Why not a "darker" version of Civilization? (and other considerations about the game)

May I suggest something?

If theres no incentive not to like somebody, make one.
In the context of the OP's ideas, there can quite realistically be significant incentive for a liberal nation not to get along with an authoritarian one.
Namely political pressure from within the liberal state; fairly easily represented by a happiness hit. Amount of unhappiness could would depend both on how different the two states are, and the amount of trade/co-operation between the two goverments. Large values in both points would create angry faces :)
In reality, this symbolizes popular pressure, which is probably the main cause of the condemnation or human rights abuses.
It also adds a handy reason for animosity between different systems to develop :)

I like that idea. I've previously presented the idea that international relations could be taken care of that way: Things like trading luxury resources, liberating cities, and sharing religions would raise your citizen's "relationship meter" with a nation, while wars, embargos, and incompatible governments would lower it. You'd also have a meter for your own civilization, which would be naturally much higher than everyone else's, but woe be to you if you let it fall so far that your citizens like your neighbors better! The systems I've thought up were too complex, requiring keeping track of several different variables, but something simple like this could work out fine. As an added bonus, you could implement propaganda to alter your citizens' perceptions of others (and yourself).
 
I agree with Gigliozzi. It's kinda annoying that ideologies don't have any impact on the gameplay. Of course, I get positive diplomacy modifiers if I share civics with a neighbor, but, c'mon, that's just a ridiculous conversion of reality. Right now, it is basically all about the power graph: if I got a weak army, the AI is more likely to attack me and that's it (oh well, the AI takes into consideration the diplomacy modifiers, but as we all know, Napoleon will backstab me if I got a poor defense anyway, for no good reason.).
I want to see big conflicts based on state ideologies, just like the Cold War. The problem that has already been pointed out is that this would not make any sense in terms of game mechanics. Why should I care if my neighbor leads an oppressive police state with censorship?
 
I would like a civilization that captures the transcendent grace that represents the highest achievements and glory of the human race as well as the sheer brutality and mind bending misery and horror the represents the very worst that we are capable of. The wonder and beauty of our artistic endeavours, our technological genius and the inspiration and humanity of our leaders who fought for rights, freedom and dignity. The grinding poverty and starvation of countless people across the globe every single day. The physical and sexual exploitation of thousands of anonymous souls that are trafficked through the borders of our wealthy, liberal societies to feed the gaping maws of industry while the rest of us are oblivious. The cold, methodical wholesale slaughter and persecution of entire societies by fevered, brainwashed masses.

Hey, good luck with that Firaxis! :)
 
I doubt that the Civ games will get any less cartoony.:(
 
The question, I think, is what to simulate here, and quite frankly, if you want to be a tinpot dictator there are games for that.

I could talk about how it's a bad game design thing to put in a bunch of systems for the hell of it, or how bloat makes a game far less accessible for little more depth, but I'm not.

To be honest, there is absolutely no way Civilization can be a realistic sim of the rise and fall of civilizations like you say. No one force stands behind the countless numbers of thrones throughout history. In real life, any given civ would be played in an extremely schizophrenic fashion. I mean not only do you have changing policies based on changing leadership, but there are loads of different people to worry about.

The big problem dictators have is how to keep their strong military from deposing them. As a problem, this is very multi-faceted. A military that at least appears strong is necessary both to ward off external enemies and domestic unrest, but a military strong enough to do both will normally be ambitious enough to assume control of the 'civil' leadership position. You can try to change the military, make its leadership more pliable, but then you make it weaker, putting in yes-men instead of the most competent available. Your military academies praise loyalty over all else. How would you feel if your units in civ started taking severe penalties unless you allowed the military to be independent/strong enough to coup?

How would you feel if rather than just seeing a bunch of unhappy faces, your army mutinied and deposed you, causing a game over if you let war weariness get too high?

I mean you can make a game realistic, but Civ is meant to be more of a fun game than anything else.
 
Very entertaining post and interesting thread. But I think you know as well as I that the first, last, and only time the Civ Franchise ever had a pair of balls was Alpha Centauri. Dark, cynical, mature, intelligent and innovative. If it didn't have so much damned micromanagement (build your own units for a million possible combinations + 50 billion worker improvement options), could have been the best Civ game ever. (Civ 4 holds that crown now. Not for being innovative. But for taking past innovations and polishing and refining them as much as possible.)

Vanilla Civ will never have that. Its too dedicated to mass market appeal. And part of that means, family friendly and, quite frankly, neutered. Some games thrive off of controversy (GTA anyone? Mortal Kombat? Doom?), but Civ has never been one of those.

Really its up to the modders. Many of them have implemented your suggestions to some extent. Religions behave differently and provide various realistic (somewhat) bonuses and penalties where appropriate. New civics, maybe even a few controversial, with big and relevant bonuses/drawbacks. Hitler makes an appearance in most modpacks.

And with the new random event generator in BtS the possibilities COULD (disclaimer, I know jack . .. .. .. . about coding or how difficult it is) be endless when it comes to adding historical and cultural flavor of real significance.

Honestly, I'm waiting til there is a comprehensive, well polished mod out there that takes a real EUII/AGC-EEP approach to the random events generator. We know that'll never pop up on the vanilla game, but I've got high hopes for the modders.
 
Hm. It all looks interesting, but again the question is how to model it. Some of it seems easy enough (information/censorship) and others damned near impossible (anything involving non-ethnic/religious extermination/discrimination/favoritism would require at least a small rethink of some fundamental game mechanics). But we need radicals to keep us from getting complacent.
 
Vanilla Civ will never have that. Its too dedicated to mass market appeal. And part of that means, family friendly and, quite frankly, neutered. Some games thrive off of controversy (GTA anyone? Mortal Kombat? Doom?), but Civ has never been one of those.

I think that's a pretty fair assessment. It's not like Civ doesn't have atrocities right now. You can enslave your people, and deplete your population. You can raze cities, and people scream. You can wipe entire civilizations out. You can poison a water supply. But the game doesn't use words like abuse, atrocities, genocide, terrorism. Moreover, Civilization doesn't portray them that way. Slavery is a statistic, strictly a few numbers shifting around. Wiping out a Civilization is really about wiping out a leader, who has a few cuts and bruises to show for it.

I think this is mostly a style thing, not a gameplay thing.

If razing a city actually showed you lining up the entire city population for death camps, some of you would be happy. But instead the city is reduced to rubble, and the population just "disappears". Less controversy. But better game? These days, they measure that through SALES.
 
I'd like an alternative to razing (in my mind razing is simply burning the city into the ground, while the survivors simply run off into the wilderness to live as barbarians or die) called exterminate populace, which keeps the city and most of the buildings, but reduces the population to 1, and removes all culture, starting with any culture you generate to be 100% yours.

I think it should be an option once you capture a city, and should be still an option even when "no city razing" is on, because the city is still there, but its people are no longer.

Epecially since its soooo annoying to take a city just to have it retaken, with all foreign culture STILL THERE. I'd like a way to take territory, while eliminating the population and culture of my enemies. (without using raze city + settlers, thats kinda lame :p)
 
Gigliozzi, I like it. Though incorporating it as minutely as you have defined it would be complex; but certainly part of the way. And as for making my people love me - hell no - I am their god :D
 
I do not need to see any more brutal or infantile beheviour in this game but there is lots of fans who could enjoy more deeper gameplay(diplomacy, economy, warfare....) It is just that this game needs a serious market competitor...
Also if u had more options through out the game u could make the world into your liking and experience it like u would be another Hitler or Gandhi or Augustus. I guess thats what we all crave for...
 
Nationalist Fanatic units can execute citizens "ethnic cleansing" in order to gain fervor, or additional xp points. It will be like a weaker version of how the Vampires gain xp. For instance the Einsatzgruppen. In this case, the larger percentage of foreign culture in a city, the more xp they get for exterminating population, although they still get a limited amount of xp from culling the weak of even 100% homeland culture. Although if its 100% homeland, you can only reduce to size 6, wheras if its fully foreign, you can execute all the way down to 1 population, if you have enough Einsatzgruppen, or if the one decides to stay on that city executing for long enough.

I think hitler should have the Aggressive and Charismatic traits, as nothing else really seems to fit him. DarkCiv dissapoints me by giving him protective and secretive. Bombing his own city, his own country, after defeat was enevitable has nothing protective around it. He wrote most of his plans in the book Mein Kampf, viewable by ALL, and he was quite straightforward a fan of the Ragnarok mythology. The only secretive thing about him was keeping his limited family life a stone cold secret. Nothing about how he led his country was protective or secretive. Also, a Nazi UU for the tank should be the Tiger, perhaps extra str (dont remember current tank strength, if tank is 28, tiger should be 30, ect) and +75% vs armor units, and Nazi modern armor replacement should be Tiger 5 or somesuch (maybe Tiger 6?) with 45 str and 25% vs armor and 25% vs infantry. If we want to be real finicky, we should give them better infantry and better planes too (exept for the stealth variety, USA and USSR get the best of those).

And USSR would get cheap fodder for infantry and planes, but some truly badass supertanks to rival the Nazi Tigers. and then later of course the USSR would get good modern jets and stealth planes.

The USA would get average infantry, average navy, cheap-ass fodder sherman-tanks (until Modern armor), and top of the line planes in each era.

Nazis would also have the best Submarines by far, either called "Wolf Pack" or "UnterseaBoot" I prefer the term "Wolf Pack" myself.

Stalin would be Aggresive/ Secretive, while Lenin would be Philosophical/ Expansive.

I think USA should get a Patton leader, who is Organized/Charismatic.

If not, then simply an Organized/Financial leader is fine I suppose, some bureaucrat from history.

However, if you are going to do a President Roosevelt, or the nameless guy after him, an Organized/Protective might be the best approach.

Also, the Nazis and the USSR should each have an ultranationalist unit that can execute population for experience points. These should be, for the Nazis, the einsatzgruppen, and for the USSR, probably the Commissars. Gulag and KGB are good candidates, but they are too much the civil sector, AKA the police force and the spies respectively. And I think we can all appreciate, from Warhammer, a commissar that execute people on the whim. The name could even represent a group of ultra-nationalist Soviets led by a Commissar. The mongols under Ghengis could get a similar nationalist unit at a much earlier tech, to be some sort of mounted war-band.

The mongols should have some cheap fodder units, 3 move that ignore enemy terrain, while the national units could be called Khan riders or something (maybe someone more familiar with the time frame could present better data?) and get not only 3 move and ignore terrain, but commando and blitz as well. Bretty Boss for a Mongol, dontcha think? but I think it would better represent the ferocity of the mongols. They have a superunit, with abilities akin to a tank (and a commando/helicopter) that can gain experience by slaughtering your innocent civilians. (explained as an increase in fervor by killing off "weaker" peoples).

In addition, available at Fascism, you could have a buildable improvement called "concentration camp" which is built by sacrificing a worker. It could start off with the same stats as a workshop, but for each population you execute in the city, it adds a temporary (10 turns) hammer and commerce on each concentration camp tile in the fat cross.

In addition, I think their should be a civic called "ethnic cleansing" which is available as soon as Feudalism (for mongols and such) which enables population to only require 1 food to eat, or quite hopefully, if each concentration camp in the fat cross lowers the food threshold by 1 (the more camps you have, the less food you need) although another way of looking at it is simply giving extra food to concentration camps, to get the desired effect. Although this seems against flavor.
Ethnic cleansing civic would also allow the ultra-nationalist units to sacrifice population for experience points, and allow concentration camps to be built by workers (at Fascism). Also, foreign culture presence would have serious reprocussions, and any executions would probably cause hurry anger. Yet no fear! because we have a new building called a re-education center, which can only be built (and maybe only exists) with the civic "ethnic cleansing" running.

In addition, their could be a Wonder Called "ultra-genocide" or "holocaust" which grants a Re-education center in every city, and doubles the speed that concentration camps are built (or if concentration camps are normally built by sacrificing a worker, workers can now build them normally at a hurried pace).

Additionally, jail-houses would be replaced by Gestapo (nazi) and Gulag (USSR) ... although the Soviet gulags were far more extreme, and the Siberian work-camps were almost equivalent to the Death Camps of the Holocaust. Perhaps while running the State Police civic, you can build a national wonder called something like "Siberia" or "Wasteland" which grants jailhouses in all cities. In addition, Soviet Intelligence agency's should have a UB called KGB.

On the subject, Police State should limit hurry anger, especially the hurry anger from population-wide executions/cleansing, if not remove such anger entirely.

There should also be random events related to much ethnic cleansing, which creates a "Refugee Camp" feature, which (cannot be removed?) or requires declaration of war against the UN to remove it (or the liberal civ of the highest score, like USA or Britain). Also, there should be a UN resolution to out-law the ethnic cleansing civic, and to refuse that would basically mean no foreign trade routes, and possible wars.

There could also be a civic called "interventionalism" which gives bonuses, somehow, for going to war with civs running ethnic cleansing, and the AI running interventionalism would have to be given a higher chance to declare war against people that break resolutions.

Im thinking each civ could have a Pride resource (or maybe it could come from Ultra-Genocide and Ethnic cleansing only, and maybe a Concentration camp has a chance of discovering a Pride resource. The Holocaust(Xenocide) wonder could probably grant a pride resource, as well some event that triggers after killing off the entire foreign culture of any rival civ), and those running interventionalism would have to war and force such civs to basically capitulate and give up their pride resources and stop running the ethnic cleansing civic. Then the pride goes to the victorious allies, as a victory pride, instead of the nefarious xenocide pride. It still has alot of kinks to work out, of course. Interventionalist or Capitalist civic running nations should also get substantial production and commerce boosts for every oil resource under their control. (and perhaps spice resource during the age of discovery) although by the modern era, the spice boosts are obsolete, and they need to aquire oil. Perhaps Optics begins the spice boost, and Biology obsoletes it and begins the oil boost. But it requires running a capitalist and/or interventionalist civic in order to gain the boost.

In addition, with all this dependence on civics, getting a fallen enemy to adopt new civics should become ALOT more important than earlier, and this should be worked into the AI (basically a completely beaten foe should have no choice but to adopt all of their oppresor's civics).

I also think that any civ, if running the right civics, should be able to use the scorched earth policy. I think the policy was first used by Peter the Great in the (1800s?) and then more popularly used by Stalin during WWII, but I think anyone, even non Russia or USSR, should be able to use it upon discovery of .... Civil Service perhaps? Or maybe Nationalism? Basically, its a spell you use, ability, whatever, with a unit in the city. It removes all non-wonder buildings, and auto destroys all improvements in the city's fat-cross still inside your culture.

Speaking of which, the ethnic cleansing ability should also be able to be used out in the country side, only with no experience gain, but you automatically gain full culture of the tile the ability is used upon.

Also, Christianity should give extra culture boosts while islam gives extra science boosts, buddhism gives extra happiness boosts, and Taoism gives extra GPP boosts. Judaism gives extra commerce boosts. Confucianism grants lower maintanence costs, and Hinduism grants extra food and health. These can be tweaked of course, but makes the most sense to me.

I think this version should be called "Pitch Black: sins of mankind"

I admit this post is probably the most offensive thing I have ever typed. But I was going for something really dark, like black soul kind of dark.

Edit: at Gorakshanak, I would rather be another Augustus. Or perhaps a Justinian. Constantine was also kind o' swell. Although my times with other games have grown for a craving of interesting civs like the Mongols and the WW2 red army. AKA the imperial guard from Warhammer(red army), and the hippus from ffh2 (mongols).

Super Edit: I would highly like for fascism, communism, and capitalism to be added as religions, with capitalism giving a gold bonus/ trade route bonus, communism granting .... zero war weariness plus extremely lower maintanence, and fascism granting a production and science bonus (they experimented on their victims with heightened efficiency).

they would be like the three end game super religions.

Ive thought up another Victory condition .... "Divine Imperium" victory. You must be running the God-Emperor civic, be running state religion X, have the holy city for religion X, and all civs in the world must be following religion X. Finally, you must be at peace with all of your followers (the other civs) now you have won a God-emperor victory!
 
The problem with ethnic cleansing and/or genocide is one of headlines. i.e. 'New strategy game allows players to kill the Jews', or 'Game presents Holocaust as beneficial'. That would be absolutely horrendous for publicity, and although the intent isn't as such, those headlines would be relatively truthful (you could do those things, and there would conceivably be a benefit to doing them). The game developers simply cannot implement that type of thing. It would be corporate suicide.
 
Love the idea,

I would really like a CIVILIZATION: DYSTOPIA coming out. It would appeal to my darkest nature.

But civilization as it is is already pretty dark if you think about it. There is no moral options on slavery, facism, war, etc. In fact, when playing civ, you get the idea that slavery is required and beneficial for a sociaty's development.

Genocide happens all the times in civ. When you capture a city, the resident population drop from 1 million to a few thousand in a dozen turns. While your advisors tell you that they die from "Starvation", we all know what really happens behind the computer screen.
 
See this is why it will be a MOD, and not a base version

Besides, I would kind of rather the Wonder be called Xenocide, since its a better and more generic name for what the holocaust was.
 
I certainly like the idea of a darker theme. Most of the op's ideas actually seem fairly useful and provide an interesting aspect to game play. Also most options ensure that the little civ doesn't get knocked out too easily.
 
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