No probs - to someone who's studied history at a level higher than primary school I can quite see that this is ridiculously oversimplified and the ignorance of the rest of us must be very irritating. But, most of our target audience are adults, but won't have studied history beyond primary school. (well, they probably did some period or other at senior school but no promises that it'll be this one). As we gathered from my Boudicca reference not being "got", we can't even take primary-school level education for granted when we're dealing with multiple cultural backgrounds. Sure, we can use the deeper stuff as inspiration, but as a generic quick description that our audience can be expected to understand - no. Expecting anyone to have studied any period of history beyond primary school is doomed to disappointment, just as much as my elegant and simple explanation of dragon-newt magic that depends on an understanding of general relativity and 5D maths. (You mean there are adults who dropped physics before degree level? Really?)
I'm sorry and apologize for the tone.
On a relreading of it, I suppose my previous message sounds unnecessarily harsh or offending.
Please, accept my excuses.
Gian
> > >> The whole point is that no empire has ever existed with a single
> > >>set of cultural values.
>
> > >Who said anything about a single set of cultural values?
>
> > Culture determines what type of troops are available.
>
> well, if you're using "culture" that broadly.... so the lack of a single set of cultural values in the Roman Empire stopped them having a standard recognisable troop type, did it?
'Recognisable' and 'stardard' by whom?
I mean, we usually have a standard idea of history because we studied it in the primary school, where everything was standard and simple.
Even mathematics.
BUT history, like any other subject, is not standard or full of standard ideas when you approach it as an adult.
Roman history and roman army are complex beasts.
Like Egyptian history or medieval english history, for what they're worth :-)
Please, use an adult approach OR choose to rely on a childish idea of it (like Asterix is) but don't claim that everybody must translate history to childish-basic concepts when adults are listening.
:-)
Gian
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