Culture design decision input needed

[tmv]

Yeah this is 100% a bug of some kind lmao, will look into it later today. Is this still svn 11529 or have you kept up to date on svn?

After 11458 where everything was still working I updated first to 11515, which was very broken. Then (going back to the 11458 save) I went to 11529, then to 11541.

In 11529 culture still collapsed (I don't know if it was as bad as in 11515), and in 11541 this wasn't repaired either.

 

[raxo2222]

After 11458 where everything was still working I updated first to 11515, which was very broken. Then (going back to the 11458 save) I went to 11529, then to 11541.

In 11529 culture still collapsed (I don't know if it was as bad as in 11515), and in 11541 this wasn't repaired either.

Your culture level in cities is invalid, you need to fix it using worldbuilder - Tremedous level doesn't exist without RCS game option, and you don't use that one in your save.

 

[tmv]

Your culture level in cities is invalid, you need to fix it using worldbuilder - Tremedous level doesn't exist without RCS game option, and you don't use that one in your save.

Thank you - here goes nothing.

 

[Blazenclaw]

My head hurts now! Ugh.
...
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.

No worries at all, sorry it is so much text!

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.

I do agree with this as well, but it is rather difficult to balance in practice.
Right now, the amount of culture needed to level up a city roughly doubles each level. Changing that is difficult, because then it will need to be rebalanced as buildings get rebalanced, and can easily lead to situations where cities may fly through levels too quickly in some sections or take too long to go between others.

I do have some tools when it comes to Realistic Culture however. It is possible to increase the 'difficulty' of terrain and feature types by various factors, including whether a player has tech. Right now, rivers provide a greater barrier until bridge building tech for instance, coast/sea/ocean have greater barrier until you have the tech to trade on them, mountains until you can settle on them, and all features cost more until there is an improvement of some kind on them. Are there other such tech-unlocked combinations you (or anyone else) can think of that would make sense to implement? More of these could cause (potentially significantly) slower culture-on-tile growth.

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?

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.

Don't think we have tags, but should be possible. Teaching AI proper use/evaluation of them of course, always another story.
Basically it'd be a way to turn excess into which... I guess could make sense? Whereas using them for culture bombs would be -> , so both would have their place.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I wish all the Regular bldgs that give Culture were reverted back to when they all had different levels of Culture.

I also am not liking what was done to the Myths line that Dancing Hoskuld made. 0.10 Research and 0.12 Culture is ridiculously low. They are also the most Expensive "bldgs" to build for each Era to boot.

 

[Blazenclaw]

I also am not liking what was done to the Myths line that Dancing Hoskuld made. 0.10 Research and 0.12 Culture is ridiculously low. They are also the most Expensive "bldgs" to build for each Era to boot.

This change was required for balance, though. Previously, tech was more dependent on who could capture more animals than any other factor, by a substantial margin.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Don't think we have tags, but should be possible. Teaching AI proper use/evaluation of them of course, always another story.
Basically it'd be a way to turn excess into which... I guess could make sense? Whereas using them for culture bombs would be -> , so both would have their place.

Wouldn't be too hard to add, but should be an CommerceChangesPerRound tag on units and promos rather than dedicated to just culture so that we can do some cool stuff with research and educators, perhaps even a gold per round effect from merchant units that can be further promotion developed, and an espionage per round from spies (that would only work when in our borders but if made negative would only work on the enemy).

 

[jshetley]

This change was required for balance, though. Previously, tech was more dependent on who could capture more animals than any other factor, by a substantial margin.

Yeah that and being lucky with goody huts gave me a HUGE advantage early. The ai almost never sent hunting units out and I could just clean up. It is much more balanced now with the changes that have been made.

 

[ScubaV]

I feel like equilibrium culture is more realistic for a modern era and infinite culture is more realistic for premodern eras. However, modern culture is less geographic in nature. Look at the international explosion of Korean culture in the last 5-10 years driven by Kpop, Korean tv, and food, whereas international Japanese pop culture that peaked in the 80s and 90s has significantly faded in comparison. Neither really has a significant geographic or border-related effect in game terms though. In contrast, I think about the Roman empire and how long-lasting and regional its cultural impact was. Despite the eastern empire lasting 1000 years longer than the west, modern western civilizations are much more influenced by the western half.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah that and being lucky with goody huts gave me a HUGE advantage early. The ai almost never sent hunting units out and I could just clean up. It is much more balanced now with the changes that have been made.

They are likely sending out a lot of hunting units - doesn't mean they get very far - and maybe they aren't working as well as they used to I suppose.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I feel like equilibrium culture is more realistic for a modern era and infinite culture is more realistic for premodern eras. However, modern culture is less geographic in nature. Look at the international explosion of Korean culture in the last 5-10 years driven by Kpop, Korean tv, and food, whereas international Japanese pop culture that peaked in the 80s and 90s has significantly faded in comparison. Neither really has a significant geographic or border-related effect in game terms though. In contrast, I think about the Roman empire and how long-lasting and regional its cultural impact was. Despite the eastern empire lasting 1000 years longer than the west, modern western civilizations are much more influenced by the western half.

There are a lot of things that aren't as 'regional' today that used to be and are much more a matter of global in scope and influencable from nearly any location. In the unit review I began to really notice that and will be doing some things in the later part of its design that allow for this to become more apparent, such as spy actions being able to take place against distant targets without having to actually MOVE the spy to the target as long as there is a telecom network in place, national educational influences from television, cultural influences from non-specifically local things that operate through radio, television, internet access etc... I haven't spoken much about this but the ideas have been percolating around in the design mind for a while now.

 

[jshetley]

They are likely sending out a lot of hunting units - doesn't mean they get very far - and maybe they aren't working as well as they used to I suppose.

I was talking about 42.1. I definitely see more in 43.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Yeah that and being lucky with goody huts gave me a HUGE advantage early. The ai almost never sent hunting units out and I could just clean up. It is much more balanced now with the changes that have been made.

On Immortal Difficulty and Not using the Option Peace among NPCs It is not possible to do what you do. With these Game setup Options and Diff lvls, the AI Always has Hunting units out. If they did not then I would not be able to ambush the hunters and steal their subdued animals. Especially the Main animals that you can build herds out of.

 

[JosEPh_II]

This change was required for balance, though. Previously, tech was more dependent on who could capture more animals than any other factor, by a substantial margin.

This was only True for those that used the Option Peace among NPCs. If you did not use that Game Set up Option, then animals were Much much harder to get. Same goes for those that play the Noble and lower (easier) Diff settings. But for higher Diff again this was not and still Is not valid.

You only addressed the easiest path to animals for lazy and less knowledgeable players. I know that this statement will ruffle some feathers. But the truth stands on it's on merits. Those that wanted challenge in their C2C games did not choose those paths.

I wish all the Regular bldgs that give Culture were reverted back to when they all had different levels of Culture.

I also am not liking what was done to the Myths line that Dancing Hoskuld made. 0.10 Research and 0.12 Culture is ridiculously low. They are also the most Expensive "bldgs" to build for each Era to boot.

So again, I will stand on my statements. This did more harm to the Mod than it ever did any "good" for the less capable players.

 

[jshetley]

On Immortal Difficulty and Not using the Option Peace among NPCs It is not possible to do what you do. With these Game setup Options and Diff lvls, the AI Always has Hunting units out. If they did not then I would not be able to ambush the hunters and steal their subdued animals. Especially the Main animals that you can build herds out of.

I play on noble now. I have had to drop back from emperor since the last couple of versions came out. I'm thinking about moving up 1 level though and see if I could handle it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

On Immortal Difficulty and Not using the Option Peace among NPCs It is not possible to do what you do. With these Game setup Options and Diff lvls, the AI Always has Hunting units out. If they did not then I would not be able to ambush the hunters and steal their subdued animals. Especially the Main animals that you can build herds out of.

That's hilarious you do that. This is one reason I feel that it's a player cheat setting to have teleport hunting rewards off. That and the fact that their AI not only lacks the refinement to do handoffs so the hunters can get back out to hunting more but also can get stuck in harmful terrain or healing waits in other cases, stuff like that. It's cool as a challenge and makes sense in play but it really does put the AI at a disadvantage sadly. Maybe someday it won't be quite as weighted and the AI will have some stronger ways to address the situation. Toffer did some rewriting - maybe he already did add some further considerations for that.

They are also the most Expensive "bldgs" to build for each Era to boot.

Is that true if one uses entertainer units to build them? Or is that even possible anymore?

 

[Blazenclaw]

This was only True for those that used the Option Peace among NPCs. If you did not use that Game Set up Option, then animals were Much much harder to get.

I don't play with that option on. Regardless of that option, it still was the case that whoever spawned in an area with the greatest diversity of wildlife won the tech race by the end of prehistoric. One beaker per animal type captured could vary from 10 to 30 depending, and raw city output in that era from all other buildings was ~10 iirc.

Is that true if one uses entertainer units to build them? Or is that even possible anymore?

Memory says I made them slightly cheaper than bards, with the idea being you're paying the extra cost to get smaller cities up faster, rather than simply use entertainers as a shortcut (since the AI won't know that). Animal buildings were more expensive though? Not sure actually, sorry.
All I know for sure now is that it should be possible to get all animal buildings after subduing one of each species in nearly all cases, that was some work figuring out d:

 

[raxo2222]

In prehistoric era folklore generates 0.2 science per turn - needs 5 cities to to reach old performance. That is folklore spreads itself to all cities.
Ancient - 0.15 => 7 cities
Classical - 0.1 => 10 cities
Medieval - 0.05 => 20 cities
Spawns only culture by Renaissance.

Conversely they get better at culture - 0.1 in prehistoric, 0.2 in Ancient and so on.

 

[jshetley]

In prehistoric era folklore generates 0.2 science per turn - needs 5 cities to to reach old performance. That is folklore spreads itself to all cities.
Ancient - 0.15 => 7 cities
Classical - 0.1 => 10 cities
Medieval - 0.05 => 20 cities
Spawns only culture by Renaissance.

Conversely they get better at culture - 0.1 in prehistoric, 0.2 in Ancient and so on.

Did not know this. Nice.

 

[Blazenclaw]

Reaching out into the 5th and 6th rings in the 1st 2 or even 3 Eras just does not play nor feel right.

I made some changes to realistic culture spread that should cause some heavy reduction in prehistoric era (decent chance first and second 'real' expansions won't grab any tiles unless they're good quality), with penalties reducing through the ages as tech/map infrastructure improves. Numbers given are costs to tile, i.e. how many additional culture levels are needed to claim the tile.

• Peaks go from 6->3 based on the 3 peak techs
• Hills benefit from canfoundpeak (algebra; 3->2)
• Water penalty for non-land adjacent without optics (1)
• Penalty (1) if lacking freshwater. Removed at refrigeration
• Penalty (1) if feature is unimproved (and isn't a "positive" feature aka flood plain, nat'l wonder, oasis)
• Doubled river penalties (3,2,1, to 6,4,2)
• Lacking route tech makes rough terrain worse (removed at paved road; synergizes with advanced routes option; 1-2-3-4 tile cost etc maps to 1-3-5-7 with no route, 1-3-4-6 with trails, 1-2-4-5 path, 1-2-3-5 road)
• Knowing a bonus on the tile halves cost (was half-minus-1)
• City tiles receive 1/2 distance cost (makes city-on-river less OP for defending culture)

Might still increase magnitude of some of these; peaks, freshwater, optics, etc.
As is now, here's how it looks on an existing game in mid-ancient:

Spoiler Pics :

Notice the increased neutral area between the blue cities, much smaller naval influence. Small pic sorry, zoom in.

Will be out on next svn ver, soonish.

Edit: Next SVN ver will also contain a new gameoption "Equilibrium Culture" so you can optionally try. Given polling results, will likely remain an option. Thank you for all the responses!