Why do Civ-Lite attempts fail?

Hi everyone,

This is brought on by Barnes' recent GameShark article on Civilization, and the ensuing discussion, as well as discussion going back at least 3-4 years on BGG.

So Civ-Lite's one of the holy grails, right? Civilization is generally considered too long -- not unmanageably so (4-6 hours if you're dedicated/focused) -- but really pushing it to fit it into an evening's entertainment, especially if it's a weeknight or whatever. Yet for some reason all the Civ-Lites fall short for one reason or another.

Why is this? I know someone (I think Barnes again) mentioned the lack of scale and/or scope. Is Civ-Lite like one of those "fast, cheap, good; pick two" signs you see in hardware stores? I.e., in order to shorten the playing time of Civ must you necessarily give up some critical element that makes it Civ? If so:

1. What are these elements that are intrinsic to Civ? Trade, development, war? Scale? Others?
2. Why are these things essentially Civ, and not other qualities?
3. How do these things work as a bridge between the player and the experience of playing a Civ game? What causes them to bring the player to that place, at the end of the game, where they have that "holy shit, that was a game of Civilization" response, and not some other feeling?

I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts from anyone, qualified or not (I know I'm not!) I have a suspicion that some of these problems with a Civ-Lite game are surmountable -- I've been noodling around with a nascent design -- but I'd like to canvass the peanut gallery and see what y'all think.

Thanks in advance for any response.

You've pretty much covered most of the reasons why I think the concept just doesn't pan out. The main thing to me is that you simply need both a certain length of game for a real, tangible narrative to develop that really illustrates the theme. Mechanically, I don't think it's so much an issue- CIVILIZATION is as written a very, very simple game. It isn't a question of structural or material complexity, something I think the Glenn Drover design sort of fumbled. One of the most genius things about Tresham's design is that everything is just right- just enough of everything (trading, fighting, expanding, developing) and no more.

The thing is, the intrinsic elements are kind of flexible...but of them, I'd say that the key things to keep in all illustrate the real factor that attend the rise and fall of real civilizations- like you said, trade, war, expansion, and development. Those four things really sum it up, I guess. It's sort of close to the "4x" model (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) but I think there's a slightly different impetus.

Beyond that, I think scale is obviously important but probably more crucial in the long run to me is a sense of waxing and waning power- I think this is something that gets lost in a lot of attempts to design new Civ games. VINCI had it pretty well (although everything else was abstracted down to nothing), HISTORY OF THE WORLD _really_ had it, and CIVILIZATION has it. It's kind of interesting design challenge because what you're doing is functionally eliminating players on a temporary basis and allowing avenues for reconstituting their position.

I think progression and development, a sense that you're nurturing a race/culture/species or whatever through epochal time and guiding them to touchstone advancements is pretty core too. The Civ model of advancements confering specific benefits was perfect to begin with and that will likely never change.

As far as bridging the player and the game, I believe that if the game really tells a complete, narrative story about various civilizations along with their triumphs and defeats and how they arrive at where ever the game ends brings the theme home. It has to feel meaningful and significant- not frivolous and light.

I'd love to hear more about your design!

Civ-lite is a myth. Even if the game has every aspect you could possibly want in a Civ-style game and manages not to be abstract in the process it would still be missing a key ingredient. The key being that raising a civilization should take a long time to do. There needs to be time to stop and smell the agriculture before moving on to nuclear power. Now a game about growing crops on a farm, that should only take about an hour.

In a nutshell they fail because the attempts to keep the time down all focus on raising the level of abstraction presented int he game. But, most of the fun in a civ game is in the little details that are washed away by this abstraction.

-M

I agree with you guys here, a civ game to me has to be epic in scale which pretty much means it has to be long. In order to feel like a civillization, you have to have things like trade, war, expansion and discovery (both of land and of science). I also think that civililization game would be somewhat unbalancing, some civs prosper and others fail due to circumstances beyond their control. Therefore, you need some element of luck within the game. I mean, it just wouldn't feel like a civ game unless some "shit happens" think happened.

Another unbalancing aspect would be geography. Some cultures were blessed with where they started others have to fight against that. I've never played the game, but it sounds like "Through the Ages" takes some of that geography aspect out of the game. Geography plays another role in that sometimes a culture is sandwiched between other cultures Israel and Poland both come to mind. Israel was the invasion route between the Egyptians and the Assyrians. Poland was the invasion route between Germany and Russia. So I think you really can't take geography out of the mix.

I think you also need to give certain civilizations some inherent advantages.

There is no geography in TTA, which after a couple of plays I've realized almost completely ruins the game. You're developing in this vaccuum, much like PUERTO RICO, where there's no geographic consideration at all.

Michael Barnes wrote:

There is no geography in TTA, which after a couple of plays I've realized almost completely ruins the game. You're developing in this vaccuum, much like PUERTO RICO, where there's no geographic consideration at all.

All in the name of balance I think..to which I say bollocks. Civilization games should be inherently unbalanced. HOwever that doesn't mean a disadvantaged civ can't win, it just means they have different victory conditions. Geography plays such an important role in history that it would be hard to ignore if you are trying to simulate history.

But I think for it work, you have to have all the aspects mentioned here.

Hey, thanks for all the response!

Let me be up front and state that I'm not too experienced in the Civ world -- I recently picked up the original Civ (but haven't played it beyond a few practice solo rounds), own Mare Nostrum (played once, lost, had fun), but that's it. I have every intention of remedying both of those deplorable situations.

TTA is on my check-out list when/if I work up the gumption to drop $80 on a game that, with every passing day, sounds ever more overpriced and ever less amazing.

At any rate, I find the comments relating to the geography especially interesting. What is it about maps that really make the concept click, or (in the case of TTA) leave it hollow?

Mikoyan, you seem to say that a map provides an easy way to shake up the balance of the game, since no real-world map is ever perfectly balanced like a square- or hex-grid. Barnes says that maps provide a path for player interaction, preventing the dreaded "multiplayer solitaire."

While these are undoubtedly true, there are also other ways to achieve these things. Are maps just the easiest way? I think maps could also contribute to the theme in the sense of "you-are-here" that reinforces player buy-in to the concept, in which case you could get around a lack of map by having stronger theming in the first place.

Come to think of it, do any of the great AT games NOT have a map? Someone please show me up here -- all I can think of is Mag Blast, which is pretty fun with the right group but not one of the greats. Let me wildly hypothesize (he said, opening another beer) and sketch this out as yet another difference between AT and Euros. ATers, as part of their overlap with wargamers, love the feeling of verisimilitude, even in (especially in?) fictional worlds. Eurosnoots, on the other hand, seem more concerned with maximizing the airy interactions of particular rulesets -- thus a map is redundant, since the play is not fundamentally concerned with you-are-thereness at all.

I was going to insert a disclaimer about Carc, Settlers, and TtR being (per Juniper) German games and not Euros, but I wonder if this is even a necessary distinction in this case -- aside from Settlers, the map aspect of the other two is perfunctory and not terribly germane to the play. Carc is not a real-world map and at no point are "you" a particular meeple. TtR, for all that it has a real map of North America, feels pretty disconnected from anything -- I have no real reason to want certain cities other than they're dictated by the (random) tickets, or I want to thwart an opponent who wants it based on their (random) tickets.

Man, this just went off in a weird direction. I'll stop before I'm too far behind.

The reason I mention maps and geography is because it played such an important role in how certain cultures developed. Take Britain for instance, she had a powerful Navy but not quite as powerful Army. Russia had the opposite case. Both of those are modern examples.

Even Rome had to have a somewhat powerful Navy so that it could control the Med.

But where it forces interaction is because the maps would put the competing players together. It would force players to deal with certain other players. I've never played Through the Ages but it sounds like you can pick on anyone, which isn't entirely realistic.

Well, I think Mikoyan actually hit something pretty significant- balance in a Civ game is a ridiculous concept. Players should be on unequal footing throughout the game and part of the reason the advances are there is so players can not only adapt to situations and imbalances but also to provide different paths to progress along. If everything is equal, then you wind up with something like TEMPUS where even the most behind Civs get to move up. It's like some kind of bizarre welfare.

There are AT/AT friendly games with no map...KREMLIN, NUCLEAR WAR, UP FRONT, CA$H N' GUN$, COSMIC ENCOUNTER...I think what's really important is having a sense of position and how terrain/geography affects development and expansion.

The more I think about TTA, the less I like it. The first 4-5 games I thought it was "9" material but the more you play, the more scripted and inorganic it becomes. It really is kind of like ST PETERSBURG with a bunch of extra depth and complexity and the card drafting mechanic doesn't really jibe with how civilizations develop. And the MSRP is just completely outlandish- it should be a $35 title (it is, after all, just a card game), and I think my copy that I had a friend pick up at Essen when it came out was that much. Anyone that pays that much for it is likely going to be disappointed unless they just completely love it.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Well, I think Mikoyan actually hit something pretty significant- balance in a Civ game is a ridiculous concept. Players should be on unequal footing throughout the game and part of the reason the advances are there is so players can not only adapt to situations and imbalances but also to provide different paths to progress along. If everything is equal, then you wind up with something like TEMPUS where even the most behind Civs get to move up. It's like some kind of bizarre welfare.

This is a downfall of Civ games for me. As civilization isn't a linear progression of single empires from start to finish, but a bunch of different Civ's coming in an out of power over time.

I would love to see a mechanic that allowed player when dissolved or destroyed in a game to come back as a period correct civilization. ebb and flow throughout the game. Origins touches on this concept a little bit. But I would like to see it expanded. Then imbalances would be the norm, and true to history.

I think a tech tree is another necessity, although there should be multiple ways of getting to certain technologies. I mean, you don't get to ICBM's without a few steps before it. But then again, I guess one of my favorite science shows was one called "Connections" where they would talk about a bunch of seemingly non-related things and how they lead to certain discoveries.

But yes, imbalance is important. There were certain civilizations that were better than others at certain points in history. But you could have different civs have different goals and thus different ways to win.

But I agree with others that epic scale is important. I mean you don't get from flint and steel to nuclear weapons overnight and it shouldn't feel that way in a game.

And speaking of nuclear weapons, they need to be in a civ game at some point, if you are going to cover the gamit.

I guess I would like a boardgame that mimics the computer game without all the calculations. But I probably wont see it.

MWChapel wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote:

Well, I think Mikoyan actually hit something pretty significant- balance in a Civ game is a ridiculous concept. Players should be on unequal footing throughout the game and part of the reason the advances are there is so players can not only adapt to situations and imbalances but also to provide different paths to progress along. If everything is equal, then you wind up with something like TEMPUS where even the most behind Civs get to move up. It's like some kind of bizarre welfare.

This is a downfall of Civ games for me. As civilization isn't a linear progression of single empires from start to finish, but a bunch of different Civ's coming in an out of power over time.

I would love to see a mechanic that allowed player when dissolved or destroyed in a game to come back as a period correct civilization. ebb and flow throughout the game. Origins touches on this concept a little bit. But I would like to see it expanded. Then imbalances would be the norm, and true to history.

I think that would be another cool aspect of a game. Maybe the player keeps the victory points (or whatever you're tracking) from his previous civilization and gets to start new.

I think if you were going to do this, you'd have to break the game down into certain ages. Once a certain technology (or technologies) is discovered, the age shifts. Maybe the player sits out until the age shift or something.

7 ages covers the rise and falls of civilizations extremely well, and is on top of that, a very interesting game. Problem is, it is a 14 hour long game. That doesn't feel finished.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game. Or at least want to. It's just not quite there yet, and could really use a second edition to clean it up, and streamline it. I'm not saying make it shorter or simpler, just to make it run a little better.

The game is all based off of "glory" (victory points) and the use of the civilizations one possesses. The game comes with 15 colors of counters, so as many as 15 civilizations can be present on the board at once. Civilizations are controlled by cards, and you have to do a certain amount of hand management to get an optimal number of civilizations in play. Civs are real life civilizations (for the most part) and are limited in deployment to when they were historically active, so you're not going to be playing vikings in the 20th century. Civs all score glory in different ways, so for each civilization, you have to play them to their strengths, i.e. navy, agriculture, monuments, etc. If a civ doesn't get you enough points, you dump them! Play a new civ the next turn!

Very interesting game, very in depth, and very scalable. 2-7 players, with plenty of interaction in certain areas of the world and a lot of potential fun. Problems are, that combat is awful, the rulebook is written in another language (wait, this is English? Really?) and it just doesn't run very smoothly. I think the game has potential to be THE civilization game, but it isn't quite there yet.

I would like to do a partial redesign of the game at some point, and see if I could get it running better. It could just be so much better than it is!

7 AGES is just so sloppy...and I'm not totally down with that "switching civs" idea beyond HISTORY OF THE WORLD. That really cuts down on the epic feel of the game. What really struck me is that the game didn't feel that epic, it felt more episodic. And for 10+ hours, the game just doesn't deliver what it needs to. And oh my god, that combat system...