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That design feature is very deliberate. I remember listening to a talk from Sid Meier and at some point he explains how they tried to implement a rise-and-fall

That design feature is very deliberate. I remember listening to a talk from Sid Meier and at some point he explains how they tried to implement a rise-and-fall system in the original Civ. It didn't go very well. Playtesters hated it. When the first fall came, people just quit and start again, thinking that they did something wrong. When they were told it was intended and they had to fall to rise again, they just didn't like it at all. I can see a niche for a hardcore strategy game where rise and fall is part of the game loop, but given the current estate of affairs it would be just that, a niche game.

lostdog 9y ago
Smallworld is a board game with a rise and fall game loop. It works very well in the game because your "civilization" is very obviously growth limited, and you don't spend much time building up a civilization so seeing it decline is not very painful.
Nomentatus 9y ago
And just this phenomenon, of pandering to customers' desires, and giving them the fake news they want, is where we get the pejorative word "stereotype." Stereotypes were 19th century 3-D photographs. At first, these showed realistic foreign scenes but it soon became apparent that the audience wanted to see (and would only pay for) truly exotic costumes on those foreigners, and exotic customs, whether this had much to do with reality or not.
- ctchocula 9y ago
  Remind me of a quote from Alan Moore: "Writers and people who had command of words were respected and feared as people who manipulated magic. In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment. They’re not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being, that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment—things with which we can fill twenty minutes, half an hour, while we’re waiting to die. It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience; they would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need." -The Mindscape of Alan Moore
  - pas 9y ago
    > If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience; they would be the artists. Games know what they want. They complain very loudly, when they get something different than what they wanted/expected. Of course game developers and publishers again want slightly (or completely, I'm looking at you Electronic Arts) things. Developers want that artistic meaning, publishers want a lot of safe money, while gamers want to enjoy the game, they want the flow [0], the feeling of conquering a hard but not impossible challenge. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Seriously? The game, which is already quite long to play, should be made 8 times as long just to make it more realistic in one narrow dimension. And players are morally obligated to appreciate it?
  - Sharlin 9y ago
    That does not follow at all.
- kragen 9y ago
  No, a "stereotype" is a printing plate, used to print many copies of the same page; it has meant that since 20 to 40 years before the invention of photography. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_(printing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_(printing) https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype Where did your story come from?
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    The viewers were called various names Stereopticon, Stereoscope. But what you viewed, the cards with the two images were referred to as a stereotypes, after their printing process, I would suppose. The devices were extremely popular. Neither of your sources that address etymology address the etymology of the word in reference to prejudice. So they can hardly be held to contradict.
    - carlmr 9y ago
      Searching for it I only find the printing process for the etymology: https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/05/stereotypical.html https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/05/stereotypical.htm... https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2017/10/11/origin-stereotype-cliche/ https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2017/10/11/origin-stereo...
      - Nomentatus 9y ago
        Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
        carlmr 9y ago
        Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence though. Until now nobody brought any evidence for the claim, so we should disregard it as fiction until we have that evidence.
ryl00 9y ago
This sort of sounds like the Europa Universalis series, where history affects the various countries you can play. There's nothing stopping you from trying to reverse the decline of Byzantium upon the onslaught of the Ottomans, but the deck is certainly stacked against you...
- astrodust 9y ago
  EU IV's "failure" states are a lot more interesting than those in Civilization. You can take a severe beating, lose a lot of territory, and recover it later. This is because holding territory is a lot harder, and integrating captured territory is more expensive. You can't snowball as quickly, and short-term setbacks can be reversed by planning carefully. Civ's new expansion does try and fix some of this, but it's not as nuanced as in EU IV. City-flipping is a thing again, but the mechanics are pretty cartoony.

lostdog 9y ago

Smallworld is a board game with a rise and fall game loop. It works very well in the game because your "civilization" is very obviously growth limited, and you don't spend much time building up a civilization so seeing it decline is not very painful.

Nomentatus 9y ago

And just this phenomenon, of pandering to customers' desires, and giving them the fake news they want, is where we get the pejorative word "stereotype." Stereotypes were 19th century 3-D photographs. At first, these showed realistic foreign scenes but it soon became apparent that the audience wanted to see (and would only pay for) truly exotic costumes on those foreigners, and exotic customs, whether this had much to do with reality or not.

ctchocula 9y ago
Remind me of a quote from Alan Moore: "Writers and people who had command of words were respected and feared as people who manipulated magic. In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment. They’re not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being, that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment—things with which we can fill twenty minutes, half an hour, while we’re waiting to die. It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience; they would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need." -The Mindscape of Alan Moore
- pas 9y ago
  > If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience; they would be the artists. Games know what they want. They complain very loudly, when they get something different than what they wanted/expected. Of course game developers and publishers again want slightly (or completely, I'm looking at you Electronic Arts) things. Developers want that artistic meaning, publishers want a lot of safe money, while gamers want to enjoy the game, they want the flow [0], the feeling of conquering a hard but not impossible challenge. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
fjsolwmv 9y ago
Seriously? The game, which is already quite long to play, should be made 8 times as long just to make it more realistic in one narrow dimension. And players are morally obligated to appreciate it?
- Sharlin 9y ago
  That does not follow at all.
kragen 9y ago
No, a "stereotype" is a printing plate, used to print many copies of the same page; it has meant that since 20 to 40 years before the invention of photography. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_(printing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_(printing) https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype Where did your story come from?
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  The viewers were called various names Stereopticon, Stereoscope. But what you viewed, the cards with the two images were referred to as a stereotypes, after their printing process, I would suppose. The devices were extremely popular. Neither of your sources that address etymology address the etymology of the word in reference to prejudice. So they can hardly be held to contradict.
  - carlmr 9y ago
    Searching for it I only find the printing process for the etymology: https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype https://www.etymonline.com/word/stereotype https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/05/stereotypical.html https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/05/stereotypical.htm... https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2017/10/11/origin-stereotype-cliche/ https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2017/10/11/origin-stereo...
    - Nomentatus 9y ago
      Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
      - carlmr 9y ago
        Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence though. Until now nobody brought any evidence for the claim, so we should disregard it as fiction until we have that evidence.

ryl00 9y ago

This sort of sounds like the Europa Universalis series, where history affects the various countries you can play. There's nothing stopping you from trying to reverse the decline of Byzantium upon the onslaught of the Ottomans, but the deck is certainly stacked against you...

astrodust 9y ago
EU IV's "failure" states are a lot more interesting than those in Civilization. You can take a severe beating, lose a lot of territory, and recover it later. This is because holding territory is a lot harder, and integrating captured territory is more expensive. You can't snowball as quickly, and short-term setbacks can be reversed by planning carefully. Civ's new expansion does try and fix some of this, but it's not as nuanced as in EU IV. City-flipping is a thing again, but the mechanics are pretty cartoony.