Historical Immersion Factor

[polypheus]

Ultimately, "historical immersion" is about the total big picture and not the details. And for me and many others it boils down the the overall historical narrative of the game. For me, a game which overall and broadly speaking feel historical plausible and models the broad historical "mechanics" and development will feel more immersive than one that does not. Its how everything ties together in the big picture rather than all the little details by themselves. This is my personal definition of historical immersion, others may differ.

I mean take Civ1 vs Civ4. Both can be said to have lots of flaws and unrealistic and/or gamey elements. So I suppose one could say that they are both equally immersive or non-immersive because both contain a bunch of flaws. Yet most people will say that Civ4 is overall more immersive because of how all the elements and mechanics of Civ4 tie together as a whole. I'm not going to detail all those one by one. But suffice it to say that if you agree that Civ4 is a whole lot more historically immersive overall (despite flaws and all) than Civ1, then you get what I'm saying. If not, then there's no way I can explain it to you.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Can't help but notice that not *one* of Civ5 defenders has actually had the guts to challenge my list of anti-immersive factors. Maybe because, unlike them, I've actually backed my list up with *facts*!

Aussie.

 

[polypheus]

In DC, for a looooooooooooong time, we didn't have a baseball team, so a lot of people were Orioles fans and traveled to another city to see a game.

Granted, this has mostly been a net unhappiness for the empire, because the Os suck, hon!

Seriously, though I don't know what it's "supposed" to represent, but a very small amount of imaginative thinking brings many real-life analogs to mind.

That's fine but I didn't need to use much "imaginative thinking" to rationalize Civ4 local happiness mechanic. Sure its not perfect but it makes a lot more sense because again in Civ4, stuff that doesn't make sense like how circuses and colosseums in podunk towns have empire-wide effects just doesn't happen in the first place. So the more you have elements that require more rationalization and "imaginative thinking" the more its going to strain historical immersion.

Er, not really. Iraq always induced a lot of anger, even during the early phase were we completely overwhelmed them. Also, Clinton caught tons of flack for nation-building in the Balkans.

Yes there was anger wrt to the Iraq War as many people felt it was unjustified. But most of the current problems are really due to the US being there and occupying the land many years later. The first Iraq War where the US expelled Iraq from Kuwait (so reasonable justification) and then subsequently no occupation didn't induce that much anger.

I don't think either really deals with it realistically. When has citizen unrest ever actually stopped a war or otherwise caused a tangible change in military policy?

It has happen a lot actually. The "citizen unrest" over the Vietnam War was exactly what caused the US to pull out and let the South Vietnamese take over the anti-communist efforts. If anything, its easier to have a prolonged Vietnamese War type conflict in a Civ game than it would be IRL.

I do agree it's odd that razing a city induces less anger than puppeting; however, it's not your only option: you could also just not conquer a bunch of cities and go a more peaceful route

It makes sense that annexing would cause more anger on average in your empire, because all the people in the new city are gonna be pissed. Interestingly, in that situation, unhappiness is more localized, or at least, it is addressed in a more localized fashion

How does Civ5 deal with it in a "localized fashion"? The point is that it doesn't and thus global happiness overall feels more gamey because its effects make less sense. You sort of seem to agree to some extent. So if that is the case, then it should makes sense how stuff like global happiness is going to feel less immersive and more gamey to a lot of people.

 

[polypheus]

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

This is the crux of the issue. Those that play as a challenge game to beat and win and are power-gamers that look for every loophole and exploit are going to then say that ultimately that it is all gamey and unrealistic and non-immersive. These people would even say that in the end Civ4 is no more immersive than Civ1. Those that play more for the journey and less for just beating the game to win though obviously would never say that Civ4 is no more immersive than Civ1. I mean really if someone is going to insist, say, that Civ4 is no more immersive than say, Civ1, what can anyone else really say?

 

[polypheus]

What does the intricate and legalistic diplomatic network of post-Westphalian modern nation states have to do with what passed for diplomatic relations for most of human history? People waging war every other generation for any reason or no real reason seems a fair approximation of the vast bulk of the period 4000BC-2000AD...

I highly doubt that real life nations waged wars and conducted themselves or related to each other in any way resembling Civ5 AIs. Even cut-throat all-human MP games much better resemble and approximatel RL historical diplomatic dynamics than Civ5 "diplomacy". It has nothing to do with modeling intricate and legalistic diplomatic network of modern states and everything to do with acting rationally and doing things that make sense and serve self-interest. The AI "diplomacy" is nothing but very crude heuristics that often times has it acting it ways and holding attitudes that make no rational sense overall.

To continue your metaphor, if Canada invaded Mexico today, should America still be "Pleased" because "We're brothers and sisters of the faith", and because Canada sold America some Furs back in the year 1500 or whenever? How much sense does that make?

There's no question that Civ4 model, especially vanilla is overly simplistic. (But later expansions and especially mods did improve this a lot). But that's still missing the point. Let's compare Civ1 diplomacy model vs Civ4 diplomacy model. You can say both are flawed and simplistic and therefore even claim neither is "historically immersive". However as flawed as it may be in Civ4, its still feels a lot more "true" in a very broad way than Civ1 "diplomacy" because it does attempt, however over-simplistically or crudely, to add much more depth to relations in terms of trade, more nuanced attitudes, treaties and agreements, memory of past actions of others and so on and so forth that mattered a lot IRL. Sure Civ4 doesn't do it perfectly but it does it much better than Civ1's war/peace only model and thus for most, the immersion factor of Civ4 diplomacy is greater despite its simplicity and flaws.

So if you agree that Civ4 diplomacy is more historically immersive feeling, notwithstanding its flaws and oversimplifications, compare to say Civ1, then it seems you get what I mean which is that despite its simplicity or flaws, Civ4 diplomacy adds to the ability to have a richer historical narrative to the game compared to Civ1 diplomacy. But if you insist that Civ4 diplomacy gives you no more a feeling of historical immersion than Civ1, then what more can I say?

And as far as Civ5 "diplomacy" goes, it sure feels like it is going more back towards Civ1 style cartoony diplomacy more than it is going towards more "historically immersive" diplomacy IMHO.

 

[sketch162000]

First, the issue isn't whether or not culture radiates out from cultural centers (it does), but rather, what patterns it follows (if any) as it does. Second, just because a group goes on hunting expeditions in an area doesn't mean their culture has spread to that area. Third, it's a theory of Diamond's that human actions led to mas extinctions in North America, not a fact. Fourth, even if Diamond is right about those extinctions, a) all cultures present in North America are cited by Diamond as the root cause, not a single culture that radiated out uniformly in all directions and b) any hypothetical culture that has led to mass extinction on that scale all by itself has *far* surpassed the scale implied by a single city that has just established itself and started spreading its fledgling culture.



First, again, this is way out of scale with the beginning of a game of civ where you have one city's culture spreading. Second, culture spreading from England to US, Canada, Australia, and India hardly gives the impression of a concentric circle.

First, high five on the anthro major...

Second, I'm not sure you and Shu are on opposite sides of the issue. He seems to be arguing that Culture is focused at an origin point, which you agree with. Correct me if I'm wrong, he hasn't offered evidence of uniform expansion has he?

Would you both support an system of asymmetric expansion in Civ V without the restriction of 1 tile at a time? If not, why?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@TheMeInTeam

You are still missing the point. The changes in Civ5 for many feel more gamey and less immersive. As has been said many times, it feels more like a pure "board-game" and less like a "god-game" or whatever.

I asked for objective criteria to support this. You can't provide it and as such fall back on subjective data.

This is subjective but many people feel it. Now perhaps you are one of those super high level Civ4:BTS players that have seen through the games and therefore you see through the flaws and gameyness of both. But that is perhaps the problem here . I am NOT actually a high level player in the sense of trying to look at all sorts of loopholes and such to try to beat the game. I don't play like that. (But for those that do and see Civ as more of a "challenge-game" to beat I can see where you are coming from.) So for you if you looked very deeply you feel some flaws are equal, they are not if you look a bit further away if that makes sense to you.

It really doesn't make sense. The flaws are there regardless, but people look and find them in V because it's different. I could have given a much much longer list of flaws/"gamey" things that existed in civ IV. It's been part of the series since the beginning. V gets a bad rap in this regard when it really doesn't deserve it. It deserves its bad rap for being an incomplete game with bugs, imbalances, fake difficulty, and opaque rules. No matter what you say you "feel", civ IV had lots of BS tactics to lead to victory, and lots of ticky tack ways to lose. I challenge someone to show that V is worse, line item by line item, than IV in the "gamey tactics" regard. Grading a game based on feelings is not a reliable measure for others, nor is it a fair metric to review the game. There are PLENTY of objective ways to show V falls short, and IMO we should be focusing on those and not misleading limited developer resources with garbage like "perceived immersion relative to other broken games".

You can say that Civ4 or even Civ4BTS was flawed but the changes that Civ5 made it even more so in the opinion of others. But it is all opinion and I can't convince you and you won't convince me either. For you, you sees lots of flaws of Civ4 and also admit flaws exist in Civ5 and feel they are both equally immersive to you. Again you are welcomed to that opinion but again many people disagree.

Opinions on immersion are fine, but I would like some actual, objective basis for conclusions from the other side, rather than just "I feel this way and it isn't going to change".

For example lots of people have already commented well on the strange effects of global happiness such as building circuses and colosseums in podunk towns have empire-wide effects and winning a war and annexing cities makes your empire less happy, etc that don't really make sense compared to Civ4 system.

Every version of civ has global features. Without them the game would be mired in ridiculous amounts of micromanagement, without any semblance of UI to help out (since the UI already sucks). I want a concrete reason global happiness is worse than a science/gold/culture slider, global GPP, etc. Can you do it?

So here for many, global happiness is a step backwards in immersiveness. Many people actually agree and want some form of local happiness back. But if you insist that global happiness system of Civ5 is no less immersive than Civ5's system, then really there is nothing more to say. I can't convince you nor do I care to.

Anything that interferes with perception of reality or is imbalanced is going to drain immersion. was implemented directly to encumber ICS. Maybe my comparison of the slider is the wrong one, and I should actually be comparing it to the likes of maintenance, corruption, and waste. Was it realistic or immersive that the INSTANT you planted a new city, you could take a 10 gpt hit or more, or that adding to your population could DECREASE your research rate? It's like you're complaining about different global BS features. Of the models, perhaps earlier civ's corruption/waste model was the best - the cities would lose usefulness without completely hosing you or breaking from reality more and more. I don't know, because people complained about that mechanic like crazy too.

As for other aspects, again it is still all opinion so its pointless. I never claimed that the historical immersion factor can be "objectively determined". So there's no reason to give line by line account on them because your response is already going to be predicable. You are going to point out all the flaws of Civ4 without considering that not all flaws are equal in the opinion of many in whether it is more or less historically immersive or not.

I mean to take an extreme example, most people would say that Civ4:BTS/RAND is far and away much more historically immersive than Civ1. Yet I would see that you would be the type that would nitpick to death all the flaws even of Civ4:BTS/RAND and say it is no more historically immersive than Civ1 in the end. But that is missing the "big picture". If I have ASCII art or high resolution art, at the end of the day it is just pixels if you look "deeply enough". But if you step back, then one looks a lot more "real" than the other.

There should be factors that lead to someone concluding a game is immersive, however. Is that graphics? I hope not. Is it depth of decision making? Maybe. Balance, such that multiple approaches to the game is viable? Hopefully. What makes a game of civ fun? The planning? War? Interacting with the RNG (=AI)? The optimization of options based on inputs? This is a TBS game, with clear objectives. What makes pursuing them fun, and WHY is one title more immersive or less? I haven't seen much to answer that, except people citing things in civ V that were actually long running problems from earlier titles, or in some extreme cases things V actually does better than previous titles and they just don't know it. Is IGNORANCE immersion? Let's say a negative on that one.

 

[Vordeo]

Voted somewhat important. It's nice to have, and definitely one of the main draws of Civ, but the gameplay is more important.

Also, how immersed you are is something almost completely subjective, and to be honest alot of the complaints on here sound like the same old tired 'but it's not CivIV!' rants.

Historical immersion-wise (christ that sounds awkward), I've found CiV slightly more immersive than CivIV.

 

[joyous_gard]

There should be factors that lead to someone concluding a game is immersive, however. Is that graphics? I hope not. Is it depth of decision making? Maybe. Balance, such that multiple approaches to the game is viable? Hopefully. What makes a game of civ fun? The planning? War? Interacting with the RNG (=AI)? The optimization of options based on inputs? This is a TBS game, with clear objectives. What makes pursuing them fun, and WHY is one title more immersive or less? I haven't seen much to answer that, except people citing things in civ V that were actually long running problems from earlier titles, or in some extreme cases things V actually does better than previous titles and they just don't know it. Is IGNORANCE immersion? Let's say a negative on that one.

Immersion for me as pertains to Civ is gameplay depth and attention to detail. It enables me to play countless games and not really feel like I have had one quite like it before. The current version of Civ has less gameplay depth and less attention was paid to detail. I can only compare it to what I know.

It's been a while since I have been let down by the immersion of the Civ V. I now am grinding out the achievements so I am in a different style of gameplay than my historical Civ style of play.

Off the top of my head:
The tile enhancements are too simple and gamey. Loss of immersion. Can I elaborate? Yes. There are fewer enhancements and they feel contrived to me. In the predecessor it felt like enhancements were diverse and attempted to model civilization to a game.

Windmills are tile enhancements not buildings. Loss of immersion. I know they were built in cities too, but in Texas, they are tile enhancements.

Buildings are one dimensional (15% this or +2 F). Loss of immersion. A lot of detail was ripped out of the previous version. Like a forge did a couple of things. You had increased production. That makes sense to me historically. It also gave me a smile for having gold. That makes sense to me. I could see a forge being used to make some gold charm bracelets. In reality, I don't know what a forge is. It has something to do with metal. Metal to me seems like it is productive, hence the production bonus. Gold is a metal too, hence the smile. I don't need to know that a forge is actually only used for X or Y. I was immersed in the game enough to think "Sounds good to me. Let's play another turn." The current designers of Civ have a different way of looking at buildings. Even the ones that try to do multiple things (mint, monastery), are pretty lame for me. Maybe it's because their benefits are limited to one city and that city trades with the other cities? Maybe it's because their actually only doing one thing.

Land resources (notwithstanding marble) all become active at the same time and are improved via one enhancement. Loss of immersion. Plantation for +5 smiles please. The previous version of the game had some diversity in where to get giggles. I fully expected more of that kind of attention to detail. I don't see any of that kind of attention to detail in this version. It is stripped out.

Trading posts give +1 science because a social policy said so. Loss of immersion. I started a thread on this.

The tech tree feels constricted and narrow (compared to Civ IV). Loss of immersion. It doesn't feel as grand to me. It feels like there's a bottleneck right when I am coming into a period of great growth for my civilization. My cities are getting larger, I am secure in my borders and the only thing my people can think to research is Military Science?

Researching penicillin. Loss of immersion. It's a discovery during the advent of pharmaceuticals. Give it a less hokey name.

Units obsoleted before I can build them. Loss of immersion. I stole that one from your Polycast. That is more game balance but it contributes to the awkward feel of the game.

Victory screen. Loss of immersion, rage at how incomplete the game is. Serious kick in the balls. I played a five hour long Click Nextfest and all I get is this lousy screen?

Only two types of crops. Loss of immersion. That's in my trading posts thread.

Regions of the earth less distinguishable than previous Civ version. Loss of immersion. I don't know about this one. But the maps all feel similar. This is definitely a feeling. I haven't seen a jungle in Civ V. I've seen jungle tiles. But no jungles. It just seems ignorant to me.

Ivory spawning near tundra. Loss of immersion. I've seen this. I wish I knew how to do screen caps. But resources seem to spawn randomly. It doesn't feel like the designers knew where to spawn stuff. Except for oil. That seems to spawn in the right places. Maybe they have to have resources spawn everywhere because happiness is so restricting now.

There are many, many little things which just point at how little thought was given to the actually world and taking your civilization through time. It's as if they just thought "Oh that's a given. We got that." The intro at the beginning of game "Can you take your civ through time?" The game doesn't live up to the reputation that the series built.

Let's take for example land smile resources. They all do the same thing. That is a loss of immersion because it is too simple for me. I don't need it to be dead on accurate where silk provides the exact amount of smiles as happened in ancient China. I just need some GD variability. Everything plantation. It is oversimplified to the point of distraction or loss of immersion.

The buildings just do +1 this or that. 15% that, 20% this. It would be nice if they related to your surroundings. If I had silk, would that enhance a temple? You know, it very well may. The developers didn't think in that kind of depth. And the truly saddening thing about it is that that kind of depth existed in the series that they inherited. They removed depth and took for granted "Oh sure sure. Stand the test of time. We got that. It starts at 4000 and goes to 2050. That's the test of time." Depth allows a person to become immersed in a game where you are building cities and empires to stand the test of time.

Don't get me wrong. I never understood what everything did in the previous version. I would hover over a granary and see 50% this and +1 that if you have wheat. And I would think "Oh I have wheat, I will build it." And it made sense because granaries are where grain is stored. I wasn't trying for a way to optimize my GP production. I didn't need a dumbed down game so I could optimize my GP production. I needed a game that had depth and a certain amount of historical and geographical detail that is missing in this game.

So towards the middle of the game, maybe I would look at all my cities. How big are they? What buildings are in there? Should I get something else? I replay a little history of the game in my mind "I remember settling here. I built this buddhist temple because I didn't have Judaism here yet."

I don't do that at all now. I am basically just waiting for the game to end now. Sure I check - colliseum, check; Circus, no horse darn, market, check; bank, check; stock exchange won't finish, check. This is a stripped down civ. Civ Barebones.

There are other things too I guess, but you wanted some examples so that is them for now. It is a reduction of depth in buildings, resources, enhancements. Everything "turning on" at calendar is just hokey. At least in Civ IV they had some variability with different timings and those timings tried to get tied to how mankind civilized the world.

To me it feels like they removed a hell of a lot of depth and detail to the maps and cities and just added in simplistic things in order to make hex and 1upt possible. The rest was taken for granted as "Sure, this is Civ. You always go through time and can't stop playing, we know that."

 

[Vordeo]

Can't help but notice that not *one* of Civ5 defenders has actually had the guts to challenge my list of anti-immersive factors. Maybe because, unlike them, I've actually backed my list up with *facts*!

No, you've backed up your list with opinions.

Saying CiV is 'less immersive' than CivIV because of the culture expansion change is an opinion, not a proven fact.

But if you insist, I'll take a stab at it, and for the record these are all my opinions.

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!

Leaving aside the fact that the AI is crap, this is more realistic because other countries aren't behaving exactly as you want them to, and actually do things that'll benefit them. I'm not saying it's more fun, but it's certainly more realistic. I mean, Hitler didn't exactly let a non-aggression pact stop him from invading Russia, did it?

Other than that, pacts of cooperation and secrecy are pretty realistic, the option to wait 10 turns before declaring war is a godsend, and civs now aren't dumb enough to vote for themselves to lose at the UN. Again, AI is still crapola, but it's arguably more 'historically immersive' than CivIV.

And they have used in game mechanics to encourage people to RP: they're called the UAs.

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.

The fact that having city states around makes the game more realistic aside, the main problem with the city states is that AI civs just don't compete for them enough. If you had to spend 3-4 times as much to get a maritime CS allied, it wouldn't be as overpowered, would it?

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!)

The 'it takes too long' complaint is more a gameplay thing, and frankly is probably more realistic. The quilt thing mostly depends on how you place your cities, and actually results in more realistic looking borders once the cities get decent culture going. Regardless, the system is far more realistic than the old 'culture threshold passed, all surrounding tiles are now ours lolz' system.

I would like a cultural way of acquiring tiles, but really, historically empires haven't exactly been willing to give up land because of immigrants, so that's not exactly immersive in any case.

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!

This is the biggest thing in favor of CiV for me: war is so much more realistic (again, ignoring the crap AI). In CiV you can actually have infantry forming a defensive shield for your archers. How is that less realistic than CivIV, where they were essentially melee units with different modifiers.

Also, siege is far more realistic. Bombarding a city in CivIV didn't even damage defending units. Think about how suicide catapults would work in real life and tell me that was more realistic!

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.

Realism wise, how is a workshop or a watermill supposed to take up the same amount of space as a town?

I agree with you gameplay wise, but immersion wise this is a poor argument.

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.

This I agree with.

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 ).

This too. Societies change, and the SPs just seem too static.

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.

Agreed with this too. Foreign trade routes or even cities trading with each other would be a massive improvement immersion wise.

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.[/quote]

I'll agree with you here too, though gameplay wise I favor the change.

Other things that improve immersion in CiV you didn't mention: UAs and civ start biases, the ability to puppet a city, barbarian encampments (really, once they start cities they really aren't barbs anymore), units being limited by strategic resources, and Suryavarman not being around. Seriously, any belief you had that you were playing a historical leader went out the window when you met Sury the freaking extraterrestrial.

'Historical-immersion'-wise, CiV took some steps forward and some steps back, IMO. Overall it's a bit better than it's predecessor for me.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Leaving aside the fact that the AI is crap, this is more realistic because other countries aren't behaving exactly as you want them to, and actually do things that'll benefit them. I'm not saying it's more fun, but it's certainly more realistic. I mean, Hitler didn't exactly let a non-aggression pact stop him from invading Russia, did it?

I think you misunderstand my point-I'm not against Civilizations doing things to benefit them, but flat-out backstabbing a long-time ally-for no good reason at all-is definitely neither realistic or fun. Germany & Russia didn't have that kind of relationship prior to WWII (remember Russia had taken part in a war against Germany barely 25 years earlier), so I'd argue the non-aggression pact in this case was probably made with both sides expecting to break it at any time. In game terms, such an outcome wouldn't bother me!

Other than that, pacts of cooperation and secrecy are pretty realistic, the option to wait 10 turns before declaring war is a godsend, and civs now aren't dumb enough to vote for themselves to lose at the UN. Again, AI is still crapola, but it's arguably more 'historically immersive' than CivIV.

I agree that expanding the number of options in diplomacy is a good thing, but until it means something then it really isn't helping the immersion (remember, I'm talking about the game as it stands NOW).

And they have used in game mechanics to encourage people to RP: they're called the UAs.

Except it doesn't seem to be working. If a player (human or AI) were to be properly punished/rewarded-domestically & internationally-for bad/good role-play, then it would probably work a lot better!

The fact that having city states around makes the game more realistic aside, the main problem with the city states is that AI civs just don't compete for them enough. If you had to spend 3-4 times as much to get a maritime CS allied, it wouldn't be as overpowered, would it?

Maybe not, but the over-emphasis on buying their loyalty-& knowing exactly when that loyalty runs out-is a much bigger deal to me than just what benefits they give you.

The 'it takes too long' complaint is more a gameplay thing, and frankly is probably more realistic. The quilt thing mostly depends on how you place your cities, and actually results in more realistic looking borders once the cities get decent culture going. Regardless, the system is far more realistic than the old 'culture threshold passed, all surrounding tiles are now ours lolz' system. I would like a cultural way of acquiring tiles, but really, historically empires haven't exactly been willing to give up land because of immigrants, so that's not exactly immersive in any case.

Didn't say I completely disliked this element but, from an historical point of view, land that has a mixed ethnic heritage has always been a bit of a diplomatic flash-point, something I thought Civ4 at least *tried* to mimic. The point is that the mechanic should have been *improved* upon, not simply scrapped!

This is the biggest thing in favor of CiV for me: war is so much more realistic (again, ignoring the crap AI). In CiV you can actually have infantry forming a defensive shield for your archers. How is that less realistic than CivIV, where they were essentially melee units with different modifiers.

Also, siege is far more realistic. Bombarding a city in CivIV didn't even damage defending units. Think about how suicide catapults would work in real life and tell me that was more realistic!

Like I said, reduce the power of archer units (to prevent the "archer killed a destroyer scenario), & make the AI use it properly, & this will definitely be a huge *plus* for Civ5 immersion.

Other things that improve immersion in CiV you didn't mention: UAs and civ start biases, the ability to puppet a city, barbarian encampments (really, once they start cities they really aren't barbs anymore), units being limited by strategic resources, and Suryavarman not being around.

Agree that limited strategic resources is a good idea-just a shame they decided not to expand it to luxuries & food resources. As to Barbarians, that is exactly what I felt City States should be-in a manner of speaking. Minor Civilizations that run the gamut from Nomadic (roaming units) to Sedentary (settled in cities); & run the gamut from Hyper aggressive (like the raging barbarians we've come to know & love) through to peaceful (like most of the Civ5 City-States).

Aussie.

 

[Dachs]

I think you misunderstand my point-I'm not against Civilizations doing things to benefit them, but flat-out backstabbing a long-time ally-for no good reason at all-is definitely neither realistic or fun. Germany & Russia didn't have that kind of relationship prior to WWII (remember Russia had taken part in a war against Germany barely 25 years earlier), so I'd argue the non-aggression pact in this case was probably made with both sides expecting to break it at any time. In game terms, such an outcome wouldn't bother me!

Having long-term allies in general is unrealistic...even the famous case of England/KGB/UK and Portugal was broken up under Felipe II. How is an alliance that lasts for centuries if not millennia "immersive"?

 

[Longshanks.]

The very first civ5 game I played, I had a very bad reaction to the "Happiness" mechanic... As I am conquering foreign cities with my Roman legions, why on Earth would the citizens of Rome itself become 'unhappy' and suffer crippling penalties?

Civ IV had it right: Your newly conquered citizens are furious and contribute little to the progress of your empire, yet your capital continues to thrive. It clearly has a more historically accurate feel to it than some across the board "happiness" mechanic. I enjoy the strategy aspect of the game as much as anyone, but the one thing which distinguishes the CIV franchise (in my opinion and obviously much of the civ fan community) is the rich historical context which Sid Meier brought to these games.

This is, of course, an unfinished game which will undoubtedly improve with patches and expansions etc. However, the game design truly appears to be fundamentally flawed. I can only hope future Civ games will come back to the roots of the franchise and steer away from placing pure strategy above the intangible immersion factors that have truly distinguished past civ games. Sid Meier, please sir, revive your greatest legacy.

 

[Vordeo]

I think you misunderstand my point-I'm not against Civilizations doing things to benefit them, but flat-out backstabbing a long-time ally-for no good reason at all-is definitely neither realistic or fun. Germany & Russia didn't have that kind of relationship prior to WWII (remember Russia had taken part in a war against Germany barely 25 years earlier), so I'd argue the non-aggression pact in this case was probably made with both sides expecting to break it at any time. In game terms, such an outcome wouldn't bother me!

The AI does see benefits to backstabbing you though. Basically friendship is cool and all (and for the record you can sustain friendships in this game), but a leader's highest priority is his own empire, and if friendship with you is holding em back, well, too bad for you. THAT is more realistic than CivIV's 'I like you, so I'ma let you win the game now.' system.

I agree that expanding the number of options in diplomacy is a good thing, but until it means something then it really isn't helping the immersion (remember, I'm talking about the game as it stands NOW).

Pacts of Secrecy/Cooperation do mean things though. It's just that we haven't worked out what exactly the modifiers are.

Except it doesn't seem to be working. If a player (human or AI) were to be properly punished/rewarded-domestically & internationally-for bad/good role-play, then it would probably work a lot better!

...what? Not sure you're referring to UAs here, because they certainly do work to skew play styles.

As Germany/Songhai I go barb hunting a lot more, as Greece/Siam I pay alot more attention to city states, as India I stick to fewer cities, etc.

Maybe not, but the over-emphasis on buying their loyalty-& knowing exactly when that loyalty runs out-is a much bigger deal to me than just what benefits they give you.

So you complained about the ambiguity of AI relations, and now want the same thing for CS? Which one is it?

Regardless, the fact that CS are in the game is certainly a point in favor of realism in Civ (and frankly if you don't like them turn em off).

Didn't say I completely disliked this element but, from an historical point of view, land that has a mixed ethnic heritage has always been a bit of a diplomatic flash-point, something I thought Civ4 at least *tried* to mimic. The point is that the mechanic should have been *improved* upon, not simply scrapped!

I prefer the tile buying system, personally, and I don't see any realistic way for the two to coexist. My point stands though, cultural tile swapping is unrealistic as hell.

Like I said, reduce the power of archer units (to prevent the "archer killed a destroyer scenario), & make the AI use it properly, & this will definitely be a huge *plus* for Civ5 immersion.

Archer power is fine as is, the AI is the only real issue for me. If their archers were raining down hell on your infantry at the same time there wouldn't be any balance issues. Regardless, that's a balance issue, not a historical immersion issue.

Again, they've taken some steps forward and some back, and overall I find that historical accuracy is a bit better than in IV.

 

[zyko]

The very first civ5 game I played, I had a very bad reaction to the "Happiness" mechanic... As I am conquering foreign cities with my Roman legions, why on Earth would the citizens of Rome itself become 'unhappy' and suffer crippling penalties?

Civ IV had it right: Your newly conquered citizens are furious and contribute little to the progress of your empire, yet your capital continues to thrive. It clearly has a more historically accurate feel to it than some across the board "happiness" mechanic. I enjoy the strategy aspect of the game as much as anyone, but the one thing which distinguishes the CIV franchise (in my opinion and obviously much of the civ fan community) is the rich historical context which Sid Meier brought to these games.

This is, of course, an unfinished game which will undoubtedly improve with patches and expansions etc. However, the game design truly appears to be fundamentally flawed. I can only hope future Civ games will come back to the roots of the franchise and steer away from placing pure strategy above the intangible immersion factors that have truly distinguished past civ games. Sid Meier, please sir, revive your greatest legacy.

says the most ruthless king to ever sit upon the throne of england

all joking aside, the game seems broken because it is. there are elements of it that can be enjoyed and even loved. for example, i think social policy has a lot of potential to give civs character if the rate at which you accumulated enough culture to navigate through its many branches was only adjusted to represent a more gradual, natural historical development by quickening the pace. in fact, the whole pace of the game is out of whack. what happened to eras feeling like an actual change pf era?

and what's this about trading posts littering the fields outside of major industrial cities in the early 20th century?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

So you complained about the ambiguity of AI relations, and now want the same thing for CS? Which one is it?

Please *read* what I said in my first post. I liked the addition of some ambiguity to AI relations, but think they went TOO FAR in that direction. With City States, though, they're even *less* ambiguous than the Civ4 AI's (at least I assume so. Like I said, I stopped looking at the specific bonuses/penalties to my relations after just a few short games). What I'm arguing is that City-States & AI Civ Diplomacy should meet SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE of these two extremes-somewhat more ambiguous than Civ4, but not totally opaque!

I prefer the tile buying system, personally, and I don't see any realistic way for the two to coexist. My point stands though, cultural tile swapping is unrealistic as hell.

You say this, but you don't mention how unrealistic the Culture Bomb is. I think you'll find that there are plenty of places in the world-especially in the past-that considered themselves to be part of one nation, even though on a map they "belonged" in the neighboring nation. The absence of this kind of DYNAMIC culture system is part of what makes Civ5 feel so bland to me (well, that & the many lackluster "Wonders"-they're only wonders in the sense of "I wonder why I wasted my time building that?"). Cultural mixing at hex & city level could-& should-have had a significant impact on Diplomacy, Happiness & combat, but instead they went for this rather dull, single string approach instead!

Archer power is fine as is, the AI is the only real issue for me. If their archers were raining down hell on your infantry at the same time there wouldn't be any balance issues. Regardless, that's a balance issue, not a historical immersion issue.

My issue, from a realism standpoint, is that ranged units shouldn't be able to finish off non-ranged units. Allowing them to do so goes entirely against the entire point of Combined Arms-which I thought was what 1upt was trying to encourage.

Either way, the point remains the same-the number of immersive elements removed between Civ4 & Civ5-& the poorly implemented elements that have been added to Civ5-leave me with the strong sense that this is one of the least enjoyable games that I've played in the entire Civ franchise (including CTP1 & CTP2)!

Aussie

 

[Vordeo]

Please *read* what I said in my first post. I liked the addition of some ambiguity to AI relations, but think they went TOO FAR in that direction. With City States, though, they're even *less* ambiguous than the Civ4 AI's (at least I assume so. Like I said, I stopped looking at the specific bonuses/penalties to my relations after just a few short games). What I'm arguing is that City-States & AI Civ Diplomacy should meet SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE of these two extremes-somewhat more ambiguous than Civ4, but not totally opaque!

Ah. So it's a gameplay thing then? Nothing to do with historical accuracy whatsoever?

Then why bring it up?

You say this, but you don't mention how unrealistic the Culture Bomb is.

It is, but does anyone actually use the thing? Culture flipping occurs much less in CiV, hence improvement.

That's leaving aside the fact that Culture Bombing exists in IV as well, so using that as a point against CiV doesn't work on any level.

I think you'll find that there are plenty of places in the world-especially in the past-that considered themselves to be part of one nation, even though on a map they "belonged" in the neighboring nation. The absence of this kind of DYNAMIC culture system is part of what makes Civ5 feel so bland to me

Beyond a small display telling you what the cultural makeup us, it didn't actually do much though.

And again, culture flipping without war is in no way realistic.

Cultural mixing at hex & city level could-& should-have had a significant impact on Diplomacy, Happiness & combat, but instead they went for this rather dull, single string approach instead!

While I'd agree with that didn't in IV as well, so that's pretty irrelevant to the discussion.

My issue, from a realism standpoint, is that ranged units shouldn't be able to finish off non-ranged units. Allowing them to do so goes entirely against the entire point of Combined Arms-which I thought was what 1upt was trying to encourage.

Ignoring the pathetic AI for a second, you do need combined arms because you try taking out a warrior with only an archer and tell me how far you get.

And it's still more realistic than CivIV's system in which archers and siege were glorified melee units.

Either way, the point remains the same-the number of immersive elements removed between Civ4 & Civ5-& the poorly implemented elements that have been added to Civ5-leave me with the strong sense that this is one of the least enjoyable games that I've played in the entire Civ franchise (including CTP1 & CTP2)!

That's not a point, that's an opinion, and one that is highly contentious.

And that's leaving aside the fact that most of your complaints are for gameplay elements and not immersion issues.

 

[Cinderspark]

I'm sorry, but as a history fan because of the Civs of the past, CiV is hugely disappointing.

I hit the Medievil period and look up to the date and *shakes head* it's only just gone AD.

I research Musketmen and start immediately building, only to have them obsoleted before any complete.

My Roman Empire, famous for the people's belief in their superiority over her enemies and conquests abroad, goes into revolt due to our military success and plunder when we impose the Pax Romani?

My Great Artist can what...culture bomb? How am I ment to imagine this in any real world sense, especially when it is named so poorly as to be a pure gaming term.

I feel like this game is a hollow shell that needs to be moulded and filled by the mod community to bring it up to anything like enjoyable. At the moment, it is gorgeous to look at but bland as hell to play.

 

[kaltorak]

When ICS is better than building good cities, the game can't be called immersive. Just watch that tmit japan game. The game is cool. But it's a battleground to win the game. You are not caring about your cities. You are just using game mechanics to win a game, not building a cool empire.

 

[Vordeo]

I'm sorry, but as a history fan because of the Civs of the past, CiV is hugely disappointing.

Still better than CivIV in that respect though. Or *gasp* Civ2, actually.

I hit the Medievil period and look up to the date and *shakes head* it's only just gone AD.

I'm pretty sure you can do that in CivIV too. Heck, it was probably easier with tech trading and such.

I research Musketmen and start immediately building, only to have them obsoleted before any complete.

That's down to your strategy. You can hold off researching Rifling, if you're not out to rush anyone.

My Roman Empire, famous for the people's belief in their superiority over her enemies and conquests abroad, goes into revolt due to our military success and plunder when we impose the Pax Romani?

It's empire-wide happiness. I'd imagine the new citizens of the empire who've just been invaded and beaten wouldn't be too happy.

My Great Artist can what...culture bomb? How am I ment to imagine this in any real world sense, especially when it is named so poorly as to be a pure gaming term.

Culture bombs are crap in general. In my games, unless there's a resource I really need that's just out of reach, Great Artist = Golden Age.

When ICS is better than building good cities, the game can't be called immersive. Just watch that tmit japan game. The game is cool. But it's a battleground to win the game. You are not caring about your cities. You are just using game mechanics to win a game, not building a cool empire.

Then don't use ICS.