In just about every strategy game I know of, the goal is to win. I guess, this seems like an obvious goal, but certainly isn't a realistic one. I don't expect that any country on Earth will "win" any time soon. Of course, a game has to end some time and it's nice to be the winner. Gameplay in GCII is focused on an overall victory by one civilization. The AI seems to specifically not take a "Let's all get together and stop Napoleon" mindset of status-quo. But it will take a "Let's all carve up Africa" stance.
Anyway, almost all games that I've played, I've played to win. The only exception is The Sims 2. Many people play The Sims to win. They are often annoyed by how easy this is and quit playing. However, many people, like me, keep going back to the Sims because it's fun to just play and "see what happens". It's the only game I play where I'm happy for my characters to have bad things happen to them. Even if I'm playing with a goal in mind (play w/out pausing, 2 broke parents, 6 babies, see if they can survive!), I never feel any interest in saving and restarting. Hmm, depression set in, all the kids were taken away by social services. That was fun.
So, it seems that a strategy game built more around "story telling" or "history writing" could be really interesting. I know, based on reading AARs, that many players would really enjoy this. A large part of this would involve adding a lot of randomness to a game, but that's what real life is like. For example, in most strategy games YOU are the leader. You make all the decisions, and, as long as you're not an idiot, you make good decisions. The world would be a very different place if the leader of each country was always intelligent and sane. The Tatars are a good example of this. Under Genghis and Kublai Kahn they created a vast empire. That empire was destroyed in under just 30 or so years of their successors. I have seen some games, like Rome: Total War, that have successions and you can get stuck with a bad leader, but that only had minor effects. I think if you get a Nero as Ceaser things should go much, much worse for you. Instead of the player being an omnipotent controlling force, they would be more of a "guiding hand". You would help your civilization (a lot), but not BE your civilization. Maybe, in a weird way, like training your creature in Black and White. Having the player "detached" from their civilization can allow a "Well, I tried to stop that war from happening, but they just wouldn't listen. Oh well, let's start picking up the pieces..."
One other important thing for something like this is that Civlizations would have to be hard to get rid of. It's important that a civilization can have a great rise, fall, and then perhaps rise again. Civilizations don't get snuffed out very often in real life. Many countries on earth (Israel, Poland, Mongolia, Greece/Macedonia) have had very, umm, elastic histories. The ability to keep playing after early losses could also be really fun for new players. It's no fun getting completely crushed out of existance. For experienced players the goal would be something like creating the biggest empire possible and keeping it together for as long as possible.
From reading the forums I know there are some really dedicated strategy fans here. I'm not saying GCII should be steered in this direction (thus Off-Topic). Just wondering what some of you think of this kind of thing.
sfc
