A Religious Review

[Locutus]

Jordan J. Ballor of Blogcritics magazine posted an article that reviews Civilization IV from a religious perspective. First summing up what other religious sources have said about the game, Ballor postulates:

Indeed, while Civ IV deserves praise for integrating non-material elements like religion and culture into the game play, in the end these pieces suffer the same fate as the rest of the game's components. Civ IV, ultimately, is less about the development of civilization than it is about the expansion of imperial tyranny.

He continues to explain what role religion plays in the game but how in the end it still boils down to conquer[ing] your opponents, by any means necessary.

The author concludes the the game's popularity is well deserved as it taps in to a fundamental human drive for dominance in a way that promotes critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity. He compliments the interface while taking issue with the repetive nature of the gameplay and some of its bugs, as well as the underwhelming graphics. Overall the author considers it a suberb game though, but the adeptness with which it meets the deepest human desires for power and control teaches us as much about ourselves as it does about the progressive unfolding of history.

Read the full two-page review on the Blogcritics site.

[The Priest]

Interesting and fairly accurate if you ask me.

Civ 4 BTS is a far richer game than earlier Civ's because of the addition of religion, espionage, vassels, culture etc. but it is still fundamentally a game about conquest.

The most common victories are all about becoming big and clever, and even those which don't appear to be, still are really: culture requires you to remain pretty big and clever to avoid being attacked yourself, UN only works if you are big enough to have lots of the votes yourself etc.

This is why we keep on having discussion on these boards about alternative ways of victory. Can you create a version of CIV in which you can win by remaining small? The only way at the moment is through Mods and victory conditions (as in RFC), but while I like RFC, something like that is different than the standard game having victory paths which work while remaining small.

It seems to be that this has been flirted with by the corruption models. CIV 3 really did have an impact because corruption hit hammers as well. CIV 4 is a bit milder, and makes a more sensible game. But the corruption models don't really solve the problem. If we tripled corruption in CIV 4 BTS (and removed versailles, and maybe the FP) then expansion would be much less profitable, and yet unless teh victory conditions were changed, the dynamics would remain the same.

So the question remains, can you create victory conditions that don't require you to be big and clever (and that would mean one where you still won, even if the big chap round the corner came and burnt your capital).

But the the real question is - do we want to? I quite like a chance to retreat from the real world and get my way by unleashing the panzars.

[Maniac]

You could add more or more profitable options for vertical instead of horizontal expansion, so many it's impossible to fully do both well in a single game.

[Unimatrix11]

Maybe if technological progress wasnt tied to beakers (=size*smartness), but just to the science rate (= just smartness) of your civ... then have a technological victory. Say, first to reach future tech 10 or somesuch...

[The Priest]

Yes, and after all it hasn't been the most populous civs throughout history that have been the most advanced.

It would have to be slightly more sophisticated to allow for the impact of buildings etc. but all that means is calculate the number of beakers as you do at the moment, but then divide by your total population, before applying them (obviously the cost in beakers of all the techs would have to be adjusted).

Small could then be very smart. If this was coupled with a tech victory that would really make a difference. Even without it, it would count a lot since you could then defend your culture victory by the superior tech of the armies or your small state.

[TriMiro]

What Unimatrix11 and The Priest are talking about is somewhat implemented in RFC mod. There is also the OCC, which I like a lot. Truth of the matter is Civ IV is much less conquest oriented than Civ III, so it is a turn in the right direction. Tyranny and war must be a big part of any Civ game, just because they have been always played huge role in human society, but it would help to prevent ultra expansion (or at least decrease its power).

[Unimatrix11]

Maybe one could also detach religion from technology and have an extra ´culture-tree´, progress in which would be driven by culture points and that would hold the religions, theaters, music and such. That should also be handled like suggested above for tech-advance. Size should still matter for income and production, but not much more, really. But Civ would hardly be Civ anymore with all those revampings. The trade/commerce splitting system for example wouldnt make much sense anymore in its existing form. Maybe science should be boostable with some extra funds, but the system of 1gp = 1 beaker would go out the window. And that has been around since CivI... i doubt there will ever be a civ without it.

[Jaybe]

A bit of a tangent:
A problem I've always had about the civ franchise is that you seem to have TOTAL CONTROL of funds. What about moneys for your citizens to spend, buy food with, medical care, etc.? SURVIVAL of your civ should be dependent upon taxation/research being a minor portion of the GNP. Therefore, you should be able to adjust how much you may spend at your discretion, and how much the people can spend. A portion of the people's spending is applied to science, but it is a little random/variable.

[Nikomakkos]

Originally posted by Jaybe
A bit of a tangent:
A problem I've always had about the civ franchise is that you seem to have TOTAL CONTROL of funds. What about moneys for your citizens to spend, buy food with, medical care, etc.? SURVIVAL of your civ should be dependent upon taxation/research being a minor portion of the GNP. Therefore, you should be able to adjust how much you may spend at your discretion, and how much the people can spend. A portion of the people's spending is applied to science, but it is a little random/variable.

Please don't be giving the developers funny ideas like that. This is a strategy game, for crying out loud! A strategy game with all kinds of wonderful elements mixed in. But basically it's Risk, on steroids.

Well, I find the war element to be the most fun, anyway. I usually go for a domination game. I dislike the Space Race victory. The tech race is an arms race for me, and a race to get an economic+production advantage (which is another arms race again).

[Unimatrix11]

Well, Civ assumes that every dime your citizens spend, they spend on research or culture. Kind of.

[Nikomakkos]

What they have basically done with all those features like religion, culture, GPs and corruption, is make the expansion of your empire more complex and intriguing. The best way to any victory is still expansion, and it shouldn't be any other way. Why should a small civ get any kind of victory? Where is the winning factor? Being small means you didn't do well enough.

Now you have many different strategies for achieving the same goal. Should you found a religion? It can have huge benefits, but also be a huge drag, so you have to go right about it, and thus you have a special strategy. Still for the same goal as if you would go a different way. For me, founding a religion doesn't have anything to do with culture, but money, and thus maintaining a big empire, which of course comes mostly through conquest.

A Great People strategy can be very good, but for the same goal. Lots of Great Scientists means a better place in the arms race.

But military will always be the most important thing in any game. Even if only for a defense force, 'cause you're going to get attacked sooner or later. Well, especially if you don't have a big military. And if you're not taking any cities from anyone, it's very unlikely that you're big enough to compete. And having enough cities should always be a necessary factor to compete in any future civ games.

So military will always be the most important thing, and in fact all the other stuff revolves around it. Economy is about supporting it. Culture about getting the land for that economy. Religion is about happy faces to work that land for the economy and the economy directly if you have a shrine. Religion is also about diplomacy, which in turn is about war (avoid being attacked and getting allies to help attack). Diplomacy can also be about economy (trading for resources). And tech is about improving all those factors, and the military directly.

So any factor of the game, if it doesn't affect the military and war directly, is to improve your economy to support a bigger and better military.

So all the different factors revolve around the same thing: Expanding and strengthening your empire. If you manage to be the biggest, you win.

[CyberShy]

I think that the diplomacy/attitude part of the game should bring more ballance to the warmongering side of the game.

Right now a civ can take out other civs 1 by 1 while other civs keep on trading with him.
Negative attitudes should grow larger and have a bigger impact, and positive attitudes should also have more impact. Friends should not attack each other and be willing to trade with each other.

A civ that becomes too big should face an alliance of many other civs.

Civs should find a ballance between expansion, good relations, war and peace. And AI's should be more eager to stop trusting an aggressive civ.

[Theben]

Not to trot out the old CivIII List again, but there was a suggestion based on liberty<->authoritian (not called that of course) in which the authoritian govts got 100% control of the economy, science, production (like now), while freer govts got less control (about 60%) but had an additional amount under civilian control (AI) that when added together was greater than the authoritian. It required the idea of multiple simultaneous research and builds.

[johnmcd]

The other feature that drives enormous size is that it's the only way to get the resources that make you happy and healthy.

The greatest challenge in OCC is often the limited resources. If a credible way to victory is going to be out there for smaller Civs then it has to balance that driver to territorial gain.

I don't buy the 'if you're small you're unsuccessful'. It's a very one dimensional view of civilisation that seems to confuse it with empire.

[Theben]

There needs to be a way to access resources outside your territory. Civ3 had a good idea with colonies, but implemented them badly by costing you a worker (of course, workers were cheap).

I think a better idea would be that if you build a fort on a resource and garrison it, it would count as your own territory. Perhaps gaining +1 /turn for that tile only.

[Nikomakkos]

The 'if you're small you're unsuccessful' thing simply comes from thinking about what the hardest thing is to do in a high difficulty level game? What's the challenge? The answer is: Getting and holding territory. Territory gives you everything: More resources and land to work. I only ask, how could it be any otherwise? I mean, how could it be otherwise than territory and land that gets you things? Realistically?

And that's what everyone competes for, naturally. So if you do well in the thing that everyone's competing for, you do well period.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by Nikomakkos
The 'if you're small you're unsuccessful' thing simply comes from thinking about what the hardest thing is to do in a high difficulty level game? What's the challenge? The answer is: Getting and holding territory. Territory gives you everything: More resources and land to work. I only ask, how could it be any otherwise? I mean, how could it be otherwise than territory and land that gets you things? Realistically?

And that's what everyone competes for, naturally. So if you do well in the thing that everyone's competing for, you do well period.

I think war is the easiest thing to be successful at in Civ actually, especially once big.

I think a more even trade system would help smaller civs get things more cheaply (they need less) or large civs should need multiple sources (they need more).

[The Priest]

I don't buy the 'if you're small you're unsuccessful'. It's a very one dimensional view of civilisation that seems to confuse it with empire.

Quite agree. Which countries have the highest GDP/capita now? Which countries are hte most succesful? By no means the largest. Which civilisations have had the broadest impact across world history? Are any of them large or even still in existance now?

Territory gives you everything: More resources and land to work. I only ask, how could it be any otherwise? I mean, how could it be otherwise than territory and land that gets you things? Realistically?

Well, yes but in the real world, if you are bigger you need more land and resources to stand still. It would be as reaslistic if not more so to divide most things in civ by population size - science divide by total population (there are far more schools and universities in India than in Switzerland but that doesn't mean India is more technologically advanced or its population better education); resources in some way divide by population (so if you build a large empire you become hugely resource hungry because while little old Norway only needs one oil for its five cities, you need five oil, which drives yet another middle eastern war). It really wouldn't be hard.

There needs to be a way to access resources outside your territory. Civ3 had a good idea with colonies, but implemented them badly by costing you a worker (of course, workers were cheap).

Yes. Though the main problem was that if someone else built a city nearby its borders destroyed the colony. So they could only ever be temporary. Allow them to exist despite of borders (or at least to have a fixed culture contribution per turn, just for its own tile, and let it have danger of revolt as for any city). This woudl allow a civ to stay small but have some overseas resources.

I think that the diplomacy/attitude part of the game should bring more ballance to the warmongering side of the game.

Yes, teh AI is pretty stupid in leting you pick off one civ after another.

Despite all this, though, it is still going to be hard without some other victory conditions which don't rely on size (currently only culture really does this).

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Nikomakkos
I mean, how could it be otherwise than territory and land that gets you things? Realistically?

Terrain improvements and buildings.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by Maniac


Terrain improvements and buildings.

Some political systems could only be available in small empires.
Civic effects could thin with scale, huge empires could struggle to get away from the rawest effects.
Religious and climatic difference could have a greater and greater impact on health and happiness as one size fits all policies stop wholly being appropriate.