Culture design decision input needed

[Toffer90]

Many cities are reduced to their own tile (if even that), although they have the highest cultural level. Only cities that have not yet maxed out have kept their tiles.

There was a bug that could cause that in rev. 11540.

 

[raxo2222]

There was a bug that could cause that in rev. 11540.

These cities in save are on invalid level - their level says Tremendous, and that level is only with RCS on, its off in this save.
Recalc on master doesn't fix it.

 

[Toffer90]

These cities in save are on invalid level - their level says Tremendous, and that level is only with RCS on, its off in this save.
Recalc on master doesn't fix it.

He might have been on one of the broken SVN's or had some problem due to the changes in cultural mechanic caused by being on specific different revisions with culture mechanic changes.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Speaking as a new player, there's one very good reason that I can see for having at least the more complicated and interesting options, like size matters, be modular. Learning the game. To someone like me who hasn't been playing the mod for years as it developed, there's a lot of new mechanics to learn. An almost overwhelming number. I've managed to learn them - well, the key ones - by starting out with a game that was close to vanilla, playing it until I got the hang of the new mechanics (properties, autobuilds, the mechanics of the prehistoric era, buildings producing flat science/gold/hammers, etc), then starting a new game with a few extra options enabled, and so on until I was playing the game as it's really intended.

If I hadn't been able to play a vanilla like game, I would have been overwhelmed by all the stuff going on and would have given up.

Thus the reason I subdivided the combat mods as I did, so that one could step into them one at a time just like this.

However, isn't the cultural conquest element one of the pre-BTS Civ IV Vanilla features period? This isn't new, but what IS new is the unit resistance and promotion of a conquest element, which shouldn't even come into play until there begins to be a natural chance for culture, as it is, to start tempting the local revolution (not a part of the rev mod at all nor does it actually interact with rev at all.) So yeah, it's a touch more complex with that and I suppose it could be optioned out to another optional C2C component but the original concept of taking over a city by swarming it with your culture goes back to the first games of Civ IV I ever played - in fact, we found it so interesting that we were hoping we could try to conquer the world through culture alone, which in Vanilla really couldn't be done but you could try it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

As for the core debate here, trying to understand it further, I think I'd have to really feel the difference in play, so perhaps at least for a time, an option may help and if someone complains about the way culture is working in their game, we can point them to use the alternative option and see if for them it works more like they feel it should. Both are valid approaches but I can see some potential pros and cons conflicting and would have a hard time conceiving how in game the end results would differ in the experience. It seems to make sense that older cities are harder to invade into and gain ground on culturally. But it also seems like so much punishment that those cities will starve out before they really gain that strong enough presence. But then if it is going to just starve out one way or another without a massive blitz to take down the whole opponent, which doesn't even work all that well on 'requries complete kills', then we should certainly have the AI conscripting even their best cities to death if about to be taken. So for the sake of gamesmanship I'm not sure which option would really feel best ingame. Gotta experience them to know for sure.

 

[Toffer90]

Here's some context info that hasn't been clear in this thread yet.

From vanilla and up to v42, and then for some months after that on SVN, we have had the infinite culture mechanic scheme, the one where culture build up on plots is not decayed every turn.

Some time during the development of v43, culture mechanic was rewritten (it's a good rewrite which fixed many problems), part of that rewrite was to introduce the culture decay to all plots every turn which makes culture rate of cities per turn relatively more significant than built up culture on plots (because culture on plots decay away, the more of it there is the more of it will decay away, a percentage removed every turn), this is the equilibrium scheme were there is a constant tug of war between culture build up and culture decay on plots. Practical example of consequence is that great artist culture boom becomes less significant as the added culture gets decayed away until it eventually reaches the amount of culture stored on the plot that you would have had anyway at that turn even without the culture boom in the first place

Very recently on some of the last SVN revisions, and in this v43.1 patch I made it so that only plots that doesn't get culture per turn will have its culture decay, i.e. this takes it back to the infinite scheme of vanilla and up to v42 of C2C where there is no tug of war between decay and build up, i.e. that both don't apply at the same time to plots, either it only decays or it only builds up.

 

[Somebody613]

Ok, STOP that.
I won't provide any saves on principle, because it's a generic bug.
I'm obviously on the latest SVN (and yes, installed correctly), but haven't played for a week or so.
I first didn't get what was happening, but after 2 turns of the same thing repeating itself, I deduced it's the old "blinking culture" bug that had annoyed me at some point in the past.
Namely, if you and a neighbor have overlapping culture plots (even as low as 3%), your units will "BLINK" out of those plots each turn, UNLESS you are at WAR with that neighbor.
And I mean plots that are controlled by ME to begin with, obviously - but even 3% of foreign culture causes it to "blink" my units away.
STOP. THAT. It's f-ing ANNOYING. And it HAS BEEN addressed in the past FOR SURE.
Needs fixing NOW.

 

[Toffer90]

Ok, STOP that.

Who are you speaking to? Who should stop doing what?

 

[Somebody613]

Who are you speaking to? Who should stop doing what?

That's just a phrasing, lol.
Point being that some of the latest SVN brought this nonsense back - even though it has been addressed and fixed in the past.
So I asked to "stop this update", as in reverting it back to not having this bug.
Well, fixing it, ya know.
Because it's clearly a bug.
I know it's caused by the latest SVN, because I loaded a save from a week or so ago, and ALL cities immediately had their culture tiles reduced drastically.
Thus, it's the new culture mechanic, or some of it, that causes both things.

 

[Toffer90]

Point being that some of the latest SVN brought this nonsense back - even though it has been addressed and fixed in the past.

I see, units getting teleported for no good reason on latest SVN due to culture ownership changing forth and back during end turn sequence, I'll look into how that may be possible.

 

[Somebody613]

I see, units getting teleported for no good reason on latest SVN due to culture ownership changing forth and back during end turn sequence, I'll look into how that may be possible.
I'll assume for now that it doesn't happen in this patch as it is different from SVN.

Also:
I attacked a foreign city and killed a unit.
Immediately almost the entire area around that city turned into my culture, despite there being exactly zero city-related culture influence from me.
Of course, next turn it reverted back to normal... right up until I killed another unit, lol.
Culture needs a lot of fixing now.

 

[Toffer90]

Also:
I attacked a foreign city and killed a unit.
Immediately almost the entire area around that city turned into my culture, despite there being exactly zero city-related culture influence from me.
Of course, next turn it reverted back to normal... right up until I killed another unit, lol.
Culture needs a lot of fixing now.

I think I know what's up.

 

[Blazenclaw]

Sounds like it might be the 'who gained most culture since last turn' is not being cached properly. Whoever puts culture on a tile gets it; at end of each player's turn, as a result of IDW, etc. @Somebody613 SVN ver r11539 should be prior to Toffer's recent changes
Ah, ninja'd!

 

[Somebody613]

Sooo?
Is that the latest SVN problem, or am I missing something?
As in, should I use the patch ON TOP of the latest SVN?

 

[jshetley]

43.1 will be interesting for sure now. I finally figured out how the new culture system works and what I need to do about it last night. Since I do not use the SVN I am on the download 43ver so I have not seen any of the changes made since then. What upset me last week was not knowing what was happening and thinking things had intentionally been made much harder. It is harder and wars will take more planning, but I think I can handle it now.

 

[Toffer90]

Sooo?
Is that the latest SVN problem, or am I missing something?
As in, should I use the patch ON TOP of the latest SVN?

Nah, the patch is only for the ModDB release, SVN will get patches through normal SVN updates.
I've almost ironed out the bug in calculating plot owner that cause influence driven war to immediatly change ownership to the player winning battles if it is of lowest player index. It was a problem in causality, i.e. I have to use the culture rate of last turn untill all players have finished this turn.

 

[Somebody613]

Nah, the patch is only for the ModDB release, SVN will get patches through normal SVN updates.
I've almost ironed out the bug in calculating plot owner that cause influence driven war to immediatly change ownership to the player winning battles if it is of lowest player index. It was a problem in causality, i.e. I have to use the culture rate of last turn untill all players have finished this turn.

Let's hope you can squish that annoying pest, lol.
Because now it's really ridiculous.

 

[Toffer90]

Let's hope you can squish that annoying pest, lol.
Because now it's really ridiculous.

It indeed was ridiculous. New SVN revision on the way now.

 

[JosEPh_II]

My head hurts now! Ugh.
My 1st point of contention is this: Culture going out past the 3rd ring of ANY city should have a much much lower value than it currently does. Reaching out into the 5th and 6th rings in the 1st 2 or even 3 Eras just does not play nor feel right.

All this brings back the memory of the time, when Koshling was still modding and Lead Designer, where we had Super cities in the Industrial/Modern Eras that were unstoppable in Culture Wars. I think it was around v17 thru 19. I don't remember all the details anymore, but changes had to be made so the Player would have a chance against the AI even back then. The AI Founding Cities would win the game with specific Game Setup Options in play. Especially on the higher difficulties.

2nd point, after the Culture of All bldgs was neutered making every Culture bldg give the same low value, and in some cases absurdly low values, then you had no bldgs to "shoot for" to give your city a boost. Just like what was done to the Forge building many years ago. If you were lagging in production you would push to get the tech that gave Forges because of the Production boost it would give. This type achievement was used prominently in a Vanilla game. AND/C2C coding took that away. Yes there are still a handful that gives you more than 1 culture point. But they are now too few. Making Culture homogeneous was a Bad design decision from my point of view.

Sidenote: I have a Prince Difficulty game going and I have for the 1st time in Years been able to found Tengri, to be able to Build World Wonders, and not be lagging tech wise 1 Era or 2 behind the AI. Just shows how much Difference there is between a Prince vs Immortal Game.

I know I have not answered the questions directly that you have posed Blazenclaw. I'm still trying to digest your and Toffer's discussions. Just saw them now.

Question to both @Blazenclaw @Toffer90 what would be so wrong in adding some Culture to the storyteller line of units when used in both Teaching or Patriot mode? Example: give 1 to the Story Teller. Then when you upgrade or build a Bard you get 2 and then each succeeding upgrade a corresponding + added. Of course this will also cause the secondary problem we've had with the LE and Health units, having to build sooo many to keep up with the ever increasing level of crime and disease the game produces thru it various avenues fo doing so....

 

[Thunderbrd]

Question to both @Blazenclaw @Toffer90 what would be so wrong in adding some Culture to the storyteller line of units when used in both Teaching or Patriot mode? Example: give 1 to the Story Teller. Then when you upgrade or build a Bard you get 2 and then each succeeding upgrade a corresponding + added. Of course this will also cause the secondary problem we've had with the LE and Health units, having to build sooo many to keep up with the ever increasing level of crime and disease the game produces thru it various avenues fo doing so....

Do we have tags that can actually do that right now? Serious question because I planned to add it but am not sure I did - we have ones that give properties and ones that give happiness +/-, but I'm not sure we have any that do this. I think it would be a great idea if we did.