{"id":335,"date":"2006-04-14T10:17:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-14T14:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/?p=335"},"modified":"2006-08-18T12:32:02","modified_gmt":"2006-08-18T16:32:02","slug":"raison-detat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2006\/04\/14\/raison-detat\/","title":{"rendered":"Raison d’etat"},"content":{"rendered":"

While finishing up my review of the non-violent conflict sim A Force More Powerful (hopefully coming to a magazine near you in a month or so) it occurred to me that it shows a side of politics that is completely missing from strategy games – the question of legitimate and illegitimate actions.<\/p>\n

In a site that I am not always sure is parody, Right on Games<\/a> notes with complete accuracy that most Civilization players would not have put up with Iran’s flouting of their desires without a prompt attack. In Civ III, I’ve started wars over horses, iron and dye. In Civ IV, I’ve attacked the Aztecs because, well, they’re the Aztecs. (I’ve also started wars over oil, but somehow that doesn’t seem as far-fetched.)<\/p>\n

There is also no domestic penalty for any of this. Sure, war exhaustion will kick in if you’ve been at it for too long, but the reasons you go to war are never made explicit to anyone in game. You may annoy some mutual friends (like France) and nuclear weapons really get rival nations upset. But there is no price to be paid at home for an adventurous foreign policy.<\/p>\n

This is the analog of the “casualties\/schmasulaties” problem I wrote about last year. In that post<\/a>, I observed that wargames give no sense of the loss involved or sacrifice required in a battle. Battles are isolated from campaigns, losses don’t necessarily carry over from one fight to the next…many modern wargames are more about equipment losses than manpower losses.<\/p>\n

In short, as much as strategy gamers like to say that they appreciate tough decisions, they are never faced with the really tough ones. War becomes a cost-benefit analysis (in a “realist” model) and not a decision that has important consequences for anyone but yourself. In Europa Universalis II, I’ve started wars even though it meant that an ally would get overrun – sometimes even because they would get overrun. Nuclear weapons are always beautiful when they explode.<\/p>\n

Much of this is because of the god-like perspective that strategy games give to the player. You are the big picture guy\/gal who can’t be bothered with the problems of citizens except insofar as they might revolt. There is no impression that your rule is a charge or a trust or dependent on the legitimacy of your actions.<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, Crusader Kings – with all the divine right that the term “king” connotes – comes closest. Here, almost all of your concerns are domestic. Do your vassals respect you as a leader? Do you have a reputation for piety? If I assassinate my eldest idiot son so he can’t rise to the throne, I might lose all legitimacy (through acquiring the “kinslayer” trait.) Upset the Pope and you could get excommunicated – say farewell to your kingdom as everyone around you grabs claims on it.<\/p>\n

I’ve written before about how the realist notion of a state of nature<\/a> permeates the strategy genre. It even approaches neo-realism in how states are billiard balls in a game centered on a balance of power. And I love me my wars – virtually, of course.<\/p>\n

Still, I am convinced that there is something to be gained by giving the cyber commander-in-chief more to be concerned about than what he\/she can get by conquering their peaceful neighbor to the north. Because if life was Civilization, Canada would be gone by now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While finishing up my review of the non-violent conflict sim A Force More Powerful (hopefully coming to a magazine near you in a month or so) it occurred to me that it shows a side of politics that is completely missing from strategy games – the question of legitimate and illegitimate actions. In a site […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-5p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}