Proposals for invigorating the cultural game (BNW)

Ikael said:

I think that while we could all agree that albeit the cultural game has been quite improved with the addition of tourism in BNW, there's still room for further improvement.

The basis for my suggestions are as they follow:

- Not changing the cultural game core concepts since they are quite solid, keeping both the victory condition (generate more tourism than culture) and the duality between "offensive" and "deffensive" culture

- Rather than outright scrapping the system, I think that on the contrary, it should be expanded, creating additional uses for tourism in order to keep it relevant trought the whole game, coupled with a bit of fine-tuning regarding social policies, wonders and the likes.


Modified cultural game:

>>> Tourism gets renamed into prestige
>>> Why? Simply put, better representation of the term

>>> Introducing additional, earlier uses for tourism
>>> Why? Making having "just a bit of tourism" a worthy investment rather than being an all or nothing type of gamble

The new mechanics introduced in order to meet this goal would be:

Spoiler :

- Prestige (formerly tourism) granting extra delegates at the world congress: as simple as that: get one extra delegate for each 50 raw prestige that you civilization is able to provide. Needless to say, the AI should need to be readjusted in order to be much more willing to grant their vote for the world congress, and some wonders such as the Forbidden Palace will need to be reworked for fine-tuning it

=> Allows for an alternative path towards diplomatic victory other than outright buying city states
=> It makes for a far more scalable bonus for having mid sized tourism output
=> It gives use to tourism before the arrival of ideologies

- Cultural levels giving combat and diplomatic bonuses: Extra combat bonus against civilizations with an "Influential" (+15% strenght) "popular" (+15% strenght) or "familiar" status (+10% strenght) over them, as well as lessening the diplomatic penalties of attacking (and exterminating) culturally inferior civs

=> It Makes "targeted killing" of culturally superior civilizations standing in your path towars cultural victory a much more risky gamble
=> In a game where agression has been penalized more than ever before, it offers a much needed incentive for agression
=> It Infuses a whole new meaning into the "tourism as offensive culture" trope
=> It will reward sneaky players astute enough to wait for the best moment for attacking another civ, say, during a golden age, a world fair or after a concert, when your prestige with them is stronger than ever and everyone thinks that the sun comes out of your ass
=> Thematically talking, your civilization will be much more willing to kill smelly barbarians than refined gentlemen that they admire

- Inmigration and trade routes: Rewarding tall influence building: Stablishing a trade route with a city whose cultural output is less than the prestige ouput of your city will create an "inmigration effect", that is, each trade route with an inmigration effect will provide a +10% GP and production b onus due to the labour and brain draining provided by the other civ, while hampering the growth of the culturally impaired city (+50%).

=> It rewards creating beacons of enlightement
=> Boost for tall civs, it makes theming much more important than ever before
=> An indirect boost for coastatal cities
=> Gives an added layer of depth to trade routes

>>> Re-balancing tourism bonuses granted by technologies (mainly the Internet)
>>> Why? Allowing for an earlier cultural victory, not making it so much dependant on a tech race towards globalization

- Education will grant a +30% prestige output to every civ that has researched it, thus kickstarting the cultural race earlier
- The Internnet will further increase your prestige output up to a +50%, acting like a worthy "finisher" without being an "A-move" type of decision

>>> Re-balancing of great musicians and their great works (additional slots,
>>> Why? Offering an earlier, more useful constat use for great musicians, which are often shunned

Spoiler :

- Cathedrals give a great work of music slot rather than great work of art. This way, you can have more slots for storing early great works of music, since there are already more than enough early slots for great artist works. It will also help to add flavour to the Cathedrals as bearers of concerts and religious music

- Great musicians concerts give a +25 additional fixed amount of tourism per concert in the ancient and classical era, +50 during medieval and renaissance and +100 onwards (in addition to their "regular" tourism output). The idea is to beef up the effects of early concert tours, since the amount of tourism that they generate is related to the tourism generated by your civ on their inception and thus, it is bound to be too low. This will avoid the "great work VS concert" decision being a no brainer on the early game

- Opera houses will be able to host one extra work of music. It will provide theming bonuses as if they were museums. The idea behind this is to make the musician's great works as valuable as artworks, and a big part of that has to do with putting them to some good use

- There will be additional great works of music due to other SP (latter expanded)

>>> Re-rebalancing GWAM generation: national wonders & guilds
>>> Why? Better customization for your civilization path towards cultural victory rather than "just build guilds"

Spoiler :

- Limitations for guilds: you will only be able to build one guild per city, thus forcing you to carefully choose where to build what

- Expanded options for GWAM generation. National wonders will grant great artists slots in addition to their previous effects, greatly rewarding cit specialization one a certain type of great person:
- National college grants one great writter slot +1 GP great writter
- Circus maximus grants one great musician slot +1 GP towards great musicians
- Hermitage grants one great artista slot +1 GP towards great artist

- City-specific bonuses for certain national and world wonders: couple them carefully with your guilds for máximum cultural efficiency (more on this latter)

>>> Re-balancing world wonders trought culture and tourism
>>> Why? World wonder rebalancing, creating more options for cultural victory and higher customization

Based on the great "rate the wonders" topic, one can see that there are huge discrepancies and "wonder tiers" behind them, with some of them such as the Angkor Wat being borderline useless for the vast majority of players:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=505273

In addition to that, there are a couple of "must build" type of cultural wonders that do restrict too much the cultural playstile, you can either build them, or face a (most probable) defeat

The idea behind new balance this is to tackle both problems: be able to give more options for these players that just missed that crucial Sixtine Chappel, as well as giving new life to universally panned wonders. Also, in addition to that, I feel that 3 additional wonders would be needed in order to give an additional boost to great Works of music and literature. This is what I whave in mind:

Spoiler :

Statue of Zeus: All units gain +15% combat strength when attacking cities, all units gains +10% strenght when fighting a civilization with more than "exotic" cultural sway over them => A huge incentive for keeping both a strong military and a moderate influence ouput, as well as including a much needed buff for the honour SP tree

Parthenon: Contains a prebuilt Great Work of Art in the Great Work Slot. +50% to the generation of GWAM's in this city => pick well in which city do you want to build this wonder now that guilds are more complex than ever

Terracota Army: Creates a copy of each type of military unit you currently own and places it near the city where Terracotta Army was built. One archeological find will appear inside your city radious upon the arrival of archeology => A small, long term boost for this wonder that would tie nicely with its flavour

Angkor Wat: Culture and Gold cost of acquiring new tiles reduced by 25% in all cities. +50% to the generation of great people in this city => the most crap-tastic wonder gets a hefty bonus aimed for a greater city specialization

Borobudur: Must be built in holy city. 3 free Missionaries appear. +5 faith. Religious and historical sites in this city generates +2 tourism => A nice, late game boost that relies on city specialization

Globe theater: 1 free Great Writer appears near the City where the Wonder was built. 2 slots for great works of writing. Great Works of writting generates +1 extra culture and influence => a way to boost the globe theater and make great Works of literature more useful

Himeji castle: +15% combat strength for units fighting in friendly territory. Provides a free castle. You can consume admirals and great generals in order to créate great Works of art=> a very unique type of "cultural warmonger" type of wonder, ideal for giving use to your general / great admiral overcapacity

Red Fort: Defensive Buildings in all Cities are 25% more effective. Castles have one slot for great works of art and or / artifacts and they give +2 happiness when filled => another different take into the whole "cultural warmongering" type of civ

Broadway: 1 free Great Musician appears near the City where the Wonder was built. Contains 3 slots for great works of music. +25% production of GWAM in the city

Cristo Redentor: Culture cost of adopting new Policies reduced by 10%. +25% tourism production in this city

Kremlin => Changed to the motherland calls: 50% Production when constructing Armor units, 1 free Social Policy, Negates the attack bonuses against your civilization caused by cultural superiority => A wonder fit for staying strong despite all odds

Great Firewall: 99.9% reduction in technology theft in the city it is built and 25% reduction in technology theft in all other cities. Negates Tourism bonus against your civilisation from other civilizations discovering The Internet. -30% to ideological preassure unhappiness => A boost for a weak wonder that goes along thematically with its purpouse

Additional wonders (each one centered around one type of great work):

La scala. Requires acoustics+30% to cultural output in this city
Contains 2 slots for great works of music
Your great artists can perform concerts at La scala as if they were on foreign territory
These concerts grants a tourism bonus for every civ, equivalent to 40% of what they would yield if they were performed on their territory. Ideal for culture bombing civs with non-open borders, and for providing an earlier room for storing your great works of music rather than having to wait until Broadway

Hollywood. Requires electricityContains one slot for each type of great work
Theming bonuses:
Period piece (all works belonging to the same era) (+5 tourism)
Oscar material (ech work belongs to a differen eras) (+5 tourism)
International hit (each work belonging to different civs) (+5 tourism)

Yep, you can have two theming bonuses active at the same time. It is a wonder aimed to produce crazy theming bonuses, emulating the creation of movies (great work of literature for the script, great work of art for the visuals, great work of music for the soundtrack). I think that it could be a damn fun way to do representate the cultural impact of films, me thinks (it would also explain the French penis envy regarding American movies and no, I am not American)

Versailles. Requires civil service
Your great writter's political treaties gives an additional +50% of culture
Gain 2 additional votes at the world's congress

>>> Re-balancing social policies and tennets: Autocracy, aestethics, piety and exploration
>>> Why? Offering other strategies for cultural victories other than wonder-hoarding, rewarding carefully picking and finishing SP trees

Will expand latter


>>> Introducing great archeological finds (Exploration SP tree finisher)
>>> Why? Giving a boost to wide-empires since inmigration already gave bonuses for tall cultural building, additional game flavour

Will expand latter

>>> Introducing new world congress resolutions
>>> Why? Better intermingle between systems, more options for pushing runaway cultural civs other than complete extermination, get the best out of the new tourism uses

Will expand latter

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