Less realism!

[dh_epic]

Yeah, I like to imagine reasons for population unhappiness while I play. But the illusion is broken when I can shut them up with a cathedral.

I don't think Civ is in danger of getting bogged down the same way as a war sim... because those war sims had to resemble one historical event, which had a lot of constants. Civ has no historical constants except for the tech tree and the Civilizations themselves -- playing history from the start to the end has many more possibilities than constants.

Focusing on the details of a specific historical event, technology, or unit would be disasterous in Civ. "Actually, the greek spearmen sometimes threw their spears, so there needs to be an ability to throw spears if you're greek, unless you run out of spears, in which case you wouldn't be able to fight at all, and the units would become workers that the opponents can enslave, but if they take the spears out of the dead bodies they can re-arm workers, and convert them into spearmen, and then send them back at the greeks, but they wouldn't fight as effectively because they'd be slaves, and they might mutiny, unless you pay them more, but they'd be able to throw spears because they're greek and that's what they did in real life"
Anyone who even likes a FRAGMENT of that idea should be dragged out into the street and stabbed with a spear (a virtual one, not a real one).

The enhancements I want to see in Civ 4 would be almost like adding a fun (but not totally realistic) PHYSICS engine. But instead of physical forces, you include social and political forces. Do you realize how great Half Life 2 is going to be when the physics let you solve a single problem with multiple solutions? The physics will let you use anything to block an attack, inflict an attack, distract the enemy, break and enter, etc.. The same thing should be true for Civ, but in the social-political sense. There should be more than one way to win a war, please your people, hurt your enemy, accumulate wealth and resources...

Why do you think Grand Theft Auto is such a popular game? By no means are the physics realistic, but in adding a simplified version of it, they made the game feel like you can do ANYTHING. And at the end of the day, I think the ability to do anything is what drew everyone to Civ in the first place, before we got attached to building settlers.

 

[warpstorm]

Thank you, dh_epic. You are supporting my argument perfectly.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

"Actually, the greek spearmen sometimes threw their spears, so there needs to be an ability to throw spears if you're greek, unless you run out of spears, in which case you wouldn't be able to fight at all, and the units would become workers that the opponents can enslave, but if they take the spears out of the dead bodies they can re-arm workers, and convert them into spearmen, and then send them back at the greeks, but they wouldn't fight as effectively because they'd be slaves, and they might mutiny, unless you pay them more, but they'd be able to throw spears because they're greek and that's what they did in real life"

Awesome idea! We need this!!

Seriously though, it all does come back to gameplay. And personally, I think that adding certain historical factors does not diminish but rather adds to the gameplay.

 

[dh_epic]

Thank you, dh_epic. You are supporting my argument perfectly.

That's my point, there IS no "pro-realism" or "anti-realism" camp. Lumping people into simple categories is dangerous, even when you're just talking about a game.

To say "realism can kill a game" is patently obvious. To say "fun is more important than realism" is as trite as "happiness is more important than money".

But, on the other hand, to say "less realism will be more fun" is as dumb as saying "too much food can make you throw up, so therefore life will be better if people don't eat".

There's obviously a balance, a somewhat dependent relationship.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Yeah... I have to say, I do think that these are sort of the "duds" of the realism issue.

But what one must remember is that some of the factors of realism is not only addition, but also subtraction.

Some things, which I have said elsewhere as well, that should be subtracted from Civ are:

• Using Settlers to build cities
• Player construction of all building improvements
• Workers
• Remove placing citizens to work certain tiles and converting to Scientists etc.

That would cut down on a lot of excess micromanagement.

So that leaves... military units and scientific research as the only things remaining from previous versions of Civ.

 

[warpstorm]

And there are plenty of suggestions on how the current military and scientific schemes aren't realistic enpough and they should be changed. They could change them too and then the only thing that would be the same is the Sid Meier's Civ on the box

 

[dh_epic]

Ha! Well, aside from MAYBE adding a bit more "paper-rock-scissors" to the units you can build, and MAYBE having a culture-linked tech trees, military and science are actually the two things I'd be okay with leaving alone completely (that is, not even tweaking with these two small suggestions).

Again, it's about honoring the intentions but not the very letter of the original game.

I'd give the design team enough credit that if you even said a word like "provinces" -- something that a lot of people like, nobody agrees upon what they should do, and a few people hate because of the crazy ideas out there -- the design team would be able to come up with something fun and balanced. More importantly, that includes their ability to weed out the "good realism" from the "bad realism": honoring the intentions and not the letter of the realistically-motivated idea, if I'm allowed to embellish words a bit.

 

[Sark6354201]

I don't understand all the people who want all this realism, do you know how much time and effort it would take to play Civ? It would be like a chore, not a game.

Simple realism is things like Culture and my Mustketman is better at defense then my Spearman.

I don't want to get a calculator out when i play Civ! Not to mention the time...

So yes, KISS

 

[TheDarkPhantom]

I think Realism is excellent, but yes, secondary to playability. The main suggestions I have made in this forum are for increased realism, but where the complexity is is handled by th egame engine, not piled on the player. Historical accuracy is great fun, and can hardly be said to limit gameplay, and for many (though I appreciate not all) increased Realism seriously makes the game more enjoyable.

I think the best conclusion is to accept that players are divided into two camps, some find Realism very important, that the more realistic the game is, the more enjoyable it is, we like the feel of actually guiding a Civilisation through a real world and a real history. Others find realism unnecessary, and can be overly complicated, preferring to just play through the game as a unique, and not necessarilyl realistic, strategy game.

So the solution? Give the game expanded realism and accuracy, but make these options optional in the game settup screen. Give players the ability to more complexelly choose their governments, to create puppet states and semi-autonomous regions if they want to (I have included many such suggestions in my thread on various suggestions for Civ4), let there be random events but you choose whether you want such complexity and realism in the game set up, you could have an 'Advanced Mode' that can be toggled on/off, or split it in to severla options, turn on/off Nationalist Rebellions, turn on/off Advanced Citizen Moods etc etc.

Sound like a good idea?

 

[warpstorm]

But are options that aren't really options options?

What self respecting strategy gamer will turn off the options? Raise your hand. Hmmm...I see no hands up.

The game engine will have to be built and tweaked and tuned around them. It will also have to be tweaked and tuned for every conceivable combination of them. I really don't see this happening in a world with time and budget constraints.

 

[Iztvan]

When the realism doesn't come at the expense of playability I want realism, otherwise no.
For example, some units in the game come at the wrong place in time (pikeman, berserker, etc). This doesn't make the game easier or funnier to play, it just annoys the players who know basic military history.
And I think that doing stuff historicaly correct actually can lead to an intresting and fun game, as long as you don't get bogged down in details. Civ is about the grand scope of things, not the minor details. We don't want to keep track of the greek spearmans supply of spears, but we do want the greek spearman to be a greek spearman and to show up during the ancient era, right?

 

[dh_epic]

I really insist that this "two camps" thing is an artificial construction, aside from extremists who want to micromanage their spearman's bowel movements, and extremists who want the game to expand onto the moon and ocean.

Why not just add the good realism, and keep the bad realism out? Any realism that makes the game more fun and more emersive and opens up new macro-level gameplay possibilities, put that in... and any realism that slows the game down, becomes a mechanical repetitive process, makes you focus even more on micromanagement, or takes control away from the player, keep that out.

Simple.

 

[Jon Shafer]

The problem is that people don't agree on what is "good" realism and what is "bad" realism. That is why there are two "camps." Some people want CIV's battle engine to be something from SSI, others don't want to have to worry about optimizing exactly how many shields are left on your 60-shield Temple so that you don't waste anything and end up disadvantaged compared to your neighbor. On the switch side, there are people who are on opposite sides of each of these.

No one will ever agree entirely with anyone else on what is the "optimum" level of realism in order for the game to be fun. That's why you have the Korsun Pockets of the world on one end and the DOOM IIIs on the other. People have different tastes and will never agree completely.

 

[warpstorm]

And some of us are mixed up and like both KP and DOOM3.

 

[dh_epic]

Well, the opinion I trust is that of the designers. They've made it clear that they want nothing to do with adding micromanagement complexity -- even in the name of realism.

Macromanagement, the kinds of decisions that make me feel like I'm changing the overall direction of my empire rather than adjusting what I can get done this turn, that's what I hope they'll include. If they have any attitude on "good realism", it's probably closer to this. Hence words like religion and civics, rather than "detailed military engine", or "4 different kinds of workers", or "elections every 4 turns".

 

[perilisk]

If something works too unrealisticly, then it is hard for people to understand the consequences of their actions, whereas simple realism can help in this.

Realistically, most governments don't understand the consquence of their actions. So if being unrealistic makes the law of unintended consequences bite people more often, then technically being unrealistic makes the game more realistic. Of course, I'm just being a smart-arse.

 

[Coburn]

My point is that, as the game currently stands I (the player) have WAY too much control over the fate of my empire! I still want to control most things but, at the same time, I want to occasionally feel that some things are totally out of my hands...
I want the ability for big, burgeoning empires to come crashing down under their own weight from time to time-not just because its realistic, but because its a great way for smaller, better managed nations to get into the lead!

I agree with aussie_lurker's sentiments. I love contestability. I'm not a good player but it strikes me that in Civ, success comes in "building momentum" in trade, science or arms. This is fine, however there is a certain "linear feel" to the game - when a Civ attacks me, it does not throw absolutely every unit it's got at me - it tends to drip feed the units into battle. Aussie_lurker indicates he would like to see a greater place for random events. Putting a somewhat different spin on this - i'd like to see certain strategies, if successfully pursued by a weaker power, give rise to a reaction or capability that is NOT incremental in its effect.

 

[Commander Bello]

Less realism? Even less?

Admitting that I couldn't bear to read the whole thread, the first postings give me the impression that the "unofficial supporter crew" just launched another attempt to explain the currently chosen path as good. Well, I just disagree with this.

Realism is not bad. Realism is not good "per se". It is very much based on the way in which it is implemented. And here the things are missing.

Yes, we have realism which eats machine-ressources: waving trees and other stuff like birds and horsies.

Do we have realism in the main game components? No.

We have a crude combat system, where even the land-bound combats are strange (arty, helis, walls, castles, forts). Naval and air warfare are just a smash into the player's face.
Diplomay has been changed, yet not improved, and for sure hasn't become more "realistic".
Trading: just the same thing.
Production and ressources: just the same mess as before.

I could go on almost endlessly,but why?

Civ4 is like turning a model train landscape from scale TT to one build of Lego bricks. More colours to catch the kid's attention, and trails easier to be connected. More fun to play? No. Not, if you are above the age of 10.

Where are options like multi-lateral diplomacy?
Where is indirect trading?
Where is a senseful ressource system?
Where is (at least the option to have) absolute figures instead of percentages provided by buildings?

Where, the hell, is the love to this genre?

Firaxis, release "Warlords", rip us off once more, and then fire the past crew and try to fix the concept for the next expansion.
Have a look at how the real world works, and by all means, add some realism to the game! It is possible, nowadays more than ever. Today's computers could calculate the necessary algorithms... you would just have to implement them.

So many things could have been done to make the game "realistic" AND fun.... but it seems it was more important to listen to some fans who assured you to be great guys by mixing things which don't fit at all.

Ah, i just stop here, since I am getting sick thinking of guys pleading for "less realism"