Is Culture Flipping unbalancing?

[punkbass2000]

I don't know, it sounds like we agree but feels like we're debating. All your examples seem like they acknowledge that the game mechanics are not directly applicable to RL. Also, you don't seen to be pointing how the Greek example is not applicable as such. Why not? It was both sudden and city-based, which seems to fit your criteria.

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Bad example, Vienna as the capital can not flip, Austria flipped as a whole for a reason very different of culture. I think every Austrian would be insulted to death if he would be culturally compared with a German. This works the other way as well.

Far be it from my to argue with someone from Germany about this point, but don't you think the difference between an Austrian and a German is pretty darn close in "civ terms". I mean, take the Zulus for example. They represent all the unique African tribes and cultures (excepting Eygpt) as there are no other African civs. Doubtful that someone from Kenya considers themself "the same" as someone from the Senegal.

I think there is a little creative leeway granted here to the makers of the game.

There are many examples of cities/regions shifting from one side to other throughout history. Exploring the specifics in detail may lead one to conclude that a particular historical example doesn't "match" what culture flipping is in civ III. But, as gunkalator stated....historical realism is not the end all. Some aspects of culture flipping could be refined, but bottom line - I tend to like the feature. Well, it's just my opinion.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
So? And is it Mongolia now? Or got the Mongols expelled by force? No to both. The Mongols got integrated, swallowed by the Chinese population. It is a much better example than with the Germanic tribes.

As I said, historical cultural conversion is a long, floating process. It has nothing to do with the sudden, annoying flippage à la Firaxis.

Earlier in the same post you dismissed SG's Austria example, citing Vienna's capital status as one of the reasons. Why do you then suggest the Mongols, when China entirely lacked a capital for generations?

I'm not denying cultural assimilation happens, just that the CivIII implementation isn't remotely recognizable as such. Something along the lines of what you and Hexagonian briefly touched on sounds much more promising...

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
It was both sudden and city-based, which seems to fit your criteria.

But did the Greeks join the Persians because they admired their culture? It sounds like it was purely a matter of military intimidation and political scheming. There's not much room for abstraction here: your cultural advisor comes up and slaps you in the face with it.

[punkbass2000]

Well, I guess the way the cultural advisor words I admit it is a little off, but if you look at a lot of the factors that make a flip possible, they are somewhat militaristic. I believe I've read that city that doesn't have a chance of flipping unless its city radius (the 21 squares) is impinged upon by another civs cultural borders or it has foreign citizens in the city. This certainly would have been the case in at least some of those Greek city states. Also, Persia would have, in fact, likely had a much higher culture than Greece (being more that twice in size and being generally a much older civilization under various names).

[Theseus]

Nah, face it, there really has never been any such thing as 'positive' CF (i.e., a city/nation volunteers to be absorbed into another) in the RW. It's all been military or economic. People are just too ornery.

'Negative' CF, though, has a long and gloried history, in many different fashions. Again, people are just too ornery.



/me the ornery guy, as opposed to Sir Ralph, the curmudgeon

[punkbass2000]

[Rommel2D]

Does that represent the shame and fear the Greeks would have felt when faced with the onslaught of hordes of banana-wielding immortals, causing them to flip...?

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Far be it from my to argue with someone from Germany about this point, but don't you think the difference between an Austrian and a German is pretty darn close in "civ terms". I mean, take the Zulus for example. They represent all the unique African tribes and cultures (excepting Eygpt) as there are no other African civs. Doubtful that someone from Kenya considers themself "the same" as someone from the Senegal.

Don't get me started on this nonsense. Everybody sane knows, that there are only 3 entities of people worthy to be called a civilization in Europe: romanic, slavic and germanic. A Portugese civilization, my ass. Or a Dutch. And before anyone even thinks to pull a flame on me, yes, a German is just as ridiculous. Imagine how cool and uncrowded Europe could have been.

As for the difference between Austrians and Germans, you may be right in terms of "civilization", but you could try to call an Austrian a German or vice versa. If you get away un-slapped, kudos to you. Germans are for Austrians something like monkeys, rude, uneducated and uncultured. Austrians, on the other hand, are for Germans something like a breed of garden gnomes.

[Shogun Gunner]

Very amusing allegory.... We have a garden gnome in the California governor's mansion

However, I don't quite understand your stance. The idea of this whole game is that different tribes are rivals to each other....they all start out even, and due to choices and chance, one civilization will surge ahead of another. A different set of circumstances and the Portugese would have been a civilization worth of your respect. And maybe the Dutch haven't cultured flipped back to Germany yet!

The cultural grouping keeps the civs, chosen to be in this game, are "somewhat related" (please don't take offense ) Culturally linked starting positions would suggest that those civs are somewhat related to each other. I don't think this concept is unreasonable. I mean I guess I should be irritated that America's "cultural cousins" in this game are Aztecs and other meso-american cultures. All European nations have *some* shared history, values, bloodlines, etc.

Okay, it's not 100% perfect in implementation, but point to one thing in any version of the civ series that is 100% perfect.

[Harovan]

Well the Portugese never have been a civilization in the first place. If you take the arch-european civs Romanics (not Romans!), Germanics (not Germans!) and Slavics, add the Celts (which I forgot to mention in my first post) and take in account influence from other continents (Turkish, Hun, Arabic etc.), every tribe or later Nation in Europe can be explained as something like a composition of these "archetypes".

[Theseus]

You left out the Basques!!

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Well the Portugese never have been a civilization in the first place. If you take the arch-european civs Romanics (not Romans!), Germanics (not Germans!) and Slavics, add the Celts (which I forgot to mention in my first post) and take in account influence from other continents (Turkish, Hun, Arabic etc.), every tribe or later Nation in Europe can be explained as something like a composition of these "archetypes".

As the Syrians, Lebanese, Israelis, Arabs, Hittites, Assyrians and a host of others could be derivitives from Sumerians... Designing the game, they needed to make a few decisions.

I take your point regarding RL analysis. Yes, I understand the concept of Romantic language/culture group of Europe (Spain, Italy, France, Romania). In this way, in RL, they are not seperate civilizations.

[ChrisB]

Forgive my ignorance as a European, but if you are looking for historical examples of culture flipping, couldn't you say that Texas cultured-flipped to the United States?

[vmxa1]

At that time it was not part of the US, it was a sovereign state. It won it sovereignty from Mexico and join the US much later.

Since it was done by war I am not sure if that quailifies as a cultural flip or not. Anyway Texas is the only state in the union that was sovereign.