Players enjoy Civ for different reasons. Some mainly enjoy the strategic challenge of finding ways to conquer the enemy and beat the game. Others find the game compelling because of the immersive historic simulation experience.
Now some of you may know of a game called "EMPIRE" from Interstel. It's website can be found at: http://www.classicempire.com/. Civ 1 is basically modelled after this game. EMPIRE was not at all a historically immersive game. It is basically the purest 4x wargame that ever existed.
You and other AI players started out with one city and you expanded by conquering more neutral cities (controlled by no one). Each player controlled city can produce a military unit every few turns depending on the unit. Eventually you ran into the units and cities controlled by other players. The object is to simply explore the map and conquer the world. There are no borders of any kind, no diplomacy, no tech trees, etc. It is a pure race to get the most cities possible and to then plan how to combine and maneuver your units for maximum offense and defense.
Now not long ago, Paradox came out with a game called Europa Universalis (EU). While the game had 4X elements, its paradigm was much different. The developers envisioned a game that tried to model historical development of nations in all aspects, politically, economically technologically as well as militarily. All sorts of concepts and features were introduced to this effect such as religion, rebellion, resistance, independence, etc. etc. It is probably the most accurate and most historically realistic game that exists. But this also means that its paradigm is completely different from that of EMPIRE. You didn't and couldn't succeed simply by taking over more and more land because there were costs and risks to doing so that is accurately modelled. You had to manage all aspects of the nation/empire. If all you did was build up your military to try to take over as much land as possible, you would find your empire unravelling due to bankrupty and instability and revolt just like IRL.
Now looking at Civ, we see an interesting development:
1. Civ 1, the founding game, is basically EMPIRE but with some minor embellishments so that it "sort-of" felt historical. But the essence of the game was EMPIRE since its "historic" underpinnings were either too shallow or not realistic even in a broad sense. It was basically EMPIRE with a tech tree (and with cities growing bigger through time and not fixed cities like EMPIRE).
2. Civ 2 is basically just a more detailed version of Civ 1. There are more units/buildings and details such as HP (instead of alive/dead model) to improve gameplay. There are also "alliances". But underneath it all, the game was still basically EMPIRE. Not much was done to make the game more broadly historically realistic at all.
3. Civ 3 is the first revision where the series begins a slight paradigm shift. With trade, resources/luxuries, mutual protection, culture/nationality, the game has begun to make a meaningful move away from pure 4X.
It is instructive to see that there are two ways to view the changes of Civ 3. If enjoyed Civ because of its basic EMPIRE experience, then you viewed some of these features as enhancing that EMPIRE experience. OTOH, if you enjoy Civ more as a immersive simulation of history experience, then you felt Civ 3 moved much more in the direction you wanted Civ to take.
But fundamentally these two paradigms are not fully compatible in the sense that more of one means less of the other. For example, if you implement more complex economics with finished goods, trade routes, immigration, civil wars/independence, etc. etc than Civ 4 will be moving away from the EMPIRE paradigm and closer to the EU paradigm.
So I wanted to start this thread to discuss the heart of the matter. Do the readers here enjoy the game mostly because they view it through the lens of EMPIRE and would like Civ 4's "fundamental" paradigm to remain the EMPIRE paradigm?
Or do readers prefer that Civ 4 continue the slow and steady evolution towards the EU paradigm of greater historic realism?
Now some of you may know of a game called "EMPIRE" from Interstel. It's website can be found at: http://www.classicempire.com/. Civ 1 is basically modelled after this game. EMPIRE was not at all a historically immersive game. It is basically the purest 4x wargame that ever existed.
You and other AI players started out with one city and you expanded by conquering more neutral cities (controlled by no one). Each player controlled city can produce a military unit every few turns depending on the unit. Eventually you ran into the units and cities controlled by other players. The object is to simply explore the map and conquer the world. There are no borders of any kind, no diplomacy, no tech trees, etc. It is a pure race to get the most cities possible and to then plan how to combine and maneuver your units for maximum offense and defense.
Now not long ago, Paradox came out with a game called Europa Universalis (EU). While the game had 4X elements, its paradigm was much different. The developers envisioned a game that tried to model historical development of nations in all aspects, politically, economically technologically as well as militarily. All sorts of concepts and features were introduced to this effect such as religion, rebellion, resistance, independence, etc. etc. It is probably the most accurate and most historically realistic game that exists. But this also means that its paradigm is completely different from that of EMPIRE. You didn't and couldn't succeed simply by taking over more and more land because there were costs and risks to doing so that is accurately modelled. You had to manage all aspects of the nation/empire. If all you did was build up your military to try to take over as much land as possible, you would find your empire unravelling due to bankrupty and instability and revolt just like IRL.
Now looking at Civ, we see an interesting development:
1. Civ 1, the founding game, is basically EMPIRE but with some minor embellishments so that it "sort-of" felt historical. But the essence of the game was EMPIRE since its "historic" underpinnings were either too shallow or not realistic even in a broad sense. It was basically EMPIRE with a tech tree (and with cities growing bigger through time and not fixed cities like EMPIRE).
2. Civ 2 is basically just a more detailed version of Civ 1. There are more units/buildings and details such as HP (instead of alive/dead model) to improve gameplay. There are also "alliances". But underneath it all, the game was still basically EMPIRE. Not much was done to make the game more broadly historically realistic at all.
3. Civ 3 is the first revision where the series begins a slight paradigm shift. With trade, resources/luxuries, mutual protection, culture/nationality, the game has begun to make a meaningful move away from pure 4X.
It is instructive to see that there are two ways to view the changes of Civ 3. If enjoyed Civ because of its basic EMPIRE experience, then you viewed some of these features as enhancing that EMPIRE experience. OTOH, if you enjoy Civ more as a immersive simulation of history experience, then you felt Civ 3 moved much more in the direction you wanted Civ to take.
But fundamentally these two paradigms are not fully compatible in the sense that more of one means less of the other. For example, if you implement more complex economics with finished goods, trade routes, immigration, civil wars/independence, etc. etc than Civ 4 will be moving away from the EMPIRE paradigm and closer to the EU paradigm.
So I wanted to start this thread to discuss the heart of the matter. Do the readers here enjoy the game mostly because they view it through the lens of EMPIRE and would like Civ 4's "fundamental" paradigm to remain the EMPIRE paradigm?
Or do readers prefer that Civ 4 continue the slow and steady evolution towards the EU paradigm of greater historic realism?
