Is realism what we really want in a game?

The rising expectations of realism killed the wargames and military flight sim markets. It was costing more to make a realistic flight sim that would make the customers (and maybe more importantly the reviewers) happy with their rising expectations than they would ever hope to get back. These once thriving genres are now essentially gone (and I miss them).

The further you go down the path of demanding more and more realism the sooner Civ becomes a small niche title (at which point the big publishers won't touch it).

I would much rather have fun and excitement than realism.

If you want less realism, get Sim City.
Civ has gotten more popular as it became more realistic. This is the main attraction to the game.

I want realism!

I don't want realism. I want a game designed to be fun primarily, with realism thrown in as a secondary option.

Otherwise you get boring, way too detailed game that either give you entirely too much control (and thus entirely too many details to keep track off) or entirely too little control (and thus no fun because you have no idea what you are doing in the game).

I agree, playability over realism.

If you want realism, read a history book.

Originally posted by Denarr
If you want less realism, get Sim City.
Civ has gotten more popular as it became more realistic. This is the main attraction to the game.

Interestingly, IMHO, SimCity was what came to mind as a franchise where adding more realism and details took away fun. The first was the most fun of that series to me.

It's a good thing that Soren has said that for each new feature and detail he adds one old one will be removed. He doesn't want to make a more complicated game. I thank you Soren.

I suppose that is a consideration I have overlooked.
I like the realism, but I don't like the sacrifice to simplicity that adding more realism usually requires. I only use about half the options in the game, and the only thing I let the city governors do is maintain city happiness.
So I guess that I should rephrase my original statement to: more realism without more commands.

My former boss once told me that if there was a problem with something, it was better to "fix the process, not the problem." If the game is not realistic enough, then add realism. NOT complexity.

I mentioned this in another thread (Evolving Traits), but it still applies. There are many tools in the game that haven't been put to full use. The tech tree, the trade system, etc. Each of these (relatively) simple systems has yet to be milked for what they're worth. Add to these systems. That should keep things simple.

The only "problem" that Civ3 has is its programming bugs, but that's off-topic. Civ3 was among the final eight in that popularity contest at Gamespy.com, Title Fight. Likewise, I hope that Civ4 can win awards and great reviews.

Almost every PC game we play has at least a dash of realism. For example, Half-Life has its arsenal of realistic weapons, but when "resonance cascades" bring aliens into the lab, the realism ends. Do you think you would have more fun without the fantasy in Half-Life? I think not. Bashing those weird creatures and surviving defines the fun in that game.

I don't think realism is the key to making a great game. It may be so in the sim genre, but not so for Civ. (I agree that simulation gaming has slowly become less popular.) I have fun aiming to conquer the world, though that's never been done for real. I have fun building the spaceship to Alpha Centauri, though that's fiction.

I will have my Civ4 made with extra fun, but with reality on the side.

I think that realism is truly needed only when it makes the game easier to handle. If something works too unrealisticly, then it is hard for people to understand the consequences of their actions, whereas simple realism can help in this. So if there are two equally simple systems and the other is more realistic, I'd tend to go with the more realistic one. Otherwise, realism has no value in itself. Games can never be, nor should they be realistic. They are always "simulations" and "approximations" of reality, and that is good. Adding realism has no purpose if done simply for the sake of realism.

Less realism does present a problem though, as I wouldn't either advocate the lessening of realism - except in some situations where the realism makes the game less fun, of course. As Myzenium here pointed out, we play games because they are NOT realistic, not because of the realism involved. The only reason human mind wants realism is that it can understand the game: if things work chaoticly, it is not fun. That's the exact reason why people are hating it when spearmen lose to tanks: it's not realistic! ;) It isn't something that was supposed to happen. These are the situations where I would go for more realism - but only if it was not at the expense of playability or simplicity. That's my two cents.

As Myzenium here pointed out, we play games because they are NOT realistic, not because of the realism involved.
Actually, Shyrramar, I was thinking that we play games to have fun. :p Seriously, I agree that realism is a necessary element in gaming because reality is easily understood. Example? Take a token from your favorite board game. Hold it. You can set it on the board, walk out of the room, and still know that it will be where you put it when you return (unless, of course, someone or something moves it while you're gone.) You understand easily that a set of tokens represent your position and your opponents' on the board.

Tokens are easily understood, as are units in Civilization. Add too much complexity to Civ, and you'll have each soldier represented in a unit, with respective weapons, armor, survival gear, fuel, food, etc. If Civ ever becomes so complicated, I might quit playing the new versions and play the old instead.

Reality is a necessary part of a gamer's diet (did you notice that I love culinary metaphors?), and I hope that like its predecessors, Civ4 will have a basis in reality, yet be more entertaining than any of them.

Actually, Shyrramar, I was thinking that we play games to have fun.

What's wrong with you people!?

I think this game is awesome for it's realisem.
it alows one to emulate scenario's from real earth peramiter's, and do battle sequences that could actualy happen in real life.
so to me this is one of the best game concept's ever for its real life emulations, and this is what has made this game sell world wide and made it the #1 stratigy game of all time.

If you want fantasy and such, go play Might And Magic, civ is a reality based game concept and is going to stay that way.

I know. The realism of my 6000 year king astounds me. I really like how building a Pyramid allows my people to eat for millenia.

(And I won't even mention speatmen vs. tanks)

Realism isn't why I play Civ.

Hay civ's cool there's alot of fantasy mod's out there that are not realalitic at all, but I think that the realisim they incorperate, even in there fantasy setting's, along with sratagy is the reason people play the game.
I just think that the base game (civ4) should be as realistic as possible then editors (like Myself) can then change it into a fantastic fantasy, based off of realistic concept's. GOD I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!!!

The point about not wanting more realism isn't about wanting fantasy, it's about not wanting ultra-detailed economic models (that's you I'm talking to Aussie_Lurker and Tradeperor), or supply and ressource system, which woudl require too much focus on THAT area of the game at the expanse of the others.

In other words : the old KISS principle - Keep it simple, stupid.

A system with amounts of ressource and the necessity to spend them to supply units is not simple. A complex economic system like AL and TP suggested is definitely NOT simple. They are very realistic, almost life-like, but they require far too much of the player's focus on *that* area of the game, at the expanse of others, which an enormous epic game like Civilization cannot afford short of becoming a way too bloated game.

Definitely keep things simple otherwise it becomes too difficult for new people to pick up, start to play, and most of all appreciate the game...

Add as much realism without increasing difficulty...The economic and resource models are good enough if you ask me...There only some minor tweaking...particularly with the AI that need improvement as far as I am concerned...

When I think realism I think the Infantry and Spearman lines making a dash of sense, I think of Longbows belonging to England, I think of the Archer line being defensive as it was in history. I don't think of having supply lines and stuff... The game makes sense with its vague generalizations that are open for interpretation, putting in too much detail would not do any good.

Don't agree with you about longbow to england - I mean, yes, historically they were the one who built them, but Civ is not about duplicating history - it's about alternate history. If historically the aztecs had wanted to train a force of longbowmen, why couldn't they?

UUs which represent the fact that at a time in history, certain units of a certain type deployed by that nation enjoyed better training or equipment than their rival, or formed elite forces for that nation, I have no problem with (Samurai - though they should either be made a horse-based unit, or be altered to replace medieval infantry), Musketeers, Immortal, Legion, etc)

On the other hand, units which represent an entirely different kind of weapon being available only to one nation to replace another unit, I mind (War elephant ; the proposed longbowman idea, etc ; the war elephant especially as they were used by many others in history (although NO, Hannibal didn't get much mileage out of his) very much.

In my opinion hte game should better simulate the rise (and fall) of civs. That could be all background code

Originally posted by Oda Nobunaga

Otherwise you get boring, way too detailed game that either give you entirely too much control (and thus entirely too many details to keep track off) or entirely too little control (and thus no fun because you have no idea what you are doing in the game).

That is micro-management. I think it should be possible to make the game more realistic without more micro-managament

Originally posted by Ultraworld
In my opinion hte game should better simulate the rise (and fall) of civs. That could be all background code

You mean so that, at a certain date, Rome falls, America revolts, Germany and Austria sign MPP's, etc.?

IMO, what we want is more pseudo realistic systems to tweak with more realistic results, but less realism in all the stuff in between the user interface and the results. (Keeping in mind that playability always trumps realism when the two conflict.)

For example, modern armor stopped by spearman is unrealistic result. However, any math tweaks to combat odds will either be a hodgepodge of exceptions (bad, because hard to understand what is happening) or will give unrealistic results elsewhere. That's why the oft-proposed suggestion to simply change the name and unit icon across ages is a better solution. The playability is preserved, the system is kept simple, and tanks occasionally being stopped by the equivalent of partisans is realistic enough.

Another more realistic result would be an AI that did a better job with trade, diplomacy, and strategic planning for combat. That doesn't change the game user interface at all (though it would certainly lead to game play changes).

A potential area where this thought would lead to radically different changes would be the implementation of trade routes. Right now, they are unrealistically abstract (though probably about as good as we could get in Civ 3). Piracy doesn't interfere, for example. The end of trade is too abrupt. OTOH, the Call to Power model where one barbarian ship runs across the route and completely blocks it lead to some annoying micromanagement. The caravan unit in Civ1/2 was also too much micromanagement. A possible compromise would be a robust trade screen where the player made big deals (including reselling), set trade policy, set tarrif rates, allocated funds/military for local piracy/smuggling control, and handled accumulated inventory of trade goods. (I say possible, because it would also be easy to overdo it.) That way, the abstract game underneath can still represent a large amount of trade with the neighbors, but this is realistically reflected. (For example, you probably cannot stop your citizens from trading basic goods for cash, thus enriching your and your neighbors. But you can declare that the iron mines are off limits to those dastardly Romans.)

Are you crazy? Obviously it'S the persians you need to make Iron off-limit too. Immortals are a lot scarrier than legions :-D.

As for spearman vs tanks, IMHO the best way to handle the problem without changing the rule of civ is simply to make the AI very upgrade-prone, perhaps appropriately cheapening the upgrades so that the AI doesn't bankrupt itself in the process.

For my part, in spite of what Oda says ;), I feel that it is best to simulate realism without simulating all of the COMPLEXITY of realism-if you get my meaning.
My point is that, as the game currently stands I (the player) have WAY too much control over the fate of my empire! I still want to control most things but, at the same time, I want to occasionally feel that some things are totally out of my hands-even if it's just in the form of the old Civ2 senate.
I also want to see an end to the unrealistic switch from democracy to communism which players and AI alike currently indulge in.
I want some random events to exist in the game so that my modern age endgames don't come out the same almost everytime!
I want the ability for big, burgeoning empires to come crashing down under their own weight from time to time-not just because its realistic, but because its a great way for smaller, better managed nations to get into the lead!
Sorry, I realise I'm rambling, but I hope you see what my three points are:

1) That increasing 'realism' doesn't HAVE to increase complexity and micromanagement IF it is done right.

2) You should be able to have governers/advisors for almost every part of how your civ operates so that different players can choose their OWN degree of micromanagement.

3) Often, having more 'realism' in the game can make it MORE exiting and fun-not less!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Realism for realism's sake is a bad policy, IMO. However, if there are two good choices, approximately equal in terms of gameplay value, I see no reason not to go with the more realistic option.

Realism is fine, as long as it doesn't negatively affect gameplay, I guess is my point. [N.B. Large empires arbitrarily collapsing, game-altering random effects, etc. do negatively affect gameplay, at least in my opinion.]

Arathorn

Originally posted by Oda Nobunaga
Don't agree with you about longbow to england - I mean, yes, historically they were the one who built them, but Civ is not about duplicating history - it's about alternate history. If historically the aztecs had wanted to train a force of longbowmen, why couldn't they?

UUs which represent the fact that at a time in history, certain units of a certain type deployed by that nation enjoyed better training or equipment than their rival, or formed elite forces for that nation, I have no problem with (Samurai - though they should either be made a horse-based unit, or be altered to replace medieval infantry), Musketeers, Immortal, Legion, etc)

On the other hand, units which represent an entirely different kind of weapon being available only to one nation to replace another unit, I mind (War elephant ; the proposed longbowman idea, etc ; the war elephant especially as they were used by many others in history (although NO, Hannibal didn't get much mileage out of his) very much.
Errrr... Longbowmen were used only by England because only England had what was needed to successfully produce Longbows and Longbowmen. If the Aztecs wanted to train a force of Longbowmen, too bad for them. They couldn't.
While England used Longbows, across the world most nations used the easier to operate (yet inferior) Crossbow.
I hope you can guess where I'm heading here... :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Blasphemous
Errrr... Longbowmen were used only by England because only England had what was needed to successfully produce Longbows and Longbowmen. If the Aztecs wanted to train a force of Longbowmen, too bad for them. They couldn't.
While England used Longbows, across the world most nations used the easier to operate (yet inferior) Crossbow.
I hope you can guess where I'm heading here... :rolleyes:

Actually, I think Oda makes a good point. Historically, only England had what was needed, but that's not to say that in an alternate history, the Aztecs might be the only ones who had what was needed, and if the English wanted to train a force of Longbowmen, too bad for them. I admit I do like the idea of making Longbowmen the English UU and replacing the generic unit with Crossbowmen, but at the same time, I can see Oda's point. The whole idea of UUs in a problematic one, because while it adds a lot of flavor to the game, it also confines us to more closely matching real history (to some extent). UUs that are essentially elite versions of existing units aren't as bad in that respect, compared to UUs which dictate that only one civ could ever develop a particular type of unit in the first place.

... but Civ is not about duplicating history - it's about alternate history. If historically the aztecs had wanted to train a force of longbowmen, why couldn't they?
I agree with this point.
I try to make a difference between realism and believability -- spearmen taking on armour is not realistic but if I think that it was a kind of a night-time guerilla action then I can believe this. Zulus building an Eiffel Tower? Unrealistic yet believable.
What I really liked about Civ2 was that it was a game of options. I could try to develop a nation strong in other respects than military; I could focus on economics (buy out others) or science (better units or govs); if nothing worked I could get great spies; I had OPTIONS.
Trying to imitate history of Earth IMHO is the biggest flaw of Civ3.
When I want realism I play a realistic scenario.

Before we go on we need to define "realism". There is "realism of details" and then there is "overall historic realism". They are not the same although most people define realism as "realism of detail" rather than "overall realism" as I do.

Contrary to common belief, increasing overall realism and making the game feel more historically realistic in a broad sense does NOT require adding more micro-management and more complexity. Consider C3C's moving map/contact trading to requiring Navigation. A trivial change and adding no additional detail or complexity whatsoever. But the overall effect of making one have to be more isolated and having to explore more and less known of the world is far more historically realistic. And this change also was overwhelmingly applauded.

So when considering realism, do not make the mistake it is having to add lots of complexity and micro-management and such. It is not necessarily the case. That minor change I wrote above is a great example of increasing realism with no increase in complexity and no decrease in fun and playability.

My apologies, but gefore beating this thing to death, let us keep in mind that increasing overall realism can actually be achieved:

1. ...without extra complication at all!!!
Examples:
- C3C requiring Navigation for map/communications trading
- Civ 3 limiting ability to terraform any tile to any tile
- Civ 3 getting rid of conquest = free steal any tech crap
- Civ 3 finally getting rid of attack one = kill whole stack
- Civ 3 no using enemy roads/RR
etc, etc, etc, etc

2. ...can actually increase simplicity and decrease micromanagement and tedium!!!!
- Civ 3 getting rid of "home city support" for units to national gold support - no more "rebasing" units from home city to home city to balance shields lost to unit support and losing whole stacks because city fell!
(there are others but this is the best example that comes to mind)

3. ...can increase depth with no increase in micro-management
- Civ 3's culture/border concept fits this. Yes you need to build temples, libraries, wonders, etc. for its cultural effect. But you were building all these before anyway! Did you have to do extra work and extra tedium because of "culture" concept being introduced? No!


And for the last time increased complexity and increased details DOES NOT EQUAL increased overall realism!

Let me say it again:
Increased complexity and increased details DOES NOT EQUAL increased overall realism!

We can add many many details to make it more "realistic" but if the overall effect isn't really much different then we should not add this concept or detail. It is certainly possible to add detail that upon final examination only added unnecessary tedium and complexity and I am opposed to that as well as anyone else.

Okay I think I've ranted on this topic long enough...

- Civ 3 limiting ability to terraform any tile to any tile
- Civ 3 getting rid of conquest = free steal any tech crap
- Civ 3 getting rid of "home city support" for units to national gold support
I would actually like to see these back in the game (as well as double irrigation and many of the features added in the ToT expansion), but only as options available to modmakers through editor/scripting.

I have no problem with the vanilla version of Civ4 being made more user friendly or even less complex(though I doubt I would play an even simpler version of Civ than Civ3 much myself), but please leave the door open so that modmakers can make Civ4 mods that are even more complex(a LOT more actually) than what is currently possible with Civ3 if they see fit.

I could come up with several pages of things I would like to see included in Civ4 or changed/tweaked from Civ3 that would please both sides of the realism/complexity debate, but you would have to put me on a payroll to make me to post that much ;)

UUs and traits aren't designed to mimic history - they're to give each civ flavor. It's just that the UUs and traits which give flavor are based off of realistic things.

What point is there to have different civs with different names if there's no real difference between them?

In regards to fun and realism, if you had to pick fun or realism then choose fun but it certainly isn't one or the other. Making it more realistic can make it more fun too.

ok to end this

whats the point of makeing a game based on reasltic thing (ie Civs,units,etc) and then when makeing the details of the game makeing it less realstic also if u like civ 1 then liked civ 2 even more (by means of gameplay) and then liked Civ3 more for the most part that means u like the game getting more realstic

The key is to add as much realism as possible while still making the game as fun as possible. A fine balance to maintain, but it pays off in the end. If you have too little realism, the game is watered down and generic. If there's too much then it won't be as much fun to play.

I don't care about realism, but I would like to play a game that is more about this last century.

if u want agame about the last century there are about a million

anyways i dont seem to mind games that go to far in realism as i dont mind realism in fact i would much rather have a game go to far in realism rather then have to little

If you really feel that way, Colonel head on over to www.matrixgames.com. Their games tend to err on the side of realism. You might find something that strikes your fancy. There are a few that I find quite good (Korsun Pocket being my favorite of theirs, but Highway to the Reich is also good and the upcoming World at War seems like it'll be awesome).

Having said that, I don't think Civ should go that route.

While I agree that realism is less important than fun (or perhaps even immersion), I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

I think they can draw on reality for great gameplay ideas, with scope being the determining factor.

E.g.: as the emperor, you need to eat and go to the washroom, and if you forget to eat every turn you die!!!
- scope too narrow

E.g.: no emperor lives 6000 years... who the heck are you, anyway? you should need to change bodies and embody new leaders...
- still too narrow for my liking

E.g.: a lot of nations aren't wiped out systematically, but are conquered and live peacefully under a new regime (sometimes temporarily) after a surrender, like France under Germany, or Greece under Rome.
- a broad enough scope for Civ, so I'd say it's at least worth considering.

warpstorm the later simcity games starting with simcity 2000 were more fun to me than the classic game. the original game you could easily get bored of like most sim games, but simcity 2000 turned into a game where it was fun to manage the city for a while. i think the realism in those games help.

as for civilization, i dont want realism that will make it so the game is unbalanced or unplayable, but there are definitely areas where realism is important. i dont think making the game completely disconnected from what societies and civilizations are like would work, and i dont think youre suggesting this either. the simplification i think should just be in abstracting details away, or making elements in the game representative of more complex elements in reality.

FEI (For everyone's information), in case you've all forgotten, Soren said that every feature added to Civ 4, another would be taken out. This means he believes the complexity level of Civ 3 to be ideal.

That having been said, hopefully much more complexity will be achieved through Python scripting.

But we'll have to wait and see.

I'll second that, Trip. I also hope that for all the simplification he does in Civ 3, he does it at the lowest most detailed level, to make room for more high level strategic concepts... Find great ways to simplify playing with little units and buildings and population heads, in favor of adding ways to make sweeping policies, large-scale events, and strategic decisions.

less of "this little guy should attack first because he is the strongest, this next guy should have a catapult go to work before he attacks" ... and certainly not a step backwards, in "the emperor goes to the washroom" scenario... but more "use brutality to get war weariness, and cause the big empire to withdraw" (just as an example)

Nothing is more annoying in the current game than having to send units in peicemeal.

That said:

Why can't they make a game that is realitic and has a simple interface?

Or better yet, streamline and re-release Alpha Centari?

Why can't they...streamline and re-release Alpha Centari?

(Like that skillful misquote?)

Because it didn't sell enough to interest EA in a sequel. In addition, most of the people who cared about it no longer work at Firaxis (or even on TBS games) anymore.

Soren said that every feature added to Civ 4, another would be taken out.
A very sad statement IMHO.

ok my final thing on this there is one realistic thing i think everyone can agree is that this :spear: cannot happen

and should not happen in the game

(Like that skillful misquote?)

Because it didn't sell enough to interest EA in a sequel. In addition, most of the people who cared about it no longer work at Firaxis (or even on TBS games) anymore.
(You should use brackets: [...] for trunciation.)

Eh? There is more than one TBS game in development? I thought everyone but Firaxis was going for the A.D.D. stategy [aka RTS] market. :crazyeye:

What I would love to see would be Civ with an Operation Art of War combat system, as well as a Byzantine internal politics. Will never happen, but I can hope.

I think Civ could be simplified greatly by eliminating buildings and having (more) abstracted building such as having to chose a military unit/wonder or generic civic/happiness, science, or production improvement. And have technology enable higher maximum levels.

A very sad statement IMHO.
Perhaps, but that's how it goes. Civ is a mainstream series, it's designed for the masses, not us. Add in a bunch of new complex features and you alienate your market. That means less money and, you guessed it, no sequals...

I think everyone here can agree that watered down Civ is better than no Civ at all...

ok my final thing on this there is one realistic thing i think everyone can agree is that this :spear: cannot happen

and should not happen in the game
Well, it does. Very rarely.

I really don't see what everyone's problem with it is. All of the units are based off of a set of numbers from 1 to 25. Because of the nature of the system, numbers which aren't too far away from each other (for example, 1 and 25 :p) have a chance of matching up and weaker units will defeat much stronger ones. But so what? If units are too spread out the game is imbalanced when a civ discovers a tech first. If tanks had, say, an attack of 22 or 24 to make sure they never lost to Spearmen, then even Infantry wouldn't be able to hold up very well. Or Riflemen. You have to give other units and civs a chance at winning.

Perhaps, but that's how it goes. Civ is a mainstream series, it's designed for the masses, not us. Add in a bunch of new complex features and you alienate your market. That means less money and, you guessed it, no sequals...
I find your point of view a bit narrow.
Complex features only alienates new user if they HAVE to deal with them - leaving them in for the advanced users to activate/make use of opens up for a wider market and probably also higher praise of the product in generel.


I think everyone here can agree that watered down Civ is better than no Civ at all...
You assume too much.


I really don't see what everyone's problem with it is.
...If tanks had, say, an attack of 22 or 24 to make sure they never lost to Spearmen...
You show little understanding of the actual problem - the numbers you suggest does not excluded the unrealistic situation from occuring (and units can have much higher attack/defence than that anyway). People who falls behind severely in tech should pretty much ALWAYS loose with no noticeable damage to the technologically superior(99.999 times out of 100.000 at least). And before people start talking about Spearmen with explosives then those would be more properly called Infantry (or some other unit available at an appropriate technological discovery).

I find your point of view a bit narrow.
Complex features only alienates new user if they HAVE to deal with them - leaving them in for the advanced users to activate/make use of opens up for a wider market and probably also higher praise of the product in generel.
This is why they're allowing flexible scripting options - in order to add that complexity.

But don't expect vanilla Civ 4 to be more complex than Civ 3.

You assume too much.
Well, then you're not really a fan of the series.

You show little understanding of the actual problem - the numbers you suggest does not excluded the unrealistic situation from occuring (and units can have much higher attack/defence than that anyway). People who falls behind severely in tech should pretty much ALWAYS loose with no noticeable damage to the technologically superior(99.999 times out of 100.000 at least). And before people start talking about Spearmen with explosives then those would be more properly called Infantry (or some other unit available at an appropriate technological discovery).
Think of them as you will, they're all 1s and 0s. Call them Infantry, call them Spearmen, call them what you like. Add in explosives for all care. All that matters to me is the engine - which is based around fun, not realism.

I hate to break this to you, but unless you're doing something completely out of line with those Tanks, the odds are close to 99.999. Unless you're using a 1 HP Tank to attack an elite Spear fortified in a Metropolis on a hill with Civil Defense the odds are always around 99%. And if you're attacking with so many factors against you, you deserve to lose 1 time out of 5 or 8. :p

I find your point of view a bit narrow.

Doesn't mean he's not right.

Corporations being what they are, they're in it for the maximum $ for the minimum effort.

If it takes a company five years to design the best game ever, they're not going to make money. They'll become a gaming legend, sure, but a bankrupt one at that.

Well, then you're not really a fan of the series.
Again, you speak of things you apparently know little of and without doing any or little real research in advance.


I hate to break this to you, but unless you're doing something completely out of line with those Tanks, the odds are close to 99.999. Unless you're using a 1 HP Tank to attack an elite Spear fortified in a Metropolis on a hill with Civil Defense the odds are always around 99%. And if you're attacking with so many factors against you, you deserve to lose 1 time out of 5 or 8. :p
Again, you show your lack of research and understanding - this is not even hard to accomplish with the strength you suggested. Please stop posting untested nonsense as you are misguiding quite a few people.

ok my final thing on this there is one realistic thing i think everyone can agree is that this :spear: cannot happen and should not happen in the game

Except for the people who are arguing for random things like friendly fire (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=91378). Oh, wait! That was you! :lol:

So you want friendly fire casualties, but never to happen with a tank attacking another unit? :rolleyes: That's just :sad:.

Oh, and there are lots of us that have no problem with one artwork representing different actual units over time -- no money for a real upgrade, but they are poorly trained and have scraped together enough knowledge to build tank traps.

Lots of reasons for this to happen, even realistically.

So, no, not everyone agrees with you. Not even you.

Arathorn

There has to be a compromise between realism and playability. One without the other is worthless. And whoever said the flight sim genre was dead?? What are you smoking man?? Ever heard of Falcon 4 SP4, LOMAC, Warbirds III, Il-2 and and and ...

Oh, and there are lots of us that have no problem with one artwork representing different actual units over time -- no money for a real upgrade, but they are poorly trained and have scraped together enough knowledge to build tank traps.

Lots of reasons for this to happen, even realistically.
Well, many people have no problem believeing in lots of things. I know someone who believes in Santa Claus also. :lol:

Again, you show your lack of research and understanding - this is not even hard to accomplish with the strength you suggested. Please stop posting untested nonsense as you are misguiding quite a few people.
Actually, I looked all this up in a combat calculator before posting! Which means I did do research and test this. :crazyeye:

You're the one spouting nonsense here, not me. :lol:

You seem to enjoy insulting everyone around here too. You must not have many friends. :(

Actually, I looked all this up in a combat calculator before posting! Which means I did do research and test this.
Next time use Civ3 itself if you mean to come with serious results or please stop posting things you obviously know very little about.

Next time use Civ3 itself if you mean to come with serious results or please stop posting things you obviously know very little about.
The combat calculators use the same # system as the Civ 3 engine. :p

Unless you go and run your own calculations from Civ 3 and prove they're different. ;)

There is no way you can say the current Civ titles have been "realistic" to todays standard but they are sufficient to what gamers want and developers can deliver. Every new title has been more realistic than the last but not so much that the game becomes tedious and boring. If you want a totally realistic civ game you should get into politics. A game has to be fun and if you try to make something too realistic it just becomes stupid because, after all, this is a game.

Without realism, I won't play. I have no fun with odd inventions

The combat calculators use the same # system as the Civ 3 engine. :p

Unless you go and run your own calculations from Civ 3 and prove they're different. ;)
I am not going to run 100.000 combats just for the benefit of proving myself to you - I did enough of those testing army strengths back at the release of C3C.

Anyway, the Calculator(which IS an excellent tool to estimate outcomes btw) doesn't even support your claim that Civ3 already gives close to only 1 loss out of 100.000 attacks in a ATT 24 vs DEF 2 situation. Unless of course you set up the ATK24 unit as Elite and the DEF2 unit as Conscript in which case it estimates 2 losses out of 100.000 attacks. However if you make the DEF2 Elite and the ATK24 Conscript then it estimates 8.421 losses out of 100.000 attacks.

Just for referenece then estimated chances to loose are:
- 1.996 out of 100.000, if both are Conscript
- 520 out of 100.000, if both are Regular
- 141 out of 100.000, if both are Veteran
- 39 out of 100.000, if both are Elite

Even if seemingly low at Elite vs Elite then it is still way to high if you look closer - surviving can mean being alive with as little as 1 HP left which in turn means that next attack increase losses to 35.501 out of 100.000

Increasing HP of units as you go up in ages does help with them surviving/winning against older units, but does absolutely nothing to the chance of avoiding loosing HPs since that is based purely on ATK vs DEF strengths and number of defenders HPs (number of chances it get). This means that the ATK24 unit will loose at least 1 HP in approx 1 out of 5 attacks which is WAY to often IMHO - and that is the real point I have been trying to get across.

Fiddling with much higher ATK and DEF in addition to HPs certainly helps, but surely a better and more realistic solution could be constructed for Civ4, such as ie. making modern units do more damage to older type units pr. succesfull attack.

That'S only if you admit automatically that one HP lost represent X% of the unit destroyed.

To me, it has always seemed more to represent loss in combat efficiency due to a variety of factor : in the modern armor vs spear thread, losing one hp in one combat in five could easily represent mechanical breakdowns and the ilk - tanks are fickle machines, and they will require maintenance once in a while. Losing one HP one battle in five against spear could (and IMHO does) represent that.

I am not going to run 100.000 combats just for the benefit of proving myself to you - I did enough of those testing army strengths back at the release of C3C.

Anyway, the Calculator(which IS an excellent tool to estimate outcomes btw) doesn't even support your claim that Civ3 already gives close to only 1 loss out of 100.000 attacks in a ATT 24 vs DEF 2 situation. Unless of course you set up the ATK24 unit as Elite and the DEF2 unit as Conscript in which case it estimates 2 losses out of 100.000 attacks. However if you make the DEF2 Elite and the ATK24 Conscript then it estimates 8.421 losses out of 100.000 attacks.

Just for referenece then estimated chances to loose are:
- 1.996 out of 100.000, if both are Conscript
- 520 out of 100.000, if both are Regular
- 141 out of 100.000, if both are Veteran
- 39 out of 100.000, if both are Elite

Even if seemingly low at Elite vs Elite then it is still way to high if you look closer - surviving can mean being alive with as little as 1 HP left which in turn means that next attack increase losses to 35.501 out of 100.000

Increasing HP of units as you go up in ages does help with them surviving/winning against older units, but does absolutely nothing to the chance of avoiding loosing HPs since that is based purely on ATK vs DEF strengths and number of defenders HPs (number of chances it get). This means that the ATK24 unit will loose at least 1 HP in approx 1 out of 5 attacks which is WAY to often IMHO - and that is the real point I have been trying to get across.

Fiddling with much higher ATK and DEF in addition to HPs certainly helps, but surely a better and more realistic solution could be constructed for Civ4, such as ie. making modern units do more damage to older type units pr. succesfull attack.
So you're saying that even in the case that the Spear has the best chance, with 520 wins out of 100,000 tries, you have a massive 0.52% chance, aka about a 1 in 200 shot at a Spear killing a Tank.

Doesn't seem like a problem to me, nothing I'm complaining about anyways.

Polypheus said:

Before we go on we need to define "realism".

But that does not go far enough. we have to start with realism of what?

None of the detail about particular nations, cultures or civilizations is really relevant to the game. It's nice gloss. So is all the stuff about sherman tanks etc. Bbut it confuses this kind of discussion. The realism that civ needs, and partly has is in the development of communities into civilizations, coping with technology changes, cultural and philosophical changes, scale changes, competition for limited resources, and the influence and rivalry of neighbours in all these areas.

Complexity has little to do with realism in the sense that the less complex the more abstract. but the overall feel can be just as good.

The kind of areas that could do with realism improvements are:
-the tech tree (It should be sufficiently unpredictable to severely discourage a mediaeval society from planning a progression to electronics - because a mediaeval culture would never have concived of such a possibility)
-research (while we are on the subject) (very few groundbreaking developments have been the result of planned research programs which are mostly effective for step improvements and integration projects)
-acquisition of tech capabilities (before I finish with this) (IRL the knowhow for doing things leaks across administrative boundaries, albeit unevenly and sometimes against great resistance, but also research is stimulated by seeing someone else - especially a rival - with a new capability)
-characteristics and attributes (IRL these are acquired through circumstance, including major terrain and weather features, degree and nature of interaction with neighbours, etc.; it would be nice if this was modelled in the game, but the very least that could be done to improve things is to take away the precoded - pre-ordained - attributions so that you only know how your new friend behaves by observation; even better if the so-called civ-specific units were disengaged from the specific civs and rather appeared as a cosequence of some set of circumstances - not sufficiently predictably or reliably to be wholly played for - that occur during play)
-political decay (again IRL, poltical systems have their ups and downs; the benefits of any system in the game should drop off over time forcing some kind of stimulus to be applied in order to sustain the system; for example the benefits of democracy could dwindle down towards other norms while the costs would remain - or even increase; and the more rigid political systems could either decay towards anarchy or the pressure could build up until they explode - Im not sure if these are mutually exclusive ideas or if they could both work)
-changing government (the transition mechanism via prolonged anarchy is somewhat crude and the degree of control available to the player is somewhat god-like; transition could work slowly between two systems with some kind of penalty imposed over the period - perhaps a very slow build to full efficiency of the new psitive characteristics; transitions could be limited to certain combinations - even with different costs - and could be further constrained by other features such as the state of relations with neighbours, size of the civilization, stability of the civilization - e.g. general happiness level -, the balance of knowledge - techs - between overtly military, industrial, scientific, etc.)
-golden age (pet hate) (IRL a golden age is a hindsight thing; suddenly switching on the tap for a fixed number of turns or years is absurd and so is it emanating directly and immediately from some specific event; by all means have a means for boosting production etc., but in some more gradual way and as a consequence of a significant combination of circumstances that include knowledge, recent successes - confidence is obviously a true characterisitc of such high spots - relations with neighbours and the like)
-reduction of tactical features and rejection of most new tactical suggestions(ranged weapons - except, obviously, airborne stuff in the modern era; ambush - hiding up a tree for two years has a problem over the supply of sandwiches and coffee, supply limitations - these are key for days or weeks, not years and the scale of the game dictates that units are in reality an abstract representation of whole infrastructures providing support by whatever abstracted means; dozens of near identical units that in history only featured for the duration of a five or six year war - reduce them to very few; you get the idea?)

A couple of specific items that are often debated:

- rail travel: this is properly represented as unlimited within the rail network. Properly because of the time scale. there are plenty of precedents, one being a boardgame called Hitler's War in which total reallocation of all forces within your territory is allowed each turn. The one problem the rail rule gives is the ease with which seaborne invasions can be repelled. This could be resolved by limiting all units attack capability in the same turn at the end of rail travel.

- spearmen and tanks: what is anomalous about this is not so much the combat result as the possibility of the combat occuring. Beyond a certain point such a mismatch of technologies becomes extremely unlikely IRL - even if there are communities existing with so much earlier technologies still in place, the likelyhood of them meeting in battle against modern weapons is very low.
Just on the other point for a moment, if there was an isolated incident like that, I see nothing wrong with there being, albeit extremely low, a chance of the spears prevailing; I say this because I consider the units not necessarily to represent single people and you could predicate that a unit of spearmen i, say, fifty men and a unit of tanks is, again say, six or three or even just one; against those kind of odds you can at least imagine an incident in which the spearmen prevail by virtue of a combination of stealth and luck; rarely, very rarely but not impossible.
(back to the main story) the game could devise ways of making the existence of very old units less likley. This can be done say by some kind of automatic upgrading (with costs and penalties of course) and backed up by the idea of technologies bleeding across boundaries that I suggested earlier.

Have to stop now (thank goodness you all say). Summoned for tea:D. I'll have to make spelling corrections later.

Algae

Here's the debate: You want a degree of realism to make the game fun. Example civ1 very limited in graphics at the time fun. Civ2 improved upon that, really fun. Civ3 continued and fun. Now I recently bought Rise of Nations because it looks really realistic. It was fun to play for about 2 days. Then it grew old because of the realism and it didn't have the fun factor that civ series has. Debate closed. You want realism then watch the history channel. A game is simply that a game and what are games meant to be? FUN FUN FUN!

I think the discussions here have missed the point. Realism is about as inherently good as it is inherently bad. For every example you can cite about reality that is really exciting (war), you can cite an example about reality that would either be too boring (sending your president to the washroom each turn) or too cumbersome (managing your nation's many corporations).

I think the question is what is Civilization's relationship to reality?

- it's inspired by the exciting real events in history
- it's inspired by the exciting POSSIBLE events in history
- it simplifies the passage of time, especially the human life-span

I think the first two will tell you where civ needs to go.

And the third one will prevent you from doing what civ should never do: that is, force you to manage the day to day tedium of an empire, no matter how realistic it may be.

Instead, it should let you focus on the big sweeping choices, the strategies, with multiple paths. (Right now, I'd say there are too few paths, and too much day to day tedium.)

One can make the game more realistic by virtue of better graphics for both the tech tree and the advisors screens...also by realistic (optically) rendered figure heads /units and most of all terrain! In so far as functions i agree with the longbow arguers and more ai alliances that actually work cohesively. Also, if there was some kind of tactical bonus u could get by surrounding ur enemy or striking from different locations (flanking)

hehe civ 2 had great advisers nuff said

I think the discussions here have missed the point. Realism is about as inherently good as it is inherently bad. For every example you can cite about reality that is really exciting (war), you can cite an example about reality that would either be too boring (sending your president to the washroom each turn) or too cumbersome (managing your nation's many corporations).

I think the question is what is Civilization's relationship to reality?

- it's inspired by the exciting real events in history
- it's inspired by the exciting POSSIBLE events in history
- it simplifies the passage of time, especially the human life-span

I think the first two will tell you where civ needs to go.

And the third one will prevent you from doing what civ should never do: that is, force you to manage the day to day tedium of an empire, no matter how realistic it may be.

Instead, it should let you focus on the big sweeping choices, the strategies, with multiple paths. (Right now, I'd say there are too few paths, and too much day to day tedium.)

I couldn't have said it better myself! Some of you say you want great gameplay over realism. Duh. Who doesn't? That's like saying I want a clean neighborhood versus smoke spewing factories in my backyard. Who's against a clean neighborhood? Who's against a fun game? It's a straw man argument.

DH points out the truth of the argument exquisitly. I don't think any of us want to put realism in the game for realism's sake. What we do want to do is get a sense that we're running (or watching it unfold) an actual historical (or relatively so) nation/country/empire. Many of us enjoy being immersed in history and being able to relive it, as it were. Not to mimick what occured in real history, but we wish to obtain that epic sense of historical correctness. We wish to, in some small way, to experience a taste of reality --real history.

We want to know what it's like to deal with rebellious subjects and protestors. We want to see our decisions have influence on the wealth or poverty of our citizens. Are our policies making it easy for citizens to become wealthy or middle class? Or, do we run our empire with an iron hand, taking what we need from the people, using it for our own glory and power, and relegating them to a meagor existence. We want to have to weigh the option of "should I have lots of mediocre units or a handful of high quality units". Any numerable amount of historical types of decisions can be brought to bear in a game like this without it being weighty or complicated. It can be fun and realistic to the extent that facilitates our desire to control/oversee a burgeoning empire. These things are not mutually exclusive.

I believe adding or subtracting something from a game exclusively for simplicity or fun's sake leads us to the kinds of problems we have now with the highly oversimplified combat system or any other handful of common player complaints. That's why we hear requests for things like more/better diplomacy because these types of things add to the immersive experience of a great game like Civ.

That's why I believe it's imperative that Firaxis follow a path adding more realism to Civ 4.

Yes, i want the game to be as realistic as it can be...not a simulation tho...

I guess what I'm saying is let realism motivate the ideas, and let fun be the filter.

I think that ADDING realism can actually help cut down on a lot of the micromanagement...

No world leader today has to personally control as many factors as a player does in Civilization.

I don't think any of us want to put realism in the game for realism's sake.

I disagree with this statement a lot. There are many, many people out there who make this argument. This was the death of both the wargame and the military sim game markets. The customers ad reviewers wanted more and more detail and realism until you couldn't make a fun game under a reasonable budget that would make them happy. (Most of the people I work with came from companies that made those type of games - they don't any more)

I don't want this to happen to Civ.

I don't want this to happen to Civ.

Agreed. There ARE a lot of people who ask for more detail. I think the generalization, though, is the bad stuff usually has something to do with the passage of time.

- have elections every 4 turns
- have olympics every 4 turns
- it doesn't take 2 years to travel across europe
- it doesn't take 400 years to build a granary
- the economy fluctuates a lot within the span of a decade

Stuff like that adds to the realism without adding to the game. But please, please, please, don't lump all people who like realism into the "realism for realism's sake" category. Some of us deserve a little bit more credit, and have seen a lot more of the ups and downs of game development.

- have elections every 4 turns
- have olympics every 4 turns
- it doesn't take 2 years to travel across europe
- it doesn't take 400 years to build a granary
- the economy fluctuates a lot within the span of a decade


Yeah... I have to say, I do think that these are sort of the "duds" of the realism issue.

But what one must remember is that some of the factors of realism is not only addition, but also subtraction.

Some things, which I have said elsewhere as well, that should be subtracted from Civ are:


Using Settlers to build cities
Player construction of all building improvements
Workers
Remove placing citizens to work certain tiles and converting to Scientists etc.


That would cut down on a lot of excess micromanagement.

Yeah... I have to say, I do think that these are sort of the "duds" of the realism issue.

But what one must remember is that some of the factors of realism is not only addition, but also subtraction.

Some things, which I have said elsewhere as well, that should be subtracted from Civ are:


Using Settlers to build cities
Player construction of all building improvements
Workers
Remove placing citizens to work certain tiles and converting to Scientists etc.


That would cut down on a lot of excess micromanagement.

Another one on our team, DH! :D Well, like I've said elsewhere, this would be my dream --to overhaul the old Civ I formula: build settlers, make cities, build improvements, make money/production, squash enemy, make more money, squash more enemy. Rinse, repeat. ;)

Don't get me wrong! The most exciting part of the game is the expansion, gobbling land, and establishing your bourgeoning empire. But there's got to be more to it than that. Something beyond taking the same old, same old formula and dressing it up nice. Let's see something truly new! :)

--CK

Another one on our team, DH! :D Well, like I've said elsewhere, this would be my dream --to overhaul the old Civ I formula: build settlers, make cities, build improvements, make money/production, squash enemy, make more money, squash more enemy. Rinse, repeat. ;)

Don't get me wrong! The most exciting part of the game is the expansion, gobbling land, and establishing your bourgeoning empire. But there's got to be more to it than that. Something beyond taking the same old, same old formula and dressing it up nice. Let's see something truly new! :)

--CK

I remember at a lunch with one of the old time players at Apolyton, I asked him if he'd played Civ3. He said that indeed he had but that after a week, he'd mastered the formula and he breezed even through Diety.

I barely win on Prince... :lol: But that's because I don't play to master the formula, I play to make a good story out of it, and sometimes that means not pushing the AI as absolutely hard as possible. Or so I tell myself... ;)

I mean, everything in the game seems bent ultimately towards developing the next generation of units and a lot of them, when there is, in reality, so much more than that...

I barely win on Prince... :lol: But that's because I don't play to master the formula, I play to make a good story out of it, and sometimes that means not pushing the AI as absolutely hard as possible.

Precisely, precisely, precisely. This is exactly what I do: to make a story out of it. IN FACT, if something bad happens in combat (or any myriad of other unfortunate mishaps --epsecially if I forget to do something) I make up in my mind what could have happened in real life to account for it (e.g. my troops got caught at night in their encampment and became overrun). It might sound stupid, but it's all about the immersion into the game of feeling like you're somehow a part of some kind of cool, historical reality.

I think that's what DH, Aussie, DP II, and the rest of us are really trying to find ways to accomplish, in the end. This is what we mean by reality.

So I say fooey on the title of this thread. I want MORE realism! :) (of the kind stated above).

--CK

Precisely, precisely, precisely. This is exactly what I do: to make a story out of it. IN FACT, if something bad happens in combat (or any myriad of other unfortunate mishaps --epsecially if I forget to do something) I make up in my mind what could have happened in real life to account for it (e.g. my troops got caught at night in their encampment and became overrun). It might sound stupid, but it's all about the immersion into the game of feeling like you're somehow a part of some kind of cool, historical reality.

I do that a lot too. I wrote a few stories over at Apolyton based on Civ experiences and I was always trying to find interesting plot lines behind actions in-game.

Yeah, I like to imagine reasons for population unhappiness while I play. But the illusion is broken when I can shut them up with a cathedral.

I don't think Civ is in danger of getting bogged down the same way as a war sim... because those war sims had to resemble one historical event, which had a lot of constants. Civ has no historical constants except for the tech tree and the Civilizations themselves -- playing history from the start to the end has many more possibilities than constants.

Focusing on the details of a specific historical event, technology, or unit would be disasterous in Civ. "Actually, the greek spearmen sometimes threw their spears, so there needs to be an ability to throw spears if you're greek, unless you run out of spears, in which case you wouldn't be able to fight at all, and the units would become workers that the opponents can enslave, but if they take the spears out of the dead bodies they can re-arm workers, and convert them into spearmen, and then send them back at the greeks, but they wouldn't fight as effectively because they'd be slaves, and they might mutiny, unless you pay them more, but they'd be able to throw spears because they're greek and that's what they did in real life"
Anyone who even likes a FRAGMENT of that idea should be dragged out into the street and stabbed with a spear (a virtual one, not a real one).

The enhancements I want to see in Civ 4 would be almost like adding a fun (but not totally realistic) PHYSICS engine. But instead of physical forces, you include social and political forces. Do you realize how great Half Life 2 is going to be when the physics let you solve a single problem with multiple solutions? The physics will let you use anything to block an attack, inflict an attack, distract the enemy, break and enter, etc.. The same thing should be true for Civ, but in the social-political sense. There should be more than one way to win a war, please your people, hurt your enemy, accumulate wealth and resources...

Why do you think Grand Theft Auto is such a popular game? By no means are the physics realistic, but in adding a simplified version of it, they made the game feel like you can do ANYTHING. And at the end of the day, I think the ability to do anything is what drew everyone to Civ in the first place, before we got attached to building settlers.

Thank you, dh_epic. You are supporting my argument perfectly.

"Actually, the greek spearmen sometimes threw their spears, so there needs to be an ability to throw spears if you're greek, unless you run out of spears, in which case you wouldn't be able to fight at all, and the units would become workers that the opponents can enslave, but if they take the spears out of the dead bodies they can re-arm workers, and convert them into spearmen, and then send them back at the greeks, but they wouldn't fight as effectively because they'd be slaves, and they might mutiny, unless you pay them more, but they'd be able to throw spears because they're greek and that's what they did in real life"


Awesome idea! We need this!! :joke:

Seriously though, it all does come back to gameplay. And personally, I think that adding certain historical factors does not diminish but rather adds to the gameplay.

Thank you, dh_epic. You are supporting my argument perfectly.

That's my point, there IS no "pro-realism" or "anti-realism" camp. Lumping people into simple categories is dangerous, even when you're just talking about a game.

To say "realism can kill a game" is patently obvious. To say "fun is more important than realism" is as trite as "happiness is more important than money".

But, on the other hand, to say "less realism will be more fun" is as dumb as saying "too much food can make you throw up, so therefore life will be better if people don't eat".

There's obviously a balance, a somewhat dependent relationship.

Yeah... I have to say, I do think that these are sort of the "duds" of the realism issue.

But what one must remember is that some of the factors of realism is not only addition, but also subtraction.

Some things, which I have said elsewhere as well, that should be subtracted from Civ are:


Using Settlers to build cities
Player construction of all building improvements
Workers
Remove placing citizens to work certain tiles and converting to Scientists etc.


That would cut down on a lot of excess micromanagement.
:lol:

So that leaves... military units and scientific research as the only things remaining from previous versions of Civ. ;)

And there are plenty of suggestions on how the current military and scientific schemes aren't realistic enpough and they should be changed. They could change them too and then the only thing that would be the same is the Sid Meier's Civ on the box :D

Ha! Well, aside from MAYBE adding a bit more "paper-rock-scissors" to the units you can build, and MAYBE having a culture-linked tech trees, military and science are actually the two things I'd be okay with leaving alone completely (that is, not even tweaking with these two small suggestions).

Again, it's about honoring the intentions but not the very letter of the original game.

I'd give the design team enough credit that if you even said a word like "provinces" -- something that a lot of people like, nobody agrees upon what they should do, and a few people hate because of the crazy ideas out there -- the design team would be able to come up with something fun and balanced. More importantly, that includes their ability to weed out the "good realism" from the "bad realism": honoring the intentions and not the letter of the realistically-motivated idea, if I'm allowed to embellish words a bit.

I don't understand all the people who want all this realism, do you know how much time and effort it would take to play Civ? It would be like a chore, not a game.

Simple realism is things like Culture and my Mustketman is better at defense then my Spearman.

I don't want to get a calculator out when i play Civ! Not to mention the time...

So yes, KISS

I think Realism is excellent, but yes, secondary to playability. The main suggestions I have made in this forum are for increased realism, but where the complexity is is handled by th egame engine, not piled on the player. Historical accuracy is great fun, and can hardly be said to limit gameplay, and for many (though I appreciate not all) increased Realism seriously makes the game more enjoyable.

I think the best conclusion is to accept that players are divided into two camps, some find Realism very important, that the more realistic the game is, the more enjoyable it is, we like the feel of actually guiding a Civilisation through a real world and a real history. Others find realism unnecessary, and can be overly complicated, preferring to just play through the game as a unique, and not necessarilyl realistic, strategy game.

So the solution? Give the game expanded realism and accuracy, but make these options optional in the game settup screen. Give players the ability to more complexelly choose their governments, to create puppet states and semi-autonomous regions if they want to (I have included many such suggestions in my thread on various suggestions for Civ4), let there be random events but you choose whether you want such complexity and realism in the game set up, you could have an 'Advanced Mode' that can be toggled on/off, or split it in to severla options, turn on/off Nationalist Rebellions, turn on/off Advanced Citizen Moods etc etc.

Sound like a good idea?

But are options that aren't really options options?

What self respecting strategy gamer will turn off the options? Raise your hand. Hmmm...I see no hands up.

The game engine will have to be built and tweaked and tuned around them. It will also have to be tweaked and tuned for every conceivable combination of them. I really don't see this happening in a world with time and budget constraints.

When the realism doesn't come at the expense of playability I want realism, otherwise no.
For example, some units in the game come at the wrong place in time (pikeman, berserker, etc). This doesn't make the game easier or funnier to play, it just annoys the players who know basic military history.
And I think that doing stuff historicaly correct actually can lead to an intresting and fun game, as long as you don't get bogged down in details. Civ is about the grand scope of things, not the minor details. We don't want to keep track of the greek spearmans supply of spears, but we do want the greek spearman to be a greek spearman and to show up during the ancient era, right?

I really insist that this "two camps" thing is an artificial construction, aside from extremists who want to micromanage their spearman's bowel movements, and extremists who want the game to expand onto the moon and ocean.

Why not just add the good realism, and keep the bad realism out? Any realism that makes the game more fun and more emersive and opens up new macro-level gameplay possibilities, put that in... and any realism that slows the game down, becomes a mechanical repetitive process, makes you focus even more on micromanagement, or takes control away from the player, keep that out.

Simple.

The problem is that people don't agree on what is "good" realism and what is "bad" realism. ;) That is why there are two "camps." Some people want CIV's battle engine to be something from SSI, others don't want to have to worry about optimizing exactly how many shields are left on your 60-shield Temple so that you don't waste anything and end up disadvantaged compared to your neighbor. On the switch side, there are people who are on opposite sides of each of these. ;)

No one will ever agree entirely with anyone else on what is the "optimum" level of realism in order for the game to be fun. That's why you have the Korsun Pockets of the world on one end and the DOOM IIIs on the other. People have different tastes and will never agree completely.

And some of us are mixed up and like both KP and DOOM3.

Well, the opinion I trust is that of the designers. They've made it clear that they want nothing to do with adding micromanagement complexity -- even in the name of realism.

Macromanagement, the kinds of decisions that make me feel like I'm changing the overall direction of my empire rather than adjusting what I can get done this turn, that's what I hope they'll include. If they have any attitude on "good realism", it's probably closer to this. Hence words like religion and civics, rather than "detailed military engine", or "4 different kinds of workers", or "elections every 4 turns".

If something works too unrealisticly, then it is hard for people to understand the consequences of their actions, whereas simple realism can help in this.

Realistically, most governments don't understand the consquence of their actions. So if being unrealistic makes the law of unintended consequences bite people more often, then technically being unrealistic makes the game more realistic. Of course, I'm just being a smart-arse.

[QUOTE=Aussie_Lurker]
My point is that, as the game currently stands I (the player) have WAY too much control over the fate of my empire! I still want to control most things but, at the same time, I want to occasionally feel that some things are totally out of my hands...
I want the ability for big, burgeoning empires to come crashing down under their own weight from time to time-not just because its realistic, but because its a great way for smaller, better managed nations to get into the lead!

I agree with aussie_lurker's sentiments. I love contestability. I'm not a good player but it strikes me that in Civ, success comes in "building momentum" in trade, science or arms. This is fine, however there is a certain "linear feel" to the game - when a Civ attacks me, it does not throw absolutely every unit it's got at me - it tends to drip feed the units into battle. Aussie_lurker indicates he would like to see a greater place for random events. Putting a somewhat different spin on this - i'd like to see certain strategies, if successfully pursued by a weaker power, give rise to a reaction or capability that is NOT incremental in its effect.

Less realism? Even less?

Admitting that I couldn't bear to read the whole thread, the first postings give me the impression that the "unofficial supporter crew" just launched another attempt to explain the currently chosen path as good. Well, I just disagree with this.

Realism is not bad. Realism is not good "per se". It is very much based on the way in which it is implemented. And here the things are missing.

Yes, we have realism which eats machine-ressources: waving trees and other stuff like birds and horsies.

Do we have realism in the main game components? No.

We have a crude combat system, where even the land-bound combats are strange (arty, helis, walls, castles, forts). Naval and air warfare are just a smash into the player's face.
Diplomay has been changed, yet not improved, and for sure hasn't become more "realistic".
Trading: just the same thing.
Production and ressources: just the same mess as before.

I could go on almost endlessly,but why?

Civ4 is like turning a model train landscape from scale TT to one build of Lego bricks. More colours to catch the kid's attention, and trails easier to be connected. More fun to play? No. Not, if you are above the age of 10.

Where are options like multi-lateral diplomacy?
Where is indirect trading?
Where is a senseful ressource system?
Where is (at least the option to have) absolute figures instead of percentages provided by buildings?

Where, the hell, is the love to this genre?

Firaxis, release "Warlords", rip us off once more, and then fire the past crew and try to fix the concept for the next expansion.
Have a look at how the real world works, and by all means, add some realism to the game! It is possible, nowadays more than ever. Today's computers could calculate the necessary algorithms... you would just have to implement them.

So many things could have been done to make the game "realistic" AND fun.... but it seems it was more important to listen to some fans who assured you to be great guys by mixing things which don't fit at all.

Ah, i just stop here, since I am getting sick thinking of guys pleading for "less realism"