Declining Powers

[unmerged(101730)]

That's fine and all, but when it comes down to it, there are times where a choice has to be made. As I brought up earlier, you can't represent timescale, for instance, realistically and yet have it work in terms of gameplay as well.

This specific example depends on the game. ArmA II does it just fine, for example. You can camp for a few hours real-time, and see the sun go down and the night fall.

In any case, while there are limits to how realistic you can make a game, those limits have a lower bound set by computational complexity and memory requirements, not the amount of fun vs. realism. You can make a real-time strategy game, and people did and do so (granted, those are play-by-mail games usually).

 

[ANO1453]

Yeah, ledger is a perfect supplier of inteligence. You know how much troops, you know their techs, their NIs, their literally everthing, on the whim, and clear, which is another "obstacle" on the historicity aspect, since player(ad AI, if it is good) can almost always cherry pick his wars, to only fight them when they are already pretty much won anyway, and thus, more blobbing.

I could see some system where ledger information is collected from Embassies or something, modified by spy efficieny, but I'm not sure players would like not having full information on every country on Earth.

 

[fenwayb]

This specific example depends on the game. ArmA II does it just fine, for example. You can camp for a few hours real-time, and see the sun go down and the night fall.

In any case, while there are limits to how realistic you can make a game, those limits have a lower bound set by computational complexity and memory requirements, not the amount of fun vs. realism. You can make a real-time strategy game, and people did and do so (granted, those are play-by-mail games usually).

So, you're saying that in ArmA II, the *entire* game takes place in real time? Because that would be the only way that gameplay wasn't trumping realism.

That's just not true. Realism stops being fun at a certain point, and that point usually is when it causes gameplay to suffer. Honestly, I feel like you're trying to take this in an entirely different direction, and twist what I'm saying into more than what it is. All I have said, which is in direct contradiction of the post that I originally quoted, is that, gameplay should always trump realism when the choice needs to be made.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I don't speak for flame7926, but as for myself, there is no confusion. For games based in history and present time (or similar fantasy or alt-history versions thereof), I like game mechanics more when they represent reality better. It's not a binary "either/or", but a sliding scale: The more "real" the game mechanics are within the confines of the game genre, the more fun it is for me.

Thus, I play Paradox strategy games and not Total War.

Thus I play ArmA II and not Modern Warfare.

Thus I play GURPS and not D&D.

... and so on.

GURPS? Realistic mechanics? I'll default my Xenosurgery off of Vet at (-something ridiculous), but I can't default it off surgery...
I'll admit D&D is not very realistic, but then it tries to be "High Epic Fantasy" rather than "Gritty modern" or "Space Opera".

/off topic...

I have to admit I support the idea of the AI being willing to just take what it started the war for, and in return being willing to give up when it is losing badly, so that the player might let it survive with just the loss of whatever the player started the war for. It might also be an interesting twist to always allow the war goal to be achieved, subject to warscore, regardless of if the target region is held if it is for land/liberation or whatever, and possibly to allow capitals to be taken if they are the war goal, but as the only thing you can take - I've several times had to dismantle a country, taking masses of unwanted, non-core, wrong religion, wrong culture provinces to get the mission goal, the (now cored) capital of my neighbour. Perhaps the AI should consider moving the capital if it is under serious threat, and there is a "safe region" to move to.


I'm not in favour of there being inherent boosts to being broken and reduced to a fragment of the former nation, because it doesn't seem realistic, and I can see there being ways to game it. (Take just enough of a hit to trigger the modifier, use the boosts from the modifier to suddenly expand past the original point. Stabilise and then do it again.)

 

[unmerged(101730)]

So, you're saying that in ArmA II, the *entire* game takes place in real time? Because that would be the only way that gameplay wasn't trumping realism.

Yes. If you want it to. And it seems people love it, given how the DayZ mod recently hit over a million players.

This is a game designed to be as realistic as the technology will allow. Even if some parts of it aren't "fun" by themselves, the combination of it is compelling to enough players.

That's just not true. Realism stops being fun at a certain point, and that point usually is when it causes gameplay to suffer. Honestly, I feel like you're trying to take this in an entirely different direction, and twist what I'm saying into more than what it is. All I have said, which is in direct contradiction of the post that I originally quoted, is that, gameplay should always trump realism when the choice needs to be made.

Please explain why so many people play DayZ then, in your opinion. Masochism? Are they all delusional and only think they have fun while suffering horribly?

GURPS? Realistic mechanics? I'll default my Xenosurgery off of Vet at (-something ridiculous), but I can't default it off surgery...
I'll admit D&D is not very realistic, but then it tries to be "High Epic Fantasy" rather than "Gritty modern" or "Space Opera".

Yes, GURPS is more realistic than D&D. That's all I claimed and that's why I prefer it. Or do you think that's not actually true?

 

[fenwayb]

Yes. If you want it to. And it seems people love it, given how the DayZ mod recently hit over a million players.

Please explain why so many people play DayZ then, in your opinion. Masochism? Are they all delusional and only think they have fun while suffering horribly?

This isn't about giving the player the choice to do things, though. If it were to be "realistic" then you couldn't speed up time. DayZ isn't realistic either, seeing as zombies don't exist, however it's popularity is a good point, one which I don't really have a counter-argument to beyond the fact that it's the exception rather than the rule.

This is a game designed to be as realistic as the technology will allow. Even if some parts of it aren't "fun" by themselves, the combination of it is compelling to enough players.

please stop bringing technology limitations into this, because it has literally nothing to do with the point at hand.

 

[unmerged(101730)]

This isn't about giving the player the choice to do things, though. If it were to be "realistic" then you couldn't speed up time. DayZ isn't realistic either, seeing as zombies don't exist, however it's popularity is a good point, one which I don't really have a counter-argument to beyond the fact that it's the exception rather than the rule.

It's a game (mod) about zombie apocalypse. In the confines of its setting, it is as realistic as possible.

I'm not sure if you can call a game played by more people than most MMOs an "exception", really ...

The point is: People like me enjoy realism for its own sake and wish their game play mechanics would be as realistic as possible for the setting and game type (which is why focusing on "real-time gameplay" for a game which is supposed to span hundredths of years doesn't make sense). Obviously there are at least a million players who do so as well. Realism and gameplay thus aren't at odds - you can have both "maxed out" at the same time.

Nothing will be 100% realistic and nothing will be 100% fun, but those two goals aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[Jaol]

I'm not in favour of there being inherent boosts to being broken and reduced to a fragment of the former nation, because it doesn't seem realistic, and I can see there being ways to game it. (Take just enough of a hit to trigger the modifier, use the boosts from the modifier to suddenly expand past the original point. Stabilise and then do it again.)

Yes, that's the danger. Whatever rewards there are for beaten nations, they'd have to be either 1) uncertain (as in you don't know if you'll get it or not), or 2) enough to keep you interested in the game, but still not as good as if you hadn't lost. 1) could encourage savescuming, and 2) runs the risk of being ineffectual. But I think it's a good point that you don't want a situation like in Vic2 where players try to lose wars.

please stop bringing technology limitations into this, because it has literally nothing to do with the point at hand off-topic discussion.

Can we please get back to the discussion of declining powers? If you guys want to discuss realism vs. gameplay, can we at least keep it focused on that subject?

 

[fenwayb]

those two goals aren't mutually exclusive.

I never said they where. Actually, multiple times now, I've said the exact opposite. However, there are times where concessions need to be made, and a good game will always chose gameplay over all else. Please stop trying to turn this into more than it is, and as the post above me said, this is getting off topic.

 

[Skyhunteren]

I understand you guys don't want to make a game that players end up hating.

However when you say, you were steamrolled by Russia and then slowly built up again, aren't you actually saying, "I blobbed like I always do when I play EU3, but this time it only started 100 years into the campaign, and therefore I quit the game only in 1700 instead of 1600 like I always do" ?


I like the CK2 idea that you don't have to blob, that you can have fun even when you are being un-blobbed by fate and by agressive neighbours. You say players hate it, but I get the impression that in CK2 there is a lot that lets you "pull through" and not quit, even when you have to take losses. For example, when you're in a succession crisis with a 5-year old king, or when you have a woman ruler, you suffer, and you may even lose your king titles. But in your head you're like, "I am weak now, but when my king is grown up (or my queen has gotten rid of the short reign penalty), I will be strong again and I will take back what is mine!" You know, for sure, that your period of weakness will end, because you know the boy king will grow up.

EU3 never had that for me. When you are trounced by Russia or Spain, there isn't that "glimmer of hope" that has you pull through. All you see is, you are losing the valuable colonies, you are racking up debt that takes decades to pay back. You go "I am not going to get stronger any time soon. When Russia is done with me I know for sure that Portugal will also jump on me and I will end up in a no-fun situation, where I don't know when it will end."

I was thinking, how can you give the player hope, in EU3? How can you let a player see a light at the end of the tunnel, even if the tunnel is still long and dark?

What about having society-transforming events that only kick in, when you are losing?

For example: Cultural "achievements" that happen to you when you are down on your luck, like having a writer compose an epic tragedy that will forever more define your national ethos? (Think: Kosovo Polje for the Serbs... worst defeat they suffered, ever, leading to a very very long time under Ottoman servitude. But it's, like, the supreme epic of their literature, and a point of reference for every Serb even 600 years later.) The effect of such a cultural achievement would be a lasting modifier to all nations that share your culture, and making your provinces of your culture harder to culturally convert / religiously convert after you lose control of them.

You could also have certain military effects, like "Complacency among the officer corps", be removed much easier if you have been through a defeat. Think about how defeats can break the complacency of your ruling classes and totally shake up your nation. Think Prussian reforms under Hardenberg and von Stein, after Prussia's crushing defeat at the hands of Napoleon.

Other things... bankruptcy could lead to improved business practices. The greatest scholarly minds are inspired to write ground breaking treatises, after disaster befell your country. Would France ever have become the leading nation of the enlightenment, if the French monarchy had not lost all its prestige under Louis XV and XVI? Playing a successful absolutist monarchy should PREVENT you from ever seeing much enlightenment! Seeing your monarchy lose all its prestige in lost wars and bankruptcies, on the other hand, could trigger the event that gives the player hope again - "Our philosophers are developing a totally new system of government." and you know, if this keeps up, you will be the first to get to try out the revolutionary republic concept! If you choose to tolerate the new thinkers, that is. You could also try to crack down on them.

Religious things as well... having conversion forced on you by a stronger nation, could lead to a resurgence in cultural thought where your great thinkers re-define what it means to be an Omani / Portuguese / Brandenburger. Religious could suddenly become less important to your nation, thereby giving you that "

The central idea is, that after defeats and during periods of weakness, some really grand things happen to you. While you are down on your luck on one front (bankruptcy + lost war) a light appears on another front (breakthrough in philosophical thought). When it's darkest (loss of all colonies) your nation realizes that there are totally different pathways to light and fortune (emergence of national consciousness). When you think you lost it all (death spiral of debt and instability, revolters forced your government to make concessions that destroy all advances you made in centralization) you suddenly see that the failure only aided you in shedding the parts that held you back (the weakness of your government provides your merchants and producers with unexpected freedoms, your economy recovers, you discover you like constitutional monarchy much better than absolutism after all).

I think EU4 would profit, as a game, if there were rewards for those who accept failure and pull through. The game would also gain unexpectedness and challenge. A nation that you defeated and stripped of half its territory might get "Rise of Nationalism" and suddenly be stronger than it ever was, despite being cut in half.

Think of how France made it through the 18th century, if seen through the lense of EU3: Started out as a blob under Louis XIV, won phenomenal successes (imposed its dynasty on Spain, colonized N.A., became immensely prestigeous), then declined massively (lost all N.A. colonies, lost all prestige, went bankrupt, suffered massive revolt) and then soared again like a comet after the string of defeats totally shook up the country's government, economy, national identity and ultimately its entire self-definition. It should be fun to play through something like that. Modifiers that you get only during defeats, and paths of development that only open up when your society suffers a deep "Shake-up", would enable something like that.

A huge wall of text, but it is worth quoting because the idea is awesome. What about instead of you as the player chosing national ideas as your goverment improve you get to chose one depending on setbacks or great succedes?

Lost a war and half your country?
Well take a cultural national idea.

Did your small Ulm defeat the Emperor?
Well take a military idea.

Did your economie collaps?
Then take an economic idea.

 

[1alexey]

I'm not in favour of there being inherent boosts to being broken and reduced to a fragment of the former nation, because it doesn't seem realistic, and I can see there being ways to game it. (Take just enough of a hit to trigger the modifier, use the boosts from the modifier to suddenly expand past the original point. Stabilise and then do it again.)

It atually is realistic, the boost in terms of goverment getting a shake up, getting rid of some the idiots, and such.

That tactic, could also create a situation where you get hit with another war/succesion/uprising/ or something else, and instead of glorious boost, you actually end up in way worse position, so the risk can ,balance the benefits.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Yes, GURPS is usually more realistic than D&D. That's all I claimed and that's why I prefer it. Or do you think that's not actually true?

Gah. I ended up writing a really long off topic post about this.
The short version.
In general, yes GURPS is more realistic, but that's not always good. Losing a long term character to a realistic effect can suck when you're there to play a larger than life hero or villain. However, if you're after massively realistic remember this will then involve more rules, more tables, more charts, and more losing characters because of things beyond your control - a massively realistic system will kill you for getting shot in the wrong place, and there's nothing you or your team can do about it. A massively realistic system will have you suddenly get ill, for no readily apparent reason - perhaps the food you ate yesterday was out of date, or somehow tainted; perhaps the person you stood next to in the shop, or on the train had the 'flu; perhaps there was something in the water, and you drank it.

And then you get onto the skill defaults "You can default from A to B at -X, A to C at -Y, but there's no default from B to C - despite them being skills that appear similar, and certainly seem more related than A and B do.

 

[Cybvep]

You can create a complex system that's actually not realistic at all. Realism doesn't have to equal complexity, although it often does. It all depends on the scale, the level of abstraction etc. Only a perfect simulation would be 100% realistic, but there are no perfect simulations ATM.

Anyway, losing-on-purpose issue will be prevalent if all these potential bonuses will be a sure thing. If they are randomised, then suddenly it isn't such a good option. Of course, you may save&reload ad infinitum, but that's always the case and it isn't really a part of the game mechanics. You may just as well edit your save game...

 

[unmerged(101730)]

In general, yes GURPS is more realistic, but that's not always good. Losing a long term character to a realistic effect can suck when you're there to play a larger than life hero or villain. However, if you're after massively realistic remember this will then involve more rules, more tables, more charts, and more losing characters because of things beyond your control - a massively realistic system will kill you for getting shot in the wrong place, and there's nothing you or your team can do about it. A massively realistic system will have you suddenly get ill, for no readily apparent reason - perhaps the food you ate yesterday was out of date, or somehow tainted; perhaps the person you stood next to in the shop, or on the train had the 'flu; perhaps there was something in the water, and you drank it.

And in my opinion that's awesome and every game should have more of it. Especially games which try to be rooted in the real world, like the Europa Universalis series.

To come back around to the main topic: This means that if I play a New World nation like the Inca or the Tarascans, I actually want 90% of my population to die off some smallpox shortly after I met the Europeans. I want to have to deal with the chaos, uncertainty, destruction and loss of control over most of my territory. Everywhere else, I want famines, hard winters and wars to bring my nation to its knees and try to recover from it. Ideally, this should work in as realistic environment as possible given the technological limitations, so fewer random events and more logical cause-and-effect chains.

I don't care if it happens to AI players as well, though catching one of them the moment they go through trouble and exploiting it (like the Europeans did to the Inca) is always fun too.

 

[Tijean]

In EU III, liked to play small nation like the merchant republic of gene, merchant kingdom of holland. With gene the game have a lot of mission that make the game really fun. But at some point, you start to loose against the hordre or the ottoman. With holland i try to expend with royal marriage and have monopole in several trade center. But at some point the French would attack me and i would loose.
In CK2 loosing territory is inevitable. I hate loosing a civil war but at some point there is nothing i can do about it and i would be able to claim the title latter on.
At some point in both game i would say : Ok there at this point i loose. I'm gonna start a new game and it was fun.

For EUIV we should have a mecanical that would make playable a declining empire. Sometime i would like to think : it fine i loose the revolution there we gonna be the french revolutionnary republique. Not : shit i loose all my 50 000 army on a stupid 20 000 rebel army, the game is over because the austrian are attacking me.

 

[1alexey]

To come back around to the main topic: This means that if I play a New World nation like the Inca or the Tarascans, I actually want 90% of my population to die off some smallpox shortly after I met the Europeans. I want to have to deal with the chaos, uncertainty, destruction and loss of control over most of my territory. Everywhere else, I want famines, hard winters and wars to bring my nation to its knees and try to recover from it. Ideally, this should work in as realistic environment as possible given the technological limitations, so fewer random events and more logical cause-and-effect chains.

And do not stop at just that. Add the Jews and all the wonderfull mechanics of geto, pogromes, and all the stuff.

Give player the ability to make a crackdown on the population player doesn`t like. Especially slaughtering infidels is probably a must have feature.
Ex, ex,..
After all, you quickly run out of American/African natives to slaughter for kicks and giggles.

This all happened in history, so the realistic game needs to iclude it!!!!!111111



















/Sarcasm.
Mass death of civilians is better out of any game.

 

[unmerged(101730)]

Mass death of civilians is better out of any game.

There's a difference between mass death of people because of environmental hazards out of their control or understanding (smallpox in the Americas, famines, volcanoes, floods, ...) and deliberate slaughter.

If you don't see the difference, then sorry, but I can't help you.

 

[unmerged(63836)]

And do not stop at just that. Add the Jews and all the wonderfull mechanics of geto, pogromes, and all the stuff.

Give player the ability to make a crackdown on the population player doesn`t like. Especially slaughtering infidels is probably a must have feature.
Ex, ex,..
After all, you quickly run out of American/African natives to slaughter for kicks and giggles.

This all happened in history, so the realistic game needs to iclude it!!!!!111111



















/Sarcasm.
Mass death of civilians is better out of any game.

So plague, famine events, or population loss during sieges must be out? How about rebels - after all they are often civilians (religious minorities or peasants) that player kills in battle.

There was whole lot of religious wars during that period. Persecution and expulsion of Moriscos or Hugenots were real, significant events, even if not nice. War isn't nice either, but there's whole lot of it in EU3.

Besides - you still have "ability to make a crackdown on the population player doesn`t like". Maybe there's no decision of forced conversion in vanilla, but with intolerant ideas, missionaries triggering rebels, and killing of those rebels, you are doing exactly same thing.

 

[Castellon]

Discussion of death camps and the like is a banned topic on this forum.
There are no death camps in the game there will be no death camps in the game, all conversation related to death camps will cease.

 

[Byzan]

Will there be things like Revolutionary rebellions, or (perhaps) even vassals entirely going against you? And in this time vassals are heavily relied on. If your vassals go, there goes your army.

EDIT: Also if Farmers say "You won't get our food anymore!", then you have to take their food and cause even more revolts.

Seen in : Russian Civil War