Is civ a sandbox game?

[CliffCo]

I guess I've always played Civ as a sandbox game, which might be one of the reasons I rarely finish a game. That might actually be one of the missing bits of the puzzle the devs misunderstood when they saw how few people completed games.

Usually I just like playing as a civ, create a cool idea behind the civ I am working with, and see where it takes me. It always felt like more of a creative experience than a competitive one.

So I might want to play Kupe and create a crazed eco warrior civ, or Montezuma as a crazed slaver.. that kind of thing. I find it boring otherwise to just try and 'win'

In many ways i'm the same in that i enjoy building my empire without being concerned with how quickly i can win on a specific difficullty setting, or adjusting the games options to make the game easier or harder. I choose random leaders and Civ's and allthough i like it if i win it's not the most important aspect of the game to me. That being said if as i think they are saying in the upcoming update notes they give us the option to have all victory conditions turned off that wont be an option i will choose. I always play with extended eras and am hoping they eventually extend the length of every era further rather than adding extra eras.

 

[McSpank01]

In many ways i'm the same in that i enjoy building my empire without being concerned with how quickly i can win on a specific difficullty setting, or adjusting the games options to make the game easier or harder. I choose random leaders and Civ's and allthough i like it if i win it's not the most important aspect of the game to me. That being said if as i think they are saying in the upcoming update notes they give us the option to have all victory conditions turned off that wont be an option i will choose. I always play with extended eras and am hoping they eventually extend the length of every era further rather than adding extra eras.

I think there is a difference between switching off victory conditions and it being a sandbox however. Just turning off legacy paths etc doesn’t mean you suddenly have all this creativity to sculpt your civ in the way you want. That is because right now most civs play and feel very similarly. I’d mostly struggle to create a very unique civ in the way I could in Civ 6

 

[CliffCo]

There are some similarities, but every leader and Civ has their own uniques and differences and as you rank up a leader it gives you access to more mementos. While they all basically have access to the same buildings each one also has their own unique buildings and units with differing strengths and weaknesses.

 

[GrayingGamer]

I don't think Civ is a sandbox.

A pure sandbox is just an environment with tools and nothing else. Here's the description of Gary's Mod from Steam:
"Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play."

Sandbox games have one or more goals, and players are given tools to accomplish that goal, and nothing else. There's a destination, but no provided pathways, and certainly no rails. Rimworld and Oxygen Not Included are two great examples of sandbox games.

I don't think Civ is a sandbox game, either.

Civ has always had a clearly defined goal - to win - but there have always been a finite number of pathways to that goal (domination, culture, etc). It's a strategy game - choice and player agency play a huge role, but it's more about making good choices at the right time and being efficient, as opposed to truly creative use of basic tools. I think strategy games occupy some middle ground between sandbox and linear/railroad games. You're given a limited set of tools, and you're expect to win the game by using the right tools at the right time - it's less about imagination, and more about mastery of the game world.


Now, you could call Dune: Awakening a sandbox game, but that would be for entirely different reasons................

 

[Kev1916]

I don't think Civ is a sandbox.

The new "Civ" is pretty much looking to become or be given a sandbox experience which leads one to believe the previous Civ games gave that experience

To quote
"Another request we’ve seen a lot: we’re adding a few new options to help with that, and these should feel especially nice for our players out there who want a more sandbox-style experience."

Btw Which to be fair is no going to work anyway and does zero to fix any o the built in mechanics which lead away from a sand box game

 

[GrayingGamer]

"Another request we’ve seen a lot: we’re adding a few new options to help with that, and these should feel especially nice for our players out there who want a more sandbox-style experience."

I think the term 'sandbox' is prone to a variety of definitions/interpretations. I was trying to be a bit more strict in my first post, but I do think many people have come to just use it to say that a game is more open ended and/or has more choices available to the player, as opposed to being on rails. I think that dilutes the definition.

Ultimately, a good sandbox game will have so many tools and so much freedom (and only be somewhat balanced) that you will see emergent gameplay - where players come up with unique solutions to problems, solutions that the devs didn't anticipate.

I think you see this quite a bit with games like the ones I mentioned - Rimworld and ONI. In Civ games you may occasionally see a video from someone who has come up with some clever solution to a problem, but most of the time it's just someone beating deity through their mastery of the game rules and the AI weaknesses. While this is impressive, it's rarely emergent gameplay.

It's worth noting that emergent gameplay (and a just somewhat-balanced game) is one of the chief advantages single-player games will always have over multiplayer-pvp games, where everything has to be rigorously balanced. PvP games can absolutely have emergent gameplay, but it will almost always have to be quickly squashed/fixed for the game's long-term health, whereas single-player sandbox games can be built to encourage it.

 

[Brutus2]

Obviously this discussion is somewhat moot since we now know the next patch will provide the option to remove any or all legacy paths and "Just one more turn" is also being added so we can now play whichever way we prefer but overall I like the legacy paths because it does give each era a theme or goal and makes each part of the game feel unique and different with goals to work towards in every phase of the game. In C6, it felt like we were just trying to get through the trees as quickly as possible, making everything obsolete almost as soon as you unlocked it, to eventually get to the only things that really mattered like the late game social polices or space ports. Initially I was a little concerned about Legacy Paths because I was worried about getting Dark Ages but it turns out that getting the minimum milestone for each path is very easy and even if you somehow don't do it, the Dark Age polices are not a big deal at all.

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

Technically Civilization is not a sandbox game as there are end goals and objectives to win , even though I do think many play the game as if it were and like to lean more into the role playing and emergent narrative/gameplay aspect of the series rather than min-maxing just to win.

 

[lander]

I only ever played civ as sandbox..

I have always viewed the default and scenarios as the tutorial same way I viewed age of empires, for me personally civ is not civ without full sandbox.

 

[_hero_]

The real point of the sandbox vs theme park discussion is a deeper question: Why do you play Civ?

I think part of what made the franchise so appealing to so many people in the past is that it worked both as a sandbox and as a theme park game. You could play to win or you could just sit back and watch a world unfold in front of you and still have fun.

 

[eaglet123]

I don't think Civ games, not only Civ 7, are sandbox games. Civ has strong rules and clear strategies. It's not like all kinds of things are randomly happening, or you can create whatever you want. It's more like playing chess, at a larger scale, in more dimensions.

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

I don't think Civ games, not only Civ 7, are sandbox games. Civ has strong rules and clear strategies. It's not like all kinds of things are randomly happening, or you can create whatever you want. It's more like playing chess, at a larger scale, in more dimensions.

Not having clear strategies and rules isn't what makes a sandbox game a sandbox, Paradox strategy games are considered sandboxes and they have plenty of both in spades.

Civ isn't a sandbox because it has objectives to win and predetermined goals

 

[GrayingGamer]

Not having clear strategies and rules isn't what makes a sandbox game a sandbox...
Civ isn't a sandbox because it has objectives to win and predetermined goals

All games have at least one objective. It's literally fundamental to what makes them games. Whether they are sandbox games or any other type of game.

Not having clear strategies, or at least not being limited to one of several initially obvious strategies, is absolutely part of what makes a game a sandbox game. Sandbox games will have lots of emergent gameplay, which basically means players are achieving goals in ways not explicitly anticipated by the game's devs.

Eaglet123's, "It's more like playing chess, at a larger scale, in more dimensions," is a reasonable explanation for the kind of (non-sandbox) game that Civ is. It's complex chess married to a board game, placed in the setting of human history.

 

[user746383]

At least one of Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, Factorio, The Sims, SimEarth, Garry’s Mod, Animal Crossing, or Second Life I guess you’d agree doesn’t have a defined objective you’re working towards? You can make your own goals in these, but that’s quite different than having a quest tracker with your goals and a scoring system that evaluates your performance against them. Those are all games that are commonly called sandbox games.

You can sort of play any game like a sandbox game if you want, though. When I was a kid I played chess like a kind of army sandbox game because I didn’t know the rules and just pretended and made my own up.

 

[GrayingGamer]

A game doesn't have to having a scoring system or a quest tracker to have goals, and the ability to make your own goals doesn't preclude that the game has clear built-in ones, clearly indicating that it is a game.

Minecraft, DF, and Rimworld are all survival games, at least initially for the casual player. Whether it's explicitly stated or not, that's the inherent objective you get the first time you play - try not to die. "Don't die" is perhaps the most fundamental and instinctual game goal there can be. They're also all great sandbox games - tons of tools, tons of freedom, lots of emergent gameplay. Minecraft in particular really works well as both a sandbox game and as just a sandbox, no question about it. People turn on creative/god mode (essentially turning off the 'game' part) and go crazy just making amazing stuff.

Factorio has those things that are coming to eat you, right? That seems like a basic "survive" goal. Another great sandbox game from what I've seen... I've barely played it.

The Sims has you working with a budget right out of the gate, that's just a civilized version of "don't die." I'd say it's more simulation game (hence the name) than sandbox, you're pretty limited on what you can do/buy/build, but I'm sure there's at least some emergent gameplay that has occured in those games over the years.

Animal Crossing and Second Life are more like The Sims I'd think, I haven't played either at all. I'm not sure I ever played SimEarth, I can't really comment on it.

Gary's Mod, as I referenced in an earlier post, is explicitly just a sandbox and not a typical game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

All games have at least one objective. It's literally fundamental to what makes them games. Whether they are sandbox games or any other type of game.

There are different theoretical definitions of game. Some definitions include objectives, some not.

Playing dolls doesn't have an objective and so do video games like Sims or SimCity (although they could set intermediate goals). Most definitions of sandbox games actually include "no set objective" as a major part of sandbox definition.

So, to avoid conflicting definitions, if we want to use the term "sandbox game", we have to avoid those definitions of the game, which state objective is mandatory.

 

[GrayingGamer]

There are different theoretical definitions of game. Some definitions include objectives, some not.

Playing dolls doesn't have an objective and so do video games like Sims or SimCity (although they could set intermediate goals). Most definitions of sandbox games actually include "no set objective" as a major part of sandbox definition.

So, to avoid conflicting definitions, if we want to use the term "sandbox game", we have to avoid those definitions of the game, which state objective is mandatory.

Any definition of 'game' that doesn't include a goal/objective is just a bad or worthless definition IMHO.

You can clearly play with dolls, but it's not a game. Kids play with dolls, but I've never once heard kids say 'let's go play the doll game,' and if they did, it would be laughable because it was wrong.

Once again, the steam description for Gary's Mod is perfect for this discussion, both for what it says and what it doesn't say,
"Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play."

For clarity, I believe play is an activity for enjoyment, while a game is a more structured subset of play where there is at least one rule and objective. House, dolls, doctor, tea are all things kids will play, while tag and hide-and-seek are clearly games.

 

[user746383]

Conway’s Game of Life then would be definitively not a game?

 

[GrayingGamer]

Conway’s Game of Life then would be definitively not a game?

Just looking at it now (had never heard of it, strangely enough; it's pretty interesting) it certainly doesn't look like a game. I think the title is riffing more on the idiom "game of life" rather than making the claim that his program is an actual game.

You don't even play it, it's more of a sim/model. Wikipedia says, "It is a zero-player game," which strikes me as a contradiction. You just set it up and watch it go.

 

[user746383]

Setting it up to do different interesting things is the game you play. Anyway it doesn’t really seem so black and white: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_game, with especially https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-game on the border between games and play/toys.

Anyone can disagree, but at the same time it’s pretty reasonable for someone else to think there can be games without objectives.