Subcultures and Statehood

[Mr. Nice Guy]

SUBCULTURES AND STATEHOOD

• The Real World
  
  In the real world, some civilizations have non-soveriegn states or provinces. For example, the United States has 50 states ranging alphabetically from Alabama to Wyoming. Canada has 12 Provinces (I think). Even the Former Soviet Union was split into separate states. There are many countries on earth that are divided up this way today.
  
• Subcultures
  
  The way I figure, the best way to simulate this in Civ 4 is by expanding on a feature already available in Civ 3: Culture.
  
  Not only should there be cultures in Civ4, but also subcultures. Subcultures are miniature cultures contained within a single civilization that have characteristics that slightly differentiate from a civilization's mainstream culture.
  
  Subcultures form only under certain government-types such as Democracies and Republics. Subcultures form when multipe cities belonging to single civilization are in close proximity to each other and are connected by some kind of transportation system (road, rail, etc).
  
  When a subculture first develops it's border is drawn on the map; this border is given a unique color to help distinguish it from the national border. The land that the subculture covers is called a territory. Over time, terrorities can get shifted around and change their shape; they can grow, shrink and even split into separate territories.
  
• The Road to Statehood
  
  As a civilization has culture points, territories have subculture points which can grow or shrink over time. The more cities that are contained within a territory, the faster it will gain more subculture points.
  
  When a territory's subculture points reach a required level needed for statehood, that territory will then automatically apply with the federal government for statehood. The player may then grant statehood immediately or decline and wait until more or less cities are caught up in it's subculture. When statehood is granted, the player then gives the state a name. For example, if the territory with the cities Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Sacramento applied for statehood, the player would probably want to name that state 'California.' The player would also need to choose it's state capitol--in this case, Sacramento would be the politically correct choice.
  
• Statehood
  
  Congratulations! You've just created your first non-soverign state! Way to go!
  
  The advantages of statehood are numerous. One advantage is that when you create a state, you've just created a small sub-economy under your national economy. This sub-economy is managed by a AI Governor who has authority over the entire state. This Governor, if you let him, will take over the micromanagement of the state, but you can choose to give the Governor specific orders if you like. Another advantage of statehood is that all the cities in the state act together as "one city", that is they share each other's resources and work together to improve each other's production. This results in up to 50% more production output from each city.

One thing I haven't been able to figure out is how a single-city territories and states could exist in the game and what their advantages could be.

Well, that's my two cents on that idea. If anyone else wants to contribute to it, please do.

[LDiCesare]

What's the difference between your proposed states and current cities? On a world map, fitting one city per US state will get a quite crowded map of North America unless you use a huge map.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
What's the difference between your proposed states and current cities?

The difference is that cities within proposed states run together and share their resources as if they are one city, while current cities don't do this.

Speaking of which, wouldn't such a feature help to speed up the performance of the game?

On a world map, fitting one city per US state will get a quite crowded map of North America unless you use a huge map.

Well, yeah, but this where you'd just have to get creative and not try to cram 50 states into a small area. If you're playing on a small map, you might just want to try to make, say 20-25 states, instead.

[Brent]

what sort of government types would not form subcultures? I would think an Imperial type government would have subcultures, or maybe this would just be conquered civs and the subcultures would disappear if anything.

Would internal boundaries choose from the same selection of colors as external boundaries, or would you only be able to view internal boundaries in a special mode or within your own civ? Would your external borders be shown right alongside the borders of internal divisions that are on the edge of your territory?

Wouldn't there be some ingame criteria which would be wise to use in choosing a provincial capital, and not just how it is in the real world or what you feel like?

Having provinces in the game could be mainly for if you are one of only two or three civs playing on that huge map or a smaller one, which is the way I usually play. I guess rather than thinking about the United States, we should be thinking more about Australia or less so Canada and Russia, and if you ignore overall realworld size, the Vikings or the Arabs.

[CarnalCanaan]

I'm not quite sure about the generation of "sub-cultures" but the preservation of existing ones beyond what Civ3 provides I'd go for.

I would support a tech-based event, say at "Nationalism" that fixes the boundaries of your civ. No more culture-competing with your neighbor for that coal just accross your border. If you want it you've got to
-fight for it or
-trade for it

But also I would like to see territory swapping. Although I'm less sure of how this would get implemented, land purchases (Louisiana and Alaska, for instance) and territorial acquisition (the Alsace between Germany and France) play an integral role in geopolitics up unil decolonization in the modern era.

[trev]

A state or semi autonomous region idea, if implemented should result in decreased corruption in state capital, be a region of 5 or more cities, there should be the ability to set separate tax, science, luxury rates for the region. The chance of regions forming should be limited to democratic style governments, ie some chance with republic, increased chance with democracy (this could be a reason to encourage players to use democracy which is avoided by many players in civ3). Regions should not develop in authoritarian governments because dictators have always found semi-autonomous regions undesirable and resisted them

[Brent]

Sharing resources within provinces would be good for building a city fatally lacking in one resource, most importantly food, in order to take advantage of another resource, such as a strategic one. Maybe every resource within the province would be usable and not just the ones within city radii, and maybe you could only build a unit using that resource within that province or there would be some other significance to the province that contains the resource, or maybe you can simply automatically use any resource within your boundaries regardless of city radii (requiring roads). Maybe you only need the roads in order to use the resource beyond the province. Maybe the resource is depleted faster if you can use it beyond the province.

I don't want my borders fixed, unless it's a rule mode option (that would mean significant rule mode options).

I hate democracy in the game, maybe Civ4 could change that if it gets rid of some of the disadvantages.