Games like Civ create the idea that expansion and conquest are a natural part of natural history.
Most of the "Civs" in the game are empires built on top of the suffering of others. Even mechanics like Cultural and Religious victories have negative consequences.
It promotes the idea that nation-states are in competition with each other, that cooperation is only a temporary thing until your neighbors surpass you.
Not to say anything about the fact all the "civilizations" of the game are settled people who farm and mine, and the "barbarians" who only exist to be fought.
I love 4x games, but there are some problematic elements in them, for sure. The same could be said of most media, honestly.
I really wish internal and external trade routes had their own capacity. I rarely use internal routes cause they feel a lot weaker in comparison.
Internal trade routes are incredibly strong in the early game and in dom games where nobody likes you. International routes are only better with Wisselbanken and an ally in trade range, which is like Civil Service? Fairly late into the game.
Obv exceptions for Portugal/Spain/Poland, who get those extra yields on international routes much earlier.
Spain's bonus applies to internal routes if you have the right geography. And yeah you need a card to make external trade routes super great unless you're short cash for upgrades. But then Wisselbanken and Democracy make them insane.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Just played through my first game of Humankind on metropolis, which was stupid easy but hey I was there to learn about the mechanics and such. Played all the way to the max turn 150 and there are a ton of mechanics I still don't understand. I didn't make a single merchant district and yet I was rolling in cash. I thought there was going to be some kind of balancing stability (amenities) with districts that take it and infrastructure that provides but nope, just buy everyone's luxury goods (copies give full value) and just build whatever the hell you want. Hell I think buying them somehow was also leading to generating gold for me as well. Or maybe the game sells my luxuries and strategic resources but doesn't deny me access to them?
Didn't really have a chance to experience the combat, except for beating up animals and an early pillage I did on an opponent's outpost. It was a science game where no one bothered me pretty much ever while I just kept putting down farms, hammers, and science districts down with some infrastructure to boost it mixed in.
No idea what having influence over another civs does. It didn't seem like I would loyalty flip anything. Religion I guess is just a matter of putting down as many holy sites as you can, and I guess that would mean having smaller cities so you can cluster more of them? I wouldn't know because the civics menu has a secularism choice which I thought was simply flavor and a bonus for removing enemy religion pressure or being tolerant but removing it from government with a bonus or something, but it does that AND just completely removes the score you can gain from it altogether without telling you that is what it would do. Overall just a weird mechanic... you try to keep your stability high so you can gain more civic points faster so you can implement polices that then stray towards some kind of bonus while removing stability across your empire as you do it. I could see simply not dealing with civics for a while because you can't afford the early stability loss being a thing.
Also didn't like the building menu on the right feeling so scrunched up because they want to stack small scrollable windows.
Also, wish they would mention that sanctuaries just kinda go away? I thought I could keep hunting the animals as long as I don't ransack the sanctuary like Gorgo farming barbs but nope, suddenly gone.
Not to say anything about the fact all the "civilizations" of the game are settled people who farm and mine, and the "barbarians" who only exist to be fought.
I'm willing to give them a pass on this for a few reasons:
1 - "Barbarians" is a legacy term, honestly. Every edition of Civ had them afaik
2 - One of the design goals of games like this is to be approachable, and "barbarian" as a term for unsettled wandering tribal groups that fight you is understandable to a lot of folks
2.5 - As a corollary to this, a lot of groups that historically had been labeled as barbarians are now in the game as civilizations (Scythia, Mongolia, etc)
3 - "Tribal villages" existing somewhat indicates hat they don't necessarily, inherently view barbarian as strictly in opposition to civilized (but it's okay to still feel that way and not accept that reasoning)
4 - the new mod for Barbarian Clans that can evolve into city states is really cool and gives them more dynamic options
I do wish they'd just always used a different term for them, but the game first came out in 1991, so them picking it back then, while still shitty and short-sighted, is at least explainable, if not understandable
honestly I dunno what term would be better; 'barbarians' is at least 1) fairly ethnic-neutral and 2) not closely associated with an actual, colonized people
the main problem is that there's a group of (fictitious, digital) people whose only real purpose in the simulation is to be scoured from the landscape
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
honestly I dunno what term would be better; 'barbarians' is at least 1) fairly ethnic-neutral and 2) not closely associated with an actual, colonized people
the main problem is that there's a group of (fictitious, digital) people whose only real purpose in the simulation is to be scoured from the landscape
The main problem in a game where the primary goal of the player is to dominate the rest of the world (one way or another).
If you look at it even a little bit closely then yeah it's a problematic game. You can't take it too seriously or look too closely or it just ruins the fun of the game.
That's not a bad thing, it just means that if you can't not look too closely then it's not a game you'll be able to enjoy.
well, right; leaving aside the issues with taking various civilizations/groups of people throughout history and fitting them into a euro-colonial-centric competition for global resources is necessary for the game to exist, since that is its fundamental structure
but even within the game's weird frame, having other groups that're basically just there to be exterminated for gold seems rough
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
honestly I dunno what term would be better; 'barbarians' is at least 1) fairly ethnic-neutral and 2) not closely associated with an actual, colonized people
the main problem is that there's a group of (fictitious, digital) people whose only real purpose in the simulation is to be scoured from the landscape
"Bandits" is a term that gamers have been conditioned to understand means socially acceptable murder targets. It implies a gang of men who have banded together out of convenience, rather than a tribe of people connected by bloodline. And it hints at past wrongdoings, thereby allowing players to assume they deserve whatever they have coming to them.
If they really wanted praise from the people who consider "Barbarians" to be problematic, they could even rename them something like "Zealots" or "Survivalists". Such a change would be heralded as progressive, due to those terms association with unpopular right-wing ideologies.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
Yah, are you sure about survivalists? Personally, I try not to piss off people who not only own multiple axes, but do so for the same reason a professional chef owns multiple knives…
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
edited May 2021
It would probably be a little better if the game called the barbarians brigands or slavers, considering how they go after civilian units.
One thing the game could add is small trading outposts, crossroads, or small towns that spring up around trading posts and rivers, and don't block city placements but still provide small bonuses as long as you keep barbarians away from them. Or maybe you could pay them to send out a unit that guards your traders. And over time they might contribute in other ways by moving to your nearby cities and adding free population if you have the housing for it, or commercial hub/harbor/neighborhood adjacency or a faster building bonus, but if they face bad times because of flooding or moved trade routes, they might generate new barbarian units. Would reward you for exploration, having units outside of your borders etc.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
Tribal villages could be more like a strategic or bonus resource in that way, rather than just disappearing as soon as you get near them. Maybe one you can improve but has a permanent “locked” citizen that you can’t add to or reassign elsewhere but isn’t part of the city pop?
Buddy of mine went from wanting to preorder Humankind because of the discount, to being on the fence about it purely because he doesn't like the idea of being locked out of a civ come era change if you aren't fast enough.
Like Civ, it is definitely going to need an option during game creation that allows for multiples of a civ, and then maybe another for a pick your own progression kind of option. Apparently that added layer of deciding whether to delay your ascension for extra stars or being late to the ascension party and "being left with scraps" is a layer of competition he doesn't want to deal with.
I'm talking about a more generic version of Civs where you pick a focus (science, agrarian, expansion, etc.), a district/infrastructure, a beefed up unit, and the civ aesthetic look so that you can always get to choose the kind of civ you want to play and the era transition is instead a choice of deciding to delay ascension for more fame or upgrade for an immediate advantage.
Thinking about it, I kind of would like to see something similar in Civ. Some kind of point-buy system for bonuses, build-a-civ option.
Something I really want to see in the next Civ game is proper borders.
The current system is fine initially, but at some point in the tech/culture development I'd like to see country/nation borders be implemented as each Civ claims ownership of as much territory as they can exert influence over. Rather than just oddly shaped radii of different cities joining together, the landmasses would be properly encompassed by each Civs territorial borders.
For one, I really dislike (especially late game) all the weird little gaps and holes in each Civ's borders. If it's the 1400s and I've got 4 cities in fairly close proximity in a square shape, it's super dumb there might be some tiles in the centre of those cities that don't 'belong' to anyone because I need another 80 turns of culture output to claim them, 1 tile at a time.
But also the drawing of borders and carving up of landmasses into distinct countries (extending to cover coast tiles but stopping at ocean) would add a bunch of cool new mechanics and points of contention between the players. Border disputes, wars over disputed lands, lost ancestral homeland, land of great religious significance, diplomacy around drawing borders/dividing land between neighbours, more meaningful UN resolutions etc.
The 'proper' establishment of actual countries rather than 'here's a bunch of cities belonging to Civ X, and their own personal tile radii that mostly overlap with each other to form a continuous territory' style that it's always been. It would have a big effect on warmongering through the ages as well, which I always feel should get harder and harder as the game goes on and tech/global connectivity increase.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
I agree, seeing areas of the map not get settled is always super weird and immersion breaking for me.
I would also like the ability to swap tiles with other civs as part of a peace deal. I don't want your whole city, just the uranium right on my border.
Also, Honestly, the exterimate angle is increasingly more uncomfortable as we think about the colonial legacy of our cultures and the ilk - Not that the first three dont have issues, but the exterminate one really sticks out.
No, it's not.
Not because of the real-world effects, consequences, and ugliness you're alluding to, but because we are not required to be moral actors within video games.
If anything, the success more-modern 4x games are having in creating penalties and gameplay effects around the bad things we do in them is an improvement.
Also, Honestly, the exterimate angle is increasingly more uncomfortable as we think about the colonial legacy of our cultures and the ilk - Not that the first three dont have issues, but the exterminate one really sticks out.
No, it's not.
Not because of the real-world effects, consequences, and ugliness you're alluding to, but because we are not required to be moral actors within video games.
If anything, the success more-modern 4x games are having in creating penalties and gameplay effects around the bad things we do in them is an improvement.
It's cool that you know "The Zombie Penguin" feelings better than they do. I'll say I am a bit uncomfortable with these topics coming up in my game time.
I'll agree we do not have an obligation to be moral actors inside fantasy recreation activities. It still doesn't mean I want to play out those immoral activities. A game that focuses heavily on those activities is one I am less likely to purchase/play.
Come on; I'm not claiming to know anyone else's feelings. If anything, my thoughts re: the "increasingly uncomfortable" observation are:
As more consequences accumulate around immoral behavior in games, their inclusion as an option becomes less uncomfortable, because the game itself censures you.
The "exterminate" element should always have been some degree of uncomfortable. It's not any more or less out of place in the genre.
So, i wanna reply to this, but I don't want to derail the thread too hard, so i'll try and keep this brief. Let's be honest, i'm probably not going to succeed =P
Philosophically, I'm not sure you and i agree with regards to the are we required to be moral actors within video games. It's a VERY complicated subject. Super complex to my mind, and endlessly fascinating. What i will say on it is (And I don't think this is something people will debate too much) is that stories influence our behavior. Be these myths, religion, there's a whole argument that's been presented that we should not claim the title "Homo Saipens" (Wise man) but instead Pans Narran (Storytelling Chimpanzee). See: the science of discworld series, among others if you wanna get into this.
Games, as interactive media don't simply tell us stories, they involve us in stories. We end up building our own stories from them. How often do you tell anecdotes about your adventures in games to your friends? I bet it's a lot, if you're anything like me! Like, for example, the time in Stellaris I had to go to war with my Turtle-Men neighbors who hated me (Because i'd objected to their expansionist, slavery-driven ways and smacked them on the nose repeatedly when they tried to invade me) and cut a line straight through their territory to allow my own troops to move, all so i could put a stop to the endgame crisis. And i mean, the crisis wanted to eat the galaxy so stopping them is a good thing, yes? Except whoops, they're a refugee population who are eating galaxies because they're desperate and running form something else, and by stopping them I just drove them extinct. You scamp, Penguin, you!
That's a story, it's a pretty complicated and rather morally grim story, and you could argue i was in the right. But also the nature of stellaris means: I didn't actually have many other options to that story. The way the diplomacy worked in the game meant that i wasn't able to argue my neighbors around to letting me move troops through their territory. The way the crisis works means i didn't have a way to forge a peaceful or more (To me and my perspectives on things), moral solution.
So my question/criticism of the 4x genre is more: What sort of stories is this presenting? and why are these the stories presented? Why does Civ have a only one player can win, one person stands on top approach? I mean, there are some actual simple answers here that relate to the nature of games and competition, but it's worth interrogating.
Why? Because another way that you can frame Only One Can Win is "For One Person To Benefit, Another Has To Suffer"... which is the same shitty story used to justify the lack of free medical care for all, or a strong social welfare net, or access to housing. How do the stories that games tell feed back into "Gamer Culture" and the known issues with that? If we change the stories games tell, does the culture around them change? How does it change?
None of this is to say: you are a bad person for playing Civ and enjoying yourself. That's the stupidest bollocks! Escapism is important, and games are arguably a much healthier release valve for some of the stresses we experience in our lives than other options out there. But it's still worth interrogating these games, and the stories they tell, stories they may not even intend to tell.
Likewise you should always at least take a think about the escapism you engage in, and what results that might have. After all, would you go mountain biking while you have a broken leg? A possibly silly analogy, but you hopefully get the gist - your escapism still has effects on you, and you need to consider that to avoid harm to yourself. Because presumably, you're engaging in escapism as an act to make yourself happier or otherwise provide joy/release, and causing harm to one's self tends to run contrary to that. There's nothing wrong with having alcohol as a form of escapism, there's plenty wrong with drunk driving or drinking to blackout excess. So on, so forth
A related and interesting video on this subject if you want to get into it further is Folding Idea's Minecraft, Sandboxes, and Colonialism, which is super interesting, and touches on games i like to play like Satisfactory as well.
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Also this obviously doesn't touch on your point about consequences to immoral behavior in games, or only does so obliquely. It's a complicated subject and one worthy of it's own discussion in depth. I'll say briefly that personally, i dont think presenting you with a choice in a game, and then shaming you for taking it is the best approach as the game itself is already deciding what choices you can take, which muddles your complicity in them. (See also: Far Cry 3, Spec Ops: The Line and the discussion around how those attempt to shame you for the brutalities of your actions, but never actually give you any choice due to the on-rails nature of the story. It's a whole thing, and a very complex thing at that)
If i can request, if people would like to follow this debate up - could we shift it to a D&D or SE++ thread made for the task? I dont want to monoplize this thread and move it away from talking about Civ: the game, given the whole subject is a lot broader than just civ.
That's a really good reply, and I hope this does perhaps spawn a D&D thread on 4X games and these types of conversations.
Not to deride that very well thought out post, but rather to bring things back around to a lighter energy...
Gaulic Men-at-Arms in Classical Era go brrrrrr
Thanks! Thinking about it, i'll make the thread myself this evening, and use my post as the kic koff point + some explaining about it. I'll link it here when i've done so!
So I just played a game on a huge map, marathon speed, six civilizations, only one city-state, and all optional game modes on at the same time. Survival Mode.
Neutral territory is a barbarian infested wasteland. City-states actually do a lot of the work clearing outposts in normal games, so not having any around means outposts just keep spawning units until you get rid of them yourself. Because of how their tech scaling works, they pretty much always have higher tier units than you do, so you have to use numbers and coordination to clear them out. If you're wondering why I put that single city-state in the game, it's because of a bug that prevents barbarian outposts from converting into city-states if you set the slider to zero during map creation.
But you can't just send your whole army to clear outposts, because of the ever present threat of zombies. An unguarded city can quickly find itself depleted of population. The slow game speed means you can't build reinforcements quick. The Discipline policy card was pretty much a permanent staple of this game.
But the worst threat of all were the damn free cities that the A.I. loses control over and never bothers trying to recapture. Unlike Barbarians and Zombies, the Discipline card doesn't work on them. And they can heal by skipping their turn, so a turtle strategy is much less useful against them. If a free city light cavalry unit catches a glimpse of a recon unit, it'll continue to pursue no matter how far the recon unit runs from the city!
Ironically, the amplified natural disasters from Apocalypse Mode were a boon. They would occasionally cull some of these dangerous forces, making it easier to clear them out.
Gold income was a constant problem in this this game. Part of that was just maintaining a larger than usual military and needing to keep it upgraded, including the many "free" recon units you'll get from tribal villages. And of course, foreign trade routes were difficult to maintain. I pretty much had to send my military into other civilizations' territories and clear out their zombie problems on my own just to be able to trade with them. And because the A.I. struggled with the sparseness and hostility of this world even more than I did, they rarely had much to trade in exchange for my excess luxury resources.
In the end, winning the game wasn't all that hard. The struggle came entirely from just surviving to the point where I could win.
I don't think I would recommend playing a game like this, but it was interesting to experience as a one-off.
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
edited May 2021
Lately I’ve been playing King (any higher and the AI boosts are too much for me), Standard speed, Standard size map (IPad won’t run Gathering Storm on bigger maps), random map, random civ. Sometimes it becomes apparent that I can’t win or I got a civ that sucks to play(i.e. Georgia). But mostly it’s been a lot of fun
Current game I’m Poundmaker, and I spawned within 10 tiles of America and Persia. America became immediately aggressive and declared war on me before I had 3 cities. I had been preparing though and took two of their cities before deciding that isolating their capital was enough and getting my guys killed trying to take it would be pointless.
I start replenishing my forces and building a few more settlers and trade routes, 20 turns later i get targeted for an emergency since I took cities from America. Persia, just to my south, says yes. Canada, so far away they can’t force project, says yes. I fight off Persia. My amenities are pretty high so I keep the war going. Eventually Persia exhausts its forces and I get to push into their territory. Meanwhile Poland is attacking them from the other side. Poland takes a city. I take a city.
I share an inland ocean with their capital, and I’m inexplicably the only civ in the game developing a navy. I take the Persian capital with a galley. I declare peace.
About this time, I get a golden age with my favorite reward, the “buy civilian units with faith” option. This is the point int he game when I always get my cities built up fast and filling unclaimed territory.
Now I’m just pumping out gold and getting my science up. There’s still unclaimed land of turn 200 so I’ve been grabbing whatever I can just to deny it to my opponents, even picked out a little subcontinent that’s going to be a nice series of contiguous national parks just for the heck of it.
I really like Poundmaker.
knitdan on
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Specifically -- if I am giving Open Borders in a trade (it's listed on my side of the trade screen), does that mean that I am granting them access to my territory? Or vice-versa?
Specifically -- if I am giving Open Borders in a trade (it's listed on my side of the trade screen), does that mean that I am granting them access to my territory? Or vice-versa?
Yes, that's what it means.
Open Borders on your side of the trade means that you will allow their units to move within your borders.
If you want to move within their borders, they must also offer Open Borders on their side of the trade.
This also means that you can get access to their land without letting them into yours, if you trade something else for it.
Specifically -- if I am giving Open Borders in a trade (it's listed on my side of the trade screen), does that mean that I am granting them access to my territory? Or vice-versa?
Yes, that's what it means.
Open Borders on your side of the trade means that you will allow their units to move within your borders.
If you want to move within their borders, they must also offer Open Borders on their side of the trade.
This also means that you can get access to their land without letting them into yours, if you trade something else for it.
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
edited May 2021
Well, next time I try for a Diplo victory I will just turn off cultural victory... Still, a nice emperor win with Rough Rider Teddy. I started close to Korea and I just couldn't have that, but I had Pantheon-boosted camps, stole one of her settlers and spammed archers and warriors even while I was building the Pyramids and ToA, so it was easy to smack her out of the game before the classical era and then it was extremely smooth from there. Wrong continent, Seondeok.
I think I'm of the opinion that melee land UUs are lame and should be switched to another unit class. At the very least Warrior UUs would all be better as Spearman UUs. They're pretty decent for clearing out barb camps but the by the time you can leverage them against other civs, they're close to being outdated. Or maybe that's just the way I play since I prefer to get a few cities and build up some tech (ideally I'd have Archers before going to war, at a minimum).
The whole point of warrior uus is you can build four or five and steal an enemy capital early, if you aren’t doing that then yeah its a wasted slot.
It’s a high risk high reward strategy but if you can pull it off you are at a pretty big advantage for little cost since you get very little penalty for ancient age wars.
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AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
Unique ancient/classical units also lead to almost guaranteed golden ages that you can capitalize on to make yourself very comfortable for the rest of the game. The Cree for example are all about getting a really solid start and then deciding what to do.
Yeah I guess I should clarify, it just feels ... boring, I think is the word. Like, everyone's gonna use melee units anyway unless your UU is something else that's better, so making the UUs non-melee land units I feel like would encourage more diversity in war strategy. Plus the era score thing - if your UU is a warrior that's just free era score. Even an Archer or Spearman UU you have to actually research and build, so there's actual work you gotta do to earn the reward. It's always worth it, imo, but just getting the free era score feels cheap.
I guess my issue is specifically with Gaul since their meta now is basically MaArms rush. Giving their UU ability to a Spearman would make that rush/strategy open a bit earlier and last a bit longer. A Spearman with the Gaesatae bonus would be worth having alongside MaArms and would make Statue of Zeus a lot more desirably, again imo. Get Spearmen, get MaArms, conquer your neighbor that much faster, then sit back and sim to Science or Culture victory.
In multiplayer melee units are rarely used apparently as it's all about archers/crossbowmen, cavalry, and spearmen. You need to give melee units extra features or punch to make them worthwhile.
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AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
I am quite sure future Civ titles are going to change military units and battles to the same degree Civ VI changed cities. Nothing close to Total War or the Age of Wonders "sub screens" system where battles are micro and everything else is macro, but just a little more historically accurate and advanced.
I feel like gladius might be a good place to look for ideas of things that could be done to make combat more interesting while remaining in basically the same 1upt system.
Especially some of the things they do with special unit abilities, overwatch, etc.
Like I could see an interesting thing being if gunpowder units got 1 tile overwatch against non-gunpowder melee and cavalry units.
They need to go Endless Legend/Age of Wonders style. Have an army consisting of different units, then you zoom in for combat across the landscape using those forces (and terrain/etc). It's SUCH a better combat system.
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Games like Civ create the idea that expansion and conquest are a natural part of natural history.
Most of the "Civs" in the game are empires built on top of the suffering of others. Even mechanics like Cultural and Religious victories have negative consequences.
It promotes the idea that nation-states are in competition with each other, that cooperation is only a temporary thing until your neighbors surpass you.
Not to say anything about the fact all the "civilizations" of the game are settled people who farm and mine, and the "barbarians" who only exist to be fought.
I love 4x games, but there are some problematic elements in them, for sure. The same could be said of most media, honestly.
Internal trade routes are incredibly strong in the early game and in dom games where nobody likes you. International routes are only better with Wisselbanken and an ally in trade range, which is like Civil Service? Fairly late into the game.
Obv exceptions for Portugal/Spain/Poland, who get those extra yields on international routes much earlier.
Didn't really have a chance to experience the combat, except for beating up animals and an early pillage I did on an opponent's outpost. It was a science game where no one bothered me pretty much ever while I just kept putting down farms, hammers, and science districts down with some infrastructure to boost it mixed in.
No idea what having influence over another civs does. It didn't seem like I would loyalty flip anything. Religion I guess is just a matter of putting down as many holy sites as you can, and I guess that would mean having smaller cities so you can cluster more of them? I wouldn't know because the civics menu has a secularism choice which I thought was simply flavor and a bonus for removing enemy religion pressure or being tolerant but removing it from government with a bonus or something, but it does that AND just completely removes the score you can gain from it altogether without telling you that is what it would do. Overall just a weird mechanic... you try to keep your stability high so you can gain more civic points faster so you can implement polices that then stray towards some kind of bonus while removing stability across your empire as you do it. I could see simply not dealing with civics for a while because you can't afford the early stability loss being a thing.
Also didn't like the building menu on the right feeling so scrunched up because they want to stack small scrollable windows.
Also, wish they would mention that sanctuaries just kinda go away? I thought I could keep hunting the animals as long as I don't ransack the sanctuary like Gorgo farming barbs but nope, suddenly gone.
I'm willing to give them a pass on this for a few reasons:
1 - "Barbarians" is a legacy term, honestly. Every edition of Civ had them afaik
2 - One of the design goals of games like this is to be approachable, and "barbarian" as a term for unsettled wandering tribal groups that fight you is understandable to a lot of folks
2.5 - As a corollary to this, a lot of groups that historically had been labeled as barbarians are now in the game as civilizations (Scythia, Mongolia, etc)
3 - "Tribal villages" existing somewhat indicates hat they don't necessarily, inherently view barbarian as strictly in opposition to civilized (but it's okay to still feel that way and not accept that reasoning)
4 - the new mod for Barbarian Clans that can evolve into city states is really cool and gives them more dynamic options
I do wish they'd just always used a different term for them, but the game first came out in 1991, so them picking it back then, while still shitty and short-sighted, is at least explainable, if not understandable
Honestly, Humankind looks like a nice change of pace. The idea of a nomadic neolithic start is something I've wanted to see for a while.
the main problem is that there's a group of (fictitious, digital) people whose only real purpose in the simulation is to be scoured from the landscape
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The main problem in a game where the primary goal of the player is to dominate the rest of the world (one way or another).
If you look at it even a little bit closely then yeah it's a problematic game. You can't take it too seriously or look too closely or it just ruins the fun of the game.
That's not a bad thing, it just means that if you can't not look too closely then it's not a game you'll be able to enjoy.
but even within the game's weird frame, having other groups that're basically just there to be exterminated for gold seems rough
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
"Bandits" is a term that gamers have been conditioned to understand means socially acceptable murder targets. It implies a gang of men who have banded together out of convenience, rather than a tribe of people connected by bloodline. And it hints at past wrongdoings, thereby allowing players to assume they deserve whatever they have coming to them.
If they really wanted praise from the people who consider "Barbarians" to be problematic, they could even rename them something like "Zealots" or "Survivalists". Such a change would be heralded as progressive, due to those terms association with unpopular right-wing ideologies.
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One thing the game could add is small trading outposts, crossroads, or small towns that spring up around trading posts and rivers, and don't block city placements but still provide small bonuses as long as you keep barbarians away from them. Or maybe you could pay them to send out a unit that guards your traders. And over time they might contribute in other ways by moving to your nearby cities and adding free population if you have the housing for it, or commercial hub/harbor/neighborhood adjacency or a faster building bonus, but if they face bad times because of flooding or moved trade routes, they might generate new barbarian units. Would reward you for exploration, having units outside of your borders etc.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
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Like Civ, it is definitely going to need an option during game creation that allows for multiples of a civ, and then maybe another for a pick your own progression kind of option. Apparently that added layer of deciding whether to delay your ascension for extra stars or being late to the ascension party and "being left with scraps" is a layer of competition he doesn't want to deal with.
I'm talking about a more generic version of Civs where you pick a focus (science, agrarian, expansion, etc.), a district/infrastructure, a beefed up unit, and the civ aesthetic look so that you can always get to choose the kind of civ you want to play and the era transition is instead a choice of deciding to delay ascension for more fame or upgrade for an immediate advantage.
Thinking about it, I kind of would like to see something similar in Civ. Some kind of point-buy system for bonuses, build-a-civ option.
The current system is fine initially, but at some point in the tech/culture development I'd like to see country/nation borders be implemented as each Civ claims ownership of as much territory as they can exert influence over. Rather than just oddly shaped radii of different cities joining together, the landmasses would be properly encompassed by each Civs territorial borders.
For one, I really dislike (especially late game) all the weird little gaps and holes in each Civ's borders. If it's the 1400s and I've got 4 cities in fairly close proximity in a square shape, it's super dumb there might be some tiles in the centre of those cities that don't 'belong' to anyone because I need another 80 turns of culture output to claim them, 1 tile at a time.
But also the drawing of borders and carving up of landmasses into distinct countries (extending to cover coast tiles but stopping at ocean) would add a bunch of cool new mechanics and points of contention between the players. Border disputes, wars over disputed lands, lost ancestral homeland, land of great religious significance, diplomacy around drawing borders/dividing land between neighbours, more meaningful UN resolutions etc.
The 'proper' establishment of actual countries rather than 'here's a bunch of cities belonging to Civ X, and their own personal tile radii that mostly overlap with each other to form a continuous territory' style that it's always been. It would have a big effect on warmongering through the ages as well, which I always feel should get harder and harder as the game goes on and tech/global connectivity increase.
I would also like the ability to swap tiles with other civs as part of a peace deal. I don't want your whole city, just the uranium right on my border.
So, i wanna reply to this, but I don't want to derail the thread too hard, so i'll try and keep this brief. Let's be honest, i'm probably not going to succeed =P
Philosophically, I'm not sure you and i agree with regards to the are we required to be moral actors within video games. It's a VERY complicated subject. Super complex to my mind, and endlessly fascinating. What i will say on it is (And I don't think this is something people will debate too much) is that stories influence our behavior. Be these myths, religion, there's a whole argument that's been presented that we should not claim the title "Homo Saipens" (Wise man) but instead Pans Narran (Storytelling Chimpanzee). See: the science of discworld series, among others if you wanna get into this.
Games, as interactive media don't simply tell us stories, they involve us in stories. We end up building our own stories from them. How often do you tell anecdotes about your adventures in games to your friends? I bet it's a lot, if you're anything like me! Like, for example, the time in Stellaris I had to go to war with my Turtle-Men neighbors who hated me (Because i'd objected to their expansionist, slavery-driven ways and smacked them on the nose repeatedly when they tried to invade me) and cut a line straight through their territory to allow my own troops to move, all so i could put a stop to the endgame crisis. And i mean, the crisis wanted to eat the galaxy so stopping them is a good thing, yes? Except whoops, they're a refugee population who are eating galaxies because they're desperate and running form something else, and by stopping them I just drove them extinct. You scamp, Penguin, you!
That's a story, it's a pretty complicated and rather morally grim story, and you could argue i was in the right. But also the nature of stellaris means: I didn't actually have many other options to that story. The way the diplomacy worked in the game meant that i wasn't able to argue my neighbors around to letting me move troops through their territory. The way the crisis works means i didn't have a way to forge a peaceful or more (To me and my perspectives on things), moral solution.
So my question/criticism of the 4x genre is more: What sort of stories is this presenting? and why are these the stories presented? Why does Civ have a only one player can win, one person stands on top approach? I mean, there are some actual simple answers here that relate to the nature of games and competition, but it's worth interrogating.
Why? Because another way that you can frame Only One Can Win is "For One Person To Benefit, Another Has To Suffer"... which is the same shitty story used to justify the lack of free medical care for all, or a strong social welfare net, or access to housing. How do the stories that games tell feed back into "Gamer Culture" and the known issues with that? If we change the stories games tell, does the culture around them change? How does it change?
None of this is to say: you are a bad person for playing Civ and enjoying yourself. That's the stupidest bollocks! Escapism is important, and games are arguably a much healthier release valve for some of the stresses we experience in our lives than other options out there. But it's still worth interrogating these games, and the stories they tell, stories they may not even intend to tell.
Likewise you should always at least take a think about the escapism you engage in, and what results that might have. After all, would you go mountain biking while you have a broken leg? A possibly silly analogy, but you hopefully get the gist - your escapism still has effects on you, and you need to consider that to avoid harm to yourself. Because presumably, you're engaging in escapism as an act to make yourself happier or otherwise provide joy/release, and causing harm to one's self tends to run contrary to that. There's nothing wrong with having alcohol as a form of escapism, there's plenty wrong with drunk driving or drinking to blackout excess. So on, so forth
A related and interesting video on this subject if you want to get into it further is Folding Idea's Minecraft, Sandboxes, and Colonialism, which is super interesting, and touches on games i like to play like Satisfactory as well.
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Also this obviously doesn't touch on your point about consequences to immoral behavior in games, or only does so obliquely. It's a complicated subject and one worthy of it's own discussion in depth. I'll say briefly that personally, i dont think presenting you with a choice in a game, and then shaming you for taking it is the best approach as the game itself is already deciding what choices you can take, which muddles your complicity in them. (See also: Far Cry 3, Spec Ops: The Line and the discussion around how those attempt to shame you for the brutalities of your actions, but never actually give you any choice due to the on-rails nature of the story. It's a whole thing, and a very complex thing at that)
If i can request, if people would like to follow this debate up - could we shift it to a D&D or SE++ thread made for the task? I dont want to monoplize this thread and move it away from talking about Civ: the game, given the whole subject is a lot broader than just civ.
Edit: Thread for this discussion over 'ere: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240528/4x-games-implicit-storytelling/
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Not to deride that very well thought out post, but rather to bring things back around to a lighter energy...
Gaulic Men-at-Arms in Classical Era go brrrrrr
Thanks! Thinking about it, i'll make the thread myself this evening, and use my post as the kic koff point + some explaining about it. I'll link it here when i've done so!
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
It was way worse because the mechanics encouraged you to play tall.
Neutral territory is a barbarian infested wasteland. City-states actually do a lot of the work clearing outposts in normal games, so not having any around means outposts just keep spawning units until you get rid of them yourself. Because of how their tech scaling works, they pretty much always have higher tier units than you do, so you have to use numbers and coordination to clear them out. If you're wondering why I put that single city-state in the game, it's because of a bug that prevents barbarian outposts from converting into city-states if you set the slider to zero during map creation.
But you can't just send your whole army to clear outposts, because of the ever present threat of zombies. An unguarded city can quickly find itself depleted of population. The slow game speed means you can't build reinforcements quick. The Discipline policy card was pretty much a permanent staple of this game.
But the worst threat of all were the damn free cities that the A.I. loses control over and never bothers trying to recapture. Unlike Barbarians and Zombies, the Discipline card doesn't work on them. And they can heal by skipping their turn, so a turtle strategy is much less useful against them. If a free city light cavalry unit catches a glimpse of a recon unit, it'll continue to pursue no matter how far the recon unit runs from the city!
Ironically, the amplified natural disasters from Apocalypse Mode were a boon. They would occasionally cull some of these dangerous forces, making it easier to clear them out.
Gold income was a constant problem in this this game. Part of that was just maintaining a larger than usual military and needing to keep it upgraded, including the many "free" recon units you'll get from tribal villages. And of course, foreign trade routes were difficult to maintain. I pretty much had to send my military into other civilizations' territories and clear out their zombie problems on my own just to be able to trade with them. And because the A.I. struggled with the sparseness and hostility of this world even more than I did, they rarely had much to trade in exchange for my excess luxury resources.
In the end, winning the game wasn't all that hard. The struggle came entirely from just surviving to the point where I could win.
I don't think I would recommend playing a game like this, but it was interesting to experience as a one-off.
Current game I’m Poundmaker, and I spawned within 10 tiles of America and Persia. America became immediately aggressive and declared war on me before I had 3 cities. I had been preparing though and took two of their cities before deciding that isolating their capital was enough and getting my guys killed trying to take it would be pointless.
I start replenishing my forces and building a few more settlers and trade routes, 20 turns later i get targeted for an emergency since I took cities from America. Persia, just to my south, says yes. Canada, so far away they can’t force project, says yes. I fight off Persia. My amenities are pretty high so I keep the war going. Eventually Persia exhausts its forces and I get to push into their territory. Meanwhile Poland is attacking them from the other side. Poland takes a city. I take a city.
I share an inland ocean with their capital, and I’m inexplicably the only civ in the game developing a navy. I take the Persian capital with a galley. I declare peace.
About this time, I get a golden age with my favorite reward, the “buy civilian units with faith” option. This is the point int he game when I always get my cities built up fast and filling unclaimed territory.
Now I’m just pumping out gold and getting my science up. There’s still unclaimed land of turn 200 so I’ve been grabbing whatever I can just to deny it to my opponents, even picked out a little subcontinent that’s going to be a nice series of contiguous national parks just for the heck of it.
I really like Poundmaker.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Specifically -- if I am giving Open Borders in a trade (it's listed on my side of the trade screen), does that mean that I am granting them access to my territory? Or vice-versa?
Yes, that's what it means.
Open Borders on your side of the trade means that you will allow their units to move within your borders.
If you want to move within their borders, they must also offer Open Borders on their side of the trade.
This also means that you can get access to their land without letting them into yours, if you trade something else for it.
Okay perfect that's what I thought
It’s a high risk high reward strategy but if you can pull it off you are at a pretty big advantage for little cost since you get very little penalty for ancient age wars.
I guess my issue is specifically with Gaul since their meta now is basically MaArms rush. Giving their UU ability to a Spearman would make that rush/strategy open a bit earlier and last a bit longer. A Spearman with the Gaesatae bonus would be worth having alongside MaArms and would make Statue of Zeus a lot more desirably, again imo. Get Spearmen, get MaArms, conquer your neighbor that much faster, then sit back and sim to Science or Culture victory.
Especially some of the things they do with special unit abilities, overwatch, etc.
Like I could see an interesting thing being if gunpowder units got 1 tile overwatch against non-gunpowder melee and cavalry units.
Yup I will definitely be buying that and trying it, I'm a fan of all their stuff and I welcome competition for Civ.