Parallels between changes in Civ7 and the Ukrainian War

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

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.

I agree.
If they were to include Kievan Rus or Ukraine as their own civ, I could probably see that more as a political statement. I also think that there's no way they would want to do that with the current mechanic of Civ switching, at least for Kievan Rus, most likely being an Exploration Age civ and turning into something else.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Yeah... I really don't think the War on Ukraine had any influence over the devolopment of Civilization VII

 

[Snowygerry]

Obviously any game reflects the worldview of those that design it, back during the Cold War the expected conflict was a large East-West conflict, and games mirrored that.

Then came the time we never expected a major war in Europe again and wars were multi-national operations in third world countries, and games reflected that.

Now the mood shifted again, limited conflict between major players seems possible, without escalating immediately into global conflict, it would be strange if this is not visible in the games made today imho.

 

[Gedemon]

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.

Spanish civil war, USA from 1939 to 1941, Cold War, ...

You could also give units in previous versions of the game.

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.

This was requested by player since a very long time, and was implemented in a scenario for civ6 (Gift of the Nil)

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.

I don't think you did it intentionally, but I find that supposition to be insulting toward the devs knowledge of history.

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.

Stalingrad.

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.

Not even coincidence IMO, that's too far-stretched, and more importantly game was at mid-development at the start of the 2022 invasion, at that date the core gameplay features were surely already fixed.

They already had a civ6 scenario about pandemic (The Black Death)

If the current war has an influence, I suppose we'll see it on the Civilizations list, and maybe we'll have some reference to drones/EW in the late game warfare.

 

[user330977]

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

There's even a technology called Fascism in Civ IV that unlocks the Police State government!

 

[Cedbird77]

Drone warfare. It was apart of Civ 6. But not impressive. I was thinking it would be depicted more graphically. And I certainly see that being possible with the new warfare models

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?

 

[Snowygerry]

If the current war has an influence, I suppose we'll see it on the Civilizations list, and maybe we'll have some reference to drones/EW in the late game warfare.

Or the choices in unique units for example, if that is still a thing, for the US it was fighters first iirc, then changed to SF type units, hard to see that not having been influenced by contemporary events.

 

[Gedemon]

Or the choices in unique units for example, if that is still a thing, for the US it was fighters first iirc, then changed to SF type units, hard to see that not having been influenced by contemporary events.

that's a 1988 event, and Sid Meier was well aware of it

F-19 Stealth Fighter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Snowygerry]

You must be as old as I am if you played that one, I surely must have bombed every airport and Sam battery from Narvik to Tripoli by the time I was 15.

 

[Haig]

I read the thread as "..parallels between Civ VII and Paraguyan war"