The Mechanics of Tourism

[Moriarte]

Hey everyone. I am trying to get my head around the way tourism really works. Last night i was playing a game, where i was Greece on huge Pangaea, standard speed. Domination in mind.

Here is what happened:

I am slowly capturing city after city. Since the level is deity, AI is swimming in works of writing, art and music, having consistently more tourism than i do.

By mid game (say, turn 200) i have 33 tourism per turn. Siam, Brazil, Russia and Rome have more tourism than me and they pick Order. I pick Autocracy. The rest of the world picks Order with the exception of 3 civs. I am royally screwed. Public opinion goes down the drain and there is nothing i can do, except bow to the ways of communism. But i decided to autocracy, as cash per turn was 200+ and i annexed and annexed conquered cities, buying happiness buildings.

At the mean time, the war campaign is quite successful as i am rolling, slowly biting city after city from different civilizations. My tourism is growing. So is theirs! Public opinion: (minus) 50.

Then i looked to check who is influential over who, in that cultural influence tab and i see:

Siam - exotic over me, i am unknown to them.

Same situation with Brazil, Russia, Rome and Babylon.

Slowly advancing towards domination victory i hit 100 TPT.

Then i notice something peculiar: (around turn 250) Minus 70 public opinion vanishes. Beautiful, i thought! But how did it happen?!? All four Order opponents pressuring me are still exotic over me. I am still unknown to them. But am content.

At the turn the game ended, culture overview tab looked like this:

Myself: (autocracy) 127 TPT
Rome: (order) 120 TPT. We're exotic over each other, yet Rome has dissidents.
Brazil: (order) 67 TPT. Exotic over each other, yet Brazil has dissidents.
Spain (order) 12 TPT. I am exotic over them, they are unknown over me. Spain is content. (OK, Spain may have changed ideology recently, not sure)

Poland, Siam and myself are unknown to each other.

The rest of the world is unknown over me and i am exotic over them.

The way i thought the whole thing worked is - direct calculation. If we're exotic over each other (or equal at any other level of influence) with a particular civ, there can't be dissidents in either of our civs. It appears i was wrong. What am i missing?

I am attaching the save so tourism pro's can have a look and maybe clarify to me whether (and how exactly) it is possible to pressure a civ into public discontent, being exotic over each other.

https://app.box.com/s/lj0cpw134nktdztdhh7o

 

[danaphanous]

I have never had happiness problems due to tourism but I'm confused about the system too. It's not so much the tourism though that defends you but your culture accumulation over the whole game. The best defense is to bulb culture and build a lot of useful buildings. As I'm usually a huge cultural power even if my tourism sucks I'm usually safe as my citizens don't care about them as much. I think tourism is mostly offensive? Can someone confirm? So doesn't really matter unless you want cultural victory. It might matter if the difference in tourism is what causes their influence to grow but I don't think so...I think it's culture.

 

[Calouste]

Rome and Brazil most likely have dissidents because there is a third civ that has either Autocracy or Freedom that has influence over them. Spain is most likely content because there are so many Order civs and Spain has so little tourism that all those order civs have influence over Spain. If you go to the third tab of the culture screen you can hover your mouse over (I think) the column that says "Dissidents" etc., and for each civ it will explain how much influence other civs have on it.

 

[Moriarte]

Meh, i m stupid, i forgot i passed world ideology in the heat of the battle..

I guess that's the effect of it making me prevail, even over civs with same level of influence.

I have never had happiness problems due to tourism but I'm confused about the system too. It's not so much the tourism though that defends you but your culture accumulation over the whole game. The best defense is to bulb culture and build a lot of useful buildings. As I'm usually a huge cultural power even if my tourism sucks I'm usually safe as my citizens don't care about them as much. I think tourism is mostly offensive? Can someone confirm? So doesn't really matter unless you want cultural victory. It might matter if the difference in tourism is what causes their influence to grow but I don't think so...I think it's culture.

Yeah, tourism "attacks" their culture and your culture "defends" from their tourism across four levels of influence. Not the difference in tourism rates.

 

[Calouste]

Meh, i m stupid, i forgot i passed world ideology in the heat of the battle..

I guess that's the effect of it making me prevail, even over civs with same level of influence.




Yeah, tourism "attacks" their culture and your culture "defends" from their tourism across four levels of influence. Not the difference in tourism rates.

Just adding to that, tourism accumulated over the game by civ A compared to culture accumulated over the game by civ B determines the influence level that civ A has over civ B (10%: 1-Exotic, 30%: 2-Familiar, 50%: 3-Popular, 100%: 4-Influential, 200%: 5-Dominant), but it is the difference in influence levels between a particular civ and all the other civs, with the same ideology counting positively and the other ideologies counting negatively, that determines the unhappiness caused by ideological differences.

 

[Moriarte]

but it is the difference in influence levels between a particular civ and all the other civs, with the same ideology counting positively and the other ideologies counting negatively, that determines the unhappiness caused by ideological differences.

Are you sure about this? I thought only direct correlations (civ to civ) mattered when determining public opinion: Greece is exotic, Brazil is familiar - Greece is in discontent. Are you saying that aggregate influence levels are weighed somehow between ideologies too?

 

[Calouste]

Are you sure about this? I thought only direct correlations (civ to civ) mattered when determining public opinion: Greece is exotic, Brazil is familiar - Greece is in discontent. Are you saying that aggregate influence levels are weighed somehow between ideologies too?

Yep, if Greece is exotic to Brazil, but Brazil is familiar to Greece, Brazil will have one influence level over Greece, which will show up as a Hammer/Torch/Sword in the interface, depending on Brazil's ideology. Now say that Greece has Freedom, and Brazil has Order, Greece will show that they are influenced to the level of one hammer, and they will have discontent. However, if there is a third civ, say Songhai, that has also picked Freedom and is familiar to Greece, but Greece is exotic to Songhai, Greece will be under the influence of one Torch by Songhai, which will cancel out the Hammer from Brazil and Greece will be content.

If you hover over the Content/Dissidents etc description in the culture screen it will show you the exact influences for each civ.

 

[Moriarte]

That's the bit i was missing. Thanks, Calouste.