--- title: The game map and the real map: what EU5 simplifies — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The game map and the real map: what EU5 simplifies», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Europa Universalis 5 is a brilliant map of the years 1337 to 1836, but every game must simplify, the way a football v --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / The game map and the real map: what EU… # The game map and the real map: what EU5 simplifies Lesson 40 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/0/) — Europa Universalis 5 is a brilliant map of the years 1337 to 1836, but every game must simplify, the way a football video game does not show the players getting tired, bored or cold. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/1/) — In the game each location has one owner, one sharp border, one population number and one trade good; in real life a village could owe rent to a lord, tithes to a church and taxes to a king all at once, and its border with the next land might be a vague stretch of forest. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/2/) — The game's "empty" lands were full of people, its population numbers are historians' best guesses, and its flat map stretches the far north, so Scandinavia, Siberia and Greenland look bigger than they are. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/3/) — Real armies and letters crawled at walking or riding pace, winter could stop a campaign dead, rivers silted up, the sea took and gave back land, and a storm could wreck a fleet, as it helped wreck the Spanish Armada in 1588. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/4/) — So play the game and enjoy it, but when it says "one click", remember the real world said "many years, many people, and a lot of luck". - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/5/) — EU5 divides the world into thousands of small locations, but real medieval lands had no neat equal units and their borders were often unclear. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/6/) — A real medieval village might owe rent to one lord, tithes (a tenth of its harvest) to a church and taxes to a king at the same time. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/7/) — Real borders in 1337 were often fuzzy zones, and it was only after the 1600s and 1700s that states drew exact border lines. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/8/) — EU5 shows many lands as empty and waiting to be colonised, but nearly all of them were home to people with their own nations and laws. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/9/) — A flat map of the round Earth always stretches some places, and the common Mercator map makes Greenland look as big as Africa, though Africa is about 14 times bigger. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/10/) — In the 1300s news and armies moved at walking or riding pace, and a letter from London to Rome could take a month or more. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/11/) — Supply, weather and winter often stopped real campaigns altogether. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/12/) — Population numbers in EU5 are estimates, because there were few real censuses, official counts of the people, in 1337 and historians argue about the figures; England's Domesday Book of 1086, a count of land and households made for taxes, was an unusual record for its time. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/13/) — EU5 gives each location one main trade good, but real places produced many things at once, from grain and wool to cloth and fish. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/14/) — Place names in games are often modern or English versions, while people at the time used other names, such as Constantinople for Istanbul or Tenochtitlan for the site of Mexico City. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/15/) — Beijing was called Khanbaliq or Dadu under the Yuan in 1337. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/16/) — Coastlines and rivers have changed since 1337: the Dutch have reclaimed large areas from the sea, and some medieval ports have silted up, as Bruges did when trade moved to Antwerp. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/40-the-game-map-and-the-real-map-what-eu5-simplifies/17/) — In EU5 rulers make choices with clear results, but real history was shaped also by weather, disease, harvests and chance. - ← previous: [Odd places: microstates, enclaves and disputed lands](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/39-odd-places-microstates-enclaves-and-disputed-lands/) - next →: [Inside the Earth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/41-inside-the-earth/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)