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Avenoct
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NC, USA
Apr 2001
time: 00:14
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Wait, you mean there are consequences? Kass, nice quotes..I see you're sticking with the 'Lazy Finnish Postman...Lazy Americans' motif.
I really don't think it's unfair to punish anyone who takes a whopping chunk out of the mother planet, even in 'defense'. Anyways, what is 'fair' in war? But yes, it would make the game better if these things were forgiven eventually. Along those lines...
I wish there were actual Units for the supreme leaders. Can you imagine the feeling of satisfaction at assassinating Yang, himself, with a probe-assassin team? Further, I'd like to see some silly units, like 'the media', which could be stuck in the middle of the battlefield so that you could watch far-away wars on Chiron-News. Hrm, other silly units?
Oh, the topic. Maybe there could be a few more options on taking a base. Prison camp, slave labor, genicide, 'freedom' from their original government: setup as a whole new faction with tithes to their 'liberator'. Now, choosing prison camps seems gross, but the game already has 'genocide' as an option (obliterate base), which I think is far worse. All of these could carry various penalties, not just on the 'Horrible Nasty Inhuman Dictator' meter--atrocities. Some could penalize your diplomacy slightly, some your relations with Planetmind, some with your own people, sickened at your Tyrrany. Just some ideas.
PS.. why does 'Obliterate Base', ie, your troops manually slaughtering thousands, seem worse than Planetbustering? Is it just the 'Can't see it, can't care' mentality? Just asking myself I suppose.
-Smack
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Avenoct
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NC, USA
Apr 2001
time: 00:14
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Yeah, its the wording really... 'Obliterate Base' just doesn't sound that bad. It's a game after all. No one dies. Like the roadrunner, they just pop up again in a new colony pod somewhere else. But the real risk was in calling bad-things 'Atrocities'. That's a scary word. Any more realism on that end would cause an uproar I think. One nice thing about the Civ-Smac series is they are totally abstracted. The 'people' you deal with are untoucheable leaders...everything else is a unit, oh, except 'drones' and their ilk, which you can't actually attack. It's an interesting impasse. I don't think many people would allow themselves to buy a game that is about real warfare. There always has to be an abstraction. War stinks. There's just nothing good about it. But in a game, all the things around it, the strategy, etc. seem 'fun'. Weird.  .
On a lighter note, er.
-Smack
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Ken Hinds
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I'll try to keep this on topic, but as a Vietnam Era US Air Force Veteran I have a question for the rest of you.
Marketing considerations aside, would a simulation that more realistically depicted the reality and aftermath of war serve as a greater deterent to war as the players got older? As we can see in the forums here at this site many of the games today have a large international audience.
I'm thinking of something were there are no cheat codes to make things go better, no Superman standing on ground zero to catch the shell or bomb and toss it back at the enemy or harmlessly off into space or it's game equivelant. I know that we speak of and sometime consider ourselves to have been used for or to be cannon fodder, but commander's do in fact pay a price for indescrimenant loss of manpower. Troops should have to be returned to medical facilities that are adequate for the task to be healed and returned to battle. And all troops would not be able to be returned. After all some will became severely disabled and other will die either on the way to medical care, dispite or even because of the care that they receive.
While I personally don't enjoy or play the shooters nor do I truely believe they cause good people to become evil, if they indeed do have behavioral modification abilities shouldn't we try to put those effects to a good use? Or at least those aspects of the games that modify the persons behavior?
Ken
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Horus
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Sweden
Nov 2000
time: 05:14
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No I don't think it would serve as a deterent. E.g. Children who were beaten are more often beating their own children, compared to those who wasn't beaten. Exposure to anything makes one more prone to what you are exposed to. I am a hunter myself and don't have any problems with that, and of course my father played an important part in me getting interesteing hunting - as he hunts himself: human see human do.
But the problem is more complex than that of course, if one gets 'exposed' to actual infantry combat for some years - then I guess that experience will serve as a hell of a deterent.
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Ken Hinds
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I supose we will need to wait a few more years to get final results from the child soldier experiments in Africa, but from what I 've read and heard so far that does not look too promising either. How much of the reports of force drugging and brainwashing to get the kids to functioned as desired is indeed the truth I don't really know. Perhaps the claims that the faction leaders had to resort to those methods to get the required performance provides the best hope that early exposure does not mean early converts to extreme violence. Although from what has been reported so far here in the U.S. the children were more vicious than the adults.
Ken
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Avenoct
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NC, USA
Apr 2001
time: 00:14
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I think you raise a really interesting side-topic Ken. My guess, if your question wasn't just rhetorical, is that the more realistic a game became to the harsher sides of warfare, it would both become more 'fun' b/c some people like that adrenilin rush (like you mentioned the 'shooter' games), but also less fun if the effects were lasting and/or tangible in a physical sense. I know that's not where you were going but taking a tangent here:
Carrying this concept to the extreme, if it were possible for a simulation to actually affect real people in physical ways, ie reach out and 'zap' them, or kill them, it might as well then be the actual thing, war. There would be a point of development toward that game when the 'player' would be feeling the pain, taking the real risks of life and death, and dealing in 'real' consequences like caring for injured/maimed friends, talking with relatives, reviewing a battlefield of real people that had lost their lives. It's the point at which we are negatively affecting other real people that it ceases to be a game in the strictest sense and becomes either gladatorial or murder. It's a twisted thing, and humans being odd critters seem to desire to approach this as closely as they can without actually doing it (in most cases, but then, there were the romans, and certainly many others who made and make sport of real lives).
But back to where we were, I don't think a game that only simulates these things, no matter how realistic, will positively affect people away from war. Somehow, most of us humans seem to draw a line, and this game would land on the 'It's a game' side of that line. But you meet people for whom seeing a toy gun is disturbing, who find even strategy games like Smac disturbing or gross, so that line must be flexible.
I think I agree with Horus on all points. The last one is interesting though. Some people who are consistantly the 'winner' in real warfare, build a lasting interest in it, perhaps never learning the true pain possible and imagining it a game? Others seem to be able to tolerate it, for all the complex reasons there are (patriotism, a job, etc.), and probably some do become immune, numb, even to war. But it seems to me history supports your conclusion: many people who have been soldiers in the ditches or fields of battle for awhile seek never to do that again if they can help it (barring the same reasons above).
I don't think 'shooters' necessarily make people numb to real violence. If you take a guy out of an arcade and punch him in the nose, he's not going to think it's just a game. I do think that adding 'realism' to games only serves to make them more fun, more of an escape, more full of adreniln, what have you. If there were a game that was a beaurocratic and full of logistics, politics, dirt, grit, and what have you, as a real war, I don't think many would want to play.
-Smack
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Solver
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Apolyton Duke Of Something
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Latvia, Riga
Sep 2000
time: 07:14
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Speaking of Singularity PBs, they tend to be nice. Caretakers started on a small island, had some big bases on it, and some more around it in the sea. With two Singularity PBs, I wiped out 15 bases, and had the victory over them. Look, the AI is too dumb to build satellites. If it ever does, you can easily knock them down. Not the case with humans, though, as they know the value of satellites, and will really get angry at you if you PB them.
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Black Sunrise
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Buffalo, New York, USA
Aug 2000
time: 05:14
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In my MP game, I am about to teach my other two players exactly how useful PB's are.
My first strike did not finish off the player I need to kill, and since I NEED to wipe out two of his secret projects (cloning vats/cloudbase acadamy), and I know I cant capture/hold either, this is the only option.
So lots of crawlers from my energy and tech cities converge, build a PB in ONE (count it ONE) turn, and my 16 range (which beats the hell out of my nerve choppers) means he kisses his capital and two other cities goodbye.
Thats 30% of his population, and will make the difference between his recovering from this war, and his harrassing me for a while before getting ground to dust.
Indra
ONE TURN!
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Wiglaf
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Cambridge
Dec 2000
time: 23:14
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quote:
Does anyone happen to know what Nerve Stapling actually is? |
I believe the practice involves "control" of the nerves, etc, making it so you can be forced not to riot. Either that or it's just a very painful procedure that serves as a deterrant. IIRC it's mentioned somewhere in the manual..
quote:
Yeah, its the wording really... 'Obliterate Base' just doesn't sound that bad. It's a game after all. No one dies....One nice thing about the Civ-Smac series is they are totally abstracted. The 'people' you deal with are untoucheable leaders...everything else is a unit, oh, except 'drones' and their ilk, which you can't actually attack. It's an interesting impasse. I don't think many people would allow themselves to buy a game that is about real warfare. There always has to be an abstraction. War stinks. |
Yeah, I suppose if they named it "slaughter the civilians" and showed them being butchered it would've gotten people upset. Still, the game made it pretty clear to me the idea of the option wasn't just to "erase the base" from the board. You're right, it is an interesting situation.
And ken, that could backfire like you can't imagine. Playing a war videogame isn't a way to teach about the horrors it can cause.
quote:
I don't think 'shooters' necessarily make people numb to real violence. If you take a guy out of an arcade and punch him in the nose, he's not going to think it's just a game. |
Treasure your intelligence, not many have it, sadly. You'd be suprised what kind of people are out there.
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Black Sunrise
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Buffalo, New York, USA
Aug 2000
time: 05:14
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Nah, I already used nerve gas, so everythings gone to hell.
8 years after the war started, and water levels are estimated to rise 2100 meters (more), so far. It would have been worse, but they launched the shade, that slowed it down a touch.
PB should push it over the edge, and make it a waterworld.
Hey, every one of my units is at least commando, so I'm making scout patrols left and right.
Right now, I'm trying damned hard to shake the table hard enough to knock everyone else off, hoping I can stay on.
Weird strategy: Anger Planet, and pray you can survive better than everyone else.
Pirates, Green economy, every infantry unit at least commando (so scores and scores of scouts in every city), and you just use TONS of nerve gas and a PB if you can.
I'll let you know how it works out.
Did I mention that after 8 years of war, I have 994 more years of sanctions coming up?
Indra
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EtheMind
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Finland
Jul 2001
time: 07:14
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I was very happy to find out that you could actually obliterate bases. I like variable options and realism even if it makes game more complex or makes some people feel sick, people need to see.
I've only used obliteration techniques once, because it really was the only way to survive...a bit longer. But for the state, the absolute value is, the state...that goes with factions too. We've seen it in history. Of course the definition of state as absolute value only goes with totalitarian system, but you know how it works.
I'm usually an ethical player, go out and have laugh, but I actually like playing without constantly committing atrocities even in cases where such actions would have no real effect. It's inefficient, but it's the right thing to do! 
In any case. I'd love to see concentration/labor camps and more variable options in handling of captured population. Now, one thing I wonder. How come a Democratic society with Free Market and highly sensible values obliterate bases without suffering any problems in civil order? And how on earth can't you Planet Bust a target of your choice? These are the fundamental questions I ask from myself whenever playing SMAC...maybe I should try asking Firaxis.
And, Fitz...that's not cheating, it's strategy, even if against the AI.
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25-07-2001 15:32
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