Cultural Diversity

Viregel said:

Latin would be the perfect name for both groups, but I still think they're different enough to separate. Perhaps Latin for South America (or even Latin American), then "Christendom" or something for the Romance civs? The advantage of Christendom is this covers the HRE, the Papal States and Byzantium as well.

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The point IS to have separate Papal and Holy Roman groups because of civs with specific goals. I would avoid denominating groups by religion, because the player is free to found any religion he likes. (so no Christendom, no Islamic)

Viregel said:

Latin would be the perfect name for both groups, but I still think they're different enough to separate. Perhaps Latin for South America (or even Latin American), then "Christendom" or something for the Romance civs? The advantage of Christendom is this covers the HRE, the Papal States and Byzantium as well.

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No, no, no. I must have my special Pope and Holy Roman features. Non-negotiable .

janboruta said:

The point IS to have separate Papal and Holy Roman groups because of civs with specific goals. I would avoid denominating groups by religion, because the player is free to found any religion he likes. (so no Christendom, no Islamic)

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Probably should have thought over that. I just thought it was rather strange to have some sets with only one civ, but that makes total sense now.

janboruta said:

I would split the Native Americans into High American (Aztec, Maya, Inca et consortes, the city-dwellers) and Tribal American (the rest).

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That could work.

Homosubi has a nice fan of options for the Japan part.

The Orient should definitely be split up since India's the main influence for most of SE Asia.

Something is missing from Civ V that Civ II had. My youth :<

~Unique Antiquity Site: "Tomb of Genghis khan" ~ never discovered, but whatever.
~+5 Culture for having the largest Cavalry

Have fun.

Ah, I do like those ideas. Thanks much!

I was trying to think about something for the Slavic group, but only a handful of semi-relevant effects come to my mind.

Traits:
- defensive buildings constructed faster
- something related to wheat trade
- start with both warrior and scout
- enemy units suffer 5 HP of attrition per turn near the capital
- unique wonder: Pechersk Lavra: extra faith per population
OR
Golden Gate of Kiev, bonuses to trade routes coming to or originating from the city where it is built.
- unique building: County Court (Sejmik; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejmik ); replaces Courthouse, can be built in any city. Lessens the cost of acquiring Social Policies by 2%.

Penalties:
- 5%-10% slower research compared to other European civs

Goals:
- Bonus culture for having the largest army
- Faith reward for adopting a foreign religion and having the most followers of it in the world
- Reward for never picking Liberty policy tree (Freedom ideology is free to take)

JFD said:

American - Aztecs, Inca, Shoshone, Maya, Iroquois, etc. (I was originally going to split them, but feel that they would mostly share the same overall focus)

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Yeah, to be honest I sceptical about splitting native americans on three groups. At most they should be divided into city dwellers and 'tribes', but when I think about their focus it seems to be similar, and I am going to write down my few ideas about them.

Colonial, Steppe, Subsaharan and Islamic are the easiest/most obvious groups

JFD said:

Graeco-Roman - Rome, Greece, Byzantium, etc.

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I cannot invent much more civs which would fit here :d Carthago isn't exactly Graeco - Roman but for gameplay purposes it seems much more similar to them than to Near East. I would call this one 'Mediterranean' and put here Rome, Greece, Byzantium, Carthago, Phoenicia/Minoan/whatever is included.

JFD said:

Mesopotamic - Persia, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt etc.

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Sumer, Hittites. By the way, what about Israel and Armenia?

JFD said:

Polynesian - Polynesia (in anticipation of the More Civs split, too)

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:0 entire group for these guys :0 on the other hand, I forgot about planned Polynesia split - then this group would make sense
Yeah, that seems to make sense - especially if we would call this group simply PACIFIC and add here Aborigins + Maori (there are mods with them, also it seems TPangolin prepares some Aborigin tribes)

JFD said:

Germanic - Celts, Goths, Franks, Denmark, Norway, etc.
Slavic - Poland, Russia, Hungary, Kievan Rus', etc.

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And here is where problems appear

- 'Ethnic' reasons: we have Germans, Slavs, Romanic nations, Celts and... Hungary + Finland
- 'Cultural' reasons: we have Latin Christianity (well, before reformation) and Orthodox Nations (...here also Byzantium collides )
- 'Civilisation historical focus reasons': we have colonial western powers, Scandinavia, little republics of Netherlands/Italia and land empires like Germany 1870, Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia, Hungary

Yeah, Europe in this context gives me a headache

JFD said:

Oriental - China, Indonesia, Siam, etc.
Japanese - Japan
Indian - India (in anticipation of the More Civs split)

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Ok, so let me be a little geek as I know basic outline of East Asia history

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Indian_cultural_zone.svg/940px-Indian_cultural_zone.svg.png

This map shows countries and zones under historical Indian cultural influence. From what I know, it seems that Indian architecture, culture, philosophy and religions (especially buddhism and hinduism) had great impact on South - East Asia; Indonesia, Siam, Burma, Khmer have much more in common with India than with China, when we use scientific term of 'civilisation' (still unclear...). On the other hand, they are distinctive enough to consider creating separate SEA group, although I am not sure about that; definitely they should be rather in Indian group than in Chinese one.

On the other hand, China had powerful cultural impact on Korea, Japan and Vietnam, so they should belong to Chinese group (maybe with exception of Japan - to be honest I don't know whether Japan should have separate group or not, but I thought you want to create not many 'general' groups )

Basically, we have options:
Chinese Group - Indian Group
Chinese Group - Indian Group - South East Asian Group
whatever groups - separate Japanese group



ALTERNATE:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Clash_of_Civilizations_map.png/800px-Clash_of_Civilizations_map.png

This one, as we can see, divides Europe on Latin and Orthodox Christianity, and creates interesting mess in Asia: India is India, China + Korea + Vietnam are in Chinese group, Japan is alone, Indonesia belongs to Islam group (but for big part of its history Indonesia was hindu...) and Tibet + Burma + Khmer + Siam create buddhist group. Generally, this is based on world religions.

Krajzen said:

- 'Ethnic' reasons: we have Germans, Slavs, Romanic nations, Celts and... Hungary + Finland
- 'Cultural' reasons: we have Latin Christianity (well, before reformation) and Orthodox Nations (...here also Byzantium collides )
- 'Civilisation historical focus reasons': we have colonial western powers, Scandinavia, little republics of Netherlands/Italia and land empires like Germany 1870, Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia, Hungary

Yeah, Europe in this context gives me a headache

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Sorry to take only this part of your post, but I would toss ethnic reasons aside and just focus on large, noticeable groups. So in Europe we have:

Northern/Western Europe: Germanic nations + France, Spain, Portugal
Southern/Mediterranean: Rome, Greece, Carthage, Byzantium etc.
Eastern/Slavic: Poland, Russia, Kiev, Lithuania, and I would really put Hungary here, just because they were still an eastern element within the rest of Europe. I think this is the most basic division, which doesn't require delving into unnecessary detail.

Now, something VERY LONG.

FOCUS IDEAS
I give here general Focus Ideas, not exact game mechanics - here my obsession about fighting with Eurocentrism (and even bigger obsession about analysing data) can be useful.

Native Americans - Fancy Name{America}


Sub - Sabaran Africa - Fancy Name{Africa/Ebony}


Colonial States - Fancy Name{Colony?...}


Islam - Fancy Name{the Crescent - climatic, and in the same time doesn't break immersion when you take other religion than Islam :d}


Greeko - Roman{Mediterranean}


Western Europe - Fancy Name{Occident}


Eastern Europe - Fancy Name{Interior}


Mesopotamia/Near East - Fancy Name{the Cradle}


Chinese Sphere of Influence - Fancy Name{Orient}


India/Indian Sphere of Influence - Fancy Name{Bharata/Akhand Bharat}


Those are my ideas for 10 main groups - eventually we can make separate groups for Japan and South - East Asia, also Pacific and JDF two unique groups

janboruta said:

Sorry to take only this part of your post, but I would toss ethnic reasons aside and just focus on large, noticeable groups. So in Europe we have:

Northern/Western Europe: Germanic nations + France, Spain, Portugal
Southern/Mediterranean: Rome, Greece, Carthage, Byzantium etc.
Eastern/Slavic: Poland, Russia, Kiev, Lithuania, and I would really put Hungary here, just because they were still an eastern element within the rest of Europe. I think this is the most basic division, which doesn't require delving into unnecessary detail.

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This is more the split that I was going for with Europe, except I would probably split Germanic nations and France, Spain, Portugal, England, etc. up because I'd like to give the latter group extra incentive to colonize in the later game, whereas the former would not fit this intention.

janboruta said:

I was trying to think about something for the Slavic group, but only a handful of semi-relevant effects come to my mind.

Traits:
- defensive buildings constructed faster
- something related to wheat trade
- start with both warrior and scout
- enemy units suffer 5 HP of attrition per turn near the capital
- unique wonder: Pechersk Lavra: extra faith per population
OR
Golden Gate of Kiev, bonuses to trade routes coming to or originating from the city where it is built.
- unique building: County Court (Sejmik; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejmik ); replaces Courthouse, can be built in any city. Lessens the cost of acquiring Social Policies by 2%.

Penalties:
- 5%-10% slower research compared to other European civs

Goals:
- Bonus culture for having the largest army
- Faith reward for adopting a foreign religion and having the most followers of it in the world
- Reward for never picking Liberty policy tree (Freedom ideology is free to take)

Click to expand...

Appreciate and love the suggestions.



FOCUS IDEAS
I give here general Focus Ideas, not exact game mechanics - here my obsession about fighting with Eurocentrism (and even bigger obsession about analysing data) can be useful.

Native Americans - Fancy Name{America}


Granted, but technological progress in the Americas was fairly inert relative to Europeans, Middle-Eastern and Asians at the time. This is what I'm trying to reflect with slower overall technology, even should this be mostly out of a lack of need for the same kind of technological progress. And the second pantheon would capture their tendency to do well with nature, I think.

Sub - Sabaran Africa - Fancy Name{Africa/Ebony}


I'm an advocate of the term "racism" retaining its meaning, rather than becoming a catch-all term for anything stereotypical. So that suggestion would not be racist, but also probably not particularly impactful, and maybe also a little misguided, but definitely stereotypical. I like the ideas that you've proposed. Perhaps a sort of technological diffusion for Africans from their trade routes.

Colonial States - Fancy Name{Colony?...}


I agree. Tourism would be the focus here. Colonial civs shall be deadly to face off against in the Cultural Victory game.

Islam - Fancy Name{the Crescent - climatic, and in the same time doesn't break immersion when you take other religion than Islam :d}


I was thinking I could salvage my Ottoman trait for Arabic civs; i.e. faith from specialists and faith into science. One possible penalty to Arabic civs could be a harsher diplomatic penalty for religious differences.

Greeko - Roman{Mediterranean}


Rome, at least, had a very influential religion; made so especially because of their syncretism. Many government actions were on the advice of oracles. I'm not sure what I'd do with Graeco-Romans yet, but given that Byzantium is the successor to Rome (well, of the hundreds of claimants to the title, Byzantium is the closet), I would like to retain them in the same group if I possibly can.

Western Europe - Fancy Name{Occident}


It's something to consider, but I will certainly be splitting Europe up more than between West and East if I am to have colonizing bonuses for them.

Eastern Europe - Fancy Name{Interior}


Times like these an internal corruption system would be nice.

Mesopotamia/Near East - Fancy Name{the Cradle}


A population focus is definitely want I'm thinking. A massive population will naturally enable better science, culture and such - I think the best penalty would be that their own bonuses peter out in later eras, as you say.



Some very interesting ideas, here. Thank you Krajzen. I will put them to good thought.

Incidentally, I don't have a clue where Armenia would fit...

This is an awesome idea. I'll read this more carefully before adding any thought.
Just one question, how are you doing the cultural groups? Because I wanted to do a mod were those kind of groups would share uniques

Hm, Armenia is really a tricky one, but I think that it would best fit with the Eastern European group for the time being. It's not western enough to be with Greeks and Romans and not southern enough to be Mesopotamic, and the focus on defending the religion is definitely an Armenian trait.

It's a similar deal as Hungary - their ethnicity is so much different from the rest of Eastern Europe (well, at least in the middle ages the differences were really jarring), but they shared a lot of fortunes and misfortunes of other Eastern nations in the area, especially those in the Balkans. But for the sake of simplicity, it's more convenient to put them in the Eastern European group.

mrc2022 said:

This is an awesome idea. I'll read this more carefully before adding any thought.
Just one question, how are you doing the cultural groups? Because I wanted to do a mod were those kind of groups would share uniques

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I intend to have each cultural group share similar uniques. Each will have at least 1 unique wonder (depending upon the size of the group, some will have more). I will endeavour to include other uniques, as well. I think I might give unique buildings that groups whose civs mostly include uu (e.g. the Steppe civs get a unique building, as almost every one of them has a unique unit), and vice-versa.

janboruta said:

Hm, Armenia is really a tricky one, but I think that it would best fit with the Eastern European group for the time being. It's not western enough to be with Greeks and Romans and not southern enough to be Mesopotamic, and the focus on defending the religion is definitely an Armenian trait.

It's a similar deal as Hungary - their ethnicity is so much different from the rest of Eastern Europe (well, at least in the middle ages the differences were really jarring), but they shared a lot of fortunes and misfortunes of other Eastern nations in the area, especially those in the Balkans.

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Yes. The groupings will be more mechanical than anything. I think Armenia will function appropriately with the Slavs.

Incidentally, if there are no more suggestions for the Steppes, I will release them sometime today. I'm just fixing up the foundational UI and I've got to figure out how to compare the size of their cavalry to everyone else, and then I'm done.

Struggling to compare the values of each civ's plot count to the steppe civ, or at least to retrieve the maximum value of everyone's plot count. An alternative I can do is "Possess 22% of the world's land" but this might be too rigid?

JFD said:

I intend to have each cultural group share similar uniques. Each will have at least 1 unique wonder (depending upon the size of the group, some will have more). I will endeavour to include other uniques, as well. I think I might give unique buildings that groups whose civs mostly include uu (e.g. the Steppe civs get a unique building, as almost every one of them has a unique unit), and vice-versa.

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Was going to comment trying to point out my view and the ideas for my shot at something like this, although I was only thinking of uniques and not any cultural aspect.
But I'm gonna wait to see where you are coming up with this.

This is a brilliant idea! If you like I could compile a list of civs according to category. I've got a library of mod civs that covers most of the decent ones that are available.

Hiram said:

This is a brilliant idea! If you like I could compile a list of civs according to category. I've got a library of mod civs that covers most of the decent ones that are available.

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If you're interested, then sure. I'd be interested to see what you come up with. But bear in mind that the civ groupings that I've listed aren't final.