Mod Concepts by a real developer : Civ4 Real World

[yendorII]

News coverage is not much of a concern here as we are not looking to profit off this project in any way or do anything in bad taste such as the JFK game where you actually shot JFK. This project is not endorsed directly by any publisher or development studio so the only potential for flak will lie on the mod itself. We are simply exercising our freedom to do the things that Firaxis could not due to PR concerns.

We are not looking to directly reflect the extermination of any race or religion in this mod. We are looking instead to reflect on the existence of Fascism, Nazism and the Nazi war machine and make it into a valuable game type. Hitler did not have to seek to exterminate anyone, he could have used his war machine purely for land invasions with the same goal in mind - to conquer the world.

I understand your point. However you forget that the "flak" will also come down on the game itself and the community involved. These PR concerns are real and are there for a very good reason. If you do this it will be seen by the laymen as an example of all those who play this game. This isnt right but it is the world we live in. Unfortunatly PERCEPTION is more powerful than fact.

What if a certain unnamed politician got their hands on what you propose?

The reality of the situation would not matter anywhere near as much as the PERCEPTION of the situation.

The Hot Coffee mod is a perfect example as some were claiming that this mod hurt their 14 year old son who shouldnt be exposed to such things.

14 YEAR OLD! This person should never have had the game but that isnt brought up, no one but real gamers notice this discrepency. This is our world and we need to be responsible for our actions not just claim that our intent was small and not to be taken as a larger example. We must use our intelligence to decide when something is worth the backlash.

I love the CIV series and dont want to see it mentioned with the likes of Grand Theft Auto in this manner.

Also while you may not actually be saying jew or implying a specific race being touched by this the implication to EVERYONE who sees it will be just that and any intelligent arguement otherwise will simply be ignored as the rantings of a Jew hating racist regardless of the actual facts involved.

Once agian I repeat PERCEPTION is more powerful than fact. I would hope that someone in the entertainment industry whith what I assume is a well educated background would realize this fact. I appreciate the dialog and hope you know that I am not just attacking you but pointing out real concerns that I have based on my experiances with people in political correctness issues.

 

[gunnergoz]

My initial impression is negative; I'm not entirely sure why, although Juriel's comment hits close to how I feel; a "boys and their toys" sort of thing. The way the mod is presented, it captures only the negative Hollywood whizz-bang sense of the historical elemets that the designers want to implement, but does not address the context or more global implications. It's a start, but it is still unfocused. It simply adds more brutality to little apparent gain. The name of the came is "civilization" not "barbarism." Yes, Civ does confront the player with choices but there are positive upsides to the game as well. I see no positive elements in the suggested additions. Civ is not a history simulator; it is an empire building game. It is purposely sanitized to the extent that it is so that it can be socially acceptible for more people; not just in a p.c. sense, but also in the context of what individuals are comfortable reproducing in their fantasy worlds.
So is this "Civ for Grown Ups?" I'm 57...fairly grown up; and no, the mod does not appeal too much as yet. It would make Civ too unpleasant for my tastes. A bit too much "in your face" is all.
But keep working at it. Try to get a theme and a focus. What exactly is it you are trying to capture here? So far, I'd say yes to things like plagues and economic globalization issues; a maybe to some of the ideas about political extremes like fascism/totalitarianism. But I still have issues with the incorporation of too much specificity in a game that is largely about abstractions. Flamethrowers, IED's, suicide bombers, ultra-long-range artillery and terrorist units are strategically irrelevant on a game of historical scale and scope like Civ. WMD's are a possibility, but we already have nukes and lord knows they are devastating enough to the game. I suspect that the inclusion of all these tactical nasties will only prompt people to use them and the flavor of the game will be drastically altered to one where the goal is to be the only civilizationj left standing, with the rest of the world a contaminated and depopulated wasteland.
For some, this may be an appealing concept...perhaps to those raised in these cynical and depressing times; I myself would rather play a game that focused upon building a civilization (accent on the "civil" part of the word), as opposed to a game that tended to drive us all back to mentally living in barbarian goodie huts.

 

[yendorII]

BTW In a game which encompasses 6000 years of fictional history why in the world would you choose the most uncomforatable, hardest to digest 4(sorry im american lol 9 and a half years was it?) years in real history? Something that in cIVs terms lasts maybe 10 min of gameplay in a game in which I frequently have week long games.

 

[Nuh Uh]

Hey there Real World, if you haven't already - please see first two pages of:
'CIV 4 - "Where's the Beef?" a Meat and Potatoes take on the game' thread here in the general discussion of Civ 4 section of the Fanatics. Two things really - really - really need fixed, IMO.
Thanks.

 

[Dale]

I don't think you've done your research very well. Some of these "ideas" require recoding the engine itself. Be bad for you "designers" if you can't even do them after the SDK.

Also, you do realise that just mentioning Nazi gets you banned in one of your biggest markets in Europe. Pretty silly idea don't you think? Obviously something you "producers" didn't think of.

So why don't you just come out and say who you are and that you're creating a mod to prod at some of the biggest missery events in the modern era? Good luck, I ain't signing up for this one.

Dale

 

[The Great Apple]

Turn on the news any day of the week. Most of our troop and vehicle deaths come from suicide bombers and IEDs not gunshots.

Very true, however, the scale of those casualties are miniscule to the casualties in a "real war". I supose a nuclear suicide bomber would maybe cause the amount of damage you are suggesting, however it is far to high for regular bombers, who do more damage to civilians than to troops.

I could go on for ages about game development but I'll cut this short. You seem to see things from a freelance mod perspective which is great for smaller mods that change one or two things.

If you look at just about every mod for any game released on the internet, the guys who came up with the ideas, are also the guys who do alot of the work on the mod. If you browse many modding boards you see loads of people who think they have a really good idea, and volenteer to be the team leader, hoping that somebody who can actually do something will join them, and do all the work making there ideas into a reality. People very rarely do.

The skills in demand for large-scale modding tend to be programming, and graphics. Very few people actually need developers, or producers - again, look at mods with have already come out - very few were started, or even contain people who have production and development skills. Although, having said that, probably the most famous mod around (Counter-strike), was started by a 3D modeller/programer... and a public relations man (although both were studying computer science)


Other things - remember to keep it realtive simple. While some people seem to like huge complexity, I think the majority prefer a game they can understand.

Also, these ideas all seem to cover the modern part of Civ (expect religions and plagues). Aren't you going to beef up the realism in the Ancient era?

 

[Gogf]

3. Fascism and Nazism. Nazism allows the construction of the Führerbunker wonder which enables the builder to access the Holocaust civic. The Holocaust severs all ties with all current allies and in turn declares war on them. The Holocaust then increases military production at a rate of 2x the standard rate for all units. All captured cities are reduced to a population of

Why would you include the holocaust, especially with just a beneficial effect? Do you really think it's a good idea to attach a huge bonus to an act that murdered millions of people? That's like allowing the production of a "genocide" national wonder that adds +3 happy faces per city because it got rid of a hated minority .

 

[screwtype]

Edit......

 

[screwtype]

That's like allowing the production of a "genocide" national wonder that adds +3 happy faces per city because it got rid of a hated minority .

LOL, yes, I agree, it's in very poor taste.

 

[holy king]

none of the ideas are historically accurate...

the holocaust? come on it increased production?
flame throwers? ever heard of an entire flame thrower unit?
etc...

 

[linjon1]

nazis and holocaust?

what about child abuse?
domestic violence?
priest abuse?

you sound like a youngster who just wants to tweak his parents, or kid sister.

after all the uproar over gta, i for one would suggest you put your creative(??) talents behind some other game.

political correct?
perhaps./

so?

this is the world we live in.

 

[minimus]

Well I would certainly avoid the holocaust not because it is politically incorrect but because it is politically alive today and a serious issue in our world and it seems a bit to important to have as an option in a game.

On a practical level it would seem that you would be committing genocide in the game and I would assume only in cities you own this would lead to a serious loss of production capabilities in the long run even if compensated with an increased military production not quite sure how the game would deal with this anyhow it’s a daft idea I would forget about it.

 

[yendorII]

Minimus I apoligize. I wasnt meaning that the holocaust is bad for pc reasons only. That is not how I meant it to come across I was just trying to explian why the issue itself is just radioactive. You are correct that it was and is a very serious issue.

 

[Venger]

The concepts of Naziism are disgusting to the core. Not only are they historically inaccurate (double production? Compare output of the United States war footing with Nazi Germany - not...even...close...), but you will never, ever get a mod allowing you to build a Holocaust civic on Apolyton or CivFanatics. And for bloody good reasons.

Junk Food religion? Gimme a break...

Venger

 

[Civ4_RealWorld]

Ladies and Gentleman, please stop bringing up Grand Theft Auto. Every developer and publisher in the games biz had major discussions about this. The uproar was due to the lack of complete disclosure to the ESRB which would have affected the rating. Rockstar Games failed to remove the nude content from the shipped game and did not disclose that fact when they submitted their final build to the ESRB for their rating. ESRB gave them a Mature which allowed them to be sold at virtually all stores across the nation when in reality they should have been given an AO rating. I know all about the situation in detail so please, let's not even go there. It is a completely different topic. A modder could have made a nude version of the entire game and there would not have been an uproar or recall. It was only because the developer themselves included the content without notifying the ESRB.

Also, these are all pre-concept doc concepts. I made this clear. Things can change, wording can change, etc. The past should not be ignored or covered up. Hitler could have used his war machine for a totally different purpose. That's the thing about Civ, you have the choice to use your advantages the way you want to. Someone could initiate the "Holocaust" and use it simply for defense or even as a deterrant to goto war with them. On the same token, if they do go on a rampage, it would influence most likely every player in the game to gang up on them just as the world did against Germany in WWII. Nazism / Holocaust wouldn't come with Concentration Camps - the closest thing to the impact that it really had would be the elimination of city size to 1.

Regarding the Genocide comment, leaders have done worse in the hopes of making their people happy. A game like Civilization should allow the player to be what they want and do what they want. Nuking every enemy city of someone you're at war with is just as nasty and brutal. You see the death of the people immediately reflected by the number drop. Units die. Tiles are destroyed. How is nuclear war in Civ4 any worse than what I am proposing? What about Holy City razing? In a game I played the other day, someone razed my holy city and laughed about killing the Jews. Should I cry myself to sleep over that because we live in a politically correct world?

A mod has the freedoms to do what developers cannot. Developers are not responsible in any way what so ever of what their users create as a mod. They are exempt from all liability even if someone makes a simulation of crashing a plane into government buildings with their game. The reason why Civilization is so PC is because they are no doubt trying to avoid the drama and chaos of offending others. This mod will still try to sugar coat some things but one of the goals of this mod is to show more of the paranoia and caution needed by countries in the real world.

In regards to re-coding the engine, there would be code changes necessary which is why programmers would be brought on. I don't know if you understand engines completely but on the PC, usually the sky is the limit with things you can program in with good programmers. All you need is talent and someone that understands the engine, the languages involved and how to make it effectively work.

If a country would like to ban a downloadable free mod over the word Nazi, then that is their choice. I believe that censorship in games is the last thing we want. Even in Call of Duty 2, they spouted out about how the use of the nazi flag was a huge deal. Let it be. Even Doom 3's use of pentagrams and hell was looked down on. These are games people. Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Osama, Ghenghis Khan, etc. didn't become mass murderers because they simulated it on the computer first. Evil people are born evil and will fulfill their own destinys if it is meant to be.

Regarding earlier ages, of course we will look for ways to improve the early game experience but the fact of the matter is, there is very little to work with besides plagues. There were talks about unique seiging abilities like suicide flaming tar battering rams that destroy city defense in one turn. There was even talk about defense options like flaming oil in cities that cause damage to attackers over time automatically with each attack. There would have to be a lot of brainstorming however.

Also I would like to say that the modern times do not represent ten minutes in game at least in the ones I have been in. The final stretch of the last 200 years or so when I'm in those times usually last a good 1-2 hours.

Keep the feedback coming.

 

[gocanes]

No prob, you'll just have to wait for the Disney mod where tanks shoot strawberries... Also another thing, many Americans complain about the viciousness of the Nazis while forgeting that their own ancestors where responsible for ethnically cleansing American Indians by the millions after settling the new world. Every civilization on this planet has blood on its hands and a record of genocide. The Haulocaust is merely the latest episode.

Although some of your comments are true, I do not believe the US had a systematic and ordered way for murdering Indians. Given we removed many Indians from their territories as part of our own manifest destiny (trail of tears), there was no systematic and organized camp system for the Indians execution and termination as a people.

If you would like this Mod to be more realistic, you would have to make your country so poor that a fanatical group like the Nazis could rise to power. At that time, allow you to have two allies and rest enemies. Reduce your populatin by a couple million and then when you begin taking over other civs, systematically reduce those civs populations to count for the extermination of the civilians or ethnic cleansing. Then, make sure you have squares that are occupied by death camps and fairly extensive rail network to transport the people you are killing.

Sounds like a lot of fun... I don't think I will be taking advantage of this mod.

 

[yendorII]

Okay be reasonable the halocaust is not a description of the production power of the german economy it is a reference to one thing only. The extermination of Jews, Gypsies, even the Polish to an extent. Do not confuse the holocaust with production as there were no goods produced in Auswitz.(sorry if I spelled that wrong.)

The fact of the matter is that if you include something called the Holocaust or any realistic depiction of the Nazi Regime the people that you hope to reach with this mod will vanish into thin air. No one will be listening to your ideas some of which are quite good. It sounds like you can possibly put together a really nice piece of programming but if you want your audience to dissapear just keep talking about the holocaust. PERIOD.

 

[Red Door]

This doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Far far far to dangerous. How on earth would a group of suicide bombers destry a unit of tanks... or maines... or anything for that matter? This just doesn't make sence...

Oh, it does. What about in Beirut in 1981?
Suicide Truck Bombers killed 281 marines with one bomb. Also, 2 marines a day are dying in Iraq. Tanks wouldn't be able to be destroyed however.

 

[LordO]

here are my ideas about how religions should be

buddhism : enable pacifism civic and gives a diplomatic bonus to every civilization known to you ( significant enough so they dont go at war with you)

army cost doubled, and war weariness +50%

Hinduism : enable slavery civic; sacrifice your population gives a bonus in ressources and no ( kinda like the aztecs used to beleive .. sacrifice something to the god and you shall receive a bonus .. so did the greeks during their polyteist years .. exept they would sacrifice animals)

any event : plague, blizzard, hurricane, flood, starvation, brings more unhappiness to your civ.

judaism : +100% effects of banks and any other economy related building

diplomatic penality against civs with christianity or holocaust civic.

Christianity : 10 free missionaries, effects of cathedrals/temples +100%, +100% millitary production

-50% research, diplomatic penality against civs with judaism/hinduism/islam

Islam : +50% building production , war weariness -50% , production cost of terrorist halved

diplomatic penalty against any religion and any liberal civic

confucianism : founder gets the philosophical trait added to his first 2 traits and give +5 culture to every city

production cost of units doubled

taoism : founder gets the spiritual trait added to his first 2 traits, receive 1 great prophet

cost of units doubled

also .. i would find it interesting to add drugs to the game

Cocaine : workers work 100% faster, 20% income penalty (black market)

Opium field : gives +x science bonus researching medical techs, bonus for units using the health regeneration upgrade, bonus for medical buildings. 50% of getting 1(for every population you get in a city)population addicted, therefore giving a -1 health and -2 happiness

marijuana : boost happiness in a city by 5, reduce health by 2

pills : require chemistry ; give access to ressource speed, wich give +2 movement to any unit, but -1 happiness , and extasy , +3 happiness and -3 health

 

[yendorII]

Okay I am hoping this is just good intentions gone wrong. First of all,

here are my ideas about how religions should be

judaism : +100% effects of banks and any other economy related building

diplomatic penality against civs with christianity or holocaust civic.

This seems a touch racist to me but ill leave it alone as I am not Jewish.

Christianity : 10 free missionaries, effects of cathedrals/temples +100%, +100% millitary production

-50% research, diplomatic penality against civs with judaism/hinduism/islam.

UMMMM Why the diplo penalty against judaism? Christainity and Judaism are very much linked. In the christian bible it is said that to harm one of Gods Chosen(Jewish people) endagers your soul. But agian religious debate, not good.

Islam : +50% building production , war weariness -50% , production cost of terrorist halved.

You do know of course that terrorism and Islam are only related because they happen to exist in the same places?

Islam does not cause terrorism, Stupidity and Ignorance do.
Agian this seems slightly racist/prejudice. And no I am not Islamic just so you know.