DESIGN: Culture: thoughts

[MrBaggins]

Certainly there is something interesting to the Civ3 concept.

What are other peoples thoughts on the subject? Would culture add important elements to CtP2?

[Ekmek]

For those that dont now, in civ3 culture is gained by wonders and improvements that add per turn and add up per city to increase the borders of the city. The sum of all city culture points is also added up for a cultural value thatcan assist in "culture flipping" cities. where a city joins yours because of high culture. There is also a culture victory if a city reaches a high set number of culture points.


I think the Civ3 system is so-so. Border expansion is a different topic, i dont like the culture way or ctp2's population size. I'd rather it be by improvements like govt centers or communications, something that emphasizes control.

As for culture points, a culture victory is ok. I like the idea of options besides military conquest, so a culture victory would be cool, but a little different though, I'd have to see what ideas are on it.

I WOULD like to see something like culture points being used like "experience points" in old adventure games. Something that could be used to vary your civ. And slightly have the traits concept for Civ3.

It would be almost a secondary tech tree but adds bonuses. So for llike 100 culture points it allows infantry a better attack (say for militaristic) or gold bonus on trade for commercial. This may branch out into unique small wonders, units, or certain improvements.

I know the idea of choosing your civilization's cultural values are unrealistic to a degree, some might want this randomized. Certain AI could have cultural preferences like the British wanting to be seafaring, mongols militaristic. But it would be fun to develop a new civilization with unique cultural attrbutes to differentiate the nations.

I dont think it should go so far as choosing which cultural group like euro, asian, etc though

Just a suggestion...

[MrBaggins]

I don't think that there is ANYTHING broken about CtP2's city expansion via population. Its completely intuitive, a more populous city gathers resources from a wider area. Makes perfect sense. In fact, I think its one of the big advantages of CtP2 over Civ3.

Culture flipping, though... thoughts?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by E
I know the idea of choosing your civilization's cultural values are unrealistic to a degree, some might want this randomized. Certain AI could have cultural preferences like the British wanting to be seafaring, mongols militaristic. But it would be fun to develop a new civilization with unique cultural attrbutes to differentiate the nations.

I would give the British a preference for seafaring are priory. The didn't choose to like seafaring, because it is so cool. It was so important for them because they are sitting on an island. So invironment influence made them to seafarers.

-Martin

[MrBaggins]

Right. I already mentioned having an AI that reacted to environmental situations. Its done in the current AI, but could be much more effective. I don't know bonus attributes are necessary. Civ isn't a roleplay game, or RTS.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
I don't think that there is ANYTHING broken about CtP2's city expansion via population. Its completely intuitive, a more populous city gathers resources from a wider area. Makes perfect sense. In fact, I think its one of the big advantages of CtP2 over Civ3.

Culture flipping, though... thoughts?

I think the expansion by puplation is best represent by building more cities or by the city expansion mod. But borders arent a factor of population, it comes from claiming and defending territory. Hong Kong has a huge population but its size is small. Canada is bigger than the US but has 1/10th the population. So thats why I dont like the pop border thing.


Culture flipping...its add a nice peaceful way to expand but civ3 is bad at it I think, because sometimes it flips multiple times, and when you reject it it just stays as part of the old civ. If we have culture flipping with secession that would be cooler (although ctp2 does it somewhat, we need to have a set path of successive names like americans from the english etc.)

[MrBaggins]

More cities are just that. More cities.

The city expansion mod needs space to expand into, and is activated by population, just as regular city expansion is.

[The Big Mc]

It is also dependent on religion you would not get a roman city to switch to a Incan city because they have different religions

However you would produce variant units to better cope with the local conditions

[Dale]

I'll say this once, and once only:

Culture, the way it is in Civ3, is so unbalanced, design-faulty and ridiculous, that it was THE #1 REASON I shelved the game. How in the hell is a computer game supposed to simulate the rise and fall of culture of history, in 1000 turns? It just simply doesn't work.

[Locutus]

I like the idea of border (not city radius) extention. It makes sense that certain cities exert more influence on their surroundings than others, so that's a good idea if you ask me. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be modelled through culture. In reality, it's a factor of military/political/religious power, size, age, marvel. It could be modelled by culture, but just as easily by other things, in my opinion.

Like E, I like having alternative victory routes, so the cultural victory sounds great to me. However, as it's implemented in Civ3, you don't get much satisfaction from it. The only way to achieve it is by being miles ahead of the competition, so if you win it wasn't after a close contest. If you beat your opponent to a science victory by a mere turn or two, or if you were elected leader of the world in the UN by only a few votes difference, it won't feel like a cop-out victory. The culture victory always does. So if we're gonna copy it, it should be made more interesting to achieve.

I would like there to be distinct differences between civs, so that your opponents aren't just collections of city names. It would be nice if you could identify yourself with the civ you're playing with, and if you could curse your opponent for being an arrogant French frog or a power-hungry American. So I certainly like to see different AIs with different approaches to strategy (which certainly should be guided mostly by environment, but that doesn't prohibit the Mongols from being aggressive, the Dutch from focussing on commerce and diplomacy and the Greeks from aiming for science victory). Some ways to making civs more unique would certainly be welcome, but cultural properties (Commercial, Religious, etc) are only one way of accomplishing this.

As for city flipping, I like having a peaceful way of expanding your empire, but it should probably be less arbitrary, avoiding a city from flipping back and forth several times. For one thing, a city shouldn't flip unless it can be said with reasonable certainty that it won't flip back anytime soon. And flipping doesn't necessarily have to be determined by culture.

I haven't formulated my thoughts on culture as I have for resources. It might be worth copying the Civ3 system and making some modifications, it might be a good idea to design a completely new system or it might be best to leave out altogether but implement it's betst features in a non-cultural form.

[The Big Mc]

what about the old civ 2 way of bribing a city to flip on to your side

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
what about the old civ 2 way of bribing a city to flip on to your side

That was to easy............All you needed where 20 diplomats and that was all..........


Or we would need to increase the price, but again. Money comes to easy..........

[Tamerlin]

I would not change the way city borders are increasing in CtP2, this is as far as I am concerned one of the great features of the game.

Culture flipping is a bit tricky to implement, I don't think any city in history has changed its allegiance by itself without an external pressure or an increasing number of settlers coming from a close kingdom and bringing some changes with them. Whatever the case, the flipping should not be as sudden as it is in Civ3, it should be progressive and the player should be warned ahead of time that something is going wrong.

I would implement it this way: an increasing number of discontents (the reason being displayed in the city manager) ending in a revolution during which the city sides with the civilization influencing it.

As far as I am concerned I would link culture with governments (Republic, Democracy), trade with the city, wonders and technological achievements rather than with buildings though some of them could help. It is a matter of "Prestige".

In the same spirit, the cultural influence should vary with the government and military strength of the influenced nation...

[Gilgamensch]

culture can be associated with buildings rather then governments, or type of government.

Just think of this thing called Lollywood Hollywood. This is, sad to say, also a part of culture.

Take the jeans, similar.

Whatever you take, it is not related really to the government, but to the sociaty behind it. Centre piece for Muslims would be like Mecca. But again nothing to do with governments.

(Before people complain one is relgious the other one isn't, let's take than the Vatican with Micheangelo's chapel.......).

All part of culture...........

Prestige: THAT is another point...........

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch
culture can be associated with buildings rather then governments, or type of government.

Just think of this thing called Lollywood Hollywood.

Wonder...

Take the jeans, similar.

Trade...

Whatever you take, it is not related really to the government, but to the sociaty behind it. Centre piece for Muslims would be like Mecca. But again nothing to do with governments.

Would you deny the influence of the Greek and Roman republics on our history?

The spread of fascism throughout Europe between the two world wars had much to do with the successes of the German and Italian governments as they were perceived by the people of this time.

Before people complain one is relgious the other one isn't, let's take than the Vatican with Micheangelo's chapel.......).

These are wonders...

All part of culture...........

I agree though.

Prestige: THAT is another point...........

I would say THAT IS the point...