Are Cities important enough to Civilization?

[Velasti]

I think that the biggest problem with Civilization is that cities aren't actually important enough.

They're obviously crucial to the game, that much is clear. My issue is that there aren't important interactions between cities and between civilizations. For me, the issue with Civilization is that you can win quite happily by completely ignoring every other player and just doing your own thing. The issue then becomes min-maxing your own empire, the AI doesn't have the tools to throw big spanners in the works. It's a competition to keep up with the AI's bonuses, as long as you don't get behind you're ok.

But in a clash of civilizations, other civilizations of equal capability should be an existential threat. When Romans cried "Carthage must be destroyed", presumably, that was what they meant. Consider the POWER of the market - in the 19th century, food imported to England's industrial centres were a contributing factor to a famine in Ireland. The development of these industrial centres, the competition from England, as well as Robert Clive, would kill Indian industry in Bengal and cause famine and ruin. There are many more contemporary examples, with Asia's industrial development taking jobs from Europe and America, etc. The point is that, in real life, cities have power. They interact with other cities. Why does this not happen in Civilization, a game about cities?

In Civilization, there are obstacles, but there aren't true threats. The AI factions can be obstacles to your success, but they are very rarely threats to you. I attribute this to a lack of interactions between cities.

Cities produce food, production, science, culture, health and energy (and population, units and buildings through food and production) In real life, cities are agglomerations of economy and people, and there are effects related to cities being near other cities, which is why cities themselves tend to cluster and grow together.

I think it should be possible for different cities to affect economic values for the other cities in some way. They already do this through the trading of production and food, and energy and science. I think it should be possible to enhance your cities (and those of your friends) and diminish those of your enemies. These mechanisms should be both unit based and also proximity based, both national and international. (e.g. I think you should be able to trade, as you currently can, however I think you should be able to sell production for gold and watch as your opponents production diminishes as yours only gets enhanced.) I also think you should be able to affect other cities economically and politically, as opposed to just militarily.

Influence and Proximity

Influence could function very much like religion, being proximity based and issuing from the capital of a civilization. Influence of one city over another affects how well that city coordinates with another city.

Influence and Coordination is based on the Theory of Comparative Advantage.
Say you have two cities - they would start coordinating with each other, and give production discounts based on political affiliation, as the cities specialise their production processes. Obviously, if you are influencing enemy cities, this is excellent.
This could be extended to food, science, health, culture, etc.

• Nationally or Internationally Allied - Both cities benefit
• Internationally Neutral - Bonus goes to master city
• Internationally Enemies - Bonus goes to master civilization, enemy city diminished.

The master city would not be the capital, but to the more influential city in the partnership.

Perhaps, your political influence affects the power of your Influence power, much like religion. E.g. You can choose different traits for your influence (e.g. traders increase influential spread) and increase the effects of your influence (e.g. greater bonuses)
Maybe your influential power could involve changing the specialisations of enemy cities to be more favourable to you (or at least, of the citizens affected)?

Maybe some of the most powerful traits could be sabotaging buildings in cities, or even changing political ownership of a city? Giving these attributes to the Merchants and Diplomats mentioned below.

Unit Based

• 
  Diplomats to spread your influence to other factions (and act like GPs), merchants to do the same, acting like missionaries, with Civil Servants equivalent to inquisitors
  
• Obviously, military units can be used as normal to prevent this mischief.

I think this system could make trade units very powerful weapons. E.g. expand trade to a 2 for 2 system, always trading 2 for 2, and you can choose which 2 from the trade route. Do you want food and slaves from a city, engineering a famine and starving their population to the ground, in return for giving the owner science and untold riches? Are some factions actually this unethical? Or do you want to buy food and immigrants to grow your city more quickly from a peaceful neighbour (don't ask me where the immigrants come from) Do you want to steal your enemies population, coaxing them away with energy? Do you want to trade "unhealth" (read biological warfare) to your enemies cities, in return for science?
Maybe the strength of your political influence can affect both the strength of the trades and their ethics. E.g. Negative food and negative population is only possible with high influence.

Structure and Tile Improvement Based
Given the strength of the suggestions so far, structures and tile improvements could be used as counters. (They could be used to augment features, also)

 

[Galgus]

In the long run trade benefits the peoples of nations - you seem to focus entirely on adjustment times.

Though I could see something like benefiting from cornering the market on a luxury resource, trying to make sure everyone has to get it from you.

Largely though this seems like an inverse to current Trade - as if it is a zero sum gain rather than a reason for peaceful prosperity.

I'm also not a big fan of passive aggressive mechanics - I'd rather war just be about knocking them down a peg before another civ wins.

 

[Velasti]

In the long run trade benefits the peoples of nations - you seem to focus entirely on adjustment times.

You either haven't read Keynes, or didn't understand Keynes.

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.

Did trade benefit the people of India? What about the people of Ireland? What about the people of America? I hope you're not American, the Americans fought a war because of mechanics like I am suggesting (why exactly do you think they dumped East India Company tea into Boston Harbour? The rationale was that the EIC had influenced Britain into passing laws which would allow them to out-compete American SMEs and affect American livelihoods)

What about Cuba and Greece? Cuba's economy was taken down by trade sanctions, Greece's education and health systems are being starved out by the EU in exchange for gold.

What about the USA? All of their allies were very quick to jump into China's AIIB, and the American lead institutions have a bit of a reputation for not always having the interests of the population of the target country in mind.

It is naive to think that these were the only ways that affairs could have turned out.

What you have just said is that in the long run, war benefits the nations. Yes, I focus entirely on the fact that economics can be used as a weapon of war, and that when this is the case, the storm damages the ship, and even when the ocean is flat again, the ship needs to be repaired before it can sail as well as it used to, and that this takes time to adjust. I fail to see how someone coming along and razing your cities benefits you in the long run, which is what trade has the potential to do, and in fact does.

Largely though this seems like an inverse to current Trade - as if it is a zero sum gain rather than a reason for peaceful prosperity.

The intention is that intercity relationships can be used as a path to peaceful prosperity, or as a path to war, much like religion currently can. They can be used for zero sum gain or they can be used for symbiosis, based on your diplomatic relationships and political influence. The mechanic here is influence, not trade. The purpose of influence is to affect diplomacy and economics so these can be used aggressively, passively or assertively.

I'm also not a big fan of passive aggressive mechanics - I'd rather war just be about knocking them down a peg before another civ wins.

The only way to knock anyone down a peg is to declare military war on them. Back in the real world, hybrid warfare does exist. Economic warfare does exist. This isn't a "passive aggressive" mechanic, this is an assertive mechanic, which gives you more tools to use. These tools include aggressive weapons of war to use to knock others down a peg before another civ wins.

I'm not a fan of passive aggressive mechanics, and at this time, the game is passive aggressive. You passively build your stuff and beat your opponents, or you aggressively take them down a peg so that you can passively build your stuff and beat your opponents. The game wouldn't be fundamentally changed if you were the only player on the map and all you had to do was beat the clock.

This is about increasing conflict. The reality is that there isn't enough conflict in Civ, and cities just aren't important enough to the game.

The AI just doesn't have the ability to throw spanners into the works and prevent you from winning (think about the economic bonuses the AI has, think about the number of people getting turn 200 wins in a game designed for 500 turns) or do much to damage the cities that you do have, nor do weaker players have the ability to subvert stronger players or stop opponents from snowballing. Political, legal and economic systems have been used as weapons of war since time immemorial, and this system allows that to be practised in Civ.

 

[Galgus]

I'm not a Keynsian; and the long run is where real economic growth happens.

Nearsightedness isn't a virtue in economics.

But I didn't come here to debate economics, so that's all I'm saying.
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Back to mechanics, perhaps instead the interdependence of nations with heavy trade could be used in diplomacy.

I could definitely see leaders being more likely to cooperate when they need your trade.
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Honestly I think stronger alliance systems could help keep things interesting when a runnaway needs to be slowed down.

If the AIs would work with each other and the player more efficiently, they could launch a joint attack.

It could also help if there were more things worth fighting over on the map, requiring a more active effort to secure them.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

I would intercede at the very first of your argument and suggest to you that what you want are some actual, y'know, city economy values. Because in Civ games there just isn't anything about the cities, the cities are outposts that generate things, that 'yield things up' for the empire. They have their own rules and some mechanics of falling apart or running nicely, but they don't breathe or pump their own blood. Surely, the running of an empire shows its genius in achieving that which the polity itself needs to thrive while such is to the subdual or worse of cities or particular people in them. Surely the challenge to produce a rich country with great innovation and industrial might comes in some kind of odds, not opposed, indeed very much bolstered by, but still not identical to, the appetites of the money-loving in the city? And so on for many different vectors.

You want the cities to affect each other, but they have to exist with things to affect first of all.

The lack I only know how to explain by some loquacious reference to a certain Civ V mod project. In this mod, individual cities cry out to be tended to, with unhappiness coming entirely from "education" or "poverty" or "(military) insecurity", etc. But the disconnect is readily felt, where the low science output just.... isn't.... the educational level of the city. You can't believe that equivalence. Civ V 's streamlines make it especially awful, when compared to a magical thing that came before called commerce.

Civ V has something about it that makes you forced to see the cities in only one way, and the empire as just "farming" all of them for beakers and gold and stuff and wonders. So making the city come alive is then like breaking the city open, putting a circulatory system in there, and then reassembling the rock you broke to do that. In , say, Civ IV, is economic activity, and more of it is absolutely resulting from effort over time, the city's specialization, and the opportunities exploited on the tiles, so you can believe the city is rich, and also has a history, it has a real embedding in the map, not just citizens floating near some magical money that they shake from the tusks of elephants or whatever. The treasury's worth is next to nil, and the people's money is never stated, just the science and culture from the activity. who knows if they are egalitarian or socially mobile at all? We're able to recognize the richness as such on the level of our empire, the thing we actually treat with, thanks to the game not reaching beyond that. Or perhaps it is that we're able to see Civ IV as being really controlling the people, as opposed to "ruling" them, and choosing their builds and how they develop is supported by a *lack* of emphasizing the state treasury or things which are the state's alone. I don't really know , but I know there's a difference and it's awesome.

What I'm thinking is that a precondition for making cities have the extra baggage you look for is to get two things. Get them back to commerce, and maybe other yields (like productivity) coming from stimulation of a base with many facets. And bring in what the game needs for us to imagine using the city's production (or productions) to make things that aren't city improvements or state interests but the city's actual activity , which is something more than making the things to build - it's making it natural for the gameplay to involve doing those things, or perhaps, more of the time, reacting to those things happening.

I have taken a read and consider this same system to support the gameplay that intrigues me, which is at times being at odds with cities, sometimes suppressing them or being cautious of some gains in order to have advantages for the empire. I would never have known the economics to do the abstractions over using it to your benefit , but it feels very right to me to have the same system be the cause of these things. Game systems that have liabilities which are wrangled into use feel more real.

I am very much enthused by this topic, so perhaps I should drive conversation by posing you a question. When you imagine a city 'influencing' another, what sort of interface is that, what resource or opportunity do you use? Is it available all the time? Does it depend on the city excelling in some metric at the time but no other condition?

I also wonder, when you said friendship and neturality and so on, did you imagine these influence effects keying into a diplomatic stance (which also you would be introducing to Civ since the Human doesn't have these), or something else?

 

[Galgus]

Another thought, emigration could be another way to weaken a player via a superior economy.

It could look at several relevant yields and factors in cities to determine from and to where people want to move.

 

[Velasti]

I'm not a Keynsian; and the long run is where real economic growth happens.

Nearsightedness isn't a virtue in economics.

But I didn't come here to debate economics, so that's all I'm saying.

I'm not debating the politics, you can understand calculus without being Newtonian.

The long run is the sum of many short runs.

I understand the general point you are making, but this idea is that regional economics between cities should matter in a game explicitly about cities. The reality is it is quite possible for someone with farsightedness to see negative short run changes for the foreseeable future will result in a net negative, not a net positive. So yes, I am focusing on adjustment times, because trade only benefits nations if nations adjust in the short run to reverse the effects of the changes caused by trade. That is the point of Keynes observation - the purpose of economics is to minimise that adjustment time. You were the one who brought economic theory into this.


My idea is that regional interactions between cities should matter in a game which is explicitly about cities. I don't think this should be part of the diplomacy system, but a part of the game on the map, which can then affect diplomacy, much like city placement and military action on the map can affect diplomacy. The idea is that there should be more tools for competition over cities. In urban economics, it is well documented that there is an economic effect for cities to be in proximity to one another.

Honestly I think stronger alliance systems could help keep things interesting when a runnaway needs to be slowed down.

If the AIs would work with each other and the player more efficiently, they could launch a joint attack.

This is more related to my quests system mentioned in another thread.

It could also help if there were more things worth fighting over on the map, requiring a more active effort to secure them.

I agree with this - but how do you secure the map? You build cities. You gain military supremacy, if necessary, and then you build cities. How do you gain influence over cities? The only possible option is through military intervention, meaning the only intercity competition is military. My view is that there should be other ways to compete politically over cities, such as economically, through covert ops (already achieved, but it's too random for my taste, it becomes very easy to lock people out of your cities and so it's not a reliable option to compete over city ownership), and other options as well.

Another thought, emigration could be another way to weaken a player via a superior economy.

It could look at several relevant yields and factors in cities to determine from and to where people want to move.

Exactly! Emigration reduces the population of one city while increasing it in another, allowing two cities to compete with one another for regional importance. (I believe there is a Civ V mod related to this). This allows two civilisations to assertively compete with one another for victory conditions and for regional dominance, rather than passive-aggressively competing with one another, as is currently the case.

I would intercede at the very first of your argument and suggest to you that what you want are some actual, y'know, city economy values. Because in Civ games there just isn't anything about the cities, the cities are outposts that generate things, that 'yield things up' for the empire. They have their own rules and some mechanics of falling apart or running nicely, but they don't breathe or pump their own blood. Surely, the running of an empire shows its genius in achieving that which the polity itself needs to thrive while such is to the subdual or worse of cities or particular people in them. Surely the challenge to produce a rich country with great innovation and industrial might comes in some kind of odds, not opposed, indeed very much bolstered by, but still not identical to, the appetites of the money-loving in the city? And so on for many different vectors.

I'm enjoying the paraphrasing of Adam Smith going on there.

But no, I don't think that city economy values matter for the purposes of the suggestion. The idea is for more tools to compete politically over cities. Intercity economic values work fine (by which I mean hard economic values tile yields - food, production, science, energy, culture, health; and softer economic values, like population) for that purpose, and they do exist with things to affect in the current game.

The lack I only know how to explain by some loquacious reference to a certain Civ V mod project. In this mod, individual cities cry out to be tended to, with unhappiness coming entirely from "education" or "poverty" or "(military) insecurity", etc. But the disconnect is readily felt, where the low science output just.... isn't.... the educational level of the city. You can't believe that equivalence. Civ V 's streamlines make it especially awful, when compared to a magical thing that came before called commerce.​

An interesting point, and yet it works well enough in Civ V. What's the name of the mod?

I.e. compare to the movie Interstellar - the education system is entirely set up to promote the production of food, and not the acquisition of science. I think it works well enough because of the redundancy there.

Civ V has something about it that makes you forced to see the cities in only one way, and the empire as just "farming" all of them for beakers and gold and stuff and wonders. So making the city come alive is then like breaking the city open, putting a circulatory system in there, and then reassembling the rock you broke to do that. In , say, Civ IV, is economic activity, and more of it is absolutely resulting from effort over time, the city's specialization, and the opportunities exploited on the tiles, so you can believe the city is rich, and also has a history, it has a real embedding in the map, not just citizens floating near some magical money that they shake from the tusks of elephants or whatever. The treasury's worth is next to nil, and the people's money is never stated, just the science and culture from the activity. who knows if they are egalitarian or socially mobile at all? We're able to recognize the richness as such on the level of our empire, the thing we actually treat with, thanks to the game not reaching beyond that. Or perhaps it is that we're able to see Civ IV as being really controlling the people, as opposed to "ruling" them, and choosing their builds and how they develop is supported by a *lack* of emphasizing the state treasury or things which are the state's alone. I don't really know , but I know there's a difference and it's awesome.

What I'm thinking is that a precondition for making cities have the extra baggage you look for is to get two things. Get them back to commerce, and maybe other yields (like productivity) coming from stimulation of a base with many facets. And bring in what the game needs for us to imagine using the city's production (or productions) to make things that aren't city improvements or state interests but the city's actual activity , which is something more than making the things to build - it's making it natural for the gameplay to involve doing those things, or perhaps, more of the time, reacting to those things happening.​

Thank you, I wasn't aware of the differences between Civ V and Civ IV with that regard.

I have taken a read and consider this same system to support the gameplay that intrigues me, which is at times being at odds with cities, sometimes suppressing them or being cautious of some gains in order to have advantages for the empire. I would never have known the economics to do the abstractions over using it to your benefit , but it feels very right to me to have the same system be the cause of these things. Game systems that have liabilities which are wrangled into use feel more real.

I am very much enthused by this topic, so perhaps I should drive conversation by posing you a question. When you imagine a city 'influencing' another, what sort of interface is that, what resource or opportunity do you use? Is it available all the time? Does it depend on the city excelling in some metric at the time but no other condition?

I also wonder, when you said friendship and neutrality and so on, did you imagine these influence effects keying into a diplomatic stance (which also you would be introducing to Civ since the Human doesn't have these), or something else?

Essentially what I'm imagining is that you should be able to compete for control over cities, either by law or by fact, in a manner which is political, but not military, and I suggest various economics measures for that, as it gives numerous ways to compete over cities. I use the word "influence" because it should be more of a tug of war than dominoes, at least early in the game. Maybe later it can be used to steamroll your opponents.

Bringing diplomacy into it - let's face it, it would be a bit lame if you subverted a friends empire without them caring about it. On the other hands, maybe you developed this system in such a way that you were extremely aggressive with the spreading of your influence, so as to subvert your friends empires. I hate it in games when you have an ally who is economically and militarily dependent on you, and then they decide not to be your ally any more, only to immediately collapse.

I think Civ AI should have diplomatic stances, yes, because it tends to be an unpredictable psychopath which makes illogical choices.

 

[Galgus]

Emigration also fits well thematically, since its a relatively cheery way for colonies to compete.

With BE's optimistic tone it could be interpreted as "Who can build the grandest utopia?"

Mechanically it could also help out Tall play, since the low health wide colonies tend to incur mid-game could flush immigration to Tall colonies.

I'd imagine Health, Culture, and Energy would be the primary determiners of emigration.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Well then maybe the game isn't even 4X anymore if you did all that, but then , that Civ shouldn't be a 4X game, per se, is something I was thinking just a few hours ago.

The community patch project is a system of mods, it has education (science), poverty (gold), and some things like stability (defensive structures + constables + garrison) and difficult-to-name quantities that react to pillaged tiles. They generate some unhappiness which you treat locally, and things are balanced to get inevitable but not crippling malaise all throughout the empire, but it's major to manage early on. In context of this discussion, I just meant I am kind of angry with it since the science output of a city is very far off from its education level, and so on. I don't consider it an acceptable fudging of details because of the very thing it's trying to be in that case. (And it does not much diversify gameplay, it does only one thing, introduces a pressure to be even and rounded, it can't express anything else.)

Competing for control of cities, well, I think I know what you're getting at, I might be way off. If we table that, it's fair to say in any case that's quite ambitious for hoping to make an AI challenger to the player. It's hard enough when the rules are literally a board game. A game where the nominal source not just of power, but of the body of what you are, itself is under flux? Man, how would you even model the AI's approach to playing that game?
I'm being rhetorical.

You're proposing something like cities appearing, under your own investment (settlers) as normal, and being polities of people, and player has this loose kind of influence over what they're up to, in the general case. But civic adoptions and social technologies (cf. Delnar_Ersike) create some sort of more definite control over things as appropriate to monarchies or republics or Hellenistic leagues or whatever and that shows up in the end of the early game I guess. You use military and economy to eXpand and eXploit but economy is fighting against you too, so ....

okay I guess, in a word, instead of "economy" being this internal minmaxxing affair for the player only-to-the-logically-necessary-extent influenced by the rivals, and then using your products to meddle with your opponent (which may be war or "peaceful" means but that's merely dressing if such means are not ... European-board-game style), you are embroiled in meddling and just resistance all around, there is no internal because all the economy is just the one economy. So you propose in your own words that it's about having war, having non-war meddling, and peaceful non-meddlesome means of reaching the goal, but maybe the third is underemphasized .

----
I must ask again about diplomacy, I think you missed my distinction. I mean is diplomacy decided only by the player or is there a computation of stance that the game provides in restriction with other factors? Is there something that says "Everything about the status quo and recent past makes it certain that the prevailing attitude of all the simulated denizens and their local governments would be X toward civilization Y," and you being the Human also must accept such rules? Of course not to the exclusion of all freedoms of stance, but potentially many, or a few but in a new way like say the following.

This is neat, I thought of this because of how I misunderstood something in Master of Orion 2 worked, I made this up thinking I was reading something right. You have a relationship number with other parties dictated by the game (+ indirect actions), but you yourself get to move some kind of slider (through direct or indirect means) which positions the other parties on each side of a threshold for peace/cold war/hostility or what have you and must apply the same to all of them. So, you can decide to be nationalist or unilateral. But you can't aggress , singularly, another nation when by all measures, you must have disfavour with literally anybody else before that one.

I didn't think of it at the time but that would be a neat check to psychosis in the AIs. Of course it needs finagling since sometimes the right call could very well be to preserve certain relations or to respond with extreme force for a peculiar occasion , so there has to be some fuzziness, but it would be a neat mechanic for I think at least some possible game. Anyway, it's beside the point, which is that of a question.


So you were thinking of just wanting to have more Settlers of Catan competition, right? Something to meddle with the rival without the army. But I propose that's not going far enough, because that difference has meaning only to the roleplayers, or the crypto-simulationists. The difference is in IS IT an attack, which is you doing something to make me weaker, that takes something away from me. The science says opportunity costs are costs but that just ain't how the psychology works - which leads us back to the roleplayers and simulationists yes, but I actually side with them. I just rather buff up a game for all the audiences when I can. Everybody gets a benefit from there being a story in the game whether they're looking for one or not, there really has to be or people don't put up with fiction to engage with it, right? Else it's just a .... training simulator, and a cold one at that.

You have to couch the meddling inextricably in your own advantage, in the design of these systems. War be war, but the cold facts of economics help tell an older story about life which is it's hard to know what people are up to which is why trust is hard. Civ games for me let me play out a tragedy or a triumphal story, the tragedy being you cannot know what ambition moors in the other guy's heart, and equally, you know he cannot know what 's in yours. And the all too seldom triumph where you don't destroy each other. And the tragic victory when you destroy him. This exists separate from whether I choose to pretend all the little pictures are creatures with lives and fears.

Adding another manner -merely- to reduce the enemy, by however subtle and nonviolent means, as it seems to me, would be only dressing on war where the little pictures don't make weapony noises at each other. I would state firmly that it adds nothing as such.

 

[Velasti]

Emigration also fits well thematically, since its a relatively cheery way for colonies to compete.

With BE's optimistic tone it could be interpreted as "Who can build the grandest utopia?"

Mechanically it could also help out Tall play, since the low health wide colonies tend to incur mid-game could flush immigration to Tall colonies.

I'd imagine Health, Culture, and Energy would be the primary determiners of emigration.

Absolutely it would be excellent.

Also this is very much how Australia and New Zealand currently interact with one another, there's regional cooperation and interregional competition going on. E.g. New Zealand currently has government officials trying to poach Australian workers to work in New Zealand.

Well then maybe the game isn't even 4X anymore if you did all that, but then , that Civ shouldn't be a 4X game, per se, is something I was thinking just a few hours ago.

So you agree that Civ SHOULD be a 4X Game? (Should being the Operative word)

"I give MOO a XXXX rating because it features the essential four X's of any good strategic conquest game: EXplore, EXpand, EXploit and EXterminate. In other words, players must rise from humble beginnings, finding their way around the map (exploration)while building up the largest, most efficient(expansion, exploitation) empire possible. Naturally, the other players will be trying to do the same, therefore their extermination becomes a paramount concern"

Italics are my own.

Civ BE currently has three victories.
Domination, depending MOSTLY on Military Proficiency Extermination and Production
Affinity (comes in 4 flavours, including no Affinity), depending MOSTLY on Science and Production.
Score.

Civ V currently has five victories.
Domination, depending MOSTLY on Military Proficiency Extermination and Production
Tourism, depending MOSTLY on Tourism and Culture (can benefit from extermination to speed things up)
Science depending MOSTLY on Science and Production
Diplomacy, depending MOSTLY on Gold and Player Choices. Involves a decent amount of extermination (stealing city states)
Score.

Civ BE doesn't really involve all that much extermination, or competition, or conflict, between empires.It's a game where the player is VERY proactive, and not reactive. The issue is that reactivity forces you to make the interesting choices, whereas pro-activity means you're making optimal choices all the time. In Civ Beyond Earth, the extermination of other empires really isn't a paramount concern, if at all, and players really can just sit in a corner and do their own thing without interacting with other empires very much, if at all..

Competing for control of cities, well, I think I know what you're getting at, I might be way off. If we table that, it's fair to say in any case that's quite ambitious for hoping to make an AI challenger to the player. It's hard enough when the rules are literally a board game. A game where the nominal source not just of power, but of the body of what you are, itself is under flux?

Yeah here's the problem with your argument.. The military AI handles threats to cities fine.
I realised that a very similar game with a mechanic like I am describing is in Sins:Rebellion, and once again, the AI handles these threats.

You're proposing something like cities appearing, under your own investment (settlers) as normal, and being polities of people, and player has this loose kind of influence over what they're up to, in the general case. But civic adoptions and social technologies (cf. Delnar_Ersike) create some sort of more definite control over things as appropriate to monarchies or republics or Hellenistic leagues or whatever and that shows up in the end of the early game I guess. You use military and economy to eXpand and eXploit but economy is fighting against you too, so ....

okay I guess, in a word, instead of "economy" being this internal minmaxxing affair for the player only-to-the-logically-necessary-extent influenced by the rivals, and then using your products to meddle with your opponent (which may be war or "peaceful" means but that's merely dressing if such means are not ... European-board-game style), you are embroiled in meddling and just resistance all around, there is no internal because all the economy is just the one economy. So you propose in your own words that it's about having war, having non-war meddling, and peaceful non-meddlesome means of reaching the goal, but maybe the third is underemphasized.

Please keep to game mechanics. I know my initial post was really waffly. It's not helping where you're imagining what's going on and writing a story.
The player currently has a dynamic control over their cities. Their cities have population. Control is transferred from player to player upon military (city capture) or espionage (spies) domination. I am suggesting that influence could also be a mechanism to transfer control.

Civic Adoptions/Social policies have nothing to do with the mechanism I am describing

War is a metaphor, a way of emphasising this is about conflict and competition.

Cities are the economic centres of the game. The game should be about conflict over cities. This is about using your economy to EXpand your borders and EXterminate your opponents. The cities you control are your "Internal Economy", the cities you don't control are external.

Currently the game has two victories - it has scientific, production intensive Affinity Victories (including the non-Affinity victory) and it has the military Domination victory (which is dependent on military proficiency and production)

The current game's "non-meddlesome victories" are overemphasised, and thanks to the rubbish with diplomacy, are the ideal. (Exterminating enemies HURTS your diplomatic standing with their enemies, even if you go to war together, because if you capture a city, that counts as a penalty against you)

I haven't mentioned them because I have no need to do so.

Note that as far as I am concerned, you can exterminate enemies by gutting their economy, to render them a non-threat for the rest of the game. I.e. you don't have to capture every city

I must ask again about diplomacy, I think you missed my distinction. I mean is diplomacy decided only by the player or is there a computation of stance that the game provides in restriction with other factors? Is there something that says "Everything about the status quo and recent past makes it certain that the prevailing attitude of all the simulated denizens and their local governments would be X toward civilization Y," and you being the Human also must accept such rules? Of course not to the exclusion of all freedoms of stance, but potentially many, or a few but in a new way like say the following.

I didn't miss your distinction. Currently there are three relationships in the game - Alliance, Neutral and Hostile (Declaration of War).
Are you remembering the comparisons to Religion? There are two ways Religion can spread - passively, by city proximity, or actively, by trade routes, and prophets and so on.
Now personally, I think it would be really bad if this mechanic allowed you to have an Allied Civ on your border, and you were attacking the economy of their empire by passively spreading your influence into it.

Imagine this situation - you have a city, you are small and tall. An wide, expansive empire is on your border. Your influence is more densely concentrated, so it is easier to defend and spread, so it is easy to spread your influence across the border, and gain influence in the opponents city. Gaining influence in the opponents city gains bonuses for your empire. You are neutral to one another, making this a +5% production bonus in your nearest city. This could be altered with traits, much like religion currentlyis (e.g. it could be a +5% bonus in the capital, or a +2 bonus across the empire)
The wide, expansive empire declares war on you, making them your enemy. The bonus turns to a -5% bonus for their city, as well as the +5% bonus for you.
Alternatively, the wide expansive empire declares an Alliance with you, so both of you gain 5% bonuses in the cities affected by your influence.
Maybe you increase your powers from tier 1 (5%) to tier 2 (10%) and tier 3 (20%)

While you gain these bonuses, you are still spreading your influence into their cities, and maybe eventually you declare war on them and use your influence to seize political control of the cities under your influence, forcing them to military recapture them? Maybe the threat of this occurring causes them to invest in spreading their influence throughout their own empire?

Maybe, yes, you do subvert their empire and build a Hellenistic League. Maybe there are 4 civilizations which all spawn together, then build one expansion each, and the winner of that conflict is the player who can most quickly build influence in the expansion cities and flip their control? Or maybe pursuing that political strategy results in their military defeat?

I didn't think of it at the time but that would be a neat check to psychosis in the AIs. Of course it needs finagling since sometimes the right call could very well be to preserve certain relations or to respond with extreme force for a peculiar occasion , so there has to be some fuzziness, but it would be a neat mechanic for I think at least some possible game. Anyway, it's beside the point, which is that of a question.

Yes it would be nice if the AI chose to have given relationships with different players (i.e. it said "XXX will be my ally, and played out its own agenda to make that occur). I don't think this is actually related to the topic at hand.

So you were thinking of just wanting to have more Settlers of Catan competition, right? Something to meddle with the rival without the army.
But I propose that's not going far enough, because that difference has meaning only to the roleplayers, or the crypto-simulationists. The difference is in IS IT an attack, which is you doing something to make me weaker, that takes something away from me. The science says opportunity costs are costs but that just ain't how the psychology works - which leads us back to the roleplayers and simulationists yes, but I actually side with them. I just rather buff up a game for all the audiences when I can. Everybody gets a benefit from there being a story in the game whether they're looking for one or not, there really has to be or people don't put up with fiction to engage with it, right? Else it's just a .... training simulator, and a cold one at that.

No idea, I have never played Settlers. Can I point out that you start this post by saying it is a 4X game, then end by saying it should cater to role-players? Presumably these roleplayers are the same people who want to play a strategy game, a 4X game, without either the possibility that they would lose or the eXtermination?

You have to couch the meddling inextricably in your own advantage, in the design of these systems.

Why exactly would you? The point of the game is to be challenged. There are many designs of systems in Civilisations which are not couched in the players advantage, and the player wins regardless?

This exists separate from whether I choose to pretend all the little pictures are creatures with lives and fears.

Yeah you keep imagining details too much. This isn't SimCity.

Adding another manner -merely- to reduce the enemy, by however subtle and nonviolent means, as it seems to me, would be only dressing on war where the little pictures don't make weapony noises at each other. I would state firmly that it adds nothing as such.

To this end, please explain how Diplomacy and Religion added anything to Civ V? Both of these systems depend on competition over resources, both of these systems expand your borders or give you ways to exploit your economy,your opponents and both of these systems give you ways to eXterminate your opponents. Likewise with Tourism bombing in Civ V:BNW? These are all "dressings" on war where the little pictures don't make weapony noises at each other.

It sounds like you don't like eXtermination very much?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think the big important idea is that
'Normal' Military interaction gives one civ benefits from a city, and totally removes the benefits to other civs.

Things like religion (or civ 4 corps, or trade routes) allow multiple civs to benefit from a city. (Both the military 'owner' and other civs)

Essentially that system should be magnified...so cities are 'owned' by multiple civs at once (and military is not the only final decider)

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

I shall have to address the subject again. Your explanation has given me a much better idea of your proposal in this thread and purpose of this thread, but also my previous post took too many liberties with subject matter not to be confused beyond practicality.

Here are some notes while I construct a fuller response. One, I was imagining that Civ might not become a 4X game. At present it clearly is.

Settlers of Catan is suitably explained for my purpose in its wikipedia page. It is an example of a "European board game" which are unified in designs where players cannot attack each other in any sense other than competition for resources. They cannot harm or damage each other's claims. I meant to ask for information about how you saw this economic influence working. The key features you have given are that "influence" is something built in some manner upon a city (by effort and investment and exclusionary choice) , and its effects would take the form of something like "letting you have greater say in the outputs of the city", and in fact to be specifically tied to declared, formal stance of alliance, neutral, or war, so that you benefit the ally's city, and harm the enemy's city. I like the conditions of this proposal that the "Allied" status has a compulsory co-operative effect on your holdings in specific, high-resolution matters on the playing field. It makes you have to actually help your ally; and in turn, who you help has to be your ally. That embeds the diplomatic stance in some reality, and certainly gets the AI some traction.

I will look up Sins:Rebellion and come back to the other subjects. Especially mine about roleplayers, where my belief is that we have to move past the idea of "catering to roleplayers" - this sentiment, I do not believe, refers to anything, when we examine what a game is. But that is the lowest priority for me, below grasping the claims you've made.