Sid Meier's Civilization

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Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
What if a 4X had the Roman Catholic Church be a playable civ in itself

builds infrastructure inside of other civs cities
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I've been toying with various game ideas where you focus on the religious aspect over a layer of civs engaging with each other.

The problem is a bit the same as religious (and cultural) play has been in civ. It's fundamentally boring.

Historically there are some interesting flashpoints, like having a pope and antipope, or the CIA pushing an art style and of course the reformation and counterreformation. But in game terms, nobody has figured out a way that isn't either "combat systems but we say it's about preaching and conversion" or slow bars filling up of cultural/religious progress and influence.

It doesn't hit the hind brain like war and combat does. The choices aren't compelling.
 
Fig Kommandant said:
Maybe setting such a game in historic flashpoints would be the goal then, instead of overall history, like the Pope-Antipope, the crusades and fitnas, cross-religious conflicts like missionaries in the Americas and Asia.
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That's the point I guess, you could have great stories and by extension storybased games around it. Something like assassins creed. But more mechanistically and strategy driven like civilization? I have longed for it, I've prototyped it. But I always end up in similar places like different civ games.

The interesting part of religions is choosing the beliefs. The perks. The social engineering settings. Not the spread and theological conflict. I mean the mechanics which are interesting, not the story part. Which is why it could fit in a story game, but not a 4x strategy one.

Maybe it's because the history of religion when viewed broadly, over the ages, is quite boring.

It makes sense too. Religions have a habit of rewriting the past. Neither muslim or christian scholars preserved the religious history of the greeks well. Christians were the ones to record norse pagan history but started doing so about 200 years after eradicating it more or less.

It is such a monopolistic history. One eats all the others, more or less. You don't get the granular interesting part of Crusader kings with bishoprics and minor counts, you just have the large blobs absorbing everything smaller.

You could research all the theological differences and build around it, like how early americn settlers fought each other as firebrand protestants, for being the wrong kind of protestant. Or how catholic churches were used to hide gunsmuggling in japan, or how current day mosques worl similar in europe today.

But it doesn't really work again, because though it happens, mosques aren't primarily a gunsmuggling ring anymore than catholic churches were. And I diubt learning all different christian cult differences serves as good backdrop for strategy and the kind of thematic wish fulfillment games offer anymore than harriet tubman does.
 
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Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
What if a 4X had the Roman Catholic Church be a playable civ in itself

builds infrastructure inside of other civs cities
Click to expand...
Would be a cool concept, EU5 has playable international organizations now. I think the devs would have to ask themselves how they would want to simulate organized religions and other international organizations in general, as well as if they want to keep up a kitchen sink approach or have a start date where religions are already defined.
Lemmingwiser said:
It doesn't hit the hind brain like war and combat does. The choices aren't compelling.
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I like culture and religious play in Civ. War gets more tedious and being innocuous gives me more opportunities to screw with other players.
 
Lemmingwiser said:
I've prototyped it. But I always end up in similar places like different civ games.
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Have you tried Populous or From Dust, they're not at all the genre you're talking about, but they're good examples of god games where you don't interact at all with your minions, you can only interact with the physical world. You'd have to limit how often and how big you can interact with people though.
Lemmingwiser said:
The interesting part of religions is choosing the beliefs. The perks. The social engineering settings. Not the spread and theological conflict.
Click to expand...
I read a novel with a similar plot back in the day, essentially a group of people were tasked with creating a religion each on the creation of a new universe/planet and whoever had the most believers by the end won. Something interesting would be for example if you compare islam vs christianity, islam does not allow new prophets and by extension does not really allow an updated message, meanwhile saints are recognized semi-regularly in catholicism. So if a religion starts the game with no or few prophets allowed, that means they can't self-correct much, but a religion who can might also get random heresies that you as the god/player didn't intend.
Lemmingwiser said:
And I diubt learning all different christian cult differences serves as good backdrop for strategy and the kind of thematic wish fulfillmen
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Instead of a historic game, why not go purely fictional? There was a mod for Civ4 called Gods of Old which had sumerian gods instead and you could unleash miracles or plagues with great prophets. I guess the problem with the type of game we're talking about is the interactivity, it's much less involved than a regular game.
 
Fig Kommandant said:
Have you tried Populous or From Dust, they're not at all the genre you're talking about, but they're good examples of god games where you don't interact at all with your minions, you can only interact with the physical world. You'd have to limit how often and how big you can interact with people though.

I read a novel with a similar plot back in the day, essentially a group of people were tasked with creating a religion each on the creation of a new universe/planet and whoever had the most believers by the end won. Something interesting would be for example if you compare islam vs christianity, islam does not allow new prophets and by extension does not really allow an updated message, meanwhile saints are recognized semi-regularly in catholicism. So if a religion starts the game with no or few prophets allowed, that means they can't self-correct much, but a religion who can might also get random heresies that you as the god/player didn't intend.

Instead of a historic game, why not go purely fictional? There was a mod for Civ4 called Gods of Old which had sumerian gods instead and you could unleash miracles or plagues with great prophets. I guess the problem with the type of game we're talking about is the interactivity, it's much less involved than a regular game.
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I played a shitload of populous as a kid. Black and white too.

What you're describing is exactly what is interesting and why I kept trying, like your islam example. To apply different religious rules and have them have physical effects.

Perhaps it should be more like a plague inc style game, where you do short plays and develop the religion as you go.

I think a lot of the time indirect games are more interesting to build than to play.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
What if a 4X had the Roman Catholic Church be a playable civ in itself

builds infrastructure inside of other civs cities
Click to expand...
I like this idea.

It could work with different win conditions and if you simulated populations, culture and cultural compatibility. Depending on where you started if the civ's cultural mores were hostile how you set up your church. Then going through the process of converting them. The conversion could cause strife within the civ, leaving them open to attack from others. Later when they are converted you can spend influence to direct the civ along certain paths. You can use the conversion process to weaken other civs leaving them ripe for conquest, or eventually ideologically vassalize them as well.
 
JJLiautaud said:
View attachment 8217302
In a shocking twist to no one potatomcwhiskey likes to deep throat leddit power mod cock
Link
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Potato likes to get bullied.

True Irish grindset.
 
In the world of "4X" vidyas, Ascendancy has its' 30th anniversary some time around now, and next year will be the 30th anniversary of Civilization II and Master of Orion II.
 
ToroidalBoat said:
In the world of "4X" vidyas, Ascendancy has its' 30th anniversary some time around now, and next year will be the 30th anniversary of Civilization II and Master of Orion II.
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I was about 9-11 when Ascendency hit. I had no fucking clue what I was doing I just knew how fucking cool it was. I played an emulation a few years ago and it amazingly held up fairly well. The ship builder and exploration mechanics (and automation) are still great systems. The lore is pretty good too for such a relatively small budget to today's games. Another good game around that time period, while not 4x and more of a builder/tower defense is Utopia.

Thread tax: I still love playing a marathon civ 6 game once a month or so. I just play on prince and dominate the fuck out of everybody. Usually quit around 500 ad but never gets old to min max the city development and bum rush the fuck out of the AI. I'll rage quit if I get a barb with horseman at 3800bc tho, that is a little too much RNG. Saw a AI civ get genocided by one the other day which was a first in 1000 or so hours.
 
thejackal2 said:
I was about 9-11 when Ascendency hit. I had no fucking clue what I was doing I just knew how fucking cool it was.
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It was much easier to me to learn than Master of Orion 2, the latter of which was released by Microprose (same company that released Civ 1 and 2). But MoO2 is easier than 3.

And yeah, Ascendancy runs well in DOSBox, even on a toaster.
 
Hot take, I enjoy civ 5's combat more that older civs, I simply disliked the death stacking, if civ5 didn't have range, blitz or march promotions it would be almost perfect.
 
Hot take, The happiness feature in Civ 5 was a good mechanic that prevented players on snowballing science/military conquest and forced players to placate to strategize on the other buildings and recourses in the game without becoming frustrating.
 
Racial Slurs the Movie said:
Hot take, I enjoy civ 5's combat more that older civs, I simply disliked the death stacking, if civ5 didn't have range, blitz or march promotions it would be almost perfect.
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I'm playing through Realism Invictus again for its 20th anniversary update and it's definitely made me appreciate Civ 5's combat on balance more than not. That said range was one of the best things about it, enough it was backported into Civ 4 in a number of mods. Imo it's weakness is that it's too generous early on, two-tile range should be something for WW1-era indirect fire artillery, not archers.
 
Rome's rightful successor said:
Hot take, The happiness feature in Civ 5 was a good mechanic that prevented players on snowballing science/military conquest and forced players to placate to strategize on the other buildings and recourses in the game without becoming frustrating.
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I play with a mod that gives a decent buff to all happiness buildings and it is FAR more enjoyable this way.
 
Computer God Autism said:
I'm playing through Realism Invictus again for its 20th anniversary update and it's definitely made me appreciate Civ 5's combat on balance more than not. That said range was one of the best things about it, enough it was backported into Civ 4 in a number of mods. Imo it's weakness is that it's too generous early on, two-tile range should be something for WW1-era indirect fire artillery, not archers.
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I agree with that, random archers shouldn't have more range than a machine gun without a fuck ton of training.
 
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