Civ should be about nations, not collections of cities

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Pretty simple: you are the emperor, not the governor of a province or mayor of a city. In actuality, you have more than enough on your hands that you don't want anything to deal with local developments.

So is the only argument for this approach realism? I don't see the merit in removing a section of the gameplay for that. It's a game, don't you want to be involved in those decisions?

This is a design question. Currently, everything is done on a city level, so if you take away the local stuff, there is nothing to do. However, as I am advocating, this design should be changed. Make things happen on the national level - perhaps start shifting things after certain advancements have been achieved. For example, taxation allows you to do things on a national level. Coinage allows you to tax in $ instead of goods (such as salt). It's just the design of the game, it's not carved in stone.

Ok, I get it... but if it's not broke, don't fix it. I understand that in strict realist terms, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but is there anything wrong with it? I mean, do you actually find that the game is worse because of the local control it gives you?

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
But my question is, why? Why shouldn't I be concerned with such affairs? What is the reason I would want to give up doing these things? Why shouldn't I be concerned with lower level policies?

Because it makes the game bloody unplayable if you Have to do them?

If you like to do it that's one thing, then its by definition fun. But requiring you to metaphorically put a commode by hand in every train station in the empire seems a lot more like accounting than fun to me. It and the lousy AI killed my civ2 addiction. I don't have enough experience with civ3, but I suspect its similar.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
So is the only argument for this approach realism? I don't see the merit in removing a section of the gameplay for that. It's a game, don't you want to be involved in those decisions?

It's not just realism - it's plainly not fun. If you have played both MoO and MoO 2, you'd know the sequel stupidly included a ton of micromanagement stuff to drive people up the walls. It might be fun for a while, but it will become a drag when you need to go through all 75 cities/bases/planets every turn to see if the people are happy, to see if they need granaries or marketplaces or missile bases or whatever.

Originally posted by cyclotron7
Ok, I get it... but if it's not broke, don't fix it. I understand that in strict realist terms, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but is there anything wrong with it? I mean, do you actually find that the game is worse because of the local control it gives you?

But it is broke I don't want it. I want to set overarching goals and the prorgam takes care of it for me.

It's okay for Railroad Tycoon because you wouldn't have umpteen number of stations, and the improvements at each station is quite limited. MoO also has a good balance. But in MoO 2, where you have 30-40 items to choose from, mircromanagement becomes a bloody nuisance.

But it's not about reducing micromanagement, it is about how a game ought to feel. Civilization etc. are about playing countries/star-spanning empires/etc., not collections of cities/bases/planets. That's why the controls should be at the country/empire level, not city/base/planet level.

[MrBaggins]

Using a 'one screen per city' approach will surely tire when you have dozens or scores of cities.

What happens if you amalgamate the information into a list, though? And in that list you allow sorting by pertinent values. You can very quickly see pertinent information and drill down by this method. City management certainly becomes easier when you can see an overview and quickly find what you need to find, and select multiple cities and 'process them' for want of a better word; especially building queues and specialist management if you are thinking in a 'Sid-Civ' kinda way.

Dozens or even hundreds of components need not be difficult or boring to deal with, if the interface is acceptable.

I do, however agree... that we have reached a 'nuclear arms race' of limitations in these games: E.G. you can have only 200 units in this title, and some people complained, and now you can have a gazzilion... and the same for cities.

You clearly need not have a gazzilion cities to have a rewarding sense of an empire. The whole point of Civ is abstraction to the benefit of the game.

Cities should and can have suburbs... and perhaps there should be stricter limits on the volume of cities in the default game governments that you can alter for mods or scenarios.

I think that possibly it was the terrible success of ICS that brought about this empiric spread idea... and that designers were afraid to step off the beaten path.

I, to some degree, like the idea of 'no more cities' ala Clash, yet I still feel there is life in the city model, yet.

Restoring sanity can be done... but it will take a shifting of perception to achieve it. I'm sure a less is more approach... less... potentially larger cities, certainly is a viable, and probably enjoyable concept.

Having to oversee a dozen metropoli instead of a hundred 'cities' is a far more connected experience.

MrBaggins

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
Because it makes the game bloody unplayable if you Have to do them?

Well, you have to do that with all Civ games, and I don't consider any of them even remotely unplayable...

It's not just realism - it's plainly not fun. If you have played both MoO and MoO 2, you'd know the sequel stupidly included a ton of micromanagement stuff to drive people up the walls. It might be fun for a while, but it will become a drag when you need to go through all 75 cities/bases/planets every turn to see if the people are happy, to see if they need granaries or marketplaces or missile bases or whatever.

I have played neither. My experience is purely civ based.

But it is broke I don't want it. I want to set overarching goals and the prorgam takes care of it for me.

But it's not about reducing micromanagement, it is about how a game ought to feel. Civilization etc. are about playing countries/star-spanning empires/etc., not collections of cities/bases/planets. That's why the controls should be at the country/empire level, not city/base/planet level.

Do you actually think that Civ is too tedious? I think if my civ experience was reduced to pushing "kingdom-wide" sliders and such I would tire of civ very quickly. I think you will find that most players like the fact that they can control what their cities are doing in Civ.

[Mr. President]

I don't. I find it tedious and insanity-generating (to the point where I now deliberately stop building bases after the fifth in Alpha Centauri). I personally agree with Urban Ranger, which is why I've started peeking in the Clash of Civilizations forum.

[DrSpike]

I have played a lot of TBS and with a well designed interface micromanagement is not bothersome IMO. A good example is movement of stacks in civ3. Initially it was not possible, and it was very tiresome indeed, but a tweak later it was perfectly playable.

In most games you can push one key and get a happiness breakdown, so you can immediately see what cities require attention, that sort of thing.

Ultimately reducing micro is a fair goal, but IMO the right way to go about it is thoughtful interface design, not removing all the game to make it less micro intensive.

[ottok]

Anyway... what at build at Civ3?

i newer test it...

But anyway, i dont like REAL TIME STATERGY with ATTACK and Deffence points...

But i like this: first is popula,then build then mode is move (all plyears play one mode then all to next mode)
Then is Battles-mode.And (science test mode) and trade mode...

At Avalon hill´s Civilization (advanced?)

[Trifna]

Why isn't a single idea thrown in the bunch gets to be pushed further...

Here's what I proposed:
The same micro-management except put in ONE place, so it's not less precise it's just that you don't have to go city by city! You just go in the management panel and see all your cities' shield and produce what you want!

A modern economy is NOT about many separate cities but about mass common production. Management in the end game would simply be less tedious and stil let player micro-manage.

[Dauphin]

Do you actually think that Civ is too tedious? I think if my civ experience was reduced to pushing "kingdom-wide" sliders and such I would tire of civ very quickly. I think you will find that most players like the fact that they can control what their cities are doing in Civ.

I 'enjoy' the micromanagement of cities. That is I like to decide what is built where and on what timescale. What I hate about MM is the tedious repetitive bits.

Saving build queues and templates, and copying them to other cities is invaluable. Shame Civ3 doesn't have it.


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I think a move away from a collection of cities is important. Given enough infrastructure things like food collecting should be a pooled resource that can even be traded with other civs. Population growth is then more realistic in later time periods - its not based on food production (although limited by) but other criteria.

[ottok]

Roadmaker,Miniger,Irrigatemen?
With RR then Also to Sertteles.

[Odin]

I hate micromanagement, so I'm waiting impatiantly for Clash.

My idea for micromanagement is for region-wide options, so I can have 50 cities, but only 10 regions.

on improving tiles I've heard an idea in that you lay out the improvements as in CtP, then workers do it automatically.

[ottok]

At example:
Do road from South on Cairo to north on Nurmansk?
or make irrigations to nw Some to ne Some

maybe?
at bee same at Great nations:

http://www.greatnations.org/devnews/

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Big Crunch

Saving build queues and templates, and copying them to other cities is invaluable. Shame Civ3 doesn't have it.

Yes, there are lots of little things that can be done to reduce tedium in micro. To those who don't want to micro at all I suggest you play games from a different genre.

[Trifna]

Spike: There are still ways to make the genre less micro-oriented :P