Playing to have fun vs. playing to win

[Linklite]

IMO that's a big problem with many 4X games in general: failstates are frustrating rather than interesting.

Probably because success and failure are both positive feedback loops. You build an army, conquer a city, which gives you more resources so you build a second army, so you conquer two more cities...etc. failure is you lose a city, so you can't support as many armies, so you can't defend as many cities, so this time you lose two..

Positive feedback loops are not good for gameplay. On the other hand, it's hard to avoid them because why would invade another city, if not to gain a further advantage?

I'm playing GalCiv3 and I couldn't tell you how the mechanics brought this on, but capturing colonies isn't producing a massive runaway effect like it does in Civ VI. They're a boon to be sure, but even now that I've taken a third of the map, while I'm the leading faction, I haven't reach god tier either. The corollary is that if I were to suffer a reversal, it wouldn't automatically spell my doom I'd have a chance of stopping the rot and reversing the tide.

Of course, the other issue is time. You spend hours building up your civ, if you lose it tona substantial degree, frustration is inevitable.

 

[Abaxial]

I could win much faster if I wanted to. Typically, by midgame I have huge reserves of gold and faith, and if I spent it all effectively I would win more quickly, but I enjoy pottering along.

 

[raen]

For the fun and modding.

 

[Old Victoria]

I play a bit of both. When I couldn't get past better, I looked for Youtube videos and found Potato McWhiskey and learned how to settle and micromanage tiles. It was literally a gamechanger! But ever since he told me (I tweeted him to thank him for the vids) that Emperor was the last level that was challenging and fun enough, I set that as my goal and have no interest in Immortal and Deity

Thing is: even in real life, I can't handle too many things at the same time, so when playing, I never manage to settle more than 5-7 cities (and only later learned this is called "playing tall")

This weekend I tried a challenge that someone mentioned on the comments of one of Potato McWhiskey's streams: build all wonders on settler level. After failing twice around turn 80, I decided I was going to go for it and instead see how many wonders I can build. Golden Gate I couldn't, because there wasn't a suitable location on the whole map. And the AI snagged 4 wonders from under me. But I had fund.

(And before Civ 6, I only played Sims 4 and old 80's/90's games on DosBox, so it's kind of no wonder, I guess XD )

 

[PiR]

Well I don't know what to vote.

I agree with all these:

I think this is a false dichotomy. I certainly play to have fun, and would hardly call myself an optimiser or rank myself with the best players on these forums. But I still play to win. Losing, or especially being stuck in a frustrated position where you can't expand as much as you want in Civ isn't very enjoyable.

I would suggest that in a well-designed strategy game, pursuing the relevant victory conditions should be fun.

I often like to do some kind of "role playing", in the sense that when an AI attacks me and I succesfully defend, I like to go and punish him as much as I can (or as long as it's fun).

I would even not forgive (specially backstab) and focus my game to conquer all of their cities, to the last one, no matter the consequences on how the world sees me.

The contrast to me would seem instead to be between speed-players and role-players. You don’t have to be set on winning in under 200 turns to still be focussed eventually on winning.

Saying that there's a difference between playing "to win" and playing "to have fun" is ridiculous because the assumption there is that it's not fun to overcome challenges.

Who says winning isn't fun? I think it is.

I voted equal amounts. Because while I do play to win, I also like to do things I consider fun like growing large cities and building wonders like Venetian Arsenal which is completely irrelevant to winning the game. I just like to build a large Navy by the end even if I don't ever use it.

same for me with useless wonders, just to have the animation sometimes (although would be faster to look for it on youtube )

As others have said, if you want a contrast, it's not really fun vs win, but fun / roleplay / do what I like vs win as quickly as possible.

I pursue a few achievements each game, and they give me enough of a goal to motivate having fun.

That's something that is fun and challenging and a source of motivation for me as well.





Therefore according to this:

I would reconcile that by distinguishing between a performance-oriented player (take any civ and any map (standard conditions, random opponents, etc.) and play as well, as crisply and efficiently, as possible, without sentiment or distraction) vs. pure speed-run players, who (if CFC's HOF play is any indicator) may select opponents and map conditions, and re-roll maps for optimum starts (all within HOF rules), and then aim to beat their best time (or the best posted finish time) for a given victory condition. Nothing wrong with either aim, but they are different aims.

I'm not a speed-run at all.



BUT, reading this:

Let me reword what I have written in the OP as the title is written rather poorly:

The performer type is more interested in the characters and plot of a game.

The technician type is more interested in gameplay mechanics and beating challenges.

Civ is a game that suits both very well.

I see that a good number of Civ fans are more interested in the background information about a particular civ and leader as compared with the mechanics of how the civ and leader play.

I'm confused how to choose again, so, well, I think I'm both.

Soooooo... there are many ways to enjoy the game.

What id like to see is a broader range of victories, perhaps civ specific. EU4 comes close but misses actual the actual victories, while Civ makes victories too generic and restrictive. I would love to play a game as Japan in which victory entails me to play isolationalist, or play as Macedon in which victory would mean razing x number of cities for example. Allows a more unique feel, since each civ would have its own specific approach and individual playstyle. atm it feels far too generic.

Something like Rhye's and Fall from Civ IV?

RFC

 

[Snowygerry]

Winning any game of civ is a decidedly underwhelming experience - usually I play untill a particular "problem" is solved - be it the challenging starting position or defeating my biggest rival, dominating my home continent etc.

Some rare games continue with modern wars but ultimately very few...

 

[Shibooyeah]

My favorite part of any game is the first 50-60 turns. I restart frequently. So...

 

[iammaxhailme]

If I played 100% to win without any focus on fun, I would just win by domination victory in the first 100 turns about 90% of the time, because that's almost always optimal. I hate playing that way though. I just want to have fun exploring and civ-citying.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

If I played 100% to win without any focus on fun, I would just win by domination victory in the first 100 turns about 90% of the time, because that's almost always optimal. I hate playing that way though. I just want to have fun exploring and civ-citying.

It's actually superbly difficult for me to win Domination because I'm constantly taunted by all of the infrastructure and extra yields I could get if I stopped building units... I also get easily discouraged from having to slowly traverse my units cumbersomely across terrain that consumes all their movement in a single turn. Micromanaging supreme...

 

[aieeegrunt]

It's actually superbly difficult for me to win Domination because I'm constantly taunted by all of the infrastructure and extra yields I could get if I stopped building units... I also get easily discouraged from having to slowly traverse my units cumbersomely across terrain that consumes all their movement in a single turn. Micromanaging supreme...

That combined with UPT is torture

 

[iammaxhailme]

It's actually superbly difficult for me to win Domination because I'm constantly taunted by all of the infrastructure and extra yields I could get if I stopped building units... I also get easily discouraged from having to slowly traverse my units cumbersomely across terrain that consumes all their movement in a single turn. Micromanaging supreme...

Yeah, I think I have won about five domination games in earnest out of like 400 games that I"ve won, both across civ 5 and 6. And even so they were mostly on small-ish maps. Sometimes I start a game intending to do it but I always quit once I conquer about half the world and realize that I'm in for another 5 hours of clicking to move people around even though I've basically already won.

 

[Qwan]

I agree with Uberfrog. I quit games when I'm in a hopeless losing position. If an AI has captured my capitol, I'm not going to endure the game until they wipe out my minor cities. I quit early at least half the games I start.

Although, note that everyone plays the game to have fun. That's the point of a game. So the real underlying question is how important winning, or being able to win, to your having fun. My best friend likes new content, and gets excited to play with each new release, and while he likes doing better than the AI, he never finishes games.

Alas, I have temporarily stopped playing Civ. Apparently, being able to win is rather important to me, and I've discovered that's currently not possible, at least at Diety level on a standard-size map. The game will crash first -- you can see my thread under Bug Reports. In one of those four games, I was less than 30 turns away from victory. I don't know why, but I just find it less satisfying knowing that I would have won than getting to that final Win screen.

I think this is a false dichotomy. I certainly play to have fun, and would hardly call myself an optimiser or rank myself with the best players on these forums. But I still play to win. Losing, or especially being stuck in a frustrated position where you can't expand as much as you want in Civ isn't very enjoyable.

I would suggest that in a well-designed strategy game, pursuing the relevant victory conditions should be fun.

 

[PiR]

It's actually superbly difficult for me to win Domination because I'm constantly taunted by all of the infrastructure and extra yields I could get if I stopped building units... I also get easily discouraged from having to slowly traverse my units cumbersomely across terrain that consumes all their movement in a single turn. Micromanaging supreme...

Yeah, I think I have won about five domination games in earnest out of like 400 games that I"ve won, both across civ 5 and 6. And even so they were mostly on small-ish maps. Sometimes I start a game intending to do it but I always quit once I conquer about half the world and realize that I'm in for another 5 hours of clicking to move people around even though I've basically already won.

Go to GDR and nukes for domination if you don't want to micromanage a domination victory. It's very late-game but very different than conquering earlier. Also if you play on a map like Archipelago, boats don't have the same issue of moving slowly. And as you only have to capture the opponents capital (not all their cities, don't fall into that trap, I often do because of roleplay and because I enjoy it more than a quick win), you can sometimes plan to declare war to all and win within 5 turns.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Go to GDR and nukes for domination if you don't want to micromanage a domination victory. It's very late-game but very different than conquering earlier. Also if you play on a map like Archipelago, boats don't have the same issue of moving slowly. And as you only have to capture the opponents capital (not all their cities, don't fall into that trap, I often do because of roleplay and because I enjoy it more than a quick win), you can sometimes plan to declare war to all and win within 5 turns.

Ehh, if I get that late in the game and still have a chance of winning a domination victory, I'd just go to space instead, which is a lot less stressful and you're practically at that level anyway.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I definitely lean towards "Performer". I like to win, of course, and it is at the back of my mind during the game.....but I don't go out of my way to "meta-game", nor do I obsess too much over the various victory conditions. I mostly enjoy the Roleplay aspect of the game, & have frequently made decisions that made sense, from a role-playing perspective, but actually ham-strung me from the point of view of winning the game.

 

[chazzycat]

I vote for Leaning towards performer since I find myself care more about yields and stats of the empire at a certain number of turns instead of winning as quickly as possible.

lol I suspect the poll was worded incorrectly

 

[Finvola]

Of course I like to win but I play for fun. I can win on Deity but I don't play optimally or micromanage or over strategize and plan things out. That's what put me off increasing the difficulty levels for so long because I thought those things were necessary to play on higher difficulties but I have since learned that isn't the case. I'm always impressed by players who can play that way but I don't have the brain for it. I'm like that with all games I play, while I like to improve my game and push myself to do better, I'm also not the sort who will abandon my whole play style to achieve it or sacrifice my fun to do it.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I play mostly for fun/RP reasons.

The nice thing about this game is the different difficulty levels really lend themselved to very different styles of play

 

[gimley_gunner]

Whether I'm losing or winning it's for the fun. Otherwise I wouldn't even bother to launch the game