[mnehring]

Funny, from the fall of the Empire in the West at least as far as the Early Modern Period, Christian Europe was stuck in relative "dark wages" while the Muslim world was not. And I don't think you'll find anyone anywhere more genuinely religious than Medieval European Christians.

It is interesting isn't it that part of the reason the Dark Ages were dark was the lack of written history- considering the 'church' in much of Europe banned reading to only scripture by priests, then part of the 'darkness' was promoted by the church (not Christianity, but the established church..) There were many factors that kept us in the Dark Ages and brought us out, Christian and non-Christian on both counts.

Regarding this game, it is very Euro centric in its audience and thus, I believe they wrote to the history we know the best (and what the designers knew).. I see much in these games that miss the many nuances of other Pan-Asian cultures as well; I blame a simple lack of knowledge.

[Vicomte13]

"considering the 'church' in much of Europe banned reading to only scripture by priests, then part of the 'darkness' was promoted by the church"

That is flatly untrue.

The Church did not bad reading.
At all.
The Northern Barbarians of Europe, who descended on Rome (and who include the Celtic and Germanic and Slavic peoples) couldn't read at all. And literacy was not all that widespread among the Italians either, for that matter.

The CHURCH didn't command illiteracy. The people WERE illiterate. And it was the monasteries, especially in Ireland, that preserved what little bit of reading materials there were through those ages.

Also, Europe was in political chaos thanks to barbarians, most of them frank pagans, exploding on the scene. You can't blame the CHURCH for the loss of civilization inflicted by PAGANS, can you? (Or can you? I suppose you can if you want to persist in the erroneous belief that the Church suppressed literacy.)

Find the papal bull suppressing literacy.
Find the orders. Everything from the early ages of the Church is all documented. Cite the source that says the Church banned reading.
You can't.
Because it does not exist and never did.

This is an illusion, and it's wrong.

[The_Reader_David]

Your historical understanding is sorely lacking. The lapse in literacy took place only in regions of Europe which came under domination by Germanic barbarians. The attitude of the Germanic nobility was that literacy was 'ignoble', unworthy of warriors, and they thus deliberately remained uneducated (Charlemagne's court being a notable exception), and discouraged education in general.

Areas where Roman culture prevailed--the Empire in the East, and the area around Ravenna and Venice--never had a decline in literacy. I remind you that the Church was united until the 11th century, and that Ravenna and Venice were always in the Patriarchate of Rome. (Nor was classical learning lost: Anna Comnena's Alexiad, written in the 11th century, is full of classical allusions as well as references to Scripture.)

The protestants' and freethinkers' legend of the Church restricting literacy to the clergy is very hard to square with the history of mission of SS. Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia: Greek monks, operating with the blessing of the Pope of Rome, went to great effort to give a written language to the Slavs. Hardly necessary if only the clergy (who could be expected to learn Greek) were allowed to read.

What, in fact, happened, was that in the de-Romanized lands in the Patriarchate of Rome, only the clergy and monastics preserved literacy during the Dark Ages.