Cultural Diversity

Names are just for references and groupings. Here are my ideas.

High Kingdoms: England, Portugal, Spain, France, Sweden, Netherlands, Austria, France, Bohemia
Slavic: Poland, Russia,Byzantium, Lithuania, Armenia
Clan: Denmark, Goths, Saami, Celtic Split, Celts
Greco-Roman: Carthage, Greece, Greece Split, Rome
Power-States: Switzerland, Tuscany, Milan, Venice
Fertile Crescent: Phoenicia, Hittites, Assyria, Babylon, Sumer, Israel, Nubia
Islamic: Ayyubids, Arabia, Selucid, Persia, Morocco
Africa by Toto: Kongo, Benin, Mali, Songhai, Zulu, Ethiopia
Bharata: India, India Split, Sikh, Nepal, Tibet
Oriental: China, China Split, Korea
Nippon: Japan, Japan Split
Mandala: Indonesia, Khmer, Burma, Siam, Vietnam (depends what era)
Oceania: Polynesia, Polynesia Split, Aboriginals Split
Frontier: Australia, Canada, Philippines, America, Mexico
Latin America: Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Gran Colombia.
High America: Inca, Maya, Aztecs, Zapotecs, Nazca
Tribal America: Shoshone, Iroquois, Inuit, Sioux, Tupi, First Nations Split.
Steppes: Covered

I still think that such groups as Clan and Power-States are not really necessary

Krajzen said:

I still think that such groups as Clan and Power-States are not really necessary

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IMHO, at the VERY LEAST, we're gonna need separate groups for the "Barbaric Europeans", the Classicals, the Renaissance nations and the Colonialist nations.

That's basically dividing Europe based off "cultural progress".

If we go cultural groups we probably need at minimum, the Slavics, the Romanic, the Hellenics and the Germanics; but that's ignoring the huge gaps between how nations like Denmark (Barbaric Vikings), and Sweden (Post-Renaissance Kingdom) are represented in the game.

Cultural progress, ha ha. I don't believe this is the base of this mod. And I don't think this concept is of much relevance here, except for civs that didn't make it to our times - so Ancient Mesopotamian and Classical/Hellenic. If there was a "barbaric" European civ group to be made, it would have to restrict the civs to only medieval technology so the Danes would remain the savage Vikings for the entirety of the game (this sounded cooler than I thought, though)

I believe the way it is going to be divided now is Western, Germanic, Slavic, plus Graeco-Roman for the Mediterranean. Celts could go to Germanic group, which undoubtedly will reflect the early tribal system in some way. This keeps the system simpler, cleaner and without unnecessary divisions.

So basically just the divisions based of cultural groups? I'm making the splits primarily linguistically here, though I've pushed Rome into the Hellenics:

Romanic/Western: Spain, France, Venice, etc.
Germanic: Danes, English, Celts, etc.
Hellenic/Graeco-Roman: Rome, Greece, etc.
Slavic: Poland, Russia, etc.

Lol, and I thought that 'diving civs into cultural groups' was so problematic only for me

Imho, speaking mathematically...

(historical 'focus' of civilisations + cultural familiarity + similar language/ethnicity)
divided by (Civilisation 5 engine + fun gameplay)

Basically I would create even third divide, to create even bigger mess :

Triada Theory



I really like this divide, but there are few little annoying civs who make me scratching my head... Celts and Celtic split (Picts, Wales, Cornwall, Iceni), Franks, Goths, Gallia, ancient European civs (Iberia, Dacia and so on). They in the same time fit to all those groups and nowhere. And as you could have seen, I don't like creating zillions of other groups but unfortunately I think that some kind of 'Barbarians' group could be useful here... (migration, conquest, adaptation, defense, Iron Age - something could be possible to invent but I have no particular ideas here).

And to create even bigger mess, sometimes I was wondering if Germany really should be in Western group, or Poland in the Eastern, or maybe something like central European group could appear, and then my head exploded.
Basically I would say this Triada is optimal for this mod, but I have no idea what to do with those little barbaric bastards.

EDIT
Lol, I have just noticed JFD's idea of dividing civs on WESTERN, GERMANS, SLAVS, GRAECO ROMAN (Ethnic Theory)

So, West -> colonial and maritime powers, Germans -> Germany, Scandinavia, Franks, Goths?... To be honest I have absolutely no idea how to make them different from Slavic group I thought Germany could be treated as Western colonial power along with slightly different but still MARITIME Scandinavian countries.

Damn Europe.

Or maybe...

Triada Ultimate Theory



So, currently we have zillion of cultural diversity ideas from Krajzen, JFD, sukritact and TPangolin

BTW

Eh, Romanic, Germanic, Slavic and Hellenic is probably the exact same thing as Western, Germanic, Slavic and Graeco-Roman. I've just replaced the names with the terms used when classifying languages, in which case I haven't added anything new.

Here's a modern map, though Rome would be pushed into Hellenic for the sake of history:



So the three major language groups + Hellenic for the classical civs; and ignore everything else.

Possible, I lost myself completely in all those groups

May I just say I don't know if its truly necessary the divide between Latin American/Frontier? I of course don't think Australia, Philippines and non-American colonial should be in the same bag as South American, but then...

Mexico is highly Latin-American, I don't understand the criteria for excluding it from the other Latin American. The definition of TP for Frontier is that they had important resources and because of that were colonized; and then they become a tourist beacon. This can be said about pretty much the "Latin-American" civs too...

Bolivia: Impressive quantities of silver in Potosí, plus potatoes. Tourism, in the way of folklorical activities specially during the Carnival.
Brazil: Brazilwood. Carnival
Argentina: "Rio de la Plata", the name comes from Silver; and now huge touristical power with emigration and such.
Paraguay: Admitively the one that least focuses on that; became a mayor colonial center more because of Missions than a "resource" per se; they also became a great land for Estancias though. However, missions also become a touristical thing.
Colombia/Venezuela: First, Muisca's/Chimu's gold, then important haciendas which generated the Llaneros, now also important in tourism because of the Llanero culture.

So IMO, Mexico has at least to be part of Latin-America; and I'd also rather have only one big Colonial group for American (including Canada and America, not Australia and Philippines, they must have another spot I suppose)... But if not, if we make Canada and America different; Mexico should be Latin anyway.

I say just stuff everyone in Colonial; I like the ideas you had for the Colonial civs; and I think they sorta work for all the colonial states.

The executive decision will come from a gameplay perspective. If from America to Paraguay they're going to be all late-game, migration and tourism focused, I'm not going to bother separating them from a Colonial group.

Germanic civs will be at peace with barbarians. England and Germany should not be in the Germanic group, as a result. Also, Elizabethan England and... Bismarkian (?) Germany are very different from their Germanic origins. Denmark, on the other hand, is not. We should keep to how the civs are portrayed in-game (i.e. Denmark is just the Vikings with a realistic name plastered on it - kind of like Norway, I guess).

JFD said:

Germanic civs will be at peace with barbarians. England and Germany should not be in the Germanic group, as a result.

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In which case I suggest you rebrand Germanic to Clan, Barbaric or Tribal European, since I'd assume neither Austria, Sweden, or the Netherlands will be in that group either, which basically eliminates all the modern Germanic civs but Denmark (since they represent the Vikings).

It'll also allow the Celts and Saami to fit in it better as well.

So Europe ends up being Occidental, Clan, Slavic and Hellenic.

sukritact said:

So Europe ends up being Occidental, Clan, Slavic and Hellenic.

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Not necessarily - and this is why I'm not making any final divisions - because England, France, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, etc. would ideally have bonuses and, especially, goals, to incentivize them colonising distant lands. Not appropriate for Austria, Switzerland, etc.

Krajzen said:

Spoiler :

This whole 'divide all civs on bigger Cultural Groups' is so sexy Playing with it is fun. Tribes Group, American Group, Frontier Group, Latino Group, African Group, Crescent Group, Ancient Group, Classical Group, Occident Group, Slavic Group, Steppe Group, Bharata Group, Mandala Group, Oriental Group, Japanese Group, Pacific Group 15 - 16 is nice number of groups, 17 would be ugly

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Don't be too particular about the number of groups. You forget the Papal and Holy Roman groups are happening, so that makes 19 with your list.

JFD said:

Not necessarily - and this is why I'm not making any final divisions - because England, France, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, etc. would ideally have bonuses and, especially, goals, to incentivize them colonising distant lands. Not appropriate for Austria, Switzerland, etc.

Click to expand...

Which then expands Europe to HRE, Papal States, Slavic, Hellenic, Continental, Imperial and Clan.

I suppose it does.

Soooo

Interior [Native Tribes], America [Native Civs], Frontier [Colonies], Occident [WE], Slavic [EE], Classical [Greek - Roman], Clan [barbs and so on]*, Africa [black], Crescent [Islam and Persian dynasties], Cradle [very ancient east], Steppe, Bharata, Mandala, Oriental, Nippon, Pacific

16 groups

+2 Special Groups - HRE, Vatican, so 18 but I guess that two more will appear

Switzerland, Flamand, Venice, Tuscany, Greek city states -> Republican Group?

OK. So I'll count all civs which I think JFD is going to include in Cultural Diversity... I include here vanilla civs and mod civs (also WIP which are close to release) from High Modders - JFD, Leugi, Pouakai, Tomatekh, sukritact, LastSword, TPangolin, Homosubi, probably someone else.



PS
This is really silly question, but do you JFD plan include cultural groups with Fancy Names and... Fancy Icons or something?

Krajzen said:

PS
This is really silly question, but do you JFD plan include cultural groups with Fancy Names and... Fancy Icons or something?

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If I can acquire suitable and general enough names, then I will be. Fancy icons, on the other, might be a bit much, I'm not sure. I also don't really know where I'd put them.

My idea was just to give a home and a guideline to all the vanilla civs and for the most part everything got covered with no odd bits sticking out. Although I do think that Australia/Canada/America and Brazil/Gran Colombia/Argentina are culturally distinct from one another enough to warrant separate bonuses. I couldn't care less where Mexico goes though haha.

Like Japan, I think the Aborigines should be on their own group as opposed to being grouped into Oceania/Pacific. Their focus would be more on surviving in rough and arid terrain (though much of the east coast is rather fertile... or was it was rather fertile...? Anyways-)and they'd also possibly focus on generating faith/culture from unimproved terrain.

Although that'd kind of give them an isolation focus like Japan I still think it'd be better to give them their own group and give them a focus on the land rather than the sea, with bonuses to food and faith (or culture) from unimproved sources. They can still settle far and wide for sure (instead of having to consolidate small amounts of territory) but there'd be penalties for going way too far out (penalty to growth and production in cities on continents that are not the 'home' continent or the further you are from the capital?)

Edit: Although now that I read this back to myself this also sounds similar to some ideas proposed for Tribal American gameplay... confused: argh! )

There seems to be a lot of "missing of the point" here. Krajzen put it perfectly when he said:

This whole cultural diversity is so flexible we could justify almost everything...

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Because of this, the groups that I have outlined for myself serve only as a basis on which to derive groups with similar mechanical interests. Thus, someone like the Byzantines and Armenia, will go onto the Slavic group. What it really comes down is what to call this group.

So, if the "Slavic" group consists of:

Russia, Poland, Byzantium, Lithuania, Armenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Kievan Rus', Bosnia and Romania (spoiler), does anyone have any suggestions as to how to name them. Don't worry too much about how the other groups will be such named. There simply won't be a single thing by which to group civs (language, religion, ethnicity, geography etc.).

I was thinking "Bastion of Faith" for their shared UA name, but maybe someone has a more creative idea.

Krajzen said:

Spoiler :

Maybe separate group for evil totalitarian regimes? Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini...

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Okay, I'll admit this sounds incredibly fun to me, but I really don't think it'd be appropriate... imagine the facetious comments on objectives I'd get.