Some of my favorite games are those that don’t let me control everything.

This may sound a little odd coming from as devoted a devotee of the god-game as I am. The whole god game idea suggests that some benign (or malicious) intervention from the player can set things aright. The player sets the agenda, builds the empire, raises the cash and kills the foe. Most games, in fact, leave all important decisions to the player. Leveling up a character, choosing a weapon, opening a door, picking a starting pitcher…not a lot of stuff is put out of your reach.

There is a risk in not giving the player complete control. What if those factors out of his/her reach seem arbitrary or unfair? What if even truly random events make the player feel he/she is being punished for trying something creative?

Soren Johnson’s Civ IV afterword mentions that the early religion mechanic was designed to have the various faiths travel along the trade routes from city to city – much as they did historically. Christianity travelled the Mediterranean and Silk Roads, Muslim traders exported their beliefs across the Indian Ocean, Buddhism and Hinduism led to a number of syncretic faiths wherever they met. The problem with this design decision was that unless you let players control the trade routes – a micromanaging nuisance in Civ II – they couldn’t control the spread of their faiths. So, missionary units were introduced. Player control won out.

Even when games go through the trouble of developing complicated AI preferences, they often default to player control. Supreme Ruler 2010 gave the player a cabinet to help make decisions. They would even override some of your decisions if they didn’t match the AI’s ideological profile. If you raised taxes but had a conservative finance minister, you might find that he has fiddled with the sliders. Great idea. The problem, of course, is that there were so many menus that you might not even notice. Add that domestic policy is a pretty important component of your larger strategy and you can see why most players clicked a box that said “do not override my desires, people”. The mere inclusion of such a choice made the painstaking work in programming this code superfluous.

Now take a look at Take Command : Bull Run 1861. This is a civil war battle game that sort of looks like Manassas: Total War. You control the troops and tell them what to do. But the beauty of the design is that the game is much more fun when you don’t control the entire army, but only a brigade or a division. It is much more satisfying to be a smaller fish, command your men and then see the entire battle develop around you. Once again, the option to control everything is there, but the design pushes you down to ground level.

Probably the best example of the tension between tight and loose reins is The Sims. Sure, the entire game is based on your bossing around a cartoon game who speaks gibberish, but the game limits you to controlling one Sim at a time. So while you tell Mama Bear to get the porridge ready, Papa Bear is out in the yard seducing Goldilocks Goth. If you turn “free will” off altogether, the game loses much of what makes it a magical title. Juggling a family, keeping them mindful of their priorities, raising the kids…all are too easy if they just do what they are told all the time. The Sims is all about recognizing the limits of player power.

Recognizing these limits is something that gamers used to accept more readily. The business cycles in the original SimCity were very basic and mostly immune to player influence – especially at the early stages of the game. SimEarth, SimAnt and a host of other Maxis games were more about making an environment for things to work in than giving those things orders to fill. Similarly, Populous was about building a setting for your Holy War – but you never controlled the soldiers.

In his epic alternate analysis of what went wrong with Master of Orion III, Bruce Geryk suggests a government management system where the virtual viceroys that run your planets would have good and compelling reasons to ignore your orders. A planet that makes a lot of money on interstellar tourism might balk at being told to shift into war economy mode. I think Geryk envisions some sort of pop-up that would tell you that Zarquon 5 has refused to fulfill your orders because of some reason and then you would have to decide whether it was worth your trouble to fire Zarquon’s governor.

I think this would have been an interesting, if ultimately disastrous, design decision; not because it is a bad idea, but because I don’t think most gamers would have appreciated Chancellor Spiff carving out his own agenda.

Computers today allow the player to control more. Interfaces have steadily gotten better and more intuitive (AoE 3’s monster UI excepted), processing power has increased exponentially, and better graphics resolution means you can fit more words, numbers and flashing icons on the screen. Because the player is able to control more, most players and designers think that they should. So, soldiers in Rome: Total War will instantly fall back in line if you think they are going after the wrong target. Superpower 2 lets you set every social policy for your government no matter how negligible the effect is. There are never communications failures in wargames. Troops that show initiative are inevitably told to stand down. The player is the game.

Note that I am not adovcating for a game that plays itself. That would be pointless. Like MOO3. I do think that strategy games work well when the player is constrained in his/her possibilities. You can do this in a boardgame way by simply allowing a certain number of “moves” or “actions”, but this can only work in a turn-based environment. But what good is telling me that my Gauls are “impetuous warriors!” if I can restrain that bloodlust with a mouse click? Maybe “impetuous” is now a fancy word for “takes orders well.”

In many ways, the game philosophy of limited power is an analog to the fact that governments and generals don’t control everything. Even the term god game is a little silly, since I have doubts that God himself is controlling everything down here – and if he is, I may have some complaints to register. As great as games are at making you feel like a deity, they can also remind us of the everyday constraints that even the greatest minds and powers in the world have had to confront. Interesting decisions aren’t just about outcomes; interesting decisions are often about how you deal with stuff beyond your immediate control.

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