Wineries

It seems weird that incense, bananas, dyes, silk, sugar, and spices are all opened up by calender, while grapes are made into wineries through monarchy. Any explanations?

Monarchs love their wine?

I was asking myself this ever since i got civ. I guess they just wanted some to be awaiable earlier or felt like beefing up monarchy.

because in europe lords and such used to have their serfs work the land to make the wine. They would keep some for themselves, send some to the king, and give some back to the people. Since it is the first form of organized government they chose to stick it there because it takes a lot of organization to get it done. Thats the basic gist of it, though I'm sure people can offer up more descriptive solutions.

Maybe the theory is that the change of seasons is so obvious in the temperate zone that a calendar isn't really needed for vineyards. You only plant them once every century or so and harvest the grapes when they're ripe (or when it starts to get cold).

In the tropics, things like spices and sugars are annual plants that I would imagine have to be planted before the rainy season each year. And if you don't keep records, it might not be obvious that next month you can expect torrential rains to start.

Gwynnja said:

Any explanations?

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Game balancing, I'd say.

magritte said:

In the tropics, things like spices and sugars are annual plants that I would imagine have to be planted before the rainy season each year. And if you don't keep records, it might not be obvious that next month you can expect torrential rains to start.

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sugar was planted year round places like southeast asia. part of the "culture system" implemented by the dutch in java included this.

It´s a european cultural thing.
Wine = european thing grown in Europe for a long long time. Sugar, spices, silk and so on grown in other parts of the world and grown on large plantations when the eropeans arriwed. Of course it was grown by the locals before but that doesn´t matter cause the game is disigned within the european cultural sphere and therefore in our minds sugar is grown on plantations.Wine on the other hand are grown on small farms in France.

Ahh you get my point right, thats the image we got in our heads, not the acctual truth. And yeas I know Sid is Amarican (I think) but he is raised in an european cultural context never the less. If the game was designed lets say in China, a assure you that it would be a different game. in many ways.

ramble, ramble, ramble.... and so on.

I'd say game balance. It allows for a happiness resource by following the religion path, to augment the other happiness capabilities associated with it.

Likewise, the metal-based happiness is driving from lower branch of Mining, Bronze/Iron Working, and Metal Casting.

And all the Calendar resources allow for lots of happiness being generated by following the upper branch.

King of Town said:

because in europe lords and such used to have their serfs work the land to make the wine. They would keep some for themselves, send some to the king, and give some back to the people. Since it is the first form of organized government they chose to stick it there because it takes a lot of organization to get it done. Thats the basic gist of it, though I'm sure people can offer up more descriptive solutions.

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Except the time period you're talking about is loooooooong after both the notions of monarchy or the calender were developed. The ancient Greeks had monarchs and calenders when most of Europe was just filled with tribes and no real civilization.

It's certainly not the most illogical of the Civ series. I think that particular honor goes to Civ2, where researching medicine allowed you to build the Globe Theater........

One, game balance is a factor. Middle Path coinage and a trading item. Secondly, there's the fact that wine was never considered a 'calender' fruit. It didn't need to be planted every spring at a set time etc.