>
> OK, so cite some examples.
>
Citing some examples of stuff that didn't happen is very hard. So I think
I'll pass 8-).

> exactly the kind of alliances you are saying are so un-real. If you are
playing in
> a PBeM set in Anuire and the entire game solidified into two factions
each would
> still be smaller than many of the nations of the medieval period.
>
Yas, but such a thing wouldn't be a "nation" (because we're not talking
about, for example, the Angevin inheritance in France, where all these
fiefs were under the authority of one ruling house - we're talking about,
for example, if all of North Italy's city states decided to become faithful
allies of each other - no unitary rule, as in a nation, just large
alliances).
>
> Well, I've argued that the "way of life" you are talking about actually
represents a
> very small fraction of the population,
>
Which happens to be the population that "matters" in the Birthright game
(this small fraction of the population translates as blooded individuals,
their courtiers and main hangers on such as knights, etc), the people with
all the decision-making power (sadly, serfs did not get the vote until long
after they ceased to be serfs, and in many cases not until long after the
last european nations built on a "feudal" model ceased to exist - I.E.
after WWI ended). The views of the large fraction of the population ("I
thought we were living in an autonimous collective" "You're foolin`
yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self perpetuating autocracy in
which the ruling class. . " "There you go, bringing class into it again")
Now you see the violence inherant in the system. 8-)

> and was really secondary to diplomacy even in the medieval period.
>
That's really debatable, at best.

> the more flamboyant and historically notable (from a popularized
standpoint) than
> the reality, which is that even in periods of open warfare, the actual
wars took up
> a relatively small portion of the time.
>
. . .if every year. Even one of the more philosophically "peaceful" nations
of the era (the Byzantine Empire, natch, which did not glorify the military
arts to nearly the degree that their neighbors did and who's faith did not
sanction anything like the "holy wars" that their eastern and western
neighbors indulged in) went only a handful of years (6 or 4 or something
like that, I forget off the top of my head) without a military campaign on
at least one frontier. Sure, there was diplomacy alongside and during these
combative excersises - and in this case we are talking about a nation (also
almost unique in this respect) that prefered the use of diplomacy (and, for
that reason among others, was considered both weak and untrustworthy by
western lords).
Anyhow, we're now more-than-sort of doing what I, in at least my posts,
said was beside the point (nitpicking opinions of the "IRL midieval
perspective" rather than talking about gameplay). But ok, whatever.
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