Culture in Civ VI.

[Red Menace]

I'm very interested in culture and how it will be adapted in Civ VI, in Civ IV it was mostly borders and culture Victory, than in Civ V it changed to buying social policies, and since Civ VI will have tourism I wonder if we will see the return of social policies.

I don't like social policies so much in Civ V, not that I hate them and think its a terrible idea but the system needs a lot of improving.

 

[theis81]

I read somewhere that you "no longer pick a strategy from the start and stick to that". I hope that means social policies are removed.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

The part that I dislike about social policies is that you can choose them all. The choice that is made is when you choose one policy (tree). You can choose both policies motivating for wide play and for tall (tradition and liberty). While the difference should also mean that they are mutually excluding each other or to some extent.

 

[Cerilis]

I read somewhere that you "no longer pick a strategy from the start and stick to that". I hope that means social policies are removed.

Didn't they more likely meant with that to not "have it set in stone to go tradition then rationalism before even starting the game"? Not neccessarily that something like social policies is gone. Or that you can revert them later on.

 

[Ryika]

I don't see why that concept would go against Social Policies. Just delay them a little more at the start of the game so that you can start making decisions at a point where you actually know the exact situation you're in and don't have to decide to go for either the "safe bet"-tradition opening or blindly play into a wide strategy that may or may not work out.

I for one hope they keep them alive, and maybe spend more effort balancing them this time around. I think policies was probably the feature that needed the longest time to be "fixed" in all of CiV-history.

 

[stealth_nsk]

In general there are 2 approaches:

1. Buying social policies with culture.
2. Switching between civics.

The first system has disadvantage of being permanent. If you choose tall way, you have to go tall the rest of the game. You could move social policies up and down, but this situation persist. The number of choices is generally limited and they not affect the strategy enough.

Switching civics mechanic of Civ1-4 (with Civ4 and SMAC having several areas of civics) theoretically gives more flexible strategy, but in reality balancing the choices is very hard. Also:
- The "revolution" switching mechanic is quite lame.
- The system is not connected with culture, so it requires other role for culture.

Honestly I don't have an idea how to make this work well. So rough idea is - make switching civics, but instead of revolution, each civic switch requires an amount of culture to spend, the bigger each time you do the switch. But this system would require other uses of global culture (in form of "spending" it) and overall quite hard connection with the rest of the systems.

 

[oddtail]

One idea culture might work and incorporate both Civ4 and Civ5 solutions:

1) The game mechanics work kinda similar to civics. There are bonuses and modifiers that are switchable, possibly with some time to wait or at a cost.
2) New options (new civics) are unlocked by certain technologies.
3) The number/complexity of modifiers is influenced by the total culture (or by current culture output, either might work). So if you have a lot of culture total, you get to pick, say, 10 policies, and if your culture output is lower, it's - say - 5.

This would keep the "buying policies" element of Civ5 while incorporating the freedom of Civ4 and adding more choice/dynamic change.

And it would be possible to still have permanent bonuses that may be bought at a certain culture cost. In fact, the choice between fixed, permanent bonuses and switchable civics would actually add more options and possibilities. The two could also change and interact in a number of ways.

EDIT: this system might have another advantage - it would make for different, distinct strategies depending on whether you want the great bonuses (you need to go for certain techs), or you just want a lot of bonuses (you go for high culture production), or perhaps both. In Civ 5, one big problem I had was that the difference between a civilization crazy-focused on culture and a civilization that almost ignored culture production was... not that great. It was a few policies at most, by the end of the game. It was done for balance reasons, I get it, but it was WAAAAAAAAY overdone.

 

[Stilgar08]

I heard in a german youtube-video that the social policy system has been significantly revamped, but not in which direction. It would certainly be great if you could change policies for a price (eg no benefits during transition period x turns).

I'm positive they have adressed the static policy approach from CIV since from what I read/heard so far, top priority was to make the player constantly thinking...

I sincerely hope the victory condition they overhauled was culture victory as well because it always felt a bit "constructed" to me.

 

[theis81]

One idea culture might work and incorporate both Civ4 and Civ5 solutions:

1) The game mechanics work kinda similar to civics. There are bonuses and modifiers that are switchable, possibly with some time to wait or at a cost.
2) New options (new civics) are unlocked by certain technologies.
3) The number/complexity of modifiers is influenced by the total culture (or by current culture output, either might work). So if you have a lot of culture total, you get to pick, say, 10 policies, and if your culture output is lower, it's - say - 5.

Honestly I don't have an idea how to make this work well. So rough idea is - make switching civics, but instead of revolution, each civic switch requires an amount of culture to spend, the bigger each time you do the switch. But this system would require other uses of global culture (in form of "spending" it) and overall quite hard connection with the rest of the systems.

I really like both suggestions. A simple combination would be that culture as today had a counter and everytime you reached a new level you could change civics and all civics would be stronger. Maybe certain levels of culture could unlock new civics early on before you got the tech.

For example a civic like free market could be unlucked with
- culture lvl 6 and banking
- culture lvl 8 and economics
- electricity

 

[dexters]

You know what I miss? Nationalities

If a city can retain its nationality after conquered, it opens up a new mechanic of controlling warmonger sprawl and works well with the proposed local happiness mechanic.
One tweak I would change is that, nationalities should not assimilate as quickly, and assimilation speed can be a Civ UA trait / cultural superiority mechanic.

The concept can be further parsed out between nationality & faction:
Faction is the identifier each Civ has for their Civ owner. So natively grown cities will have factions identifying as say, Japanese or Babylonian.

Factions determine the populations for each civ, and even in conquered cities, their size will continue to grow and they may migrate. However, these factions can change to your nationality given enough culture bonuses/assimilation traits.

This opens up possibilities for multi-ethnic hybrid Civs of the player's making. It's not something I expect in the base game, but imagine a hybrid Indian-British Civ that developed organically in the early game. That Civ could maybe get a specific combination bonus that is unique to them.

I know this is going into the counterfactual historical route and it's not everyone's cup of tea, but the concepts of factions/race and nationality would be really nice things to explore. Cities should not be faceless production centers

 

[stealth_nsk]

You know what I miss? Nationalities

If a city can retain its nationality after conquered, it opens up a new mechanic of controlling warmonger sprawl and works well with the proposed local happiness mechanic.
One tweak I would change is that, nationalities should not assimilate as quickly, and assimilation speed can be a Civ UA trait / cultural superiority mechanic.

The concept can be further parsed out between nationality & faction:
Faction is the identifier each Civ has for their Civ owner. So natively grown cities will have factions identifying as say, Japanese or Babylonian.

Factions determine the populations for each civ, and even in conquered cities, their size will continue to grow and they may migrate. However, these factions can change to your nationality given enough culture bonuses/assimilation traits.

This opens up possibilities for multi-ethnic hybrid Civs of the player's making. It's not something I expect in the base game, but imagine a hybrid Indian-British Civ that developed organically in the early game. That Civ could maybe get a specific combination bonus that is unique to them.

I know this is going into the counterfactual historical route and it's not everyone's cup of tea, but the concepts of factions/race and nationality would be really nice things to explore. Cities should not be faceless production centers

It may look cool, but the system like this is extremely opaque. The beauty of civilization game comes from some set of easy countable numbers. Also, this system partially duplicates religion in terms of spreading and influence.

And at this point I don't see any gameplay reason for this. Making tall culture-based empires stronger? Making conquering cities even more difficult? I don't think something like this is needed.

 

[dexters]

It may look cool, but the system like this is extremely opaque. The beauty of civilization game comes from some set of easy countable numbers. Also, this system partially duplicates religion in terms of spreading and influence.

And at this point I don't see any gameplay reason for this. Making tall culture-based empires stronger? Making conquering cities even more difficult? I don't think something like this is needed.

You bring up a good point as religion sometimes has a high correlation with nationality. I don't mind if it's part of the religion system either.

I just want something more tangible as I run my empire.

 

[Nixalo]

I personally like the ideology pyramid method.

With culture you buy policies in trees and slot them in the pyramid. Ideology and Religious policies would be permanent if you use them. And if you have X number of a policy type in your pyramid, you get the completion bonus.

 

[theis81]

You know what I miss? Nationalities

If a city can retain its nationality after conquered, it opens up a new mechanic of controlling warmonger sprawl and works well with the proposed local happiness mechanic.
One tweak I would change is that, nationalities should not assimilate as quickly, and assimilation speed can be a Civ UA trait / cultural superiority mechanic.

I like the basic idea it would be a bit like in civ4, but where you kept borders, but strugled with culture for a longer period. Riots could appear in districts or city center and you would have extra local unhappiness until you had the city under control. There should be modifiers that could influence the time to get the city under your culture it could be military precense, courthouse, same religion, your own total culture, the total culture of captured civ etc.

 

[cairnsy44]

I personally like the ideology pyramid method.

With culture you buy policies in trees and slot them in the pyramid. Ideology and Religious policies would be permanent if you use them. And if you have X number of a policy type in your pyramid, you get the completion bonus.

I could see that working quite well. It should be interesting to see how it is implemented.

 

[rschissler]

What about the buying tiles to expand territory?

 

[Atwork]

Re: nationalities and the concept of 'superiority,' here are very rough thoughts:

A 'militarily superior' civ that conquers another may instill fear in the conquered, but not loyalty -- and the population would actively resist assimilation.

A 'culturally superior' civ may increase the rate of assimilation, however religious differences may cause resistance.

A 'scientifically superior' civ may instill a sense of wonder in the conquered, again increasing the rate of assimilation, however that rate again might be slowed if the conquered were perceived as militaristic or enemies as to cultural or religious values.

And a civ's national identity could play into all this:

If America, with 25% English national identity conquered England, then the assimilation of England would be hastened by so many Americans identifying with the English and the English identifying with so many Americans. However, militarism or cultural/religious values could again interfere with assimilation.

In Civ 6, the game should definitely present a challenge to not only taking a city, but more importantly -- holding the city and quelling unrest.

 

[Red Menace]

I heard in a german youtube-video that the social policy system has been significantly revamped, but not in which direction. It would certainly be great if you could change policies for a price (eg no benefits during transition period x turns).

I'm positive they have adressed the static policy approach from CIV since from what I read/heard so far, top priority was to make the player constantly thinking...

I sincerely hope the victory condition they overhauled was culture victory as well because it always felt a bit "constructed" to me.

I didn't know this but I figured it was going to be changed, hopefully they give some more info on it. and with Tourism be carried over maybe they have a really good cultural victory...... maybe.

I personally like the ideology pyramid method.

With culture you buy policies in trees and slot them in the pyramid. Ideology and Religious policies would be permanent if you use them. And if you have X number of a policy type in your pyramid, you get the completion bonus.

I was wondering about Ideology, I hope its being carried over I haven't seen anything about it though and we already know that Religion, trade routes, archeology, tourism, and just about everything else from Civ V.

 

[Nixalo]

I was wondering about Ideology, I hope its being carried over I haven't seen anything about it though and we already know that Religion, trade routes, archeology, tourism, and just about everything else from Civ V.

I'm hoping for it and hoping it get rolled in with Social policies. They were cool and a go way to change up late game.

My ideal system would be "Policy cards".

You get them either by purchasing them with culture, getting them along with techs, on being awarded them with Religions and Ideologies. You slot in "Policy cards" into your Civ and you can pay more culture to indoor them. Policy cards with fixed aspects like units and Opener cards cannot be unsloted

Policies would be tiered and you'd need to support high tier policies with weaker low tier ones. Add in the importance of terrain and free policies, there wouldn't be an optimal path to be chosen for every game. Going Tradition when your start promotes wide play and barbarians are harassing you might be bad. Better to take policies that gives you bonus troops and supports expansion.

 

[MIS]

I liked how Civ:BE did it, with horizontal (as well as vertical) bonuses.