A lot of this comes down to game limitations. There is a limit of about 30 factions and they were trying to represent all of Europe and the discovery of the americas.
@@robertsteiner4696 It's accurate to when it was released. Unlike those big mods, there was no Large Address Aware patch when the game came out, so too many factions would crash the game and cause performance issues. Now if we get a Medieval 2 Remaster, much like Rome 1's Remaster there will be no limit due to technology advancements in what most PCs can run.
I'd argue that having battles you can directly take a part in like in Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord would be a bit more fun as well, but perhaps a more strategic overview of the battles would suit this type of game more after all.
With your comment starting around the seven minute mark, on how video games can affect someone's understanding of history, I agree completely. As a history student, about to go into grad school, I've always advocated for more depth, more portrayals, and more in general for "popular history". Video games, movies, shows, they are all immensely helpful if the research and implementations of said research are correct.
Med2 is obviously a bit more limited than CK3, but a good amount can be done with it. The traits and ancillaries system allows a lot of things and if you want to roleplay... For example: I remember one campaign in the SSHIP mod were, with Rum, I married a byzantine Prince and brought him into my family. He never lost the traits of being greek, christian, and a pretender to the byzantine throne. He was my general when assaulting Constantinople, but died right after that
They were games first history lessons second. The great thing about them is they gave enough historical context/feel to get a ton of kids interested in learning the actual history that otherwise wouldn't. They also did a far better job with the Muslim/Christian history than they did the Christian/"Pagan" history.
I appreciate the simplified history of Med 2. I think it helps make the time period more approachable to newcomers (like I was in 2006). I definitely think it has a place in the game market, so long as the publishers don’t market it as being super-accurate (a la Black Ops). Especially with games like Total War, which aren’t meant to simulate the intricacies of society anyway. In other words, I look to Total War to show me why a particular time period is cool in general. I then look to Paradox to fill in the details. And I’ll shoutout Knights of Honor 2, which I feel does strike a pretty good balance between the two.
I think this is something that all older TW games fail. They're cool games, no doubt about it. But the historical part fails pretty much on depicted troops, armies formations and regions placement. Even Empire, which i believed had a nice approach from historical side, had some flaws about it. Nice video and congrats for the 50K.
well for the time it was pretty historical compared to other games, but today they are definitely more historical, the only problem is that they haven't made a big normal historical total war since a long time...
Your comment reeks of recency bias because all total war games suffer from this, newer ones even Moreso with how badly the engine flops at portraying melee combat.
Glad someone with this many followers touched on this subject! As a Muslim I had a blast with ck3 depiction of the nuances of the conflicts between the many factions of Iberia.
I think Pontus from Rome 2: Total War serves as a good basic example. Pontus and a few others (Armenia, Seleucid) were represented as a melting pot of Hellenistic and Eastern influences, and I really enjoyed pairing Greek phalange with Eastern shock cavalry. Pontus was my first campaign, they still hold a special place in my memories haha
How is that any different from how Pontus was portrayed in Rome 1? In there you still had access to Phalanx units as well as Eastern shock cavalry. You need more than just a certain mixture of troops to base how historical a faction can be.
Excellent video, the way Spain, Moors and Sicily are portrayed in the game has always bothered me. I could go on about the Crusades campaign in the Kingdoms DLC.
The main problem is that TW games have 0 depth when it comes to politics and "piece time" gameplay features , no treaties , aliances don't mean shit where allies don't even bother to at least decalre war on enemies with you in earlier games , and the wars have no meaningful conclusion and go on until total annialation of the enemy only paused by a breif ciesfire that also doesn't mean shit.
Attila solved this nicely with the confederation through diplomacy mechanic. Unfortunately Attila’s map is also the hardest to mod so guess we won’t be having any Imperium Surrectum style 1700+ region maps. Shame really because when you ignore army-to-general limit TW games implemented after Shogun 2, Attila has the most fleshed out and dynamic faction, siege, and campaign map mechanics in the whole series
@@moskaumaster1594 They created their own tool to do so, The Dawnless Day's modding team. Their full campaign should be out soon. Actually ETW/NTW are the hardest to mod, not sure about Warhammer though, think i've seen mods adding sea regions to at least that.
Another brilliant vid! I just discovered your channel and it's so refreshing to come across your content. Thanks for making these kinds of arguments, for people who actually care about historical integrity all of the things you say here are very important, not just for the accuracy of historical video games but for all kinds of media and cultural representations of Iberian / Andalusi / Islamic / European / Mediterranean / African history.
I fully disagree with this video tbh and totally agree with how the devs made MTW2 Having 3 or 4 Christian factions in Spain with just different banners but the exact same troops and cultures is just ridiculous game wise. These things become clutter and filler that add zero gameplay value as they are just reskins. So they bundled them togheter in a certain culture or faction and made each one of these distinct enough to warrant its own faction. Nobody is waiting for a total war game with 150 factions that have almost no difference except for their skins. Less is more, simple gameplay and diversity is what made the old total war so good. The modern ones are trying to be a crusader kings game but fail horribly at both being a good and simple total war experience as well.
To be fair, historical accuracy is a problem for most TW games, and outside of TW as well. I don't think it possible to expect videogames to be historically accurate beyond a certain degree, which I would say is normally determined by factors such as technical restraints, gameplay complexity restraints and perhaps lack of research in worst case scenarios. Paradox games are not that accurate either, even though they normally strive to be more accurate than the average games advertised as historical. Same with movies - the Gladiator is a wonderful movie for instance, but wildly inaccurate - and literature. What all these do, each with their own degree of success, and what they should be appreciated for, is introducing history to a much wider audience than just those who study it. They're a stepping stone, which can be what spurs those approaching history to go beyond the simplistic representation of, say, the Kingdom of Sicily in MTW2, and discover more.
First of all, you are right. An even worse example, is Athens being a rebel city in Rome TW. Medieval 2 is simplyfing things which is good for a beginner, but not for a seasoned player.
Athens was not a great, nor a regional power at the time. It was not part of Macedon, and not related with the other Greek states melted inside the "Greek polis" faction. Rebel was the logical option
As spanish from the city of Bilbao un Basque Country, I has always pissed me off that the kingdom of Navarre its not in the game, being its region portuguese. I understand the mechanical argument behind that decision, but its just stupid to see Pamplona as portuguese
Ikr, wished they'd expanded upon it back in the Kingdoms dlc instead of just Britannia, Teutonic, Crusades, and New World etc. Could've fleshed it out Iberia with a Reconquista Campaign.
@@Sakarraterrum totalmente de acuerdo, pero el juego intenta ser más sencillo y más fácil para todas las facciones. Al final, Portugal solo es una provincia y sin territorios rebeldes cerca. Navarra le da más oportunidades de expandirse al comenzar la partida
I think they did that because they didn't want Portugal to only have one province but yeah, dividing the Lisbon province into Lisbon and Porto would probably have been a better choice than giving Portugal Navarre.
This is pretty much your best video yet imo, please do more analysis videos like these! The medieval world was never full of brainded religous zealots who hated the sight of others, much like modern culture and politics, religious harmony and violence ebbed and flowed.
Why total war doesnt have the same complexity and depth of the ck series? Because one is a war game with units on the ground and other one is a map based simulator? Pointless video. Love the ck series by the way.
Not sure it's the right niche but if anyone's interested in Medieval Islamic, Iberian and Sicilian history and warfare I hotly recommend Schwerpunkt's video series
As a Spaniard, I would like to express that within the Spanish or Hispanic community of Total War, this issue has sparked an ongoing debate. At times, it seems that Creative Assembly forgets that the Spanish-speaking community is one of the largest among its buyers, although we sometimes feel underestimated. On several occasions, we have noticed that the history of Spain has not been approached with the level of historical rigor that we would like to see. However, we remain hopeful that improvements can be made in this regard in the future, and that our community will be duly appreciated.
Last week i finally starting to play ck3 and im playing as Al-Andalus Lord and I can say this is the first game that gets Al-Andalus close to what I imagine it was.
I mean come on the game came out in 2006. Its not like the gauls were all one faction, or germania, or the britons, or the greek city states, its not like parthia really looked that silly, or egypt being in the bronze age. The games have obviously gotten better at filling out the map instead of having a ton of rebel settlements to begin with. Unfortunately thats the only thing they've gotten better at.
Pure game limitations. It could have been better if instead of "Spain" they just called it "Castille" in Med2, but given the fact that they did the effort of research that kings of Leon called themselves "emperors of Spain" and that later in the game "Spain" will historically appear, I think it's acceptable. Same with, for example, "Turks": call them "Seljuks" is a mistake in late game, but call them "Ottomans" is a mistake for early game. This happens with Russia, Sicily and Moors too. They did their best with resources from 20 years ago and the game is a total gem even today.
The thing i like about medieval twomoors is they have alotof tribal North african units and more "civilized" europian style spanish spin offs namely Latnuma spear emn and Urban or crossbow militia and christian gaurds
Andy, the problem is, you have the idealistic love of historical complexity and the heart...of a historian. I sympathize, i do too. Whereas game executives have the hearts of bean counters. And it is a sad reality that bean counters will always choose the convenient and easy, over the accurate and complex. With Total War, i can somewhat sympathize with their simplifying choices, since the games are about the battles in the way Paradox never has been, whereas Paradox is all about creating and surviving as a society. Still, it is nice to share a dream for these complexities to be portrayed.
If I was playing a European nation I would wanna do everything in my power to keep my kingdom homogenous😭😭😭if devs are willing to shoehorn diversity into places, they should at least allow the opposite
@@mohamedelhaddade6371 I mean that's far more historically accurate than complaining about the lack of representation of occasional friendly exchanges along border regions when at the end of the day despite all that each side did everything in their power to dislodge/conquer the other.
The HRE certainly was an empire. Would you not call the German empire just because it owned Germany? It also was pretty much just like medieval France during the time period with emperors like the salians, Luxembourgs etc. the empire also always was kind centralised, sure the emperor couldn’t levy a massive imperial army, but he also never really at any point had to
Unfortunately, It's affected by Orientalists tropes and stereotypes, as you said the term "Moors" is totally absurd. In addition to that, the soundtrack and some of the lines used by Oriental factions' Generals are beyond ridiculous.
I'm sorry, did Andy just suggest that the Holy Roman Empire WASN'T an empire? It's in the name. . . Next, you're going to tell me that it wasn't Roman or Holy
1- technical limitations 2- I just want to commit atrocities in video games, I don’t think anyone really cares about the intricacies of religions in a game. Could they do better? Maybe. Does it really matter? No.
Total War and problems with historicity is nothing new, already on Medieval 1, Germans and Italians... 🙄 2 was slightly better, Italians were divided between Milanese and Venetians, "Germans" renamed Holy Roman Empire. a small step in the right direction but clearly insufficient. I hope that M3 will make more progress in terms of realism and historicity, but I'm under no illusions. I think i will still play 1212 for a loooong times.
Maybe if you don't like simplified history you shouldn't be playing a video game from nearly two decades ago. This isn't really Total War's dangerous problem with history" so much as it is "Medieval 2's technical limitations"
But the video isn’t just about Medieval 2 - it’s about Attila as well, and every other Total War where religion plays a part, except ironically perhaps for Barbarian Invasion.
I think it’s a fair critique. Age of something had nothing to do with authenticity, except technical limitations obviously. You can still love a game while saying that it has simplifications and clarifying them for those who don’t know about them. Stop whining
@@Efishrocket102 there's a difference between "the game has simplifications" and "the series has problems with history, oh and btw it makes people Islamaphobic"
Slightly off-topic but all this CK 3 comparisons led me to it. How comes that paradox managed to avoid the dlc controversy WH 3 is in right now. They also have ridiculous dlc prices. Tours and tournamens price is 30 euro, yet nobody mentioned it ever.
Paradox hasn’t managed to totally avoid the controversy, they’ve simply avoided the huge blowback CA is getting. But they did get plenty of flak for the pricing of Royal Court, and even more so once they decided to raise the prices of Northern Lords and Fate of Iberia. They also have a long-standing reputation for tons of DLC that is priced with Steam sales in mind, to put it kindly. The difference with Paradox is that they treat their community better. Their larger DLCs typically come with free updates to the base game as well, including any new mechanics the DLC introduced (like travel with Tours & Tournaments). Paradox also has a good track record of not abandoning their games (which CA has done and threatened to do with WH3). They’re still making new content for EU4 almost 10 years after release.
@@CarterElkins Paradox is notoriously well known for milking their games. Selling not only mechanics but also simple cosmetics and even music tracks. When it comes to greediness CA still has a lot to learn (they are fast learners tho). While these companies are no direct competitors as the games they make are too different and for different audiences. Still, I am sure analysts there check what the market is doing and mimic it including prices. We all know that Total DLC cost without a sale or bundle for CK3 was already higher than Warhammer 3 total DLC cost. Maybe folks at CA saw that Paradox increased dlc prices on most of their games including past dlc and decided to follow the trend. About the post launch support I agree tho. Excluding Imperator Rome PDX was doing well indeed. PDX is far more passionate about its games and truly care about customer feedback. CA was also doing pretty well too when it comes to WH2 but post launch support of WH3 is a real mess. It baffles me wtf are they even thinking.
They didn't got away at first. They had a price increase in flavour packs and the addition of event packs and it was a mess at that point for CK3. Espescially as Northern Lords didn't deserve the price hike. They afterwards apologized for the messy communication and then delivered their best DLC for CK3 so far. Also they were always strong in the long lifecycle department with a lot of sales.
@@stranger3731 Paradox definitely isn’t totally innocent, but I think that their DLC record is far superior. True, they have sold trivial packs in the past, like unit models, but that hasn’t been done in a while now, and CK3 has a solid record of free features coming alongside DLC. CA rarely does that to my knowledge (though I’ll give them credit for the notable exception of Rome 2 Emperor Edition). I would argue that Paradox’s DLCs, while clearly overpriced, do tend to add more to their games than their Total War counterparts. Warhammer may be an exception, I don’t play those games so I’m not sure there. But CA’s historical DLC is rarely more than faction packs, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen any additions that I felt were must-haves. Fall of the Samurai is the last one that springs to mind, honestly. Meanwhile, CK3 alone has had several innovative DLCs I can’t imagine playing without now. Both companies definitely have bad habits, but Paradox seems to be trying to work on theirs, while CA appears to have given up entirely.
@@CarterElkins I don't think it is fair to compare them if you exclude games released during and after Warhammer trilogy. Yes, back in 2014 historic total war faction packs were meh but so was dynasty flag packs and portraits for CK 2. Therefore, lets leave past in the past. Right now things are way different. WH2 had amazing support, lots of old races got reworked for free, QoL additions, FreeLC and more. Troy got massive additions as Historic and Mythic mode campaigns. WH3 was where they fucked it up. Probably, because of Realms of Chaos campaign being mediocre, they had to completely scrap whatever they had planned and refocus resources to rush out IE. Just like PDX fucked up big time with Vic 3 (which they still try to salvage) and Imperator Rome. Also big disagree when it comes to paradox pristine dlc record. EU4 Leviathan and Dharma comes to mind. Also HoL4 by blood alone. Even their latest additions were so bad. if PDX working on their mistakes results in dlc like Voice of the People, than I prefer if they don't try anything at all. Anyway this is not about CA vs PDX. This is about dlc prices in strategy gaming. Is it acceptable to pay more than the value it provides just because it is a niche genre? With all due respect I don't think tours and tournaments provide 30 euro worth of the content. Is it the same as 50% of BG 3? Don't think so. I love playing both PDX and Total War games but it starts to feel like I am being milked for loving non-mainstream games.
Medieval 2 was a complete disaster for historical accuracy. For example there is just "Islam" as a religion, but there should be Sunni and Shia split as this was one of the main points of conflict between Muslim factions. The Fatimids in Egypt were Shia whereas the Seljuk Turks were Sunni. CA created Catholic and Orthodox for Christian factions but completely overlooked the Muslim world. Also the Byzantine Empire was depicted horribly. The start position is all wrong and the shape of provinces makes no sense given the history. Also lacking factions like Serbia, Georgia and the Abbassids made campaigns in the eastern part of the map very unrealistic and bland. The mod Broken Crescent was an absolute necessity to fix all these issues and depict the region properly.
I love history but that is not at all why I play a game. I would rather play a great game like MTW2 that is historically flaud than a crap game that is historically accurate.
In empire total war I would play as the ottomans, defending against the Europeans I would attack and declare war on the neighboring Muslim nations , yeup even the mughals and babarys, with that I would create a pan Muslim empire from Algiers to Bangladesh. Spread the word of the Quran on the Caribbean islands and finally mainland South America.
lets face it the ppl who put this together had no real idea of what history was. If they did they just ignored it. This is true of all TW games. Computer nerds make poor historians b/c they never paid much attention to it in HS. They were to busy playing with their new cell phones
Portugal only got its independence in 1143. We were part of the Kingdom of Leon and that land to the East was never part of Portugal. The relationship between Moors and Christians wasn't good that is lefties propaganda, all Christians were downgraded to 2nd class citizens and a lot of women sold to slavery. When the Reconquista started on the Asturias it was a blood bath all the way down, the land they kept south (temporarily) and all the diplomacy and trading was based on interest, not friendship.
@@wonderwiseS2 “Tribe”, you mean Nations, Confederations, Kingdoms and Empires? You’re clearly ignorant as to the history of the rest of the world outside of Europe. there were organized, centralized polities waging warfare across the globe in every region at every point in history. Total War needs to expand. I don’t understand what “Europe was a powerhouse” is supposed to mean. much of the rest of the old world was undergoing the same or similar kinds of warfare during the Medieval period.
@@Efishrocket102 we only got Mesoamérica after 1521, in the context of european colonization. large parts of North America, most of the Caribbean and all of South America were left out.
I very much disagree with your historical take on medieval Iberia. You subscribe to the myth of the Andalusian tolerant multicultural society, which in reality never existed... Spain and the mediterranean as a whole was very much an area of religious and civilisational conflict between European christendom and the arabo - islamic world. Interactions did exist, trade, commerce, and so forth, but the overall relations were generally conflict ridden ...
This is absolutely wrong - and you subscribe to the myth of constant civilizational and religious conflict when this was not the case at all. In fact, I didn't say anything about overall relations - I was talking about intra-Iberian relations, and the same goes for Sicily. The Andalusian society was absolutely a tolerant place compared to northern European regions, to suggest anything else is blatant misinformation.
@@AndysTake The fact that Christendom and Islam were in a state of civilizational conflict is not a myth, but a historical reality. Even in Iberia. The fact that northern Europe was intolerant does not change the fact that Andalusia was also a land of conflict and intolerance. This is not misinformation. I personally subscribe far more to the views of Dario Fernández-Morera in his work : The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise. Best regards.
I hear a lot about Europeans respecting Islam and Arabic cultures, especially from channels with your political leanings. Are there any accounts of Arabs mentioning their respect for Europeans? If so, why is this never mentioned? The bizarre European habit of worshipping and idolizing all foreign cultures is on display here 😂
When have I ever mentioned respecting Islam and Arabic cultures? Not that that's a bad thing at all, but when did I mention that? When have I ever worshipped or idolized foreign cultures? As far as I'm concerned, current European values of equality, tolerance, respect and human rights are the best things the world has ever thought of, damned be cultural relativism. But that does not go against what I'm saying in this video - that the meeting points of Christianity and Islam in Iberia and Sicily during a few centuries in the middle ages, were unique points in history - often Arab led because hey, they were much more forward thinking, scientific, and on average more tolerant than their Christian kingdoms counterpart. I even made clear to say that both Christian and Muslim leaders had people from various faiths and backgrounds in their courts, like on Sicily where King Roger II was very open minded and treated his Muslim subjects well. So please, before you comment something like this again, which clearly has no basis in reality and where you bring outside talking points in, please take the time to watch the video, listen to what I'm saying, and try to learn something.
@@AndysTake Look at your King Roger II example. You talk about how much he respected the muslims in his court and their culture in general. My point was to show that this respect always seems go one way. This is particualrly true in Western attitudes. Always downplaying muslim atrocities, and playing into the phallacy how they were somehow "enlithened" during those times. I would argue a big factor as to why the dark ages lasted so long in was due to islamic piracy which crippled the medditeranean. Europeans like you always look this over and choose to virtue signal about how great Arabic culture used to be. Europe is dying lol. They need to beg America just to protect them from Russia because they are too afriad to invest into their militaries (with a few exceptions). Europeans have to struggle between trying to appease their liberal brain rot and the realities of defending themselves. Europe was always fairly individualistic, and that has been for a whole host of reasons. 2 big ones being the crops used for subsistence farming, and the church banning cousin marriages (leading to the gradual breakup of clans as they used to exist in lage areas of Europe prior to Christianity). However, this individualism was always balanced out by other vaue; duty, humility, shame and face (these are not uniquely East Asian btw), religousness and kinship. Now all Europe has is this vapid and empty desire to be inclusive at all costs. Sad. This video and your channel as a whole are just a symptom of this disease.
A lot of this comes down to game limitations. There is a limit of about 30 factions and they were trying to represent all of Europe and the discovery of the americas.
Funny enough they removed the faction cap limit in the Rome 1 Remaster
Modders and what they have done with adding factions kind of disprove this comment in its entirety. Sounds like CA cope.
@@robertsteiner4696 It's accurate to when it was released. Unlike those big mods, there was no Large Address Aware patch when the game came out, so too many factions would crash the game and cause performance issues.
Now if we get a Medieval 2 Remaster, much like Rome 1's Remaster there will be no limit due to technology advancements in what most PCs can run.
CK3 + Total war + large armies of epic battle simulator would be the perfect strategy game of all time.
I didnt like Knights of Honour 2, It works better in our heads than in a game
The Crusader Wars mod for CK3 and Attila Total War?
I'd argue that having battles you can directly take a part in like in Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord would be a bit more fun as well, but perhaps a more strategic overview of the battles would suit this type of game more after all.
My goal for the future
@@arnthedragonborn8306 would be cool if you could choose to come in and out of it. Like when you command a catapult
Man history content is so good. You're becoming one my favorite Total War youtubers
With your comment starting around the seven minute mark, on how video games can affect someone's understanding of history, I agree completely. As a history student, about to go into grad school, I've always advocated for more depth, more portrayals, and more in general for "popular history". Video games, movies, shows, they are all immensely helpful if the research and implementations of said research are correct.
Med2 is obviously a bit more limited than CK3, but a good amount can be done with it. The traits and ancillaries system allows a lot of things and if you want to roleplay...
For example: I remember one campaign in the SSHIP mod were, with Rum, I married a byzantine Prince and brought him into my family. He never lost the traits of being greek, christian, and a pretender to the byzantine throne. He was my general when assaulting Constantinople, but died right after that
They were games first history lessons second. The great thing about them is they gave enough historical context/feel to get a ton of kids interested in learning the actual history that otherwise wouldn't. They also did a far better job with the Muslim/Christian history than they did the Christian/"Pagan" history.
I appreciate the simplified history of Med 2. I think it helps make the time period more approachable to newcomers (like I was in 2006). I definitely think it has a place in the game market, so long as the publishers don’t market it as being super-accurate (a la Black Ops). Especially with games like Total War, which aren’t meant to simulate the intricacies of society anyway.
In other words, I look to Total War to show me why a particular time period is cool in general. I then look to Paradox to fill in the details. And I’ll shoutout Knights of Honor 2, which I feel does strike a pretty good balance between the two.
Congrats on 50k subs.
Hello there bro
Hail Morgoth!
I think this is something that all older TW games fail. They're cool games, no doubt about it.
But the historical part fails pretty much on depicted troops, armies formations and regions placement.
Even Empire, which i believed had a nice approach from historical side, had some flaws about it.
Nice video and congrats for the 50K.
well for the time it was pretty historical compared to other games, but today they are definitely more historical, the only problem is that they haven't made a big normal historical total war since a long time...
Your comment reeks of recency bias because all total war games suffer from this, newer ones even Moreso with how badly the engine flops at portraying melee combat.
Glad someone with this many followers touched on this subject! As a Muslim I had a blast with ck3 depiction of the nuances of the conflicts between the many factions of Iberia.
I think Pontus from Rome 2: Total War serves as a good basic example. Pontus and a few others (Armenia, Seleucid) were represented as a melting pot of Hellenistic and Eastern influences, and I really enjoyed pairing Greek phalange with Eastern shock cavalry. Pontus was my first campaign, they still hold a special place in my memories haha
How is that any different from how Pontus was portrayed in Rome 1? In there you still had access to Phalanx units as well as Eastern shock cavalry. You need more than just a certain mixture of troops to base how historical a faction can be.
Excellent video, the way Spain, Moors and Sicily are portrayed in the game has always bothered me. I could go on about the Crusades campaign in the Kingdoms DLC.
Thank you :)
The main problem is that TW games have 0 depth when it comes to politics and "piece time" gameplay features , no treaties , aliances don't mean shit where allies don't even bother to at least decalre war on enemies with you in earlier games , and the wars have no meaningful conclusion and go on until total annialation of the enemy only paused by a breif ciesfire that also doesn't mean shit.
Attila solved this nicely with the confederation through diplomacy mechanic.
Unfortunately Attila’s map is also the hardest to mod so guess we won’t be having any Imperium Surrectum style 1700+ region maps. Shame really because when you ignore army-to-general limit TW games implemented after Shogun 2, Attila has the most fleshed out and dynamic faction, siege, and campaign map mechanics in the whole series
Didnt a group of modders crack how to map mod attila earlier this year?
@@moskaumaster1594 They created their own tool to do so, The Dawnless Day's modding team. Their full campaign should be out soon. Actually ETW/NTW are the hardest to mod, not sure about Warhammer though, think i've seen mods adding sea regions to at least that.
@@IceniTotalWar yes, they said they are 50% done with campaign.
Medieval kingdoms 1212 is also doing a custom map. It's looks very impressive what's been done so far
This is one of the most interesting videos about Total War I've ever watched! Thanks for your contribution, Andy!
Another brilliant vid! I just discovered your channel and it's so refreshing to come across your content. Thanks for making these kinds of arguments, for people who actually care about historical integrity all of the things you say here are very important, not just for the accuracy of historical video games but for all kinds of media and cultural representations of Iberian / Andalusi / Islamic / European / Mediterranean / African history.
Thanks for the nice comment, very much appreciated :)
I fully disagree with this video tbh and totally agree with how the devs made MTW2
Having 3 or 4 Christian factions in Spain with just different banners but the exact same troops and cultures is just ridiculous game wise. These things become clutter and filler that add zero gameplay value as they are just reskins.
So they bundled them togheter in a certain culture or faction and made each one of these distinct enough to warrant its own faction.
Nobody is waiting for a total war game with 150 factions that have almost no difference except for their skins.
Less is more, simple gameplay and diversity is what made the old total war so good.
The modern ones are trying to be a crusader kings game but fail horribly at both being a good and simple total war experience as well.
To be fair, historical accuracy is a problem for most TW games, and outside of TW as well. I don't think it possible to expect videogames to be historically accurate beyond a certain degree, which I would say is normally determined by factors such as technical restraints, gameplay complexity restraints and perhaps lack of research in worst case scenarios. Paradox games are not that accurate either, even though they normally strive to be more accurate than the average games advertised as historical.
Same with movies - the Gladiator is a wonderful movie for instance, but wildly inaccurate - and literature.
What all these do, each with their own degree of success, and what they should be appreciated for, is introducing history to a much wider audience than just those who study it. They're a stepping stone, which can be what spurs those approaching history to go beyond the simplistic representation of, say, the Kingdom of Sicily in MTW2, and discover more.
First of all, you are right. An even worse example, is Athens being a rebel city in Rome TW. Medieval 2 is simplyfing things which is good for a beginner, but not for a seasoned player.
Athens was not a great, nor a regional power at the time. It was not part of Macedon, and not related with the other Greek states melted inside the "Greek polis" faction. Rebel was the logical option
As spanish from the city of Bilbao un Basque Country, I has always pissed me off that the kingdom of Navarre its not in the game, being its region portuguese. I understand the mechanical argument behind that decision, but its just stupid to see Pamplona as portuguese
Ikr, wished they'd expanded upon it back in the Kingdoms dlc instead of just Britannia, Teutonic, Crusades, and New World etc. Could've fleshed it out Iberia with a Reconquista Campaign.
Únicamente motivos de jugabilidad. Sin Pamplona, Portugal sería demasiado difícil.
@@armandom.s.1844 pues en mods como Bellum crucis o grand campaign que he jugado, solo tiene portugal y lo he disfrutado mas aún
@@Sakarraterrum totalmente de acuerdo, pero el juego intenta ser más sencillo y más fácil para todas las facciones. Al final, Portugal solo es una provincia y sin territorios rebeldes cerca. Navarra le da más oportunidades de expandirse al comenzar la partida
I think they did that because they didn't want Portugal to only have one province but yeah, dividing the Lisbon province into Lisbon and Porto would probably have been a better choice than giving Portugal Navarre.
This is pretty much your best video yet imo, please do more analysis videos like these! The medieval world was never full of brainded religous zealots who hated the sight of others, much like modern culture and politics, religious harmony and violence ebbed and flowed.
Thank you very much, kind of you to say! :)
Oh there were plenty of braindead zealots who hated the sight of others. Not all but they were there.
Congrats on 50k man!
Why total war doesnt have the same complexity and depth of the ck series? Because one is a war game with units on the ground and other one is a map based simulator? Pointless video. Love the ck series by the way.
Not sure it's the right niche but if anyone's interested in Medieval Islamic, Iberian and Sicilian history and warfare I hotly recommend Schwerpunkt's video series
Yes we need more inter-christian and inter-muslim conflicts depicted so I can have a better OSTSIEDLUNG LARP
As a Spaniard, I would like to express that within the Spanish or Hispanic community of Total War, this issue has sparked an ongoing debate. At times, it seems that Creative Assembly forgets that the Spanish-speaking community is one of the largest among its buyers, although we sometimes feel underestimated. On several occasions, we have noticed that the history of Spain has not been approached with the level of historical rigor that we would like to see. However, we remain hopeful that improvements can be made in this regard in the future, and that our community will be duly appreciated.
Last week i finally starting to play ck3 and im playing as Al-Andalus Lord and I can say this is the first game that gets Al-Andalus close to what I imagine it was.
I mean come on the game came out in 2006. Its not like the gauls were all one faction, or germania, or the britons, or the greek city states, its not like parthia really looked that silly, or egypt being in the bronze age. The games have obviously gotten better at filling out the map instead of having a ton of rebel settlements to begin with.
Unfortunately thats the only thing they've gotten better at.
Upload a review and also a campaign of SSHIP mod, the best historical mod for M2TW please!!!
Pure game limitations. It could have been better if instead of "Spain" they just called it "Castille" in Med2, but given the fact that they did the effort of research that kings of Leon called themselves "emperors of Spain" and that later in the game "Spain" will historically appear, I think it's acceptable. Same with, for example, "Turks": call them "Seljuks" is a mistake in late game, but call them "Ottomans" is a mistake for early game. This happens with Russia, Sicily and Moors too. They did their best with resources from 20 years ago and the game is a total gem even today.
Congratulations on getting 50k subscribers Andy!
Great video. Muslim Iberia is one of my favorite parts of history. Naturally, Fate of Iberia is one of my favorite DLC
Thank you! It’s a very interesting era for sure!
The thing i like about medieval twomoors is they have alotof tribal North african units and more "civilized" europian style spanish spin offs namely Latnuma spear emn and Urban or crossbow militia and christian gaurds
Using siege engines as field artillery, nobody talks about that
Do I need the Shogun 2 DLC to fully enjoy the game or can I skip them?
Shogun 2? FOTS is great, but the base game is perfect on its own
Andy, the problem is, you have the idealistic love of historical complexity and the heart...of a historian. I sympathize, i do too.
Whereas game executives have the hearts of bean counters. And it is a sad reality that bean counters will always choose the convenient and easy, over the accurate and complex.
With Total War, i can somewhat sympathize with their simplifying choices, since the games are about the battles in the way Paradox never has been, whereas Paradox is all about creating and surviving as a society.
Still, it is nice to share a dream for these complexities to be portrayed.
what mod are you using here?! Seems like Med 2 mod for Rome 2!
Fun fact "El cid" in arabic translates to "the lion" it shows that he comanded respect even among the muslims.
This is a balanced and good analysis.
Fantastic content revisiting Med 2
Awesome work again :)
Thank you so much :)
proof total war was never about hardcore history
Thankfully they're not called Total history.
Awesome video like always I didn’t even think about this so deep about Medieval II Total War factions.
If I was playing a European nation I would wanna do everything in my power to keep my kingdom homogenous😭😭😭if devs are willing to shoehorn diversity into places, they should at least allow the opposite
medieval ethno nationalism ...😄😄😄
That’s what you’ve always been able to do, tho, and it’s completely ahistorical but the option (forced) is there
@@AndysTake I like the idea of simulating population (as in rome or medieval, or mods like dei and such) so I'd love it either way
@@mohamedelhaddade6371 that's the plan wrah ;)
@@mohamedelhaddade6371 I mean that's far more historically accurate than complaining about the lack of representation of occasional friendly exchanges along border regions when at the end of the day despite all that each side did everything in their power to dislodge/conquer the other.
The HRE certainly was an empire. Would you not call the German empire just because it owned Germany? It also was pretty much just like medieval France during the time period with emperors like the salians, Luxembourgs etc. the empire also always was kind centralised, sure the emperor couldn’t levy a massive imperial army, but he also never really at any point had to
Unfortunately, It's affected by Orientalists tropes and stereotypes, as you said the term "Moors" is totally absurd. In addition to that, the soundtrack and some of the lines used by Oriental factions' Generals are beyond ridiculous.
I'm sorry, did Andy just suggest that the Holy Roman Empire WASN'T an empire? It's in the name. . . Next, you're going to tell me that it wasn't Roman or Holy
I’d NEVER do that. Holy. Roman. EMPIRE in my ❤️ 4ever
I have bad news, friend...
1- technical limitations
2- I just want to commit atrocities in video games, I don’t think anyone really cares about the intricacies of religions in a game. Could they do better? Maybe. Does it really matter? No.
Heavens forbid people desire historicity in their historical game over pointless crusader larping.
I have no problem with larger "cultural" factions like "France" "Spain" (not for Rome era though lol) "HRE/Germans" "Russia"
Man how is it possible you don't mention how ridicoulus it is that Portugal owns Navarre-Nafarroa?
Total War and problems with historicity is nothing new, already on Medieval 1, Germans and Italians... 🙄
2 was slightly better, Italians were divided between Milanese and Venetians, "Germans" renamed Holy Roman Empire. a small step in the right direction but clearly insufficient.
I hope that M3 will make more progress in terms of realism and historicity, but I'm under no illusions. I think i will still play 1212 for a loooong times.
they always depict andalusians as arabs/berbers when in reality they were just converted iberians
Maybe if you don't like simplified history you shouldn't be playing a video game from nearly two decades ago. This isn't really Total War's dangerous problem with history" so much as it is "Medieval 2's technical limitations"
Yeah that title is awfull haha
I don't think commenting isn't going to change it
But the video isn’t just about Medieval 2 - it’s about Attila as well, and every other Total War where religion plays a part, except ironically perhaps for Barbarian Invasion.
I think it’s a fair critique. Age of something had nothing to do with authenticity, except technical limitations obviously. You can still love a game while saying that it has simplifications and clarifying them for those who don’t know about them. Stop whining
@@Efishrocket102 there's a difference between "the game has simplifications" and "the series has problems with history, oh and btw it makes people Islamaphobic"
All this and you didn’t even get to the portrayal of the Americas in the game.
All this and it was never even about the americas in the first place :)
@@AndysTakeI love the game but it has so many historical inaccuracies you could make a series on it.
Slightly off-topic but all this CK 3 comparisons led me to it. How comes that paradox managed to avoid the dlc controversy WH 3 is in right now. They also have ridiculous dlc prices. Tours and tournamens price is 30 euro, yet nobody mentioned it ever.
Paradox hasn’t managed to totally avoid the controversy, they’ve simply avoided the huge blowback CA is getting. But they did get plenty of flak for the pricing of Royal Court, and even more so once they decided to raise the prices of Northern Lords and Fate of Iberia. They also have a long-standing reputation for tons of DLC that is priced with Steam sales in mind, to put it kindly.
The difference with Paradox is that they treat their community better. Their larger DLCs typically come with free updates to the base game as well, including any new mechanics the DLC introduced (like travel with Tours & Tournaments). Paradox also has a good track record of not abandoning their games (which CA has done and threatened to do with WH3). They’re still making new content for EU4 almost 10 years after release.
@@CarterElkins Paradox is notoriously well known for milking their games. Selling not only mechanics but also simple cosmetics and even music tracks. When it comes to greediness CA still has a lot to learn (they are fast learners tho). While these companies are no direct competitors as the games they make are too different and for different audiences. Still, I am sure analysts there check what the market is doing and mimic it including prices. We all know that Total DLC cost without a sale or bundle for CK3 was already higher than Warhammer 3 total DLC cost. Maybe folks at CA saw that Paradox increased dlc prices on most of their games including past dlc and decided to follow the trend.
About the post launch support I agree tho. Excluding Imperator Rome PDX was doing well indeed. PDX is far more passionate about its games and truly care about customer feedback. CA was also doing pretty well too when it comes to WH2 but post launch support of WH3 is a real mess. It baffles me wtf are they even thinking.
They didn't got away at first. They had a price increase in flavour packs and the addition of event packs and it was a mess at that point for CK3. Espescially as Northern Lords didn't deserve the price hike. They afterwards apologized for the messy communication and then delivered their best DLC for CK3 so far.
Also they were always strong in the long lifecycle department with a lot of sales.
@@stranger3731 Paradox definitely isn’t totally innocent, but I think that their DLC record is far superior. True, they have sold trivial packs in the past, like unit models, but that hasn’t been done in a while now, and CK3 has a solid record of free features coming alongside DLC. CA rarely does that to my knowledge (though I’ll give them credit for the notable exception of Rome 2 Emperor Edition).
I would argue that Paradox’s DLCs, while clearly overpriced, do tend to add more to their games than their Total War counterparts. Warhammer may be an exception, I don’t play those games so I’m not sure there. But CA’s historical DLC is rarely more than faction packs, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen any additions that I felt were must-haves. Fall of the Samurai is the last one that springs to mind, honestly. Meanwhile, CK3 alone has had several innovative DLCs I can’t imagine playing without now.
Both companies definitely have bad habits, but Paradox seems to be trying to work on theirs, while CA appears to have given up entirely.
@@CarterElkins I don't think it is fair to compare them if you exclude games released during and after Warhammer trilogy. Yes, back in 2014 historic total war faction packs were meh but so was dynasty flag packs and portraits for CK 2. Therefore, lets leave past in the past.
Right now things are way different. WH2 had amazing support, lots of old races got reworked for free, QoL additions, FreeLC and more. Troy got massive additions as Historic and Mythic mode campaigns. WH3 was where they fucked it up. Probably, because of Realms of Chaos campaign being mediocre, they had to completely scrap whatever they had planned and refocus resources to rush out IE. Just like PDX fucked up big time with Vic 3 (which they still try to salvage) and Imperator Rome.
Also big disagree when it comes to paradox pristine dlc record. EU4 Leviathan and Dharma comes to mind. Also HoL4 by blood alone. Even their latest additions were so bad. if PDX working on their mistakes results in dlc like Voice of the People, than I prefer if they don't try anything at all.
Anyway this is not about CA vs PDX. This is about dlc prices in strategy gaming. Is it acceptable to pay more than the value it provides just because it is a niche genre? With all due respect I don't think tours and tournaments provide 30 euro worth of the content. Is it the same as 50% of BG 3? Don't think so. I love playing both PDX and Total War games but it starts to feel like I am being milked for loving non-mainstream games.
The Holy Roman Empire! It was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire...
It’s all three because the pope said so.
@@noelyanes2455 ah ok. Can't argue with the pope of course!
@@Jay-ej5ht well, your options are, agree with the vicar of Christ, or an enlightenment philosopher who gave you liberalism.
Medieval 2 was a complete disaster for historical accuracy. For example there is just "Islam" as a religion, but there should be Sunni and Shia split as this was one of the main points of conflict between Muslim factions. The Fatimids in Egypt were Shia whereas the Seljuk Turks were Sunni. CA created Catholic and Orthodox for Christian factions but completely overlooked the Muslim world. Also the Byzantine Empire was depicted horribly. The start position is all wrong and the shape of provinces makes no sense given the history. Also lacking factions like Serbia, Georgia and the Abbassids made campaigns in the eastern part of the map very unrealistic and bland. The mod Broken Crescent was an absolute necessity to fix all these issues and depict the region properly.
The Byzantine Empire never existed.
I love history but that is not at all why I play a game. I would rather play a great game like MTW2 that is historically flaud than a crap game that is historically accurate.
50k subs 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
In empire total war I would play as the ottomans, defending against the Europeans I would attack and declare war on the neighboring Muslim nations , yeup even the mughals and babarys, with that I would create a pan Muslim empire from Algiers to Bangladesh. Spread the word of the Quran on the Caribbean islands and finally mainland South America.
lets face it the ppl who put this together had no real idea of what history was. If they did they just ignored it.
This is true of all TW games. Computer nerds make poor historians b/c they never paid much attention to it in HS. They were to busy playing with their new cell phones
This is a more simplified and ignorant take than the actual shortcuts made with history in Total War by the Devs.
Portugal only got its independence in 1143. We were part of the Kingdom of Leon and that land to the East was never part of Portugal.
The relationship between Moors and Christians wasn't good that is lefties propaganda, all Christians were downgraded to 2nd class citizens and a lot of women sold to slavery.
When the Reconquista started on the Asturias it was a blood bath all the way down, the land they kept south (temporarily) and all the diplomacy and trading was based on interest, not friendship.
50k🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉!!!
"Historical" 😁
too much Eurocentrism, and mediterranean centrism in general. what about the rest of Africa? the Americas?
We got the Americas in the DLC
What are you on about? Europe was a power house, if you want to play as a tribe that game isn't for you.
@@wonderwiseS2 “Tribe”, you mean Nations, Confederations, Kingdoms and Empires? You’re clearly ignorant as to the history of the rest of the world outside of Europe. there were organized, centralized polities waging warfare across the globe in every region at every point in history. Total War needs to expand. I don’t understand what “Europe was a powerhouse” is supposed to mean. much of the rest of the old world was undergoing the same or similar kinds of warfare during the Medieval period.
@@Efishrocket102 we only got Mesoamérica after 1521, in the context of european colonization. large parts of North America, most of the Caribbean and all of South America were left out.
Make your own game then jeezus the entitlement from some people.
I very much disagree with your historical take on medieval Iberia.
You subscribe to the myth of the Andalusian tolerant multicultural society, which in reality never existed...
Spain and the mediterranean as a whole was very much an area of religious and civilisational conflict between European christendom and the arabo - islamic world.
Interactions did exist, trade, commerce, and so forth, but the overall relations were generally conflict ridden ...
This is absolutely wrong - and you subscribe to the myth of constant civilizational and religious conflict when this was not the case at all. In fact, I didn't say anything about overall relations - I was talking about intra-Iberian relations, and the same goes for Sicily. The Andalusian society was absolutely a tolerant place compared to northern European regions, to suggest anything else is blatant misinformation.
@@AndysTake The fact that Christendom and Islam were in a state of civilizational conflict is not a myth, but a historical reality. Even in Iberia.
The fact that northern Europe was intolerant does not change the fact that Andalusia was also a land of conflict and intolerance. This is not misinformation.
I personally subscribe far more to the views of Dario Fernández-Morera in his work : The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise.
Best regards.
= -D
I hear a lot about Europeans respecting Islam and Arabic cultures, especially from channels with your political leanings. Are there any accounts of Arabs mentioning their respect for Europeans? If so, why is this never mentioned? The bizarre European habit of worshipping and idolizing all foreign cultures is on display here 😂
When have I ever mentioned respecting Islam and Arabic cultures? Not that that's a bad thing at all, but when did I mention that? When have I ever worshipped or idolized foreign cultures? As far as I'm concerned, current European values of equality, tolerance, respect and human rights are the best things the world has ever thought of, damned be cultural relativism. But that does not go against what I'm saying in this video - that the meeting points of Christianity and Islam in Iberia and Sicily during a few centuries in the middle ages, were unique points in history - often Arab led because hey, they were much more forward thinking, scientific, and on average more tolerant than their Christian kingdoms counterpart. I even made clear to say that both Christian and Muslim leaders had people from various faiths and backgrounds in their courts, like on Sicily where King Roger II was very open minded and treated his Muslim subjects well.
So please, before you comment something like this again, which clearly has no basis in reality and where you bring outside talking points in, please take the time to watch the video, listen to what I'm saying, and try to learn something.
@@AndysTake Look at your King Roger II example. You talk about how much he respected the muslims in his court and their culture in general. My point was to show that this respect always seems go one way. This is particualrly true in Western attitudes. Always downplaying muslim atrocities, and playing into the phallacy how they were somehow "enlithened" during those times. I would argue a big factor as to why the dark ages lasted so long in was due to islamic piracy which crippled the medditeranean. Europeans like you always look this over and choose to virtue signal about how great Arabic culture used to be.
Europe is dying lol. They need to beg America just to protect them from Russia because they are too afriad to invest into their militaries (with a few exceptions). Europeans have to struggle between trying to appease their liberal brain rot and the realities of defending themselves. Europe was always fairly individualistic, and that has been for a whole host of reasons. 2 big ones being the crops used for subsistence farming, and the church banning cousin marriages (leading to the gradual breakup of clans as they used to exist in lage areas of Europe prior to Christianity). However, this individualism was always balanced out by other vaue; duty, humility, shame and face (these are not uniquely East Asian btw), religousness and kinship. Now all Europe has is this vapid and empty desire to be inclusive at all costs. Sad. This video and your channel as a whole are just a symptom of this disease.
Quit roleplaying with your identity crisis and learn some history.
@@ironcenturion31 Grow up, read some books, stop worshipping paganism.
Congrats on 50k my man