How the player is a dictator or "god" in strategy games

[reddishrecue]

civ1 and I believe 2 had this feature in Democracy or republic govts that would randomly overrule you when declaring war or force peace treaties. It was removed from later games in the series because it removed player agency…

Yeah, they were there, and I wonder why because being a despot was usually the way to go until civ 4.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Sorry I haven't watched the video, but reading the page 1 discussion, I don't think I consider myself as the "leader" of the civilization when I play the game. I rather feel like I am the civilization in itself. As such, having perfect information about my own civilization (but not the others) makes sense, because I feel like an ant colony trying to grow and thrive.

Some people mentioned SimCity 4 and Cities:Skylines, but the pleasure about those games isn't to pretend to be a mayor, it is the creative aspect about inventing a city and seeing it becoming alive. Those games are pure sandbox games. Of course it's good to have some policies and administration functionalities to make it more "real", but the core of the game isn't about determining next fiscal year's city budget. I guess that's the difference between a sandbox and a simulation.

Civilization is a bit different though. As much as there are definitely sandbox aspects in Empire building, there are also opponents (AI or human) that propose a challenge. And that is definitely a big part of what makes it so fun.

 

[Bibor]

I found this video on "player autocracy" interesting. It is the concept that the human player is like a dictator or "god" in most strategy games. They usually have perfect information and have much more control over things than in "real life". The video uses Paradox games as examples with a couple civ references but I think the same applies to civ. In civ, you play a historical leader who lives 6000 years. You control every aspect of the game. Even when you switch to democracy, you still have total control over moving units, passing laws, what cities build etc... This is not a bad thing. I am not suggesting that civ should be a simulator or more realistic. It is just an interesting aspect of strategy games. It is done this way for gameplay reasons. It is one of the things that separates strategy games from simulation games.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video:

From the first 40 seconds of the video I realized the logic is flawed from the start.

What games are is simple: take an actual process, cut its complexity by a (significant) percentage, let the person enjoy it.

An hour of civ is as tasking as an hour of average desk work. Early Sid games, and indeed many other games out today are way "less demanding" of the player than that. Some, like a War of Warcraft raid, are equivalent to extremely intensive desk work.

What is painted as autocracy is just a "context" which the game takes as it's flavor the game takes. Mouse dragging and clicking is almost identical in Photoshop and Cities: Skylines. Both are "autocracies", i. e. you expect a certain result when you make a certain move.

 

[reddishrecue]

Once you get to government changes and types, this title that the player is a dictator becomes invalid because then you become subject to another type of ruler particularly in earlier versions of civilization. For example, if you choose monarchy in civ 1, you'll get good growth and good population but many unhappy people. I haven't had the time to go through it but maybe it was a design flaw that the programmers didn't continue on because in civ 4, choosing monarchy would work differently. Now in civs 5 and 6, choosing your government type will give you bonuses in areas where you can use. However, they're needed because of the competition. If you choose a higher level then the ai will more likely beat you but if it doesn't then that's when you become a dictator or a God but you'll still have flaws in life.

 

[Marla_Singer]

What is painted as autocracy is just a "context" which the game takes as it's flavor the game takes. Mouse dragging and clicking is almost identical in Photoshop and Cities: Skylines. Both are "autocracies", i. e. you expect a certain result when you make a certain move.

That's a good comparison. And it works as well with a pencil when drawing something on a paper. You're an "autocrat" deciding where the pencil is going to without asking the pencil for its own opinion.

Now I stick to my earlier point. When I play civilization, I identify myself as the civilization in itself, not its leader. I know what the civilization knows. All decisions are being taken in the greater interest of the civilization I'm playing, not its leader, which is hardly even represented as an autonomous entity. I care about my civilization being wealthy, not its leader being wealthy. "Leaders" in Civilization are only personification of the civilizations themselves, a way to talk to them. They don't have proper interests. Even AI leaders are only representing the interests of their whole civilization, not themselves. You can't corrupt another leader so that he/she behaves against the interests of his/her own civ. Leaders, or players, are not distinguishable from their own civilizations.

 

[dagriggstar]

The name of the game is Civilization. I am the civilization. I am the people, the military, the merchants, the leadership, the politicians

I remember playing civ2, being attacked by the Mongols, struggling but successfully defending, then when I could launch a counter attack BAM senate forces me to accept a peace treaty. Repeatedly. Emperor Palpatine was right, I needed to be the senate too

What I found interesting was the section about how we the player often have perfect information about our opponents. I’m not sure where I picked it up from but I think the AI (when not told by the mayhem counter) uses military score to calculate if a war declaration is a good idea. Military score is (i think), calculated by adding up all the melee strength of all your units. Ranged units are by far the best type of unit and are undervalued by this metric. Thus, the AI actually already plays with imperfect information.

The info about our opponents, we shouldn’t have that. Part of the reason espionage is an annoying side mechanic is that the information we have without actually putting resources into it is so good.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

From the first 40 seconds of the video I realized the logic is flawed from the start.

What games are is simple: take an actual process, cut its complexity by a (significant) percentage, let the person enjoy it.

An hour of civ is as tasking as an hour of average desk work. Early Sid games, and indeed many other games out today are way "less demanding" of the player than that. Some, like a War of Warcraft raid, are equivalent to extremely intensive desk work.

What is painted as autocracy is just a "context" which the game takes as it's flavor the game takes. Mouse dragging and clicking is almost identical in Photoshop and Cities: Skylines. Both are "autocracies", i. e. you expect a certain result when you make a certain move.

"What is painted as autocracy is just a "context" which the game takes as it's flavor the game takes" is literally the point being made in the video. You could almost say that in most of these strategy games, you don't actually play as the supreme leader, or even the state government or the ruling class, but as the people and/or spirit of the nation itself. After all, Rosencreutz did go into detail how, if you as the player truly were playing as the head of the state, any change of government would've instantly resulted in a 'game over'.

And again, I do find it interesting how Victoria 3 portrays democratization as something that gives the player more agency, further emphasising the country's general public as the player's actual avatar. I wonder if it's feasible to insert the ruling class as an adversarial element in civ or a civ-like game