7 Myths About CIV Players That Fooled Developers at Firaxis

[McSpank01]

You know what's worse?

Playing Mongolia and finding out that you don't get any horses because the map says so. That's Civ VI.

Yeah, and what do you do in that situation? Suddenly you need to make some serious choices about how to play the game. You could go out and find some horses, and invade someone, trade for horses, use that to build a horse army, invade for more. You could choose to do something else during that time period, build another army type, or find another way to win the game. That is infinitely more interesting than the choices on offer now and it made a player have to actually think about what they wanted to do.

 

[McSpank01]

No, it's not. You,re trying to fit the square peg of geographic determinism into the round hole of cultural differences.

Am I? Or am I making basic statements that are clearly true, that culture, technology and geography are interlinked. Unless you want to somehow pretend that isn't true, so that you can have Mongolia using horse archers in the desert or the arctic.. because.. reasons?

 

[Evie]

If your empire is built entirely in the desert or the arctic, you have bigger realism problem than whether or not you can build horse archers, and bigger gameplay problems than your unit selection being limited. Slippery slope extremes do not make good arguments.

The overwhelming majority of in-game empires should be able to build cavalry, although doing so should be costly without the right civics/improvements/etc. Strategic resources as presented in the game are not a reasonable way of applying that limit.

 

[Kwami]

Yeah, and what do you do in that situation? Suddenly you need to make some serious choices about how to play the game. You could go out and find some horses, and invade someone, trade for horses, use that to build a horse army, invade for more. You could choose to do something else during that time period, build another army type, or find another way to win the game. That is infinitely more interesting than the choices on offer now and it made a player have to actually think about what they wanted to do.

Is it? The entire kit is built around horses. What fun is Mongolia without horses?

I'm supposed to build an army without horses to go and conquer someone else to get horses? That's not Mongolia!

And the same problem exists for every other civilization with a unique unit that depends on a strategic resource. It's especially bad for civilizations with an early unique unit because if you don't get the right spawn, you're likely to find that by the time you've conquered iron (or whatever) from someone else, the time for your unique unit to shine has already passed. Boo!

 

[Skojardu]

Part of the problem is production is king. If you can produce more units, you can just overwhelm them with the weakest units of a single composition and you can never too far behind because of the tech rubber band at each era transition. I play 99% militarily and at some point I just don’t bother with upgrades because it doesn’t matter at all.

One way to fix this might be having the units scale more within each era. But then it becomes critical to prioritise those techs, instead of them being mostly ignorable.

How about Civ 4 Col's solution of military costing production (materiel) and population?

 

[McSpank01]

Is it? The entire kit is built around horses. What fun is Mongolia without horses?

I'm supposed to build an army without horses to go and conquer someone else to get horses? That's not Mongolia!

And the same problem exists for every other civilization with a unique unit that depends on a strategic resource. It's especially bad for civilizations with an early unique unit because if you don't get the right spawn, you're likely to find that by the time you've conquered iron (or whatever) from someone else, the time for your unique unit to shine has already passed. Boo!

Yeah it’s called strategy. If every single game was exactly the same and was just a boring choice of how many millions of cavalry units to build, regardless of the map or circumstances ,you’d have something like Civ7

 

[Evie]

Random luck is the opposite of strategy.

 

[user746383]

I agree random luck isn’t strategy, but playing the map was one of my favorite strategic aspects of 4 and 5. Maybe a cool idea is to let you pick your civ after seeing the start- Old World has this.

 

[Gorbles]

Yeah, and what do you do in that situation? Suddenly you need to make some serious choices about how to play the game. You could go out and find some horses, and invade someone, trade for horses, use that to build a horse army, invade for more. You could choose to do something else during that time period, build another army type, or find another way to win the game. That is infinitely more interesting than the choices on offer now and it made a player have to actually think about what they wanted to do.

Being punished by the mapgen for something completely out of my control feels like something that people would get frustrated by. I know I did.

What you find interesting, other people don't necessarily do. It's on the developers to find the balance between creating interplay between systems, and the complexity of these systems creating unforseen / un-ideal consequences.

To take it back to Mongols, in VI. Yes, it's "interesting" to try and do something off-the-cuff with them. But that's not how they're designed. It's an additional challenge which the balance of the civ doesn't take into account, which has compounding effects across the varying skill levels (and playstyles) of different players.

 

[Kev1916]

What you are describing is a complex relationship between culture and resources and geography, all interplaying to create a unique faction that has to leverage it's own advantages in battle. That is exactly what a Civ game should be aiming to replicate, and I think Civ 6 did an 'ok' job at that. Certainly it did it far better than Civ 7. Right now I can play as Mongolia because I collected some horses? Meh. It's just so basic.

It's just another means for the game to be less strategic, playing the map was part of the fun.

Some folk like a more casual less complex game , hey if Mary Poppins can lead the Golden horde why bother with finding or trading horses.

Re Horses how did North Americia do for a few thousand years

 

[Kwami]

I agree random luck isn’t strategy, but playing the map was one of my favorite strategic aspects of 4 and 5. Maybe a cool idea is to let you pick your civ after seeing the start- Old World has this.

This is also one of the things that I liked about Humankind!

It's a bit trickier with Civ VII, though, since leaders also have bonuses.

 

[Kwami]

Being punished by the mapgen for something completely out of my control feels like something that people would get frustrated by. I know I did.

What you find interesting, other people don't necessarily do. It's on the developers to find the balance between creating interplay between systems, and the complexity of these systems creating unforseen / un-ideal consequences.

To take it back to Mongols, in VI. Yes, it's "interesting" to try and do something off-the-cuff with them. But that's not how they're designed. It's an additional challenge which the balance of the civ doesn't take into account, which has compounding effects across the varying skill levels (and playstyles) of different players.

Additionally, if the civilization is designed around having horses and you just don't have any, then you aren't really playing the civilization. You've got the aesthetics of Mongolia (music, colors, flags), but you're just playing a vanilla civilization with no real bonuses until you somehow get those horses. That's just not as fun as actually playing Mongolia the way it's designed to be played.

Maybe the flaw is with how some of the civilizations were designed, though.

 

[Kev1916]

Is it? The entire kit is built around horses. What fun is Mongolia without horses?

"Then you aren't really playing the civilization."

Never mind you only get to play Mongolia for a one third of the game , plenty time to get some and then if no, no mind you re-roll into a new nation

 

[Gorbles]

It's just another means for the game to be less strategic, playing the map was part of the fun.

What is fun for you isn't fun for everyone. You should value the things other people don't find fun, because (as with criticism of VII), it's important.

 

[Kwami]

"Then you aren't really playing the civilization."

Never mind you only get to play Mongolia for a one third of the game , plenty time to get some and then if no, no mind you re-roll into a new nation

That has nothing to do with how strategic resources are implemented.

 

[Bug Repellent]

The lack of resources for UU is an easily solvable issue IMHO. For example: if you lack iron for legions, the game could either give you a GPT penalty, a higher upgrade/production cost (sort of like being forced to buy iron on the black market), or a lower overall effectiveness like planes w/o aluminum or GDRs w/o uranium. This means you can still make and use of your UU, but they aren't as good as they were with a steady supply of iron. Once you get iron, legions get full capabilities. If this was the case, you'd be far less at the mercy of the map generation.

 

[Kev1916]

What is fun for you isn't fun for everyone. You should value the things other people don't find fun, because (as with criticism of VII), it's important.

Yea that goes without saying, It's a game, I play it to have fun and finding, cultivating , trading and fighting over resources are a pretty staple part of the fun games I like to play .

Some do like a less challenging game , and yea some games do have a more in depth set up phase were you can increase or decrease the quanty of resources - making some play through easier.

 

[Kev1916]

That has nothing to do with how strategic resources are implemented.

?Removing resource requirements are not in Civ vii? then you enjoy your night my bad

 

[Gorbles]

Yea that goes without saying, It's a game, I play it to have fun and finding, cultivating , trading and fighting over resources are a pretty staple part of the fun games I like to play .

Some do like a less challenging game , and yea some games do have a more in depth set up phase were you can increase or decrease the quanty of resources - making some play through easier.

Preferring to not get stuffed by mapgen doesn't mean I or anyone prefers it "easier". You preferring an (RNG) challenge that only arises due to issues in resource allocation during the mapgen step is nothing more than preference. It's not something that reliably presents a challenge.

Short version: you can like it, but that doesn't make it good design, or what is in VII inferior.

The lack of resources for UU is an easily solvable issue IMHO. For example: if you lack iron for legions, the game could either give you a GPT penalty, a higher upgrade/production cost (sort of like being forced to buy iron on the black market), or a lower overall effectiveness like planes w/o aluminum or GDRs w/o uranium. This means you can still make and use of your UU, but they aren't as good as they were with a steady supply of iron. Once you get iron, legions get full capabilities. If this was the case, you'd be far less at the mercy of the map generation.

UU balance is tricky enough without making them less useful. In a lot of cases, "less effective" / "more expensive" basically relegates them to a non-pick over comparable alternatives (if they exist, otherwise, again, you're nerfing the eco or military effectiveness of the faction chosen).

 

[McSpank01]

Being punished by the mapgen for something completely out of my control feels like something that people would get frustrated by. I know I did.

What you find interesting, other people don't necessarily do. It's on the developers to find the balance between creating interplay between systems, and the complexity of these systems creating unforseen / un-ideal consequences.

To take it back to Mongols, in VI. Yes, it's "interesting" to try and do something off-the-cuff with them. But that's not how they're designed. It's an additional challenge which the balance of the civ doesn't take into account, which has compounding effects across the varying skill levels (and playstyles) of different players.

To be fair, if you are playing Mongols that the vast majority of the time you are going to end up with Horses nearby when you spawn in Civ 6. The beauty of the game is that it wasn't guaranteed, and you need to be able to think on your feet if it doesn't happen, and change your strategy.. yes STRATEGY.

I'm not even convinced by the argument that if you aren't playing with horses you aren't playing Mongolia. What are you doing for the 80% of the game where your UU is either not available or not relevant? What do you do when horses become obselete? Do you just quit, because it's not Mongolia any more? I don't see how that really makes sense. Apply the same logic to all other civs.

Anyway, the whole theme of Civ 6 was 'Play the map'. There was a lot of thinking put in, to making sure that players need to adapt to the map, that there really was an interplay between geography and shaping your civ. Landlocked civs would struggle to get sailing techs because its much harder to get eurekas, and coastal civs could accelerate their progress by focusing on naval tech. It was a good system, and it applied to resources as well.

I do very much miss that and Civ 7 is a big step backwards when it comes to the map, which seems much less relevant.