Linking culture to cities is counterintuitive

[Phyrio]

I don't like how the acquisition of new cities actually has potential to be a BAD thing in civ 5 because it decreases the amount of social policies you can get. It makes for strange and counterintuitive play where even in large maps expansion beyond 2-4 cities isn't optimal. It also leads to mass puppet (i.e. fake) empires because nobody wants to conquer and annex a city if it's actually going to set them back culturally. I don't feel as though I'm actually conquering anything when I can't control the cities I conquered.

I would like someone to explain the rationale behind this mechanic to me. If it's supposed to be trade-off for large empires to have more production and gold but less culture, then why are there whole social policy trees devoted to large empires (liberty, order)?

 

[Sonereal]

The SPs for large empires usually help out expansion and I think some of them reduce SP costs.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

You could argue that for large far-flung empires, it's more difficult to produce a cohesive national identity.

 

[RealHuhn]

In my last game, I built around 15 cities with Egypt on standart map/speed/emperor and I almost completed 3 policy trees (Liberty/right side Honor/Rationalism) by turn 295/year 1800something (won by space race).

And I didn't focus on culture. Sure, I built a few opera houses (they're very cheap now), had the sistine chapel and one landmark in my capital but other than that, I focussed on expansion/military/science. No museums/broadcast towers/puppets/hermitage/christo redentor/sydney opera house and only 1 (late) cultural city state.

All you need is the Representation policy, really.

Do you play with the latest patch?

 

[insaneweasel]

I don't like how the acquisition of new cities actually has potential to be a BAD thing in civ 5 because it decreases the amount of social policies you can get. It makes for strange and counterintuitive play where even in large maps expansion beyond 2-4 cities isn't optimal. It also leads to mass puppet (i.e. fake) empires because nobody wants to conquer and annex a city if it's actually going to set them back culturally. I don't feel as though I'm actually conquering anything when I can't control the cities I conquered.

I would like someone to explain the rationale behind this mechanic to me. If it's supposed to be trade-off for large empires to have more production and gold but less culture, then why are there whole social policy trees devoted to large empires (liberty, order)?

I agree. I really miss the days of Civ 4 where conquering actually meant fun times and a larger empire you could actually control. Now, most cities aren't worth the unhappiness and I tend to raze cities without wonders.

There should be consequences for settling cities, but lowering the culture acquisition rate really stinks. Conquest-based empires should have greater unhappiness, maybe higher costs, but I want them to change things around massively.

 

[RealHuhn]

The SPs for large empires usually help out expansion and I think some of them reduce SP costs.

And yeah, this is also true. Many policies are much better for large empires, especially those which add happiness to certain buildings.

Organized Religion or Humanism comes to mind. They're worth +2 happiness in every city. Obviously wide empires benefit a lot more from this.

 

[Drawmeus]

I'd take the intermediate approach. I like the idea of Puppet States not counting as empire expansion; I'd like to see them rebalanced around that concept, and then let me settle cities as puppets ("Colonies").

I like building a relatively small, focused empire. I also like that Age of Discovery wave of expansion. I'd like the game to support both without feeling harshly penalized.

 

[Bob_]

Lately, I had a game (emperor, standard size) in which I reached every victory condition by 1970 (including cultural). Although I annexed nearly every city.

So I think in the end it is not that bad to conquer and to annex.

 

[Becephalus]

I just played an Ottoman game where my 7 city empire swelled to over 30 over many many wars (with no more than 5 puppets at a time), and I had 3+ policy trees completed.

You can grow large and pursue culture, it just takes focus.

 

[McLMan]

I think there has to be a balance there. Building/annexing a bunch of cities and building just a couple of culture buildings would make it way too easy to win a culture victory if the SP costs didn't go up with expansion.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

You could argue that for large far-flung empires, it's more difficult to produce a cohesive national identity.

What about China and America? They are the 3rd and 4th largest countries in the world and have some of the greatest cultural influences in the world.

I'd support some sort of buffering process that integrates cities into the empire, but a permanent cultural penalty is dumb.

 

[Revoran]

You could argue that for large far-flung empires, it's more difficult to produce a cohesive national identity.

You could also argue that Rome, a huge empire in it's time, had a massive cultural effect on the lands it occupied - most notably western Europe.

You could also argue that the USA is one of the most populous countries today, has a large land area with many cities, and is also the world's dominant cultural force. (Yay for Hollywood!)

 

[Mods]

You could also argue that Rome, a huge empire in it's time, had a massive cultural effect on the lands it occupied - most notably western Europe.

You could also argue that the USA is one of the most populous countries today, has a large land area with many cities, and is also the world's dominant cultural force. (Yay for Hollywood!)

You could argue that culture is not so important in real life as in civ5, and having plenty of pretty buildings is not necessary for a government change

 

[SammyKhalifa]

You could also argue that Rome, a huge empire in it's time, had a massive cultural effect on the lands it occupied - most notably western Europe.

You could also argue that the USA is one of the most populous countries today, has a large land area with many cities, and is also the world's dominant cultural force. (Yay for Hollywood!)

Of course. But there is at least a justification for their idea to balance the game by letting the small empires play with culture more than large ones.

 

[Polycrates]

You could also argue that Rome, a huge empire in it's time, had a massive cultural effect on the lands it occupied - most notably western Europe.

You could also argue that the USA is one of the most populous countries today, has a large land area with many cities, and is also the world's dominant cultural force. (Yay for Hollywood!)

But a large empire does get more culture than a small one. And for grabbing territory, each point of culture in a large empire is going to go a lot further, because you've got more cities filling the lower, easier levels of the cultural expansion boxes. So yes, a big empire like Rome is having a massive cultural effect on the lands it occupies.

What a big empire suffers with is translating that culture into social/governmental advances. Which only makes sense - a large empire is far harder to administrate and spread new ideas to. The Roman empire got very large, sure, and spread its culture everywhere, sure. But it stagnated as well, and the culture of liberty turned to autocracy that became more and more stagnant by the year until it was all "bread and circuses" - and in many ways its Germanic holdings started dominating Roman culture as much as (if not more so than) vice versa. The great advances in administration were primarily when Rome was relatively small, and became increasingly unwieldy when it became larger - and those republican administrative traditions never really spread so much outside the heartland to affect how those regions were governed at a more regional or local level. Hell, if anything, I'd say that when Rome expanded it started losing social policies by the bushel.

On the other hand, Athens and Babylon were both cultural/philosophical centres and small, and were great pioneers in administrative advances. Likewise Sparta as an example of a small state that because of its small size was able to progress a long way through the Honour tree. To expand that level of rigidly regimented military culture to a larger area would have been extremely difficult and required intense effort. If the Spartans ever grew as big as Rome, there's no way they would have been able to export that intense level of militarised culture - except perhaps with a massive amount of time and investment.

Of course it doesn't correlate anywhere close to perfectly, and I'm sure there's plenty of counterexamples - but I think it's a close enough fit for a game series like Civ that's never been particularly grounded in the minutae of perfect historical accuracy. I should also point out that Europa Universalis 3 has a very similar system - the more provinces you have, the more you have to invest to get governmental advances. And it's a useful gameplay mechanic to ensure that large empires don't just snowball and snowball - which has been the perennial problem with the civ games.

 

[Drawmeus]

As far as the "penalty" goes - remember that your empire's culture output increases per city, so some kind of "penalty" is necessary just to break even. Without a penalty, you're basically just ICSing.

There's a penalty even for building the 2nd city, and it's clearly worth building a second city for culture.

 

[binhthuy71]

There has to be an SP penalty for each additional city. Otherwise, you'd have a situation where cities are spammed three tiles apart until the available land is filled up. Build culture producing buildings in each, staff them with Specialists, and then hit Next Turn until you've won.

A Cultural victory can be challenging because it's the only victory type for which you must fill five SP trees. You can win Dom, UN Vote or Spaceship without doing so.

Finally, Civ V seems to reward an early choice of victory type far more than V's predecessors. Choosing your builds, SPs, Specialist allocation, itile improvements, and expansion to best advance your chosen victory goes a long, long, way in V.

 

[funat]

What about China and America? They are the 3rd and 4th largest countries in the world and have some of the greatest cultural influences in the world.

I'd support some sort of buffering process that integrates cities into the empire, but a permanent cultural penalty is dumb.

But America is not annexing no one. Take Libya or Iraq (or Japan or Central America puppet states) - it's all classic resource wars with puppet governments. They certainly did (will not in the case of Libya) not ANNEX them.
During the making of USA - they razed native settlements. So CIV5 is spot on!

China on the other hand - goes (IRL) for a diplo/economic victory. It does not attack nations.

 

[Teutorian]

But a large empire does get more culture than a small one. And for grabbing territory, each point of culture in a large empire is going to go a lot further, because you've got more cities filling the lower, easier levels of the cultural expansion boxes. So yes, a big empire like Rome is having a massive cultural effect on the lands it occupies.

What a big empire suffers with is translating that culture into social/governmental advances. Which only makes sense - a large empire is far harder to administrate and spread new ideas to. The Roman empire got very large, sure, and spread its culture everywhere, sure. But it stagnated as well, and the culture of liberty turned to autocracy that became more and more stagnant by the year until it was all "bread and circuses" - and in many ways its Germanic holdings started dominating Roman culture as much as (if not more so than) vice versa. The great advances in administration were primarily when Rome was relatively small, and became increasingly unwieldy when it became larger - and those republican administrative traditions never really spread so much outside the heartland to affect how those regions were governed at a more regional or local level. Hell, if anything, I'd say that when Rome expanded it started losing social policies by the bushel.

On the other hand, Athens and Babylon were both cultural/philosophical centres and small, and were great pioneers in administrative advances. Likewise Sparta as an example of a small state that because of its small size was able to progress a long way through the Honour tree. To expand that level of rigidly regimented military culture to a larger area would have been extremely difficult and required intense effort. If the Spartans ever grew as big as Rome, there's no way they would have been able to export that intense level of militarised culture - except perhaps with a massive amount of time and investment.

This.

I'd like to add that, while annoying for greedy expansionism in Civ V, it is somewhat realistic in most situations that large Empires in the pre-industrial/modern era would and should have issues with `progressing through the policy tree.` However, and this is, I think, reflected in the game, that changes with the advent of certain technologies.

Polycrates Sparta example was dead on. However, Sparta was recreated in many ways in Hitler's Germany and would have been done so on a much larger scale (covering infact much of Western civilization) and this is/was possible because of technology that didn't exist in the days of Sparta, such as radio and television and film. Of course, that spirit of militarism existed in Germany prior to Hitler's rule, it was further sensationalized because of the rise of mass media, which is how the ideals of little Prussia would, theoretically, have become the ideals of all of (German occupied) Europe.

In every Civilization V game i've played where i've expanded into a large Empire i've had issues with progressing through the social policies.... up until a point. Than, after broadcast towers, etc etc, start going up, I start steamrolling through them, despite that my Empire is massive, because of the vast number of cities I have producing high culture which begins to compensate more for how much culture I need to adopt a new policy.

If you really want to go through the social policies fast AND have a large Empire, just remain small until you're coming up on the Industrial era and then start conquering.

 

[Furycrab]

It's a gameplay thing, getting more cities will generate more culture almost no matter what you do, but people don't associate culture with insanely large empires, but if the mechanic wasn't in place, the fastest culture games would be the ones where you got the largest empire possible as fast as possible.