International Relations Simulator

[nyyfootball]

This is my word vomit rant for the morning:

I am probably far different than most Civ fanatics, but as opposed to viewing the game as a suped-up historical board game, I have always seen Civilization as a primitive IR simulator. As a result of this I have always enjoyed the more realistically dynamic and abstract aspects of the game, as opposed to the historically definable aspects. In Civ 3, I always customized my civilization so that it would not resemble any historical empire, country or state. I also would change the name of my leader periodically throughout the game to heighten the illusion of time passing by.

Based on my experience playing Civ over the years, it appears to me that system of relations between players in mostly based on the traditional realist perspective of Thucydides, in which conquest and domination are more valued over the liberal values of cooperations, diplomacy and mutually beneficial economic growth, and the constructivist values of norms, laws, rules and identity. Civ only incentivizes economic growth to fund one's army which can lead to the possible military domination over another player and only arbitrarily counts the amount of culture generated as opposed to the quality and subjectiveness of culture. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

I would like to see Civ become a fuller IR simulator and embrace the precept that the game is what the player makes of it, as opposed to their experience being dictated by the developers or the nature of the game. Alexander Wendt said that "anarchy is what states make of it". The game's fundamental mechanics should be fluid and subject to each player's personal aesthetic tastes, as opposed to being exactly the same each and every game. It would be interesting to see varying conceptions of sovereignty be depicted as well as a fluid portrayal of the development of intentional structures.

I have literally no idea how to implement this as it would require the development of an AI which possesses spontaneously creative faculties, but it is just food for thought.

 

[SteelLordWheels]

Call to Power II had something called the "World Peace Victory" where you would win the game if you were allied with every other civilization. Implementing something like this would be a small step in the direction you're looking for, it at least makes a "win by cooperation" possible.

 

[nyyfootball]

Call to Power II had something called the "World Peace Victory" where you would win the game if you were allied with every other civilization. Implementing something like this would be a small step in the direction you're looking for, it at least makes a "win by cooperation" possible.

I guess what I am looking for is more a simulation of reality, as opposed to a game where the goal is to win. I do understand that Civ is a strategy at its core and that is the part of it which appeals to most of its fanbase, but I have personally found its non-competitive aspects to be the most interesting part of the game.

For example, I want Go (a creatively thinking AI with broad, non-specific spontaneous goal generation), while most other Civ fans want Chess (a brute force AI whose sole goal is to satisfy whichever requirements are laid out for it to "win the game").

 

[danaphanous]

I see civ as an empire simulator. It tries to extend that to world history with some success but international diplomacy and relations is still a bit linear and unsophisticated. Where it really excels is on simulating the building and progress of a society/nation through history.

I really don't think most players want to play a chess match. imho chess is boring. The general consensus that I've read from the community is most play to have fun however they define that. War is more random and varied than a lot of other things in civ so a lot of players like it for that reason. I personally am obsessed with religion and building my empire...I like to expand my empire and set up infrastructure to the point that it becomes difficult to sustain as otherwise the game is fairly straightforward and easy. I really hate the click-fest that is the end where I have little to work on but random buildings, I like the more uncertain early-game times and diplomacy and world relations is a part of that.

What you are probably noticing is that on the civfanatics forum there are a lot of details players that play the game like an equation to be optimized and talk about it that way as well. But I think this is a very small minority of players tbh. Most of us, like you, have our own aspects of the game that we love and we play/pursue that.

That beef aside, I think your idea is pretty cool, I'd love to see the win conditions become more flexible or be put aside altogether. Since many players need a winning goal to work towards a way this might work in Civ 6 is to make more subtle win goals (like world peace, cooperative win awarded to strongest group of friends, or happiest empire). Then leave it up to players to disable the win conditions they don't like and play however they want. fyi you can already disable win conditions and just play but it can confuse the AI which are programmed to go for certain win strategies. I don't see the point though because by around 1900 AD in all my games it starts to get tedious and I have to choose a way to win. There's not much to do after uranium and nuclear plants as the last resources are discovered, everything is improved, and all cities are built up. AI rarely wins before 1900 AD so I'm free to play every game however I want and ignore win conditions up till the end where I choose a way to win, so the current system works for me. Diplomacy and world relations does seem very limited though and I've often wished there was a mechanic for deeper degrees of friendship (that were more stable and carried more cooperative options).

For your idea to become reality to AI needs to become more sophisticated where it is possible to forge better relations, have more cooperative play, etc. I'd love to see degrees of friendship beyond just a declaration, where you can colab on projects, tour each other's kingdoms, give gifts, send food and production to each other (better than your own internal routes), agree to vote together or ban trading with another civ (a smaller friendship option), trade techs, world maps, etc. It would give more a point to friendships rather then just gold and RA's. As they are now, friendships are very fickle and easily broken by small things. AI will have to be less swayed by players as well such as being unlikely to backstab friends or go to war randomly if offered things (prices should be higher at least).

relations could have a degree scale:

- neutral
- declaration of friendship
- allies
- brother nations

With greater perks/options for cooperation the farther you get.