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Plotinus
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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.
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Rasputin
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Brisbane
May 1999
time: 15:32
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quote:
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
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okblacke
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quote:
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]
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Fosse
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U.S.A.
Mar 2002
time: 23:32
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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.
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Oncle Boris
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Once in a brown moon
Aug 2001
time: 00:32
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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?
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Brent
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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.
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Nurhachi
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(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
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Brent
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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.
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Nurhachi
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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
Last edited by Nurhachi on 06-01-2004 at 22:31
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Brent
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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.
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Brent
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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.
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Trebuchet
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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.
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hexagonian
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Gnawing on your mind...
Jun 1999
time: 23:32
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quote:
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.
Last edited by hexagonian on 28-01-2004 at 19:58
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jeff76
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Brussels, Belgium, from Québec though
Sep 2003
time: 06:32
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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...
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Pedrunn
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of Natal, Brazil
Jul 2001
time: 02:32
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quote:
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.
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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"
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31-12-2003 23:42
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