Culture groups?

[AnotherPacifist]

Just reviewing my Netherlands game from last night, it appears very easy to collapse Germany without any military conflict--just build 2-3 wonders, the usual cultural buildings (and I didn't even have theaters) and surely Germany will collapse, since Hamburg or Kiel will be founded in most cases.

And if you think about it, a Dutch and a German can probably understand each other more readily than an Indian and a Japanese would. And a Chinese Guangzhou is probably easier to assimilate than a British one.

So what if there is less instability from foreign culture if that culture is in your same group (see below for suggestions)? I.e. if Shanghai is German it should provide China more instability than if it were Japanese. Of course there could be civs that can tolerate multiple overlapping cultures nearby (e.g. Russia, Persia).

Going by regions/languages only, the following groups make sense:
1. European: Rome, France, Spain, England, Netherlands, Germany,Viking, Russia
2. Far Eastern: Japan, Khmer, China, Mongolia, Russia
3. South Asian: Khmer, India, Persia
4. Middle-Eastern: Arabia, Babylonia, Persia, Turkey, Egypt
5. African: Ethiopia, Egypt, Mali
6. New world: Inca, Aztec, Maya

Note I didn't put down America on purpose (although real life begs to differ).
Obviously India has more languages than all of the other 17 civs combined, and there's probably no relationship between the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Arabic, but RFC can't accommodate that many differences.

 

[Úmarth]

Perhaps this might be better if it were based on state religion since that's what has historically separated many of the groups you've named.

But I'm not so sure... I've never quite understood the culture-flip mechanism in civ anyway, from a realism perspective. Sure some civilizations have exerted a great amount of influence, culturally, on their neighbours but I cannot think of instances where this has lead to significant amounts of territory changing hands. Or is it more abstract, a representation of population movements? But in that case it makes no sense that building theatres would drive it.

For that reason I really can't figure out whether this makes sense from a historical realism perspective.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Perhaps this might be better if it were based on state religion since that's what has historically separated many of the groups you've named.

Well, last game as Dutch I made the French unstable because Paris was Islamic, and you know the AI never builds missionaries (Christian or otherwise) and always adopts the most "immediately" profitable religion (in this case Islamic). So religion isn't always a reliable guide to grouping cultures.

From a historically realistic viewpoint, I can see cultures collapsing civs and flipping cities routinely in cultural fault lines, e.g. Turkey collapses Germany (as there was a culture-clash between the Islamic Ottomans and Christian Germany/Hungary/Austria/etc). But a "small" culture like the Netherlands should never be able to collapse Germany, and yet it does it routinely in RFC, because of the way culture is calculated.

 

[blizzrd]

Well, last game as Dutch I made the French unstable because Paris was Islamic, and you know the AI never builds missionaries (Christian or otherwise) and always adopts the most "immediately" profitable religion (in this case Islamic). So religion isn't always a reliable guide to grouping cultures.

The AI certainly does build missionaries and uses them. In my game as the Khmers yesterday, China built a Confucian missionary and sent it to Hanoi. I was operating under free religion at the time, so it was a good thing.

 

[Verily]

The AI certainly does build missionaries and uses them. In my game as the Khmers yesterday, China built a Confucian missionary and sent it to Hanoi. I was operating under free religion at the time, so it was a good thing.

Some AIs build missionaries, generally those which find religion important. The Isabella AI, the Saladin AI, the Hatshepsut AI (not in RFC) and some others will spread religion rapidly through their lands. The other AIs rarely build missionaries and almost never spread second religions to their cities.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Some AIs build missionaries, generally those which find religion important. The Isabella AI, the Saladin AI, the Hatshepsut AI (not in RFC) and some others will spread religion rapidly through their lands. The other AIs rarely build missionaries and almost never spread second religions to their cities.

But these missionaries are often built because they have the shrine and want the money (probably why that Chinese Confucian missionary was sent to Khmer). At least in RFC, I've never, ever seen France, England or Vikings build a Christian missionary when one of their cities is Islamic, even though their state religion is Christian. Similarly, whenever Turkey is Christian, they do not spread it in their non-Christian cities.

 

[Cossack Captain]

Hmpf, the Chinese nation also has many languages.

 

[onedreamer]

Just reviewing my Netherlands game from last night, it appears very easy to collapse Germany without any military conflict--just build 2-3 wonders, the usual cultural buildings (and I didn't even have theaters) and surely Germany will collapse, since Hamburg or Kiel will be founded in most cases.

I have ready more screenshots of Germany owning Hamburg and even Copenhagen and yet being a strong monster in Europe, most often than not Germany conquers France and Scandinavia, let alone Greece and Italy. Also, I can't remember Germany ever collapsing in any of my games and it's always among the first 5. I think something more than just flipping Hamburg is needed to make it collapse, and anyways the AI is highly unlikely to succeed in such a strategy. What the human player can do is different, in fact he can do pretty much anything...
Now about missionaries, most AI will surely build them in case of the Apostolic Palace.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Now about missionaries, most AI will surely build them in case of the Apostolic Palace.

In fact I cannot remember a single case where either an AI-controlled Bordeaux or Marseilles building a Christian missionary to spread it to either Rennes, Cherbourg or Paris. Hence the occasional Islamic France (because Paris sometimes gets Islam and maybe due to bureaucracy). Now, maybe later (and by later I mean hundreds of years later) France will go to Christianity, but I think that's only because the number of cities with Christianity is greater than just Paris having Islam.

Same thing with Russia--that's why I've had Buddhist, Jewish and even in a rare game, Hindu (!) Russia, even though one of the border cities often has Christianity (I know because I was playing Germany at the time).

Onedreamer, have you ever seen (in RFC, not in regular BTS) a 2-religion city early on in the game (before 1500) besides in China, India and any conquered Arabian cities, IF the human has not given the AI a missionary?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Jewish Russia isn't that farfetched, considering the Khazarian khanate.

have you ever seen (in RFC, not in regular BTS) a 2-religion city early on in the game (before 1500) besides in China, India and any conquered Arabian cities

I haven't. But then, it is my Warlords observations, I got BTS only today.

And Germany did spent some part of her history in kind of collapse (Holy Roman Empire after the 30 years war).

 

[The Q-Meister]

I've seen plenty of games where Germany has collapsed. I've also seen a super strong uber-Germany in others. It seems to me like it is a "hit or miss" civ; either it will be a superpower or it will collapse which is not so unrealistic if you consider some of the foreign policy decisions Germany has made historically.

As for the thread topic, I can see that as providing some clarity however I would be wary of pigeon-holing entire cultural groups into one category. For instance, surely the ancient Egyptians had more in common culturally with the Greeks and Romans than they did with Islamic Arabia. Just as the ancient Greeks would have more in common with the other ancient civs than they would with a modern European country. Perhaps dividing up Europe by North/South ? Northern European culture and Mediterreanean one which would include most of the ancient world?

Russia and Persia (and maybe Turkey) I believe would have to be "special" cases as their empires spread across more than 1 continent and their cultures are a synthesis of several competing influences.

 

[onedreamer]

Onedreamer, have you ever seen (in RFC, not in regular BTS) a 2-religion city early on in the game (before 1500) besides in China, India and any conquered Arabian cities, IF the human has not given the AI a missionary?

Well, I can't promise on the Bible
But nonetheless I can tell you that the AI uses missionaries in case of AP. Just yesterday I witnessed Christianity (which had the AP) spread in 3 German cities in the same turn, seems too much for "natural" spreading. The condition though is that the AI has the AP religion as state religion, then it will spread it and I think even to cities which already have a non state religion, but like I said I don't promise on this. Also, not all AIs will do this.
PS: once Persia spread Buddhism (I was India and built the AP) in Parsa which had Hinduism, it was before 1500.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, I can't promise on the Bible
But nonetheless I can tell you that the AI uses missionaries in case of AP. Just yesterday I witnessed Christianity (which had the AP) spread in 3 German cities in the same turn, seems too much for "natural" spreading.

That was probably the "inspired missionary" event, which doesn't get announced unless you have it.

Event8:
Inspired Mission
Prereq: City with 2 religions 1 of them your state religion
Obsolete: None
Active/Weight: 75/200
Result:
1.State religion spreads to 4 own cities (with 1 or no other religions)
2.you pay 10 gold AND State religion spreads to 4 own and 1 foreign cities (with 1 or no other religions)
3.you pay 25 gold AND State religion spreads to 4 own and 4 foreign cities (with 1 or no other religions)

 

[Muz]

I always thought cultures and borders in Civ was based on well.. a kind of nationalism, e.g. if the Germans see a very advanced Netherlands, and see their city as highly primitive, they'd rather join the Dutch.

In real life, I can only recall one case of it happening.. East and West Berlin. One side got grumpy at the other side being so rich and cultured that they started rebelling and eventually became one united country. In my country, there was also a time when Singapore 'flipped' into Malaysia, but they were 'liberated' a few years later And then there's the recent cases of Tibet-China, Taiwan-China, Aceh-Indonesia unrest, also probably cultural.

As you can see.. culture flips and unstability happen a lot more if they're actually from the same culture. They also happen in different cultures, because I remember the Malay Sultanate collapsing when European nations started taking over neighboring cities.

So, point not very valid

 

[AnotherPacifist]

In real life, I can only recall one case of it happening.. East and West Berlin. One side got grumpy at the other side being so rich and cultured that they started rebelling and eventually became one united country. In my country, there was also a time when Singapore 'flipped' into Malaysia, but they were 'liberated' a few years later And then there's the recent cases of Tibet-China, Taiwan-China, Aceh-Indonesia unrest, also probably cultural.

As you can see.. culture flips and unstability happen a lot more if they're actually from the same culture. They also happen in different cultures, because I remember the Malay Sultanate collapsing when European nations started taking over neighboring cities.

Well, all your examples are basically from eras after the medieval age, when culture is, well, mostly uniform. At least if I were a traveler from China in 1300, I would not be able to tell the difference between Amsterdam, and say, a large German port like Hamburg.

No way would a German peasant living in Russia know about the advanced Dutch. (Well, the HRE in RFC is misrepresented since Bismarck's state didn't exist until 1870). And would just knowing banking and an extra tech like Divine Right (if that's not a primitive concept I don't know what is) convince the illiterate German peasant that the Dutch culture is better? No way; in fact it would probably be the opposite (the ungodly Dutch with their bankers).

In most of my games when the Dutch collapsed the Germans, it was AFTER the collapse that Hamburg usually joins the Dutch, not before. It would have been better if Hamburg flipped early because Berlin's culture would have been able to withstand Hamburgs. I.e. it's a matter of game mechanics that caused the Germans to collapse, which is easily remedied by decreasing the initial destabilizing event. Culture groups is just a proposal of one such balancing mechanism.

After nationalism, democracy and other advanced modern ideas, I agree, your examples of cultural clash between groups with lots of affinity became more accentuated, but in no case did the larger country actually "collapse" into civil war. East/West Berlin was just a reflection of the larger conflict between Stalinism and western style democracy. And we all know that cultural differences can be built up slowly for extrinsic reasons (e.g. the Austrian empire vs. the Balkans in order to divide and rule), even if the cultures are relatively closely related, if not identical. (e.g. Taiwan/China)

 

[onedreamer]

You take the culture flip in Civ from the wrong perception IMO. The culture for which cities flip is not foreign, as you think, but it is in the city. When the culture of 50% or more of the city population is not the same of the civ's city, people will revolt. History is full of cases like this (last one is Kosovo), and I find it quite realistic. The only doubts are about how culture moves among cities: this is the simplified Civ version of peaceful pop. migrations. Or at least that's how I see it. The mechanics are questionable, but this is still a strategic game after all

 

[onedreamer]

I've seen plenty of games where Germany has collapsed. I've also seen a super strong uber-Germany in others. It seems to me like it is a "hit or miss" civ; either it will be a superpower or it will collapse which is not so unrealistic if you consider some of the foreign policy decisions Germany has made historically.

Actually I can say this of pretty much ANY civ in RFC.

 

[Barak]

What I want an explanation of is culture blooms and gaps. When a new civ spawns, it claims culture in working squares of older civs. Example being how Babili looses all its squares south and west of the city with the spawning of the Arabs. In fact, adding a great artist does nothing to alleviate this problem, although strange culture blooms of Blue or Peach (depending on if Babylonian or Persian) exist within the green culture borders.

It is one thing that can be prepared for, but not easily overcome (short of through conquest). Of course declaring war too early means a loss of troops.

Do the Arabs really need THAT much assistance, since they never build cities there anyway?

 

[onedreamer]

the culture of the existing civ is converted into culture of the spawning civ (this is for all Civs not just Arabs) at the moment of their spawn. You can slowly regain cultural supremacy because you already have an infrastructure they don't have (with Arabs is a little harder because they have Cathedrals in conquered cities). A Great Work will of course help. Turks can convert part (a good part) of existing culture even later in the game, when they conquer a foreign city.
Why some squares further from Babylon become babylonian again sooner than closer ones ? Easy, since they are further there was less culture at the moment of Arab spawn, so the arabian culture there is lower, and you regain cultural supremacy faster.

 

[Barak]

Just seems strange that 90% of a civ's culture would immediately switch to the "new kids on the block" Especially when the sqaures are outside the normal cultural radius. Guess its always been there, just notice it more in the middel east as the cities are closer together.