Laguages and currencies

[lutzj]

Language would really be a form of religion, currency might affect economy by randomly altering gold amount when traded between differing currencies

[Lord Olleus]

Novel idea.
I've always thought that certain countries should get a diplomatic + for having similar culture. I guess that this is represented as religion and favourite civic. Maybe there could be a system where the game counts the number of tiles that civ A has which have some of civ's B culture on it, and then have somekind of bonus like +x "Our people like the same food/music/____"

[Figaro]

There are thousands and thousands of different languages in the world; the only one I can think of that is shared by more than one Civ4 nation is English (England and America). Even in most scenarios I don't think it would affect much.

Currencies similar; most nations have always had their own.

Not a bad idea, but I don't think it's likely enough to have much affect on the game.

[Teg_Navanis]

Originally Posted by Figaro

There are thousands and thousands of different languages in the world; the only one I can think of that is shared by more than one Civ4 nation is English (England and America). Even in most scenarios I don't think it would affect much.

Yes...ish. You're looking at how the world looks now. But what if you check the entire history of some of the civs? Some cultures adopted / were forced to adopt foreign languages. The Roman Empire is a great example, since it forced its language upon others (some of which are civilization IV nations, eg Egypt) and partly adopted a foreign language itself (Greek).


Some other examples what can happen to languages after a clash of power:

A language evolves differently in separate regions/populations, until there is no longer mutual intelligibility:
Latin --> Spanish, Italian, French
(In Civ IV terms: If two nations with the same language are at war or stop all trade relations, their languages will gradually split up.

A population is subdued by another population and partly retains the language. Through the co-existence of both languages, the 'subdued' language evolves.
Old English + French --> Middle English
(In Civ IV terms: If you capture a city, its language will gradually become more similar to your official language. Depending on how soon the city is captured back by the original owner, the city's language may have become unintelligible to his empire.

A language is completely and successfully suppressed by the dominating power. The dominating language does not adopt features of the suppressed one:
Native American languages, Celtic languages in large parts of Britain
(In Civ IV terms: If you decide to suppress a language, it may become extinguished over time. This leads to unhappiness during the process, but once it is extinguished, the city will lose an important link to their former nation)


On the level of Governments, there is the question as to how to react to language differences. Shall there be several official languages (Switzerland, India) or just one? May the people retain their native language and learn an official language in addition or do you want to suppress any other languages than the official one(s)?
These questions not only have an impact on diplomacy, but also on happiness and productivity.

[Figaro]

Yes but I still don't think there would be enough similarity between different civs to warrant a whole language system seperate of the current culture system. Sure the Romans pressed their language on other nations, but they did so along with all sorts of other parts of their culture, in the same way as is already done in Civ4. Even if you were to implement such a system I think you would find it would be either

A) Unrealistic or
B) The language would follow roughly the same boundaries as your own civ anyway and therefore not have any adverse affect on the game not already acheived by Culture or Religion.

[Agent 009]

I like the idea about different currencies. Language would be a difficult thing to implement I think but as for Currency, it would be neat to have a several different choices of currency and it would have a similar effect as religion does. However, instead of spreading into your cities as a religion would, it would have a total impact % of some sort which would be compared to other civs currency impact % and make exchange rates. Of course the inflation aspect would also need to be revised. Perhaps iinflation could effect building and unit costs as well.

So let's say that a modern armor cost 200 hammers as base. With inflation constantly on the rise this number would go up, which of course would cost more gold to hurry the production if Universal Suffrage is your civic.

With that in mind, let's do a two civ calculation comparison.

Let's say Civ A has an inflation percent of 5, and a currency impact percent of 25. That's a total of 30%

Civ B has an inflation % of 4, and an impact % of 16. Total of 20%.

Both have different currencies obviously. If they had the same currency then the impact % would be the same. It is a worldwide number.

So, Civ A trades 1000 gold for whatever reason to Civ B. 1000*30%= 300 + 1000 = 1300.
In this case Civ A has a currency weight of 1300.

Compared to Civ B when recieved, this number would translate as such: 1300*20% = 260 + 1300 = 1560. So Civ B would get 1560.

Of course, if it was wanted, the addition of both the inflation percent and the impact percent wouldn't have to be put together to get the end result, I was merely trying to assess the potential for this idea.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: Just reading over I felt it was neccesary to add this little tidbit. If it was wanted instead of using these numbers above, the difference of the impact % could be used instead. So in the above example the differenct is 10%, 1000*10% = 100 +1000 = 1100.

So instead Civ B would get 1100 for the 1000. Another way of doing it.

[Figaro]

Again though, I don't feel it would add anything particularly necessary nor valuable to the game. The currency of the game is the generic "X Gold" which nobody has ever complained about. It has a fixed ammount of value, but I would say things like inflation etc. are explained by the way you don't always have the same ammount of it - anything bad for your economy = Low gold reserves, anything good =high.

Like with the languages, too few countries share currencies for it to be a particularly valuable divider in the game.

Just what I think; feel free to mod it in if you like, but it wouldn't sell your mod to me.

[IrishDragon]

Originally Posted by lutzj

Language would really be a form of religion, currency might affect economy by randomly altering gold amount when traded between differing currencies

I think that civs which share the same language should have a trade bonus. Personally I dont think you should ever be able to completely destroy a language.