For those who know it, Sid Meier's Civilization does not need presentation. For those who do not, it is a successful game from the 90's that spawned a series and some clones. Arguably the most interesting one to date might be Civilzation IV, present in GOG.

The player managed a human civilization starting in the Neolithic. It is fun for many and the gameplay revealed dynamics that did happen in history. Some history teachers actually recommended it to their students (as Time magazine mentioned). Science, art and different sorts of achievements of mankind were present in the game. Building unique wonders was fun. It intended to be a simulation, if a very addictive one (ever heard of the "one more turn" factor? it came to existence because of Civ).

Within the scope of improving the simulation, global warming has been present in the Civilizaton series since Civilization II. A t the time the mechanics at the time was relatively simple (maybe the algorithms were not so simple in the back end): industry generated pollution over time. Excess pollution would trigger global warming. That started a climate change for the worse. You really did not want that to happen.

However, in Civilization VI, all global warming or climate change reference has been eliminated. That mechanics simply does not exist, from what reviews mention.

Their explanation is that they want to avoid "controversial" issues.

What do you think? Maybe in Civ 7 they would avoid making an explicit reference to the shape of the Earth? Or evolution?

_______

Edit:The sixth
post in this thread contained the link to the source quoting Sid Meier himself in the context of the introductory gala for Civ6. As some some posters in this thread seemed to have trouble finding the sixth post, the link was repeated and expanded with two more in the thirty-seventh post. Since still seem to find trouble finding the two posts (yet apparently not other posts in the thread), I am copying the links onto the original post for their utmost convenience.

Please remember that the goal of this thread was asking for reflections on the fact that the makers of a well-respected game series have, in their own words, removed a game concept and its associated game mechanics and role in the balance of industrial development and energy infrastructure options.

Possibly this issue might be considered within the largers scope of self-censorship in games. However, while censorship is not straneous to PC gaming, the case here examined showed peculiar characteristics such as:

1. Removing a feature after more than 20 years in the series.
2. Said feature is based on hard science, with the research way more solid in the present day than in the nineties.
3. Respect for research and scientific-technical has always been at the core of the game series, as it is the key to not lagging behind other civilizations. Focusing on the short term while neglecting the long term altogether brings certain doom for your civ if the player does so for too long.

However, the fact that this game concept is related to well established research has not meant any difference since it has been treated by lobbyists and their political patrons as just another debatable social issue, instead of well-founded knowledge, and in the past decade a considerable portion of Western societies have adopted that view as well, without any trepidation. The same might seem to have happened within the community of PC gaming, if the actions of Firaxis and this very thread mean anything.

Apparently, as knowledge becomes more solid, and calls to action have led to increased cooperation (since the 1992 Rio conference) climate change has become more of an issue that it used to be, instead of less.

Let us remember the original aim of the the thread. This question was posed: Should they remove more "controversial" issues from Civ7? Put in clearer words, the aim was both examining depictions of climate change in PC games as well as inquiring about the causes, limits and possible reactions to (self)censorship in games by focusing on the example at hand, where any references to climate change were suddenly frown upon by the makers (after more than twenty years) and comparing it to other examples in case the participants could provide any.

Copied from the 37th post:

>> This article on the launch party for Civilization VI quotes Sid Meier literally.

More on "global warming" (as the phenomenom and event was named in the Civilization series) and its absence in Civilization 6: RPS.

And this for the super lazy: just google it.

Yours truly found about it just by chance, searching recently for reviews on Civ6.>>

_______

In order to provide a comparison between large-budgeted projects and independent endeavours, a later post provides an example of a developer in the indie scene reacting and bending to pressure to some extent. The reflection is that probably even PC gaming projects with smaller budgets are not inmune nowadays and therefore do not enjoy a complete freedom of speech. With two examples, the treatment of the issue is not exhaustive by any means. Additional examples, counterexamples, commentary and criticism are welcome.

_______

There has been discussion of how the Civilization series (including Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) portrays the effects of climate change, in comparison to the expected ones in the real world. Also some posters have expressed curiosity about the latter. For both reasons, a later post includes links to the last special report of the international panel on climate change of the UNO, from october 2018.

Note (added on the 14th/nov/2018): Bear in mind that the IPCC assesses the already existing research and only adopts in its reports results that already have reached a very high degree of consensus in the scientific community. Consequently, there is a delay until some of the new developments reach that level. Both traits have led a part of the scientifc community to label the IPCC as very conservative.

_______

14th/november/2018

Added related mechanics in the Master of Orion series (MOO2 and MOO 2016).

_______

30 november 2018

Update: Firaxis released a new DLC that includes Global Warming (a.k.a. Climate Change since the 2000's), among other features."We just like to have our gameplay reflect current science."

Comment on the DLC and how it works together with the former DLC, Rise and Fall, in order to improve the series in a new ways: fallibility; contingency; new hopes vs utter oblivion; the limits of growth.

I feel you're trying to start a dangerous thread, but instead I'll spin it by asking if other games have had similar mechanics.

SimEarth certainly does, but you can also manage the entire ecology of the whole planet including axial tilt.

Edit: As others said, the mechanic was removed because it was tedious. Like how pollution was shoved out of the way in later Sim City Games.

Global warming was already present in Civ 1.
Freeciv even had nuclear winter ! (you didn't want that to happen either)

For Civ 6, well, could it be some kind of games' "casualization" ?

I don't think Civilization V had it either. IIRC the devs said somewhere that they removed the 'pollution' mechanics because players simply didn't find it fun, not because of any kind of controversy.

I don't think it's politically motivated. It was considered a very annoying mechanic (similarly to how Dark Ages were also removed and replaced with Golden Ages). It wasn't also very well represented, scientifically speaking: in Civ IV at least it just turns a random terrain tile into desert.

I do not know if commenting on simulation games removing concepts and mechanics due to politics should be dangerous or not.

About other games featuring climate change, Fate of the World, in Steam, is all about it and its consequences where the player tries to coordinate a joint effort by the nations of the world. Very illustrative of how unintended consequences may arise, and of the complexity of the dynamics involved, economical, environmental and human. Thanks for pointing out that GW was already in Civ1. I was not 100% sure (it has been a long time since) but I clearly remember the engineers in Civ2 attempting to clean up pollution like madmen.

There is a statement from the company on it avoiding "controversial issues".

Here, some comment on it:

https://www.citylab.com/life/2016/10/what-civilization-vi-gets-wrong-about-civilization/504653/

>>it’s surprising that climate change is a bigger deal in Civilization I than in Civilization VI.


Please enlightmen me: are there not some people defending that the Earth is actually flat? and some others who say that the Apollo program was a fake? The latter used to be a game Wonder, maybe they might make sure to avoid having it in the game? someone who has played Civ6 could confirm to that?

I think that it's their choice really. I mean that they can ultimately decide how their game looks like.

Also there isn't really any obligation to include controversial issues into a game. You can, but you don't have to. A game which consists of only throwing marbles somewhere is perfectly fine too.

Nuclear detonations (was it possible in Civ?), bloody wars (always part of Civilization), slavery (was it possible in Civ?), religious domination (at least since Civ V), mass scale deforestation, famines and global warming - there are enough controversial issues in the Civ series so they can as well go with one or two less.

These controversial issues still exist. Incorporating them may include a touch of authenticity or may add a bit of educational value, but it's still a game after all, meant to be fun, not to educate us. Education is what one gets in school.

The real issues will probably hit us hard enough in real life, so I can understand if people don't need them in their leisure time additionally.

Civ is just a popular strategy game series, not really a world simulation. But in the end, one has to admit that devs in the 90s had a sense of including relevant issues, but nowadays everything is so much more streamlined and only there to make money.

It would probably be possible to write a mod that includes global warming (change the terrain and sea level in dependence of the overall industrialization level). Who would like to use it?

Civ is a popular strategy game series of the simulation genre. You can check the genre in GOG, it has a whole category dedicated to it. Have fun.

However, the question posed was: should they remove more "controversial" issues from Civ7?

What about the shape of the Earth?

Indeed, it's sad that either climate change or the shape of the earth are even considered controversial.

It's also a simulation but much more a strategy game than a simulation. For a simulation you would have to actually model the world in a meaningful way like having resource deposits that get depleted or having your people revolt if the war is going bloody, ...

What should they do in Civ 7? Whatever they want really.

Comparing the controversy about the shape of the Earth with the controversy about global warming is really comparing oranges with apples. One of it may kill you (or your offspring) while the other one merely results in confusion when flying non-stop once around the Earth. That's why the makers of Civ will probably leave the round Earth in, because it's much less controversial in the end.

In Civ 7 they will probably do they same as in Civ 6 and they should, if you ask me. If I want a game that criticizes society and reminds me that something (anything) should be done about global warming, I will personally write the devs and ask them to include it. For now, I'm happy with a strategical sandbox that let's me play ruler of the world in a few different settings.

If they want to be fair really, they could make it an option to be set at the beginning of every game. And then let's see how many players turn it on or off.

Actually, wasn't the round Earth also just an option? Like you could decide if going out of the map was possible or not and you could even go from North-pole to South-pole (torus shaped world).

Slavery was also very prominently featured in Civilization: Call To Power (the non-Meier series branch). If carried on until modern and contemporary (XIX century-like age), abolitionists started appearing, liberating slaves and IIRC inciting revolts.

At least in the earlier games in the series, the Earth has never actually been a sphere. Either, you have an earth that is basically a strip of paper that wraps around in one dimension (not a Mobius strip; if it were, up and down would be reversed after one loop), or you have a torus shaped Earth (that wraps around in two dimensions, which is not how IRL Earth works). (Implementing an actual spherical Earth would take a lot of work, and probably wouldn't be worth it.)

You can already choose the shape of the Earth: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/flat-toroidal-or-cylindrical.277876/

:D

Hah, I imagine that's more because a flat or toroidal earth is easier to program! Still, if it disappeared I wonder if we'd have flat earthers coming out and accusing the devs of "caving to the mob".