HorseshoeHermit
20% accurate as usual, Morty
What should the victory conditions of a new Civ game be? I think there's a good reason to ask this question first.
One can consider this thread just a place for focusing conversation on the titular design tactic, but to belong to the aspirations of that perfect 4X historical game thread.
We can get a very fine sense of what it should take to prove victorious in a "simulation of Human society across history" without having encoded any hard rules of gameplay yet. And moreover, I will argue that having the victory conditions in mind, are the best way to derive all other elements of a strategy game. It makes so much sense, doesn't it? The things you would want to put in the game, are just enough to let that victory manifest itself and no more. Gameplay in a *strategy* game falls on that razor.
Strategy gameplay derives ALL its meaning from the true efficacies of each decision toward the victory. Therefore the only way to design strategy gameplay is to be designing routes of various efficacy toward a victory. Every mechanic is understood only as a platform of decisions, and so mechanics cannot be designed without a concrete idea of the victory approached or delayed by decisions. In short we cannot simulate any resource or attribute arbitrarily, because the gameplay value of any knob or symbol is its exchange rate with the making of a victory, and things with undefined value (or 0 value), by not -existing- in gameplay, can't be taken to simulate or refer to what they are intended to be. They won't co-vary as a simulation.
Instead, from a victory definition, we get a sense of a gameplay system that culminates in that condition. From gameplay, we get at least a normative calculus for approving or disapproving of different mechanics. With mechanics, we can iterate all the hundreds of decisions of using them. And we would know the starting asset bundle from an arbitrary choice, in virtue of it positioning the player for engaging decisions right out the gate.
Some victory conditions are traditional. There's an extraterrestrial colony victory. There's a domination victory. When you ask about a "Science" victory, I end up agreeing one should exist but actually as a specific example of a more general principle of victory. If a faction achieves supremacy in some domain and maintains at least parity in the others, this should be able to end the game - and at a stage earlier than the "achievement" oriented ones. This is indeed to address the demand for a mercykilling of drawn-out games that are won before half their necessary length is played out.
Maybe all victories can be just things that trigger this one single condition: The hearts and minds of the game's human beings are unable to see an end to the dominion of that impressive faction, which has achieved [some particular] supreme standing. There can be a dozen such achievements, each one just serving to immortalize the player's "faction" as a way of life. This leads me to a point that emerged as I wrote this. I think that the answer to "What does the player's faction actually mean?" is one that can co-emerge with answering what the victories are. By choosing a victory, we have drawn up a road to creating those conditions, beset by the obstacles to that condition. The player is the steward of a people who want those conditions and aren't in control of the obstacles to that condition - at least directly. This is as far as I can figure.
And so, consider each of these "victories" just a word prompt for trying to get at the two answers together: Who IS the player, and what will mean that it has achieved its immortal sovereignty before all other Earthlings?
The idea of needing safety from war, at least civilian invulnerability, is very prominent in my eyes. It is always weird when a player wins while struggling with invasions, except for that space colony one to an extent. Again, it seems better if the space colony generates a kind of "awe" or something , and it works over time and that, through its own mechanic, disarms the invaders and -then- makes you win.
Notice how these interpretations iterate the same idea, of humankind becoming unable to see itself without you somehow. Economically indispensable. Culturally pre-eminent. Diplomatically chief. This I think puts victories into two kinds: The domination victory where no other player exists, and also includes creating the extraterrestrial colony; and the niche-type victories where you have woven yourself into all other societies, not destroying them but superseding them sort of. All people 'come to realize' that society IS your society, or something like that.
I hope people have some thoughts on this approach they'll share.
One can consider this thread just a place for focusing conversation on the titular design tactic, but to belong to the aspirations of that perfect 4X historical game thread.
We can get a very fine sense of what it should take to prove victorious in a "simulation of Human society across history" without having encoded any hard rules of gameplay yet. And moreover, I will argue that having the victory conditions in mind, are the best way to derive all other elements of a strategy game. It makes so much sense, doesn't it? The things you would want to put in the game, are just enough to let that victory manifest itself and no more. Gameplay in a *strategy* game falls on that razor.
Strategy gameplay derives ALL its meaning from the true efficacies of each decision toward the victory. Therefore the only way to design strategy gameplay is to be designing routes of various efficacy toward a victory. Every mechanic is understood only as a platform of decisions, and so mechanics cannot be designed without a concrete idea of the victory approached or delayed by decisions. In short we cannot simulate any resource or attribute arbitrarily, because the gameplay value of any knob or symbol is its exchange rate with the making of a victory, and things with undefined value (or 0 value), by not -existing- in gameplay, can't be taken to simulate or refer to what they are intended to be. They won't co-vary as a simulation.
Instead, from a victory definition, we get a sense of a gameplay system that culminates in that condition. From gameplay, we get at least a normative calculus for approving or disapproving of different mechanics. With mechanics, we can iterate all the hundreds of decisions of using them. And we would know the starting asset bundle from an arbitrary choice, in virtue of it positioning the player for engaging decisions right out the gate.
Some victory conditions are traditional. There's an extraterrestrial colony victory. There's a domination victory. When you ask about a "Science" victory, I end up agreeing one should exist but actually as a specific example of a more general principle of victory. If a faction achieves supremacy in some domain and maintains at least parity in the others, this should be able to end the game - and at a stage earlier than the "achievement" oriented ones. This is indeed to address the demand for a mercykilling of drawn-out games that are won before half their necessary length is played out.
Maybe all victories can be just things that trigger this one single condition: The hearts and minds of the game's human beings are unable to see an end to the dominion of that impressive faction, which has achieved [some particular] supreme standing. There can be a dozen such achievements, each one just serving to immortalize the player's "faction" as a way of life. This leads me to a point that emerged as I wrote this. I think that the answer to "What does the player's faction actually mean?" is one that can co-emerge with answering what the victories are. By choosing a victory, we have drawn up a road to creating those conditions, beset by the obstacles to that condition. The player is the steward of a people who want those conditions and aren't in control of the obstacles to that condition - at least directly. This is as far as I can figure.
And so, consider each of these "victories" just a word prompt for trying to get at the two answers together: Who IS the player, and what will mean that it has achieved its immortal sovereignty before all other Earthlings?
Diplomatic victory: Chosen as the permanent leader of a World Union.
Cultural victory: The music we adore comes from your publishers. Styles, fashions, architectures are all your people's creations. The very idioms of language proceed from your people's works and mouths, never surpassed. (Imagine scientific dominance even contributing to this, from super-saturation of publications with the thought and writing of your scientists.)
Economic victory: The industries and finance of this faction are inextricable from all others; no livelihood carries on without this faction and everyone knows it.
Niche victory: Everything depends on you for something. They could never challenge you and would never threaten you with war.
Cultural victory: The music we adore comes from your publishers. Styles, fashions, architectures are all your people's creations. The very idioms of language proceed from your people's works and mouths, never surpassed. (Imagine scientific dominance even contributing to this, from super-saturation of publications with the thought and writing of your scientists.)
Economic victory: The industries and finance of this faction are inextricable from all others; no livelihood carries on without this faction and everyone knows it.
Niche victory: Everything depends on you for something. They could never challenge you and would never threaten you with war.
The idea of needing safety from war, at least civilian invulnerability, is very prominent in my eyes. It is always weird when a player wins while struggling with invasions, except for that space colony one to an extent. Again, it seems better if the space colony generates a kind of "awe" or something , and it works over time and that, through its own mechanic, disarms the invaders and -then- makes you win.
Notice how these interpretations iterate the same idea, of humankind becoming unable to see itself without you somehow. Economically indispensable. Culturally pre-eminent. Diplomatically chief. This I think puts victories into two kinds: The domination victory where no other player exists, and also includes creating the extraterrestrial colony; and the niche-type victories where you have woven yourself into all other societies, not destroying them but superseding them sort of. All people 'come to realize' that society IS your society, or something like that.
I hope people have some thoughts on this approach they'll share.