Cultural spread and victory

[The Cosmic Kid]

Reposting an idea I had in another thread:

...the Civ4 cultural victory is really counterintuitive: building a wonder in any city except your three culture supercenters is a major opportunity cost, and to be avoided if at all possible. And conversely, building Hollywood in a city that's already going to hit legendary turns before the other two was also a waste. The game needs to find a balanced way to reward all cultural achievement, just as the space race victory rewards all scientific progress and production. I haven't played CivRev, but its "20 cultural events" version of the cultural victory sounds like it would do the trick.

Or, for something a little deeper, imagine an adjustment to the culture system: your cities spread your civilization's culture into all foreign cities they're trading partners with, in amounts depending on their overall cultural output of course. This could serve as a simple replacement for espionage: the more of your culture is in a foreign city relative to its native culture, the more you can see about that city. Also, the city's war weariness against you would be higher, and perhaps a "reverse war weariness" could produce happiness when diplomatic relations between the two civs are good. (I'm not sure this is entirely realistic: look at attitudes toward America in the modern world, either despite or because of America's cultural hegemony. But it's intuitive, and rewards good play.) Cultural victory is achieved when your culture is stronger in each other player's territory than their own - specific metric to be determined.

Since this mechanic works through trade routes, it encourages exploration and trade agreements. No longer can you sit on an isolated island and somehow dominate world culture without ever meeting another civilization! (Yes, I've done this.) In fact, I can even see this form of cultural victory subsuming the diplomatic victory, which would neatly kill two birds with one stone, since the current diplomatic victory system is also horrible. The diplomacy-culture exchange could work both ways: foreign citizens like you more the more of your culture is in their city, and your culture spreads more effectively the more those citizens like you. And the new United Nations might, oh, cause all foreign cultural spread in your cities to be automatically returned in kind.

So that's my brainstorm. I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement, but I think it's at least the kernel of a good idea.

EDIT: Imagine oppressive forms of government are more effective at stifling the spread of foreign culture - perhaps even providing options for removing that culture. This would make the propagation of liberal values through diplomacy a natural means to the end of cultural victory.

 

[Camikaze]

I quite like the idea of culture working in a similar way to religion does in Civ 4. It should be able to be spread, and you should get benefits for spreading it, such as diplomatic bonuses, and gold. Of course, it would have to work slightly differently, but IMO the basic idea is a good one. It would be much more realistic, and would allow for an improved variant of cultural victory.

 

[Earthling]

I'd rather tie in cultural victory to a UN-style system. It would be separate, but similar. Once a city hit Legendary, that civ would be eligible to voted for a cultural victory - more cities hitting Legendary increases the respect/friendliness of other civs with regards to this.

 

[The Cosmic Kid]

I'd rather tie in cultural victory to a UN-style system. It would be separate, but similar. Once a city hit Legendary, that civ would be eligible to voted for a cultural victory - more cities hitting Legendary increases the respect/friendliness of other civs with regards to this.

Hm. I've been thinking about the UN-style voting system, too. The problem with this sort of victory, frankly, is that it depends on leaders voting against their own interests - that is, unless you go for my patented "diplomatic victory through nuclear depopulation" strategy . I really want the AIs to play by the same rules as humans as much as possible, and no human would ever allow another player an "honest" diplomatic victory. Do you ever vote for someone else to win in games where they've built the UN before you?

So this was what I came up with:

AIs will not vote for you just because they like you. Rather, their vote is a trade item, which you have to negotiate for. Naturally, a friendly attitude will still assist negotiations, but it won't be automatic. And, of course, you can offer your vote to someone else if you want something from them. This makes the United Nations vote effectively a gambling game: if Caesar gives Gandhi his vote, he's betting that Gandhi won't be able to collect enough other votes by the next election, in which case he's gotten something for nothing. But if Gandhi does collect enough votes, of course, the something-for-nothing doesn't matter. So it seems to me like there could be an interesting game dynamic here.

It may be hard to balance, though, and a lot would depend on making the AI's votes accessible without being too easy to get.

But I'm not sure how much sense this sort of negotiating minigame would make for the cultural victory condition. In any case, I think the basic distinction between diplomatic and cultural victories is that the former is won through the acclamation of the leaders, while the latter is won through the acclamation of the masses, which means the cultural victory condition should bypass the leader's opinion of you in some way.

 

[mikesloug]

I think IMO the basic idea is a good one.

 

[The Cosmic Kid]

Diplomatic Stance: A quantification of one civ's formal position towards another, on a scale of five or so steps - say, "most favored", "favored", "neutral", "sanctioned", and "embargoed". This is not attitude; in principle, one leader can grant another "most favored" status while still hating her guts. But there is, naturally, a correlation between the two for AI players.

The most basic upshot of one's stance is economic: a high stance improves the number of trade routes your cities will draw to theirs and their yield. Stance changes can be negotiated for, or threatened. They can also be performed unilaterally, although if your stance doesn't match up with the other guy's, you both get the "lowest common denominator" of benefits. As long as trade routes are made valuable enough for sanctions and embargoes to be relevant, this system should give diplomatic players a few more cards to play with at the bargaining table.

Secondary effects are cultural. A high stance increases the flow of foreign culture into your cities along their trade routes, while a low stance reduces or stops it. As aforementioned, this can be a liability if your own culture is not strong enough to absorb the influx; thus, isolationism is a rational move for civs in certain situations.

Other effects are morale-based. Your citizens don't like it when you embargo a civ with similar civics, or give most favored status to a civ with very different ones. They also get angry if you embargo a civ that has a strong cultural presence in their city, but are pleased when you favor that civ. (This may have the consequence that a culturally-diverse civ can be happier than a homogeneous civ if it has good relations with everyone. I'm okay with this.) And the same goes for religion, if it's reimplemented.

The goal of this system is to provide some objective measure of diplomatic relations between civs that is a bit smoother than alliance/open borders/peace/war, something that can represent economic coactivity even when the two civs don't have any special resources to trade. My design ideal is always that complex behaviors and strategies should emerge from simple rules. I'm pretty happy with how this one plays out, at least in my head in the twentysome minutes I've spent thinking about it. What's your take?

 

[Morning Star]

I approve.