Yes, until you discover Early Empire, which is a few thousand years too early for the concept of a closed border. I really think Civ7 could learn some things from ES2's diplomacy: borders are open until you close them, but trespassing is considered offensive until you formally open them. Skirmishes are allowed until you sign a non-aggression pact. Etc.
How would you solve the snowballing & endgame problem?
- Thread starter Krajzen
- Start date
@Zaarin - Thanks for responding. I always like what you have to say on the boards here. I went and checked out that Old English video on your recommendation.
In historical 4X games, there's often a tension between historical accuracy and fun - undoubtedly you know Sid Meier's take on this. It's hard to quarrel pre-modern societies had more porous borders than modern militarized states do, but in response I'd say two things: 1) it's not fun to have tons of enemy units all over your land, and historical accuracy shouldn't force designers into making annoying game mechanics; and 2) I'm not so sure that if a Hindu cleric were somehow able to stroll around Egypt in 2000 BC, he would be greeted warmly. He might be able to camp out in the desert without anyone noticing, but if he were just milling around in urban areas (to say nothing of arguing against the divinity of the pharaohs) I doubt he'd do well. Tolerance for outsiders is not the universal default setting for humans.
In historical 4X games, there's often a tension between historical accuracy and fun - undoubtedly you know Sid Meier's take on this. It's hard to quarrel pre-modern societies had more porous borders than modern militarized states do, but in response I'd say two things: 1) it's not fun to have tons of enemy units all over your land, and historical accuracy shouldn't force designers into making annoying game mechanics; and 2) I'm not so sure that if a Hindu cleric were somehow able to stroll around Egypt in 2000 BC, he would be greeted warmly. He might be able to camp out in the desert without anyone noticing, but if he were just milling around in urban areas (to say nothing of arguing against the divinity of the pharaohs) I doubt he'd do well. Tolerance for outsiders is not the universal default setting for humans.
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2012
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- 1,788
Yeah. My solution to the first would be to demand civs remove troops from your border (and for heaven's sake make the AI capable of keeping promises for once) or to sign a closed border treaty (at the cost of provoking your opponent); this is an area where Firaxis needs to do better than Amplitude because the AI's response to a leave request in ES2 is almost invariably "screw you." My solution to the second is I think religious units just need to go entirely. Maybe leave the missionary, but religious units should respect closed borders (or suffer some kind of attrition behind closed borders--after all, missionaries have gone and do go where they're not welcome).
This can easily be overstated. Most premodern cultures considered hospitality an essential virtue, and it usually extended to anyone who wasn't a traditional enemy (though new offenses easily lead to new traditional enemies). There are two ways to become a regional powerhouse: trade and conquest, and both expose your people to foreigners.
Now your first point has more merit. It's true that no one looks kindly on someone else's armies marching across their land, but I already accounted for that. When I suggested porous borders, you'll note I also suggested making trespassing an offense, as it is in ES2.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Historically, individuals, traders, "civilians" of all kinds generally paid no attention to Borders, because in most cases they were, as stated, pretty poorly defined. Any armed group larger than a hunting party, though, would be noted, and the default assumption would likely be that they were Up To No Good and should get an immediate armed response.
There are a few early 'Civics' (like, Neolithic) that can modify how 'borders' are treated:
Guest-Host: the concept that you can form a special relationship with visitors by certain ritualistic actions - giving Bread and Salt or eating together cementing a special relationship which may extend to eventual incorporation of an outsider into the group but in any case provides a mechanism for allowing 'free movement' across borders by Guests.
Oath-Bound Contract: Sanctifying a verbal contract by oaths - and possibly by more ritualistic practices, like sharing blood. This is another way of relating to 'foreigners' without fighting them tooth and nail.
Patronage: Humans or Gods bound by obligation to protect clients (Humans imploring the Leader or the Gods) in return for loyalty and/or service - an "oath-bound contract" with someone (God, Leader) who is decidedly not your equal - and who could be either the natives or the visitors in a cross-border incident.
There's evidence for all three forms of 'civic action' back to the Rig-Vedas and as ritual practice long before any written word, and specifically as general practices among wildly variable Indo-European cultures from India to Britain, which means they could be invoked as 'general' Civic choices available to any Neolithic group.
Not familiar with ES2 - tried to get into it, couldn't, never played past a few turns.
However, their take on borders looks suspiciously like what they used in Humankind: all borders start out Porous to virtually everything, skirmishes are allowed, and only later, diplomatically, can you agree to stop trying to ambush each other's military units or close borders completely.
Bottom Line: Civ 7 will have to have a much more nuanced and balanced Diplomacy system, and an AI that can actually pay attention - or at least Appear to pay attention - to diplomatic agreements and their long-term consequences. . .
Yes, sadly the latter is where at least the ES2 AI fails. The ES2 AI is consistently standoffish, will not agree to nonaggression pacts, and refuses any "leave my territory" requests. (Ironically, the AI got worse in a relatively recent patch. I remember before that the AI was much more willing to engage in diplomacy, including non-aggression pacts, respecting borders, and trade agreements. Now the AI just won't deal with the player, even when it's in their interest.)
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
This, I think, is a basic problem in these games. Certainly with ES2 as you describe, and with Civ 6 as we've been stuck with it for years. Programming an AI to be at least competent at Unit Combat is difficult, but basically a problem of defining straight numerical values of tile movement and Unit strength and combinations (ranged, anti-cav, etc). Programming 'diplomacy' involves a lot more variables, and shifty 'values' that vary based on a mass of other factors in the game, and situations affecting the variables that May Happen in the future in that game.
Unfortunately, 'simple diplomacy' (If A, then B, etc) is also too easy for the human player to Game, so that's not an answer.
I think it might be impossible, anthropologically, to determine precisely how resistant humans are to outsiders in general. When an urban trained anthropologist with electronic tools and obvious technological superiority visits a Neolithic tribe, that miniature experiment only tests how humans behave when faced with strangers who have abilities and skills that verge on the magical. However, consider the case of Michael Rockefeller, who apparently offended the sensibilities of the cannibal tribes he was trying to study and live among.
That said, it's less speculative to consider how humans react to outsiders who are actively trying to defeat or subvert them.
Anyway, it would seem that we completely agree: it's OK if the game has great prophets for establishing religions and missionaries to spread them to one's own cities and perhaps cities that have no religion yet. Otherwise, the entire religious game is annoying.
Yes, I was thinking more of Bronze Age peoples, for whom we have literary accounts featuring hospitality rituals like the Bible, the Odyssey, and Vedic texts, than of Neolithic peoples. It would make sense that they had similar rituals, but that is speculation.
Yes, 100%.
Lazy sweeper
Warlord
- Joined
- May 7, 2009
- Messages
- 275
HK is just a baby, with some good ideas taken here and there from civ.
Civ on the contrary, has been evolving ever since its creation.
Trying new roads every time.
Civ 6 is heavily oriented to new gamers generations, highly mobile, with no time or patience to play long gameplays.
If civ could account for its biggest weknesses for the next iteration, namely the AI not building units, city centers ultra powerful.
No supply lines, no roads necessary for supply lines. Late game would get a little better I Believe.
There's a LOT of work to do, and it need to take into account the STRONGEST points achieved sofar, and not DITCH them
just because it's something already seen that would prevent innovation.
A few weaknesses in civ 6 made the game the most boring of them all, but it made a lot of innovations also.
There's no easy road, just a peebles road where every stone count.
Roads and railroads, supply lines as in civ 1
Partisans, Economy and unit cap tied to city pop as in civ 2, plus the best complex tech tree.
Mixed armies and governments as in civ 3, plus building on mountains.
City centers as in Civ 4 (city walls give a buff to unit inside but no hp by itself)
Realistic graphic as in civ 5, plus naval combat.
Ley lines, Heroes, workers sacrifice, but may need to mantain a little more automatic, or help build roads, etc. as in civ 6
Civ Rev be like supply health bar for all units.
Civ 7: Squash the water, bigger rivers, early armies, no city hp, 9-10 altitude layers, sequoia giants, giant wales, roaming livestock for nomad gameplay...and less cards gameplay... maybe a little sim like where you can name citizens and have mini missions, like driving a car like simcity2000, move citizens around cities, industrial districts, hospitals strikes... would be super fun to actually get inside a 3d view at ground level...
Especially if you are going for a victory, I would expect every other single civ to gang up and try to smash you, beginning with cutting every possible supply line.
That would shut down every city. No energy. No fuel for tanks. Did you build strategic Fuel silos? If not, dark times awaits you...
Enemy civs would try everything to demolish your strategic improvements resources, destroy roads, airports... if that mechanic is not present, it's too easy..
I civ 3 usually, the weakest civs would get squashed be everyone. Get a civ to declare war on an another one was super easy. No stupid diplomacy mechanic or grevieance that
only works against the most fun mechanic that made civ 1-2-3-4 so successfull...
Civ on the contrary, has been evolving ever since its creation.
Trying new roads every time.
Civ 6 is heavily oriented to new gamers generations, highly mobile, with no time or patience to play long gameplays.
If civ could account for its biggest weknesses for the next iteration, namely the AI not building units, city centers ultra powerful.
No supply lines, no roads necessary for supply lines. Late game would get a little better I Believe.
There's a LOT of work to do, and it need to take into account the STRONGEST points achieved sofar, and not DITCH them
just because it's something already seen that would prevent innovation.
A few weaknesses in civ 6 made the game the most boring of them all, but it made a lot of innovations also.
There's no easy road, just a peebles road where every stone count.
Roads and railroads, supply lines as in civ 1
Partisans, Economy and unit cap tied to city pop as in civ 2, plus the best complex tech tree.
Mixed armies and governments as in civ 3, plus building on mountains.
City centers as in Civ 4 (city walls give a buff to unit inside but no hp by itself)
Realistic graphic as in civ 5, plus naval combat.
Ley lines, Heroes, workers sacrifice, but may need to mantain a little more automatic, or help build roads, etc. as in civ 6
Civ Rev be like supply health bar for all units.
Civ 7: Squash the water, bigger rivers, early armies, no city hp, 9-10 altitude layers, sequoia giants, giant wales, roaming livestock for nomad gameplay...and less cards gameplay... maybe a little sim like where you can name citizens and have mini missions, like driving a car like simcity2000, move citizens around cities, industrial districts, hospitals strikes... would be super fun to actually get inside a 3d view at ground level...
Especially if you are going for a victory, I would expect every other single civ to gang up and try to smash you, beginning with cutting every possible supply line.
That would shut down every city. No energy. No fuel for tanks. Did you build strategic Fuel silos? If not, dark times awaits you...
Enemy civs would try everything to demolish your strategic improvements resources, destroy roads, airports... if that mechanic is not present, it's too easy..
I civ 3 usually, the weakest civs would get squashed be everyone. Get a civ to declare war on an another one was super easy. No stupid diplomacy mechanic or grevieance that
only works against the most fun mechanic that made civ 1-2-3-4 so successfull...
Is it, though? I play on Epic, not Marathon, and a game of Civ6 takes me longer to play than any other 4X game in my library--and I play ES2/EL on Endless and HK on the second-to-longest time setting (I forget the name at the moment).
(yes I did make the stupidiest possible answer)
Aristos
Lightseeker
Revolutions.
criZp
Emperor
what does that mean? "now you lose half your territory because the game rolled a dice giving you a revolution"
Aristos
Lightseeker
Yeah, you are right... that would probably be Firaxis' implementation... but it can be much better than that.
aieeegrunt
Emperor
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2021
- Messages
- 1,360
Sick burn but ya probably
