c#162: STRATEGY "BUGS" OF CIVILIZATION

[MarkG]

By AeroPrinz
http://www.apolyton.net/misc/column/...tegybugs.shtml

[The diplomat]

Interesting article. But, I think that the article overlooked 3 real strategy "bugs" in civ.

1) ICS
To me this is the first real strategy "bug" in the game. it is such an effective winning strategy which of course never works in real life.
This needs to be fixed, and it looks like civ3 might do this.

2) Make that worker an entertainer!
In civ, when your cities riot, you can just easily convert the unhappy city into an entertainer. You can always stop unhapiness this way by just making entertainers. This strategy is way off from real life. Rioters are not going to stop simply by giving them more entertainment. Unhappiness needs to be less predictable and the player should NOT be able to simply make an unhappy worker into an entertainer!

3) Switching governments!
In civ, it is way too easy to switch governments. It is a well known strategy to switch governments when you need and switch back on a whim. When you go to war, you switch to fundy or communist and switch back to democracy when you are done.

I believe these are very important strategy "bugs" that absolutely need to be dealt with in civ3 if the game is going to be trully fantastic!

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[Scouse Gits]

Sure Civ has many eccentricities - but it's a great game. We could argue that Chess has a strategy bug because Bishops can only move diagonally!
I would rather have a good game with some dubious concepts, than a dubious game with correct concepts.

Diplomat - I don't consider ICS any more of a strategy bug than a celebrating city doubling its population in a few years.

As for switching governments - look at the history of Italy since 1945.

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SG(2)


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Scouse Gits (edited April 14, 2001).]</font>

[Chris 62]

I think the author is trying to view Civ-2 as a simulator, and this is an impossibility. The whole system is based on an abstraction, so trying to fit historic parameters into this game system is a fallicy from the start. The system wasn't designed to fit a conflict like world war II, or world war I for that matter. What it can and does do, is simulate the rise and fall of great empires over centuries. Clever scenario designers have been able to capture many aspects of many different wars, but this system will never be able do recreate history in an exacting manor.

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All knowledge begins with the phrase: I don't know.

[Solver]

Good article, but I'd call it Historical bugs, and there are many. Civ isn't historically accurate, but it's more accurate than SMAC .

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Solver the "Running Beer" - http://www.aok.20m.com

[MattHiggs]

a.k.a. 'CHEATING'

[Lefty Scaevola]

The bomber defense can be solved simply by giving the bomber more range and requiring it to land by the end of the turn.

[AeroPrinz]

Well, I see most of criticism for my article is because I choose examples from the WWI and WWII, but I can find the same examples in Roman or Greek history, or Japan history from any century. I really think that Civ is a simulation program of rise and fall of emoires, so Strategical concepts must work!

[Solver]

For example, the Romans can't have Samurai.

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Solver the "Running Beer" - http://www.aok.20m.com

[East Street Trader]

Thanks for the article, AeroPrinz.

The bomber over a stack feature is a pity although I can intuit that it might have been tough for the programmers to find a way round that one. And it is easy enough just to observe a self denying ordinance (or, in MP, agree not to do it).

Lots of the other quirky things, though, give extra depth to the game. I am not an ICS exponent but I like the fact that the technique exists. Those who do ICS obviously enjoy it and, for the perfectionist, it presents the challenge of trying to get your own strategy honed to the point where you can at least hope to compete with ICS (and I like it that this is very challenging).

As for realism, well Maier is notorious for puttting game-playing fun first and realism a long way second. And surely in that he is right. I suspect that there are other places to turn for historical accuracy.

And I would say that in its heart Civ2 does capture just some small drumbeat of what the modern rise of homo sapiens has entailed. A civilisations citizens do have to stay content - look at the USSR. Rows about lebensraum have played a massive part in shaping events. Peaceful advances in science have gone hand in hand with military developments. And we have seen a development down the ages of steadily more complex governmental forms; a point very particularly true of the current age. Ascribing importance to all these factors in the game but also managing that clever trick of baancing them out so that no one factor dominates is no small achievement. To contend that some sort of detailed historical consistency should have been built in as well is simply asking far too much.

If anything, my own admiration for those who devised the game stands steadily higher year on year.

[AeroPrinz]

Well, I think the Civilization is the best game ever, but nobody is perfect and there is always some way to improve it.