Absorbing a conqueror's culture.

[Naokaukodem]

Basically how did China with Mongolia.

For example, this could be done randomly after the conquest of your capital or a border city of yours. Like, you've been conquered and the turn after a message displays : "your city absorbed Mongolia's culture !", your city is given back to you and the war ends for at least 10 turns or so. Of course, it is unsure it would be any beneficial to you, considering the possible loss of population. But it could be a thing, that may be there randomly for everyone.

Or, provided by a wonder (giving a chance) or a policy card, civilization trait or whatever.

Or, it could be based on culture : if you are a vast empire like China with lots of theater squares, and conqueror is basically a refined barbarian, but a barbarian still (pastoralists), the weight of your culture compared to the low culture of your conqueror could convert your city back, more or less quickly depending on the difference.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Basically how did China with Mongolia.

For example, this could be done randomly after the conquest of your capital or a border city of yours. Like, you've been conquered and the turn after a message displays : "your city absorbed Mongolia's culture !", your city is given back to you and the war ends for at least 10 turns or so. Of course, it is unsure it would be any beneficial to you, considering the possible loss of population. But it could be a thing, that may be there randomly for everyone.

Or, provided by a wonder (giving a chance) or a policy card, civilization trait or whatever.

Or, it could be based on culture : if you are a vast empire like China with lots of theater squares, and conqueror is basically a refined barbarian, but a barbarian still (pastoralists), the weight of your culture compared to the low culture of your conqueror could convert your city back, more or less quickly depending on the diffence.

Unlike earlier Civ renditions, we don't really have 'culture wars' in Civ VI - you can't flip a city with culture alone, except sort of with Eleanor, and 'culture pressure' really isn't a Thing.

That's not saying it wouldn't be a good idea.
China, by the way, didn't just do it with the Mongols, but also with the Manchus and virtually eve4ry other "Northern Barbarian" that wandered south. On the other hand, although it can be argued that Greece had a higher over-all 'Culture' than Rome, Rome didn't turn 'Greek', it turned into a Hybrid of Greco-Roman culture and then, in Byzantium and the with addition of Christianity, into something almost entirely new and different. Likewise, Gaul had a pretty advanced and coherent culture that was distinctly Un-Roman, but after the Roman conquest it was virtually eliminated: only a few place names and city foundations remain, and modern France conspicuously counts the Romans as their antecedents and ignores any possible Celtic/Gallic elements.

So, "Culture Pressure", I think, will have to come from a combination of things:
1. Pure Culture: which we already measure in the game.
2. Culture times Population: China's huge advantage over the Northern Barbarians was simple population pressure: there were a thousand or more Chinese for every Barbarian/Mongol/Manchu, AND they had a culture and lifestyle that was more appropriate for the physical area of China than the pastoral lifestyle and culture of the northern plains. Result was that while China rarely adopted elements of the 'Barbarian' culture (mounted archery and knight-like lancers by the Tang Dynasty, for instance) the Chinese literature, city life, luxuries, et al. were adopted wholesale by the Invaders, and they discovered that they wound up also adopting Chinese Culture with them, which sees into:
3. Technology. Technology frequently equals Comfort, or at least a more comfortable lifestyle for the Leaders, and so more advanced technology will be adopted in a heartbeat. Then the adopters discover that Technology is accompanied by Culture elements from the society that had the technology, and the assimilation or Hybridization of the conqueror's culture begins. IF you want Chinese porcelains, silks, theater, tea, et al (most of which also represent Technological factors like specialized Porcelain Kilns) then you cannot keep a pastoral lifestyle, because you cannot cultivate a silkworm or throw a porcelain pot from horseback.

Finally, there is the Anti-Culture aspect. If, like the Mongols and some of their successors further west from China, you massacre all the natives of the cities, you avoid all the problems of 2 above: there is no population pressure left. See Timur the Lame's "mountains of skulls" or the Mongol massacres in the Islamic cities of the Middle East (and Bye, Bye Baghdad). Another way to avoid Culture Pollution and Assimilation is to not leave your chosen physical surroundings. The Mongols that stayed behind in Mongolia are still there, still Mongolian. The Scythians of what is now Ukraine remained firmly pastoral nomads despite the Greek city states scattered along the Black Sea coast from modern Romania to the mouth of the Don River, because the Scythians were in their Home Element. They traded with the Greeks, but there was no reason to adopt a lifestyle/culture that was less adopted to their environment than the one they had already developed over the previous 500 years.

All in all, I like the idea of 'Culture Was' assimilation or adoption, but to get all the ramifications right, it may have to wait for Civ VII.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Thank you for your answer and your interest Boris. You are pointing very interesting aspects of assimilation with your examples of Rome/Greece, although I doubt a cultural strenght could really be measured in the real world. On that basis there could be culture meltings too, but I tried to figure out how it could work by the past and always failed. How could we represent a culture mix ? Would it be a mix of different cultures, or an entire new one ? I mean, Civ3 represented this by the citizens origines : there were X Arabs for example, and X Asian. Would a mix be represented like this, or having 2X of Arabo-Asian ? Always a question I asked myself; because the best would be the second case, but it may be impossible to program. (not to mention there could be the two forms of mixity, like a cohabition of elements, or the formation of hybrids, meh, brain breaking)
However I'm not so sure about your affirmation of how France considers its past : for a long time, we read in school manuals : "our ancestors the Gallics" (see the comics "Astérix & Obélix"), which have been however criticized recently, but more to encourage research about any origines, that are numerous and more old that mere 'Gallics' or whatever, and to underline also, I believe, the role of the Francs into our history. Francs > France. Of course, reading some treaty about those periods is passionating, because it seems it can't be modeled in any program. As the non-assimilation of roman culture to gallic one, that may be, indeed, a question of technology/culture. (I still think roman culture was vastly superior than gallic's due to technology in particular urban technology)
Yes all this should tie in Civ7 or whatever, particularly when i think Loyalty should depend on already existing "currencies" like culture.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Thank you for your answer and your interest Boris. You are pointing very interesting aspects of assimilation with your examples of Rome/Greece, although I doubt a cultural strenght could really be measured in the real world. On that basis there could be culture meltings too, but I tried to figure out how it could work by the past and always failed. How could we represent a culture mix ? Would it be a mix of different cultures, or an entire new one ? I mean, Civ3 represented this by the citizens origines : there were X Arabs for example, and X Asian. Would a mix be represented like this, or having 2X of Arabo-Asian ? Always a question I asked myself; because the best would be the second case, but it may be impossible to program. (not to mention there could be the two forms of mixity, like a cohabition of elements, or the formation of hybrids, meh, brain breaking)

One possibility, at least in Civ VI terms, might be to simply at a certain point - though how to define that point might be a real problem - you are allowed to pick and adopt a Civic from the 'other' culture, and continue doing that until you have either rejected or absorbed all the 'culture' of the other group. The result, in many cases, would be for one culture (presumably Yours) to have Civics that it had never 'researched', but obtained through absorption from another Culture. Of course, that implies (and I think it would be a Good Idea) that Religion has a separate Adoption/Spread mechanism

However I'm not so sure about your affirmation of how France considers its past : for a long time, we read in school manuals : "our ancestors the Gallics" (see the comics "Astérix & Obélix"), which have been however criticized recently, but more to encourage research about any origines, that are numerous and more old that mere 'Gallics' or whatever, and to underline also, I believe, the role of the Francs into our history. Francs > France. Of course, reading some treaty about those periods is passionating, because it seems it can't be modeled in any program. As the non-assimilation of roman culture to gallic one, that may be, indeed, a question of technology/culture. (I still think roman culture was vastly superior than gallic's due to technology in particular urban technology)
Yes all this should tie in Civ7 or whatever, particularly when i think Loyalty should depend on already existing "currencies" like culture.

I was going by the author of the book The Discovery of Middle Earth, who traveled extensively in France researching the sites of Gallic settlement, and discovered that in most local museums there were virtually no Celtic archeological exhibits: everything was Roman and later.

And be careful about assuming Roman technology and urban planning was superior. The Celts had just begun to settle in recognizable cities in the century or so before they were conquered, but Bibracte, their largest urban site, is now considered to have had a population of 20,000 - making that Celtic/Gallic city as large as medieval Paris! Most Latin words relating to chariots and carts are borrowed from Gallic, because the Gauls apparently had superior wheeled vehicle technology compared to the Romans when the two first came into contact. Finally, the Roman province of Gaul measured distances between cities in Gallic Leagues rather than Roman Miles right up to the end of the Empire - because the Gauls had accurately measured the distances and posted them (this is a detail that was in one of the Asterix comic books that was actually not satire, but straight History)between the cities in their own measurements, so the Romans simply kept them - most of the old 'Roman roads' in France are actually laid on top of the original Gallic roads.

 

[AsH2]

Unlike earlier Civ renditions, we don't really have 'culture wars' in Civ VI - you can't flip a city with culture alone, except sort of with Eleanor, and 'culture pressure' really isn't a Thing.

That's not saying it wouldn't be a good idea.
China, by the way, didn't just do it with the Mongols, but also with the Manchus and virtually eve4ry other "Northern Barbarian" that wandered south. On the other hand, although it can be argued that Greece had a higher over-all 'Culture' than Rome, Rome didn't turn 'Greek', it turned into a Hybrid of Greco-Roman culture and then, in Byzantium and the with addition of Christianity, into something almost entirely new and different. Likewise, Gaul had a pretty advanced and coherent culture that was distinctly Un-Roman, but after the Roman conquest it was virtually eliminated: only a few place names and city foundations remain, and modern France conspicuously counts the Romans as their antecedents and ignores any possible Celtic/Gallic elements.

So, "Culture Pressure", I think, will have to come from a combination of things:
1. Pure Culture: which we already measure in the game.
2. Culture times Population: China's huge advantage over the Northern Barbarians was simple population pressure: there were a thousand or more Chinese for every Barbarian/Mongol/Manchu, AND they had a culture and lifestyle that was more appropriate for the physical area of China than the pastoral lifestyle and culture of the northern plains. Result was that while China rarely adopted elements of the 'Barbarian' culture (mounted archery and knight-like lancers by the Tang Dynasty, for instance) the Chinese literature, city life, luxuries, et al. were adopted wholesale by the Invaders, and they discovered that they wound up also adopting Chinese Culture with them, which sees into:
3. Technology. Technology frequently equals Comfort, or at least a more comfortable lifestyle for the Leaders, and so more advanced technology will be adopted in a heartbeat. Then the adopters discover that Technology is accompanied by Culture elements from the society that had the technology, and the assimilation or Hybridization of the conqueror's culture begins. IF you want Chinese porcelains, silks, theater, tea, et al (most of which also represent Technological factors like specialized Porcelain Kilns) then you cannot keep a pastoral lifestyle, because you cannot cultivate a silkworm or throw a porcelain pot from horseback.

Finally, there is the Anti-Culture aspect. If, like the Mongols and some of their successors further west from China, you massacre all the natives of the cities, you avoid all the problems of 2 above: there is no population pressure left. See Timur the Lame's "mountains of skulls" or the Mongol massacres in the Islamic cities of the Middle East (and Bye, Bye Baghdad). Another way to avoid Culture Pollution and Assimilation is to not leave your chosen physical surroundings. The Mongols that stayed behind in Mongolia are still there, still Mongolian. The Scythians of what is now Ukraine remained firmly pastoral nomads despite the Greek city states scattered along the Black Sea coast from modern Romania to the mouth of the Don River, because the Scythians were in their Home Element. They traded with the Greeks, but there was no reason to adopt a lifestyle/culture that was less adopted to their environment than the one they had already developed over the previous 500 years.

Not to mention Egypt and their 30ish dynasties prior islam.

All in all, I like the idea of 'Culture Was' assimilation or adoption, but to get all the ramifications right, it may have to wait for Civ VII.

Or they would better not wait for Civ VII to get all the ramifications right then.. Going Civ2ToT-bananas in Civ6's last expansion would not only make people like us crazily happy; They would have more to win and less to lose - their new ideas tested and modified by their fan community while developing Civ VII.