Changing culture model

[Trifna]

Cultures are changing with time. They may of course keep some broad elements through millenaries, but they DO change. Thus, the 19th century American culture doesn't have the same strengts as the actual one.

I was wondering how this could be modelized in a simple and complete way. I guess the ethos of MOO3 is an exemple, but starting from scratch, what should be look at? (The MOO3 model wasn't the simplest BTW...)

[Inverse Icarus]

Re: Changing culture model

Originally posted by Trifna
Cultures are changing with time. They may of course keep some broad elements through millenaries, but they DO change. Thus, the 19th century American culture doesn't have the same strengts as the actual one.

I was wondering how this could be modelized in a simple and complete way. I guess the ethos of MOO3 is an exemple, but starting from scratch, what should be look at? (The MOO3 model wasn't the simplest BTW...)

have the civ attributes represented in the SMAC way (ie, +1 production -1 commerce), and have it change over time based on several factors. for instance, early on have it based heavily on geography / terrain, later on based on how the individual manages the cities, etc.

therefore, a warmongering civ would develop more warmongering attributes, and a builder civ would develop more industrious / commercial ones.

perhaps you could have a max "base" for your civ, of say, 5 points, in either direction. so if you were a warmonger early on, and then became a peaceful builder, you would lose "warmonger traits" and gain the "industious" ones.

impliment with social engineering on top? orgasmic. mmhhh..

[Inverse Icarus]

and this is mroe civ traits, than culture. (ie, culture in civ3)

[Trifna]

Well I think we should rather look at culture traits which as an impact each have various effects on attributes (strengts and weaknesses).

For exemple, there are factors that bring a civ to get a certain level of war-culture (like Japan at a certain time) or to be ready for sacrificing more, or less (China, Vietnam...) for the whole.

What exactly brings such characteristics? How could they be included in a game?

[Spiffor]

I share the same thinking as Uber here :

Your traits should be highly dependent on your behaviour : If you build many ships and depend heavily on harbours for your food, you will become increasingly maritime. If you wage war often, you will become increasignly militaristic. Etc.

And I agree these traits should bring positive and negative attributes to your Civ, not only bonuses.

[Trifna]

I agree ENTIRELY with Uber; I even believe traits should be BASED on behaviour.

Now, how could it work in a simple and complete fashion?

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Trifna
I agree ENTIRELY with Uber; I even believe traits should be BASED on behaviour.

Now, how could it work in a simple and complete fashion?

if you go with something like my above general idea, you could have several aspects.

Geography would be a big player early on. Think of the city states of Greece versus the plains of Mongolia versus the Fertile Crescent. Geography could also influence government/social structure, but thats another debate entirely

More importantly, decisions should impact your culture the most. I suppose one of the easiest ways to do this is to monitor the build queues of each city to determine exactly what the player is going for. They would accumulate over time, so that a warmonger culture retains warmonger traits when they start building marketplaces for the money. if they moved on to several buildigns in many cities, their traits would slowly change to reflect that.

Perhaps some could also be based on other decisions, such as diplomacy, battle tactics, etc.

There could even be "classes" of traits. for example, if you focus your cities on building military, you get warmonger "city traits", and you get cheaperr units, or something. if you are a cunning diplomat warmonger, perhaps you could get soem "warmonger diplomatic traits", as irionic as that sounds. each class couold be based on decisions int he related field.

hell, we could even end up with dynamic civ2 like descriptions!!! Agressive Expansionist!

The most important fact, in my opinion, about this idea is the abstractness of it. The player should not have any direct control over it, ie, they can't say "i want +1 morale". they need to live up to their reputation they make in order to keep it.

[Jamski]

Trfina - do you mean the ethos system from MoO3 that got cut? That sounded really good, and I complained when I heard it was gone. It was a bit complicated, but the player had very little control over it, apart from the ability to oppress religions, or make some things an official part of the state. I'd love to see some kind of dynamic culture/ethos/religion model in Civ4 - I'd love that very much. As long as its possible to have some kind of effect on it, and to KNOW EXACTLY what that effect is - that is always a strength of the Civ series.

-Jam

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by UberKruX


if you go with something like my above general idea, you could have several aspects.

Geography would be a big player early on. Think of the city states of Greece versus the plains of Mongolia versus the Fertile Crescent. Geography could also influence government/social structure, but thats another debate entirely

More importantly, decisions should impact your culture the most. I suppose one of the easiest ways to do this is to monitor the build queues of each city to determine exactly what the player is going for. They would accumulate over time, so that a warmonger culture retains warmonger traits when they start building marketplaces for the money. if they moved on to several buildigns in many cities, their traits would slowly change to reflect that.

Perhaps some could also be based on other decisions, such as diplomacy, battle tactics, etc.

There could even be "classes" of traits. for example, if you focus your cities on building military, you get warmonger "city traits", and you get cheaperr units, or something. if you are a cunning diplomat warmonger, perhaps you could get soem "warmonger diplomatic traits", as irionic as that sounds. each class couold be based on decisions int he related field.

hell, we could even end up with dynamic civ2 like descriptions!!! Agressive Expansionist!

The most important fact, in my opinion, about this idea is the abstractness of it. The player should not have any direct control over it, ie, they can't say "i want +1 morale". they need to live up to their reputation they make in order to keep it.

I like some of these ideas, but I am a little concerned about things like rewarding militaristic players with cheaper units. It's easily justifiable of course, but in game it may just lead to players locking in advantages too much...........always a concern with civ.

[Jamski]

There would have to be disadvatages to being millitaristic, for exaple, to compensate. Maybe if you were millitaristic you would be less industrious, or maybe your people would get "peace wearyness" if you were not at war for a length of time.

Just an idea.

-Jam

[DrSpike]

That does make sense.........but the thing to avoid is that once you go down one road it may always be optimal to continue. Games where you start out militaristic should not lead to you having to be militaristic the entire game.

I guess what I'm saying is if these advantages are too strong then you'll have an uber-militaristic civ versus an uber-developed civ with no real common ground, and civ should be about balancing expansion, tech, and military.

The problem is a common one in my field........if the advantages are set up so that the value added decreases as more militaristic advantages are accrued (or disadvantages get bigger) then all the civs will end up being largely the same (and balancing everything) thus removing the point of the advantage structure. If the advantages are too great you get complete diversity like in paragraph 2.

Just some thoughts about practical gameplay.

[DrSpike]

Tbh I think this is why SMAC SE style is good............it provides a simplistic version of what Uber wants without falling into the traps I outlined. Whether you could make a more complex structure based on behaviour work I don't know, but it wouldn't be easy.

[Jamski]

What field is that Spikie? Are you a farmer? (hehehehe) I think it has to be a trade-off situation, so you can become very specialised in millitary, for example, but it will cost you a lot. Perhaps you can upgrade a number of areas, one upgrade costs 1 whatever, but the 10th upgrade costs 100. Sure you could be completly biased towards millitary, but at the cost of efficentcy. You could have upgraded your industry 5 times for the same cost, say. Do you want level 5 industry and level 9 millitaray, or level 10 millitary and no industry bonus. Level 10 would kick arse, of course

-Jam

[alva]

I always felt that the traits and their correspondent buildings should be resposible for the culture of any given civ.
IE a commercial civ getting culture points for building marketplaces etc, where as a religious civ would get them for building temples.
But that same civ would get negative culture points for building 'wrong' kinds of buildings.
Makes sence too IMHO, the US is more known for it's malls then it's temples, isn't it , so that is the US's 'culture'.

I know that in-game the US isn't commercial but I just used this as a convenient example

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by War of Art
What field is that Spikie? Are you a farmer? (hehehehe) I think it has to be a trade-off situation, so you can become very specialised in millitary, for example, but it will cost you a lot. Perhaps you can upgrade a number of areas, one upgrade costs 1 whatever, but the 10th upgrade costs 100. Sure you could be completly biased towards millitary, but at the cost of efficentcy. You could have upgraded your industry 5 times for the same cost, say. Do you want level 5 industry and level 9 millitaray, or level 10 millitary and no industry bonus. Level 10 would kick arse, of course

-Jam

yes, but the non-warmonger traits / bonuses would be just as equally kickass. for example, imagine if you got all improvements at -1 upkeep, or somethign to that effect?

what if your traits determined what wonders you could build? after all, wonders are the epotime of your culture, no?