Is Civ a Narrative Game?

Yes, every Civilization history is a narrative. I made a whole youtube channel dedicated to it.

However, the narrative, or the "history" should happen organically with how players interact within the game's mechanics and how civilizations interact with each other and the environment. Story elements as they have shown so far seem pretty weak IMHO. And they may have done so at the expense of good game mechanics. Link to my youtube if CIV stories interests you:

 
Yes, every Civilization history is a narrative. I made a whole youtube channel dedicated to it.

However, the narrative, or the "history" should happen organically with how players interact within the game's mechanics and how civilizations interact with each other and the environment. Story elements as they have shown so far seem pretty weak IMHO. And they may have done so at the expense of good game mechanics. Link to my youtube if CIV stories interests you:

I think you could argue that the narrative is also determined in more nuanced ways like the gameplay. Why are the ages broken up as they are? Why is there a "distant lands" mechanic? Why are religions structured the way they are? All these subtly paint a narrative, especially one that in my opinion sees the world through a somewhat western european scewed lense.
 
I'm not totally sold that this narrative system won't get old in a couple weeks.
That's why Civilization is not and will never be a narrative game.
It is just a feature and we still do not know how it will work. From my experience Event system in every 4X game I played was a failure. It might be a fun and interesting addition if you plan to play just one game or two.
Even in CK3 the king of narrative strategy games for me (which is not even classical 4X) it was just ok.
 
As I see this narrative system, it looks pretty close to Beyond Earth quest system and, honestly, it never gets old. At some point you just build them into your strategy, like "I'll build Ultrasonic Fence and wait for its quest to appear before eradicating aliens". They lose novelty, but are still a valid part of the game, like city state quests in Civ6.
 
As I see this narrative system, it looks pretty close to Beyond Earth quest system and, honestly, it never gets old. At some point you just build them into your strategy, like "I'll build Ultrasonic Fence and wait for its quest to appear before eradicating aliens". They lose novelty, but are still a valid part of the game, like city state quests in Civ6.
I personally hope that the quests are not repetitive like that as that was a downside to Humankind and Beyond Earth for me. It was a contributor to making every game feel the same despite each game having a variety of unique aspects. I hope that there are few, if any, quests. As that can deviate from the legacy point system or snowball it.

I do like this narrative event system and that it seems that they have made the choices more powerful. When events are weak, they may as well not even be in the game. If losing 10 gold is all that happened to avoid an inconvenience, you just wasted my time. If I choose between +100 culture to a city or +50 food, you just wasted my time. Now, if that event was +500 culture or +150 food, we are starting to see some relevance. If my options are +2 culture per turn to the city or +1 food per turn, the choice now is more interesting. But with more powerful events, you need to make them sparser as you don't want randomness to determine the game, just occasionally nudge it. I would prefer it if everyone got 6 decent choices a game (2 per age) but that is just my tastes, this event seems fun and meaningful. Plus, we know from the livestreams that meeting the criteria of an event does not automatically trigger it, there is a % chance.

I have always seen civ as a narrative game which is why I value how well the diplomacy model is done in each iteration. I think it is important to know mostly why a leader has the attitude toward you that they do. Even rival leaders know WHY their enemy hates them, because the enemy doesn't withhold that from the world. They shout from the rooftop their grievances with their opponent. They make demands which reveals their motives. Basically, our behavior tends to tell on us and even deceptive tactics have some vein of truth.
I am really hoping that this time around diplomacy is more transparent. If I have a +15 (+20/-5) with a leader, I should always be able to know where 15-20 (60-80%) of those 25 points are coming from. A diplomacy model that hides too much behind "Unknown Reason" may as well be random and is not diplomacy. It is a shame that in civ 6 I can figure out why the AI is furious (or pleased) with me, without knowing the programming code, but the UI won't tell me. As though that somehow makes diplomacy "more intriguing" instead of broken and useless. You shouldn't have to hide obvious things from the player to make espionage hold value. I will always praise Civ 4 for its diplomacy model where you could actually befriend multiple AI and they would be loyal and you know how you did it.

I am hoping this influence system being used as diplomatic currency is a fresh idea that adds something great to Civs diplomacy model in the long run. It has a ton of potential to up the narrative experience. I am happy to see events holding weight that matters. And I am very intrigued to see how this new narrative system works out. As far as I can tell, it will not be like Beyond Earth or Humankind because it is not a prewritten script, it is reactionary to events that happen in the world. However, that doesn't guarantee it won't result in heavy repetition.
 
As I see this narrative system, it looks pretty close to Beyond Earth quest system and, honestly, it never gets old. At some point you just build them into your strategy, like "I'll build Ultrasonic Fence and wait for its quest to appear before eradicating aliens". They lose novelty, but are still a valid part of the game, like city state quests in Civ6.
They indicated that the narrative events have a random chance as to whether or not they will be in each specific game.

So if you build the Fence….don’t wait you might never get that event…but be prepared with your plans of how you want to handle it if it does trigger.
 
They indicated that the narrative events have a random chance as to whether or not they will be in each specific game.

So if you build the Fence….don’t wait you might never get that event…but be prepared with your plans of how you want to handle it if it does trigger.
I believe the events have conditions and probability. More universal ones (like no conditions whatsoever) may have lower probability, so they'll not trigger in every game. More specific ones, like tied to particular civ or leader, probably have higher chances if their conditions are met. So, I expect some degree of control here, being able to fish for particular events with very specific conditions.
 
I believe the events have conditions and probability. More universal ones (like no conditions whatsoever) may have lower probability, so they'll not trigger in every game. More specific ones, like tied to particular civ or leader, probably have higher chances if their conditions are met. So, I expect some degree of control here, being able to fish for particular events with very specific conditions.
I agree with the fishing….but it’s fishing not catching….not like Research Writing and you WILL unlock Libraries.
 
And it is a game of simulated events because a choice A leads to a choice b, c, d, e, f depending on the choices of the government, of events, large and small, which are within the probabilities and which cannot be entirely controlled by the player, because the player is not omnipotent.
 
Its not a "test of time" anymore, its like "reset so our AI could hang on".
instead of one meaningful game you play three or four minigames where the choices wont matter that much.
 
I agree with the fishing….but it’s fishing not catching….not like Research Writing and you WILL unlock Libraries.
Yes, and I can't say it's bad. Both deterministic planning and playing with chances are parts of good strategy. So, those events could be quite interesting... depending on the implementation, of course.
 
Its not a "test of time" anymore, its like "reset so our AI could hang on".
instead of one meaningful game you play three or four minigames where the choices wont matter that much.
*2/3 meaningful unfinished game
 
Well... afaik, civ has its civilopedia for the facts but narrative? No. I guess with the civics and technologies you can see it as a narrative though but not online since the announcer is usually muted.
 
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