Black Swans & randomness: what Civ VII could've been

[I was NC]

Understood the game needed to solve for the late game problem. However, instead of the artificial "Ages" system (and the unnecessary switching aspect), Firaxis could have incorporated what's actually happened throughout history.

Black Swans are utterly unpredictable and tremendously consequential events that can be good or bad depending on your perspective. Examples include Christianity's rise, the printing press, and what happened on 9/11. I'm not able to give a fully adequate explanation in a thread post as it's the subject of an entire best-selling book:

The Black Swan: Second Edition | Random House Publishing Group

www.randomhousebooks.com

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Black_Swan.html?id=mcgtAAAAYAA

For purposes of the game, imagine a great person appearing and suddenly your cities become substantially more difficult to govern. Or out of the blue your neighbor develops a terrifying new weapon. There's no end of possibilities, each of which can shake up the game, a little or a lot. No need to make up a couple of "Crisis" moments- have varying degrees of them at any time.

A related component of it could have been even more randomness in core concepts, like battles and developing new technologies. Not using "points" to count down when something happens, but instead create the conditions for it and hope for the best. Want better forms of government? Get there faster, maybe, by building the right institutions.

Dramatic unexpectedness through all facets of the game, from start to finish. Admittedly I have no understanding of coding/programming, so maybe the vision described above isn't impossible. Regardless, just musing on what might have been. Thanks for indulging me.

 

[Evie]

I would wager drawback unexpectedness would be HIGHLY unwelcome by the largest party of the player base. Even natural disasters are not particularly appreciated, and anything strong enough to solve late have runaway problems would be far worse.

A huge point of the ages and crisis would appear to be, in fact, predictability.

 

[Zaarin]

With random events there is always a balancing act between "significant enough to be interesting" and "not significant enough to make or break your game," and I don't think any game has ever quite gotten that balance right. I think crises as implemented now are a reasonable compromise between a setback and an unavoidable, unpredictable, game-breaking setback. It's not going to end your game; you know it's coming and have some time to prepare; but there is also a small degree of randomness in which crises will appear and how they will affect you. I think that's a lot more fun than hitting next turn and being hit with a, "Surprise! There's no coming back from this disaster!" message out of the blue.

 

[ezzlar]

The different crises in Stellaris are entertaining. And somewhat random.

 

[I was NC]

I would wager drawback unexpectedness would be HIGHLY unwelcome by the largest party of the player base.

Good point, I'm also not an expert on game marketing.

I think that's a lot more fun than hitting next turn and being hit with a, "Surprise! There's no coming back from this disaster!" message out of the blue.

The balancing act definitely is difficult, and true game-killers would be a problem. My thought is to make it more frequent and for the core mechanics to be less transparently mathematical.

 

[Verrucosus]

This discussion evokes fond memories of the "random" asteroid strike in Alpha Centauri that would only hit the leading faction.

"The only thing that can be reliably said about natural phenomenon on Planet is it’s always safest to expect the unexpected.
Random events can by turned off in the game configuration options."

 

[Gorbles]

I am once again on my soapbox about my bugbear that is "artificial".

Please stop using it. All it means, at best, is that "this doesn't jive with me personally", which anyone can understand by reading the OP. There are a million ways to phrase it that don't attempt to present some kind of objective qualifier of said mechanic. It's a video game. It's written in code. It's all artificial. It's all made by humans! To take the other meaning literal, how on earth can a game mechanic be in any way insincere? The developers want you to engage with it!

Phew. Also, taking what we know we have coming, and replacing that with calamitous (pseudo) random events? I have a feeling that would be even worse for folks' immersion.

 

[I was NC]

Please stop using it. All it means...

No. I'd suggest you stop telling people what they mean. In this case it is an obvious shorthand for "Characteristic/mechanic/process/etc. that is sufficiently and unnecessarily outside what is realistic to cause the game to be materially less immersive or otherwise problematic." So again, no, I'm not typing that every time.

Random events define history. However, if that breaks someone's immersion, I won't try to piously scold them for saying so.

 

[AriochIV]

Some people love random events, and some people hate them -- but either way I don't see how they solve the "late game problem" that Firaxis is trying to address with the Age system. The Crisis mechanism is sort of an attempt to provide an in-game justification for the transition between Ages... but the Crises themselves have nothing to do with the problems that Ages are meant to solve; namely, snowballing and late-game bloat and micromanagement.

 

[Gorbles]

In this case it is an obvious shorthand for "Characteristic/mechanic/process/etc. that is sufficiently and unnecessarily outside what is realistic to cause the game to be materially less immersive or otherwise problematic." So again, no, I'm not typing that every time.

The shorthand is not obvious, but again, you can shorten this to "I don't find it immersive". Which is what I already said with "this doesn't jive with me personally". Immersion is subjective.

When developing a game, a mechanic has to satisfy its gameplay objective in a way that causes the least break in immersion for the player. Well, it doesn't have to, there are funny and constructive ways to subvert expectations at times, but in general when advancing the gameplay loop (in Civ's case, "one more turn" into victory conditions), minimising that break in immersion is useful.

The developers know this. Their messaging, their livestreams, everything they're doing to promote Civ VII shows that they know this. They understand the friction in their Ages system. They're seeking to mollify folks' concerns before the game is even released, probably because while nothing beats actually playing the game, getting folks accustomed to what is and isn't changing is a useful way to help people acclimatise (to any changes, in any new game released in a franchise).

There's nothing pious about me being frustrated with "artificial". I'm simply saying it's not an accurate, useful, or even good adjective to use. You can disagree with my assessment, of course. That's what discussion is for!

 

[vorlon_mi]

Some games in the franchise have tried to approximate this. Most memorable for me was Civ4's random events, which could be toggled on and off. I have a vague memory of something like that in Civ2, but it's been too long since I played it. In Civ3, the events were random but rarely large enough to potentially cause the player to rage-quit: your source of iron might run out, or lose population in a city that was too close to jungle. The events in Civ6, such as meteor strikes, droughts, and storms, were low-level in terms of game impact. The more deterministic events, e.g. Civ3 pollution, Civ6 ocean level rise, could be planned for. Civ6 apocalypse mode is optional.

My point is that most Civ4 players -- especially the skilled Civ4 players over in the Civ4 forums at Civfanatics -- turned the random events off. Not popular. For players who were determining the best way to improve their empire, to learn the game, having an extra element of randomness, having a possibility of a Black Swan, was unfun. Was counter-productive.

I take your point that it is historical, that many have happened and they were important. I would not find them fun in a strategy game, unless I have the ability to toggle them on and off.

 

[timmychompchomp]

No. I'd suggest you stop telling people what they mean. In this case it is an obvious shorthand for "Characteristic/mechanic/process/etc. that is sufficiently and unnecessarily outside what is realistic to cause the game to be materially less immersive or otherwise problematic." So again, no, I'm not typing that every time.

Random events define history. However, if that breaks someone's immersion, I won't try to piously scold them for saying so.

Random events? Besides some weather and earthquakes, meteors, what else is actually random?

 

[I was NC]

I don't see how they solve the "late game problem" that Firaxis is trying to address with the Age system... the Crises themselves have nothing to do with the problems that Ages are meant to solve; namely, snowballing and late-game bloat and micromanagement.

Black Swans can shift the balance enough to change snowballing, not bloat and micromanagement. I'm not sure how the Ages system helps with the latter? Other changes seem to address it, like no more workers.

The shorthand is not obvious, but again, you can shorten this to "I don't find it immersive". Which is what I already said with "this doesn't jive with me personally". Immersion is subjective.

There's nothing pious about me being frustrated with "artificial". I'm simply saying it's not an accurate, useful, or even good adjective to use. You can disagree with my assessment, of course. That's what discussion is for!

Or... I'll use the term that works for me. Naturally you're welcome to be frustrated and think it's inaccurate. Heck, your arguments make sense. However those are not the same as telling someone what they meant or how to speak.

I take your point that it is historical, that many have happened and they were important. I would not find them fun in a strategy game, unless I have the ability to toggle them on and off.

A valid point. Just because it's realistic and solves a problem doesn't make the idea successful for game design.

Random events? Besides some weather and earthquakes, meteors, what else is actually random?

Easier to link to an explanation:

Black swan event | Definition, History, Examples, & Facts | Britannica

A black swan event is a high-impact event that is difficult to predict under normal circumstances but that in retrospect appears to have been inevitable. A black swan event is unexpected and therefore difficult to prepare for but is often rationalized with the benefit of hindsight as having been...

www.britannica.com

 

[Leucarum]

My first and only experience with apocalypse mode was being 1 turn from a science victory only to have my capital wiped out by a mega-meteor (no exaggeration, passed the turn ecpexting a victory screen, wondered why it hadn't happened, realised capital had disappeared). Never turned it on again. You need some control over random events for them to feel ok...

 

[untitledjuan]

Random events? Besides some weather and earthquakes, meteors, what else is actually random?

It really depends on your perspective, at least historically speaking.

If you're Columbus or Isabella of Castile, randomly finding a new continent was unexpected, but it wasn't for the Natives. For the Roman emperors of the first century, the rise of Christianity was a random event, for the early followers of Jesus, it wasn't. The French or Russian revolutions might have been unexpected for their respective monarchs, but maybe not so much for the revolutionaries, etc.

I'd even argue that human events and actions are waaaay harder to predict than natural events such as the weather or things related to the natural sciences, especially nowadays. (That's why social sciences are a bit more ambiguous than natural sciences)

 

[AriochIV]

Black Swans can shift the balance enough to change snowballing, not bloat and micromanagement. I'm not sure how the Ages system helps with the latter? Other changes seem to address it, like no more workers.

I'm not a fan of rubber-banding mechanics in general, but trying to knock the leader down with random disasters has got to be the worst of them. Don't punish the player for success.

As for micromanagement, I think the idea is that the Age system allows them remove mechanics instead of just continually adding new ones; we haven't seen the Modern Age yet but my guess is that some Exploration Age mechanics like trade fleets and missionaries may be replaced by different ones. That and there does seem to be some jiggery-pokery going on in the Age transition with how many cities/towns and units you have.

I'm not saying that these measures will necessarily work as intended, but that's what I believe they are meant to do.

 

[timmychompchomp]

It really depends on your perspective, at least historically speaking.

If you're Columbus or Isabella of Castile, randomly finding a new continent was unexpected, but it wasn't for the Natives. For the Roman emperors of the first century, the rise of Christianity was a random event, for the early followers of Jesus, it wasn't. The French or Russian revolutions might have been unexpected for their respective monarchs, but maybe not so much for the revolutionaries, etc.

I'd even argue that human events and actions are waaaay harder to predict than natural events such as the weather or things related to the natural sciences, especially nowadays. (That's why social sciences are a bit more ambiguous than natural sciences)

Randomly? All three examples weren’t random from any perspective. Even the Native Americans had lore and mythology predicting the arrival of gods, monsters, even people. Monarchs didn’t have guards, live in castles/palaces for the hell of it. They knew what could happen and their decisions created an environment for it to happen. The Romans executed Jesus because of what they knew could happen. It happened before, but they misjudged the situation. That’s not Random, it’s ignorance, denial, or complacency. Navigators, astronomers, engineers, scientists knew the likelihood, based on the size of the planet, which they were basically aware of, that more large landmasses were likely out there.

My spidey senses are tingling. My senses are indicating that the possibility that the OP is trying to promote a book is much greater than zero. Plus, the OP has all the buzzwords that fall apart when scrutinized.

If anything, this Black Swan concept is an intellectual excuse for ignorance, incompetence, complacency, or denial.