Chinese Video/Computer Games

solarz said:

I think there's a game like that in Steam. I forget the name, but I remember it was pretty hot.

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Mcsweeney said:

Ballads of Hongye?

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Mcsweeney said:

Ballads of Hongye?

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zhangjim said:

I don't like Civilization series very much. There is too much randomness, I think the geographical environment is an important factor determining the characteristics of civilization.
Once players are assigned to a bad map in the game, they often choose to restart the game. Because the characteristics of many civilizations are closely related to the geographical environment, although the game makers guarantee that there will not be too much deviation through preset values, once the terrain is slightly unsatisfactory, it will mean that the game will be very difficult.

The most important thing is that this game has nothing to do with history. All its design elements are for the game.
Unfortunately, this kind of game is doomed to be monopolized by a few manufacturers. Although "Humankind" is ambitious, it is still not able to compete with Civilization series. However, this game has some advantages in the design of the evolution of civilization.

Paradox Interactive obviously has a completely different idea，they prefer to focus on specific historical periods. Of course, they also repeatedly violated CPC's political correctness and were strictly restricted.
Although I very much hope that China can produce the same works, the serious crime of "historical nihilism" is enough to keep any game producer away from the historical theme - after all, history is a fact that has happened, and no other possibility of assuming history is allowed.

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GZDRefugee said:

So I knew League is huge in China but never really watched VODs from the super server.

Holy shit, we need to channel some of that aggression and big dick energy into foreign policy.

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Staedler said:

Some context for those that don't follow League.

Chinese League is well-known for constantly fighting even when it's not an advantageous position to be fighting. They believe their mechanics (fingers and decision-making) are faster than you so they'll win even from a disadvantage.

Unfortunately, sometimes their mechanics aren't actually better to the point of offsetting disadvantageous positions in team play. Then those fights they pick quickly put them further and further behind. So the Chinese teams that make it to the international stage are not nearly as aggressive - though they are still significantly more aggressive than teams from the other regions.

For example the TES v EDG game that was just played managed close to 1 kill/min which is typical in the Chinese league.
Other regions manage half that rate at best and more usually just a quarter of that rate.

In any case, it's significantly more entertaining to watch than the snooze-fest that games in other regions can often devolve into.

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Staedler said:

One complaint I have with the Paradox series is the historical determinism that is present in all their games. Because the fundamental systems the games are built on are biased towards this view, even their more sandboxy games result in nonsensical scenarios.

Why do institutions (Renaissance, Colonialism, Printing Press, etc) in Europa Univeralis 4 always show up in Europe? Why are non-West European units always inferior in pips (base values for unit effectiveness) in the series?
Why does the US in the Victoria series always have higher immigration draw?
Why do nations in the Heart of Iron series always follow the same historical paths? Why are resources limited based on historical time of discovery regardless of how undeveloped a nation was in that period and not how industrialized it has become in the game?

In reality there is a complex interplay of institutions and social-economic factors that leads to this sort of determinism. But these "historical" games often have the player occupy an almost omnipresent, omniscient deity-level of control over their nation which by definition breaks down and through the conditions that created the determinism. For example, you can potentially industrialize China in the Victoria series quite early but then why does the Taiping Rebellion still happen?


So there is a conflict between how the games function, which is as an immortal Great Man theory, and how the games are thematically set, which is as historical determinism. The conflict causes Paradox games to be absurd and results in historical nihilism. The nations in the West are always inexplicably and fundamentally better than the non-Western nations in their games regardless of the material conditions developed through gameplay.

For China to produce the same work, they would need to resolve that conflict in order to move past the historical nihilism generated. Dropping the Great Man aspects would push the game closer to the Koei Romance of the Three Kingdoms series (forcing RPG-style character stories rather than any big picture). Dropping historical determinism would push the game closer to the likes of Civilization. For the "historical" player, neither of the two options are appealing. It's not a particularly easy conflict to resolve without devolving the game into either category. I don't think it'll happen any time soon and if it does it will not resemble the Paradox games at all.

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