Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[Somebody613]

But what's the purpose in dividing things up by continent at all? Couldn't you just drop the continental cultures, and start with pure placeholder civilisations now, allowing every civilisation to make any culture it meets the technology and geography prerequisites for? Is there some game balance reason not to do that?

Not that this is a particularly big issue for me. I'm just...confused about what purpose it serves.

Probably based on the current (low) complexity of how the specific "national cultures" are unlocked.
Namely, a lot of them have extremely similar prerequisites that sometimes are ONLY divided by the Continental Culture "sub-group" to begin with.
On the other hand, the division itself makes perfect sense, since the cultures DO go "Human -> Europe -> English", which is in fact LACKING a "Regional" (or more) step as of right now.
It's just that the current format ignores "Human" (except for "Neanderthals", by the way) and goes straight to "Continental", and then directly to "National".
But the idea supposedly is to make the entire path unlockable, even MAYBE going as far back as "unlocking Human" just like you now can unlock "Neanderthals" as a separate "lineage".

 

[Thunderbrd]

Probably based on the current (low) complexity of how the specific "national cultures" are unlocked.
Namely, a lot of them have extremely similar prerequisites that sometimes are ONLY divided by the Continental Culture "sub-group" to begin with.
On the other hand, the division itself makes perfect sense, since the cultures DO go "Human -> Europe -> English", which is in fact LACKING a "Regional" (or more) step as of right now.
It's just that the current format ignores "Human" (except for "Neanderthals", by the way) and goes straight to "Continental", and then directly to "National".
But the idea supposedly is to make the entire path unlockable, even MAYBE going as far back as "unlocking Human" just like you now can unlock "Neanderthals" as a separate "lineage".

That's probably as good an answer as any. Plus, back when we started the project, there was a much easier form of acquisition option than what we have now. The main thing, IIRC was we were trying to keep how many cultures one was easily able to collect somewhat limited and to at the same time keep your original selection somewhat meaningful. Our longterm goal has always been much more open ended potential but also more limited in how many you can have operational at once.

 

[BlueTemplar]

Namely, a lot of them have extremely similar prerequisites that sometimes are ONLY divided by the Continental Culture "sub-group" to begin with.

Another way to deal with that would be to have building one locking out all the others with the otherwise exact same requirements, a bit like for those Group Wonders..?

 

[Somebody613]

Another way to deal with that would be to have building one locking out all the others with the otherwise exact same requirements, a bit like for those Group Wonders..?

Which would outright kill the whole idea for me, if anything.
I enjoy the fact that you CAN eventually branch out as "Chinese Amazonians from South Africa".
Making that branching mutually exclusive would just kill the biggest GOOD thing about cultures-as-resources.
And just reminding you, that you CAN trade cultures (say, force your vassals to give it to you), because they ARE resources just like any other, lol.

 

[Maltazard]

Mixed cultures already exist in the game by design, for instance Byzantine culture requires both european and middle eastern culture, and if I remember correctly some modern american cultures also require european culture as well. There might be a few more for the other continents too.
As it is right now though, assimilating a different culture is quite the challenge. Also starting as Byzantium for instance only gives you middle eastern culture. You need to capture at least three cities, probably more since the cultural building has a chance to be razed on capture, and then adopt and spread the culture manually in your empire.
I wonder if this could be made to work like religions and corporations and if it would be a more adequate way of representation. After all, there are two different kinds of culture in C2C, standard Civ culture and "cultures", which in some capacity (oh boy I'm gonna say it) are more ethnicities than cultures, all things considered.

 

[Somebody613]

Mixed cultures already exist in the game by design, for instance Byzantine culture requires both european and middle eastern culture, and if I remember correctly some modern american cultures also require european culture as well. There might be a few more for the other continents too.
As it is right now though, assimilating a different culture is quite the challenge. Also starting as Byzantium for instance only gives you middle eastern culture. You need to capture at least three cities, probably more since the cultural building has a chance to be razed on capture, and then adopt and spread the culture manually in your empire.
I wonder if this could be made to work like religions and corporations and if it would be a more adequate way of representation. After all, there are two different kinds of culture in C2C, standard Civ culture and "cultures", which in some capacity (oh boy I'm gonna say it) are more ethnicities than cultures, all things considered.

Very much like ethnicities, actually.
Heck, your Settlers adopt it on birth, loool.
And I kinda like the way the work now, but I'd like them to have more "steps", like I said above.
Also should be (somehow) made more branched out AND interconnected at the same time, and based on something more varied than plot types and resources.
Not sure HOW to do it differently, though, but it'd be much more fun.
Also, would be a very fun(ny), if tedious, feature to get UNITS adopt "ethnicities" as promotions with qualifiers, too.
I did speak previously about "unit breeding", as bizarre as it sounds, ya know.
But you already can combine different Astrological Signs as unit promotions (when merging units), so why not their ethnicities as well?
The possibilities are quite out there, really.

 

[Thunderbrd]

You're all basically doing the thinking that builds into the 'ideas project', which in essence would take religions, corporations, cultures, and so many more things like languages and political ideals and turn it all to a tracking system more similar to our current overall national culture rules except that each isn't represented by a particular player alone. Nevertheless, all of the ideas in a set could be measured as a demographic % totalling 100% in each city and for a city to be, say, "Christian" in religion, it's religious influence would have to be at least some % Christianity (probably differing %s required by various building options - not much for a temple, for example, but much more for a missionary or cathedral, for example.) And as other religions compete for influence, Christianity would diminish if it wasn't as well represented.

 

[Somebody613]

You're all basically doing the thinking that builds into the 'ideas project', which in essence would take religions, corporations, cultures, and so many more things like languages and political ideals and turn it all to a tracking system more similar to our current overall national culture rules except that each isn't represented by a particular player alone. Nevertheless, all of the ideas in a set could be measured as a demographic % totalling 100% in each city and for a city to be, say, "Christian" in religion, it's religious influence would have to be at least some % Christianity (probably differing %s required by various building options - not much for a temple, for example, but much more for a missionary or cathedral, for example.) And as other religions compete for influence, Christianity would diminish if it wasn't as well represented.

I was talking more about units getting "ethnic" promotions, and various ways for them to share those between each other.
But your idea is also interesting, if somewhat separate.

 

[Maltazard]

You're all basically doing the thinking that builds into the 'ideas project', which in essence would take religions, corporations, cultures, and so many more things like languages and political ideals and turn it all to a tracking system more similar to our current overall national culture rules except that each isn't represented by a particular player alone. Nevertheless, all of the ideas in a set could be measured as a demographic % totalling 100% in each city and for a city to be, say, "Christian" in religion, it's religious influence would have to be at least some % Christianity (probably differing %s required by various building options - not much for a temple, for example, but much more for a missionary or cathedral, for example.) And as other religions compete for influence, Christianity would diminish if it wasn't as well represented.

Sounds like something similar to Victoria II's pop system where each individual has a class, political ideology, religion, culture group/ethnicity and they're all tracked separately. Then you can see the composition of each tile accordingly.

 

[Somebody613]

Sounds like something similar to Victoria II's pop system where each individual has a class, political ideology, religion, culture group/ethnicity and they're all tracked separately. Then you can see the composition of each tile accordingly.

Would once again overtax the memory, dammit.
Otherwise, would be really cool to have "personal stats" both for units (via promotions, probably) and for city pop (somehow).
And then turn unit creation into "not-really-drafting from the pop choices pool" - and you have units that are built with all those stats from birth, at city-pop-based random.
Kinda like if a 5P city has 2P Asians and 3P Europeans, then your newly built Horseman has a 40/60 chance to be "born" Asian/European, but at random.
And then unit merging wouldn't combine the ethnicities, but rather use them in battle exactly in the same manner: randomly choosing which one gets "represented" at any given moment.
Wow, that'd be NEAT.
Except... see above: MEMORY ISSUES.
Daaamn...

 

[Thunderbrd]

I was talking more about units getting "ethnic" promotions, and various ways for them to share those between each other.
But your idea is also interesting, if somewhat separate.

Such promotions would be qualified based on the cultural combat class granted to the unit by the city it is trained in - and the unit would be an innate spreader of that culture just by being wherever it is. It's not really separate at all but part of the plan - it's just that the plan is large and I don't think people understood it when I tried to explain it at first.

Sounds like something similar to Victoria II's pop system where each individual has a class, political ideology, religion, culture group/ethnicity and they're all tracked separately. Then you can see the composition of each tile accordingly.

Exactly. I mean, I may even let units themselves track potentially shifting idea %s - not only would they be an influence wherever they are stationed but after time they may be influenced BY where they are stationed (or by other unit actions perhaps too.) Not really intending to track every pop point but yes, plots would have their own levels of varying influences of course.

Would once again overtax the memory, dammit.
Otherwise, would be really cool to have "personal stats" both for units (via promotions, probably) and for city pop (somehow).
And then turn unit creation into "not-really-drafting from the pop choices pool" - and you have units that are built with all those stats from birth, at city-pop-based random.
Kinda like if a 5P city has 2P Asians and 3P Europeans, then your newly built Horseman has a 40/60 chance to be "born" Asian/European, but at random.
And then unit merging wouldn't combine the ethnicities, but rather use them in battle exactly in the same manner: randomly choosing which one gets "represented" at any given moment.
Wow, that'd be NEAT.
Except... see above: MEMORY ISSUES.
Daaamn...

Yeah, well, there are discussions that suggest we may be able to diminish memory issues a lot based on a few proposals Flabbert has made on discord. That and these simple int trackers aren't that bad if you don't have the need for such a raw amount of units because the AI is better at building teamwork oriented forces rather than a 'bunch of stuff that should be strong'. But yes, memory limits are a big reason the ideas project isn't too big on the immediate project list.

 

[Somebody613]

Such promotions would be qualified based on the cultural combat class granted to the unit by the city it is trained in - and the unit would be an innate spreader of that culture just by being wherever it is. It's not really separate at all but part of the plan - it's just that the plan is large and I don't think people understood it when I tried to explain it at first.

One more idea.
Make these "pop affiliation changes" based on something as simple as:
1. Each ethnicity present in the city (as a static-per-turn percentage) gets to roll a plus/minus/same each turn, the step being a fixed amount.
2. After all ethnicities roll, the end results are recalculated into a new ethnicity statistic based on the new percentage, then scaled to fit into 100%.
3. Rinse - repeat each turn.
This would be affected either only by the actual city pop, or maybe by stationed units as well (with a different modifier).
And the same goes backwards for the units - they get affected by "local population" and by "nearby stationed allies" (and maybe even by hidden enemies, for the lulz).
This is a simple roll-per-type, accompanied by a simple recalculation to smooth out the numbers.
So it PROBABLY shouldn't be overly memory-taxing, I hope.
But would be very funny to play, really.
Heck, you could silently convert your enemies (culture, religion, civics) via stealth units "sharing their own stats with the locals" - without the tedious Spy system that is now.
Would be nice.

 

[Maltazard]

It's funny that Civ III had an ethnicity for each citizen head and you could do some uncool things like whip the foreigners out of existence, or make them all workers... despite Civ IV being a much more complex game, some nuances were lost.

 

[pi4t]

Since that doesn't sound like it's likely to be developed any time soon, could a quick-and-dirty improvement be to remove the continental cultures, but prevent any city from building more than one culture? Or (with slightly more complexity) to prevent them from building more than one culture which requires the same resources? So for example, you could build Huns (horses) and Assyrians (horses) in two different cities, or Huns and Romans (olives) in the same city, but not Huns and Assyrians in the same city.

I don't know how the engine works, so maybe there's some technical reason that wouldn't be possible, but it looks like something which could be done using the technology from grouped wonders, or using autobuilds. But if it is viable to implement, it seems like it would solve the "one city can get six cultures because it's near some apples" problem that was brought up earlier. While avoiding several frankly weird elements of the current system, like the way lots of cultures can only be founded once you've mixed with a European-designated civilisation. Regardless of who are the colonialists in your world.

This could lead to problems with the tech leaders grabbing all the cultures, but that could be fixed by making them grouped wonders, stopping you from making more than n many per era, with n depending on how many cultures there actually are in that era.

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible to implement something like this as a game option?

 

[Thunderbrd]

One more idea.
Make these "pop affiliation changes" based on something as simple as:
1. Each ethnicity present in the city (as a static-per-turn percentage) gets to roll a plus/minus/same each turn, the step being a fixed amount.
2. After all ethnicities roll, the end results are recalculated into a new ethnicity statistic based on the new percentage, then scaled to fit into 100%.
3. Rinse - repeat each turn.
This would be affected either only by the actual city pop, or maybe by stationed units as well (with a different modifier).
And the same goes backwards for the units - they get affected by "local population" and by "nearby stationed allies" (and maybe even by hidden enemies, for the lulz).
This is a simple roll-per-type, accompanied by a simple recalculation to smooth out the numbers.
So it PROBABLY shouldn't be overly memory-taxing, I hope.
But would be very funny to play, really.
Heck, you could silently convert your enemies (culture, religion, civics) via stealth units "sharing their own stats with the locals" - without the tedious Spy system that is now.
Would be nice.

That's exactly how it would work, each influence in a category vying for more of the pie overall and the % gradually adjusting. The system of how to generate influence strength though would be rather complex if it were done right and that algorythm hasn't been fully considered out yet, though I'd LOVE to have units that are specifically in the game to actively adjust them, much like how property control systems work, though perhaps on a simpler mathematical basis. Still, I'm thinking some ideas might surge out the gate, others might gain strength as they go then hit certain cutoff points, events, or even get influenced by other ideas then the power of their spreading adjusts... I don't know - gotta spend time really thinking about all the variables that would control the rise and fall of various ideologies.

To do this right is absolutely important to the LATE game where I'm seeing lots of ... erm... human adaptation technologies that would open/close numerous unit type doors.

Since that doesn't sound like it's likely to be developed any time soon, could a quick-and-dirty improvement be to remove the continental cultures, but prevent any city from building more than one culture? Or (with slightly more complexity) to prevent them from building more than one culture which requires the same resources? So for example, you could build Huns (horses) and Assyrians (horses) in two different cities, or Huns and Romans (olives) in the same city, but not Huns and Assyrians in the same city.

I don't know how the engine works, so maybe there's some technical reason that wouldn't be possible, but it looks like something which could be done using the technology from grouped wonders, or using autobuilds. But if it is viable to implement, it seems like it would solve the "one city can get six cultures because it's near some apples" problem that was brought up earlier. While avoiding several frankly weird elements of the current system, like the way lots of cultures can only be founded once you've mixed with a European-designated civilisation. Regardless of who are the colonialists in your world.

This could lead to problems with the tech leaders grabbing all the cultures, but that could be fixed by making them grouped wonders, stopping you from making more than n many per era, with n depending on how many cultures there actually are in that era.

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible to implement something like this as a game option?

What we have now was a quick and dirty solution... I'm not sure what problems you feel need to be solved. Perhaps start by identifying how it isn't fairly good as it is? Toffer designed the current mechanism and I'm kinda happy with it so far since it allows full on assimilation of all or any culture but not too easily. He or Raxo or another more familiar player with the latest stuff might be able to better explain how it's meant to work right now.

Sorry - I know your post is talking about some noted problems - I think for me they are not really all that problematic enough to demand more immediate attention but they could be - I just haven't played in so long its hard to relate to the problems as noted. For me the unit review stuff I'm looking to solve is still a greater problem I haven't had nearly enough time for (but I'm hoping soon I can start looking at it more again.)

 

[Somebody613]

Since that doesn't sound like it's likely to be developed any time soon, could a quick-and-dirty improvement be to remove the continental cultures, but prevent any city from building more than one culture? Or (with slightly more complexity) to prevent them from building more than one culture which requires the same resources? So for example, you could build Huns (horses) and Assyrians (horses) in two different cities, or Huns and Romans (olives) in the same city, but not Huns and Assyrians in the same city.

I don't know how the engine works, so maybe there's some technical reason that wouldn't be possible, but it looks like something which could be done using the technology from grouped wonders, or using autobuilds. But if it is viable to implement, it seems like it would solve the "one city can get six cultures because it's near some apples" problem that was brought up earlier. While avoiding several frankly weird elements of the current system, like the way lots of cultures can only be founded once you've mixed with a European-designated civilisation. Regardless of who are the colonialists in your world.

This could lead to problems with the tech leaders grabbing all the cultures, but that could be fixed by making them grouped wonders, stopping you from making more than n many per era, with n depending on how many cultures there actually are in that era.

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible to implement something like this as a game option?

I'm not sure why you want it so badly, since building all the cultures is less a question of efficiency (some cultural units are WAY better than some others) and more a question of "get them all".
Which is strictly a "player" thing (and not everyone, either), whereas AI probably wouldn't bother building all the available cultures anyways, ever.
So you'd have "priority cultures", yes, but not everyone is so strongly inclined on "building absolutely everything".
I am, of course, but I've spoken with people around here who very much are NOT like that.
Especially if you play a slow and hard game, where it's much more efficient to spend all those resources on something you already can build, instead of mindlessly hoarding cultures.

 

[tmv]

some nuances were lost.

And don't get me started on Civ2 ToT. That game had a fully functional multimap feature.

 

[Somebody613]

That's exactly how it would work, each influence in a category vying for more of the pie overall and the % gradually adjusting. The system of how to generate influence strength though would be rather complex if it were done right and that algorythm hasn't been fully considered out yet, though I'd LOVE to have units that are specifically in the game to actively adjust them, much like how property control systems work, though perhaps on a simpler mathematical basis. Still, I'm thinking some ideas might surge out the gate, others might gain strength as they go then hit certain cutoff points, events, or even get influenced by other ideas then the power of their spreading adjusts... I don't know - gotta spend time really thinking about all the variables that would control the rise and fall of various ideologies.

For now I'd be extremely happy with units having personal ethnicities via promotions.
Heck, I could do it myself, if I wasn't so lazy - I'm talking about literal simple promotions like those that Settlers get, just for every type of unit AND for every culture, not just continent.
This is a tedious BORING job (which is why I won't do it), but the mechanic behind it is already implemented in Settlers, there only lacking the actual promos for each culture building.

 

[Somebody613]

And don't get me started on Civ2 ToT. That game had a fully functional multimap feature.

As in how exactly?
When I mention multi-maps, I mean that you can switch between them during the same game, or at least your first map game directly affects your second map game somehow.
So, how was that done in ToT?

 

[tmv]

As in how exactly?
When I mention multi-maps, I mean that you can switch between them during the same game, or at least your first map game directly affects your second map game somehow.
So, how was that done in ToT?

They had several scenarios that operated e.g. on several moons of an exoplanet, different layers of a fantasy world or different times on Earth, and you could switch between them at least after a certain point during the game. And yes, the maps influenced each other. It was fully working, but because it wasn't as much progress with respect to graphics (compared to regular Civ2), it was derided and became an abandoned branch of the Civ tree.

The "several moons of an expolanet" also contained humans as well as aliens, with certain technologies only accessible to one side, some of them could be traded to the other, and a key technology depended on both a tradable human technology and a tradable alien technology, so if you destroyed the other side too early, a large part of the tech tree became inaccessible. Certain other techs you gained not by research but by events. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but I've rarely seen a scripted scenario of that quality (Lalande 21185 if you are interested).