Cultures

Taxman66 · Jan 24, 2016

I think one thing that would help is some sort of limitation on the number of cultures you can build per era. By this I mean that I'd be more interested limiting the number of heros and unique unit types you have available at a time than directly restricing the culture wonders.

One possible way to achieve this is to base more advanced cultures (e.g. French, English, German, etc.) on having a (or one of a mutiple selection) of earlier ones. Putting both these suggestions tkgetber would also allow the doing away with the raw base culture. This is good because if your initial base culture doesn't match your starting placement and surrounding resorces, your kinda left out in the cold.

On a related note are the Vulture and Redu units supposed to be 1 pt. weaker in base strength than the spearman and axeman their based on?

Sparth · Jan 24, 2016

Culture tree can only work if player will be forced to choose one culture from few available. Now player can build as many cultures as he want.
There is only two factors:
- availability of the resources needed to build culture (which is random)
- willingness of the player to build culture

There is no any strategic deccisions here.

Thunderbrd · Jan 24, 2016

On a related note are the Vulture and Redu units supposed to be 1 pt. weaker in base strength than the spearman and axeman their based on?

This is what happens when knee jerk modifications are made to unit values.

Culture tree can only work if player will be forced to choose one culture from few available. Now player can build as many cultures as he want.
There is only two factors:
- availability of the resources needed to build culture (which is random)
- willingness of the player to build culture

There is no any strategic deccisions here.

Please don't stress about this too much at the moment. The Ideas project will resolve this by keeping all cultures that exist in a state of competition with one another so there can only be one or maybe two cultures that are actively dominant in a given city. Then on top of that, you'll need to select the culture you nationally associate with and this will be much like selecting a civic but can cause massive empire division if done unwisely.

There's a LOT to do to put the plans for this into full motion and in all honesty, our unit chains and building chains currently take priority to resolve first. In the meantime, all work on cultures is pretty much in preparation for the more detailed effects from the Ideas and Adopting Cultures projects. Someday you won't be able to hoard them and even if you've 'initiated' a culture, it may become one a competitor becomes more associated with which can be a huge threat to the stability of your nation, particularly in trying to keep the city that initiated the culture as part of the empire.

So whatever you do now, understand where we're headed.

JosEPh_II · Jan 24, 2016

Thunderbrd said:
This is what happens when knee jerk modifications are made to unit values.

<snip>

Kiss it!

That's the problem with having Unique Units in the game when the AI Cultures (Hydro's base Cultures were inserted instead) were removed and these units were not. Should not even have the Vulture or Redu in this Mod.

Knee jerk my......... ! :rolleyes:

JosEPh

Thunderbrd · Jan 24, 2016

lol.

Serously though, what do you mean by AI cultures? And why are the vulture and redu supposed to not be in the game? Sounds like you know some history I'm unaware of.

That said, it's not like I don't struggle a little with unit balances with some of the uniques myself. I STILL have to go back and review that dang Clamath Rifleman and the Neanderthal Warrior as well as all the Warlords to catch up with a unit review that seemed fairly limited.

I can only imagine what it will be like trying to truly put all land military units into a full charted out evaluation. We have a sh**ton of uniques that will complicate that greatly. Truth be told most of them just give me a headache. But they do play their part in giving the mod a lot of extra coolness. I like some far more than others.

Dancing Hoskuld · Jan 24, 2016

As you say the Culture requirements are a bit random at the moment. The Johny Smith tree was an attempt to map the earlier Cultures by how they split off from each other. It does not show those that grow out of one or more Cultures.

In your Example of France the main requirement Cultures would be ...->Celtic->Gallic->French with Gallic requiring one of a number of other Cultures as influence and so to French. For example French could require Gallic and Roman or Frank or an Indigenous People of ???. It does need more thought.

Sparth said:
Can them be disabled same way as commanders are?

It should be done exactly the same way commanders should be done - with the Game Option tag on the unit infos entry.

Code:

<PrereqGameOption>GAMEOPTION_GREAT_COMMANDERS</PrereqGameOption>

Taxman66 · Jan 24, 2016

Some, not all, of the UU could be easily removed simply by giving the base unit a free promo, when that is all the UU does. For example, you don't need a Redu unit you could simply give all Spearmen the Formation I promo. Granted that has the disadvantage of not being able to numerically limit the number of units.

Dancing Hoskuld · Jan 24, 2016

Taxman66 said:
Some, not all, of the UU could be easily removed simply by giving the base unit a free promo, when that is all the UU does. For example, you don't need a Redu unit you could simply give all Spearmen the Formation I promo. Granted that has the disadvantage of not being able to numerically limit the number of units.

This is a good alternative and is exactly what I am doing with the special worker units from wonders, religions or cultures.

However I would try to make the promotion unique, ie not match something that the unit can get in the normal way.

This adds - a free promotion to the list of what a Culture could provide. We do need to make sure that these all show up on the pedia page for Cultures, I think the current page is just a building page so it should need to be a different page.

Thunderbrd · Jan 24, 2016

Even if the promotion isn't free, having some unique culture promotions could be quite an interesting alternative to unique units and other 'culture elements'.

It would play in nicely with units and the Idea system as well.

Religions have many of these and serve as a good model of the concept.

This is not to say though that some of the current units aren't valid just because they've been given only free promos. In many of those cases I strongly feel that the unit statistics should be rethought but that their inclusion representing a noteworthy aspect of the history of that culture in RL shouldn't necessarily be the baby we throw out with the bathwater because they've been under-developed in design. In MOST cases, what can be done by a promo can be done by unit direct tags and then allows even further modification if the unit then later takes those promos at their option.

On the same topic, Hydro and I had always planned to include some unique Equipment promos as well.

Noriad2 · Jan 24, 2016

I think that unique units are cooler than unique promos

Sparth · Jan 25, 2016

Ok here is my ideas about cultures.
First I want to create special unit, lets call it Founder.
Founder will apear on early technological development, probably in Prehistoric era. Founder can be used to found one of Second Stage cultures (First Stage are Base Culture i.e. European, North American).
What is Second Stage culture? For example for european base culture will be: celtic, germanic, slavic and greek.
What is more important player got only one of these Founder units per game. If he want more Second Stage cultures he must conquer city where was build Second Stage culture.

Next Third Stage cultures. They are normal cultures as we have now but all of them need to build certain Second Stage cultures. For example player which have Celtic Second Stage culture cannot build anymore Russian or Polish culture but must stick with French or Scottish one. Ofcourse I want add more more cultures that player dosn't notice this change but we got more realism and diversity.

To add even more diversity to the game I want divide all cultures to three main categories:
- aggresive
- builders
- traders

Aggresive cultures provide combat units, warrior heroes and special promotions
Builder cultures provide special buildings, achievment heroes and wonders building bonuses.
Trader cultures provide special units (like merchants and criminals), trade resources and gold per turn.

Ofcourse sometimes these types can mix and some cultures can be more worth to build to other.

Faustmouse · Jan 25, 2016

Sounds pretty cool :goodjob:

How do 3rd stage cultures work? iE, do you NEED Celtic for French oder would is it:
French requires Celtic OR Gallic etc?
And is there a limitation for 2nd stage cultures or can more than one civ have celtic?

Sparth · Jan 25, 2016

Third Stage cultures stay as they are now except you need also one of the Second Stage cultures.

Second Stage cultures are world wonders and only one civilization can build them.

Dancing Hoskuld · Jan 25, 2016

Your Second Stage cultures are a bit modern for me. The four European ones you mention are near enough Bronze Age cultures.

Sparth · Jan 25, 2016

Dancing Hoskuld said:
Your Second Stage cultures are a bit modern for me. The four European ones you mention are near enough Bronze Age cultures.

Its just names. We can name them as we want.
But maybe Second Stage should apear in ancient era?
And before that we can still got some loose, prehistoric cultures? Like Neandethals.

Taxman66 · Jan 25, 2016

Just throwing it out there, but you could allow a few more than 1 (but still a small number) 2nd stage culture by tying the founder ability to one of the great persons, or make the founder a new great person (though that would involve changes to lots of buildings and wonders).

Second point: Only a select few cultures would consider themselves only builders, warriors, or traders exclusively. Most are some combination of those attributes (Spartans are the only ones to come to mind that I would classify as in a single category). Surely given your idea and the resulting whittling down of the number of cultures available to be in play (either as player or AI) we can customize them a bit more.

Sparth · Jan 25, 2016

Taxman66 said:
Just throwing it out there, but you could allow a few more than 1 (but still a small number) 2nd stage culture by tying the founder ability to one of the great persons, or make the founder a new great person (though that would involve changes to lots of buildings and wonders).

Nah 1 will be ok. Players are not children. They dont need all toys in crib. Sometimes they must choose something. If they want more then they must go to war and conquer some culture cities.

Taxman66 said:
Second point: Only a select few cultures would consider themselves only builders, warriors, or traders exclusively. Most are some combination of those attributes (Spartans are the only ones to come to mind that I would classify as in a single category). Surely given your idea and the resulting whittling down of the number of cultures available to be in play (either as player or AI) we can customize them a bit more.

For sure ill try my best to add as much as can spirit of these cultures. By mixing these types and by choosing right units and buildings.

JosEPh_II · Jan 25, 2016

So the Team has finally decided to abandon Hydro's base Cultures? You know the base African, European, Asian, Native American and so on? We going back to if you select Carthage then you get all the Carthaginian elements that the base BtS game has?

JosEPh :confused:

Sparth · Jan 25, 2016

JosEPh_II said:
So the Team has finally decided to abandon Hydro's base Cultures? You know the base African, European, Asian, Native American and so on? We going back to if you select Carthage then you get all the Carthaginian elements that the base BtS game has?

Nah, Base cultures will stay as they are now. They decide which ones of the Second Stage Cultures you can build.

JosEPh_II · Jan 25, 2016

Sparth said:
Nah, Base cultures will stay as they are now. They decide which ones of the Second Stage Cultures you can build.

Okay. Then the Team has decided to go with More UU's for these Stages? Or will UU like the Vultures or Praetorians be removed?

JosEPh

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