Cultures

Few days ago I asked about cultures and how we can finish this important aspect of the mod. I made this google sheet with important inforamtion about cultures:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1302uiMXhSkqL2wEjX1h08C-tSvAFWT6F3lxTrWvEJpc

Based on this sheet I pull some numbers:
How many cultures can be build by civilization with base culture:
North American civlizations can build 43 cultures
African civlizations can build 34 cultures
Asian civlizations can build 33 cultures
European civlizations can build 48 cultures
Oceanian civlizations can build 13 cultures
South American civlizations can build 14 cultures
Middle Eastern civlizations can build 20 cultures

How many civilizations are in game and civilization/culture ratio:
North American - 6 civilizations / ratio: 7,1
African - 5 civilizations/ ratio: 6,8
Asian - 7 civilizations/ ratio: 4,7
European - 14 civilizations / ratio: 3,4
Oceanian - 4 civilizations / ratio: 3,2
South American - 4 civilizations/ ratio: 3,5
Middle Eastern - 8 civilizations/ ratio: 2,5


There is 221 cultures in-game:
35 of them cannot be build
52 of them dont have designated Unit
137 of them dont have "warrior" hero
136 of them dont have "achievment" hero

"Cultural" units per era:
Prehistoric - 25
Ancient - 27
Classical - 25
Medieval - 26
Renaissance - 29
Industrial - 20
Modern - 3
Transhuman - 1

Ok question post:

1. Do we want same amount of cultures per continent (base culture)?
Or maybe we want stick same with civ/cultures?

Second one is better because player should have same chance of building culture in each game. Now for example NA civilizations has obvious advantages before MEast civilizations.

2. Do each culture should be the same? I mean do each culture should allow to build: 1 unit and 2 heroes?

3. If we want to increase amount of cultures in-game I think we should reduce national limits from 15 to 10 in all culture units because in most game players just build only cultural units instead normal ones. I think Cultural Units = special ones. Normal Units = cannon fodder.

4. Same with heroes. These units should have additional restriction (more resources needed for example). Heroes spam for sure is bad thing.

Some give special buildings and trade goods instead of units or heroes.

Johny Smith came up with a suggested change to the way Cultures are done. It is interesting and a different way of doing "base" Cultures. This makes it a different stream which may fit as well. It is more about setting what your Culture your nation identifies itself as. At certain points you are given a choice of new base Cultures for your nation. You still have the base culture eg Culture_South_America but now you get to choose a new one from "East Mexico/Caribbean" or "South American"

I have suggested pre- and post- Cultures these are less strong Cultures that lead to or from the Cultures we have. pre_Cultures provide the prerequisite for another Culture instead of one of units, buildings or heroes. While post-Cultures provide only one thing special. Pre and post Cultures would not be candidates for your National Culture.

On top of all this is the Indigenous Peoples who should each have their own Culture which they can give to you if you are friendly enough with them or they join your nation. These Cultures would not be available any other way.

Sparth said:

Ok question post:

2. Do each culture should be the same? I mean do each culture should allow to build: 1 unit and 2 heroes?

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Main Cultures should provide two of these

• a special unit
• a hero
• another hero
• a Trade Good Wonder - provides many of a trade good only available to this nation
• a Trade Good building - provides 1 bonus, many cultures may have access to this building
• a special terrain improvement eg Moai for Polynesia

Less Strong Cultures would still provide two things but one would be the prerequisite for another Culture eg "Three Kingdoms" Culture would be a prerequisite for "China" Culture

1. Do we want same amount of cultures per continent (base culture)?
Or maybe we want stick same with civ/cultures?

Second one is better because player should have same chance of building culture in each game. Now for example NA civilizations has obvious advantages before MEast civilizations.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you're asking with the alternative... if all of our civs have cultures to go with them or all of our cultures have civs to go with them? I had initially wanted this but with the adopting a culture project looming in the distance I figured we'd probably end up more with no more civs than we have max players for and having those civs have fairly generic qualities that don't equate to the way civs are currently designed. Maybe. It might still be beneficial to have a civ for each culture defined.

As for the implication in the first part of the question, I don't think its even really possible. The goal should be to honor as many cultures as we can in general and some areas, like Oceanic region for example, wouldn't be able to present as much historical basis for that as say, Europe.

BTW, what are the 35 cultures we can't build? Is this because they were never fully fleshed out enough to warrant enabling them?

2. Do each culture should be the same? I mean do each culture should allow to build: 1 unit and 2 heroes?

Click to expand...

I think we need to consider a deeper approach. Each unit, hero, unique building, unique resource, unique improvement, should all perhaps count as 1 unique element and each culture should generally have an equal amount of unique elements.

This would mean some cultures would get less of one thing and more of another. Some may have no heroes but have a couple unique units and a unique building perhaps.

I say start with finding the culture that gives the most unique elements and base our count on that one.

3. If we want to increase amount of cultures in-game I think we should reduce national limits from 15 to 10 in all culture units because in most game players just build only cultural units instead normal ones. I think Cultural Units = special ones. Normal Units = cannon fodder.

Click to expand...

A non-issue for me given that I play with unlimited national units because I've always felt that if a civ has a unique unit it shouldn't be limited. But also that the unit shouldn't be TOO imbalancing, and most of them aren't. Since they are so era specific in their application, they represent the culture's 'platinum age' so to speak. In one of the MP games, for example, Joe has had an extreme combat strength in his units over mine because his unique units are most effective during the Prehistoric-Ancient. But this edge will eventually vanish if I can survive it out

4. Same with heroes. These units should have additional restriction (more resources needed for example). Heroes spam for sure is bad thing.

Click to expand...

I get this but also feel that this is already implicated in the cultural prereqs for generating the culture to begin with. Once you have a culture, you're the only one who could ever build the hero (the way it is now at least) so adding more prereqs to heroes would only make them in general more rare to even see the light of play. Not sure that's a good idea. It would have to be difficult but not impossible to achieve goals that could unlock them I think. Not sure. If its based on bonuses, some maps could make it impossible for some heroes to ever be built and I don't think this would be desirable. Then again I wouldn't relish making lots of new unit tags to add prerequisites on complex situations...

I had a thought while working on the "Getting the best out of your dead" mod I am working on heroes that die in combat should become a new "dead hero" unit which can build special buildings.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

I had a thought while working on the "Getting the best out of your dead" mod I am working on heroes that die in combat should become a new "dead hero" unit which can build special buildings.

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Might be a good idea. We have Tales of fish... How about Legend of the Hero (x) ? Another 'idea' unit. Perhaps some of the 'great works' should only be built by them.

Thunderbrd said:

I'm not sure what you're asking with the alternative...

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If some "continents" now has more civilizations then should have also more cultures.

Thunderbrd said:

BTW, what are the 35 cultures we can't build? Is this because they were never fully fleshed out enough to warrant enabling them?

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Yep, they are half-done and should be finished to be "buildable".

Thunderbrd said:

I think we need to consider a deeper approach. Each unit, hero, unique building, unique resource, unique improvement, should all perhaps count as 1 unique element and each culture should generally have an equal amount of unique elements.

This would mean some cultures would get less of one thing and more of another. Some may have no heroes but have a couple unique units and a unique building perhaps

Click to expand...

I think Its good idea. Let give them more diversity!

Thunderbrd said:

A non-issue for me given that I play with unlimited national units because I've always felt that if a civ has a unique unit it shouldn't be limited. But also that the unit shouldn't be TOO imbalancing, and most of them aren't. Since they are so era specific in their application, they represent the culture's 'platinum age' so to speak. In one of the MP games, for example, Joe has had an extreme combat strength in his units over mine because his unique units are most effective during the Prehistoric-Ancient. But this edge will eventually vanish if I can survive it out

Click to expand...

As I say before Culture units for me are Special. They are unique. Looks different and they are stronger (a little). Bur Most of player armies should include normal units.

Thunderbrd said:

I get this but also feel that this is already implicated in the cultural prereqs for generating the culture to begin with. Once you have a culture, you're the only one who could ever build the hero (the way it is now at least) so adding more prereqs to heroes would only make them in general more rare to even see the light of play. Not sure that's a good idea. It would have to be difficult but not impossible to achieve goals that could unlock them I think. Not sure. If its based on bonuses, some maps could make it impossible for some heroes to ever be built and I don't think this would be desirable. Then again I wouldn't relish making lots of new unit tags to add prerequisites on complex situations...

Click to expand...

I think Warrior heroes are ok, but achievment ones are powerful. They giving huge advantages and for now they are easy to build. I wonder if AI can use them

Dancing Hoskuld said:

Main Cultures should provide two of these

• a special unit
• a hero
• another hero
• a Trade Good Wonder - provides many of a trade good only available to this nation
• a Trade Good building - provides 1 bonus, many cultures may have access to this building
• a special terrain improvement eg Moai for Polynesia

Less Strong Cultures would still provide two things but one would be the prerequisite for another Culture eg "Three Kingdoms" Culture would be a prerequisite for "China" Culture

Click to expand...

Hmm I got this and I like it
Maybe Ill create new sheet base on this idea?

I wonder if AI can use them

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Depends on the AI they've been given. If we take these off of the hero and add them to the Legend of the Hero as per the discussion with DH above, this would be easier to ensure as we could give the legend the AI we give Tales.

Ok here its my first atempt to create culture tree for asiatic base culture:

Jomon
- Ainu
- Japanese
-- Yamato

Lianghzu
- Qiang
- Chinese
-- Cantonese
-- Shang
-- Taiwanese
- Korean
- Joseon

Siberian
- Xiongu
- Mongolian
-- Mughal
-- Manchurian
- Dzungar
- Tibetan
- Uighur

Siamese
- Vietnamese
- Thai
- Khmer
- Malaysian
- Indonesian
- Cham

Indian
- Chola
- Nepalese
- Tamil
- Burmese
- Bengali
- Ceylonese

This is Johny Smith's initial suggestion

Sparth said:

Ok question post:

1. Do we want same amount of cultures per continent (base culture)?
Or maybe we want stick same with civ/cultures?

Second one is better because player should have same chance of building culture in each game. Now for example NA civilizations has obvious advantages before MEast civilizations.

2. Do each culture should be the same? I mean do each culture should allow to build: 1 unit and 2 heroes?

3. If we want to increase amount of cultures in-game I think we should reduce national limits from 15 to 10 in all culture units because in most game players just build only cultural units instead normal ones. I think Cultural Units = special ones. Normal Units = cannon fodder.

4. Same with heroes. These units should have additional restriction (more resources needed for example). Heroes spam for sure is bad thing.

Click to expand...

1. No. Smaller nations deserve smaller attention and culture
2. Yes. Maybe smaller cultures like oceanic could get little more, like special world wonder
3. No.
4. NO!

arihant said:

3. No.
4. NO!

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Why? Why do you think that major part of your army should be build from Cultural Units and Heroes should be that easy to build like other unit?

BTW if you like that gameplay you can play with options unlimited national units.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

This is Johny Smith's initial suggestion

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Ok Its very realistic but most of these cultures will be build in early eras. For example in this picture I cant find any modern nations/cultures. Less complicated but more diverse tree will be much better.

One more thing. Lets take Frenchg culture:
from realistic point of view French culture has three ancestral cultures: Celtic (Gallic), Germanic (Franks) and Latin (Roman). If we want implement this in mod then Im pretty sure that French culture will be build very rare because you need first some luck and got resources to builld other 3 cultures.


And one more thing: If you ask sample Frenchman about his ancestors im pretty sure he point Gallic tribesmans, not Roman legionaries or Germanic barbarians

Sparth said:

Why? Why do you think that major part of your army should be build from Cultural Units and Heroes should be that easy to build like other unit?

BTW if you like that gameplay you can play with options unlimited national units.

Click to expand...

3. Becouse when i play gigantic map 15 units is negligible amount in my army(100+units).
4. What to say, i like heroes and its fun , they are not immortal and can be taken down with numbers(AI just need to learn it), thats why.

arihant said:

3. Becouse when i play gigantic map 15 units is negligible amount in my army(100+units).

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This is aberration in C2C. I wonder how often you played in modern/transhuman eras?

arihant said:

4. What to say, i like heroes and its fun , they are not immortal and can be taken down with numbers(AI just need to learn it), thats why.

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As I say before I dont have problem with Warrior Heroes but with Achievment ones.

Sparth said:

As I say before I dont have problem with Warrior Heroes but with Achievment ones.

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Where as I have the problem the other way around. I would prefer if the Warrior Heroes were only in the game if the Commanders option was on. I never play with that option on.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

Where as I have the problem the other way around. I would prefer if the Warrior Heroes were only in the game if the Commanders option was on. I never play with that option on.

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Can them be disabled same way as commanders are?

Sparth said:

This is aberration in C2C. I wonder how often you played in modern/transhuman eras?



As I say before I dont have problem with Warrior Heroes but with Achievment ones.

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In modern era armies could be really huge and 15 national units are more propaganda than real threat. And i dont want to play with unlimited national units becouse i think they are little overpowered.



If you talked about Achivements than i have no problem with it.