Increasing historic and overall realism should be the focus

[Ryth]

This is one thread I've really been entranced to read. There are a lot of threads that have 'realism' mentioned, or focused on, but the idea of imersiveness is one that has always appealed to me. Although I do still enjoy playing on the Chieftain level for the sheer 'beat them all to bloody pulps' aspect, the challenge of the longer fight, the touch-and-go choices is more my style. The ideas, especially those around excessive early expansion, IMO, are exactly the thoughts the designers need to be considering (along with everything else ).
Perhaps a slower rate of growth early on? Of course, food etc is something that is developed as you progress through the tech levels, but, especially if you get the Pyrimids, it still seems to hig to me. This would slow expansion in that settlers would be harder to get. I've also seen an idea posted (sorry to whom ever posted it first) about having units just that much more likely to die crossing deserts, jungles and marshes etc. The furthur away a person gets from their 'homeland' the less they know about the land they're in - poisonous animals and fruit, how to find water, that sort of thing. Maybe even homesickness plays a part!

 

[dh_epic]

1. Early rapid expansion and claiming nearly every square of land in ancient times FLAW

2. Exponential Power Growth FLAW

Yes and yes. I think you hint at general solutions to each as well, and I agree with those.

I'm a big fan of opening the game up to the increased possibility of civil war, if that's counterbalanced by a quicker occupation or control of 'lesser' civilizations. (e.g.: installing a puppet government (neo-colonialism), or simply occupying and living there and sucking up all the luxuries (colonialism) )

I also think the land grab stage needs to be tempered somehow, although I'm lacking in ideas. To some extent, we have the privelege of hindsight. Most civs just settled, and tried to survive and prosper. We realize that trying to survive and prosper with 3 cities might be cool for a while, but we know that the age of empires and such are on their way, and enter into competition right from day one.

 

[dh_epic]

(Oh yeah, Alexander the Great had every intention of conquering the entire known world and was making reasonable progress before his untimely death).

And where is his empire now?

Does that mean he failed? ... not in my opinion. But people are hung up on this "control every city for 2000 years" idea of domination. I think civ ought to move further away from this idea of domination -- it would make the game more realistic AND more strategic, and thus more compelling.

 

[mitsho]

Shortly to point one: this can be easily solved by making the world more populated. It's unrealistic that in 4000 BC there are areas totally unpopulated in the world (ok, take Sibiria and so on away). But it is also clear that not every area is populated in the same way.
So, make the world populated in 4000 B.C. by

- creating different types of civs (cultural and nomadic) that play differently. But by the classical age (now named as middle age) they should definately become one type of civ.

- creating different types of barbarians ('barbarians', 'city states', etc) that do not only wage war but can be eliminated by the 'civs'. You could still walk through their lands and kill them, but after you have gone, they would immediately settle again.

Ok, now the question is, is this 'realistic', 'immersive'? Or would it destroy the fun? I doubt it. But of course, this are only some small 'brainstormed' thoughts.

mfG mitsho

 

[polypheus]

And where is his empire now?

Does that mean he failed? ... not in my opinion. But people are hung up on this "control every city for 2000 years" idea of domination. I think civ ought to move further away from this idea of domination -- it would make the game more realistic AND more strategic, and thus more compelling.

Exactly.

Obviously there has been many attempts at conquering the world. But those big empires were costly to maintain and were not very stable. In many cases, instead of strengthening the Civ, the cost of garrisoning, putting down revolts, etc made the cost of maintaining the empires very high.

I think that one of the things that could be changed is to implement the following simple ideas (many of which others also have come up with as well):


1. Instead of every new citizen of conquered territory being of your nationality, they should mostly continue to be of their original nationality, regardless of whether the nation even exists.

Look when the Ottomans conquered Greece and Arabia despite being under control for hundreds of years, the newborns of these lands did not suddenly become Ottoman, they continued to be Greeks and Arabs. When Britain controlled India for centuries, newborns were not English, etc etc.


2. Assimilation should be slowed down or even almost non-existent especially with rise of "Nationalism".

Historically, assimilation was fairly slow. Despite centuries of foreign rule with no country, Greeks, Poles, Arabs, Indians, etc etc did not assimilate.


3. Continued resistance and revolts

Foreigners should continue to riot, resist, and undertake period revolt. You would thus have to spend lots of money to maintain garrisons which will be under periodic attack. They would be more unhappy than your own native citizens so might need to spend more on luxuries, etc to make them content. Conquered nationalities should not be wiped out but still be alive underneath the surface, ready to revolt and regain independence and also call on others to assist in these efforts.


(Great examples of 1, 2, and 3 for example are the Kurds and Basques. They have been under "foreign" rule and have not existed as their own nation for millenia. But they continue to exist, have not been assimilated and continue to resist and revolt)


4. Units built from cities should reflect city demographics

When you build units, if you build in city with 90% foreigners, 90% of units from that city, although under your control, would be of foreign nationality (just like workers have nationality). And these foreign units should be of low quality (conscript) with low chance of promotion. Perhaps in some cases these foreign conscript could even turn against you.


5. Genocide and ethnic cleansing should be made difficult, costly, with severe repercussions if attempted

Obviously players will attempt to do these things to alleviate these problems. But these must be severe penalties and costs so that it is not possible or practical to do this on a large scale.


If these ideas were implemented, then Civ empires would be more historically realistic and accurate and reflect the difficulties and costs of maintaining empires and large scale conquests. Borders would be constantly shifting and nations would be created, destroyed, resurrected, etc and be much more dynamic. These ideas would cause a counterbalancing effect too so that large empires would not be exponentially more powerful than small, homogeneous nations. In fact, in some cases they could even be weaker and less powerful due to all the costs and internal instability.

 

[Bluetooth]

Civilization is a game and we’re supposed to have fun when we play. I don’t think we need more realism but more fun. There are other games to buy if you want realism.

I also think many of the ideas in this thread would ruin game play in Civilization. I love to conquer the world if possible but I also love to go for a cultural victory, neither is realistic but fun.

When Soren Johnson is talking about removing ”unfun” aspects of game play in Civilization 4 it’s like sweet music in my ears.

 

[polypheus]

Civilization is a game and we’re supposed to have fun when we play. I don’t think we need more realism but more fun. There are other games to buy if you want realism.

I also think many of the ideas in this thread would ruin game play in Civilization. I love to conquer the world if possible but I also love to go for a cultural victory, neither is realistic but fun.

When Soren Johnson is talking about removing ”unfun” aspects of game play in Civilization 4 it’s like sweet music in my ears.

To me the thing that makes Civ fun is the stragetic decision making and the immersion in simulated history. The more "realistic" and immersive that historical experience is, the more I'm drawn in to the game and the more interesting and fun it is.

Obviously any ideas to increase overall historic realism should improve gameplay and "fun".

I think that, if implemented correctly, many of these ideas would increase gameplay. This is borne out by actual experience.

Consider Civ 1 vs Civ 3: C3C. Is it not the case that Civ3: C3C is much more complex and overall historically realistic than the real simple Civ 1? Yet isn't it true that Civ 3:C3C is A LOT MORE INTERESTING AND FUN than Civ 1? I and the vast majority of players think so.

 

[polypheus]

Another "flaw" in Civ 3 is its very simplistic civilization flow model. Basically the Civ 3 model is as follows:

1. Originally there are a bunch of civilizations and various raider barbarians.
2. These original civilizations grow in size, slowly eliminating the raider babarians until all squares of land on earth is civilized and claimed by about 1AD.
3. Through wars, the borders of these civilizations shift and some borders are shrunk to zero permanently (meaning killed off).


But in real history, very simplistically speaking, the model is more like this:
1. There are a bunch of original civilizations and various barbarians.
2. Some of these original civilizations are destroyed by barbarians.
3. Others continue on but are then conquered by other "original" civilizations (ex Greece conquers Egpyt and Persia under Alexander, Rome conquers Greece, etc)
4. Some are formed by "barbarians" conquering civilized lands and then civilizing themselves. (ex Germanic "barbarians" conquer England and form English civilization)
5. Some are formed as a result of civilizations re-asserting independence after centuries of foreign rule (ex Greece regains independence after centuries under Ottoman rule, India regains independence after centuries of British rule)
6. Some are formed as breakaway parts of nations (USA, Australia, Canada, Mexico, etc)

Obviously this "real historical model" is complicated. However, I believe it is possible to implement all of these concepts so that there is more depth and historic realism.

 

[polypheus]

With barbarians taking over cities and creating new civilizations, conquered peoples revolting and gaining independence, your own people revolting and creating new civilizations, it seems like a very difficult and impossible game to play.

But one idea is to link the activation of various features with difficulty level instead of giving AI's bonuses as is currently done.

Example:
Easiest Level - no barbarians, no revolts, etc
:
Intermediate Level - barbarians (raiders only), revolts (only from conquered civilizations), etc
:
Hardest Level - full historic simulation mode (all features activated and surviving, let alone being number 1 is victory)


This would be a great way to implement the difficulty levels. Rather than giving AI's bonuses, more features and additional challenges come into play. WIth these additional challenges, AI's do not need any boost, it should be tough and victory just to survive!

 

[croxis]

I very much like this idea about new mechanics with dificulty. I think perhaps we shoudl start a thread that talks about difficulty levels.

 

[mitsho]

I like the idea of this way of difficulty levels also, but I fear that this isn't going good. Because the game should be really the same, whether you play on 'baby' or on 'godlike'. So this should really be tested before you can say which is better...

mfG mitsho

 

[dh_epic]

I disagree that the game should be introducing and increasing new concepts as you increase the difficulty level. The game should be essentially the same, but harder.

I think domination victory should still be possible, but not by conquering every nation. I think America could be considered a domination victory, or Britain back in the day.

Let me compare:

Civ 2: Control EVERYTHING, with no rival nations
Civ 3: Control 75% of the landmass
Civ 4: Have 25% of landmass within your borders, and 66% of landmass controlled by proxy (puppet regimes, colonies, commonwealth)

Don't focus too much on the numbers, those are flexible. Let me give you an example, instead.

A STORY

I'm playing as the Babylonians, in the industrial age, and I have a solid empire. However, for me to increase the size of my empire I would either need to fight France (my top rival, with a great culture), or jump off the continent and go after China (who is weak, but far away).

I decide to take China. But rather than conquering every city, I conquer three cities. I then show up with a bunch of riflemen on their shores, when they have barely invented gunpowder. I make them a trade pact. They will become a dictatorship, serving me loyally. They will be considered a Babylonian colony. I'll keep all (or most, whatever works) of their taxes.

Most importantly, my empire has just increased to the point where I still only have 30% of the world in my borders. But with the control of China under me, I actually control 50% of the world by proxy.

I now make a judgement call... make a play to enslave Japan. Or, if I'm feeling ambitious, I can have an oldschool war with France, who is competing neck and neck with me, having recently made Britain into a French colony.

In the background, of course, Rome had a great empire for a while... but it collapsed. They expanded their borders too much and experienced a dark age, followed by a civil war, because they didn't have what it takes to manage an empire. French and Babylon, on the other hand, we were intelligent about conquest and are both very close to victory.


CONCLUSION:

By introducing more realistic empires... not only have I made creating and controlling an empire more challenging, realistic, and emersive. But I have made the game more fun. Rather than having to waste time squashing every individual unit, I can make conquest happen FAST -- IF I'm intelligent about how I manage those resources. (I have a feeling China won't accept colonialism for more than a couple centuries, so I'll have to grow my empire intelligently.)

 

[dh_epic]

I also agree that Nationalism should make assimilation much more difficult if not impossible.

Also, you take a look at the Greeks, they had a HIGH culture rating... meaning that even though they were conquered, they still identified themselves as Greeks. Civ ought to reflect this.

Another story:

- Rome and Greece have high culture ratings
- Rome conquers Greece
- Greece's culture points count towards Rome's total culture
- Greece is conquered, but not assimilated, because of its high culture
- Much later in the game, Greece emerges as an independant state
- Greece gets back all its old cultural points, at Rome's expense
- (both should still be lightyears ahead culturally, due to cultural cooperation - a non-zero-sum score increase)

Also, I think the invention of the printing press should cause ALL your cities to generate one additional culture point.

 

[BassDude726]

Maybe this is an issue of semantics, but why does everyone insist on delineating "fun" and "realism"? Just because a game is realistic doesn't mean it isn't fun.

 

[warpstorm]

Why? Because games that when given a choice on a given feature to make it realistic or abstract it and make fun (for example historic war games tend to go the route of realism over all) , invariably end up catering to a very hard-core, very hard to please minority. Once a game (or genre - see war games and realistic combat sims) does this, that is the end of it's franchise (or it's genre - war games an d combat flight sims used to be the biggest genres around in the early 90s). Why? Because they weren't fun for anybody except the hard-core minority.

 

[BassDude726]

Excuse me if I respectfully disagree. I think you're confusing realism with a lack of flexibility or options.

 

[BassDude726]

Haha and who else could be called hard-core and hard to please if Civ fans aren't? Look at the size of the Civ4 suggestion forum!

 

[warpstorm]

That is why I suggested to Soren to ignore most of the ideas here

 

[dh_epic]

I think you can even take a look at the direction that Civ moved with conquests and you'll see...

They think that the 16 hour game of Civ is a barrier to really having it catch on. Some people just get too bored or tired with it (none of us here, although I would say there's some truth of that for me).

In Conquests, this meant creating a variety of scenarios and play conditions that could allow a game to end much more quickly, while at the same time adding to the strategy and fun factor.

Reducing micromanagement is an inevitable step that most of us would agree needs to happen.

But creating a more compelling domination victory that doesn't entail occupying every single city, to me, makes the game faster and more fun. And with the domination victory resembling something more strategic (rather than tedious), it opens up the idea of increased realism in huge empires -- the dynamic rise and fall of the great empires of our history.

To me, that's both more fun and more realistic.

 

[polypheus]

There is no question that if Civ 4 implements ideas and features with a focus on overall historic realism, that the taking over every last city style victory will be gone.
But as dh_epic points out, the victory condition could simply be changed to reflect something that is realistic and achievable. Victory could be simply striving to be the number one superpower in the world (USA) with the most dominant culture, economy and military.

Personally, I would do away with different independent victory paths and instead have each component be scored separately and contribute to overall victory. Sort of like how victory is determined in the decathlon, where each component contributes to the overall score and whoever has the highest score is the "victor" in the game.