I’ve gotten every Civilization: Revolution achievement, and I can destroy its AI six ways from Sunday on every difficulty level—except Deity, which remains almost a total crap shoot. I’m not sure from which “deity” that designation draws its name—perhaps a nightmarish American McGee-esque take on the Flying Spaghetti Monster, one that sees the carbohydrate-fueled god reimagined as some kind of many-tentacled rapist.

In addition to AI civilizations being able to apparently construct unlimited Legion armies while simultaneously erecting numerous Wonders of the World, Deity opponents seem able to actually influence the laws of probability. Perhaps my perception is colored by that hazy tint of blame-redirecting irrationality that comes along with unfettered video game rage, but I would swear to God FSM that combat encounters in Deity games adjust the odds.

None of this would really be that bad if it weren’t for the fact that AI opponents are without exception irritable prima donnas who can’t go more than a few turns without demanding tribute. (I’ve heard it’s an internal Firaxis joke that Ghandi is often the biggest bastard of them all.) There is in fact no way to maintain positive relationships with your enemies without simply forking over most of your money and technology on a regular basis—and if, like me, you find it too much of an affront to your pointless sense of video game honor to do so, you are under constant siege for the duration of the game. There is no practical method by which to continually exact similar demands on your opponents, which gives the AI an inherent mechanical advantage.

What does all this mean? It means that when I play Civ: Rev on Deity, I become a paranoid lunatic, a save game-abusing freak who lives in a time-bending state of parallel timelines. It’s like an inelegant, turn-based, alternate history version of Braid. I have a goddamn Excel spreadsheet in my head, mentally tracking how I appeased the Mongols with Iron Working in 1400 B.C. in Save Slot 1, and launched an assault against their capital in 1300 B.C. in Save Slot 3.

As far as I can tell, the way the game calculates combat resolutions only reinforces this behavior. Rather than generate a random number to determine victory every time a conflict occurs, the game apparently generates an entire string of random numbers and then calls from that list sequentially. This means that if you save the game before an attack, that attack will always play out the same way if you load the game. That behavior holds true for many, many turns. Trust me.

I understand why that design choice was made. In addition to the potential performance incentive for not having to generate that data on the fly, it also guards against one kind of exploitation: You can’t try save, try an attack, then load and try the same attack again for a different result.

Instead, it opens up a different kind of exploitation, one that hinges on unhealthy micromanagement. The way I feel I have been forced to play the game (and I used “forced” loosely here, because it reflects more questionably on me than on the game) is to treat it as having one deterministic solution. Since the game has already determined how battles will turn out, my job is to determine those outcomes for myself, to uncover the optimal solution that will result in the least amount of surrendered goods, the fewest captured cities, and the lowest military mortality rate.

I continually save and load until I can best woo history’s great people, until my cities are the grandest, until my armies are mightiest. Until I’ve solved the puzzle.

I play Civilization: Revolution like the film Groundhog Day.

For my own good, I think it’s about time I put this game back in its case and move on.

Tags: burning frustration, civilization, civilization revolution, game design, groundhog day, xbox 360

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 6:08 pm and is filed under game design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.