Historical Immersion Factor

[JLoZeppeli]

ICS is possible in Civ IV. If you can't ICS in Civ, then you're not ICSing right. The difference is that until latter eras of the game, there was no incentive to make more cities when less cities was more efficient.

This is a perspective difference. I happen to like ICS, and I want ICS to be a viable alternative. To be fair, NOT doing ICS is perfectly viable in Civ V. It just so happens that for some reason, people who claim to be playing the game for historical immersion get bothered by more powerful strategies that are aimed at winning the game no matter what. I don't get how that is.

It's not like normal Civ play is totally unplayable.



I have played a lot of Civ and hundreds of hours of Civ IV. I have never played those mods and have interest in playing those mods.

Mods that put too much attention to detail to create a thicker veneer of "realism" in Civ IV I think miss the fundamental point of the game. The game concept is already kind of ridiculous as it is. I don't need to go down Uncanny Valley even deeper than I already am.

JLoZeppeli:

War is not more important in Civ V than in Civ IV. It just happens to be somewhat more interesting. I still don't engage in it that much. I still don't like domination wins.

You can still win without engaging in war. You can still win without aggressively attacking your neighbors. War is still an easy way to win over an otherwise superior AI.

At its current state, I do not think of Civ V as being any kind of failure. I like it just fine, thank you. I like some aspects of it better than Civ IV. The combat, especially is more interesting this way. SoDs are just... ...I can't go back. Really, I can't.

Mhm i think you need to play true hex strategy games, if you think Civ V combat system is good...

But as always die-hard fans have their own ideas, and as always, after some months, they will be the first to disappear from boards and discussions out of boredom ( because of the game, of course...).

 

[polypheus]

ICS is possible in Civ IV. If you can't ICS in Civ, then you're not ICSing right. The difference is that until latter eras of the game, there was no incentive to make more cities when less cities was more efficient.

This is a perspective difference. I happen to like ICS, and I want ICS to be a viable alternative. To be fair, NOT doing ICS is perfectly viable in Civ V. It just so happens that for some reason, people who claim to be playing the game for historical immersion get bothered by more powerful strategies that are aimed at winning the game no matter what. I don't get how that is.

It's not like normal Civ play is totally unplayable.

It sounds like you don't know what ICS means. It means a game that rewards more and smaller cities and especially early in the game and then throughout the game. Civ4 doesn't encourage that. You can expand but in a more measured way and not all over the map especially in the beginning. Purposefully not doing it for Civ2/3/5 simply means you are defying the core game mechanics which tell you flat out to make more cities kept small because it spells out that there are more benefits to doing so than having fewer and building them up.

From a pure abstract gameplay POV, ICS doesn't matter I suppose. From a historical immersion POV, Civ4 development makes a lot more sense. Of course that only is an issue if historical immersion means anything to anyone.

I have played a lot of Civ and hundreds of hours of Civ IV. I have never played those mods and have interest in playing those mods.

Mods that put too much attention to detail to create a thicker veneer of "realism" in Civ IV I think miss the fundamental point of the game. The game concept is already kind of ridiculous as it is. I don't need to go down Uncanny Valley even deeper than I already am.

If you've never looked into much less played mods like Legends of Revolution, Rise of Mankind, Rhyes and Falls, then I hardly think it fair to say these are merely thick "veneers of realism". These mods try to model a lot of historical mechanics like immigration/emigration, barbarian civs->real civs, civilization breakups/civil wars/revolutions, etc. These are major historical mechanics that give a lot of people a better gamplaying experience that makes it more than just a glorified RISK.

Look we get it. You don't care about Civ as a historical immersive experience. It is just a strategy game. It is just a gloried RISK for you. Stuff like ICS, global happpiness, etc it doesn't matter to you if they make less sense or are less "realistic" overall than in Civ4 as its just a game to play and win. You are probably someone that if they renamed everything as "Blue Faction", "Green Faction", Tech1, Tech2, Happiness->Shafer Rating (makes more sense really as it is non-sense if thinking in terms of "happiness"), City-States renamed to "Shafer Vending Machine" (really a better description) etc it wouldn't matter too much. Stuff they put into even vanilla Civ4 not to mention in highly historically immersive mods you consider "fluff" and distracting. But realize that for many Civ players, that IS the reason to play, that is for the historical experience and not just an abstract strategy game to beat.

But as this poll and many others have said, they don't feel the same way as you do and want a Civ experiennce that "feels" a little more real historically. Because if they didn't then why not play much better games that are better than Civ, especially in warfare such as "Rise of Nations" and such?

 

[Thormodr]

Not to mention cities feeling like Resource depot 1, resource depot 2, etc.

Generic and bland is what ciV is. Just another war game in a market of many war games that flat out do it better.

BTW, Shafer rating and Shafer vending machines are very apt names.

 

[Roxlimn]

JLoZeppeli:

Mhm i think you need to play true hex strategy games, if you think Civ V combat system is good...

I think you need to reread what I said if you think I said that Civ V is better than other war games in the combat aspect.

polypheus:

It sounds like you don't know what ICS means. It means a game that rewards more and smaller cities and especially early in the game and then throughout the game. Civ4 doesn't encourage that. You can expand but in a more measured way and not all over the map especially in the beginning. Purposefully not doing it for Civ2/3/5 simply means you are defying the core game mechanics which tell you flat out to make more cities kept small because it spells out that there are more benefits to doing so than having fewer and building them up.

From a pure abstract gameplay POV, ICS doesn't matter I suppose. From a historical immersion POV, Civ4 development makes a lot more sense. Of course that only is an issue if historical immersion means anything to anyone.

It sounds like you don't know what ICS is. ICS is specifically an acronym for Infinite City Sprawl and is a mode of strategy where you place cities as close to each other as the game allows in order to work the tiles as fast as possible.

Civ 4 encourages ICS in the latter game because corporations reward you on a per-city basis, and the rewards were nearly always better than the costs of new city maintenance. This means that you want to cover the globe with cities, regardless of the tiles, since you're not really dependent on using the tiles at all at that point.

You can still expand in Civ 4 quickly and fast by using Trade Economy. The number of cities you found is only limited by coastline and how fast you can pump out the Settlers. The more you do it, the better it gets. There was no real limiter.

Civ 5 has some mechanics that do not favor ICS. For instance, your Social Policy gain slows to a crawl. If you're going to win with Cultural or Domination it's actually better NOT to do ICS, whereas going with lots of fast cities in Civ 4 - well there really was no incentive not to do it if you had the skill to pull it off.

Look we get it. You don't care about Civ as a historical immersive experience. It is just a strategy game. It is just a gloried RISK for you. Stuff like ICS, global happpiness, etc it doesn't matter to you if they make less sense or are less "realistic" overall than in Civ4 as its just a game to play and win. You are probably someone that if they renamed everything as "Blue Faction", "Green Faction", Tech1, Tech2, Happiness->Shafer Rating (makes more sense really as it is non-sense if thinking in terms of "happiness"), City-States renamed to "Shafer Vending Machine" (really a better description) etc it wouldn't matter too much. Stuff they put into even vanilla Civ4 not to mention in highly historically immersive mods you consider "fluff" and distracting. But realize that for many Civ players, that IS the reason to play, that is for the historical experience and not just an abstract strategy game to beat.

Strawman. Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that Civ is just RISK to me, so don't go around saying that I did.

The historical immersion is important for me. It just so happens that in my view, Social Policies are more realistic than Civics, and there's nothing inherently unbelievable about ICS.

 

[masterminded]

I'm not at all confusing religious fervour of the masses w/ the feeling of their 'self-serving' leaders (a concept which, interestingly, begs the question of where the dividing line between leaders and 'the masses' is).

If we stick to the 30 Years War, for example (I'm giving a lecture on warfare in the Early Modern period on monday so it's fresh in my mind) there are leaders who are not only engaging in the war for secular reasons but doing so quite openly like Gustavus Adolphus. Elizabeth I was also notably ambivalent towards religious issues. The main Catholic leaders (Phillip III, Ferdinand II etc.), I would argue see things in a much more religious light and did seriously worry about the rise of Protestantism. Yes, part of their worry dealt with the real-world implications that it might have for Catholic empires but there was also a confessional aspect to it. Indeed, if there was NOT a confessional aspect to their behaviours would there not have been more instances of Catholic on Catholic warfare in the 30 Years War?

Now if we tackle the truly interesting question of when an individual is to be counted as leader or one of the masses....

Look at the Defenestration of Prague in 1618. Are the Catholic regents responsible for selling crown lands to other Catholics acting on religious grounds or no? The argument can be made that they want to empower people that will side with them in any future disputes but surely they could 'buy' Protestants as easy as they could Catholics, no? If not, then why? If so, then why did they not buy off Protestants? Were these Bohemian regents leaders (they were certainly powerful) or were they part of the masses? If their classification in one or the other category will define their views of religion and religion's importance in their lives I think it is important to decide.....


Now, I think I've been unfair up to now (or at the very least, unclear). I would never argue that religion was the ONLY reason that leaders did something. Humans are complex animals and hardly any decision (certanily not decisions by state leaders) is made for a single purpose and for the attainment a single goal. Religion must be reckoned with as being at least part of the decision-making process for most world leaders throughout history (and even to an extent today....).

I think that the materialistic interpretation of history you are pushing back against is an odd phenomenon of contemporary thought. Religion provides a paradigmatic framework with which to interpret reality, much like ideology does today in many Western nations. Discounting such is a little fantasy we like to engage in that pretends people are rational utility maximizers. At least that's the way it is in my field (political science).

 

[bossconian]

I disagree with importance of historical immersion factor - The most important thing in the game is the Great Robot of Death and that what most of civ players loved and got excited when they heard about it. That what made the game to presell so quickly and that's what a gamer aka idiot wants. The history is not important for the commercial success of the game. Thank you and please close the topic.

 

[jjkrause84]

I think that the materialistic interpretation of history you are pushing back against is an odd phenomenon of contemporary thought. Religion provides a paradigmatic framework with which to interpret reality, much like ideology does today in many Western nations. Discounting such is a little fantasy we like to engage in that pretends people are rational utility maximizers. At least that's the way it is in my field (political science).

Yeah.

The word we use is 'presentism' (or, at least it's a word I like to use). Funnily enough, in one of my seminars thsi week a student quoted Hans Delbruck (the father of modern military history) and said, "Wait, so if we read that right....is Delbruck seriously attacking medieval commanders because they didn't read Clausewitz!?"

I laughed and had to tell him that, essentially, yes.....that is what Delbruck was saying (if you read between the lines).

Presentism (not a real word, I know....) is a serious problem when interpreting the past. It's part of the reason the military history class I'm lecturing starts in the middle ages....it FORCES students to abandon modern logic and try to see things through the eyes of people living in a different time and coming from a radically different culture.

 

[Peregrine]

JJ, I thought it (presentism) was called a relativist fallacy.

Things might be different in the states.

 

[jjkrause84]

May well be....I've never heard the term 'relativist fallacy' until now.

 

[Peregrine]

Btw, JJ, I'm in complete agreement w/you on this one. Funny how the trained historians see things the same way.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

Lol, Hans Delbruck. In the movie "Young Frankentstein" Igor was sent to get his brain from the brain depository, but accidentally smashed it and grabbed the "abnormal" brain instead.

 

[Buccaneer]

I voted for "Not important". I just want a challenging game against various AI opponents. Their names and colors are insignificant, as long as I have the gameplay that forces me into making critical decisions that have consequences.

 

[jjkrause84]

Lol, Hans Delbruck. In the movie "Young Frankentstein" Igor was sent to get his brain from the brain depository, but accidentally smashed it and grabbed the "abnormal" brain instead.

I know!!!!

I love it!

I tell this to all my students every year just hoping at least SOMEONE has seen the movie....almost none of them have.

Maybe it's a 'generational' thing? I mean, heck, I'm only 25 it's not like am some old geezer or something!

 

[Buccaneer]

Yeah.

The word we use is 'presentism' (or, at least it's a word I like to use). Funnily enough, in one of my seminars thsi week a student quoted Hans Delbruck (the father of modern military history) and said, "Wait, so if we read that right....is Delbruck seriously attacking medieval commanders because they didn't read Clausewitz!?"

I laughed and had to tell him that, essentially, yes.....that is what Delbruck was saying (if you read between the lines).

Presentism (not a real word, I know....) is a serious problem when interpreting the past. It's part of the reason the military history class I'm lecturing starts in the middle ages....it FORCES students to abandon modern logic and try to see things through the eyes of people living in a different time and coming from a radically different culture.

Exactly. I guess "presentism" is a good concise word for applying today's values toward the past. The example I had liked to give was horses and their ubiquitousness in the late 1800s. There was an event, in which I cannot recall the details, of a horse transport sinking off the coast. It didn't make the news in the day.

Get people to not think about the future when talking about an historical event or period is difficult for those not historians (and even to some historians, but that's another debate). It even applies to sports and gaming, as well. There is a poll on this page about the best Civ game. How can one accurately assess the joy and feeling of playing Civ2 at the time when you are looking through the filter of Civ4? Is that really a fair question? Can you go back and compare playing Civ2 in 1999 vs. playing Civ4 in 2007?

 

[Justicex]

I know!!!!

I love it!

I tell this to all my students every year just hoping at least SOMEONE has seen the movie....almost none of them have.

Maybe it's a 'generational' thing? I mean, heck, I'm only 25 it's not like am some old geezer or something!

You should make that movie a part of your curriculum!

For me, the historical immersion factor is a part of the charm that keeps me playing the game. In every genre of game, there are thousands of games vying for your hard-earned dollars. For every Metal Gear, Unreal Tournament, Street Figther of Civiliazation, there's hundreds of games you have never heard of or wouldn't touch with a 10' pole. So what is it that makes people continue to enjoy these games when "newer" versions come out? The immersion factor.

You can call it whatever you want: immersion factor, charm, appeal; but the fact is, whether you realise it or not, the game on some subtle level is appealing to you and therefore you continue to play. There is a particular character in an rpg that you can relate to, or a theme to the story that gets your blood flowing, whatever personally gets to you.

For me, I think that is what is slightly lacking in Civ V. It has all the history and everything of the previous games, but I don't feel like I'm leading a civilization to greatness or ruin. Diplomacy doesn't feel like it matters since at best, other civs ignore me. Rarely does the AI ever give me anything to build a story on. It feels like playing a game of Monopoly alone. At least board games have that, other players to chat with or trash talk with to make the game interesting.

 

[Camikaze]

For me, historical immersion is quite important, but not the be-all-and-end-all. Gameplay is king, and historical immersion should only be sacrificed for the sake of gameplay. It's important to me that I'm playing against historical figures, as a historical figure, and the visual of the other historical figure does actually add to the experience. But it isn't the key part of the game, and can be sacrificed to an extent.

 

[Cywil]

But certainly much lower than the best example of the most historically immersive series I know, Europa Universalis.

Agreed. The historical immersion in Civ is lower than in the EU. That's fine for me. EU's playability is too limited by real history.

 

[DavidPBacon]

Exactly. I guess "presentism" is a good concise word for applying today's values toward the past.
Get people to not think about the future when talking about an historical event or period is difficult for those not historians .[\QUOTE]

But this feeling is quite old and part of human nature. Just remember the paintings in Renacense about Acient times battles where people used modern weapons and armor. People have a natural difficult to imagine themselves in a different culture, with different habits and values.

 

[anti_strunt]

I'm not at all confusing religious fervour of the masses w/ the feeling of their 'self-serving' leaders (a concept which, interestingly, begs the question of where the dividing line between leaders and 'the masses' is).

If we stick to the 30 Years War, for example (I'm giving a lecture on warfare in the Early Modern period on monday so it's fresh in my mind) there are leaders who are not only engaging in the war for secular reasons but doing so quite openly like Gustavus Adolphus. Elizabeth I was also notably ambivalent towards religious issues. The main Catholic leaders (Phillip III, Ferdinand II etc.), I would argue see things in a much more religious light and did seriously worry about the rise of Protestantism. Yes, part of their worry dealt with the real-world implications that it might have for Catholic empires but there was also a confessional aspect to it. Indeed, if there was NOT a confessional aspect to their behaviours would there not have been more instances of Catholic on Catholic warfare in the 30 Years War?

France?

 

[anti_strunt]

I've already explained in several posts especially Post #84. Civ5 is less immersive from an overall big picture POV. The way Civ4 nations develop, their interactions with each other, the politics, economics, the more refined game mechanics, etc. just the overall picture. You are talking about immersion of details. But I am talking about something else entirely, namely the immersion of the big picture. This should be extremely clear if we are not only talking about Civ4 but Civ4BTS with mods like LoR, RoM/AND etc.

Note that I am not talking about immersion in the sense of fine details or graphics or whatever. I am talking about overall game mechanics and whether they end up creating a game of Civ that "feels" overall, in a broad way, to be historically plausible. And in that sense, Civ4BTS:LoR or RoM/MOD clearly blow Civ5 vanilla out of the water. Those mods especially made you feel the history of your Civ world and that is what I'm talking about.

Isn't that the whole point? What "feels" true to history? That's entirely dependent on peoples preconcieved notions, after all. If you tried to squeeze in some mechanics that might in the end be more "true" by some objective metric, but which subjectively felt less "realistic", wouldn't people complain about losing immersion?

So, in the end, actually being "realistic" is irrelevant. All that matters is successfully manipulating the preconcieved notions of the chosen audience. More stuff or less stuff, different stuff.

I don't think we/you/I were neccesarily the chosen audience this time around. But most people, without judging them too harshly, probably have a lower barrier to immersion.

Btw, JJ, I'm in complete agreement w/you on this one. Funny how the trained historians see things the same way.

Why is no one complaining that the fundamental structure of all Civ games seems more suited to Colonization? You make landfall with a single, vulnerable settlement, build "settlers" after "exploring the world" in direct competition with half a dozen other powers - what do these things have to do with tribal life in the stone age? Or any age or place apart from early-to-mid-modern European colonialism?

The technology tree is based upon a liberal, western views of history as constant progress towards a predefined goal (of a liberal, western society). "Civilisations", all spring fully-formed at identical levels of development evenly divided across the world, with all the rest an empty wilderness with no annoying natives (apart from the occasional city state or barbarian; one to destroy without mercy, the other to bribe and cajole for goodies, both fundamentaly and irrevorcably inferior to yourself) to interrupt your Manifest Destiny as the few imperial powers given the proper Mandate of Heaven compete for global dominance.

And as for the internal lives of the "Civs" themselves, they are all of course based upon the modern view of the State as absolute powerbroker, power is absolutely centralized, all laws are by decree, there exists no sphere of political negotiation, no spectrum of interests. Just the brute force banality of "Happiness"... People have no will beyond being subjects and further expanding the eternal nihilistic spread of Empire. What does this say about one's view of history? The Führerprinzip as a basis for understanding world history? Human life?

(Added so as not to end on a Goodwin...) Basically, the banality of late-19th century imperialism envisioned as the dominant paradigm of human development. Because it's easy to understand and codify, because of its very banality it's excellent stuff to base a simple, rules-based game on. But as a tool for understanding the infinite mutability of human life and relationships, politics and development...?

Hmm, wrote a rant there. But I guess that's what happens if you have too high a barrier to enjoy historical immersion...
Take heed from my example! Don't read books or you'll only end up bitter!