Something interesting I've been thinking about in light of reading some discussions about Civ 4 multiplayer along with the recent announcement of Starcraft II.

A number of people complain that Civ 4's multiplayer (and single-player, in some cases) is watered-down compared with previous versions because there's little difference in skill between intermediate and expert players. Having thought about it, I'd have to say that I agree.

In Civ 3, the game which I played the most, you could micromanage things extensively to maximize the amount of food, production, gold, science, etc. that your empire produced. Because excess of these was "lost" and not carried over after a completed project (as it is with Civ 4) this meant that keeping track of this and optimizing your yields could pay huge dividends over time. This made a player knowledgeable of these tricks much stronger than one who knew the game but lacked the true MMing knowledge or skill. Well, in Civ 4 these sorts of things were almost entirely eliminated. Which in turn has leveled the playing field quite a bit. I must admit that when I play Civ 4 it seems as though I don't have nearly the "mastery" over the game that I did with Civ 3, despite playing it almost as much. And in a way that's not as much fun. I don't spend 150 hours on a single game any more (oh how did I ever do this?), which isn't a bad thing, but I also don't feel like I'm doing all that "well".

In many ways, Real-Time Strategy games are similar. With a game like Starcraft the best players are separated from everyone else by their amazing ability to know exactly what to do when and the cutthroat speed in which they do it. Simultaneously queuing up unit and building creation, instructing "worker" units what to build while directing other units where to scout/attack, all with perfect coordination and understanding. But as with Civ economics of the past, the true skill here is more in simultaneous micromanagement than execution of a cunning, well-devised plan. Showing the utter failure of "strategy", a game like Starcraft makes it utterly impossible for a player with a good plan to beat one who has absolutely mastered the micromanagement of the mechanics of the game.

Now then, as my tone in the previous paragraph hopefully suggested, I'm not advocating a return to the old MMing requirements of the past. I think it's safe to say that most people don't enjoy doing this, myself included (although there are some who do). But then, where should the difference in skill come from? Militarily it's plain to see. Make the right mix of units, move them in the right tiles, cut off resources, etc. and you can beat a less experienced player. What about with economics? What room does skill have a role to play here with micromanagement eliminated? In other words, what should an expert player know and how should one play when compared with one who is familiar with the game but not "mastered" it? It seems most suggestions to give the economic side of the game more depth also rely on the inclusion of additional micromanagement. More cities. Caravans. Quantified resources. Is it inevitable that what divides the good from the best be micromanagement? Can there be a solution?

It's easy to say that "well, yes, Civ should require good planning and skill to win, not MM skill". But how does that actually play out? What should an expert player do so much better than an intermediate one without relying on the micromanagement crutch?

I myself am somewhat stumped by this issue. Anyone have some thoughts on it? :)

There's plenty of skills that separate intermediate and expert players. Not to say there couldn't be more. But the problem is there are still too many no-brainer tactics that pay off big time.

One thing that immediately comes to mind when it comes to almost all multiplayer strategy games: the best strategy is the rush/choke. Not that you're rushing to win. But you're rushing to stall their worker pool. If you send two zergling to scare a few laborers, it pays off ten times the damage later in the game. Growth is exponential. Hit them early in the curve, and you affect their maximum growth.

Don't get me wrong: a smart rush should pay. But a mindless and reflexive rush at the beginning of the game should be easy to defend against and recover from. That's easier said than done, of course.

There's plenty of skills that separate intermediate and expert players.
I agree that there are some distinctions, but in previous versions of Civ a player's micromanagement skills were the most important part of the game. With that gone it takes out a lot of the differences and what's left seems... lackluster, to be honest.

I also agree that there should be a wider breadth of choices. "No brainers" take a lot of the game. Giving players more of a variety of valid options to choose from would open up a lot more strategy.

What about with economics? What room does skill have a role to play here with micromanagement eliminated? In other words, what should an expert player know and how should one play when compared with one who is familiar with the game but not "mastered" it? It seems most suggestions to give the economic side of the game more depth also rely on the inclusion of additional micromanagement. More cities. Caravans. Quantified resources. Is it inevitable that what divides the good from the best be micromanagement? Can there be a solution?
Currently, Civ economics is too abstracted to allow strategy to play much of a role, allowing micromanagement to become the distinguishing factor. The only way to shift the focus to strategy, then, is to make the economics less abstract. And this means altering that fundamental unit of Civ economics--"trade" (or now called "commerce"). Eliminating "trade" as a discrete resource and changing it to a dynamic process involving the other Civ resources (food and "hammers"/"shields") would be the first crucial step.

Done carefully, making the economics of Civ less abstract does not increase micromanagement; in fact, we can probably say that any economic feature that increases micromanagement is not actually helping to make Civ economics more amenable to strategy.

I completely agree that most of the MMIng has gone, and the difference between good and master is very small now. Maybe you could do something like what Trade-peror says - then again, this wouldn't be an increase in the MM capabilities of the game. Frankly, I liked Civ III better, but cIV has this interesting feeling that I'm not doing everything right - I am in fact having a difficulty starting off in ancient ages - when to build settlers/workers? In CivIII, this was easily recognizable, a size 3 city could spit out a settler - here, if you do this too late or too early, yousuffer enormous consequences, because the city is either handicapped at growth, or the good city spaces are already taken by AIs- especially talking small maps.

Currently, Civ economics is too abstracted to allow strategy to play much of a role, allowing micromanagement to become the distinguishing factor. The only way to shift the focus to strategy, then, is to make the economics less abstract. And this means altering that fundamental unit of Civ economics--"trade" (or now called "commerce"). Eliminating "trade" as a discrete resource and changing it to a dynamic process involving the other Civ resources (food and "hammers"/"shields") would be the first crucial step.

Done carefully, making the economics of Civ less abstract does not increase micromanagement; in fact, we can probably say that any economic feature that increases micromanagement is not actually helping to make Civ economics more amenable to strategy.
Abstracted, yes, but a lot relies on the simplicity of the system. Units require certain quantities of gold to support. Techs require certain quantities to be completed. Etc. It's a much larger challenge to throw all of that out the window and replace it with something much bigger.

I agree that things are probably too simplistic right now. But I'm not sure removing "Commerce" is the answer. ;)

I completely agree that most of the MMIng has gone, and the difference between good and master is very small now. Maybe you could do something like what Trade-peror says - then again, this wouldn't be an increase in the MM capabilities of the game. Frankly, I liked Civ III better, but cIV has this interesting feeling that I'm not doing everything right - I am in fact having a difficulty starting off in ancient ages - when to build settlers/workers? In CivIII, this was easily recognizable, a size 3 city could spit out a settler - here, if you do this too late or too early, yousuffer enormous consequences, because the city is either handicapped at growth, or the good city spaces are already taken by AIs- especially talking small maps.
Why is that a problem though? Isn't "not always knowing the best way to do things" what makes a good strategy game? You can play the game a variety of ways and not be heavily penalized or rewarded for using just one.

Abstracted, yes, but a lot relies on the simplicity of the system. Units require certain quantities of gold to support. Techs require certain quantities to be completed.
Well, I agree that units should require certain quantities of gold to support and techs should require certain quantities of beakers to be researched. :) Simplicity is certainly a strength of Civ. But when abstraction comes at the cost of gameplay and strategy, such simplicity should give way.

Say, for example, what if there were only one type of military unit--"Army"--in the game? That would be much simpler than having all the different kinds of units Civ has now, but it would abstract the military aspect of the game to absurdity. Current Civ economics is at this stage of absurdity. One way to tell is the striking similarity between RTS economics and Civ economics: in both games, the player looks for sources of income (if necessary) and then "mines" it--whether that means building a gold mine in Warcraft or building a cottage in Civ4. In an RTS, this is perfectly OK because the focus of the game is on the battlefield. In a broader game like Civ, this is much less appropriate.

The challenge now is to find a way to implement more flexible economics without bogging down in details or "over-specificity." I think it can be done. ;)