What are some films, tv shows, video games or other media that gives you an authentic look at early medieval or more ancient life?
I have an almost sexual fetish like attraction to early fortifications in particular, and small settlement town layouts. Love looking at them and drifting away in thoughts of how things worked back then, how people lived. I would really love to watch some movie that has such places explored as more than backgrounds, or a game where you can immerse yourself into the daily life of people of those times.
I'll post a few random images to keep the thread up.
Bentley Myers
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Elijah Morales
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Luke Bailey
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Angel Kelly
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Jayden Reyes
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Justin Allen
Vikings and shogun.
Jonathan Nelson
HBO's Rome is pretty accurate as far as sets go, and if you dismiss Lucius and Pullo being standard Tv protagonists in terms of fortune, the history not is pretty good too. Caesar is Mance rayder and Brutus is Edmure Tully, if you watch game of thrones.
Michael Sanchez
Vikings used to do this earlier, now its a big too big in scope, its characters kings rather than farmers and so on. We don't get the longhouse with people throwing bones on the ground and goats and chickens running around the table.
Ethan Clark
Vikings' sets might be accurate, but they jumped a pretty big shark when the emperor of China's daughter shows up and starts giving the son of Odin opium
Tyler Flores
Rome had good moments as well, but it too, like Vikings, suffers from the point of view characters being too upper class. We get a lot of marble buildings and rich interior, and not a lot of more typical houses and outer districts of the city.
Still, loved both series, I have to pick up the new Vikings episodes this weekend. Just wish it were more down to earth, more typical life than kings and generals life.
Chase Fisher
Absolutely none. Seriously, none.
Not a single TV show manages to portray the medieval world even remotely accurately, it's all stereotypes and muddy faces
Wyatt Stewart
What. Rome follows 2 plebs, they're not poverty stricken and living on the streets but theyre not rich either, just normal Romans.
Logan Nguyen
This is kinda harsh. I feel early Vikings episodes and the BBC documentaries with Ruth Goodman are pretty solid in that regard.
Jose Hernandez
If you're looking for a game try The Witcher 3 it's probably the closest you'll get to immersing yourself completely.
Aaron Peterson
Sure, but we see very little of them in their "native habitat", as it were. And they may be the main characters, but not by much, the show spends considerable time following other, bigger players, and our two plebs are most often in their upper class surrounding.
The show needed to spend more time in Lucius Vorenus' house, show us more of the sacrificing to the gods, praying in the temples and such, how the neighbors reject him because of this or that happening, etc. And I am still kinda mad that they didn't show the one single thing we knew all legionaries ate all the time, which was pig fat. They are that shit like bread.
Asher Clark
Look up Kingdom's Come: Deliverance. I have similar fetish and that game gave me an orgasm.
>happening during actual history era (no fantasy whatsoever) >the areas made from real-life areas and medieval descriptions/maps >one of most beautiful graphics i've ever seen >every AI has his own house, job, they don't just stand around randomly, they actually literally live
Chase Lewis
The Witcher 3 has a lot of good sets, but they are always background. Since it doesn't have the gameplay features of modded Skyrim for example, like cooking meals on the fire, hunting game, camping and a frost meter, stuff like that, they are nothing more than a set to kill monsters on. Even the quests seldom reference it. In slavic mythology, monsters often do things like stop rivers, ruining the town's crops, and need to be killed so the water will flow again. Or a monster killing sheep and hens, ruining the town prosperity, or stomping out the fields. In The WItcher 3 all monster contracts are because my brother got killed, or my wife is missing, and so on. The idea of a settlement and daily life isn't explored, its only background. Seems like the artistic and visual presentation team cared, but the gameplay mechanics team didn't, or the marketing team told them the players wouldn't care. Whichever is true, the often authentic looking settlements are only decorum.
Christopher Lopez
get mount & blade warband and pray for early access bannerlord this year
Bentley Perez
>authentic >letting fucking weed grow on your house never played it, but judging by what little i saw, its just romanticized version of medieval as murrifats imagine it.
Adam Rogers
I'm following its development, but I am not committing yet, because of their choice of engine and because of bad word of mouth about optimization and level of finished content in the current backer beta.
I will probably end up buying it regardless, but I am not sure I want to back it as it seems they are extending beyond the capabilities of their team and will probably need to cut a lot of content to release. Also I've played video games enough to spot a badly optimized and buggy release incoming just from watching gameplay demo videos.
Overall very ambitious, and I think I'll let it get finished before I spend on it, which will be after its initial release.
Julian Allen
I imagine they meant to represent hanging grapes or some such, or just the decorative vines people let grow on their fences and side of houses nowadays.
The screenshot I posted doesn't represent the overall visual presentation of the game, it does feel alive and authentic, as far as video games go.
Lincoln Young
I guess we'll see at E3 a month from now. But Mount&Blade has always been about the fighting, and never about the actual cool looking town areas. In Warband you only ever see them during a few rare quests, where they act as an arena more so than anything.
Hopefully Bannerlord or some of its mods will make use of the player settlement in another way, so I can enjoy customizing it and having a walk around it occasionally.
Jaxson Martin
Yeah well if you grew something like that on a medieval wooden house, it would get rotten and infested with bugs, its retarded.
Sorry for sperging out, i just hate Witcher 3 because i grew up on the books and it feels like the game fucking ruined the whole universe, made it only about "killing monsters, fucking bitches" and people keep praising it when its nothing but another rpg with admittedly great graphics
Jack Campbell
>In Warband you only ever see them during a few rare quests There is a literal option to walk around any city/village/castle you visit dawg.
Hudson Lee
they're all breddy boring tbf, bannerlord looks way more comfy for that sorta shit
Austin Richardson
Yes, there is, and there is zero reason to do so. Its not incorporated into the game at all, feels like they wanted to do something with it, but dropped it due to feature creep. Instead you navigate town via a short text based list, not having to walk around to find the horse merchant or tavern.
Like I said, its there, but its background. Its not part of the game. And in the case of Mount&Blade, unlike The WItcher 3, the game doesn't even encourage you to look at it, let alone use it.
Aaron Hernandez
Also, I really, REALLY wish the dirt&mud meme would go away. If you have 5-6 big, good looking and permanent houses next to each other, with maybe 50 or more people living in them, you can be 101% sure that these people will throw some stones on the ground and beat them in, so they don't walk in mud.
I am not sure if its due to popular culture, or due to lack of knowledge, or because a crude rock paved road is hard to texture and present properly with tessellation, but almost all games skip out on the pavement and go overboard with the mud.
Grayson Gray
IIRC Paris was only paved around 1200 and even then only the main roads.
Beaten Earth isn't that bad.
James Cooper
What is gonna change in bannerlord?
Oliver Cooper
As far as settlements are confirmed, nothing. There will be factions, and sort of "civil war" clashes as you support the northern gang over the southern gang to gain control of the settlement or some such, but the actual layout seems to go unchanged.
Wouldn't just foot/horse traffic best the earth down enough? I'm used to Florida soil which is a mixture of sand and clay, so it may be ideal, but I feel like as long as the soil isn't super loamy it would end up being almost like a baked mud tarmac?
Ian Fisher
nothing to contribute but bump since this is also a favorite topic of mine
Tyler Williams
I don't mean marble squares here. I mean going to the river, getting a few baskets of stones, and using a wooden club to beat them into the earth so they are more or less on the same level.
It took me less than an afternoon to do this in front of a small villa/shack my grandpa has outside town, around a grape and vegetables garden, and I covered a large patch in front of it and a short road to the gate in the fence, as well as it being my first time trying it. Worked out perfectly fine, haven't repaired it since, and you can drive a hand cart over it even if it had rained.
It's an american industry, with an american market and american demands. American pop culture drives it, just look at the low sales most japanese games have, unless they fit the american mindset. You have to design your game for americans, else it won't work out.
Charles Reyes
made for murrifats
David Watson
Nah not really, Witcher is distinctively European. A game tailored for American audience would be some dogshit like Skyrim.
Michael Taylor
In its theme, Skyrim is also distinctively European, in the same way The Witcher 3 is. However it is European, just like The Witcher 3, in ways that are acceptable to the American market. It is European as defined by Americans.
Brandon Morales
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Carter Mitchell
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Anthony Campbell
You don't see the difference between the two games?
Connor Murphy
>A gord is a medieval Slavic fortified settlement, also occasionally known as a burgwall or Slavic burgwall after the German name for these sites. This Proto-Slavic word (*gordъ) for town or city, later differentiated into grad (Cyrillic: гpaд), gard, gorod (Cyrillic: гopoд), etc. The ancient peoples were known for building wooden fortified settlements. The reconstructed Centum-satem isogloss word for such a settlement is g’herdh, gordъ, related to the Germanic *gard and *gart (as in Stuttgart etc.).
When reading fantasy books and seeing stuff like Icengard, I always thought the -gard part is something form Germanic, and means "guard", like a castle or wall. It probably comes from the Slavic word for town instead.
Kevin Fisher
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Zachary Morris
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Samuel Barnes
In my (Slavic) language the word for castle / fortress is "hrad".
Colton Ortiz
Looks good for horses but not so much for turnshoes. Those wear out quite quickly when you walk on cobblestones I heard.
Aaron Morgan
How practical would it be for an attacking force to set fire to such a construction, exactly? Once such a large amount of timber starts to burn, it will burn like Hell, but I am not sure its easy to start that fire.
Would it be a valid strategy to sit behind the walls and defend them with projectiles, or would the defenders have to rally up in front of the walls, and the walls would thus have the function of delaying the attack, and preventing a sack, rather than a castle to hide in?
David Bailey
I know from historical sources that leather shoos like the turnshoe, called opanak 9en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opanak) were used extensively on paved roads and squares. Maybe their low cost and low investment made it so it was okay to replace them relatively often?
Ryder Ortiz
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Kevin Peterson
I was playin ac:3 the other night, kinda wish there was a game with a world to explore that resembled the fortlife within land filled with large pine, mountains and meadows and lakes- with a stealth element and extensive non lethal combat
exploring mountains and caves, navigating through the pine trees and lakes and amazing sunrises and sunsets and gathering resources from tyrannical enemy forces in the cold forest night
Landon Cruz
It really depends on how long it hasn't rained. Since the wood wasn't painted with anything to cover it from water it's just bare wood soaking in rain. And that burns like utter shit.
Carson Gonzalez
Perhaps, that said I can't think of much art that shows paved village streets.
Xavier Anderson
>AC3 >medieval
Adam Reyes
yeah but it had forts and fort missions id play over and over
fortlife
Isaiah Phillips
Germans also did some cool shit in Romania >In the middle of the village there is a well. >The well is surrounded by trees >The trees are surrounded by vineyards >The vineyards are surrounded by houses, all of the same height. >The houses are surrounded by fields.
Brayden Carter
the argument isn't whether or not it's easy but when/where it happened or didn't happen.
Jason Rogers
Pretty cool stuff. I wonder if it was intentionally designed that way, or naturally happened by people copying their neighbors.
Wyatt Ross
what the fuck? there were certain weeds they let grow for the animals, and grass had a way higher average height at the time. the real problem is that the middle of the road has grass growing while the sides doesn't, that makes no fucking sense with horses, deliverance did this better. historie is nice, the story-telling and "animation" is a bit of an acquired taste but then it's literally crack.
Bentley Hall
Intentionally. They were there were a bunch of German colonist that were trying new stuff with the land they were given
Wyatt Edwards
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Liam Garcia
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Brody Sanders
Glorious Romanian arhitecture
Jack White
>helga and adolf have a bit too many kids >suddenly they need another house in the village >fuck
Henry Peterson
Fun in the village
Josiah Brown
Populations were pretty low back in the day. Apparently it had its population peak in the 18th century with 300 villagers
Easton White
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Brandon Evans
forgot pic
Ian Reyes
they had cameras in 2000bc? truly we are inferior. I like how they couldn't even fucking find a modern picture of europe. JUST USE RUSSIA
Aiden Morris
you forgot the african space ships user
Hudson Jackson
Its a joke, user. Also here is a "modern" picture of Europe. Its from 1877, the Russian emperor stayed there with his advisers, since it was the best building in the region. Yes, thats how the Ottoman empire looked outside of the very few big urban cities.
Jonathan Torres
Mount and Blade Viking Conquest
Daniel Kelly
And here is where the international Red Cross representative stayed. A hole in the ground with a straw roof. Again, the best available building.
Nolan Harris
1877 military port city.
Thomas Evans
The Ottomans were truly cancer my E.Europe bro
Grayson Nelson
This is a picture of a Dutch farm from say 1850, and the dutch were in a century long economic depression back then.
Daniel Gutierrez
The witcher is made by poles
William Hernandez
What does this have to do with his post?
Josiah Howard
He's saying its made for americans when its made by poles who are mildly rabid about their own history
Cooper James
they're not even remotely similar games though, including geography and sets.
Thomas Flores
He is saying its made for americans, which it is.
Xavier Anderson
Where is this, it looks like a Chinese wetland?
Caleb Russell
Its made for poles and americans liked it
Dylan Flores
>which it is. n't. the sales are much more centered in europe than most games. and the culture portrayed is extremely polish
Luke Ward
And the culture portrayed in Skyrim is extremely scandinavian, and it sold very well in Europe. Doesn't make it any less of a "for americans" game.
Gabriel Hernandez
>and the culture portrayed in skyrim is extremely scandinavian if you base it off romantization of vikings by hollywood, yeah, sure. Witcher 3 is based directly on polish folklore though, with authentic period costumes etc. so that's a pretty shit argument. Also skyrim had a pretty common spread of sales, probably a bit more centered in america than the average spread, actually.
Connor Turner
Skyrim uses vikings as a theme but thats it, the witcher makes an effort at being accurate to medieval poland
Michael Martinez
>Since the wood wasn't painted with anything to cover it from water yes it was.
Isaiah Williams
What, with mud?
Thomas James
Didn't they base Novigrad of Medieval Flanders/Holland?
Logan Gonzalez
pine tar usually
Carter Lee
Too misogynist, sexist and racist for American audiences desu. senpai
Charles Carter
I think Bannerlord will give you more reason to actually walk around the settlements rather than access everything from a menu. They wont have put all that work in for nothing
Justin Roberts
>historie
I'll look into it, seems nice.
Jayden Sanchez
if you're into sets I highly recommend you read the VOLUME scans rather than the magazine scans. They can be found at hoxscanlation, who's the translator. I'll post you a comparison of a magazine scan and a volume scan.
Ethan Long
and here it is in the tankobon/volume
Henry Lewis
Holy shit, thats a lot of material. Thanks, man. Will keep me busy [spoiler]in the office, as I pretend to work[/spoiler].