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17 
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second impression .... I am going to have to load Victoria 2 which I have owned for years and never even tried to play
Thanks Mezmorki
Not really pertinent to that topic but I also remmber that guy on ign reviewing StarDrive 1 adn really disliking his review. Not because it was fairly negative but because it seemed liek he didnt play the game long enough to nioice a lot of both positive and negative features. Seemed to me like he played for 2 hours, and wrote a a blazed review
That said, Rob's point (I think) is not they they are looking for a better "story" from a lore point of view. Rather, they are tired of the "narrative structure" that most 4X games adhere to. This narrative structure is what sets the stage for "why" the game is being played. The narrative structure of most 4X games is basically a colonial expansion narrative that goes like this:
All empires start out equal and distributed across space / the planet. Empires expand (because that's what empires do!), conquer lesser peoples/aliens, advance technologies, come into contact with rival empires (because its assumed we're in competition with everyone else right?), and try to kick their a$$ with superior military/diplomacy/economics/technology.
Accomplishing the above requires using a number of different game mechanics/systems. The criticism is not with the game mechanics directly, but rather that the game mechanics are so often always applied to the same narrative structure. But they don't have to be. And that's the frustration.
Why not envision other structures and stories that use similar strategically interesting mechanics but to different ends? What about a 4X game where the player is a tiny empire among a galaxy full of late stage highly advanced species, and the goal is for the player to prove their worth and relevance on the galactic stage through good deeds and solving problems? Why not a 4X game that assumes other empires are inherently good and interested in cooperation instead of extermination?
Look at a game like King of Dragon Pass, which has many "4X mechanics" in it (exploration, diplomacy and trade, managing leaders, battles, production & budgeting, etc.) ... yet the narrative structure is completely different. AI War has a different structure, where the "players" are cooperating to overcome a common asynchronous enemy. Similarly Sorcerer King takes that approach too. Thea is a 4X game re-structured around survival-crafting, and At The Gates is maybe taking a similar approach.
Cynically - Rob's criticisms may also be priming the pump for Stellaris (Troy Goodfellow of Paradox often being on 3MA). Since the entire idea of Stellaris as a more asymmetrical grand strategy space game responds favorably (I imagine) to Rob's genre criticisms.
My point is i love the 4x genre and im still wating for better impmentations of the formula. I might be remotely interested in some variations, but the further they drift , the less im interested (vide the very innovative arcen game last federation... which i played for whole 5 hours i think). It hink there were in fact some really twisted 4x like games (like the last federation) but they didnt really success even in the the niche market of 4x gamers. Maybe becuase most players are like me and really enjoy the 4x formula.
So i stand by my impression that for me, these guys just dont enjoy 4x games any longer, and try to find some twists that in fact will turn the game from 4x to somethign different.
I think a lot of people are still waiting for "the one" .... their personal holy grail 4X game. The one that nails for formula, checks off all the boxes, and doesn't have any major weak points. And no doubt the desire to make "the one" is what drives many of the 4X developers that are working with the basic narrative formula. Fortunately there are lot of games on the way that are going in this direction!
But your post raises the question: what is a 4X game ... is it the mechanics or the narrative structure, or some combination of both?
He is a borderline hater of 4X titles. He refuses to actually give a title its time and comes back with very heavy handed opinions that are based in nothing but his lack of knowledge of the current 4X landscape.
Sorry, I just don't care what he thinks or says when it comes to 4X.
NEXT!
I read the article on RPS and your both replies there and here. First let me just stage my reply in here by calling your attention to an important bias of mine:
RPS represents the type of journalism I despise. It is dishonest, pseudo-intellectual, tailored to the masses, driven by number of views, largely biased, full of subjective analysis and essentially a mirror of the pop culture that it belongs to and that calls out for. As a long time reader -- I go back to RPS early days -- this is one webgaming news stop that has grown from an upstart and refreshing website to one of the prime examples of tabloid journalism in the gaming press. It is also home to New Games Journalism, a form of gaming journalism deemed more appropriate for gaming reporting and based on the principles of New Journalism and that removed almost all obectivity from game reporting, promotes writting quality over content, and promotes the figure of a journalist as a star.
RPS is also largely uninterested in grand or 4x strategy in general, with only limited coverage to fill in editorial concerns, and with much more interested on other genres that draw bigger crowds to their articles and more money to their business oriented RPS brand. Seeing a 4x article on RPS is something that one can safely ignore. Especially one pretending to know what's wrong with the 4x genre, with a standard clickbait title so typical of this day and age.
In fewer words, RPS is essentially trash journalism when it comes to game analysis. It is an excellent source of entertainment for anything else. Like, I don't know... cultivating dead cells in your brain while laughing at in-jokes made by a journalist turned comedian. Or shed a tear by a poignant review of a game turned into an higher art form because it talks about life experiences or other somesuch bullshit.
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Now (uff!) that I got that out off my chest,
If that was Zach's intention why didn't he say so in the first place, Mezmorki? You did in fewer words inside a reply box of this forum, what he did in an entire article only after you successfully decrypt it.
In any case I am in total agreement with FireStorm. 4x isn't story driven, and its narrative is built off the game systems in place, not off the background story. This is not to say that I don't agree a good background story and a good integration between that story and the game narrative would diminish 4x games in any way. On the contrary, it would only elevate them. But that is a far cry from saying that this is what is wrong with the 4x genre.
His comparison to Victoria 2 is also very problematic. Because he is conflating grand strategy with 4x. And this is precisely where both genres differ. 4x is limited genre by design. It's its signature. It's defining nature. Arguing that 4x should be more like grand strategy where the story and story-driven narrative take a more central role, is counter intuitive.
Zach comes across as exactly the type of enemy of the 4x genre that we need to do battle against and terminate as fast as possible. Because instead of having even a single word to say about what actually defines the 4x genre and how it has been stagnant or degraded, he decides to argue for the one thing that 4x games are not about. And in that process, in his own ignorant way contribute to dumber 4x games.
Let me say this again. I am not saying that story and a story-based narrative aren't a good thing. I'm arguing that they are not what is wrong with 4x. They can't be, because these things aren't core mechanisms of the 4x genre.
Instead we have much bigger issues with the genre.
1. We have genre basically stalled in place by combat mechanisms ever more simplified (even growing into real-time) and that are greatly reducing or removing the tactical combat experience from the 4x genre. It seems that placing counters and moving them around a board in turn is not fun anymore. Go figure.
2. We have ever more shallow mechanics, instead of complex ones forcing players to think and ponder their decisions more carefully, because it is becaming fashionable to despise the idea of a spreadsheet like 4x experience and because the multiplayer experience (that must account to a tiny percentage of the global 4x players) cannot do with long turns and long gameplays. (Anyone in here remember when we used to play board games that lasted a whole weekend plus the holliday? Goot times. Not anymore it seems.)
3. We have a spread culture of macromanagement advocacy, instead of the old and more refined culture of micromanagement with its greater potential for strategic opportunities, because somehow it became fashionable to make 4x games with large maps, because you know larger is better.
Agree or not with any of these individual bullet points, one thing you must agree: They are far more important to the 4x genre than the bloody stupid background story that -- let's face it -- the modern gaming culture can hardly do in quality anyways, with even the most well written games being the equivalent of the reading experience you get while waiting in your dentist's office.
One of the things he raises in Vicky 2, and I do think it's very instructive to look at what V2 does well - it's a system that will happily continue operating regardless of what the player does. The player can influence it's direction, but he doesn't have the ability (a la Civ) to suddenly decide that from now on we're going to be a comunist theocracy. His citizens have ideas of their own on the topic. You can go so far with this that some government types, you can't even build things - you rely on creating a favourable investment climate and let the population do it for you.
And that's always been something that's rather missing from 4Xes. My citizens are hammer-generating machines. If there's something that makes them unhappy, it's usually overcrowding or lack of food or something. Religion (or it's equivilent) is occasionally thrown around at a city-level to impact on this, but no-one appears to have much to say about how the government is run. And no-one ever thinks to build their own theater, or sets up their own grocery shop - everything is paid for and built by the government, regardless of if it claims to be a free market or a democracy or what have you, or else occurs by completely random event.
I'd like to see some character being injected into the individual population units.After all, even in a huge game of Civ you're unlikely to hit a population much in excess of 200. These groups could have 5-6 basic 'ideology' settings - walike or peaceful, free market or planned economy, religious or atheist etc - and these could impact directly on the player's ability to get away with things - a poulation who is largely pacifists wouldn't be best pleased about the player suddenly declaring war, for example, or a deeply religious population may pester for a theocratic government. Their happiness then becomes a matter of pandering to the individual preferences of the population rather than just building another distraction.
All happiness-boosting buildings are removed, and replaced with 'influence' buildings that make the population in the given city more inclined toward whatever the building does - so a mega-mall pushes them toward free market (but upsets commies), while a soup kitchen or government works program does the inverse. Cathedrals will thrill (and encourage) the religious but upset the Athiests. Militarists will like the presence of a barracks, but pacifists will loathe it. Cities which disagree with your general position too much will rebel, break off, and maybe even become great powers in their own right.
This kind of thing forces the player to respond to more than just happiness and food. Ultimately, the AI will never be a good opponent in a 4X, so the challenge in the late-game has to be based around just running a civilization successfully and keeping control rather than the old-skool vision of just building enough units to wipe out the map.
I think there is a vision of 4X games (which I think you are describing) that is heavy on micro-management and complexity, and through that complexity and detail comes the gameplay depth you are looking for.
But that's just one vision for what a 4X game could be.
As the years go by and my time is more limited, I see a lot of depth and complexity as a negative (for me). I want 4X games that do more with less, that require me to make interesting strategic decisions but that don't come saddled with an oversupply of complexity and micromanagement.
And I know this other vision is possible.
Why? Because board games do it all the time. They distill systems down to a more abstract level, shifting the focus from micro to macro, and nevertheless retain, in my feeling, a comparable number of high level strategic decisions. For me, I'm more interesting in a game that asks me to make 30 high level strategic decisions than a game that asks me to make 10 high level strategic decisions and 300 micromangement decisions.
So this other vision of what a 4X game could be is to strike some balance point, neither the complexity of most 4X games nor the high level of abstraction that we see in a board game, but something in-between. And if a game can do it in such a way that also provides a new and refreshing narrative structure ... I'm all for it.
But it isn't like my vision needs to trump yours or anyone else's ... these are preferences and there is no right or wrong way to make a game. Rob Z. is looking at a large swath of the 4X genre and seeing mostly one vision manifest, and is looking for other solutions and approaches. Maybe these other visions aren't "4X" games in the traditional sense, but something else. And that's fine too ... but at the moment we don't have a label or examples of what these other visions are ... and 4X is close enough.
In looking over your points (#1-3) clearly my vision is about the polar opposite of your preferences. You want more complexity, more detail in combat system, more focus on micromangement ... and I want exactly the opposite. Or at least a few games that try the opposite so we can judge the results for ourselves. And so I'm supportive of Rob's critiques because if it inspires a developer to break the mold and try something different, I'd like to see the results.
We could solve it over a good game of Risk ;)
Winner takes it all.
(Damn, I so much want Tabletop Simulator...)
Heh :)
I was given a copy of the original Civilization board game a little over a year ago by a family friend (who found a copy in their barn). I played part of a game solo against myself to learn the rules. The game, contrary to my initial assumption, is MUCH simpler mechanically than I expected. The depth comes mostly from the spatial positioning and jockeying for resources (good city sites) on the map and trade negotiations between players. These interactions create the depth.
One of my favorite board games is Tigris & Euphrates, which is a somewhat abstract tile laying game. It's also one of the most strategic and dynamic strategy games I've played. And it does a fascinating job conveying the sense of intermingling ancient civilizations rising, falling, merging, and dissolving over the centuries. It uses a simple system for calculating power and resolving conflicts, yet provides tremendous depth.
My problem with a lot of 4X games is that they try to get more depth by cramming more detail, and typically more numbers into the gameplay - rather than designing interesting interactive systems.
As an aside, in board game design we talk a number of different schools of design. One of them, the "euro game" school which accounts for many higher complexity games today are focused largely on solo-optimizations, with players competing to "work the system" better than the other players. Interactions are usually handled in in-direct ways (blocking, auctions, etc. rather than blowing things up). Depth, in a strange sort of way, comes about through learning the ins and out of the system and applying that knowledge more optimally, rather than having to outwit your opponent directly.
Older styles of games (e.g. Risk, even Settlers of Catan) are less about system knowledge and more about playing your opponents. Hatching a cunning plan before your opponents get wise, double-think, diplomacy, etc. The depth comes from these interactions. I think a weak point of 4X games is that there are simply not enough interesting venues for interaction between players/empires. It's usually limited to combat, and systems like diplomacy or espionage or trade rarely have the importance and significance of combat. Is this an AI failing or a just a failing to design interesting interactive systems?
Is it, though? I don't think 4X is defined by a lack of these things, and nor is Grand Strategy defined by their presence. If anything, the 4X invites the mechanic far more than the GS, to be honest; most GS games abstract the population even further than 4Xes do. Absolute, total control is NOT the defining feature of 4X; it's merely something which has tended to be included through, well, lack of vision.
Recall that GC1 had a senate which could prevent you from going to war, and you could even lose the game by losing an election. Yet that game was 4X to the core. The elements of Explore, Expand, Exploit and eXterminate aren't incompatible with the idea of internal management which his actually challenging.
Traditionally, making internal management a challenge has relied on obtuse, arbitrary and complex rules - 'having more than X population will cause Y unhappiness'; 'you get X science penalty/gold maintenance increase from having over X cities' etc. But this is actually no more challenging to manage than my first city was. I just need to build more happy-making buildings or reduce taxes or what have you. The nature of the challenge remains completely flat and does not evolve. A system where the complexity of keeping the population in line increased through their own diversity would change that; every new unit of population might have a wildly opposed idea to existing ones and just preventing a civil war might take up my time. Hell, give units the same set of ideologies and let's see if I can really trust Tank Unit #47 to roll into Moscow without deciding to side with the other empire.
Finally, I'd reject any notion that we should discount potential mechanics to improve 4X just because there's already another genre which may suit it better (and note that I'm still not in agreement that Grand Strategy does, because V2 actually didn't work that well). RPG systems fitted isometric RPGs better than they fitted 3D shooters... and then System Shock 2 and Deus Ex basically eliminate that idea. If there's a good mechanic from any genre, then so long as it can be reasonably adapted to any other then it should at least be considered and experimented with.
I like the abstraction motifs of the the 4x narrative. Population as a simple number, appeals to me, for instance. I enjoy the apparent simplicity in the design hiding the complex mechanics behind. Ideally, a 4x game would be an easy game to learn, but hard to master. A light version of a grand strategy game, if you will.
The thing is that we look at complexity on a different light. You seem to prefer added depth, while I prefer added complexity. Instead of your option to add depth to population by diversifying it, I'd rather add complexity by adding more changing conditions to the table of pop# effects. I don't know if this is a fitting analogy, but I rather prefer a more abstract and mathematical game, if that makes any sense to you.
I would of course play your game any day, but just not regard it as a 4x experience. I have a more restrict vision of the 4x genre, as that of being entirely a tactical combat centric game experience, with the strategic elements being there only to feed the combat engine with added complexity. I don't want political variations in the population, since I don't care so much for the narrative elements. I want a more abstract strategic game with a more complex table of population and resources effects. The lack of narrative aspects to this type of gameplay doesn't bother me.
Depending upon mood, turn all the 'autos' off so you can play it hardcore, making every, single decision. Not feeling it today? Turn on all the autos and basically watch it play itself, with very little input.
Depending on the day and how you feel that day, toggle everything in between.