C2C - Wonder Civs

[Yudishtira]

So if we assume we have 10 big and competetive civilizations, you'd have 30 cultures in each of them. I think that's a lot and completely devaluates cultures. Your first 3 cultures might be interesting to get, but after that it's just another culture wonder.

Large countries accumulate a lot of cultures. Look at the US (all of its native cultures), Russia (Sami etc., Siberian, Yakut/Irkut etc.), China (Uighur, disputedly Tibetan, Hongkongese and all its historic cultures including regional ones like Manchu, Szechuan etc.), India and Indonesia. That is as it should be.

As an aside, lots of countries share cultures as well, so it's a shame that is not represented in the mod currently. Maybe someday.....

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Be careful with distinguish cultures by myths - they are usually too easy to get. If you had two cultures that require Jade in vicinty and Myth of the Panda, and the other Jade as well and Myth of the Peacock, then it is more then likely you will have them both in your Jade city. Especially if you still want to change it that you get myths by simply fighting an animal instead of subdue it.

What about more complex restrictions like:
- Killing XXX units [of a type] (iE Spartans)
- Must be a conquered culture (East Germany)
- Must be / have a Vasall
- Build / have XXX Units of a type (iE Ships for England)
- At least XXX cities (russia maybe)
- At least a pop of 50 (highly populated city states)
- Income / tourism / crime etc of XXX (Dubai (income/tourism), an anarcy state for crime) etc.

IMHO, cultures should be a) rare and / or b) develope to give them more meaning. We have like what... 50-100 cultures? And how many more are planned? Mostly, you have less then 10 or even 5 leading civs that grab most of the cultures and hoart them. At one point you just build cultures just because you can't. Not much immersion. At least that's my impression.

This brings back the idea in the Cultural Heritage thread. The main problem is that it needs coding, new XML and new AI.

 

[Arakhor]

In my limited experience, the AI builds certain cultures and then holds ont othem, doing not much at all. I certainly didn't see much benefit from building them.

 

[MacCoise]

In my limited experience, the AI builds certain cultures and then holds ont othem, doing not much at all. I certainly didn't see much benefit from building them.

True enough. I build them for fun really and that's ok.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I tend to build them for the heroes as I rarely use the units.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I find the UU fun to use since its something different. Depending upon which one(s) you get depends upon how they get used. For instance the Hun UU is good for quick city attacks to small cities that do not have defenses yet.

 

[Rodnok]

I've always thought culture units are cool and they give an advantage. AI could use them better (e.g. build more UU than tamed animals) but a human player can use them drastically.

 

[Sparth]

Im almost always build UU because its add immersion to the game. They are cool

 

[MacCoise]

Couple of ideas for Wonder Civs:

Normans/Medieval/European

Religious and Military bonuses

Gaelic/Classical/European

Long list of potentail Heroes

 

[Yudishtira]

Can I humbly suggest that something be done to ensure that more cultures are available at the appropriate time? I have just got a prehistoric culture (Zapotec) available to build - in the late Industrial.

I'm not suggesting every culture should be buildable on every map, but when they are buildable (albeit in this case only with Metro Ad), it's a real problem that they can't be built until they are irrelevant.

As an off-the-top-of-my-head solution, could we have the vicinity of every city defined as three 'rings', for the purpose of building culture bonuses only?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Would take some coding and I'd be reluctant to spend the kind of time and effort it would require since vicinity stuff is kinda a pain.

It strikes me that what you experience is probably a pretty natural occurrence that wouldn't be diminished by such a change, given that the longer a game goes the more cities have obtained access for given resources with cultural qualifiers in place to take advantage of them.

One kinda rough part of this too is that if you have a base culture that doesn't jive well with the terrain and resources you have access to in general (and adding myths will only enhance this factor) you can do quite well as a nation and still end up without a culture for a long time because nothing matches up quite right.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Can I humbly suggest that something be done to ensure that more cultures are available at the appropriate time? I have just got a prehistoric culture (Zapotec) available to build - in the late Industrial.

I'm not suggesting every culture should be buildable on every map, but when they are buildable (albeit in this case only with Metro Ad), it's a real problem that they can't be built until they are irrelevant.

As an off-the-top-of-my-head solution, could we have the vicinity of every city defined as three 'rings', for the purpose of building culture bonuses only?

Culture units are based on their technological level. All cultures advance at different rates. Some stay as they are for hundreds of years. For example Amish culture has changed at a mush slower rate that the rest of America because of their cultural traditions (which is mainly their faith).

Zapotec needed to be where it was because of the Obsidian units. Thus late prehistoric.

 

[Yudishtira]

Zapotec needed to be where it was because of the Obsidian units. Thus late prehistoric.

You didn't read what I said. I know it's 'unlocked' or whatever in prehistoric. I'm saying steps must be taken so that more cultures become buildable when they unlock, or at least before they become obsolete.

It is a serious dampener on the coolness of having so many cultures, that so many of them don't get built until their unique units etc. are no longer relevant or buildable (in my current case, obsidian swordsman on the brink of trench infantry).

 

[Hydromancerx]

I think that's the gamble you take with them. Also its not just about UUs like DH said the heroes are important as well. And now we have some special resources too. And some UBs too.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Can I humbly suggest that something be done to ensure that more cultures are available at the appropriate time? I have just got a prehistoric culture (Zapotec) available to build - in the late Industrial.

I'm not suggesting every culture should be buildable on every map, but when they are buildable (albeit in this case only with Metro Ad), it's a real problem that they can't be built until they are irrelevant.

As an off-the-top-of-my-head solution, could we have the vicinity of every city defined as three 'rings', for the purpose of building culture bonuses only?

Thinking on this, there is no need to have the resource on the map. We could do what we do with the herds animals and just assign the resource to the city. It is then in the vicinity of that city. This is probably the way to go for those who want to choose what culture they want to play from the start.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Thinking on this, there is no need to have the resource on the map. We could do what we do with the herds animals and just assign the resource to the city. It is then in the vicinity of that city. This is probably the way to go for those who want to choose what culture they want to play from the start.

So basically we make an optional setting like "Civ Culture at Start", which would allow for a Unique Building for every civ we have. And the building would do nothing but give 1 culture resource of that civs culture. So Like if you played China would get the UB for Chinese culture resource.

The down side I see is that the culture wonders would still be around so another civ could get the Chinese Culture Wonder and get access to the Chinese Heroes and Units.

 

[Thunderbrd]

So basically we make an optional setting like "Civ Culture at Start", which would allow for a Unique Building for every civ we have. And the building would do nothing but give 1 culture resource of that civs culture. So Like if you played China would get the UB for Chinese culture resource.

The down side I see is that the culture wonders would still be around so another civ could get the Chinese Culture Wonder and get access to the Chinese Heroes and Units.

Which would easily be resolved by setting the NotOnGameOption tag on those buildings to that option.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

So basically we make an optional setting like "Civ Culture at Start", which would allow for a Unique Building for every civ we have. And the building would do nothing but give 1 culture resource of that civs culture. So Like if you played China would get the UB for Chinese culture resource.

The down side I see is that the culture wonders would still be around so another civ could get the Chinese Culture Wonder and get access to the Chinese Heroes and Units.

Not what I meant. I meant that that if culture X needs bonus JADE in the vicinity of the city then we give the first city a building that provides JADE. They still have to build the culture when they get the techs. Doesn't work for features or improvements.

 

[Taxman66]

What about terrain requirements?

 

[Hydromancerx]

Not what I meant. I meant that that if culture X needs bonus JADE in the vicinity of the city then we give the first city a building that provides JADE. They still have to build the culture when they get the techs. Doesn't work for features or improvements.

Why would you need to do that? Units, heroes and building all have their own requirements anyways. Giving the culture resource directly not only resolves the problem of terrain requirements but also keeps the player from getting a natural resource advantage.