The Controversial Game Concepts Thread

Addictive resources, such as alcohol, tobacco, opium, coffee, and tea.

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Spam. Tea also has caffeine in it, just like coffee.
 
The ability to stamp out a religion in a city. As it is this could be very useful in some games.

The larger game play benefit however would that it would allow for far more interesting and intense religious wars.
 
I'd like to be able to use spies to frame other civilizations for misdeeds.

Didn't CivII have something like this, at least for certain actions? I thought it did. It would be nice to see its return.
 
Inquisitions for sure, definitely the addictive things (opium wars anyone?), that would make trading/resources more powerful.
 
Spam. Tea also has caffeine in it, just like coffee.

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Spam would be a great addition to CiV. ;)

Perhaps it would create unhappiness or unhealthiness. Perhaps rival Civs would offer it to you in order to insult you. Hee hee.
 
Man, the funny thing is that most of this stuff is already represented in the game in an abstract sense. Inquisitions where even in the Gods of Old (or whatever its called) mod that came with the main game. Listen the quote when you tech genetics, genetics pretty well equates to eugenics in that context. You could trade slaves in Civ III, really the only thing that hasn't been represented in some way is the prostitution\drug use thing.
 
Slavery - a pity, because all throughout history this was a major influence on societies. The civic slavey doesn't cover it all.
Hitler - a pity, because he is probably in the top 3 most influental characters of the 20th century.
Concentration camps - I see no need in adding this to Civ. The slavery civic represents this, I think.
Animosity between certain civs - Some civs had wars and strife between them more often then with any other nation. French - Germans. Turks - Greeks. Etc.
Specific bonuses to religions. They won't do this ever, I think. Very controversial.
Mohamed - In islam, he may not be portraited.
Etc.

Terrorism is named in a previous post. But I think poisoning water supplies of cities with your spy counts as a terrorist act!
 
Animosity between certain civs
-6 this war spoils our relationship
-2 you declared war on us


And stuff like that. Animosity developed due to certain actions at certain points, not because it was hardcoded into the French and German genomes.
 
genetics pretty well equates to eugenics in that context.
What? Understanding how DNA works is not at all the same as practicing eugenics.

Animosity between certain civs - Some civs had wars and strife between them more often then with any other nation. French - Germans. Turks - Greeks. Etc.

But these are not intrinsic to those people. France and England or France and Germanic states or Turks and Greeks had conflict because they were neighbors competing for territory and resources, and eventually because of different religions (Protestant vs Catholic). It would be ridiculous for Greeks to have a diplomacy penalty with Turks on the other side of the world, just because they happened to be Greeks and Turks.

Terrorism is named in a previous post. But I think poisoning water supplies of cities with your spy counts as a terrorist act!

I have no problem with re-adding the plant nuke spy mission that we used to have, or similar.
 
Ridiculous? My very first Civ 4 game was as Germany and I founded Judaism. That is more ridiculous then two civs having a grudge while being on the other side of the planet!

I just hope that there is an option in Civ5 to have Civs starting locations close to their real life neighbours. On a continents map it is more logical for Japan to start on the same continent as the Mongols or Koreans. And the French with the Spanish or British.
 
That is more ridiculous then two civs having a grudge while being on the other side of the planet!

Why is it ridiculous, in an alternate-history-simulator?

On earth, Judaism arose in Palestine. On another earth-like planet where a civ game takes place, this might not happen. It might happen elsewhere, or Germanic tribesmen might start somewhere different.

If you want an earth-history simulator, play the Rhyes mod. The main Civ game on random maps is supposed to be more of an open sandbox, not forcing you to recreate earth's history as it happened.

Besides, until the 1930s there were more Jews in Germany than in almost any country except Poland, Russia and the US.

I just hope that there is an option in Civ5 to have Civs starting locations close to their real life neighbours.

We already had this.
 
Sieges
Don't know how controversial this is, but starving a city should make it more likely to give itself up. You should be able to besiege a city realistically. Sitting out on one of its many tiles bombarding it once a turn while it whips a new unit each turn and summons reinforcements from elsewhere should not be the way ...

Slavers: A hidden nationality unit that steals workers, either by reducing the population of cities or taking them from the land. Also, a slaver should be able to take from tribal camps and barbarian cities. You should also be able to enslave cities when you raise them. This will be funner if workers are made more important.


Capture
When you defeat units you should be able to capture them in weakened form. You should be able to torture and/or execute them to decrease enemy morale, or hand them back to their civ, for diplo bonus. It should be difficult to use such units yourself.

Fear and morale
Fear should play a role in a city defenses and in internal social order. If you have a habit of leveling resistant/rebellious every city and impaling its population, cities should be less likely to resist or rebel (but if they do, they continue their rebellion/resistance more stubbornly). Implementing this would require a workable cost/benefit system (so that it's not ALWAYS good to be as evil as possible, so that you can't do such things as democracies, and so on...)
 
I knew I'd find "ethnic cleansing" if I searched it.:lol:

They don't have to call it that. Call it mass deportation and building a "INS" unit like the inquisitor. I really think you should be able to deport foreigners whenever their numbers start building. Sovereign nations have to protect their borders.

To expand on my overlooked suggestion;):

I think the idea of a "INS unit" should not have the immediate effect of an inquisition unit. It should slowly bring down numbers of foreigners. To build a "INS unit" you should have to build an "immigration headquarters" in the city. The penalty should be their cost for both the headquarters and the unit itself (due to immigration patrols being extremely costly along the US-Mexico border for example). Maybe even one of those random events where you have the option of spending money to stop illegals at a certain spot, let them go because we can't afford it and get angry citizens, or a unit in the nearby city is busy for however many turns.

I just think this is a aspect missing. You shouldn't be able to willy nilly flood a neighbor's borer and get a culture flip so easily. It rules, but it should be more...realistic?

I also find the culture ratios on open water/ocean bizarre.
 
Sieges
Don't know how controversial this is, but starving a city should make it more likely to give itself up. You should be able to besiege a city realistically. Sitting out on one of its many tiles bombarding it once a turn while it whips a new unit each turn and summons reinforcements from elsewhere should not be the way ...

Slavers: A hidden nationality unit that steals workers, either by reducing the population of cities or taking them from the land. Also, a slaver should be able to take from tribal camps and barbarian cities. You should also be able to enslave cities when you raise them. This will be funner if workers are made more important.


Capture
When you defeat units you should be able to capture them in weakened form. You should be able to torture and/or execute them to decrease enemy morale, or hand them back to their civ, for diplo bonus. It should be difficult to use such units yourself.

The first you kind of already do in the sense of pillaging any farms nearby. A more "focused" version would be cool too though.

Definitely. Like others have said, slavery molded history for centuries. Especially the tribal huts.

I like the over all idea. Weren't you able to bribe units over in Civ 2? What limitations do you suggest for captured units?
 
The culture and the pop. from the city is gone, so most likely they are killed, yes. But even if they survive, many people are bound to die in the ensuing chaotic diaspora. Not to mention that millions lose their homes and their country ceases to exist... I've never understood moral arguments concerning video games. They are pixels on a screen, nothing more, nothing less. I'd be ok with Hitler using child-slaves to build brothels in concentration camps, if it brings me a hammer benefit (to use Civ 4 terms; I'm sure they'll change the production mechanic for Civ 5).

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.
 
@Tavenier: Also (though beside the point, as Ahriman's point is all you need), Germany had a huge population of Jews. Yiddish is a German language.



Of course, I know (I teach European History). But this thread is about controversity. Germany founding Judaism is quite weird. I know it would be more weird for Inca's founding Islam, but that isn't controversial. And I was merely commenting on the fact that some things mentioned here are considered ridiculous, while in Civ I have seen cities saved my merely arrows (longbowmen), Greece vassalising China, American axemen, landlocked Holland, groups of bears (I thought they were solitary) butchering thousands of people (settlers), Toledo founding Buddhism, etc, etc.
Next to that certain Civs having a grudge against other Civs doesn't seem too ridiculous. But still, as I said in a later post, it is kind of silly of tribes having a grudge against eachother while starting thousands of miles away. Although in my example (Turks and Greeks), the Turks started their Civ in Central Asia and the Greeks in Europe....
 
the Turks started their Civ in Central Asia and the Greeks in Europe....

Yes... and they had no issues with each other at all under centuries later, when Turkic peoples arrived in Asia Minor and invaded the (Greek) Byzantine empire.

Modern animosity mostly stems from the occupation of Greece by the Ottoman Empire, not from anything ancient.
This is already fully accounted for by permanent "you declared war on us" and type animosity penalties.

What if the central Asian Turks had never migrated West? Perfectly plausible.

Inca's founding Islam, but that isn't controversial. And I was merely commenting on the fact that some things mentioned here are considered ridiculous, while in Civ I have seen cities saved my merely arrows (longbowmen), Greece vassalising China, American axemen, landlocked Holland, groups of bears (I thought they were solitary) butchering thousands of people (settlers), Toledo founding Buddhism, etc, etc.

But all of these happen *in game*, in an alternate-history simulator. What is ridiculous is to start hard-coding particular ethnic animosities into the engine that apply regardless of in-game events and the actual unfolding history of the game.

Suppose you had a civ game that was identical to earths up to the 20th century, but that the Weimar Republic had been sustained and turned Germany into a liberal democracy with a flourishing Jewish elite. What would then be weird about Judaism in Germany?
 
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