grade or something but it's inexcusable to do that, especially when American history was the very next year. I guess I missed the day when the United States was always the world (heavy sarcasm). My local schools suck, it seems, and most students will never have context for anything their nation was involved in and what even led to that stuff.
Comparing EU4 a later game as well as something which has been supported way more dlc and update wise to VIC2 and asking: why less nations; seems kind of funny especially seeing the natives update for NA in EU4. I wouldn't be surprised dlc was planned for Africa if support was greater than it was at the time.
I strongly believe you overstated the importance of his work and forgot to mention his extreme bias and hate towards Jews in said book. It was a well made video but this really felt like a way to talk about Spangler in a more positive light wrapped around Victoria 3 like Spangler was the only human on earth with ideas of western decline at the time. You’re talking about how he is presenting a new idea ? Yet he talks heavily about Jews being the reason for declining civilizations throughout time and that feeling was not a new idea in his time, definitely an odd choice to choice to use for this video and that’s why I say it was forced because the the book had such an influence on the Nazi party rather than modern historians.
When Belgium can conquer large populations in Africa it really puts prospective on why all that African land should be grey or just a stepping stone for bigger nations.
You could just give countries cheaper CBs to conquer it, the Congo shouldn't be another placeholder just so Belgium can conquer it. If there was the possibility of Africans resisting Europeans and changing the game, even just having an extra war, it'd be a lot better than just EU4 style of colonization where you're just staring at empty land and half the natives can't do anything.
@@hyperion3145 I mean sure you can make nations there, but they would serve little purpose other than to slow the game down with lag. Realistically none of the nations stood a chance in the heart of darkness. If there were nations that could stand up to Europeans it would be nations like Ghana and Liberia. Otherwise it would be a meme like Luxembourg world conquest, just too far away from reality
if we analise mircea elliade we can understand that every culture tends to promote some sort of projection of where the center of the world is, for china and its neighboring countries china was the middle of the world, or for christianity jerusalem was the middle, in the age of discovery: europe, for the mayans and astecs they lived in the middle of the world, we can also perceive it in religious doctrines such as buddhism (we exist in a realm betwenn the gods and the lower levels of existence) or the north pagans (midgard). So it is important to understand that since we(west societies and countries) exist as extension to european adventures across the world our point of view, our center of the world, will not be china, will not be benin or the andes peaks. it would be interesting to see these non "central" countries have a rethoric about the europeans as barbarians (such as the example of japanese folks perceiving the barbarians of the south/europeans) another interesting read is Carl Schimidt (tho he is quite polemic) in his book the nomos of the earth he explore the transition of european concept of law and state toward the land and sea throughout history. for example: one thing he mentions is the christian myth of the kathekon on which legitimized, on early medieval europe, the existence of christian states and denied legitimacy to any non christian states. these ideas can light how society, culture, etc. sees itself as the center of legitimacy, for example: of course the americas were discovered, they exist as extension to european exploration and not native american states, the discovery of america for the european world/west does not deny war, oppression, conquest, etc. but we must differentiate what the perceiving of phenoumena and phenoumena is: the expansion of european influence exists paralel to native population perceptions. the discovery of america or the partition of africa does not deny these native populations of their personal interpretations. In the end, it would be nice to see a african country organizing itself and going for its own colonial conquest in europe or in the americas, Or some native uprising on USA, or some culture from spain, for example, overtaking its cultural masters and imposing itself, imagie if england was conquered by the irish; this is what make paradox games cool, the possibilities of something different, the rise of an unexpected power, the fall of a might goverment. Vic 3 has a lot of potential and i believe paradox will deliver.
Without even watching the video, I'll just say that many people are overthinking this. African countries were not included for the same reason spoons and forks are not something you can carry in shooters. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but they are just not needed. Victoria is about great powers and how they shaped the world around them. Also, there could be issues with representing anything correctly in Africa, as data from that period could be lacking.
No one is saying “Add the Maasai” or “add the Ebuki” who today even after industrialization have small populations People are saying add Ashanti (3.4 million) Benin (2 million) Oyo (2.3 million) Bournu (5 million) etc… Add the kingdoms that existed
Love the work, well done. However I think maybe it would be a better structured video if you were to affirm your hypothesis early in the video. Right now I feel like I have to wait until the end to really link all the ideas to understand what you were trying to convey.
I went in expecting a Victoria 3 video about map changes, and got a nuanced take on how history is framed by gameplay, and gameplay mechanics. I dig this. lol
That section about Sprengler's background was hilarious. Had a doctorate he failed to get, saw imperialism through almost every lens possible, voted for the Nazis but didn't like antisemitism when framed as an ethnic issue. The plant-soul stuff only makes it funnier; he'd have an absolutely massive audience of liberals and reactionaries fighting over who they thought he had allegiance to if he was around today.
Most likely for balancing the economy. Pops in Africa do not consume goods because they are not a part of a tag, so if they did consume goods at the start of the game the whole world economy would be unstable due to insufficient tech, with the meta being to quickly annex those African countries for tax revenues. (same as, say, annexing Chinese provinces in base Vicky2, but that is why China's military is made comically powerful at the start of the game).
Strange video... Its hard to make some place in Victoria for African nations, because if they want some historical accuracy, its just hard to find some developed or developing country here, even if you would lets say favorize Ethiopia and Mali, it would mean unbalancing region developement, and for some African renesance there would be mods or even dlcs for sure. For me, entire video doing it maybe too much political or narative-based, and core dilema would be probably more dev-game oriented. If there would be Eu4-Vic3 save conventor, its would in sec splash all this video overthinking into sea of converted native developed empires. I dont care about Petersen and dont realy even know if i like this video. But Spengler view of things seems realy interesting to me (as philosophy) , maybe today even more accurate than in his time, and i would probably read entire book.
I appreciate the thorough exploration of this topic through more contemporary philosophy of the day, and how that can be reflected in some of what we do now. Like you said, yeah, it’s not like Spengler inspired our thinking of colonialism or post colonialism, but it’s fascinating to compare our modern concepts of the topic to what a philosopher was already thinking, despite all of his own pitfalls. I’m subscribing, it’s good stuff. P.S.- I’m assuming by the end of history you mean Fukuyama’s assessment of liberal democracy as the end-all for civilization and its conflicts? Looking forward to watching a video on that!
Well I guess their problem is that they use a map as the core of their game - not a board or a landscape. The map is itself a technology that privileges the structure of modern European polities, nation states above others. For example, they do a bad job in displaying feudal organizations of medieval society. It kinda presupposes a nation state with clear borders.
@@riverman6462 I am not a game designer so I have no clue - neither do historians as it seems, because they use political maps time and again. So I am at a loss. The game Hegomony III: Clash of the ancients is what I meant by landscape. It had it where the game came down to the control of single production sites - lumber mills and the like. But that is a completely different genre. I guess that before the centralized state developed matters of politics were more botto-up then they are in most paradox games - think John Lackland and the magna carta. When I said board I meant games like Civilization. Its rather well conceptualized in CKIII, with its legal and personal connections amongst the rulers. Althought I would wish for more dynamic de jure titles and a system which brings in the role of the church in such legal-political matters.
@@FlosBlog I totally agree with you. I would also add that a system where Cities Skylines and Civilization series, and possibly Ck3 can crossover kind of, and create this banger of a game that simulates politics, economy, trade and culture from the micro level to the macro level. This game could revolutionize this genre forever. Think like a society simulator basically. I know this is a fantasy and cannot be really done without deep frying every computer, but still it's an interesting idea that I want to see created.
I'm not sure Spengler was saying that his theory is on the same level as Copernicus. He makes a big deal out of the "ptolemaic" versus the "copernican" view of history. I.e., the ptolemaic view being history revolves around Western Europe/the West whereas in the copernican view he's more saying that no one of his civilisations that he defines are any more central to world-history than the others.
If I had to narrow it down to two main elements, it would be the realities of global power and neocolonialism as the first one-- that Central and South America have largely been sites of resource extraction (the fact that they've had to nationalize their industries in many cases is a sign of this) with lessened autonomy than the United States, as an example. The second is race and the complicated way that Hispanic both is and isn't a race, and is sometimes part of whiteness(like in US census forms) and sometimes distinct from it (like in US Census forms), and how that ultimately results in not including the more "mixed race" settler states in typical definitions of the West. Indeed, most any definition of "the West" has some contradiction or strong exception to its rules that makes it rather imprecise. Put those together and it's largely an issue of power relations.
Its laughable to even pretend like Vic3s Africa map looks the way it does because of realism. The devs have pretty much confirmed they dont care about gameplay or realism. Theyre doing the map like this simply because it would be bad pr in 2022 to have the map be empty.
@@Zen-rw2fz History? European Empires with Guns vs African Tribes with sticks and bows. The games of Paradox vastly overrate Africans and even Native Americans just for Political Correctnes + Gameplay reasons so the players can enjoy playing as them. The games don´t even remotely represent the superiority of the Colonial Powers over African "states".
@@unregierbar7694 while many africans did lack behind interms of millitary technology sticks and bows is an exageration still, none of the game portrays african countries as anything easy victoria 3 doesn't do that either.
Really enjoying these videos on how we talk about history, I like this topic more than history itself. I'm a mathematics grad student (and don't play these games) so a lot of the stuff on this channel is new to me, so when the name Oswald Spengler came up I was very surprised - I've heard this name before! And given what his work is like, it's something I "shouldn't" know about, but perhaps this shows how far reaching his influence is. I have a document where I save funny/interesting math-related quotes, so it wasn't hard to locate where I'd heard of Spengler. Behold: "For Greek Mathematics, magnitudes were geometric rather than arithmetic; western Mathematics has reversed this emphasis. Oswald Spengler, in his book The Decline of the West, has argued that this means that there are two wholly different "Mathematics", as part of two different cultures. Our position is rather that congruence and geometric ratios on the one hand and Dedekind cuts on the other are just two different careful formalizations of the SAME underlying idea of magnitude - and that this point exemplifies the unity of idea behind the inevitably varied form." - Saunders Mac Lane. Mathematics, From and Function (The idea that ancient Greek math is very different from modern math is a very easy sell. But this idea of two wholly different math kinda ignores the fact that one transformed into the other through a long history. It's not as though modern math had an independent, unrelated birth. Also, I don't know why the modern math of eg Dedekind should be be called "western". Is ancient Greece not a part of the West?)
Interesting to see him come up there, of all places. Yeah, he as a reaching influence that even touches literary figures like Joseph Campbell, and very indirectly Margaret Atwood, often through intermediary figures. Making my video on esoterics was the first time I learned that he had a...fraught dialogue with Rudolf Steiner. He pops up in a lot of spots, it would seem.
powerful, stunning and brave the lack of representation of tribal africans with no writing systems and little to 0 historiography is painfully noticeable i hope victoria 3 devs give BIPOC some extra attention even if it delays the release by a few years... too much eurocentrism from their games
Instead of the representation of tribal europeans with no real writing and ltitle to 0 historiogaphy until rome forced them in imperator ?, fuck and even then , it took them 800 more years to learn to fucking write on their own around the age of charlemagne. Africans have showed to be rather fast learners.
And it pains me to see how unfaithful to history the game is, especially considering the industrial revolution which is concentrated solely in the West when in fact many great tribes in west Africa had lucrative cement factories by the game start
But then .. colonialism is not the same as imperialism, nor are they interdependent. The most successful colonialists in recent history have been the British, English-speaking Americans, and .. the Russians; settling vast tracks of land with their dependent/ supportive peoples (making viable colonies beside others, over them, or replacing them; here culture is a key interest). Empire, however, is a matter of power, taking it, exercising it, and holding on to it - regardless of settlement and re-settlement for original or migrant peoples; neither culture nor civilisation is key to understanding commercial and governmental control. The Irish, for instance, have won no worldwide empire, they are not generally recognised as being part of the 'European' civilisation format (other than as labouring side-kicks to the English), nor are they regarded as particularly influential in cultural matters (unlike the Scots under English patronage), yet there are Patricks, St Patrick Days, and Paddy's Pubs (with or without a bicycle outside) thriving in the most unexcepted places - even though Patrick, himself, wasn't Irish at all, but British (Romano-Welsh or Pictish, or both, or neither). And, by and large, the Irish seem to fit in with their new neighbours fairly well, not by ceasing to be 'Irish' (until very recently that is, alas modern Ireland seems not to be especially proud of being Irish, deeming their past to be backward) but they get along by being .. more, rather than less, useful; indeed, that is colonialism. ;o)
Incredible! This is all entirely wrong. 1st of all, 2/3 of your examples of "the most successful colonialists" in recent history are empires which seems to defeat your entire argument that they aren't interdependent immediately, and then your other one is America which hardly colonized anything? Why would you include a nation that practiced way more imperialism than colonialism as your example of a successful colonial power? Again defeating your own argument bro. A better example would be portugal, spain, or even belgium and netherlands...all empires or kingdoms so it still defeats your point but at least they actually did significant colonizing. Then this part confused me, you go on about...Irish culture? What? Colonies of Ireland include...what exactly? Cultural exports are not colonialism. Cultural exports are the natural effects of multiculturalism and cooperation between countries. It has literally 0 to do with colonialism whatsoever. Colonialism is when a country forms a colony in a land. The one thing you are right about, literally the only thing (sorry) , is that it isn't the same thing as imperialism. However it was mostly practiced by imperialist countries during the colonial era, and the act of colonizing a land that's already settled (which was most of them) is inherently imperialist, so imperialism and colonialism are definitely interconnected in both a historical and practical sense.
@@uckbritley1305 US America colonised the whole of its now constituent States .. usually, before these became states, and frequently displacing the previous dwellers. There are colonies, i.e. settled groups, of Irish people across the globe distinct from their neighbours as being 'Irish - and proud of it'; though they did not have an empire. Empire refers to 'imperium' - governing control, UB, colonies refer to 'colonia', settlements as enclaves among other peoples; these are - by nature - not the same thing (an empire may well be colonsied by peoples from its dependent domains, but not all empires colonise the territories they conquer or control). Thems facts; it how words work .. even if we like to use them differently. ;o)
Haha you're way overthinking the amount of thought the devs are actually putting into this. It will likely be very, very similar to Vicky 2 in how it presents history. See Crusader Kings 3 for example or any other Paradox game. They don't change tonally in each iteration. Most of their players are Western and most of history in the time period was dictated by Western events that their customer s are familiar with. Even if Paradox says their taking more global worldview, don't expect much other than a few new events outside of the major powers. Great video, but you're overthinking it.
Honestly, if they made a March of Eagles with as much care and tight focus as HoI4, it could be good series, but the one they made before it just... I played it recently just a bit and I can't get through a game and feel like there's nothing to do but live history, rather than subvert it or anything.
Probably, yeah. Spengler is to reactionaryism what Immanuel Kant is to liberalism, you can't really critique either of them without also critiquing the primary ideologies that has been inspired by them tbh. So of course it's going to piss of reactionary thinkers.
Eurocentrism is such a joke of a term. Europeans and their descendants have forged the current pinnacle of human achievement by creating the West. By the West, I primarily mean the era of massive economic and technological advancement following WW2. Noting the most significant achievements of a time period doesn't mean you're being biased towards the race or nations that made those achievements. It means you're reading history as is rather than considering lesser accomplishments to be equal simply to prop up one group to equal another. There were points in history where places like Egypt, Persia, China, and India were massive players on the world stage. Those days are long past. Until the recent re-emergence of China, the world of technological and economic advancement after WW2, and to an extent since the Columbian exchange, has been dominated by France, Germany, the UK, and the US. It's not eurocentric to acknowledge that fact. Today, the reality of the world is still largely eurocentric, as the primary players on the world stage are still almost all European, with the exceptions of China, India, and Japan. If 90% of power and advancement resides with one group of people, it is not out of some sort of prejudice when you acknowledge that that is the case. In pre-Roman times, Europe was a barren backwater and power resided in Egypt, China, Persia, and Greece. It is a simple fact that history changes. We live in a eurocentric era. We are ignorant to pretend that that is not the case just to feel better about ourselves.
You're not wrong, though we don't agree on everything. I said that Eurocentrism is a selectively valuable term, precisely for the nature of exploring and describing eras of European hegemony in history, did I not? The mechanisms of attaching shame to the idea or indeed a guilt are muddied, part of it is due to fringe sycophants telling their followers that The West™ is under attack and that they must remain proud and vigilant etc etc, constructing a fear that they can't "acknowledge real history" and the other part is, I find, a misunderstanding of what the "de-centring Europe" conversation is about. Apologies if that's a condescending intro, but given the number of gamer-chair historians just saying things to be inflammatory or people sending me ten paragraphs of truisms about their imagined understanding of a continent based on...I don't know, something they learned from Stefan Moylneux or something, I have become cautious in which comments I respond to. Though I will certainly push back a bit and say that history also changes in the way that we learn to adopt differing lenses, or indeed that there was simply more we did not know than we realized, and part of that can come from over-reliance on a Eurocentric lens, for example. That's how you get the innumerable comments on this video saying that Africa had no civilizations prior to colonialism, as though we don't have an ever expanding historical record of states, societies, colonial resistance, wars against one another, defensive wars against European incursion, cultural traditions, and linguistic traditions that go back thousands of years.
@@Zen-rw2fz Ah yes the Tswana a HUGE united singular tribe and not just an ethnolingustic group of many different tribes I remember now. The funny thing is by all this virtue signalling it's LESS historically accurate maybe you should learn actual history instead of playing video game lol
@@durianjaykin3576 yeah, I don't really care what people believe in, I'm just excited for the game and would like to try out some of the african and asiatic countries
Saying African civilisations never discovered the wheel is akin to saying the pyramids were built by aliens, the first moon landing was in the 40s, but the one in the 60s was impossible or that America was uninhabited before Europeans appeared.
Very interesting, thanks for the thoughts. I'd personally love to see a game where we could simulate humanity as it coursed through Africa then into the rest of the world, splitting off segments that become different peoples, things we now define as races, cultures and eventually states and nations. In this regard I find both Civilization and Humankind lacking as games, as neither grasps the essence of what it is to be "a people," united by language, color, location or history. Only in some animated presentations demonstrating on world maps the historic flows of language families or historic cultures, have I seen a glimpse of the game I'd like to see come about some day. Perhaps it is too vague to even be possible, but what the imagination can ponder, someone can and may create, especially if it brings prospects of profit.
The Victoria 2 map of Africa was definitely a result of the combination of balance needs and a heavily, and destructively, eurocentric worldview and historical perspective. As anyone who's played any of the mods that attempt to fill Africa know, the game was really poorly optimized and suffers a lot whenever a substantial amount of new country tags are added. The market is also a good idea but so wildly chaotic in its implementation that balancing the existence of those states against a system that apparently only one person, who left the studio immediately, understood fully is challenging. But of course, that could be said about any country. Why is some pathetic non-country in Germany more relevant that the massive and wealthy powers of pre colonial Nigeria? That's where the destructive eurocentric view comes in. I mean honestly, they included literally made up countries in the HRE that don't need to be independent, and "Switzerland,"as if it's not just a myth people made up to explain why the big dead zone in the Alps is filled with Nazi gold
"we restrict ourseves to europe and colonialnations ,so the US and canada" ah, once again folk forget that there is whole 2/3rds of a continent south of the rio grande, but it seems we have been "demoted" from the idea of the west since ww1 and 2.
There are absolutely more settler states than the US and Canada but I wanted to avoid the additional difficulty of definition presented by “the global south” designation. Arguably I could have included Mexico (and Brazil) (Japan too, possibly) in that statement but, I suppose this just goes to show the fungibility of what we consider “The West”
@@Rosencreutzzz huh , argentina went from the second richest american power around the time period you mention to not ecen being mentioned too, with that " west" thing i have always had to ask when did ireland began being the west and when did argentina stop? If the uk blows up in war and desolation due to some dumbfuck in westminster fucking up in ireland does it looses west status? I have always had the issue with most historical games that they extremely one sidedly represent nations that were alive back then as if the international focus had alway been at it was , namely in the case of america , its really only after the mass migrations into the us where such a disproporcionate amount of people travel to it and allow an industrial revolution to occur, a more realistic aproach would have the american nations have more parity at the begining of the game , and have the same tools to play around instead of the determinism vicky 2 had that relegated america as the. Inevitable us platground ( wich i am pretty sure many people would take as the only logical thing) , when us hegemony was only really firmly rooted on their victory in the us-mexican war. All in all i hope they show their good streak in making dlcs that pad out parts of the world they dont usually give any mind too , and cause player to not give any mind either because of it.
@@Rosencreutzzz The comment is old but, the thing is, LATAM isn't nearly as alien as japan and should be considered western culture. These countries were founded by western countries, they have western customs, western religions etc. Even though they're poorer than northern colonies, it's not they are like asian??
Hi. I forgot to include the citation for the text about Spengler's academic integrity and voting record, which, in specific was from this website, which itself cites a particular edition of Decline and a biography:
campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/oswald-spengler/
I did not have the means to look at those editions but I have no reason to believe that paragraph lied to me (or any of us, I suppose).
Nice website dude
If you're concerned about it, just check any edition of the cited work. Chances are one specific paragraph wouldn't have changed. It might be on a slightly different page though.
they are planing to make the decentralized nations playable, that was in one of the first diares
I know you're a bleeding heart liberal but even me who lives in Africa feels far less for you, your kind and even less for your brothers the Africans and yes there was vacant land do not believe me? ok read about the genocide called the Mfecane by all means. it was so bad that it did leave the land vacant and barren.
Don’t worry about playing the decentralized nations they’re just saving that for a paid DLC of course.
NOT ONLY 2 DLCS 80 DLCS
I don't get why people keep vomitting this shit. They are not playable because being able to lead a nation of people who are by definition "decentralized" is a contradiction. They exist, they are a culture, here is where they are on the map, but they care little for european definitions of civilization. They aren't gonna be playable, its like asking if every NPC in GTA will be playable.
And their mechanics will be added to base game after 4 years after launch of the dlc
@@BlueHawkPictures17 have you played paradox games before? It doesn’t matter if they are decentralized you can still figure out a way to play as them and centralize the nation and it’ll cost $20-$40.
Just because a nation is decentralized doesn’t mean it is impossible to make it playable 😂😂
@Danny L no that's realistic
“Try to limit the player from committing direct atrocities at times, at least.”
Stellaris: 👀
The Naavi aren’t real so they can’t cancel you on Twitter
@@hiagocaesar9311 i wana be the first person to meet space aliens ..... and fuck
You have to be human for human rights to apply
What atrocities can one commit in Victoria 2?
@@JUAN_OLIVIER victoria 2 did nothing wrong
I think the true simulation present in Paradox games isn't the simulation of historical events, but the simulation of historical mindsets.
This is something I first noticed when playing Crusader Kings. When I was in my history classes, I looked back on the Hapsburgs and Henry VIII and all the kings of Europe with a lot of judgement. I thought they must have been psychopaths, ones who did all their unsavory things because they went wild with the power of their state being at their beck and call. But then you sit down and try to play the ruling dynasty of Hungary for 600 years-- and you suddenly get it?? Why people married their siblings, called crusades, tortured and executed, didn't give a shit about average people-- by putting you in the decision making chair, Paradox games MAKE you re-evaluate your modern lens on the past.
And I've definitely had times where I stop and realize that wait.... EU4 doesn't really have an explicitly stated goal? And oh lord I just killed like 500,000 Ming Chinese, not to mention half as many of MY OWN COUNTRYMEN, all for a handful of provinces?! Good God! Is this REALLY all worth it, just to build a "great nation" on the backs of the dead? And... that's a cool open question to ask yourself as a result of gameplay! It's the difference between judging the actions of a stranger who died 400 years ago, and judging the choices you literally just made.
So I think the Vicky 3 approach of saying to the player "Oh yes there are nations here, but decentralized and open for the taking!" is actually quite smart. Because if you DO decide to partake, then you do it to get a leg up or to prevent someone else from threatening your state-- you're never under the illusion that nobody is there and you're doing no wrong. But you're also in a position where, given the circumstances and the powers that be, you can JUSTIFY that wrong in service of your own self interests.
That change of mindset doesn't (and shouldn't) make us blindly agree with the past... but it does perhaps make it easier for us to understand it on its own footing.
I would also agree with this comment and add apon this, As "Narrative" of the game in GUI text form also feels like the mindset of the history
In Eu4, all actions you take are considered by the GUI text (kind of like a narrator) as a Positive action with a flair of self-centered imperialism
When your ally joins your war: "X nation has joined our invincible armies into battle!"
When an ally breaks an alliance: "The treacherous X has broken our alliance with our noble nation."
every action you take is considered pragmatic, noble, and ingenious.
and every action taken by foreign nations are actions of obvious ploy, greed, and immorality
Victoria 3 supports this by it's main core mechanic, Prestige. A measure of how prestigious your nation is, and it makes you mimic the historical great powers at the time's callousness.
Support the poor when they're starving? I'd rather not lose 12 prestige, so...
Colonial cruelty that might become a scandal? Cover it up before we lose prestige!
Inching towards a Great War with multiple great powers because you won't back down on a claim for a couple miles of land? I'd rather kill millions of my own citizens than lose face in the global community!
This is quite the interesting view on paradox games and what you can learn from them.+
when i killed all those portuguese and south america tribe native in eu4, i paused for a little and think in my mind. is it worthy to kill all of those people for mere profit pf my nation? build up all those money from these people misery? killing people for their homeland so your people can live in it? after 30 seconds of thinking.....i resume the slaughter and continue to colombia and mexico (yes it's worth it)
The games lack many of the payoffs for being a large country, especially in a world where people do not care about annexation as much. They would be hard/impossible to implement without people getting mad for what they suggest. The only nations that big are modern and no one can agree on why/what good/bad things with did/do/will do.
Also really important religious things like making Catholicism without a set hierarchy and destroying/letting be destroyed the Kaaba to avoid annoying religious blocks pushing whatever random nonsense they just came up with would be too controversial.
Although why the Abbasid Caliphate is not a formable nation in Eu4, despite still existing and having been one of the most important nations in world history ever is beyond me.
Great point of view also good writing
I always felt that Victoria 2 was so focused on the Great and Secondary powers in Europe that Africa was intentionally only partially filled out to represent how it was viewed by a lot of Europeans at the time. This does seem to match my knowledge of African exploration by Europeans, which didnt really take off in earnest until after Victoria II's start date. Either that or they just ran out of budget and having a developed africa was an afterthought which never came to fruition.
I generally side that it was a conscious choice of lens rather than a developer resources constraint- and I do understand the lens they chose, because it facilitates the euro focused gameplay. I think Victoria 3 has found a pretty ideal balance (and has the budget to create more nuanced systems).
You’re very right about the primary and secondary focus- the dream of the game is never to just “do okay” get sphered, and not have access to half the mechanics, after all.
It seems odd that Victoria 2 didn’t really represent the African states that existed historically or in EU IV. I think it could have perpetuated a view among those not as historically educated as others on the continent that was inaccurate.
@@somethingelse516 eu4 is not any different about its Eurocentrism tho, all the innovations pop out in Europe, and other natuons must catch up to it
@@durianjaykin3576 you’re right that EU IV is very Eurocentric (perhaps unsurprising considering the name) but with the DLC especially it’s does a better job than Victoria but the bar is low
I mean, to a degree with any historical game, Eurocentrism is necessary to a degree. The reality is, in the roughly 100 year timespan of the game, you could take the God-Emperor of Mankind, give him control of Ethiopia, and he wouldn't be able to match the power of the British Empire, Germany, or France.
I think Vic 2 took the shortcut of neglecting central Africa because it wasn't really economically vital to the functioning of the 19th century great power politics, except for the prestige of African colonies. None of the African colonies were ever remotely profitable, and didn't really contribute to the overall power of their overlords except as occasionally useful naval bases and for reprovisioning (and later refueling) of naval vessels. Raw materials were just so much more easily collected in the Americas, India and Southeast Asia at the time.
I always felt that the "land for grabs" mentality the game makes you adopt is intentional. After all you're (usually) playing as a colonial power who historically had this view of the world and didn't give a hoot about the natives. The scramble for Africa really was a race against your rivals to secure as much land and resources as possible. I feel like vic2 simulates this mentality very well.
It's almost like the creator of this video doesn't understand mercantilism or how economies in this period worked.
But does it make you actually question that mentality? Or just reinforce it’s assumptions
@@SketchyHippopotamus Why would it need me to question it? It's a video game. I play it for fun.
When I click a button to form a protectorate and instantly see the borders of my chunky African colony grow, I'm not thinking in my head "colonialism was justified". I just get the dopamine rush and think about how profitable my factories are going to become.
Same thing when I capture Constantinople as the Turks in Age of Empires 2. It doesn't make me think it was a good thing. It's just really fun to play and experience it through the format of the video game.
@@SketchyHippopotamus Maybe it's just a game, a game where you colonize Africa. Or did you want a game over screen with a giant "YOU'RE RASCIST AND IMPERIALIST, BEGONE FOUL IMPERIALIST, I SHALL HAVE NO MORE OF THEE!"
It's a historic game set in the 1800's, if Africa isn't conquered or it's somehow a major power, it's suddenly a fantasy game more than anything.
@@SketchyHippopotamus Which assumptions would you say are presented by Victoria III?
The African continent was empty to make it easier and more accessible for the AI to colonize it. It was a mechanic necessity. Not to mention the AI was very bad at naval invading foreign lands
Vanilla Empire Total War hahaha
Enemy AI's naval attacks often times resulted in shifting the balance of war into my favour.
Africa was "empty" as in sparsely populated back then. The population boom you see now wouldnt be possible without European medicine and technology
It would be nice if they could just make the AI work properly, and vic 3 is actually suppose have the AI control your military exclusively, which is fucking scary.
@@Figgy_Tree thats like the Russian military
To be fair accuracy isn’t the bread and butter of these games. It’s common to see someone like GB conquer all of Zanzibar or Spain getting all of West Africa before Europeans were remotely involved in Africa in EU4.
but EU4 is far less of a simulation game. especially since tinto took over.
People whining about Berber Coring Costs and the lack of Trade Companies being sock puppets for European Countries for eating Africa/India/China (before Vicky 2 as well) really... well... showed that the player base doesn't care much about history. Is it any wonder why Paradox gave up on the historical mapbook in favor of two-to-four starts?
@@Jay_Johnson tinto stinky
I am pretty sure the reason why Africa was so empty in Vicky 2 was because PDX is lazy, even european stuff was barely accurate.
Later mods like HPM and HFM did a way better job and also populated most of Africa with states (and a way to conquer them without spending infamy).
Also, written African history is virtually non-existent outside of a handful of tribes and kingdoms.
GFM is also great.
It would be pointless to play as a tribal nation in Africa because you would have a Stone Age tribe fighting off machine guns and dreadnoughts, it’s not worth the effort of implementing.
@@coatofarms4439 tbf countries like Ethiopia, the North African states, and Boer Republics all historically fought off European conquest.
@@GelloWello Those countries were either ancient like Ethiopia and Egypt and were only behind the Europeans by a generation or two and the Boers already had European technology, they had a base which could be built upon which tribes do not have. It's possible a tribe in EU4 could modernize because the technological gap isn't overly advanced (medieval to colonial) but the gap a stone age tribe would have to overcome is impossible, you would spend the entire game trying to reach the level of a Napoleonic nation before 1900 and there is no guarantee of success or independence because even a minor nation like Belgium or Portugal would steamroll.
The entire point of making the region "empty" is to slow down conquest of the region. I'm not sure why this makes people so angry it's a game mechanic and it plays out much better than what we currently have in eu4. Unless they are going to model the negative aspects of those regions malaria/isolated populations/limited trade connections it's going to just make things worse.
"Unless they are going to model..." the malaria, at least, I am pretty sure they said they were going to model for expeditions. Which does make me wonder if this is more akin to terra incognita in EU4 where you need to send expeditions first. Big difference is it would seemingly have these groups unplayable at all, unlike EU4 where you just can't interact yet.
As for isolated populations, it looks like a lot of similar mechanics will be implemented.
well also there is little info and the political organisation pattern doesn't match that of other 'clickable' things, and the mechanics reflect more settlement
however, it is also inaccurate bc obviously there was interaction with population, centralised centres of power rwanda etc
Not being good enough to balance a game is not a reason to mis portray a whole continent.
@@clintharrisjr.6999 It is
@@clintharrisjr.6999 It ain't misrepresntation if there really was no big population center relevant enough to be represented as a nation on those places. Also, they take a lot of land to represent those decentralized places, which makes it funny to see the whole Patagonia seem like a united population before the Desert Conquest xD
I think it has more to do with the impracticalities of inputting literally thousands of individual tribal states. But I think the Victoria Realism mod did a good job including major supra-tribal indigenous powers in Africa and North America that were not in the vanilla game.
well we don't even know what these tribal states would be at different times, and simulating their itneraction would be more difficult and would still be v different
@@mareksicinski3726 Okay, everyone brings this point up, but when they do it doesn’t seem they know all too much about the layout of contemporary African states (ie. not counting the people you could actually count as tribal) in spite of it.
If you looked into it just briefly you’d find only the most obvious parts of the continent left empty of state societies.
Criticising Victoria for being Eurocentric... Kinda seems like criticism of hoi4 Being militaristic
The video literally talks about how it isnt doing that.
The era of Europe conquering the whole world is eurocentric oh no, this channel is a joke.
@@Mightfox surprise suprise people watch video and jump to conclusion
@@siluda9255
I watched the video?
Just a comment about how silly I thought the original premise is
@Mightfox “this video isn’t trying to say that X is Y. Any way here’s all the reason X is Y…”
Self centered perspective is a common falling point of most people. I have no issues with viewing history through the lenses of your own culture and country history,and it often leads to pretty funny results. As an example, I'm Portuguese, and my entire history class consisted of stone age tribalism to bronze age to Roman Empire to Portugal. The rest is just Portugal. The Holy Roman Empire wasn't mentioned once
That is because you don't have infinite time to teach kids about history, making sure they know what their country has done and some of the big things other countries have done is most important. The HRE as a feudal state is not that intresting or special except for the reformation, which didn't directly spring up in portugal in any meaningfull sense. I see no other reason to mention the HRE in the average Portugese person's understanding of history.
@@bgs2004 To add to that if you have ever talked to any person not particularly interested in history that got through high school history. You can testify that even the little we teach them quickly falls off and they probably only remember the stuff they saw in movie and very broad strokes about general history.
In south Florida, we did Spanish colonization, and American history from the 1950s onward, lol.
@@bgs2004 Yes, precisely my point. Humans have have to manage limited resources, including time, so it makes no sense to dwell on things that have no bearing either on pragmatic action or personal identity. The HRE probably matters a great deal to Germans, but not to me. Same way the Fifth Empire doesn't matter to them, but it does to me.
I guess this reality sucks for Africans, because nationalism didn't have its origins in there and their cultures are still largely influenced by tribal and clan ties rather than national ones. Hell, given how arbitrary the borders of African countries are, a lot of them probably only exist, at least in their present state, by the West's influence. So it makes perfect sense that they'd define their own identity based on their relation to the Western world.
@@Swenthorian In Central Florida, the Spanish are briefly mentioned then we fast forward to the Civil War. Ironic that we don't talk about the Spanish where I live despite it being a majority Hispanic community.
Thank you so much for the subtitles! They're really helpful, and I appreciate the effort you put into them!
Thanks for that feedback. I've been using modified scripts, given that I already had some stuff written out but it's nice to see it's appreciated.
@@Rosencreutzzz the map india is also wrong in vic2 and vic3. Like the nawab of arcot is missing and Nagur should be bigger
I think it's kinda weird how people generally treat Africa. Sure the Vic2 map is too empty, but you can't expect it to function exactly like Europe because Africa is fucking massive and its geography overall is very different from that Europe, among other regions. It has a lot of regions with a merciless climate, fauna or landscape and we can expect a place like this to work exactly like every other region in the world, for better or for worse.
It's okay to view the world from a European perspective. Every civilization makes sense of the world through their own subjective point of view, which makes the world more interesting.
The real question is are we making it from the modern European perspective or the Victorian one where africa, the americas and oceania were 'empty'
@Crumbsly we'll see
@@Jay_Johnson hopefully from the Victorian perspective, the setting would imply that. Besides, todays perspective is so inconclusive and sensitive that the gameplay would be simply unenjoyable.
@@Jay_Johnson for the sake of a game based on the Victorian Era I hope from the Victorian lense.
Not to mention gameplay wise lesser nations and tribal states little only serve the purpose of being food for major powers, and Flashpoint zones for major war. Having Africa full of its historically accurate tribal states would cause it to be colonized at a ridiculous rate, and not have land claim Flashpoint that break out in total war.
@@frogking5573 those are specific issues with EU4 and if you applied the same ahistorical version that vic 2 uses. This is an attempt to make the game more realistic of a simulation. You can get around that with a CK3 style de jure and de facto map. Sort of an extension of the spheres map mode and including mechanics for challenging that de jure map such as with Britain taking portugals unfulfilled claims on Zimbabwe Zambia and Malawi. Ideally I’d like a more detailed game when it comes to indirect rule maybe in a DLC where you can continue to play the game even as a protectorate of a European power. Be it the Indian or Arabian princely states. Egypt never ceased to exist, it was just under British occupation. The power struggles of control between a local government and their European ‘protector’ is an interesting and unexplored concept for time period.
I got here by randomly searching "Victoria 3" in the RUclips search bar lmao.
Same but I didn’t enjoy the video..
I’m from Reddit haha
@@seffffee1333 was it edgy, woke or boring?
@@FazeParticles too much info
@@FazeParticles Boring
Great video but I feel left hungry for more now. Don't be afraid to make longer videos.
I got here thanks to your post on the Vic3 subreddit, thanks for sharing it there I will definitely watch your other stuff.
I've only got one more for the series this is part of and after that I might pivot to a weird video about the Fable series, but I will absolutely return to GSGs and Historical Strategy pretty often, and definitely when Victoria 3 comes out.
look. they wuz not kangz.
Ooga booga now let me eat yo brainz cuh
Honestly I don't see a problem with eurocentrism in the west, it reflects the civilizational behaviour of the west. It talks about how European civilization expand to the world. In Eastern countries like China, they also have a separate Chinese history as a distinct subject from world history. The way they teach Chinese history also reflect its civilization Characteristic, as Chinese history are seen as very distinct from world history. Enthasising the isolationist nature of the Chinese civilization.
Europe conquered Africa in a moment and now we talk how eurocentric our views are I mean that happened.
@@michadomeracki5910 This is part of the American globalists agenda. They are playing this diversity and inclusion shit to make step in establishing a one world government. Because if every other culture are presented to be included in the American culture, people of other culture will accept American subjugation. Only if Europe put European culture first and don't try to include every other culture as part of European culture. We can have a multipolar democratic world order.
@@NovajaPravda I have seen the word Nazbol before, what does the word nazbol mean?
@@michadomeracki5910 National Bolsheviks, you probably seen it from Jreg
@@NovajaPravda Okey thanks. We have some political problems in gaming, nothing is normal anymore.
You forget that most of recent world history was Euro centric (Around the last 500 years).
NOOO WE WUZ KANGZ'N'SHIEET
@@EkoFranko Is that some kind of racist comment?
@@darkdragon5520 it can't be racist i am from russia aka northern Nigeria.
@@EkoFranko ❓❓❓❓what?
@@darkdragon5520 Do you not understand what a joke is?
I’d have to say I really do think you miss the point of Vicky2. It’s the Victorian Era from the European perspective. Not adding detail to Africa was kinda the point. The game is best experienced through a western power, which in turn viewed all of Africa as one big empty land-grab.
Giving Africa plenty of playable states may of course be fun for gameplay, but does begin to feel rather silly in the 1800s’ historical context. The reason Africans weren’t invited to the Scramble for Africa is because they were not respectable from a military perspective. Our wokeism can’t blur us from the reality that African technology and institutions were hilariously behind the times.
He literally addresses that same point in the video, what are you talking about?
@@rileyrose5166 No, he mentions it but then quickly brushes it aside.
I counter this with the mods for the game which present many nominally playable states especially in west Africa and it actually better represents the colonisation in my opinion.
You should see Europa Universalis 4 when it first came out 2013, before all the updates and DLC’s, Africa was just as bare and empty there as it was in Victoria 2.
I know the center of Africa was made up of several wastelands that were fairly large, but from what I remember, and am seeing looking it up, there was at least a few countries in West Africa. Most notable among the absence, to me, is always any remnant of a post Malinean state or Jolof rump states. They were more than just villages and all.
@@RosencreutzzzI just like to remember how far Eu4 has changed over the years and how different the map was from the start with Africa being one of them. North and South America were especially weird too in 2013, there were only 3 Native American tribes that were just blobed next to each other, same with Meso-America, and Inca was there all alone in South America.
@@brandonlyon730 EU4 still has a problem with Native Americans tbh. There are a lot of major state level tribes that are at least acknowledged as provinces with significant populations and some with cultures but they aren't actually in the game for some reason. Most notable being the Tainos, they have a lot of provinces with their culture in game and historically had multiple states and there are events you can get that deal with them but the entire Caribbean and Florida are just empty.
@@hyperion3145 It was kind of necessary with the way colonization works in EU4. It would be hard to add in all the tribes without filling the map making picking the colonization idea groups pointless when theirs barely any land to colonize with a colonist. Similar with Victoria 2 with 80% Africa being empty for the sake of getting the way colonization works to properly set up the African Scrabble. Hopefully it eventually changes in EU5 where they overhaul the colonization system.
@@brandonlyon730 yeah I was disappointed they didn't overhaul colonisation in leviathan. As they kept adding more and more natives to the new world then needed to nerf colonisation or at least conquest. The fact they still haven't fixed Europeans conquering tribal land not colonising into it really annoys me as it is such a simple fix.
The video title made unsure what I was in for but this was a very interesting analysis of history and how games portray it. Good video
Though Spengler was not the most clear representative of this, he certainly played a large role in forming an idea that you did not explicitly mention unfortunately.
There was a large trend in what could be called the "reactionary" ideology, where they were rarely, if ever, supportive of 19th century colonial ventures by their countries.
Many of them believed that they should much rather care for the internal contradictions and issues that were brewing under the surface in their countries. This led to a later development that could be called "ethno-pluralism", where, as a reaction to the universalizing and totalizing hegemonic tendencies of capitalistic liberal democracy asserting themselves over every country in the world, the idea was formed, that each group of people being allowed to develop themselves in accordance to their own cultures and customs instead of having to conform to a universal system of doctrines and rules.
This is fundamentally why Spengler's views are not exactly Eurocentric, they can be applied to all civilizations.
The bit before the outro is honestly too dismissive. One does not need to be reactionary or fatalistic to recognize that we are living in a state of profound confusion, in most countries that can be called western by the definition laid out in the beginning of the video. This understanding can even be found in the works of post-modernists, where they criticize the last vestiges of modernist optimism.
The people of Europe and the English-speaking colonial nations don't know what they believe or what their role in the world should be. This nihilistic chasm is precisely where the appeal of "reaction" comes from, it offers a direction that is familiar, something they recognize as part of their own culture and heritage, it provides a strong bulwark against nihilism and ideals that go beyond the petty self-interest and narcissism of the age. Dismissing it out of hand does not provide an answer to any of this.
Nihilism just seems like a by-word for mass depression.
@@James-ip8xs That's incredibly reductive
The question is how to rouse people under a common narrative, while also not letting the narrative spiral out of control.
@@geraldfreibrun3041 first rule that there are no solutions in an imperfect world only trade offs. Think of a slave escaping his master and what does he have outside? nothing but a desert of confusion and likely damning his children and next to the same fate until that crucible forges a new people.
@@riverman6462 Socrates would've laughed Sartre out of the room. At no other point in history were existentialists taken seriously, as they should not be.
Two additions to your story from someone that studied the book for a thesis:
There is actually a second volume of the book that was published in 1922. Spengler wasn't as pessimistic in the first volume (which was published during the war), but this all changed with the second volume. In short, he stated that total war was the only way to conclude the rivalry between the only two remaining variations of Western civilization that still existed: the German and Anglo-saxon.
Moreover, the distinction between culture and civilization doesn't come out of nowhere. In this time period, there was actually a huge debate between German intellectuals on the different concepts of culture and civilization, which started with Kant. Read the German Wikipedia on civilization for this.
i must say i like the scramble of africa how it is presented by some vic2 mods the best, because the rid Africa from the empty state in vic2, while still having the micromanaging aspect of having to conquer these nations or having to go through a longterm diplomatic strategy to first sphere them and then having to wait for the event to make them a protectorate pop up. Really gives you the feel of a race against your rivals, while the effort of colonizing becomes more than just a click, just like in real history, where it wasn't sure that easy to conquer the whole of africa.
"The gameplay is prioritizing the western experience" - no shit? In a game about industrialization and economy, during a time mostly only Europe and the Americas industrialized? Colour me fucking surprised
And miss me with that shit about erasing people, it's a fucking 12 y.o. game dude go look at CK2 on release and tell me how many people should get offended CK2 didn't represent them correctly.
This is literally the most pointless video I watched, the simple fact is that it's an old game and represents the period where Europe was the unmatched hegemon of the world, hell both China and India were taught that but somehow it seems to complicated for online intellectuals, also too much philosophy in a video about a damn video game lmao bro calm down
If you think that the video was commenting on whether Europe was powerful at that point in history, then you missed the entire point.
The question isn't what, but rather how things are represented.
@@MrMiddleWick Yeah they're represented badly because it's a 12 year old game, I literally said that
Bruh, I dont think Victoria 2 present Africa with blank map would cause people to think it's really a unsettled land wait for colonist to take it.
Victoria 2 is kinda hard strategy game, the one who play it would have much more brain to understand that.
No, it being a hard strategy game doesnt make sure of that.
HoI is a hard strategy game and that community has struggled with stupid nazis , all the time.
And as you can see in this very comment section there are tons of people that misrepresent or ignore africa to reduce it all to basically uncontested land.
5:52, No, that isn't a problem. History wasn't equal, and people should just deal with it. Relevant figures should get their spot in games, regardless of geographical location.
relevant figures are and were everywhere
Relevant to whom? You think nothing was going on outside Europe at the time all those Civ leaders were alive? For most of history, Europe hasn't been especially relevant - the Indian Ocean is where the good stuff happened
It'd make sense if he wanted places like Asia to be better represented, etc. But Africa? Most of Sub-Saharan Africa didn't even have written language or wheels, those were hunter-gatherers who didn't even record their own history, they had no business ever rivaling the Europeans at the time, if they were weak in game it'd be historically accurate.
@@nerdsoft9964
>For most of history, Europe hasn't been especially relevant.
Perhaps, but during this time period europe was the most important area by far. The industrial revolution and the golden age of scientific discovery. The modern world was created by europe during this time period and the non-european nations for the most part were at the whim of European empires.
@@incognito-px3dz Yeah, but the timestamp above is specifically complaining about Civ, saying that a game which tries to portray civilisations from all across world history shouldn't have such a high ratio of European/Western civs compared to everyone else. At present, I think Civ VI is slightly under 50/50 Western/everyone else, with fewer Western civs depending on where exactly you draw the line from Western to non-western.
To be fair there are not many written source about Africa (except west and east Africa)
I hate when philosophers use convoluted and complex sentences and less common words. It's as if they just want to show off their wringing skills to prove how smart they are.
I can understand when some philosophers write complex sentences like lawyer would in order to cover their point, but even that can go too far.
People like Stephen Hawkins or Einstein (I know physicists not philosophers) partially became famous, because they used simple language to describe completed phenomenons and concepts.
I’d offer a bit of pushback here in that jargon and academic language are very useful for speaking between people with established terms-creating a shorthand for entire concepts and not having to start every conversation with a discussion of free will or whatever… but Spengler does not do that. In fact he muddies things, as with the “Apollonian” example- he cites Nietzsche as a massive inspiration and then used the term to mean something entirely different and it’s like…why are you doing this??
That said, I do also think that some writers get trapped within their obtuse language or genuinely don’t expect their writing to leave academia, or perhaps expect it to trickle down somehow. I don’t know how often people ever try and “sound smart”- I’m sure it happens but I would default towards them being more…caught up in the language than tedious for the sake of word count or whatever.
I do massively respect the writers who can “translate” their own work from academic to “pedestrian”(for lack of a better term).
I thought this as well until my friend let me watch some of his uni philosophy lectures and the level of layering of concepts means that cannot reasonably describe concepts without condensing the concepts it is based of into terms. As a Biochemist it is done for exactly the same reasons in science. For example chemical reaction mechanisms can be complicated but we just name them after their discoverer so rather than having to explain all of the individual steps I can just say it is a Pictet-Spengler Reaction and move on to what I actually want to talk about.
I'm interested in seeing what they do for Victoria 3, because eu4 did do quite a bit for non European nations being powerful. It leans to the European side after thr 1700s though like it did in reality, but they did try, and it is still fun and interesting to play with an American tribe, or an African nation or a rising Asian power. I'm hoping they fill out the map as it should be based on the reality of the situation in the next game, we'll see by the end of the month what the base game is and what they'll leave for dlc.
this channel is a perfect mix of everything i like.
This is a very bad "video essay" 40000 views were surprising, I tought that quality was really declining on youtube. Then I opened the channel saw the little views on other videos and it made more sense.
Africa was populated with states back in EU3. In fact, playing as an African state, you'd be encouraged to develop and "colonize" nearby "stateless" provinces earlier than the Europeans would arrive. And, when they would, to Westernize your tech by going through painful reforms.
Interesting that a video that talks all about "framing," the conclusion is framed in a way that presumes "reactionary fatalism" to be false. Just as Africa wasn't truly empty, there wouldn't be so many reactionaries if there wasn't a shred of truth in it.
Ironic bias is always my favorite. I love it when people are guilty of the exact thing they criticize. We all do it to some degree and I always find it genuinely fascinating.
Every good (that is, more likely to succeed) deception contains some part of the truth in it
@Jean Sanchez Okay, were any actual arguments against the idea of civilizational cycles posed in the vid? Cus I sure didn't see any
@Jean Sanchez My point being he didn't pose any arguments of his own as to why Spengler is wrong, he just rejected him for ideological reasons.
This channel is exactly my cup of tea. Excited to watch the rest of your content!
To whoever made this video: Please, for the sake of your own soul, do not copy academic sentence structure. It's not clever, it's not fun. The point of this kind of talk is, more often than not, to mask the fact that you're either not saying anything new, or you're trying to hide the fact that you don't know what you're talking about.
No its just a linguistic mode. It is a way of fitting into the establishment and an expected use of language that varies by field. Which I find to be a bad thing but its not intentionally written to mask anything. For a video essay it is useless and alienates an audience, being detrimental in trying to communicate clearly.
The style of writing doesn't hide anything and shit writing is still shit writing its just written in a different convention. The real way to hide shit and feign knowledge is to claim you will look into doing further studies in the future, simply labelling your findings as preliminary or exploratory. Academic writing is just a way to signal to other academics that you know what the expected norms of the field are, with most just doing it subconsciously as reading papers slowly warps their style of writing through osmosis.
Obviously not the direct topic of this video, but i started decline of the West once and I was very impressed with some of the initial ideas, specifically the cultural/civilizational conceptions of time and history itself being central to understanding the cultures and civilizations. Like it's really easy to project ones own base level conceptions into historical people, but realizing that people viewed history and time and their place in it drastically differently across time and space really helps nuance the decisions and practices taken in history. Idk if he was 100% accurate but it's a good factor to keep in mind.
Idk when i saw it i was sure he was smoking weed or something, he got ideas some are good but i feel like he knows what he's saing only half the time .
@@Adam-wg2rf yeah exactly, like idk if the ancient Egyptians actually viewed time as a very momentary present bookended by infinities of future and past necessarily or that medieval euro people viewed themselves as inhabiting the waning days of a sort of dying world(which I believe is true though) where new technology or prosperity was not a promise of the future, but the idea that people don't/didn't view time as an orderly march forward or that history is knowable or that the future will contain significant changes is important to understand why people did/do things.
You really thought we wouldn't notice the AOE music :)
Great vid thanks!
How would having 300 tribes that WILL be steamrolled by even mediaeval nations really benefit the game? It’s just easier and better to leave it uncolonized land because it won’t be by the end of the game.
@Phillis "Dick" Black There is a massive difference between fighting off Turks which nearly happened and fighting a pre dreadnought with stone arrows. Constantinople nearly held off and the Turks could have been broken in Europe, the Pope was building momentum for a 10th Crusade which could be increased with a victory at Constantinople, The Order of The Dragon (Skanderbeg, Vlad The Impaler, Vuk Lazarević, Konstantin and Fruzhin) was rampaging across Ottoman Europe which would have been disastrous for the Turks. A tribe in Africa has no chance at stopping the Europeans, even victories like Isandlwana required an incredible numbers advantage and incompetence by the Europeans which only resulted in a fleeting victory by the next day. There would be no way to make playing a tribe fun or possible because you would spend all game trying to modernize to a Napoleonic level while Europe is devolving howitzers and tanks. The rest of the world is playing a grand strategy game while Africa is still playing a survival game. Diversity brings no benefit here either because every tribe would have the same problem of trying to make "The British Grenadiers March" stop playing.
why wouldn't you? it would be a more realistic experience both from european and african persepective. fun from games like these comes from a historical experience
@@Zen-rw2fz It wouldn't add anything, there would be almost no fight for Europeans because their massive technological gap. In Victoria II there are mods that add tribes but they are easily over run by a few brigades and only act as free colonial regions that you don't have to risk getting into competition with other colonial powers for.
@@coatofarms4439 do remember how the army has been completely revamped by know the game is more about politics than it is about conquering everything with your infinite ammounts of units. it makes a colonialism more realistic.
@@Zen-rw2fz That has been the greatest and most foolish mistake paradox has made and will also make it even more impossible to play in Africa because they specifically said it is only possible to win with superior industry and technology which Africa has neither at the start of the game and realistic colonialism WILL involve all of Africa being taken by Europeans. You can easily tell the massive power imbalance when Bismarck is able to establish a congress to allow Europeans to make claims largely before Europeans would ever set foot on 80 percent of the territory and there was no challenge by the natives that changed the results.
I think you oversimplify Spengler to a fault. His belief is a German nationalist one, he defends and romanticizes German history (in the Goethian rhetoric) and that Germany's progression into a Protestant Industrialized nation was due to a superior cultural direction than the dominantly catholic/orthodox and colonialist nature of the rest of Europe.
That if German culture was to be minimized and contained, it would be a cultural detriment to Europe and the world. Spangler isnt saying "Eurocenticism is wrong", he is saying "A Eurocentric view which aborts the German cultural progression is wrong". That the unification of German states due to external (European) security pressues ended the 'German cultural period'.
Spengler blames the rest of Europe for all of Germany's problems.... Something that German intellectuals at the time unfortunately embraced.. "Germany is right and all of Europe is wrong, we must free Germany and end the current order in Europe.... for culture"
^Sound like a certain person you read about in history class?
While I agree Spengler, like 90% of the intellects of the *fin de siècle*, was extremely nationalistic, and therefore still heavily embraced his German nation, I doubt one can really call him proto-fascist, because he puts the main focus on the German culture, rather than the German ethnicity. To Spengler, what made Germany so great was the fact that it had brought forth great minds in music, philosophy and art, and the fact that Europe now was squabbling with each other for power was a sign (for him) that that phase of culture was now gone, and after this only decline could come. That also explains both why he decided to vote the NSDAP in 1932 (after all, that was a party who recognized that decline and proposed a change of course, and he probably was not fully unaffected by the Dolchstoss theory either) and why that same party decided to burn his works for being against the party (as squabbling for power is the only thing that party was for, you can imagine books telling people such behaviour leads to decline doesn't sit well with the 'take back what's ours' message)
@@the_tactician9858 If his beliefs sound fascists... and he votes fascist, he is at the very least proto-fascist. Saying he was betrayed by the party he voted for isnt an exception, consider the Nazi Brownshirts. Many of whom were purged once the Nazi party gained power, did them being purged by fascists make them less fascist? Certainly not.
@@dimitriantanov3150 Still, Spengler did not advocate for racial superiority nor did he call for a crusade against other cultures or races. I struggle to see how he is more nationalistic than the average European from his time, and what can be defined as proto-fascism rather than chauvinism and fascism itself.
@@the_tactician9858 If you struggle to see how Spengler differs from other nationalists at the time, consider the following points:
- A typical nationalist at the time desired for their ethnic lands to be apart of their ethno-state.
-A typical nationalist, at the time, supported autarky from their neighboring countries.
Now, consider Spengler:
-Spengler has little to do with advocating an ethnostate
-Spengler has little to do with advocating economic policy
-Spengler DOES however advocate for Germany to remilitarize and ofr its foreign policy goals to be a complete upheaval of the 'European Order", for Germany to reduce and diminish the great powers of Europe, until Germany could be insulated and secure enough to re-enter a cultural period.
^^Do you see the difference between Spengler and a typical nationalist? Not only did he vote Nazi, but everything about his political statements lean in favor of the Nazi's latter.. less initially expressed goals, to goto war with all of Europe. For sake of "culture".
@@dimitriantanov3150 You make some good points here. I think I agree that he has proto-fascist elements in his reasoning, and as such we should be mindful of that with his works, but I think that is not necessarily his main point he is trying to make.
Conquering states is a million times faster than colonization in vik3, if there were no states then it would be basically impossible to conquer all of Africa
I sentence you to 28 minutes left-leaning white guy video essay
Copium
spudgun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The spenglarian paradox
Either he is right with his overview or he is right because populations only intepret things through their own manifestations
the second option is the more likely.
to look at history you need to have a lens to look at it and that lens can only look so broadly because of regional and cultural limitations.
like for example, im brazilian and we pass trough eurasian history quite fast mainly because of the second wave of immigrants that came by the end of the 19th century before diving deep into south america history but still really focused on the happenings of brazil with events around the hispanic america being mainly big side notes.
to be able to look at history as it probably actualy was you need multiple lenses from multiple cultures.
Yeah for example in the video he contrasts a eurocentric lens vs a realistic when it loads the term for a "more correct"
Youd spend more time defining terms then to actually make any sense for example dark africans wouldnt be classed as a geopolitical states at all
Basically he is using a eurocentric lens to view a non eurocentric lens to view a eurocentric lens to view a non eurocentric lens
@@knownothing3364 "Youd spend more time defining terms then to actually make any sense for example dark africans wouldnt be classed as a geopolitical states at all" What does this section mean exactly? Sokoto were geopolitical state
@@vercot7000 i forgot the great sokoto how could i
Sokoto is known historically for bring peace stability and freedom to their new empire with vast colonies stretching from china to america and great social innovations such as common law and consitutionalosm
@@knownothing3364 My point was that they were a regional superpower...which is...by definition a geopolitical power lmao
Good video, although I couldn't really grasp a single, straightforward conclusion from what you discussed. Perhaps this reflects Spengler's work the best given your depiction.
As an EU4 player, these are my thoughts based on what the video shared. I love how Paradox is moving towards simulating historical "forces" that shaped our real-world history. These forces do not make anything "inevitable" persay, but they represent the various benefits and drawbacks that weight history in certain directions. You as the player are dropped into this environment, and you must take advantage of the benefits that your political entity, ruler, or nation has in the fight against others, who have their own advantages (which may be greater than yours).
By populating the rest of the world with their own peoples, structures, technology, geography, and political situations, Paradox is doing a better job of simulating these forces. When a land is empty, there is no entity to represent the situation of people from that region. It's just passive, like a piece of wood with no will of its own. Even in the era of European colonization and imperialism, nothing passive like this existed. For example, the Spaniards didn't take down the Aztecs by just being "awesome Europeans" or showing up and impressing the natives into submission; they had numerous definable advantages (technology, regional novelty, group organization, etc.). The Aztecs also had their own advantages, like having the home turf and a far more numerous fighting force. The Aztecs lost in part because the Conquistadors took advantage of the Aztec's unpopularity and political frailty. This was not inevitable: the conquistadors could have been wiped out if the Aztecs had managed to break up the coalition or isolate and ambush the conquistadors. However, this is not how that played out. With more detail, there arises more ways to win and more ways to fail.
The rest of Europe's imperialist projects follow this pattern. Europeans consistently took advantage of local situations. Yes, sometimes they didn't need to because their advantages weighted it so far in their favor, but it never went to the point of "inevitability." This is true of every political and social entity from around the world. I like it when instead of barring a "primitive" nation from doing something, there is instead a game mechanic rooted in history that makes it difficult, sometimes really difficult, but still possible to do it. I like it when each region has their own social and political climate defined and given agency. It gives respect and awareness to the people that lived/live there while making it more interesting to play, either as a colonizer, native, trader, conqueror, or something else.
I suppose you can differentiate what I said from Spengler's ideas in this way: I talked mainly about external forces, whereas he was concerned with internal forces (at least that's how I perceived the portrayal in this video). However, both internal and external forces in this sense are not exclusive to one people, nation, or race. If I'm wrong in this assessment, I'd like to hear someone else's thoughts who knows much more about the subject than I do.
Of course game is supposed to have a Eurocentric viewpoint. The game is literally called Victoria for this reason.
he acknowledges that at 5:31
My world history class mainly focused on America. Yeah, it was 6th grade or something but it's inexcusable to do that, especially when American history was the very next year. I guess I missed the day when the United States was always the world (heavy sarcasm). My local schools suck, it seems, and most students will never have context for anything their nation was involved in and what even led to that stuff.
leftist man play paradox games for the very first time POV
Comparing EU4 a later game as well as something which has been supported way more dlc and update wise to VIC2 and asking: why less nations; seems kind of funny especially seeing the natives update for NA in EU4. I wouldn't be surprised dlc was planned for Africa if support was greater than it was at the time.
Well then, this started well, before becoming mind numbingly devastatingly BORING.
I lasted 14 minutes
So glad that I found your channel - keep up the great work!
I've never noticed because literally everyone plays HPM
took me an hour to digest this video, great work man
I strongly believe you overstated the importance of his work and forgot to mention his extreme bias and hate towards Jews in said book. It was a well made video but this really felt like a way to talk about Spangler in a more positive light wrapped around Victoria 3 like Spangler was the only human on earth with ideas of western decline at the time. You’re talking about how he is presenting a new idea ? Yet he talks heavily about Jews being the reason for declining civilizations throughout time and that feeling was not a new idea in his time, definitely an odd choice to choice to use for this video and that’s why I say it was forced because the the book had such an influence on the Nazi party rather than modern historians.
did you finish the video
When Belgium can conquer large populations in Africa it really puts prospective on why all that African land should be grey or just a stepping stone for bigger nations.
You could just give countries cheaper CBs to conquer it, the Congo shouldn't be another placeholder just so Belgium can conquer it. If there was the possibility of Africans resisting Europeans and changing the game, even just having an extra war, it'd be a lot better than just EU4 style of colonization where you're just staring at empty land and half the natives can't do anything.
@@hyperion3145 I mean sure you can make nations there, but they would serve little purpose other than to slow the game down with lag. Realistically none of the nations stood a chance in the heart of darkness. If there were nations that could stand up to Europeans it would be nations like Ghana and Liberia. Otherwise it would be a meme like Luxembourg world conquest, just too far away from reality
You deserve 100x the views. You threw shade at civ in this video but I'd love a full video on it.
if we analise mircea elliade we can understand that every culture tends to promote some sort of projection of where the center of the world is, for china and its neighboring countries china was the middle of the world, or for christianity jerusalem was the middle, in the age of discovery: europe, for the mayans and astecs they lived in the middle of the world, we can also perceive it in religious doctrines such as buddhism (we exist in a realm betwenn the gods and the lower levels of existence) or the north pagans (midgard). So it is important to understand that since we(west societies and countries) exist as extension to european adventures across the world our point of view, our center of the world, will not be china, will not be benin or the andes peaks. it would be interesting to see these non "central" countries have a rethoric about the europeans as barbarians (such as the example of japanese folks perceiving the barbarians of the south/europeans)
another interesting read is Carl Schimidt (tho he is quite polemic) in his book the nomos of the earth he explore the transition of european concept of law and state toward the land and sea throughout history. for example: one thing he mentions is the christian myth of the kathekon on which legitimized, on early medieval europe, the existence of christian states and denied legitimacy to any non christian states.
these ideas can light how society, culture, etc. sees itself as the center of legitimacy, for example: of course the americas were discovered, they exist as extension to european exploration and not native american states, the discovery of america for the european world/west does not deny war, oppression, conquest, etc. but we must differentiate what the perceiving of phenoumena and phenoumena is: the expansion of european influence exists paralel to native population perceptions. the discovery of america or the partition of africa does not deny these native populations of their personal interpretations.
In the end, it would be nice to see a african country organizing itself and going for its own colonial conquest in europe or in the americas, Or some native uprising on USA, or some culture from spain, for example, overtaking its cultural masters and imposing itself, imagie if england was conquered by the irish; this is what make paradox games cool, the possibilities of something different, the rise of an unexpected power, the fall of a might goverment. Vic 3 has a lot of potential and i believe paradox will deliver.
Without even watching the video, I'll just say that many people are overthinking this. African countries were not included for the same reason spoons and forks are not something you can carry in shooters. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but they are just not needed. Victoria is about great powers and how they shaped the world around them. Also, there could be issues with representing anything correctly in Africa, as data from that period could be lacking.
Awesome video! Superb production value, I hope you keep making these!
Random tribes shouldn't be countries
Maybe but they can make states
No one is saying “Add the Maasai” or “add the Ebuki” who today even after industrialization have small populations
People are saying add Ashanti (3.4 million) Benin (2 million) Oyo (2.3 million) Bournu (5 million) etc…
Add the kingdoms that existed
Love the work, well done. However I think maybe it would be a better structured video if you were to affirm your hypothesis early in the video. Right now I feel like I have to wait until the end to really link all the ideas to understand what you were trying to convey.
I went in expecting a Victoria 3 video about map changes, and got a nuanced take on how history is framed by gameplay, and gameplay mechanics. I dig this. lol
That section about Sprengler's background was hilarious. Had a doctorate he failed to get, saw imperialism through almost every lens possible, voted for the Nazis but didn't like antisemitism when framed as an ethnic issue. The plant-soul stuff only makes it funnier; he'd have an absolutely massive audience of liberals and reactionaries fighting over who they thought he had allegiance to if he was around today.
Most likely for balancing the economy. Pops in Africa do not consume goods because they are not a part of a tag, so if they did consume goods at the start of the game the whole world economy would be unstable due to insufficient tech, with the meta being to quickly annex those African countries for tax revenues. (same as, say, annexing Chinese provinces in base Vicky2, but that is why China's military is made comically powerful at the start of the game).
Strange video... Its hard to make some place in Victoria for African nations, because if they want some historical accuracy, its just hard to find some developed or developing country here, even if you would lets say favorize Ethiopia and Mali, it would mean unbalancing region developement, and for some African renesance there would be mods or even dlcs for sure. For me, entire video doing it maybe too much political or narative-based, and core dilema would be probably more dev-game oriented. If there would be Eu4-Vic3 save conventor, its would in sec splash all this video overthinking into sea of converted native developed empires.
I dont care about Petersen and dont realy even know if i like this video. But Spengler view of things seems realy interesting to me (as philosophy) , maybe today even more accurate than in his time, and i would probably read entire book.
Europe conquered Africa in a moment, It hapened deal with it or we can rewrite the history.
I appreciate the thorough exploration of this topic through more contemporary philosophy of the day, and how that can be reflected in some of what we do now. Like you said, yeah, it’s not like Spengler inspired our thinking of colonialism or post colonialism, but it’s fascinating to compare our modern concepts of the topic to what a philosopher was already thinking, despite all of his own pitfalls. I’m subscribing, it’s good stuff.
P.S.- I’m assuming by the end of history you mean Fukuyama’s assessment of liberal democracy as the end-all for civilization and its conflicts? Looking forward to watching a video on that!
Well I guess their problem is that they use a map as the core of their game - not a board or a landscape. The map is itself a technology that privileges the structure of modern European polities, nation states above others. For example, they do a bad job in displaying feudal organizations of medieval society. It kinda presupposes a nation state with clear borders.
How would you envision a game suvh as this? I am curious as to how a paradox game can be envisioned as a board or a landscape.
@@riverman6462 I am not a game designer so I have no clue - neither do historians as it seems, because they use political maps time and again. So I am at a loss.
The game Hegomony III: Clash of the ancients is what I meant by landscape. It had it where the game came down to the control of single production sites - lumber mills and the like. But that is a completely different genre. I guess that before the centralized state developed matters of politics were more botto-up then they are in most paradox games - think John Lackland and the magna carta. When I said board I meant games like Civilization.
Its rather well conceptualized in CKIII, with its legal and personal connections amongst the rulers. Althought I would wish for more dynamic de jure titles and a system which brings in the role of the church in such legal-political matters.
@@FlosBlog I totally agree with you. I would also add that a system where Cities Skylines and Civilization series, and possibly Ck3 can crossover kind of, and create this banger of a game that simulates politics, economy, trade and culture from the micro level to the macro level. This game could revolutionize this genre forever. Think like a society simulator basically.
I know this is a fantasy and cannot be really done without deep frying every computer, but still it's an interesting idea that I want to see created.
@@riverman6462 Hasnt there been a city builder game where you have to get along with the city coucil made by kalypso? Maybe you can give that a look?
@@FlosBlog I don't know any such game. Can you tell me the name?
I'm not sure Spengler was saying that his theory is on the same level as Copernicus. He makes a big deal out of the "ptolemaic" versus the "copernican" view of history. I.e., the ptolemaic view being history revolves around Western Europe/the West whereas in the copernican view he's more saying that no one of his civilisations that he defines are any more central to world-history than the others.
Why is South America seen as different to North America in terms of being a colonised nation?
If I had to narrow it down to two main elements, it would be the realities of global power and neocolonialism as the first one-- that Central and South America have largely been sites of resource extraction (the fact that they've had to nationalize their industries in many cases is a sign of this) with lessened autonomy than the United States, as an example.
The second is race and the complicated way that Hispanic both is and isn't a race, and is sometimes part of whiteness(like in US census forms) and sometimes distinct from it (like in US Census forms), and how that ultimately results in not including the more "mixed race" settler states in typical definitions of the West. Indeed, most any definition of "the West" has some contradiction or strong exception to its rules that makes it rather imprecise.
Put those together and it's largely an issue of power relations.
Its laughable to even pretend like Vic3s Africa map looks the way it does because of realism. The devs have pretty much confirmed they dont care about gameplay or realism. Theyre doing the map like this simply because it would be bad pr in 2022 to have the map be empty.
or maybe the do because it better represents history? you don't seem like you know any history yourself anyway...
@@Zen-rw2fz wtf are you talking about
@@Zen-rw2fz History? European Empires with Guns vs African Tribes with sticks and bows. The games of Paradox vastly overrate Africans and even Native Americans just for Political Correctnes + Gameplay reasons so the players can enjoy playing as them. The games don´t even remotely represent the superiority of the Colonial Powers over African "states".
@@unregierbar7694 while many africans did lack behind interms of millitary technology sticks and bows is an exageration still, none of the game portrays african countries as anything easy victoria 3 doesn't do that either.
@@ayumu_osaka Who cares if they're doing it for bad pf? The history they show in africa is correct and offers flavor
I can't believe Hank from breaking bad would say stuff like this!
Really enjoying these videos on how we talk about history, I like this topic more than history itself. I'm a mathematics grad student (and don't play these games) so a lot of the stuff on this channel is new to me, so when the name Oswald Spengler came up I was very surprised - I've heard this name before! And given what his work is like, it's something I "shouldn't" know about, but perhaps this shows how far reaching his influence is.
I have a document where I save funny/interesting math-related quotes, so it wasn't hard to locate where I'd heard of Spengler. Behold:
"For Greek Mathematics, magnitudes were geometric rather than arithmetic; western Mathematics has reversed this emphasis. Oswald Spengler, in his book The Decline of the West, has argued that this means that there are two wholly different "Mathematics", as part of two different cultures. Our position is rather that congruence and geometric ratios on the one hand and Dedekind cuts on the other are just two different careful formalizations of the SAME underlying idea of magnitude - and that this point exemplifies the unity of idea behind the inevitably varied form."
- Saunders Mac Lane. Mathematics, From and Function
(The idea that ancient Greek math is very different from modern math is a very easy sell. But this idea of two wholly different math kinda ignores the fact that one transformed into the other through a long history. It's not as though modern math had an independent, unrelated birth. Also, I don't know why the modern math of eg Dedekind should be be called "western". Is ancient Greece not a part of the West?)
Interesting to see him come up there, of all places.
Yeah, he as a reaching influence that even touches literary figures like Joseph Campbell, and very indirectly Margaret Atwood, often through intermediary figures. Making my video on esoterics was the first time I learned that he had a...fraught dialogue with Rudolf Steiner. He pops up in a lot of spots, it would seem.
powerful, stunning and brave
the lack of representation of tribal africans with no writing systems and little to 0 historiography is painfully noticeable
i hope victoria 3 devs give BIPOC some extra attention even if it delays the release by a few years... too much eurocentrism from their games
Instead of the representation of tribal europeans with no real writing and ltitle to 0 historiogaphy until rome forced them in imperator ?, fuck and even then , it took them 800 more years to learn to fucking write on their own around the age of charlemagne. Africans have showed to be rather fast learners.
And it pains me to see how unfaithful to history the game is, especially considering the industrial revolution which is concentrated solely in the West when in fact many great tribes in west Africa had lucrative cement factories by the game start
You are somewhat write but your framing is intellectually dishonest and even a little racist. Not that you care.
@@cseijifja Cap.
@@cseijifja your comparison would make sense if the romans were roaming around europe, mowing down gauls with maxim guns
“I’m the future, all contents will be randomly generated by AI.”
But then .. colonialism is not the same as imperialism, nor are they interdependent. The most successful colonialists in recent history have been the British, English-speaking Americans, and .. the Russians; settling vast tracks of land with their dependent/ supportive peoples (making viable colonies beside others, over them, or replacing them; here culture is a key interest). Empire, however, is a matter of power, taking it, exercising it, and holding on to it - regardless of settlement and re-settlement for original or migrant peoples; neither culture nor civilisation is key to understanding commercial and governmental control.
The Irish, for instance, have won no worldwide empire, they are not generally recognised as being part of the 'European' civilisation format (other than as labouring side-kicks to the English), nor are they regarded as particularly influential in cultural matters (unlike the Scots under English patronage), yet there are Patricks, St Patrick Days, and Paddy's Pubs (with or without a bicycle outside) thriving in the most unexcepted places - even though Patrick, himself, wasn't Irish at all, but British (Romano-Welsh or Pictish, or both, or neither). And, by and large, the Irish seem to fit in with their new neighbours fairly well, not by ceasing to be 'Irish' (until very recently that is, alas modern Ireland seems not to be especially proud of being Irish, deeming their past to be backward) but they get along by being .. more, rather than less, useful; indeed, that is colonialism.
;o)
Incredible! This is all entirely wrong. 1st of all, 2/3 of your examples of "the most successful colonialists" in recent history are empires which seems to defeat your entire argument that they aren't interdependent immediately, and then your other one is America which hardly colonized anything? Why would you include a nation that practiced way more imperialism than colonialism as your example of a successful colonial power? Again defeating your own argument bro. A better example would be portugal, spain, or even belgium and netherlands...all empires or kingdoms so it still defeats your point but at least they actually did significant colonizing.
Then this part confused me, you go on about...Irish culture? What? Colonies of Ireland include...what exactly? Cultural exports are not colonialism. Cultural exports are the natural effects of multiculturalism and cooperation between countries. It has literally 0 to do with colonialism whatsoever. Colonialism is when a country forms a colony in a land. The one thing you are right about, literally the only thing (sorry) , is that it isn't the same thing as imperialism. However it was mostly practiced by imperialist countries during the colonial era, and the act of colonizing a land that's already settled (which was most of them) is inherently imperialist, so imperialism and colonialism are definitely interconnected in both a historical and practical sense.
@@uckbritley1305 US America colonised the whole of its now constituent States .. usually, before these became states, and frequently displacing the previous dwellers. There are colonies, i.e. settled groups, of Irish people across the globe distinct from their neighbours as being 'Irish - and proud of it'; though they did not have an empire. Empire refers to 'imperium' - governing control, UB, colonies refer to 'colonia', settlements as enclaves among other peoples; these are - by nature - not the same thing (an empire may well be colonsied by peoples from its dependent domains, but not all empires colonise the territories they conquer or control).
Thems facts; it how words work .. even if we like to use them differently.
;o)
read a book
@@fuzzirodekill That you, I like reading - and studying - and understanding. ;o)
I'd say the Chinese and Israelites are doing quite well at colonizing aswell!
Great video Great work 👌
I hope it’s a little less confusing than Vic2
Haha you're way overthinking the amount of thought the devs are actually putting into this. It will likely be very, very similar to Vicky 2 in how it presents history. See Crusader Kings 3 for example or any other Paradox game. They don't change tonally in each iteration. Most of their players are Western and most of history in the time period was dictated by Western events that their customer s are familiar with. Even if Paradox says their taking more global worldview, don't expect much other than a few new events outside of the major powers. Great video, but you're overthinking it.
March of the eagles 2 when
Honestly, if they made a March of Eagles with as much care and tight focus as HoI4, it could be good series, but the one they made before it just... I played it recently just a bit and I can't get through a game and feel like there's nothing to do but live history, rather than subvert it or anything.
it's a map game bro
What a phenomenal video, you've done tremendously well and I look forward to more videos in the future!!
Why so many dislikes? Spengler fans?
Probably, yeah. Spengler is to reactionaryism what Immanuel Kant is to liberalism, you can't really critique either of them without also critiquing the primary ideologies that has been inspired by them tbh. So of course it's going to piss of reactionary thinkers.
7:20 also Australia with the terra nullius idea.
Quick, better introduce aboriginal nation states.
Sorry buddy I do not care about Spengler. I’m a follower of Evola
Weird flex, but okay.
"Don't worry if it doesn't quite make sense yet, it never will" I'm fucking dying
Eurocentrism is such a joke of a term. Europeans and their descendants have forged the current pinnacle of human achievement by creating the West. By the West, I primarily mean the era of massive economic and technological advancement following WW2. Noting the most significant achievements of a time period doesn't mean you're being biased towards the race or nations that made those achievements. It means you're reading history as is rather than considering lesser accomplishments to be equal simply to prop up one group to equal another. There were points in history where places like Egypt, Persia, China, and India were massive players on the world stage. Those days are long past. Until the recent re-emergence of China, the world of technological and economic advancement after WW2, and to an extent since the Columbian exchange, has been dominated by France, Germany, the UK, and the US. It's not eurocentric to acknowledge that fact. Today, the reality of the world is still largely eurocentric, as the primary players on the world stage are still almost all European, with the exceptions of China, India, and Japan. If 90% of power and advancement resides with one group of people, it is not out of some sort of prejudice when you acknowledge that that is the case. In pre-Roman times, Europe was a barren backwater and power resided in Egypt, China, Persia, and Greece. It is a simple fact that history changes. We live in a eurocentric era. We are ignorant to pretend that that is not the case just to feel better about ourselves.
You're not wrong, though we don't agree on everything. I said that Eurocentrism is a selectively valuable term, precisely for the nature of exploring and describing eras of European hegemony in history, did I not? The mechanisms of attaching shame to the idea or indeed a guilt are muddied, part of it is due to fringe sycophants telling their followers that The West™ is under attack and that they must remain proud and vigilant etc etc, constructing a fear that they can't "acknowledge real history" and the other part is, I find, a misunderstanding of what the "de-centring Europe" conversation is about.
Apologies if that's a condescending intro, but given the number of gamer-chair historians just saying things to be inflammatory or people sending me ten paragraphs of truisms about their imagined understanding of a continent based on...I don't know, something they learned from Stefan Moylneux or something, I have become cautious in which comments I respond to.
Though I will certainly push back a bit and say that history also changes in the way that we learn to adopt differing lenses, or indeed that there was simply more we did not know than we realized, and part of that can come from over-reliance on a Eurocentric lens, for example. That's how you get the innumerable comments on this video saying that Africa had no civilizations prior to colonialism, as though we don't have an ever expanding historical record of states, societies, colonial resistance, wars against one another, defensive wars against European incursion, cultural traditions, and linguistic traditions that go back thousands of years.
It’s kinda interesting the more they pretend Hunter gatherer tribes were comparable to nation states the worse the games get
But i still want to play them tho :(
learn some history, maybe you will through the game, if not I'm perfectly happy if you stay out of the game's community
@@Zen-rw2fz Ah yes the Tswana a HUGE united singular tribe and not just an ethnolingustic group of many different tribes I remember now. The funny thing is by all this virtue signalling it's LESS historically accurate maybe you should learn actual history instead of playing video game lol
@@Zen-rw2fz we already got white supremasists in the community,.. I dont think excluding him will do any good
@@durianjaykin3576 yeah, I don't really care what people believe in, I'm just excited for the game and would like to try out some of the african and asiatic countries
Anything that is historically greek is western
Anything that is historically persian is eastern
Right?
*Middle Eastern
Chinese is Eastern
You got yourself a subscriber from this one single video. It was amazing.
I cant wait to play as a completely civilized nation in africa that never discovered the wheel for themselves.
Saying African civilisations never discovered the wheel is akin to saying the pyramids were built by aliens, the first moon landing was in the 40s, but the one in the 60s was impossible or that America was uninhabited before Europeans appeared.
Very interesting, thanks for the thoughts. I'd personally love to see a game where we could simulate humanity as it coursed through Africa then into the rest of the world, splitting off segments that become different peoples, things we now define as races, cultures and eventually states and nations. In this regard I find both Civilization and Humankind lacking as games, as neither grasps the essence of what it is to be "a people," united by language, color, location or history. Only in some animated presentations demonstrating on world maps the historic flows of language families or historic cultures, have I seen a glimpse of the game I'd like to see come about some day. Perhaps it is too vague to even be possible, but what the imagination can ponder, someone can and may create, especially if it brings prospects of profit.
Europe birthed modern civilisation and technology and was the most important part of the globe from the 15th-20th century. Cry harder
bro, you clearly didn't even bother to watch the video
Wow, Spengler sounds like an interesting read. My buddy actually mentioned him a bit ago. Maybe I’ll take a dive.
The Victoria 2 map of Africa was definitely a result of the combination of balance needs and a heavily, and destructively, eurocentric worldview and historical perspective. As anyone who's played any of the mods that attempt to fill Africa know, the game was really poorly optimized and suffers a lot whenever a substantial amount of new country tags are added. The market is also a good idea but so wildly chaotic in its implementation that balancing the existence of those states against a system that apparently only one person, who left the studio immediately, understood fully is challenging. But of course, that could be said about any country. Why is some pathetic non-country in Germany more relevant that the massive and wealthy powers of pre colonial Nigeria? That's where the destructive eurocentric view comes in.
I mean honestly, they included literally made up countries in the HRE that don't need to be independent, and "Switzerland,"as if it's not just a myth people made up to explain why the big dead zone in the Alps is filled with Nazi gold
I can't tell if this is a meme or not...
Read "Things Fall Apart", or something. Nigeria was dead before the British came to it.
"we restrict ourseves to europe and colonialnations ,so the US and canada"
ah, once again folk forget that there is whole 2/3rds of a continent south of the rio grande, but it seems we have been "demoted" from the idea of the west since ww1 and 2.
There are absolutely more settler states than the US and Canada but I wanted to avoid the additional difficulty of definition presented by “the global south” designation. Arguably I could have included Mexico (and Brazil) (Japan too, possibly) in that statement but, I suppose this just goes to show the fungibility of what we consider “The West”
@@Rosencreutzzz huh , argentina went from the second richest american power around the time period you mention to not ecen being mentioned too, with that " west" thing i have always had to ask when did ireland began being the west and when did argentina stop?
If the uk blows up in war and desolation due to some dumbfuck in westminster fucking up in ireland does it looses west status?
I have always had the issue with most historical games that they extremely one sidedly represent nations that were alive back then as if the international focus had alway been at it was , namely in the case of america , its really only after the mass migrations into the us where such a disproporcionate amount of people travel to it and allow an industrial revolution to occur, a more realistic aproach would have the american nations have more parity at the begining of the game , and have the same tools to play around instead of the determinism vicky 2 had that relegated america as the. Inevitable us platground ( wich i am pretty sure many people would take as the only logical thing) , when us hegemony was only really firmly rooted on their victory in the us-mexican war.
All in all i hope they show their good streak in making dlcs that pad out parts of the world they dont usually give any mind too , and cause player to not give any mind either because of it.
@@Rosencreutzzz The comment is old but, the thing is, LATAM isn't nearly as alien as japan and should be considered western culture. These countries were founded by western countries, they have western customs, western religions etc. Even though they're poorer than northern colonies, it's not they are like asian??
Honestly, I don't care about African nations in Victoria, Europa Universalis or Hearts of iron.
Important things done by African nations:
Would love to see a remake or update video now that Vic 3 is out now.
Congrats on being the top video for victoria 3