Simulating influences of cities through territory, and finally domination of a region few by few

[Boris Gudenuf]

The sheer number of mouse clicks exercising influence in different areas is a problem with Civ. It starts manageable and reasonable in the early game, but by late game what were impactful individual decisions early become mindless clicks or switching to automation where available (not available in enough areas!).

Deciding the build order of your first two cities has a huge impact on the development of your civ. Deciding the build order of your 14th and 15th city is unlikely to impact the outcome of the game in any measurable way. The direction and extent of early scouting is critical. By mid game, all that matters for scouting is filling in the rest of the map, but which area first is much less important.

I really think a problem with the mid- and late-game malaise for civ starts with the nature of the decisions you're making, which do not change as the game proceeds, and which become less and less important over time (even though there become more and more of them).

I raise this in the context of this discussion, as it goes to the heart of the idea that we must have cities as a nexus for exercising influence. I think this should remain a key feature of the Civilization games. But I'm not sure the nature of the decisions being made at the city level need to stay as they are currently.

I disagree with arguments that the board game origins of Civ are a reason for some of its game design issues. Straying too far from good board game mechanics is a bigger issue, to my mind. One of the features of good board game design is to keep the weight of player decisions (i.e. the amount and impact of those decisions) relatively constant over the course of the full game.

Within the context of Civ, I think the conceptual change should be to think of the player as the governing body of a people. What decisions does that governing body make? how does the nature of those decisions change as their people expand, possibly absorbing nearby settlements either organically(cultural influence), through peaceful negotiations (trade/marriage), or war? how does it change as government and technology become more effective? how does it change as you give the population more or less freedom (and what are the concurrent impact on the productivity of your people)?

In other words, as your civilization evolves, so should the way you govern your empire, and the nature and types of decisions you're making. Your cities remain the hub of your civilization, but the commends you issue into and from them don't remain static.

Couple of thoughts occur to me from this...
1. Perhaps as the game progresses, the level of decision-making should 'move up': you start with, essentially, a Civ that is a City State of 1 city and some Districts and 1 - 3 smaller city-satellites. At some point, you become an Empire composed of Provinces/States/Satrapies each composed of cities, but increasingly your decisions are made regarding the Province, not the individual city. The level can move back and forth depending on the Technology and type of government - early Athenian Democracy was completely individual, every adult male citizen voted on virtually everything. Republics and 'Democracies' in the 18th - 20th centuries largely used Representational decision-making, in which Decision-Makers were elected, sometimes from or by another set of Decision-Makers who were elected by a percentage of the adults. Now, with internet/computerized communication, we have the possibility of going back to individual decision-making in some form.
In game terms, your decisions after, say, changing to some kind of Republic or Constitutional Democracy or even Absolute Monarchy might be at the Province/State level, or simply what kind of Ministers you will put in charge - Governors would have to be tweaked, because for much of the game they would affect a group of cities in a State rather than an individual city.

2. Many of the decisions made by the gamer now are in fact Artificial. Especially in the field of Social Policy and Religion, most of the 'gamer decisions' in real life were Reactions to changes in Social Policy and Religion that were taking place regardless of or in spite of the wishes of the 'government'. Change that whole Game Dynamic, and a whole host of decisions become less Specific, more general and more reactionary than before - and the number of decisions required goes down as conditions may result in No Decisions Required or Possible.
Of course, many gamers love 'micro-management' or being able to specifically 'tailor' their cities and Civilizations precisely for optimum results: they will hate all this, so any system has to allow you to keep making all the decisions, but perhaps with less precise results than before: you can Urge or Enhance, but not Order Social and Religious changes.

3. Governments and Government Types are a major driver of the level of decision-making. Even more important in many ways for this is the Technology of Government: the 'development' of Communications Technologies and Information-Handling Technologies. The invention of Writing/Literacy, Bureaucracy, Paper, Newspapers, Telegraph and Telephone, Steam transportation (land and sea), Radio, Internet, - there are a host of Technologies and (in game terms) Civics that could change the degree of effectiveness and the level at which they take effect, of your Decisions as a Gamer and Civilization Monger.

Quite simply, the level at which you can make Decisions may be forced on you by Technology and Civics in effect: The King can be the most absolute Ruler who ever sat atop a pyramid, but if no one can hear his orders more than a day's run away, his Decisions can directly affect about One City. Get a bunch of literate Scribes who can write the orders down and a 'pony express' that can carry those writs a hundred miles a day, and he can make specific decisions for quite a few cities at once. Add a Bureaucracy that can report and react to conditions in other cities, and he doesn't have to make specific decisions for every single City and District any more. So even though the Government type is Absolute Eternal Omnipotent God King (or: Civ Gamer, for short), he can actually have X number of Provinces to decide for instead of X number of cities.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Design concerns certainly push us towards following this maxim: Different policy/government selections should enable qualitatively different, exclusive tools. It's just good, exciting gameplay.

I have come to that same thought, that civ gameplay needs something that plays with (modulates) the way decisions get made throughout the game. The freedoms to make certain choices, the granularity. Here's one in particular: The span of time in which one must commit to a decision, losing the ability to take it back or change it. I mean something more than just "losing hammers" if you switch a build, or the implicit loss of efficiency from delaying your final choice - I mean you can't reverse decisions. Extending this idea: the advance commitment to something, perhaps before it begins.

I had this idea for real-time strategies, that it makes sense in those games to allow a player to purchase (use resources) different no-brainer automations that every playstyle would hunger for. For instance, Brood War couldn't even automate setting workers to work after being deployed. Starcraft II allows this. But what if that ability to queue the workers, and thereby afford savings of your precious attention and actions-per-minute, was a purchasable technology, in a specific on-map structure?

The clarity of the justification for this innovation is clearer in RTS than turnbased, though, because turns theoretically are challenging the player to take a perfect turn, with expert micromanagement, just by their nature. This is a tension I don't know what to do with... If the game takes away my ability to do something I feel like I need to do, or can see done poorly by an automation, I will not see that as progression, to be sure, and maybe even find it unfun.

Gameplay systems can modulate that kind of factor, the decisions, so that (say) some government gives this fine control. But this is premature without solving that well-known problem, of the micromanagement mess in empire builder turn based games. I don't think the above ideas represent even the kind of thinking that solves this problem... for that, you need to evolve the basic framework of progression and victory that bases the title. What is the thing I'm doing, that if I do it well, because I do it well, I get declared the greatest civilization to have stood the test of time? Right now, because that answer is at least partially "I did logistics for a multi province nation-state by dispatching worker-turns to the highest priority tiles for improvement, for 170 turns", there is a feeling of disappointment, or maybe betrayal, in the promise of the empire builder name.

Moving the decisions "upward" the hierarchy, as a progression, as you say Boris, I think will tie the design to two unfortunate implications. One, equating the player with a government ("immortal leader"), and two, has already conceded the picture of micromanagement hell, not defeated it.

Hey HorseshoeHermit. How do you do ? Is your project advancing ?

Oh, that isn't how it is. I invited you to begin something anew, but you declined, so in place of that I've only been "ruminating" on such ideas in abstract ways, no more than you and Boris have and do.

I mean I've made some notes on features I want an empire builder to have, but my main projects right now are modding for Civilization IV Rise of Mankind, and software development skills building.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Design concerns certainly push us towards following this maxim: Different policy/government selections should enable qualitatively different, exclusive tools. It's just good, exciting gameplay.

I have come to that same thought, that civ gameplay needs something that plays with (modulates) the way decisions get made throughout the game. The freedoms to make certain choices, the granularity. Here's one in particular: The span of time in which one must commit to a decision, losing the ability to take it back or change it. I mean something more than just "losing hammers" if you switch a build, or the implicit loss of efficiency from delaying your final choice - I mean you can't reverse decisions. Extending this idea: the advance commitment to something, perhaps before it begins.

It is my understanding from history (always my 'go to' database) That you can change governments and techniques for doing things very, very quickly - which is why we call them Revolutions or Revolutionary Technologies - but changing the Sociology of a culture/civilization takes a lot longer - as in centuries in any cases. That means that the current system in Civ VI where Social Policies can be changed in a single turn is utterly false - some decisions, no matter how much you would lie it to be otherwise, take Time. Also, Reversing cultural/social changes is very nearly impossible: once several million individuals get used to doing things differently, they ain't going back, and no amount of coercion will make them.
Case in Point, which my sister got hit with some years ago. She was explaining to her daughter what it was like to be a coed in college back in the mid-1960s. When the university stood in loco parentis and had, legally, parental authority over the students: all coeds had to live in monitored dormitories and had a 10:30 PM curfew on weeknights. Her daughter hadn't had a 10:30 curfew since she was 13, and was aghast that her mother would ever put up with something like that. Simple: we thought that was normal, and it was normal at that time. I cannot imagine anything short of a totalitarian/theocratic Police State that could make my niece's generation go back to 'normal' circa 1965. Unlike Civ VI, where sociological 'normal' can be changed back and forth at will...

I had this idea for real-time strategies, that it makes sense in those games to allow a player to purchase (use resources) different no-brainer automations that every playstyle would hunger for. For instance, Brood War couldn't even automate setting workers to work after being deployed. Starcraft II allows this. But what if that ability to queue the workers, and thereby afford savings of your precious attention and actions-per-minute, was a purchasable technology, in a specific on-map structure?

Somewhat like the difference between Managing an entire Economy in 'pure' Communism and letting Market Forces' 'invisible hand' do it for you? Neither works perfectly, but one requires a lot more nit-picking attention from whatever's in charge. Game Mechanisms that 'build in' such 'automatic systems' based on historical changes in technology and Civic/psychology/sociology could potentially alleviate some of the more tedious Decision making.

Gameplay systems can modulate that kind of factor, the decisions, so that (say) some government gives this fine control. But this is premature without solving that well-known problem, of the micromanagement mess in empire builder turn based games. I don't think the above ideas represent even the kind of thinking that solves this problem... for that, you need to evolve the basic framework of progression and victory that bases the title. What is the thing I'm doing, that if I do it well, because I do it well, I get declared the greatest civilization to have stood the test of time? Right now, because that answer is at least partially "I did logistics for a multi province nation-state by dispatching worker-turns to the highest priority tiles for improvement, for 170 turns", there is a feeling of disappointment, or maybe betrayal, in the promise of the empire builder name.

Moving the decisions "upward" the hierarchy, as a progression, as you say Boris, I think will tie the design to two unfortunate implications. One, equating the player with a government ("immortal leader"), and two, has already conceded the picture of micromanagement hell, not defeated it.

Sorry, did not mean to equate the Gamer with a Government, just to indicate that the Omniscient and Immortal Spirit of the Civ (Gamer) has to work through the 'tools' that a given Government type and technology gives him. Good (historical) example: the Roman Empire was, essentially, an Absolute God-King Monarchy, but the technology of tax collecting meant that no Emperor, no matter how competent and resourceful, could collect a large enough percentage of the Empire's wealth in taxes to pay for the Roman Imperial Army. And so the army deteriorated until it was not capable of defending the Imperial Frontiers, and the whole thing collapsed. In that case the government type gave certain tools (the ability to Decree whatever the Emperor wanted) but the 'machinery' of government (communications, administrative and bureaucratic tools) made it virtually impossible for many Decrees to be carried out. That decreeing Emperor is pretty close to the position of the Gamer, and the same restrictions should apply...

When you are dealing with a Gaming Audience that includes both Micromanagers and, for lack of a better term, 'Macromanagers', the trick in the game design is to make Micromanagement Optional but not Required to play the game. That way, the Micros can manage to their heart's content and the Macros don't have to. As you said, to make that work the systems that 'take over' the micromanagement have to be reasonably competent, or no competitive gamer will ever use them. That, I think, has always been the sticking point in the past, but I suspect we are reaching the point in 'learning systems' and multi-core processors where 'simple AI' game system managers should be possible for specific sub-systems and instances. Certainly I have seen some other games with AI Opponents that approach the level of competency required, but I confess I am not familiar enough with modern AI programming to speak knowledgeably about what is possible for a Civ-type game.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

When you are dealing with a Gaming Audience that includes both Micromanagers and, for lack of a better term, 'Macromanagers', the trick in the game design is to make Micromanagement Optional but not Required to play the game. That way, the Micros can manage to their heart's content and the Macros don't have to. As you said, to make that work the systems that 'take over' the micromanagement have to be reasonably competent, or no competitive gamer will ever use them. That, I think, has always been the sticking point in the past, but I suspect we are reaching the point in 'learning systems' and multi-core processors where 'simple AI' game system managers should be possible for specific sub-systems and instances.

Or you reach a point in the game where these types of decisions are so insignificant, that even a competitive gamer can comfortably turn them over to an incompetent AI because they won't impact the end result. Reaching the point of insignificance happens now for a lot of the required mouse clicks in Civ 6. If the game was designed from the ground up with the idea that players would always have significant, important decisions to make in all eras, but the nature of those decisions change, it would be even easier to turn the obsolete decisions over to optional automation.

That just leaves them for micromanagers to fiddle with to the extent they enjoy doing so.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

It is my understanding from history (always my 'go to' database) That you can change governments and techniques for doing things very, very quickly - which is why we call them Revolutions or Revolutionary Technologies - but changing the Sociology of a culture/civilization takes a lot longer - as in centuries in any cases. That means that the current system in Civ VI where Social Policies can be changed in a single turn is utterly false - some decisions, no matter how much you would lie it to be otherwise, take Time. Also, Reversing cultural/social changes is very nearly impossible: once several million individuals get used to doing things differently, they ain't going back, and no amount of coercion will make them.

Indeed. That's a good point and well made. It reminds me of one idea of mine... If somehow, the decisions that you make on a local level, over-time build up and construct the policy or sociological nature of your people. So that there is some kind of way of playing that turns into monarchy, or something.
I think 4X games have this to varying degrees, always implicitly, because the choices you make in building your "city" improvements will thereafter select your (so-called) economy benefits. Building a market is kind of like nurturing commerce, minimally. I am curious about what happens if this were explicit. So, if taking actions of one flavour in the formative years, crystallize into an explicit social institution, which then reflects back into what you can do with your empire.
I'm not super in love with it, not having a clear picture either, but it was a thought that seemed to be the natural succession to your comment.

Somewhat like the difference between Managing an entire Economy in 'pure' Communism and letting Market Forces' 'invisible hand' do it for you? Neither works perfectly, but one requires a lot more nit-picking attention from whatever's in charge. Game Mechanisms that 'build in' such 'automatic systems' based on historical changes in technology and Civic/psychology/sociology could potentially alleviate some of the more tedious Decision making.

No, I think it is as @Trav'ling Canuck says... the decisions have to be designed where the subset of them are just naturally less relevant.

I'll also point out there is a game based on the idea of logistical limitations of a space emperor, called Alliance Of The Sacred Suns. You might want to check it out.
I think that game represents another extreme from which I want to back off, though. I like to play as an immaterial will of the populace. I want to be able to look after welfare as a goal, instead of as a concession to the unavoidably autocratic police state that "effective 4X" is, by the hands of anyone playing to win.

When you are dealing with a Gaming Audience that includes both Micromanagers and, for lack of a better term, 'Macromanagers', the trick in the game design is to make Micromanagement Optional but not Required to play the game. That way, the Micros can manage to their heart's content and the Macros don't have to. As you said, to make that work the systems that 'take over' the micromanagement have to be reasonably competent, or no competitive gamer will ever use them. That, I think, has always been the sticking point in the past, but I suspect we are reaching the point in 'learning systems' and multi-core processors where 'simple AI' game system managers should be possible for specific sub-systems and instances. Certainly I have seen some other games with AI Opponents that approach the level of competency required, but I confess I am not familiar enough with modern AI programming to speak knowledgeably about what is possible for a Civ-type game.

Hmm, so.... There's what you're talking about here, which is "maintenance" actions that increase the efficiency of operations turn-by-turn; but empire games are also beset by the of micromanagement hell of the mechanical need to specify operations for anything to occur at all, and to be allowed to progress the game.

These are related, but unfortunately a vision of just "automating the tedium" isn't enough to wrangle the structural problem - which we keep coming back to - of the game being built out of tedium. Civ 5 starts out as setting military maneuvers and city orders, and ends with military maneuvers and city orders. It isn't automation that can affect this; it's the pacing that fails.
If a game is "made of" certain operations, where "made of" means that those operations are each relevant to the outcome (victories), automation is a mechanical penalty only. Only. There first has to be a concept of making the game have layers of operations, with the scope of some eclipsing the scope of others, where the player unlocks a power to , y'know, impact the contest with greater force (words fail me here). The unlocking, by the way, can be a purchase in the sense I mentioned, or can be the progression of the game itself. Note the difference of the latter. This isn't just a trend on a tech tree (the temporal spine of the game); I mean something that actually ticks by irrespective of that.

 

[Naokaukodem]

It reminds me of one idea of mine... If somehow, the decisions that you make on a local level, over-time build up and construct the policy or sociological nature of your people. So that there is some kind of way of playing that turns into monarchy, or something.
I think 4X games have this to varying degrees, always implicitly, because the choices you make in building your "city" improvements will thereafter select your (so-called) economy benefits. Building a market is kind of like nurturing commerce, minimally. I am curious about what happens if this were explicit. So, if taking actions of one flavour in the formative years, crystallize into an explicit social institution, which then reflects back into what you can do with your empire.
I'm not super in love with it, not having a clear picture either, but it was a thought that seemed to be the natural succession to your comment.

This could be done explicitly with something like Era Points. Instead of deciding about a golden / normal / dark age, they could be used to determine if you can change policies/governments. However, the more culture you get at a point, the more difficult it is to reach the wanted threshold. Basically, your culture pool determines the threshold. And your era score determines your "policy" pool. So, you can reach the real-time (turn by turn) changing threshold at any point in any era, not having to wait for it to end. I thinkk that it would made poorly cultured people to have an advantage over cultural mastodons, especially in higher difficulty levels. Not to mention that later policies gives more and more culture, so it harder and harder to change them. The more you are engaged into a path, the more difficult it is to go back or right. But it's not impossible, after all era points are to determine initially a golden age or not, they can also be used to determine the achievments that would prepare your people to endure big changes. (like Republic > Empire, seen in ancient Rome and France)

 

[Naokaukodem]

OK, more addings to my former idea.

Population should be managed a little differently than currently : we would need more population points generally in order to accomplish things.

Let's say your tribe "settles" in one hexagon. In order to produce something, you have to work mines around (or quarries, wood or different dead animals products), but let's say principally mines on hills. If you want to produce a "worker"/"builder", form one pop point into a military unit, or a worker that do roads viable for wheels, or even a building (monument or shrine let's say), you'll need production in a location you "settled", more especially for buildings that... can't move. You will then need to send miners into a nearby mine, once you have the Mining technology. It's very schematic, but hey it's how Civ works. From the turn you sent your miners to the turn you will actually receive production, will span the turns needed in order to go to that mine, harverst, and go back, on foot. (two movement points if adequately aligned with Civ5 and Civ6). You can see that it's preferable to settle near mines. However, you can point out any hill you discovered on the map, so that when a strategic resource pops out far away (or you discover a new source of luxuries), you can still reach it, with all the risks it has. And that's here that it begins to become interesting. If you send only one pop away to harvest a resource, you will have to wait the time that pop travels through the land in order to benefit from it, it is to say not every turn like if it was next tile, but many. If the resource is far, and if you still want to benefit from it every turn, you will have to send multiple pop points in order to have, as many as needed, to have a continuous chain. That's why pop points should work a little differently in CivX. (Consecutively, we should implement strategic resources stockage and quantities.)

We may also want to split internal economy (actual production) into raw material and manufacturing, which are intricated in Civ from Civ1 within the idea of "city" and "citizens". The idea here is that workers (on the map) and specialists (in the city) work on them respectively. Another reason to have more pop points for a basis, because now you need specialists, too, to produce basically everything.

Notes to myself :

- could potentially build anything anywhere, like a granary in the middle of a farm tile, with benefits of course. (like, for granaries, the ability to grow your population/more efficiently)
In war, knowing each unit consumes food, 2 for basic ones, you will need to live on enemy's resources like confiscating their granaries, knowing that in earlier eras you need food 3 tiles around in order to feed your troops.

- could assign a specialist in basically every building, and buildings like forges or lumbermills would be available way sooner.

- could build buildings in different mateers, like wood, earth-based mateer or even beastskin, to stone, depending on the use you want to do of them. More mateer precarity would mean you may want to move later or not sure to stay in the region, or fear an attack or an invasion.

///// That's all for now. I feel I miss massively other things, like this post isn't complete. That's why I added the notes to myself, that are basically what i could think about this general idea smoking at the window.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

I would like it if we built more of the city through directing citizens to put things on the hexes we want. That's true.
I don't know what gameplay would come out of that... I'd have to prototype to see what it felt like.

I still don't think we ought to care about stockpiles and manufactures beyond a production speed and modifiers, though. I think if we want a Paradox game, there's people who can't be beat on that, and they're called Paradox.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Thx for the reply.

If you want to make a prototype that reflects my ideas in this topic, the main idea is that the population is broken up through the map. That way you would not "found cities" anymore, rather manage tribes or colonies that would possibily form cities and having in a first time the need to be militaryly protected.

And in Gathering Storm we have stockpiles already for strategic resources, which was my exact idea at the end of my big paragraph. Sure i got ahead of myself later by saying we should split production and harversting, but we could still make it by splitting resources and work (shields and hammers ?), even if that means building spaceship parts with fish bones.