CK2: The Old Gods Interview

[Nefaro]

Especially if some Carolingian thugs set your Saxon village on fire.

Ahh yes.

Convert to christianity or get decapitated. 

Fun times.

[Staggerwing]

All this time and I'm still bitter about it.

[besilarius]

Bison, if you're interested in the Late Antiquity period, there is a very readable, very well organized book covering Greece, Rome, and Macedon.  Macedon and Greece by Philip Matyszak.
The Romans started to get involved in Greece because the Illyrian tribes were raiding allies and putting out pirates.  In between wars, settling some kind of peace was a good way for ambitious Roman politicians to move up.
Once there, the constant feuding between the city states and confederations drew the Romans in further.  Their allies wanted the Romans to put their enemies under their heel.  All the Romans wanted was a stop to piracy, a safe place for their merchants, and then to get out.
Well, going into Greece was a threat to the hegemony of Macedon over Greece, so they had to get involved.  And the Greeks never stopped bickering and plotting.  The seperate confederacies were never that strong, so they needed a strong outside power to make them superior to their own enemies. (Which would then be polite enough to leave.)   A total snake pit.  Reminds me a lot of Italy during the Renaissance.
It's really a good read.

[son_of_montfort]

Can we please just return to calling it the Dark Ages.  Late Antiquity should be between the height of Greek cities states and their being crushed by Rome.

No. Because both are incorrect. The "Dark Ages" were called so by Francesco Petrarch in the 1300s, who believed that everything before his time was a period of stagnation, ignorance, and brutality. While there certainly was some stagnation, ignorance, and brutality in the period from 700-900, there was also a lot of intellectual growth (the same Charlemagne who massacred the Saxons also set up scriptorium with a uniform script to preserve knowledge). "Dark Ages" is too loaded and not accurate, particularly given that some Roman culture did survive.

Also, Late Antiquity being the Pre-Hellenistic Greek era? That doesn't even make sense (unless you believe the world is only 6000 years old, I guess). We just call that era the "Greek-City States" era - and remember that Alexander ended that age before the Romans did.

Besilarius, Macedon and Greece is about the Hellenistic/Early Roman Republican era, not Late Antiquity. But you are quite right that the time period is fascinating in its complexity. The Romans were invited in by some of the post-Alexander Hellenistic/Macedonian kingdoms - a move that I always assume they regretted in the long run.

For a good book on Late Antiquity, I suggest anything by Peter Brown. He has an excellent new book called, Through the Eye of a Needle: The Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD. That would make a great introduction to playing Old Gods, actually!

For this period, I suggest the Icelandic sagas. There are several collections, many done by Penguin (so they are cheap). You really get a sense of Viking life and culture by reading them!

[Bison]

I say Dark Ages.

[Nefaro]

I say Dark Ages.

It does have a wonderfully ominous sound to it.

[son_of_montfort]

I say Dark Ages.

You can call it the Age of Furry Pink Bunnies. But you would be wrong either way.

[Bison]

Bah.  You probably deny that Pluto is a planet too. :P

[Nefaro]

Bah.  You probably deny that Pluto is a planet too. :P

Oooo!  I see what you did there.

Nice parallel.  ;D

[Pinetree]

Bah.  You probably deny that Pluto is a planet too. :P

Oooo!  I see what you did there.

Nice parallel.  ;D

The Dark Ages are now a dwarf age? ???..................;D

[son_of_montfort]

Bah.  You probably deny that Pluto is a planet too. :P

Oh course I do! Everyone knows Pluto is a dog!

This did make me laugh though, when Googling "Pluto."

[MengJiao]

Can we please just return to calling it the Dark Ages.  Late Antiquity should be between the height of Greek cities states and their being crushed by Rome.

Totally agree with that.  And I always thought it was ironic that the Greeks taught the Romans everything they knew before hand.

  The bit about learning from Greeks is Roman propaganda and it makes a weird kind of ideological sense once you crush the Hellenistic Kingdoms and you are facing the Persians and such along a shifting buffer zone  from Egypt to the Black Sea.

   Here's how it works:  The original world of the Greek City States was utterly crushed by 300 BC BUT Hellenistic regimes supported an antiquarian reconstruction of a Classical Age of Greek Goodness (with all the goodies that people have cooked up for that very idealized
world).  Rome had as good a claim to this classical tradition as any Hellenistic Regime and they happily assumed its aura and accumulated the marble copies of its bronze art as fast as they could.  Of course this classical aura was as much a fake when the Hellenistic Regimes assumed it as it was when the Romans assumed it and there is not much sign that either the Hellenistic Regimes or the Romans actually learned much from their assumption of a classical aura.  It did however offer an ideological basis for uniting the Levant and opposing the Persians.

[son_of_montfort]

IMHO, Rome may have pilfered Greek culture as its base, but it took that base to a level far surpassing the Greeks. By the end of the Republic and especially by the end of the Empire, Roman culture, political thought, literature, and art was a totally new thing.

Remember, Roman engineering and architecture still exists to this day, both as a technological basis and literally as still-present Roman buildings.

[steve58]

Looks like its out/available on Gamersgate, Steam and elsewhere.  As I already have a plethora of games, I think I'll hold off on this one until a sale...

[PanzersEast]

I'm waiting for sale.... and just to be honest, I am a little put off with the Music, Unit, Portait dlc cash cow again.... that should just be included with the full DLC and for $14.99 I would expect it to be..... I am a Paradox fan and all, but that cow has sore nips. 



PE