What makes a good civ?

[Déja]

This parallels the debate about scoring, but I think it's grounds for a good theoretical debate, regardless.

The question is this:

Not necessarily talking about Civilization, the game, how would you define a successful civilization?

In order to get this rolling, allow me to describe my Utopian vision of Civ:

For me a successful civilization is the one that is the most balanced. I think that at the time of victory, the civilization that has the least amount of variance from city-to-city of things like % of healthy population, % happy population, proportion of culture to city's age, things like that. A civilization that focuses entirely on conquest and war at the expense of infrastructure and culture won't be as successful as someone who can keep it all in balance.

What do you think?

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* Note: Please don't turn this into a flame thread where people complain about what other people say in other threads... I want this to be a constructive debate where people help to define what it means to be a successful civilization. This is not a GOOD civ as in a moral/ethical civ, but one that makes for a successful civilization, as one might find it in history.

 

[ewokimpi]

I believe that a game that addresses utopianism is CivCity: Rome. There are many other City building games as well.

The scoring system in these games would probably address your "good civilization" visions.

I'm interested in playing Civilization IV, the game. I am totally uninterested in anyones ideas of ethics being injected into consirations of scoring, "good" playing practices, or whatever.

I play in GOTMs so I can see what players with more experience and smarts than I, can do with the same starting position we all shared. If they know how to pop-rush, and I don't, they score higher than I do. I can learn (how to play the game) from that. I am totally uninterested in penalizing them for using the practice of pop-rushing, which is where this thread would lead.

My two cents.

 

[Déja]

I'm not trying to inject ethics into the game. Rather, I'm curious what standards people use to evaluate a successful civilization. I'm not talking about penalizing people (there're other threads for that going right now), but rather I'm just curious what people's opinions are... I'd appreciate if you could keep your flame-bait out of the thread and reply to the question being asked, or not reply at all. If you think that Firaxis' definition of a "good" civ are good enough, then say so and leave it at that.

I would like to reiterate... this is not a thread about playing practices... this is a thread to try to define what makes a successful civilization without relying on the controversial scoring system currently in place.

 

[Déja]

I would also like to add that I, too, am interested in Civilization IV, the game, but that, as an historian, I am also interested in what those who play a great deal of CivIV think about what would make a successful civilization, without relying on the scoreboard to tell them if they're "winning".

 

[Lejonmanen]

In my opinion, a successful civilization has to "stand the test of time", that is, to survive until the game ends and dominate in some way. I don't think it's necessary to be balanced, as long as the civilization's strong points outweigh the weak.

This is my first post by the way

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The thing that I most respect and that I regard as making a good civ is the skill, in particular the brain-work, required to build the civ. To me that is the essense of the game: The balancing of all sorts of conflicting requirements: Diplomacy vs religion vs land-grabbing, science vs culture, wonders vs power, etc. in a way that takes a lot of skill do do effectively.

An obvious corollory of that is I don't tend to value massive I-conquered-the-world civs that highly, because I don't think the skill required to take out other civs with force of overwhelming unit numbers is that high. And similarly I don't value milked civs, because it doesn't take much skill to plop down settlers in every available corner of land.

OTOH I do tend to value civs that have achieved a victory condition (any victory, even the conquering ones) extremely early, because that takes skill.

 

[malekithe]

Honestly, I think the things I value most in a real life civilization run counter to what you'd want to do in a competition. The thing is, real life isn't really a competition between nations (as much as some would like to believe). It is very possible for there to be multiple winners and no losers through cooperation. I value civilizations that avoid grabbing power and respect the basic human rights of its citizens. However, in the game of civ, you're a dictator. Your sole goal is the acquisition of power. As such, any measure of success must be based on the amount of power you were able to muster.

 

[drkodos]

What makes a good civ?

I have absolutely no clue. And neither does anyone else, really. It's all a matter of perspective and those perspectives are completely biased by experiences, upbringing and institutional learning, amoung other things.

It is 100 percent impossible to place any objective value on a civilization because no one knows what the purpose of life is anyway, if there even is one (I suspect there is not.) The only value we can place on any civilization is from the perspective of the civilization we currently live in. People that think they can stand outside themselves to look objectively are fooling themselves (and maybe some others) into thinking they have some powers that just do not exist.


I believe there is no such thing as a "good" civ. Nor is there any such thing as a bad civ. They are all merely struggling to survive, using whatever tools they have at their disposal in an attempt at self preservation. Some are more efficient than others, but so far, none has stood the test of time.

Except maybe the Middle Kingdom. But give it another millenia or two and we'll see.

 

[Alraun]

This thread is pretty heavily off topic.

 

[DaveMcW]

A good civ is one that practices Benthamian Utilitarianism.

 

[Staffa]

People that think they can stand outside themselves to look objectively are fooling themselves (and maybe some others) into thinking they have some powers that just do not exist.


I believe there is no such thing as a "good" civ. Nor is there any such thing as a bad civ.

These two statements seem to stand in contridiction to each other