Society game suggestions

TheDarkMaster

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Creator
Aug 28, 2015
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I've been looking for a city or civilization builder game for awhile now that focuses on or at least includes society and culture customization and development as a key feature. That is, shaping your culture over the course of the game. Shaping your culture is things like religious beliefs, entertainment, government, hierarchy, how multiple races integrate into the society (if there are multiple races/species), and how your people respond to and are shaped by crises. I'm really looking for something where one society that grows in one way plays significantly if not completely differently to one that follows a different path. Sanctioning something like slavery or democracy isn't just a few percentage modifiers on production and unrest.

Preferably the game is something where you can ignore warfare and conquest and still have an engaging experience, but having a good war system is not a negative in and of itself. It's only bad if that's the only really good part of the game or the only way to play. I'm not really looking for a map painter or a frantic real time strategy game, I already have good options for those. This is a particular itch I know I have but haven't found a satisfying option for yet.

Anyone know of anything that fits this? Even a good mod for something else that adds a deep society and culture component would be nice.
 

A79

Well-Known Member
May 18, 2017
213
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Carl's backyard
I've been looking for a city or civilization builder game for awhile now that focuses on or at least includes society and culture customization and development as a key feature. That is, shaping your culture over the course of the game. Shaping your culture is things like religious beliefs, entertainment, government, hierarchy, how multiple races integrate into the society (if there are multiple races/species), and how your people respond to and are shaped by crises. I'm really looking for something where one society that grows in one way plays significantly if not completely differently to one that follows a different path. Sanctioning something like slavery or democracy isn't just a few percentage modifiers on production and unrest.

Preferably the game is something where you can ignore warfare and conquest and still have an engaging experience, but having a good war system is not a negative in and of itself. It's only bad if that's the only really good part of the game or the only way to play. I'm not really looking for a map painter or a frantic real time strategy game, I already have good options for those. This is a particular itch I know I have but haven't found a satisfying option for yet.

Anyone know of anything that fits this? Even a good mod for something else that adds a deep society and culture component would be nice.

The closest thing I've ever encountered is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri by Firaxis Games. It does allow you some social engineering options, but they're admittedly not that deep.
 
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cobra

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Aug 29, 2015
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Closest I can think of is Europa Universalis IV and Stellaris both from Paradox Studios but I guess you probably already know this since your also a Crusader Kings 2 player if I recall correctly.
 
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TheDarkMaster

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Aug 28, 2015
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The closest thing I've ever encountered is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri by Firaxis Games. It does allow you some social engineering options, but they're admittedly not that deep.
Those choices are basically just stat bonuses that also affect some diplomatic relations, sadly nothing else. Aside from your faction's one restricted choice, you can just pick whatever you want whenever you want. There's no internal movements pushing for certain changes or obvious changes in your people based on the choices you make.

Closest I can think of is Europa Universalis IV and Stellaris both from Paradox Studios but I guess you probably already know this since your also a Crusader Kings 2 player if I recall correctly.
Yes, I am. They have very light shades of it in the sense that you can choose 'cultural ideas' that offer small stat bonuses and occasional flavor events. However, they are almost always just pure upside, there's no restrictions on which you can pick, there's no consequences to changing your mind, and most of the time they have very little impact on the overall gameplay. Basically a side mechanic that has very little impact on the gameplay, more like choosing where to spend your skill points on level up.

Victoria 2 actually has more cultural components than any others, with the movement systems and reforms. However that's pretty limited in scope to just political rights and socialist policies. You can't affect what it means to be French or German, for example. Everything is pretty much already in place and you can't shape a nascent society, which is more what I'm looking for.
 
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A79

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May 18, 2017
213
51
Carl's backyard
I share your want for something along these lines. Enough that I think I may begin investigating Twine to see if it will be a relatively ideal platform to create such a thing.
 

Grimoire

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Jun 15, 2018
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Tropico 5 - Tropico series from Firaxis Games and its way more in depth in the later portions.

Think Banana Republic and you're "El Presidente" ruling over a nation the size of a pea on an island or a continent before growing into an enormous superpower with your policies and special decrees, it has you playing against other nations but not directly, you'll have invaders in T5. You won't leave the island to conquer others, but when you finish one place you can start over with a new place with their own benefits and consequences. You can be a brutal dictator and murder everyone!!! or you can be a cocksucking capitalist pig schmoozing everyone for that sweet sweet Deniro! Be a nationalist or a globalist. Your culture is truly is based on your decisions.

You can have your loyalists lynch rioters and hunt them down in the streets and force them into lunatic asylums to become a loyalist themselves. Assassinate entire families and track down their entire linage and murder them one by one with brutal efficiency as years pass in a blink of an eye as you watch their lives raise and fall with the turning of a century and then cut their legs right from out under them with exile, banishment, murder, drafting, planned unemployment. You can literally spend your entire time with just a single families and ruin their entire lives and their generations to come just for shits and giggles <3

Fulfill your inner Stalin and convert the masses in military training,drafting and build atomic weapons, become a true communist and rage against the injustice of the capitalist swine placing embargoes and threatening your regime! When your people side with you, they will be lead like sheep and go to war for you and unleash the full force of a glorious nation upon an unsuspecting world, crushing all who oppose your might, your ironclad will is law, your wishes are your people's and to the animal factories and cocaine fields they will go if they do not!

Or you can use the mods for PC which add twenty times more fun!

Do i miss it? .... sometimes .... *sigh* sometimes
 

Floppy Charizard

New Member
Nov 11, 2018
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Frostpunk gets pretty close to that itch. You can make decisions about what kind of society you have (slave labor? Child labor? Cannibalism?), but the choices are usually made as a "this will keep the heat on, but make people unhappy" situation.
 

TheDarkMaster

Well-Known Member
Creator
Aug 28, 2015
1,052
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Frostpunk gets pretty close to that itch. You can make decisions about what kind of society you have (slave labor? Child labor? Cannibalism?), but the choices are usually made as a "this will keep the heat on, but make people unhappy" situation.
A big reason why I don't think Frost Punk really fits the itch is because runs are very similar one game compared to another. So it isn't something I've picked up as a result. Choosing menial child labor vs skilled child labor, or order vs faith does not radically change the game and create completely different societies. However it's the idea of these sorts of choices, also like in Kingdom Death Monster, which got me started looking for a game that focuses on them and commits to the culture and society building side of things.
 
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Kaida

Active Member
Nov 1, 2018
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I kind of wish that I could have something like this too, since its a fascinating part that gets left out in pretty much all of the games like Sid Meier Civilization. Where the cultural beliefs only exist on the surface level and as like, rewards for advancing far enough into it.

But speaking of Civ maybe someone modded Civ to be more like that?