Problemedical
Chieftain
Hello there. The everchanging, volatile and multifaceted kaleidoscope of cultures interacting with each other around the world, stearing individual people and whole nations alike, has always been one of the most fascinating thing for me about real world history. In Civilization series, however, culture currently feels very generic, even more so than faith - just one more type of currency you accumulate and use. You can't even do that much with culture besides unlocking civics/policies, and addition of tourism in Civ 6 didn't help that much. What I propose is a complex overhaul of Culture in hypothetical upcoming Civ games.
Every Civ should have its own culture tied to it and incorporating their unique abilities, units and infrastructure. Civs in the game are constant and unchanging pretty much from the dawn of time to the space era, and we can assume that their culture haven't changed that much as well, based on what we can see. But that is not the case with real human cultures, which are subject to both constant drift and drastic shifts, as well as readily mix with each other.
I imagine new dynamic culture-civs as having a distinct set of abilities from the start of the game, same as in previous games, but also being able to "swell up" with numerous unique abilities through the course of the game based on what you do as a player.
Inspired by Humankind, I see in culture mechanics a possibility of introduction an immersive narrative element to the game, in form of dynamic events and desicions. They could be of any nature, from settling on a different terrain to accepting refugees from a ravaged tribe.
Bonuses themselves would also have to vary: passive yield boosts, culture-tied units or infrastructure (e.g. from different barbarian tribes and city-states) etc. Everything you do gives you some kind of bonus (with or without a downside), and each bonus gets carved into your civilization and remains a part of its abilities for this particular game. This desicions do not have to always be binary and restricting, like in Humankind or in Events and Desicions mod for Civ 5.
Now, imagine you play as Sweden and conquer a Russian city with a vibrant Russian culture. You get a selection of choices: either try to assimilate them into your culture, receiving a part of Russian civ bonuses, which take time and resources, try to eradicate the culture completely, receiving a bonus towards your own civ abilities but antagonising remaining Russian cities, or let cultural syncretism happen, which temorarily weakens your civ, but potentially gives you the benefits and bonuses of both cultures in both cities. And now imagine same syncretism occuring in your cities that have trade routes with, say, England or Norway, or new immigration mechanics. In the end, in this particlular game you end up with a multicultural Swedish-Russian-Norwegian empire, but it can be Swedish-Egyptian in the next one. I think this kind of idea does add up to overall variability of game experience. I also imagine a Cultural Pressure/Influence mechanic, similar to Religious and Loyalty Pressures and also Tourism in Civ 6 and working in conjunction with them.
Now, of course, culture as a purple currency doesn't have to and shouldn't go away.
Also, something will have to be done to Cultural Victory to incorporate changes that vast.
Hope you enjoyed this wall of text which I'm unsure how to format so it looks prettier, written in a language I'm not entirely used to (that's why some concepts may be not very clearly laid out and the word choice may be weird).Please feel free a comment or a further suggestion, and have a nice day!
Every Civ should have its own culture tied to it and incorporating their unique abilities, units and infrastructure. Civs in the game are constant and unchanging pretty much from the dawn of time to the space era, and we can assume that their culture haven't changed that much as well, based on what we can see. But that is not the case with real human cultures, which are subject to both constant drift and drastic shifts, as well as readily mix with each other.
I imagine new dynamic culture-civs as having a distinct set of abilities from the start of the game, same as in previous games, but also being able to "swell up" with numerous unique abilities through the course of the game based on what you do as a player.
Inspired by Humankind, I see in culture mechanics a possibility of introduction an immersive narrative element to the game, in form of dynamic events and desicions. They could be of any nature, from settling on a different terrain to accepting refugees from a ravaged tribe.
Bonuses themselves would also have to vary: passive yield boosts, culture-tied units or infrastructure (e.g. from different barbarian tribes and city-states) etc. Everything you do gives you some kind of bonus (with or without a downside), and each bonus gets carved into your civilization and remains a part of its abilities for this particular game. This desicions do not have to always be binary and restricting, like in Humankind or in Events and Desicions mod for Civ 5.
Now, imagine you play as Sweden and conquer a Russian city with a vibrant Russian culture. You get a selection of choices: either try to assimilate them into your culture, receiving a part of Russian civ bonuses, which take time and resources, try to eradicate the culture completely, receiving a bonus towards your own civ abilities but antagonising remaining Russian cities, or let cultural syncretism happen, which temorarily weakens your civ, but potentially gives you the benefits and bonuses of both cultures in both cities. And now imagine same syncretism occuring in your cities that have trade routes with, say, England or Norway, or new immigration mechanics. In the end, in this particlular game you end up with a multicultural Swedish-Russian-Norwegian empire, but it can be Swedish-Egyptian in the next one. I think this kind of idea does add up to overall variability of game experience. I also imagine a Cultural Pressure/Influence mechanic, similar to Religious and Loyalty Pressures and also Tourism in Civ 6 and working in conjunction with them.
Now, of course, culture as a purple currency doesn't have to and shouldn't go away.
Also, something will have to be done to Cultural Victory to incorporate changes that vast.
Hope you enjoyed this wall of text which I'm unsure how to format so it looks prettier, written in a language I'm not entirely used to (that's why some concepts may be not very clearly laid out and the word choice may be weird).Please feel free a comment or a further suggestion, and have a nice day!
