What's wrong with unrealism?

[Father Beast]

Maybe it's just me, But I care very little for rigid adherence to realism in civ. all sorts of unrealistic elements abound in civ. The Statue of Liberty allows you to change governments at the drop of a hat. How realistic is that? but it adds, not detracts from gameplay, so I'm for keeping it in. On the other hand, some things upset the balance and should be fixed. Fundamentalism is too powerful a government and needs adjustment. Bribing cities for low cost and getting all the units in them for free. OK, these are absurd and need fixing.
But am I interested in whether communism in the game corresponds to communism in history? No. Do I care if other civs or myself discover techs at the dates they historically came into use? No.
The main bit of unrealism is the very center of the game - that one person is Immortal and has such total control over a civilization's development. But I have no intention of even suggesting that that be changed.
So if the unrealism upsets the gameplay, fix it - I don't want my battleship sunk by a Phalanx. but if it's fun and adds to the game, by all means keep it in.
That's right, I want lip service to reality, not adherence to it.

[Adm.Naismith]

Some games don't suffer from being little realistic, may be are more fun instead . Civ is another matter, because it draw a great scenario and, apart from inserting an "immortal player" (it's not a movie after all, is it?), it try to keep history as a main line.

Your post appear to suggest that fun is more important than historically realistic, and I can agree to a point. Our idea, OTOH, is that historically realistic game can be more fun or at least not less.

I underline too much time how a good game should teach something to the player. I'm not speaking of "edutainment", I'm speaking of helping player to make new links between actions and consequence, between given results and original environment.

Understanding often is equal to discover and rebuild the underlining model. Any player can work on any game model but surely he/she can learn more interesting stuff from realistic one.

So, until is playable and fun enough, I'm for historically realism on any Civ game.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant