Why medieval city-builder video games are historically inaccurate (2020)

Visual Aesthetics: Brown Fantasy vs Colorful Middle Ages

• Several comments dispute the “earthy” brown look of medieval games: art sources show bright, varied clothing and interiors, with painted wood and textiles, not bare timber.
• Games and films also depict cities isolated in grassland; commenters note that real premodern cities were typically ringed by dense farms up to the walls, which media avoids because it looks “boring” and is harder to render.
• Armour is another example: on screen it might as well be cloth, but in reality good armour should make you far harder to kill, which could be used for interesting mechanics.

Agriculture, Space, and Subsistence

• People emphasize how huge a share of land and labor basic subsistence took; the common farmer:non‑farmer ratio cited is around 29:1.
• Many games (and shows like zombie dramas) unrealistically show tiny plots feeding entire communities.
• Historical villages often stayed small and stable for centuries; constant expansion and relocation of fields in games breaks realism (and makes crop rotation nonsensical).

Gendered Labor and Domestic Economy

• Strong focus on “women’s work”: spinning, weaving, clothing production, food prep, childrearing, and seasonal farm labor.
• One line of discussion argues spinning alone consumed most of women’s time until spinning wheels spread; another notes that domestic workloads also included brewing, gardening, and teaching children to work.
• There’s debate about when spinning wheels appeared and why they spread slowly (lack of economic demand vs “they should have invented it earlier”).

Fun vs Realism in Game Design

• Many defend inaccuracy as necessary: realism often means tedium (long agricultural cycles, random plagues, waiting, walking) and frequent, unfair failure.
• Comparisons are made to FPS and racing games: realistic ammo, injuries, fuel, and repair times would ruin pacing for most players.
• Others argue some historically grounded mechanics—non-grid roads, taxes, disease, labor constraints—could deepen gameplay without killing fun.

Games That Try for More Authenticity

• Banished is praised for its harsh, slow subsistence loop; some lament it being “abandoned,” others say it felt complete, with mods like Colonial Charter extending it.
• Manor Lords and Ostriv are cited as closer to organic medieval village growth, including cottage gardens and household-scale production, though still not fully “medieval.”
• Frostpunk is mentioned as an example where difficulty, class structure, sickness, and non-linear roads echo some of the article’s points.

Feudalism, Power, and Missing Institutions

• Commenters note that “lords” in games look like parasitic overlords; analogies are drawn to modern “cloud feudalism” (platform dependence, arbitrary bans).
• Others point out that feudalism wasn’t universal: some societies had kings but no classic lord/serf structure, yet games almost always default to a feudal model.
• Monasteries are highlighted as major historical engines of development—record-keeping, technology, agriculture—that are nearly invisible in city builders.

Why Inaccuracies Persist

• Several people argue players want a medieval aesthetic plus modern expectations: linear progress, growth, control, and power fantasies about escaping subsistence.
• The “medieval” setting in games functions more as a visual language than a historical period; accuracy that contradicts this shared mental model often feels like a bug, not a feature.