c168 WHY CIV-SPECIFIC UNITS ARE A GOOD IDEA

[MarkG]

http://apolyton.net/misc/column/168_specificunits.shtml

by Snapcase

Perhaps the biggest controversy that has arisen out of the recent previews of Civilization III is the issue of whether to have the proposed civilisation-specific units in the game or not. By
"civilisation-specific", I mean units that are at one stage of the game or another only available to one of the players, or "civilisations", rather than to all players like regular units are. The issue may seem minor, but can in some specific cases.....

[Jeje2]

First I wanna say that I do like the idea of civ-specific units, it can bring something good into the game.

But I have two things against these units I now want to add to Snapcaeses column.

1. Longboat for Vikings is good. But Vikings disapeared and what Civ-specific unit should they have in 1942 during WWII???

2. Creating these units and balancing the whole system in game-development takes time for FIRAXIS. So if there is a deadline and these unit's don't excist in plans by now, I hope they won't be included. (And I hope that they make everything nice in the game and so postpone the release until everything is vrelly done.)

About the author: Snapcase is a guy without an Apolyton T-Shirt

Sereious flaw...

[Grumbold]

Your arguements are good but if you replace Civ-specific with Civ-selectable then exactly the same holds true, only more so. A unique or slightly different unit type should be picked because it is the appropriate thing to choose at the time of need, not because it came up as your fixed or random draw at 4,000 BC. Nor should getting a dinky boat in 800 AD somehow prevent the Vikings from excelling at tank technology if they are a major player over a thousand years later.

The problem with making certain hard coded dedicated units is that each one has to be very carefully examined to make sure it provides flavour without being game winning. To do so means it is extremely hard to produce many of them for each one must be approached and tested independently. That makes the burden of introducing more than one special unit per civ (and more than 16 civs) intense. A more generic and flexible system that allowed any player to expend additional effort to improve a basic unit in clearly defined ways would allow each civ access to a much larger pool of potential customised units. I applaud Firaxis for going as far as they have gone but they really need to go further to make Civ III the game it deserves to be.

[Kropotkin]

Some thoughts on the column

Civ-specific units give personality to individual civilisations

True but that could be done by customizing the graphics without making the units unique in any other way. Just as they did with the cities in civ2.

with civ-specific units the tactics of the different civilisations are bound to be different

Well, It could be done with different AI settings too...

Another thing is that civs will have special units at different stages of the game, viking longships might give an advantage in the 10th-11th century while few german tanks will be produced at the time (well not until one is pretty good at it )

[Buck Birdseed]

Jeje2: 1. Do the vikings need a WW1-specific unit? (I know, I know, the vikings are probably out.) In the example of a Civ-specific unit given since I wrote this article three weeks ago, it says the Impi will be a spearman unit with a movement rating of two. This means the Zulus will be stronger in that time period, but it doesn't mean everyone else will be weaker! If the germans have their Panzer tank, and everyone else has a normal tank, the germans will have the advantage but the others will still be on equal footing. Different people will chose different civs based on their unique units, so them falling in different time periods is a challenge rather than a problem.

2. They do. It's been pretty much confirmed.

Grumbold: Personally I perfer the hard-coded units, for several reasons outlined in the article. Making game-beating units is nearly impossible in the first place in Civ, because what makes a game-breaking unit? One with which you can conquer your neighbours right from the start? One that can provide an ideal defense while you pursue a perfectionist strategy? One that's fast and can discover ahead early to let you pursue an exploration policy? One which is good for escorts to your colonies for your trade and resource oriented tactic? A very late game unit that allows your small, hardy civilization to convince everyone else of your military might? A special bomber unit that disrupts others' spaceship plans? There are so many ways to win a game of civ, and if your neighbours try different ways on you that's an interesting and constant challenge, whereas pick and mix units will most likely mean the one AI (I don't think there will be more than one) will build the same damn things every game. Again, look at SMAC where you could pretty much build what you liked, yet the AI always built the same damn stuff.

Krop: I tried to address both these issues in the column. I think "personality" is much more than just looks, don't you? And AI variations were tried in SMAC, with little success, IMO. Most differences were simply down to the SE variations.

Thanks to everyone who sent me e-mails regarding this column, I'd encourage you to post the contents in this thread. Some of the ideas were very good!

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Snapcase
There are so many ways to win a game of civ, and if your neighbours try different ways on you that's an interesting and constant challenge, whereas pick and mix units will most likely mean the one AI (I don't think there will be more than one) will build the same damn things every game. Again, look at SMAC where you could pretty much build what you liked, yet the AI always built the same damn stuff.

The one thing I can say with confidence is that if Civ III features AI of a similar standard to SMAC it will be a poor 1 player game no matter what other extras they have piled into the box. If the game is to live up to its claims of customisability I would expect a version of SLIC code that can be used by modders to address any holes in AI behavior that slip through the programmers fingers. It has done wonders for CtP but unfortunately too late to affect its sales potential.

I am concerned that under most circumstances those civs given early age land-based specials will be able to use them to greater effect than any civ given a naval or late-era special simply because effective early expansion is key to long term success in an exponential game where there are no reverses of fate. That, after all, was the whole point of ICS which they are so eager to eliminate. Double speed spearmen should be able to hot-foot it over to a neighbouring Civ and box it in, preventing any workers or settlers from expanding while being far more defensible if counterattacked than horsemen or chariots are. Still, I feel we are going to have to agree to disagree on this issue

[Kropotkin]

I think "personality" is much more than just looks, don't you?

Nah, I'm very superficial

[Kropotkin]

To be somewhat more serious

Returned to the column and noticed "What happens if the Vikings end up in a desert or the Germans on an island? Won't their specific units force them into a specific mould?" Sure, Civ isn't the most realistic game about the history of the world and maybe it shouldn't be either. But i can't stop myself when I want to add that a civ's choice of weapons is a result of their environment and situation not some sort of national soul, gene or culture.

Not wanting to go further into marxist theory but you get the picture. If you start on a small continent seatravel and technologies will be a priority and will also affect you game strategy and thus specific units might or might not be of any value.

If one really wants to implement specific might be to make you chose your speciality in game, ie there might be defining moments (entering a new era perhaps) when you have to chose witch way you want your civilization to go and what special abilities you want. Thus you would be able to chose if you have a seafaring nation or a unit good at defense or with camel-troops or mountain-troops or whatever possible.

[Grumbold]

Shh. Snapcase doesn't want to hear that.

[Kropotkin]

yeah well, the truth hurts

[Buck Birdseed]

I just think it's not a good idea, that's all. Having the PC determine your speciality for you depending on your initial surrounding is more plausible in terms of gameplay mechanics, but would be damn confusing for most players. Picking your specialities would almost certainly result in half a dozen exactly similar AI sides...

[Kropotkin]

Not that I'm that keen on the idea of specific units in the first place but if it's confusing for the player then they shouldn't be able to play the RTS either. If all the AI's chose the same way then there's something wrong somewhere. Either programming or the strengh of different units.

[Cyclotron]

First off, Snapcase, I think that Civ specific units decided by the computer are a load of ****.

That being said, I will try to ignore this obvious prejudice of mine as I point out the big flaw I see in your (and Firaxis') ideas.

Your "obvious advantage" sounds like an obvious disadvantage to me. The problem is that yes, CSU do make Civs more distinctive... but, unfortunately, they also make each civ be identically distinctive. What I mean is this: You say that the Vikings will be raiding me by sea, the Germans flooding me with panzers, etc... I think that's horrible. I could care less about Civ distinctiveness... what I want is civ variety. I want the Germans to be a warlike agressive Civ one game, then a trading empire the next, then a dangerous diplomatic sabotage machine the next. I want Civs to act differently in every game according to what happens in that game. If they start on an island, I want them to be isolationist, militaristic, and a huge sea power... If they start surrounded by other nations they conduct a lot more trading and negotiations. I don't want to play every game where the Germans are somehow predestined to swamp me with panzers every year 1940 or so. I want the Germans to decide what is best for their civ, and then do it. A Zulu Civ that says "cool, now we have impis, let's become warlike and raid a bunch until they become obsolete" is not a civ. It's a sickening repetitive behavior pattern that manifests itself in every single game, throwing any kind of strategy or logic to the winds. If you want distinctiveness, play your civ distinctively... and push Firaxis to make an AI that makes distinctive judgements based on their distinctive situation. Because underneath CSU, you still have the same identival civs... just with a few different units. There's really no difference, and you should be able to see that CSUs fix nothing and make nothing distinctive.

[raingoon]

First of all, thanks -- I really appreciate that someone laid this argument out for me. I hadn't really followed the different sides. It would seem that Firaxis is going to offer both "hard-coded" units and "civ-specific" as a start-up option, no?

So in theory, since the whole thing can be scrapped by the end user before any game, the complaint that finally goes unanswered is the one that says Firaxis is prolonging the development of the game by implementing a feature that nobody is going to want to use.

Hmm, well I suppose somebody wants to try it out, so the final problem becomes SOME who don't look forward to this as anything but a mistake will have to wait longer than they would like for the game.

All in theory, of course, maybe the game is developed beyond where we think and that time spent on this feature is a sunk cost. Meaning, water under the bridge.

All told, thank you for an enlightening and provocative column!

[lord of the mark]

snap says that historical accuracy has never been one of civ's strong points.

I beg leave to disagress. Civ is in fact one of the most historically accurate games there is!!!! You have simply been defining historical accuracy too narrowly.

No civ's combat model is not accurate - its decades behind the wargame state of the art. Its economic model is inferior to imperialisms, its model of city happiness pales next to city builders, its tech tree has numerous problems, and its govt forms are simplistic.

BUT civ gives a better view of the larger issues of history than any PC game i know of. The interaction of domestic and international politics, the conflict between terrain and strategy, the tradeoffs of war and economic and social development, are better illustrated here than in any grognard war game. Even the tech tree is magnificent, with its underlying Hegelian philosophy - things proceed dialectically from their opposites!!!! Only a successful monarchy can generate representative govt forms - a demo provides the research to reach commie and fundie. Industrialization creates pollution, but pollution ruins production - but sufficient production and tech advance can reach the environmental techs that pre-industrial society was incapable of. Capitalism generates communism - like industrialism and environmentalism, they are not opposites but different sides of the historical dialectic.


But perhaps the dialectic must be applied to the civ series itself. Civ and civ 2 were landmarks in "macro-historical" gaming. But the day of civ is over - it is being surpassed, by period specific games like EU. CSU's may be inevitable in CIv 3, but they are a sign of the decadence of the civ series - it may yet produce fun games, but it can no longer provide intellectual insights, as Civ2 did. The historical moment is passed. We can probably look forward to the application of the EU approach to other time periods - eventually someone will ask the 6000 year + historical questions again, informed this time by the playing of EU type games. It may even be done by one of the alt civ projects now in development. But it will not be done by Sid Meiers or Firaxis - they are too successful.

LOTM