From a "monument placement simulator" to a game – Evolution of Civ6

Bibor

Doomsday Machine
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Firaxis, you confuse me. Do you know how to create great games or not? Because you've certainly proven that you can. So what's the deal? Why the hesitation?

First, let me explain my insight. Acquired through the last three decades of my contact with computer games, and Sid's games in particular. All computer games, regardless of their shape or form, are an experiment at communication. Between its creator, the game itself, and you. We are fully aware that, say, people on television, aren't really aware of us, the viewer. Yet, by some magic, we absorb their actions, fears, stories and events, and turn them into our own. We feel happy or sad, elevated or distraught, all these emotions generated by soundwaves and moving images coming from a mechanical box. A box we don't even need to touch. If that's not magic, I don't know what is.

Computer games, even the first ones, changed our world forever. Just as you can't really compare a person who experienced a radio or TV broadcast with someone who never did, you can't really compare a person who played computer games with one that didn't. Our mindsets are completely different – we experienced interactivity. Something that no radio broadcast can ever hope to achieve.

Over the ages, this new interactive experience expanded and grew, absorbing all the benefits of soundwaves and moving images that were previously the domain of radio and television. For us, gamers, passive entertainment was a thing of the past. What we have, TV can never achieve – we have the power to change things. To put ourselves into the story.

Getting now back to Sid games, I'd divide them into four ages:
1. The Originals: Pirates, Civilization, Colonization, Railroad Tycoon
2. The Upgrades: Civilization 2, Railroad Tycoon 2, Civilization 3
3. The Renaissance: Alpha Centauri, Civilization 4
4. The Dark Ages: Civilzation 5, Beyond Earth, Civilization 6
5. A New Dawn: X-Com, Civ6: Gathering Storm

The success of computer games can be divided into two factors: interactivity and audiovisual experience. Much like a two-step adhesive, these two components don't interact with each other until we, the player, combine them in our mind. This is the reason why you can have games with horsehockey graphics and sound, like the original Civ and FTL, but being fun to play. And have games like Civ5 or Vanilla Civ6, that have gorgeous graphics and sound, but horsehockey gameplay.

A game mute is a game dead

If I tell you Wololo, Kiri-dazu?, Tempest Keep Was Merely a Setback or Work Work
... at least one of these will put a smile on your face. And I don't even need to explain why.

You see, games are about interactivity. Games talk to us, with us, they push back on our attempts to interact, they test our experience or skill. At least, that's what games should be about.

It is no coincidence that Civilization 4 had worker sounds, that it had silly leader graphics and very chatty AI leaders. It is no coincidence that The Planet had a mind of its own and offered expanded AI communication in Alpha Centauri. This was by design. All these served a singular purpose – for us to feel a two-way communication with the game.

A curious example of this is Sim City 4's Rush Hour feature of having citizen events. Although the game was about building cities and soothing our inner OCD, you could click on a single citizen and help out with a "quest", perhaps even go on a wild car chase across town. Technical implementation was lacking, but the spirit was there. It made you, the player, feel a true part of your city.

Civ5 and 6 had none of this. Or if they did, it felt forced and out of place. These games truly feel less like an interactive game and more like a monument placement tool. If you zoom in or zoom out, everything feels like "it's just there".


One voice in the cosmic fugue

Can we get future games to be built by creators who understand interactivity? Can my voice overpower the apparent tendency of 2K/Firasix to disregard this critical component when putting people into positions of power? Perhaps. Who knows.

I'm not sure Firaxis knows what makes a game good anymore. There's Civ6, but then there's Gathering Storm, an expansion that is mostly about putting interactivity back on the map. It might be by design, or by lack of other ideas. It's hard to tell.

And... I fully understand now where the confusion of decision-makers is coming from. On one hand, you have a very wide population new to gaming that comes from television and radio (and it's derivatives). For them, expectations of interactivity are very low. But these people are also the main source of revenue. At least for a while. Because if the interactivity doesn't blow their minds, they will just return to TV and radio. If you, the player and paying customer, after playing a Civ session, still can't decide whether to watch a TV show or continue playing Civ, you'll know you've lost your customer. At least in the long run.

You can't just throw graphics or sounds at players anymore. We have Marvel movies for crying out loud. With budgets no game can hope to match. So, is the budget for Civ intro videos really worth it? Hard NO! And it's not really needed either. What we need is games that experiment and push the limits of interactivity, graphics and sounds taking the well deserved back row.

A good tip would be this: if you can't sell a Civilization game to your customers based on interactivity alone, you're doing it wrong.
 
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All this, when you could've just written that you want worker sounds and chatty leaders back?
Claiming that this is the "dark ages" just because some sounds are missing is imo so exaggerated that the argument loses it's potency.
I for one enjoy civ 6 a lot.
Lots of things could've been done differently, but a dark age this is certainly not.
 
I mean considering Gathering Storm is part of Civ 6, I would have just put Civ 6 as a whole in the "A New Dawn" category considering it's the only expansion that's listed separately.
 
All this, when you could've just written that you want worker sounds and chatty leaders back?
Claiming that this is the "dark ages" just because some sounds are missing is imo so exaggerated that the argument loses it's potency.
I for one enjoy civ 6 a lot.
Lots of things could've been done differently, but a dark age this is certainly not.

I enjoy civ6 too. But not in the same way as I enjoy Civ4. Sure, Civ4 has lots it's potency over the years, but it's still a superior product.

It might be the way I write, but I think you took the sounds part too literally. It doesn't need to be sounds, but sounds do help. A game should interact with you, not just the other way around. This is what's important.

I mean considering Gathering Storm is part of Civ 6, I would have just put Civ 6 as a whole in the "A New Dawn" category considering it's the only expansion that's listed separately.

It's hard to say exactly why, but for me Civ6:GS is a superior product to both Civ6 vanilla and the whole of Civ5. I mean, I had like 40 hours in Civ6 and I have over 2k hours in Gathering Storm. And I bought vanilla at launch.
 
It's hard to say exactly why, but for me Civ6:GS is a superior product to both Civ6 vanilla and the whole of Civ5. I mean, I had like 40 hours in Civ6 and I have over 2k hours in Gathering Storm. And I bought vanilla at launch.
I agree with you. I just found it interesting that Civ 6 was the only game that was separated. What I meant was I would personally put Civ 6 vanilla as an even better iteration than Civ 5 in my opinion. But I do agree that Gathering Storm expansion pushed it even better.
 
Disagree in spades. And I've played every version and evey upgrade since Civ 1 first came out in the early 1990s.

Firstly, I have never ever had the game sounds on. I have my own musical tastes, and play my own records as background music. (Via CD player and hifi speakers in the 90s, via desktop PC and bluetooth speakers nowadays, but the experience is the same). Why listen to somebody else's choice of music when I can listen to my own?

Secondly, Civ 4 is the only version I simply could not get on with, primarily due to the UI. All the other versions I've loved in different ways.

And I think the hex 1UPT is infinitely better than the old squares. And districts in Civ VI were a huge game enhancer. So many more major decisions to make in terms of timing, choice, and location..
 
Civ6 vanilla was realeased with a ton of bugs that you could exploit to win very easily on the maximum difficulty level. It has improved and is now as "perfect" as GS. GS just adds a couple annoying things like governors and loyalty pressure. Not a big deal.

And i miss your point btw. Civ5 and Civ6 are interactive, how could it be else ? Please explain. (shortly)
 
And i miss your point btw. Civ5 and Civ6 are interactive, how could it be else ? Please explain. (shortly)

I'm glad you asked. :)

Civ is about empire building, right? So where is this empire? Where are its citizens? Do we see them? Do we hear them? Do they voice their opinion? Is there any life behind those windows in the city square? Are they happy with the war you started, or would they rather you fix that broken dam?

There are other civilizations on the map too. People should come and go. You found a religion. Where are the pilgrims? Are tourists in awe of Mona lisa in your museum? What do they thing of your road network? Scientists and musicians and engineers, people of all walks of life get born, contribute and die without even us noticing whether they exist.

Civilizations are not about monuments, they are about people. People build, people destroy. If your people win – you win. It doesn't matter if you have once city or fifty, one wonder or twelve.

A voice doesn't need to be an audio file. It can be a chat bubble, a text-based discussion, an animation of a furious face. Civ games used to have in mind that we need to be under a spell that we interact with other entities that make Civ a game, not a television show.

Obviously, games can "do without" a voice. But great games include them.
 
I'm glad you asked. :)

Civ is about empire building, right? So where is this empire? Where are its citizens? Do we see them? Do we hear them? Do they voice their opinion? Is there any life behind those windows in the city square? Are they happy with the war you started, or would they rather you fix that broken dam?
...
Civilizations are not about monuments, they are about people. People build, people destroy. If your people win – you win. It doesn't matter if you have once city or fifty, one wonder or twelve.

I think I get where you're going with this, and I've felt the same about Civ for quite some time. I even made a video project about how I felt like the Civ VI trailer kind of promised a game more along these lines, and then the actual game (despite being a good game in its own right) mostly failed to deliver on those promises (
).

Civ IV had some features like civics and racial/ethnic demographics that went a little bit in the direction of representing some kind of internal politics, as if the population of your empire actually puts some internal pressure on the player to take certain actions. e.g. once any civ adopts Emancipation civic, every other civ's people also want to be emancipated, and they become increasingly unhappy the longer you hold out. And if you try to go back to Slavery or a Caste System after having already adopted Emancipation, then the torches and pitchforks will come out.

Compare that to Civ VI, which allows the player to slot in policy cards whilly nilly with little to no regard for whether your population might want any of those policies, or if those policies might be in fundamental conflict with one another. For example, I can run a Democratic government, and switch from a Free Market to a Planned 5-Year Economy on a whim, without any pushback from my population at all.

Similarly, in Civ IV, demographics influenced diplomatic relations between civs. If you go into the city management screen in Civ IV, there's a little widget near the bottom left corner of the screen that shows what percentage of your population is native born, versus how much are foreign nationals or racial / ethnic minorities. If I recall correctly, that breakdown will modify the city's happiness based on your empire's relationship with the civs from which those foreign nationals or minority groups come from. I specifically recall there being a "you are at war with our homeland!" (or something to that effect) unhappiness modifier.

Civ VI's expansions introduced the Loyalty mechanics, which fills a similar role, but it's presentation and framing makes it feel more like it's external pressure (which it is), rather than being any kind of pressure from within your empire. It's a subtle difference that affects how the game feels, but which is very hard to put into words other than to simply say that "it feels different".

One of the other good examples of a mechanic that makes the population feel a little bit more like people is the "We love the King day" mechanic in Civ V (which is ironically in the OP's list of "dark age" games). This mechanic would cause each city to ask for a specific luxury resource to be connected to the trade network. If you fulfilled the goal and connected that luxury, the city would go into "We love the King" mode for 10 turns (or 20 turns, or however long it was), which I think boosted population growth, and maybe also boosted production? It was kind of analogous to the little quests that city states would give, except that in this case, the quest comes from one of your own cities, and they only ever ask for a new luxury. There was no penalty for not connecting the given luxury, but the bottom line is that it was an example of the population of the city explicitly asking the government for something.

I could totally see an expansion of this "We love the king" mechanic from Civ V, in which cities may also ask for certain policies or governments to be adopted, or for certain infrastructure to be built, or for changes in diplomatic relations with neighbors, or for trade routes with specific foreign cities. Some of these could even be mutually-exclusive, which would force the player to have to decide on which "quests" to fulfill, and which are safe to ignore. Maybe you have a city surrounded by farms that wants the government to adopt some policy that is favorable to agriculture, but another city with factories wants to see a more industry-focused policy, and you can't necessarily adopt both policies and appease both populations at the same time. Or maybe you have two cities along the border with a beligerent neighbor. One city might want you to go to war with that other civ, while the other might prefer diplomatic de-escalation. These are, of course, just examples.

Then, of course, there's the old Civ II Democracy mechanic, in which the Congress could flat-out overrule certain decisions made by the player. We could argue about whether that is good game design, but it certainly does give a "voice" to the people in your virtual empire.

I personally, would love to see more ideas like this in future Civ titles -- ideas that portray the populations of these empires more as people, with their own wants and needs that aren't necessarily the exact same as the wants and needs of the "state", and which may put internal pressure on the state to take certain actions.
 
Getting now back to Sid games, I'd divide them into four ages:
1. The Originals: Pirates, Civilization, Colonization, Railroad Tycoon
2. The Upgrades: Civilization 2, Railroad Tycoon 2, Civilization 3
3. The Renaissance: Alpha Centauri, Civilization 4
4. The Dark Ages: Civilzation 5, Beyond Earth, Civilization 6
5. A New Dawn: X-Com, Civ6: Gathering Storm

I see 5 "ages" in your list. :) Was one of those ages added later to your post ?
 
I see 5 "ages" in your list. :) Was one of those ages added later to your post ?

I separated the originals & upgrades while writing, but yes, it's a typo, was 5 ages from the start.

One of the other good examples of a mechanic that makes the population feel a little bit more like people is the "We love the King day" mechanic in Civ V (which is ironically in the OP's list of "dark age" games).

It is the dark ages. Civ5 was definitely the franchise's darkest hour, with vanilla 6 showing no significant improvement in gameplay.
If you remember, Civ5 has the most annoying worker selection sound ever, so annoying in fact that I had to manually go into the XML (and I don't think I'm alone in this) and tone it down.

What makes Civ5 truly bottom however is the passive aggressive AI behaviour. If the AIs realized you are winning, at a certain point (especially if you waged war anytime in the past), they just started hating you no matter what. If you remember, in the lategame, AI communication boiled down to very common "I hope you burn in hell" trown at you every few turns. And the execution of it (completely black screen interrupting your gameplay and then an annoyed figure showing up with threts) is what made it truly a horrendous experience.

Why would anyone in their right mind code an AI that actively makes the player feel bad about doing well? That's... beyond me.

Compare this to Civ4's optional "Permanent alliance" mechanic. AIs teaming up with you for a win. "Hey dude, we really get along great, lets win this together". Imagine that.

I give you We Love the King Day, I honestly forgot about it. It's a pass-along mechanic from (at least) Civ4. And yes, this is exactly the type of interactivity we'd need to see more, not less.
 
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We Love the King Day [...] a pass-along mechanic from (at least) Civ4
Civ1. You needed at least as many Happy as Discontent citizens to avoid rebellions (lockdown) of cities. Afair having more Happy than Content citizens (and no Discontent) triggered the We Love the King Day. Which treated the celebrating cities like being in the next higher type of government; Despotism -> Monarchy -> Republic ...

 
I give you We Love the King Day, I honestly forgot about it. It's a pass-along mechanic from (at least) Civ4. And yes, this is exactly the type of interactivity we'd need to see more, not less.

We are in agreement on the issues with Civ V, especially vanilla. The release felt rushed and under-developed, and probably needed another 8-12 months of development and testing before release.

I think what separates "We love the king day" in Civ V from earlier games (if I recall them all correctly) is that the mechanic in Civ V is a more active, player-driven one. Each city would ask for a luxury that the empire doesn't already have, and it is your job, as the ruler to go out and get it (by whatever means necessary). Sure, sometimes, you just accidentally stumble upon it while doing something you would have done anyway. In previous games, I think it was much more passive, and "We love the king" would happen by simply having happiness values cross a certain threshold (or something like that).
 
I never played CIV IV before...much like i din't play CIV 2 or 3. But the prospect of not having districts (can't go back to 5 because of that) or having to face stacks of units by default makes think that'll never want to play neither of those Civs. The only one I keep returning too (very rarely these days with CIV VI full DLC) is the original CIV.

But hey, I really liked reading your argument and I think it should be read by the developers as well.
 
WLTKD and Happiness - in earlier games (Civ 2 through 4), happiness was city-based, not empire-based. All luxuries were shared by all cities connected via roads, so careful settling or resource trading could result in multiple cities going into WLTKD. I didn't play Civ1, so I can't comment on it. These versions also had tools to control spending in your economy, changing the amount spent on science, luxuries, or accumulating gold in taxes. One could also spend your way into WLKTD.

Starting with Civ5, happiness was changed to a global parameter, with modifiers that penalized expansion. Success in war meant more territory, more cities, and ... more unhappiness? Founding a new city meant more commerce, more citizens, and ... more unhappiness? You're correct, @megabearsfan , that the player needed to take steps to satisfy the WLTKD quests. Sometimes that meant allying with a specific city-state, to get their unique luxury. Sometimes that meant cutting a deal with an AI civ who had the luxury you needed. Conquering land where that luxury was also worked, but that approach came with costs. :p
 
But the prospect of not having districts (can't go back to 5 because of that) or having to face stacks of units by default makes think that'll never want to play neither of those Civs.

Districts are an interesting approach, and I liked this idea from moment i saw it. But, truly, any form of innovation, creativity or productivity comes from variety. Variety of peoples, ideas, thoughts, experiments. This is what makes adjacency a step in the good direction, but mutual cooperation should be much more important than it's shown, especially for smaller countries. Civ4 modelled this better, in a sense that a small nation needed to trade with other nations (luxuries) to grow its population past pop 10-12.

Regarding doomstacks, I don't think they were such a big issue as people suggest. Unit movement was always tricky for the AI, but at least with doomstacks, it could conquer cities and empires effectively. And, the AI was an actual threat to the human player. Nowadays, with chopped-in city walls and a few units, you can smart your way around almost any invasion force the AI throws at you.

I always treated doomstacks as a singular threat that needed to be annihilated. You knew the exact composition (and what techs the AI had), what unique units it might have, and built your army around that threat. If you spawned near Genghis, you better start building spearmen.
 
That was an interesting read, even though I don't necessarily agree with everything. :) I'm a bit curious as to why Gathering Storm gets to be in the "New Dawn" category. For me, it was pretty standard fare as far as Civ 6 expansions go, in that it had some tweaks together with a bunch of new content, some of which I liked, some of which I didn't care about, and all of which can be largely ignored if you want to. It seems like the "big" addition was supposed to be the World Congress, which I think was poorly done, and demonstrative of the Civ6 developers' dedication to not having any of the game's systems interacting with each other in any significant way. I see you list Alpha Centauri as a "Renaissance" game, and I agree that it was brilliant. It got just about everything right, both in terms of mechanics and narrative focus. Now, let's look at how the Planetary Council compares to the World Congress in Civ 6. In SMAC, so much of diplomacy revolved around the PC, and the PC significantly impacted inter-faction relations, balance of power, and even the face of Planet itself. Meanwhile, the World Congress in Civ 6 is almost completely disconnected from general diplomacy. You get together once in a while and vote on some minor bonuses or penalties, which are randomly drawn from a hat. The way outcomes are determined are also somewhat random, as you don't know what the others are voting for, and in a way, you don't necessarily now what YOU are voting for yourself, because the choice of WHAT ACTION should be done is somehow completely separate from the choice of TARGET for that action. To me that just seems next level silly. "Hi guys, we have a decision to make, are we going to ban something or boost something? Put your answer in a sealed envelope, and also note what you might like to ban or boost, so we can figure that out after we determine the main issue of ban or boost". Are you kidding me? Anyway. It seems like the AI is as indifferent as I ended up being about what goes on in the World Congress, because no-one really talks about it outside of these sessions. Civ 5 was not on the same level as SMAC, but at least there, I could plan what I wanted to do in the World Congress, the AI would care one way or another, and it was an arena where you could actively compete with your rivals.

I disagree with OP about Civ 5 and Beyond Earth. Civ 5 has it flaws, to be sure, but it ended up being pretty good when they were done with it. Unlike Civ 6, the developers changed and refined the game's systems with each expansion, and they made sure things interacted in a meaningful way. It also has Vox Populi going for it, which I think is an utterly brilliant overhaul. As for Beyond Earth, it got good with Rising Tide, and I believe it could have been great if it had another expansion. I really like the atmosphere, and the game does a lot of cool stuff mechanically. I can understand people not getting into it, as it had a bit of a learning curve, and it took a while before it really clicked for me as well. However, the more I played, the more I appreciated how the game was put together mechanically. In terms of narrative, it fell a bit short, especially when it is inevitably compared to SMAC. I just wish they would have done another expansion. Unlike Civ 6, what Beyond Earth could have used was a bit more content. Throw in some natural wonders, more stuff to explore, new biomes, flesh out the aliens a bit, and you could have something rivalling SMAC. Alas, money matters, and for all its qualities, Beyond Earth failed commercially.
 
@KayAU Thank you for your comment! i added gathering storm to “new dawn” because it made the planet feel more alive. I guess the same can be said for barbarian clans as well. I truly find that floods, volcanoes, forest fires and hurricanes add greatly to the feeling that our civilizations are built on a living organism that obeys its own rules. And, GS also introduced ways to counter some of these with Dams and sea walls.

GS also introduced power & pollution, done mostly the right way, I’d add… further showing how we interact with the planet.

i agree that the new UN is lackluster, you point out its flaws eloquently. But, I have to point out that favors and grievances were an interesting step in the right direction. Sadly, completely underutilized mechanics, and they had the chance change the diplomatic part of the franchise forever. Sadly, that didnt happen.

when introduced, i was hoping favors could be used to start and stop wars, get strategic resources, perhaps even transfer tile or unit ownership. Alas, a wasted opportunity.

but, at least, it does show promise, because GS clearly shows that the devs do think the game could be more story driven. The execution is, well, as good as an expansion with expansion budgets can merit, I guess.
 
@Bibor Yeah, I agree that much of what was introduced in GS has potential. The idea of the world itself being a "player" in some sense, is appealing to me. Things like natural disasters and a more dynamic world are generally good. I also enjoy the way Civ 6 does natural wonders, has named terrain features, and so on.

And let me just say that I don't hate Civ 6, even if I might sound like I do some times. I do, however, find it uniquely frustrating, because it has so many potentially great ideas, but often with lackluster implementations which are never really refined beyond their first iteration. You mentioned favours and grievances. I would add another which has been in the game from the beginning: eurekas and inspirations. When I first heard of it, I thought it sounded great: imagine having your technological and social development influenced by your circumstances and surroundings. The implementation, however, is really poor. Getting a lump sum of beakers for doing a fetch quest, which often involves getting stuff you don't need, was certainly not how I had envisioned it. I also feel that partially researching something, then swapping it out for no other reason than to wait for a boost is the most "gamey" thing ever, and it would have been so easy to improve on this.

Another example is the government system. The basic idea is interesting enough: a base form of government fleshed out by selectable policies, which are unlocked by social development. However, the implementation ends up being just choosing whichever bonus you currently want from a big pile. The policy cards have names, but there's really no sense that any of these cards *mean* anything beyond the bonuses you get. Again, contrast this with SMAC. Your choices shaped your society, and they changed how the other leaders looked at you.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. I'm currenly playing Old World, which has come out of Early Access quite nicely. :) It has a bit of a learning curve, and stuff doesn't necessarily work the way I expected, but it is proving interesting to learn.
 
One addition:

"Pirates: Live the Life" should go in either the upgrades or the Renaissance.

I liked Civ 2, 4 and 5. All of those had plenty of interesting decisions to make, and diplomacy improved a lot. I liked the Diplomacy in Civ 4 and 5 the best; I do not like the diplomacy in Civ 6.

Civ 3 felt like it punished the player for succeeding...corruption was burtal and made newly acquired cities, especially far away or late in the game, absolutely useless. Some of the combat was a silly continuation of Civ 2 - spearmen killing battleships and such. Still, in spite of those issues, it still had a good set of interesting decisions to make.

Where I feel Civ6 went wrong is in all. the. systems. It's like the designers took all the newest Euro-style, multiplayer solitaire boardgames and tried to put all of those systems into one game. Policy cards especially feel like busywork - sure you can change them every so often to "optimize"...but what's the point? Get a few extra points here, a bonus there....it doesn't affect the trajectory of the game. The AI is a huge step backward, and the diplomatic decisions felt arbitrary when voting. All the new things that could happen with Gathering Storm...it felt like they put them in so players would have new buildings and districts you have to now build to counteract pollution or random events. Those felt like false choices - sure, you can not build dams or seawalls, but if you don't, you'll get punked. It's not really a choice, but just a larger list of things you have to build for your cities.

The weak AI, bad diplomatic systems, and endless array of minor choices that have a barely discernible affect makes Civ6, to me, feel like busywork. The sheer volume of choices means the interesting ones are buried in the micromanagement of all the systems.

I hope Civ 7 dials it back and distills Civ back to a set of interesting choices, not the bloated amount of largely inconsequential micromanagement that I perceive 7 to be.
 
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