Historical Immersion Factor

[Supr49er]

Immersion makes for a more involved game.

 

[Danei]

Personally, I would be much more willing to forgive the lack of historical feeling to Civ V as a much more highly abstracted strategy game, if the AI was good enough to make it an engaging strategy game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Historical immersion is no worse in V than any previous incarnation of the game, once you understand how previous incarnations worked. Threads like this distract from the game's real problems.

 

[polypheus]

Historical immersion is no worse in V than any previous incarnation of the game, once you understand how previous incarnations worked. Threads like this distract from the game's real problems.

You are free to have that opinion but lots of people apparently disagree.

 

[eric_]

cIV had more factors pertaining to actual historicity (religion, spying, etc), as noted by the OP, but in some ways, cIV was less realistic in that regard.

For one thing, in cIV, I tended to found cities in a way that quickly gave rise to a large, coherent swath of land comprised by my culture. In ciV, I can go that route, but often as not I end up with more of a patchwork representing my cultural influence in the early game. I believe this more accurately reflects how cultures have spread historically, particularly when conquest led to one civ's uber-rapid expansion. Also, I think it's much more realistic for culture to spread tile-by-tile rather than concentrically.

Also, culture-flipping: cities do not come under the sway of different geopolitical entities simply by virtue of one culture becoming more dominant than another. I do think that revolt and unhappiness occur due to a geopolitical entity occupying lands dominated by a culture that is hostile to to that entity.

In the end, though, I don't value Historical immersion as much as "historical" immersion. When I'm in the modern era, and I'm moving a unit past a mountain range that I discovered during my first 10 turns, I like considering how the importance of that area of the map has changed as the game has unfolded. Have battles been fought in the vicinity? What improvements have come and perhaps gone in the region? Did this part of the map come under my control peacefully or via war? If I won a city in a war, is the original owner still around? Etc.

With ciV, that sense is every bit as strong as it ever was with cIV.

I do like it when elements of an ongoing game are suitable analogs for "real" history (whatever version that might be ), but for me, a lot of the fun is the fact that you're creating your own little self-contained history to play around in. This is why I don't like earth maps or scenarios too much. There are fewer surprises, and the story that is my game is less unique.

As for the idea that things have been reduced to "green team vs red team," etc., I couldn't disagree more. I always have very unique experiences with each civ in each game that I play. I have different initial reactions and expectations of future events each time I encounter a new civ in an ongoing game, etc.

 

[sketch162000]

For one thing, in cIV, I tended to found cities in a way that quickly gave rise to a large, coherent swath of land comprised by my culture. In ciV, I can go that route, but often as not I end up with more of a patchwork representing my cultural influence in the early game. I believe this more accurately reflects how cultures have spread historically, particularly when conquest led to one civ's uber-rapid expansion. Also, I think it's much more realistic for culture to spread tile-by-tile rather than concentrically.

Would you care to elaborate on this further? IMO the tile-by-tile method is a good representation of the tiles that a city can work, due to things like population, but I think it feels like an awkward way of representing cultural expansion. Why wouldn't a concentric spread of culture be realistic?

Also, culture-flipping: cities do not come under the sway of different geopolitical entities simply by virtue of one culture becoming more dominant than another. I do think that revolt and unhappiness occur due to a geopolitical entity occupying lands dominated by a culture that is hostile to to that entity.

Agreed.

 

[Roxlimn]

sketch162000:

Can't speak for eric_, but it may be that cultural spread along flatlands makes more sense because flatlands are traditionally where people settle and occupy land, so it's natural that a city's influence would more naturally spread along the banks of a river rather than the nearby hills.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You are free to have that opinion but lots of people apparently disagree.

Yes, but objective reasons it has less historical immersion are...less clear.

For example, take the diplo manipulation potential in civ IV vs V. In reality, V's model is actually closer to reality; weak civs were declared upon if someone decided to go on a military spree. Historical friendship mattered, but only so far.

So why, then, is IV's break from reality in that many starts can lock out war the entire game with 0 military or very minimal providing less "immersion" than a game where eventual war is quite likely (even though we've had proven games where several civs never declared on the human player)?

Outside of the diplo variance, what other cases could be made for immersion? Religion, in its dice-role, unrealistically applied format? You can go either way on that, and it was only in one civ game. The AI behavior itself? When in previous titles all AI was fundamentally the same outside of some XML value tweaks in one file? Doubtful. Most people don't know how the V AI works, but I think it would be hard to prove it and MORE cookie-cutter. Stacks of doom? Were those immersive, moreso than 1upt? Maybe to some.

There's nothing concrete to go against this game except for its release bugs and poor balance, both of which are serious issues. But then again, they're not new issues; they exist to this day in previous titles that people are arguing to be immersive!

 

[eric_]

Y'know, I take it back about expectations of future events in ciV. I *do* have different initial reactions to the various leaders when I see them in a game, and feel they have very different "attitudes" from one another.

However, unlike in cIV, I don't know *exactly* what type of game they will play. In IV, you saw Mali, you knew to expect a runaway econ, with Asoka, runaway tech, Monty, lots of war, and so on. In this iteration, you can expect an attitude, and maybe expect events within certain parameters, but there isn't nearly as much certainty as there was in IV regarding how a given civ's empire will look as a game evolves.

Would you care to elaborate on this further?

Civilizations and their cultures arose around those things that enabled and/or attracted people to put down roots and take up an agrarian way of life. So, fertile land, sources of water, and, later, "luxury" resources that could be converted into wealth. So, it makes sense that people (the vehicles of culture) would spread in ways that bring them into contact with such things, as opposed to spreading in all directions at an equal pace outward from where they first settled.

 

[polypheus]

Yes, but objective reasons it has less historical immersion are...less clear.

For example, take the diplo manipulation potential in civ IV vs V. In reality, V's model is actually closer to reality; weak civs were declared upon if someone decided to go on a military spree. Historical friendship mattered, but only so far.

So why, then, is IV's break from reality in that many starts can lock out war the entire game with 0 military or very minimal providing less "immersion" than a game where eventual war is quite likely (even though we've had proven games where several civs never declared on the human player)?

Outside of the diplo variance, what other cases could be made for immersion? Religion, in its dice-role, unrealistically applied format? You can go either way on that, and it was only in one civ game. The AI behavior itself? When in previous titles all AI was fundamentally the same outside of some XML value tweaks in one file? Doubtful. Most people don't know how the V AI works, but I think it would be hard to prove it and MORE cookie-cutter. Stacks of doom? Were those immersive, moreso than 1upt? Maybe to some.

There's nothing concrete to go against this game except for its release bugs and poor balance, both of which are serious issues. But then again, they're not new issues; they exist to this day in previous titles that people are arguing to be immersive!

We can point out all sorts of flaws of Civ4 vanilla vs Civ5 vanilla but the issues I have is that in many areas where Civ5 made changes from Civ4, it made the game feel more gamey and abstract and artificial vs what I had from Civ4.

First as far as Civ5 "diplomacy" is concerned being "realistic", that's just really bizarre to say the least. There's already been many threads on this but suffice it to say that nations in real life history do not deal with each other like AI nations in Civ5. This is because IRL war is a lot more costly and has drawbacks in terms of the costs of waging war but also war weariness and also in terms of damaging and disrupting trade relations, its effect on world opinion and dealing with rebellions and such etc. Civ4 vanilla is flawed for sure but if you compare the two, it definitely feels a lot more "real" to me than nonsense Civ5 "diplomacy".

If Civ5 diplomacy is true, the the US should be marching on Canada and conquering it right now as it is weak Civ compared to the US.

As for other examples, take "global happiness" mechanic vs the Civ4 mechanics. As already pointed out, it just doesn't makes sense as something called happiness based on its overall effects and only makes sense if you just give up and consider it an abstract game mechanics and call it "Shafer Rating".

etc etc

I could go on and on. Yes Civ4 is far from realistic or totally historical immersive. But Civ5's changes for me and others make feel even less so. And comparing Civ5 to highly immersive mods like RoM/AND, it is no comparison at all.

 

[eric_]

Civ4 vanilla is flawed for sure but if you compare the two, it definitely feels a lot more "real" to me than nonsense Civ5 "diplomacy".

Totally disagree. It's much more likely that you'll be mystified by another leader in real life than you are to get a list of actions you've taken and to what extent they have positively or negatively affected your relationship with others.

As for happiness, I don't think it's any more unrealistic than war weariness slowing down a nation at war. When has that ever happened? When has citizen discontent ever caused a gov't to meaningfully change a war policy? I think both are game mechanics meant simply to slow warring, and I like how happiness does it better. If you can't get some jerk to sign a peace treaty with you, you can still have a productive civ so long as you don't keep capturing an opponent's cities. In IV, if you couldn't make peace, war weariness was very annoying.

 

[He-Who-Hunts]

I think one of the biggest immersion problems was actually the loss of having to connect empires to trade. It was truly exciting (for me anyways) to finally get those worker(s) to set up a trade route between 2 cities then go into the city screen and see it there.

I personally think Civ5 has more potential to immerse player than Civ4 but it needs work to say the least. For starters I think they should wipe CS bonuses clean and force players to have to link up to them via roads/harbors then start spreading their culture and molding them into the type of ally they want (sci multiplier, culture multiplier, food addition etc).

I could go on but there are plenty of threads for that!

 

[sketch162000]

sketch162000:

Can't speak for eric_, but it may be that cultural spread along flatlands makes more sense because flatlands are traditionally where people settle and occupy land, so it's natural that a city's influence would more naturally spread along the banks of a river rather than the nearby hills.

Civilizations and their cultures arose around those things that enabled and/or attracted people to put down roots and take up an agrarian way of life. So, fertile land, sources of water, and, later, "luxury" resources that could be converted into wealth. So, it makes sense that people (the vehicles of culture) would spread in ways that bring them into contact with such things, as opposed to spreading in all directions at an equal pace outward from where they first settled.

Makes sense. I think "concentric" was the wrong term for me. My issue was more with the expansion being limited to ONE tile at a time. I agree that asymmetric, organic expansion seems to make a more realistic-looking territory, although it's pretty slow in comparison to previous games. One of the things I liked about Civ IV is having a solid "block" of territory that I would define as my nation. In Civ V it's more like a collection of city-states. Say what you will about the historicity of that.

 

[polypheus]

Totally disagree. It's much more likely that you'll be mystified by another leader in real life than you are to get a list of actions you've taken and to what extent they have positively or negatively affected your relationship with others.

If you feel that Civ5 diplomacy is sensible and "realistic" than really I don't know what to say any further. I understand the point that perhaps Civ4 was a bit too transparent but still the point stands that real-life nations would never behave the way Civ5 AIs. Even multiplayer all-human games where everyone is trying to win don't behave nonsensically like the AIs do. I mean, play a MP game where you try to behave just like a Civ5 AI and see how that goes...

True that real-life diplomacy is somewhat more opaque than Civ4's transparent model (but take care that mods fix this and also some AIs will attack you even when pleased or friendly). But IRL you're not going to have allies like Japan and Canada sudden turn on you or US suddenly deciding that it needs to backstab Canada because suddenly it is a weak neighboring Civ riped for conquest. That is because there are true costs and drawbacks to such actions.

 

[Dachs]

If I want historical immersion, I'll go play a Paradox game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Not really, if you have all the sects as well then no-one would have had the same religion so it would be just another reason for the AI to declare war. And indeed AFAICS Religion has always been a good excuse for someone to go to war, when the real reasons were about power (sometimes just staying in it) or wealth.

The AI this time is generally more RL about declaring war. It's not just a game mechanic.

Why have sects as *separate religions* though? Using a Civics-or Social Policy-path, Civ5 could have mimicked the basic elements of the various sects via a Civilization's choices within that branch-of course, in order for that to have reflected the Wars of Religion properly, Social Policies would have to matter to the AI (which, of course, they don't in Civ5-another step forward for immersion. "It doesn't matter what your core beliefs are-as long as you don't try & win the game I'll leave you alone")

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Spoiler :

polypheus:

I think historical immersion is somewhat important. I also think that Civ V is more historically immersive than the Civs before it, including Civ IV. Why?

1. Religion. Religion has traditionally played a backdrop role in history. The French and the English sharing the same religion did not stop them from merrily butchering each other. For that matter, it didn't stop the Sunni and the Shiites from doing the same. When the Mongols came over Central Asia to crush everything in their path, it wasn't because they were pissed that everyone had a different religion.

In Civ IV, religion played a central part of diplomacy and to determine which allied blocs were allied with each other. This is as much as modern political statement as it is anything else. It certainly isn't historically immersive.

2. Civics. Many Westerners have this strange notion that European civilization and culture is the only thing that exists on the planet. Certainly, Civ has always been extremely Euro-centric and that's always hurt its historical perspective, IMO. Chinese history doesn't have a Medieval Period, and they've had Crossbows since, like, forever.

This carries over into the Civics. I like Civics, but I don't have any illusions that it's global. It is most definitely not. How a government functions depends on the culture of the people that spawn it, not because you unlock some tech and now you can rule like the more "advanced" people on the other side of the world!

Japanese and Singaporean democratic (or republic, if you prefer) practice is not like American democracy. Chinese communism is not like Russian communism, and it will never be the same as Russian communism. This is because the Chinese have underlying social structures and mores that modify any subsequent social structures that are implemented going forward.

You cannot change this. You cannot tell the Chinese people, en masse, to embrace the totality of Western historical perspective and start thinking like Frenchmen. It won't happen.

Thus, the Social Policy model makes more sense to me than the Civics model. It may seem strange to some that you can be Monarchial and Democratic at the same time, but England seems to be pulling it off in some senses.

It creates a major historical break in my view when every Civ I play generally is predisposed to the types of governments and ruling styles that modern Westerners prefer and deem superior. Were the Ancient Egyptians ready for Representation? Would it even have worked given their social mores? Sure they were. They built the Pyramids, right?

3. BFC. It has always seemed strange to me that cities could only benefit from and work the areas that are closest to them, especially in the modern eras. SMAC tried to address the issue by allowing cities to transfer food, but it was somewhat clunky.

I don't know that the Civ V model is perfect, but it is somewhat more organic-looking. In Civ V, you can grow the controlled borders of a city in any way you prefer outside of the natural Cultural preferences, and it is able to reach far. Thus, a new city that is near enough can still benefit from the bread baskets of your empire that usually supply the core cities. I would have liked the reach of cities to actually be farther, but I suppose that's for later titles.

It makes perfect sense to me that a City would extend its range of control to all along the banks of a river, and not care so much about all the desert to the north of it.

4. Normal tiles. In this Civ V was more like Civs 1-3. There are no megatiles. In the modern era, we don't have Iran dominating the food industry because it has Wheat Tiles! Most cultivated areas give about the same amount of food per square area depending on how much the people of the locale have adapted the tech to their locale. One patch of wheat is about the same as another patch of wheat. We don't have super-wheat that makes Japan healthier than Vegas.

In Civ IV, Super Tiles meant that a city was founded mainly on the special resources it could harvest, and this advantage carried forward into modern eras. Persepolis grows faster (or whatever) because it has Cows!!!! (or whatever). Well, cows can be moved. They can be housed in other parts of the world. Coal-mining cities are not generally known for being centers of military training or for having progressive Universities and Banks and whatnot.

5. 1UPT Again, this might surprise some, but I consider 1UPT to be more reminiscent of historical events than SoDs. It comes down to Thermopylae, really. Small armies can hold off larger ones if the terrain is right. Thermopylae can never happen in Civ IV or Civ III, because you can stack an infinite number of units on one tile.

Roxlimn. I do not think you will find too many people that will disagree that Civ5 added a lot of features which-if implemented correctly-could greatly enhance the immersiveness of the game. The issue many of us have, though, is that many perfectly good features were removed in the shift from Civ4 to Civ5, & the new features were implemented badly. Now *if* they improve the AI & rebalance a number of key features of the game, then perhaps we'll have a game we can all genuinely enjoy!

Aussie.

 

[lschnarch]

For example, take the diplo manipulation potential in civ IV vs V. In reality, V's model is actually closer to reality; weak civs were declared upon if someone decided to go on a military spree. Historical friendship mattered, but only so far.

So why, then, is IV's break from reality in that many starts can lock out war the entire game with 0 military or very minimal providing less "immersion" than a game where eventual war is quite likely (even though we've had proven games where several civs never declared on the human player)?

You see, the problem is that in real life history, there have been wars (clarification inserted: on average) every 30 - 50 years. That were one or even two generations.

In Civ you have wars every 20 turns. The depicted time may be these 30 - 50 years, but for the player it is just "Wft, again????"
To give the feeling of immersion, the game has to feel "plausible".
And in this regard Civ5 does a lousy job. It just does not feel plausible when Bismarck attacks you 3 turns after you've settled somewhere where he wanted to settle. The game may tell you that 80 years would have passed but you don't *feel* this enormous timespan. For you it is just in no time at all.

Outside of the diplo variance, what other cases could be made for immersion? Religion, in its dice-role, unrealistically applied format? You can go either way on that, and it was only in one civ game. The AI behavior itself? When in previous titles all AI was fundamentally the same outside of some XML value tweaks in one file? Doubtful. Most people don't know how the V AI works, but I think it would be hard to prove it and MORE cookie-cutter. Stacks of doom? Were those immersive, moreso than 1upt? Maybe to some.

I don't have the impression that in Civ5 the AI is different from being "all the same outside of some XML". Only that the values may be even closer than they've been in Civ4.
And nobody is going to say that the religion system of Civ4 was near to perfect. Actually, it was quite bad.
Yet, it was available.

It had an influence on the game, may it have been good or bad, but it had an influence. And don't tell me that religions didn't have influence in history. Al Andalus or crusades, anybody?

All these immersion factors are missing in Civ5, and that makes the feeling of "just playing a game" and not of "re-writing history".

There's nothing concrete to go against this game except for its release bugs and poor balance, both of which are serious issues. But then again, they're not new issues; they exist to this day in previous titles that people are arguing to be immersive!

And a lot of questionable design decisions.
Bowmen being actually some kind of light artillery? Shooting farther than infantry? Crossbowmen doing ballistic shots?
Not knowing of archery, but your cities have some kind of in-built artillery somewhere in the guard's house?
And so on, and so on...

Civilizations and their cultures arose around those things that enabled and/or attracted people to put down roots and take up an agrarian way of life. So, fertile land, sources of water, and, later, "luxury" resources that could be converted into wealth. So, it makes sense that people (the vehicles of culture) would spread in ways that bring them into contact with such things, as opposed to spreading in all directions at an equal pace outward from where they first settled.

The point is, as unrealistic as Civ4's mechanism may have been, so unrealistic is Civ5's one, too.
If you don't put cities really close together you will find that there are "holes" in the covered area. You have a circle of five or six cities, and in the middle there is an area of ... nothing? You cannot send your peasants there to chop some wood or do some mining?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, so here are the features that were added-or changed-in Civ5 which *could* have increased immersion, but which I feel were poorly implemented.

AI Civilizations: Now I actually *supported* the removal of the completely transparent AI attitudes (the visible + & - system, which I never made use of after the first few times), however now they've swung too far the other way-making the AI seem totally Irrational & Opaque-which totally wrecks the Immersion for me. Instead of making the AI Civilizations more cut-throat, I'd have preferred it if they had used in-game mechanisms to encourage the human to behave in a more role-play oriented fashion!

City-States: Another great idea, poorly handled. In some ways their problem is the opposite to AI Civilizations. They're so transparent that they're downright gamey! Not to mention that their gifts can seriously unbalance the game. Again this wrecks the immersion-but the City-States Diplomacy Mod shows that it *can* be fixed, by making influence dependent on distance, for starters. It would also work better if (a) your influence was less obvious (beyond Friends, Allies etc), more random & much more mission oriented. They would also work better if City-States were more dynamic (being able to merge with an existing Empire, or having cities break off to form new city-States) & if their abilities were tied to the building of appropriate buildings in your cities.

Culture: I do like the more organic way in which cultural borders now grow, but I do take issue with (a) how slow it is & (b) how it can leave your nation looking like a patch-work quilt, even in the late game. What bothers me most though, from an immersion standpoint, is how you don't get the "clash of cultures" within cities or at respective borders-it particularly bothers me that the only way you can acquire foreign-owned tiles is via the very gamey Culture Bomb (Great Artists ability should be the immediate acquisition of a Social Policy!)

1upt: Love the concept-really do-has really made me *want* to fight battles in Civ. Unfortunately, the AI is completely *useless*, & archers/bowmen are *massively* overpowered within the system-again this wrecks my immersion!

Tile Improvements: OK, I admit there were a few problems with Civ4 tile improvements-I particularly didn't like how workshops stripped 1 food from a tile, but the cottage didn't. That is still no excuse, IMO, to remove all but a handful of tile improvements from the game-even if they have been shifted into the cities. I especially *loathe* trading posts-both how the look & their effects. I say bring back *all* the tile improvements of Civ4, but place them all on a more even footing.

Religion: Again, I'll accept that there were some issues with how religion was implemented in Civ4 (just look at my sig if you don't believe me), but it was a new system with great promise-if they'd done it *right*-for Civ5. Imagine if you had to engage in a real strategy to obtain one of the main religions, & to spread it (like spending culture to spread religion to a new city-the way you do to acquire Social Policies). Imagine if your religious settings actually impacted diplomacy with other civs as much-or even more-than your choice of religion? In spite of its problems, Civ4 religion *definitely* helped increase the immersiveness of the game, & its removal is a major step backwards.

Social Policies: My key issues with this, from an immersion point of view, is how permanent they are compared to Civics, & how *all* the effects stack up-removing what were some interesting decisions (more than once I had to ask myself if I had built a sufficient number of workshops to justify a switch to State Property ). Again, the Civics of Civ4 could have been better, but I'm not sure they've achieved a better outcome in Civ5!

Trade: From an immersion point of view, I think it *totally* sucks that you can't form foreign trade routes with other cities. Indeed, the whole trade mechanism is incredibly bland an uninteresting. Would have been so much better if trade routes provided something *other* than just gold-like science, hammers & food.

Happiness & Health: I'm glad Happiness has a global component, but I'm not happy there is no city-based component to it. Also, the way they've done it creates all kind of anomalous situations-like building a coliseum in one city to fix what should be the unhappiness in a city on the other side of the empire. The positive & negative impacts of happiness should be much more gradual than what they currently are. I also don't think its an adequate replacement for City Maintenance to reduce ICS, though. I also don't understand why, given the global nature of happiness, they didn't make luxury resources work like strategic resources-with each unit of the resource granting +1 happiness.
Lastly, though I understand that Health duplicated too many of the effects of happiness, I still think they should have retained health in Civ5-if only to retain the usefulness of various food resources (another change that I think hurts the immersiveness of Civ5). If Health & Happiness both had a local & global component, then you could just have them impacting different things (Happiness=production & culture; Health=food & gold).

I could go on, but I'd like to hope that's sufficient to make my point about the things they've done in Civ5 which wreck the immersion of the game &-in so doing-make it much less fun for me to play (going on ONE MONTH since I last played Civ5!)

Aussie.

 

[kaltorak]

Historical immersion is no worse in V than any previous incarnation of the game, once you understand how previous incarnations worked. Threads like this distract from the game's real problems.

Have to again disagree with you. I watched you play, and as much as I like it, you play civ for winning. You don't ally spain because you find it cool. You do if it will help you win the game.

This topic IS a big step backwards in civ5