{The List-} Culture

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Rasputin
too easliy prevented by surrounding city squares qith units...

Close this exploit, then. 9 tiles surrounding city are "plugged?" Put them in the next tiles. Or raise them in a friendly city, anything.
Poor or exploitable implemenation of an idea in a past game does not make that idea a bad one.

all rulers are bad to some one LOL

If only the Midwest US could simply "flip."

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.

If Nazi Germany had had to play by Civ 3 rules, they would have never had enough troops left to open the second front. You need sometimes dozens of units to signifigantly reduce the chance of flipping (which puts way too many units at risk). It is hardly a simple "garisson," that Civ 3 would have you use.

Of course... poor or exploitable imple... blah blah. The fact that flipping is bad in Civ 3 doesn't make the idea bad... but... the idea of flipping itself is bad.

Sure, you could make the "flip formula" better to fix many problems, though I hold firm that flipping itself is way too abstract to ever be fun. A better system for representing people fighting against their ruler is the way to go.

edited for punctuation.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Fosse
Close this exploit, then. 9 tiles surrounding city are "plugged?" Put them in the next tiles. Or raise them in a friendly city, anything.
Poor or exploitable implemenation of an idea in a past game does not make that idea a bad one.

or, as I posted in the Truly Invisible Units thread, make it possible for enemy units to co-exist in a tile - problem solved.

If only the Midwest US could simply "flip."

Or NYC!

Sure, you could make the "flip formula" better to fix many problems, though I hold firm that flipping itself is way too abstract to ever be fun. A better system for representing people fighting against their ruler is the way to go.

Amen! Flipping should be represented by some sort of resistance unit fighting the garrison.

[GodKing]

Remove the culture aspect from determining national boundries. Look at the borders thread and see UberKrux's suggestion. Very good.

Have culture based units, not just civ specific.

Have different tech trees for different cultural groups.

Impliment a system of immigration, both internal to civs and from civ to civ.

Change some government types to be able to uplift one culture and down another. Nazi germany comes to mind - the Nazi's upped the 'arrians' and downed the 'jews, gypsies, etc."

[Rasputin]

i guess a lot of the like or dislike of culture must come from the way people play civ 3. i have never had a problem with city flipping so i dont see need to dump it, i always utilise a large garrison until the resistors are gone and then rush build my own culture in that city, then continue conquering citys till the culture of the enemy civ is no longer influencing the citys i taken.

[Plotinus]

Wrylachlan and okblacke are both coming up with some great ideas here. I really like these. I fear it all might get rather complex, though.

One change I would make is simply to make culture generated in the same way as money and science - ie, via the slider, rather than directly by buildings as is currently the case. Thus, if you want all your people to sit around painting or writing novels, you whack up the slider - to the detriment of money and science, of course. If you tire of this fey activity and want to raise cash for a glorious crusade, your cultural rating drops. And things like Temples, Libraries etc. would act as boosters to your cultural activity, just as Marketplaces, Libraries etc. do to your money and research now - rather than give an automatic cultural value of the same amount every turn.

It'd be nice to have a Cultural Specialist too - the Painter, perhaps? It would be handy for new cities a long way from home to get a bit of culture going.

[okblacke]

A very Civ suggestion, Plotinus, and probably the most practical, likely and workable and perhaps least satisfying suggestion, to boot.

I agree re my idea being too complex, if the player has to have a specific, detailed awareness of it. The game would change enough to favor cramping together of early settlements and more removed settling later on. This mirrors reality pretty well but would it be fun and would it still be Civ?

I may be alone in this, but I'd like to see Civ improved for the masses, where the difference between micromanaging and NOT micromanaging is minimal. I would make that priority 1.

[ok]

[Fake Boris]

[SIZE=1] do the same in civ3 with enough forces and city wont flip either, especially when you take all the surrounding citys too.

There comes a point when garrisoning will always be sufficient. Civ3 does not consider it.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by okblacke
A very Civ suggestion, Plotinus, and probably the most practical, likely and workable and perhaps least satisfying suggestion, to boot.

I agree re my idea being too complex, if the player has to have a specific, detailed awareness of it. The game would change enough to favor cramping together of early settlements and more removed settling later on. This mirrors reality pretty well but would it be fun and would it still be Civ?

I may be alone in this, but I'd like to see Civ improved for the masses, where the difference between micromanaging and NOT micromanaging is minimal. I would make that priority 1.

[ok]

no lets not make civ a game that everyone wants to play, lets keep it deep and involved, the way civ should be,,, a game for clever people not everyone

[okblacke]

no lets not make civ a game that everyone wants to play, lets keep it deep and involved, the way civ should be,,, a game for clever people not everyone

Well, I meant the "masses" of Civ players not "Myst" fans or The Sims" or people who are really into Ben & Jen.

It's a little disappointing to find the difference between the good and the great be micromanagement skills.

[ok]

[Rasputin]

ok then i tottaly agree with you

[Optimizer]

Originally posted by GodKing
Have culture based units, not just civ specific.

Have different tech trees for different cultural groups.

No, no, no. Civ should be about creating your own world history, not about re-enacting the history that has been.

Why would anyone play an African tribe if they couldn't be able to build as good military units as the Europeans?

[Fosse]

They can be as goodn as, but different from, the other cultures' units. Naturally differing tech trees cannot be unbalanced, but small tweaks here and there to reflect the individual cultures can be balanced.

Various tech trees and unique units based on culture would make the game even more replayable and immersive, in my opinion.

Some of Civ will always be about "re-enacting" real history, which is why we will never be given a steam engine in the ancient age.

[Optimizer]

Flavour units, that have the same statistics but look differenly, are good for me.

Allright - unique units are fun, but all civilizations should have the chance to develop any unit types during the right circumstances. If the French started in jungle with access to elephants, they should be able to train War Elephants. If the Aztecs (or any other civilization) developed warrior philosophy and advanced forging, they should be able to train Samurai. And if Germany had less industrial technology and metal resources than their neighbour, they shouldn't have better tanks just because tey are German.

By the way - there were steam engines in the ancient age. Hero of Alexandria constructed several models, but they were just used as toys.

[Fake Boris]

I love a lot of what I've read here. Here are a 'few" suggestions. (he he).

First: yes, military should be part of culture. Maybe gaining culture from victories on the battlefield? Or from conquering cities? I don't think the Mongols or the Huns had any problems with culture-flips...

Two: floating culture number! (even though the first post of the thread doesn't give credit, the idea was mine...)

Three: it would be amazing if cultural groups developed along with playing history. Let's say there is a circle, and everyone starts in the middle. As your specificity develops along with your playing style, your 'point' moves farther from the center and approaches the "edge". Those points with the higher floating culture value would be dragging the other towards them, but ONLY those from civilizations they have met. This way, we would have culture groups develop; and when you meet someone for the first time in, say, 1500, his position on the circle will likely be far, very far from yours, and so will be the other civs of his cultural group.
This system could have plenty of uses; first, every citizen point could have his personal 'coordinate' on the circle. If his coordinate is similar to your civilization's coordinate, then it will be easy to assimilate him when conquering a city. If he is far away, then he will resist. You'd have to kill him or send your own people to genetically assimilate him.
Similarly, the farther a city from your capital, the most likely it will take its cultural influences from neighbouring cities (including foreign ones), unless of course your floating value is very high and prevents 'bad' influence. Basically, the cohesion of your empire depends on the consistancy of the 'culture coordinates' between every city. If you build an oversea empire, then there should be a huge penalty to cohesion. Faraway cities are likely to develop their own culture from the point you found them, leading to rebellions and new civs and ethnic groups: Argentina, America, Peru, etc.
Trade and diplomacy should be easier with the civs of similar culture. The 'attraction power' of stronger cultures should increase with technologies such as printing press, radio, cinema, etc.
Also, if there is any kind of social engineering, then the values of each society with stronger cultures should spread to the other ones. -read on-
There could even be a 'political circle' or triangle or whatever that also develops with your playing style. This would make revolutions even more interesting: basically, you say where you want to go on the political circle, and the game tells you how many turns it will take and how many will die. Strong cultures would be dragging the other civs on the political circle. Be dragged too quickly (or change your style in a too radical way), and the tension-meter will rise, up to the point that you could be victim of an unwanted revolution. Think of the influence the Soviet Union had; because Russia had a strong culture, communism spread quicly and caused troubles in the neighbouring countries, while it reached other parts of the world much later. (very simplified, but yet could work with this kind of model).

We could also take the example of Greece: Rome adopted its culture, twisted it, mixed in Christianty, to the point Roman culture became very strong. When it was conquered by the Barbs, the tribes became converted and their languages were influenced by Latin. So conquering strong cultures could affect your own, too.

So whaddya think of it?

[Brent]

Have culture- specific units instead of civ- specific. Maybe make sure that individual civs have a unique ability for all its units. Have smaller culture groups: Native North American, Native Mesoamerican, Native South American, Angloamerican, Latin American, Iberian, Italic, British, Nordic, Slavic, etc. I agree about gaining culture from military victories. Gain points for unifying your culture group, and afterwards for unifying that group with another. A Nordic civ could join an AngloAmerican, British, or Slavic culture group. A Native North American civ could join a Nordic culture group. European Colonist civs could mix culture groups with Native American civs. Let cities closer to rival cities than to your capital be more likely to flip than in Civ3.