Knights in Islamic Realms?

[Sir Turylon]

seems a bit complicated for the "normal users"

I know I won't have a problem figuring out the titles... but if they get a bit too realistic... a 13 year old kid, who listens to pop rock and likes "A Knight's Tale" as the definative movie about Midieval life, will probably not find any fun in trying to figure out the difference between a Graf and Jarl.

Maybe an option to enable and disable "region specific" titles would be welcome. Similiar to the option in Civ3 where you can turn Civ traits and unique units off.

Cordially,
Jarl of Antioch

[Sir Turylon]

If we agree to this level of realism... I think we should then agree to having the realistic names of the regions.... I think you know what I'm talking about.. *cough*HRE*cough*.

Perhaps include the titles in a table comparison in the manual?


@Devs. Will their be male and female titles?

IE, Count and Countess. Duke and Duchess? Knight and Lady... (maybe?)

[Finellach]

Turylon so what you are saying if a 13 y.o. kid doesn't know something you should leave him ignorrant? Gaes are for fun, but when you can actually learn something from the game then it's not just fun it's great. Look at Age of Mythology. What do you think how many people knew about Greek, Egyptian and Norse mythology? How many are there now that so many people played the game. ;)

If there will be titles for France, England, Scandinavia then it is just fair that all areas of Europe have their own authentic titles like that of 'Ban' (Duke) for Croatia, Bosnia and posibbly Hungary or 'despot' for Byznatium, vojvoda(voivoda) for Serbia, Poland, Bulgaria, Russia...;)

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Sir Turylon
Maybe an option to enable and disable "region specific" titles would be welcome. Similiar to the option in Civ3 where you can turn Civ traits and unique units off.


I think this would be a great idea, because it solves the problem completely !

If the devs don't decide to take this approach, then they should atleast include a read-me file or better make a mini inclopaedia where uses can look-up thses things.

[Sir Turylon]

@Fin

No, my point was to say that when you go into realism as deep as culturally descriptive titles for units... you risk becoming too realistic for "fun gamers."

I remember spending countless hours critiquing AoE's information.. . To include background like that is great. It really pulls you in.

If I recall correctly... Frank said different titles for cultural regions and I recall only 3-4 regions....

Like you said... Games are for fun, but they shouldn't be void of "educational" information. I ask.. at what level does fun does educational material become more like a college lecture and less like a computer game?

But... The way they have it right now... with only a few different types.. Good balance, IMHO.

Cordially,
Sultan of Wessex

[Sir Turylon]

Originally posted by Elewyn
balance is important, of course.

I don't think that having french titles is aggainst that ballance, making the game inplayable. I guess that french titles are known better by those 13years old guys than f.e. bulgarian titles.

once again...... cultural regions would be more appropriate.

say... Western, Northern,Central?, Eastern, Arabic.

IE.. English, Nord, German, Slavic, Arabic?

If you go down to kingdom by kingdom... it goes past balance.

Cordially,
Duke of Moscovy

[Elewyn]

I don't mean it kingdom by kingdom.

But smaller geo-cultural regions like :Britain(earl), France(conte), Iberian peninsula(conde?), Italy(comte?), South Balkans (despot), North Balkans(ban), east-central Europe (wojewoda), Germany (graf), Scandinavia (jarl), Baltics (grafas?) Russia (boyar), Middle east(?) Africa(?).

[Siena]

Originally posted by Elewyn
I don't mean it kingdom by kingdom.

But smaller geo-cultural regions like :Britain(earl), France(conte), Iberian peninsula(conde?), Italy(comte?), South Balkans (despot), North Balkans(ban), east-central Europe (wojewoda), Germany (graf), Scandinavia (jarl), Baltics (grafas?) Russia (boyar), Middle east(?) Africa(?).

For Lithuania - "grafas" - was used - if ever - after Middle Ages. The most fitting for Middle Ages would be "Kunigaikstis", which means something like "Duke".

[Finellach]

Originally posted by Sir Turylon
once again...... cultural regions would be more appropriate.

say... Western, Northern,Central?, Eastern, Arabic.

IE.. English, Nord, German, Slavic, Arabic?

If you go down to kingdom by kingdom... it goes past balance.

No one said kingdom by kingdom but by geographically-culturally defined regions.
Also it would be unfair that english have their own titles while all Slavic speaking nations would have some general and for most countries incorrect titles.

[Sir Turylon]

Those titles still seem a bit too in-depth for a game.

What if they put an option into the game that would let you customize the titles per region?

say.. an ini file... One for each starting point. You could then modify the titles per region.

Thus giving the option to you, but not incorporating into the main game setup.

Much like how you can modify city names, king names, in Civ3.

[Finellach]

I don't see how can something be "too in-depth"...

This would make a game more interesting and informative.

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Finellach
I don't see how can something be "too in-depth"...

This would make a game more interesting and informative.

this maybe true, but the devs also have to condersider that not all who buys KoH are "history fanatics" - most of the customers IMO are just looking for another AOE, AOK, AOM, CIV3 etc. so they do not really care. This is also why i suggested that the player should have the ability to decide whether or not he would have the region specific noble titles.

[Finellach]

Like they would care....:rolleyes:

[Henrik]

@Elewyn - i really admire you "personal fight" for this one, but i don't think that players buy this game to get "inriched" in any way :( - but i can follow your point of view :)

[Finellach]

I must say that I on the other hand don't see how the players won't buy the game because it's too "in-depth"...

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Finellach
I must say that I on the other hand don't see how the players won't buy the game because it's too "in-depth"...

I can ! - i.e if the customers gets the impression that this game is only for "nerds" :eek:

To put it in another perspective: ask yourself if i should play a game of golf like Links 2003 in order to kill a few hours, would i care whether or not:

1. The golf courses were replicas of real golf courses ?
2. It just was something the designers had made up ?

I'll let you answer....

------------------------------------

but let me answer the question myself also:

1. if i was a golf nerd it would be very important for me that the golf courses were as accurate as possible

2. if i just was a casual player it wouldn't really be that important to me.

[Sir Turylon]

Let me give you an example.

Which game had a bigger fanbase?

Praetorians or AoE2?

Hearts of Iron or Sudden Strike.



Stop with your "Anglo-Saxon conspiracy to overwhelm the history of eastern europe" paranoia. :) Write a good book about Eastern European history... I'll buy it, read it... then give it to some 13 year old so he can understand KoH. hehe.

I'd love nothing more than to have culturally linked titles.... Problem is.... The game isn't just made for 3-4 people.

[Elewyn]

I am maybe little close-minded in this.

But I see one difference between two things.
Game for nerds, where you have to know many things about the "topic" of the game (middle ages, golf...) to be able to play the game. It would be the case if you would have scenario of a battle and you have to follow history step by step how it was, to be able to win, cause the game is set only to follow the history. IMO this is not the case of KoH and neither me, nor Finellach wants it.

The second case is a game where you have knights as the most important unit of the game.
For plaer it is important to have this knight, he's fascinated that knight from the middle east look like arab and not like knight from England. And that knight is called emir. Does it make any problem for the gameplay? Does name of one northern european province, caled Svealand, with Uppsala as capital, make any problem to gameplay that it should be renamed?

Most of players will probably chose first England, France or Scotland + maybe "some arabs" and Byzantium to play. Why? those are known the best for most of people (13y old gamers included-they heard of Richard the Lionheart, William Wallace and Joan of Arc, they heard of muslims and orthodox Greeks). Believe me that they, including those 13's, would be scared if there was no Richard Lionhearted and if englishlord would be called "despot". They are probably the most numerous group of gamers-youg guys from USA and western Europe.
Thse probably will not care of correctnes at all. They will enjoy the gameplay, their heroes and they will probably wonder thet there is something else than England, France, Scotland etc, that arabs look like arabs, and there is huge amount of stronger or weaker "other european nations" using regional titles (regional by those basic regions. It's obvious that they know only the west, but I don't think it's the reason why to make east west-looking.

Then there is other category of players from not so wealthy nations of central and eastern europe who will really enjoy playing also their own nation and they will try it.

And the less numerous group are people like me and Finellach who would like to try all if possible and enjoy that this is so damn realistic.

[Finellach]

Sorry Turylon and Henrik but unfortuanetly I don't see no valid reasons nor arguments for what you claim. I don' t see how a game about golf can be compared with this.

People who like golf will play it no matter what. Now wheter it will be more realistic then all the better. The same goes with this game.

Having specific titles for each geographic-cultural region is more interesting and informative and people who want to play this game for fun will look into gameply not petty things like wheter a Duke in Serbia is called Duke or Vojvoda or Despot...I don't see how I and other who care about this should be deprived of this because of someone who doesn't really cares about this... :rolleyes:

[Sir Turylon]

Elewyn, you seem to think all westerners only give a crap about making money and watching movies and material wealth.

Oops... Sorry, this isn't those reality TV shows or some mixed up Hollywood movie.

The university I go to has over 20 different courses that are based on European history, and 10 of those are based on Eastern Europe. I took an International Studies course.. oh... 3 years back that was solely about Eastern Europe and Russia. IE.. all of the former Soviet Bloc states.

Don't assume nobody would read it. Write one and send it over... I'll pass it along in the history department where I go. I know I have a desire to study Eastern Europe even more, since it is hardly touched on in lower academia. Tis a shame. All that great culture and information. So much of history was manipulated by those people living east of the Rhine river.


Back on KoH.....

I would love the titles.... many people on here would love them.... But the developers have to make something that appeals to more than just a few fanatic forum goers. Hence why they adapt some of the ideas, and leave some out. (IE, HRE... and Incorporating Islamic states)