Why Play Historical Games?

This is a bit of a different video for me. I examine why play historical games in general and why I play historical games in particular. This discussion will include historical tabeltop wargames, as well as historical strategy games on the table or PC.
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[@mkultrafondler9159]

Because I have autism

[@winkertinker]

No lie

[@Spawnofktulu007]

Man I have countless hours when you combine all the Paradox games together. Really only compounded when I discovered the ParadoxGameConverters and then I starting doing things like, reuniting Alexander the Greats empire, taking them through the ages and into Stellaris. Nowadays it's all about Grand Campaigns for me, not blobbing, building some type of narrative. Not mix-maxing.

[@cjm9816]

Longest this man has ever gone in between uploads!!!

[@RealmBuilderGuy]

Busy with work trips right now

[@blodhevn2353]

Im a big "What if?" player. which is why i prefer the 867 in Ck3, but i love learning about the history of the culture/people etc. Looking forward to the Legacy of Persia so much, Going to try to do what Mardavij Zayirid could not (Did quite a lot tbh). Or researching cultures & historical figures and try to fulfill their ambitions. (Greater Albania for example is pretty cool roleplay)

[@attrage7545]

Thank you for such a thought provoking video! I hope you'll forgive a long comment. I did a diploma of ancient history in Greco Roman studies, so I'm the gamer that turns the entire HUD off in AC:Odyssey and just sails the Aegean exploring. Why do I play historic games? Because studying history taught me that real history, as opposed to the fictional history of the films I grew up watching (Fall of the Roman Empire; Spartacus; Lawrence of Arabia) real history is gloriously messy and fantastically complicated. Playing out history in games like CK3 allows me to, in some small way, experience that mess and complication that so many people lived through. To step into the shoes of Charlemagne, or Leonidas, or Julius Caesar, for just a moment and wonder what drove their decisions, or yes, sometimes their madness. In my first CK3 playthrough, in an effort to keep my kingdom strong, I unwittingly made myself into the most powerful military and economy in the western hemisphere. And a strange thing happened, I began asking myself existential questions like "does having the POWER to take anything I want give me the RIGHT to?"; and had I begun using the idea that my decisions were "for the good of the kingdom" as an excuse to be a tyrant? If a game can provoke that in me, imagine what really being in charge of a powerful kingdom must do to even the most rational minds? Love your content man, keep it going!

[@RealmBuilderGuy]

Great points! Thanks for watching.

[@gavinlottering]

I've been playing various games to learn about game design.

[@nobuyumi8029]

Very well said.

[@Xp103.]

These games are such Gems before I played them my knowledge about history was so bad and now I know stuff like what the wonders of the Ancient world were what the people believed in that era and so one and for example every game from Paradox has so much historical stuff it is Crazy how much you can learn from these Games 🤯

[@misha6699]

I play wargames from all kinds of periods for many, many reasons. One of them is that it allows me to re-fight interesting battles and campaigns from the past without any actual human beings suffering. I can only conclude that those who willfully ignore history, then, must enjoy watching the suffering over and over again as they repeat all of the mistakes of the past. That last half was obviously tongue in cheek, but it really irks me when people suggest that interest in a "problematic" past equals endorsements, that we should simply ignore or rewrite entirely every last bit of history that we don't like in hopes, I guess, that it will make all of the scary monsters under the bed go away. It won't. It will only encourage them to return, again and again.

[@andrewpeterson2865]

When I was 10 my grandparents gave me a copy of the Avalon Hill game "Gettysburg". Later that year, my parents gave me the Avalon Hill "Battle of the Bulge" game, I have been playing wargames ever since. My next game was the Avalon Hill classic "Midway". In High School I played 1/72 scale WWII tank battles using "Angriff" rules. I play board games, computer games (NOT first person shooter) and 1/285 scale WWII miniatures. I've also played Napoleonic, American Civl War and other periods. Sci-Fi and Fantasy do not interest me. I've played D & D and it didn't hook me at all. I am only interested in historical based games. Sometimes we recreate a battle to try for a realistic alternative outcome. Other games we just want a historic setting for the evenings entertainment. I will never face off against orcs. They are fictional. I will face off against M-36s, StuG-IIIs, the Imperial Guard, the Scots Greys, the IJN and Hancocks II Corps. They were all real.

[@nealjroberts4050]

Hear hear!

[@scorpioneldar]

I love to see if I can recreate or surpass certian empires. like. can I survive the fall of this people? can I grow faster than the ottomans? I love reaserching historical moments and how things got the way they got. a lot of the time when I was first playing EU4 I would decide my strategy based on what they did historically. what worked and what didn't. Also I just really like painting maps my color. there is something satisfying about doing that.

[@muhammadhabibieamiro3639]

Because why not

[@MrArnomania]

I could not follow your "Aufhänger". I would need more information in this, but I can relate to what you are saying in general. I play historical games out of curiosity. It gives me another tool at hand to engage with history beside of just reading a book, or watching a documentary. If some people think they need a video game to find self esteem by gloryfying certain ideologies and there for encourage their own world view, they are extremely infantile and utterly stupid individuals.

[@MrArnomania]

I literally learned the origin of my prename by playing Total War Troy. By playing a historic related game you give yourself a chance to learn something new almost by accident. I simply love that.

[@marcelocasimiroqueirozecos5184]

I heard that the Nazi breathed oxygen and drank water! Is it a coincidence that gamers breath oxygen and drink water too? Hmmm?

[@Jon-td4pv]

Because it is interesting and fun. I hate everything about, playng non historical campaigns. Also i hate the people whom, gives crazy traiths to a start charather. It is always boring and ridicules to watch, so to conclude.. people whom do not play historically and play this game as a roleplaying game. Should problably, just play total war, warhammer.

[@RealmBuilderGuy]

Fair enough

[@Jon-td4pv]

Maybe i actually, have not written my comment like it was meant. So the understanding is someway lost in translation, Im am sorry for that and my meaning is, that Ck3 is a game of roleplay and trying things. But it is a roleplay game, i have myself made character's with some insane thraits, but they where build over time(not by maxing a character out from start, i have done that and it is not fun) and the best fun, i have gotten out of the game. Was when i suddenly ended up with, an heir with awfull thraits. You play as a character and his or her family. Not as a country, kingdom or empire. But you have every oppertunity, to change history and make your own. I dont want to watch videos, from people that play a modded world of warcraft setting and other things like that. That is what i was meaning, by my comment earlier. This game is historically based and I would always choose to watch a vanilla version(with dlc and modded history) gameplay. Other than that, change history and make it your own, who is to say that the Norse vikings couldn't have made a African empire and what not. If history and their gods, had favoured them more. And by the way, i love your vids🙏💪❤️

[@callumstanden7149]

First