View Poll Results: Which one of the three pays the most lip-service to reality?

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  • The Total War games.

    1 3.03%
  • The Civilization games.

    0 0%
  • Those Clausewitz Engine games by Paradox (Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings, etc.)

    20 60.61%
  • All three are equally (un)realistic.

    10 30.30%
  • Other (please ellaborate in a post)

    2 6.06%
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Thread: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

  1. #1

    Default Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Three 4X game "series", three different approaches.

    Sid Meier's Civilization vs Total War vs all the Paradox Interactive games that use the Clausewitz Engine (Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings).
    Which one of the series offers the largest amount of realism, especially regarding war and statecraft?

    While I am making it a poll, I will also add my own cents.

    The Total War games obviously win regarding combat. You got epic battles, no contest. But does that make the comparison fair?
    I think not, so... Let's just disregard the battles of the Total War series (despite it being the most important part of it), and just focus on what goes on on the campaign map.
    So, regarding what goes on the campaign map... which one of the three offers the highest amount of realism?

    WAR

    Paradox Interactive games / Clausewitz Engine games

    In Paradox games, such as Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings II, you can not just attack anyone without declaring war, which is somewhat unrealistic. In Crusader Kings II, you only gain what you define as your casus belli, you need to fabricate claims (which is a huge pain in the butt) to fight your co-religionists, and things like that. It's impossible to re-enact Robert Guiscard, who did not give two ****s about rights and casus belli - he just conquered. Crusades are another weakness - you can only start a war against one sovereign power at a time, so if the Holy Land is fragmented, tough luck launching a crusade against any of the lords who hold a chunk of it (real-life Crusaders didn't really care which Muslim Lord held what land - they only cared that those lands will become Christian).
    Other than that though, Crusader Kings II is extremely realistic, with all those characters and dynasty interactions.. It's just sad that the war is a little bit unrealistic. But I guess that's the price you have to pay for game balance... After all, you wouldn't want OP blobs to make an appearance overnight, would you?
    In Europa Universalis IV, it gets more realistic: you make your demands at the end of the war, the casus belli being of minimal relevance. You can easily annex your neighbours, but it's not advised, given how coalitions can easily pop up. Overall, Europa Universalis IV is the most realistic you can get... except for battles, off course. And even then, some concessions have to be made, such as peasant rebels not having their own unit type, or the extremely simplified armies (infantry-cavalry-artillery, that's it, not other variation).
    Another thing that EU4 gets right while CK2 gets wrong is passing: in EU4, you cannot lead your army into foreign provinces without either declaring war or asking for access, while in CK2, you can, which is unrealistc. I doubt that any real-life Christian Kingdom would have allowed Jihadists to march through their lands, or vice versa.

    Obviously, it's a limitation caused by the usage of Risk-style maps, but do armies automatically know which city are they besieging?

    Total War games

    In sharp contrast, in the Total War games - the most recent TW game I have played is Medieval II Total War, so excuse me for ignoring all the new additions that later games bring to the table - diplomacy is somewhat simplified. You can start wars at will, which is pretty realistic. I don't know if it's realistic or unrealistic that territories you conquer immediately become yours, without any formal peace treaty being necessary to legitimize your rule over them, although the M2TW does pay this fact a bit of lip service in the form of your enemies demanding you to hand them back their provinces when asking for peace.
    In the original Medieval Total War, marching your army to another empire's province meant war, which is half-realistic (I know, limitation of the Risk-style map, but still... I doubt your allies would immediately declare war upon the presence of your army), while in Medieval II Total War, you can just march where ever you please, which is totally unrealistic, although... Maybe it could be made realistic if non-allied armies marching through your lands created devastation, forcing players and AI alike to react violently to foreign non-allied armies marching through your lands (which would mean WAR, if the army belonged to a neutral faction).
    But then again, concessions have to be made for the sake of game balance. Besides, if you played Total War with 200+ factions instead of 32~, your computer would burn - or the game would simply lag terrible. Even with Stainless Steel, my laptop takes almost forever to process the turns.

    Oh, and did I mention that you have to manually find the enemy city to besiege it? Pretty realistic, if you ask me. After all, real-life armies had to do recon jobs too, and you can't be entirely sure where is the enemy city.

    Civilization games

    Warfare might be the weakest point of the Civilization games. It's simplified to be as simple as simple as possible, and although it has become more and more streamlined as installations went, it never really got me. Though, I might add, it pretty realistically simulates shield walls: whoever has more weight will make the frontline move in the direction it wants to move in.
    However, you can pretty much only attack one unit at a time - the top unit of a stack. Which is obviously unrealistic, but I guess it's simply one of those acceptable breaks from reality that we have to accept, for the sake of game balance and yada yada ya...
    However, one thing that IS realistic about the way wars are done in the Civ games is that you have to discover the enemy city first, just like in the Total War games. The lake of a Risk-style map means that you can't just say "conquer this province" and be done with it. No. You have to send scouts to discover the position of the city, then drive all your troops onto it, leading them into a clear suicide attack that is akin to the Assault option in sieges in both CK2 and EU4.

    Money, dear boy, money...


    Paradox Interactive games / Clausewitz Engine games

    In CK2, economics are rather simplified. You have your gold, piety and prestige. You don't really have trade resources. Not very noteworthy, not very realistic.
    In EU4, we get trade resources, and they are handled somewhat realistically. You get monopolies, you get development, you get control of trade notes, all awesome.
    Also, in both CK2 and EU4, we have corruption and loans, which add to realism. None of the other two have that.

    Total War games

    Economics and trade might be the weakest point of the Total War games, and arguably the building system is as unrealistic as in all the other games. Sending merchants to acquire foreign goods generates money for you instead of taking away your money like it would in real life. However, in earlier games, such as Medieval Total War, at least some lip-service was paid to reality and some resource-dependent buildings were introduced.

    Civilization games

    Economics are arguably the strongest point of the Civ games, and trade is arguably the most realistic. Don't have a certain good? Don't have the necessary military might to acquire it by force? Then trade! This way, you can actually build all the juicy stuff that gives you advantages from having access to certain resources.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Total War has epic battles, aye, but they are highly unrealistic. Troop numbers are nonsensical. Units are balanced for multiplayer rock-paper-scissors, not according to their historical strengths. There is no army structure. No sense of flanks, battle-lines, reserves. Player has to micromanage everything. And the average battle lasts 15 minutes. Recent games can not even model things like Hoplite Phalanx properly.

    Most realistic grand strategy games (which is what you are talking about here, not 4X) I have played would be AGEOD's strategic wargames (Alea Jact Est, Wars of Napoleon etc) and KOEI's strategy games (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Nobunaga's Ambition).

    They would be followed closely by Paradox stuff. Crusader Kings and HOI are probably as realistic as the above, if not more, but Europa Universalis series is quite gamified and unrealistic. Besides, Paradox recently keep introducing gameplay elements for balance and gamification over history, such as arbitrary hardcaps and automatic AI coalitions.

    Total War would not be in my top 10 as far as historicity / realism is concerned. Great glorious fun, but not at all realistic.

    Civ series is the most gamified. Again, a great and enjoyable turn based strategy series. But as far as realism is concerned, its complete bollocks.

    Both CIV and TW are designed for fun and balance, not for realism and historicity. Not by any means a bad thing, but that is how things are.
    Last edited by prithupaul; August 06, 2016 at 08:57 AM.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Quote Originally Posted by prithupaul View Post
    Total War has epic battles, aye, but they are highly unrealistic.
    Not to mention - I forgot to mention it in the first post - in real life, open-field epic battles were rare: sieges were the norm. In real life, sieges were common, battles were rare.




    In that respect, arguably, Civ IV reflects this realistically, despite being the most gamified of all examples. Even in EU4, 90% of all wars are spent doing carpet sieging.
    Oh wait a minute... aren't sieges more common than battles in the Total War games as well? In M2TW, I spent most of my time sitting around waiting for the enemy to give up or try to lift the siege, rather than fighting open-field battles.
    Last edited by Reimu Hakurei; August 06, 2016 at 10:34 AM.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Voted, all three (quasi) equal unrealistic. Only realism modding can solve something (a bit).
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  5. #5
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Quote Originally Posted by DaVinci View Post
    Voted, all three (quasi) equal unrealistic. Only realism modding can solve something (a bit).
    Yeah, they're all unrealistic in their own ways. Some of which is beneficial for the style of game they're going for (Civ is definitely like that with its entire design), and others which are just nonsensical (No armies without leaders in the recent TW games spring to mind).
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  6. #6
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Quote Originally Posted by Reimu Hakurei View Post
    Not to mention - I forgot to mention it in the first post - in real life, open-field epic battles were rare: sieges were the norm. In real life, sieges were common, battles were rare.
    Not entirely true. In the eastern half of Europe for example sieges were a rarity and an oddity while open field battles were the norm simply because castles had been made redundant by 1000 years of migration. The same is true more or less in Asia, the sengoku period is rife with open field battles and the chinese made a point of fighting in the field unless they had no choice. as for Africa and America open field were the point of warfare as sieges destroyed good and produced no captives for sacrifice.

    Western Europe's siege happy wars are rather an exception towards how warfare was conducted in the rest of the world rather than the rule.
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  7. #7
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    No game that I am aware of even comes remotely close to similate battles at all the way TW does it, so its a total walkover on that front for the CA series. (Seriusly when you have to complain about the hoplite phalanx not looking quite right then its already miles ahead of any competition.

    As for dynastic warfare and intrigue, crusader kings 2 all the way for me. The casus belli and tretises alone which contrary to the op I consider highly realistic. War for no reason was rare in medieval europe. There mostly was some (usually bs) claim involved. Also it got the feudal structure down to a t in all its glorius confising mess.

    "Civilization" and realistic should never be in the same sentence. It got more in common with Tetris than realism.
    Last edited by Påsan; August 13, 2016 at 03:51 AM.

  8. #8
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Victoria II:

    War:
    Victoria features a huge amount of different units: outdated infantry, 19th century infantry, guard infantry, hussars, ulans, dragoons as well as artillery, planes, ships and tanks. Definitely better than CK II and EU IV.
    Different kinds of terrain, fortresses and railroads/streets add strategical options to warfare.
    You can freely declare war and make absurd demands if you're victorious. Of course, this will have diplomatic consequences.

    Economy:
    In Vicky II, every province produces a special resource like grain, fish, fruits, tea, tobacco, iron etc. which are traded on the world market. Of course, they can be processed via factories into more advanced goods like canned food and weapons (for soldiers) or iron parts (for construction projects).
    Every province has a bunch of POPs (workers, clerks, clergy, soldiers, officers, nobility etc.) with different demands and features (clerks and workers run factories, soldiers increase manpower etc.).

    So far, this is my favorite Paradox game due to the population system, the economy and the unit diversity.
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  9. #9

    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Total war games make an attempt of how unit dynamics work aka morale based on the position of the enemy, the state of the unit, how a fight goes and where other friendlies are. That's unique in terms of battle systems. Campaigns first was a basic risk, then a basic civilization concept to facilitate battle.

    Paradox games attempt to give a glimpse on how politics between nations and in e.g. Victoria even in nations restrict or create opportunities of growth as power. CBs are essential for that and are still a very big simplification how complex it was and is to manufacture a reason for war. That's unique in terms of how diplomacy and the strategy of war is concerned.

    Civilization was first. As the earliest iteration its conceptual similarity to a tabletop game are obvious. It's not realistic but it's not meant to be and its tabletop character makes it more accessible and arguably easier to focus on developing entertaining game mechanics than being forced to ponder how the hell you best mimic war weariness of a population. And in the end given how complex chess is, civilization still gives plenty of strategy opportunity.
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  10. #10
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Age of Empires 1 of course. That is exactly how it went in history.

  11. #11
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Why would anyone vote with "All three are equally (un)realistic"? I get it that they are all just games and that they are light years away from reality but come on, at least in PD games and to a lesser extent in TW games there is some level of historical accuracy, while in Civ you can see stuff like Augustus nuking Bismark in the 21st century, Hannibal commanding SAMs and cruising around in a jeep, Catherine the Great being preoccupied that Roman blue-jeans have become too popular in Mother Russia, archers doing damage to tanks and Gandhi being a TOTAL MANIAC.
    Last edited by Neoton; August 29, 2016 at 07:29 PM.

  12. #12
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Because they all focus on different aspects. TW focuses on war, CK focuses on inheritance and intrigue and Civ focuses on how cities were settled. Neither of them is even in the same universe as realism or authenticity but all three get parts of what they focus on right.
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  13. #13

    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Quote Originally Posted by Destin Faroda View Post
    Victoria II:

    War:
    Victoria features a huge amount of different units: outdated infantry, 19th century infantry, guard infantry, hussars, ulans, dragoons as well as artillery, planes, ships and tanks. Definitely better than CK II and EU IV.
    Different kinds of terrain, fortresses and railroads/streets add strategical options to warfare.
    You can freely declare war and make absurd demands if you're victorious. Of course, this will have diplomatic consequences.

    Economy:
    In Vicky II, every province produces a special resource like grain, fish, fruits, tea, tobacco, iron etc. which are traded on the world market. Of course, they can be processed via factories into more advanced goods like canned food and weapons (for soldiers) or iron parts (for construction projects).
    Every province has a bunch of POPs (workers, clerks, clergy, soldiers, officers, nobility etc.) with different demands and features (clerks and workers run factories, soldiers increase manpower etc.).

    So far, this is my favorite Paradox game due to the population system, the economy and the unit diversity.

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  14. #14
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    Default Re: Which is the most realistic? Civilization vs Total War vs Paradox / Clausewitz Engine games

    Paradox hands down but, as Mangalore pointed out, the games of those studios had different aims when they created those games and maybe mechanics and gameplay was the focus rather than realism.

    TW games might be more realist than Civilisation but I`ll take Civ any day.

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