Culture Database

[Thunderbrd]

I suppose it's really that they are all three.

The first base cultures are a little different and we could call them race if it didn't cause problems to do so.

But the rest are an amalgamation of all the things you mention. Where they were just an ethnic peoples and never a nation, they usually wanted to have one anyhow. Just look at the Kurds today.

 

[FlyingRainbow16]

The distinction between country culture and language needs to established well because certain countries do not have a singular or United culture, just look at the random splits the europeans like the sykes-picot

 

[Thunderbrd]

The distinction between country culture and language needs to established well because certain countries do not have a singular or United culture, just look at the random splits the europeans like the sykes-picot

That's the point of the ideas project concept. You may have adopted a culture as a national identity but it does not mean that there are not many cultures within that nation. A culture is not a language. Many cultures speak English and Spanish, for example. The language may bind those cultures into a group that tends to favor one another. But they don't define the culture. A national identity is a culture but there is no prerequisite that a culture have a nation to define it.

The US shows a good example. You have different cultures here, Irish, Spanish, Norwegian, German, Russian, French, English, Scottish, many tribes of the Native Americans hanging on to some cultural identity, some home grown ones, Confederate, Californian, Texan, Yooper, and yet while you can see how strong some of these are in different regions across the country, USUALLY, the strongest identifying culture is simply United States. Perhaps that came about over time as nearly as soon as that cultural concept emerged it was adopted as a National identity (civic) by the rebel nation that split from the English, who had long ago adopted English as their national identity. In many ways it was largely French and a strong influence from the Native American cultures that weakened the cultural tie to English on these shores, a big part of why it's tough to make colonies in the middle of distant foreign-developed lands a difficult prospect.

Then we had the rise of the Confederates and at a point they had grown so strong that they attempted to secede from the nation as well under a new national identity of that culture.

We have not seen Creole attempt to break away, but Texas and California have at times shown strength enough to consider it.

 

[Rmi]

Culture is a incredibly diverse concept. It's something i've discussed at length in many a history course.

At the moment i'm looking at all of them mostly from a game design standpoint.

For example, i just researched Yemen.

Yemen became independent in 1918. Yemenese culture is de facto anything that happened within it's boundries EVER. Yemen does not have a 'mainstream' cultural export that is widely known either.

In this case i want to delete 'Yemen' as a culture in this game.

HOWEVER, Yemen has some great interesting history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history_of_Yemen.
The kingdom of Aksum, which is already a culture in our game represents the region, and i would like to add the Kingdom of Saba. (someday)
Both of these have a distinct identity i can work with.

NOTE AGAIN
I'm not changing any code. Yemen is safe.
But in the end i want most cultures to be clearly defined within the realm of this game. Some lesser known contemporary nations could fall off in favor if historical equivalents.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The cultural export of Yemen lately has been to offer their citizens up as bombing targets for the Saudis.

I wouldn't say that "Yemenese culture is de facto anything that happened within it's boundries EVER." is something that should apply, imo. What circumstances gave rise to its independence and from what country did it gain its independence from? When did it begin to identify as Yemen... was the name taken from a name given to the region long before?

Love the idea of adding the Kingdom of Saba.

 

[FlyingRainbow16]

I believe that a tree might fix this distinction because all countries of which we have to ask do they have a culture are a mix of definite cultures (For yemen it is Saba/Sheba (#Bilquis), Himyar (A Jewish nation ) and Hadramut into Abna and then into the Overarching Arabian Caliphates (Umayyad, Abbasid, etc) then into the individual caliphates then into yemen the country) also i jsut want future cultures that would be so cool

 

[Rmi]

That would be cool, but an unfathomable amount of historical research to do for even 1 civ through 200000 years.

We should be able to implement some cool stuff and some nice historical accuracy here and there. That is why i'm doing all this research (and because i'm a history nerd). But any implementation of this data is still all open for ideas.

 

[tmv]

What circumstances gave rise to its independence and from what country did it gain its independence from?

North Yemen (Arab Republic) in 1918 from the Ottoman Empire (World War I), South Yemen (Socialist) from British colonial rule in 1967, unification in 1990.

 

[Thunderbrd]

North Yemen (Arab Republic) in 1918 from the Ottoman Empire (World War I), South Yemen (Socialist) from British colonial rule in 1967, unification in 1990.

I read some of that hastily yesterday on widipedia. Thanks for posting though, good summary.

This also brings up another point I'd like to make about adopting cultures. This would be a spectacular case for showing how 1 culture can be the national identity of 2 nations or more.

The Irish were equally divided at one point, by nation and not culture. The primary difference between them at that point was not their culture, but their religion, and in game terms, their players. They were 2 factions that had the same adopted culture nevertheless. In Yemen's example, the southern Yemen would've been a colony of Britain that had adopted Yemenese culture.

Yemen seems to have been a cultural identity that was initiated during the caliphate rule as a way to help define the Yemen region geopolitically. The prereqs seem to have included spices (big spice trade region) and (we'll be able to do this eventually) the existence of a strong degree of Islamic religious influence. Desert terrain and coastal were also very prerequisite to the emergence of the culture.

And it's only been recently that Yemen was finally adopted as a national identity. Sadly, it has struggled greatly since its unification, as it has become a hotbed for harboring terrorist activities and as a result has become a massive bombing range that the media really likes to avoid discussing because they don't like to let us know just how savage we and our allies really are.

 

[FlyingRainbow16]

Honestly murica sucks on the part of interfering with anyone we have for centuries ( cough cuba cough) but are you suggesting not making cultures a ww?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Honestly murica sucks on the part of interfering with anyone we have for centuries ( cough cuba cough) but are you suggesting not making cultures a ww?

The culture world wonders are just how the culture will begin to enter the game. Under the Ideas project, they would spread out and compete with other cultures for influence on a city by city basis. They will be able to cross borders and a number of cultures would be found in any given city (usually). They would probably cease to be resources at that point though.

 

[Rmi]

I am halfway done with the database research now.
When i am done with the research, ill finish the last Units.

With this data i can also have a much easier look at the culture requirements. I just updated that database to include the new data.
I might be able to fix the few ones that are BROKEN in the code. And i'll mark the ones that stand outside the timeframe again.
I'm not going to change anything without further discussion. So no worries about that.


Question

Can we merge the 2 unit files? Or would that destroy pathway things etc?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Can we merge the 2 unit files? Or would that destroy pathway things etc?

Which 2 files?

 

[Rmi]

D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Caveman2Cosmos\Assets\XML\Units\CIV4UnitInfos

D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Beyond the Sword\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Caveman2Cosmos\Assets\Modules\My_Mods\New_Cultures\Heroes_CIV4UnitInfos

They are in different directories.

I assume the first one even though it has many culture units means it's core c2c. And the second one is an mod_within_mod addendum?

1 big file for all cultural units would be very handy.
Also 1 big file for all heroes later.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

It is intended that almost everything we have in My_Mods is likely to be merged into core.

The reason that particular folder was not was that it was causing a CTD on older operating systems. A bug we could not figure out but which I fixed as I was fixing the file names for the new UI code.

edit such a merge usually happens just before the freeze to all code before a release.

 

[Rmi]

Thx for the intel =).

I just finished my research. I also implemented it in the IDEAS Database.
Now i'm going to finish the last broken units.

 

[Rmi]

Cultural Database (ideas) now has Wiki links. You can see right away what the culture is supposed to represent.

And any help is welcome matching the metrics to it, if it's wrong.

 

[Rmi]

Cultural Database IDEAS now has improved regions. Improved links and (mostly) improved timestaps.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I just wanted to let you guys know about why some techs were chosen for cultures. Sometimes its gets confusing on the tech tree trying to apply dates to specific techs. While general eras are good this should no be set in stone. Likewise there is there whole issue of tech level vs historical time. For instance lets take the Hawaiian culture. This culture did not get much farther than say the Ancient era before contact with the Europeans. If we went by historical dates then Hawaii would not have even been settled until around 400 to 500 AD. And in comparison in 476 AD the last Roman emperor Romulus was overthrown.

Meaning that Hawaiian culture should not be in the Classical era despite it being historically during this time period. Thus many cultures be it Oceanian, African or from the Americas should be adjusted for their actual tech level before western colonization. An example would be New Zealand vs the Maori. The Maori culture tech level is much less since the culture is much older. Likewise the New Zealand culture is much newer and thus its tech level is much more advanced.

This can be both good an bad. On the one hand this means you can try to get these older cultures much easier on the tech tree. While the more advanced ones you have to wait a lot longer to get them. Likewise this also means that say you could get Hawaiian culture before Roman culture even though the Romans historically came before the Hawaiians.

 

[Toffer90]

I just wanted to let you guys know about why some techs were chosen for cultures. Sometimes its gets confusing on the tech tree trying to apply dates to specific techs. While general eras are good this should no be set in stone. Likewise there is there whole issue of tech level vs historical time. For instance lets take the Hawaiian culture. This culture did not get much farther than say the Ancient era before contact with the Europeans. If we went by historical dates then Hawaii would not have even been settled until around 400 to 500 AD. And in comparison in 476 AD the last Roman emperor Romulus was overthrown.

Meaning that Hawaiian culture should not be in the Classical era despite it being historically during this time period. Thus many cultures be it Oceanian, African or from the Americas should be adjusted for their actual tech level before western colonization. An example would be New Zealand vs the Maori. The Maori culture tech level is much less since the culture is much older. Likewise the New Zealand culture is much newer and thus its tech level is much more advanced.

This can be both good an bad. On the one hand this means you can try to get these older cultures much easier on the tech tree. While the more advanced ones you have to wait a lot longer to get them. Likewise this also means that say you could get Hawaiian culture before Roman culture even though the Romans historically came before the Hawaiians.

I agree with your logic on this, it makes game-play sense and this is not a historical simulator.
The historical tech level of a culture's society should decide when it can be founded in game, because it would be silly if the Aztec culture were to be founded in a feudal medieval society.

This is a what-if game, and it is therefore a point that an aztec type culture could possibly form whenever, however, anywhere on the planet if the conditions were right for it.
A civs tech level, resource, terrain and feature access should be the key, not the pointless date showed in the upper right corner.