Could be but the Byzantines didn't particularly invade people to civilize them, they were more concerned with being the continuation of the old Roman Empire. I haven't seen or "felt" many parallels with the Byzantine Empire so far (and I just finished reading J. J. Norwich's "Byzantium" trilogy of books so it's all fresh in my mind too lol.
I should also add that the Romans never forced people to give up their religion. They generally respected other people's gods, even adopting/merging them with their own Roman gods. The only exception to this was the druids of ancient Britain. They hated them and did genocide against them. Nilfgaard appears to be very very staunchly against the barbarous religions and gods of the north. It doesn't fit with the traditional Roman Empire, it does fit with Charlemagne and the crusades against the Pagans of northern Europe though.
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You could make that argument but Nilfgaard is more like the Ottoman Empire. It has the duality of being a multicultural, racially diverse, and technologically advanced society which is religiously intolerant, ruthless conquerors, and prone to engaging in brutal cruelties toward those native peoples they subjugate. The fact they're also REALLY hated by Eastern Europeans who are viewed as superstious fools by them helps.
Amusingly, I suppose that would make Radovid Vlad Dracul.
In the book, which describes the battle of Brenna, it's clearly WW2 Germany, because we have such things like e.g. "Center Army group", or the knights form tank divisions, the soldiers in the elfish special unit wear SS uniforms. And after Nilfgard's defeat there are mass expulsions like in the former Prussian areas of Germany.
Erm i would suggest reading a few history books rather than a movie for learning history that movie is total crap
Btw while all Cristian countries (Kingdoms) were burning anyone outside of their religion as witches in Ottoman empire you could even worship publicly as long as you paid the tax for it .And what did they conquer?
Spain didn't actually exist. The different kingdoms pushed back the Islamic states yes, but they weren't a huge empire like Nilfgaard.
Austria hardly conquered anything, they ware just lucky with marriages and that was also very late or not during medieval times at all.
France grow together during the Middle Ages and didn't conquer much outside of the French areas from England.
What "Prussian Empire"? There never was a Prussian Empire. The only area that the German Empire "conquered" was Alsace-Lorraine and that was part of another Empire about as large as the German one and not a small kingdom that was entirely swallowed. And the Third Reich doesn't have much in common with the Nilfgaard Empire except that both conquered stuff. As someone already said: The Nilfgaard Empire also stands for modernization and integration of the conquered areas, the Third Reich doesn't. Looking for strict historic equivalents simply doesn't make much sense in this case, because there is no obvious event, nation or realm in the real history, that can be compared to the Nilfgaard Empire.
Again: The only real Empire that could be compared to the Nilfgaard Empire would be the Roman Empire.
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The fact, that you can't certainly say who is the bad one in this conflict is one of the most important concepts of story progress and background of both games and Sapkowski's novels. For example, the casus belli of the first nilfgaardien war was a provokation by redania and temeria (if I remember it correct..), because they faked a nilfgaardien border raid on their own kingdoms at the jaruga. And don't forget which participation the lodge of sorceresses had in all of this (and Vilgefortz as their nilfgaardien counteract).
Besides, the same concept is found in all of the main characters' deeds (such as Geralt's and Ciri's killing sprees, Yen's participation in the interbreeding and incest for the elder blood, Emhyr's very own interest in Ciri, Triss' betrayal etc.)
I don't think you can call Nilfgaard and Emhyr evil, there are just very few real evils in the world of the witcher (certain monsters, and Vilgefortz for sure, even Eredin is not really evil, ultimately he has some good intentions for the sake of the elven race..)
Besides, the same concept is found in all of the main characters' deeds (such as Geralt's and Ciri's killing sprees, Yen's participation in the interbreeding and incest for the elder blood, Emhyr's very own interest in Ciri, Triss' betrayal etc.)
I don't think you can call Nilfgaard and Emhyr evil, there are just very few real evils in the world of the witcher (certain monsters, and Vilgefortz for sure, even Eredin is not really evil, ultimately he has some good intentions for the sake of the elven race..)
Didn't you notice that the servant who at first guided you through Vizima's royal palace was, comically so, a Dutch fella speaking english?
Loved that quirky take on a dialect.
I just assumed all the hate in game was because in this setting they are the ones invading and people tend to not be to happy about being invaded
I was pretty cool with Nilfgaard as soon as I heard Charles Dance voice
Then Roche told me about that Temeria deal and I was set, Nilfgaard is the way to go
Then Roche told me about that Temeria deal and I was set, Nilfgaard is the way to go
Absolutely brilliant replies here. Currently I'm studying so I don't really have the time to be reading up on history and in school I never studied history as I was always more interested in maths and science. Anyone got any suggestions as to which periods of history bear resemblance to Nilfgaard?
Regarding plate armour and velvet/satin doublets it strongly points towards 15th/ 16th century, Western Europe, of course. The guy who mentioned the looks resemble somewhat Spanish might be right, well, clothing only.
The armour seems purely fictional, never saw winged helmets like that.
Well from my extremely limited knowledge of history, Nilfgaardian knights like the one in my picture seem to strongly resemble 16th century German knights minus the feathers and checkered quilted trousers. I remember going to a museum school trip and even seeing gilded 16th century armour as is seen on the Nilfgaardian knights. The standard infantry look like generic Western European infantry though. I was thinking medieval Germany and the Byzantines?
Scratch that, for plate armour isn't medieval at all. A common mistake, but in fact plate armour showed up first in the very end of what we call "the middle ages" and was rather typical for the so called "Early Modern Age".
However, I remember that famous Rubens' portrait of Emperor Charles V., depicting him in black gilded armour:
While I would state that such a gorgeous masterpiece was utterly improbable for any normal soldier, even knight/ officer, this armour could indeed be the inspiration for Nilfgaardian armour in the game.
Maybe CDPR's artists will enlight us about that?
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Scratch that, for plate armour isn't medieval at all. A common mistake, but in fact plate armour showed up first in the very end of what we call "the middle ages" and was rather typical for the so called "Early Modern Age".
However, I remember that famous Rubens' portrait of Emperor Charles V., depicting him in black gilded armour:
While I would state that such a gorgeous masterpiece was utterly improbable for any normal soldier, even knight/ officer, this armour could indeed be the inspiration for Nilfgaardian armour in the game.
Maybe CDPR's artists will enlight us about that?
Heh, as I said I know nothing about pre-1850 history. As soon as I finish up at uni I want to look in to it. =D
Looks like a great set, definitely would have been an inspiration! It sucks that not much is written on Nilfgaardian lore. I just agree with their sense of order, justice, culture and tolerance. Shame that I can't actually delve deeper in to it. Would be great if the artists gave some info.
Read the article below and tell me you don't see parallels. Again, of course the size and the influence of Nilfgaard is much greater and in terms of the imperial culture, you're right to draw some parallels to the Romans. I actually don't disagree with almost anything you said, I'm just pointing out that Temeria is clearly inspired by Poland in the Partitions Era and Niilfgaard's attitude towards Temerians (stern but fair with a dash of disrespect) is exactly how Polish accounts describe the Prussian part of the Partitioned Poland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
Parts of Europe and other parts of the world.
Yes it did. I was talking about 16th century Spain, who conquered half of the world. The Spanish Empire was also dubbed "The Empire Where The Sun Never Sets" which refers to the fact Spain conquered and colonized stuff literally all across the globe. Spain didn't conquer much in Europe though, only Italy, Portugal, parts of France, Austria, most of Belgium and most of The Netherlands. They were planning on attacking England as well, hoping to get rid of Queen Elizabeth the First. See "The Spanish Armada".
I wasn't even talking about that. I was talking about the religious division in Europe, when Europe was split between the Catholic Christian nations and the Protestant Christian nations. Spain was a huge part of this.
Austria gained a lot of power in the 17th and 18th century. It was the second-largest empire in Europe and part of "the 4 great empires of Europe". Yes it was late, but 17th and 18th century are still considered to be part of the late middle ages. Maybe the Austrian Empire didn't conquer a lot through war or battle but they did heavily push back against the French Empire.
France literally conquered half of Europe.
All 3 nations I mentioned above all conquered The Netherlands one after another. Being Dutch myself I got taught about these events time and time again during middle-school and high-school. Our little Dutch Kingdom got fucked by all 3 empires I just mentioned. For some reason all of them wanted The Netherlands. It's probably because of our harbors and our country basically being the gateway of all trade from- and to Europe.
Basically The Netherlands was the real-life equivalent of Temeria
(though I see some similarities between Amsterdam and Novigrad as well).
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