Historiography of Civilization pt.1 - Militarism

[Arkaeyn]

Civilization is one of very few games to attempt to simulate aspects of human history on a global scale, and it is by far the most important to attempt to depict the entirety of human history. This is a massive subject matter, and the Civilization series attempts to deal using various abstractions of aspects of history. The process of this simplification, however, accents what Civilization considers important. An examination of the historiography of Civilization reveals a generally, but not exclusively, conservative* view of the workings of human history.

*By conservative I don’t necessarily mean “voted for George W. Bush” but rather is the sort of history found in old (pre-1960’s would probably be a fair date to set) history books, or modern school textbooks. What this entails should become obvious.

The most important and obviously historically conservative aspect of Civilization is its focus on the military. To a player of Civilization, the claim that Civ is overtly militaristic may seem odd. After all, there are several things to concentrate on: military, science, happiness, culture (in Civ3), diplomacy, and economy. There’s also alternate method of victory than conquest, the traditional space race, as well as several other alternatives added in Civ3 and its expansions. But, to a non-player, Civilization is quite clearly a militaristic game. The simple reason for this is that the player’s time is consumed by militarism. Everything else, save for worker jobs, is a simple click or two to build a Library or Temple. A civilization of 10 cities could have nine of them building improvements and one building military units, but the time the player spends on those military units could easily equal the time spent on the rest of the cities. Also, these improvements do their work off the screen, where the military action occurs on-screen. In fact, if one looks at the map screen of Civilization, the world map, one will see almost exclusively military units and cities. Happiness, economy, science, and so forth, are all almost exclusively under the hood. Finally, the military aspect of the game is clearly the most important because it is the one aspect that cannot be ignored. Ignoring anything else will create annoyances, but ignoring the military will mean almost-certain defeat.

This is a simple game design decision, of course, but it does not have to be this way. The Imperialism games, for example, focused the player’s mental energy and time on economic priorities. (Ironically, Imperialism’s ad campaign ran with the slogan “Other strategy games too civilized for you?”) The militaristic nature of the Civilization games is clearly a design decision, and one with obvious consequences for interpretation of the nature of human history.



Interested in more? Check out Renaissance Gamer below - or respond, with enough interest, I'll post parts 2-4.

 

[Turner]

Moderator Action: After review, thread re-opened.

 

[Arkaeyn]

hey, I won my appeal without even appealing! God bless the justice system.

 

[michael4000]

Well, this is an interesting point. Certainly, the military aspect of the game is often the most time intensive, and as another indication of its promenance it is always the noisiest, as I realized when my wife stopped referring to "Civilization" and started calling it "<<artillary noise>>." But military activity isn't completely dominant -- other parts of the game that take quite a bit of time and attention include exploration, decisions about city siting, and building roads and terrain improvements (although this last tends to get pretty mechanical once you know the game).

Two obvious points here. First, Civ is an entertainment product rather than "attempt to depict the entirety of human history" per se. Its design is much, much, much less constrained by questions of historical accuracy and nuance than by questions of what is fun for gamers to do. Two things gamers have liked doing for millenia are moving things around on a surface and gambling, and the military-unit structure of Civ accomodates those impulses nicely, even if it does undervalue the role of language, religion, social policy, and, well, almost everything else.

Second, it's hard (for me, anyway) to imagine how you could simulate the things that are missing from Civ. What would be the decisions that a player would make about culture, or about social movements? I'm imagining something like A young composer named Beethoven shows talent! Do you want to commision a symphony? (Y/N) or A young man named Ghandi has been espousing a philosophy he calls "non violence." Do you want to squelch him? (Y/N) I'm sure somebody could do a lot better than that, but they wouldn't have a very deep gaming tradition to draw on (whereas wargaming has been around for ages).

Also, how would the game show you how your culture changed qualitatively as a result of your decisions? It would probably take a vast number of sound clips, images, etc., to cover some possiblities with any kind of replayability -- not to mention a lot of presumption about social-historical cause and effect.

I completely agree with the suggestion that it would be nice to see more economic decision making in Civ or a Civ-like game. That still leaves you with a pretty old-school historical model though.

I'm interested! Post parts 2 - 4 !

 

[Arkaeyn]

If I were redesigning civ to be less militaristic, I wouldn't necessarily focus on making other parts more time-intensive. I'd actually focus on lessening the amount of time spent on the military. Imagine if, instead of moving every unit individually, you simply gave general orders on what to do with your military. All the units go into abstract armies, that you tell to Defend Your Cities or Attack Enemy Cities or Destroy Enemy Units. It would take some tweaking to get right, but it could really, really improve the speed and focus of the game. If there's one thing I dislike about civ, it's that it can take forever.

Also, more choices could be made in terms of other aspects of the game. I'm not sure how without resorting to a choose-your-own-adventure model like you propose in terms of social policy and arts and so forth. But it's been done with science.

And while Civ is an entertainment product, it's one which does attempt to depict reality. People look at works of fiction set historically as being relevant. One wouldn't argue that War and Peace doesn't say anything about Russia simply because books are entertainment.

Finally, military-based games still presume a great deal about historical cause-and-effect. For example, Civilization assumes that technological superiority is an extraodinarily important part of military success. Which it can be, but colonial warfare demonstrates that other things are equally if not more important. But we're used to that in games.

 

[Admiral8Q]

I find it odd to point out that "millitary moves" take up most of the playing time.

That's like saying "thinking and annalizing takes up more time than actually moving pieces" in a game of chess.

 

[dexters]

A few things.

Civ is a game built for fun. For people who want to recreate their own version of history.

No matter what version of history you read, human history is a brutish and a violent one. That's just a fact. No amount of marxist, left leaning dichotomies will change it.

Second, wars, or more generally, two giant powers facing off is often times, the most intense and rewarding phases of a game. Don't believe me? Check the Stories and Tales forum and everything from the best to the worst stories on that forum involve a hot, cold, lukewarm war against someone, usually a powerful rival.

 

[gmaharriet]

Perhaps there could be an option for a "Commercial Win" where, a la Switzerland, he who ends with the most gold wins. The Swiss have a military, but they've managed to remain a neutral country for quite awhile, and have their numbered bank accounts and a high standard of living while staying out of wars.

I'm sure it would mean a patch or an addition to the proposed Civ IV, but it should be possible to declare "neutrality" and have your civ play by different rules with appropriate handicaps to keep things fairly even.

 

[fox moonglow]

I don't think it's currently very possible to create a good game that doesn't have a strong military bent just from the dynamics of gaming. For instance, I used to play a game which put equal emphasis on building and warring, but, which you could ignore the building aspect, if you weakened the warring aspect, the vulture were circling...

With a mostly-AI opponent game like Civ, you might be able to get away with a mostly peaceful game if the AI were programmed in such a way, but then sales might suffer because many people prefer the more direct me-vs-you play of war than peaceful building.

With the point about Switzerland, one should keep in mind that it is in a unique defensive position - it is essentially a valley in the middle of the Alps. In which case the trouble of taking it was not worth the gain of holding it, thus it was left alone. A more fair comparison would be the Dutch Countries in WWII - this terrain aided neither attackers nor defenders, and so the military power (Germany) steamrollered the non-military neutral powers (Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemberg) in less than a week because the French had piled defenses on the German-French border, but left the Belgian-French border open.

I enjoy my peaceful builder periods much more than my war periods, but I still don't believe that the game would be right without the focus on war... is a good idea to follow up for a different type of game, though .

 

[Arkaeyn]

Admiral, I'm not sure I see your point. In fact, I'm quite sure I don't see your point. Your analogy would make more sense if it was "Moving the pieces one by one, over and over along the same paths in chess takes 50 times longer than thinking and analyzing the moves."

Dexters, your point is an interesting one, but simply one of perspective. Yes, there are a lot of wars in human history. But there are a lot of non-wars. How many people die from war? How many do not die from war? More people died from the influenza epidemic in 1919 than all of World War One. How many people have their lives affected by religion? How many people live happy or unhappy lives being productive in their civilizations? Yes, wars are important aspects of history, and I would never argue that they cannot be fun in Civilization. My point is that the focus on war is excessive.

gmaharriet, remember that Alpha Centauri had a Commercial Victory option, which ended the game if one faction's economy was as large as everyone else's combined. As I recall, it worked fairly well.

fox moonglow, I wouldn't say that Civ has too many wars. In fact, it seems to have too few unless you play on maximum aggression. I'm saying that the amount of time and energy spent on wars is excessive compared to other aspects of the game. And, quite frankly, Civilization is a bad wargame, but that's a different topic.

 

[dexters]

I agree that human history involves more than just war, and yes, it could be a matter of perspective.

My perspective is, throughout history there has been a great powers at all points, and at all times, these powers are vying for more power, either overtly, covertly, or commercially.

Civilization is a game about power, great civilizations, and empire building. It deals with the macro side of history, the grand movements of people, who had power, where, when, why and how. It does amaze me how the game will by its nature tends toward the one truth that has endured in all of history. That is, conflict. Phrase it whatever you will, peaceful or warmonger, all players play for power and influence in one form or another. This is what makes people's games of Civilization work so well as stories, because in many ways, all our games play out like an alternate version of history.

Edit: I read the extended version of your thesis in your blog and I don't disagree. If you check the Civ4 discussion board, civil war and the creation of provinces to better reflect the dispora of peoples under one civilization is highly requested. Technology has been the limiting factor of this. Previous civ games had modeled internal conflict in a very crude way, that is, civil war may erupt in the creation of a new civilization (ie: Americans split into American and Japanese civilizations) which make for some really strange stories. Perhaps with Civ4, we can expect something less absurd and more interesting.

Civ4 has also been confirmed to support a multi-path technology tree.

Civics and Religion is also in Civ4, how they will be implemented remain unknown.

That said, the point about gameplay balance and the grand geopolitical movements stands. That's what makes Civ fun and interesting. The designers made a concious decision to avoid micromanagement of details like social policy and concentrate more on macro management of expansion and power.

 

[Arkaeyn]

I remember back when I was playing Civ2 that I would intentionally send my forces when attacking large enemies at their capital in the usually vain hopes that they would start a civil war, partially for strategic reasons, but usually because I thought that the game really needed a civil war concept.

Neither do I disagree that the game is about conflict, power, influence, etc, or that Civ is a macromanagement of a civilization. However, I do get annoyed by the fact that everything is macromanaged EXCEPT the military portion, and there's really no way to automate the military at all, whereas everything else is automated. I would love a game that was completely macromanaged, and that's why Master of Orion 3 was such a crushing disappointment.

 

[Admiral8Q]

Admiral, I'm not sure I see your point. In fact, I'm quite sure I don't see your point. Your analogy would make more sense if it was "Moving the pieces one by one, over and over along the same paths in chess takes 50 times longer than thinking and analyzing the moves."

Yes, I re-read my post and realise it's not that clear. What I menat was, telling a city to start building a marketplace, instead of a warrior or a temple takes less time to think over than moving every single unit on the map. Because every unit must move in accordance with every other one and with an overall goal in mind. The time for "thinking" about this is by far more than what a certain city is building or how it's production is arranged.

I mean thinking about where and what every single unit will do takes an awful lot of thinking and analizing, of course the move itself is a simple half second "click".

My reference to chess is that the players in a game of chess spend more time staring at the board and looking over the big picture. A move is instant, but to decide where a unit will move takes alot of time of thinking.

On another note, moving workers actually seems to consume a large percentage of playing time.

 

[Arkaeyn]

Now it's sounding like you're agreeing with me. Or maybe you're saying that I'm stating the obvious. Which I am, in a way, but I'm also saying that there are other ways to go about it, and by making that design choice Civilization is saying something about its emphasis. I mean, imagine how much faster the game would work if it allowed stacked units, as the simplest alternative.

Workers can at least be automated. I mean, I don't automate them except to clear wetlands and build roads to cities or colonies. But theoretically, they can be automated. (I automated in Alpha Centauri. Seriously....changing elevation for rainwater? Isn't that a bit much?)

 

[jguy100]

People do not automate workers because the automation does not do a top notch job. How would one expect programmers to be able to write code well enough to please someone who automated their military? Military strategy is signifigantly different from one person to another; a lot more so than worker strategy is, for most people use a similar approach to workers.
All I am trying to say is if I had the chance to automate my military, I would not. Have you seen how the A.I. manages their military? I would be quite displeased if my military was handled in that way.
You did raise a good point and I will be waiting for more points to read and digest.

 

[Chinghis]

If I were redesigning civ to be less militaristic, I wouldn't necessarily focus on making other parts more time-intensive. I'd actually focus on lessening the amount of time spent on the military. Imagine if, instead of moving every unit individually, you simply gave general orders on what to do with your military. All the units go into abstract armies, that you tell to Defend Your Cities or Attack Enemy Cities or Destroy Enemy Units. It would take some tweaking to get right, but it could really, really improve the speed and focus of the game. If there's one thing I dislike about civ, it's that it can take forever.

In other words... if you could give your general a basic goal - "conquer the Babylonians," "assume a defensive posture against the Germans." And then, give you occasional chances to review the policy, with varying degrees of success, depending on your government type (Despots might have more control over their militaries, while Democracies might have a delay in getting policies enacted). That would be an interesting development of the AI.

 

[Arkaeyn]

jguy, I'm not saying it would be a good idea to automate the military. I don't automate my workers either. I am saying that the lack of an option indicates the design decisions.

chingis, I see something like this as the most abstract military idea within Civ. You build your units as you do normally, but when the units appear, you put them into one of four armies: Attack Enemy Cities, Attack Enemy Units, Defend Territory, Defend Cities (maybe explore also). Or you adjust those with sliders and the military advisor automatically places the troops in the armies. Then you set more specific objectives, like priority of borders or cities to defend, and cities to attack. At the end of the turn, the AI does the rest. Not saying it would be a better idea to do something like this, but it would be faster (and not terribly different from how I play already, assuming the AI is competent, but we always like to assume that.)

The kind of half-automated AI is the new thing in wargames, as far as I can tell. You set objectives, and maybe your units do what you want, or something strange happens, or whatever. It's more realistic and probably more intense that way.

 

[Peck of Arabia]

What civilization needs is the more hard hitting forms of warfare for a civilization. At the moment, the climax of the military game is perhaps a 30 year war with the babylonions in which you manage to eventually capture 2 insignificant cities.

What really needs to happen is internal conflicts. Sure I heard someone say that the civil war engine in civ 2 was unrealistic "Americans split into American and Japanese factions" but at least there was a civil war factor. What happens if a city is deeply unhappy for thousands of years? it continually goes into civil disorder, perhaps if your culture is weak and it is near a border, it flips to a civ that would represent them even less. How realistic is that? did the Eastern European states decide in the late 80s "No communism doesn't work let's, erm, declare civil disorder, yeah! No! we want to be really extreme and flip to the Germans and other westen Europeans"

The game needs civil wars if a large group of cities close to each other all fall into civil disorder. Or individual cities delaring indpendance if they are located a long way away from the capital (How else did the British Empire collapse if the main factor was not it's sheer size and dispersion) A lot more needs to happen off the battle field as well, political activists could be a continous problem for a large empire as jealous rivals send these special agents to border cities hoping they will revolt against their current rulers. The game can be exciting without the constant use of military warfare

 

[Arkaeyn]

The problem with more hard-hitting types of warfare is that they'd make the game go way to fast. As it is, you spend 30 turns taking a city from the Babylonians here and there, and then when you get Tanks, you can finish them and move on. By the end of the game's technology tree, you can do hard-hitting wars. If those happen earlier, you'll never see tanks under the current model.

The solution? Peace treaties! I thought Europa Universalis did these remarkably well. You do well in a war, you get money. You take a few provinces, you get to keep one. You take the enemy capital? Two provinces.

This would maintain the gradual buildup of territory which Civ already has while allowing for more realistic and intense war. The lack of treaties like this is a big flaw in Civ - as most any historian will tell you, the peace treaties are far more important than the wars.

I actually like the culture flips, I don't think they happen enough. They actually model to some degree unhappiness and need for internal change. If you don't make your people "happy" (because the main cultural builders are happiness builders) they'll take off. As well they should.

 

[Jaybe]

...

The solution? Peace treaties! I thought Europa Universalis did these remarkably well. You do well in a war, you get money. You take a few provinces, you get to keep one. You take the enemy capital? Two provinces.

This would maintain the gradual buildup of territory which Civ already has while allowing for more realistic and intense war. The lack of treaties like this is a big flaw in Civ - as most any historian will tell you, the peace treaties are far more important than the wars.

Good point (not that I have played Europa Universalis).

I actually like the culture flips, I don't think they happen enough. They actually model to some degree unhappiness and need for internal change. If you don't make your people "happy" (because the main cultural builders are happiness builders) they'll take off. As well they should.

Quite, and there shouldn't be flips just because of culture.
Plagues are lame even at 100% strength. I know, because that is how I have them set. They also disappear altogether in the Industrial Age, as if the 1918 flu epidemic had not existed, AIDS, and who knows what in the years to come.

Overall, there aren't nearly enough dynamics in the game. Way too predictable.

Economy should not be constant, but should vary slightly in each city so you cannot accurately predict what your income will be on a turn-by-turn basis. Reflects local changes in economy and crime.

--
I consider Barbarians to be their own individual civs that don't make it. With somewhat stronger barbarian units (somewhat OVERdone in Rise & Rule), you can have a much more crowded ancient (and Middle) world. Since barbs do not get unit upgrades, they still expire too quickly.