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polypheus
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United Nations of Earth
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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Define:
Cultural Density = Cultural Points/(# of cities)
Barbarian Strength = 1/Cultural Density
= (# of cities)/cultural points
Since barbarian strength is inversely proportional to cultural density, the more you ICS (thus lowering cultural density), the greater the barbarian strength. It forms a good, realistic counterbalance to ICS.
Here is what the ICSer will face using this model:
He builds as many low population, low or zero culture cities as possible. As he does this his cultural density drops further and further (therefore barbarian strength increases further and further). Therefore he will need to start building more and more military units to confront this ferocious barbarian assault (or risk being overrun).
Of course, military units have absolutely no bearing on cultural density and hence barbarian strength so the ICSer continues to have to replace military units in the field against the constant neverending relentless assault.
OTOH, of course military units cost money therefore inhibits the spending on cultural buildings.
The ICS spends all his time doing nothing but defending and falls further and further behind in development.Therefore he will have to increase his cultural density by either abandoning some cities or by suddenly changing production from military to cultural city improvements and risking being overrun (since the cultural points will take some time to accumulate).
This formulation does not make ICS impossible but it does make it extremely riskly and unlikely to work everytime (probably most times it will NOT work).
ICS is solved!
Last edited by polypheus on 29-06-2001 at 05:06
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Dr Strangelove
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Hmmm, interesting idea. I think I like it.
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polypheus
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United Nations of Earth
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Grumbold
I follow the concept but the way I read your math makes it look like attacks will range in strength from 1 to a fraction of 1 so no barbarian attack will ever be any threat. How about :
Number of barbarians per attack = # cities - cultural strength.
BUT if we are going to have waves of 10+ barbarians then they need to come from somewhere sensible. Not a single mountain tile not in one of your cities ZoC. Once Empires are butted up against each other the threat should be from each other, not units springing like magic out of the ground. The talk of barbarian towns that can only appear in the unoccupied parts of the world reassure me here. |
Cultural Density = Culture Points/#cities
Barbarian Strength = 1/Cultural Density = #cities/cultural pts
Thus as you increase in the number of cities while keeping your cultural pts low, the barbarian strength continues to increase linearly with each new low culture city you found.
The math seems to be about right.
I also agree that barbarians should only come from uncivilized areas. If you are butted up against another empire, ICS is naturally blocked by that other empire.
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polypheus
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United Nations of Earth
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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quote:
Originally posted by War4ever
i don't like the idea. cultural rating..... why should it care how big a city is...... i realize that one big city has more culture than several small ones......
But, think of small cities as camps, and i think they should have some sort of solidarity if they are huddled together.
Enough camps together should be powerfull enough to hold off rogue barbarians |
AFAIK, cultural points are accumulated based on how many marketplaces, libraries, universities, and wonders you have and also their age. I don't think it has anything to do with size of cities at all.
The formulas:
Cultural Density = Culture Points/#Cities
Barbarian Strength = 1/Cultural Density
= #Cities/Culture Points
say nothing about the size of cities directly only the number of cities and your total culture points.
It merely prevents you from building tons of undeveloped cities in order to claim as much land as possible and then developing them later on.
Instead it encourages you to expand and develop at a more balanced paced.
Last edited by polypheus on 29-06-2001 at 06:31
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JamesJKirk
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Dixon, CA USA
Jan 1970
time: 21:14
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this is great stuff, I was actually wondering about this after reading a story on Chechnya and cruising the forums at the same time, I sure hope that culture isn't a flat rating throughout out empire. Thinking of this more, it would really suit a US expansion type scenario too, with "barbarians" attacking new settlements.
This makes me wonder one thing though, should it be possible to send "cultured" citizens from one culturally high city to a low one, and in effect bring its culture level up? Also, when you found a city in a far off place how many people emigrate there because they're nearby natives, how many are due to natural growth, and how many come from the homeland? Or is this being too complex?
Even if these questions aren't answered it looks wonderful, and I'm sure we all may be inadventently caught off guard when trying to overexpand, and I can't wait for that to (hopefully) happen
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Juggernaut
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Hint: the flag
Jun 2001
time: 06:14
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what i dont really get is why the cultural rating should mean something to the barbarians. should they think; "hey, there´s a city with almost no universitys and temples. they got a city wall and lots a miltary, but no culture, so let´s attack it!". and get an heavy attack bonus? unrealistic...
the risk of ICS should be, as in reality, to leave your new, tiny cities unarmed with no military defense, making them easy prey for foreign civs and barbarians.
so:
- increase the amount of barbarians. make barbarians less willing to attack a stacked city.
- make foreign leaders more eager. if they discover a civ with no miltary units, they shouldn´t just accept a 200 gold gift and sign a peace treaty! it should be almost impossible to hold peace at that level, meaning the same moment you meet your first civ, your ICS has seen it´s last days...atleast if you want your civ to survive.
another way would be to introduce the fact that undeveloped cities with no city improvements dont last if they haven´t got ie. a marketplace. who wants to live in a city with no trading? no trading, no food...
the terrain could also work as a reducement. if you bild a city on a mountain tile, it shouldn´t be allowed to grow beyond the size of ie. 2 - if you dont build a marketplace and import trade to it. or maybe the city shouldn´t exist more than a few turns?
this would mean the player has to improve trading between the cities, and the ICS becomes heavily reduced.
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Zeevico
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Melbourne, Australia
Dec 2000
time: 05:14
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the fact that it is unrealistic is besides the point. It effectively combats ICS, and therefore recieves my thumbs up. In case you haven't noticed, Civilization is meant to be more fun than realistic, and without ICS, it would be much more fun and realistic as well, because, realstically, ICS style civs would get the **** beaten out of them in real life.
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Jarouik
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Helsinki, Finland, EU
Dec 2000
time: 07:14
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I think the idea is in no way unrealistic... and I like it a lot: the lower the culture rating in an area, the more Barbarians will appear. Of course, I do not think Barbarians should constantly appear on continents not colonized by any of the civs, but if you start founding cities with a low culture rating on uncivilized areas, you would encounter some resistance - even explorers might encounter hostile native Barbarians, although that is already represented by the huts.
The point here is that culture rating in Civilization 3, according to what I've read, represents the cultural influence your civilization has on its surroundings. The more libraries, Wonders etc. you have built, the more civilized the people on areas surrounding your cities are and the more prone to be affected by your culture to such an extent that they would not attack it. Since the culture rating increases the range of your civilization's borders, it should also push back Barbarians - I think Barbarians in Civ, especially now that they have cities and such, represent the indigenous people of a certain area that are not a part of your culture.
It seems only logical that the further your culture spreads, the less Barbarians reside near your cities. In addition, it might even make sense that a high culture rating would increase your cities' growth, as more and more people from the surrounding areas are affected by the city and might move to its vicinity or otherwise be considered part of your population.
Of course, this does not count for rebels and such, which I feel should appear as Barbarian units even if your culture rating is high if there is too much unhappiness/disorder in your cities. I think Civ 2 had no such feature - only the random Barbarians appearing in the middle of nowhere would sometimes be called rebels in the message informing the player.
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KrazyHorse
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Macedonia
May 2001
time: 00:14
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The idea of a high "Culture Density" lowering the chances of barbarian attacks is in no way unrealistic. I would also like to suggest that it be non-uniform (as somebody else already has). The way I would envision this is by the following:
P=F/(C1/d1+C2/d2+...+Cn/dn)
where P is the probability of a barbarian army appearing on a given tile, C1 is the #of culture points from city "1", C2 is the # of culture points from city "2", etc., d1 is the distance from the given tile to city "1", d2 is the distance from the given tile to city "2", etc. (note that all cities on the world are counted, not just the player's, and that there are "n" cities on the world), and F is an arbitrary scale factor which can be altered to affect gameplay. What this means in ordinary terms is that, while it is possible for barbarians to appear even at the centre of well-developed empires, they are much more likely to appear on the fringes of empires or within an undeveloped ICS empire. "F", the scale factor, could even be altered so that it changes as the date advances. This way, it would allow an empire the chance to get some improvements built before they're attacked by numerous hordes of barbarians. F could be very low for the first few turns, but then begin to rise as time goes on, until an empire with very low culture in 0 a.d. or later would be virtually assured of barbarian annihilation. To get back to why culture rating affecting the frequency of barbarian attacks is not unrealistic, you've got to realize that the barbarians don't come from nowhere; they're derived from the indigenous, uncivilized inhabitants of a region. If a region has a high culture density, then its inhabitants are more likely to become peaceable farmers, artisans, or merchants than they are to become nomadic raiders.
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polypheus
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United Nations of Earth
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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It is good to see many people support this idea! I only hope that Firaxis can at least look into this.
Many people have raised various points so let me address them in turn.
1. The Meaning of Barbarian Strength
I did not intend barbarian strength to mean increased attack and defense ratings. What I meant by barbarian strength was the frequency of attacks and the size of the attacking forces. But the barbarians should be using standard units with standard ratings otherwise.
2. Is the model realistic?
I believe it is quite realistic! As others have pointed out, culture represents the amount of influence you have on the as yet to be civilized barbarian nomands. The more influence you have, the less nomadic and warlike and the more they want to settle down and become civilized themselves and join your your civ as the see the benefits of civilized life.
Also keep in mind that when you build these villages, you are building also in lands that barbarians might consider as theirs as well! Why should barbarians just let you take over all these lands with your sea of villages? So barbarians should consider it a threat to their very livelihood and resist you!
And if you look at the way the Roman Empire fell, you can see some correlation with "cultural density". Notice that the first regions to fall were Britain, then Gaul (France), Spain, and finally Italy was the last to fall in the Western Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) lasted for another 1000 years and Greece finally fell to the Turks. But if you look at where the barbarians attacked and which regions of the Roman Empire fell first you might notice that low population, underdeveloped area fell first (low cultural density) but high cultural density areas fell last.
Also look at where the Vikings attacked during the era of Viking raids. Notice they attacked low cultural density areas mostly such as Russia and Britain.
3. Model Refinements
KrazyHorse makes a good suggestion to regionalize barbarian strength since cultural density is not uniform, so let me take his idea and expand it further. How about this?
Regional Barbarian Strength =
n/(c1/d1 + c2/d2 + ... + cn/dn)
n is the total number of cities
dn is the distance of city n to a certain region
cn is the cultural points of city n
As KH suggests, the formula should include all cities of the world.
Conclusion:
I think it is a very good, realistic, historic model that will add tremendously to gameplay and solve the unrealistic and stupid ICS strategy from working ALL the time.
Since it does NOT require new game mechanics, it is also extremely easy for Firaxis to implement! So I hope that this idea is given some consideration!
Last edited by polypheus on 30-06-2001 at 00:26
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polypheus
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United Nations of Earth
Jun 2001
time: 21:14
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After further thought and after reading KrazyHorse's comment that a far away ICS Civ should not affect local babarian hostility, I have come up with a new model which should address these concerns.
Define barbarian Hostility to be the frequency and the size of a barbarian attack towards a given city.
Then
Barbarian Hostility towards City i = n/(Ci + C1/D1 + C2/D2 + ... + Cn/Dn)
where Ci is the cultural points of city i
Cn is the cultural points of city n
Dn is the distance between city i and city n
n is the total number of cities
and only Cities closer than, say, 12 squares from City i are included in the Barbarian Hostility formula.
This prevents far away ICS Civs from having any affect on the local barbarian hostilty towards city i.
The actual formula might need to be tweaked a little based how cultural points are actually accumulated and such but this formula embodies the basic idea.
Last edited by polypheus on 30-06-2001 at 02:01
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29-06-2001 02:33
Too many formulas! I like the idea anyway. 
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