3 years and nothing changed

[KG Erwin]

Now, now, I WAS just kidding. Jeez, I'm starting a Romanian travelogue. Here's a nice photo from the Black Sea coast:

[SiG]

ORIGINAL: Puukkoo

SiG! Welcome to the Boards. You have started with in medias res attitude, I like that and those are fine arguments, but people are sensitive here. You don't need to yell at them. It is true that no one likes to see his country as Russian cannon fodder and I don't like to see any country as that.

Thank you for your welcome Puukkoo! I know I started a bit abruptely, but I just hoped I can make a difference. I tried to keep the tone as civil as possible. I picked this topic because it's the only one where I can make meaningfull comments. I'm not experienced enough to discuss strategy.

The default values given to units represent the average. Not the whole army. If you created a historical scenario the values should be adjusted to meet the requirements. There have been not too many scenarios/campaigns concerning Romania anyway.

Well that's what bothers me. How did the game developpers determine that the average Romanian soldier was the worst and most incompetent one in the whole world? In 1941/2/43/44 and '45, in each of these years Romania had 2 (two) armies on the frontline. Obviously these armies were not 100% elite. How was it possible to field such a large force if the soldiers kept running away or surrendering? I agree that Romanian soldiers had outdated/insufficient equippment, but I have yet to hear an example where Romanian troops lost a battle because they ran away out of sheer cowardice.
I think the best solution would be to simply reduce the differences between countries. This way it would not matter who's first and who's on last place. In the end, the major powers weren't supermen, and the minors weren't subhuman

Sources for the Romanian history have not been paid enough heed of western scholarly interest, until present, to end up as detailed and updated information into a wargame such as SPWAW. The values have been based on secondnary sources, such as Russian history, which explains the low ratings. That's not utterly designers cause and hardly their purest will either. If gamers' interest towards Romania increases, there will be corrections and additions as well accordingly.

Sadly, this is true. Romanian contribution in ww2 has been very poorly researched. I find it hard to accuse the Matrix staff of bad scholarship, when there are even Romanians who believe such things. Throughout the comunist period, the campaign in the East was a forbidden subject. WW2 started for Romania on 23 August 1944, and the only subject discussed was the western campaign. (Now the situation is the opposite. Nobody writes anything about the western campaign and the only sources I know are communist-era propaganda. Try quoting that on the froum!) For western historians, the only sources available were German documents that tried to put the blame for every defeat on the minor allies and paint them as subhuman. Sadly, many have accepted this information indiscriminately.
Regarding Romania in SPWAW, I must say that, leaving aside the experience/morale issue I think the deveoppers have done a very good job. Obviously a lot of work went into the Romanian OOB. That's why I was surprised to see that the game perpetuates myths about Romanians beeing cowards /incompetent /dumb peasants /"surrender monkeys", etc. I really hope this can change.

I need some sleep now so that's it for today. Tomorrow maybe I will post something about Ceausescu and Dracula. I hope I will come across as less beliquose. Good night!

To KG Erwin: I see you're enjoying Romania. Where was that photo taken? Eforie?

[duskdeep]

The photos are nice, especially the first one which is probably taken near a village in the mountains.It's very nice to know that when you want peace and quiet from the aggitation of the city, or maybe just adventure soloing through the woods [:)] , you can find these things at aprox. 4 hrs of driving.But places like these, which are almost isolated from the world around them, are beginning to slowly disappear...

As for Vlad the Impaler , or "Vlad Tepes", he was simply the ruler of Valachia during a short period of the 15th century. During that period, he proved to be very harsh with internal criminal acts (minor as thieving to major ...),his enemies and with Ottomans, who ,at the time, were the most dangerous threat. He had the habbit of impaling those mentioned above. Vlad Tepes was supossebly a cruel ruler, but his behaviour wasn't at all exagerated during those times.The rest is myth, legend and fantasy. Maybe some of it was spawned by the fact that Vlad Tepes' father was Vlad Dracul, a member of a certain order, the dragon order if I recall...

[Goblin]

Welcome to the forums, SiG![:)]


Goblin

[soldier]

Some excellent posts SIG
You and others have provided some good discussion and rationale over an issue some of us can see is an obvious problem. Its an unintentional slap in the face for all those who stated " Romania sucks " or "thats history, live with it" at the start of this thread.

[Puukkoo]

LOL!!!

Gunny Erwin had to post those 'beautiful pictures' for not to annoy Romanians.

You know it's Halloween and maybe Dracula is there somewhere too...

[duskdeep]

Well, I don't think he really wants to mess with an angry Romanian mob[:)]

Since we're at exchanging lore about general facts regarding our countries, I would like to ask people in the US why is it politically correct to call Indians "Native Americans"?... I mean, when we were learning universal history, we were being taught that we should call them Amerindians.I just stumbled across this thing while browsing the Ensemble Studios forums, who have just released AOE3.

And another question: our English teacher who we had in high-school told us that while she was visiting England, she was a bit shocked by the fact that people there called blackboards just "boards" as it would prove racist if you were to use the word "blackboard"...I'm wondering if you have the same thing, and even if you don't maybe someone can enlighten me[:)]

[SiG]

Hello again! As I promised, I will write now something about Dracula.
As duskdeep has allready pointed out, Dracula is based on a real historical character, known in Romania as Vlad the Impaler. Contrary to popular belief, he never ruled Transylvania, but just spent a part of his youth there. His father, allso named Vlad, had joined the order of the dragon (which was a sort of personal bodyguard for the emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg). He was called Vlad Dracul (the Devil) by his people. The word draco (latin for "dragon") is like the Romanian word drac (=devil). The young Vlad was named "Draculea", which in ancient Romanian means "son of the Devil". He was a very harsh, but allso very just ruler, and certainly he was no "devil". His favourite punishment, impaling, was in no way exagerated in an age where common forms of execution included being roasted alive, broken on the wheel, skinned alive, disemboweled alive, etc.. (you get the picture).

[Terminus]

I've seen somewhere that a lot of Romanians these days think of him as a sort of folk hero. Is that accurate?

[soldier]

His favourite punishment, impaling, was in no way exagerated in an age where common forms of execution included being roasted alive, broken on the wheel, skinned alive, disemboweled alive, etc.. (you get the picture).

[X(].....and i was always thought Vlad the impaler was a cruel sadist, this puts him in some perspective. Don't know if I'd want him for a neighbour though [:)]

[VikingNo2]

I think they do, and I believe he is, after the battle where the nick name comes from it discuraged his enemy's. Of course I am novice about this.

Most history is written by the winners by the way

[Puukkoo]

And it's not only that Vlad Draculi had been better than his fame.

Russians have also claimed that Ivan the Terrible was not 'that evil'. They believe that he was actually quite lenient at least in the Russian scale.

[SiG]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

I've seen somewhere that a lot of Romanians these days think of him as a sort of folk hero. Is that accurate?

Yes. Many romanians today admire his swift justice. Romania today is plagued by corruption and this drives the people crazy, so they hope that "Lord Tepes" could come back to cleanse the land.
He is allso a national hero because he fought against the Turks, for the freedom of his country.