The Game World

It’s easy enough to say that CSGs focus on systems and processes, but the processes must be displayed meaningfully on a computer screen and must fire the player’s imagination. To do either, you must have an attractive setting. CSGs take place in a simulated physical space, often an outdoor world viewed from an aerial perspective in which the players can construct buildings or other objects. In the Caesar series, the player builds an ancient Roman town, so the setting is a landscape near a river. In the Civilization games, the player explores a world while at the same time advancing a civilization both culturally and technologically, so the setting is an entire continent or several of them.

CSGs are often set in 2D or 2.5D (layered 2D) worlds, even if they’re actually implemented with a 3D engine (Minecraft is a notable exception). Using a 2D world—especially a grid-based world—simplifies things for the player (and the programmers). Just as strategy games remove the logistics so that the player can concentrate on strategy (because she doesn’t have a staff to help her), so do CSGs remove the third dimension so that the player can concentrate on planning without worrying about the exact details (again because she doesn’t have a staff to help her). When a player lays down a water pipe from a reservoir to a neighborhood, she doesn’t want to have to worry about whether the pipe goes over or under the subway system. She just wants it to get where it needs to go.