Very good youtube vid on 4x - particularly Civ

[Sherlock]

One of the most interesting vids on strategy gaming I've seen in a long while:

 

[Scaramanga]

Maybe all the Civ factions feel the same because they are all humans unlike the other games he cites.

 

[Disgustipated]

Have you seen Gandhi? He doesn't look human.

 

[gozpel]

Or Gilgamesh, he looks Super human. And poor Monty to be shown
in this way.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Human v alien is a difference of form (game art). Then there's a difference in essence (game mechanics).

All games can be seen as a pool of effects. Grafting these effects onto factions, as opposed to leaving them open for all to exploit in due time (ie by placing them in a tech/spell tree that is one and the same for all factions) makes the difference. Which approach is better for a game depends on other things (see below).

There are three major points when effects can be given to factions:

• when the game itself is created, by the game designers. In the video, Endless Legend is closest to this. A legendary example would be Starcraft, where all effects are split into three and very little is open for all factions, yet the game is finely balanced.
• when the player designs his faction. In the video, Stellaris is closest. Another example would be the Dominions series.
• leaving most effects free to all factions and having them decide which to prioritize during the game itself. Civilization series traditionally fall here, with Civ I being 100% this

So what determines which approach is better? The blandness, or the richness, of the map. Extremely bland, non-interactive maps like those of Starcraft go best with extremely delineated factions. Meanwhile, maps that offer complex interactions and emerging gameplay work best with "during-the-game" freedom to explore, assess, and "solve" them by choosing the right tools from a universal toolbox.

Civilization 4, for example, required "playing the map" for best results, with countless examples when tailor-made approaches to the minutiae details of the map paid out in spades. Indeed, a drift away from playing the map to repetitive strategies that win in later installments would contribute to a feeling of sameness.

 

[eleven11]

I've played Endless Legend and it is a decent game. But his point about Civ being bland because of lame bonuses that simply make a civ better at one thing over another is really short-sighted. Endless Legend railroads you into playing a certain way depending on what faction you pick.. If you pick Necrophage you will war because you have NO CHOICE. Is this truly better? Really? Not in my mind. It's different which is good.. but not necessarily better.

But if Firaxis took more time and spent more $$$ designing the each Civ I think it would be a great improvement. For instance, each Civ has it's own artwork for every unit and every building. I love that they have their own musical scores. If they put more thought ($$$) into it they could also provide deeper mechanics for each civilization.

 

[Abraxis]

Civ6 is simpler than Stellaris?
Is that a joke?

I like Stellaris. It tastes good. No one can take my super-cute xenophilic Yapathi fox people and their Serene Quasi-Immortal Philosopher Queen Alivia O-Ren away from me... but it is literally Paradox's entry level game to grab the market of folks too intimidated by the complexity and utilitarian presentation of their other grand strategy games, EU, HoI, Vicky, and CK. It is the game I play when I don't have the energy to juggle all the details of those others or a game of Civ, and just want be immersed in an emergent galactic political narrative that I have some control over.
If I were to pick apart the actual gameplay, all it is is waiting for numbers to go up and spending them on the one thing that will make that one number go up faster. 90% of it is autopilot, which isn't a bad thing, it's good for the AI, and frees up my attention to imagine things without having to worry about stumbling over gameplay -but it's also why comparing them as apples to apples is just dumb.

This video is false dichotomies, poor delineation, and pointless comparisons shrouded behind accurate if superficial observations, it is more slight of hand than the dissertation it presents itself as. It's as though I were to conclude (falsely) that an expanded vocabulary were the primary measure of intelligence, and then reasoned (falsely) that everyone who does not speak English must be a fool
(Don't laugh, there are people who feel this way and they conjure a lot of suffering)

Civ's complexity is not in the differentiation of its factions (though I think he somewhat underrepresents the significance of the variations between civs) so much as it is in the mechanics and management of the varied systems everyone shares, and perhaps most importantly, the tight interplay between those systems, it is less a string of logic and more of a web. Endless Legend, another great game I love for its clean stylish aesthetics, creative approach and imaginative world building, has comparatively simple linear logic guiding the base mechanics everyone shares. Instead they load the complexity into the differences between the factions, which again... great! -but he analyzes these things in a vacuum, factions against factions, comparing one's weakness to the other's strength, but not one's strength to the other's weakness (which screams bias). He does not seem to appreciate or acknowledge that there is a limit to complexity that humans and AI will tolerate... necessitating choices to be made about where to spend that complexity, giving us those strengths and weaknesses. I would expect someone aiming for a fair comparison to weigh one's strength to the other's strength, weakness against weakness and one's whole against the other's whole, finally presenting their conclusions subjectively.
Anything else seems like intentional misrepresentation, or a gross display of backward rationality... to what purpose?
Conflict for views, arguments simultaneously too convoluted and underdeveloped to be easily and quickly dismissed by his audience as nothing but while being divisive enough for controversy to earn him more attention than this deserves. The stated goal of "refactionizing" anything is a red herring. OP (whom I doubt he has any relation to the real Sherlock Holmes) is feeding us to a troll.

Finally, the conclusion the video's author does give us... it doesn't even follow the introduction or the general theme of any of his arguments, but is some pseudo-philosophical nonsense about the nature of perception or something?!?! Do any of you seriously think Sid Meier, or any other creative designer on the planet hasn't thought of simply not being derivative? If these games were not similar, they would not be in the same genre, and the author would not be comparing them to tell us that they should maybe not be so similar!!

TL;DR: Either the author is all twisted in a knot, or he's trying to twist his audience into one.

F-
-I wish I could take a red sharpy to the whole video

 

[MAHRana]

Watched the video before and mostly agree, tbh it doesn't feel too different playing different civs, if all their colors were the same we would hardly tell the difference. Imho even Venice in Civ V didn't really change the mechanics to any major degree. Not to say that Civ is a bad game, but there's much more potential for flavor

 

[Archon_Wing]

Got kinda bored halfway through the video. My problem is that it's basically just one person's rambling about what they want in a game. Too many assumptions are taken for granted. There's too much of a emphasis on novelty and what I would consider "stuff" happening. And it's fair that they find that thing fun. I just don't think it applies to me. In fact, I think it falls under polish and should be thought about after core gameplay has been established.

Some people would consider more "stuff" intresting. And ironically "sameness" over results from poor balance because if certain strategies are too strong, then they drown out other strategy. And guess what's easier to balance?

 

[NukeAJS]

Interesting point at the end -- that developers are potentially hampering themselves by looking back and comparing/contrasting to old 4x (Civ in particular) not looking forward.

 

[Bitterman]

It's impossible to have different mechanics for each faction if we want to play with >25 civ or so. It would be crazy.

Besides when he talks about those necro-whatevers the first thing that comes to my mind is Macedon and Alexander. In Civ VI your entire civics and tech tree depends on the boost you recieve from taking other cities. That's the only reliable way you have to catch up with other cultural/science powehouses until mid-game. How is that not encouraging war?

Something similar happens with the Cree and Sumerians but in the other direction. Their bonuses encourage alliances to a certain extent.

Of course the game does not force you to play in any particular way based on your civ, but go and try to win a game in at least Immortal completely ignoring your civ bonuses and see how hard it turns to be. Good luck trying to catch up with Korea as the Mongols without waging war against them. Or with Pericles not making enough Acropolis.

 

[drubell]

I don't think he expressed his message as clearly as he could've, but to me, he was trying to say that the 4X genre as a whole has become stagnant creatively. Meanwhile, while Civilization remains the "baseline" of modern 4X, it is creatively bankrupt (per his example of the uniqueness of Civ 6's Norway). The concept that Civ has grown creatively bankrupt is a concept I've been pushing on these forums for a long time now. Despite all of the bonuses you get in Civ 6 per faction, I would argue that most civilizations don't play much differently than other civilizations. Even Civ 5 had more uniqueness in playstyle between civilizations, but even then, not by too much.

Overall I think the message of his argument is pretty good, but his presentation of the argument was weak.

I haven't played Endless Legend, but the idea of a faction that requires conquest to feed its citizens is interesting, unique, and requires a very different focus of play versus other factions. The game's rules remain the same, but the strategy is vastly different, which leads to more replayability.

He makes the same argument about Stellaris, that the choices you make as a faction is more unique in Stellaris than in Civ because of the fact that a lot of systems centered around governments and ethics in Stellaris force that faction to play in a very narrow playstyle. There are strategies that cannot even be used depending on your government and ethics, but playing to the strengths of the faction that you did choose to play is what makes the faction unique.

And he's saying that in comparison, there's very little difference in playstyle between any faction in Civ. I'm inclined to agree.

It I was to make a video discussing this issue, I would have also brrought up Heroes of Might and Magic 3, and even more so, 5. The game's rules remain the same between all factions, but the characterization and uniqueness to the abilities/creatures helps to make each faction distinct and identifiable in a way that Civ doesn't really attain as well.

 

[Scaramanga]

Again I think the historical setting of Civ places some restrictions on how varied the factions can be. I did not play Beyond Earth but it seems like it was an outlet for those kinds of possibilities. You can't have a civ of cannibals because it's not realistic although Mongolia killing horse units to get more horse units comes close.

 

[drubell]

Again I think the historical setting of Civ places some restrictions on how varied the factions can be. I did not play Beyond Earth but it seems like it was an outlet for those kinds of possibilities. You can't have a civ of cannibals because it's not realistic although Mongolia killing horse units to get more horse units comes close.

I don't think that has to be the case. Korea is pretty unique to me and isn't very focused on military (compared to Mongolia, or Aztec that also feels distinct compared to other civs). Korea is defined by its Campus, which gives good raw science while boosting adjacent resources to the Campus. The Campus defines Korea as a civ in that game.

Then you compare civs in Civ 6 like France, Russia, or America, and while they have a mishmash of abilities, I would argue that the abilities they get don't really create an identity that defines the way the civ is played. And that cuts on the replayability of the game in regards to wanting to try out all of the civilizations. That's the issue that I'm referring to.

 

[Scaramanga]

I don't think that has to be the case. Korea is pretty unique to me and isn't very focused on military (compared to Mongolia, or Aztec that also feels distinct compared to other civs). Korea is defined by its Campus, which gives good raw science while boosting adjacent resources to the Campus. The Campus defines Korea as a civ in that game.

Then you compare civs in Civ 6 like France, Russia, or America, and while they have a mishmash of abilities, I would argue that the abilities they get don't really create an identity that defines the way the civ is played. And that cuts on the replayability of the game in regards to wanting to try out all of the civilizations. That's the issue that I'm referring to.

I agree that the variety is there; Gorgo is also cannibalistic in her need to defeat units, Hardrada has no yield bonuses except faith so he needs to pillage. But it is more nuanced. Also any faction can just settle on a couple of horse and rush horsemen. This happened to me by none other than Korea in MP.

 

[Archon_Wing]

A lot of players tend to play these sorts of games at the lowest difficulties or can't even win a game at all, so these nuances often get lost.

"30% on killing an enemy? Pssttt... you heal anyways if you don't move!"

It's not unusual for people like that to prefer more shiny buttons as opposed to what they do.

 

[Scaramanga]

A lot of players tend to play these sorts of games at the lowest difficulties or can't even win a game at all, so these nuances often get lost.

"30% on killing an enemy? Pssttt... you heal anyways if you don't move!"

It's not unusual for people like that to prefer more shiny buttons as opposed to what they do.

So then Civ 6 has the best of both worlds: shiny buttons and nuanced variety. Or maybe you just play in strategic mode ?

 

[JosephC]

The main problem with Endless Legends is replayablity. Their strength in having uniquely defined factions is also their weakness. The first few games I had were all interesting and unique, because each faction has "story lines," unchangeable story lines. Even custom made factions you have to chose who's story line you want to follow. Again; this makes your first play through with any faction unique and interesting, but it destroys replayability value. Even when many of the games features are very interesting: Layered terrain, combat, etc..

Civ is one of the few series I'm pretty much playing the entire time between different versions.

 

[UWHabs]

I agree that the variety is there; Gorgo is also cannibalistic in her need to defeat units, Hardrada has no yield bonuses except faith so he needs to pillage. But it is more nuanced. Also any faction can just settle on a couple of horse and rush horsemen. This happened to me by none other than Korea in MP.

It's a very tough thing to balance. Like, you want to make sure civs will play to their style, and that there's enough there to try. But on the flipside, you can't go too crazy with it without really breaking the rules of the game. Like, if it was a fantasy game, "Mongolia" would likely have ONLY horse units - you'd have no archers, catapults, etc... and they would be forced to play their entire army with horses. But in civ, that's just too crazy to handle. Or if you only allowed civs to build wonders that they could in real life, then it would be really weird.

And really, watching the video, didn't he kind of prove his own point by essentially saying that Civ has created a winning formula? My understanding of the video was essentially, "Civ factions are not unique. These other games have factions that are very unique. Civ sells great and every game is compared to civ. So, civ should try to be more like those other games." The conclusion definitely doesn't follow from everything that came before it.

But yeah, I do think that civ does need more civs that play to a unique style. I don't believe that everyone needs to play that way, but I wouldn't mind seeing more "Kongo-like" civs. Maybe something like a Druidic civ that gets like massive faith bonuses, but can't build campuses and uses faith to advance along the tech tree? Having a few "factions" that completely change the style of play at least provides some variety if you're looking for it like the person who made the video obviously wants, while if you don't want that, you have plenty of options to not use them and keep with the standard formula.

 

[Archon_Wing]

So then Civ 6 has the best of both worlds: shiny buttons and nuanced variety. Or maybe you just play in strategic mode ?

Despite the fact I spent many hours with much older games, I can't stand playing in strategic mode. No idea why.