should there be more grim stuff in the game?

[bismarck_]

the other day i was playing a game of alpha centauri (sid meier's opus magnum) and while i was nerve-stapling some pesky rebellious drones it dawned on me....why can't i do that in my beloved DOC?

in civ2 you could let your spies nuke enemy cities (nuclear terrorism is a current very real threat), in call to power you had televangelists (loved the unit art) and eco-terrorists taking out heavy industry centers...it was glorious.

ever since civ3 the whole series has become a bit...bland. even infantilized. there is no real grimness, no real reflection of the cruelty of life and human struggle.steven pinker's " the better angels of our nature " gives a good summary of mankind's constant brutality (admittedly it's a bit "popular sciency" but the scientific groundwork has merit). there was near constant war in our history, near constant cruelty and atrocity on an unthinkable scale. there are slave markets in libya now, there are child prostitution rings all around the world, there are terribly cruel pig farms in canada or..say..poland...there are terrorists and cartels beheading people. this is a reality and bane on humanity that is not reflected in this mod. not in the slightest.
why can't we take what was already there in the early civ games (and perfected in alpha centauri..the most jaded and cynical yet also best of all civ games) and implement some of it in this mod, which i consider the best thing civ-related since alpha centauri (honestly, leo...you did good).

this is not meant as a rant. seriously not. and it's not meant to stir up stuff. i'm only putting this out there for you all to discuss. how dark, how REAL do we want this mod to become?
concentration camps? killing and torturing the opposition? animal rights? religious terrorism? slave trade quests? i love this mod. i am afraid though we neuter its potential by going mild.

i'm hoping for a livley discussion.

 

[Leoreth]

So do I.

 

[Tigranes]

Lol, we got plague. It doesn't get any more grimmer than that. Most people on the planet got killed by germs.

 

[DC123456789]

I mean, lots of horrible things already happen ingame. What do you think is happening when you enslave natives, pillage improvements and raze cities, persecute religious minorities, or even so much as go into anarchy when you're changing civics (or for that matter, forcing your vassals to change civics)? It's just that at the scale of Civilization, everything is so impersonal and abstracted that you never really consider what your effects your actions have on ordinary citizens - in the grand scheme of things, they're just "not important enough" to care about.

Which sounds exactly like a ruler of a country or civilization would see it.

 

[Pepo]

Well, you can actually kill a crazy amount of people by using nukes. Also, when you poison water of cities you are killing lots of citizens, same as when you do blockages or raze improvements (or whip). I wouldn't be against more grim stuff as long as it adds to the game. I can't see how animal rights or human rigths should be included in a way that adds to the game.

 

[1SDANi]

I can't see how animal rights or human rigths should be included in a way that adds to the game.

I mean we could implement the bill of rights feature from Civ Col. You'd have multiple either or options which give small buffs.

eg.

Animal Rights could give +1 Happiness to cities working pastures, while [Insert Name] gives +1 Prod +1 Food.

Universal Healthcare gives +2 Health to all cities while Competitive Healthcare gives +1 Commerce.

Right to Bear Arms gives +20% Combat within Cultural Borders while Gun Control gives all cities +3 Happiness and -1 Happiness for every civ that borders your nation on the same landmass with Gun Control

(Mirroring how Germany and England's Gun Control policies are more effective than America's due to the former's sea borders and the latter's position within a block of Gun Control countries limiting the effectiveness of gun smuggling. Note that America would still get +1 Happiness from this as long as there's not something weird like Spain and the Aztecs each controlling half of Mexico, which I have seen before)

etc.

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

I have to agree with OP, the series has really been watered down since Civ III. Alpha Centauri in many ways is still the best (base) game Firaxis ever made.
I mean Nukes, don't even destroy wonders! WTH is up with that?

Seeing things like the drug trade and terrorism would be cool but I remember both suggestions on that being shot-down a long time ago. Also the AI is far too dumb to use them.

 

[Logoncal]

I mean, DOC is already more grim than Civ 4. For starters, African and colonist civs can enslave natives and even sell them! Nukes are even stronger and there is the plague which actually shrinks your cities thru a script, not even needing to kill off the food.

There is also the Congress, which gives the strong civs the ability to demand a city, even against the opponents decision. Also, the Trading Company. You can't tell me that is not some crazy edgy **** when you give your victim the option of "plata o plomo". It's even crazier with England, where you do it on 3 cities

 

[Oregon Lee]

Every time a unit dies, an animation of a the grim reaper slithering from the ground and reaping the deceased back to the fiery depths of hell should play

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Like I told my friends when they invited me to a game of Hearts of Iron IV, what's even the point of being able to play Nazi Germany if I can't enact the Holocaust? /s

I'm pretty sure Gulags and forced labor camps are already represented by the production from unhappiness under Totalitarianism.

I would like the odd flavour text to pop up now and again though, like the warning of the Armageddon popups in Fall From Heaven II that appear when the Armageddon counter reashes certain thresholds or those intermissions in Alpha Centauri.

On the other side of the coin I would also like to have the odd uplifting popup now and again, like a few turns after you adopted Democracy you get a message that for the first time in the history of your country power has been peacefully transferred from one party to another. Achieving 99% literacy or successfully reducing CO2 emissions in the lategame could be nice too.

 

[Tigranes]

Achieving 99% literacy or successfully reducing CO2 emissions in the lategame could be nice too.

there is an event granting you free scientist when you achieve universal literacy.

But honestly what people should be complaining about is null barbarians in the late game. I mean just yesterday ambulance exploded in Kabul killing 95 people. Where are the modern barbarians: Taliban, Islamic State, Cartels and Boku Haram? Yes, nowadays things are not as bad as they were during Hunns but it is not as idyllic as last 100 turns in DoC. Earth 2010 Mod has a nice Terrorist unit that can break havoc both in countryside and inside the city:

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

instead of a micromanaged way of impleementing terrorism I think approach used in History Rewritten can be implemented.
In HR these type of criminal stuff is represented with syndicates which is the same as corporations but instead they give negative bonuses.

 

[Tigranes]

If anything syndicates can represent organised crime of all levels. What I am saying is the game should continue to produce barbarians even in the late game, because they do exist and can even capture cities and countries even. It is possible to make the terrorist Barbarian only unit instead of hidden nationality.

 

[mccp77]

I've bee thinking about this thread alot.

A couple of thoughts:

1. nuclear terrorism -- bad -- if it were that easy to commit nuclear terrorism then we would have seen nuclear terrorism. nobody i've spoken to who has worked for a us government agency thinks this is a joke, but they are also very good at preventing it.

2. animal rights -- not a big deal

3. climate change -- unless the timeframe is extended it's not catastrophic, and it is properly represented.

4. slave trading -- it's already there

5. conventional terrorism -- i think the game could really be improved here. i think collapsing countries should generate terrorist units that fight domestically automatically. Unstable countries could generate units that engage in "transnational terrorism." This is because the best bases for international terrorism are countries where the central government is weak enough to not crack down on terrorists but strong enough that terrorists don't have to fight for their own territory. in collapsing countries, terrorists are focused on having to fight for their own territory.

 

[1SDANi]

1. nuclear terrorism -- bad -- if it were that easy to commit nuclear terrorism then we would have seen nuclear terrorism. nobody i've spoken to who has worked for a us government agency thinks this is a joke, but they are also very good at preventing it.

What if it had a low success rate with near zero chance in cities guarded by spies or high espionage rates against the user? Would that represent it better?

 

[Oregon Lee]

How about a random event that doubles the unhappiness of foreign culture and religion?

Similar to global warming mechanics, a tile of river (only at the origin) could disappear by random event if worked by a large population for a long period of time.

Random events that make a resource "in revolt?" for 5 turns? Such that you can't benefit from the resource.

A United Nations resolution that makes the AI's value of a resource 50%? On a further note, perhaps we could make a resolution such that any resource could be obsoleted. That way, you could diplomatically cripple nations dependent on them.

I forget if the Internet project was updated recently or not, but there should be a resolution that could ban a civilization from the benefits of the Internet.

Your nation has produced an embarrassing political icon. -90% culture and a golden toilet. That's pretty grim.

 

[Pepo]

Random negative events that can't be countered it is a bad idea IMHO as they are outside player control. That's what happened with the tsunami event in vanilla, that would kill your cities if they had less than 6 pop, probably ruining your game. Negative events should have little effect , and I prefer multi-option events with positive and negative effects

As for terrorism, two things: I agree with the idea of modern Barbarian spawns , as it makes sense and would make some areas more interesting. Revolutionaries and terrorist should be spawning in Africa, Afghanistan and central america to represent the different militias of the cold war. The second thing is that terrorism should be able to be sponsored by States. It was common Cold war policy to arm insurgencies in the allies of the other country. A spy action outside of cities that allow you to spawn rebels could work, with the success chance depending on the target stability

 

[Darnokthemage]

I like the idea of the big negative and positive events, they give flavor and some history to you'r gameplay. Things like big migrations or giant volcano eruptions. The great volcano eruptions in 536 for example, they almost blocked out the sun by bellowing out great ash clouds. Scandinavia almost lost half it's population and summer snow was reported in china. This made it's way into mythos and we can hear about it in the Edda, as the Fimbulwinter.

 

[Pepo]

Bc I don't see DoC as a "tell your story game" but as a "try to get the highest score possible" mod. If i'am aiming for a UHV and a random negative event comes the ruin my game (say tsunami's as Polynesia) it wouldn't be fun and would probably end in cheating or a ragequit. If for example a volcano eruption happens and your core cities are affected first, you could collapse without being able to do anything against it. We currently have some minor negative events that are fine for the game, as they make it harder without making recovery impossible. As I play Doc to try to get an objective, I want to be able to control things a bit. Even the plague can be countered a bit.

PS: I'm not opposed to negative global events in other mods. In AND there is events that reduce a lot your food production and I love then. Bc I play AND to enjoy the trip, with the secondary objective to win

 

[Leoreth]

Bc I don't see DoC as a "tell your story game" but as a "try to get the highest score possible" mod.

I don't really design for that though.