History Repeats (and Sometimes It's Great)

As a child, and as with most children, I was very curious. And perhaps within a fraction of that—maybe not so big but not so small either—were children like me, who had their curiosities drawn to books and stories. The story in particular was of William Wallace, and the book which sparked my curiosity for it was of the same name. It was something my father picked up at a book fair for reasons I never really did ask about.

This led to my father introducing me to a video game, where I could relive not only some of the glorious exploits of Wallace, but also of the brave Scots of yore as a whole—albeit with some creative liberties to paint a "good" ending to his story. And what an ending it was, when I smashed the English in the Battle of Falkirk and ensured Scotland's independence (under the watchful eyes and sometimes helpful hands of my father). I did read not long after that Falkirk actually ended in a crushing defeat for the Scots and, while it was tragic, it wasn't quite the end. But it still made me feel good that, perhaps in a way, I personally altered events to give Wallace and the Scots a happy ending in some timeline somewhere.

So it was that my interest in the Middle Ages led me to fully completing Age of Empires II, which after many years led me to who I am today: a professor of Medieval history. Probably not the career path that was expected, but I was too old and slow (well, mostly just too slow) to compete in Age of Empires II's small but vibrant esports scene.

Still, that doesn't stop me from enjoying the game in my free time, and it brings a grateful tear to my eye to know that my favorite video game of all time grew up with me while never losing its heart and soul in the process. The fact that it continues to see strong support from its developers makes me happy for future generations as well as for older players like myself, since they'll always have the opportunity to see and try out this timeless classic.

"Wow, what's that, dad?"

Speaking of future generations, my son approached my desk as I was close to finishing the final mission in the Joan of Arc campaign to get the gold completion medal for it. Come to think of it, I was around his age when I discovered my dad playing this game. Talk about history repeating, I suppose.

I moved my left arm away as he scooted over to jump onto my lap, just in time for him to see French cannons smash the English tower defending the center of Castillon, and knights charging forward as soon as the towers fell to clear a path for the horse-drawn cart carrying the French flag.

Of course, he also saw me skillfully directing these armies against the enemy. "Nice, you're winning, dad!"

It was more just me selecting all my knights and pressing the attack-move command onto the outnumbered enemy force, after I easily smashed the tower with a single volley from my large number of bombards...but it's fine. I am allowed to impress my child every now and then, no?

After the victory screen appeared came the outro, where the narrator of the campaign mused his thoughts after the decisive victory that ended the Hundred Years' War. While for all intents and purposes the campaign also took some creative liberties that the historian in me could not help but comment on, it also did so with both fun and a feel-good ending in mind—which I believe the campaign achieved, even for one who has already finished it many times over such as myself.

Even my own son could not help but feel moved. He looked up at me as the fictional Guy Josselyne ended his speech:

Sometimes the outcome of history is determined by strength of arms, other times by happenstance.

But in fifteenth century France, history was determined by the will of a young girl...

...the only person in history to command the armies of an entire nation at the age of seventeen.

"Wow...was she real, dad?" my son asked.

"You bet she is," I replied, as I Alt-tabbed out of the game and into one of my lecture notes folders (which I navigated with a speed and precision that I wish I could transfer to my video games). I found the introductory slideshow to Joan of Arc, and in the first slide was a beautiful painting of her by Jean-Jacques Scherrer...and below it was her in-game model in Age of Empires II.

"So you actually played as her in the game?!" he exclaimed, recognizing the graphical similarity between the admittedly-low resolution picture and the game he was watching less than a minute earlier.

"Sort of, yes. In fact, you can play with a lot of heroes from the Middle Ages in this game, as well as all their big armies. You want to try?"

My son's eyes visibly lit up. He of course would know how to play video games at his age, and I was a big influence in making it so that his first exposure to them weren't simple mobile games. He also got interested in the Middle Ages, thanks in no small part to all the related books, documentaries and movies that I have.

In a way, it was as if I was reliving my life at seven years old from my father's perspective. My dad wasn't a medieval studies or even history major, but he was a big fan of medieval fantasy novels, and he sometimes picked up other books about the medieval era (like the aforementioned Wallace biography) as a result. And just as he had managed to imprint his love of that time period onto me, so too did I imprint it onto my own son.

And so I guided him through the game's tutorial, which was the campaign of William Wallace. After playing through that, it was time for lunch (which I was in charge of making). The wife was sadly at work and so couldn't join us, but we had lunch together all the same thanks to the magic of video calls.

After that, my son was eager to play a "real" game this time, and pestered me to set it up for him.

"C'mon, dad, I can handle it!"

"Are you sure, son? You just picked this game up an hour ago."

"I can handle it. I beat that campaign on Moderate difficulty, remember?"

"...alright, son." I had a small smirk on as I set the difficulty of the AI enemy to Hard for his first ever 1-v-1 skirmish.

He was crushed in less than 15 minutes, and told me through bitter tears that he doesn't want to play the game anymore. I couldn't help but laugh as I patted his head, since if what had happened to me during my own first skirmish match was any indication, he'll be back to play again. Oh, what memories...

Given a couple of years, he'll probably best me in a match, and neither I nor my wife will ever hear the end of it.