imagine a game where when we invade a city we pillage it but do not "conquer" it. expansion after the initial landgrab phase would be done through cultural means only. but do not think it would be so simple as to mean the one who builds the most temples wins. surely the designers will overflow with ideas to reconcile a culture game with the necessity of war. some examples of possible rules and strategies:
1) not all technology can be traded. some MUST be acquired through the occupation of foreign cities.
2) war weariness will reach huge levels under any government if occupation is drawn out long enough. not only must the occupied cities be vacated but war must be avoided for many turns afterward.
3) occupation of a foreign city causes only slight damage to its improvements and population. sometimes none at all. it has only a slight weakening effect on the foreign power.
4) but the occupying force might gain a culture technology he could have gotten no other way! he now has the capability to improve his culture a little more than he could before!
5) as in civ III there are culture flips. we want to gain culture so as to gradually expand our own borders in this manner.
6) migrations! a high population civ might migrate population outward to neighboring civs to water down their neighbors with their own race. this would increase the incidence of culture flips.
7) perhaps an impoverished nation has a trickle out of population who seek not the culture of the neighboring civ but the end to their own poverty. such migration mixes culture as well but is not likely to cause immediate culture flips because...
8) culture flips are dependent on both culture and economic well being. though the poor people who migrate to the rich country do water down the culture the poor eventually will get assimilated into the culture of the rich if they remain poor.
9) militarty support cost is high and it goes up with war weariness. the result is that large standing armies cannot be maintained indefinitely without bankrupting the civ. armies come and go. they are a tool for gaining technology and knowledge of culture from other countries. and they are a tool for a season. a country that never disbands its army impoverishes itself and loses its ability to export culture.
now for some answers to some expected objections such as...
1) why cant i "conquer" cities? its a wargame isnt it?
answer: because this is a game of thousands of years, not a tactical wargame. in only a small minority of wars has a conquest been permanantly added to an empire. alexander's greeks may have conquered india but they did not keep it and they did not even keep persia or egypt. what they DID do was spread cultural influence to many parts of the civilized world so that a bigger percent of the world's population after that identified themselves as "culturally greek". the persians never expanded their (permanant) influence much beyond modern day iran. the assyrians conquered much but ended up with no permanant cultural influence anywhere. same is true of the babylonians. such empires "occupied" much land but failed to expand their cultural borders. they thought that by continuing to "occupy" and by "mixing population" they would pull off cultural expansion and a permanant gain for themselves. instead the cost of war was their undoing because they could not leave well enough alone when they gained a little.
russia was successful in expanding their culture sphere to the ukraine to siberia and to belarus, but failed to incorporate eastern europe into their culture area. had they been content with the territory of the former soviet union they may have eventually culturally incorporated all of it, possibly even the baltic states. but in their gambit to expand too quickly they bankrupted themselves and are likely to lose the southern republics permanantly from their culture area as well as the baltics. and so also in this game we will learn the art of grabbing a little and working long to incorporate it through immigration gifting prosperity and patience rather than thinking we can occupy a huge territory and actually succeed in adding it to our permanant culture base.
2) why does occupation of a foreign city not destroy its improvements?
because a university in civ ought not to represent a physical building but rather the institution of higher learning for the masses. it symbolizes education which does not disappear overnight simply because a city was occupied with foreigners. so for example though germany and japan were bombed into the ground in the second world war they remained as industrial heavyweights. they may have lost physical buildings called "factories" but they did not lose the civ icon of the "factory". both of them may be argued however to have lost "temple" since they have both become secular societies after the war. england may have lost "marketplace" in that war as well as "temple". but the point being that it took an extreme war to lose only a couple buildings. none of the three have lost "library". even nuclear bombs on japan did not cause them to lose "library"! so improvements lost to war in civ likewise should be rare events.
3) so why go to war at all if there is nothing to gain from it?
because there is! knowledge of culture! though rome had "temple" it required the conquest of the middle east for them to gain knowledge of "cathedral". it required the conquest of greece to obtain knowledge of "university". lets face it rome was in a golden age or they could never have held onto their empire long enough to culturally include so much of it.
4) what is the role of different government types?
the way they spread culture. democrcay spreads culture through the "envy of wealth". they can never spread culture through martial law but in a war of liberation (honoring a mutual protection pact) they can spread culture to the cities they liberate. they may NOT spread culture through population mixing. they may not stay long before cultural influence starts to go negative. communism however may spread culture through "population mixing" enabled when they occupy foreign cities. this strategy must be balanced against the risks of staying too long and allowing war weariness to cause poverty. poverty causes cultural loss everywhere in the empire and can cause the loss of recently flipped cities that have not fully assimilated the culture of the empire.
these are but a sprinkling of ideas to start the ball rolling on the concept of a culturally dominated game paradigm. they are not thought out in detail. flaws will no doubt be found and improvements and extensions will hopefully be suggested.
1) not all technology can be traded. some MUST be acquired through the occupation of foreign cities.
2) war weariness will reach huge levels under any government if occupation is drawn out long enough. not only must the occupied cities be vacated but war must be avoided for many turns afterward.
3) occupation of a foreign city causes only slight damage to its improvements and population. sometimes none at all. it has only a slight weakening effect on the foreign power.
4) but the occupying force might gain a culture technology he could have gotten no other way! he now has the capability to improve his culture a little more than he could before!
5) as in civ III there are culture flips. we want to gain culture so as to gradually expand our own borders in this manner.
6) migrations! a high population civ might migrate population outward to neighboring civs to water down their neighbors with their own race. this would increase the incidence of culture flips.
7) perhaps an impoverished nation has a trickle out of population who seek not the culture of the neighboring civ but the end to their own poverty. such migration mixes culture as well but is not likely to cause immediate culture flips because...
8) culture flips are dependent on both culture and economic well being. though the poor people who migrate to the rich country do water down the culture the poor eventually will get assimilated into the culture of the rich if they remain poor.
9) militarty support cost is high and it goes up with war weariness. the result is that large standing armies cannot be maintained indefinitely without bankrupting the civ. armies come and go. they are a tool for gaining technology and knowledge of culture from other countries. and they are a tool for a season. a country that never disbands its army impoverishes itself and loses its ability to export culture.
now for some answers to some expected objections such as...
1) why cant i "conquer" cities? its a wargame isnt it?
answer: because this is a game of thousands of years, not a tactical wargame. in only a small minority of wars has a conquest been permanantly added to an empire. alexander's greeks may have conquered india but they did not keep it and they did not even keep persia or egypt. what they DID do was spread cultural influence to many parts of the civilized world so that a bigger percent of the world's population after that identified themselves as "culturally greek". the persians never expanded their (permanant) influence much beyond modern day iran. the assyrians conquered much but ended up with no permanant cultural influence anywhere. same is true of the babylonians. such empires "occupied" much land but failed to expand their cultural borders. they thought that by continuing to "occupy" and by "mixing population" they would pull off cultural expansion and a permanant gain for themselves. instead the cost of war was their undoing because they could not leave well enough alone when they gained a little.
russia was successful in expanding their culture sphere to the ukraine to siberia and to belarus, but failed to incorporate eastern europe into their culture area. had they been content with the territory of the former soviet union they may have eventually culturally incorporated all of it, possibly even the baltic states. but in their gambit to expand too quickly they bankrupted themselves and are likely to lose the southern republics permanantly from their culture area as well as the baltics. and so also in this game we will learn the art of grabbing a little and working long to incorporate it through immigration gifting prosperity and patience rather than thinking we can occupy a huge territory and actually succeed in adding it to our permanant culture base.
2) why does occupation of a foreign city not destroy its improvements?
because a university in civ ought not to represent a physical building but rather the institution of higher learning for the masses. it symbolizes education which does not disappear overnight simply because a city was occupied with foreigners. so for example though germany and japan were bombed into the ground in the second world war they remained as industrial heavyweights. they may have lost physical buildings called "factories" but they did not lose the civ icon of the "factory". both of them may be argued however to have lost "temple" since they have both become secular societies after the war. england may have lost "marketplace" in that war as well as "temple". but the point being that it took an extreme war to lose only a couple buildings. none of the three have lost "library". even nuclear bombs on japan did not cause them to lose "library"! so improvements lost to war in civ likewise should be rare events.
3) so why go to war at all if there is nothing to gain from it?
because there is! knowledge of culture! though rome had "temple" it required the conquest of the middle east for them to gain knowledge of "cathedral". it required the conquest of greece to obtain knowledge of "university". lets face it rome was in a golden age or they could never have held onto their empire long enough to culturally include so much of it.
4) what is the role of different government types?
the way they spread culture. democrcay spreads culture through the "envy of wealth". they can never spread culture through martial law but in a war of liberation (honoring a mutual protection pact) they can spread culture to the cities they liberate. they may NOT spread culture through population mixing. they may not stay long before cultural influence starts to go negative. communism however may spread culture through "population mixing" enabled when they occupy foreign cities. this strategy must be balanced against the risks of staying too long and allowing war weariness to cause poverty. poverty causes cultural loss everywhere in the empire and can cause the loss of recently flipped cities that have not fully assimilated the culture of the empire.
these are but a sprinkling of ideas to start the ball rolling on the concept of a culturally dominated game paradigm. they are not thought out in detail. flaws will no doubt be found and improvements and extensions will hopefully be suggested.
