What things are more important in Civ than in reality, and vice versa.

So obviously, aspects of Civ are designed for gameplay, not 'reality', so this isn't any sort of criticism. But it's interesting to compare Civ's pseudo history with reality, and see what things get more (or less important) for game play reasons.

For me, importance understated:

Rivers. Basically, in reality, almost every major city and civilization in the world was founded on the shores of a river. They were the most important factor for trade and transport for most of early history. In Civ, they give you a bit more trade money and give a water mill.

Open Borders (in modern+ history). Who does the U.S. not have some sort of open borders treaty with presently? Cuba, Iran, North Korea. Maybe Syria? Is that it? Are there actually countries that only do one-way open border treaties (and not reciprocal?) Basically unless you have almost no diplomatic relationship, you have open borders. In Civ, you can buy them for a few gold, and the civ isn't that annoyed if they aren't reciprocal. Granted the game mechanic is massive simplification of reality (and multiple levels of 'openness/visas' and an immigration mechanic would be a cool addition). But as is, their diplomatic importance in civ is much lower than reality.

And overstated:

Wonders. Obviously wonders had some effects in reality, but more for cultural impact (and maybe national pride) than the crazy properties some of them have in the game.

World Congress. Obviously this is overstated in the game or else it would be pointless (hell, likely all the victories but domination are 'overstated'), but really, I don't think U.N. or any of it's previous iterations have ever even managed to embargo a country 100%, never mind the rest of the list. Though, fair enough, becoming a UNESCO heritage site can be a nice tourism boost in reality.

What can folks here add?

Nobody found cities on hills in real life. I think founding cities on hills should be given a penalty... like a maximum population of some arbitrary number..

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Vitruvius said:

Nobody found cities on hills in real life. I think founding cities on hills should be given a penalty... like a maximum population of some arbitrary number..

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Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (born c. 80–70 BC, died after c. 15 BC) was a Roman author, architect, and engineer during the 1st century BC perhaps best known for his multi-volume work entitled De Architectura.

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The Seven Hills of Rome (Italian: Sette colli di Roma, Latin: Septem montes Romae) east of the river Tiber form the geographical heart of Rome, within the walls of the ancient city.
The seven hills are:
Aventine Hill (Latin, Aventinus; Italian, Aventino)
Caelian Hill (Caelius, Celio)
Capitoline Hill (Capitolium, Campidoglio)
Esquiline Hill (Esquilinus, Esquilino)
Palatine Hill (Palatinus, Palatino)
Quirinal Hill (Quirinalis, Quirinale)
Viminal Hill (Viminalis, Viminale)
The original city was held by tradition to have been founded by Romulus on the Palatine Hill.

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Iron rich.

Vitruvius said:

Nobody found cities on hills in real life. I think founding cities on hills should be given a penalty... like a maximum population of some arbitrary number..

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Huh, what?
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Neither may have been settled right on there hills, but I recall some steep sections to those cities.

I imagine cities could grow around citadels made as look outs (which would be on elevated terrain no?).

But yes port and river cities are the ideal (unless prone to flooding)

Halifax and fredericton are no big cities hence my pop limit penalty. Think about the biggest cities in the world:
New York, Mexico City, Shanghai, etc etc. They all satisfy one or more of these characteristics: coastal, on flat land, along a river or lake. Having a city in a hilly region is logistically hard for trade considering all the hilly winding roads caravans has to manuvre. Even the game has something for it called rough terrain movement penalty.

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There's just to many to name...

What civilization is so desperate they allow a 6000 year senile geriatric man to lead them? (sorry, second run with that joke)

Try explaining to a real-life reanimation of Alexander, Julius (or Augustus) Ceasar, or Genghis Khan that, "Four cities is the optimum number to have in your civilization and yields the strongest overall empire." "Yeah Augustus, that whole 'Roman Empire' is nice and all, but it would have been Sooooo much better if you had stopped at 4 cities."

Well with tradition one can spam wonders all day in the same place and city while in reality wonders are all over the earth in different countries and places.

Some important real-world things that were present in earlier iterations of the Civ series, but not in Civ 5:

Pollution. Coal-burning factories? No downsides!

War weariness. In Civ 5 there aren't really any downsides to long, drawn-out wars. BNW added the potential for missing out on safer or more lucrative trade routes, but that's about it.

Also more important in reality than in Civ 5:

Supply lines: Troops in the field need to be fed. Battleships need refueling.

More important in Civ 5 than reality:

Military units "healing in the field" -- if Persia sends 50,000 spearmen to invade Greece, and half of them die in battle with enemy archers, they can't regrow the dead 25,000 spearmen just by camping outside Athens for a few years.

Ships damaging land troops with ranged attacks.

Unit stacking rules. Non-military units can't stack: why can't my Great General hang around while my workers build a Fort? Units from different civilizations can't stack: why do your workers building a farm barricade my missionary from passing through?

Pretty sure I haven't allied a CS IRW...

The impact that industrialization had on every aspect of human societies is extremely understated in Civ V.

MKDELTA3 said:

The impact that industrialization had on every aspect of human societies is extremely understated in Civ V.

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I think that is covered by the ideology tenets (which become available after building three factories), which do shape the game to a great degree.

Beer.

Civilization is not a real world history simulation and has never been. It has many realistic addons like real leaders, real civilizations, real wonders, real military units and many others but about gameplay it's mostly very simplified. I guess it would be impossible to create such an advanced and wide game with 100% realism and 100% gameplay at once. For example, embarkation system is totally simplified but makes naval operations much more playable and user-friendly. For realism you just have to use imagination and imagine yourself how could it be possible in macro scale to explain embarkation? Quite simple. Let's just say that military unit just hired or convinced local craftsmen or fishers living next to coast to borrow them their boats or - more simple - just your state delivered some boats to the military unit. One turn in the game last for at least one year so it is very possible to deliver/ship some transport boats to your military unit even 500 miles away in a few months or a year. In this way we can explain just anything in this game. Just use your imagination.

Ravellion said:

I think that is covered by the ideology tenets (which become available after building three factories), which do shape the game to a great degree.

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To an extent yes and I'm glad they added the ideologue system to the game since it brings more substance to the late game.

You know they've made so many changes since vanilla, they've basically addressed all of the really major elements - religion, trade, espionage... I can't believe how much they've changed. (Makes you realize how flawed the game was on release... remember the old culture victory!? Totally uninspired!)

One thing I think they could really work on for future games is the importance of rebellions and civil wars - many of the most important conflicts in history were internecine. They already reflect this somewhat in the happiness mechanic, with uprisings of barbarian units when the empire is at high unhappiness (20+ I think?)

There is definitely room to expand on this - I remember in past civ games sometimes entire groups of cities would rebel and form their own faction! Now, this could be really annoying if it's totally random (as I recall it was in at least one of the older ones), but really cool if done right. They'd probably have to bring back a heavier emphasis on local happiness, as the cities that flip should be the ones that are the most unhappy. Perhaps armies of rebels (which should be distinguished from barbarians) should spring up around unhappy cities, and if those cities aren't defended by your own armies, they can fairly easily take the cities, declare independence and start their own civilization. Come on, that would be wicked, right?

Speaking of rebels and barbarians, I think there could be a third category for the industrial-era on - terrorists. No idea how that would work in practice, but it's a neat idea anyway...

Ravellion said:

I think that is covered by the ideology tenets (which become available after building three factories), which do shape the game to a great degree.

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I agree, the ideologies are a really good answer to this, and their becoming available on building x number of factories (is it 3 or 4 I forget?) shows that they are meant to be a response to the new industrial age.

I really think the game does get a lot more tense around the mid-late industrial age, when civs have factories and start pumping out great war infantry and bombers... it feels like an arms race that reflects the arms race that happened irl. Fall behind and you might get bombed before you even have any anti-air.

Basically unless you have almost no diplomatic relationship, you have open borders.

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Remember though - borders are open for trade unless you're at war. It's opening your border to another nation's ARMY we're talking about here. Very different story, and historically requires a deeper level of trust and friendship. Sovereign powers aren't fond of foreign armies traipsing through their lands (and the people tend to hate it too).

Pollution. Coal-burning factories? No downsides!

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Good point, they should bring back health to address this.

Civilization is not a real world history simulation and has never been.

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While there is some truth to this, real world history is clearly the starting point. Aside from the obvious influences (real-world civs and leaders, which in Civ V are more distinct from each other than ever) just look at the eras - Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, Modern, Atomic, Information. They certainly didn't just pick those eras out of thin air. They're going for a level of verisimilitude, and I think the more they've reached for that, the better the games have gotten. Obviously of course there's only so much verisimilitude you can offer in a grand strategy game meant to cover 6000 years of history.

Agreed with rivers.

I believe if they are made more powerful, there needs to be some consistency to how they're given. As OP says, most major civs started next to a big one IRL, so it stands to reason you should guaranteed start next to one in the game. I'd go further and say you are guaranteed to have exactly X fresh water tiles within a (say) 10 tile radius of your starting point, no more, no less, but that's only a requirement if rivers were made more powerful.

And if they don't do that, they should weaken rivers by taking out the Hydro Plant bonus of 1 hammer per river tile, which is maybe the one point where rivers are more powerful than in real life (instead I would have a hydro plant that requires a river but gives a straight bonus and no extra yield to river tiles).

I guess the weakness of rivers can be somewhat justified by saying that there's small rivers everywhere that we're not seeing. Still though...

Vitruvius said:

Nobody found cities on hills in real life. I think founding cities on hills should be given a penalty... like a maximum population of some arbitrary number..

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At least they eventually get a small production penalty in not being able to build Windmills.

[oops]

Totally agree with the talk about rivers too - they should be much more powerful. Like they should make farms provide 1 extra food right away, then another one at Civil Service.

I always find the idea of improvements pretty hilarious. It always makes me think "You know what would improve this tranquil forest and the sweet smell of pine needles? A lumber mill put those lazy forests to work." And there is no downside to farming every single patch of land and mining every hill. Speaking of which what are they even mining for? Hammers I guess.

Lakes are also pretty useless in the game since they don't give +1 gold, which is unfortunate I would like if they added something to replace that like adding another food point.

Hill comment is ridiculous. Rome, San Francisco, Jerusalem, Tehran all incorporate hills or were built in hilly environs. Wikipedia: "List of cities claimed to be built on seven hills" has more. Hills are strategically important for innumerable reasons. Why do you think you get a sight and defensive bonus on hills?