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This is from an e-mail I sent Mark recently, we decided to post this on the Forum so everybody can state their opinion.
Now, on to War. Some time ago this was discussed somewhat on the old BB, where I expressed the view that wars in most civ-type games where very unrealistic regarding length and fiercety. If I remember correctly my views where met with a general approval but no details were agreed upon. I´m afraid that you´ll find few details here either, but I thought I´d bring it up again and see what we´d come up with. Now, although I´d be very interested in seeing wars depicted realisticly I don´t see how this can be accomplihed without putting some serious restrictions on players. The most obvious problem is of course the timescale. I don´t know if this has been decided upon yet, but I imagine it will reflect more or less the one found in other games of this type, i.e. a turn length of 10 to 20 years until the modern age. So if we´d follow the average length of wars most of them would last less than a turn, which could be a little tricky to accomplish :-). The second problem is the severity of wars, in civ and other games figthing till the death is the norm, not the exception as it should be. Unfortunaetly I haven´t got a solution, but here are some thoughts on this. Now, as you probably know by know playing strategic board-games has been a hobby of mine for quite awhile. So here are some examples of how things are handled in some of them, I don´t knw how helpful this is, but maybe it´ll trigger someones mind into a aha moment, as Mark says. First, it is the declaration of war (DoW). Most games put a penalty on this, so players don´t walk into a war unless they really want it (or have to). This can be in the form of a stability minus, economical cost or simply VP cost, or a combination of this. Many games make a distinction on who you´re declaring war against, so declaring war against a ally gives more penalty than otherwise and some games lessen the cost if you have a Casus Belli (latin for ‘cause of war’) against the one you´re declaring war against, sometimes even making it a pre-requisite to declare war. Other games ban you to declare war in certain circumstance, such as if you have a Non-Aggression Treaty with the country. Next, unto the length of war. This is handled differently depending on the game, mainly on it´s time-scale. The consensus is that games with loe time-scale (less than a year per turn) put little restrictions on this, those with higher time-scale have some restrictions. The most common restriction is the longer the war lasts the graver it´s consequences is (in economical and/or stability terms). Another method is to play the war out entierly in one turn, i.e. there is a specific war phase at the end of each turn where all active wars are fought through numerous rounds, most often until it ends. So where does this leave us? I´ve no idea :-), but I think this is something we should think about because it’s a big issue on how the game will play like, do we want the common, all-out, ages-long wars seen in other games and known by players, or do we want to be bold a make a more realistic system, but restricting players ability to wage wars in the process? Personally I´m more interested in the second choice, but as I´ve no idea on hw to accomplish this I´m unable to force the issue at the moment.
Now, on to War. Some time ago this was discussed somewhat on the old BB, where I expressed the view that wars in most civ-type games where very unrealistic regarding length and fiercety. If I remember correctly my views where met with a general approval but no details were agreed upon. I´m afraid that you´ll find few details here either, but I thought I´d bring it up again and see what we´d come up with. Now, although I´d be very interested in seeing wars depicted realisticly I don´t see how this can be accomplihed without putting some serious restrictions on players. The most obvious problem is of course the timescale. I don´t know if this has been decided upon yet, but I imagine it will reflect more or less the one found in other games of this type, i.e. a turn length of 10 to 20 years until the modern age. So if we´d follow the average length of wars most of them would last less than a turn, which could be a little tricky to accomplish :-). The second problem is the severity of wars, in civ and other games figthing till the death is the norm, not the exception as it should be. Unfortunaetly I haven´t got a solution, but here are some thoughts on this. Now, as you probably know by know playing strategic board-games has been a hobby of mine for quite awhile. So here are some examples of how things are handled in some of them, I don´t knw how helpful this is, but maybe it´ll trigger someones mind into a aha moment, as Mark says. First, it is the declaration of war (DoW). Most games put a penalty on this, so players don´t walk into a war unless they really want it (or have to). This can be in the form of a stability minus, economical cost or simply VP cost, or a combination of this. Many games make a distinction on who you´re declaring war against, so declaring war against a ally gives more penalty than otherwise and some games lessen the cost if you have a Casus Belli (latin for ‘cause of war’) against the one you´re declaring war against, sometimes even making it a pre-requisite to declare war. Other games ban you to declare war in certain circumstance, such as if you have a Non-Aggression Treaty with the country. Next, unto the length of war. This is handled differently depending on the game, mainly on it´s time-scale. The consensus is that games with loe time-scale (less than a year per turn) put little restrictions on this, those with higher time-scale have some restrictions. The most common restriction is the longer the war lasts the graver it´s consequences is (in economical and/or stability terms). Another method is to play the war out entierly in one turn, i.e. there is a specific war phase at the end of each turn where all active wars are fought through numerous rounds, most often until it ends. So where does this leave us? I´ve no idea :-), but I think this is something we should think about because it’s a big issue on how the game will play like, do we want the common, all-out, ages-long wars seen in other games and known by players, or do we want to be bold a make a more realistic system, but restricting players ability to wage wars in the process? Personally I´m more interested in the second choice, but as I´ve no idea on hw to accomplish this I´m unable to force the issue at the moment.
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