Culture Families

[yellowdaddy]

-----
LdiC
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I just wanted to have 'something' which would tell the Greeks they are Greek rather than barbaroi, without their being necessarily either Spartan or Theban or...
I believe that in terms of Greek vs. barbaroi scenario, race doesn't help. Culture or language would. so an ethnic group's nationality is a bit limited for the purpose of differentiating Greeks from other cultures. I'm just asking for soomething which lets me relate two ethnic groups as being part of a family (of language/culture/way of life) so I can have something which lets me model Greeks without needing a Greek nationality.

About races: My concerns are mostly genetic. I have some biology background after all, and consider that there's no reason why a deep difference in terms of genotype would necessarily lead to a visible difference in phenotype. That is why I chose the Basque example: If you restrict yourself to Middle Ages Europe, and decide to implement races in the game, Basques would be genetically different form the rest and thus from a genotype point of view a different race. But from the visible phenotype (their face, colour...) that's not relevant. So we could pick a more or less arbitrary number of races, but if the game evolves in such a way that two of them mingle which we didn't have in real life (e.g. pygmies and caucasian), you'd have to do a lot of extrapolation to guess what they'd look like, and whether this particular mix would look different enough from another one to allow discrimination between the groups to occur.
The point about Reunion and Brazil is not a negation that races exist, but a negation of the fact they are useful in the game: When people have similar culture, way of life, religion (not necessarily, depending on the importance of this one), they interbreed whatever their race may be. Thus it's more interesting to have an ethnic group or culture object than a race object in-game, because race will remain unchanged only if the cultures reamin unchanged. Thus race can be seen as a byproduct of culture in game terms (it's actually retaining the race the people started with X generations ago which is a byproduct, since race predates that, but I'm not being academic, I'm talking about the game).
Again, races don't help me in Greek/barbaroi scenario (particularly if you consider that Philip's Macedonians were not always considered true Greeks by Athenians, Spartans, etc.).

So to sum it all again: I want something (I'd call it culture for lack of better word) which lets me have families of cultures. Language is certainly part of culture, and race too, but neither is the whole of it. And I need a function which lets me tell whether two of these cultures are near or far one from another.
That may just be that, by comparing all elements (traditionalism, importance of religion, individualism, etc.) of the ethnic group, I can infer that two EGs are mostly the same. This would mean that I need to compare all these values when checking ethnic riotting/discrimination, though, which is a bit bad as they may slightly vary inside the same nationality.

---
YD
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I think we may solve the problem by making a set of factors which add up to "Culture".
Way of life is down to environment I would say.
Language is fairly easy to use as a tool do link and differentiate ethnic groups; it's also not dependant so much on the other factors, the way languages diverge is almost random in terms of the initial sound divergence, but gathers a kind of momentum to consolidate the changes, rather like how water find's it's way down towards the sea, sometimes forming a large "delta" of daughter languages, other times feeding into a lake (?!) .

What could we have? Here's some ideas:

LANGUAGE:
Homologue (L0)
Accent (L1)
Dialect (L2)
Language (L3)

These are like three different levels of language, so you could call them "L1 L2 and L3", you can then map an EG with the "L factor" (Linguistic Divergence), so that those around the capital have a low L factor, and the more disparate populations have a tendency to gradually increase their L factor, to the point were they can evolve to L3 and have a different language, making their propensity to become a new EG greater.

RELIGION:
Shamanistic
Polytheistic
Monotheistic
Atheistic

like language this is kind of both a cultural and ethnic feature innit? I think it's more cultural than ethnic though. (to me ethnicity is to do with aspects of humanity which can't change - race, mothertongue, birthplace)

WRITING:
alphabet (syllabic like Hiragana and non-syllabic like Cyrillic)
pictograph (Maya, Chinese, Egyptian)
phonograph (like Korean)

countries which share writing systems often share cultural affinity.

WayOfLife:
Settled Agriculturalists
Nomadic Pastoralists/Hill Tribes
Coastal and Riverdwellers

I imagine this affects the economy, the kind of trade that can take place, among other things. It seems to depend almost entirely on environment.


SOCIAL TRADITIONS/VALUES:
Kinship Society
Class Society
Matriarchal
Patriarchal
Individualist
Group-oriented
Militaristic?

This must be similar to politics, i'm not sure how much of this is in the social model. It's definitely culture.

AESTHETICS (a way of summing up clothes & buidings!?)
Oriental
Hindu
Classical
Gothic
Monolithic
...

a bit of an intangible, especially if you're dealing with random non-historical scenarios - i.e. the WorldDawn scenario.
Maybe including what kind of Artefacts, Monuments, you build, and frilly things like "artistic trade"... i suppose this is the kind of thing "Wonders" were supposed to cover in Civ.


The idea being that maybe you could have a set of factors to define the term:
"Ethnicity"
And a set of factors to define the term "Culture".
implicit is the idea that two or more ethnicities can share the same culture, and one ethnicity can have two or more cultures.
Can that work? Or are they the same thing really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture
I suppose Culture is:
Aesthetics, Values, Religion (bit of overlap), Writing System, Economics, Politics
and Ethnicity is:
Way of Life (bit of overlap) Language, Race, Nationality/Tribalism,

------
M.E
------
quote:
Originally posted by LDiCesare
I just wanted to have 'something' which would tell the Greeks they are Greek rather than barbaroi, without their being necessarily either Spartan or Theban or...



I think the idea of adding a "Culture Family", as you suggested, is the most straightforward way to do this. The problem with comparing traits is that a Korean-offshoot culture and an Etruscan-based culture could have similar values for many cultural attributes and yet they wouldn't be kin. (However, communication between them should be easier since they have a lot of fundamental agreement on how the world works and what is important. . .)

If we want to get more complicated later we can certainly do that.

yellowdaddy:

The more culture-based ideas you are proposing should go in a social model thread so that they can be considered in context. Some of the things you promote are Already in the social model, FE "Individualist". See the Social Model page.

Just thought I'd shift this over to a new thread, as it doesn't seem to belong on the Riot model anymore.

Let's discuss "Cultural Families" or "CF"s

When say "CF" are we talking about:
Aesthetics
Religion
Script

what about
Moral Code?
Way of Life?


On the Social model, it lists Basic attribute which seem to me to be far more about Culture than Ethnicity.

Ethnicity to me is:
Language
Race
in any given "logical" arrangement (either/or both)

perhaps
Land Connection - not relevant for nomads
Nationalism - does this include "ethnic pride"? or does it refer to feeling toward a governing nation?


Culture in the given attributes are:
Religion
Corruption
Traditionalism
and all the Moral Code ones


So with these CFs how will they work?
will there be defined CFs with sets of values for attirbutes which define them? will they be spread like language and religion etc...?
Might it just be a case where a given attribute, e.g.: a writing system spreads and varying numbes of other attributes spread to varynig degrees producing a spectrum of cultural influence? some EGs having more cultural affinities than others, and some lacking in many affinities might share one or two in particular?

[Gary Thomas]

Ethnicity to me is:
Language
Race
in any given "logical" arrangement (either/or both)

As a consequence you regard all white, English-speaking people as a single ethnic group?

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

good point. Except I put "Nationality" and "Land Connection" in the same category... so try again!

[Gary Thomas]

good point. Except I put "Nationality" and "Land Connection" in the same category... so try again!

I don't think nationality is at all relevant to ethnicity. It is a clear and separate dimension when it comes to defining an individual's characteristics.

As far as land connection is concerned, I live in the North Island of New Zealand. I am disturbed to discover that my daughter, who lives in the South Island, is of a different ethnicity. Presumably when my granddaughters come north to stay with me they switch ethnicity.

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

I think you're being a little disingenuous.

If you re-read what I put, it might be a little clearer, suffice to say neither of your posts refer to anything i've actually argued.

Ethnicity to me is:
Language (mother tongue)
Racial Traits
in any given "logical" arrangement (either/or both)

perhaps
Land Connection - not relevant for nomads
Nationalism - does this include "ethnic pride"? or does it refer to feeling toward a governing nation?


Culture in the given attributes are:
Religion
Corruption
Traditionalism
and all the Moral Code ones

in particular this bit:

in any given "logical" arrangement (either/or both)

i don't believe i said one of these on it's own would differentiate two ethnicities.

but you make a valid point - your daughter and her offspring are now "South Islanders" you are a "North Islander", there is the incipient stages of ethnic divergence.
Give it a few generations, or a few hundred years and the differences can become more marked e.g.: the beginnings of a different language in the from of accent, and dialect.

(naturally in this global information age it's not particularly likely, but rewind to the bronze age and it starts to)


When I talk about "nationality" I asked the question:

Nationalism - does this include "ethnic pride"? or does it refer to feeling toward a governing nation?

I decided to use the term to include tribal nationalism - meaning possession of a named tribal identity with symbols, which the people wish to retain.
I suppose (thinking aloud!) this could be more of a cultural thing, which would make "culture" in the game, a large subset which can both overlap and come under the term Ethnicity. But to be honest, I think it makes more sense to be in the category of Ethnicity - things which are specific to, and defining of an Ethnic Group. Culture is the less specific things which no single EG can lay claim to as uniquely theirs.

If we're only talking about nationalism in terms of nation states, then perhaps you're right.

I mean the UK, NZ, USA, Canada and Australia all share a lot in common. Mostly a similar racial mix, each with it's own native minorities, same langage - differentiated by accent (L1), but with some pockets of dialect (L2), each also differentiated by Land Connection and Nationalism. There are some differences in the Clash Moral categories, but not too many.

Yemen and Lebanon, well they share similar language, I'd say L2 (dialect), slightly different racial traits of a similar order, their own Land Connection, and some Nationalism, their Moral differences are more varied, particularly as Lebanon is of mixed religion.

Two examples of different collections of Ethnicities within the same broader group of EGs.

[vampiloup]

*******
Religions :

Shamanistic
Polytheistic
Monotheistic
Atheistic
*******


To slow, to slow : There is no real "frontier" between "poly-" and "mono-" theistic (for exemple, christian is officialy mono, but in real know a lot of gods (for example, Marie, Jesus, or Santa-monica are no "officially" gods, but are gods in facts). And Baal-Melek (or Yaweh) is just the canaanean god El, or Elyon, (jewish people is, at the origin, a group of cities-states of the people of Canaan, between 900 and 800 BC, with nothing different. No, hebrew not exist before) with a religion copied from osirianism (and christianism is more osirianim himself, with Jesus *is* Horus in fact, than jewish. I think the "pool gene" of christianism is 50 % osirianism, 20 % persians religion (evil/good...), and only 20 % for jewish (for the names).

I think think (!) in "poly" or "mono" is an error. I prefer think to custom religions with cacarateristics. As, for example :

- Tolerance : Others religions can be accepted, rejected, destroyed ?

- Mimetism : Other religions can be, in fact, the same as us with other names or worship habits (roman religion is a big Mimetism religion) ?

- Build big sanctuaries, or worship in natural areas ?

- This religion love send missionnary ? Convert other peoples ?

- This religion possess big rules of comportement for the worship (christianism or islam have big rules. Bouddhism have less) ?

- Centralized religion (Catolicism is very centralised, Islam less, and bouddhism lesser) ?

- Mother religion (for example, ortodocism, arianism, protestantism or Catholicism have all "Christianism" for mother. It's the "race" religion, if you wish.

The fact a religion possess one, two or numerous gods has not importance for "reals" scenarios. But for fantasy or mythic scenarios (or for reals scenarios with a religious creator, i think), the importance is perhaps big. For example, a religion with one "official" god (as Islam) can be worshiped with the sames temples (one per citie, or a number of temple depend of the population...), but with a lot of gods it's perhaps necessary to build temples for each god worshiped (with a bigger temple for the major god of the civilization / empire / religion / citie ?).



For the races :

I think a civilisation can be seen for a race. If two Greek civs are in games (with the "Sparte" empire of the player, and the "Athen" of another player, for example), the two are of the same race.

Ah ! and for sci-fi or fantasy scenarios, race are perhaps necessay, i think ;-)

[yellowdaddy]

wrong thread, wrong planet.

[vampiloup]

???

[Lord God Jinnai]

As i stated elsewhere, if you want to use race and language for enthnicity its fine if you include geographical location...it its as important if not moreso than race. This is different from land connection. It is based on terrain type, climate (which would probably be covered by terrain type) and city/not city area.

Thus as long as gary stayed in contact with his daughter and her descendants and she lived in a similar area then there wouldn't be a massive enough shift in lifestyle to warrant a culture switch. However, if Gary lived in a rural area and his daughter moved to the southern island in a city, then there is the possibility of a culture shift.

[Lord God Jinnai]

the nature of clash relgion is discussed elsewhere...mark may know where exactly, but i share many of your views (but also the fact that budhism isn't nessarly in any of those categories.

[yellowdaddy]

I don't get what you mean.

I find this "geographic location" term a bit too vague and elusive.

We can quantify the others tus:
Racial Traits:
1.Headshape
2.Hair
3.Brow
4.Eyebrows
5.Eyes
6.Nose
7.Lips
8.Cheeks
9.Mouth
10.Ears
11.Chin/Jaw
12.Skin

these are the categories of face parts for the face generator. They can all have several variations in "race" categories with a code number, and then be assigned to a given "race design" (Race X, will have Hair Y, Noses Z and P, Eyes Q etc...).
This could be summarised in text if required, given a name (could invent completely new "races"), and variations noted as "Race V posesses 9 of the 12 racial traits of Race W, Race W possesses 6 of the racial traits or Race V..." In short, it's quantifiable, categorisable and measurable.

Language:
is easy,
First theres the Categories in the form of an Ethnolinguistic tree:
72 "Peoples" (corresponding more or less to language families), each with 6 "Tribe" names they can split into, and each Tribe with 6 "Nation" names which the Tribers can split into.. these are just automatic names, to make the AI civs evolve over time... more or less like this:
Italic People->Latin Tribe->Italian Nation

Then there's the Quantifiability in the form of the L scale.

L0 - the same language
L1 - a regional accent of the langauge
L2 - a dialect of the language
L3 - a related language
L4 - a distantly related language
L5 - an unrelated language

linguistic variation maps for a particular language can be generated thus:

L5L5L5L3L3L2L2L2L2L4L4
L5L5L5L3L1L1L1L1L1L4L4
L5L5L5L1L1L0L0L1L1L1L2
L5L5L5L1L1L0L0L0L1L1L2
L5L5L5L5L5L1L0L0L0L1L1
L4L4L5L5L5L1L1L0L0L1L1
L4L4L4L4L5L5L1L1L1L1L1

How do you propose factoring in "Terrain Type?"
How do you quantify it? How do you express it effects?

Terrain type can determine the economy of a civ, whether a civ is nomadic, hunter-gather, pescatorial (?!), or agricultural, and can have obvious expression in a game in what tech they can develop to prosper and what improvements they can build. But in game terms, it seem entirely functionless when applied to language.

There are Welsh people who live up in the hills, and Welsh who live down in the vallies, and Welsh who live by the sea. Whether they live in a desert or a jungle, they're all still Welsh. the terrain has no effect. The amount of contact and physical separation from the rest of the Welsh does though.

Do you mean "degree of seperation from each other?" "The amount of cntact between EGs?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------
This thread isn't for the in-depth discussion of religion. It's for the discussion of Culture and Ethnicity really, how they are categories, measured and their effecst on the EGs.

[vampiloup]

Originally posted by Lord God Jinnai
the nature of clash relgion is discussed elsewhere...mark may know where exactly, but i share many of your views (but also the fact that budhism isn't nessarly in any of those categories.

Oh, sorry :-\

[Lord God Jinnai]

Originally posted by yellowdaddy Terrain type can determine the economy of a civ, whether a civ is nomadic, hunter-gather, pescatorial (?!), or agricultural, and can have obvious expression in a game in what tech they can develop to prosper and what improvements they can build. But in game terms, it seem entirely functionless when applied to language.

There are Welsh people who live up in the hills, and Welsh who live down in the vallies, and Welsh who live by the sea. Whether they live in a desert or a jungle, they're all still Welsh. the terrain has no effect. The amount of contact and physical separation from the rest of the Welsh does though.

Do you mean "degree of seperation from each other?" "The amount of cntact between EGs?"

Geography does affect it. Yes their all Welsh, but do welsh people who live for a time in the hills think differently than those that do by the sea? Of course! Their eviroment forces them to! This means that they haveto adapt themselves through customs, changes in lifestyles, etc to reflect that. Does that mean, assuming the have regular contact (i will explain that later) that they will consider themselves not welsh? Not likely but possible....depends really on how they're treated. There would be enough differance to have awkward moments, some major misunderstandings, but all-in-all, as long as they get along, they'd still be the same. They'd be a sub-cultures. The same is true for rural vs. city. I see this almost every week as i live in St. Louis, but i have friends who live in the countryside. They have completely different lifestyles, wants, etc and yet they'd both consider themselves (most of them) part of the larger group, but the fact that they live in a different ecomic geographic region affects their views. Thus both Ecomic and terrain do have a major impact on cultural changes.

As to regular contact is that, degree of seperate should not matter, its the amount of contact each has...different technologies allow different degrees of contact. Even so, people in different terrains for long enough periods of time will eventually, no matter how much contact develope a different sub-culture which can develope into a full culture under the right conditions.

[yellowdaddy]

a. that's culture, not language.

b. that's real life, not Clash.

[Lord God Jinnai]

a. we are detrmining aspects of culture here.

b. your point? language is real life here also...that statment is just absurd.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi vampiloup, here's the info re: the post below.

Originally posted by Lord God Jinnai
the nature of clash relgion is discussed elsewhere...mark may know where exactly, but i share many of your views (but also the fact that budhism isn't nessarly in any of those categories.

Religion is covered in the social model page
Social Model Page on the web site.

Discussion should be in the latest social model thread. It has very long been dormant. Maybe there is a better place. . . anyway, here's the
link.

[yellowdaddy]

As i stated elsewhere, if you want to use race and language for enthnicity its fine if you include geographical location...it its as important if not moreso than race. This is different from land connection. It is based on terrain type, climate (which would probably be covered by terrain type) and city/not city area.

I don't get what you mean.I find this "geographic location" term a bit too vague and elusive.

We can quantify the others tus:
Racial Traits:
1.Headshape
2.Hair
3.Brow
4.Eyebrows
5.Eyes
6.Nose
7.Lips
8.Cheeks
9.Mouth
10.Ears
11.Chin/Jaw
12.Skin

these are the categories of face parts for the face generator. They can all have several variations in "race" categories with a code number, and then be assigned to a given "race design" (Race X, will have Hair Y, Noses Z and P, Eyes Q etc...).
This could be summarised in text if required, given a name (could invent completely new "races"), and variations noted as "Race V posesses 9 of the 12 racial traits of Race W, Race W possesses 6 of the racial traits or Race V..." In short, it's quantifiable, categorisable and measurable.

Language:
is easy,
First theres the Categories in the form of an Ethnolinguistic tree:
72 "Peoples" (corresponding more or less to language families), each with 6 "Tribe" names they can split into, and each Tribe with 6 "Nation" names which the Tribers can split into.. these are just automatic names, to make the AI civs evolve over time... more or less like this:
Italic People->Latin Tribe->Italian Nation

Then there's the Quantifiability in the form of the L scale.

L0 - the same language
L1 - a regional accent of the langauge
L2 - a dialect of the language
L3 - a related language
L4 - a distantly related language
L5 - an unrelated language

linguistic variation maps for a particular language can be generated thus:

L5L5L5L3L3L2L2L2L2L4L4
L5L5L5L3L1L1L1L1L1L4L4
L5L5L5L1L1L0L0L1L1L1L2
L5L5L5L1L1L0L0L0L1L1L2
L5L5L5L5L5L1L0L0L0L1L1
L4L4L5L5L5L1L1L0L0L1L1
L4L4L4L4L5L5L1L1L1L1L1

How do you propose factoring in "Terrain Type?"
How do you quantify it? How do you express it effects?

[vampiloup]

Thank Mark, i go read that... and comment, too :-)

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well you 1st need to know the major landtypes that could support life...whether its costal, whether its a city or not, geographically unstable (earthqyake volcano prone...this is important to religion and technology though).

Major Lands Types Used:
Mountain
Hill
Grasslands
Plains
Desert
Tundra
Forested area
Jungle

Ice can't support a long-term population.
Swamps are rarely large enough to support a population.
Blighted Lands like ice is also unable to support life.

Basically the more you live in one area the stronger your connection to that area becomes and the lower your connection to all other areas becomes, some might be faster than others. FE desert would probably have less in common with jungles than with tundra (seriously), but they don't have much in common at all. It will only get stronger for the area you're in. For costal and cities it would just affect those two, ie if you live in a city, your culture becomes more city and away it becomes more rural. Same thing with costal. This has no affect on the on the terrain type modifiers.

Its hard to know because we don't have a final model for terrtain done.

Costal: C5-I5

City: T5-R5

Terrain:
All from 0-9

Also another thing...not only should the type of religion impact it, but also its promince. And maybe technology, espicially post-industrialization era.

[vampiloup]

For the religion, you say "not only should the type of religion impact it, but also its promince". You think of what, exactly ?

Because, for example, hebraism talk of nomad mythic history, superiority of nomads, and so, but jewish is in fact only a cities and villages civilization.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Sorry...that's what happens when you type a post out-of-order of the way its displayed. Shoudld be "....but also its importance."

[vampiloup]

For the language, now : You think it's really necessary to have more one (languages are all different) or two (roman languages, "russian languages", arabe languages) levels ?

I think language can be classed in "language groups", et nothing more. More "variations" are, in my little head, very difficult to apprehend for a game, and i don't think have a lot of effect.

I explain.

If two countries have the same language, or so on, the interractions can be more simple (automatic exchanges ?) than between two countries with the same group language. And so, two same groupe are more simple for exchanges than two languages totaly different.

Exemple : Exchanges are very simple between two countries with the same language (french <-> french), and really complexe beewten two countries with different languages (french <-> arab). Langagues differents but in the same group are in the middle of that, with possibly "mistakes" (words with differents sens, as "control" in english and "controle" in french).


I am not sure it's necessary to think as french of Quebec, Belgium, Cameroun or France as differents viariations. It's a game, and a minimum of "simplicity" is needed.




For the terrain :

You think terrain type is really important for the culture type ?
In Civs games, the climate zone are generally ridiculously tiny, and it's not really possible to raise Egypt "rich river quares in a vast desert zone" civ, because this "Egypt" civ is in few years colonize temperate or polar zones...

In history, civs adapt herself at the terrain : Phenician are a sea civ, but Carthago build also a land empire.

Ah : And i think it's necessary to think to "impassables" moutains. Alps are only passable with armies by a few pass (Think to hannibal). In the civs games, moutains are not really barriers...

[yellowdaddy]

vampiloup,

please check out the language thread page, and the link to the older debate on it.
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=111508

there's also stuff on the riots model page.
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...&goto=lastpost

the purpose of languages is essentially mainly for the World-Dawn scenario (yet to be created).

As tribe-splitting and merger occurs, particularly splitting, language performs a function of describing an aspect of connection between tribes/civs.

it is one part of what differentiates one EG from another, and what connects one to another (or not)
Culture (in game terms) is another part.

The scale of language performs the function of defining how close or distant that connection is. An offshoot EG from another EG needs to have it's connection and difference from the original EG defined. Initially the difference will be small, over time that difference will increase. The Language scale is one simple way of measuring an aspect of that difference. After some resistence, it turns out that it does have a practical use in the riot model at least.

in actual playnig terms this performs a function of affecting behaviour of people, as illustrated in the riots model.

There are also some other minor "atmospheric" functions like defining how easy it is to negotiate with, trade with, spy on, and capture technology from other civs.

so, i think the purpose of language is probably:

a. to define an EG - the term ELG becomes appropriate - and its connection, including degree of connection to another EG.
This includes the evolution of new offshoot EGs, as a language evolves through each level every few hundred years.

b. to be a factor in how citizens behave, rioting, disrcimination, economic trade, cultural trade. Helping make a more sophisticated social model than exists in any other similar game.

c. to add some realism/atmos/tension - a "handicap" to what might otherwise be monotonously simplistic and predictable interactions between EGs and civs.



The names are purely to give the AI names to call offshoots from the original "people" or "language group people". Also including the feature of being able to name a new EG or state after a placename generated from a small, but regular vocab list for each of the language groups.

They are stratified in a pyramid of 1->6->36, for coding simplicity. And to depict the general trend of "ancient" -> "middle age" -> "modern" that ethnicites seem to go through, simplified and regularised for a game.

[LDiCesare]

As far as land connection is concerned, I live in the North Island of New Zealand. I am disturbed to discover that my daughter, who lives in the South Island, is of a different ethnicity

Gary, that's only because the model ignores the 'importance of rugby' thing. This can help differentiate all English speaking countries: NZ - England - Scotland - Australia - Canada - USA (Wales and Ireland don't show here because they have different languages, even those aren't dominant in either country, but you could easily fit Wales between NZ and England on the graph - Australia might be after USA depending on which of American Football and Australian Rules you consider most different from rugby).

Lord God Jinnai:
What about cities? People in cities are obviously different from rural people, but I'd rather see that as social classes differences than culture per se (I wonder whether we should have different worker-town and worker-fields classes). This probably means that the social classes setup is part of a culture group.

I want to stress again that the notion of culture groups is useful when a civilization dies or is conquered and people who were part of it decide to rebel and join an exisitng civ, or create a new one.
Therefore, I need to know what's interesting to compare to.

Three levels of language seem a maximum. I don't want to have dialects shown to the player. Reasonably, every village in France in the early twentieth century had its own dialect (like ending verb conjugation with different vowels when 5 kilometers away).

Back to my initial Spartan scenario:
-If I have language I can make the distinction between Greeks and Macedonians on one side (all using dialects of Greek) and Persians on the other.
-This is not so useful as religion in my scenario is also shared among Greeks and Macedonians and different from Persians.
-Racial traits don't help much. There would be some difference if we modelled all the traits, but I can't think it's really relevant. I said elsewhere that I thought people would breed freely unless there was discrimination of another kind, and that this discrimination thing is what I need to model.
-Terrain could make a difference between Macedonians and other Greeks to some extent, as there are more forests in Macedon than in Sparta. Or maybe not and my geography is quite poor. Also Athens would be more coastal than Sparta, so this can help make a difference inside the Greek group.
-Technology: I could consider that Greeks shared philosophy that Macedonians didn't have at the times of Philip, but then did Sparta have philosophers the way Athens had some?

Other options:
-Social class setup: Quite different in Sparta and the rest of Greece? Or not? They had a strong nobility, but the divide slaves/others was probably the same everywhere.
-Having been part of a civ/subject to a preferred nationality for a while.
-Government/regime. Since I haven't finished regimes, I won't go further, but many French left French Republic for Russia during the French revolution of 1789, and some Russians left Russia for France during the Russian revolution of 1917 for instance (rather a monarchy than a republic / rather a republic than communism ways of thinking).

All in all, all the various points seem correct, but I tend to believe that the difference between Greeks and Macedonians was quite arbitrary. It could be modelled by technology or terrain... Having the following, I think I could make a better fit of "which civ am I going to revolt for?" when people are unhappy enough to take arms:
-1) Check if there's a civ whose name is my nationality at war against those I don't like.
-2) If none exists: List civs whose dominant Ethnic Group (EG) have the same language. If they don't discriminate against my religion, are at war with the opponent, then:
-3) Among the candidates, check which one most closely fits this EG's culture, as defined by the following: terrain type (coastal areas more likely to ally with Athens than Sparta), tech, social class setup, maybe also existing government.

As an option, I could go back to step 2 by softening the language filter once (language being not equal but related) if no fitting civ has been found.
If nothign works, create a subciv of my choice nationality at war with the opponent. If the nationality doesn't exist, then use the civ I'm revolting against as the choice civ (like civil war or feudal units).

[yellowdaddy]

On the point about racial traits. I think in this particular scenario it clearly won't matter, as the difference between Persians and Greeks is adequaelty defined by religion among other things, you're right.

However, in another scenario it might be more relevent, if we can conceive of one where all or most other defining attributes are the same.

Indonesia springs to mind - there were interethnic conflicts with the Madurese being shifted to Kalmantan. In that case, if you don't want to regard "dialect" as important enough to show, racial traits and land connection are all that's left AFAIK.

I suppose I'm arguing that we maintain a broad set of attributes which can be important enough in a various combinations - a bit like a binary code in fact (though not 128 different attributes!).
Perhaps if all are given points, there can be a cumulative effect.

eg:
10 attributes.
if 5 are different (should we say conflicting?) then a discrimination factor of X is the result... something along thise lines?

a fascinating, concise, readable and credible link:
http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/social/race.html
about race and ethnicity in ancient egypt - very relevant.
please read Laurant!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On the question of defining the difference between Macedonians and Greeks.

http://faq.macedonia.org/history/anc...cedonians.html
http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/An...a/gandeto.html
http://www.ancientmacedonia.com/
http://www.macedonian-
(maybe propaganda links)
heritage.gr/HellenicMacedonia/en/A1.html
http://truth.macedonia.gr/quotes.html (more credible links?)

There were 4 ancient "dialects" of Greek (Ionian-Attic, Aelioan, Arcado-Cypriot and Doric) - but I would regard them as ACCENTS, an L1 on the Language scale I mentioned. The Spartans spoke Doric, and so that can be used to define them, as well as their Militaristic society.
I seems that the Macedonians at the very least have a linguistic difference, whether it's just a Dorian "accent" or a mixed Illyrian-Greek "dialect" I dunno.
Land Connection could be categorised as at least 3 leels too: None, Weak, Strong (0,1,2) - I'd say that lang connection is "weak" for the Macedonians, but Nationalism might be "strong". There seem little else to differentiate them (I'm sure their culture and way of life is in game terms identical to the Greeks).

(I would also regard your french "dialects" as Accents - based on the fact that what you describe exists in the UK too, and I imagine it's the same sort of thing given that our countires are of similar age)


which leads onto ...

Three levels of language seem a maximum. I don't want to have dialects shown to the player.

have you seen the language thread.. at the bottom part of the long quote?

when you say 3 levels, do you mean

0. Same Lang.
1. Similar Lang.
2. Different Lang.
?

all being differences within a language group

OR

1. Dialect
2. Related Language
3. Unrelated Language (due to mixing with another lang group? or not?)
?

differences of all languages?

the implication being that the latter expresses 3 language differences, but 4 if you include the unexpressed "same language"


issues that spring to mind are - you surely have to have languages from other groups as completely unrelated, and thus the language scale must be for languages within each language group.
How do you address the idea of unrelated languages (from other groups) mixing to create new languages?
How do you express them?


I think it's worthwhile having "dialect" as a intermediate between "same language" and "related language", the reason being that i'm not sure whether "land connection" is expressed as regionalism within a Country or Empire, but rather as "land connection" of an EG to the territory of an Country or Empire as a whole.
It also expresses internal ethnic discrimination, the potential for disparate parts of the same EG to start to evolve into a separate EG - eg: you become aware that a dialect has arisen in a island or border territory ("L1"), you then are able to take action to suppress is and return the people there to their original "L0" status, your govt. is effectively instigating a discrimination policy, if they jumped from having the "same language" to "related language", wouldn't/shouldn't it be more difficult to suppress/discriminate against this change?
Or is this level of tension more desirable to make the game more interesting?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-Terrain could make a difference between Macedonians and other Greeks to some extent, as there are more forests in Macedon than in Sparta. Or maybe not and my geography is quite poor. Also Athens would be more coastal than Sparta, so this can help make a difference inside the Greek group.

These bit make me think that Economic issues are going to matter - the terrain affecting the nature of the economy, the technology might have economic implications if EGs want access to technology/culture in its broadest sense. The "Bright Lights Big City" effect of Athens on the more rural populations.
These economic factors seem likely to lead to political effects on EGs.