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Origins

April 11th, 2005 by Troy Goodfellow · 1 Comment · History

Isn’t it funny how things get started in the strategy game world? Before Age of Empires II came along, could your average gamer tell you what a trebuchet was? Or what it looked like? Or how it worked?

Now it seems that every strategy game set in the Middle Ages (or that has a Middle Age moment) has a trebuchet in there somewhere. Ensemble Studios found something cool and now everyone has one. In fact, I am hard pressed to think of a single Medieval strategy game in the last five years that doesn’t have a trebuchet in it.

And so, one hit game from 1999 has now cemented the place of an obscure siege engine into the hearts of gamers.

I note this because Knights of Honor (review forthcoming) seems to borrow a lot of terms and unit names from other, more famous games. Not that the more famous game invented the name or term, but when I say hobilar or ghulam cavalry, chances are you have a creatively assembled game in mind, if you catch my drift.

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  • Default Powers in Discovery

    […] for what these virtual worlds are supposed to look like. I’ve already mentioned how the trebuchet moved from an obscure medieval weapon to being something that strategy gamers expect. Age of […]