![]() ![]() High school teacher Paul Darvasi vouches for Total War's virtues as an educational tool: Instead of offering general historical knowledge, players can play Total War: Three Kingdoms to learn a lot about China or play Total War: Rome II to learn about Classical Europe. In fact, each game focuses on specific time periods and geographic locations, which allows players to learn more in-depth historical knowledge. The most recent game is Total War: Three Kingdoms, which focuses on the Three Kingdoms period of China, and the player game play one of twelve Chinese factions. The Total War series is a huge series of historical strategy games that are fused with turn based strategy and real time strategy elements. ![]() You'll keep picking this up again for another grand historical experiment for the rest of your days (probably). Regardless, it's fair to say that Crusader Kings II is one of the best interactive tools for learning medieval history, and it's also endless fun. I was therefore able to spot the fact that the ruler of the Markgrafschaft Meissen was listed as a Duke (when he should have been a Markgraf), that there was a Duchy of Oberbayern (Bavaria wasn't partitioned the first time until 1255), Austria was listed as a Duchy (it wasn't elevated to a Duchy until 1156), and the Zähringer were listed as Dukes of Carinthia but there was no Duchy of Carinthia (while Berthold was never able to actually take possession of the Duchy after being granted the title in 1061, it nevertheless existed as a relatively unified polity, unlike Lotharingia). Since I'm particularly interested in the Salian and Staufer periods, I chose to start in 1066. Since the Medieval German Empire is a particular area of interest for me, errors were easier to spot. When I began my first regular campaign, as the HRE, I noticed a number of glaring errors. Self-proclaimed medieval history nerd Erika Whelan notes a few glaring issues: ![]() A common complaint for hardcore history nerds is that some of the historical figures and places appear during the wrong time. The game also includes hundreds of historical characters, including obscure figures that you would never learn about unless you study medieval history.īut there are some historical inaccuracies. You learn about why marrying strategically was vitally important, which cultures preferred which succession law, the effects that inheritance and claims could exert on the political landscape, and why, sometimes, you just absolutely have to throw an innocent relative into your castle's darkest dungeon and pray for an accident.Īnd since the game is essentially a giant interactive map of the medieval world, you learn a lot about geography as well. You will be amazed at the deep intricacies of CK II's hundreds of medieval duchies, provinces, kingdoms, empires, and cultures. For some people, the fun is in seeing if you can insert your descendants into all the royal families of the world.Īs expected from a game that takes place in the medieval period and tries to translate it as accurately as possible, you automatically pick up a lot of history just from playing it through. Crusader Kings II starts out with a map of kingdoms and inhabitants pretty close to recorded medieval history, but being an open-ended game, the mechanics allow you to create some pretty whacky outcomes. You take control of a medieval dynasty from 1066 to 1337 (or as early as 769 if you have the DLC), and the main goal is to grow your empire and ensure longevity by producing quality heirs (don't inbreed.unless the payoff is big). Crusader Kings IIĬrusader Kings II is the kind of grand strategy game that will suck you in and take your life away from you. So here's our guide to video games that will teach you history while keeping you hooked for weeks on end. If you're going to spend time playing video games any way, you might as well play one of these and learn a thing or two about the rich blood spaghetti of drama and delusion that directly informed our present DNA, borders, and cultures. Many of them strive for historical authenticity - and of course it doesn't hurt that it's also a great selling point. Video games focused on history tend to involve deep strategic gameplay, and are even more enjoyable when you already have a little prior knowledge of the past (which we suppose you do). Educational video games for aspiring essay writers are often focused on reading comprehension (like Reader Rabbit) or simple math (like Number Munchers), and those games aren't really that fun. You may have played those third-rate "edutainment" video games as a kid and developed a dislike for anything with the word educational in front of it. ![]()
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