The Controversial Game Concepts Thread

[Greizer85]

Well technically genocide can be the killing off of a culture, so if you were going with the literal meaning, then culture flips would be pretty unacceptable. I think it's clear though that what Arakhor is saying is that it's a bit too far to have a big option that says "indiscriminately kill". You can read into different features different aspects of genocide, depending on how you interpret the features, but having an option that explicitly allows genocide is a step too far.

Iirc Firaxis' official stance is that the citizens who disappear with whipping simply move out of the city because they don't like the hard labor. Yeah, right! As if slaves could emigrate.

You may white-wash all you want, or make it ambiguous, but in the end you are extinguishing cultures (yes, flips are immoral too - if the game were real that is), razing cities, chopping all the forests on the planet, raping it with nuclear weapons, etc. However, these actions carry no moral impact since since they are directed at non-feeling, non-aware, non-living entities (pixels on a screen, as I said).

“Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense." - Robert Heinlein. I'd add certain animals to the list, but hey, you get the point.

Note that I do realize the world is full of ignorant moral prudes and Firaxis must mind its public image. However if in some mod the "raze city" screen says something like "1. Rape, pillage and burn this city (estimated death toll: 2,5 million) OR 2. Enslave them! Our men need fresh concubines!" I will have no problem pressing either. In fact I may enjoy it in a primal sort of way ("Yaa! Yaa! Ride their horses and see them driven before you! Here's for costing me 10 legions and 5 catapults..!"), as I know I'm not hurting anyone and I won't ever do such things in real life, barring extreme circumstances (forced to do it or my family dies, etc).

 

[Tavenier]

*sigh* I said it myself it was silly...

But there's a fine line between 'what ifs' and ignoring real history. If there wasn't a 30 years war what would have happened to Germany? Bismarck probably would not be known right now. Churchill wouldn't be in the game if it wasn't for Hitler. Perhaps he would be a prime minister, but not in an important era like WW2. If it wasn't for Rome and Greece chances are this game would not have so much European countries in it. It is certain facts from real history that warrants certain leaders and even entire Civs. If we want a totally 'what if' game and state that everything historical should be erased because nothing is in the genomes of certain tribes than we can name the Civs Siddies, Cornplanters, Taveniers or ****oos.

I like the fact that you can change history and do things different or better then in real life. But we need certain things to make it more fun and we need certain distinctiveness of Civs to have the feel of being a Roman Emperor, Ottoman Sultan or Celtic King. Personally I like to role play my civs, so I try to colonize as England or Spain, build a trading empire as Holland, try to go communist as China or Russia and so on. And of course every game of Civ is a what if no matter what you do. Carthage or Greece being of major importance after 1 AD is a what if already. But can you build the same empire as Alexander (preferably encountering and conquering Persians and Egyptians) and maintain or even expand further?

Edit: I now see that one of my posts never made it. Yesterday I posted something where I said that it was indeed a silly idea (civs having a grudge). I didn't understand why you went on about it, until I just noticed that my post never made it here!

 

[holy king]

I'd vassalize that if you know what I mean

i'd put my army in their territorry if you know what i mean.

 

[cardgame]

I would nuke them if you know what I mean

 

[Abaddon]

C-c-c-camel breaker

I want Camels back.

 

[innonimatu]

Human sacrifice could be an interesting one, akin to the Mesoamerica mod from .

We can already "whip" population for buildings...

And don't we get workers and settlers for disbanding or razing cities? Perhaps we don't in vanilla Civ4 BtS, Ive been playing several mods.

 

[cardgame]

Human sacrifice came with BtS in the MesoAmerica mod.