A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This week we're going to take a look at the worldbuilding of Amazon Studio's Rings of Power from a historical realism perspective. I think it is no great secret that Rings of Power broadly failed to live up to expectations and left a lot of audiences disappointed. In the aftermath of that disappointment, once one … Continue reading Collections: Why Rings of Power’s Middle Earth Feels Flat
Note from the Editor: I'm excited to feature another guest post with you all! This week we have James Baillie discussing how digital humanities and prosopographic methods can be used to better understand the history of the medieval Caucasus. Prosopography is a historical tool-set that is about charting the networks, connections and commonalities of people, … Continue reading Meet a Historian: James Baillie on Digital Humanities and the Medieval Caucasus
This is the last part of a four part series (I, IIa, IIb, III, IV) examining the historical assumptions behind the popular medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, made by Paradox Interactive. In the previous sections, we'd laid out what CKIII does very well: building a simulated model (albeit a simplified one) of power … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Crusader Kings III, Part IV: Emperors, Soldiers and Peasants
This is the third part of a four part series (I, IIa, IIb, III, IV) examining the historical assumptions behind the popular medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, made by Paradox Interactive. In the last part (in two sections), we discussed how CKIII attempts to model decentralized political power in the fragmented polities of … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Crusader Kings III, Part III: Constructivisting a Kingdom
This is the back half of the second part of a four part series (I, IIa, IIb, III, IV) examining the historical assumptions behind the popular medieval grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, made by Paradox Interactive. Last time we looked at how the game tried to mechanically simulate the internal structure of the highly … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Crusader Kings III, Part IIb: Cracks in the House of Islam
This is the second part of a four-part (I, IIa, IIb, III, IV) series examining the historical assumptions of the popular historical grand strategy game Crusader Kings III, by Paradox Interactive. Last time we opened by discussing how CKIII attempts to simulate and represent the distinctly personal character of rule and decision-making in the Middle … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Crusader Kings III, Part IIa: Rascally Vassals
This is the first post in a four-part (I, IIa, IIb, III, IV) series examining the historical assumptions of Crusader Kings III, a historical grand strategy game by Paradox Interactive set during the Middle Ages and covering Europe, North Africa and both West and Central Asia. This is also the continuation of a larger series … Continue reading Collections: Teaching Paradox, Crusader Kings III, Part I: Making It Personal
This is the third part of a three part (I, II, III) look at some of the practical concerns of managing pre-industrial logistics. In our last post, we outlined what 'foraging' actually entailed - how armies got supplies both from friendly populations but also from neutral or hostile populations. In particular, we focused on the … Continue reading Collections: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part III: On the Move
This is the second part of a three part (I, II, III) look at some of the practical concerns of managing pre-industrial logistics. In our last post we outlined the members of our 'campaign community,' including soldiers but also non-combatants and animals (both war- and draft-); they required massive amounts of supplies, particularly food but … Continue reading Collections: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part II: Foraging
This is the conclusion of the third part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IIIc) looking at the role of the general in commanding pre-gunpowder armies in battle. Last time we looked at how junior officers, when empowered to act independently, could give armies a degree of flexibility and reactiveness on the battlefield but … Continue reading Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part IIIc: Morale and Cohesion