this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2022
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How would you make a materialist "Civilization" -type game? (hexbear.net)
submitted 3 years ago by ssjmarx@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Inspired by the recent post about how Civ is super liberal, I've been thinking about how you would de-lib it. Here's a couple of my ideas:

  • Technology arises based on conditions, rather than an abstract "science" stat. Have a lot of domesticable animals nearby and a need for food? You may develop animal husbandry. Have a lot of coal, and mature metallurgy? You may develop coal power. You could also structure other aspects about your civ in this way - focusing on herding tends to make your civ nomadic, focusing on farming tends to make your civ sedentary, etc.
  • Build class struggle explicitly into the game. At first your civ is tribes or clans, with everyone basically in the same economic class - but once you develop certain social technologies, this changes. "Land enclosure" will create a landlord class, then "slavery" "peasantry" "serfdom" etc become available which decrease the number of landlords and increase the amount of economic inequality in your civ, but also centralizes power letting you raise larger armies and things like that.
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[–] Owl@hexbear.net 0 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

I think you'd have to completely rethink who or what you're actually playing as.

In Civ, you can have the communists overthrow the bourgeoisie at the click of a button and enduring a couple turns of "anarchy." Afterwards, you're still in charge.

Who is this person that you're playing as, who is in charge both before and after a communist revolution?

People in power make decisions that keep them in power - you can't have a realistic model of history where the person in power actually wants a revolution. You can't have a realistic model of history where there are no revolutions. So how do you have a game where one player's session spans all of human history?

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 0 points 3 years ago (2 children)

I think in Tropico you could "lose" the game if the people overthrew you or voted you out. It's been years since I played, but I remember keeping the people either happy with your rule or firmly under your thumb was important.

[–] ssjmarx@hexbear.net 1 points 3 years ago

Yeah in Tropico your "dictator" is clearly self-interested, no matter how you run your island you lose the game if your family loses power.

[–] AnarchoTankie@hexbear.net 1 points 3 years ago

Several Civ games have "you can lose a city if they're unhappy or culturally influenced by a nearby rival" but I don't think any of those mechanics were actually done well, except for the scenario where if you tried to forward settle an enemy's capital.