16 civs, yet only 5 cultures???

[Nemo]

Ok now i am confused...

Civilization III will feature sixteen civilizations and five distinct cultures.

taken from:

http://compstratgames.about.com/games/compstratgames/library/e3/2001/firaxis/ble3civ3b.htm

Can someone please explain how you can have more civilizations that cultures? until now, i thought that culture was more based upon ones country. So, why aren't there as many cultures as civs? i am now suddenly lost on the "culture" concept. what if you take over a cive with the same "culture" ...just becuase they are teh same culture, does that not mean that they will have to be "assimilated" into your nation? or would you not even be able to caputre a city if it has teh same culture? it doesn't make sense (yet)

[Zanzin]

Well, I guess they're dividing all the civs to fall into a particular type of culture......i.e. European, Asian, Western.....I think it makes pretty good sense

[Rollo_CH]

I think there's 5 distinct cultures and 16 Civs, which could mean: 5 very different culture types and within these 5, a few similar...similar in building style and stuff, but still a different society. So i guess you will still have the same problems to assimilate Civs with similar culture as the ones living across the globe. Example: The Germans and the French....close neighbors but probably not eager to melt into the conquering Civ nation.

[bagdar]

Civilizations which began close together in the real world (e.g. Greeks and Romans), will be placed in close proximity in the game world. The game world will be more continental in nature, and civilizations which start the game on the same continent will share similar architectural styles and other features.

Civilization III will feature sixteen civilizations and five distinct cultures.

Wars will be devastating to the continent on which they occur. Among other things, trade will be disrupted and culture will suffer.

YEEEES!!!!!!

God, this is very very very promising. It's getting more and more logical, maybe that's where we must be seeking 'realism'. It'll be a disaster when this game is out and my computer turns out be too weak...

[Footie Mad]

Maybe there are 5 main cultural styles and then you have different subcultures in them. This would make some sense as I hardly think there is an equally big difference between the English and the Germans as say the English and the Indians.

[TechWins]

There are many different cultures when you get down to the small details but there are just a few cultures for 16 civs when you look at the whole culture. Most of the European nations such as England, France, Germany, etc... aren't that different from each other, when not concentrating on the small details.

[Ecthy]

Generally, I like the idea of different cultures and Civs that live close together sharing a culture model... hopefully it allows a better historical gameplay on the world map. I really liked to play on the world map, trying to copy Earth's history

[Jaguar]

Maybe theyre referring to the Bronze age monolith/far east/medievil/classical city styles

[Footie Mad]

One thing that would be great would be to have cultural wars, kind of like crusades against an entire culture.

[Ecthy]

That's exactly my point, Wille!

It will be fun, definitely... But then, if starting close togethe rmeans similar culture could mean that the Romans for example might have a similar culture setting as... the Arabs (or so), which would be wrong... but on a world map...

hey, why not allowing players to set "culture borders" on a premade map.. of course, it's hard to set real borders for cultures, but it's more realistic than allowing a mess like that!!

[Footie Mad]

The culture of the civ should be decided by the capitals culture, that way Rome would be european. This poses some problems like really large civs such as Russians but for simplicity you should use the capitals culture.

[MrFun]

(digging out "Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order")

There are really nine main civilizations in the world today:

1) Western
2) Latin American
3) African
4) Islamic
5) Sinic
6) Hindu
7) Orthodox
8) Buddhist
9) Japanese

This is the author's simplified paradigm. One can make it too complicated by pointing out that there could be more, but in my opinion, these nine civilizations make the most sense.

Now, given that each civilization is based on a distinct culture, in our world today, there would be nine civilizations with nine cultures. But, the author knows that it is more complicaed than that. There are some cultural dissident within each civilization group listed above.

I think Sid Meier and the others tried to find a simple, but effective way to REPRESENT the BROAD CONCEPT of culture -- not to make a literal working model of the true complex nature of culture and civilization.

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by MrFun
1) Western
2) Latin American
3) African
4) Islamic
5) Sinic
6) Hindu
7) Orthodox
8) Buddhist
9) Japanese

I quite disagree... Orthodox, for example, might be the culture style for Yugoslavia or Russia, yet neither of these countries' politics or culture is in any way based on religion, yet they're the main ones to be mentioned in connection with Orthodox Christianity...

What about Greece? Orthodox Christianity is their confession, yet a member of the EU, therefore Western?!

I don't know about the rest, but least of the world's countries are really led by the religion that many people associate with them., especially countries with socialist experiences... China springs to mind, so do Russia and Yugoslavia/Serbia (and Montenegro, OK ).

[Bereta_Eder]

Jesus and Mary chain. This article is a treasury vault of very inspiring information.

This slow leack of awesome features is torturing me with anticipation.


I was wondering, do you feel that war and global conquest (what a boring thing) will be MUCH MORE difficult in civ 3?

I say that's a good thing (if it actually happens that way).

[Footie Mad]

Originally posted by paiktis22
Jesus and Mary chain. This article is a treasury vault of very inspiring information.

This slow leack of awesome features is torturing me with anticipation.


I was wondering, do you feel that war and global conquest (what a boring thing) will be MUCH MORE difficult in civ 3?

I say that's a good thing (if it actually happens that way).

Havent they made world conquest much more difficult ? I really think this could be an interesting feature and of course it should be balanced so that it does not become extreme........and using sarcasm is just plain mean