Greetings, Civ fans! Sarah here – we're finally entering the last month of 2024, but the excitement for Sid Meier's Civilization VII doesn't stop this year. With launch arriving in just over two months, we've got an action-packed December that includes today's Dev Diary on the Emergent Narrative system. What is Emergent Narrative, you ask? Read on to find out – and as always, hit us up on Civ's social channels if you have any questions or just want to say hi!

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Hi everyone. I'm Cat Manning, the Narrative Director for Civilization VII, and I'm excited to talk about our brand-new Emergent Narrative system. In this Dev Diary, I'll talk about what the Emergent Narrative system is, how it works, why we decided to create it for Civilization VII, and its potential down the road for years to come. 

What is the Emergent Narrative system?

First, let's talk briefly about what narrative is in video games. "Narrative" often refers to the story, plot, or themes that a game aims to convey to players, which provides context for players' actions. But how that's experienced varies drastically depending on the genre. Some games have linear narratives, while others have branching stories that change based on player decisions.

For strategy games, especially Civilization, players often form their own story about their empire or playthrough. These stories emerge from choices they make and the results of those decisions. Civ has been exploring narrative events for a while, like with the Outback Tycoon scenario in Civilization VI. But what if we could create a system that recognizes events in a game as open-ended as Civ is, and weave those into larger stories that could emerge from your choices? 

When Creative Director Ed Beach and I first sat down to think about what we wanted from a system like this in Civilization VII, we were driven by the idea of "History Built in Layers" (check out our PAX panel for more information on that). We've learned from past systems like Civ VI's Gossip mechanics – where the player receives information about the actions and activities of other civilizations – and our new approach focuses on responding to the unfolding game as it happens.

At first, we created this system for specific "narrative events" triggered by player behavior. These are meant to provide you with a snapshot of what might be happening to individual inhabitants of your empire, and to offer you two to three choices to make. They are less about a right or wrong answer, and more about what your civilization's priorities and values are.

However, as the system developed, a bunch of other features and mechanics started finding a use for it: Discoveries (our replacement for "goody huts"), Crises, and systemically generated content meant to flesh out other parts of the game.

How the System Works

The Emergent Narrative system tracks major moments in your game – like battles, technological advancements, and big achievements – and responds with events tailored to your playthrough. It works via the modifier system, which at its core is a combination of requirements (conditions) and effects (outcomes). 

A narrative event will wait for its requirements to be fulfilled, which can happen at any point during the game. These requirements vary; some are triggered by your choice of leader, reflecting stories from their lives, such as Augustus' urbanization ambitions or Benjamin Franklin's fire brigade. Other events can be tied to your choice of civilization, or specific gameplay moments.

Beyond looking at game states, we also wanted to be able to track your decisions within the narrative events themselves. By applying a narrative tag in some cases, we're actually able to trigger narrative events that call back to things that happened in past Ages. This is enormously powerful, as it enables our writers to tell more granular and specific stories, and really creates a sense of historical immersion at a level we've never had before. 

We wanted to be able to answer questions we asked ourselves, like "How can we tell a story about someone who was a warmonger in the Antiquity Age, but has been peaceful ever since then?" With the modifier system alone, we didn't have the information needed to track that – but with narrative tags, we've opened up the possibility for stories like this and countless more. 

Narrative events usually, but not always, offer gameplay bonuses such as yields or combat buffs. The goal was to try and make the choices feel approximately equal, to not overshadow the rest of the game, and to be commensurate with the difficulty or rarity of the triggers. We don't want players to feel like they have to play with a guide open to get the results they desire, and making rewards transparent and equal balances those who min-max and those who are more interested in the choice's narrative dilemma. There are the occasional stories where results are hidden, but we hope the clarity across the vast majority of our events lets players take a risk in these one-off situations.

You'll only see a subset of these narrative events in a single campaign, which helps make every new playthrough feel unique. By having these occasional moments of mystery, we hope all types of players will partake in the experience of the unknown.

Types of Narrative Events

As mentioned before, there are a bunch of different types of narrative events: some are linked to your leader choice, some to your civ choice, and others aren't specific to either. When writing our narrative events, there are several broad categories we got excited about:

• Historical events: These highlight moments large and small from history that align with your gameplay. You might see ancient medicinal discoveries, daring prisoner escapes, chariot riots, artistic feuds, and enormous Mongolian armies. 
• What-if scenarios: These explore "what if" questions unique to the sandbox nature of a Civ game. For instance, what could have happened if Ashoka had not been overcome with remorse at the destruction he caused, and instead doubled down on a path of violence? Or if Xerxes had not been defeated and had successfully completed his invasion of Greece?
• Unique gameplay moments: These reflect choices you've directly made in your game, showing the on-the-ground impact of your actions during each Age. Achieving a Golden Age with certain Traditions active, choosing your Religion's beliefs, or suffering damage from wars or weather events can all bring up narrative events!

Narrative events can be callbacks to previous choices you made in events, and thanks to the tag system, we can tell stories across Ages. They will sometimes have an additional option that's only selectable if you meet certain requirements, usually based on your leader or civilization. Some stories will resonate with things you did in earlier Ages – referencing events that happened thousands of (in-game) years ago.

Discoveries

Discoveries are a subset of narrative events that only occur on the map, and replace goody huts from previous games. Instead of a small phrase and a standard reward, you'll have a short snippet of text giving you a bit of flavor as to why you're getting these rewards. Unlike goody huts, Discoveries now have a choice between their bonuses, allowing you to have some influence over your early game boosts.

Systemic Events

Systemic events are recurring gameplay moments, like Crises or gifts from Independent Powers, and they use the Emergent Narrative system to add context and personality to game mechanics. 

Whereas crafted narrative events tell stories, systemic narrative events tend towards the informative. These are more straightforward because their purpose is to add a narrative flair to explain the why and how, rather than telling a complete story. 

For example, improving relationships with Independent Powers results in a "gift." At one point in development, this gift was just floating text, but we noticed it was being missed by our QA team. By making it a narrative event, we alerted the player to the reward, informed them that the relationship was improving, and added a touch of personality to the moment. This isn't just a small notification at the side: instead, these moments feel integrated into your empire's broader story.

What's Next?

There are over a thousand narrative events for you to experience in Civilization VII at launch, further enhancing the system to ensure every playthrough feels unique. Through the Emergent Narrative system, we have the opportunity to introduce new levels of historical and "what if" storytelling that we've never had before. We can't wait to hear what you think once Civilization VII launches on February 11, 2025.