Does anyone play CiV realistically?

[ScubaSteveWA]

This is something I was surprised about the more I started to visit the forums. While looking around everything that I see from the players here is all gameplay with the sole objective of winning, and that's it.

Maybe it's just because I'm a previous Total War/Europa player, but I almost never play this game just to beat the AI. However, it seems here that's the only way many of you play it. Now don't get me wrong, this is a strategy game, there is no shame in playing that way, but I thought CiV was different. When I play a game of CiV I'm playing it build a Civilization and try my best to create a story with it. I'm building my Civ not to win the game, but to stand the test of time. I love history and like to use CiV as a tool to in a way create it, or change it. Beating the AI can be fun, however I've found it more enjoyable to just see how my civilization lasts and builds in time. If it fails, it fails, if the conquers the world... well, I have a story to tell don't I.

To help with this, I've always set house rules for myself. Those are, well... all of the exploits many of you use. Now don't get offended, but stealth bomber spam and bee-lining techs with 6 saved GS are not everyone's cup of tea, some of us like different. usually I set rules that help the AI and make the game a more realistic challenging experience. I've found the AI may not be as bad as we think it is, it's just people exploit it so darn much (lol... nah it just sucks). If the AI can't do it, don't do it yourself. House rules are a fairly effective way at masking the stupidity of the AI. It puts you at a somewhat level ground with the AI, and it becomes much more than a war trying to overcome the insane cheating of the AI. Sure it's not the most strategic way, but maybe its more enjoyable.

The term "house rules" seems almost nonexistent on these forums, same with stories of peoples CiV's. When you visit the Total War forums for example, you find people explaining how their empire started from it's small roots and came and did the impossible... or failed. There are some incredible writing with the stories of their empires, and they are a joy to read. But it's mostly about how to win the best way it seems for CiV players, and I never knew this until I started coming to the forums more.

It doesn't help that CiV makes all of the diplomacy so gamey, and has all the CiV's so concentrated on victory. The comments about how one CiV hates how your trying to win the game or about how your their favorite city-state really demolish this realistic building a Civilization feeling. I like to feel as we are Civilizations testing human existence and the leaders are mere symbols for them... not just 8 people sitting in front of the computer screen slurring insults are each other on their way to victory. However, it seems CiV has gone in the direction of winning is the main objective, and the Civ's respect this with their comments. Many may like this since they are much more into winning it seems, but it's not my personal preference. This being my first Civ game, I wonder if the older ones were like this.

Anyways, is there anyone else out there who plays for the building a civilization experience rather than a strategic victory? This being a strategic game I can't expect people to play this way, however I was rather shocked by it.

 

[gozpel]

Civ has always been a game that you want to win, even since Civ1.

Diplo is broken and stupid, so while you try to make friends, they backstab you instead and you're forced to fight for your survival. If you're going mongering, soon you're the hatred of the whole civ-universe, while other leaders seem to get away with razing cities and taking multiple caps and when you do it they all hate you.

But I see your point, I've played many games helping neighbours from bullies and making friends with some AI's can cost you a fortune. But by setting up a starting goal like I only going to build 4-5 cities in this game and not going conquering, that works. I've done it many times and won victories by culture or diplo (without using the exploit, buying every CS last turn and the declare on everybody).

But much has changed in the last iterations of the game and it's more focussed on war, so of course ppl go that way and use the rules and gamesetup to their likings! I don't sell a lux the turn before I invade the buyer and I don't sell OB one way either, except on Immortal and higher.

So basically, each to their own.

 

[Camikaze]

I think you've got a very good point. The focus here does seem to be simply on winning the game, but it's worth remembering that this is really only a vehicle through which to enjoy the game. That people focus on winning is a natural consequence of people liking to win. This is perhaps why I don't often push myself by playing on highish difficulty levels.

Of course, people can also have fun by pushing the higher difficulty levels, or by playing for the achievements, or by roleplaying, or whatever, and I guess it probably bears remembering that these are equally valid ways to play the game.

 

[gozpel]

Yes, if you forget about the score and try to RP it a little, it can be quite fun.

But maybe not on levels above King, the AI seem to like war more than peace.

Still, from King and under, you can play the peacemaker. Done it a few times, but the score is terrible.

 

[Drakarska]

Realizing that this answer doesn't totally pertain to Civ V, then the answer would be yes. However, I actually like Civ IV BtS with the mod Realism Invictus ( forgot the lates version number) for that total RP immersion feel of building your empire. Especially if your playing marathon on mon or king difficulty. I just don't get that same enjoyment from Civ V from the few times friends let me play it.

 

[Gatsby]

Anyways, is there anyone else out there who plays for the building a civilization experience rather than a strategic victory? This being a strategic game I can't expect people to play this way, however I was rather shocked by it.

I definitely see where you are coming from and consider myself to be kind of halfway in between, i.e. I like to play a game so that I take my civ from humble beginnings to being a dominant global superpower that could easily win through one or more victory conditions, but often I don't find it interesting to actually play out the endgame and get that final score (although it's a very different story when the endgame is a close race for victory). Overall though, I do consider a Civ game to be much more satisfying and engrossing when it feels like I have actively participated in the unfolding of a sweeping epic saga of humankind that spans a whole world and several millennia. I wish that Civ5 had gone more in this direction, that there had been more emphasis on standing the test of time and less emphasis on meeting ultimately arbitrary victory conditions. How can one truly "win" at the endeavour of civilization any more than one can "win" the human race?

 

[AljayBoy]

It was a deliberate design choice by the developers to create an AI which 'knew' it was an AI in a game setting; and that their goal was to win the game. This is a change from the previous incarnation and would whole-heartedly recommend you purchase Civ 4 Complete if/when cheap on Steam. It is also a change for the worse in my opinion, and would agree that there are numerous immersion breaking issues, particularly with the diplomacy.

I played Civ 4 like you are trying to play Civ 5, and it's far more enjoyable, what with the expanded amount of relationship possibilities, particularly with colonies and vassals. I didn't set any "house rules" as such, just played the game without calculating optimal strategies on how to beat the AI etc. and plodded along enjoyably.

With Civ 5 it usually ends up with you vs the world unless you spend a fortune in gold and luxuries and/or bend over for every other civ's demand. As such I end up at war with a lot of AI's, sometimes at once, which can be enjoyable with 1upt and hexes often giving the defender advantages. Therefore I end up playing civ 5 if im in the mood for war game, civ 4 if i fancy keeping my options open.

 

[binhthuy71]

The developers chose not to model famine (Not food shortage, famine) and disease in Civ 5. They also completely omitted logistics, both for trade and for warfare. Those are design choices and they are a fait accompli for us.

Famine and disease killed more people than war and both had as much effect on history. The lack of logistics post-Roman empire was a huge contributing factor to the nature of the Middle Ages in the Western world. In view of those omissions the options for playing a realistic game of Civ 5 are fairly circumscribed. Nonetheless my hat's off to you for playing it your way and for eschewing some of the canned strategies that many of us use simply to win.

 

[DrabbleOne]

I don't particularily play to win...I play for large continental wars, Red Storm Rising stylee...

 

[headcase]

I play to win, but some exploits I avoid completely. Selling open borders (unless they come to me), spamming RAs, deliberately taking advantage at the AI's silly peace deals, etc.

Once you get past the AI exploits and other gamey stuff like that, playing to win and playing realistically are pretty similar notions.

 

[PierreBonaparte]

Although I do play to win, I do think in the sense you were talking about. To enjoy this sense better, I usually play on Earth maps. I'll think like "I must rush obtain this suez canal spot before egypt", or "My armies must invade china to gain coastal acces for my empire"

 

[eris]

I play for various peaceful wins and along the way have the "Build an empire" experience. I don't think the two goals are actually contradictory. It is not the same empire immersion that I got from Civ 4, but a lot of that was due to the micromanagement of bunches of cities, which seems to have been declared not fun by the developers.

 

[Heerlo]

I've played alot like this on Civ4 and 5.

Just about ever since I started playing Civ4 I hardly ever even tried to win.It was just fun to me to build a nation and try to survive and become a world power that can help bring justice to the world!

Like you said, I have to agree that it's fun just to make a history out of your game.If you want to see something like that you can look at my thread in the Civ4 stories and tales forum that is called The History Of Korea.I'm doing like a history book writing on that game.

But yes, I like playing realistically more than trying to win.

 

[lepruk86]

Civ 4 sounds like your game...

Seriously, go play it... and IMO it still looks better than Civ 5 at a glance. Civ 5 tiles become really ugly late in the game which is a shame.

Civ 5 is a war game in my experience. I think many people would prefer Civ 4's gameplay with Civ 5's combat so let's cross our fingers for Civ G&K or failing that... Civ 6 eh? xD.

Personally I like Civ 5 but I find (as with my other thread I have posted here atm) each game feels kind of the same, there is a lot more variety in Civ 4 game-by-game. But I honestly don't have a preference between them, both fun for different reasons.

 

[smallfish]

In a fora far far away, a younger me read this great mind's thoughts on the game...

You're misrepresenting my strategy! I don't want the uranium for a bunch of frivolous Giant Death Robots - my Persian civilization is too backwards for that. I want it for atomic bombs in B-29s. Because the English are so far ahead of me in tech and social policies the only way I can prevent them winning is by war, and the only way my horribly outclassed military can win is by pre-emptive nuclear war.

Which means I need to control as much of the world's uranium as possible. Which means I need to conquer America since it has 75% of the world's known uranium supply. See? It all makes perfect sense.

Anyway, it's too late to change course! Stopping the plan now would be immoral. I murdered 50 million Americans for that uranium. If I don't use it to build bombs to murder another 50 million Englishmen, all those Americans will have died in vain!

And from then on I never stopped looking back.

 

[Ahhuatl]

I play for realism too. I try to place my cities in their general geographic relationship to one another, have them focus on what they were historically known for, I spend a great deal of resources in building wonders that are appropriate in nature to what one would find in certain cities (as oppose to building everything in the capital). I try to do improvements so that they are aesthetically pleasing and not necessarily the most functional. I choose only policies which were reflective of a cilivization and when I settle a city and the computer supplies it with a name that isn't accurate or appropriate for its place in my empire, I change it to a historically correct name.

As many people point out, Civ V as it stands lacks a lot of depth. Well, so did playing with actions figures when you were a kid. If you use your imagination, you can create a depth that is not absent in the game but also so unique that no developer could ever produce a game that equals to it. I think my play style explains why I don't get upset with Civ V's flaws as other people do and why I've gotten so many hours out of the game with so little variation in my setup.

 

[Securion]

I also play Civ as a Civilization building game. I think thats what the game have always been about.

Civ 5 changed all that though, since it instead of being more advanced and have more features it was the complete opposite; Less features, less advanced and a much more simple gameplay. Basically its either Choose building/Next Turn or Move units/Conquer. Everything else is basically gone from the game.

G&K will add some of those features again, and i really hope Civ 6 wont be Civ 5 with better looking tiles and more features removed.
In the quest to make the game more simple and more accessible to many more people, what are they going to remove for Civ 6? Science? Gold? Tile improvements?

 

[binhthuy71]

I refuse to deem Civ "realistic" until I can catapult the heads of my enemies back into their own cities.

 

[geebo]

I try to play somewhat realistically in regards to city names on TSL maps. Also in CIV IV I would find the appropriate religion for the civ I'm playing i.e. Spain Christianity and Arabia Islam. I really only play TSL maps due to them being the closest thing as realistic as possible. I would even play random maps if culturally linked starting locations were an option.

 

[ScubaSteveWA]

I play for realism too. I try to place my cities in their general geographic relationship to one another, have them focus on what they were historically known for, I spend a great deal of resources in building wonders that are appropriate in nature to what one would find in certain cities (as oppose to building everything in the capital). I try to do improvements so that they are aesthetically pleasing and not necessarily the most functional. I choose only policies which were reflective of a cilivization and when I settle a city and the computer supplies it with a name that isn't accurate or appropriate for its place in my empire, I change it to a historically correct name.

As many people point out, Civ V as it stands lacks a lot of depth. Well, so did playing with actions figures when you were a kid. If you use your imagination, you can create a depth that is not absent in the game but also so unique that no developer could ever produce a game that equals to it. I think my play style explains why I don't get upset with Civ V's flaws as other people do and why I've gotten so many hours out of the game with so little variation in my setup.

Yah I tend to have a lot of my gameplay like this and really do enjoy it. I hope at some some point though they will add more features to each of the CiV's to add more depth, the 2 unique units/buildings and UA don't really give off much of a feeling of playing that Civ very well. Coming from the Total war games it's hard for me to be accustomed to the little variety in Civ's. However it is true about how the game is really what you make of it.

Seems as if I'll go and pick up CIV like many of you suggested. I'll just wait for the next sale I find, I saw one on amazon for $7 a while back and it's a shame I didn't go for it. After looking more into it I'm sure I'll enjoy some of the things it has different than 5, such as the city by city happiness/heath system and more predictable diplomacy. Still looking forward to the Gods and Kings update however, it looks like it will add a lot to the game.