Recent content by Andrew Johnson [FXS]

I appreciate the shout-out, and it is always informative to hear what historical figures people are talking about or interested in, but these are the kinds of questions that I don't answer! (And I've moved back to full-time academia, though I'm still working part-time at Firaxis).

Let me know if someone completes the Gallery

Siam is based on "Fifth Reign" Siam (Rama V, Chulalongkorn), roughly the same time period as (later) Queen Victoria (1868-1910), a period of modernization, competition with European powers, and where Siam actively adopted European colonial strategies vis-a-vis its own "internal others": Lao...

Yep, these little blurbs are us situating who the Civ is referring to, historically.

Teach obviously is speaking English, but with a West Country accent, with as accurate pirate slang as we could get without being ahistorical or over the top. Heave to, me hearties!

If ye be Blackbeard, matey, ye'll rattle yer bone-box like one that's gone on account each day, nae just on the 19th.

I don't get the reference?

Teach is my favorite leader of those that I wrote. It was Ludwig-level fun, and the voice actor is amazing. You all are in for a treat.

Tecumseh has my favorite line (all cred goes to Dillon, not to me), which is his "deal-reject" line. Just "Ha ha ha ha - no." It makes you feel so, so tiny.

Ok these are indeed some good sources. Liebermann is really interesting, especially. Kiernan is a part of a competition within my own alma mater between "left" area studies (Anderson etc) and "right" area studies (Keith Taylor) that came about over the question of the Khmer Rouge and the...

What are you reading here? There's a fair degree of recasting of Southeast Asian history in the 1920s, with Luang Wichit and the desire to 'build' a Thai racial identity out of a more diverse (Lanna, Shan, Isan) group, a unity that is then deployed against claims in Cambodia and Malaysia...

My bias here is also coming from my role as a professor. To have a student using AI is like going to the gym and bringing a forklift to lift weights - the point is not that we want weights lifted, it's that the practice hones the body/mind. There's also the issue of not being able to produce...

Narrative (including history) does not use AI. I do not know about other departments, but would be surprised. Each time a new LLM comes out, I ask it to summarize my work, as a test. It has never been error-free. (In addition to the issues of quality and accuracy, there’s also the question of...

Just to say that I (also) strongly disagree with the idea that AI can replace writers. It’s awful at historical accuracy and generates predictable drivel. AI might replace BAD writers… and in a world of AI generated content much of the audience might have such reduced expectations that they...

We don’t use LLMs, but speaking here as well as a teacher of writing, I’d so much rather have human-crafted narratives. I love the stories we make on our own from procedural games; they’re so much richer than a machine could ever make.