Cultural Diversity

[Leugi]

Interesting idea. I agree that Urban Native American and Nomad Native American should be in different groups.

The restriction for Nomads would be the one already said here, less tech but combat bonus against higher tech and may also get techs from killing units; perhaps also giving settlers extra movement or something.

Then, Urban Native Americans shouldn't get less tech; just probably make oceans impassable, and horses unabled until meeting another culture group. In exchange, bonus for wonder production in the capital; and extra tourism. (Which is going to be interesting, Urban NA would be influencing the local cultures, but all that tourism is still in no effect until meeting other culture groups)

As for Colonial... Somehow I think ideological pressure, or something related; can't think of something specific.

 

[JFD]

On this matter, I trust your judgement supremely, Leugi. And I'll keep in mind your suggestions, thanks.

 

[Hypereon]

Excellent idea of a mod! I have had something like this in my mind for long and love to see this happening

I have a suggestion:
After having modded the basic gameplay-functions for the groups, what about having slightly unique buildings (and units maybe too) for each or some of the cultural groups to spice up the bland European-looking basic buildings of the game, like in games like Age of Empires or Total War? Like, Market (W.Euro, focusing on more), Forum/(Agora) (Graeco-Romans, ), Bazaar (Islamic, , luxuries) etc.? Or for the garden, thermae and turkish baths?

I also wondered little about the representation of the culture groups in the game. At least if it is possible, each of them should have their own city and unit styles (most already done, thanks R.E.D.) and soundtrack (Colonials depending of their founder nation). How should the cultures be represented in the menu? I thought about giving every culture their own symbols, or something very different, own circular frame to the civilization emblem. Emblems of Islamics could have islamic ornaments around them, Graeco-Romans marble frames with carvings, the Native Americans Mayan calendar-style ring, etc. you get the point.

What do you think? Any ideas for the buildings or else?

 

[JFD]

Excellent idea of a mod! I have had something like this in my mind for long and love to see this happening

I have a suggestion:
After having modded the basic gameplay-functions for the groups, what about having slightly unique buildings (and units maybe too) for each or some of the cultural groups to spice up the bland European-looking basic buildings of the game, like in games like Age of Empires or Total War? Like, Market (W.Euro, focusing on more), Forum/(Agora) (Graeco-Romans, ), Bazaar (Islamic, , luxuries) etc.? Or for the garden, thermae and turkish baths?

I also wondered little about the representation of the culture groups in the game. At least if it is possible, each of them should have their own city and unit styles (most already done, thanks R.E.D.) and soundtrack (Colonials depending of their founder nation). How should the cultures be represented in the menu? I thought about giving every culture their own symbols, or something very different, own circular frame to the civilization emblem. Emblems of Islamics could have islamic ornaments around them, Graeco-Romans marble frames with carvings, the Native Americans Mayan calendar-style ring, etc. you get the point.

What do you think? Any ideas for the buildings or else?

I am intending on giving more unique buildings, wonders and units to each group (e.g. the Yurt and the Golden Tent for the Steppe civs), but these were standalone buildings that enhanced their play-styles, rather than ones that replaced existing buildings. I like the idea of giving more distinction by giving more unique attributes, but am weary of how it would work out - a limitation of assets and an unwillingness to steal too many already existing concepts in order to enhance the overall group. But maybe in the future, when the basic layout of the mod has been completed, I can look into deeper uniqueness, most certainly.

Unfortunately, I think trying to make new city styles has been tried and proven to be impossible. If I'm wrong, I'm not much of a graphical modder either, so it'd probably be beyond my capabilities beyond simple retextures (granted this is what the Polynesian artstyle is, so who knows). And I won't incorporate R.E.D. within the mod, though the premise behind it fits perfectly. For those that want to use it, there'll be no uses with compatibility, but I'd like to keep the option open for those that don't want to use it. The latter is actually the case for me because so many of the R.E.D. units are already used as unique units for custom civs. Distinct soundtracks might be a nice idea, but quite a task. Not something I would consider until the future, I think.

Trying to better showcase that a civ belongs to a certain culture group is going to be tricky. For the moment I just have an amendment to their UA title which also gives them a shared culture group title - it's a little bland and unexciting, but modding the FrontEnd screens is no longer possible. Giving each a distinct icon would be a thought, and this could be incorporated into the menu that displays each civ group's attributes, but one might be hard pressed to come up with suitable ones. The Islamic Crescent is already taken by Arabia, after all, as an example.

 

[Hiram]

Following up on my previous post, I've made a table of most available official/mod civs with respect to their potential categories. I've added in a couple of potential categories (Celtic and Boreal) which could be worth exploring. None of this should be taken as final of course. I'll see if I can add in all of the civilization XML tags later. If you go wide in terms of compatibility with mod civs I can see this mod being hugely popular.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5p7mkvzurh2j5sy/cultdiv.xlsx

 

[JFD]

I appreciate the effort you've put in here. It gives me a good sense of how full or lacking each group might be, which will allow me to give them attributes based upon their size (more unique wonders for larger groups, for instance).

At the moment I plan on automatic compatibility with my mods, your mods, LastSword's mods, Leugi's mods, TPangolin's mods, More Civ's mods, Moriboe's mods and Tomatekh's mods, but may branch out in the future. Gedemo seems to be organizing himself quite well, so I may look at including his civs too; though I'll admit I've never heard of half of them . The wide range of inclusion is mostly because I personally have as many custom civ mods active as I can for the YnAEMP, and with so many civs its nearly always a fresh experience. But unfortunately, it won't be any easy process for others to make compatibility, so I'll endeavour to be as inclusive as possible. And some of these civs I didn't realise were already mods. You must have really dug deep to find them.

Oh and I'll have to find Ambrox' Scythia and Sarmatia for the Steppes, given that I'm working on them first.

 

[Hiram]

I appreciate the effort you've put in here. It gives me a good sense of how full or lacking each group might be, which will allow me to give them attributes based upon their size (more unique wonders for larger groups, for instance).

At the moment I plan on automatic compatibility with my mods, your mods, LastSword's mods, Leugi's mods, TPangolin's mods, More Civ's mods, Moriboe's mods and Tomatekh's mods, but may branch out in the future. Gedemo seems to be organizing himself quite well, so I may look at including his civs too; though I'll admit I've never heard of half of them . The wide range of inclusion is mostly because I personally have as many custom civ mods active as I can for the YnAEMP, and with so many civs its nearly always a fresh experience. But unfortunately, it won't be any easy process for others to make compatibility, so I'll endeavour to be as inclusive as possible. And some of these civs I didn't realise were already mods. You must have really dug deep to find them.

Oh and I'll have to find Ambrox' Scythia and Sarmatia for the Steppes, given that I'm working on them first.

They're in his Ancient Mediterranean civs pack - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=516328

 

[JFD]

I just thought of something I could do if you wish - come up with fitting names for the traits and write Civlopedia entries for you.

Actually, if you did want to write up civilopedia entries to give an overview of the culture groups then you could, as there's a place for this with the unique technology that each civ has. I'll leave them empty in case you do.

 

[JFD]

Updated the OP with a beta release of the Steppe culture group:

Download

You can access information about your Cultural attributes from the dropdown box next to the Social Policy button.

Steppe Civilizations:

The Mongols, the Huns, the Tartars (LastSword), the Timurids (LastSword, Tomatekh) Khazaria (Moriboe), Uyghurs (Hiram), Sibir (Hiram), Scythia (Ambrox), Sarmatia (Ambrox)

Spoiler :

Unique Technology: Steppe Tradition. Requires Horseback Riding. Unlocks the Golden Tent Wonder and the Yurt, extends the length of Land Trade Routes and grants Mounted Units the Feared Horde promotion, which decreases the combat strength of nearby units.

Golden Tent: +1 Global Happiness for every Yurt. +25% Production in cities that are either occupied or puppeted. City must not be built on a Hill.
Yurt: Provides 2 sources of Horse. +10% Production towards Mounted Units (doubled if at war).

This is formally a beta mod, so there are a few bugs and some architectural things will be changed in the future.

Current list of bugs:

Spoiler :

• The first time you open the Cultural Bonuses panel, it does not display properly. Close it and re-open it and it will be fine. I'm not sure why it does this, but this will be fixed in later versions.

Please give feedback if you have any. If there are any mods you think should be supported, please leave a link to them. If you have any suggestions on how to better improve the UI and the information regarding each civ's grouping, please let me know - at the moment I'm not sure how to best represent the accomplishment of the one-time objectives vs. the per turn objectives. And please forgive the subpar art quality where applicable (hopefully it is temporary )!

Also, if you have any suggestions for penalties, bonuses and especially cultural objectives please let me know! Anticipate updates for culture groups that I release that include more of the latter especially.

 

[Leugi]

Oh, interesting there's already a Steppes group screenshot, that helps with brainstorming a lot. I specially like the Cultural Objectives. So, on that note

Chiefdom Civilizations or something else, name pending, pretty much American civilizations not too centered on establishing big cities, most of the times forming confederations or being sedentary.
Shoshone, Iroquois, Mapuche, Tupi, Guraní, Sioux, Aymara, etc.
Bonuses

• Combat Bonus against units that require a higher technology, and has a chance of stealing technologies from defeated units.
• Land units may move inside enemies' territory without Open Borders
• Stays alive without cities.
• Friendly and Allied City States generate Faith
• For every 100 Faith produced, receive +1 Culture

Penalties

• Generate science slower
• Capital doesn't have a Palace, rather the yields are distributed the first founded cities.
• Penalty for Building and Wonder production.

Cultural Objectives

• Have less than 8 citizens in your cities (+3 Faith per city)
• Have all your cities following a pantheon belief (+3 Culture per city)
• Defeat 50 higher technology units (+100 Culture)
• Have a fourth part of the city-states declare a war to Spain, England, Portugal or France(+250 Culture)
• Have a fourth part of the city-states declare a war to another (major) civilization(+150 Culture)

Unique Technology: Paramount Chiefdoms: Requires Trapping. Unlocks the Chief unit and allows transforming production to Faith. Settlers receive the "People of the Land" promotion, granting them +1 Move and the ability to ignore terrain cost.

Chief: Grants a combat strength bonus to nearby units, and may be expended to gain influence in a City-State. Costs a lot of production.

Well, that was fun. Its interesting to think of a theme for a bunch of civs
---

Precolumbian Civilizations American Civilizations that also developed big centralized Empires and usually had a theocracy, plus expanded their culture and beliefs to other civilizations a lot.
Inca, Maya, Aztecs, Tiwanaku, Olmec, etc.
Bonuses

• Cultural influence by religion doubled.
• +20% Production towards Wonders in the Capital.
• Palace generates +1 Tourism and +1 Faith.
• Puppeted cities don't generate unhappiness.
• May build wonders already built by unmet players

Penalties

• May not use Horses for unit and building production until meeting a different continent player.
• May not cross oceans until meeting a different continent player.
• Reduced combat strength for every met civilization. (up to 15%)

Cultural Objectives

• Keep your religion in all your cities (2 Culture per turn)
• Have more puppeted cities than founded cities (+5 Culture per turn)
• Reach Popular cultural level with all met civilizations (+5 Culture per turn)
• Defeat 30 Units of Spain, Portugal, France or England (+250 Culture)
• Defeat 50 Units of any other culture group (+100 Culture)

Unique Technology: Cosmogony: Requires Mathematics and Calendar. Unlocks building the Astronomical Temple building, and the Great Pyramid. Increases the production earned from Great Engineers.

Astronomical Temple: May only be built on cities founded on hills. Provides an Engineer specialist slot and +2 Faith.

Great Pyramid: May only be built on the Capital, increases religious pressure emanating from the city and defense. +1 Faith for every puppeted city.
---

Colonial Civilizations Modern American Civilizations that emerged from colonies, usually syncretic, pluricultural, revolutionary, and also with a long history of fighting with each other.
Brazil, America, Gran Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico, etc.
Bonuses

• Every religion in each city generates +1 Culture.
• Combat bonus against other colonial civilizations.
• Increased Tourism bonuses from trade and ideologies.
• Owned cities conquered by other civilizations generate more unhappiness and +1 Culture to the original owner.
• Social Policy culture costs reduced by 10%.
• Starts a Golden Age after completing a Social Policy Tree.

Penalties

• Whenever starting a new Social Policy Tree the empire enters into a 5 turn Anarchy.
• Unhappiness for every civilization's culture that isn't at least popular within the empire (up to -5)

Cultural Objectives

• Adopt an Ideollogy without being the first to adopt it (+200 instant Culture)
• Adopt a policy nobody has adopted yet (+5 Culture per turn for each policy until another player adopts it)
• Host all religions within the empire (+3 culture per turn)
• Liberate a City from Spain, Portugal, England, France (+200 Culture, only once per city)
• Liberate a City from a different civilization (+100 Culture, only once per city)

Unique Technology: Independence: Requires Economics. Unlocks the Declaration of Independence project and Great Ideologists. Increases the generation of Great Artists, Great Writers, and Great Musicians.

Declaration of Independence: Upon completing the project receive 2 free Social Policies. The city the project is completed at transforms into the New Capital and produces settlers faster.

Great Ideologist: Points are generated in all cities, and increased while the empire is unhappy or in anarchy. The Ideologist may write a Political Treatise to earn a lot of culture, or be sent into an enemies' territory to start an uprising (automatically, puts the city into anarchy for 5 turns)

...

Ok, so, the ideas are still very sketchy, so much of it can change if you wish, still, I look forward to this project

 

[JFD]

Wow, Leugi. Thank you very much for your ideas!

A lot of them are great; very thematic and have just the right amount of impact (the no palaces thing for Tribal Americans is perfect). I still think I like the idea of no Founder belief for Tribal Americans (rather a second pantheon instead), though, and I was thinking of adopting the migration concept for Colonial civs that the Communitas mod uses for America (or used to use, I'm not sure). But most of these I can see myself using in some way.

 

[Leugi]

Wow, Leugi. Thank you very much for your ideas!

A lot of them are great; very thematic and have just the right amount of impact (the no palaces thing for Tribal Americans is perfect). I still think I like the idea of no Founder belief for Tribal Americans (rather a second pantheon instead), though, and I was thinking of adopting the migration concept for Colonial civs that the Communitas mod uses for America (or used to use, I'm not sure). But most of these I can see myself using in some way.

Oh those are good ideas too ... At any rate, glad to help.

 

[sukritact]

Now my turn to propose something for Indochina (-Vietnam, I think they better belong with the Orient). The Mandala Civilizations.

Mandala Civilizations
Siam, Indonesia, Burma, Khmer, Champa, etc.

Bonuses

• Great Works provide +2 Faith, +1 Culture.*
• For every allied City-State and known Civilization with a score less than yours, receive +3 Gold.**
• Faith produced by a city is converted into Production when building Cultural Buildings or Wonders.
• Combat bonus on other Mandala Civilizations' territory.
• For every first copy of a Luxury Resource, +2 Golden Age Points.

Penalties

• Unhappiness for every embassy established in your empire.***
• 2 turns of Anarchy in the Capital for every second Ideological Tenet you adopt.****

Cultural Objectives

• Capture a Mandala Civilization's city. (+100 Culture, only once per city)
• Have your majority religion be one you didn't found. (+5 per turn)
• Have at least one Wonder in all your cities. (+5 per city, per turn)
• Don't loose cities to Non-Mandala Civilizations. (During wars against Non-Mandalas, +2 per turn as long as you haven't lost any cities)
• Own the largest city in the world (+5 per turn)

Unique Technology: Mandalas; Requires Civil Service. Receive another +2 Gold for every allied City-State and known Civilization with a score less than yours. Unlocks the Royal Elephant Stables.

Royal Elephant Stables: Unique National Wonder. Provides one copy of White Elephants, a luxury resource. More White Elephants may now be earnt; the chances of earning one depending on the size of your empire.

*A nod to the Buddhist and Hindu artwork, but more importantly the fact that every single one of these civs has a local version of the Ramayana
**A representation of the Mandala System
***Representing colonialism in the region (without having to resort to more war stuff)
****At least on the mainland; the area hasn't had much luck with modern ideologies; given the Khmer Rouge, Burma's military juntas, and even Siam's long chain of political issues.

 

[ehecatzin]

Nice ideas on the colonial civs Leugi. but "Combat bonus against other colonial civilizations." wouldnt negate its advantage if two colonials fight each other?

how about "Combat bonus on other colonial civilization territory." that way it would help the attacker and provide an advantage for being aggresive against other unprepared colonial.

 

[JFD]

Ah, thank you sukritact. Mandala is not a political concept that I am familiar with, but intend to use it to group these civs. These ideas are very much appreciated and will be put to good use. Thanks.

 

[Leugi]

Nice ideas on the colonial civs Leugi. but "Combat bonus against other colonial civilizations." wouldnt negate its advantage if two colonials fight each other?

how about "Combat bonus on other colonial civilization territory." that way it would help the attacker and provide an advantage for being aggresive against other unprepared colonial.

Yeah, just realized that to... That option could work, otherwise, bonus when attacking other colonial civs could be useful too; or even something like When being the one that declared war or something. Or something along those lines hehe.

EDIT: I really like the Mandala civs objectives, nicely done.

 

[Krajzen]

I love Mandala group (yeah, this is the Fancy Name I needed instead of 'South - Eastern Asia' ) and all those ideas. I'll try figuring something with other groups, now when I can compare my ideas with these

 

[JFD]

The next group that I will do is the Slavs. This will include the base-game Russia and Poland, my Hungary, Lithuania and Armenia, LastSword's Hetmanate, Lithuania and Bulgaria, Tomatekh's Kievan Rus' and Hiram's Lithuania and Bosnia. Please let me know if there are any that I've missed.

I'm going to have to figure a better way to represent what groups each civ belongs to, as with some of these civs their traits are simply too long to include a shared title (looking at you, Kievan Rus').

In any case, for the Slavs I'm thinking of a religious-defensive focus. This will certainly include attrition damage to units entering Slavic territory, but will also likely include faith to border expansion. Also, a penalty to culture based upon a city's distance to their capital as well as a 10% research penalty. The unique wonder will likely be Buda Castle, from the More Wonders project - I like the Golden Gate that janboruta proposed, but don't want to throw in a gold benefit, as isn't really conducive to the defensive-religious focus. Keeping that in mind, the unique building will probably be a Basilica. Any other ideas keeping in line with the focus would be appreciated.

Some ideas for objectives:

• Possess the largest (land) military force in the world (+5 Culture per turn)
• Possess the largest number of followers of a foreign religion (+6 Faith per turn)
• Fully complete the Tradition tree and have more than six cities (+5 Culture per turn)
• Build a Castle in every city (+3 Culture per turn)
• Capture a City-State following your main religion (+150 Culture per turn)

I also noticed that the Steppe tech wasn't being disabled for other civs. I've since fixed this. So I guess no one's tried them out then?

 

[LastSword]

I believe everyone was trying Steppe civilizations. I am recently playing other games.

Research penalty for Slavs today, starting without Agriculture tomorrow.
//penalty// reduced gold from City Connections. (to represent the nobleman power)
//culture objective// capital of first slav civ discovering Writing will get +X culture per turn [bonus linked to city, not civilization so it is capturable] (cyrillic script)
//alternate wonder// Literary School in Preslav (in this case above objective should be removed)
//bonus// lost cities are in resistance as long as war doesn't end (once the war is declared, they enter resistance again)

 

[JFD]

Thanks LastSword. Starting without Agriculture is interesting, but I'm hesitant on the matter.

I think I'd like to stick to two penalties per civ (a tech rate penalty for most, and then another) and the cultural penalty is necessary in order to balance out the attrition bonus. But a city connection penalty is certainly an idea for another group.

I like this cultural objective. I will definitely be putting this in; although I may use it as one of the one-time boost objectives instead.

Perpetual resistance is a very Slavic thing. I will definitely include this, too.


So, to you Slavic aficionados out there (janboruta... help...) I want to pose the question of when in the tech tree the Slavic technology would be most fitting. I feel either after Philosophy or after Civil Service, but am not sure which. They both fit thematically with the type of things unlocked from the technology (a religious building and a defensive wonder), but I'm not sure which is more historically appropriate. Slavic powers such as Hungary or Lithuania seem to have had their height of power during the early Middle Ages, but those such as Poland and Russia seem to have had such from the end of the Middle Ages onwards.

Incidentally, I will update the Steppes with the Slavics to include the ability to raze the capitals of other (major) civilizations.