RFC Europe historical feedback thread

At this moment, there are 3928 posts in the RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread. Probably more than 1000 of them are less or even non-relevant to the development of RFC Europe. We appreciate the work Sedna17, 3Miro, micbic and all the others do, but we should not make it impossible for them to find useful feedback. There is a Dutch saying: "There are too many trees, I can't see the forest anymore!", which describes their situation. So, what we need is some kind of structure. Actually, we do have that already. For example, there is a UHV thread, a civ discussion thread, etc. What we do not have however, is a basic off-topic thread. Please, move your discussions from the playtesting thread to this thread. I will *try* to create another thread, with ideas that are approved in general but for some reason were lost because of discussions. Discussions are now allowed in this thread.

Please, show some respect for our dearest modders and move your non-gameplay discussions to this thread.

kochman said:

Wikipedia?

Look, the bottom line is, violence/aggressive reaction was the biggest deterrent to Protestantism... whether it was open war, the threat of excommunication, or the Inquisitors...

I agree that a counter-Reformation would be in interesting item. It did galvanize the people in certain countries. I don't think lower maintenance is the answer (if anything, it should cost more... it took a lot of indulgences to fund the wars against the Turks, etc)...
I actually think a stability boost is the answer, because it made the hardcore Catholic nations that much more zealous.

Or, perhaps, continued "crusades"... because really, how many wars were waged over this idea of people reading the bible in their own language? MANY.
They weren't called "crusades" (as far as I know), but the intent was the same.

I always found it odd how the Catholics of the time always referred to the "one church"... though they themselves were basically a protest of the Orthodox branch... as if it no longer existed (which was actually one of Luther's main points of contention, he didn't believe Orthodox were damned because they didn't follow Rome).

In the end, I would think the Counter-Reformation could be best reflected by more catholic missionaries and inquisitors in the countries that remain Catholic.

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1) the sale of indulgences ended in 1567 (by Papal decree), so I'm not sure how the Catholic Church would finance wars against the Turks with air (if there were people still selling indulgences they would be heretics)

2) by claiming the Orthodox Church was the one true church you have become an apostate of Protestantism

3) The main reason for the Catholic Church being the one church is that the Bishop of Rome was always the head of the Catholic Church and always had the power in Church law to remove and replace Eastern Patriarchs (though this ability was often blocked by the Byzantine Emperor) and thus breaking from the Pope was splitting from the Catholic Church (the Bishop of Rome described as the source of sacerdotal union by St Cyprian of Carthage in the middle of the 3rd century for example). Also the same Eastern Patriarchs that split from the Catholic Church were quite often in heresy historically speaking and had to be brought back by the Pope and also they were quite often puppets of the Byzantine Emperor.

As for Councils being the deciding factor mostly it was a Council in union with the Pope as many councils of bishops (who were always the people with a vote in councils, it was never a popular vote) backed things like Arianism/Monothelitism etc. but weren't ratified by the Pope. In fact the Patriarch of Constantinople usurped a lot of power outside of his established boundaries of Asia, Pontus and Thrace by claiming authority over the whole Balkans, the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem and even southern Italy and Sicily and calling himself equal to the Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch, this all being given to him by the Emperor not Council.

Papal Infallibility was voted for by a Council, albeit a more recent one, though there were early mentions of Papal Infallibility and pronouncements made, even in the third century, possibly earlier, though admittedly it was less specific.

While the Eastern Orthodox have undeniably kept Church practice the same more than the Catholic Church since the split they have changed their views on doctrine and morality by stopping believing in Original Sin and Purgatory (both voted for in the Synod of Jerusalem) and allowing contraception. Furthermore they insist everyone uses the Byzantine Rite which is ridiculous as it is only one of the original Rites still uses in the Catholic Church and more recently created than the Latin, Syrian and Coptic Rites.

Also unlike the Catholic Church (with the Pope) they have nothing unique to say they are the one true Church, as opposed to the Catholic, Oriental Orthodox or Assyrian Churches, so that claim doesn't make as much sense, whereas a claim to be part of the true Church would.


EDIT: I can't believe I forgot

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

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1) Yes, as a direct result of the Reformation showing how corrupt it was...
2) Absolutely not true. As I said before, one of Luther's main complaints with Catholicism was that it rejected all other Christian denominations and said only through Catholicism you could get to heaven. There may be branches of Protestantism that reject Orthodoxy, but they do not represent the whole.
3) Claiming to be the "One True Church" and being the only way to get into heaven, while the religion is clearly flawed (as all organized religion is), is absolutely ridiculous. See #2. The fact that you appear to be claiming some sort of moral high ground for Catholicism based on their adherence to rules set up hundreds of years ago for no good reason (contraception for example) is really odd to me. You will never get me to agree that tradition triumphs over common sense and what is right.
No other church claims to be the "one" true church... it's such an outlandish, arrogant claim that I am amazed the Catholics do... except that it has been forced on them by the hierarchical chain of command that is intent on maintaining as much power as possible.

I can see you are a Catholic. That is fine. I am going to guess that you went to Catholic schools, because your understanding of history is pretty lopsided when it comes to this topic.

kochman said:

1) Yes, as a direct result of the Reformation showing how corrupt it was...
2) Absolutely not true. As I said before, one of Luther's main complaints with Catholicism was that it rejected all other Christian denominations and said only through Catholicism you could get to heaven. There may be branches of Protestantism that reject Orthodoxy, but they do not represent the whole.
3) Claiming to be the "One True Church" and being the only way to get into heaven, while the religion is clearly flawed (as all organized religion is), is absolutely ridiculous. See #2. The fact that you appear to be claiming some sort of moral high ground for Catholicism based on their adherence to rules set up hundreds of years ago for no good reason (contraception for example) is really odd to me. You will never get me to agree that tradition triumphs over common sense and what is right.
No other church claims to be the "one" true church... it's such an outlandish, arrogant claim that I am amazed the Catholics do... except that it has been forced on them by the hierarchical chain of command that is intent on maintaining as much power as possible.

I can see you are a Catholic. That is fine. I am going to guess that you went to Catholic schools, because your understanding of history is pretty lopsided when it comes to this topic.

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1) People inside the Church had been trying to reform it long before Martin Luther was even born, the Reformation simply gave them the leverage to do it.

2) Well the Church said to Luther to take it up with the Bible so Luther did and he removed seven books which contained things inconvenient to him. Jesus did found exactly one universal church so why do Protestants reject the Catholic Church and say that the Orthodox Church is right but not go and join it? That's pretty hard doublethinking. I have a question, if you are Christian how can you claim all organized religion is flawed and still believe a guy who founded one universal church for all people. I'm just wondering, how is the Orthodox Church the one universal Church when it is so regionalized and the Catholic Church is so widespread around the world?

3) last time I checked churches are made of humans and humans are imperfect so claiming OMG they have flaws is realizing it's made of people, not even the Pope claims to be perfect.

How many church did Jesus say he was founding? one, and only one. So logically there is only one correct church, so why wouldn't the Catholic Church say they are the one true church?

Christianity is a three legged stool with Tradition, Scripture and Magisterium as the legs

1. Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, Sacred Magisterium are a reflection of the Most Holy Trinity.

Tradition is a reflection of the Father; Scripture is a reflection of the Son; Magisterium is a reflection of the Spirit. Scripture proceeds from Tradition, just as the Son proceeds from the Father. Magisterium proceeds primarily from Tradition and Secondarily from Scripture, just as the Spirit proceeds primarily from the Father and secondarily from the Son. Tradition, Scripture, Magisterium are three distinct aspects of One Divine Gift, just as the Trinity is three distinct Persons of One Divine Being. Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, Sacred Magisterium are inseparable, just as the Father, Son, Spirit are inseparable. Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, Sacred Magisterium are infallible because they are a true reflection and a true work of the Infallible Holy Trinity.

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2. Sacred Tradition is infallible because it is the deeds of the Infallible and Most Holy Trinity. Everything that God is and everything that God does is One Divine Eternal Infallible Act. Sacred Tradition is infallible because it is a true reflection and a true work of the Infallible Father.

If the deeds wrought by God in salvation history were merely teaching stories or myths, with little or no historical value, then Tradition would cease to be the deeds of the God and would not be infallible.

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3. Sacred Scripture proceeds from Sacred Tradition.

Sacred Scripture is infallible because it proceeds from infallible Sacred Tradition. Sacred Scripture is infallible because it is a true reflection and a true work of the Infallible Son. Sacred Scripture is infallible because it is words written by God, and because it is the Word of God, and because it is One Utterance of God.

If Sacred Tradition does not exist, or if it is not the infallible deeds of God, then Sacred Scripture would lose its foundation and would not be infallible. If Sacred Scripture is fallible, then it is not the Word of God. If Sacred Scripture is full of errors, then Sacred Tradition, from which Scripture proceeds, would be full of errors. If Tradition and Scripture are full of errors, then the Teaching of the Church would be full of confusion and error. Such is not the case.

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4. Sacred Magisterium proceeds primarily from Sacred Tradition and secondarily from Sacred Scripture.

The Sacred Magisterium can be exercised by the Pope alone, or by the body of Bishops led by the Pope. The Sacred Magisterium is infallible because it is a true reflection and a true work of the Infallible Spirit. The Sacred Magisterium is infallible because it teaches only from Sacred Infallible Tradition and Sacred Infallible Scripture, by the Infallible guidance of the Most Holy Spirit.

If Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are not infallible, then neither can the Sacred Magisterium be infallible, for the Sacred Magisterium teaches only from Tradition and Scripture. The Sacred Magisterium cannot teach that Tradition or Scripture contain errors of any kind, because Tradition and Scripture are the foundation of the Sacred Magisterium.

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Not having sex has a 0% failure rate and condoms do have a failure rate, so which one makes you less likely to get STDs?

I never went to Catholic Schools, and the tertiary schools I want to go to aren't religious

1) People inside the Church had been trying to reform it long before Martin Luther was even born, the Reformation simply gave them the leverage to do it.

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I know, but this has nothing to do with anything we were discussing.

2) Well the Church said to Luther to take it up with the Bible so Luther did and he removed seven books which contained things inconvenient to him. Jesus did found exactly one universal church so why do Protestants reject the Catholic Church and say that the Orthodox Church is right but not go and join it? That's pretty hard doublethinking.

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Again, this has nothing to do with anything really. And, you can accept other churches without encouraging your members to defect to them, can't you?
The Catholics didn't even acknowledge the Greeks would go to heaven for crying out loud.

How many church did Jesus say he was founding? one, and only one. So logically there is only one correct church, so why wouldn't the Catholic Church say they are the one true church?

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This thinking is so flawed it's unbelievable. Jesus also said to judge not... yet the Catholic Church judged anyone not a Catholic to be damned.
Jesus said no one gets to the Father but through the Son... not through one type of church so heavily manipulated and corrupt it's almost unbelievable...

Anyhow, I am done with this conversation. I don't accept that Catholic Church as "the one church", but I certainly accept it as Christian which is all that matters to me. I am not going to get wrapped up into the differences between the denominations, etc... it's kind of pointless to me. Worship how you like... but don't condemn people that don't worship in the "Roman manner" as the Catholic Church USED to do (thankfully it has been getting a lot more receptive to non-Catholics over the recent decades... though a Lutheran still can't take communion in a Catholic church).

kochman said:

I know, but this has nothing to do with anything we were discussing.


Again, this has nothing to do with anything really. And, you can accept other churches without encouraging your members to defect to them, can't you?
The Catholics didn't even acknowledge the Greeks would go to heaven for crying out loud.


This thinking is so flawed it's unbelievable. Jesus also said to judge not... yet the Catholic Church judged anyone not a Catholic to be damned.
Jesus said no one gets to the Father but through the Son... not through one type of church so heavily manipulated and corrupt it's almost unbelievable...

Anyhow, I am done with this conversation. I don't accept that Catholic Church as "the one church", but I certainly accept it as Christian which is all that matters to me. I am not going to get wrapped up into the differences between the denominations, etc... it's kind of pointless to me. Worship how you like... but don't condemn people that don't worship in the "Roman manner" as the Catholic Church USED to do (thankfully it has been getting a lot more receptive to non-Catholics over the recent decades... though a Lutheran still can't take communion in a Catholic church).

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Roman Catholic Church≠Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church is one of 23 Catholic Churches in Full Communion with the Holy See, the Roman Catholic Church is the only one that administers the Latin Rite, the rest use: Alexandrian, Antiochian, Armenian, Byzantine or Chaldean Rites

Also I love the Judge not lest ye be judged thing considering you use it to justify judging

Bump.

Thanks for the bump, I wasn't aware there was so much Catholic proselytism going on here ...

Leoreth said:

Thanks for the bump, I wasn't aware there was so much Catholic proselytism going on here ...

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The origin IIRC was an anti-Catholic polemic by kochman which needless to say I was not amused. He thought that Catholicism in-game should stay gimped because ZOMG THEY TORTURED SCIENTISTS (which didn't happen BTW)

Wessel V1 said:

At this moment, there are 3928 posts in the RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread. Probably more than 1000 of them are less or even non-relevant to the development of RFC Europe. We appreciate the work Sedna17, 3Miro, micbic and all the others do, but we should not make it impossible for them to find useful feedback. There is a Dutch saying: "There are too many trees, I can't see the forest anymore!", which describes their situation. So, what we need is some kind of structure. Actually, we do have that already. For example, there is a UHV thread, a civ discussion thread, etc. What we do not have however, is a basic off-topic thread. Please, move your discussions from the playtesting thread to this thread. I will *try* to create another thread, with ideas that are approved in general but for some reason were lost because of discussions. Discussions are now allowed in this thread.

Please, show some respect for our dearest modders and move your non-gameplay discussions to this thread.

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Thank you so much for making this thread. Now people who want to discuss the history have every reason and right to do so, without clogging the thread involving gameplay

Veshta said:

That's my take on it anyway, hate history books that equate Normans to the Old Norse, they are ancestors nothing more.
Would be like calling treating Americans as if they were Irish/English/Scandinavian/French/Whatever completely ignoring hundreds of years of local breeding and cultural/social development
Germany is just the odd one out on the continent with no natural enemy to speak of and the Barbarians are not numerous enough to prevent them from prospering enourmously .. barb level is perfect though, just enough watchfulness required.

Goddess no. They have no immediate threats and already get the two Beserkers with more as soon as Iron/Copper is hooked.
There is a little too much moorland for my liking but other than that the area is pretty damn good for an early civ that isn't supposed to last into the 14-15th century (UHV wise), plus you get to pick and chose between early expansions with the Beserkers (York, Edinburg, Dublin, Bordeaux, Marseilles and the Italian cities).

The most annoying part of them is their useless city placement when starting a SWE game

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I didn't intend to 'equate' them, the only reason I didn't separate them that much is because there aren't 2 civs in the mod and that they are the decendants, maybe culturally french but they sure kept that supreme fighting spirit of their ancestors
that was one of the 'wonders' of the Normans, first they conquered through brute force but then they assimilated the population (intermarrying etc.) thus creating a quite unique and imo somewhat facinating culture

Due to the importance of the Normans I had assumed that the Norse are the Normans, maybe in a more 'fluidic' way that isn't working but no representation of the Normans seemed odd to me, I'd say for this specific mod (timeframe)the Normans are far more important than the Norse. (who influenced medieval europe more?)

I have no idea about the coding or the work involved (I don't like to bother people with things like work) but just for kicks

English spwan date pushed to 800ad or so (either date when the legions left or when the first reports or normality returned)
Norse replaced by indies, introduce Normandy which UHV's include the conquest of england or so by 1066 ad and all those other nice things in the mediterranian etc.
english uhv could be defending against the norman invasion or so among other things, depending on purpose of the civ
Norman spawn could i.e. be either close to 1066 with a spawning army in england to conquer london etc or earlier whenever the Normans first appeared in Normany as a 'state'

imo something like that with more 'immediate action' than with Norse might be fun

the main problem I see would be 'how would the AI behave?' especially the conquering of sicily seems to be a problem

but the american immigration thing isn't really compareable(a bit too large-scale and too fast, those were millions of immigrants)
america is another one of those unique oddballs culturally speaking

If you plan to shift England to represent the Anglo-Saxons as well I'd suggest using the date when the first Bretwalda was crowned (was he crowned? not sure).

Leoreth said:

If you plan to shift England to represent the Anglo-Saxons as well I'd suggest using the date when the first Bretwalda was crowned (was he crowned? not sure).

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noticed another problem in my idea

Normandy conquered England and William was King of England and Duke of Normandy but afterwards both nations pretty much went seperate ways.. at least the southern conquests were pretty much independent and became kingdoms of their own in the end...

Don't forget that the Rus were also descendants of the Norse. If we make a single Norman Empire, then we will have something spanning the entire map, this would be hard for Human and forget about the AI.

The way the Norse work now is that they start settling in all of those places: Normandy, England, Sicily, Kiev and then those would flip into separate entities/nations later on. England becomes its own country, Normandy is tossed between them and the French, Norse will likely fail to keep Sicily between Italians, Spain and the Arabs and Kiev get their own thing going. IMO, this is about as good as it gets in that regard.

In general sticking to political entities is somewhat easier than arguing about ethnicity/ancestry. The Carolingian Empire is well defines even if borders between Germany and France are not. What is the difference between a French and Burgundian person, however, there is difference between Louis and Charles the Bold. England, Venice, Spain, Hungary .... those all fine, except for the Norse, Germany and the Arabs, which were not single political entities, but consisted of numerous smaller ones. At the same time, we cannot really represent those internal divisions/struggles. The only improvement that I can think of, about Germany, is to lower stability, which will cause trouble for the AI, weaken the civ and make it periodically fracture into smaller entities ()individual cities even if the entire Empire doesn't collapse), and for the Human, we can make it into an ahistoric UHV: unite Germany under one rule, improve stability and don't let cities declare independence ... I guess that last one is going into gameplay.

civ_king said:

[Citation needed]
In this thread so as to not clutter this thread

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There you are:

When the pagans had been overcome, our men seized great numbers, both men and women, either killing them or keeping them captive, as they wished.

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Source: Gesta Francorum, which is considered an eyewitness account of the sack.

Should you be questioning the number of 60k killed people, I'd likely agree with you, but it hardly matters anyway.

Daffy said:

Normandy conquered England and William was King of England and Duke of Normandy but afterwards both nations pretty much went seperate ways.. at least the southern conquests were pretty much independent and became kingdoms of their own in the end...

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Which "both nations" do you mean? England and Normandy? They stayed strongly intertwined for a long time, as English monarchs were in general until the end of the Hundred Years War. I'd rather avoid the term "nation" here anyway

Leoreth said:

There you are:

Source: Gesta Francorum, which is considered an eyewitness account of the sack.

Should you be questioning the number of 60k killed people, I'd likely agree with you, but it hardly matters anyway.


Which "both nations" do you mean? England and Normandy? They stayed strongly intertwined for a long time, as English monarchs were in general until the end of the Hundred Years War. I'd rather avoid the term "nation" here anyway

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Yes I was disputing the 60,000 dead, and yes it matters because the word massacre (well that's what I think he meant).

civ_king said:

Yes I was disputing the 60,000 dead, and yes it matters because the word massacre (well that's what I think he meant).

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Daffy said:

This is something that can't really be proven but I've read something about them having played a crucial role in making the Muslims hate christians absolutely as still is today
The massaker of the population of Jerusalem during the first crusade 60.000 dead, they killed every single man/woman/child.(very christianlike..) That's something allot of christians like to forget.

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I forgot how horrible forums can be...

you conveniently left out the previous sentence in your quote, but I won't go into it further. It doen't really make any sense, I can't put a imo, afaik iirc in front of every word so that nobody has any ground to go on a rant because they feel insulted or so...
guess I'll have to roll over shut up and have my peace

I never take any 'numbers' from historical sources completely serious since I've seen extreme variations depending on the source.
And so there was no 'massacre' or whatever better word I could have chosen for the action I described 'having read about', so excuse me very much for defaming catholic history

60,000 for the Siege of Jerusalem seems like the people who claim that Stalin killed 120,000,000 million people

I apologize for leaving the sentence previous out, I didn't realize they were connected

Well, I think the sources make completely clear it was a massacre, no matter the actual numbers (I doubt we even have precise figures of Jerusalem's complete population in the 11th century), as do the reaction of contemporary crusaders and muslims.

What baffles me is is why anyone would think the Normans were the ones committing what was obviously an atrocity (killing PoW was a no no even then). First crusade was under French/English (ie. Franks + William w. family) leadership as far as I know, Normans were probably just there ingratiate themselves with the established nobles and Rome