some Dark Ages game?

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

Perhaps you know of one. I am, like, totally fascinated with this historical period, roughly from Attila up to (and not including) Charlemagne, and there seems to be not a single semi-decent game touching it throughout the whole history of computer strategy gaming. All the "big" historical games either end on late antiquity or start around 1000, WTF?

I played Great Invasions, and it was crap. An idea of randomly handing you a bunch of completely unrelated kingdoms all around the map and "simulating" the rise and fall of peoples by keeping a half of them under AI control as "raiders" and out of the blue ruining the other half because they outlived some arbitrarily assigned period of existence could be tolerated in a tabletop game, but not in a computer EU-clone grand strategy. I want my own private tribe-becoming-kingdom, not a bunch of randomly assigned tokens.

I played a fair share of viking-focused games, and they were only marginally ok, totally drenched in fantasy, and absolutely unhistorical. And don't let me start on "arthurian" shit, I'll take Dragonlance over that any day.

So, I am looking for some decent and deeply historical strategy set roughly in ad400-800 timespan. Not a fantasy game like Celtic Tales or Hammer of the Gods. Not a viking-based game - their cameo appearance is natural, of course, but I want a game about Dark Ages Europe, not a game about "omg viking raiders raep and plunder ODHINNNNNNN!!1"; vikings belong to the geographic peripheria and the chronologic end of an era. Not a King Arthur bullshit (unless produced by Monty Python). Just a honest and indepth historical strategy about heruls, visigoths, brythons, langobards, huns etc.

Oh, games produced after 1985 are preferred. Quality mods are acceptable too, particularly if there is anything for Crusader Kings or Medieval TW (no, NOT Europa Barbarorum, it's too damn early!).

Anyone having any scrap of obscure knowledge?

JarlFrank · Sep 6, 2010

Since you mentioned Europa Barbarorum, you might be interested in other Rome TW mods. If that is the case, check out the stuff made by the Invasio Barbarorum team, especially Somnium Apostatae Iuliani. This is set during the reign of Emperor Julianus the Apostate and really rapes your ass when you play as Rome.

High quality units are only available at your big cities in the beginning, and they take long to recruit (and you probably won't have any money to recruit them, anyway), you can try to reinstate Paganism throughout the Roman Empire which can lead to revolts in Christianized cities (also Judaism is a religion, there, too; I destroyed every Judaic temple in any of my cities at the beginning of the game and plan to complete wipe out Judaism from the world), and you already have enough revolts on your ass anyway: Spain, North Africa and especially the Eastern regions of the Empire will most probably end up having lots of rebels, also some of your generals with low loyalty ratings might decide to go rebel, too.

The Germanic tribes are going to attack you with huge fucking armies at almost every turn, you will fight battle after battle at the European borders of your Empire, often being outnumbered and having low quality units. It will be brutal.

Yes, it's set before Attila, but it's an awesomely challenging mod and keeping the Roman Empire together is fucking hard. You should give it a shot.

Burning Bridges · Sep 6, 2010

Kings of the Dragon Pass

Medieval Total War - Viking Invasion (there are a dozen factions or so, not only Vikings)

Rome Rotal War - Barbarian Invasion

Then there's a crapload of mods for various Total War games.

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

GlobalExplorer said:
Kings of the Dragon Pass

I want a historical game; if Celtic Tales doesn't qualify, how could possibly the one set in Glorantha?

(yes, I played it a lot and loved it)

Medieval Total War - Viking Invasion (there are a dozen factions or so, not only Vikings)

Rome Rotal War - Barbarian Invasion

Well, the former is a bit too late (793? groundworks for nations of today are already set in stone), and the later probably too early. I might check them eventually, but they aren't what I had in mind. Something like Crusader Kings or M2TW where I could carve out an european empire in great detail as vandals or alemanni, rewriting the coming middle ages from scratch, is what I seek to play.

Then there's a crapload of mods for various Total War games.

On these, I'd appreciate more info. I spotted a series of "Age of Darkness" projects while browsing TWcenter, but they seem to be mostly focused on Bysantium and other boring <s>sandnigger</s> orientalish crap, and look to be WOPs either. Generally, just like with original games, M2TW mods are too late and RTW too early. I spotted some dark age Britain mod for RTW, but as I said, I am quite allergic to the whole King Arthur crap even if it tries its best to ignore all the mythos and stick to 5th century reality. It's like WW2, you can't have it without nazis. So I'd rather stick to the continent and only have Britain as an unimportant peripheral territory.

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

JarlFrank said:
Since you mentioned Europa Barbarorum, you might be interested in other Rome TW mods. If that is the case, check out the stuff made by the Invasio Barbarorum team, especially Somnium Apostatae Iuliani. This is set during the reign of Emperor Julianus the Apostate and really rapes your ass when you play as Rome.

Well, playing as Rome is the last thing I'd have in mind

The whole point is to have a post-Roman sandbox of barbarian kingdoms.

L'ennui · Sep 6, 2010

http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/greatinvasions/

Sounds a lot like what you're looking for. Can't comment on the actual gameplay, haven't tried it, and the reviews are so-so (but since when do reviewers know anything about games like these?). Still, the premise is interesting and very close to what you asked for (CK in the Dark Ages, give or take.

Burning Bridges · Sep 6, 2010

Remember, it's not called Dark Age for nothing :lol:

My - and, presuming you're white: our - ancestors were pretty dumb brutes and it took centuries until they had learned to write. The result is that no one really knows what happened in the first centuries after Rome. That why you will have a hard time to find historic games.

mondblut said:
Bysantium and other boring <s>sandnigger</s> orientalish crap

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

L'ennui said:
http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/greatinvasions/

Sounds a lot like what you're looking for.

I torn it apart in OP, hey. It could have been a game tailored specifically for me, but the designers' intent was to show peoples come and go, not to let somebody create a Visigothic Empire from Atlantic to Volga. "pick 10 nations using bidding system", bleh, I have soccer management sims for this crap

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

GlobalExplorer said:
Remember, it's not called Dark Age for nothing

My - and, presuming you're white: our - ancestors were pretty dumb brutes and it took centuries until they had learned to write. The result is that no one really knows what happened in the first centuries after Rome.

That's a popular misconception. The germans might have had problems writing, but the existing literate population didn't go anywhere. There were plentiful monasteries (as germans tended to convert to christianity pretty much the moment they set foot on imperial soil) writing down shit, there were secular chronicles retelling and updating earlier lost works, there were more literate neighbours such as byzantines - it's anything but a black hole. We know their kings down to every year of reign and countless lesser warlords, we know most important wars and battles, we have a solid understanding of their equipment, economy and way of life. Naturally it gets more blurred and confusing the farther from roman borders we go, but that's what game designers are for, to use their imagination and fill the holes with educated guesses.

Burning Bridges · Sep 6, 2010

Aren't we turning in circles now? Of course there were still civilized people in what you called "sandnigger" countries, and they recorded their history. But the way I understood (or thought I understood) you wanted something that deals with North/East/West Europe/Central Russia.

mondblut said:
GlobalExplorer said:

Remember, it's not called Dark Age for nothing

My - and, presuming you're white: our - ancestors were pretty dumb brutes and it took centuries until they had learned to write. The result is that no one really knows what happened in the first centuries after Rome.

Click to expand...

That's a popular misconception

Then give me sources where I can read about the history of e.g. the Nibelungen, Burgundians, or the Wends (a slavic people in todays East Germany that my last names stems from). What exactly happened with the Huns? (they disappeared from history). I think it is not a misconception that a lot of history between ~500 and 800 B.C. was handed down orally and either lost or survived as legends / fairytales.

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

There was a plenty of civilized people in west europe as well. Germans weren't displacing the civilized local populace, they were assimilating them, if not the other way around (just look at the french, you'll have a hard time finding a trace of frankish in them).

The farther east, the scarcier the data, yes, but west is what I am primarily interested in.

Burning Bridges · Sep 6, 2010

No problem mate, you should only specify more exactly what you really want. The way I understand you now you are mostly interested in Brittannia, Gaul, Charlemagne, 500 - 800AD.

Trash · Sep 6, 2010

Darklands while an rpg is one of the best games on the Dark Ages. You seem to know about Crusader Kings, so I won't mention that one.

MTW1 and MTW2 (especially with the Stainless Steel mod) are good and the Viking Invasion II and Norman Invasion mods for RTW are pretty neat as well.

commie · Sep 6, 2010

mondblut said:
L'ennui said:

http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/greatinvasions/

Sounds a lot like what you're looking for.

Click to expand...

I torn it apart in OP, hey. It could have been a game tailored specifically for me, but the designers' intent was to show peoples come and go, not to let somebody create a Visigothic Empire from Atlantic to Volga. "pick 10 nations using bidding system", bleh, I have soccer management sims for this crap

There used to be mods for it that get rid of those arbitrary endings based on scripted events but I can't find them now. I know how much I raged when the Western Roman Empire died all of a sudden in 476 after I worked so hard to keep it alive! Still you just have to edit the event files and delete references to Huns collapsing or Western Roman Empire falling and they won't happen arbitrarily.

It is also possible to edit the game so you play with just ONE nation. It's so much better when you aren't forced to juggle some shitty places you don't care about. Look here: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=4493

I DO like the country aging system though, as it is VERY realistic in approximating the way nations lose their aggressiveness and increase their decadence as they age and get more civilized.

Trash · Sep 6, 2010

Never played Great Invasions. Is it to be recommended?

Burning Bridges · Sep 6, 2010

A little tip Trash: Great Invasions is the precursor of Ageod's World War One :smug:

commie · Sep 6, 2010

Trash said:
Never played Great Invasions. Is it to be recommended?

It's fucking arcane with the interface, but give it time and it becomes like a Europa Universalis in the Late Classical-Early Medieval Age.

It has a unique concept of managing several nations at once, and the reason for this is because they tend to die off at the historically appointed time and depending on how well you do with them up till that point, you then get the opportunity to manage some nation that came after them. It sounds silly like this, but is actually quite good at simulating all the changes and the countless of short lived tribes and nations that came and went at that time.

Of course as a gamer, you (and I) want to be rewarded more concretely for doing well, and this can be very annoying when a nation you like just 'dies' no matter what you do, but you can edit the files to get rid of those events and play as one nation only if you want(and you DO want this!).

I liked it, as an EU/HOI/Victoria/CK fan it was just another entry in the series.

Trash · Sep 6, 2010

GlobalExplorer said:
A little tip Trash: Great Invasions is the precursor of Ageod's World War One

Oh dear.

It's fucking arcane with the interface, but give it time and it becomes like a Europa Universalis in the Late Classical-Early Medieval Age.

It has a unique concept of managing several nations at once, and the reason for this is because they tend to die off at the historically appointed time and depending on how well you do with them up till that point, you then get the opportunity to manage some nation that came after them. It sounds silly like this, but is actually quite good at simulating all the changes and the countless of short lived tribes and nations that came and went at that time.

Of course as a gamer, you (and I) want to be rewarded more concretely for doing well, and this can be very annoying when a nation you like just 'dies' no matter what you do, but you can edit the files to get rid of those events and play as one nation only if you want(and you DO want this!).

I liked it, as an EU/HOI/Victoria/CK fan it was just another entry in the series.

That actually sounds interesting and it sounds like the setup might be limited or boardgame like enough for it to be a better game than that pos WW1. Which together with the arcane interface and shit AI simply felt like the team had chewed off more than they could handle.

One can hope.

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

Trash said:
Darklands while an rpg is one of the best games on the Dark Ages. You seem to know about Crusader Kings, so I won't mention that one. MTW1 and MTW2 (especially with the Stainless Steel mod) are good and the Viking Invasion II and Norman Invasion mods for RTW are pretty neat as well.

Duh, "Dark Ages" is a period between the so-called fall of western roman empire and "carolingian renaissance", centuries before the feudal high middle ages popamole :smug:

Trash · Sep 6, 2010

Yeah, I really hurt my brain trying to find games that feature that period. I thought it worked out pretty well...

MasterSmithFandango · Sep 6, 2010

Wait... I haven't played MTW's expansion, but doesn't that focus on the Danish invasion of England in the 9th century or something? That's pretty much the only thing I can think of that might give you your Dark Ages fix.

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

commie said:
There used to be mods for it that get rid of those arbitrary endings based on scripted events but I can't find them now. I know how much I raged when the Western Roman Empire died all of a sudden in 476 after I worked so hard to keep it alive! Still you just have to edit the event files and delete references to Huns collapsing or Western Roman Empire falling and they won't happen arbitrarily.

It is also possible to edit the game so you play with just ONE nation. It's so much better when you aren't forced to juggle some shitty places you don't care about. Look here: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=4493

That sounds interesting, thanks. Maybe I'll give it another try with these corrections someday.

I DO like the country aging system though, as it is VERY realistic in approximating the way nations lose their aggressiveness and increase their decadence as they age and get more civilized.

I guess the franks cheated :smug:

commie · Sep 6, 2010

Trash said:
That actually sounds interesting and it sounds like the setup might be limited or boardgame like enough for it to be a better game than that pos WW1. Which together with the arcane interface and shit AI simply felt like the team had chewed off more than they could handle.

One can hope.

Yes it's NOT like all the other AGEOD games after; not WW1 or Birth of America or anything like that. It's really a boardgame type of thing, what with a EU style map and interaction coupled with cards that you can play that give you bonuses or hold off disasters etc. It seems much harder than it is when you have to mange many different nations at the same time, and I don't really like it, but hey, it's not hard to mod it as it's just text files like in EU to just have one damn nation.

Give it a go anyway. I hated it at first, but gave it another chance, read the manual and liked it.

mondblut said:
I guess the franks cheated

Are you sure? I think the French now are perfect examples of a decadent, cowardly race from an original bunch of fierce warriors!

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

GlobalExplorer said:
Then give me sources where I can read about the history of e.g. the Nibelungen, Burgundians,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of ... f_Burgundy :smug:

And then follow down the links. No, not the WWW ones. There is a plenty of sources on both Aetius and Merovingian kings, which naturally involve Burgundian kingdom throughout its whole short lifespan. That which was prior to their arrival on the orbit of civilized world is largely speculative, yes, but that's antiquity, not dark ages.

or the Wends (a slavic people in todays East Germany that my last names stems from).

The further east we go... It's not like romans during the height of their civilization knew any better about veneti. "They dwell on baltic and they are germans cuz they are not horse nomads", this Tacit's gem is the only roman achievement in their ethnography. Providing the I century veneti, fall of Rome-era vandals and X century wends are related (which is highly open to speculations), vandals from the heart of "dark ages" are the ones we know most about, ironically.

And if you refer to the late first millenium northwestern slavs specifically, I suggest various germanic chronicles of the day. They detail a plenty of events involving their slavic neighbours in X-XII centuries.

What exactly happened with the Huns? (they disappeared from history).

It's not like anyone is absolutely certain how huns appeared in the first place. But looking at mongolian example, we can make an educated guess they weren't particularly numerous, the vast majority of their "horde" being herded up from previously submitted tribes, and unlike mongolians, it took a death of one overlord to shatter their hold. An uprising of vassal tribes after the death of Attila is a well-known fact, so it is safe to assume the surviving "true" huns just scattered to four winds, some going back east, some turning into small maraunding bands.

I think it is not a misconception that a lot of history between ~500 and 800 B.C. was handed down orally and either lost or survived as legends / fairytales.

I strongly disagree. On the west (implying the domains and orbit of Rome) the history kept being penned down nicely. There is a plenty of both original sources and subsequent researches on all barbarian kingdoms of pax romana, you just have to look harder, since the topic isn't particularly popular for a casual reader. And further east, we know progressively less, but still more so than we know of a period prior to ~500 for the same locales. And likely more than their contemporary romans did.

mondblut · Sep 6, 2010

commie said:
Are you sure? I think the French now are perfect examples of a decadent, cowardly race from an original bunch of fierce warriors!

Well, at least they survived for 1500 years as a recognized kingdom alone, whereas their competitors were arbitrarily terminated by the designer in mere century or two

some Dark Ages game?

Arcane

I like Thief THIS much

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Magister

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The Last Marxist

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The Last Marxist

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Arcane

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Arcane

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The Last Marxist

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Arcane