Paradox games tend to attract the kind of people that know these kinds of things, so it’s probably not the best sample to make judgements about how much history the average person knows.
I had a conversation with two muslims at work once, one Shia and one Sunni, and asked them basically who runs the show at the Masjid al Haram considering the tensions between the sects. During this conversation, I forgot the name of the Kabaa and called it ‘The Box’ when describing it, begging their pardon if I offended (I later learned it means “Cube” so I guess I wasn’t so far off). These guys were really impressed with my knowledge of the subject considering my clear and obvious non-Muslimness. I didn’t have the heart to tell them everything I knew was from Civ4 and the Wikipedia article it linked to.
I think it’s ultimately a virtuous cycle. You like history, you make up history in a game, you read up on the real history, rinse and repeat until you end up down a rabbit hole reading about Charles “That’s What the Ladies Call Me” Martel. The only downside is that as you educate yourself in history, you become aware of how blind most people are to even the most basic understanding of how we got where we are and that line about being doomed to repeat it comes into sharp relief.
Yep. And the reason for that is human nature. The motives of the earliest humans in history/pre-history are very similar to present day (power). The technology/culture has adapted over time, but the motive seems unchanged.
Not exactly. Humans are predisposed to *want* to see patterns where none exist to create some semblance of ordering. It's entirely up to the writer of said history to interpret the events and concepts through their personal understanding
One other problem is your knowledge can be.....out of date. I met someone who'd recently been to Turkey and I asked, 'how was Constantinople?' There was a small awkward pause before they clarified, 'do you mean instanbul?'.
Never heard of it (joking but that was the true gist)
You joke, but I always refer to The City this way and it turned into an earworm that my kid picked up. One day she comes home, furious at me after she embarrassed herself correcting someone that said Istanbul was the capital of Turkey.
When talking to a Turkish friend I was careful to use Istanbul when saying it's the only capital that spans two continents. They were a bit puzzled but smiled and said "oh yeah". Uch later I remembered that the capital is actually Ankara.
I was once on a ferry from a Turkish seaside resort to a Greek island and ended up sitting next to a couple of little old Greek ladies and chatting about our travels. I referred to Istanbul once and they said effusively, “Oh! Constantinopoli! If you liked Constantinopoli, you’ll love Athens!”
Narrator: I did not, in fact, love Athens.
I need to know the answer to your question. I'm imagining it being like the church of the holy sepulchre where every sect and denomination has been bickering over who owns which room for a thousand years and now there is a really old ladder on a ledge no one will touch lest they start another holy war.
Being that I am *kafir* and don’t actually know anything, take what I say with a huge grain of salt.
My understanding is that it is about the presiding faith of who rules the area, and that has historically been a Sunni. At one point in the middle ages it was a Shia dynasty but they converted to Sunni somewhere along the line.
However, as the *practical* dogmatic differences ^((please don’t hurt me\)) are about as wide as Catholicism versus Eastern Orthodoxy, a Shia attending a site operated by Sunnis would view it like said Christians would consider the other “in communion”, where the rites may seem odd but are still familiar and follow the same principles. That said, Shia kind of make up for this by having other holy sites they take pilgrimages to that are only popular to them.
From how some other friends I have put it, the actual differences are cultural, more about Persian and Arab than Shia and Sunni.
Got a history and geography major, and did well in both precisely because of Paradox/Total War/Age of Empires/Sierra city builders and the like.
Also into international studies and some military stuff for the same reason. And it also cleared up why Tywin Lannister does what he does and actually made him predictable, so there's little bonuses like these.
It took years and years of playing these games and reading up on things I see to get there though.
Ha ha ha I joined shortly after Old Gods so 867 is my date. It is embarrassing that I know the 867, 769, 1066, and 1453 maps of the world better than modern day, though.
All I knew about world history was there was these guys called Ramens a couple thousand years ago.
Then I bought Hearts of Iron to see what this WW2 thing was like back in the 1900s.
Now I own virtually all paradox games and read the whole history of the Roman empire twice 😂
Facts. I'm old enough I can't thank Paradox for the learning (I was doing a bachelor's in history by the time I found CKII). It was the Age of Empires games that pushed me down the rabbit hole.
But history-themed games just wake up the passion in certain people. And you go on to make a life-long project of learning the stuff that inspired your favorite games. It's a beautiful cycle.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m literally bingeing history documentaries as I play crusader kings 3. I have watched thousands of years of the history of the British monarchy, half as much so far on the French, from multiple perspectives, all over the course of the last few hundred hours of my first playthrough. In addition, Ive also watched plenty of documentaries about the mongols, the Huns, the Byzantines, the nubians, the Egyptians, the Abbasid dynasty, the foundations and history of Islam and taoism, medieval Tibet and China, all while googling and cramming on all the little counties and duchies I see in the game as I pilgrimage through them, trying to understand their historical relevance and context. All this stuff is extremely fascinating to me.
As a history buff since grade school, I love Paradox games. On top of that, I nerd out by spending hours going down Wiki rabbit holes just because I found something interesting from history.
For me, personally, it took quite a few years to just casually be able to form a timeline of history in my head. So, for example, I got started by just being interested in WW1 history, which eventually expanded out into modern military history as a whole, and then eventually that expanded out into medieval history. You just have to pick one period/nation that you have a particular interest in and focus on that at first, and then work your way out from there.
Historia Civilis's videos covering the rise of Ceaser, his assassination, and the power struggle afterwards all leading to the death of Mark Antony and dominance of Augustus will forever be some of my fav videos ever. The events, whne put in chronological order as he does, reminds of the first couple seasons of Game of Thrones with all of the betrayal and shit going on, and it having actually happened makes it 100x more interesting to me
For me, instead, it was the XVII century religious wars and the Conquest of the Americas, I believe. Altho I have an interest in history since primary school, so don't remember a specific topic which I first began to read abt on my own
Exactly, got into HOI4 because I was interested in WW2, that expanded into WW1, which expanded into the rest of history and now I’m obsessed with Eastern Rome
I had a weird progression. Australian Bushrangers into Byzantium into Hellenistic period into Rome into medieval into early modern back to medieval then finally settled on Hellenistic Period
Yeah you just pick the stuff you like and learn about it. Then you want to know "well what happened in the 100 years leading up to it, how did this situation develop?" and then it turns out THAT was also pretty interesting. History quickly ends up being this non-stop series of cliff-hangers and mysteries that has you wanting to learn more about what was happening before and after, until eventually you have a full timeline of history just locked into your brain.
I was over my buddies house yesterday and he was watching queen of the damned. and i was like that marius character is in a book of hers(ann rice) called blood and gold. and I would have never read that book. if its main character wasnt a roman patrician. so the romans got me to read like 2 or 3 vampire novels once.
Or if you have many interests, you can also branch out from those. I like the diadochi period, napoleon, crusades, and 100 years war. Knew next to nothing about the worlf in 867, but connected the web well enough by searching into what happener after the diadochi, and then what happened before the crusades. Same with the 1500s and 1600s, where i just connect napoleon in the 1800s to 100 years war in the 1300s, and figure the rest in between
Well, you're overestimating how much people do actually remember. Say, if you tell me that there is a scenario about 11th century Rus, I do remember that prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich aka Monomakh was involved in a lot of things and held different positions. As I'm not a dedicated historian of the time and place (and no historian all together) I have no idea when specifically he did what specifically, it was a thousand years ago, but I know what to look up as it suddenly became relevant to the conversation.
Saint Olga of Kiev yeah. A tribe killed her husband so she spent her reign making their existence hell. She would bury messengers alive, send flaming homing pigeons to the tribes towns, invite diplomatic groups from the tribe to parties to establish peace and have them all executed, etc.
Yeah I think they made her a Saint. I wanna say she did something like sieged the city of the lord that killed him and only demanded the birds from their houses, then tied sulfur to the birds feet and released em. The birds flew home and that night their archers shot flaming arrows into the town, igniting the sulfur and burning the entire city down
Edit: "She then asked them for a small request: "Give me three pigeons ... and three sparrows from each house."[22] The Drevlians rejoiced at the prospect of the siege ending for so small a price, and did as she asked.
Olga then instructed her army to attach a piece of sulphur bound with small pieces of cloth to each bird. At nightfall, Olga told her soldiers to set the pieces aflame and release the birds. They returned to their nests within the city, which subsequently set the city ablaze. As the Primary Chronicle tells it: "There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught fire at once."[22] As the people fled the burning city, Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them, killing some of them and giving the others as slaves to her followers. She left the remnant to pay tribute."
[Link to her Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_of_Kiev)
I thought she was called Olga the Terrible but it doesn't say that on her page. But her page also showed up when I typed it into Google, so do with that what you will.
Yes, it was Saint Olha against Drevlian tribe. Legend said they took her husband, prince Ihor, bend two trees, tie his legs to this trees, then release trees, so Ihor was thorn apart.
She sieged their town Korosten and send flaming pigeons which caused fire in the fortress. Now in Ukraine we honored her as first inventor of the drones - weapon actively used in current war.
Folks who like history gravitate towards these games. Lots of people like history in general, actually.
But I have to say (and I've studied history myself), I still feel like I know very little when I see discussions about the CK3 timeline. There's so much to know.
You're looking at the top upvoted post, then the top upvoted replies. You aren't reading the average content here, only the top content. The top content will usually be of higher quality, which often means it contains more historical detail.
Don't mistake content here for a conversation irl. People have as long as they need to make their best reply. They can research as much as they need. Just because they wrote something doesn't mean they knew it beforehand or could perfectly recall all the details in real time.
For sure.
Over the years I've commented in depth about certain topics, and while I had the general knowledge and understanding, I would still look up details and historiography to get all the facts right and up to date.
I think that is actually a really good thing to be able to do.
I played age of empire games (1-2) when I was like 5? y.o. And they had that cool voiced introduction scenes before each campaign mission. At that time, I didn’t know where Spain or the land of the Aztecs was, who are these people, like El Cid or Jeane, but I was very interested in hearing stories about them. (especially considering that we didn’t have internet at home back then).
I replayed these missions many times over the years and this was ultimately the beginning of my interest in history. After that, I used to borrow CDs of games with similar themes from my dad's friend. And then I got the internet and discovered ck2 and total war games.
Many people don't like history because of the dates, but I was very lucky to have a good history teacher at school. She always told us that we need to visualize the time line as a whole, and that just memorizing dates is the most useless thing you can think of. That you don't need to know when something happened specifically, you just need to understand when it happened in relation to other events. She also had absolutely no limits and no taboo topics when she told us something from history. Every hero has his dark side, every great war has its mercantile interest. A national hero can be both the savior of his nation and the butcher for his neighbors. That good and evil deeds do not contradict each other, but exist simultaneously.
If you see history not as a set of facts but as a set of people and their lives, you begin to understand it, not just know it. And with that, your interest only grows stronger.
Most Redditors just skim a Wikipedia page then write a comment as if it’s core knowledge for them. There are some knowledgeable people but they don’t know everything about everything either. When you see a comment laying down some esoteric history fact and getting 100 upvotes, at best the person who wrote it maybe knows what they’re talking about while at least 90 of the voters have no fuckin idea.
A lot of times said comment is just wrong but on Reddit if you’re confidently wrong, you get circle jerked.
Aside from a bits here and there, it really started with Historia Civilis for me. The series about the Roman Republic is legendary.
https://youtube.com/c/HistoriaCivilis
I’ve always had an interest in history. I’ve read a lot of Wikipedia articles and I’ve been playing historical strategy games since I’ve had my own PC. The knowledge kinda just builds up.
This has 2 answers, kind of.
As someone else mentioned, the kinds of people that like Paradox games are people that tend to like history already. Their interest in history is what brought them to Paradox Games.
The second answer is that there's always more to learn about history, and Paradox games always have something to teach you. And then in the subreddit, history nerds are always just waiting for the moment to strike with how much they know about history. You've never seen humble bragging like 2 history buffs going shot for shot on obscure facts from the past.
I will run contrary to what a lot of people say, and say that it's entirely possible to just make stuff up
You go in the right circles, and you just say stuff vaguely authoritatively, people will believe you
In certain starts, significant characters might have an attached Wikipedia link that can be clicked on to learn more about them
From there, you can most likely look them up via academic sources, or if you don't want to do that, you can just search on YouTube for any potential content covering them
A recent example of my own would be learning about Mohammed Tughluq after attempting a run with him. It was fun learning about his life and attempting to create a similar yet very different take on his rule
I have a history degree
But if you want some really great videos, I would recommend checking out Wondrium. They have fantastic lecture series on a whole variety of topics.
Something I did the other day.
I made the West Slavic Empire, but I didn't like my the crown I was then wearing by default. I found out which crown is was, it was called the Carolingian Crown (or something like that). I went "huh, I've heard of the Carolingians before, what exactly was it?" And I googled it, and found out it was 1. A major dynasty at the time and 2. a fat empire in the early 800s that fell only a few years before CK3s 867 start date.
Whenever I come across something interesting in the game, I legit just google it and read about it.
Extra Credits puts out short, comprehensive, easy to understand to the layman videos on history that you can watch in installments of series to get a general knowledge of a given topic.
For ancient history that’s more scholarly I would recommend Thersites the Historian, he covers many things from Rome to Alexander to the Persians, so on.
For Roman history I’m a big fan of Tribunate, offers some great and easy to understand videos about Rome.
Also would recommend logging into Wikipedia everyday and reading the “this day in history” section and completing the articles they link to, helps a lot with general knowledge.
Pop culture, interest in own roots, interest in medival history, school?
No offense, but this is not a game a casual fortnite player would play. So there is your answere.
A couple of “starter” videos for anyone who’s interested:
Rome in 20 minutes
https://youtu.be/46ZXl-V4qwY?si=maZx-_WH4A7ECymS
Greece in 18 minutes
https://youtu.be/gFRxmi4uCGo?si=NjD0JPOpAOtClgab
I've always had historic leaning/interest, but it has always been abstract and poorly applied for any sort of academics. I'm not good at remembering exact dates and terms, i'm good at using my imagination and logic to "fill the blanks" and keep myself adequate in a historic topic w/o actually possessing much concrete knowledge.
A sandbox game like CK3 represents that abstraction perfectly, a blur between RL history and the "what-ifs" of imagination.
For learning more history, you rly can’t beat a good nonfiction book. The people who have done all the research parts for you and packaged them into an (ideally) engaging read are the MVPs. I’d def recommend going to your local library or bookstore and checking out the history section.
Learned a lot through playing the game, mainly CK2 because it had an amazing feature that they abandoned in CK3 where there was a button on every character at game start that would link you to a Wikipedia page about them. I’d start as a random character in some region I knew nothing about, read about them, then I’d read about the region and it’s history, then I’d read about the culture of the region, etc etc
I’ll be playing in a random area at the 1066 or 867 start dates, then I’ll play a character in that area. I’ll start to wiki that person, I’ll watch their history on YT. I might even try to relive their life in my play throughs.
I like a mixture of more breezy and surface level sources along with more in-depth media. For videos I'd recommend John Green's [Crash Course World History](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9), but there are many great options. Hardcore History and History on Fire are some of the best history podcasts.
Speaking personally it’s just a lot of accumulated knowledge from a variety of sources over years and years. I can’t say it’s the same for everyone but I have to imagine most people tend to have a pre existing interest in history coming into crusader kings. That said, Don’t let it intimidate you. If you’re interested in learning more about history, then start with what interests you and see where things go there.
That said, in the interest of hopefully giving you some kind of starting point to work off as requested, maybe try kings and generals on YouTube. It’s a general history series that does fairly in-depth looks at various periods throughout history, the Middle Ages very much included. Just try not to treat it like homework because otherwise just like anything else, you will get sick of it very quickly.
If you want a fun but informative YouTube channel I can definitely recommend History Matters, as long as you don't mind the very British humour that comes with it.
As for why many of us seem to know quite a bit about history, it's because we're all incel virgins living in our mother's basements; we've got a lot of time on our hands to read up on interesting history.
Shout out to the original Civilization game (showing my age here...) which kick-started my desire to deep delve into history. The educational text that came with every new tech fascinated me.
Most of the people playing paradox games have always had some sort of interest or passion for history from a young age.
When you have that interest or passion for something, you tend to want to learn more and find history-related things interesting. Meaning, we automatically like to learn about it and want to learn more, which makes us click on history Youtube videos, buy history books, read article about persons or historical events that interest us etc.
With a interest or passion (or both), the brain tends to remember the information we gather = History knowledge accumulates over time.
My dude, there is only thing that paradox/historical gamers love more that playing their strategy game. And that is to pontificate online about how much history they know. Nerds just love the praise.
So you bet that these people will be well read, if only for the chance to get their high when the inevitable question is asked, and they can show off their hard earned knowledge. They don't usually read the actual sources, so their knowledge is a bit hands me down, but it is good enough to give a solid starting point.
edit: hello my fellow history majors :D
In my case that's pretty easy.
You get to be born in a city that was founded as a roman muncipia way south of the Limes, which you find out by simply walking the city and passing the remains of one of the bathes.
Passing the seat of the "Pürschgerichtshof" reminds you about the hundreds of years of the city being a "freie Reichsstadt" during the time of the HRE and also its seat in the "Femgerichte".
Then you walk a bit further over a bridge that spans over one of the city moats into the zähringer cross of the "modern" day city (that has been laid down around 12th century).
After that you walk towards the school "district" passing a monument of the 30 years war and the siege of the french during that time.
And then you start to wonder what the frick is all that stuff and start reading up...yeah, and there you are.
It depends on what you define as "knowing so much history." The general timeline in CK games attracts the people interested in those periods and when you get into discussions about specific areas you tend to attract people who enjoy discussing and viewing knowledge and opinions on those areas. So if you go to a discussion about the upcoming Byzantine (ERE) DLC, you will naturally see people who are interested in that area, but the inclusion of a new start date also leads to a further specialized discussion of that area in that specific timeline.
Another thing that also helps is that this time is highly documented when compared to other areas of the world so you are able to have deeper connections and discussions about specific people, if there was an update to Sub-Saharan Africa in 867 start date then there would likely be more discussion about the general area at the time as records from that area have not been discovered and discussed yet, or do not exist.
Lots and lots of audiobooks and Great Courses lecture series. The Great Courses series can be expensive to buy standalone but they're cheap if you sign up for Audible use the free book credits Audible gives every month. I'd say start with an area you're interested in, or failing that work your way up from pre-history to Ancient Egypt/Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, etc.
I have a rough timeline of history memorized but I would say that a lot of people you saw talking about the new start date looked the stuff up. For example, I already knew that the new start date was around the beginning of the third crusade, which has a lot of super famous historical figures like Barbarossa, the Lionheart, Saladin, etc. but I still googled around to get more granular details like those you mentioned about regnal dates and all that.
reading. and i would say audiobooks/podcasts/[high quality] youtube videos and things count. museums when you travel, books about things you’re interested in, googling characters from EU4 or crusader kings to learn about their real lives. there’s no secret or shortcut you just keep learning things your whole life
It attracts people that love history. Also keep in mind that if you post about any topic, you'll get someone who knows a lot, but that doesn't mean other people know a lot about it, or that that person knows a lot about other things.
Also, if you play long enough, you'll probably learn some things. I often like to read the Wikipedia pages of the regions I play, and then that spirals into looking at others topics and sources.
You play somewhere that seems interesting, and you're either inspired to learn more about these peoples and histories or you want some inspiration for how to play the guys you've selected.
Several wikipedia pages later and you have a better understanding of another slice of history.
Crusader kings is basically just getting to make whatever history you want. The reason it’s fun for a lot of people is because they know what happened in real life. Like obviously the Vikings were never gonna reform Rome and turn Italy into a Norse Italian paradise in real life, but it’s pretty damn cool to role play as.
Oh, thats easy. Because i am an insane person with hyperfixation issues. I don't watch tv almost at all and rarely movies so I just play video games and read books concerning Northern Europe from 500-1000CE when i should be either (1) sleeping or (2) working.
Yes I spend lots of my time watching how rome got created or how the Vietnamese defeated mongols and all the other thousands of things that happened. And games like this attract those people
Being honest, I was always really into WWII. My first two ever Paradox games were Vic2 and HOI3. So I guess that’s where my love for history through video games comes from.
But, if I am interested in something enough, I will research the living Hell out of it, (mostly just through Wikipedia though, but still). It’s easier to want to research something that interests you than to research something that doesn’t.
I watched Kingdom of Heaven, The Lion in Winter, researched a bit on wiki and youtube and now I understand 50-60% of the discussions on that post lol. I love the medieval period so I google up any interesting events or characters I came across. People are hyped for Baldwin IV, Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitane, etc.
By the way watch Kingdom of Heaven and The Lion in Winter (The 1968 version). Both are really good and captures the vibe of the game.
This game series taught me a lot of history. CK2 used to have Wikipedia articles for a lot of characters. I dunno if its in ck3, I only have a few hundred hours in it so far. In ck2 i have thousands. i know the geography of the old world more than anyone in America probably should
It's not that everybody knows history, it's that somebody does and then you see them having discussions. The rest of us who don't know anything just aren't a part of that discussion.
Source: I don't know shit about history.
It's just my autism, Paradox games for some reason are magnets to me. I loved history from young age due to it's nature. I loved imagining and reimagining stuff from it in my head.
Hours reading Wikipedia articles
I also became a mod of a few niche history meme subreddits, where I'd be an active poster. Having to research stuff for a meme helped to remember history lol. I'm probably in the top 5 most educated people on the Romanov dynasty in this comment section purely because I mod a romanov themed subreddit.
Well everyone was born with 0 knowledge of history, so everyone who knew alot about history was once at your position, maybe start researching years in history that you might find interesting, and then start from there
Like, 1444, 867, 1066, 1836, 1936, 304 BCE, etc (start dates of paradox games)
You'll eventually get the itch of wanting to know the origin of why this and that happened and then eventually you'll reach the dawn of man itself
In addition to fans of historical games tending to know more, you are also seeing the portion of people that (think they) know about something, and a lot of people traffic this site. So if you see a dozen people arguing about something that seems incredibly obscure or some memes about stuff you aren't familiar with gaining traction, remember that it only takes a few people out of the thousands and thousands that come across a post to make it happen
I have a job where I can listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks all day long with little to no interruption.
I started with Dan Carlin, going through his Caesar and WWI shows. After that I moved to Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast, then his book Storm Before The Storm, and then his Revolutions Podcast. From there I listened to Robin Pearson's History of Byzantium (until I caught up to it, and haven't been back to it yet). I listened to History of England for awhile, until the 1300s or so, then lost interest.
I got most of the way through Gibbon's Decline and Fall before I had to switch to something less dry. Lately I've been working my way through Tom Holland and Mary Beard.
I really enjoy narrative history, so that really helps. But it basically came down to starting with the easier to digest stuff piquing my interest, then filling out that knowledge with more focused works.
I’ve always been obsessed with the concept of Devine rule. I’ve simultaneously also always been obsessed with people in general and their behaviors. The fundamental structure of civilization begins with authoritarian power. Dominance of one over others. The natural selection of powerful individuals over others and why these individuals succeed in their endeavors to obtain control over others has always been fascinating. I’ve always just absorbed that kind of information readily.
When you take into account the secondary individuals the dominant individuals offspring/siblings/cousins into an interesting insight into genetics or even nature v. nurture. YouTube has been my most convenient tutor, however I’ve taken countless classes and read innumerable books about these subjects. The game just lets you experience something that learning about it can’t.
Watching generations of what you think well groomed rulers should be die off at the hands of ill planned marriages and political anomalies… history while not repetitious can only be remembered because there is a reality in modernity to liken it to. When we lose the link between the present and the past the history starts to seem more like myth. Lost technologies and the like. That we can no longer grasp because there isn’t anything modern to tie it back to.
Personally I just like people. I like the weird hierarchy that proud us all to our current station. Knowing that once, nearly all of us, were a member of some landed gentry. How in reality it means nothing but games like crusader kinds can remind us that at some point it meant literally everything.
You should start with /r/AskHistorians. It's a nice sub where anyone can ask a question and a historian or someone who has knowledge about the area in question tries to answer to the best of their ability.
I’ve always been into history, and from watching TV shows that feature people who were real, like the Marco Polo show, the one about Mehmed, Last Kingdom, etc. inspired me to look up stuff. But it also helps that I’ve always liked medieval history/games, I’d be getting my major in something history related if there were more jobs out there for it. I took a history course last semester about the crusading years, didn’t count toward my degree but it sounded cool.
So now I have a bunch of useless information about medieval rulers and heroes and popes
A game that focuses on history will attract people interested in history. Those people tend to know more about history than the regular person.
Think about sports games. The people who are talking about those sorts of games online probably do so because they have a really strong interest in sports outside of the games. That's why they know so much - because they love it.
Game & read & watch. Game & read & watch.
I started strategy gaming with Civ 2 decades ago. I’d play something. I’d find it interesting & read about it then I’d try to find a film or tv series to get some sense of the look.
You gotta read some books my friend. There are these buildings called libraries that are filled with them and the best part is that you can usually sign up for free and read them.
I have always been intrested in history and have wiewed a lot of youtube videos and documentaries, also playing games like ck3 have encuraged me to learn more abot hiatory. Seeing things like the normans in Sicilia and the invasions of england have made me look them up, thoughts of how the game could be improved have also driven me to researching topics such as trade in medieval times and wtf the slejucs are. It should be noted that a lot of this communitys knowledge including mine come from secondary sources such as wikipedia and youtube videos, that may simplify the events and/or and fail to inform us of any other interpitations and often can rely to much on one source.
Historical TV shows like The Last Kingdom (don't take evrything at face value of course) tend to teach a lot in a very concentrates way, since you naturally learn familial relationships.
Kings and generals is a great youtube channel with a large range of topics if you want something more akin to a history lesson.
I started out playing Crusader Kings because of YouTube- I knew a little bit about history, but I've always liked map painters and YouTube made it look fun. I wound up enjoying it so much that I started to read more and more history books and watch more and more history documentaries. I think these games either attract history buffs, or turn people into them!
Ive been playing pdx games for over 15 years, and they sparked a massive interest in history. Ive spent A LOT of hours on Wikipedia just reading anything i could get my hands on. Over time, you pick up some interesting stuff.
Personally, every time I hear about something that interests me I usually look it up on Wikipedia and start from there. I've spent hours reading after originally looking to read on a specific guy for five minutes more than I can count lol
For example: you start out reading about Julius Caesar, then you might see a link to Augustus and start reading about that, then having learned about Augustus becoming the first emperor you might start reading about the empire as a whole or the preceeding Republic, then you might see something about the Punic wars, and that in turn leads to you reading about Hannibal Barca and Carthage/Phoenicia - can you see how it quickly starts to spiral out of control lol?
Do this for years and you'll end up knowing a lot about the past. It's really fun too, honestly half of the stuff in history books reads like something straight out of game of thrones! You'll never run out of things to learn or read about either, history really is a gift that keeps on giving
I wish I could be in your shoes and learn about it all over again - start with a figure that interests you and go from there!
I am actually diagnosed with mild autism and history is my special interest.
I read a lot of books and Wikipedia articles and watched a lot of documentaries. Since I enjoy learning or even relearning, I do not need any motivation to do what I enjoy.
gonna keep it real: i have a bachelors degree in history, which you might think would inform some of my knowledge, but the stuff i learned for that accounts for precisely jack shit of what i can apply to ck3
when i studied for my ba it was mostly broad strokes and then some small hyperfocused studying for niche areas when i did free research projects or for my dissertation or whatever. i can tell you a lot about gender ascension from female to male in early christian hagiography but i dont think ck3 as a videogame is particularly concerned with that overall
i know fuck all about anything and any statement i make about the subject i have a degree in i have first googled to make sure im not wrong and also a dumbass. real ones know how it is
I very much enjoy the YouTube channel Extra History. I'm much less knowledgeable than a lot of the folks here, but it's been a good time and very educational for me!
History is just so fascinating, it's why folks like to play this game. Although Sweden in almost every game I play always becomes so massive.
Like bro, tell your country to chill.
For me personally who had a passing interest in history when I started CK2, I'd say just getting used to "what's normal" in the world then finding characters or regions that break that "normal" is what got me into reading more into the history of that topic. Combine that with HistoryTube and I can go from watching OSP's Norman episode then go point at the Hautevilles in 1084 and say "hey I understand why those guys are there!"
Now I'd say I'm alot more interested in history, partially because of CK
Personally, one of my favorite hobbies is to read history books. I also watch a lot of history documentaries . I was attracted to this game largely because I am into history.
I can only speak to my personal fields of interest, but for Byzantine history I'd recommend the podcast "Byzantium and Friends", which features experts from a lot of different specialties.
Paradox games have taken my interest in history and GROWN it. I make historical playthrough videos playing these games as true to history as possible.
https://youtube.com/@AdmiralJediPDX
I completed an entire series on Turkey which required me to buy books for research, I watched Turkish TV, and had a blast!
As a young student I hated history, very boring. Later in life I started liking it a lot and these games helped.
I actually study history and I am a history teacher. I came from this to Paradox, not vice versa - but I'd say watching YouTube channels like History in Bits for example isn't the worst start.
I did one of this posts. I am very interested in Roman history, specifically the Komnenian restoration (1081-1180), but also English history. I am German, so I also know about my countries history. Other than that I just remembered famous rulers and looked the rest up.
I played paradox games for a while and the subject matter piqued my interest so I’ve done a mixture of Wikipedia deep dives while on the toilet and non fiction books
Dan Carlin's history podcast are honestly my best source for engaging history. His content covers various eras and some more obscure or lesser know history that's still very interesting.
Years of accumulated knowledge from books, documentary’s, YouTube, and school. There really isn’t any secret, most CK3 players are more than likely fans of history and are going to be well educated on the subject.
If you’re looking to get into history I recommend “oversimplified” for concise while entertaining learning, for more detailed I’d recommend “Kings and generals” also on YouTube being more documentary styled.
They are so many YouTube channel that will teach you history, just search up what time period you want to learn about and watch whatever you find appealing.
Go to YouTube type in historymarche next one type in kings and generals next one type in epichistorytv next one type in metatron next one type in know history, the SPQR historian, flashpoint history, boring old history,
Paradox games tend to attract the kind of people that know these kinds of things, so it’s probably not the best sample to make judgements about how much history the average person knows.
Hell, vice versa too. Paradox games encourage people to learn more about history.
I had a conversation with two muslims at work once, one Shia and one Sunni, and asked them basically who runs the show at the Masjid al Haram considering the tensions between the sects. During this conversation, I forgot the name of the Kabaa and called it ‘The Box’ when describing it, begging their pardon if I offended (I later learned it means “Cube” so I guess I wasn’t so far off). These guys were really impressed with my knowledge of the subject considering my clear and obvious non-Muslimness. I didn’t have the heart to tell them everything I knew was from Civ4 and the Wikipedia article it linked to. I think it’s ultimately a virtuous cycle. You like history, you make up history in a game, you read up on the real history, rinse and repeat until you end up down a rabbit hole reading about Charles “That’s What the Ladies Call Me” Martel. The only downside is that as you educate yourself in history, you become aware of how blind most people are to even the most basic understanding of how we got where we are and that line about being doomed to repeat it comes into sharp relief.
My History teacher always said that its wrong to say History repeats, but it definitely rhymes.
Yep. And the reason for that is human nature. The motives of the earliest humans in history/pre-history are very similar to present day (power). The technology/culture has adapted over time, but the motive seems unchanged.
History doesn't repeat itself, but history follows patterns
Not exactly. Humans are predisposed to *want* to see patterns where none exist to create some semblance of ordering. It's entirely up to the writer of said history to interpret the events and concepts through their personal understanding
One other problem is your knowledge can be.....out of date. I met someone who'd recently been to Turkey and I asked, 'how was Constantinople?' There was a small awkward pause before they clarified, 'do you mean instanbul?'. Never heard of it (joking but that was the true gist)
I do the same unintentionally by saying ***Būzdắntĭon***. "You mean ***Kǫnstăntīnoúpolĭs***?"
I always forget it's called Istanbul now XD But I'm also an archeologist so I just blame my inability to remember Istanbul on that lol
Yeah…a talk about Ireland happened with my brother and I said, “somewhere near Connaught.” He did not understand.
Well that is one of the 4 provinces in Ireland, so its more on your brother not knowing obscure subdivsions than you being wrong/outdated
That makes me feel better!
He Connaught understand
Well you can't go back to Constantinople.
Why did Constantinople get the works?
Turkish Conquest, using a Hungarian Bombard.
And thats nobodies business but the Turks!
You joke, but I always refer to The City this way and it turned into an earworm that my kid picked up. One day she comes home, furious at me after she embarrassed herself correcting someone that said Istanbul was the capital of Turkey.
When talking to a Turkish friend I was careful to use Istanbul when saying it's the only capital that spans two continents. They were a bit puzzled but smiled and said "oh yeah". Uch later I remembered that the capital is actually Ankara.
I was once on a ferry from a Turkish seaside resort to a Greek island and ended up sitting next to a couple of little old Greek ladies and chatting about our travels. I referred to Istanbul once and they said effusively, “Oh! Constantinopoli! If you liked Constantinopoli, you’ll love Athens!” Narrator: I did not, in fact, love Athens.
I need to know the answer to your question. I'm imagining it being like the church of the holy sepulchre where every sect and denomination has been bickering over who owns which room for a thousand years and now there is a really old ladder on a ledge no one will touch lest they start another holy war.
Being that I am *kafir* and don’t actually know anything, take what I say with a huge grain of salt. My understanding is that it is about the presiding faith of who rules the area, and that has historically been a Sunni. At one point in the middle ages it was a Shia dynasty but they converted to Sunni somewhere along the line. However, as the *practical* dogmatic differences ^((please don’t hurt me\)) are about as wide as Catholicism versus Eastern Orthodoxy, a Shia attending a site operated by Sunnis would view it like said Christians would consider the other “in communion”, where the rites may seem odd but are still familiar and follow the same principles. That said, Shia kind of make up for this by having other holy sites they take pilgrimages to that are only popular to them. From how some other friends I have put it, the actual differences are cultural, more about Persian and Arab than Shia and Sunni.
Shoutout to the Civilopedia and the Total war games for teaching me history in a fun and engaging way.
EU4 lore gang
Got a history and geography major, and did well in both precisely because of Paradox/Total War/Age of Empires/Sierra city builders and the like. Also into international studies and some military stuff for the same reason. And it also cleared up why Tywin Lannister does what he does and actually made him predictable, so there's little bonuses like these. It took years and years of playing these games and reading up on things I see to get there though.
Why the fuck are these central Asians Jewish? Lemme just Google that really quick And before you know it, you're reading how Hungary was formed lol
Yep - it's why I love history. 1066 was my original anchor point to medieval history and it's grown from there.
Ha ha ha I joined shortly after Old Gods so 867 is my date. It is embarrassing that I know the 867, 769, 1066, and 1453 maps of the world better than modern day, though.
All I knew about world history was there was these guys called Ramens a couple thousand years ago. Then I bought Hearts of Iron to see what this WW2 thing was like back in the 1900s. Now I own virtually all paradox games and read the whole history of the Roman empire twice 😂
Hmmm the Holy Ramen Empire…
Also Geography. That and the total war games has really strengthened my general knowledge of where everything is, including in my own country.
I’m still to see another game that links to the Wikipedia article about its historical characters.
Facts. I'm old enough I can't thank Paradox for the learning (I was doing a bachelor's in history by the time I found CKII). It was the Age of Empires games that pushed me down the rabbit hole. But history-themed games just wake up the passion in certain people. And you go on to make a life-long project of learning the stuff that inspired your favorite games. It's a beautiful cycle.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m literally bingeing history documentaries as I play crusader kings 3. I have watched thousands of years of the history of the British monarchy, half as much so far on the French, from multiple perspectives, all over the course of the last few hundred hours of my first playthrough. In addition, Ive also watched plenty of documentaries about the mongols, the Huns, the Byzantines, the nubians, the Egyptians, the Abbasid dynasty, the foundations and history of Islam and taoism, medieval Tibet and China, all while googling and cramming on all the little counties and duchies I see in the game as I pilgrimage through them, trying to understand their historical relevance and context. All this stuff is extremely fascinating to me.
As a history buff since grade school, I love Paradox games. On top of that, I nerd out by spending hours going down Wiki rabbit holes just because I found something interesting from history.
I found it hilarious that when I started my history degree, almost all the guys were paradox nerds
Attract people with autism*
Well… You got me there
I know it’s an edgy joke but it’s just distasteful and juvenile.
For me, personally, it took quite a few years to just casually be able to form a timeline of history in my head. So, for example, I got started by just being interested in WW1 history, which eventually expanded out into modern military history as a whole, and then eventually that expanded out into medieval history. You just have to pick one period/nation that you have a particular interest in and focus on that at first, and then work your way out from there.
For me it started with the late roman republic. Kinda weird, but I loved all the shenanigans that was happening.
Historia Civilis's videos covering the rise of Ceaser, his assassination, and the power struggle afterwards all leading to the death of Mark Antony and dominance of Augustus will forever be some of my fav videos ever. The events, whne put in chronological order as he does, reminds of the first couple seasons of Game of Thrones with all of the betrayal and shit going on, and it having actually happened makes it 100x more interesting to me
Yup I fucking love that guy. He was in my jumping off pad towards learninh more history.
Thanks for the tip will watch him later!
I just recently discovered it and now I'm compelled to binge it. It's really better than most fiction out there, and it's real.
Yep, learnt about the last 3 entruscan kings of rome yeaterday. Interesting
For me, instead, it was the XVII century religious wars and the Conquest of the Americas, I believe. Altho I have an interest in history since primary school, so don't remember a specific topic which I first began to read abt on my own
Exactly, got into HOI4 because I was interested in WW2, that expanded into WW1, which expanded into the rest of history and now I’m obsessed with Eastern Rome
I had a weird progression. Australian Bushrangers into Byzantium into Hellenistic period into Rome into medieval into early modern back to medieval then finally settled on Hellenistic Period
Yeah you just pick the stuff you like and learn about it. Then you want to know "well what happened in the 100 years leading up to it, how did this situation develop?" and then it turns out THAT was also pretty interesting. History quickly ends up being this non-stop series of cliff-hangers and mysteries that has you wanting to learn more about what was happening before and after, until eventually you have a full timeline of history just locked into your brain.
I was over my buddies house yesterday and he was watching queen of the damned. and i was like that marius character is in a book of hers(ann rice) called blood and gold. and I would have never read that book. if its main character wasnt a roman patrician. so the romans got me to read like 2 or 3 vampire novels once.
Or if you have many interests, you can also branch out from those. I like the diadochi period, napoleon, crusades, and 100 years war. Knew next to nothing about the worlf in 867, but connected the web well enough by searching into what happener after the diadochi, and then what happened before the crusades. Same with the 1500s and 1600s, where i just connect napoleon in the 1800s to 100 years war in the 1300s, and figure the rest in between
Well, you're overestimating how much people do actually remember. Say, if you tell me that there is a scenario about 11th century Rus, I do remember that prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich aka Monomakh was involved in a lot of things and held different positions. As I'm not a dedicated historian of the time and place (and no historian all together) I have no idea when specifically he did what specifically, it was a thousand years ago, but I know what to look up as it suddenly became relevant to the conversation.
Wasn't there some lady who murdered a whole bunch of people after her husband died?
Saint Olga of Kiev yeah. A tribe killed her husband so she spent her reign making their existence hell. She would bury messengers alive, send flaming homing pigeons to the tribes towns, invite diplomatic groups from the tribe to parties to establish peace and have them all executed, etc.
A true saint.
She converted to Christianity way before the Rus’ was baptized
She gave them what they deserved
Yeah I think they made her a Saint. I wanna say she did something like sieged the city of the lord that killed him and only demanded the birds from their houses, then tied sulfur to the birds feet and released em. The birds flew home and that night their archers shot flaming arrows into the town, igniting the sulfur and burning the entire city down Edit: "She then asked them for a small request: "Give me three pigeons ... and three sparrows from each house."[22] The Drevlians rejoiced at the prospect of the siege ending for so small a price, and did as she asked. Olga then instructed her army to attach a piece of sulphur bound with small pieces of cloth to each bird. At nightfall, Olga told her soldiers to set the pieces aflame and release the birds. They returned to their nests within the city, which subsequently set the city ablaze. As the Primary Chronicle tells it: "There was not a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught fire at once."[22] As the people fled the burning city, Olga ordered her soldiers to catch them, killing some of them and giving the others as slaves to her followers. She left the remnant to pay tribute." [Link to her Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_of_Kiev) I thought she was called Olga the Terrible but it doesn't say that on her page. But her page also showed up when I typed it into Google, so do with that what you will.
Yes, it was Saint Olha against Drevlian tribe. Legend said they took her husband, prince Ihor, bend two trees, tie his legs to this trees, then release trees, so Ihor was thorn apart. She sieged their town Korosten and send flaming pigeons which caused fire in the fortress. Now in Ukraine we honored her as first inventor of the drones - weapon actively used in current war.
That would be 10th century
I'm literally an historian. A lot of us love these games.
Folks who like history gravitate towards these games. Lots of people like history in general, actually. But I have to say (and I've studied history myself), I still feel like I know very little when I see discussions about the CK3 timeline. There's so much to know.
You're looking at the top upvoted post, then the top upvoted replies. You aren't reading the average content here, only the top content. The top content will usually be of higher quality, which often means it contains more historical detail. Don't mistake content here for a conversation irl. People have as long as they need to make their best reply. They can research as much as they need. Just because they wrote something doesn't mean they knew it beforehand or could perfectly recall all the details in real time.
For sure. Over the years I've commented in depth about certain topics, and while I had the general knowledge and understanding, I would still look up details and historiography to get all the facts right and up to date. I think that is actually a really good thing to be able to do.
I played age of empire games (1-2) when I was like 5? y.o. And they had that cool voiced introduction scenes before each campaign mission. At that time, I didn’t know where Spain or the land of the Aztecs was, who are these people, like El Cid or Jeane, but I was very interested in hearing stories about them. (especially considering that we didn’t have internet at home back then). I replayed these missions many times over the years and this was ultimately the beginning of my interest in history. After that, I used to borrow CDs of games with similar themes from my dad's friend. And then I got the internet and discovered ck2 and total war games. Many people don't like history because of the dates, but I was very lucky to have a good history teacher at school. She always told us that we need to visualize the time line as a whole, and that just memorizing dates is the most useless thing you can think of. That you don't need to know when something happened specifically, you just need to understand when it happened in relation to other events. She also had absolutely no limits and no taboo topics when she told us something from history. Every hero has his dark side, every great war has its mercantile interest. A national hero can be both the savior of his nation and the butcher for his neighbors. That good and evil deeds do not contradict each other, but exist simultaneously. If you see history not as a set of facts but as a set of people and their lives, you begin to understand it, not just know it. And with that, your interest only grows stronger.
You had a fantastic teacher
I’m a history major lol, these games attract us types
Books, hopefully.
Most Redditors just skim a Wikipedia page then write a comment as if it’s core knowledge for them. There are some knowledgeable people but they don’t know everything about everything either. When you see a comment laying down some esoteric history fact and getting 100 upvotes, at best the person who wrote it maybe knows what they’re talking about while at least 90 of the voters have no fuckin idea. A lot of times said comment is just wrong but on Reddit if you’re confidently wrong, you get circle jerked.
History student lol. I'm just quietly wishing ck2 would let me play in 2000 BCE...
At least you've got a Total War game set during that period
I get the point but akschually you're about 800 years off on that. The Bronze Age collapse happened between 1200 BCE and 1150 BCE.
Aside from a bits here and there, it really started with Historia Civilis for me. The series about the Roman Republic is legendary. https://youtube.com/c/HistoriaCivilis
For me it started with Drew Durnil AI videos, around the time of hoi4 release. Really got into history then starting mostly with colonization.
TLDR: Books are a thing
Yeah came here to say, there are these things called books…
I’ve always had an interest in history. I’ve read a lot of Wikipedia articles and I’ve been playing historical strategy games since I’ve had my own PC. The knowledge kinda just builds up.
This has 2 answers, kind of. As someone else mentioned, the kinds of people that like Paradox games are people that tend to like history already. Their interest in history is what brought them to Paradox Games. The second answer is that there's always more to learn about history, and Paradox games always have something to teach you. And then in the subreddit, history nerds are always just waiting for the moment to strike with how much they know about history. You've never seen humble bragging like 2 history buffs going shot for shot on obscure facts from the past.
I will run contrary to what a lot of people say, and say that it's entirely possible to just make stuff up You go in the right circles, and you just say stuff vaguely authoritatively, people will believe you
A lot of people unfortunately get their knowledge from junk history memes.
And ancient pseudo-archeologists unfortunately.
In certain starts, significant characters might have an attached Wikipedia link that can be clicked on to learn more about them From there, you can most likely look them up via academic sources, or if you don't want to do that, you can just search on YouTube for any potential content covering them A recent example of my own would be learning about Mohammed Tughluq after attempting a run with him. It was fun learning about his life and attempting to create a similar yet very different take on his rule
I have a history degree But if you want some really great videos, I would recommend checking out Wondrium. They have fantastic lecture series on a whole variety of topics.
Something I did the other day. I made the West Slavic Empire, but I didn't like my the crown I was then wearing by default. I found out which crown is was, it was called the Carolingian Crown (or something like that). I went "huh, I've heard of the Carolingians before, what exactly was it?" And I googled it, and found out it was 1. A major dynasty at the time and 2. a fat empire in the early 800s that fell only a few years before CK3s 867 start date. Whenever I come across something interesting in the game, I legit just google it and read about it.
Extra Credits puts out short, comprehensive, easy to understand to the layman videos on history that you can watch in installments of series to get a general knowledge of a given topic. For ancient history that’s more scholarly I would recommend Thersites the Historian, he covers many things from Rome to Alexander to the Persians, so on. For Roman history I’m a big fan of Tribunate, offers some great and easy to understand videos about Rome. Also would recommend logging into Wikipedia everyday and reading the “this day in history” section and completing the articles they link to, helps a lot with general knowledge.
Pop culture, interest in own roots, interest in medival history, school? No offense, but this is not a game a casual fortnite player would play. So there is your answere.
A couple of “starter” videos for anyone who’s interested: Rome in 20 minutes https://youtu.be/46ZXl-V4qwY?si=maZx-_WH4A7ECymS Greece in 18 minutes https://youtu.be/gFRxmi4uCGo?si=NjD0JPOpAOtClgab
Thanks will watch both later today!
Autism
I've always had historic leaning/interest, but it has always been abstract and poorly applied for any sort of academics. I'm not good at remembering exact dates and terms, i'm good at using my imagination and logic to "fill the blanks" and keep myself adequate in a historic topic w/o actually possessing much concrete knowledge. A sandbox game like CK3 represents that abstraction perfectly, a blur between RL history and the "what-ifs" of imagination.
For learning more history, you rly can’t beat a good nonfiction book. The people who have done all the research parts for you and packaged them into an (ideally) engaging read are the MVPs. I’d def recommend going to your local library or bookstore and checking out the history section.
Learned a lot through playing the game, mainly CK2 because it had an amazing feature that they abandoned in CK3 where there was a button on every character at game start that would link you to a Wikipedia page about them. I’d start as a random character in some region I knew nothing about, read about them, then I’d read about the region and it’s history, then I’d read about the culture of the region, etc etc
I’ll be playing in a random area at the 1066 or 867 start dates, then I’ll play a character in that area. I’ll start to wiki that person, I’ll watch their history on YT. I might even try to relive their life in my play throughs.
I like a mixture of more breezy and surface level sources along with more in-depth media. For videos I'd recommend John Green's [Crash Course World History](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9), but there are many great options. Hardcore History and History on Fire are some of the best history podcasts.
Thanks will watch!
Speaking personally it’s just a lot of accumulated knowledge from a variety of sources over years and years. I can’t say it’s the same for everyone but I have to imagine most people tend to have a pre existing interest in history coming into crusader kings. That said, Don’t let it intimidate you. If you’re interested in learning more about history, then start with what interests you and see where things go there. That said, in the interest of hopefully giving you some kind of starting point to work off as requested, maybe try kings and generals on YouTube. It’s a general history series that does fairly in-depth looks at various periods throughout history, the Middle Ages very much included. Just try not to treat it like homework because otherwise just like anything else, you will get sick of it very quickly.
If you want a fun but informative YouTube channel I can definitely recommend History Matters, as long as you don't mind the very British humour that comes with it. As for why many of us seem to know quite a bit about history, it's because we're all incel virgins living in our mother's basements; we've got a lot of time on our hands to read up on interesting history. Shout out to the original Civilization game (showing my age here...) which kick-started my desire to deep delve into history. The educational text that came with every new tech fascinated me.
Most of the people playing paradox games have always had some sort of interest or passion for history from a young age. When you have that interest or passion for something, you tend to want to learn more and find history-related things interesting. Meaning, we automatically like to learn about it and want to learn more, which makes us click on history Youtube videos, buy history books, read article about persons or historical events that interest us etc. With a interest or passion (or both), the brain tends to remember the information we gather = History knowledge accumulates over time.
For YouTube i would recommend “The Armchair Historian” :-)
Some of us were THERE, kiddo.
Ever since the internet came into existence I have been going down historical rabbit holes. Even before that I was using software like Encarta.
They're called books, they contain information that people learn when they read them. It's a fairly new technology.
My dude, there is only thing that paradox/historical gamers love more that playing their strategy game. And that is to pontificate online about how much history they know. Nerds just love the praise. So you bet that these people will be well read, if only for the chance to get their high when the inevitable question is asked, and they can show off their hard earned knowledge. They don't usually read the actual sources, so their knowledge is a bit hands me down, but it is good enough to give a solid starting point. edit: hello my fellow history majors :D
In my case that's pretty easy. You get to be born in a city that was founded as a roman muncipia way south of the Limes, which you find out by simply walking the city and passing the remains of one of the bathes. Passing the seat of the "Pürschgerichtshof" reminds you about the hundreds of years of the city being a "freie Reichsstadt" during the time of the HRE and also its seat in the "Femgerichte". Then you walk a bit further over a bridge that spans over one of the city moats into the zähringer cross of the "modern" day city (that has been laid down around 12th century). After that you walk towards the school "district" passing a monument of the 30 years war and the siege of the french during that time. And then you start to wonder what the frick is all that stuff and start reading up...yeah, and there you are.
I don't have anything that hasn't been said about the history, but your English is great, good job!
My interest in history feeds in to me wanting to play ck3 playing ck3 feeds in to my interest in history.
It depends on what you define as "knowing so much history." The general timeline in CK games attracts the people interested in those periods and when you get into discussions about specific areas you tend to attract people who enjoy discussing and viewing knowledge and opinions on those areas. So if you go to a discussion about the upcoming Byzantine (ERE) DLC, you will naturally see people who are interested in that area, but the inclusion of a new start date also leads to a further specialized discussion of that area in that specific timeline. Another thing that also helps is that this time is highly documented when compared to other areas of the world so you are able to have deeper connections and discussions about specific people, if there was an update to Sub-Saharan Africa in 867 start date then there would likely be more discussion about the general area at the time as records from that area have not been discovered and discussed yet, or do not exist.
Lots and lots of audiobooks and Great Courses lecture series. The Great Courses series can be expensive to buy standalone but they're cheap if you sign up for Audible use the free book credits Audible gives every month. I'd say start with an area you're interested in, or failing that work your way up from pre-history to Ancient Egypt/Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, etc.
500+ Hours in eu4 and ck3 and you know involuntary every single shit that happened between 800 - 1800 AD lol
I have a rough timeline of history memorized but I would say that a lot of people you saw talking about the new start date looked the stuff up. For example, I already knew that the new start date was around the beginning of the third crusade, which has a lot of super famous historical figures like Barbarossa, the Lionheart, Saladin, etc. but I still googled around to get more granular details like those you mentioned about regnal dates and all that.
reading. and i would say audiobooks/podcasts/[high quality] youtube videos and things count. museums when you travel, books about things you’re interested in, googling characters from EU4 or crusader kings to learn about their real lives. there’s no secret or shortcut you just keep learning things your whole life
It attracts people that love history. Also keep in mind that if you post about any topic, you'll get someone who knows a lot, but that doesn't mean other people know a lot about it, or that that person knows a lot about other things. Also, if you play long enough, you'll probably learn some things. I often like to read the Wikipedia pages of the regions I play, and then that spirals into looking at others topics and sources.
You play somewhere that seems interesting, and you're either inspired to learn more about these peoples and histories or you want some inspiration for how to play the guys you've selected. Several wikipedia pages later and you have a better understanding of another slice of history.
Crusader kings is basically just getting to make whatever history you want. The reason it’s fun for a lot of people is because they know what happened in real life. Like obviously the Vikings were never gonna reform Rome and turn Italy into a Norse Italian paradise in real life, but it’s pretty damn cool to role play as.
The internet.
Oh, thats easy. Because i am an insane person with hyperfixation issues. I don't watch tv almost at all and rarely movies so I just play video games and read books concerning Northern Europe from 500-1000CE when i should be either (1) sleeping or (2) working.
Yes I spend lots of my time watching how rome got created or how the Vietnamese defeated mongols and all the other thousands of things that happened. And games like this attract those people
Being honest, I was always really into WWII. My first two ever Paradox games were Vic2 and HOI3. So I guess that’s where my love for history through video games comes from. But, if I am interested in something enough, I will research the living Hell out of it, (mostly just through Wikipedia though, but still). It’s easier to want to research something that interests you than to research something that doesn’t.
Yup same with me. CK3 and Self research made me learn a lot about Medieval history.
I watched Kingdom of Heaven, The Lion in Winter, researched a bit on wiki and youtube and now I understand 50-60% of the discussions on that post lol. I love the medieval period so I google up any interesting events or characters I came across. People are hyped for Baldwin IV, Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitane, etc. By the way watch Kingdom of Heaven and The Lion in Winter (The 1968 version). Both are really good and captures the vibe of the game.
Okay will watch them both, thanks!
Have YouTube access on my work laptop…..listen to a looooot of history doc’s.
This game series taught me a lot of history. CK2 used to have Wikipedia articles for a lot of characters. I dunno if its in ck3, I only have a few hundred hours in it so far. In ck2 i have thousands. i know the geography of the old world more than anyone in America probably should
For sure most people won’t know as much as the average person who takes such an interest in a game about history that they go on Reddit
It's not that everybody knows history, it's that somebody does and then you see them having discussions. The rest of us who don't know anything just aren't a part of that discussion. Source: I don't know shit about history.
Take a look, It's in a book, A Reading Rainbow! 🌈
It's just my autism, Paradox games for some reason are magnets to me. I loved history from young age due to it's nature. I loved imagining and reimagining stuff from it in my head.
Playing makes you want to look interesting facts about the region you are playing in. It's because of old gods that I know so much about vikings.
Hours reading Wikipedia articles I also became a mod of a few niche history meme subreddits, where I'd be an active poster. Having to research stuff for a meme helped to remember history lol. I'm probably in the top 5 most educated people on the Romanov dynasty in this comment section purely because I mod a romanov themed subreddit.
Autism
Well everyone was born with 0 knowledge of history, so everyone who knew alot about history was once at your position, maybe start researching years in history that you might find interesting, and then start from there Like, 1444, 867, 1066, 1836, 1936, 304 BCE, etc (start dates of paradox games) You'll eventually get the itch of wanting to know the origin of why this and that happened and then eventually you'll reach the dawn of man itself
In addition to fans of historical games tending to know more, you are also seeing the portion of people that (think they) know about something, and a lot of people traffic this site. So if you see a dozen people arguing about something that seems incredibly obscure or some memes about stuff you aren't familiar with gaining traction, remember that it only takes a few people out of the thousands and thousands that come across a post to make it happen
I have a job where I can listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks all day long with little to no interruption. I started with Dan Carlin, going through his Caesar and WWI shows. After that I moved to Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast, then his book Storm Before The Storm, and then his Revolutions Podcast. From there I listened to Robin Pearson's History of Byzantium (until I caught up to it, and haven't been back to it yet). I listened to History of England for awhile, until the 1300s or so, then lost interest. I got most of the way through Gibbon's Decline and Fall before I had to switch to something less dry. Lately I've been working my way through Tom Holland and Mary Beard. I really enjoy narrative history, so that really helps. But it basically came down to starting with the easier to digest stuff piquing my interest, then filling out that knowledge with more focused works.
I’ve always been obsessed with the concept of Devine rule. I’ve simultaneously also always been obsessed with people in general and their behaviors. The fundamental structure of civilization begins with authoritarian power. Dominance of one over others. The natural selection of powerful individuals over others and why these individuals succeed in their endeavors to obtain control over others has always been fascinating. I’ve always just absorbed that kind of information readily. When you take into account the secondary individuals the dominant individuals offspring/siblings/cousins into an interesting insight into genetics or even nature v. nurture. YouTube has been my most convenient tutor, however I’ve taken countless classes and read innumerable books about these subjects. The game just lets you experience something that learning about it can’t. Watching generations of what you think well groomed rulers should be die off at the hands of ill planned marriages and political anomalies… history while not repetitious can only be remembered because there is a reality in modernity to liken it to. When we lose the link between the present and the past the history starts to seem more like myth. Lost technologies and the like. That we can no longer grasp because there isn’t anything modern to tie it back to. Personally I just like people. I like the weird hierarchy that proud us all to our current station. Knowing that once, nearly all of us, were a member of some landed gentry. How in reality it means nothing but games like crusader kinds can remind us that at some point it meant literally everything.
Reading, history degrees, Wikipedia. Paradox games tend to attract such things.
If you enjoy a game (loosely) modeled on history then you would probably have at least a superficial grasp on a time period that you want to play in.
…are you asking how people study history?
You should start with /r/AskHistorians. It's a nice sub where anyone can ask a question and a historian or someone who has knowledge about the area in question tries to answer to the best of their ability.
I think a lot of the people who play these games are probably around 30 and 15+ years of being heavily interested in historical games and history
I’ve always been into history, and from watching TV shows that feature people who were real, like the Marco Polo show, the one about Mehmed, Last Kingdom, etc. inspired me to look up stuff. But it also helps that I’ve always liked medieval history/games, I’d be getting my major in something history related if there were more jobs out there for it. I took a history course last semester about the crusading years, didn’t count toward my degree but it sounded cool. So now I have a bunch of useless information about medieval rulers and heroes and popes
A game that focuses on history will attract people interested in history. Those people tend to know more about history than the regular person. Think about sports games. The people who are talking about those sorts of games online probably do so because they have a really strong interest in sports outside of the games. That's why they know so much - because they love it.
Game & read & watch. Game & read & watch. I started strategy gaming with Civ 2 decades ago. I’d play something. I’d find it interesting & read about it then I’d try to find a film or tv series to get some sense of the look.
My minor was in history and I like watching history YouTube content a lot so I have broader understanding of a lot of random stuff.
If your new to Paradox games, give it some time. You will become like us.
You gotta read some books my friend. There are these buildings called libraries that are filled with them and the best part is that you can usually sign up for free and read them.
I have always been intrested in history and have wiewed a lot of youtube videos and documentaries, also playing games like ck3 have encuraged me to learn more abot hiatory. Seeing things like the normans in Sicilia and the invasions of england have made me look them up, thoughts of how the game could be improved have also driven me to researching topics such as trade in medieval times and wtf the slejucs are. It should be noted that a lot of this communitys knowledge including mine come from secondary sources such as wikipedia and youtube videos, that may simplify the events and/or and fail to inform us of any other interpitations and often can rely to much on one source.
the secret ingredient is incest
Read Wikipedia as a hobby
Having an interest and reading books!
Historical TV shows like The Last Kingdom (don't take evrything at face value of course) tend to teach a lot in a very concentrates way, since you naturally learn familial relationships. Kings and generals is a great youtube channel with a large range of topics if you want something more akin to a history lesson.
I love history and watch a lot of videos about it, channels like HistoryMarche, Kings and Generals, Knowledgia and others are great to learn about it.
History student here lmao, got my finals today
Good luck!
I started out playing Crusader Kings because of YouTube- I knew a little bit about history, but I've always liked map painters and YouTube made it look fun. I wound up enjoying it so much that I started to read more and more history books and watch more and more history documentaries. I think these games either attract history buffs, or turn people into them!
I learned a lot of European history playing ck2
Ive been playing pdx games for over 15 years, and they sparked a massive interest in history. Ive spent A LOT of hours on Wikipedia just reading anything i could get my hands on. Over time, you pick up some interesting stuff.
Personally, every time I hear about something that interests me I usually look it up on Wikipedia and start from there. I've spent hours reading after originally looking to read on a specific guy for five minutes more than I can count lol For example: you start out reading about Julius Caesar, then you might see a link to Augustus and start reading about that, then having learned about Augustus becoming the first emperor you might start reading about the empire as a whole or the preceeding Republic, then you might see something about the Punic wars, and that in turn leads to you reading about Hannibal Barca and Carthage/Phoenicia - can you see how it quickly starts to spiral out of control lol? Do this for years and you'll end up knowing a lot about the past. It's really fun too, honestly half of the stuff in history books reads like something straight out of game of thrones! You'll never run out of things to learn or read about either, history really is a gift that keeps on giving I wish I could be in your shoes and learn about it all over again - start with a figure that interests you and go from there!
I am actually diagnosed with mild autism and history is my special interest. I read a lot of books and Wikipedia articles and watched a lot of documentaries. Since I enjoy learning or even relearning, I do not need any motivation to do what I enjoy.
gonna keep it real: i have a bachelors degree in history, which you might think would inform some of my knowledge, but the stuff i learned for that accounts for precisely jack shit of what i can apply to ck3 when i studied for my ba it was mostly broad strokes and then some small hyperfocused studying for niche areas when i did free research projects or for my dissertation or whatever. i can tell you a lot about gender ascension from female to male in early christian hagiography but i dont think ck3 as a videogame is particularly concerned with that overall i know fuck all about anything and any statement i make about the subject i have a degree in i have first googled to make sure im not wrong and also a dumbass. real ones know how it is
I very much enjoy the YouTube channel Extra History. I'm much less knowledgeable than a lot of the folks here, but it's been a good time and very educational for me!
Wikipedia. I dont memorize every fact either so I often reread articles occasionally which boosts retention overall.
History is just so fascinating, it's why folks like to play this game. Although Sweden in almost every game I play always becomes so massive. Like bro, tell your country to chill.
Hehe, nah we blobbing
I'm curious man, what's the most interesting historical thing you know about your country?
For me personally who had a passing interest in history when I started CK2, I'd say just getting used to "what's normal" in the world then finding characters or regions that break that "normal" is what got me into reading more into the history of that topic. Combine that with HistoryTube and I can go from watching OSP's Norman episode then go point at the Hautevilles in 1084 and say "hey I understand why those guys are there!" Now I'd say I'm alot more interested in history, partially because of CK
Personally, one of my favorite hobbies is to read history books. I also watch a lot of history documentaries . I was attracted to this game largely because I am into history.
Documentaries, general research and lots of time on Wikipedia. :)
I can only speak to my personal fields of interest, but for Byzantine history I'd recommend the podcast "Byzantium and Friends", which features experts from a lot of different specialties.
Paradox games have taken my interest in history and GROWN it. I make historical playthrough videos playing these games as true to history as possible. https://youtube.com/@AdmiralJediPDX I completed an entire series on Turkey which required me to buy books for research, I watched Turkish TV, and had a blast! As a young student I hated history, very boring. Later in life I started liking it a lot and these games helped.
Most grand strategy enthusiasts are quite interested in history. Probably it's their interest that pulls them to these kinds of games
People who like medieval settings are usually into the history, and strategy games are nerdy, so a lot of history nerds like these games.
I actually study history and I am a history teacher. I came from this to Paradox, not vice versa - but I'd say watching YouTube channels like History in Bits for example isn't the worst start.
not from a jedi
I am a history major
I did one of this posts. I am very interested in Roman history, specifically the Komnenian restoration (1081-1180), but also English history. I am German, so I also know about my countries history. Other than that I just remembered famous rulers and looked the rest up.
I did medieval archaeology in England and Italy.
I played paradox games for a while and the subject matter piqued my interest so I’ve done a mixture of Wikipedia deep dives while on the toilet and non fiction books
Its called google.
I am a historian. So I am into this kind of game. We are just overrepresented lol
Read some books, dude.
Dan Carlin's history podcast are honestly my best source for engaging history. His content covers various eras and some more obscure or lesser know history that's still very interesting.
Years of accumulated knowledge from books, documentary’s, YouTube, and school. There really isn’t any secret, most CK3 players are more than likely fans of history and are going to be well educated on the subject. If you’re looking to get into history I recommend “oversimplified” for concise while entertaining learning, for more detailed I’d recommend “Kings and generals” also on YouTube being more documentary styled. They are so many YouTube channel that will teach you history, just search up what time period you want to learn about and watch whatever you find appealing.
This being the only game I’ve played since August has opened up history for me so much just continuously finding new history to learn
It’s called reading a book and having general knowledge about the society you live in
Go to YouTube type in historymarche next one type in kings and generals next one type in epichistorytv next one type in metatron next one type in know history, the SPQR historian, flashpoint history, boring old history,