My first thought when watching a total war let'splayer execute a village... "This is awful!"
2nd thought: "this is a game."
3rd thought: "this is a game based on history, it is awful!"
Anyway, if you look at the historical actions of basically everyone's ancestors, I for example am Chinese and I just absolutely despise the actions of almost every historical Chinese figure ever. Anyway, history is glorified because people who pretend to be historians (who also tout all the tradition bulllcrap) need a bit of escapism to give the illusion that the past was "not all bad".
People say society is degenerate. People forget that the past is bloody awful compared to the present.