Of course, I understand that it is impossible to understand everything, especially when you are just a PR manager, not a historian, I understand that words that are inconvenient for English speech need to be somehow adapted, but there must be some limits.
Since when did Ivan III become a prince? Do you know the difference between a prince and a king? Do you know what the word “Tsar” is?
You could have used other variations to adapt the word “Tsar” for a western audience, at least a king.
What was it? Negligence? Rough adaptation?
Well then, Timujin is not a khan, but a king or a prince.
Further - a direct quote from the text - “Our team would like to acknowledge that while we celebrate the history behind rulers like Ivan, we also recognize the acts committed during this period are part of a traumatic past for millions of people.”
What is this anyway? Does William the Conqueror mean that he didn’t traumatic anyone?
I think that Jeanne and the French traumatic a lot of the English, and Emperor Frederick traumatic a lot of Italians and Poles. It seems to me that the essence of any war is to traumatic people, but some traumatized for “all good versus all bad”, while others only for selfish motives, right? Oh, those wicked Russians.
In history there are no bad or good, it was just a product of time. Try to be better and not repeat mistakes from past by learning history. History is not for some virtue signaling and earning brownie points. Maybe many of the devs have ancestry in Genghis Khan, that why they are born today. The present should not be punished for the past deeds committed by people who are long dead.
Nobody wrote anything like this for Colin Powell, wonder why when his victims are still alive.
Ivan III was not a Tsar, he was the Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. Tsar wouldn’t really be used untill Ivan the Terrible.
I don’t know if you can call the Grand Duke a prince, but I also don’t have the context of the text. It could very well be refering to the time of Ivan III being the heir to the grand duke, hence prince.
The other day when I first read one of those editorial qualification recognizing the traumatic side of history, my mind also immediately started going into that Whataboutism direction. Honestly, I’d be surprised if there is a single leader mentioned in any Age game that didn’t do horrible things.
I have no idea what the Devs’ internal standards are for deciding which leaders have earned themselves an official qualification. Perhaps over time we will get a better sense of that.
But just because other people don’t get singled out as being horrible doesn’t form a reason not to single out others. But, yes, if there is some kind of latent bias where the leaders of certain sides of the globe get identified as being horrible and leaders from other sides do not, that would certainly bubble up into a problem. I think it is way too early to pass judgment but not too early to mention the concern. This stuff doesnt go away if we dont talk about it. We must discuss it.
But this topic has all the trapping of a good old fashioned forum flame war, so please everyone tread lightly and remember to leave this place better than you found it.
Also, per the code of conduct, please do not “discuss controversial topics, such as religion or politics in a way that is not directly related to the Age of Empires games and their historical context.”
Colin Powell is not directly related to ancient empires.
I don’t know about this specific topic, but the recent devs have been all about dwelling into games of controversial pasts and instead of saying how it is, they’ve been annoyingly and unnecessarily modifying things nobody asked for.
Like how AOE III is based in the colonial era. Yet they removed all mention of the word “colonialism” from the game and changed the word “plantations”. MIT’s honestly super ridiculous. What are you doing to the franchise?? Or history??
Yes it has some weird campaign stories which I think had something to do with the old stories of el dorado and stuff since one of the evil guys or part of the circle was named El Dorado
My medieval Russian history is nonexistent, and we are all only as good as our sources.
But I believe that Ivan III’s official titles translate into English as “Grand Prince of Moscow” and “Grand Prince of all Rus” and that he was was the first Russian ruler to style himself “Tsar,” though that was not an official title.
So from my vantage, it seems at least not unreasonable for this franchise to identify him as a prince.
I hope they mean with Russian prince that ethnically he was Russian.
As i also stated, I am pretty sure it was just translated as Grand Duke as it was a Grand Duchy (English terminolagy, I believe partly what you say is also true about it being a grand principality but I am not sure, atleast in Dutch and English its Grand Duchy)
So I am really driving faster than my headlights now, but I believe from this link and my zero knowledge of the Russian language and my best reckoning that Ivan’s title used at the time was “князю” (more specifically “великому князю”).
Based on further google, князю translates roughly to “knyaz” and that word “knyaz”, in turn, “is usually translated into as prince, duke, or count, depending on specific historical context and the potentially known Latin equivalents of the title for each bearer of the name.” (See link here.) It also looks like “великому князю” translates sometimes into “Grand Prince”)
Therefore, it seems to me that it is not unreasonable for AoE to label Ivan III as a prince.
I am also outraged by this writing about Ivan III and Genghis Khan. So they ruined millions, and others are so fluffy and holy? What kind of double standards?
And there they also write about expansion towards the Bellorusky, Ukrainian region with the aim of uniting the Russian lands. This is what kind of Belarusian and Ukrainian lands are, if there were no such peoples then and nothing was said about them. These lands in question belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And these are the former Russian principalities that were conquered by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There were no Belloruses and Ukrainians in my life then. There were no such definitions. Why should the borders of modern states be stretched over the history of that time?
This. It’s a completely random word chosen for a noble caste that doesn’t exist in the Frankish feudal system. But the convention is there.
He was the Grand Knyaz, and that’s where it ends. Whether this gets translated or not is up to conjecture in that particular field. Or when dealing with historical documents, the dogma of the writer (see HRE and Byzantines insulting each other back and forth by calling each other the King of Germans and King of Greeks; there is only one emperor and I am him, not you).
Prince (in the context of East European history) is simply not a prince. Just like Duke of Zhou in China wasn’t a duke. Why are khans “khans” and not chieftains? Kings? Earls? Are daimyou in Japan not dukes? Why does Ireland have “kings” and “overkings”? And so on and so forth.
It’s the same question of authenticity, ease of access, tradition and intention that has people translate some historical names and leave others as they are.
If developers create a game based on history with objective opinions and facts, they should not talk well about some and bad about others. They should not say anything at all, it is not for them to judge and decide.
P.S. The Russians are to blame for everything. Hailey likeley. All the desire to buy the game has disappeared.
They should not be attempting to PG history in general imo. If history offends people, they shouldn’t play the game.
But also you have to take into regard who is telling the history. Obviously there will be parts in history that will offend one person or another based on who is the sources for history and from what mindset it is being told. History is that highly controversial and sentimental grey area.
Like using British sources for their treatment of scots or how scots were like.
Or using Christian sources to recreate the Bikings. There are many Norse believers who would take offence to many things written in the Saga’s by the Christians. But to be fair, the Saga’s are one of the main remaining things left for the Vikings. So it’s inevitable that it will offend.
I do not argue, but you agree that then it was not necessary to write that they offended someone, but they did not write this about others. It is better to state the facts, the data, and let people draw conclusions for themselves. And in our case, these conclusions are already being imposed, am I not right?
Was an absolutely poor judgement (out of the many things said that can confirm this). It should not have been said at all. Let the players make out whatever they wish from history. But this was absolutely a terrible statement to make.
How many games based on WWII apologise for actions committed by Hitler or anyone. Let the players interpret how they wish. And if you have snowflakes that get offended by history in a historic game, let them argue in a corner somewhere else.
It is a fact of life that by including any civilization or any person in a video game, especially a world class AAA franchise like ours, the Devs are making a statement that those people are worthy of being in the game and being known. And over time, the line gets blurred between fame and infamy.
Perhaps in an ideal world, history would be a vacuum sealed, sterile recitation of descriptive facts that was insulated from normative statements and subjectivity.
Spoiler alert: We do not live in an ideal world. Given that the topic of this entire franchise (ancient history) is inseverable from value judgments, I think it is tremendous that the Devs are attempting to deal with those issues.
This is a messy topic, and reasonable minds will always disagree about whether the Devs have gone too far or not far enough. But I am thrilled to see the people in charge of Age of Empires implicitly recognize the power they wield in the choices they make. This is good design and great stewardship.
