How does this sound to you guys? A mod where the main purpose of the game was to win the culture wars of the late 19th and 20th centuries? We live in a media saturated world where culture is a tool of governments and big business, and where we are bombarded with adverts, tv, and many other forms of our own distinct cultural view point.
My idea is simply (in theory not practice) to create a mod that would allow a player to build up there culture and use that culture to wage ecconomic, not millitary, war.
In the last 150 years there have emerged 5 distinct major cultural groups: Western, Japanese, Indian, Islam, and Communism. Each group has developed different, yet similar, methods of delivery of it's message and cultural ideals. There are other historic cultures who have thrived under the umbrella of the major 5 - sub-sahran Africa, China, Indo-china, Hispanic etc, but these have all been intergrated into the mainstream in various wars.
There are 6 ways in which these messages have been delivered: TV, film, radio, newspapers, internet, and religion. Each cultures has used these strands to varying degrees of sucess, and indeed some have rejected various elements of each strand in order to secure their culture against the manipulations of another (i.e. Islamic distaste for western media and culture in general).
What I am advocating is a mod which allows a player to become a cultural force, and to win the game by becoming the dominant culture of the game. In the original CIV this is done through 3500 years of accumulating history, in this MOD I am suggesting we start in 1850 and end in 2050. This era saw the birth of the modern idea of culture and mass media, and thus was really the start of national and big business culture wars.
As far as new elements to the game would be concerned I think the there are several areas that could added and expanded to make this an interesting one:
Civics:
Change the religious civics to reflect their attitude and importance with in society i.e. Europe has an ambivelance to religion in general whilest America and the middle east use religion as a way to justify the actions.
Add a media civic into the mix that would allow a nation to show how much control they would have over the media - a freer press would allow more culture but would also run the risk of cultural contamination from another civ.
Great hero:
Add a new great hero called the media mogul into the mix. Unlike the artist who solely helps with gold and culture, the media mogul would be like the warlord hero in that he could possibly build a media centre in the city that would add gold and culture at the cost of say health or science (too many distractions hehe).
Another idea would be along the lines of the Warlords control the ancient med scenario where you can develop hero's through the science tab. This would allow you to ramp up you culture at the expence of further developing that culture.
Also create minor hero's that could be created every couple of turns through a certain building - i.e. create a minor artist hero through record label. He could then spread the culture faster. This could be similar to the accolyte in the FFH mod.
Religion vs cultural forces:
Another factor could be the implementation of culture as religion and use 'missionaries' (like movie stars) to spread the words. A country could still have a major world religion like Christianity as it's main religion, or it could become a mass consumer society whose only wish would be to worship Beckham or Cruise at the weekend.
Sport:
I know other people have discussed sport in other threads, but this could be a good way of using sports in a pro-active way. A city could build a stadium which would generate income, and when a set amount have been build a national stadium would then be possible - this in turn would lead to the Olympic games national project. All of these would benefit culture and gold, with happyness and war effect being lessened.
Buildings:
Fast food franchise: +X happyness +X unhealthyness. The defining mark of any culture is it's fast food hehe.
Cinema: +X happyness & amplyfies the effect of the movies resource.
Internet cafe: +X culture & makes the culture more secpetable to cultural conversion.
National wonders:
Movie town (i.e. Hollywood and Bollywood): +50% culture in city +X movies to trade +X unhealthyness across civ.
Major record label (i.e. Motown and Virgin): +50% culture in city +X songs to trade.
The reason for including the above two are that they are already world wonders, but because most major cultural groups have their own sound and vision I feel it would be more balanced to allow all cultures to have them.
I also think that adding unhealthymess to some buildings reflects the way in which certain cultures have sacrificed health for happyness.
Victory conditions:
Cultural/religious domination: X% of the world follows your culture/religion - as per the standard game.
Media domination: X number of cities have X culture - as per the standard game.
National culture: Your civ has X total culture.
I love to build up my culture throughout the game, and by using culture as a pro-active weapon against my foes in order to consume then into my way of thinking sounds like fun to me, and I think a great mod for CIV 4. I have no plans to develop it yet as I want to see what you guys think.
Thanks,
Rachel
My idea is simply (in theory not practice) to create a mod that would allow a player to build up there culture and use that culture to wage ecconomic, not millitary, war.
In the last 150 years there have emerged 5 distinct major cultural groups: Western, Japanese, Indian, Islam, and Communism. Each group has developed different, yet similar, methods of delivery of it's message and cultural ideals. There are other historic cultures who have thrived under the umbrella of the major 5 - sub-sahran Africa, China, Indo-china, Hispanic etc, but these have all been intergrated into the mainstream in various wars.
There are 6 ways in which these messages have been delivered: TV, film, radio, newspapers, internet, and religion. Each cultures has used these strands to varying degrees of sucess, and indeed some have rejected various elements of each strand in order to secure their culture against the manipulations of another (i.e. Islamic distaste for western media and culture in general).
What I am advocating is a mod which allows a player to become a cultural force, and to win the game by becoming the dominant culture of the game. In the original CIV this is done through 3500 years of accumulating history, in this MOD I am suggesting we start in 1850 and end in 2050. This era saw the birth of the modern idea of culture and mass media, and thus was really the start of national and big business culture wars.
As far as new elements to the game would be concerned I think the there are several areas that could added and expanded to make this an interesting one:
Civics:
Change the religious civics to reflect their attitude and importance with in society i.e. Europe has an ambivelance to religion in general whilest America and the middle east use religion as a way to justify the actions.
Add a media civic into the mix that would allow a nation to show how much control they would have over the media - a freer press would allow more culture but would also run the risk of cultural contamination from another civ.
Great hero:
Add a new great hero called the media mogul into the mix. Unlike the artist who solely helps with gold and culture, the media mogul would be like the warlord hero in that he could possibly build a media centre in the city that would add gold and culture at the cost of say health or science (too many distractions hehe).
Another idea would be along the lines of the Warlords control the ancient med scenario where you can develop hero's through the science tab. This would allow you to ramp up you culture at the expence of further developing that culture.
Also create minor hero's that could be created every couple of turns through a certain building - i.e. create a minor artist hero through record label. He could then spread the culture faster. This could be similar to the accolyte in the FFH mod.
Religion vs cultural forces:
Another factor could be the implementation of culture as religion and use 'missionaries' (like movie stars) to spread the words. A country could still have a major world religion like Christianity as it's main religion, or it could become a mass consumer society whose only wish would be to worship Beckham or Cruise at the weekend.
Sport:
I know other people have discussed sport in other threads, but this could be a good way of using sports in a pro-active way. A city could build a stadium which would generate income, and when a set amount have been build a national stadium would then be possible - this in turn would lead to the Olympic games national project. All of these would benefit culture and gold, with happyness and war effect being lessened.
Buildings:
Fast food franchise: +X happyness +X unhealthyness. The defining mark of any culture is it's fast food hehe.
Cinema: +X happyness & amplyfies the effect of the movies resource.
Internet cafe: +X culture & makes the culture more secpetable to cultural conversion.
National wonders:
Movie town (i.e. Hollywood and Bollywood): +50% culture in city +X movies to trade +X unhealthyness across civ.
Major record label (i.e. Motown and Virgin): +50% culture in city +X songs to trade.
The reason for including the above two are that they are already world wonders, but because most major cultural groups have their own sound and vision I feel it would be more balanced to allow all cultures to have them.
I also think that adding unhealthymess to some buildings reflects the way in which certain cultures have sacrificed health for happyness.
Victory conditions:
Cultural/religious domination: X% of the world follows your culture/religion - as per the standard game.
Media domination: X number of cities have X culture - as per the standard game.
National culture: Your civ has X total culture.
I love to build up my culture throughout the game, and by using culture as a pro-active weapon against my foes in order to consume then into my way of thinking sounds like fun to me, and I think a great mod for CIV 4. I have no plans to develop it yet as I want to see what you guys think.
Thanks,
Rachel
