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"This is why I don't play civ. Total war AIs are a bizarre choice in a strategy game. I dislike it when games are setup in a way where I'm the only one thinking

"This is why I don't play civ. Total war AIs are a bizarre choice in a strategy game. I dislike it when games are setup in a way where I'm the only one thinking strategy and the AI opponents are there to give me a sense of action. Total war in the real world is rare." Agreed 100%. To me, it seems silly -- not to mention cynical and fatalistic -- that the sole purpose of diplomacy in Civilization games is to add a strategic dimension to warmaking. That's what it is. The game is basically in a constant state of war, and peace only exists if something is going wrong: i.e., the powers are (momentarily) too evenly balanced to attack one another, or someone's just biding time to sneak-attack someone else, or everyone's spending a few years recovering from World War XXIV before gearing up for World War XXV. That said, Civlization can still be an immensely fun and rewarding game. It's not the game I want it to be, but I enjoy trying to squeeze every last ounce of emergent gameplay from it. "Why can't more games have rational goals instead of just being a more advanced form of Pacman?" I suspect because there just isn't a big enough market for games of that nature. Maybe there is a handful of us out there. Maybe a relatively small handful, but one that's willing to pay a fair amount for a really great, truly strategic global power game. I dunno. Maybe it's worth organizing, or Kickstarting, or what have you. If any game devs out there are reading this and are interested, know that there's a niche crossing its fingers for you.

bdunbar 14y ago
Agreed 100%. To me, it seems silly -- not to mention cynical and fatalistic -- that the sole purpose of diplomacy in Civilization games is to add a strategic dimension to warmaking. Out here in the real world, war is a continuation of politics, by other means. Same thing, really, as your description of Civ II. The goal of diplomacy/warmaking is for one's side to come out ahead of the other. See Clausewitz, Machiavelli.
- troels 14y ago
  I hope we've come at least a bit further since the renaissance. Diplomacy doesn't have to be a zero-sum game - indeed it rarely is in the real world. War, on the other hand, is very much that. So in that respect, war is the failure of diplomacy, not the continuation of it.
  - gchpaco 14y ago
    War is actually a negative sum game today; even "winning" you lose a lot. It's not clear to me if this was ever different for anything larger than Viking raiding parties, though.
    - tomrod 14y ago
      US-Mexican War, US-Spanish war. US came out far ahead in bt cases, iirc.
      - gchpaco 14y ago
        That's still possible in a negative sum game; all negative sum means is that the sum of the benefits to all parties is less than the sum of the costs to all parties. So if say the US hoses the Mexicans but good it can still come out ahead as long as the Mexicans go down hard.
  - bdunbar 14y ago
    I hope we've come at least a bit further since the renaissance. I may not understand your definition of 'further'. People are no smarter than they they were in 1500. There are no new cultural institutions. Our toys are better, but people is still people.
    - troels 14y ago
      Local regressions aside, I do believe that as a species, we're slowly getting smarter.
      - dllthomas 14y ago
        Clearly, we are building more knowledge, which is reflected in but not encompassed by our toys.
      - bdunbar 14y ago
        I'd love to see evidence that people are smarter now than 500 years ago. More education is available, certainly. But smarter ... I don't see it.
Aethaeryn 14y ago
> I suspect because there just isn't a big enough market for games > of that nature. Maybe there is a handful of us out there. Maybe a > relatively small handful, but one that's willing to pay a fair > amount for a really great, truly strategic global power game. I > dunno. Maybe it's worth organizing, or Kickstarting, or what have > you. If any game devs out there are reading this and are > interested, know that there's a niche crossing its fingers for > you. I'm actually working on an in-browser MMO strategy game set in space that will try to balance around long run[a] strategy and diplomacy instead of just constantly-at-war deathmatches. Of course, relying on humans rather than AI does help. I suspect that the market is bigger than the big publishers are willing to take a risk on, especially if it was written to be run within browsers (including mobile browsers) and was fun to play. I have considered Kickstarter, but it seems like most Kickstarter game projects fail unless they go viral first so there's definitely a major risk[b] in going public too early. ----- [a] One way to make the games last a long time (perhaps indefinitely) is to make it a slow-playing game, such as using Civilization-style simultaneous turns that refresh by default once a day. This would also put more focus on forming alliances, socializing, and making strategies. Of course, the issue with this is that there would be a massive surge of traffic on the servers during turn refresh times. [b] The main risk of Kickstarter is the uncertainty in receiving funds. I could underestimate costs on purpose and have a decent chance of being funded, but with an insufficient amount, or I could provide the "real" amount and have a very high chance of getting no money at all, even though a little bit would go a long way. Neither outcome seems ideal, especially when people would assume that "funded" means that the game is ready to be released given a certain amount of time.
- anateus 14y ago
  You mean something like Planetarion or Orion's Belt? To be clear, your phrasing seems to present this as a novel approach, though it is not. Regardless, it's all about the particular game design that makes or breaks a game so I wish you success, it just struck me that maybe you were not aware of this fairly large genre based on how your text sounded.
  - Aethaeryn 14y ago

bdunbar 14y ago

Agreed 100%. To me, it seems silly -- not to mention cynical and fatalistic -- that the sole purpose of diplomacy in Civilization games is to add a strategic dimension to warmaking. Out here in the real world, war is a continuation of politics, by other means. Same thing, really, as your description of Civ II. The goal of diplomacy/warmaking is for one's side to come out ahead of the other. See Clausewitz, Machiavelli.

troels 14y ago
I hope we've come at least a bit further since the renaissance. Diplomacy doesn't have to be a zero-sum game - indeed it rarely is in the real world. War, on the other hand, is very much that. So in that respect, war is the failure of diplomacy, not the continuation of it.
- gchpaco 14y ago
  War is actually a negative sum game today; even "winning" you lose a lot. It's not clear to me if this was ever different for anything larger than Viking raiding parties, though.
  - tomrod 14y ago
    US-Mexican War, US-Spanish war. US came out far ahead in bt cases, iirc.
    - gchpaco 14y ago
      That's still possible in a negative sum game; all negative sum means is that the sum of the benefits to all parties is less than the sum of the costs to all parties. So if say the US hoses the Mexicans but good it can still come out ahead as long as the Mexicans go down hard.
- bdunbar 14y ago
  I hope we've come at least a bit further since the renaissance. I may not understand your definition of 'further'. People are no smarter than they they were in 1500. There are no new cultural institutions. Our toys are better, but people is still people.
  - troels 14y ago
    Local regressions aside, I do believe that as a species, we're slowly getting smarter.
    - dllthomas 14y ago
      Clearly, we are building more knowledge, which is reflected in but not encompassed by our toys.
    - bdunbar 14y ago
      I'd love to see evidence that people are smarter now than 500 years ago. More education is available, certainly. But smarter ... I don't see it.

Aethaeryn 14y ago

> I suspect because there just isn't a big enough market for games > of that nature. Maybe there is a handful of us out there. Maybe a > relatively small handful, but one that's willing to pay a fair > amount for a really great, truly strategic global power game. I > dunno. Maybe it's worth organizing, or Kickstarting, or what have > you. If any game devs out there are reading this and are > interested, know that there's a niche crossing its fingers for > you. I'm actually working on an in-browser MMO strategy game set in space that will try to balance around long run[a] strategy and diplomacy instead of just constantly-at-war deathmatches. Of course, relying on humans rather than AI does help. I suspect that the market is bigger than the big publishers are willing to take a risk on, especially if it was written to be run within browsers (including mobile browsers) and was fun to play. I have considered Kickstarter, but it seems like most Kickstarter game projects fail unless they go viral first so there's definitely a major risk[b] in going public too early. ----- [a] One way to make the games last a long time (perhaps indefinitely) is to make it a slow-playing game, such as using Civilization-style simultaneous turns that refresh by default once a day. This would also put more focus on forming alliances, socializing, and making strategies. Of course, the issue with this is that there would be a massive surge of traffic on the servers during turn refresh times. [b] The main risk of Kickstarter is the uncertainty in receiving funds. I could underestimate costs on purpose and have a decent chance of being funded, but with an insufficient amount, or I could provide the "real" amount and have a very high chance of getting no money at all, even though a little bit would go a long way. Neither outcome seems ideal, especially when people would assume that "funded" means that the game is ready to be released given a certain amount of time.

anateus 14y ago
You mean something like Planetarion or Orion's Belt? To be clear, your phrasing seems to present this as a novel approach, though it is not. Regardless, it's all about the particular game design that makes or breaks a game so I wish you success, it just struck me that maybe you were not aware of this fairly large genre based on how your text sounded.
- Aethaeryn 14y ago