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

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

What could be more " tremendously consequential" then your neighbors becoming the Mongols? The main source of randomness is going to be which civs are in the game and what they do. I'll be a little disappointed if everyone switches civs but the other civs still 'feel' the same.

 

[Krikkit1]

What could be more " tremendously consequential" then your neighbors becoming the Mongols? The main source of randomness is going to be which civs are in the game and what they do. I'll be a little disappointed if everyone switches civs but the other civs still 'feel' the same.

Your neighbors actually Acting like Mongols.

 

[ezzlar]

I completely disagree with the criticism of random events as a fan of Paradox games (especially Europa Universalis, to a lesser degree Crusader Kings) - random events are simply fun for many people, even when they sometimes explode in your face, to the point playerbase always welcomes more of them (even more disastrous ones) and several games (imperator rome, victoria III) have been harshly criticized for not enough random events. And they have been quite popular in legendary Civilization IV, in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, in many other 4X games, in XCOM etc. I have felt joy beyond measure once I learned they come back to Civ series. Of course I understand different tastes and how many people may dislike them for their unpredictability, but I am on the opposite end of this scale.

Random events in strategy games of this scale are
1) Fun for many people precisely because they are unexpected hence exciting and they really help with the games feeling more like chaotic, organic world systems that you can't optimize perfectly, rather than board games or spreadsheets of exponential growth where you can "optimize the fun out of the game" to quote Gabe Newell iirc and the problem I repeatedly had with many games. Or the cardboard feel of civ6.
2) They definitely help a bit with the difficulty level and endgame problems of many games - Crusader Kings II was fantastic in its adrenaline-inducing dramatic adventures instead of many strategy games predictable algorithm of optimizable growth rate.
3) Flavourful and immersive- they are a way to introduce to the game references to the layers of your civilization which can't be displayed via the regular mechanics. The counterargument that "you read them once and then click through them anyway" is dumb because I prefer to at least have them for X games before I get bored of them rather not to have them at all. Besides, that counterargument doesn't seem to be aware that many games with random events feature hundres if not thousands of them (they require relatively little effort to be made in mass numbers) and after like 15 or 20 campaigns in EU4 I have seen tiny minority of them all.
4) To put it simply, make the game feel more real - not just historical games, just games in general. In real life both on everyday level and on political, historical, social, economic level - one constantly has to deal with the unexpected or even outside-context problems and challenges. This is one of the reason civ6 felt largely artificial and unappealing for me: everything here is predictable and optimizable (besides those few natural disasters). I rarely felt any strong emotions in civ6 because I know nothing can grab me by my throat either from the inside or the outside of my civilization (cough cough terrible AI and civ6 1UPt system cough cough).

Now, of course random events which just hit you in the face with devastating effects and no ability to counteract are certainly not fun; you can't have games ruined with no player's input. But Stellaris game has proven that you may throw at the players random unexpected challenges of enormous, game-changing scale and players may end up loving them and demand more of them - as long as they are the doors opening exciting opportunities and dramatic stories to unfold before players, not frustrating arbitrary losses. On the extreme end of this scale are games like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld, where interesting disasters are in themselves source of fun.

Of course Civilization series have a different, more relaxing and casual vibe that the aforementioned games, so I don't expect them to throw in my face real history equivalent of aforementioned sci/fi colossal crises "oh well now giant death machines emerge, we fight them or we die" (though honestly personally I would totally play hardcore "survival" historical game like that, when you totally deal with random stuff like precolombian epidemics). But to sum up, I am so damn happy random events are back, and a little masochist inside me cackles with joy at the thought of being hit with some sudden political drama in the worst possible moment. Oh the sweet heartbeat of terror, and then sweet heartbeat of relief (or not).

Yes! There is a big difference between Civ4 events like "Your blacksmith has burned down". It is destroyed and the game goes on as usual. A really boring version of random events. Stellaris style where "After many years of infighting the maurading clans have been united by a newly risen Khan...." That is something that sometimes really changes relative strength on the map.

Climate change would maybe have been fun if it did more than just destroy a few buildings and popped a yield, like changing tiles and altering resources.

 

[Black Gate]

Aren't the Stellaris crises an end-game event that is not only predictable (you can even set when it happens in settings, right?) but are essentially a final boss when you would otherwise dominate the galaxy? I've also never been able to truly judge how the community feels about comet sightings in EU4, but there's an undercurrent of people that dislike the level of impact of some of those events (or the semi-randomness of where institutions appear). Crusader Kings has always been an RPG with a map, and people have a lot more fun with random deaths blowing up your empire (and your son, now you, reclaiming his rightful inheritance). I don't think random events fit on Civilisation's grand span of history, and it's part of the reason I don't like natural disasters all that much. Bigger impacts with random timing wouldn't fit as well as predictable crises, even if during the period that serves as inspiration none of the people could predict it.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

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.

It is an interesting idea but I think it would violate the core design philosophy that Firaxis has for civ7. Firaxis wants the player to have as much control over the outcome of the game as possible. That's really just good game design. Players need to feel like their actions caused them to win or lose. This means that too much randomness should be avoided. Sure, you can have a little randomness in the combat roll so that unit battles are not 100% predictable. But having big random events like a plague or a revolution would add too much randomness and make the player feel like they are not in control over the outcome of the game. Players would feel like the game is unfair. That's a bad thing in any game. As others have said, there is a also a difficult balance between random events being significant enough to be interesting but not too powerful that they rob the player of agency.

The crisis mechanic actually illustrates my point. The crisis is random but the player knows it is coming so they can prepare for it. The game even provides a countdown (that can be sped up by certain things) so the player still knows approximately when to expect the crisis. And then during the start of the crisis, the player can choose cards for dealing with the crisis. So even though there is a big random event in the game, it does not just just hit the player in the face. The player still knows it is coming and can prepare for it.

 

[Alucard648]

Any real examples of potential game-changing Black Swans in Civ 4? I am remembering there was event called Man Named Jed that was supposed to spawn an oil deposit in the remote area in early game. But due to bug, it can reveal all oil sources to player in stone age. This allows him to claim all oil sources prior to industrial revolution in disastrous way, leaving other civs with no way to defend against lucky player`s unstoppable warfare machine.