dunkleosteus
Roman Pleb
I think Language could serve as a useful addition to civ. Unlike religion, where players found real religions (with the option to rename them), I think languages should be removed from the real languages of the world.
This feature has a lot of complexity, but I think this contributes to its usefulness. When the game starts, each civ has a language that they start out with, named in the form [era][civilization demonym] so for example America starts with Ancient American, Greece with Ancient Greek, etc. Even though America speaks English in real life, this is irrelevant- each civ has their own language.
Like religious followers, the number of native speakers of a language are listed in each city. Depending on a player's playstyle, they will want to prioritize language differently. Each city that is founded branches from the language of the source city the settler was produced in (ie if Sparta is founded by a settler from Athens, Ancient Spartan Greek starts out identically to Ancient Athenian Greek). Different factors contribute to the way that a language will develop over time. The ratio of culture produced by a city to science produced by the city determines the mutation rate: (not 1:1 ratio, as science often dwarfs culture) a higher culture results in faster mutation, a higher science results in less mutation, and a low science and culture results in a strong foreign influence. Language influence spreads geographically by distance (proximity to another civ results in some of your citizens learning their language and some of their citizens learning yours). Foreign influence causes a greater adoption of a foreign language.
Accepting a foreign embassy automatically adds 5% of the citizens in your capital as speaking that language. Having at least a few speakers of a foreign language is beneficial: trade routes between foreign cities that share languages result in increased science, culture and gold, and add additional tourism pressure.
As cities grow independently, their languages mutate on their own. In the above example, Classical Spartan Greek will be slightly different but still quite similar to Classical Athenian Greek. The more similar the languages are, the higher of a science boost each city receives for having a city connection. For more diverse languages, the cities receive a culture boost. Great works of writing maintain the language of the city they are created in at that time period, and the more the language has changed, the larger culture boost these works provide.
Language reaches farther than science and culture however; works of writing become very important and more diverse. When founding a religion, the great prophet creates a holy book in the native language of that city. A religion exerts strong language pressure on any city that it occupies, and spreading religion to cities that already speak this language (or a similar dialect) is much easier.
The world congress receives new language based options: the official language of business and the official language of science. Historically, this might be represented by English in the modern world and Latin in the Renaissance, a time when all scientific works were published in Latin. Once passed, the science bonus for shared language from research agreements and trade routes doubles for sharing the language of science, and the gold and cultural pressure of the language of trade doubles.
Overall, language acts as a tool to facilitate science and culture victories: having a strong culture and foreign influence assists the rate of tourism and culture production of cities while simultaneously increasing the gold and science obtained from trade routes. Having a stable language with many speakers of foreign languages allows a civ to maximize the science they gain from contact with other civs, and especially from research agreements. They become slightly more susceptible to cultural domination, but receive a large science bonus from city connections to increase the rate at which they discover new technologies.
This feature has a lot of complexity, but I think this contributes to its usefulness. When the game starts, each civ has a language that they start out with, named in the form [era][civilization demonym] so for example America starts with Ancient American, Greece with Ancient Greek, etc. Even though America speaks English in real life, this is irrelevant- each civ has their own language.
Like religious followers, the number of native speakers of a language are listed in each city. Depending on a player's playstyle, they will want to prioritize language differently. Each city that is founded branches from the language of the source city the settler was produced in (ie if Sparta is founded by a settler from Athens, Ancient Spartan Greek starts out identically to Ancient Athenian Greek). Different factors contribute to the way that a language will develop over time. The ratio of culture produced by a city to science produced by the city determines the mutation rate: (not 1:1 ratio, as science often dwarfs culture) a higher culture results in faster mutation, a higher science results in less mutation, and a low science and culture results in a strong foreign influence. Language influence spreads geographically by distance (proximity to another civ results in some of your citizens learning their language and some of their citizens learning yours). Foreign influence causes a greater adoption of a foreign language.
Accepting a foreign embassy automatically adds 5% of the citizens in your capital as speaking that language. Having at least a few speakers of a foreign language is beneficial: trade routes between foreign cities that share languages result in increased science, culture and gold, and add additional tourism pressure.
As cities grow independently, their languages mutate on their own. In the above example, Classical Spartan Greek will be slightly different but still quite similar to Classical Athenian Greek. The more similar the languages are, the higher of a science boost each city receives for having a city connection. For more diverse languages, the cities receive a culture boost. Great works of writing maintain the language of the city they are created in at that time period, and the more the language has changed, the larger culture boost these works provide.
Language reaches farther than science and culture however; works of writing become very important and more diverse. When founding a religion, the great prophet creates a holy book in the native language of that city. A religion exerts strong language pressure on any city that it occupies, and spreading religion to cities that already speak this language (or a similar dialect) is much easier.
The world congress receives new language based options: the official language of business and the official language of science. Historically, this might be represented by English in the modern world and Latin in the Renaissance, a time when all scientific works were published in Latin. Once passed, the science bonus for shared language from research agreements and trade routes doubles for sharing the language of science, and the gold and cultural pressure of the language of trade doubles.
Overall, language acts as a tool to facilitate science and culture victories: having a strong culture and foreign influence assists the rate of tourism and culture production of cities while simultaneously increasing the gold and science obtained from trade routes. Having a stable language with many speakers of foreign languages allows a civ to maximize the science they gain from contact with other civs, and especially from research agreements. They become slightly more susceptible to cultural domination, but receive a large science bonus from city connections to increase the rate at which they discover new technologies.
