EUIV review - "the best genocide simulator of the year"

[sandman2575]

Good points. I just hope it doesn't become the norm to piss over a great series of games. 

No worries there -- it won't.

I look forward to her next review of why she can no longer play chess because it reflects a feudal society fundamentally predicated on the violent repression of disenfranchised peasant laborers. How could any right-thinking individual enjoy a game based on such horrors?

It reminds me of the great scene in Godfather II, when young Vito Corleone (Robert DeNiro) is stalking the mobster Don Fanucci during the parade. Fanucci pauses in front of a punch-and-judy puppet show and then waves it off -- "Too violent for me!"   :)

[Nefaro]

Good points. I just hope it doesn't become the norm to piss over a great series of games. 

I also found it ironic she felt more more secure about uniting the principalities and states of the Holy Roman Empire. 
How she plans to do that in the game without the Reformation, Counterreformation, forced conversions or 'heretics', the 30 Years war, etc, etc, (well, you get the picture - either way, it won't be pretty, but her conscience is eased).

Just goes to show these self-proclaimed "Progressives" have little to no concept of history, other than how selective bits of it compare to their own little modern fantasy reality.

Rainbows and Unicorn farts in abundance.

[Johnnie]

Silent Disapproval:

Well put.  Artful, yes. Tasteful, just.  Deliciously accurate.

[Bison]

I don't read reviews anymore these days with the exception of some of the ones that are written for this site of games I'm interested in playing.  Otherwise I generally just browse through the game forums and read about the overall reaction of people who play the games and especially the AARs.

[Swatter]

SDR- Nicely put. I could sit here for an hour thinking of a reply and not come close to that.

Back in college days (degree in history) I took a class about the fur trade and you can't throw a stone in academic literature without hitting some author playing the Native American innocent victimization card. You would think that academics would have a greater sense of history and would be able to examine people within the context of their times (without resorting to modern western ethics), but you would be mistaken on a great many occasions.

The reviewer predictably sounds like a moron as she tries to combine her liberal victimization ideology with her poor knowledge of history. You just can't be more tone deaf. I can't get too worked up, my BS meter is broken almost beyond repair after Furgeson.

[BanzaiCat]

Life today was built on the corpses of those that lost to the winners. The empires of today were likewise built because they won their wars.

Goodness! I hope I didn't just offend some trite, idiotic Guilty Anglo Saxon Protestant (GASP).

The past is the past. These idiots need to get over that shiite and get on with their lives instead of crying rivers over sh*t that's already happened and is done with.

I avoid game reviews like the plague, and instead read the forums here. Most of my interest lies with boardgames anyway, and BGG is a good resource to use when I can't get my info here.

By the way, War On Terror is a brilliant game. Take that, society.

[JasonPratt]

As unfair and wrongheaded as some of her observations and critiques were, I don't think it would ever be right to sexually insult her.  >:(

[FarAway Sooner]

"There is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together into 'coteries' where they will henceforth encounter opposition only in the emasculated form of rumor that the outsiders say thus and thus. The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by group hostility. Each group hears not the best, but the worst, that the other groups can say."

--CS Lewis

Those of you worried that this sort of reviewer will take over the gaming space needn't be worried, for the same reason that PETA supporters will never take over the hunting lodge review world...

[JasonPratt]

Nice Socratic Club quote!   O:-)

[MengJiao]

"I knew going in that I'd playing a game about a topic that, in real life, is horrifying to my (white, privileged) progressive sensibilities. I thought I was prepared for it."

really?

  I'm part Indian, so we aren't all dead.  Anyway, I haven't played the game in question, but I did have a blast playing various savage tribes in Medieval Total War 2.

   I think its kinda nice that the game seemed real enough to make the reviewer a big queasy.  I don't see why games that simulate history should not raise moral questions.  What's the point in playing if it doesn't mean anything?

[undercovergeek]

the separation of gaming and living?

i dont want something im doing in my relaxing time to ask me any moral questions, or put another way i dont want moral questions to be part of my relaxing time

[MengJiao]

Good points. I just hope it doesn't become the norm to piss over a great series of games. 

I also found it ironic she felt more more secure about uniting the principalities and states of the Holy Roman Empire. 
How she plans to do that in the game without the Reformation, Counterreformation, forced conversions or 'heretics', the 30 Years war, etc, etc, (well, you get the picture - either way, it won't be pretty, but her conscience is eased).

Just goes to show these self-proclaimed "Progressives" have little to no concept of history, other than how selective bits of it compare to their own little modern fantasy reality.

Rainbows and Unicorn farts in abundance.

Maybe the reviewer used a little irony there?  I mean if you have any interest in the HRE, you can't be unaware of its various quirks.

[endfire79]

You're probably quite right  ;)

I think its kinda nice that the game seemed real enough to make the reviewer a big queasy.  I don't see why games that simulate history should not raise moral questions.  What's the point in playing if it doesn't mean anything?

I think I agree with you in that sense.  I guess that's the beauty of this series.  I love reading on the historical context almost as much as playing through it. I was flabbergasted to see EU when it hit the shelves, as I had never seen a title like that before.  I enjoy playing through the 30 Years War, or the Age of Exploration, or through the many Ottoman/European conflicts as that was history and it has significance to me (although my wife thinks I'm wasting my time  :).  I do make choices about whether to pursue heretics, or to permit them, whether to align to whatever faction, whether to explore, conquer, trade, and 'assimilate' cultures, or be a real ass like some rulers were historically.  Yes, I guess if that makes you think and get interested in the subjects, than the game has done a great job.

[MengJiao]

You're probably quite right  ;)

I think its kinda nice that the game seemed real enough to make the reviewer a big queasy.  I don't see why games that simulate history should not raise moral questions.  What's the point in playing if it doesn't mean anything?

I think I agree with you in that sense.  I guess that's the beauty of this series.  I love reading on the historical context almost as much as playing through it. I was flabbergasted to see EU when it hit the shelves, as I had never seen a title like that before.  I enjoy playing through the 30 Years War, or the Age of Exploration, or through the many Ottoman/European conflicts as that was history and it has significance to me (although my wife thinks I'm wasting my time  :).  I do make choices about whether to pursue heretics, or to permit them, whether to align to whatever faction, whether to explore, conquer, trade, and 'assimilate' cultures, or be a real ass like some rulers were historically.  Yes, I guess if that makes you think and get interested in the subjects, than the game has done a great job.

  I think by "big queasy" I meant "bit queasy"...but one of the reasons I play war games is to get an idea of sorts of what events might have been like.  However I also like the raw, infantile fun of arming a savage tribe with muskets (like you could in MTW2) and seeing what might happen.  I haven't been able to get into giant simulators like EUIV since I seem to prefer very specific and detailed violent events such as you can see in FPS games and Flight simulators.
  I am a bit puzzled as to how anyone could be queasy about destroying the power of the Mexica (Aztec is a later invention of a little-known wave of mythologizing in the early 19th century).  Nearly everyone within 200 miles of Tenotitlan would have some reason to be glad to see them destroyed.  However, I have my doubts about whether any game is yet up to going into the complexities of how Mesoamerian power really worked.  I settled for getting some muskets to the Chichimecs and letting that reduce the complexity pretty fast.
  It would be great to get a game centered on the rise and fall of the Mexica or any of their various adversaries or predecessors or successors, but it seems unlikely in the near future.

[BanzaiCat]

Is the author unaware of exactly what those Mesoamerican cultures did to each other, long before any Europeans showed up?