Post by Druebey on Mar 3, 2014 0:31:40 GMT -5
The definitions of Strategy game and 4x do not state that a game has to be full of abstractions or strategic vs tactical to be enjoyable... The definitions are as follows:
1. 4X games are a genre of strategy-based video and board games in which players control an empire and "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate". The term was first coined by Alan Emrich in his September 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World. Since then, others have adopted the term to describe games of similar scope and design.
4X games are noted for their deep, complex gameplay. Emphasis is placed upon economic and technological development, as well as a range of non-military routes to supremacy. Games can take a long time to complete since the amount of micromanagement needed to sustain an empire scales as the empire grows. 4X games are sometimes criticized for becoming tedious for these reasons, and several games have attempted to address these concerns by limiting micromanagement with varying degrees of success.
The earliest 4X games borrowed ideas from board games and 1970s text-based computer games. The first 4X games were turn-based, but real-time 4X games are not uncommon. Many 4X games were published in the mid-1990s, but were later outsold by other types of strategy games. Sid Meier's Civilization is an important example from this formative era, and popularized the level of detail that later became a staple of the genre. In the new millennium, several 4X releases have become critically and commercially successful.
The term "4X" originates from a 1993 preview of Master of Orion in Computer Gaming World by Alan Emrich, in which he rated the game "XXXX" as a pun on the XXX rating for pornography. The four Xs were an abbreviation for explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. Other game commentators eventually adopted the "4X" label to describe a game genre with specific gameplay conventions:
Explore means players send scouts across a map to reveal surrounding territories.
Expand means players claim new territory by creating new settlements, or sometimes by extending the influence of existing settlements.
Exploit means players gather and use resources in areas they control, and improve the efficiency of that usage.
Exterminate means attacking and eliminating rival players. Since in some games all territory is eventually claimed, eliminating a rival's presence may be the only way to achieve further expansion.
These four elements of gameplay have been described as the four phases of a 4X game session. These phases often overlap with each other and vary in length depending on the game design. For example, the Space Empires series and Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar have a long expansion phase, because players must make large investments in research to explore and expand into every area.
Difficulties in definition
While many strategy games arguably contain a similar "explore, expand, exploit, exterminate" cycle, game journalists, developers and enthusiasts generally apply "4X" to a more specific class of games, and contrast 4X games with other strategy games such as Command & Conquer. Hence, writers have tried to show how 4X games are defined by more than just having each of the four Xs. Gaming sites have stated that 4X games are distinguished by their greater complexity and scale, and their intricate use of diplomacy beyond the standard "friend or foe" seen in other strategy games. Reviewers have also stated that 4X games feature a range of diplomatic options, and that they are well known for their large detailed empires and complex gameplay. In particular, 4X games offer detailed control over an empire's economy, while other strategy games simplify this in favor of combat-focused gameplay.
2. Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration.
They are generally categorized into four sub-types, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time, and whether the game focuses on strategy or tactics.
Strategy video games are a genre of video game that emphasize skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. Specifically, a player must plan a series of actions against one or more opponents, and the reduction of enemy forces is usually a goal. Victory is achieved through superior planning, and the element of chance takes a smaller role. In most strategy video games, the player is given a godlike view of the game world, and indirectly controls game units under their command. Thus, most strategy games involve elements of warfare to varying degrees, and feature a combination of tactical and strategic considerations. In addition to combat, these games often challenge the player's ability to explore, or manage an economy.
I started this thread due to reading some of the comments from a forum about the new HOI4. In it people were asking for less micromanagement and more abstractions. To me that would put HOI4 into the genre of grand strategy but not the subgenre of 4x. Now one can debate if that is the case with most of the games that claim to be 4x and thus is why the genre as a whole is dying....
I am going to say my piece and open it up for debate. I am seriously considering this as a reason people say its a niche gaming community. I though must say that most of the people I have talked to, Have no idea what a 4x game is, but know what civilization is... My argument is as follows.
I see the decline in the 4x genre related to social, educational, parenting, and other styles. People are more inclined to not like a 4x due to its "clickfest" abilities and fewer will appreciate the genius behind each click doing what is supposed to to influence the game. Most people are also into the instant gratification mentality and thus a "clickfest" or a wait till something happens is not what they want... For instance flappy birds was a tapfest and yet people saw a score but a good game like oh, pacific storm was considered a clickfest "" by both reviewers and customers and thus was avoided like the plague. I have to say this is in part due to the parenting style of modern day parents.
My parents taught me that if I worked for something it was always better than getting it handed to me. I was punished by being spanked or time-outs while in school for behavior and many more examples. Where I am going with that is, For each action either good or bad, I had a consequence that was directly affected by my action. Thus if I cussed, I had my mouth washed out with AJAX due to usage of bad words. Where I see parenting failing the social constructs of today is that children are not rewarded for good behavior and punished for bad, but rather are rewarded for both...
Now, If you are rewarded for both behaviors would you not expect something like a game to be the same way? Thus the dilemma with social constructs. A person that cheats on a college exam can in turn get a job that they truthfully are not qualified for, thus is rewarded for bad behavior. While employed by said company it is found out that the person got the degree out of cheating and thus has to learn with on job classes(reward once again). While punished in a away that is not in merit to the consequences to the employer/employee relationship the person does get rewards for that behavior. Which in turn comes to the way the person gets educated in the "required" fields.
In education, a student now and days does not get percentages, etc on their grades only pass or fail (least this is the new trend). How does that help someone that is in the C range know that they are barely passing and thus punishing the child later when they get into the D range? They get rewarded and punished in the same "grade." How does one quantify the responsibilities of the student when the student only has to worry about, " pass or fail?" That is itself is reminiscent in the games we now play as 4x games...
Lets take a few games and show how there constructs reward bad and good behavior equally or punish both. I want to start with Civilization V to begin with... In Civilization V, you are given control of a culture through time but can wage war etc without too many penalties. Now that is the reward of bad behavior, by not allowing the consequences to add up to the actions outcome. IE conquering a City state and after a few turns being able to construct buildings out of it... That is rewarding the destruction of a people without a initial period of more than five turns for unrest due to new laws and more... Now it does take away gifts and such that were given by that city-state but that is not enough of a punishment... Mind you that game is about conquering without major consideration for economy and politics.
So lets look at a game that is supposed to have major considerations for economy and politics... EU3-4 is a 4x game that also rewards bad and good behaviors but not in consequential senses. Example, I as France have to defend against England in the Hundred Years War and retake possessions from England. Now they punish the player playing France with overexertion when they are creating cores on provinces but not when taking them back... With that said, I can take Normandy back from England along with the other lands without issues... But they punish you by giving you expansion points against your country for taking back what was rightfully yours... That in itself is a reward for good behavior but also a punishment for it. What about a look at a bad behavior, say you create a core on Amour, can declare war on Brittany... You win the war, take most of the lands, and take money as tribute. You receive inflation and expansion points as punishment. Now as a reward you receive more manpower without penalties, more naval force-power without penalties, more income without too many major penalties (33% for non-accepted culture is not enough and the non-core goes away with administration points usage), Plus on top of all this you get more points in the trade "center." Thus you are rewarded more than punished...
Another game I would like to look at is HOI-HOI3. There is major abstractions and steamlining that happens in all these games, and thus you potentially are rewarded for good and bad behaviors as well as punished for them. Take a look at naval warfare, it is simplified by skill level of leaders, position and attack/defense stats... I hate to say this but it is more complex than that, there is training in AA, "war games" that are done to increase effectiveness, Damage Control Training that is done on every boat and ship in the navy, and many more things... Thus they punish the player or reward the player based on abstracted elements that should be complex...
Why cant they add damage control percentages and more to make it less abstract, to steamline the game and simplify the returns. Thus throwing HOI into the grand strategy genre but not 4x. More on why HOI is not a 4x game later. I also have to say when it comes to ministers and leaders along with tech teams or tech advancements there is more abstraction than there is actual immersive elements...
In HOI2 there were tech teams that were very informative and also more fun to play with as per immersion. IE Ford developing the assembly line as was historic. With all that said and done though there was no way to add traits to the tech teams to make them more efficient nor where there ways to make ministers more relevant. Ministers were set in what they could do and only within the confines of "levels" and doctrines... Thus taking personality of the individuals out and replacing them with random traits that could be close are far from what the personalities were. Take for instance, FDR, He was an isolationist but also a market capitalist that created the New Deal.
Now the New Deal was to stimulate the economy but also to increase spending of the government, which to a degree is modeled in HOI2 and HOI3, but what is not modeled is the support he had for infrastructure and also industry. There is no event that I have found in HOI3 that can model the increase in industry and infrastructure that FDR presided over. From the TVA to major increases in "raw materials"(in game electric, rare minerals, metals, and oil). There is nothing to show the slow and gradual decrease of disorder of stores or the rationing of food/oil/gas/etc for the front lines. These are areas that should not be abstracted but are...
Also Submarine Warfare is majorly abstracted in many many ways, among them is that a single submarine would go out on its own patrol or with a "pack" but never during the day would it leave port. There was no micromanagement of the individual submarines and thus you had "classes" of submarines not the individual submarines. Take for instance the Gato Class submarine, through the war there were multiple versions of the same class and also many modifications... In any of the HOI series I do not see any mention of the submarines by name, nor do I see submarines getting refits done as was common. Refitting allowed a older submarine to stay in service longer and thus increase its effectiveness, like when a new technology for radar would be developed the submarine would go into a refit at a drydock. That is also another abstraction I would like to talk about...
There was and still is a thing called dry-dock and shipyards. Dry-docks are for refitting of ships/boats. Shipyards were where the ships/boats were created and there are very few of those in the USA. In the HOI series you can place a ship/boat anywhere except rivers(ahistorical due to Wisconsin being where most hulls and submarines during WW2 were constructed besides Groton CT{which is not on the map}). Also slipways allowed ships/boats to start construction in one location and finish it in a shipyard, and some were even able to create ships for themselves... IE liberty ships and escort destroyers were built almost always in slipways. Now that is an abstraction that is unrealistic, not everywhere that you have a port can you create a ship, nor can you create a submarine anywhere... but what you can do is have dry-docks for refitting.
Now with that said about the steamlining, abstractions, and rewarding for good and bad behavior I must say that this is a common issue with the games that state they are 4x games. There is not the complexity that is required, nor the immersiveness that defines the sub genre. I have to say that most games to claim 4x, they are grand strategy/tactical strategy/real time tactical/real time strategies but not 4x. Sadly most of these games that are 4x in true definition are rejected by major publishers such as EA, Sega, Etc due to the "niche marketing" that it instills in their minds... But publishers/developers like paradox interactive make decent examples of 4x games and then make them into games that are a far cry from the genre and taut their games to be modern 4x games.
I have to state that I honestly dislike the misrepresentation the 4x genre is getting and the lack of immersion and complexity bothers me. That is what made the genre so great and something new was the foundations of complexity and immersion. Not the steamlining of elements to fit a bigger crowd or to make more money. The abstractions that are caused by the steamlining destroyed the genre and thus it is almost dead. There is a way to keep complexity and immersion while appealing to a new crowd of players... It is called working on mechanics not the graphics of games, or releasing true renditions of this sub genre instead of confusing the meaning with others. Publishers/Developers/Reviewers/Customers are all guilty of the last.
Now I want to hear what you think... What makes a true 4x game? What company/companies have failed to make a true 4x game and still call it so? What examples of said game make it not 4x? Is it due to social/educational/parenting styles that this is happening? What elements do you believe are necessary for a good 4x game? Do you agree with my arguments? What are your very own arguments for or against the use of 4x game in most games like Civilization, HOI, EU, etc?
Thank you for your time,
Drew
Forum Creator
1. 4X games are a genre of strategy-based video and board games in which players control an empire and "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate". The term was first coined by Alan Emrich in his September 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World. Since then, others have adopted the term to describe games of similar scope and design.
4X games are noted for their deep, complex gameplay. Emphasis is placed upon economic and technological development, as well as a range of non-military routes to supremacy. Games can take a long time to complete since the amount of micromanagement needed to sustain an empire scales as the empire grows. 4X games are sometimes criticized for becoming tedious for these reasons, and several games have attempted to address these concerns by limiting micromanagement with varying degrees of success.
The earliest 4X games borrowed ideas from board games and 1970s text-based computer games. The first 4X games were turn-based, but real-time 4X games are not uncommon. Many 4X games were published in the mid-1990s, but were later outsold by other types of strategy games. Sid Meier's Civilization is an important example from this formative era, and popularized the level of detail that later became a staple of the genre. In the new millennium, several 4X releases have become critically and commercially successful.
The term "4X" originates from a 1993 preview of Master of Orion in Computer Gaming World by Alan Emrich, in which he rated the game "XXXX" as a pun on the XXX rating for pornography. The four Xs were an abbreviation for explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. Other game commentators eventually adopted the "4X" label to describe a game genre with specific gameplay conventions:
Explore means players send scouts across a map to reveal surrounding territories.
Expand means players claim new territory by creating new settlements, or sometimes by extending the influence of existing settlements.
Exploit means players gather and use resources in areas they control, and improve the efficiency of that usage.
Exterminate means attacking and eliminating rival players. Since in some games all territory is eventually claimed, eliminating a rival's presence may be the only way to achieve further expansion.
These four elements of gameplay have been described as the four phases of a 4X game session. These phases often overlap with each other and vary in length depending on the game design. For example, the Space Empires series and Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar have a long expansion phase, because players must make large investments in research to explore and expand into every area.
Difficulties in definition
While many strategy games arguably contain a similar "explore, expand, exploit, exterminate" cycle, game journalists, developers and enthusiasts generally apply "4X" to a more specific class of games, and contrast 4X games with other strategy games such as Command & Conquer. Hence, writers have tried to show how 4X games are defined by more than just having each of the four Xs. Gaming sites have stated that 4X games are distinguished by their greater complexity and scale, and their intricate use of diplomacy beyond the standard "friend or foe" seen in other strategy games. Reviewers have also stated that 4X games feature a range of diplomatic options, and that they are well known for their large detailed empires and complex gameplay. In particular, 4X games offer detailed control over an empire's economy, while other strategy games simplify this in favor of combat-focused gameplay.
2. Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration.
They are generally categorized into four sub-types, depending on whether the game is turn-based or real-time, and whether the game focuses on strategy or tactics.
Strategy video games are a genre of video game that emphasize skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. Specifically, a player must plan a series of actions against one or more opponents, and the reduction of enemy forces is usually a goal. Victory is achieved through superior planning, and the element of chance takes a smaller role. In most strategy video games, the player is given a godlike view of the game world, and indirectly controls game units under their command. Thus, most strategy games involve elements of warfare to varying degrees, and feature a combination of tactical and strategic considerations. In addition to combat, these games often challenge the player's ability to explore, or manage an economy.
I started this thread due to reading some of the comments from a forum about the new HOI4. In it people were asking for less micromanagement and more abstractions. To me that would put HOI4 into the genre of grand strategy but not the subgenre of 4x. Now one can debate if that is the case with most of the games that claim to be 4x and thus is why the genre as a whole is dying....
I am going to say my piece and open it up for debate. I am seriously considering this as a reason people say its a niche gaming community. I though must say that most of the people I have talked to, Have no idea what a 4x game is, but know what civilization is... My argument is as follows.
I see the decline in the 4x genre related to social, educational, parenting, and other styles. People are more inclined to not like a 4x due to its "clickfest" abilities and fewer will appreciate the genius behind each click doing what is supposed to to influence the game. Most people are also into the instant gratification mentality and thus a "clickfest" or a wait till something happens is not what they want... For instance flappy birds was a tapfest and yet people saw a score but a good game like oh, pacific storm was considered a clickfest "" by both reviewers and customers and thus was avoided like the plague. I have to say this is in part due to the parenting style of modern day parents.
My parents taught me that if I worked for something it was always better than getting it handed to me. I was punished by being spanked or time-outs while in school for behavior and many more examples. Where I am going with that is, For each action either good or bad, I had a consequence that was directly affected by my action. Thus if I cussed, I had my mouth washed out with AJAX due to usage of bad words. Where I see parenting failing the social constructs of today is that children are not rewarded for good behavior and punished for bad, but rather are rewarded for both...
Now, If you are rewarded for both behaviors would you not expect something like a game to be the same way? Thus the dilemma with social constructs. A person that cheats on a college exam can in turn get a job that they truthfully are not qualified for, thus is rewarded for bad behavior. While employed by said company it is found out that the person got the degree out of cheating and thus has to learn with on job classes(reward once again). While punished in a away that is not in merit to the consequences to the employer/employee relationship the person does get rewards for that behavior. Which in turn comes to the way the person gets educated in the "required" fields.
In education, a student now and days does not get percentages, etc on their grades only pass or fail (least this is the new trend). How does that help someone that is in the C range know that they are barely passing and thus punishing the child later when they get into the D range? They get rewarded and punished in the same "grade." How does one quantify the responsibilities of the student when the student only has to worry about, " pass or fail?" That is itself is reminiscent in the games we now play as 4x games...
Lets take a few games and show how there constructs reward bad and good behavior equally or punish both. I want to start with Civilization V to begin with... In Civilization V, you are given control of a culture through time but can wage war etc without too many penalties. Now that is the reward of bad behavior, by not allowing the consequences to add up to the actions outcome. IE conquering a City state and after a few turns being able to construct buildings out of it... That is rewarding the destruction of a people without a initial period of more than five turns for unrest due to new laws and more... Now it does take away gifts and such that were given by that city-state but that is not enough of a punishment... Mind you that game is about conquering without major consideration for economy and politics.
So lets look at a game that is supposed to have major considerations for economy and politics... EU3-4 is a 4x game that also rewards bad and good behaviors but not in consequential senses. Example, I as France have to defend against England in the Hundred Years War and retake possessions from England. Now they punish the player playing France with overexertion when they are creating cores on provinces but not when taking them back... With that said, I can take Normandy back from England along with the other lands without issues... But they punish you by giving you expansion points against your country for taking back what was rightfully yours... That in itself is a reward for good behavior but also a punishment for it. What about a look at a bad behavior, say you create a core on Amour, can declare war on Brittany... You win the war, take most of the lands, and take money as tribute. You receive inflation and expansion points as punishment. Now as a reward you receive more manpower without penalties, more naval force-power without penalties, more income without too many major penalties (33% for non-accepted culture is not enough and the non-core goes away with administration points usage), Plus on top of all this you get more points in the trade "center." Thus you are rewarded more than punished...
Another game I would like to look at is HOI-HOI3. There is major abstractions and steamlining that happens in all these games, and thus you potentially are rewarded for good and bad behaviors as well as punished for them. Take a look at naval warfare, it is simplified by skill level of leaders, position and attack/defense stats... I hate to say this but it is more complex than that, there is training in AA, "war games" that are done to increase effectiveness, Damage Control Training that is done on every boat and ship in the navy, and many more things... Thus they punish the player or reward the player based on abstracted elements that should be complex...
Why cant they add damage control percentages and more to make it less abstract, to steamline the game and simplify the returns. Thus throwing HOI into the grand strategy genre but not 4x. More on why HOI is not a 4x game later. I also have to say when it comes to ministers and leaders along with tech teams or tech advancements there is more abstraction than there is actual immersive elements...
In HOI2 there were tech teams that were very informative and also more fun to play with as per immersion. IE Ford developing the assembly line as was historic. With all that said and done though there was no way to add traits to the tech teams to make them more efficient nor where there ways to make ministers more relevant. Ministers were set in what they could do and only within the confines of "levels" and doctrines... Thus taking personality of the individuals out and replacing them with random traits that could be close are far from what the personalities were. Take for instance, FDR, He was an isolationist but also a market capitalist that created the New Deal.
Now the New Deal was to stimulate the economy but also to increase spending of the government, which to a degree is modeled in HOI2 and HOI3, but what is not modeled is the support he had for infrastructure and also industry. There is no event that I have found in HOI3 that can model the increase in industry and infrastructure that FDR presided over. From the TVA to major increases in "raw materials"(in game electric, rare minerals, metals, and oil). There is nothing to show the slow and gradual decrease of disorder of stores or the rationing of food/oil/gas/etc for the front lines. These are areas that should not be abstracted but are...
Also Submarine Warfare is majorly abstracted in many many ways, among them is that a single submarine would go out on its own patrol or with a "pack" but never during the day would it leave port. There was no micromanagement of the individual submarines and thus you had "classes" of submarines not the individual submarines. Take for instance the Gato Class submarine, through the war there were multiple versions of the same class and also many modifications... In any of the HOI series I do not see any mention of the submarines by name, nor do I see submarines getting refits done as was common. Refitting allowed a older submarine to stay in service longer and thus increase its effectiveness, like when a new technology for radar would be developed the submarine would go into a refit at a drydock. That is also another abstraction I would like to talk about...
There was and still is a thing called dry-dock and shipyards. Dry-docks are for refitting of ships/boats. Shipyards were where the ships/boats were created and there are very few of those in the USA. In the HOI series you can place a ship/boat anywhere except rivers(ahistorical due to Wisconsin being where most hulls and submarines during WW2 were constructed besides Groton CT{which is not on the map}). Also slipways allowed ships/boats to start construction in one location and finish it in a shipyard, and some were even able to create ships for themselves... IE liberty ships and escort destroyers were built almost always in slipways. Now that is an abstraction that is unrealistic, not everywhere that you have a port can you create a ship, nor can you create a submarine anywhere... but what you can do is have dry-docks for refitting.
Now with that said about the steamlining, abstractions, and rewarding for good and bad behavior I must say that this is a common issue with the games that state they are 4x games. There is not the complexity that is required, nor the immersiveness that defines the sub genre. I have to say that most games to claim 4x, they are grand strategy/tactical strategy/real time tactical/real time strategies but not 4x. Sadly most of these games that are 4x in true definition are rejected by major publishers such as EA, Sega, Etc due to the "niche marketing" that it instills in their minds... But publishers/developers like paradox interactive make decent examples of 4x games and then make them into games that are a far cry from the genre and taut their games to be modern 4x games.
I have to state that I honestly dislike the misrepresentation the 4x genre is getting and the lack of immersion and complexity bothers me. That is what made the genre so great and something new was the foundations of complexity and immersion. Not the steamlining of elements to fit a bigger crowd or to make more money. The abstractions that are caused by the steamlining destroyed the genre and thus it is almost dead. There is a way to keep complexity and immersion while appealing to a new crowd of players... It is called working on mechanics not the graphics of games, or releasing true renditions of this sub genre instead of confusing the meaning with others. Publishers/Developers/Reviewers/Customers are all guilty of the last.
Now I want to hear what you think... What makes a true 4x game? What company/companies have failed to make a true 4x game and still call it so? What examples of said game make it not 4x? Is it due to social/educational/parenting styles that this is happening? What elements do you believe are necessary for a good 4x game? Do you agree with my arguments? What are your very own arguments for or against the use of 4x game in most games like Civilization, HOI, EU, etc?
Thank you for your time,
Drew
Forum Creator