Remember when I made that snarky comment about the Mayans throwing beehives?
Turns out it’s true. Sort of. The Popol Vuh
And the Medieval II expansion isn’t the first game to use them; there were hornet throwers in Empire Earth II as well. And this Civilization III description of the Maya makes reference to these same weapons.
Oddly, the Popol Vuh doesn’t say the gourds were thrown, or that they were beehives. Another secondary text makes reference to Mayans using slings to drop hanging hornet nests on enemies, but that seems pretty far-fetched.
But this Mayan warfare myth is now upgraded to Plausible.
Dude, watch Apocalypto.
Yeah, because Mel Gibson did so much research into Mayan society.
Eh… just sayin’ that’s probably a good enough source for a computer game developer. :)
Actually, upon a little digging, it turns out that Gibson and the screenwriter used the Popol Vuh as part of their reference material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypto
I dunno, some filmmakers really do research things before they make a movie. Gibson’s one of those guys that makes good cinema while still retaining a lot of the historical fact based on research. Lots of folks love Braveheart because of its relative authenticity historically, don’t they?
I think people love Braveheart because things get chopped off, but it’s not bad as far as history goes – at least in the short strokes. When Gibson tries to make larger points from his historical movies he loses something.
I haven’t seen Apocalypto, but if it has beehives I may have to.
Only a single hive… but it’s a pretty good scene.
Yeah, those hive-throwers better have a pretty low ammo count. I mean, who totes around more than a couple of bee-hives?
One could well ask who totes around fifteen javelins.
Braveheart, while entertaining movie, isn’t even relatively historical (for some examples visit http://medievalscotland.org/scotbiblio/bravehearterrors.shtml, or pick up Columbia Games’ Hammer of the Scots http://www.columbiagames.com/).
The shame of MTW2 is the poor lads who think all this stuff turned up to eleven is accurate, while they’ll never know that there *is* a historically accurate medieval computer wargame on the market: Jeff Lapkoff’s Medieval 2 (http://www.jefflapkoffgames.com/medieval.html).
The better looking and more historical appearing these games become, the more I’m aware of how unhistorical the grand strategies and battles “feel”.
Flailing Elephants // Oct 19, 2007 at 1:05 pm
[…] of “begging the question” aside, this sounds like a lot of fun. Sure, it falls into the Mayan Hornet Bomber category, and it turns its back on the strong historical grounding the core Age of Empires III […]