The Conquistadors and the “New World”

In this blog post I will be discussing the Spanish Conquistadors and the effects that they had on “The New World” in the 1500’s and 1600’s.

The Spanish started to colonize North and South America after the Columbus discovered the islands of the Caribbean. The Spanish were able to colonize North and South America with very little resistance from other European countries due to the Treaty of Tordesillas which was backed by Pope Sixtus IV. The treaty was official in 1494 and it drew a North to South line that gave Spain all of the lands to the West of it, which cave most of the “New World” to the Spanish. This was the point in time when the Spanish gave full control of the “New World” to the conquistadors to bring as much gold and riches as they could back to Spain.

Most of the people that came over to the “New World” came because they had heard stories about there being rivers of gold and endless prizes.  When the tales of endless riches made their way back to Spain, they sent the Conquistadores to the “New World” to take these riches and bring them back to Spain.  One of the first Conquistadores that was sent to the “New World” was Hernan Cortes who arrived in the “New World” in 1504.  Hernan Cortes landed on the island of Hispaniola and proceeded to conquer that island and move onto the next island. In 1519 Cortes and his men entered Tenochtitlan which was the Aztec capitol.  The Conquistadors were astonished by the amounts of gold that the Aztecs had, but when they witnessed the practices of human sacrifice, they decided to try to capture the city.  The conquistadors than captured the Aztec leader Monctezuma then they had to flee the city to survive and fight another day. For two years after 1519 Cortes and his Conquistadors gathered up a force of local natives that hated the Aztecs so that he could try to take the city again.  In August of 1521 Cortez and is his large force attacked Tenochtitlan.  It was a very bloody fight that caused large numbers of death on both sides.  In the end the Conquistadors won the fight and the renamed Tenochtitlan to Mexico City.  Cortez would end up becoming the most famous Conquistador of all time, but it wasn’t necessarily because of the good that he might have done in the “New World” that he was remembered for, it was for all of bad that he did. As I mentioned earlier he captured what is modern day Mexico City from the Aztecs, but what many people don’t think about is that that cost the lives of about 240,000 lives and this was in the 1520’s when a 240,000 meant a lot more than it means now. Cortez’s capturing of Mexico City marked the begining of the downfall of the Aztec people and when Cortez defeated the Aztecs he moved onto the next native nation, then the next ans so on for many years.

Cortez was the most famous Conquistador, but there were many other conquistadors that had just as large of an effect on the “New World” as Cortez did. Francisco Pizarro was another famous Conquistador who arrived in the Caribbean in 1509. He took part in the expeditions of Panama. He then was one of the main leaders that fought the Inca’s in the 1520’s. Pizarro captured the leader of the Incas in 1533 then killed him, and formed the city of Lima, Peru. Hernando de Soto is another famous Conquistador who started off following Pizarro when he fought the Incas. De Soto led expeditions into modern day Florida, Georgia, and most of the rest of the Southern United States of America. He was known for the amount of fights that he took part in during his expeditions. He died in 1542 during one of his expeditions due to sickness. These are only two examples of the many other Conquistadors that went on many other expaditions across North and South America. Most of the Conquistadors were just as ruthless as Cortez was and they decimated many native populations across the “New World” in search of gold and riches.

By the 1600’s the new settlements in the “New World” had become permanent settlements and the golden age of the conquistador had come to an end.  Although the age of the Conquistador had come to an end the effects of the conquistadors would last forever.  The conquistadors had been responsible for mapping most of Florida, Central America, and South America.  Most of the early maps of the “New World” were created by conquistadors on their expeditions. The Spanish Armada was also created to supply the Conquistadors and to bring back the good that they had claimed in the name of Spain. But sadly the conquistadors had also brought many diseases that destroyed many communities and those who didn’t die from disease had to then physically fight the conquistadors after that.

History Through Gaming: Overview

Its the point in the semester where we all have to look back at what we have done in this gaming through history class. I’m going to write about the games that I feel had the best chance of teaching people or getting people to actually look into the history behind the games. I will also write about a project that we were assigned that I feel really made me need to look farther into a game that I really enjoyed.

Throughout the class we played many games that were all very different games from different times of history, and they all had their own different takes on history in the aspect of historical realism. We started the class off with the game Civilization V which is a game where you pick a historical civilization that is lead by an important leader from the history of that civilizations history. You are thrown into a world where you compete with other civilizations and city states and you need to progress your technology as time goes on to develop aspects like your education, income, military, and your culture. Civilization V is a great game for helping people loosely look at historical leaders and civilizations with a focus on balancing resources and improving civilization.

Another great game that we played was Battlefield I and Battlefield V which are games that I am very familiar with since I’ve been playing the Battlefield games for close to a decade. These games are first person shooter games that focus on wars through the eyes of the combat arms soldiers, mainly infantry and armor with a little bit of aviation thrown in for some added flair. The Battlefield games give players a base idea of what war in certain eras looked like through the eyes of the actual soldiers. The series takes some liberties at times to make the game more fun though one example is that in Battlefield I there is a very large use of sub machine guns that is way larger than the actual usage during World War I, and there is a large amount of experimental guns that are used in combat that were never actually used during World War I. Overall this series is great for peaking the interests of people that love the action of combat, but they also want to have the surroundings of historical combat.

For this class we also had to do a project on a game of our choice and we had to look at how people can learn from the game you chose. I chose to look into Red Dead Redemption II which is a game set in an alternate American Wild West setting where you are an outlaw with his gang on the run. The project made me look farther into this game which I really enjoyed and gave me a greater understanding of the ideas of the game and the real history that was pulled from to create the game, and then I was able to teach my class about the history behind the game also. That project was a great way to make everyone in the class have the chance to really dive into a game of their choice and really get a great understanding of the game.

Battlefield 1

I’m going to start this off by saying that I was not in class the day that we all played Battlefield 1, but I have been playing the Battlefield franchise since Battlefield Bad Company 2 so I know the games pretty well. I also was not in class for the lesson on World War I but luckily I have done a fair amount of personal research into the topic. Battlefield I is a great way to give people who have little to no knowledge about World War I an idea of what it was kind of like, but there are a lot of liberties that the game takes along the way. My first and major complaint about the game is that the use of sub machine guns and other experimental guns have way too much wide spread use during game play. World War I was fought mainly with bolt action rifles and heavy machine guns like the Maxim machine gun not wide spread machine guns and the American BAR wasn’t introduced to the war until the very end and was only used by American forces. This game does have some very great single player stories that can teach you about aspects of the war that are rarely talked about in the first place though. One example is the mission where you play as an Italian solider who is part of the Arditi which was a group of soldiers that specialized in near suicide missions that would often result in at least 50% casualties per mission. Overall Battlefield I is a great game to give you base knowledge of World War I but if you trying to play a simulation for this war look up the game Verdun which is a more hardcore simulator of the war.

Ultimate General: Civil War

Over the last week in class we have been playing Ultimate General: Civil War which is an RTS with lots of logistical game mechanics in between battles. In this game you start off by choosing between being a Union or a Confederate officer and then you play and intro mission and go straight into the battle of Bull Run. This game puts a large focus on the aspects of the Civil War that most people don’t think about which is logistics. Over time you are able to make your units larger and you are able to build more corps and divisions and you are also able to buy better weaponry for your soldiers. Your officers also can be wounded in battle so you need to learn how to adapt when you lose an experienced officer and they need to be replaced by some fresh new major. You also only have a certain number of replacements to refill your units after battles so when you are actually fighting you need to be careful to not take too many losses, if you have a unit get wiped out its devastating to your army. Then there is the actual combat side of the game, where everything matters from cover to terrain like rivers and bridges to how much energy your men have. Terrain is the most important factor to combat in this game you need to make sure that you can get the high ground or the best cover weather its a wall or a tree line and make sure your enemy has trouble getting to you so you can maximize your kills before your enemy even has a chance to fire back. You also have to manage your men’s energy and moral too which can be a challenge, moral is based off of how well the battle is going for each individual unit and then energy is based off of how long your units have been fighting and how much you force them to run instead of walking. This is one of my favorite depictions of the American Civil War and its a really great game to make people see the Civil War through a different perspective than they are probably used to seeing it.

Total War Shogun 2

Over the past few weeks for class we have been playing Total War Shogun 2 which is a game about feudal Japan in the 1700’s and 1800’s where you are the leader of one of many at war factions that make up Japan at the time. I played a dlc which was called Fall of the Samurai which starts in the year of 1865 which is around the time that the isolation of Japan is beginning to disappear and multiple large empires are beginning to advanced technology like firearms to Japan. This game shows the player what turmoil the extremely isolated country of Japan went through when the beloved Samurai were killed off after empires brought firearms to Japan. I tried to just outmatch my enemy in the game by just buying large amounts of infantry units with rifles and I found out quickly that my strategy did not always work against the old school Japanese units that had spears and were not afraid to charge into a hail of gun fire. This game showed that even though foreign powers brought new weaponry that would eventually kill of the traditional Samurai it did not mean that the Samurai would go out without a fight.

Age of Empires II

Over the last week for class we have been playing Age of Empires II which is a game that is set in the dark ages. This week in class we talked about the dark ages in Europe and Asia so that we could get a better background when playing Age of Empires II. The game puts a big focus on building walls around your city and building up your military with knights and archers. You also have have to manage your natural resources by making farms, cutting down trees, mining ores, or even fishing and trading. To increase the cap for your population you have to build houses to be able to accommodate your city too. When you start the game you are thrown into a map with the number of other cities that you compete with determined by the size of the map that you want to play on, and then you are given a small number villagers to start your first farm and build your town hall which is where you make more villagers. After you get the basics set down then you get to decide how you want your city to develop, there is always the classic build an army and then go burn down your enemies Genghis Khan would have done, or you can build up you economy and just trade with the other cities and make allies the whole game. This game is a classic that has influenced many other similar copy cat games that have followed in its footsteps and is a great game for giving people an idea of how different kingdoms feuded back in the dark ages.

Assassins Creed Odyssey

Over the last few weeks I have been playing Assassins Creed Odyssey which takes place I ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War. As we learned in class to major forces faced off against each other one was the Delian League led by Athens and the other was the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. In this game you play as a spartan that was banished from his Spartan family as a child, eventually your character becomes a mercenary and because of his past he gets drawn into the war. You get to make multiple moral choices along the way as you are given the choice to side with your old home of Sparta or fight for revenge with the Athenians, or even fight for both sides at different points. You also meet many common Greek citizens that are just trying to survive the war. Along the way you can see many famous Greek landmarks like Odysseus’s home which is in rubble by the time that this game takes place or the Oracle of Delphi which was one of the most famous landmarks of ancient Greece. In very ancient Greek fashion the only way to get from island to island is by navigating a ship through the Mediterranean. The more I play this game the more it really sets in that Greece has a very rugged and mountain filled terrain; I had always been told that Greece had a lot of mountains but after playing this game for about 10 hours I can see why people say that. This game does a very great job of showing the chaos of large scale warfare that took place back in the time of this game, every large battle is absolute chaos that takes place in large scale hand to hand warfare. Assassins Creed Odyssey does a very great job of immersing the player in the Peloponnesian War as an active contributor to the war.

Civilization V

Over the last few years I have played Civilization V, and over the last few weeks for class we all had to play Civilization V. Civilization is a game where you compete in a world that is randomly generated where multiple different civilizations build up there strength and try to take over the world through many different methods. In the game that I have been playing I am playing as the Spanish Empire. I have been using major amounts of trade with other civilizations to gain large amounts of wealth to help myself succeed. In this game there are may ways to surpass your opponents and I personally to focus on building my wealth and focusing on my scientific research. I also tried to gain the trust of at least two of the city states that I discover on every map, because they are a great resource for trade and every once and awhile they will give you money and soldiers. While playing Civilization V there are many different mechanics that the player must pay attention to like the happiness of there people, or the amount of food that each city has, and of course the amount of money you have. During my game that I have played I have only had to fight off one other country because of the fact that he kept pushing on my civilizations border. The Ottoman Empire attempted to spread their religion into my country which then caused myself to ask them to stop spreading their religion. The Ottoman Empire then decided to keep spreading their religion which caused me to take the situation into my own hands. I then proceeded to declare war on the Ottoman Empire and take them over to prove the point to the rest of the civilizations that I would not be a pushover. In Civilization V your interactions with other civilizations actually has an effect with how they treat you, because of how I destroyed the Ottoman Empire there are now one or two civilizations that are scared to interact with me. So far my civilization is thriving and it looks like the Spanish Empire will prove their worth to the other civilizations of the game.