Looking for a REAL strategy game

[Davidka]

Here's something I've been thinking about since I was about 15.
The most important things in this world happen because of emergent behavior. A lot of independent entities form together some higher-level behavior.

An economy is thriving not thanks to tactical decisions a public official makes, but thanks to the growth that emerges from thousands of corporations and businesses doing their own things. And a revolution occurs not after some community leader calls for it, but after hundreds of people work independently to publish revolutionary material, sabotage government operations and go out to the streets to protest.

So I really miss this inherent feature of the world in strategy games. I don't want to be this omnipotent leader who controls every small detail in the empire. I want a game that lets me become a policy maker in this breathing empire. I want to see hundreds of AI leaders already managing my empire. I want to see them compete and cooperate. I want to see evenly distributed good workers and bad workers.

My role as a player should be limited to strategically setting public policies, which over time affect the way my society functions.

The closest thing I can think of is the Sim City franchise. But I'd love to see this happen in a CIV-like game. What do you think?

 

[PhroX]

The problem with making a game like this is giving the player enough to do to keep him involved. While some people might be happy making policy decisions every now and then and sitting back watching their world develop, most gamers wouldn't be. That's not to say it'd be a bad idea, but ensuring there's enough playability for the game to sell while still keeping the principles intact could be difficult.


On related note, from a purely military perspective, Hearts of Iron III lets you pretty much do this kinda thing. While you can control every unit individually, the option exists to switch to AI control at any level from individual divisions up to theatre level. You give the AI it's objectives (take this province, defend that one, advance along this axis etc), and it will carry them out. While using this on a small scale isn't much different from manual control, by the time you get to army level it's pretty close to what you imagine - you give the overall orders, but the AI implements them.

 

[Newbunkle]

The closest thing I can think of is MOO3.

*shudders*

 

[Europhile]

PhroX said it right.

 

[MkLh]

So I really miss this inherent feature of the world in strategy games. I don't want to be this omnipotent leader who controls every small detail in the empire. I want a game that lets me become a policy maker in this breathing empire. I want to see hundreds of AI leaders already managing my empire. I want to see them compete and cooperate. I want to see evenly distributed good workers and bad workers.

A reality simulator like this would be really difficult to implement and need enormous computing power.

 

[Davidka]

PhroX, I agree it's going to be a challenge to create engaging game play for something like this. But I'm convinced some one with the imagination of Sid Meier or Will Wright could make it work.

MkLh, today's PCs have 4GB of memory and quad-core 4Ghz CPUs. You know, you can do a lot with that. I've seen some amazing real-time physical simulations...

 

[MkLh]

MkLh, today's PCs have 4GB of memory and quad-core 4Ghz CPUs. You know, you can do a lot with that. I've seen some amazing real-time physical simulations...

Yes but I doubt that is nearly enough for a society simulator you described. An attempt to implement hundreds of agents cooperating and competing would most likely lead to a thing called combinatorial_explosion. No today's computer is able to handle that, you would need a quantum computer or something. While some game worlds look impressive, they are actually quite limited compared to the real world.

 

[carmen510]

The closest game to that which I've played is Victoria 2, which is basically a political, economic, and social simulator of the Industrial Revolution up to WW1. Balancing the needs of multiple classes of society (peasants, clergymen, officials, soldiers, capitalists, etc.), political parties, and multiple nationalities & religious groups is a nice challenge, as you strive to modernize your nation.

 

[Ninja Dude]

Try Victoria!

Fixed.