{The List-} Culture

[Fosse]

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

True, but Civ doesn't tend to model toys. If it had dawned on the Greeks that they could harness steam with their metal working, which was more than up to the task, then history would have unfolded much differently... so differently that nobody alive today could imagine what would have happened.... which is why trying to allow such possibilities in Civ will just make the game a mishmash of hypertheoretical "possible histories."

I have no idea if my vague attempt to be on topic is anywhere near succeeding!

[Nurhachi]

(This got long... My conclusion's in bold towards the bottom.)

It was suggested a while ago that each civilization should be able to develop different writing system techs: Glyphs, Cuneiform, Logographs, etc. Firstly, I'd like to note that this is kind of a silly idea, since it really makes no odds what kind of writing people use. Every system has its advantages, and is generally very well suited to the language and culture it serves.

That got me thinking, though, about the history of writing systems and what the intercultural transmission of that particular medium of communication means. The writing used by a culture suggests its affinity with a certain culture. Here's a couple of examples:

1. Chinese logographs (characters): Evolved in central China from oracular carvings. They're very well-suited to the Chinese language -- that's why they're still around. However, China's cultural influence in East Asia, particularly when it conquered other parts of it, meant that those other places (Korea, Viet Nam, Japan, Manchuria) started using the characters or something very much like them, even though characters really don't work well for any of those languages, which have since developed their own alphabets or syllabaries.

2. Arabic alphabet: Works well with Arabic, not so much with Urdu, Uighur, Turkish, etc., which have structures very different from Arabic. The system spread through Islam anyway, supplanting a native Uighur script. Turkish has since developed a damn fine alphabet.

3. Phoenician alphabet: Was introduced to the Greeks, then, through the Greeks, to the Romans. Greek writing also turned into Cyrillic. Cyrillic supplanted the native Mongol alphabet, unsuitably. Roman characters are used to write native American languages.

So, what do we get out of this for CivIV? That new technologies carry with them the mark of their maker. That's why eastern Asian construction reflects Chinese architecture, the Clovis spearpoint spread rapidly in use without changing its form, and native Anglo-Saxon poetry was supplanted by continental forms. On the flip side, German and British machine gun manufacturers weren't exactly consulting with each other during either World War, giving the Germans a distinct advantage. They weren't friendly, so they didn't exchange technology.

My proposal is that, when a civilization receives a tech from another, the two civs' cultures shift favorably toward each other. This shift wouldn't have to be permanent -- in fact, it should probably die out within 1000 years. That's it, really.

-Nurhachi

[Brent]

Blur the lines between Culture Groups, Civs, and Internal Cultural Variation. Have a common option to play a civ of one culture group with each opponent of a separate culture group. Include the city names of other civs in the same Culture Group in the hierarchy for city names after each civ's names run out. Include the tribes from the Japan Conquest as internal cultural variation. If culture- specific technologies are in, let the most remote villages give you important techs outside your culture group if all civs in the game are of the same culture group.

More micro culture groups: Baltic, Turkic, Semitic, Hamitic.

[Nurhachi]

There's a thought... You said "micro-culture groups" and claimed Semitic, Hamitic, Turkic, that kind of thing.

What if we group cultures by their origins?

So, Altaic super-group ->
Turkic (Ottoman), Mongolic (Mongol), and Tungusic (Manchu, maybe Koreans and Japanese) groups

Indo-European super-group ->
Western group (England, France, Celts, Spain, Germans, Scandinavians, Romans, Greeks, blahdeblah)
Eastern group (Russia, India, Persia)

Hamito-Semitic group (now better called Afro-Asiatic) ->
Hamitic group (help me out here, not my field)
Semitic group (Arabs, Hebrews, Maltese, Phoenicians... Egyptians? Blarg. Need to brush up on this.)

As it stands, the CivIII culture groups are defined by historical ties and present geographical locations. Hence, the Turks, who came from central Asia, are Middle Eastern. Likewise are the Americans culturally linked to the Iroquois and Aztecs. (By the way, could we please have some more American civs in CivIV? Inca, Maya, Mound Builders, Olmec...?) Is lumping cultures together by history a good idea if we want to do more than recreate actual history?

I guess it's been good for creating "themed" regions. Not that that ever seems to work. No matter what civ I play, I'm ALWAYS a block away from the Zulu. Greeks, Chinese, Persians, Iroquois... First units I meet are always Zulu. Anyway.

-Nurhachi

[Brent]

I was under the impression that the Egyptians and Ethiopians were Hamitic.

And another micro culture group could be the Caucasus, maybe even have one for Siberia. Maybe some micro culture groups could be devoted to minor tribes, and we could promote them by using the editor to give them Civ status. American minor tribes could include every Native American tribe on both continents, every modern nation on both continents, every state , province, and territory in North America. Every modern nation throughout the world could have minor tribe status within its culture group, and every county of England, and every tribe of Israel.

[Rasputin]

Never ceases to amaze me the brainstorming that happens.

Some absolutley right out there ideas guys, brilliant.

Once we got some sort of concensus i will update header post.

[Rasputin]

Copied from another thread ... poasted by MrMisMatch

Cultural Conversions
When I began playing Civ II, I fell in love with the series, and subsuqently bought Civ III when it was released. My biggest problem with vanilla Civ III was the cultural conversions. I would fight a long war and claim many large cities before calling for peace. Several turns later many of the cities would flip back to thier original Civ, and most of the time I would deal with it. My problem was I stationed many strong troops in a city to prepare for the next war, and the city would flip back, effecitvly destroying the troops stationed there. I would reload from an auto-save and rush cultural improvments in hopes to prevent this, many times this did not work so I adopted the stratagy of razing all captured cities and rebuilt them with my own settlers.

PTW came out with the option of turning cultural conversions off, and my worries were gone. No longer could I afford to let enemy civs get inside my borders with thier settlers, but it still happens and I either take those cities by force or trade. I hope that the option to turn the culture flipping off is present in Civ IV.

I think that culture flipping adds a realistic dynamic to the civ-experience, but it can be bothersome.

What are your opinons on this?

[Brent]

Let the overlapping of Culture Groups provide some of the uniqueness between civs. The Inuit could belong to both Scandinavia and Native North America. North America and Latin America could overlap. There could be more than one level of culture group, like Scandinavia and The British Isles could constitute Northern Europe. There could be Celtic and Germanic culture groups which could interreloate with a British Isles group. Western Europe could overlap with Northern Europe. Egypt could belong to both Africa and the Middle East. Persia could belong to both The Middle East and South Asia. South Asia and The Far East could overlap.

[Rasputin]

we obviosly have two distinct lines of thought here on culture. some are following the culture groups ideas with "culture" based units. and the other li9ne of thought continuing donw the culture flipping ideas...

Very good

[Trebuchet]

I have what might be a unique solution to the culture flipping annoyances, that still garners a game advantage to cultural builders.

Don't have cities flip. Instead, have defectors .

Basically, the same formula would be used for each individual city, as if it were going to flip, but instead of success causing the city's allegiance to flip, it would cause a defector event. A defector would randomly execute a spy mission or generate a worker/settler. You'd get the dialog box, which would let you offer the defector asylum or rebuff him.

I believe this would be a much better implementaion of the advantages of a magnetic culture.

[Rasputin]

good possibility

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Don't have cities flip. Instead, have defectors .
Basically, the same formula would be used for each individual city, as if it were going to flip, but instead of success causing the city's allegiance to flip, it would cause a defector event. A defector would randomly execute a spy mission or generate a worker/settler. You'd get the dialog box, which would let you offer the defector asylum or rebuff him.

Questions...
If a defector worker is created, is it created within the radius of the affected weak culture city or is it created at the closest city of the stronger culture?

Does accepting the defector worker cause your civ's regard level to plumment? I would assume that accepting a spy action would probably cause a regard drop if detected.

I'm still going to plug the idea that a strong culture could also absorb some of the shield/commerce/food production of affected cities into neighboring rival cities with the stronger culture rating rather than a using a simple city flip. This boost would be fluid, based on an ongoing shifting of a cultural border between civs.

[jeff76]

I think, as few others, that borders should be defined with power rather than culture and discussed in diplomacy or changed with war. I would keep the idea of flipping but would link it not only to culture but also to style of government (bnot just the government you choose but also how you use it), nationality of the city inhabitants... And I,d like to see immigration implemented, perhaps refugees too. This could influence culure and flipping and other stuff...

[Pedrunn]

Re: {The List-} Culture

Originally posted by Rasputin
2.Culture Groups

Europe, Africa, Middle East, Far East, America, Miscellaneous, Fantasy. Balance as much as possible. Have unique units to be shared within a Culture Group in addition to specific to individual Civs.

Instead. Each civilization has its culture named with the name of the civilization (American culture, Indian culture, egyptian culture, chinese culture, mongol culture, etc...) and let this name editable.
A player may want to instead of call "Greek culture" rename it to "Helenistic culture"

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by jeff76
, nationality of the city inhabitants... ...

Hopefully this wont be implemented, otherwise the choice of civs becomes limited by the likely hood of them flipping.

No culture should be attached to a civs nationality, as this would hinder Multiplaying. All Civs need to start equal.