![\"Crusader](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/crusaderkingsii_02.jpg\")
<\/a>1. Crusader Kings II<\/strong><\/h2>\nManage entire dynasties in Crusader Kings II<\/em><\/strong>, and watch your family rise to power in medieval Europe.\u00a0 Play politics, arrange marriages, and manipulate the Holy Roman Emperor for fun and profit.\u00a0 The depth of detail to which\u00a0<\/b>Crusader Kings II<\/em><\/strong> aspires is staggering.\u00a0 You\u2019ll manage laws, practice religion, and experience\u00a0<\/strong>historical events, like the invasion of the Mongols.\u00a0 Europa Universalis<\/em><\/strong>, a similar strategy simulator, just released the fourth installment in their series, whose time frame stretches\u00a0from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.<\/p>\n Medieval II<\/strong><\/em> is for the strategist who dreams of being a commander.\u00a0 Medieval II<\/em><\/strong> offers in depth city management in the Middle Ages and urges the player to seize control of Europe.\u00a0 What sets it apart is the combat, which is conducted in real-time, forcing players to make quick decisions on the battlefield.\u00a0 Every time I move my infantry, I wind up with cavalry in my archers and everything goes badly.\u00a0 It also includes options to reenact historical battles.\u00a0 Would you have done a better job than Harold II in the Battle of Hastings?\u00a0 Medieval II: Total War<\/em><\/strong> gives you the opportunity to find out.<\/p>\n Most of the games on this list focus on combat and warfare because they\u2019re what appeals to the target demographic. \u00a0The Settlers<\/em><\/strong> series is a touch different. \u00a0It puts the player in control of developing a town from the ground up, with each villager rendered in real time. \u00a0Watching a lone woodcutter carry his load to the storehouse can get boring, but it\u2019s pretty interesting to place buildings and watch your village grow. \u00a0I spent more time than I care to admit making sure that the needs of my people were met and marveling at the fact that all of those tiny people were actually doing things rather than existing as abstractions of game mechanics (which they are as well, but you know what I mean).<\/p>\n The first Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/em><\/strong> game is the only one that actually takes place in a medieval setting, and to say that it\u2019s in any way representative of medieval life is … A stretch. \u00a0I assume that the average person in the Middle Ages didn\u2019t get into a swordfight every five and a half minutes (also I am lousy at stealth games). \u00a0But where it shines from the medievalist\u2019s perspective is in the architecture, which offers brilliant vistas of places like Acre, Jerusalem, and Damascus.<\/p>\n I wouldn’t normally include a game that has elves in a list of accurate medieval games, but Neverwinter Nights<\/em><\/strong> does an incredible job of illustrating what it was like to live in a city besieged by the plague.\u00a0 Your character will burn pyres of plague victims, and find desperate people locked in their homes. \u00a0The city of Neverwinter is in anarchy as the plague ravages the poorer sections of the city, while the wealthier districts struggle to maintain a quarantine. \u00a0Smugglers and rogues take advantage of the economic turmoil, and there street corners are littered doomsayers prophesying the end times. \u00a0Then you smack up a bunch of monsters and fix it (more or less). \u00a0But the first bit is wonderfully human and eerily authentic.<\/p>\n Five medieval games plus one runner up. \u00a0Of course, there are lots of other games that adopt medieval themes, like Prince of Persia<\/em><\/strong>, the\u00a0Elder Scrolls<\/em><\/strong> series, and Dragon Age<\/em><\/strong>, and while they’re great games, they don’t shoot for the kind of authentic experience the above games do their level best to offer. \u00a0Hmm, I do sense a post on the most inauthentic games based on medieval themes coming in a few months, though Dante’s Inferno<\/em><\/strong> basically wins on that front, unless there’s some new translation that paints Dante as a double-jumping badass with an extending scythe and a shotgun of luminous crosses. \u00a0In which case, please leave a link to that translation in the comments. \u00a0If not, then let us know what you think of games based on the Middle Ages, and tell us which good ones I left out.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Jim Tigwell<\/a> is a blogger, musician, medievalist at large, and thane of the eight holds of Skyrim. \u00a0Remind him that there’s a real world by contacting him on Twitter<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We live in a world fascinated by the past.\u00a0 Our films, novels, and games exemplify our obsession with the past.\u00a0 Since I’m a gamer, I wanted to share my five favourite medieval games, sorted by the accuracy of their reflections of the medieval era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[139],"tags":[146,150,140,142,148,149,143,141,144,147,145],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2649,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/2649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2. Medieval II:\u00a0 Total War<\/strong><\/h2>\n
3. Mount & Blade \/ Fire & Sword<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a>The Mount & Blade<\/em><\/strong> games are half an analogy of medieval life and half a masochism simulator. \u00a0Your character may rise to power, ruling towns and commanding armies… \u00a0Or they may be beaten by bandits in the first fifteen minutes and left for dead in the wilderness. \u00a0Twice. \u00a0A game whose brutal mechanics emphasize the hardships of making it in the Middle Ages, Mount & Blade<\/em><\/strong> also allows the player to act outside the law, becoming a bandit leader instead of a king, and ransacking caravans to make a living. \u00a0I know all of these things about the game, but I\u2019ve never made it through the first half an hour.<\/p>\n4. Settlers<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a>5. Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/strong><\/h2>\nHonorable mention:\u00a0Neverwinter Nights<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Round Up<\/h2>\n