Realism vs symbolism - or why Civilization isn't a Paradox game

[Ryika]

I'll remind you that the next time you try and play Settler of Catan or Dungeons and Dragons on your computer.

Funny thing is: There's actually some pretty good Dungeons and Dragons games for PC.

But you're deliberately creating a straw-man here. What Civ is doing is not even close to simply taking a board game and simply porting it to pc. It's taking elements from board games and elements from "traditional" computer games, and that mix seems to be working pretty well for CivV, as it's a very successful game that is constantly within the top played games on Steam.

If there were a Catan game that did a similar thing it could actually be quite a fun experience. And whether they make up the settlers or use historical figures and put them into a pseudo-reality wouldn't change anything about how fun the game is.

 

[rastak]

Who here thinks Civ 5 is like Go?

 

[nyyfootball]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Civ5 is a good computer game.

Civ V is mediocre at best. I am not the only one with this opinion. Civ V panders to casual gamers.

Do you have a problem with people doing that ?

No, it's just more fun to play a board game on a board and not on a computer.

It's a good video game. That's a nice start.

Civ IV is a good game.

Proving my point. Neither is Civ.

Then why does Civ include real life historical figures? Why is the AI being based on the real life historical figures? Why not just completely fictionalize the leader like Braveheart?

 

[Acken]

Civ V is mediocre at best. I am not the only one with this opinion. Civ V panders to casual gamers.

I don't want to burst your bubble here but Civ in the world of video games is not really hardcore gaming .

Also this is just silly. You may try to look as much the old soldier as you want that holds no water. I'll say civ5 is good and that there is room for hardcore play.

No, it's just more fun to play a board game on a board and not on a computer.

Great so do I. A good thing civ is NOT a board game.

Civ IV is a good game.

Agreed. Pointless.

Then why does Civ include real life historical figures? Why is the AI being based on the real life historical figures? Why not just completely fictionalize the leader like Braveheart?

The characters are historical figures in braveheart you know... It's the story and their relationship that is non sense. Like the queen who at the time of wallace's death was 10 and still in France in real life.
Another example would be Inglorious Basterds. Total historical nonsense with real historic figure.

But you're right thereare always some people to remind us that it's bad because it is ahistorical

 

[nyyfootball]

I don't want to burst your bubble here but Civ in the world of video games is not really hardcore gaming .

Civ has only recently become a populist pursuit with Firaxis' focus on console games and mobile games. Civ used to be an intellectual computer game.

Also this is just silly. You may try to look as much the old soldier as you want that holds no water. I'll say civ5 is good and that there is room for hardcore play.

There are entire website devoted to explicating upon the reasons why Civ V is a bad game.

Great so do I. A good thing civ is NOT a board game.

It has been made clear to me numerous times on this forum that Civ is in fact a board game and not a simulation. Ed Beach is a board game designer. How is Civ VI not a board game?

Agreed. Pointless.

Civ V is a bad game. Civ IV is a good game.

The characters are historical figures in braveheart you know... It's the story and their relationship that is non sense. Like the queen who at the time of wallace's death was 10 and still in France in real life.
Another example would be Inglorious Basterds. Total historical nonsense with real historic figure.

Braveheart makes no attempt whatsoever to be historically accurate in any way, shape or form. Braveheart is explicitly based on a fictional poem. Civilization VI is obviously making an effort to make the Civ leaders more similar to their real life counter parts.

But you're right thereare always some people to remind us that it's bad because it is ahistorical

Civ should either go with realism or not. They shouldn't water down real life historical figures.

 

[Ryika]

nyyfootball, I believe you just broke the record of a person claiming their opinion to be objectively correct in as many different ways as possible. Congratulations.

Reality is: You're in the minority. Your opinion doesn't mean **** for anyone but you. Civ VI will probably be a very successful game if it plays as well as it sounds.

And you'll still be sitting there, thinking about ways to convince yourself that despite of its success Civ VI, despite of the fact that the majority in the active Civ community seems to like the game is somehow not worthy of being a Civ game.

And your arguments will become even more ridiculous as you lose more and more ground. Pathetic.

Moderator Action: Please come back to the topic and stop discussing the poster. No matter how misinformed their position may seem to you, they have a right to state them.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Acken]

Civ has only recently become a populist pursuit with Firaxis' focus on console games and mobile games. Civ used to be an intellectual computer game.

There are entire website devoted to explicating upon the reasons why Civ V is a bad game.

Are you serious ? Some obscure website reinforcing your opinion is proof of what ? That's some conspiracy theorist level of argumentation right here.

It has been made clear to me numerous times on this forum that Civ is in fact a board game and not a simulation. Ed Beach is a board game designer. How is Civ VI not a board game?

I've never played Civ6 did you ?

Civ V is a bad game. Civ IV is a good game.

Blablabla. I note Civ5 went for mediocre to bad.

Braveheart makes no attempt whatsoever to be historically accurate in any way, shape or form. Braveheart is explicitly based on a fictional poem. Civilization VI is obviously making an effort to make the Civ leaders more similar to their real life counter parts.

Oh yeah I'm pretty sure Cleopatra's life and Roosevelt's will be accurately represented by Civ6.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Civ has only recently become a populist pursuit with Firaxis' focus on console games and mobile games. Civ used to be an intellectual computer game.

I played Civ III in the year of 2001, and I can't say it was more intellectual than Civ V.

 

[m15a]

(Psssst . . . Civ I was a console game. It's a secret to everybody.)

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Civ has only recently become a populist pursuit with Firaxis' focus on console games and mobile games. Civ used to be an intellectual computer game.

There are entire website devoted to explicating upon the reasons why Civ V is a bad game.

Wait, there's a website about it?

Oh . . . well, case closed then.

 

[Westwall]

I want Civ to be good. How can it be good at one thing if it's trying to be two mutually exclusive things simultaneously?

Because they're not mutually exclusive.

This is a false dilemma.

 

[dexters]

From Sid himself.

SimCity inspired Civilization in a way. The first prototype of Civilization that I did was a real-time game like SimCity, in that you placed cities and moved things around, but cities grew without you. You basically seeded the world in a kind of SimCity-esque way. Instead of zoning, you seeded things, and you said I want a city over there, and why don't you do some farming over here. What I didn't like in that version of Civilization is that you did a lot more watching than you did playing. So SimCity, Empire, Railroad Tycoon, and the Civilization board game were the different ingredients that we stirred together to get to Civilization.

Civ was always a mish mash of influences. It also predates every single PDX franchise.
It's its own thing.

And as a reminder Civ1 made it to SuperNintendo. Civ2 to PlayStation.
Civ3 was the first Civ game not to get a console port. If anything the franchise has become less casual since the 1990s versions of Civ, which were, let's be honest, pretty light on mechanics.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

If anything the franchise has become less casual since the 1990s versions of Civ, which were, let's be honest, pretty light on mechanics.

But not if you were a little kid/new to that kind of game when you played those earlier ones for the first time, and they made you feel like a little special to play such a heavy and serious game.

 

[dexters]

But not if you were a little kid/new to that kind of game when you played those earlier ones for the first time, and they made you feel like a little special to play such a heavy and serious game.

The irony of course is I played Civ as a kid precisely because it was casual.

Civ2 came with my PC becase it looked like something educational and not anti-social. That it led to my Civ addiction later on is neither here nor there.

I had no conception of heavy/serious game. I loved my strategy games on my SuperNintendo (KOEI's history simulations) were always top of my rentals along with my Zeldas and Marios.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

The irony of course is I played Civ as a kid precisely because it was casual.

Civ2 came with my PC becase it looked like something educational and not anti-social. That it led to my Civ addiction later on is neither here nor there.

I had no conception of heavy/serious game. I loved my strategy games on my SuperNintendo (KOEI's history simulations) were always top of my rentals along with my Zeldas and Marios.

To be honest, I think I got into it and Master of Magic because I sucked at all of the other games we had, haha.

 

[malekithau]

I find it odd that people are offended at the thought of Civ being like a board game. IMO it IS a board game that has had all the tedious bits automated by computer. The vast majority of turn based strategy games are just a board game. I grew up playing board games and struggling to find opponents for many. Computers just made me a solo wargamer that could actually stand playing a full game without pulling my hair out while struggling with dense rules mechanics.

 

[poom3619]

Every Civilization AND Paradox's grand strategy game are still confined to "tile" or Risk-esque territory, and there's some people who suggest that they should remove the tile because it is unrealistic. Which it is, but those are either necessary for playing the game without the game being slowed down due to calculating of myriad of value, or the game developer, who do make the game for sales and profit, never see this lack of realism a problem.

Those game are essentially a complex boardgame that try to be as realistic as... necessary. The extreme side of realistic historical simulation would have to factor everything we know so far. History studies is basically a really educated guess from historical writing which is somewhere between factual to fiction. People's culture shift all the time and those who study it come up with an explanation for something that happened thousand years ago.

Our knowledge to make ideal "realistic" game is still not enough, and no one would consider it as game anyway and simulation of some sorts. What's the point of making a game if there's a chance your civ wiped out by totally random plague or Little Ice age? Is it fun? and is it fun for a large group of people? and do Firaxis need to serve some higher purpose instead of doing the very thing they always (trying) to do, which is make a great game and sell it for profit?

 

[stealth_nsk]

In any way, gameplay first, realism second. If the game is realistic, but unplayable, it's junk. Also, more "realistic" things could be added in mods easily, while fixing broken gameplay by modding is nearly impossible.

On the other hand, the game needs as much immersion as possible and thus the gameplay elements should take names from the real life. Like in Civ5 expansion developers needed 1-range units, so they named them machine gun, etc.

Another problem with gameplay/immersion is the player expectations. Vanilla Civ5 had religion as part of culture, but after Civ4 this wasn't what players expected from religion. So, in expansions the new religion system was introduced. A big problem of sequels, IMHO

 

[rastak]

I played Civ III in the year of 2001, and I can't say it was more intellectual than Civ V.

No kidding. There really isn't anything more to say I guess. I played them all and none of them struck me as some great intellectual exercise. Not even the almighty stack infested Civ IV or the whack a mole pollution of Civ 2. Even the corruption ridden Civ 3..... long live Civ V, well until this fall.

 

[Bandobras Took]

No kidding. There really isn't anything more to say I guess. I played them all and none of them struck me as some great intellectual exercise. Not even the almighty stack infested Civ IV or the whack a mole pollution of Civ 2. Even the corruption ridden Civ 3..... long live Civ V, well until this fall.

To be fair, Alpha Centauri introduced me to some interesting scientific concepts as well as literature I had never heard of before. The gameplay may not have stretched my brain, but the content did.

Of course, then Civ 3 came along.