Cultural themes and relics

Ikael · Mar 17, 2013

Reading trought the Rock Paper Shotgun interview with Dennis Shirk, I stumbled into yet another really cool aspect of the new cultural mechanic, related to the retrievement of antiquities:

Those antiquity sites we keep track of, which civilisations were involved, whether it was a battle, whether it was an ancient ruin that was uncovered or a barbarian camp that was destroyed, and so thats exactly when your archaeologist goes there, hes going to try to extract that item and hell be able to take it back and create another great work, an artefact, and put it in the museum. And based on the different types of museums you have, youre sort of trying to collect different types of archaeological pieces.

So for instance the Louvre, if you think about the Louvre, its got art, archaeological things, all sorts of things from across the world. So for instance, if you build the Louvre wonder, trying to fill that with a great diversity of different works of art and artefacts from all sorts of cultures from around the world, and the better you satisfy those what we call theming bonuses from the different wonders and museums in your civilisation, the extra points of culture and tourism that you can generate.

Its actually a really interesting mini-game that kind of happened into being that our community gameplay testers really started to enjoy, because youve got this UI that you can bring up that shows all of your great works and artefacts in all of your different buildings. As Ed said, theming them or matching them up or putting all the ones that youve found in one particular building, you can get different variations on these tourism buffs, like plus two tourism or plus four tourism, if you theme them well, so actually discovering the themes because were not documenting them. Its up to the fans to find all these different kinds of themes. It can give you big benefits, but its actually a lot of fun just seeing what will actually match up from similar time periods, the kind of variety and diversity of artwork you put into place. Very cool.

So let me get this straight: we could actually recreate the great museums and art collection of the world inside our cities by pairing relics and works of art that follows a same thematic and grouping them inside certain buildings or wonders, which in turn will give us great tourism and other type bonuses. Say: Tutankamon's coffin + pryamids + the scribe = New theme unlocked "Ancient Egypt": +3 tourism +2 happiness inside the city".

This game. This freaking game, holy crap. This just keep getting better and better.

bite · Mar 17, 2013

it sounds like it could be a really cool little mini game

Arachnofiend · Mar 17, 2013

They're throwing a bone to the simulation aspect of the game in a way that directly contributes to succeeding at the game part of the game.

I love it, A+ idea Firaxis you run with that

sukritact · Mar 17, 2013

Sounds tacky and unnecessary to me. I hope they implement this correctly...

Heinage · Mar 18, 2013

very well spotted Ikael!
yeah, that sounds like an awesome little mini-game. I hope I don't find out about too many of the themes by being on this forum too much

I like surprises and finding out things for myself

anandus · Mar 18, 2013

I like this idea, although after a number of playthroughs most themes will e known, of course, but still, it's nice and stimulating.

I also wonder if the works have multiple themes on them, for instance by date (eg Late Antiquity), by location (eg near east), by usage (eg. religious), etc.
So one can make different collections with the works available.

filli_noctus · Mar 18, 2013

Trading and/or loaning of artefacts would be a useful aspect of this mechanic, I haven't seen any mention of it in the articles to date but I hope it's included.

True_Candyman · Mar 18, 2013

Museum Studies Simulator 5! :goodjob:

This actually sounds quite fun though, i look forward to it

Dark_Jedi06 · Mar 18, 2013

So basically you can become a cultural powerhouse by plundering the the artifacts and relics of other civilizations and hauling them back to the homeland and putting them on display?

Sounds awesome.

Eagle Pursuit · Mar 18, 2013

bite said:
it sounds like it could be a really cool little mini game

Yes. It sounds like Civilization Pokemon or something. It could fit very well into the game if done correctly. I guess Petra was just the beginning of Civ V's Indiana Jones references.

Cultural themes and relics

Ikael

King

bite

Unofficial Civilization Cartographer

Arachnofiend

Perturbed Pugilist

sukritact

Artist and Modder

Heinage

Khan

anandus

Errorist

filli_noctus

Hmmn

True_Candyman

Emperor

Dark_Jedi06

"Deus ex Machina."

Eagle Pursuit

Per Scribendum, Volo

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