{The List-} Culture

[Fosse]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
But it's an abstraction.

Well, yes. But then why don't we "abstract" culture back to Civ 2 levels, when it was represented entirly by what City type you played with?

Abstraction is needed in Civ, of course, but there are some possiblities under the less thought out abstracted systems that are just silly, such as ordering millions of people to entertain each other while the crops rot in the fields.

We should be looking to find those holes in realism and fun (I find the current one under discussion to be violating both of these factors), and plug them. Not justify them.

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Fosse
It's true that there are workarounds to the current system, but we shouldn't have to "work around" game models to avoid their negative results... we should work with them to get the results we want.

Besides.. the all entertainer approach is just a touch unrealistic...

IRAQIS: Please leave our country, invader.
BUSH: Dance!
IRAQIS: Hooray! We love the President Day!

Okay, first I'll admit to laughing when reading the "Iraqi-Bush" dialogue. But really, it would be a little different...

Iraqis: Please leave our country, you infidel invader.
Bush: Okay...I see ten of you rioting...rioter number 2, you are a comedian now; rioter number 3 you are a mime; rioter number 4 you are an elvis impersonator (and so on through the remainder of the rioters)
Iraqis: Hey, this guy is alright. Here's my gun, Mr. Bush, I've got a gig!
Bush: Good, everyone is happy now. Damn, I hate the micromanagement required to run America.... I thought Cheney was going to give me a slider or something...
Iraqis: Yay! I'm so happy...We love the Foreign Infidel Leader...ummm.. Mr. Bush, why did Abdul croak from a lack of food? and Mohammed croaked yesterday...gosh, I'm a little hungry now.

Okay, back to the game....

I think maybe it's taking "entertainer" a little to literally. I don't consider the method used in Civ to pacify a city in resistance "a workaround." I think of it as anything a government/military can do to pacify the populous. That could be free food/water distribution; bribes; literally be entertainment (provided for the population - not making rioters entertainers ); work programs, etc. Really, thinking about it this makes sense. It's a financial push. The city is still functioning, but money/capital/effort is expended pacifying the city that it washes away any income from the city.

Does that makes sense? Better yet, did you enjoy Part 2 of the dialog?

[Rasputin]

i would like some tinkering with it but flipping is good as an abstraction....

[Peter Triggs]

did you enjoy Part 2 of the dialog?

I enjoyed both parts. Some of the discussion around here is really rather good.

[KingSquanto]

I agree with most of the ideas stated, and it would be good to be able to send citzens to workcamps or something instead. But heres an idea I concuted that would solve it in another way:

One way to fix the realism of an entire city juggling until they starve would be to give citizens more influence and to make them more independently thinking. For currently, you have complete autonomous control of you citizens, regardless of government or military. They should respond not only to you military conquests and your building choices, but more or less every decision you make.
For example, say you started making everybody in the town entertainers. They would be fine with this at first, but once people started starving, that would create immediate unhappiness. If they became suitably discontent, they would become insubordinates, and you would not be able to use them. But insubordinates wouldn't starve either, for they would sustain themselves, but without any surplus for growth, production, or matinence. If the insubordinates became even more upset (from something worse than starvation, presumably), they would turn into resistors. The resistors, unlike insubordinates, would produce growth, matinence, and shields, but only for their own maniacal vigilante purposes , such as producing guerrilla and new resistors. So as you can see, if they are a whole lot of resistors, you'll end up with a boatload of guerrilla, who will eventually mount an attack from the city. If they take it, they would have the choice between becoming a new nation or join a bordering one with similar culture.
To moderate resistor numbers, resistors could only be created under special circumstances. There would have to be a certain number of insubordinates (40% of city population or something) for one to turn into resistors. But their would be a 'bandwagon' effect, in that the more insubordinates or resistors produced, the more discontent other citizens would become, multiplied by the number of existing in-subs. The discontentment of the citizens (which leads to the above symptoms) would obviously be heavily impacted by culture as well. Maybe the regional sub-culture groups (an idea I like) would respond in different ways. For example, in the US, The northerners would be ecstatic when you abolished slavery, yet the southerners would start producing resistors faster than you can count. But would this be too much micromanagement? (and how did this post get so long?) Of course, you can kill resistors with military units, but you may have to fight them and the rest of the city may rally behind them. Communist/Monarchies would have a lot of an easier time handling resistors, but their would probably be more of them, and democratic resistors would be more inclined to non-violent protests. (like currently existing rebellions)
Sort of unrelated to this idea, I was thinking that every sub-culture type could have their own civ-types, say southerners are agricultural/militaristic and northerners are industrious/commercial. Possible effects of this would be southern cities would be happier the more farms and barracks you built, but may become discontent if you industrialize to much. Either this, or southern cities would get cheaper granaries and produce more food but would produce less shields or something. The whole nation would be effected by the ruling civ civ-type, which is the same civ type as that nations capital culture.

(p.s. thank you shogun, as you can see I did post, i hope you don't regret it )

[Shogun Gunner]

KingSquanto: I would post anyway...even the same ideas can be told in different ways or with different emphasis...

electrons are free! It's the electron generator that will cost ya...but you already have one of those!

[Rasputin]

culture

would be good to see an overall impression of whether we after removal of culture or a tinkering with the current.

Rembering culture atpresent is our borders and influences city flipping

[Fosse]

Definatly liked part 2 of the dialogue.

hat could be free food/water distribution

Well... since they starve...

But yes, I realize that it could represent other things like bribery or free cable modems for everyone, since it costs gold and shields.


Rasputin... your question is a good one. We'll get nowhere if we are all talking about different things without realizing it.

I, for one, am in support of removing culture as the basis of borders, and of city flipping as a result of "cultural influence."

Borders should be decided by politics, and should be rigid unless war or diplomacy change it. In the current system, if the USA builds a new city right against the Canadian border, then Canada looses some of their land, even if thier people were already "working" it. Tell me how that makes sense.

Culture can and should help to determine the likliehood of cities revolting, either to join other Civs or (most likely) create their own.

[Shogun Gunner]

And I like the retention of culture as the basis of borders based on many examples in the real world.

There are situations where the political border is deliminated along one pathway, but the economic activity extends beyond the border.

Take the southern United States border with Mexico. Or Detriot, MI near the Canadian border. Additionally, many cities in Israel near the Israeli/Palestine de facto border.

All of these are examples of economic activity extended beyond the political border and benefiting the central core city of a foreign civilization. It's the concept of "the hinterland" which is defined as the surrounding area of a city which has interdependencies with the city. These examples include food and shield production that is linked across the border to a foreign city -- despite the political border.

This is why I think cultural borders (which are propogated from the cities outward, should stay.

To solve this issue, I would propose a more robust AI diplomacy/negotiation ability which would allow more conflicts (both military and economic) to be sparked by the friction of demographics, economic activity and nationalism along these borders. In this example, Canada could shut the border, causing several tiles to be unavailable to Detroit - hurting the city's production.

The mechanism would be in the game as a tile in dispute (two cities from different civs both having the same tile in the radius of both cities).

[DarkCloud]

Well, yes. But then why don't we "abstract" culture back to Civ 2 levels, when it was represented entirly by what City type you played with?

Abstraction is needed in Civ, of course, but there are some possiblities under the less thought out abstracted systems that are just silly, such as ordering millions of people to entertain each other while the crops rot in the fields.

Think about it in Shogun Gunner's way. Think about it as giving people jobs. If you give them cushy jobs like "entertainer" and pay them (remember entertainers take away tax money) then they will be a lot happier than if they had to farm the land and do hard work.

And KingSquanto's point about starving is well taken. I agree with him on that. However, I will note that in many nations (Honduras) 1/2 the population can starve and 1/4th the population can be amazingly rich and happy... so even then the Civ-abstraction still might hold up... since the other 1/4th-3/8ths of the population could be employed to keep the rich 1/4th happy!

The rich 1/4ths happiness is not necessarily contingent upon the poor 1/2ths

[Rasputin]

culture borders are good in early game whilst no other civs around, but once you meet other civs then a politically agreed border is what is needed. In Multiplayer game this would work easy as you could draw a line on map and send to other human who can evaluat eit and agree or suggest different one. Agaisnt the Ai this may be hard to program as the AI would need to assign values to certain land for comemricla usage, growth, or just military based.

Flipping might need tinkering with, but i still beleive you need to have something in game that represents a citys desire to kick out the conquerer once the army moves on.

[okblacke]

I like the culture mechanism. I like city flipping. But I think it's time we gave it decent burial and moved on.

Borders are agreed upon between nations. Culture doesn't "radiate out" from cities very far or very much. It travels with people, with trade, with philosophy, with books, with music, with plays, with tourism.

It's generated geographically as a consequence of local conditions (including imported influences).

This can be abstracted as follows: Each pop unit has a culture comprising all of its influences. Iniitial pop units are 100% Babylonian, Thebian, Athenian, whatever the starting city is. When your first settler pops off your capital, it develops its own individuality. Now it's 99% Washingtonian and 1% New York.

With each turn, it becomes more New York and less Washington, starting with its creation, continuing with each move to its destination, and on from its founding as a city.

From the time of its creation, it individuates based on what happens to it. Breaking off from a city is a hugely defining event, as is wandering through the desert for 40 years, and finally settling a homeland. Non-representative governments, high taxes from a central government, fighting wars, and building local culture--these all cause the city to individuate.

At some threshhold, your new city--even your settler--could decide it was its own identity. Send your settlers halfway across the map for 150 years and they might break free.

What keeps cities connected to the motherland? The same thing that keeps them connected now: proximity, roads, rails, harbors. Say your New York settler steps east on a road you've made:

+Individuation for time
+Washington influence for proximity
+Washington influence for roads
+Washington influence, say, it's a worked tile.

A tile with a settler could produce extra trade, as a footnote (remember for later). The next step east takes them off the road:

+Individuation for time
+Washington influence for proximity
+Washington influence, say, it's a worked tile.

You could give a plus to proximity to roads, too. A city surrounded by roads but not actually connected to them would still get a lot of the influence.

The next step takes them out of the city radius:

+Individuation for time
+Influence for proximity (touching city radius).

You can see how Washginton's influence is less and less, while New York's individuation is greater and greater. Besides mirroring real life, tihs presents some good responses to some classic Civ problems. Your capital's ability to generate culture--and to pass that culture along with trade--constrains your ability to expand effectively. On the flip side, just let your enemies try to send a settler through your country to park on that little piece of land at the other side.

Now, as your settler steps toward its destination it's getting closer to Iriquois country:

+Individuation for time
+Influence (For the Iriquois) for proximity

Say you now found New York at the opposite edge of a desert, and you're slowly building a connecting road. The resultant city pop is a mixture of Washington, New York and Iriquois. Subsequent pop points are going to identify as "New Yorkers", so +individuation for that.

Should the Iriquois complete their roads, that will increase their influence over time. This may not result in a flip, but it may push the city toward complete individuation. While connection to Salamanca (or other Iriquois cities) represents a danger (to both sides), New York's value to the "country" as a whole is greatly increased: New York both absorbs and generates more culture, increasing trade and science to boot. (Border towns and crossroad towns are

By the way, "flipping" could still work in this model, because it can represent a city folding after token resistance to a small attack. (The Romans did this all the time.) Cataclysmic events could be induce flipping, too: revolution, certain wonders like Universal Suffrage, etc.

Is New York lost? No, "America" completes its research into Mysticism: "+Washington". "America" founds Philadelphia: +"Washington". "America" conquers an "Aztec" city: +"Washington" (or maybe -"Washington" in the wrong culture/time period). America completes the road between Washington and New York +++. If the Iriquois should declare war, all cities in the same country immediately boost their affiliation with the capital and decrease with the enemy. (Meaning the Iriquois could get very ticked at the Aztecs for starting a war while they were wooing New York.)

Even if New York flips, Washington can conquer it pretty easily, if done quickly enough.

Nationalism reduces individuation drastically. That is the point at which the cities become American, German, French as a whole. At this point, the identity could be reduced into a national score, like: 50% French, 49% German, 1% Flemish. Or the underlying city affiliations could be kept alive and recalculated turn-by-turn (so if one city flips, it could increase the odds of others flipping).

But even into modern times, cities might have enough of a mix of identities to be pretty comfortable regardless of who rules them. (Certain border towns between France and Germany flip every few decades, don't they? )

Anyway, apologies for the length. I was going for clarity here and kept answering the "but what abouts?" in my head.

The only thing I'm torn about is how to represent this in the game. Perhaps not at all, keeping it all behind the scenes. You'll end up with people screaming mad because they don't know WHY a city flipped, I suppose. Not putting in the details allows you to simply say: culture + connection + proximity + nationalism = good. Absence of those things = bad.

[ok]

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Rasputin
Flipping might need tinkering with, but i still beleive you need to have something in game that represents a citys desire to kick out the conquerer once the army moves on.

Remember Civ 2's partisan units? I sure liked those a lot more than flipping.


I also support representing a city wanting to kick out a bad ruler or conquerer... but flipping doesn't hack it. Paris didn't suddenly become French again during Nazi occupation, but in Civ 3 rules it would have been virtually guaranteed.

Unhappiness should occasionaly generate rebel or partisan units within the afflicted cities, which would then do battle with the garrison in the city.

[hexagonian]

Perhaps this has been mentioned before in this thread (I'm being lazy today), but how about instead of a city flipping, some of its production/food/commerce is siphoned off to the closest city of the civ that exerts the more powerful culture.

As for a flip during wartime, I'm all for higher corruption, or the same type of economic siphoning effect and the rise of partisan units that when created, automatically pillage/attack the city and the improvements within the city radius.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Fosse


Remember Civ 2's partisan units? I sure liked those a lot more than flipping.

too easliy prevented by surrounding city squares qith units...

I also support representing a city wanting to kick out a bad ruler

all rulers are bad to some one LOL

or conquerer... but flipping doesn't hack it. Paris didn't suddenly become French again during Nazi occupation, but in Civ 3 rules it would have been virtually guaranteed.

becuase all of france was garrossined by the germans. do the same in civ3 with enough forces and city wont flip either, especially when you take all the surrounding citys too.