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I think the thing with Civ's view of history is that for a very long time, right up to the time the first civ game was made, that whole 'linear progression of history' narrative was widely accepted as a normal way to view history. It's only more recently that viewpoints challenging that narrative have become accepted and have replaced the linear progression narrative to a certain extent. You can still see it in things like classifying countries into 'developed' and 'developing', as if all countries are on a linear path towards resembling Europe/North America. TorakFade posted:Or are there some games where playing tall is good and cool? Point me in that direction please Tbh games with mechanics designed around having fun playing tall are mostly management sims and builder games. Anno, simcity, etc. CK2 is probably the paradox game with the best tall play just because there's a lot of internal politics to dick around with instead, and the generational aspect means new internal political challenges will emerge over time.
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Oct 25, 2019 12:17
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:I'd like a civ game that uses a cyclical model of history where you have to deal with inevitable civilisational collapse and periods of mass migration and warlordism. Not quite what you want, but Total War: Attila is the closest thing I can think of in terms of playing with those concepts.
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Oct 25, 2019 12:21
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TorakFade posted:Never thought of it that way, but this is 100% true and linked to my main criticism of 4X / grand strategy as a whole: no one has figured (afaik) a way to make playing tall viable and rewarding. It's either "you can do OK but you just have many, many hours of waiting for nothing to really happen" or "you'll just be crushed by people bigger than you", and never even comes close to "you can have advantages by not expanding like a madman" I'd argue that it's impossible to make tall game good cause it's the antithesis to a strategy game. If it's not a zero-sum game then there isn't really competition. Usually, those games solve it by having additional "planes" of competition, like with religion you literally can switch to a map where enemy cities are actually of your religion, so you are "wide" in that sense. Or with space victory, you still sort of fight enemies by spy control. Strategic games resemble long-term geopolitical struggles or isolated 2-way wars so we concentrate on those settings. In real history, no one exists just in the context of a single war just like no one really cares about the long-term strategic interests of their countries. Gradual expansion through the centuries makes sense in Civilization but in reality, it requires a series of rulers bent on doing the same thing as well as economy and culture being the same. How many pre-modern rulers just wanted to be happy, or genuinely cared about well-being of their country, or wanted personal wealth and so on? Those are boring rulers having no place in strategic simulation. As for tall play - honestly, I think if you want something like that you want city builders. Civilization increasingly resembles solitaire city-builder combined with a wargame anyway. Anno 1404 is an easy recommendation but later ones are just as good as far as I've heard. Or there's Six Ages: Ride Like The Wind which is all about managing your tribe with no real expansion. Or Thea, if you want something that looks like Civ. Of course, those games don't have any other type of gameplay so it's not really tall, it's about the only way to play.
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Oct 25, 2019 12:22
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Lotti Fuehrscheim posted:Writing can be incredibly useful as an administration tool, and it seems to have been invented and developed in that capacity. There also powerful and advanced societies that had writing and never bothered with an alphabet. Like China up until circa 2019CE. The Maya never had alphabet. Egyptian only got an alphabet when Coptic came about long after their heyday. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Oct 25, 2019 |
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Oct 25, 2019 12:26
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Red Bones posted:I think the thing with Civ's view of history is that for a very long time, right up to the time the first civ game was made, that whole 'linear progression of history' narrative was widely accepted as a normal way to view history. It's only more recently that viewpoints challenging that narrative have become accepted and have replaced the linear progression narrative to a certain extent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history was heavily debated already in the beginning of the 20th century by people like Spengler and before that by various philosophers. True, during Cold War there was a popular assumption that it will all only go better from there and finally turn into a flawless democracy/communist utopia unless the other side will nuke us. But even at that time, everyone realized that World Wars and totalitarian states build on reaction is a thing. Even before that popular culture started foreseeing future dystopias.
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Oct 25, 2019 12:42
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:I'd like a civ game that uses a cyclical model of history where you have to deal with inevitable civilisational collapse and periods of mass migration and warlordism. If you're into board games check out smallworld. Splicer fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Oct 25, 2019 |
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Oct 25, 2019 12:49
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:I'd like a civ game that uses a cyclical model of history where you have to deal with inevitable civilisational collapse and periods of mass migration and warlordism. It’s been a long time but I think Great Invasions has a societal entropy sort of thing where societies get more complex and more brittle until they inevitably collapse, and all you can really do is slow down or accelerate the process. Game also had you playing “teams” of nations, so that when the WRE dissolved you switched to playing, I’m not sure who, the Saxons? At the time I thought it was over-deterministic nonsense, and I kinda still do, but I’d be up for something in a similar vein if it wasn’t buried under seven layers of janky AGEODisms.
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Oct 25, 2019 13:08
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ilitarist posted:Usually, those games solve it by having additional "planes" of competition, like with religion you literally can switch to a map where enemy cities are actually of your religion, so you are "wide" in that sense.
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Oct 25, 2019 13:50
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ilitarist posted:I repeat again and again: Civilization caused huge harm to people understanding of history and life and whatever. Almost every concept in it is an understandable simplification of reality and no one consciously thinks about it as a historical simulator, but interactive media are powerful that way. They make you feel for granted a lot of things like there's a line between a barbarian and civilization, there's a clear scientific progress measurement, bigger cities and empires are good as long as they can keep it up, everyone can look like modern America if they play their cards right and so on and so on.  It also gives people the idea that countries and cultures were discrete units that never intermixed or changed throughout all of history. Like Germans were always Germans, Zulu were always Zulu, etc. Coincidentally this false idea has a not of overlap with the white supremacist idea of ethnostates.
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Oct 25, 2019 18:22
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Like Red Bones said, those ideas were all the default assumptions for most people before Civ too, even if there were some historians arguing otherwise. Civ didn't create people's popular misconceptions about history, it reflected them.
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Oct 25, 2019 19:12
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At the same time, it can be argued that Paradox games, specially EU and CK, support the "great man" view of history
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Oct 25, 2019 19:33
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Hi everyone, sorry I'm late! Average Bear, posting stupid "antiwoke" stuff to upset the applecart in this thread is dumb, unfunny, and disruptive. Stop doing it. Everyone else, if you see Average Bear roll in here with some incredibly low effort "lmao I bet if I say toxic masculinity it'll make people mad" poo poo, just go ahead and report him/ignore him. Thanks!
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Oct 25, 2019 19:45
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Elias_Maluco posted:At the same time, it can be argued that Paradox games, specially EU and CK, support the "great man" view of history This is why Victoria 2 is their best game. The progress of history is an inscrutable mess of undocumented variables and mechanics. Also, making enough paintings will magically grant you the ability of soft power.
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Oct 25, 2019 20:01
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Machine guns cure yellow fever in whities
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Oct 25, 2019 20:04
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Sinteres posted:Like Red Bones said, those ideas were all the default assumptions for most people before Civ too, even if there were some historians arguing otherwise. Civ didn't create people's popular misconceptions about history, it reflected them. True, but it also definitely reinforces those ideas to modern audiences.
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Oct 25, 2019 20:07
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:I'd like a civ game that uses a cyclical model of history where you have to deal with inevitable civilisational collapse and periods of mass migration and warlordism. The overhaul mod for Civ 4, Rhye's and Fall, does this somewhat. Edgar Allen Ho posted:Machine guns cure yellow fever in whities And Capitalism will inevitably destroy itself out of its endless thirst for clipper factories. Nosfereefer fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Oct 25, 2019 |
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Oct 25, 2019 20:08
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:I'd like a civ game that uses a cyclical model of history where you have to deal with inevitable civilisational collapse and periods of mass migration and warlordism. That was actually the focus of one of the most famous Civilization mods, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization. It was cool, but I never played it much. I never fully got a handle over Civ4 anyways. I think one of the big limiters in making a game like that is the issue of who/what is the player. In Civilization or Europa Universalis, the player is some kind of immortal ephemeral spirit of the nation guiding its actions for all time, in CK2, you play as the dominant dynasty, and you're not allowed to hop to lesser branches or titles, in Alpha Centauri you play as one of the immortal ideological dictators. It's hard to imagine what the player would be if you remove them even further from the nation they command.
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Oct 25, 2019 20:17
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Nosfereefer posted:And Capitalism will inevitably destroy itself out of its endless thirst for clipper factories. This one is actually true tho
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Oct 25, 2019 20:36
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Machine guns making colonization easier makes perfect sense, they're for curing unruly natives not yellow fever
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Oct 25, 2019 20:52
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:I'd like a civ game that uses a cyclical model of history where you have to deal with inevitable civilisational collapse and periods of mass migration and warlordism. It kinda sounds like that Civ-like by the Endless Space guys is going for something like that.
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Oct 25, 2019 20:55
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:This one is actually true tho https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drownings_at_Nantes We will
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Oct 25, 2019 20:57
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TorakFade posted:Or are there some games where playing tall is good and cool? Point me in that direction please In unmodded Civ5, stopping on 4-6 cities is generally the most efficient way to progress into the mid to late game. The sheer furore it caused has generally kept others from going in a similar direction of making Tall play 'better' than expansion.
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Oct 25, 2019 21:39
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Endless Legend has a faction that can only have one city, though they expand by brainwashing minor factions.
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Oct 25, 2019 21:44
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Cynic Jester posted:In unmodded Civ5, stopping on 4-6 cities is generally the most efficient way to progress into the mid to late game. The sheer furore it caused has generally kept others from going in a similar direction of making Tall play 'better' than expansion. i seem to recall in the original release of civ 5 it was near SMAC levels of ICS
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Oct 25, 2019 21:45
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Splicer posted:I've been wanting this in Stellaris but a lot of people view your empire collapsing as "losing". Yeah I have Smallworld. I have a design knocking around my brain for a board game that expands on the idea but 
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Oct 25, 2019 21:47
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In Civ 6 it is possible to go tall. You can have just 5 or so cities, and if you build them big enough and well enough, is not a handicap. I did that in many games The difference is that you dont have to do that, like in Civ 5, where having more cities was a huge handicap. You can instead have 30 cities and that works too
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Oct 25, 2019 21:56
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That's pretty much why I bounced off civ 5. Without any incentive to expand, there's almost no conflict.
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Oct 25, 2019 22:07
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:This one is actually true tho brb starting a tall ship company
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Oct 25, 2019 22:09
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:Yeah I have Smallworld. I have a design knocking around my brain for a board game that expands on the idea but Or in a game like Stellaris I'd like for empires to frequently collapse into multiple sub-empires, and if you were controlling the original large empire you get to choose which of the new empires is the new "you". e: like the AI rebellion but more and better. Splicer fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Oct 25, 2019 |
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Oct 25, 2019 22:19
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I have two very thoughts on the "tall" question. 1. The very idea of making playing "Tall" competitive with "wide" is dumb as hell and ruins games. If not expanding and just turtleing is actually competitive and "balanced" with playing wide and conquering vast swaths of territory you're going to end up with a boring and lovely game with a broken risk/reward system. 2. I love to turtle and play tall and if I can't I have a hard time enjoying games. These two points are not contradictory though because for me anyways the joy of going tall is knowing that it is not optimal and that I'm surviving despite it. Going "tall" should always be an option, but it should always be a much much worse ROI than going wide. Going tall should not be a distinct strategy but rather just the thing you do if you've been boxed in or run out of land or want to give your self a weird challenge.
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Oct 25, 2019 22:24
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Splicer posted:I'd love a game (board or computer) that fully embraces the Foundation series' empires fall ethos, where your goal is to maximise how much you can carry through the collapse into fractured states. Technically that is kinda in stellaris but is like a 0.1% chance of occurring in shroud events. End of the cycle after action reports are usually entertaining though.
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Oct 25, 2019 22:39
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Baronjutter posted:I have two very thoughts on the "tall" question. I think going tall ought to come with it's own set of positives and drawbacks, and I think CK2 does them quite well from a military perspective, while EU4 does it quite well from a civil perspective. Countries that are tall in CK2 can concentrate their levies faster. Countries that are tall in EU4 can adopt institutions quicker. Being quicker to take important land or having the ability to defeat enemy elements in detail is a great perk of being tall, while having technological dominance for colonisation, relying on a political safety net is the same. Playing tall however, doesn't have to just be not expanding and turtling. Having a number of client states can help in that regard. The HRE are a large number of "tall" nations together, and they're pretty strong as a collective. Paradox does wide/tall very well. Especially in big multiplayer games in groups of bastards.
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Oct 25, 2019 22:45
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SlothfulCobra posted:In Civilization the player is some kind of immortal ephemeral spirit of the nation guiding its actions for all time Actually, you are an immortal Montezuma, or an Abraham Lincoln in war paint, depending on which game you're playing.
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Oct 25, 2019 23:01
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Sinteres posted:Like Red Bones said, those ideas were all the default assumptions for most people before Civ too, even if there were some historians arguing otherwise. Civ didn't create people's popular misconceptions about history, it reflected them. Of course, it's not like Civ has invented those ideas and most people get a worldview like that one way or another. But the point is you won't see it codified. If you don't read some pop-history like Guns, Germs and Steel chances are you will only get those ideas by cultural osmosis or from some anecdotes. You won't see a 20 hour movie or documentary about history. And videogames are very immersive. It's not like I'm saying that shooters make you think that mass murder is fine, but they give you assumptions about how it all works. Like thanks to videogames, people think that shotguns aren't effective if shout not in point-blank range, or that assault rifles have terrible spread, things like that. Civilization doesn't focus your attention on the fact that every government is good for something so it reinforces the idea that brutal dictatorship is sometimes more effective than a more liberal society. Or the rock-paper-scissors nature of war. Or the eternal idea of money being some sort of resource you produce.
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Oct 25, 2019 23:01
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In a game ostensibly drawn from reality, like a paradox one vs something like civ, I think tall vs. wide is a bit of a false dichotomy. The "winning" strategy irl is to be rich enough to go both. Like if you compare the dutch empire to the british or french in EUIV- the dutch start the richest and probably have the best quality of life in their core throughout, but Britain and France (or moving into Vicky, the US for a great example of an empire that operated in a similar style to the dutch) have the people and resources to poo poo out mercantile empires and conquer foreign lands while also intensely developing the homeland.
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Oct 25, 2019 23:02
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Playing tall is for conflict averse cowards.
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Oct 25, 2019 23:04
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Did Paradox invent "tall" as a gameplay term? I don't remember hearing it before (I think) the introduction of development to EU4.
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Oct 25, 2019 23:10
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Magissima posted:Did Paradox invent "tall" as a gameplay term? I don't remember hearing it before (I think) the introduction of development to EU4. I think people started talking about tall vs wide during Civ 4
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Oct 25, 2019 23:17
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Baronjutter posted:I have two very thoughts on the "tall" question. Some parts of the world can definitely tall it up in EU4 and be viable. Most of Europe can be very strong with minimal expansion and a lot of devving up, as was prominently shown in the last goon game. Other places that can be played tall are the Chinese coast, the rich parts of India, and the fertile crescent.
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Oct 25, 2019 23:31
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Also just a pet peeve for future paradox games: I wish they wouldn't include numbers that derive directly from real world numbers unless they roughly match plausible real world numbers. Like I can buy ducats and bird points because those are abstract, but when the game is like "250k soldiers died in a war over one province in 1457" it just seems silly.
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Oct 25, 2019 23:33
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