Virtual Byzantium: How Historical Games Represent Byzantine Society

The gaming medium can stimulate original perspectives on the past by incorporating underrepresented cultures or minorities into its game systems. However, when reflecting on the concept of accuracy,¹ it has been emphasized that games “should also be inclusive without lying to the audience,” and Diana Cristina Răzman specified that the way the gaming industry addresses diversity depends on the socio-cultural context in which it operates.²

In this post we reflect on the representation of ethnic diversity within the Eastern Roman Empire as portrayed in some video games. Here, we understand the term “ethnicity” in light of the meanings that the Olivetti Ancient Greek Dictionary has given to ἔθνος, namely “gente”, “popolo”, “nazione” (loosely “ethnic group”, “people”, or “nation”). The goal is to understand what kind of society is presented by the games in question and what kind of imagery they convey. We examine Medieval II: Total War (2006), the Crusades Campaign (2007) from the Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms DLC, and Crusader Kings III (2020). The selected titles span the 11th to 12th centuries: Medieval II: Total War starts in 1080 and the Crusades Campaign in 1174, while Crusader Kings III begins in 867 or 1066, depending on the player’s initial choice. For Medieval II: Total War and its DLC, we focus on the unit descriptions available on Total War Wiki and the building descriptions on the Royal Military Academy website. For Crusader Kings III, we look at the Crusader Kings III Wiki.

Before we start, however, we will give you a brief outline of Byzantine society in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Byzantium: A Complex Reality³

Marco di Branco recently stated that, due to its ethnic and linguistic melting pot, Byzantine society is receiving increasing attention, as it is considered a precursor to contemporary multicultural societies.⁴ Judith Herrin, in a chapter titled A Cosmopolitan Society, described the ethnic complexity of Byzantine society. She highlighted that in the 12th century a contingent of Varangian Guards, made up of “English and Danish” soldiers,⁵was stationed in Constantinople and another ethnic group that left traces in the Byzantium of the time was recruited from the eastern regions of Armenia and Georgia.⁶ A Muslim merchant named Abdullah, after 1261, also entered Constantinople, stating that “there is a place as wide as two-thirds of Damascus, surrounded by walls with a gate, reserved exclusively for the use of Muslims [our emphasis]”.⁷ In the 12th century, finally, the Venetians were allowed to occupy an entire district along the Golden Horn, to build warehouses and have their own churches.⁸ But how is this complexity represented in the games under review?

Between complexity and simplification: Medieval II: Total War and the Crusades Campaign DLC

First off, it is visible in the units that are available to players. For example, when playing as the Byzantine Empire in Medieval II: Total War‘s Grand Campaign, players can recruit various units from ethnicities outside the empire, specific to the Byzantine faction. For example, one can recruit the Dismounted Latinkon, described on Total War Wiki as “Western European troops fighting for the Byzantine Empire” or the Varangian Guard, which is “made up wholly of Scandinavians and Englishmen.” Alternatively, units like the Skythikon, described as “Asiatic Nomads, who serve the Byzantine Empire as horse archers”, or the Vardariotai, “drawn mainly from the Magyars that settled in the Vardar Valley,” can also be recruited. It’s interesting to compare the statistics of these units with the “Byzantine”⁹ units to understand how they have been integrated into the gameplay system. Analyzing the unit statistics on Total WarWiki for the Byzantine Empire, we can see that the Dismounted Latinkon and Varangian Guard have the highest values for heavy infantry. Similarly, for missile cavalry, the highest stats are for the Skythikon and Vardariotai, while for heavy cavalry, the Latinkon¹⁰ wins out. In Medieval II: Total War, therefore, not only can the Byzantine Empire recruit units of various ethnicities, but these units, with their elevated stats, are also effective. The same prominence of the units is observed in the Crusades Campaign DLC, with the exception of the heavy cavalry category.¹¹

While in terms of recruitable units Medieval II: Total War and its DLC present the ethnic complexity of the imperial reality, though, analyzing the strategic map reveals a simplification of Byzantine society. From the Settlement Details in the regions, players can understand the distribution of various faiths (Orthodox, Islamic, Pagan, etc.); but it is not possible to determine who practices these faiths. Reading the descriptions of the buildings reveals an effort to create a religiously unified society. For instance, the Royal Military Academy website states that the Huge Orthodox Cathedral “ensures Christian dominance in the region”; the Small Orthodox Chapel, on the other hand, “stave[s] off the ever-present threat of heresy”. Priests are described as “men who form your front line against the perils of heresy, and can actually denounce witches and heretics”. Outside of the military sphere, then, Medieval II: Total War substantially simplifies the Byzantine ethnic reality, presenting a homogeneous society to the player.

Crusader Kings III and Roads to Power

Crusader Kings III provides a different perspective: militarily less varied, at least at the outset, but with a more nuanced approach to religion, culture and politics. Analyzing the CKIII Wiki’s section on armaments, we can see that the game allows the Byzantine Empire to recruit only one specific unit, the Varangian Guard, described as the “Imperial army for the Byzantine Empire”. Among the game’s parameters is Religion which “determines which deities and holy figures a character or the population of a country believes in”. Within Christianity different Faiths can be observed, including Orthodox, Bogomilism, Iconoclasm, Paulicianism, and Messalianism, reflectings the religious complexity of the Byzantine reality. Culture is defined by the CKIII Wiki as “the customs and technologies that a character or country uses”. In this area of interest, there is the mechanic of Cultural Acceptance, which “determines how much Opinion penalty two cultures have towards each other”, and every culture is characterized by various factors: Heritage, Ethos, Traditions, Language, Martial Custom, Architecture, Fashion, Coat of Arms, Military Equipment and Origin. The game, therefore, addresses religious and cultural differences through a range of mechanics and also allows for the creation of a “hybrid culture” in somes scenarios.

However, it is in the Roads to Power DLC that players can immerse themselves in “the unique politics and cultures of the heir to the Roman Empire”. As the CKIII Wiki notes, compared to the base game, it introduces “new events, monuments, and activities built around the Byzantine theme, including chariot racing” and a new soundtrack inspired by Orthodox chants. Roads to Power also unlocks new architectural (architecture) and fashion features for the Empire, allowing for the appreciation of Byzantium’s cultural influence even outside the areas traditionally inhabited by the Greeks. Here for example, the Albanians are characterized by their own traditions (Hill Defenders, Marital Ceremonies, Swords for Hire, Royal Court Staunch Traditionalists), Mediterranean-style architecture, and Byzantine fashion. Similarly, the Armenians have their own traditions (Fervent Temple Builders, Highland Warriors, Hill Dwellers, Strong Believers, Eastern Roman Legacy / Roads to Power Indomitable Azatani), but share Byzantine architecture and fashion. Militarily, the expansion unlocks specific units such as Akritai, Skoutatoi, and Ballistrai. None of these new units are tied to a specific ethnicity of the Empire but rather to moments in Byzantine military history.

Culture in CKIII seems to be the most suitable parameter for measuring how the differences within the Byzantine Empire are addressed by the developers. The game uses Culture as a tool for governance and expansion since it impacts the ability to control different territories. However, this mechanic is not a specific feature of the Byzantine Empire. Crusader Kings III and its DLC therefore do a good job of outlining the cultural and religious complexity of Europe and the Mediterranean, but they do not provide an equally detailed differentiation of the Byzantine society’s ethnic composition. 

The theme of restoring ethnic complexity in the video game world has already been addressed by some scholars. Regarding the barbarians in Total War: Rome, for example, it has been said that “the inferior barbarian as a particular cultural myth […] is […] a reconstructed fantasy, unrelated to the actual experience and status of barbarians in the ancient world.”¹² Furthermore, it was precisely the desire to restore the complexity of the “barbaricum” that led to the creation of the total conversion mod Europa Barbarorum.¹³ In relation to the Eastern Roman Empire, with the exception of the recruitable units in Total War: Medieval II, then, all of these games seem to fail to fully capture the ethnic differences within the imperial reality. Problematically, this could generate the impression that this was a homogeneous society, rather than a complex multicultural environment.

Gian Luca Gonzato is author of several studies examining the relationship between games and history, published in journals such as Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea, Cadernos do Tempo Presente, Didattica della Storia, Farestoria and others. After obtaining a degree in Storia (Ca’ Foscari University, 2018), he specialized in Storia dal Medioevo all’età Contemporanea (Ca’ Foscari University, 2020) and earned a Master’s degree in Public & Digital History(University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, 2022). In 2023, he attended the advanced training course Patrimoni culturali a confronto: fonti e metodi per educare al futuro (University of Bologna) and in 2024 he successfully completed a course in Gaming and Boardgame Design (University of Genoa). Since 2025, he has been the Coordinator of the ClioLudica section of the journal Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea. Since 2021, he has been a member of PopHistory ETS, and for this association, he has curated historical research for the YouTube channel Storici in Gioco (an online project that has contributed to spreading primary sources through historical game gameplay).

Gabriele Sorrentino, a graduate in Scienze Politiche with a focus on Historical and Political Studies from the University of Urbino, holds a Master’s degree in Public History from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He has authored historical novels on Mutina, Roman Modena: Mvtina, l’alba dell’Impero (Artestampa 2017); Mvtina, Geminiano e il crepuscolo degli Dei (Artestampa 2018); Mvtina, Giorni senza sole (Artestampa 2020); Mvtina, lo scontro fatale(Artestampa 2023). He is one of the founding members of POP HISTORY, an association born from the experience of several students from the Master’s program in Public History at UNIMORE. In the special issue “Orizzonti della Didattica della Storia” (Vol. 2, No. 1S (2020)), he published Medium Aevum in Fabula: Il romanzo e il fascino del Medioevo. He also published Il romanzo e il Medioevo: una lunga storia di Contaminazioni in the VII Cycle of Medieval History, Proceedings of the Conference in Florence from June 7-10, 2021, pp. 190-195. He contributed the essay Giocare il Risorgimento in Mettere in gioco il passato (edited by Chiara Asti), Milan, Unicopli, 2019, pp. 201-217. Together with Gian Luca Gonzato, he published Lo schermo di Attila ovvero come le produzioni statunitensi hanno immaginato l’Unnoin Cadernos do Tempo Presente, vol. 15, no. 01, pp. 03-35, Jan./Jun. 2024.

References

1. Tara Copplestone has defined accuracy as something that is “tangible, measurable, knowable and absolute”. Copplestone in: Eve Stirling and Jamie Wood, ‘“Actual history doesn’t take place”: Digital Gaming, Accuracy and Authenticity,’ Game Studies, 21.1 (2021) https://gamestudies.org/2101/articles/stirling_wood; However, it was highlighted in a recent podcast that for developers “it’s more important to be authentic than factual” and that authenticity is a feeling: Distillations Podcast, Science History Institute,  https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/distillations-pod/learning-history-with-video-games/ ↩︎
2. Diana Cristina Răzman, Replaying History: Accuracy and Authenticity in Historical Video Game Narratives, Masters Degree Project in Media, Aesthetic and Narration, University of Skovde, 2020, p. 45 ↩︎
3.  For reasons of space, it is not possible to conduct an in-depth analysis of Byzantine society here. For further reading, refer to: Cyril Mango, La civiltà bizantina, Edizioni Laterza, 2009; Judith Herrin, Bisanzio. Storia dell’Impero che unì due mondi, Bur. Rizzoli, 2021. ↩︎
4. Marco di Branco, Breve storia di Bisanzio, Carocci editore, 2018, p.18 ↩︎
5. Herrin, Bisanzio, p.274 ↩︎
6. Ibid, p. 275. ↩︎
7. Ibid., p. 278. ↩︎
8. Ibid., p. 288. ↩︎
9.  That is, with those units that are explicitly called that way in the game. ↩︎
10. With the exception of the values concerning Defence, where the Kataphractoi prevail. ↩︎
11. Where the highest statistics belong to the Archontopoulai, who ‘[are] elite heavy cavalry drawn from officers’ orphans’. ↩︎
12. Emily Bembeneck, Phantasms of Rome: Video Games and Cultural Identity in Playing with the Past. Digital Games and the Simulation of History, edited by Matthew Wilhelm Kapell and Andrew B.R. Elliott (New York, Bloosmbury Academic, 2013), p. 87. ↩︎
13. Laurent Anglade, La représentation de l’Antiquité dans les jeux vidéo dits historiques in Antiquipop, 2018, https://books.openedition.org/momeditions/3356 . Regarding Total War: Attila, on the other hand, the game’s ability to highlight the differences between barbarian populations has recently been emphasized: Gian Luca Gonzato, Lorenzo De Marchi, Storia in gioco? Uno studio di Total War: Attila in Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea, 46, 2/2021, pp. 125-142, p. 128, https://www.studistorici.com/2021/06/29/gonzato_demarchi_numero_46/ ↩︎