Civilization's most persistent criticism (It's not realistic)

[Evie]

Snerk.

That would still count as an abstraction, though

 

[Maiq]

"Very simple genre" versus "Simulation without abstraction" is a contradiction in terms.

If it's a simple genre, it does abstract things away in order to keep things simple and focused on the part of the game they actually care about.

Oh so you don't get this very simple genre? Maybe Civ 7 is the game for your cognitive speed.

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[Evie]

Whether or not I get it is immaterial.

Reality is complex. If you think reality is simple, you haven't paid attention to it. If a simulation is very simple, it's because it abstracts away a lot of the complexity.

And that's good, because games should focus on what matters, and abstract the rest away. When they don't, overambitious games that collapse and burn happen.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Reality is complex. If you think reality is simple, you haven't paid attention to it. If a simulation is very simple, it's because it abstracts away a lot of the complexity.

- And Historical Reality is complexity multiplied by Time and yet, to some extent, that is what the '4X' category of games is trying to 'simulate'. The easiest example of how complex historical gets is that at last count over 20,000 books have been written about the American Civil War and we still don't understand or even know everything that happened in it - and scholars and laymen alike still argue over large parts of it.
Multiply that by 6000 years of civil and uncivil wars, politics, civics, culture and unculture in dozens (in game) or hundreds (in reality) of different human groups.

As a military historian, I always fall back on the quote, variously attributed to both Clauswitz and von Moltke (the Elder) (both of which knew very much what they were talking about on the subject) to remind me of how difficult my subject really is:

"In war only the simplest plans will succeed, because even the simplest things in war are very complicated."

Substitute 'game design' for 'plans' and 'things in war' and you start to catch a glimmer of the 4X (Civ) design problem

 

[Lord Lakely]

There's definitely a kernel of truth in that. Several of the best strategy games that I played had pretty simple base mechanics and straight-forward victory conditions. A simplification of realism is intuitive enough everyone to grasp.

The difference though, is that the games I love had high varience between each individual game. A Civ 4 game where you build the Oracle plays completely differently from one where someone else gets it first. A Civ 5 game where you're the first to found a religion also plays completely differently from a game where you're the 4th or 5th player to found one.

Master of Orion II has similar contrasts, where stumbling across a good planet can accelerate your development by a large amount. Games with the Sakkra and Psilon play very differently that those with those races absent. The Klackon race's technology is randomized at the start of the game - if you're dealt a bad hand, you're forced into playing an aggressive espionage game and every AI will hate you for it. I've had runs as the Darloks where I literally stole every tech in the tree without being caught, and runs where I was caught immediately and died before turn 100.

Civ 7 lacks that level of variety between games, even though it has simpler mechanics than its predecessors and even though it *theoretically* should have more differentiation due to the combinations one can make between leaders, memento's and civilizations. I personally suspect memento's and legacy points are the main culprits behind this. Regardless, "realism" isn't really the problem Civ 7 has from a gameplay perspective.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Civ 7 lacks that level of variety between games, even though it has simpler mechanics than its predecessors and even though it *theoretically* should have more differentiation due to the combinations one can make between leaders, memento's and civilizations. I personally suspect memento's and legacy points are the main culprits behind this. Regardless, "realism" isn't really the problem Civ 7 has from a gameplay perspective.

I think it's quite subjective, but Civ7 does provide very high level of variety to me, after Voronoi maps were introduced. The reason is - the main source of diversity in Civ games is map. And Civ7 here adds additional layer of variety with navigable rivers and very impactful resources.

Combinations of leader, civs and mementos are also important, but they are controlled variety - the things you chose to try, while the map is randomness thrown at you.

 

[Leucarum]

I think a lot of variance loss for me comes from legacy paths. I am the sort of player that if I am told the victory conditions I will play for them. Legacy paths (especially in exploration) make games very same-y. You always do ths same thing in Civ7.

In my most recent games I've turned them off altogether and it does go a long way to making exploration in particular feel more varied. The trouble is that pacing depends on legacy path progression, so the game instead has a very dragged out end-of-age where you are spamming future techs/civics and wishing the game didn't have an arbitrary stopping point.

Ironically I think turning off legacy paths is somewhat making me into a full classic-mode-booster rather than just a civ-switching-disliker. Bringing the game as close to classic as currently possible does make it a lot more fun. Maybe age end would be more interesting if the crises were more engaging? Otherwise I'd love the ability to turn off ages as we can already turn off most of the things which make them consequential.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think a lot of variance loss for me comes from legacy paths. I am the sort of player that if I am told the victory conditions I will play for them. Legacy paths (especially in exploration) make games very same-y. You always do ths same thing in Civ7.

Yes, I understand this. I think we've discussed this already. I don't feel the way you do, but in any case I'll welcome more variety in achieving legacy path goals, which is presumably in the works.

 

[UWHabs]

If you're suckered into the legacy paths, then yeah, the game gets very same-y a lot. Although I do think that within that, there's still some variety. I'm not always going to be gunning for max points in a path.

I do think that once you get a little later in an era, it does steer you a little in some ways, sure. If I'm at 9/10 codices, then I will try my hardest to unlock #10. Or if I'm like one settlement short of the 2nd military point, then I will make an extra effort to get that last settlement down. But for me, I'm a lot more of a "okay, let's make sure we stop off to grab at least a couple wonders along the way" rather than "must beeline for XYZ". And if I happen to miss out for some reason, because I went conquering more in the era, then so be it.

The part that limits me more, IMO, is the settlement limit, where I tend to stay close to there, so I will almost never have an antiquity age below X settlements or above Y settlements. But even within that, I'm still dependent more on map and resources and civ for my empire. And I do think that to at least a certain extent, each civ you play, you do approach things a little different. I really wouldn't mind if more civs changed things up - give me more civs that change adjacencies, or give me different reasons to build some buildings over others.

 

[Leucarum]

Yes, I understand this. I think we've discussed this already. I don't feel the way you do, but in any case I'll welcome more variety in achieving legacy path goals, which is presumably in the works.

Yeah. Not wanting to redo ground, but I think you were right about the game being better if you don't pay as much attention to legacy goals. I just need to turn them off to get myself to do this... And I think the experience has pushed me more towards "they should go altogether" than "they need to be tweaked".