What's the point of this game?

[XiaoHu]

Hey everyone!

I am pretty new to this game. I played Civ4 for awhile, and really like it. Got Civ5 a few months ago, and have been enjoying it, more or less. Don’t get me wrong….great game!! Just after reading some of the posts here I am left with a question….

What’s the point of this game?

It seems to me, and I could be wrong since I’ve only been browsing this site for a few months, this game is about winning in the least amount of turns as humanly possible. Is that pretty much the consensus?

The reason I ask is because I don’t play the game like that at all. I start a game with an idea in mind of what I want to do (science, cultural, dom victory, etc.) working with some basic strategies, and then I just play and see what happens. Does anyone else play that way?? I guess I like a game to last for as long as possible. But from what I read here it just seems to me that the goal is to win in 200 turns or less. That’s just my impression, however; and I could be wrong.

But if I’m not wrong, than I can safely say I won’t be making it into the Hall of Fame anytime soon! LOL But I’m sure enjoying the game anyway. Not trying to knock anyone. If you can win a dom victory in 17 turns, more power to you (there is actually a YouTube video of someone doing this)! I can only speak for myself, but I would think that this would take the fun out of playing Civ. Just my two cents. Also wondering if there are any other players out there that have a similar style.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

The eventual point is just to enjoy yourself, I'm sure there are people that try to get highscores, best times and post them somewhere on this forum but I think the majority of the people just plays to amuse themselves, if they'd included a proper single player campaign you could at least shift some focus there, but as it is it's mostly just a sandbox game that you play until you get sick of the sandbox itself.
Ofcourse there's something to be said about the used needles and broken glass inhabiting said sandbox, but I'll leave that for another thread.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

people play with lots of different goals in mind. for competitive measurements, earliest turn victory is certainly popular. but you can also play for high score. the HoF takes both into account.

but they (HoF winners) are the "cream of the crop" so to speak. many of us play for the immersion value of taking a society through history or taking an unorthodox approach to a civ like getting a diplomatic vic with a warmongering civ. i even play just to see how much gold i can generate or how cheap can i get the cost of buildings or units. i play to learn to be better in lots of ways, not just earliest turn vic.

you'll get used to the general consensus of how to play the game. there are even entire real-time videos with commentary if you feel like a 5+ hour example of what an early turn vic looks like or what a 4-city sword rush strategy looks like. its a lot to take in but its pretty interesting as hobbies go.

 

[Darkeagle6]

Different people play for different reasons, actually. I first started Civ IV because I was fascinated by the whole "go through history" phase, and enjoyed learning how to build an empire in the game. My first few games of Civ were about playing around with "history", and seeing what would happen (Being warmonger Gandhi, Saladin the founder and leader of the Jewish religion, etc.) Later on, I got more interested in trying to beat the AI at higher difficulty levels, and started learning more about how the game worked in a "strategy" sense.

In a sense, that's partly why they have 8 difficulty levels. On Settler, you can do almost anything you want and still win; the AI won't ever declare on you (or was that just in Civ IV?), etc. And of course, on Deity, your options are a lot more limited, since the AI's bonuses means that it can wipe you out unless you really know what you're doing. The level you choose reflects not only your skill with the game, but also the kind of game you like to play.

If you like to choose how you're going to win and/or what you're going to focus on before you start a game, then someone might argue you're not playing "optimally", in that certain maps and starting conditions will steer you towards certain choices more than others (eg starting sandwiched between Montezuma and Alexander might make you forsake those wonders for the sake of a strong army). However, if you don't care about "optimal play", then you really don't have to worry about that; you either adjust the difficulty level, or learn to deal with higher level AI, whichever is more fun.

It seems you play the game in a similar way I do. For instance, last game I decided I was going to use Siam and win a cultural victory though allying all the cultural city states I could. (Funny enough, I didn't realise that the "Continents plus" map script tends to set all the city states on individual islands and I spent the entire game at war with Rome and Germany, unable to ally the sole city state on our continent, as it was allied with germany and thus at war with me. It was a fun challenge, though, and I eventually won.)

I think that the reason this series is so popular is that it can be captivating for many reasons. Don't let the particular competitive bent of many people on this site make you worry about how you're supposed to play the game! I'm pretty sure no one here is going to tell you you're playing it wrong, anyway

 

[Heerlo]

Beleive it or not, I like to play not even trying to win, but just trying to run a peaceful, powferful civ, that can bring peace and justice to the world...

...and that's fun for me.

 

[Tokira]

Does anyone else play that way??

I play the game exactly in the same way as you. When I start, I decide what kind of victory I aim for. Sometimes, especially on domination games, I might change the concept due to some difficulties or just for fun at some point of the game if another victory looks nicer to achieve.

Personally I try to finish every game to have some kind of list of completed games in the hall of fame. I stopped caring about the actual scores that the list holds mainly because in my opinion the scores kinda loosetheir shine when the number one score there was much easier to achieve than the number three game for example.

In number one score I played as Spain and conquered the whole earth map on a prince level game. I was about 20 techs ahead of other civs in the end and there was nothing hard in the game at all. In the number three I tried domination victory playing as Denmark on a deity game. In the end I ended up having a nuclear war with Isabella, who had much bigger army than I and who was much ahead in techs. Eventually I won science victory afte a lot of tactics with nukes (90% of the Spanish cities were destroyed in the end). If the score had something to do with how hard the game was, I would possibly even care about it to some extent.

 

[Camikaze]

Intriguing question. What is the point of any game other than to win? Have fun along the way, and that's about it. Being immersed in the game is probably one of the large points, and that doesn't necessarily require winning. I guess you could say the overall point is to manipulate the given rules and mechanics in such a way as to maximise your enjoyment.

 

[eris]

It is my impression that the vast majority of Civ players are Single Player, lower to medium difficulty, casual players of one flavor or another according to preference. There are also strong factions that take the game as a competitive challenge, striving for scores or other measures of success, or else participating in a Multi-Player environment. The competitive folk tend to drive the need for a forum such as this and dominate the tone of the conversations. In their enthusiasm, there is a tendency to shortcut "For me, this is the only way to play." to "This is the only way to play!!!." However, if you have read the forums and gotten the impression that there is ever only one way to play, I submit you need to stop putting so much faith in the attitude of these people. They are fanatics. In particular, they are Civfanatics, the very worst kind. If you are going to insist on being a Civfanatic, I am going to insist you be your own kind of fanatic, not a copy of anyone else. But I am fanatic about that kind of thing.

 

[headcase]

To build a civilization that will stand the test of time™ (and have some fun while doing so).

If you're bored, mix it up, turn off all victories except, for example, time and domination, which I'm playing as Monty (in Nights). So far, it's been a lot of fun

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

Sometimes I like to set up whacky games. Like a cold world with sparse resources and just try to make as strong a civilization as possible with the terrible conditions. Or turn on raging barbarians and watch the total anarchy unfold. The map pack DLC is pretty sweet for this since there's a lot of nice, real-world like maps. So you can create all sorts of crazy scenarios. For some reason I like playing on realistic maps, the wars always seem more satisfying in some way, instead of over nameless stetches of land from random maps. I also try to recreate say WW1/WW2 by starting in the Industrial era.

Picking a civilization and going for a different victory condition than its suited for is fun. Such as picking Germany and going for Cultural, but attempting to abuse the low cost unit maintenance to have a little puppet empire. I also just really like the combat system in CiV in general, so sometimes I just start up the game to fight wars for the pure strategy and tactics element.

Just cuz you don't win in the end, doesn't mean it wasn't enjoyable.

 

[Tabarnak]

If you don't have fun, it doesn't worth it. Whatever you do or like.

 

[XiaoHu]

Thanks for the replies, everyone!! Good to hear that I am in such good company. Tabarnak is right…if the game isn’t fun, why waste your time??

I’m really finding that the best way (for me) to play is to be familiar with the right conditions for each victory type, and while I’m playing be able to determine which kind of victory would best suit the way the game is going. Does that make sense? So while I may have started off with a tech victory in mind, I may notice about 80 or so turns in that I need to go for a Dom victory (AI rather aggressive, multiple DoWs, Civs start position in close proximity). Anyway, I think this makes me a better player in the long run.