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Notes -
IMO, the core artistic advantage that video games have is that they force the player to experience the decision-making that goes into a choice, not just the rationale and consequences.
One argument in the Teaching Paradox series of blog posts is that the games embody a certain historical theory, and players are essentially forced to make the same choices as the nations did. That is to say, in the "Interstate Anarchy" themed game, you had to build an army, opportunistically raid neighbors, and build unstable alliances against stronger foes. If you didn't, your nation would be overrun and destroyed. If you have an argument against that ("Why can't we just be nice?" etc.), then you can try it in the game and see how well it works for you.
I'm not sure which great works would benefit from that treatment, but I'm guessing there are some. Or maybe those works are "great" because they're perfectly suited to their medium, and we can only make new, distinct ones.
CK2 teaches the incentives of patriarchy better than any other game I can think of.
CK2 teaches many things — why the protestant reformation was a big deal (everyone gets a CB on heretics), why national identity didn't play an important role in politics until the 18th century (elites branch-swinging across Europe for different titles), why primogeniture was an improvement over the equal inheritance of the Franks despite the bad son problem (it keeps the dynasty strong and its holdings united).
When I first played CK2, it made me realize how the Marshall Plan mindset clouds my thinking, and that past governments were not "just stupid" for not focusing on infrastructure/tech. My first CK2 game was on Tutorial Island (regular people call this place Ireland), and I immediately sent my spy master to study technology from Al Andalus while saving money to buy an irrigation building. Economy, research, then conquest: the 4X order of operations. Twenty years later, I managed to improve my tech to best in Ireland, and I constructed a fancy new well to double my feudal dues. My neighbor country, meanwhile, had used his spymaster to fabricate a title on my lands, and instead of building infrastructure, he bought mercenaries. He conquered my county. Game over.
Sadly, the sequel CK3 is just a map-painting game. It doesn't have as many embedded historical lessons.
Funny, I was going to joke in my OP that the one thing it never teaches is why anyone would ever use gavelkind but I think they patched it to make it make more sense (you could only manage so many vassals I think).
My first "game over" was forgetting that absolutism wasn't a thing yet and vassals actually have agency in this game and getting myself whacked.
Many such cases.
Hm, a shame. I simply fell off due to Paradox's abuse of the DLC infinite money cheat but it's always at least looked good. I'd hoped to get into it at some point.
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Yeah. I didn't want to go into all the requisite nuance and bloat the post to astronomical proportions, but, obviously interactivity can do a lot of things that are artistically fascinating. Tim Rogers's excellent analysis of Earthbound touches on these issues.
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