Everyone has their own idea about what is the “correct” level of aggregation (and consequently who are the victims and who are the baddies) , but that just displays their own personal prejudices (and what flavour of bullshit propaganda they’ve swallowed.)

Or to put it differently – you can’t right the wrongs of history, you can only replace them with a different set of wrongs of your own making.

It’s also interesting that you pick a programme about 1066 to rant about history being written by the victors. It’s always struck me as a historical event that’s almost universally written with a predisposition towards the losers, the Anglo-Saxons, rather than the Norman victors. Even with roughly a third of the vocabulary used to write about it being Norman French in origin…

Of course this is all beside the point. This game is great fun – played some of the multiplayer last night and it’s very solid and entertaining. The culture-specific insults don’t get old, either.

Richard Beer says:
“Jarvoll: welcome to the entire history of the world! I can put good money on whatever people you consider to be the ‘original’ inhabitants of anywhere, including Wales, just kicked out the people who were there beforehand.

You really need to let go of the bitterness, or you might as well vote BNP and prove yourself to be properly Neanderthal.”

Regarding the comment that “I can put good money on whatever people you consider to be the ‘original’ inhabitants of anywhere, including Wales, just kicked out the people who were there beforehand.” He implicitly recognised that, I think, when he said “I played the Gauls in Rome: Total War so I could keep Rome the hell out. Given the chance, I’d play the Basques’ ancestors and keep the Gauls the hell out.” Sounds fair enough to me, and I don’t see why something being commonplace makes it right. Or why one people’s ancestors having done the wrong thing in the past makes it okay for an unrelated group to go in and do the same to them.

(I’m not trying to get into the Britain debate at all, and I have no knowledge or opinion on that. It just seems a bit ridiculous to imply that historical invasions should not be complained about because they happened a lot.)

You really need to let go of the bitterness, or you might as well vote BNP and prove yourself to be properly Neanderthal.

@Andrew Dunn – it’s rage that could probably best be summed up as “History is written by the victor”. Just as in most places in the world (sigh again), one nation (England) oppresses, conquers, and assimilates another (Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Ireland), and then, as victor, gets to tell everyone that they were right to do so, that they were all one people anyway (’British’) though that’s not even close to true, and gets to paint history as though their dominance was both desirable and inevitable, when neither is true (see Erlam’s first statement).

Sure, this game is probably short enough and small enough in scope that any such historiography is unlikely to be particularly blatant, but… I dunno. I can get around this in most history games by playing to “right the wrongs”, so to speak. I played the Gauls in Rome: Total War so I could keep Rome the hell out. Given the chance, I’d play the Basques’ ancestors and keep the Gauls the hell out. But in this game, either way, I lose. If I play Guillaume and win, then I get the “wrongs” that actually occurred in history, but if I play Harold and win, then I’m still on the side of an invading people who displaced others for their own gain, and would go on to do so to all of their neighbours, Frenchified government or no.

So, I think most people would agree with you: this does seem like weird rage; I can certainly see how it could be seen that way. Hopefully, though, it makes a little more sense now.

Bloody Awesome!

Insults are a bit overpowered, and not enough players around for multiplayer (plus most of them quit half way through the game when its evident they will lose).
Otherwise its great.