Culture Bombs@!!

[joethreeblah]

Did anyone listening to Sid talk about (on the PC Gamer Podcast) culture bombs hear anything that sounded like population from a neighboring city will move to your city?

They are becoming masters and causing new questions with every answer, but I swear it sounded like this.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, they mentioned Culture Bombs in the IGN article as well, and it simply sounded like you send an great artist into a city (not sure if they were referring to one of your own or someone elses) and then create a 'Great Work' with it-a work which automatically generates a huge output of culture which-in turn expands your borders outwards. Apparently, this is something good to do in border cities, as it increases the chances of another civ handed their border cities over to you. However, I am saying all of this without the benefit of having heard the podcast. After I have had a chance to listen to that, then I will definitely revisit this question !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Ranbir]

I don't think they added migration. (that would have been a good idea for culture)


/rant
City switching is so unrealistic of what culture should do. American culture is strong nearly everywhere, I don't see those governments offering to give America those cities. If anything, those people are more likely to want to migrate to America. (why else are the western countries getting lots of immigrants?!)
This could be reflected in several ways, any city under your strong cultural influence gives YOU money (since they're buying into your culture) or they provide bonuses to your nearby cities.

I'm going to try and mod this, if I can!

Yes to Migration, no to cities being handed over!
/end rant

(I rushed through the mp3 trying to scan where culture was mentioned, I think I'm gonna have to listen to it properly carefully. Not very good quality is it? :S)

 

[Herr Doktor]

Good luck with your mod, so .

You're right, however. It's absurd a nation would hand over a city because they like the culture of the other nation.
It's not so absurd however for a city to consider herself part of another nation.
Because I'm Italian before being European, I can mention the example of the Italian city of Fiume in 1919 being occupied by Gabriele D'Annunzio with his "legion" ( several grenadiers, unhappy Italian soldiers, volounteers ... ). In fact the city with a certain percentage of Italian people feels to own themselves to Reign of Italy instead of newly formed Yogoslavia, even if there were Croatians and in any case Slavic minorities.
In Civ3 it has been simplified with culture, with culture it's assumed near cities are influenced by the enemy civ ( yes Civ3 it's too much like a deatchmatch ... of course every nation of the modern world wants to survive and not being enslaved by another, but it's absurd every one want to "konquer worlt, ja??!" ) so migrations of cultural identities located in the mind of the migrants, are virtually assumed as "cultural influence".
In reality, it should be as the example I told above of Italian ( well, before 1945 ) city of Fiume in Dalmazia.
And of course ONLY AFTER the discovering of nationalism.

 

[Che Guava]

Yes to Migration, no to cities being handed over!

Hear hear. I'll be the first to download that mod!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I admit that handover of cities is not entirely realistic-and that migration would be much better-but it is an improvement on the city flipping system.
Heres hoping that migration will be a feature of future mods and expansions-assuming it isn't already in !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[m15a]

if that was implemented in civ 3 (or assuming civ 4 has similar rules), wouldn't that often be not beneficial to the civ with higher culture? a lot of the times, the cities wouldn't benefit from a higher population, since that extra citizen would just starve to death anyway. (also, there could be an issue if the population is at the limit before needing an aqueduct or sewer system.) although seeing other civ's cities dwindle in population might be fun. especially if eventually, they could just disappear.

what about if instead of simply adding to the population, the culturally strong civ received bonus workers (and the other civ's city dwindled in size). i guess this is mostly a suggestion to people considering a mod, though, i guess.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Immigration and emigration could just be represented by a bonus to growth for cities with a strong culture and a penaly to growth for the cities with a weak culture. This could possibly already be in the game as we don't yet know how the city growth in Civ 4 is organized. If not, it can maybe be added by a mod.

 

[Taalen]

Personally, I don't think city flipping is all that odd. Of course Civ3 can take it to odd proportions, but basically I see it as an incertainity of the identity of border cities. Like, after the wars, some areas in German-French border took a lenghty process before deciding which nation will they eventually be a part of.

Don't see it as something a government does - a nation handing over a city really is an absurd idea - but see it as a progress where the people of a city cease to see themselves as a part of the nation their city belongs to

Bah, I'm really having trouble trying to put it simply

 

[Leprechaune]

Well, since we play the game throughout the ages where borders were more an idealistic boundary of control, I'd say that a culture handing over a city is quite realistic. Not in MODERN times, but throughout history untill the last couple centuries.

America is what it is primarily through such transactions. Land purchases etc.

NewYork won't get sold to Canada because it's Toronto film festival is going on... But think about how many cities today are in cultural dispute due to religeon or proximity to other nations.

 

[Commander Bello]

This whole idea of "cultural" influence and cities being handed over or "flipping" might work for the ancient era.
In no way it is realistic for any time after the idea of nationalism was invented.

Therefore I hope that the influence of "cultural bombs" will be less which each new tech you or your opponent gets, as techs are the only way to align the flow of time in Civ with the flow of time in real history.

 

[Sub]

Its a game element meant to enhance the gameplay. They wanted people who don't like war to be able to play the game and actaully, you know, win. Forget about whether its realistic or not and forget about whether they could have done it a different way. The bottom line is they did it this way and it works. It is a good feature..

 

[Herr Doktor]

We and they have to choose between a huge deatchmatch as Civilization has been so far, or a huge simulation of a world.
I prefer a simulation.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Actually, I believe "Culture Bombing" is joining a Great Artist to a recently captured city to give it some immediate culture and boost its productivity.

 

[Sub]

Its both. You can use him in a newly captured city to boost productivity or you can use him to surround an enemys city with your border.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yes, don't forget that there is no 'culture flipping' in the game as we understand it from Civ3. A civ with sufficient income at his disposal could actually fend off a culturally superior neighbour by investing as much money as possible into keeping the people of the overwhelmed city happy. Eventually, though, a smart ruler may cut his losses and simply hand over the city for a nice big cash injection. As Sub said, it might not be truly realistic, but I sense that it is in part to balance the different play styles a bit more.
Also, as for effectiveness through time, you need to remember a few key things: (a) as a civ progresses through the game, it has more disposable income. More disposable income means an ability to more greatly boost your base culture . As the base culture of your cities increases, the effectiveness of Great Works (which generate a fixed number of culture, IIRC) will become a much less effective strategy.
(b) Great Artists are almost certainly not going to be 'a dime a dozen'. Like great leaders from Civ3, they will probably be quite rare. Also given their importance in generating 'Golden Ages' or longer-term culture boosts-and the fact that subsequent Golden Ages require more Great Leaders-I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect that use of 'Culture Bombs' will probably not be very frequent and-after a while-will start to taper off as the Great Artists are used for other things.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[DiamanteLouco]

/rant
City switching is so unrealistic of what culture should do. American culture is strong nearly everywhere, I don't see those governments offering to give America those cities. If anything, those people are more likely to want to migrate to America. (why else are the western countries getting lots of immigrants?!)
This could be reflected in several ways, any city under your strong cultural influence gives YOU money (since they're buying into your culture) or they provide bonuses to your nearby cities.

I'm going to try and mod this, if I can!

Yes to Migration, no to cities being handed over!
/end rant

This is cool because it would add a real life component in it, you know.
First, you would build a big statue saying "give me your poor" because, you know, big population = big prodution = big money and then eventually, you would have a big population turning into a superpopulation and you would build a big wall saying "err... thanks, but you can keep your poor now"

 

[Ranbir]

You know, when the city does get to a point where it does start to cause problems, maybe that's when the emigration can kick in.... people move out to smaller cities due to overcrowding...

This migration model could do lots of things. :\
I'm scared...*goes to read about python*