Ideas for The Perfect 4X Historical Game

[Evie]

Science (latin scientia) literaly means knowledge, so replacing one with the other is a bit like trading a dollar for four quarters.

And science and science research far predates the scientific method - the scientific method is a way of carrying out science research, the best we currently know. But it is not science, which far predates the development of the method. And it is very possible that an even better method will be pioneered in the future - after all 10th centuy people thought they were using the best method, too, and maybe in the 31th century they'll say "oh those 21st century people, they weren't really doing science" the same we do today,

That said, if we're to change the name, Research might be the best term.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Science (latin scientia) literaly means knowledge, so replacing one with the other is a bit like trading a dollar for four quarters. And science and science research far predates the scientific method - the scientific method is a way of carrying out science research, the best we currently know. But it is not science, which far predates the development of the method. And it is very possible that an even better method will be pioneered in the future - after all 10th centuy people thought they were using the best method, too, and maybe in the 31th century they'll say "oh those 21st century people, they weren't really doing science" the same we do today, That said, if we're to change the name, Research might be the best term.

I would like to add a bit more non-western perspectives just on this topic: "science" has a very different connotation, at least very different from it's original Latin meaning, in East Asia. I have posted this in another thread so I'll just quote it here:

In terms of "education" and "science", after contemplated a bit, I think it is probably a cultural context thing:

In a lot of places in (modern) East Asia - China, Japan, Korea, HK, Taiwan, etc. - when speaking of "education" (教育 in both Chinese and Japanese), it usually connotes "cultural education", and would put an emphasis on the moral/ethic/cultivation part of the education, instead of the technical or "scientific" parts. And when speaking of "science" (科学 in both Chinese and Japanese) we usually use it in the narrow sense as "all the academic fields that is not Social Science" (such as natural science, physics, mathematics, etc.), instead of "(basic) knowledge" such as literacy.

On the other hand, every generation of the Civ series has "educational institutions" such as "libraries'" and "universities" generating "science". For someone with an East Asian cultural background this can look really confusing, as we don't naturally think "(cultural) educational institutions" would produce "science output", especially after the Civic tree and the Tech tree are separated - the examples are Seowon being a "scientific district", Wat generating "science", and Nalanda being a "scientific CS".

Just my 2 cents.​

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Science (latin scientia) literaly means knowledge, so replacing one with the other is a bit like trading a dollar for four quarters.

And science and science research far predates the scientific method - the scientific method is a way of carrying out science research, the best we currently know. But it is not science, which far predates the development of the method. And it is very possible that an even better method will be pioneered in the future - after all 10th centuy people thought they were using the best method, too, and maybe in the 31th century they'll say "oh those 21st century people, they weren't really doing science" the same we do today,

That said, if we're to change the name, Research might be the best term.

Having played the Civilization board game first in that game technologies were learned by acquiring "trade" instead of science.
I guess the point is you gathered enough trade which includes trading not only goods but trading ideas and knowledge.

It would be interesting if trading aspects played more of a role in how maybe you accessed technologies. Similar to how it was the Silk Road that helped Europe gain access to gunpowder.

I would like to add a bit more non-western perspectives just on this topic: "science" has a very different connotation, at least very different from it's original Latin meaning, in East Asia. I have posted this in another thread so I'll just quote it here:


In terms of "education" and "science", after contemplated a bit, I think it is probably a cultural context thing:

In a lot of places in (modern) East Asia, when speaking of "education" (教育 in both Chinese and Japanese), it usually connotes "cultural education", and would put an emphasis on the moral/ethic/cultivation part of the education, instead of the technical or "scientific" parts. And when speaking of "science" (科学 in both Chinese and Japanese) we usually use it in the narrow sense as "all the academic fields that is not Social Science" (such as natural science, physics, mathematics, etc.), instead of "(basic) knowledge" such as literacy.

On the other hand, every generation of the Civ series has "educational institutions" such as "libraries'" and "universities" generating "science". For someone with an East Asian cultural background this can look really confusing, as we don't naturally think "(cultural) educational institutions" would produce "science output", especially after the Civic tree and the Tech tree are separated - the examples are Seowon being a "scientific district", Wat generating "science", and Nalanda being a "scientific CS".

Just my 2 cents.

I don't think it's necessary a western vs eastern problem because history and languages are definitely not considered a "science" over here in the U.S.

I think it's a game trope that has just been carried on since the beginning that any educational institution=science. I don't think it only exists in Civ but a lot of different 4x games whereas culture= the extraneous things people learn such as art and music and possibly religion, though in Civ that's separate.

That being said I think an alternate worship building could be a Confucian Temple/School which would produce culture and at least be a first step even in Civ 6 or future games.
The idea is it would be a cultural educational institution and well be different from the cathedral which only provides tourism when the great work slot is filled.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I think it's a game trope that has just been carried on since the beginning that any educational institution=science. I don't think it only exists in Civ but a lot of different 4x games whereas culture= the extraneous things people learn such as art and music and possibly religion, though in Civ that's separate.
That being said I think an alternate worship building could be a Confucian Temple/School which would produce culture and at least be a first step even in Civ 6 or future games.

I actually don't really have a problem when there is only a "science" output for anything related to "research" - for example, the older Civ games, and Amplitude's FIDS system - because when it is the only output it would bear the broadest meaning, i.e. "knowledge".

But in Civ VI, they separated Tech and Civic tree, introduced cultural-yielding buildings and districts, while still make every educational institution yeeting "science" - that seems off.

An East Asian based educational building that can produce culture "as the same amount of science" or "as the same amount of adjacency bonus" (cf. Gilded Vault) will certainly be an interesting step to make.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I actually don't really have a problem when there is only a "science" output for anything related to "research" - for example, the older Civ games, and Amplitude's FIDS system - because when it is the only output it would bear the broadest meaning, i.e. "knowledge".

But in Civ VI, they separated Tech and Civic tree, introduced cultural-yielding buildings and districts, while still make every educational institution yeeting "science" - that seems off.

An East Asian based educational building that can produce culture "as the same amount of science" or "as the same amount of adjacency bonus" (cf. Gilded Vault) will certainly be an interesting step to make.

Interestingly enough the University in Civ 4 and the Seowon for Korea, which it replaces, do provide both science and culture yields.
The library and university in the board game provide both as well.

So there is precedent there however I think the main fault lies in the idea that there is a dedicated science district and then a dedicated culture district in the game whose buildings usually don't yield anything else.

Since the science district houses all of the educational buildings its easier to just make those into the idea of knowledge, or science, when in reality the library and the university should yield culture anyway.

The same goes for the theater square which houses the cultural sites for drama, art and music. One could easily make the archaeological museum provide science for artifacts or maybe Great works of writing to produce science as a form of knowledge as well.

Speaking of the Seowon I like how they portrayed it as a district which has to be completely surrounded, instead of just a university replacement. What I think they could have done differently is maybe make it to where it also yielded culture to the city center based off the adjacency bonuses of the district. Sort of like how they did Arabia's madrassa yielding faith based off of the campus adjacency.

 

[8housesofelixir]

So there is precedent there however I think the main fault lies in the idea that there is a dedicated science district and then a dedicated culture district in the game whose buildings usually don't yield anything else.
Since the science district houses all of the educational buildings its easier to just make those into the idea of knowledge, or science, when in reality the library and the university should yield culture anyway.
The same goes for the theater square which houses the cultural sites for drama, art and music. One could easily make the archaeological museum provide science for artifacts or maybe Great works of writing to produce science as a form of knowledge as well.

Boris' idea of "Customizable Districts" should really, really come in handy in this case.

Speaking of the Seowon I like how they portrayed it as a district which has to be completely surrounded, instead of just a university replacement.

Many Seowons IRL are very close to the Christian Monasteries, established in countryside and had a group of servant to support themselves. I think the in-game Seowon is by far the only real "rural" or "manor-like" unique institution (Gaul's are too general), and besides yeeting science instead of culture I think it is designed very well.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Chinese/East Asian concept of Education = Moral/Ethical Education is not unique to them. NONE of the first Universities in Europe taught anything resembling 'science' in the modern sense, they taught the old Classical 'liberal arts' divided into:
Trivium: grammar, logic, rhetoric
Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy

Only the 'second half' of the cirriculum even approaches 'scientific study', and remember that the astronomy part was as much astrology as astronomy and that all the instruction was largely rote memorization of older texts and not anything resembling original research or discovery of anything new.

Only later did they add the 'Aristotlean Philosophies': physics, metaphysics, and moral philosophy.

The Post-Graduate studies were somewhat the same as now: medicine, law, and theology, except that 'theology' was the most prestigious, since so many of the early universities were associated closely with the Church.

And yes, the parallels with the Islamic Madrasahs have been noted by historians, so this 'non-scientific' bent of the institutions of Higher Learning was not limited to Christian Europe

Probably the most significant 'scientific' element in the Madrasahs and Universities was the fact that both encouraged the development of Grammar Schools or maktab ('elementary') schools, in their respective cultures, which taught basic literacy and simple arithmetic ('calculating') to prepare young boys to later attend a University/Madrasah. That, at least, established a larger percentage of the population that could read, but it had little effect until there was something to read, which didn't really happen until moveable type-printing developed in the 15th century in Europe.

So, most of the 'scientific' institutions we've been playing with in Civ for decades were in fact started as Cultural institutions, although the addition of Law Schools to the medieval universities' cirriculae could be considered to add to a Loyalty or Administrative bonus in the Civ. Advances in How To Do Things Better really came from more 'hands on' learning in guilds, workshops, and crafts occupations, aided by any increases in literacy that made it easier to spread the knowledge.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Many Seowons IRL are very close to the Christian Monasteries, established in countryside and had a group of servant to support themselves. I think the in-game Seowon is by far the only real "rural" or "manor-like" unique institution (Gaul's are too general), and besides yeeting science instead of culture I think it is designed very well.

Right which is why I like the idea of making them secluded in game and making them play differently from a normal campus.

I think the Holy Site is also designed to function like a secluded monastery with it getting adjacency bonuses of unimproved woods, mountains, and natural wonders as well, but of course that's not unique and available to everyone, except Kongo.
I mean the only unique Holy Site we have is based off of a monastery and as far as I'm aware one of the few that only gets it normal adjacency bonuses like the original one other than the unique harbors.

 

[AsH2]

Wow! There really are people thinking 'science' is an arguable word while 'culture' is perfectly fine to use for what's else.
No wonder I find it meaningless to elaborate my thoughts in this forum.

 

[Evie]

The fundamental problem is that they completely changed what culture meant. In every game since its introduction, it was the artistic, cultural output of your nation, its reputation in global world history. And that was provided by artistic institutions, which made sense.

But with civ VI, they made culture into social sciences, philosophy, the humanities (something that only really has been separate from science for 200-300 years, and still largely fields where advances result from academic research), but without changing the associated buildings. So now philosophical ideas are developed in theatres and museums because...reasons. Merging artistic work (while keeping the arts completely separate from entertainment, despite their being closely linked for most of history) and social sciences (while keeping social sciences completely separate from natural sciences, despite that being only a very recent and still very open division). It's hard to make that work in any sensible way.

 

[Vilvatiktan]

A bunch of Semi-Random Thoughts on the subject, which has been engaging me ever since I heard about Humankind and Ten Crowns and started thinking about the Historical 4X as a category instead of just 'Civ'

Leaders:
Kill 'em Off every once in a while! Not at historical rates, or none of them would last more than 2 turns until half-way through the game, but allow them to Lead a Battle (with bonuses and a chance of getting whacked), die in an accident, natural causes, Plague, Assassination, bad oysters, etc. Succession Wars, Civil Wars, all the problems with 'picking' a New Leader should be in the game - they were a major set of problems and solutions for the historical Civs, after all.
Animated Leader Bards should be the diplomats/emissaries actually doing the negotiating - that way the game can have multiple leaders/Civ without bankrupting the company and the gamer.
Leader names can be historical, legendary. semi-historical, or Complete Fantasy.
After all, why shouldn't I be able to play as Red Orm or Ivar the Boneless in the same Civ?

Map
First, the map graphics have to to be much, much better than Civ VI, which, compared to other games coming out, looks like a kindergarten crayon effort. Completely realistic is probably not the way to go, because it can result in both blandness and difficulty for the gamer in keeping track of the tiles and their effects (The Japanese Army identified over 20 different varieties of Swamp in Manchuria in the 1940s - we do NOT want a 'realistic' Map!)
So, how about the Map As Artwork. Specifically, model the game map on the efforts of the great Landscape painters of the 18th - 20th centuries:

View attachment 545519

View attachment 545521

Now that would give us some dramatic and lovely maps to fight over - spend the graphics animation money on terrain light/clouds animations instead of ephemeral Leader Heads

Resources
Need a complete Re-Think.
For instance, why is Wheat or Rice only on certain tiles? Once you've domesticated either one, your people are going to plant them on every freaking tile where they can make them grow.
Mineral Resources of all kinds should Deplete, and new ones found - keep the whole thing Dynamic: All Gold does not appear magically in 4000 BCE, nor any other 'deposit' in History.

More later . . .

If this is the case for Civ7, I would throw my money at FXS HQ once they announced about it.