bluemethod
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2005
- Messages
- 2
As a game developer, I'm predicting that Civ 4 is not going to be successful as a game. It's designed to appeal to hardcore fans of the series, who on their own don't have a good view of what makes a game actually playable. Modding, as you can see from this forum, is going to result in little more than laundry lists of features that add little or nothing to the gameplay. The reason I'm posting this here, in the ideas forum, is that I hope someone, either the developer or enlightened modders, will realize that there's still hope for this game.
There are three main elements of Civ 4 that are going to make it an obscure, fans-only affair: linearity, determinism, and political correctness.
Linearity: The Civilization series has always differed from history in this important aspect. History is cyclical. History shows that anyone has a chance of winning in the end. In Civ 4, you're not going to see that. There's going to be 'permanent alliances', which will encourage worldwide dominance. In historical terms, the game needs some mechanism for an American Revolution or American Civil War in order to be consistent with how reality works. In gameplay terms, that very mechanism would encourage smart strategy and diplomacy. It would prevent a situation in which players that start out slow, or have a difficult early game, from having a hopeless, unenjoyable experience.
Determinism: Civ 4 is going to see an increase in the greatest weakness of the series. Whichever player starts out winning will inevitably win in the end. The same factors that lead to military dominance also lead to cultural and religious dominance. How exactly you win isn't really important: if you have the highest number of the most productive cities, you can churn out military units, cultural buildings, wonders, or missionaries. There's no chance for a weaker civilization from coming back from the brink of destruction and getting to the point where it might win.
Obviously, this point is closely related to linearity. In the real world, civilization began in the Iraq-Kuwait area. In Civ terms, you could call it the Babylonian civilization. What's happened in the Middle East for all this time? It's been conquered by a variety of other civilizations, but now it's asserting itself, and also has a high degree of wealth and power, due to trading a rare, strategic resource. In game terms, it just isn't possible for this to happen. Once a civ is conquered, it's gone forever. Not only that, but Civ 4 is going to balance resource allocation, making it essentially a meaningless feature, since there will be no rarity or strategy when dealing with resources.
Political Correctness: It's funny how game developers who try to act PC end up coming across as the most insensitive. I shouldn't even have to mention how successful GTA3 and The Sims 2 are, despite (or because of) having a high degree of offensive content. Firaxis has dropped the ball on two great features: religion and terrorism.
First, though, here's the thing with TRYING to be PC: it doesn't work. People talk about how it's such a big deal that Civ 4 is going to have slavery. Guess what? It was in Civ 3! What do you think it is when you capture someone's settlers? Gee, here's this unit that I captured with military power or blackmailed from my enemy diplomatically, I know it represents a chunk of population, and I'm going to make it work indefinitely, without pay. Not only is slavery in Civ 3, it's an extremely useful strategy, and every advanced player here knows that they've used it. Meanwhile, the only black civilization in the game is portrayed as the most primitive, complete with a dehumanizing Zerg rush strategy built-in.
Firaxis has decided to have a half-dozen religions in the game, each of which act identically, because they don't want to offend anyone. I guess all the other religions in the world, throughout history, don't really count as 'real' religions to them, since they aren't major modern religions. Each religious viewpoint is equally valid, as long as it's popular and current, right? A better idea than their off-hand misrepresentation of religion is to have the development of religion by category. You get animism, pantheism, polytheism, monotheism, and some others. When you develop the religion, then you get to choose the name. That way, each religion can have it's own effects, rather than just be a meaningless name.
Terrorism, on the other hand, is more than just about having respect in the representation for something important in human lives. Terrorism is a vital strategy for weaker nations to deal with dominant ones. Without it, the only way to compete is through raw power. See where I'm going with this? The game becomes more linear, and more deterministic. I'd have it so that, after the development of the UN, other nations can produce militant units. These units, acting like diplomats or missionaries (but with even more freedom of movement), would be able to attack cities in the same way that a diplomat can engage in espionage. A terrorist attack would create 'fearful' citizens (from happy citizens, on the way down), which would act as unhappy citizens, except that they could not be pacified except through the passage of time.
I've gone through most of the big problems of Civ 4, and the solutions aren't really that complicated. There needs to be a way for civilizations to split, so that smaller, less powerful civs can compete against huge empires. There also needs to be a way for completely conquered civilizations to exist, in order to allow them to assert themselves later (like real-world France, Germany, or Japan). Real history is ugly, and Firaxis needs to stop dodging it, or they'll just look like they're inconsiderate. Terrorism needs to be included. Religion needs to be handled with some dignity, instead of saying "yeah, this'll make the hardcore fans happy." As for other details, like overpopulation, concentration camps, and however they're bound to mishandle the expansion of slavery, I'm not yet conviced that, while they would enhance realism, they would enhance actual gameplay.
For some of these features, Firaxis will hopefully pay attention. For others, it's bound to be left up to modders. I hope that someday, Civ 4 will be a good game, that will be worthy of play.
There are three main elements of Civ 4 that are going to make it an obscure, fans-only affair: linearity, determinism, and political correctness.
Linearity: The Civilization series has always differed from history in this important aspect. History is cyclical. History shows that anyone has a chance of winning in the end. In Civ 4, you're not going to see that. There's going to be 'permanent alliances', which will encourage worldwide dominance. In historical terms, the game needs some mechanism for an American Revolution or American Civil War in order to be consistent with how reality works. In gameplay terms, that very mechanism would encourage smart strategy and diplomacy. It would prevent a situation in which players that start out slow, or have a difficult early game, from having a hopeless, unenjoyable experience.
Determinism: Civ 4 is going to see an increase in the greatest weakness of the series. Whichever player starts out winning will inevitably win in the end. The same factors that lead to military dominance also lead to cultural and religious dominance. How exactly you win isn't really important: if you have the highest number of the most productive cities, you can churn out military units, cultural buildings, wonders, or missionaries. There's no chance for a weaker civilization from coming back from the brink of destruction and getting to the point where it might win.
Obviously, this point is closely related to linearity. In the real world, civilization began in the Iraq-Kuwait area. In Civ terms, you could call it the Babylonian civilization. What's happened in the Middle East for all this time? It's been conquered by a variety of other civilizations, but now it's asserting itself, and also has a high degree of wealth and power, due to trading a rare, strategic resource. In game terms, it just isn't possible for this to happen. Once a civ is conquered, it's gone forever. Not only that, but Civ 4 is going to balance resource allocation, making it essentially a meaningless feature, since there will be no rarity or strategy when dealing with resources.
Political Correctness: It's funny how game developers who try to act PC end up coming across as the most insensitive. I shouldn't even have to mention how successful GTA3 and The Sims 2 are, despite (or because of) having a high degree of offensive content. Firaxis has dropped the ball on two great features: religion and terrorism.
First, though, here's the thing with TRYING to be PC: it doesn't work. People talk about how it's such a big deal that Civ 4 is going to have slavery. Guess what? It was in Civ 3! What do you think it is when you capture someone's settlers? Gee, here's this unit that I captured with military power or blackmailed from my enemy diplomatically, I know it represents a chunk of population, and I'm going to make it work indefinitely, without pay. Not only is slavery in Civ 3, it's an extremely useful strategy, and every advanced player here knows that they've used it. Meanwhile, the only black civilization in the game is portrayed as the most primitive, complete with a dehumanizing Zerg rush strategy built-in.
Firaxis has decided to have a half-dozen religions in the game, each of which act identically, because they don't want to offend anyone. I guess all the other religions in the world, throughout history, don't really count as 'real' religions to them, since they aren't major modern religions. Each religious viewpoint is equally valid, as long as it's popular and current, right? A better idea than their off-hand misrepresentation of religion is to have the development of religion by category. You get animism, pantheism, polytheism, monotheism, and some others. When you develop the religion, then you get to choose the name. That way, each religion can have it's own effects, rather than just be a meaningless name.
Terrorism, on the other hand, is more than just about having respect in the representation for something important in human lives. Terrorism is a vital strategy for weaker nations to deal with dominant ones. Without it, the only way to compete is through raw power. See where I'm going with this? The game becomes more linear, and more deterministic. I'd have it so that, after the development of the UN, other nations can produce militant units. These units, acting like diplomats or missionaries (but with even more freedom of movement), would be able to attack cities in the same way that a diplomat can engage in espionage. A terrorist attack would create 'fearful' citizens (from happy citizens, on the way down), which would act as unhappy citizens, except that they could not be pacified except through the passage of time.
I've gone through most of the big problems of Civ 4, and the solutions aren't really that complicated. There needs to be a way for civilizations to split, so that smaller, less powerful civs can compete against huge empires. There also needs to be a way for completely conquered civilizations to exist, in order to allow them to assert themselves later (like real-world France, Germany, or Japan). Real history is ugly, and Firaxis needs to stop dodging it, or they'll just look like they're inconsiderate. Terrorism needs to be included. Religion needs to be handled with some dignity, instead of saying "yeah, this'll make the hardcore fans happy." As for other details, like overpopulation, concentration camps, and however they're bound to mishandle the expansion of slavery, I'm not yet conviced that, while they would enhance realism, they would enhance actual gameplay.
For some of these features, Firaxis will hopefully pay attention. For others, it's bound to be left up to modders. I hope that someday, Civ 4 will be a good game, that will be worthy of play.
If they were ever going to make the jump over that gap then it can't be done through a $15 incremental boost. The other things you describe are what expansion packs do. If you ignore things like the graphics engine, then if you just keep adding and adding to a game eventually there will be more stuff than people will be able to keep up with. While many hardcore fans would love that the same isn't true of people who casually play Civ.
