Because that entire Universe, and its rules, would be totally out of touch with me.
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Because that entire Universe, and its rules, would be totally out of touch with me.
The idea is not to intentionally break the stereotypes, it's not to be absolutely bound by those stereotypes. Yes, Orcs can be evil....or not, depending on the circumstances, and the nature of their early encounters with other races. Consistency within the universe's own rules is more important than maintaining or breaking away from a stereotype.
Note that Rome became and remained highly xenophobic up until relatively late in its history, despite having strong international contacts, feeling that all of the other cultures and tribes around them were out to get them....because for most of Rome's early history, they WERE. That view, and Rome's formative relationship with Veii (which Rome eventually defeated, and proceeded to erase almost to the last stone), had a profound influence on Rome's development (it inherited a lot of its culture from Veii and the other Etruscan cities), the nature of its army (developed to combat both the Greek-style Phalanx of the Etruscans as well as the looser-organized hill tribes such as the Samnites), and much of its politics (after driving out the Etruscan king, they vowed never again to be ruled by a king). If circumstances had been different, it would probably have been a drastically different culture than what it became. I want to see that kind of flexibility with cause and effect, so the cultures in the game develop according to their situations (as well as potential player input), not according to some stereotype.
If the game is based on a unique new game universe, the devs need to address all of the significant details to make it come alive as a "living world": what is the base technology level of each culture, what are their major occupations (such as hunter-gathers, farmers, herdsmen, or some combination to provide food), what sort of dwellings do they use, what are their religious beliefs, what form of organization or government do they have, and so on. If those aren't fleshed out in a fair amount of detail and properly represented in game, you have a shallow and artificial-looking world that doesn't survive past the first couple of hours of play. That doesn't even begin to touch on the individual.
Note that Rome became and remained highly xenophobic up until relatively late in its history, despite having strong international contacts, feeling that all of the other cultures and tribes around them were out to get them....because for most of Rome's early history, they WERE. That view, and Rome's formative relationship with Veii (which Rome eventually defeated, and proceeded to erase almost to the last stone), had a profound influence on Rome's development (it inherited a lot of its culture from Veii and the other Etruscan cities), the nature of its army (developed to combat both the Greek-style Phalanx of the Etruscans as well as the looser-organized hill tribes such as the Samnites), and much of its politics (after driving out the Etruscan king, they vowed never again to be ruled by a king). If circumstances had been different, it would probably have been a drastically different culture than what it became. I want to see that kind of flexibility with cause and effect, so the cultures in the game develop according to their situations (as well as potential player input), not according to some stereotype.
If the game is based on a unique new game universe, the devs need to address all of the significant details to make it come alive as a "living world": what is the base technology level of each culture, what are their major occupations (such as hunter-gathers, farmers, herdsmen, or some combination to provide food), what sort of dwellings do they use, what are their religious beliefs, what form of organization or government do they have, and so on. If those aren't fleshed out in a fair amount of detail and properly represented in game, you have a shallow and artificial-looking world that doesn't survive past the first couple of hours of play. That doesn't even begin to touch on the individual.
Rome wasn't xenophobic, it was anti non-romans. Essentially if you weren't a citizen you were very much looked down upon but anyone could become a citizen, though being born a citizen was obviously preferred. Before the fall of the republic it was also a very strong aristocracy where if you weren't born a patrician you weren't very popular amongst the patricians, but the patricians made up a very small part of Rome's population. It in fact became more xenophobic later on at least in the west. Part of why it failed was the failure to integrate the Germanic tribes which migrated into the empire.
I'm referring to Rome's origins, and its long struggled against the Etruscans, Samnites, Greek colonies, and Cisalpine Gauls, not 400-600 years later when the Republic became an Empire. The need to continue a siege against Veii for almost a decade strained the limits of an agrarian state, and necessitated a professional army that could continue the siege without having to return home for the planting and harvesting seasons. Both the voting system and the army were revised into "functional blocks" around that need. The distant campaigns against the Greek colonies and Cisalpine Gauls required more advanced logistics than mere marching with a wagonload of supplies, and led to the building of roads. The development of a "hinged phalanx", and eventually the manipular and cohort systems, was driven by the need for greater flexibility against very different adversaries. Rome saw itself as besieged on all sides, and developed a mindset geared toward seeing every other power as a direct threat. By the time of Julius Caesar, all of those regional threats were long gone, but had left an indelible imprint on Roman culture and the army, creating something unique. They didn't develop the Republic or Cohort system on a whim, or because someone had a moment of inspiration, it was because of the forces that acted upon Rome right from the outset.
Similarly, I don't want to see "evil Orcs", "noble but aloof Elves", or "gruff and industrious Dwarves" just because that's the way they are in someone else's books. Personally, I'd prefer either brand new races, or just a wider range of varieties of basic humans, shaped by their environment, over the same old generic stereotypes. If you're going through the trouble to make a new game universe, why rehash the same old pot of gruel when you can spice it up with completely new ingredients?
You said relatively late in it's history. And I don't think the first 500 years of a 2000-25000 years empire can ever be considered late.
Note that I said "until". The incidents mainly happened early (700-500BC), but their impact was still relevant up to and well into the early Imperial period. How do you get a 2000 to 2500 year empire? Rome was a minor trade city under Etruscan rule before 700-800 BC, not an "Empire", and I don't think you can call it "Rome" by 1200 AD, where the Western Empire had already fallen and it was "Byzantium" or the "Eastern Roman Empire".
Regardless, I'm just using it as an example of how circumstances shape a culture, and unusual circumstances help shape an unusual culture.
Not sure about another full game and its hundred-bucks bag of future DLC, but I'd be willing to sink quite a few quid in a high fantasy total conversion DLC for EU4 or CKII.
Just looking at what modders have done, there are some wonderful works out there, and I can only imagine an official PDX team would make a great job out of one such project.
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This sounds amazing, and exactly what I was thinking of in terms of a game idea.
Well, we need some programmers according to @Dnote.
And artists. And production people. And writers...
My take on this would be for a "lower level" strategy game, focusing not at the "nation" level, but on a handful of rising city-states within a few hundred square miles, and the dozens of smaller villages in between. Your "armies" would number in the dozens or hundreds of men at most, not stacks of 1,000-30,000. The individual "hero" becomes meaningless in a 10,000 man army, and "magic" really doesn't play well with technology, so either you're limited to a Dark Ages or Pre-Imperial level of culture and technology where magic is the dominant force, it's a Steam-punk sort of game with whacky pseudo-tech overlapping with magic, or else it's closer to alt-history, not fantasy, and magic becomes just another tool.
At the "individual" or small party level, heroism, killing monsters, fighting bandits, and magical effects can come into play and be represented on the screen. At the "state" level, you're dealing with abstractions, and there's not a whole lot of amusement to be had with a national statistic saying that your troops killed 30 minotaurs over the course of last year. That "fireball" spell that's so effective against a small party of bandits is either conducted on a mass scale, wiping out entire armies and making mass combat formations pointless, or else it's a rare specialty that "maybe" tips an occasional battle one way or the other, but you don't really see it happen at that level of abstraction. Fantasy becomes increasingly pointless on the grand scale, other than as a source of names and an excuse for random events.
At the "individual" or small party level, heroism, killing monsters, fighting bandits, and magical effects can come into play and be represented on the screen. At the "state" level, you're dealing with abstractions, and there's not a whole lot of amusement to be had with a national statistic saying that your troops killed 30 minotaurs over the course of last year. That "fireball" spell that's so effective against a small party of bandits is either conducted on a mass scale, wiping out entire armies and making mass combat formations pointless, or else it's a rare specialty that "maybe" tips an occasional battle one way or the other, but you don't really see it happen at that level of abstraction. Fantasy becomes increasingly pointless on the grand scale, other than as a source of names and an excuse for random events.
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You can do high level strategy and still focus on individual characters, the obvious example being Master of Magic as the wizards in that game take pretty much the same role as civilizations in the civilization games or perhaps countries in Europa Universalis.
Heroes can take a similar role to generals in Europa Universalis 4 but obviously characters could be employed to define all aspect, from economy to military.
Magic can work with technology as long as magic and technology don't compete with each other but work together. An example would be potions which are magical but can only be mass produced by assembly line technology. Other limits to magic could be that it can not produce food or atleast magical people/races need special kind of magical food which can not be produced by magic. On the other hand technology may also have its limit and thus advances in magic and advances in technology complement each other.
Fantasy don't necessarily need to be about heroism as for example Master of Magic the main characters never really participate in battle. Just because it is a fantasy game and charcters have a big focus don't reduce the game to one about heroism.
On a high scale we are unlikely going to be interested in killing few minotaurs, instead question such as what place are minotaurs going to have under our leadership/society is what we are interested in and here we could use different characters to influence the minotaurs in different ways for our own gain.
Heroes can take a similar role to generals in Europa Universalis 4 but obviously characters could be employed to define all aspect, from economy to military.
Magic can work with technology as long as magic and technology don't compete with each other but work together. An example would be potions which are magical but can only be mass produced by assembly line technology. Other limits to magic could be that it can not produce food or atleast magical people/races need special kind of magical food which can not be produced by magic. On the other hand technology may also have its limit and thus advances in magic and advances in technology complement each other.
Fantasy don't necessarily need to be about heroism as for example Master of Magic the main characters never really participate in battle. Just because it is a fantasy game and charcters have a big focus don't reduce the game to one about heroism.
On a high scale we are unlikely going to be interested in killing few minotaurs, instead question such as what place are minotaurs going to have under our leadership/society is what we are interested in and here we could use different characters to influence the minotaurs in different ways for our own gain.
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Well, we need some programmers according to @Dnote.
And artists. And production people. And writers...
Crap, yeah, getting a team together to actually produce said game is a real challenge, isn't it?
This ‘cause and effect’ is a really good point, and something that nearly all 4X games overlook. They rely heavily on pre-scripted differences between factions which then shape the game world, when really it should be the other way around, the game world should be shaping the factions. This oversight can lead to some immersion-breaking silliness, especially in the Civ series, where you could have ‘master horsemen’ Mongols starting in a continent without horses, or a landlocked England inexplicably still having the best shipwrights.
Pre-scripted differences also remove some of the strategic options open to the player – in most 4X games nowadays, the important decisions aren’t actually made in the game itself, they are made on the faction selection screen. If the strategy boils down to “pick Orcs for war, pick Dwarves for building,” etc, then deviating from that faction’s best strategy becomes “wrong” and you have no real way of changing course mid-game or reacting to events.
In fact, the only 4X game I can think of that has the nature of the empires being influenced by the game’s events is Stellaris itself – where the faction system means pacifist empires stuck in a war zone can slowly become militaristic over time, and so forth.
A fully-developed model of a “living world” as Kovax describes would be a major improvement over pre-scripted factions, and would lead to outcomes that are both interesting and plausible. For example, if a society gets its food from hunting, then it will have a greater supply of warriors but the military emphasis will be on individual bravery over discipline. A seafaring city-state would naturally tend towards well-equipped and well-organised infantry. So, if orcs are barred from farming and fishing and *have* to get food from hunting, they will usually produce savage-ill disciplined beserker-style armies without the need for pre-scripting it (and a human faction based in some bleak highlands would probably do the same). The genius of the more fluid system is that you allow for more natural outcomes and varied strategies – in the above scenario, a more organised, urbanised evil faction could vassalise the hill orcs and draft them into Isengard-style orc legions (that the orc society would not have produced themselves).
Ideally you would have a system where, even if all the factions were human, you would still see naturally emerging differences based on geography and culture, rather than a set of pre-written histories, strengths and weaknesses that might make no sense for the game in question.
Ankh-Morpork!
I would so play a game like that especially if it was tongue in cheek.
A long time ago, in the early days of EU4 some people asked about a SciFi game like EU4 and a few years latter we got Stellaris, but what about a Grand Strategy Fantasy game? Would be awesome IMHO
honesty, i think this is a great idea, i always dream with a grand strategy fantasy game.
I don't do mods.Or you could just use a mod for any of the current games and save a lot of money
Fantasy is boring. Please no Sci Fi and Star Wars/Trek boring games. Some more Grandstrategy History games.