Please Don't Prohibit Immorality

[Morthranduil]

One of my biggest disappointments with Victoria 3 was how curated the mechanics were to allow any whacky, immoral, and yet historically accurate things you could do, especially considering the time frame.

And learning that the developers didn't even allow the morally questionable things to be *modded* into the game was extremely disappointing.

Games like Crusader Kings and Rimworld are loved partially because of the absolutely terrible things you're allowed to do like building incestuous dynasties, farming human skin, or committing genocides for the memes.

It is frustrating in a sandbox game where so much freedom is possible, to find out some terrible actions that make sense to be impossible.

So please follow Crusader Kings and allow the most terrible and despicable decisions.

Edit: If you're new in this thread, I would stick to the first pages. A group of moralists are harassing anyone who'd disagree and shouting racism. It's quite exhausting.

Edit 2: Okay, well, this got ugly (Totally unexpected). If you enjoy a bit of drama and don't mind your IQ dropping a couple notches, read on. Page 4 and 8 are especially entertaining. Page 17 has a comment by me that sums up the disagreements if you want a TL;DR.

If the devs/admins want to lock this thread, I don't blame y'all. Go right ahead

 

[Lindaegan]

committing genocides for the memes.

I, uh. I see.

To each their own, I suppose.

 

[Morthranduil]

I, uh. I see.

To each their own, I suppose.

Exactly! The existence of immoral decisions gives even the most straight arrow player's decisions more weight, as they're not playing the only way possible.

As well as witnessing atrocities being committed by other cultures could enflame a compassionate player to jump into action and save the victims.

I like to experience both playstyles in CK3 for example and love that freedom.

 

[Sirbab]

While I can kind of get on board with allowing historically unpleasant actions, this gets to an awkward line of discussion. Like engaging in the slave trade? Horrible! Will I do it in several games? Yeah probably.
Even the heavily abstracted attack natives button in eu4 felt bad, attaching that to pops would be maybe too much for me.
Ultimately, you need to remember this is a commercial product in the making, and as such they have to respect their shareholders' wishes, as well as the wishes of their user base. If they go crazy with it, it could either go well as in the case of crusader kings, or go really bad when the media learns what grand strategy games are.
Edit: I am curious what all the disagrees are disagreeing about, is it the idea that pdx needs to consider the business side when planning mechanics?

 

[guinea prince]

It's an era of colonialism and exploitation, what you're asking is already the name of the game.

Funny thing about citing Crusader Kings is back when I first started playing CK2, wicked acts were practically necessary evils with all the pressure you felt from every other angle. But as you get better at the game, you no longer need to assassinate toddlers for machinations nor ethnic cleanse areas for reduced revolts. Nice rulers ended up easy enough to play - no need to torture and execute dissenting vassals if you just marry them into submission. No need to ethnic cleanse an area when you can simply put in a vassal of their religion/culture to lord over them as your puppet. And so on.

So while immorality is to be expected in a game where you go out, subjugate foreigners, establish your institutions, and make their material and human wealth your own, it does make me wonder how much you can become a wealthy nation of influence by *not*.

 

[Morthranduil]

While I can kind of get on board with allowing historically unpleasant actions, this gets to an awkward line of discussion. Like engaging in the slave trade? Horrible! Will I do it in several games? Yeah probably.

Oh yes, I'm aware the fine line developers need to walk in such matters, but I think it would ultimately improve the game experience, so I wanted to bring attention to the matter for the devs to consider.

While for some, allowing slavery and worse actions would provide a satirically morbid experience like it does selling human skin dusters in Rimworld...

For others who could not stomach the idea of doing such things, it would provide a deeper emotional investment in the game and shape their goals.

I could absolutely see players doing anti slavery playthroughs, building an african empire to clash heads with european colonialist powers.

Or building the British Empire to be more humanitarian, giving them a feeling of moral obligation to fight against rival empires who abuse slaves.

 

[capetown2]

Oh yes, I'm aware the fine line developers need to walk in such matters, but I think it would ultimately improve the game experience, so I wanted to bring attention to the matter for the devs to consider.

While for some, allowing slavery and worse actions would provide a satirically morbid experience like it does selling human skin dusters in Rimworld...

For others who could not stomach the idea of doing such things, it would provide a deeper emotional investment in the game and shape their goals.

I could absolutely see players doing anti slavery playthroughs, building an african empire to clash heads with european colonialist powers.

Or building the British Empire to be more humanitarian, giving them a feeling of moral obligation to fight against rival empires who abuse slaves.

Yeah I like this, similar to the humanist ideas in Eu4 for instance.

 

[Morthranduil]

It's an era of colonialism and exploitation, what you're asking is already the name of the game.

Well, you would think so, but Victoria 3 was cleansed of any immoral actions you could think of happening in that time/setting.

You had to appease all the cultures you conquered in a time when genocides were still happening everywhere, and huge cultural displacements took place in real history.

 

[Draky]

One of my biggest disappointments with Victoria 3 was how curated the mechanics were to allow any whacky, immoral, and yet historically accurate things you could do, especially considering the time frame.

And learning that the developers didn't even allow the morally questionable things to be *modded* into the game was extremely disappointing.

Games like Crusader Kings and Rimworld are loved partially because of the absolutely terrible things you're allowed to do like building incestuous dynasties, farming human skin, or committing genocides for the memes.

It is frustrating in a sandbox game where so much freedom is possible, to find out some terrible actions that make sense to be impossible.

So please follow Crusader Kings and allow the most terrible and despicable decisions.

Tell that to the managers that for whatever questionable reasons force devs to pander to absolutely everyone on twitter. And you know anything that would go against the modern political narratives would instantly provoke an outrage on twitter

 

[guinea prince]

Tell that to the managers that for whatever questionable reasons force devs to pander to absolutely everyone on twitter. And you know anything that would go against the modern political narratives would instantly provoke an outrage on twitter

After the boer takeover, the makeup of twitter is now primarily rather hellish. If they're catering to twitter, you'd expect the game to be primarily genocide, manifest destiny, and really bad race pseudoscience to deterministically justify the prior two. And also somehow dogecoin to replace ducats.

 

[Lindaegan]

Exactly! The existence of immoral decisions gives even the most straight arrow player's decisions more weight, as they're not playing the only way possible.

As well as witnessing atrocities being committed by other cultures could enflame a compassionate player to jump into action and save the victims.

I like to experience both playstyles in CK3 for example and love that freedom.

I do agree with you to a certain level. I think however we should remember that we are playing as the state, and thus not omnipotent. So while certain things, such as slavery, or crushing a rebellion with extreme prejudice, I think that makes sense. Certainly many states historically engaged in such actions.

We would however do well to remember that there should be a limit to this. I shouldn't be able to ethnically cleanse entire cultures on a whim, or decide randomly that I am going to enslave everyone I meet, and so on. We should still have to bend to the facts of nature, doing these things only when there is a certain will and reason to do so, and experience the very real and sometimes negative consequences of these actions.

My incredulity in the earlier comment was more due to the terseness with which you put this idea forward. Then again, I have a grand total of zero hours in Vic3, so I guess I hadn't really thought that they might prevent us from doing such things in total.

 

[za3tarani]

One of my biggest disappointments with Victoria 3 was how curated the mechanics were to allow any whacky, immoral, and yet historically accurate things you could do, especially considering the time frame.

And learning that the developers didn't even allow the morally questionable things to be *modded* into the game was extremely disappointing.

Games like Crusader Kings and Rimworld are loved partially because of the absolutely terrible things you're allowed to do like building incestuous dynasties, farming human skin, or committing genocides for the memes.

It is frustrating in a sandbox game where so much freedom is possible, to find out some terrible actions that make sense to be impossible.

So please follow Crusader Kings and allow the most terrible and despicable decisions.

what is it you want to be able to do that you cannot?

 

[Swedishguy05]

If anything, removing all the horrible things that happened this time period is more disrespectful. Hoi4 suffers majorly from this issue where the game (and forgive me for saying it) makes the nazis look not that bad, as it completly ignores the bad things they did. I believe the developers for Victoria 3 made the same argument in the dev diary for slavery, that not having the evil in the game is just a step above denial.

 

[Normannus]

If anything, removing all the horrible things that happened this time period is more disrespectful. Hoi4 suffers majorly from this issue where the game (and forgive me for saying it) makes the nazis look not that bad, as it completly ignores the bad things they did. I believe the developers for Victoria 3 made the same argument in the dev diary for slavery, that not having the evil in the game is just a step above denial.

The most egregious thing HOI4 has done in regards to the Nazis is make them viable. But if nations started out with realistic levels of industry, every game would come down to “who does the US join”

 

[FleetingRain]

This thread has a weird timing in my opinion. Is it because Johan said we cannot marry our sister in the game? Because that's the only "immoral" thing that's been recently announced not to be in the game.

And this is not an accusation or anything, I just don't know what prompted it.

 

[the_unnamed]

I wonder why EU5 would still get wars instead of voluntary arbitration and legal action to settle disputes over land and titles.

 

[Swedishguy05]

The most egregious thing HOI4 has done in regards to the Nazis is make them viable. But if nations started out with realistic levels of industry, every game would come down to “who does the US join”

I mean, the holocaust is just straight up not mentioned anywhere in the game as far as I remember. Its been years since I played the game, but if my memory serves me correctly the closest the game comes to mentioning it is that the Americans can give refuge to Jewish scientists, the nazis can set up Reichskommissariat, and the icon for the brutal opression occupation law shows a guy in a prisoner uniform behind barbed wire, and that last one barely counts since it's a generic icon available for all countries.

In an effort to avoid uncomfortable topics, the game pretends they never happened which in my opinion is more disrespectful than having a genocide-button. I sure hope not-eu5 doesn't make this mistake since between the game letting a small minority of players live out weird supremecist fantasies, or making it so all players can pretend these crimes never actually happened and the natives just peacefully moved away, I know which one is more harmful.

 

[Kaspar Osraige]

Yeah I also do not want overtly sanitized garbage. This game is literally impossible to keep both sensitive and realistic due to its subject matter and timeframe, and I will take immersion over pandering any day.

 

[treb]

I, uh. I see.

To each their own, I suppose.

Brother man, have you ever looked at stellaris, some of the crap you pull in that game makes the stuff you can do in crusader kings and rimworld look positively angelic...

 

[Sirbab]

Brother man, have you ever looked at stellaris, some of the crap you pull in that game makes the stuff you can do in crusader kings and rimworld look positively angelic...

It's all degrees of separation. It's real easy to be a devil when you're just looking at numbers, and doing it from space. But yes, you *can* do some seriously heinous actions in stellaris, as totally befits the genre. I would like to see the horrific acts that happened in period happen, as others have mentioned, removing them is one step away from denial. But! I think they need to be tactful about it, not making it strictly beneficial (because well, killing your citizens is often a bad choice), and not making a meme out of it.
Slavery, cultural relocation (Kurds, Native Americans, Arcadians/Cajun, the list goes on), the despoiling of towns by soldiers, etc. Without the horrors of war and colonization, how are we to learn the lessons from them? It's a hard line to walk to be sure, and it's probably safer for them to edge on the side of caution if i'm being totally honest from a business standpoint.