The Culture-Spreading Model

The Point of a New Model

What is culture, really?

When you look at history, neighbors tended to share ideas and values and engaged in a kind of "intellectual cross breeding".

You can see this in how much ancient Rome owes to the ancient Greeks in terms of architechture. You can see this in how the Vikings gradually stopped attacking the northern parts of Europe as they became Christianized. You can see it in the differences between a "western style" and "eastern style" of literature. You can see it in how Judaism managed to survive thousands of years without a Nation or Country.

What is Civ's Culture missing?

1. A Civ culture model would need culture to spread, instead of just accumulating within cities.

2. It would also need culture to cross borders without changing borders -- culture-flipping just doesn't represent most cultural interaction.

3. Culture would also need to have real impacts on how the AI picks its allies. Culturally similar nations would be more likely to get along, while culturally different nations would be more likely to hold grudges. And similar nations would be more likely to unite in the face of difference. This might require several AI civs that don't play to win, but play for a kind of realism.

See the following thread for more details on the AI in particular:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=101196


Implementation

In short, Culture would be spread to your rivals' cities. The more culture you spread, the better. A city would reflect the amount of culture it has, as well as who contributed to that culture (color coded).

Spreading Culture through Units

The user can build cultural units instead of military units or buildings. These units would be sent to enemy cities, or your own cities, to stimulate culture. Each unit would implant 20 units of culture in the city. (Or more, or less, or it varies depending on the era and unit).

Cultural units include: artists, philosophers, missionaries

(For the sake of the model, don't worry about how these units are different... although I'm sure we can discuss ad nauseum how a philosopher unit could have different strengths from an artist unit.)

Spreading Culture through Trade

Culture bonuses (in CPs) would be given for trading. (The numbers are only examples.)

Tech you Discovered: 2 of your CP into each city of your opponent
Tech you Traded for: 1 of your CP, 1 of inventing Civ's CP into each city of your opponent
Luxury: 1 of your CP per luxury per turn into a random opposing city
Resource: No CP bonus
Map: No CP bonus
City: 5% of that City's CP distributed between nearby enemy cities

Culture Flipping

Culture flipping would occur when a city has more than 50% of its culture from another Civilization, and has broken through the 100 CP threshhold. The threshhold would be higher for cities that were either conquered or traded (to prevent instant flipbacks).

Other Suggestions (Run with them if you like them)

Foreign culture in a city would be depleted if you were at war or hostile towards that nation. This reflects how differences become more pronounced.

For every 200 CP's you accumulate in a city, 1 new CP will be generated in that city per turn. This reflects how a powerful cultural movement can sustain and propogate itself.

For every 500 CP's you accumulate in a city, 1 new CP will be generated in each neighbouring city.

The culture that a unit transmits reflects the cultural makeup of its hometown. If the town is 7% Greek, 1 out of the 20 CP's transmitted would be Greek. This is how Greek culture can reach France by way of Rome's philosophers.

You could do a kind of "cultural cleansing" if you wanted to reduce foreign presences that are contributing to your opponents' victory. Propaganda, book burning, people burning...

Calculating Cultural Similarity

We talked about civilizations who are similar flocking together, particularly in the face of an enemy. It's easy to see how you can add up all the different cultures in a Civ, add up all the different cultures in another Civ, and see how different they are.

For math junkies. In comparing two Civs, A and B, you'd subtract the overlap. Difference(A,B) = (A - A&B) + (B - A&B). You can see that the greater the overlap (A&B), the more this converges to zero difference.


Implications

Similarity in Diplomacy

Perhaps the AI would side with more similar nations (Difference(Me,Rome) versus Difference(Me,Persia)). Or perhaps your population would actually encounter unrest if you stayed out of a conflict where a very similar nation was fighting an enemy you both consider very different. Regardless, the seeds are sewn here for similarity to have an impact on diplomacy.

Geography and Similarity

You can start to see how Europe could become quite similar after hundreds of years of passing around philosophers, missionaries, artists, technologies, and goods. You can also see how the crusades prevented a sense of similarity from emerging between Europe and the Near East, as well as how it prohibited culture-crossing with Japan, China, and India. Geography has an important effect on culture-crossing.

Civilizing the Barbarians

A barbarian city (or just a really uncivilized city) keeps attacking you. But instead of fighting back, you send a missionary over. Suddenly the Barbarians have more culturally in common with you. The AI stops fighting. You send over a few philosophers, and next thing you know, they're absorbed into your empire. The pen is mightier than the sword, so they say.

Crossing Strategies

You can see how a nation might now feel threatened by a cultural powerhouse. Initial impulses might be to engage in a kind of cultural cold war, and pump our more units, or to blockade the borders. But let's cross over to our militaristic player, who decides to start killing every missionary sent to him from Britain. That's strategy!

Surviving as a Cultural Relic

Imagine a nation with a beautiful religion is conquered. Does that religion go away? Not necessarily. If the culture is strong enough, it may last long into the future. This is because the conquerer spreads a bit of the conquered's culture when it creates a culture unit. (Maybe one day they'll once again have a nation, due to the generousity of a world superpower?)

From Cleansing to War

A nation, in an effort to "purify" its culture, decides to cleanse some of the foreign CP's in its culture-o-meter. The foreign interest, seeing this threat to its culture, decides to intervene and attack. War breaks out. (One could say this is a lot like a country engaging in genocide, prompting the intervention of foreign powers who cannot sit by idlely. But it's done with politically correct numbers.)

Winning by Culture needs Allies

Instead of killing your way to the top, you win the game by spreading your culture beyond your borders. But in order to do that, you need to keep peaceful relations with other nations so they don't block your missionaries and artists. You need to trade with them so they become fans of your spices. You need to prevent war so people don't start boycotting your culture. You still accumulate 80000 CP's, but now the 80000 CP's are around the world, in other people's cities too. Having allies is important.


Conclusion

To conclude, I ask an odd question: What is a CP?

With this model, I think that's really the same question as "what is culture"? To quote a small part of a dictionary definition, CP's and culture are "socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought".

So when you get a CP into a rival's city...

Maybe you convinced them to use the word "pasta" for noodles.
Maybe you convinced them that life after death is a reward.
Maybe you convinced them to paint using small brush strokes.
Maybe you convinced them of the importance of the individual's rights.
Maybe you convinced them to observe a 10 month calendar.
Maybe you convinced them that Shaft is a bad mother.
Maybe you convinced them to eat 4 meals a day, no hotdogs on Friday.

The point of this is not just to show how much your imagination can add to this culture model... but that this culture model is very close to how culture actually works, without trying to figure out what a 10 month calendar would do to a society.

It's true using blank CP's would be like saying that all culture is equal. But we've still made an important step with this model: CPs spread beyond borders and reflect their culture of origin, and thus allow the game to reflect cultural similarity. This makes for a new source of conflict as much as it makes for a new strategy altogether.

Just a few visual aids, in case I failed to get the point across.

Old Culture -- the culture accumulating in your home city in Civ 3.

New Culture -- multiple cultures accumulating in a city through various transmission mechanisms

New Culture Trouble -- a city on the verge of being culturally assimilated

Wow, very nice. Before I vote, I have some questions.

* America defies your model. (Defies the heck out of Civ3's models, too, and more than just culture, but that's another story).

* There seems to be a cross between culture and ethnicity in your model. I see signs of both. (Civ3's model is gamey and accounts for neither).

* Culture is carried forth in institutions, UNTIL the advent of mass media. Then all bets are off.

What is culture, truly? It's the nexus of belief and behavior. What does a civilization believe and how does it behave? Culture is common experience, the threads that bind people together. Some threads are stronger than others -- a fact perhaps too real and yet too politcally explosive to try to model. Civ has always ignored this in favor of gameplay options: treating governments as gameplay vehicles, not historical simulation material.


There's no doubt your model is more accurate than Civ3's model. The question then becomes, how do you enjoy that boost without a drop off in the gameplay?

Are you on the right track? Perhaps.

And yet... your model doesn't account for America. Therefore, it still comes up short of capturing the essence of what culture is and how it works in the real world.


America welcomes, even embraces, other cultures. We're not the only one at this point, either. And yet no matter how many new cultures we absorb, no matter how many immigrants, no matter how many new points of view and new ideas... We retain our identity. No culture flipping, no culture shifts. How can our core culture be sturdy enough to handle this influx? Apparently, some ideas are stronger than others. They can be challenged, they can stand up to comparison, they can co-exist with dissent, yet still stand unbowed.

How do you model THAT and still have a game?

If you can answer that, if you can reach an ACCURATE model for culture, the gameplay answers may fall into your lap. I'm not sure you're there yet.


As for what culture should be like in Civ4... OOF. What a question.

I like your boldness, though. Who knows. Maybe important people will like it, too.


- Sirian

OK, in principle I really do LIKE this idea! I do especially like the idea of a more 'organic' culture spread model. I would, if its OK with you, put forward some of my other ideas:

1) A cities base culture would be based on several factors:
a) Cultural buildings and wonders.
b) Wealth.
c) # of 'Manufactured' shields and food.
d) # of artists and clerics in the city.
e) Happiness.
f) Funds allocated to 'arts and culture' through your economic screen
g) Social development of your civ.

2) A nations 'net culture' still go towards determining its borders, but these can be further expanded through military expansion and 'colonialism' (i.e., building and occupying forts, airbases, colonies and outposts)

3) Culture naturally flows, via the trade network, in a form of 'osmosis' (i.e. from areas of high culture to low culture). To pull a number out of a hat, 10% of a city's culture value will naturally flow to neighbouring cities within its borders.

4) Foreign cities connected to yours via road, river, sea or rail connections will naturally recieve 1% of the culture of the most cultured city. .5% if the foreign city is of a different culture group.

5) A trade pact with that nation doubles the culture flow described in (4), and an alliance quadruples the culture flow.

6) Each X foreign citizen(s) in a city contribute 2 cp's, from their home culture, to the city they are in.

7) Trading a luxury resource to a foreign city gives that city x% of your 'net culture'.

8) Trading in manufactured goods (food and shields directed AWAY from population growth and production) gives the recipient city x% of your 'net culture'

9) High culture cities have a % chance of producing a 'Cultural Great Leader', they can be sacrificed to rush a Great Wonder that produces happiness and/or culture 3+. Or they can be sent to a city and used to boost that city's culture level for 20 turns. Lesser 'culture units' could also be in my model, but they would only be able to stimulate culture, and would be weaker than a great leader.

10a) Establishing an embassy in a foreign civ will increase any flows of culture already passing between civs.

10b) Establishing a 'mission' in a foreign city will increase culture flows to that city for the purpose of 'religious conversions' only.

11) Rather than a straight 'culture flip', the ratio of 'native' culture versus 'foreign' culture will be a factor in whether or not a city will try and break away from its parent civ (and also whether it will join another civ).

12) The ratio of a nations 'net culture' will play a role in diplomatic relations. However, though high relative culture will 'impress' those of like culture, it will most likely cause 'resentment' in those of a different culture group. This may be balanced out, however, depending on your relative economic and military strength.

'Net Culture', FYI, is the native culture minus the sum of any foreign culture in your cities. Lastly, point 8, in particular, is important in dealing with the discrepancy pointed out by Sirrian about the USA-as Manufactured goods (which act as 'pseudo luxuries') can represent anything from artworks and furnishings up to consumer electronics, films and fast food. Given that the US exports so much of such goods (as well as its entertainment industry) would explain its high culture in regards to this model!
Hope you like it !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Sirian,

I'd like to see more forumulas added to the game all in all. And because it would be automatically calculated, the strategy is still the same: bombard the world with your culture. These formulas might add more challenge or more realism, but the strategy does not ultimately change if you want to win by culture.

Consider these examples:

Technology could play a part. (1) For example, the printing press produces one additional CP for each city (even foreign cities) that has at least 100 of your CPs. (2) Another one, technologies like "mass media" or "television" produce one additional CP for any culture greater with more than 100 CP within each of your cities.

City improvements and wonders could play a part. (3) Building a newspaper blocks one foreign CP. (4) A television station changes one foreign CP into a domestic CP each turn in that city. (5) Building a small wonder -- Hollywood -- causes all cities abroad with more than 100 of your CP to gradually convert foreign CP to your CP.

Trade could be a factor too. Aussie talks about some of this. (6) Perhaps there could be a "Film Studio" improvement that creates a "movie" luxury that can be traded abroad, thus promoting your culture for anyone you trade to. (7) There could even be a "Silicone Valley" small wonder that produces a video game luxury to trade abroad.

Without dropping the word CP again, the idea being that certain building and wonders aid in assimilation and hegemony. With America's powerful mass media, it only makes sense that you'd start to see a kind of "pan-Americanism". The above are only examples, but it's obvious that you could have buildings and technologies that promote, block, and sap Culture Points, as well as artificial luxuries to aid in culture through trade. It's easy to see how America would be the king of this.

Do you have any other questions? I'd like to make you a believer, and I'd also like to identify important flaws.


Aussie,

I'm just as cool with culture by osmosis only, instead of building cultural units. I'm mildly attached to units, but I'd be just as happy if they did this culture model without units, as you so eloquently pointed out. There are a lot of factors, from trade to alliances to roads to embassies, that can impact how much your culture spreads.

You point out an important aspect of foreign nationals and culture. I'd like to see the two intertwined in some way. Yours is a good suggestion with foreign pop heads bringing some of their home culture. I also think that a certain threshhold (200 CP) should make it impossible to assimilate a foreign national (400 CP for 2, 600 for 3, etc). Obviously you'd need an assimilating improvement that saps their CP in order to convert them. But again, this is just math and is completely up for debate beyond the basics of the model.

A small idea also relates to civil war and provinces. If France has a semi-germanic province (a few cities that are more german than the rest of France) and things get crappy in France, this province could secede. They could be a part of Germany or form their own country (Belgium). Again, not a core idea for this culture model, but something that it lays the foundation for.


To everyone,

Again, focus on the foundation and let your imagination run as wild or as tame as it wants on the details. The foundation is a model where culture needs to be transmitted for it to be successful -- other stuff like diplomatic implications, cultural cleansing, and civil war are more just food for thought, and are completely up for debate.

Hi DH! I can assure you that I am not opposed to a unit based culture spread! I just think the two should be side by side-the active versus the passive! Units might be a high-risk, high reward tactic-as a unit could easily be dispelled or killed by a foreign nation. I also think your relative culture strengths should determine the chance of a culture unit succeeding.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Sirian said:

America welcomes, even embraces, other cultures. We're not the only one at this point, either. And yet no matter how many new cultures we absorb, no matter how many immigrants, no matter how many new points of view and new ideas... We retain our identity. No culture flipping, no culture shifts. How can our core culture be sturdy enough to handle this influx? Apparently, some ideas are stronger than others. They can be challenged, they can stand up to comparison, they can co-exist with dissent, yet still stand unbowed.

How do you model THAT and still have a game?

- Sirian

Click to expand...

Actually I think this model does a good job of modeling American culture. The reason why immigrants want into this country is due to our culture. They are willing to give up some or all of their own culture, move to America and blend into the native culture. That is why immigrations happen. People are unhappy with their current location and are willing to give up the culture they currently have and adopt the culture of their new home.

This is how American culture survives in the face of so many immigrants. Those immigrants are willing to adopt more American culture than they keep of their own. However, there are areas that have retained quite a bit of their native culture, ie, China Town in San Francisco and areas of New York City. But even though those areas are culturally more similar to their "native" country the inhabitants of those areas have agreed to accept some foundational amount of American Culture.

As far as this model goes it would be a good vehicle to introduce immigration from one nation to another.

Thats exactly why the whole culture flip/culture shift model needs to be overhauled. In the model I have proposed-in line with DH_Epics-the ratio of foreign to native culture simply changes the chances of a city seceding from the core nation. This factor is only one of many, though, with others being corruption, unhappiness and poverty-to name just a few. This means that a city can accept a fairly large number of immigrants from other cultures, but still ulimately retain its identity AND remain part of the main nation.
Another factor might be Social Engineering. A very nationalistic culture might have a higher assimilation rate than a more multicultural one, but have a greater problem with its foreign population until assimilation occurs. This way, multicultural nations will retain cultural diversity for a larger portion of the game, but have a much more cohesive relationship between culture groups within its boundries. Xenophobic civs will try to cleanse any foreign influence and will have long term conflict/crime to deal with in areas with a high number of foreigners.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Dwarven Zerker, care to vote?

And that's a very interesting thought on government affecting culture. For example, Fascist governments would either assimilate faster, or encounter a kind of "multi-cultural weariness", maybe. Or democratic nations would cope with multiculturalism better, keeping more happy faces as new culture comes in (instead of tearing the nation apart). For sure a dictator that sees their culture being "eroded" would start to oppress those people, resulting in a domestic conflict.

Ammendments:

1) Cross-culturation - Over time various cultures will combine into new forms. These forms carry many of the traditions of both, but still have a unique identity. For this model, we assume that cross culturation occurs to culture points(each point would be tracked) that turn 100 years old. They would be converted into a cross form of a few types based on proportions of culture that turn(the one 100 years before). Over time enough of some of these new cross-cultures might reach self-generating level and eventually spread.

2) Cultural Corruption - Distance far away from the capital makes it hard to empathize exactly with the capital. Just like with production, certain factors woudl increase corruption for culture. INstead of being lost, this culture would be a local variant. When combined with cross-culturation, eventually the city could get a very regionalized feeling. Wonders automatically genereat 50/50 on national vs. local culture. Cities with high culture and local culture might challenge the capital for supremacy, or desire to become an independant kingdom.

Hi Sir_Schwick,

Well, I have to say that idea 1) sounds brilliant!! How about this, if a city's native and foreign culture scores remain almost equal for X turns, then it will 'mutate' into a new 'regional culture' (assuming that it hasn't already broken away due to the culture ratio-see my above post!). All new population in that city will probably belong to this new culture group (and will have a different 'ethnic' icon to represent their difference). They will still feel some degree of 'loyalty' to their original 'native' culture, but will also feel some loyalty to the foreign culture which produced them. Such cross culturalisation would also be impacted by your nationalism setting, and the time taken will also depend, in part, on how close the two nations culture groups are. The point is that, in time, the city's population will become dominated by this new 'culture'-and this new group could start insisting on independance from either state!

Your second point I also agree strongly with and, if you look at my post, my 'osmotic' culture flow kind of reflects this situation. That is, each city contributes only 10% (say) of its culture to its neighbouring cities. So, say a city has 200 culture, it will contribute 20 points to the next city along. If said city has only 50 culture originally, then this will go up to 70-and this city contributes 7 culture points to the next city along! Thus, in especially large empires, the very outer cities will be naturally very weak, and much more prone to the regional 'cross-culturalisation' effect you mentioned previously. It also acts as a natural damper on 'infinite city expansion'!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Just to clarify, osmosis only occurs from high to low(yes, I know the biological process of osmosis). If not then you would have a problem with infinite feedback. Also, if there was a fully populated map, then I assume that osmosis occurs into foreign cultures as well.

I think the "cross culturation" is a neat idea. But I'd do it a bit differently. The idea is, at the end of every era, to do a kind of "compression". For example, you might notice in Europe that everyone has a little bit of Roman, a little bit of German, and a little bit of Greek. So by compression, a Roman CP + a German CP + a Greek CP = a European CP. I don't know how you'd get the naming conventions out, though, if you had a continent with Japan, Greece, America, and Babylon though.

I like your model of osmosis as well, Sir Schwick. From "high to low" concentration is an important contingency, as you say, to avoid a negative feedback. Culture points flow from areas of high concentration outward.

I also like the idea of culture corruption -- the idea that culture can deteriorate under certain circumstances, further away from your capitol and such. But I think this also points out an underlying thread that I like so much about my own model (not to brag anything).

For a lot of people, it may seem like a lot of work -- you add up all the culture from buildings, and the culture you receive through trade, plus there are cultural effects of osmosis and corruption further away from your capitol, units run around spreading culture, and you can jockey for superiority over other cultures using xenophobic governments or hegemonic technologies. Someone might take a look at that and say "Wow, that's way too much and way too complicated."

But my argument is that culture is a lot like money itself. It changes hands in trades, some technologies, governments and improvements give you bonuses, and there are penalties further away from the capitol. Yet the model itself is really intuitive -- if you want more money, build more marketplaces, trade, and keep racing through the tech tree.

I think when all is said and done, you can say the same thing about culture here.

dh_epic said:

Dwarven Zerker, care to vote?

And that's a very interesting thought on government affecting culture. For example, Fascist governments would either assimilate faster, or encounter a kind of "multi-cultural weariness", maybe. Or democratic nations would cope with multiculturalism better, keeping more happy faces as new culture comes in (instead of tearing the nation apart). For sure a dictator that sees their culture being "eroded" would start to oppress those people, resulting in a domestic conflict.

Click to expand...

I'm still trying to decide how I want to vote. The options don't really represent my current ambivilence.

The idea is starting to become too complex. Keep it simple. Something doesn't have to be complex to provide a challenge. Remember that on the higher levels (Emperor and above) the AIs will generally outperform the human until late in the game. That's means it's more likely that a human city will flip to the AI than vice versa. We wouldn't want the seasoned veterans of Civ have to work too hard to win. They've got a hard enough job as it is.

I guess I'm making an argument that it doesn't have to be too complex...

Again, it's kind of like trade/money. You don't necessarily watch every single gain/loss of a point, nor do you keep track of each point lost to corruption. You just get an overall sense of being "in the money", being "stuck", or "falling behind".

Culture would probably be the same as money:

- Governments affect money, so they can also affect culture (growth, assimilation, erosion).
- Buildings and wonders affect money in different ways -- boost trade, cut costs, cut corruption, so they can also affect culture in similar ways.
- Doing a quick trade can get you more money, so it can also get you more culture.
- Technologies improve how you handle money, and so it can be with culture.
- If you're behind in trade, you know what you can do to boost it (build, cut back, trade) -- same with culture (build, "cleanse", or trade)

The calculations for how culture grows, spreads, erodes, and assimilates can be complicated or simple. But the essence of it the model is that culture needs to make it into other peoples' cities to succeed. From here, I'm sure the developers can come up with a variety of ways to boost your culture, and deal with foreign cultures that come into your cities.

I wasn't saying the idea was complicated for us players to utilize in game. I was trying to say that it was getting complicated in what we wanted culture to do "behind the scenes" so to speak.

I think the basic concept of different things adding to your culture and your culture is existant in other nations a good idea. I still like how culture increases your borders but I think that is all it should do geographically. I like the concept you've introduced in how culture affects other nations.

True. The implications should be simple and understandable. I can't help but get carried away, though, there's a lot of things it can affect (diplomacy, immigration, happiness). But that's more to show the potential of the core idea.

I don't think we need it to do everything.

Nor should it do everything. Culture should be a vehicle that can lead to a peaceful way of winning the game without the necessity of conquering cities. That is something you simply cannot do at present on anything over Monarch (it is probably doable on Monarch but definitely not on Emporer and higher.) The key to civ currently is economy. The only way to have a strong enough economy is to have lots of people working lots of tiles. Once you've reached that point you can strengthen your economy further via trade. That is why Monarch and higher is so hard in the early game. The AI has a much stronger economy which allows them to dominate the ancient age (and beyond in increasing difficulty)

Well, there ARE these one-cultural-city victories that people strive for at the deity level, and they manage to win the game without expanding. But people who strive for them choose them for challenge. I'd like people to choose culture as a truly viable option for victory.

If domination victory were steak, then culture victory would be salad. (And salad does not win a lot of support.) I'd like to raise the value of culture victory to chicken, or at least pork.

1) Thanks for the compliment on Osmosis, but that was originally Aussie's idea(I take credit for enough stuff that isn't mine as it is).

2) I have figured out how to redesign corruption using the cultural corruption concept discussed here. Normally corruption and waste are described as destroying the resource for practical purpose. Instead I propose it just does not go to you, it goes to the local leaders of the city. A city that lost 5 shields of production in waste would gain that to be used by the local leaders for whatever purpose. Same with gold and trade and culture. I will discuss this in another thread, but basically taking over powerful-cities with high corruption will actually screw you because it will definitely develop very quickly as a local entity.