physicalscience

So I have been thinking lately about a solution to the ungodly amount of time it takes to play a multiplayer game of Civ V because I’m not sure I have actually fully completed a full multiplayer game yet. Usually this is because of syncing issues coming up with my friends (jobs, kids), or the fact that when we go back to a game in progress after a few days nobody seems to remember what the hell they were doing. I love Civ V and I love how fun it can be to play with a couple of people, I just need it to actually end in a night.

This got me thinking about making a mod that allows the game to run in real time versus turn based. I have been mulling this around for a while in my head and figured I would ask a community of people probably more experienced with this stuff than I am. So I’ll explain the aspects of it and let me know if it’s complete nonsense that will never work or whether it is possible!

General flow of the game

So basically I haven’t been able to really work out the balance of the game but I was thinking that 1 turn could be equal to 20 seconds of real time. I kind of figured this would be the easiest way to go about converting everything to real time as it wouldn’t take much changing the core game really at all. If you have a city producing 30 production a turn, you just have the city producing 30 production every 20 seconds. Ideally I would want the game to still flow in real time even while players trade and barter, while players are selecting new technologies and productions, and even while players are participating in the world congress. This would take some work to override the system in place that kind of freezes anything until you pick a tech or production or whatever.

Combat

Combat was the most complicated part of this idea. I didn’t want this to turn into an RTS because I really like the pacing and strategy of civ and I want this mod to still have that spirit. So you can’t just fully have the combat in real time because that would essentially change the fundamentals of the game. The movement is easy, slow down the frames of animation and movement to their equivalent turn based movement (so one warrior will move one tile every 20 seconds in example). For the actual combat I was thinking of implementing a stamina system to all units (a system already in place sort of with the air units) that depletes after a unit attacks another city or unit and recharges after 20 seconds. This would allow for the other player getting attacked to retaliate with his units and also react if his (or her) city is being attacked.

AI

My only real big issue I see with this idea is that in the late game the computer is calculating so much stuff for the AI and I think that system would totally fuck up with this real time idea. So I would assume that would take some rework or it would take this mod working on a human player only game (which also means no barbarians or city-states which I don’t particularly like the idea of). I’m sure there would be some sort of work around but at the moment I can’t really think of how to change anything until I actually get a look at the actual system running the AI and how it works.

Wrap up

I think this would be an interesting way to solve how long a multiplayer game can take. I think it still holds true to the strategy core of the game as well as offering new ways to implement new strategies only possible with this type of play. I can imagine listening to two buddies bartering over some luxury goods all the while I send a few armies to fuck shit up in one of their civs while they are distracted. I think it offers a faster pace with a little bit faster movement on the player’s part but it is still in no way an rts, which I find a little too fast pace and stressful to enjoy that well online. Games that go for 200 to 250 turns would still last a little over an hour to an hour and a half still, and I was also thinking there could be a way of changing how quick the game moves through a slider that changes the time interval.

I don’t really have any experience with modding at all but I am a junior software engineer major so I feel like I could be a lot of help with writing scripts and game design changes in general. I honestly don’t know if the tools given with this game are robust enough to actually implement this in any way or if it would have to be one of those mods that totally has to come in and break and change everything. Let me know if I am way out of my league on this one!

Yes as a student going to school for software engineering I find that programming labs that shouldn't take that long end up getting drawn out for me because I have a quick look or something on one monitor and eclipse up on the other. It's like my brain thinks it is optimizing my time but in reality I'm not.

Over the past couple of months I have basically found myself only playing games that I can pretty much turn the volume down completely and either listen to a podcast, watch GiantBomb videos, or watch Netflix. I basically have started ignoring anything that I have to seriously commit my full attention in favor of games like Civ V, diablo 3, Borderlands 2, and etc. Hell I found myself the other day playing pokemon while laying on the couch watching sports.

I know Jeff seems to talk a lot about how he does this same thing with Marvel heroes and Rorie seems to like WoW for this reason as well.

Does anyone else do this? Are there any other games to recommend in this style?

@tajasaurus: How is my opinion white privilage? How does my skin color in any way tell you my socio-economic status, where I live, what neihborhood I live in, who I am friends with, and who I am?

because I complain about how stories and characters in games are so bland that they don't actually even speak to me as a white person, the skin color of most protagonist, that all of a sudden I am coming from a place of privilage?

You might be shocked to know that not even slightly are all white people the same.

@geraltitude:I would love to see more representation of all types of race, though I disagree that there is over "100" or even close to that number stereotypes of white people and my post wasn't really about the whole "Oh I'm white and I'm over here in my suburban home in whiteville being all upset that there isn't enough white people in media."

I'm criticizing the medium we are trying to call art. Can we really call video games art when like almost every game is a generic bullshit cash grab with no attempt to actually create some form of expression? It's that for the most part I see all of us going "THERES NO BLACK PEOPLE IN THIS SHITTY GENERIC PILE OF GARBAGE THAT'S REALLY ONLY HERE TO MAKE MONEY!" So my argument was like hey like the white people in all this "Media" aren't white people, and if you replaced them with any other race it wouldn't make a difference because it's not art, it's manufactured by multi-million dollar companies and focus groups to make to revenue line go over the expenses line. These AAA games are just as bullshit as mega summer blockbuster movies, they are lazily written and only do what they have to so they get your money, they aren't trying to tell a story or make an experience.

And I was kind of trying to work towards saying hey lets actually start calling bullshit on generic games, stop looking at these manufactured things through the lens of art because all it is going to do is always piss us off because it isn't art.

So I'm sorry if it looked like I was whining from my white throne way up in privilegeville, because you know, that's where all white people ever come from.

These past few weeks have seen a lot of discussion about race in games and Dr. Games (Austin Walker, but I will now only ever refer to him as "Dr. Games") himself has written a few fantastic pieces on this very site. And although like most people I would like to see more diversity in games, I started thinking about the "White guy" that so often finds himself on the cover of games. On seldom occasions have I found myself "connecting" with this guy, or even getting that feeling you get when you talk to someone who used to also live in your home town. I started wondering if actually none of us are represented in most games, especially the AAA type. Has bullshit giant American media ruined representation as a whole for all of us?

Some days it seems like a lot of people on the internet writing about diversity can get a little hostile towards the "white guy" who sometimes can be sort of framed as like the villain keeping all the women and people of different races out. When a guy like me gets on the internet and reads some of that stuff or comments in that manner it can make me feel a little bit like I am being attacked for almost no reason. In this post I want to let some of those people know that I am a white guy who doesn’t feel represented because what the media tells you a white guy is, is not really true. It sometimes has me yelling at my screen, “I’M A PERSON TOO DAMN IT!” I have thoughts and feelings, I grew up in a poor family and at some points in my life I was like homeless. I HAVE A STORY. We all have stories and different reasons we view things in the context that we do. I am not this guy:

Or this guy:

Never have I ever felt connected with any of these fucking guys:

All American media generalizes every race and culture ever. From commercials, to movies, to video games, you just can't escape it. This gets even crazier when you look at generalizations of men and women in media as well. Anyone who thinks companies get males at all should go watch Dr. Pepper 10 commercials. Because I am a white, heterosexual male am I only allowed to like sports, light beer, and in general act like a buffoon? I am all for representation and diversity in games but I think it's high time we start asking for and discussing real representation and not just “Hey we stuck some generic dark people in here and like this chick is gay so we are super diverse”. Be it better writers or hiring people who experienced different socio-economic situations other than living in the suburbs, I think that is where the real change can be made. I want real heart and better writing for story driven games, better characters who feel real and give me different perspectives. I want to for once feel like some people understand me a little better because they were able to interact with a character who had a believable backstory that was rough, and because of that it influenced his (or hers!) mannerisms and decisions.

I don't look at Kratos or Call of Duty guy or fucking Geralt and see myself or something even slightly resembling myself. In fact I would say that games do a terrible job representing or providing proper and real feeling characters who are from any walk of life. With how bad and generic most characters in games and media in general are, anyone who does connect with those characters is probably bland as hell and most likely is not even aware of this type of discussion going on, much less would they be able to comment on it in an articulate fashion.

So all in all, who exactly is getting represented in games? It seems to me like most games and media in general go for the most generic bullshit white guy that doesn’t actually exist anywhere on earth. Where are the stories about what it’s actually like to be poor, or rich, or black, or grow up in a shitty family? Where are the characters who make decisions influenced by how they have been treated in the world they exist in based on their sexual orientation, gender, skin color, or country of origin? Should we look at putting more people of color in a game like The Witcher and call it a victory? Should we take Dumbledore being classified as gay well after the last book was written as a victory? Maybe as tools get easier and programming becomes less of a necessity, more artists from all walks of life will make games that are fun to play and powerful in their message and presentation.

same for me, I get some loading and most not.

Great read! I really think your articles are the best I have ever read on this site, and the best ever about this topic in general. To be honest I think you almost stand alone in this medium because most other articles written about this topic (lets be honest most come from polygon) are not half as well written, not half as thought out, and seem to only be there to generate a whole shit load of clicks. Although I don't particularly believe that the Witcher 3 deserves any critisism about its lack of diversity in terms of skin color because I feel like circumstances do matter and looking at the game with the knowledge of the source material, developer, and country of origin change how I would talk about it. To me it is a lot different than random AAA game from Ea or Activision that is bud light commercial white guy and that's it. That deserves a hell of a lot of critisism because of where it came from and the circumstances surrounding its development. All in all though, I really look foward to reading more from you and it kind of is really refreshing to like actually read something on the internet since like 90% of what I do on this site is watch video.

Good read, I think my biggest problem with the stuff is the sensationalist articles about this stuff that other people from other sites write to clearly insight lots of clicks and also jump on the biggest game of the week or what ever. I like articles like this about this stuff, it is like super clear that you have thought about this stuff a lot and that you are open to conversation about it rather than the whole "What I am saying is correct and anything even slightly different than that view point makes you a misogynist or racist" almost to a point where both sides get like militant about it. I like talking about this stuff and I think the Witcher is great and honestly I like really learning about different cultures. My only issue with your argument is that I don't think you should take a few people of color in a game as a victory and instead try to work out ways to encourage people of different cultures and backgrounds to create their own games that can accurately portray their culture. As I said before in some other post, I would really love to see more South American cultures represented in video games but also media in general, I think there is such a cavalcade of stories from Chile's or Argentina's history that I would love to experience.

@viciousbearmauling: Yea the guys on the Bombcast seem to talk about Oakland like it is harmless but I'm pretty sure it is in the top five most dangerous cities to live in.