Better Culture Mechanic

[civilizationfanatic2000]

civs in this game are too monolithic. they never change. The barbarian invasions, southwards Chinese expansion, and much, much more cannot be modeled.

Here's an idea- your culture is altered by your environment and events, as well as being near other cultures.These are given through Traits, which can change drastically over the course of gameplay. All Traits lie on a spectrum, from 10 to -10.

Traits-

Militaristic/Pacifist. Gain Militaristic points by going to war, and lose them by not going to war, or refusing to join wars.

Communal/Individual. Gain Communal points by farming rice, enacting more communal policies (mandating that all families live in one mega-building), and lose them by farming wheat, enacting more individualistic policies (make every person have their own house)

Authoritarian/Libertarian. Gain Authoritarian points by centralizing your state, and lose them by decentralizing your state.

Traditionalist/Progressive. Gain Traditionalist points by focusing more on Culture rather than Technology, and lose them by doing the opposite.

Expansionist/Isolationist. Gain Expansionist points by, well, expanding, and gain Isolationist points by not expanding, or being surrounded by hostile terrain (ocean, mountains, desert)

Effects-

The more your nation slides to one end of the spectrum, the bigger the bonuses- but the bigger the maluses as well. If you have MAX Authoritarian, Progressive, Communal, Expansionist, and Militaristic traits, you become extremely powerful at what you're good at- but really, really, really bad at what you're not good at.

How does this change gameplay?-

A lot. Play Aztecs in one game, become a peaceful civilization. Play Americans in another, become an isolated traditional socialistic kingdom. And so on and so forth.

Every game would be different. Each Culture would also get a made up name assigned to it, and if two or more cultures merge they have their names merged together as well. For instance, Saxon Culture mixing with Indo-Aryan Culture to form Saxon-Aryan.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I think the problem is that over the 4000 year lifespan of a game a civ would - and should - have many different traits and this would be an incentive to limit the number of traits. These would be be interesting quests if a Quest Victory were added. "Congratulations you had the best Ancient Libertarian and a Renaissance Isolationist scores!"

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

I think the problem is that over the 4000 year lifespan of a game a civ would - and should - have many different traits and this would be an incentive to limit the number of traits. These would be be interesting quests if a Quest Victory were added. "Congratulations you had the best Ancient Libertarian and a Renaissance Isolationist scores!"

makes sense

 

[Zaarin]

I personally would take the Religion system as it exists now and translate it into a Culture system instead (as I've discussed elsewhere, I'd like to see Religion move in a completely different direction). I'd also like to see individual citizens have Cultural and/or Ethnic identities alongside Religious identities so that there would be pros and cons to having a diverse population (whether through immigration or conquest). Some civs could have their own bonuses or penalties towards having diverse populations (e.g., Roman citizenship, Chinese civil service, Persian hands-off administration, Iroquoian and Algonquian adoption ceremonies, and "the American Dream" were/are all means of integrating diverse populations; by contrast, Korea and Japan both have extraordinarily monolithic cultures that don't always cope well with encounters with foreign cultures). Religion could play a role in both directions, as well: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam have brought together people of many different cultures, while Druze and modern Zoroastrianism do not accept converts at all and the various branches of Judaism still debate the place of converts in Judaism.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

I personally would take the Religion system as it exists now and translate it into a Culture system instead (as I've discussed elsewhere, I'd like to see Religion move in a completely different direction). I'd also like to see individual citizens have Cultural and/or Ethnic identities alongside Religious identities so that there would be pros and cons to having a diverse population (whether through immigration or conquest). Some civs could have their own bonuses or penalties towards having diverse populations (e.g., Roman citizenship, Chinese civil service, Persian hands-off administration, Iroquoian and Algonquian adoption ceremonies, and "the American Dream" were/are all means of integrating diverse populations; by contrast, Korea and Japan both have extraordinarily monolithic cultures that don't always cope well with encounters with foreign cultures). Religion could play a role in both directions, as well: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam have brought together people of many different cultures, while Druze and modern Zoroastrianism do not accept converts at all and the various branches of Judaism still debate the place of converts in Judaism.

i would love civ 7 to use this

also , i had a idea (often repeated here) that even if your state is taken over, as long as some state somewhere shares your culture, you can keep playing. This is so you can play out the Warring States period or other things like that