[HISTORICAL ISSUE] - Historical films from balkan states

[NikeBG]

Ah, but then comes the question - how much can you learn? And then what period to choose? Some factions were alive at one point, but others weren't. You can't get them all at once.
And, then again, you have to think not only about history, but even more (much more, in today's world) about the players, i.e. the sales - how many players would want to play with factions A (well-known and very popular) and how many with factions B (which, more or less, only historians and natives know about). And let's face it - most of the game's customers are from the West (America, Western Europe) and most of them prefer to play with the same old France, England, HRE and wherever they're respectively from. On the other hand, how many people would like to play with Serbia or Bulgaria? Well, mostly some Serbs and Bulgarians, most of which probably wouldn't even have the money to buy the game. Thus, the market logic leads to the conclusion that if a game dev has to choose between the Western factions and the Balkans, the result is pretty obvious.
If we start buying more and more people get to know about our history, then we'd have a bigger chance of being noticed in such occasions. But currently our markets are miniscule and the only things we're known with are the Yugoslavian wars, the corruption and eventually the nationalism.
That's also the reason why you also won't see any Hollywood blockbuster about Khan Tervel's fight with the Arabs or Tsar Dushan's might. Heck, you can't even see *anything* about Byzantium itself, the very empire that can put both Bulgaria and Serbia in its pocket in terms of significance. In that sense, CA have actually done a rather good historical job, as weird as that sounds...

[MeAgain]

I agree, it's also very hard work to include every little nation/culture/etc from a specific time period. So hard, in fact, that it wouldn't be worth doing so. If you take that into consideration and what NikeBG has already said then they did do a pretty good job.
On the other hand; the new Total War games that have come out (ETW, NTW) are lacking in many departments...it's almost a step backwards from earlier ones such as RTW and (not so much) M2/KTW.

[dabela]

i can forgive Medieval 2 TW, but not Napoleon TW...

[NikeBG]

I haven't played ETW or NTW (might eventually get them if I get a job and some more money), so I have absolutely no idea about the situation there, but was Serbia around NTW's time bigger or more important than Serbia around MTW's time?

[il_duce_!]

Serbia was under ottoman occupation at that time.

[dabela]

No it wanst... From 1804. to 1813. there was a rebelion in serbia... First (1804.) it was a rebelion against janissary leaders (4 dahije), and then (from 1805. to 1813.) it was a rebelion against Ottoman Empire... Serbian army occupied/liberated Belgrade in 1807...

[Bagatyr]

The chronicle of Manasii (Манасиевата хроника) a bulgarian translated version with the bulgarian history add in - writen in emperor Ivan Alexander (1331-1371) time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_hRNAL2hSE

[NapoleonSRB]

No it wanst... From 1804. to 1813. there was a rebelion in serbia... First (1804.) it was a rebelion against janissary leaders (4 dahije), and then (from 1805. to 1813.) it was a rebelion against Ottoman Empire... Serbian army occupied/liberated Belgrade in 1807...

It was not a rebelion...it was a revolution...
nije pobuna nego revolucija[burzoarsko demokratskoga karaktera]

rebelions are much smaller...

[dabela]

same dude...

[NapoleonSRB]

Serbia was under ottoman occupation at that time.

tnx for reminding me on that...now i have to go and beat the hell out of my muslim neigbour

[phoenix[illusion]]

Ah, but then comes the question - how much can you learn? And then what period to choose? Some factions were alive at one point, but others weren't. You can't get them all at once.
And, then again, you have to think not only about history, but even more (much more, in today's world) about the players, i.e. the sales - how many players would want to play with factions A (well-known and very popular) and how many with factions B (which, more or less, only historians and natives know about). And let's face it - most of the game's customers are from the West (America, Western Europe) and most of them prefer to play with the same old France, England, HRE and wherever they're respectively from. On the other hand, how many people would like to play with Serbia or Bulgaria? Well, mostly some Serbs and Bulgarians, most of which probably wouldn't even have the money to buy the game. Thus, the market logic leads to the conclusion that if a game dev has to choose between the Western factions and the Balkans, the result is pretty obvious.
If we start buying more and more people get to know about our history, then we'd have a bigger chance of being noticed in such occasions. But currently our markets are miniscule and the only things we're known with are the Yugoslavian wars, the corruption and eventually the nationalism.
That's also the reason why you also won't see any Hollywood blockbuster about Khan Tervel's fight with the Arabs or Tsar Dushan's might. Heck, you can't even see *anything* about Byzantium itself, the very empire that can put both Bulgaria and Serbia in its pocket in terms of significance. In that sense, CA have actually done a rather good historical job, as weird as that sounds...

well, you're right. it's all mass production, or commercialization of history. they know that making serbia or bulgaria wouldn't make them better profit. they even put together spain as one faction, so that spaniards want to play it (many people even in spain don't know much about it). so as the russia, which should be novgorod, but they wanted to connect nowadays name with medieval, so when kid from russia sees russia as a faction, buy it immediately. it's like in music, commercialization took all good quality of it. it's called kitch & schund. well, if anybody deserves to be as a faction than it's bulgaria and serbia. adding bulgaria without serbia or serbia without bulgaria would be senseless, cause these two nations always fought each other, and always made peace with marriages. it's funny that everybody from west find these faction weak or not crucial. that's not true, serbia and bulgaria were strong as any other medieval state, and if anybody likes byzantine empire (and a lot of people does), they should certainly include serbia and bulgaria. anyways, it's cause of nowadays status of countries, western are stronger then balkan countries, and they are forcing their history, even making their medieval countries stronger than any of balkan's. england had luck that they were on island, and not attacked by ottomans, which was unity of every muslim faction. it was able to crush byzantine empire, bulgaria, serbia...
and about ETW, well serbia excised as principality (knezevina) from 1817. it was one of the first counties that liberated from ottomans. well, first serbian uprising started 1804.and ended in 1813. they gain freedom, but it was not still fully liberation. after second serbian uprising, serbia gains fully independence (1817.)

[MeAgain]

tnx for reminding me on that...now i have to go and beat the hell out of my muslim neigbour

Stupid thing to post, say or do...

I have just descovered, while reading through RTW threads, that Shogun 2 has been announced. Here is a link for those that are interested in finding out a little more:
http://www.vg247.com/2010/06/02/shogun-2-total-war-revealed-through-hands-on/
Wait, here is the official one:
http://www.sega-australia.com/games/shogun-2-total-war/

Do you think they will include Balkan nations in this one?

[Wallachian]

Stupid thing to post, say or do...

I have just descovered, while reading through RTW threads, that Shogun 2 has been announced. Here is a link for those that are interested in finding out a little more:
http://www.vg247.com/2010/06/02/shogun-2-total-war-revealed-through-hands-on/
Wait, here is the official one:
http://www.sega-australia.com/games/shogun-2-total-war/

Do you think they will include Balkan nations in this one?

Worst news ever! Might be the first total war game i actually will not buy. Not in any way interested in medieval japan!! Biggest dissappointment ever and those two videos suck, who cares about caligraphy in a war game anyway?!

I haven't played ETW or NTW (might eventually get them if I get a job and some more money), so I have absolutely no idea about the situation there, but was Serbia around NTW's time bigger or more important than Serbia around MTW's time?

ETW and NTW had some awesome steps forward in terms of battles, AI, diplomacy, research etc. but there were some terribly stupid steps back. In ETW the main one is the map of europe which has far far less provinces then before, Spain has 3 provinces, France 4 i think, Poland is one provice and to show their love for the Balkans Wallachia and Bulgaria are one province. Like seriously how much would it cose them to just have the same number of provinces in Europe like the previous games. Also, the new system of buildings in towns is terribly annoying, i would rather build everything in a capital then clicking on 1000 different towns to upgrade.
Napoleon improved Europe and the fact that you can liberate countries like Romania, Hungary, Greece, Poland etc. is great, but somehow they ignored Serbia and Bulgaria. But I would definetly say that Serbia was much more important in medieval time then in the napoleonic time. I know that there was the rebellion led by Karadjordje in napolenic time when Serbia was fighting the Ottomans but in medieval time it was a powerful empire and an important player in eastern european politics. It should have definetly been included in MTW. But the market decides and the market does not care about eastern european factions. As a small personal revenge, I have never played a British faction in any TW or EU game

[phoenix[illusion]]

Napoleon improved Europe and the fact that you can liberate countries like Romania, Hungary, Greece, Poland etc. is great, but somehow they ignored Serbia and Bulgaria. But I would definetly say that Serbia was much more important in medieval time then in the napoleonic time. I know that there was the rebellion led by Karadjordje in napolenic time when Serbia was fighting the Ottomans but in medieval time it was a powerful empire and an important player in eastern european politics. It should have definetly been included in MTW. But the market decides and the market does not care about eastern european factions. As a small personal revenge, I have never played a British faction in any TW or EU game

what?! i never played NTW, but when i heard this, it pissed me off. there is a script to liberate factions but not serbia? let's face it, greek war of independence started 1814., and gain independence in 1822., serbia started uprisings in 1804., gain independence in 1817. much earlier then greece. and yes, serbia was much important in medieval times, but in napoleonic, it was one of the first (and i can say first) liberated states from balkan. if they included greece, and yet romania, serbia should be included immediately.

[dabela]

Stupid thing to post, say or do...

I have just descovered, while reading through RTW threads, that Shogun 2 has been announced. Here is a link for those that are interested in finding out a little more:
http://www.vg247.com/2010/06/02/shogun-2-total-war-revealed-through-hands-on/
Wait, here is the official one:
http://www.sega-australia.com/games/shogun-2-total-war/

Do you think they will include Balkan nations in this one?

This is not good... I was hoping for something like WW1 TW, or the Eastern question period... Well, one more reason to wait for tsardoms...

[Wallachian]

what?! i never played NTW, but when i heard this, it pissed me off. there is a script to liberate factions but not serbia? let's face it, greek war of independence started 1814., and gain independence in 1822., serbia started uprisings in 1804., gain independence in 1817. much earlier then greece. and yes, serbia was much important in medieval times, but in napoleonic, it was one of the first (and i can say first) liberated states from balkan. if they included greece, and yet romania, serbia should be included immediately.

Although Greece started their war in 1814 and Wallachia had a revolution in 1821 which resulted in the end of the phanariot rute, i definetly agree that amongst the Balkan nations in the napoleonic period Serbia was the most important. I was very surprised when my French army occupied Belgrade that i was not given the liberate option, I had literally planned my attack there to create a nice buffer state Well at least we can liberate the Crimean Khanate, that has to count for something...NOT!!!

[NikeBG]

and about ETW, well serbia excised as principality (knezevina) from 1817. it was one of the first counties that liberated from ottomans. well, first serbian uprising started 1804.and ended in 1813. they gain freedom, but it was not still fully liberation. after second serbian uprising, serbia gains fully independence (1817.)

Ah, I had some dim memories that there was a big and long Serbian uprising around Napoleon's time, but it's been quite awhile since 12th grade (we had to choose a special discipline and I took modern Balkan history then, but don't really remember much).
And I agree that TW is a part of the commercial gaming-industry and as such bends certain historical aspects to favour its positions on the market. Unfortunately, most big companies today have to keep it that way if they want to prosper. F.e. if they start as indy, they'll either have to transform to commercialism or wither away. The funny thing is that a big corporation could actually use a bit more indy style to freshen it up (not too much, of course), but once you're in the Big League, people tend not to like such risks and become more and more commercial. F.e. I worked for over an year in a daughter-company of Ubisoft - we had some good ideas, but at the end all we kept making was arcades, arcades and more arcades. It's easier to sell a game that doesn't require more than 5 brain cells than one that actually makes you learn something new...

Do you think they will include Balkan nations in this one?

One of the comments I read in another forum was something like "Well, no more Europe, so at least no more nationalistic threads. You moderators should be happy."

Worst news ever! Might be the first total war game i actually will not buy. Not in any way interested in medieval japan!! Biggest dissappointment ever and those two videos suck, who cares about caligraphy in a war game anyway?!

I might buy S2TW (if I have more money to spare, of course), though I'm more worried about things like "heroes who can stop entire armies" etc. As a continuation of what I said above: arcadeness is spreading more and more.

ETW and NTW had some awesome steps forward in terms of battles, AI, diplomacy, research etc. but there were some terribly stupid steps back. In ETW the main one is the map of europe which has far far less provinces then before, Spain has 3 provinces, France 4 i think, Poland is one provice and to show their love for the Balkans Wallachia and Bulgaria are one province. Like seriously how much would it cose them to just have the same number of provinces in Europe like the previous games. Also, the new system of buildings in towns is terribly annoying, i would rather build everything in a capital then clicking on 1000 different towns to upgrade.

Hmm, was Wallachia a part of the Ottoman Empire then? I really should re-read that textbook about recent Balkan history...

Napoleon improved Europe and the fact that you can liberate countries like Romania, Hungary, Greece, Poland etc. is great, but somehow they ignored Serbia and Bulgaria.

Ah, so that's why dabela was so pissed at it. For Bulgaria I can understand it, considering it was even one province with Wallachia (thus would be part of united Romania). Maybe Serbia as a province was also united with some other rising faction?

This is not good... I was hoping for something like WW1 TW, or the Eastern question period... Well, one more reason to wait for tsardoms...

I was hoping more for something like Dark Ages TW or Ancient Near East TW (Egypt, Babylon, Hittites etc) or Asia TW (China, India, the nomads) or, naturally, Rome2TW. But Shogun is good too, even if a bit too small in size (then again, we've all heard it's more important how you use it, so... ).

Although Greece started their war in 1814 and Wallachia had a revolution in 1821 which resulted in the end of the phanariot rute, i definetly agree that amongst the Balkan nations in the napoleonic period Serbia was the most important. I was very surprised when my French army occupied Belgrade that i was not given the liberate option, I had literally planned my attack there to create a nice buffer state Well at least we can liberate the Crimean Khanate, that has to count for something...NOT!!!

Hmm, I'm starting to think that the CA guys have something personal against the South Slavs. Maybe they came on a trip here, but were ripped off and swore never to include us as a faction, no matter what.

[dabela]

well, you're right. it's all mass production, or commercialization of history. they know that making serbia or bulgaria wouldn't make them better profit.

That is why Im never buying TW game again. From now on Im gonna download them from the internet, since they dont expect profit from Serbia...

[2Shy]

Mhm I agree with Nike-total discrimination of the south slavs ... But what I hate most in TW games is the historical "accuracy" .

[dabela]

They dont deserve our precious money...