Scoring and Casualties

Bullwinkle · January 14, 2002, 01:13

"Good generals don't take casualties" --Douglas MacArthur (or at least, so I was led to believe but I haven't been able to verify it).

I'm new to these Civ websites, and so this may be a subject that's been discussed elsewhere. If so, let me know. But I've often wondered why Civ scoring in general, and scenarios in particular, don't penalize the player for casualties.

I can imagine situations or scenarios in which the predominant scoring dimensions ought to be wonders. objectives, final population, happy citizens etc. or some combination of only these sorts of things. On the other hand, it seems so apparent, particularly in the 20th century, that casualties have been politically important at times and of great interest to posterity and to historians. They've certainly been important to military historians in evaluating the skill of generals. So, why is it that Civ scoring is wholly insensitive to casualties? I know the software keeps track of them (military advisor), so the data is certainly there. Is there some good reason why those of you who make scenarios don't typically consider units lost in scoring? Does the software make it impossible?

Just curious.

Case · January 14, 2002, 02:50

I've got a system where the player is penalised for taking casualties in my scenario 'The Cruel Sea'. Basically, the kills and losses are entered in a spreadsheet which then spits out the players score.
AFIK this is the only scenario to ever use such a system (and I suspect that a lot of people don't bother with it [which is fine])

Gothmog · January 14, 2002, 09:25

It is an inherent feature of the game to not penalize a player for casualties. The only penalty is for pollution, that is if you are using standard scoring. That's why scenario makers don't consider it. You'd have to supply an add-on like Case. Sometimes scenario makers state alternate or additional victory conditions in the readmes. These can have to do with not losing a certain unit or city or conquering a prescribed geographical area.

Bullwinkle · January 14, 2002, 11:03

Thanks for your responses.

As much as anything else, I'm curious about this as a behavioral matter rather than a moral one. (I'm a behavioral scientist when I'm not playing Civ or Diplomacy or the like.) It's crossed my mind many times, but really came to the fore when I was playing Second Front. Mainly I wonder whether different incentive systems for players would produce different strategy and tactics on the part of players. I would expect so. In many games, that could be quite interesting. In Second Front it would certainly have both tactical and strategic ramifications.

Case, I may play your "Cruel Sea" scenario now simply because of this novelty in your scoring procedure.

Case · January 14, 2002, 18:12

Good point with regards to Second Front. During wars democracies simply cannot sustain the levels of casualties which totalitarian states can (or attempt?) to sustain.

Quote:

Originally posted by Bullwinkle
Case, I may play your "Cruel Sea" scenario now simply because of this novelty in your scoring procedure.

Wait a few days and play version 2.0 - it's much better