Parallels between changes in Civ7 and the Ukrainian War

[kryat]

I’ve wondered for a long time if seeing a modern geopolitical crisis unfold would have changes on the next iteration of Civ. While I can’t day for sure if these parallels are true cause/effect relationships or whether they’re coincidence, I’ve noticed the following parallels:

Soft diplomatic and war support
There have been overhauls to the diplomatic system that allow players not directly involved in the war to express support to one side or another, gaining influence with the side you are supporting. This could be an evolution of the emergency of captured capitols in 6, but it also sounds a lot like the way NATO countries or China and India rallied around Ukraine or Russia (some more overtly than others).

Navigable rivers
The Dnipro River has been incredibly important in the war, serving as a defining line between the two fronts. Other rivers have also had roles, but nothing quite like the impact control of bridgeheads over the Dnipro.

Military commanders
While the main purpose of this feature has nominally been to reduce micromanagement, in many of the clips we’ve seen actual battle lines and fronts form. The Ukrainian war has really sharped in my mind how wars aren’t fought just as battles in one hyperlocal location, but often across fronts that span the country. I think the unpacking and reinforcing mechanics are primed to make in game wars looks more like that from a top down perspective.

Urban defenses
You can now build walls within cities that just be overcome before the city can be conquered. I think this parallels the battles of Avdiika or Bahkmut where the battles around the cities took months or years to culminate, due to how impactful the city defenses were. More closely though, the cities battles happened block by block instead of county by county.

Crises and civ switching
This is maybe a loaded topic, but something that’s been present in the ether is the topic of Ukrainian identity. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Putin has claimed Ukrainian identity doesn’t really exist, and further that it never historically existed; instead it’s always has been a unified Russian identity. I’m going to leave the question of whether Ukraine historically existed out of the conversation. Instead, I’ve observed that since the triple crises of the fall of the Soviet Union, the Euromaidan uprising, and the invasion, a new cohesive identity distinct from historical precedent has been solidifying. I could see this phenomenon as an inspiration for some of the new mechanics.

What do you all think? Is it possible contemporary geopolitical events have an impact on game design?

 

[Zaarin]

The Dnipro River has been incredibly important in the war, serving as a defining line between the two fronts. Other rivers have also had roles, but nothing quite like the impact control of bridgeheads over the Dnipro.

coughs in Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Mississippi, Missouri, Danube, Volga, Yangtze, Huang He, Indus, Orontes, Jordan...

What do you all think? Is it possible contemporary geopolitical events have an impact on game design?

Limited, perhaps, but this game has been in development longer than the war in Ukraine.

 

[Snowygerry]

Obviously yes, the redesigned slavery mechanics for example, or the removal of fundamentalist and fascist government types after 9/11.

Any game is always a reflection of its time…

 

[Zaarin]

the removal of fundamentalist and fascist government types after 9/11.

Pretty sure I remember fascism being in both Civ5 and Civ6...

 

[kryat]

coughs in Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Mississippi, Missouri, Danube, Volga, Yangtze, Huang He, Indus, Orontes, Jordan...

Sorry, when I said other rivers, I meant other minor Ukrainian Rivers in this particular conflict. Yes, rivers have substantially played historical roles in conflicts before, but I wonder if having a present example of a river’s strategic value in front of them finally served as a lightbulb moment to dial up the importance of rivers in game.

 

[Zaarin]

Sorry, when I said other rivers, I meant other minor Ukrainian Rivers in this particular conflict. Yes, rivers have substantially played historical roles in conflicts before, but I wonder if having a present example of a river’s strategic value in front of them finally served as a lightbulb moment to dial up the importance of rivers in game.

It's a feature people have been asking for since forever. If anything, I suspect it was inspired by their new approach to trade routes.

 

[ggmoyang]

You can see a pattern in anything if you look hard enough.
But I'd rather not.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

coughs in Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Mississippi, Missouri, Danube, Volga, Yangtze, Huang He, Indus, Orontes, Jordan...

laughs in Viking.

 

[Zaarin]

laughs in Viking.

You silly people leave piles of treasure in buildings filled with unarmed men right along the rivers and coasts! How thoughtful! (Actually, at least when Harald yells at you for not having a fleet in your inland empire...it's a little more justified now.)

 

[Snowygerry]

Pretty sure I remember fascism being in both Civ5 and Civ6...

It used to be stronger

Jk, you’re right ofcourse, it’s just fundamentalism that got removed after 9/11.

 

[criZp]

I'd bet big money that there's zero link between the war in ukraine and civ7

 

[Lord Lakely]

You can see a pattern in anything if you look hard enough.

And that pattern is more often than not a conspiracy theory

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I notice that a woman is running for president in the USA now. I wonder if that's because there are women in the population?

Well, yes, but that's not the only reason, and as a 'reason' it predates the current event by thousands of years.

Every conflict has included some kind of psychological preparation of the fighters, as simple as haranging the warriors before a raid, as complex as long-term propaganda and diplomacy. The concept of a 'just war' - more properly, a 'justified war' dates back to at least classical Greece and Rome, and was and is largeky justified only in the minds of those expecting to profit from it in some way.

Rivers were emphasized in history and economics in my university Geography classes about 55 years ago.
And rivers in Russia have been the primary routes of transportation until the railroad of the twentieth century, and still are major routes for bulk cargo.

Virtually every other military history written anywhere at any time emphasizes the influence of Commanders - the Great Man theory of history is practically built around it, and only the Marxist historiography of the twentieth century started to pry historians away from it.

Cities have always been nasty terrain to fight in, because cities have always been Defensible Terrain. Ancient Catal Huyok and similar settlements in Anatolia were built with all the buildings sharing outer walls and no doors on the ground floors - entrance by ladders from the roofs, which had to be reached by climbing up sheer unbroken outer walls. Wall and City were virtually identical concepts in many languages, and as late as medieval Europe the definition of a city versus a town was that a city had a defensive wall. Modern cities have more concrete and steel construction in them than 19th century Ring Forts had and as much as the Maginot Line: fighting in them, as every example since Stalingrad has shown, is a military nightmare.

"Ethnic cleansing" and denying the legitimacy of the existence of other groups for propaganda/political purposes is Nothing New. Cue Caesar's wholesale massacres of Gauls millenia ago, and numerous political, religious, ethnic massacres ever since. Putin's remarks have direct predecessors in the racist murders of Russians and other Soviet citizens by the Nazis from the very beginning of the 1941 - 45 Great Patriotic War. In fact, if you want to find practicing Nazis in the Ukraine war, look no further than the Kremlin and the Russian General Staff building in Moscow.

 

[Yeekim]

What do you all think? Is it possible contemporary geopolitical events have an impact on game design?

It is of course possible, but you could find exact same parallels with geopolitical events from hundreds or thousands of years ago, often much more clearly.

 

[fantsu]

coughs in Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Mississippi, Missouri, Danube, Volga, Yangtze, Huang He, Indus, Orontes, Jordan...


Limited, perhaps, but this game has been in development longer than the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian War started in November 2013 as a civil war. But rivers have always been really important. Like wadis in North Africa. Rivers have been more important even in a Civ games before.
Kinda sad. They have felt more of an opportunity for floodplain spawning than anything else. Or just fresh water or opportunity to build certain wonder.
I have to say that I really like rivers to be more strategic too, not just penalty for crossing. I really hope they buff a possible transportation of troops in a some way too. Like movement bonus or such.

 

[Zaarin]

Ukrainian War started in November 2013 as a civil war.

People in the West weren't very aware of it, though.

I really hope they buff a possible transportation of troops in a some way too. Like movement bonus or such.

They count as embarked so in most cases they will.

 

[civac]

Sounds farfetched.

 

[kryat]

I’ll reword this, and hopefully this makes my point more clear. Obviously, a lot of these concepts are preexisting concepts. Clearly the use and importance of rivers, military commanders, etc have been well known for a very long time. My point was that these are new concepts to the Civ franchise, and they are showing up at this specific moment in history. Before I talked about the inspiration, but not the specific implementation.

What I’m noticing is that mechanically wars in game are going to play out closer to how real wars play out. The concepts introduced are not novel to history, but the way the developers have implemented them is specific to achieve a certain feel in the game.


In example: The dev is watching the war unfold, and sees many nations adding support but not follow with war declarations. The dev realizes that they do not have something like that built into their game that is supposed to be about war and diplomacy, so they think about how to add a soft support system, like NATO providing arms and ammo to Ukraine.

The developers have decided to make the plunge and add navigable rivers. Boats can go on the water snakes, hooray! Rivers were important in 6 (providing fresh water, defense, trade bonuses, and commercial hub adjacencies). As they explore how to rework rivers, they settle on having two sizes, greater sized for boats and lesser sized not for boats. Why two sizes though? They’ve always had one before. Why not just make all rivers navigable? It’s plausible that as they’ve watched the greater strategy unfold, they’ve seen not all rivers are created equal. The Dnipro is a much greater barrier than the Inhulets. I doubt this one was a direct observation, but I think it’s plausible that the fact that not all rivers were created equal has been more present in some people’s minds lately. Or it might be random coincidence.

Of course military commanders have been used since the beginnings of war. Civ has had great generals for a very long time. More specifically though, I am interested in what the commander mechanically does. They define a battlefront. The commander’s location means the war will be fought at that point and not elsewhere. They unfold units into lines and serve as a reinforcement point. So not only will a single battle be fought at that point, it will continue to be fought there. I think it’s plausible that they’ve seen real war fronts recently and wondered why it is that before they either had stacks of doom (not exactly historically realistic) or generic carpets meeting. They may have asked themselves how to best create lines of battle, because that seems to be the net effect.

For urban defenses, I can see this as an evolution of the city walls and encampments of 6. Clearly, a major design goal of 6 is to create an urban space on the map. In making this though, they’ve chosen to specifically enable fortifying within the city, not just the perimeter (that would have been my instinct). It’s possible that they allowed building walls in cities so that you have a nice historic and organic aesthetic - the walls of many great cities are far from their boundaries now. Or it could also be that they wanted to introduce the nasty business of fighting block to block while always giving the defender an advantage. The battles I listed earlier are not the first urban battles, but they may be more front of mind than during the development of previous titles. It’s also possible they got inspiration from other historical examples.

I don’t know, it’s very possibly all coincidence. But I think there is something to being a game developer for a history game and seeing history unfold in front of you. Media always is a reflection of the time it’s created in. I would also not be surprised if they include some oblique reference to pandemics in this iteration.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I don’t know, it’s very possibly all coincidence. But I think there is something to being a game developer for a history game and seeing history unfold in front of you. Media always is a reflection of the time it’s created in. I would also not be surprised if they include some oblique reference to pandemics in this iteration.

I do believe that plagues were mentioned as one of the potential crisis that could occur in the game.

 

[Zaarin]

seeing history unfold in front of you

To be pedantic, in order to see history unfold, you would have to go to some historian's private officer and peer over their shoulder while they write. It would be very boring. (Sorry, I know it's pedantic; it's just a pet peeve of mine: history is the interpretation of the events, not the events themselves. )

At any rate, nothing I see in Civ7 says, "Oh, they're trying to make a political statement" to me, and Firaxis tends to keep pretty quiet about contemporary politics anyway. Many of these things are things people have been asking for for years or natural developments of existing features.