• @Whom@beehaw.org
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    42 years ago

    I’m a ways off from actually reading this because upon seeing this post, I instead started with their posts on EU4, but I just wanted to thank you for posting this. The work here is exceptional and provides a much more thorough and academic backing to my conflicted thoughts about these games. I truly adore Paradox’s GSGs but I’m also deeply uncomfortable with many of the implications of their historical models and where they nudge players. I’ve got plenty of criticisms I can make from my background, but of course the perspective of a proper historian can really tease out every little facet of these games and what they all mean.

    It’s also just refreshing seeing such deep games literacy meet deep knowledge in the subject matter in this kind of analysis. The author’s self-labeling as a pedant really undersells what’s happening here…it makes me think I’m about to read a million "um, actually"s correcting minor inaccuracies rather than the deep dive into the mechanics behind these games and how they map onto various ways of thinking about history that this actually is.

    • @gyrfalcon@beehaw.orgOPM
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      32 years ago

      Always happy to find another person who loves the posts on ACOUP! It really is a treat to find a historian who is so knowledgeable in both the field and gaming and is willing to use all that knowledge together. I think the pedant label is more in reference to a lot of the earlier posts, which look at battles/events in popular fantasy media like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings and do have a bit more nit picking to them, but are great reads nonetheless.