how historically accurate is this game?

[Etherlight]

Hi, as someone from an Asian background I find the historical setting of this game very intriguing. Just want to know if the period protraited in this game historically accurate i.e. social, political, religion...etc. Basically, I want to make sure informations I learned about European history based on this game is trustworthy. Should I take this as a history lesson? or should I take it with a grain of salt and treat it as just a game?

Enjoying this game alot so far.

[Tier]

As far as I know, the various duchies, kingdoms, rulers, etc. are all historically accurate from whatever start date you choose.

[Supplican]

Some of both, really. The mechanics of feudal relationships between liege and vassal are pretty historically accurate, if a little too uniform over a vast area. However it is far easier to expand your own lands in this game than in reality, to make a more fun game and just because you as player have access to vastly more and better data than a real medieval ruler did. Imagine if people haas real numerical ratings and traits, that anyone could read and trust ...

[Ranger.Danger]

Most of the start dates are accurate besides 867. And you also have to consider that you cant accuratley represent over 400 years of history based off of one game build. While this game can kinda help with historical understanding i would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever reccomend learning history based off what you saw in a videogame. If you actually desire to learn something find someone who already knows it or read something they have written.

[Ranger.Danger]

It does help with geography though :]

[Selenotropic]

Also keep in mind that things won't necessarily proceed in historical order (and thank god they don't). It's entirely possible Navarra will end up taking over England (as happened in one of my games) and such.

Ranger.Danger put it well. It can help with a general idea of historical settings and geography, but don't expect to learn real hard history.

[TurksTeeTime]

The Aztecs really did invade Brittany so...

[redsimonDE]

Yes, you should definitely take it with a grain of salt. It is a game that is supposed to be playable and fun, not a history lesson. I think it's safe to say a healthy amount of knowledge about the middle ages in Europe (the Crusades, the Reconquista, Mongol Invasions, Byzantium, Christianisation of Eastern and Northern Europe etc) is necessary to get anything out of the game and also makes you enjoy the game even more.

[Fr0ud3]

The OP is making the unsupported assumption that general history of medieval Europe is accurate in the first place. It's important to keep in mind that nobody who writes medieval history has ever been there. When Herodotus wrote the "Histories" he made a lot of stuff up, but it was at least conceivable that he could have been present or spoken to someone who was present at the events he described. Likewise modern history, from the French Revolution to the 2nd World War, is based on eyewitness accounts and documents that, except for differences in spelling and grammar, could conceivably have been written today. It is therefore very "accessible" to the modern mind. Medieval history is based on accounts that are in contrast almost entirely foreign to us - word useage and linguistic meaning is often completely different, concepts are commonplace that to us today are normally considered strange or crazy (e.g. demonic possession). At best, modern scholars can generally provide a modern interpretation of what medieval sources are telling them. That is not necessarily how it really happened.

Most Western history, especially English-language history, of the middle ages is factually accurate to the extent the facts are known, but it can still be misleading. This is because the medieval era in Europe was dominated by i) the Catholic Church and ii) Not England (and by extension not North America, obviously). This is not to say that the English or North-American historians who have dominated the field of study in the modern era deliberately misrepresent medieval history; however, there is a strong cultural bias in favor of post-Reformation sociopolitical structures. These are after all the sociopolitical structures with which all these historians are comfortable and familiar.
Now, quite obviously most of us are much happier living in a time where modern medicine and scientific knowledge is available, most geographic areas have reasonably stable governments, and political leaders usually cannot start a war or throw you in jail for no apparent reason. So to some extent we would probably mostly agree that post-Reformation, modern life is categorically better than the middle ages. However, there are some things that are different due to the progression of human technology and knowledge, such as figuring out how to make a non-hereditary bureaucratic state work, and there are some things that are differences in kind. It is in this respect, the portrayal of historic differences in kind, that modern historical representations of the medieval era are perhaps misleading.
The simple fact is that things were very different in the middle ages, and these many differences cannot all be explained away by modern scientific progress. HIstorians with modern social biases - which is to say pretty much everyone - sometimes, or perhaps even usually, interpret these differences in a manner which portrays the old, medieval ways as "bad" or "not as good" as our more comfortable, understandable modern habits. But this is only a subjective, not an objective, comparison. Because we do not live in a medieval society with a medieval outlook on life, it's quite difficult for us to understand how their historical decisions all fit together. Much of the problem is due to the fact that medieval European history is studied, usually, as if it were the history of Europe. We all know about Europe - we live there or we've been there or we've seen it on TV. But the problem is that 12th century Europe is not "Europe", it is pretty much an entirely foreign country. Scholars of comparative sociology or antrhopology have techniques to deal with this differentiation; the good ones generally do not make the mistake of approaching the study of Chinese culture as if it were exactly like English culture but in Mandarin. It's understood that things are different - that certain things that would seem senseless in London make sense in Shanghai in the proper cultural context. But we often approach medieval European history as if historical decisions and events in the 12th century can only be explained as per a modern viewpoint.
Now if you read non-English (or translations) history of that time period, especially from outside Europe or from the cultural fringes of Europe - Tsarist Russia, antirevolutionary/monarchist France, etc - you get a somewhat different viewpoint. It is not necessarily any more accurate than reading Toynbee, but it is strikingly different in approach to and interpretation of medieval European history. However really nobody ever reads this stuff nowadays, and it's certainly not a body of knowledge that is easily accessible and used by game developers.

[Prestogizmo]

I've enjoyed an interest in medieval history, and I thought I had a decent grasp on the mechanics of feudalism. The game does a fantastic job of hammering home the personal nature of feudalism (i.e. how much depends upon the person of the king, the duke, the count, the baron, as well as how much of their government was interpersonal). Until, as Fr0ud3 mentions above, some type of civil bureaucracy exists to mitigate the bad rulers, a poor ruler makes a huge difference in everyone's life.

[Ranger.Danger]

Originally posted by Prestogizmo:

The game does a fantastic job of hammering home the personal nature of feudalism (i.e. how much depends upon the person of the king, the duke, the count, the baron, as well as how much of their government was interpersonal).

Please keep in mind though that the feudalism system in Crusader kings is incredibly dumbed down. Mainly in terms of taxes and how troops are provided. Another thing is that the amount of ranks in game doesnt even compare to how many there was back in the day. Instead of 5 ranks of lords in a realm it would probally be closer to about thirty or fifty

[Ranger.Danger]

Another thing i would like to point out is that the HRE of CK2 is abosuletly and completly different from the one in the real world. In no way was the HRE of the real world like the HRE of the game. The same goes with the Byzantines.

[runequester]

It's obviously no replacement for going to the library, but to give a broad grasp on /some/ of the complications and intricacies of medieval feudal society, its fine.

If we're comparing to other sources of learning, it's a starting point only. If you're comparing to other video games, it's like a university course, considering the retardation that usually passes for history in video games

[lobrien]

the game is historical from the start, but to a point after that anything can happen

[Etherlight]

thanks guys for the detailed discussion. I think this game is a good entry point for me to get interested in European history but I think I'll have to do further readings on the subject.

[Arkeangel]

Originally posted by BoxofPresents:

As far as I know, the various duchies, kingdoms, rulers, etc. are all historically accurate from whatever start date you choose.

Remember there were many more dukes, counts and barons that the game mentions.
England after the Norman conquest had hundreds of barons for instance.