"Foreign" Residents of an Empire should play a bigger role in the game

[polypheus]

In Civ4, the residents of the cities of a given empire have "cultural" affiliation. So if I am playing as the Germans, I might see something like: Germans: 50%, Russians 25%, French 25% in a given city.

For sake of discussion, let's call the residents of your empire that are affiliated with a foreign culture as "foreign residents". (Note that I realize that this is not really correct either from the POV of a recently conquered city as they would not consider themselves "foreigners" but natives under occupation but let's use this term for simplicity sake).

As far as I can recall, there were only two game play mechanics that came into play. One is that in a newly conquered city, the foreign residents would "resist" and not be productive for a while. Another mechanic was that if you are at war with the foreign nation, residents in your empire with cultural affiliation of that foreign nation would be unhappy.

Now I have no idea what mechanic will be used for Civ5. I have so far not seen anything on this. But I would really hope that the game play depth and possibilities regarding foreign residents has been increased from Civ4.

One thing that I would like to see is for the foreign residents to not be so easily assimilated out. If you conquer a large nation full of "foreigners", it seems it would be more realistic for those conquered cities to continue to maintain the foreign culture for a really LONG time. Recall that when the Ottoman Empire conquered Greece and Arabia for instance, Greek culture and Arab culture did not just slowly die out but remained and even strengthened through the centuries!

Also "civics" and government policies should have an effect on an empire's "stability" and productivity. For instance, if you run more tolerant, "democratic" "civics" (or whatever its rough equivalent is in Civ5), you will see less trouble from cobbling together a large empire made up largely of "foreigners". If you don't you will see more trouble in various forms.

Another possibility would be for foreign residents to be able to stage rebellions. And for other nations to be able to support and aid said rebellions with money and troops. And for said rebellions to be able to succeed so that occupied nations can regain their independence. Again using the Ottoman Empire example of RL, think about the "Greek War of Independence" of the 1820s. With the help of Britain, France and Russia, "foreign residents" of Greek culture within the Ottoman Empire rebelled and re-established the independence of Greece.

This last mechanic would be both very realistic, increase game play depth and make the game far more "historically" immersive. It would also really model accurately the difficulty involved in trying to conquer and rule huge numbers of foreign lands. And it would serve as a check and counter to the "bigger is better" issue. With such mechanics, a large empire formed from oppressed conquered peoples might not always be better than a small but homogenous nation that doesn't have to deal with such problems.

These are some idea for expanding the game play possibilities of foreign residents. Again I have no idea what is in store for Civ5. Hopefully even if it is not in the default game that these kinds of things can be modded in later.

 

[Tigernose]

I never actually see multiple culture percentages when examining a city, I only see the city's civilization's percentage, even if it isn't 100% it's always alone.

Also, what do you mean by rebellions? Aren't revolts already implemented and they usually takeover the city if successful? Maybe the foreign residents could build their own units in your city, and if at war, can attack other units in the city.

Your ideas are sounding good, but I need clarification.

 

[Chalks]

The fact that different nationalities become naturalised into a culture over time and civilization is a game that takes place over many thousands of years, the only place that nationality is going to be a factor are border cities where there is a persistent influx of immigration, and in recently captured territory.

In my opinion, culture already models this adequately. Over time, the foreign influence in cities is decreased as more and more of the ruling nationality move to and are born in the city.

You already get several turns of disorder and zero production for freshly conquered cities.

 

[polypheus]

The fact that different nationalities become naturalised into a culture over time and civilization is a game that takes place over many thousands of years, the only place that nationality is going to be a factor are border cities where there is a persistent influx of immigration, and in recently captured territory.

In my opinion, culture already models this adequately. Over time, the foreign influence in cities is decreased as more and more of the ruling nationality move to and are born in the city.

You already get several turns of disorder and zero production for freshly conquered cities.

I agree that this happens. And there are of course many examples where this happens. The USA is a good example of this of course.

But there are many many examples in history where this clearly did not happen. Look at the Ottoman Empire. All of the conquered peoples, the Greeks, the Serbs, Arabs, etc etc did not suddenly become Turks culturally over time even though the Ottoman Empire lasted many centuries.

As I already mentioned, when the Turks conquered Greece in RL history, there was not simply "several turns of disorder and zero production for freshly conquered cities" in Civ4 terms. The disorder was persistent with lots of small scale rebellions and resistance from the time when Greece was conquered all the way to when they rebelled (with help from Britain, France and Russia) to regain their independence!

Other examples of cultures that did not die out over time is Moorish Spain. Despite that Arabic Moors controlled large parts of Spain from 711 and 1492, Spanish culture that derived from the Roman Empire days overwhelmingly persisted. Moorish Arabic culture did make its mark on Spanish culture, it is true, but certainly nowhere near to where the Spanish peoples under Moorish rule slowly became "Arab".

Or look at the British Empire. Did Indians under the British Raj slowly become "British" over time? I don't think so.

Perhaps the "civic" and government policy reflects on the level of assimilaton? So if you run government policies that allow you to be aggressive and militaristic and non-democratic the level of assimiliation is also extremely low. But if you run the opposite, the level is somewhat higher.

 

[Duke Leto1994]

But if you look at Canada, these "foreigners" have distinct cultures of their own. In Canada before Trudeau, There were The British, irish, Scotch, Welsh, Francophones, Aborigionals and Asians. In Modern Day Canada, there are celebrations for different cultures throughout Canada. So maybe what we can do is introduce a new type of civics.

 

[Suho1004]

How quickly does this take place in Civ4? I've never really paid attention to the speed of assimilation. But I would probably agree with Chalks that the time scale of Civ allows for this assimilation.

If I understand you correctly, you are happy with the mechanics already in place (i.e., you don't want to introduce a new mechanic), you'd just like to see them applied in more detail, correct?

The civics idea is intriguing--there could be a "multiculturalism" civic that might reduce any unhappiness from "We want to join our civ" or whatever that unhappiness factor is. As far as rebellions go, I'm not sure how what you are suggesting is any different from what we already have. Significant amounts of foreign population causing unrest and revolts, and possibly even flipping. Civ4's espionage also allows foreign civs to foment rebellions (although it is true that espionage is out in Civ5, at least in the form we know it). Would you care to elaborate on what exactly you'd like to see done differently?

Right now, the only new idea I can see is the idea of having civics to alleviate some of the problems of having foreign populations--which I actually think is quite intriguing.

 

[polypheus]

How quickly does this take place in Civ4? I've never really paid attention to the speed of assimilation. But I would probably agree with Chalks that the time scale of Civ allows for this assimilation.

IIRC, Civ assimilation is very fast, especially if you are talking about a Civ that was completely conquered.

If I understand you correctly, you are happy with the mechanics already in place (i.e., you don't want to introduce a new mechanic), you'd just like to see them applied in more detail, correct?

Actually I would like to introduce new mechanics. It is probably too late for that now, what's there in Civ5 is there. I haven't read if there are new or improved mechanics or not. But anything that expands on this concept would be good. I suggested some ideas.

The civics idea is intriguing--there could be a "multiculturalism" civic that might reduce any unhappiness from "We want to join our civ" or whatever that unhappiness factor is. As far as rebellions go, I'm not sure how what you are suggesting is any different from what we already have. Significant amounts of foreign population causing unrest and revolts, and possibly even flipping. Civ4's espionage also allows foreign civs to foment rebellions (although it is true that espionage is out in Civ5, at least in the form we know it). Would you care to elaborate on what exactly you'd like to see done differently?

Right now, the only new idea I can see is the idea of having civics to alleviate some of the problems of having foreign populations--which I actually think is quite intriguing.

Well in order for the idea of "civics" to alleviate the problems of having foreign residents in your cities, the problems of having foreign residents in our city have to be significant in the first place. IIRC in Civ4, the problems were extremely minor to the point where you could really ignore this part of the game. I would like to make the problem more significant for the player to have to deal with.

As for rebellions, it would be nice to see rebellions on the scale where the rebels could actually fight the "oppressing" nation in wars of liberation and not merely just have a city flip. Remember WAY back in Civ ONE, how taking over the capital would cause your Civ to split into rival factions in a civil war where the split-off section could actually fight back? Well I'd like to bring something like that back but using the concept of citizen's cultural identity to make it happen.

I am NOT necessarily suggesting that taking over the capital a la Civ 1 is the way to go. But some other mechanism for rebels to start meaningful wars of liberation and ways for sympathetic nations to aid them would be great. AFAIK, these things wereen't available in Civ4.

Admittedly I haven't played really any Civ4 mods so perhaps this idea is already possible, at least in a mod.

 

[Suho1004]

IIRC, Civ assimilation is very fast, especially if you are talking about a Civ that was completely conquered.

When you say "completely conquered," do you mean "eliminated"? If that's the case, then I'm pretty sure that assimilation happens instantaneously once a civilization is eliminated. Unless I'm mistaken, eliminating a civilization pretty much makes it as if the civilization never existed--there is no longer any cultural influence at all from that civ, and you no longer have citizens unhappy about not being part of their original civ. To be honest, that always struck me as a little abrupt--you would think it would take a little longer for people to forget their homeland.

Well in order for the idea of "civics" to alleviate the problems of having foreign residents in your cities, the problems of having foreign residents in our city have to be significant in the first place. IIRC in Civ4, the problems were extremely minor to the point where you could really ignore this part of the game. I would like to make the problem more significant for the player to have to deal with.

There are times when the problem is not minor, but this is usually after you've captured a city that had a lot of culture. Then again, if you consider unhappiness to be a fairly minor problem, then I guess you could say having foreign residents in your cities never caused major problems. I suppose simple unhappiness is not as serious as other possible problems.

As for rebellions, it would be nice to see rebellions on the scale where the rebels could actually fight the "oppressing" nation in wars of liberation and not merely just have a city flip. Remember WAY back in Civ ONE, how taking over the capital would cause your Civ to split into rival factions in a civil war where the split-off section could actually fight back? Well I'd like to bring something like that back but using the concept of citizen's cultural identity to make it happen.

I could easily be wrong, since I haven't played Civ1 in ages, but didn't that happen only on occasion? I mean, it didn't happen every time you took over a capital, did it? But I get your point: if you have enough unhappy foreign residents, they rebel.

Do you play BTS? There is a mechanic in there by which enemy population will sometimes turn into partisan units and join the enemy capital if you raze cities. That's not quite what you're talking about, but the fundamental mechanics are similar--if you did not do enough to appease your unhappy foreign residents, you could have a reduction in population points accompanied by the appearance of partisan resistance units outside your cities, for example.

 

[Ahriman]

I agree with Chalks.

I don't see any gameplay fun coming from adding complexity here.

Which is the main thing.

 

[Yakk]

I played around with this by modding the Civ4 DLL.

Each city deposited culture in two ways. First, it deposited culture based on the ruling empire. Then, it deposited culture based on the fractions of citizens in the city.

So if your city was a German city with 25% German citizens and 75% French, if you produced 1000 culture it would deposite 1000 German + 250 German, and 750 French culture.

This did a few things. It allowed really strong french culture to "leak" deeper into empires, and made removing the French influence of a city take a longer period of time (as even with nigh-infinite culture production, French culture would only half each round).

 

[Pazyryk]

I think older versions of Civ had a simpler and more intuitive representation of the existence of multiple nationalities in a city than Civ4. In these older versions (civ2 for sure, can't remember if civ3 had it), you could actually see those French, German and Russian citizens in the city screen. It made intuitive sense that those different faces represented remnants from past conquest, current immigration, etc.

On the other hand, the % bar indicator in Civ4 acts on my imagination in a very weird way. I guess it's all in the individual's imagination, but I always think of this bar representing some kind of "cultural radiation" emanating from another city's cultural buildings, sort of like electro-magnetic waves from a broadcast tower. As a simplified abstraction of the real world, it fails in comparisons to the previous representation. It used to at least feel like a simplification of a real world phenomena (co-habitation of a city by people of different races or heritages), where now if feels like a simplification of something that doesn't even exist in the real world. (I'm all for simplification and abstraction. But it needs to at least feel like it is representing something real.)

I think the old way led to simpler and more intuitive implementation of game mechanics too. The ethnic composition of a city (represented by distinct faces in the city screen) followed from demographic history including previous conquests, assimilation, immigration, and so on (I don't remember if immigration was implemented, but it seems straightforward to do so in that system). You could just have the French citizens (the ones with the funny hats) sit on their butts to represent dissatisfaction (the current -3 happy war wariness is abstract and simple, fine, but it seems more disconnected from the actual cause and is a less satisfying representation).

I'm not really trying to argue that I have to see faces in the city screen, or that this is necessarily better than a bar graph (I'm a scientist, I can handle bar graphs). After writing above I realize that my problem is more with how the cultural composition of a city is determined (some kind of "cultural radiation" emanating from buildings, rather than being a function of demographic events like conquest, assimilation and immigration as it should be).

 

[Duke Leto1994]

Civ III had slaves which said worker(country of origin inserted in brackets). E.G Worker(Germany)

 

[ignacz]

I think there would be a couple more effective approaches, I'm just afraid many of them may be too complicated.

One (as I mentioned in the other thread before I noticed this one had been started) would be the implementation of a language system similar to religion. There is a theory that language is a stronger unifying force than religion or even ethnicity. You might even piggy back language onto the spread of religion. For instance, even though there were local languages, the whole of educated Western Europe understood Latin.

Second option could be a flexible system of Major/Minor Civs and system for "Balkanization". I think once the idea of Nationalism has been obtained by the majority of Major Civs, cities that are neglected by their leadership or not anywhere near any of its ethnic "Motherlands" instead of flipping to a 3rd or rival Civ could emerge as a new minor Civ (either via self-initiated Declaration by which you may choose to allow it or fight them, or by mutual agreement between you and other related Civs, could be a UN Diplomacy Vote option) or independent City State (as Civ5 will be incorporating). Perhaps if those are conquered or become vassals, they retain their cultural, linguistic, and religious identity. Perhaps the City State system will allow some of this.

Finally, I wish that towns could develop into cities that can produce. Perhaps add a modern tech for suburban development that increases opportunities for this. I feel that sometimes in war it was difficult to ramp up production and caused unrealistic consequences, particularly when encountering trivial asymmetrical conflicts. I don't think it has to happen automatically, you should be given an option if you wish to allow it. Doing such could have negative implications (such as nearby cities suffer some urban deterioration-increased crime, higher maintenance, buildings needing to be replaced etc).

What does this third option have to do with the issue being discussed here? This: I've had a few instances where I have obtained remote areas and sporadic territory disbursement I found I might have two tiles: the city and then a space away and not connected a town that was over 85% my nationality. The other tiles were closer to 50-50% with no cities as close to mine. I think an option to convert that town into a city and produce in it would provide a slightly more realistic game play and resolution to disputed or underdeveloped regions. Also, this could have negative implications as well, in that if the cultural diversity was such, it could emerge as its own new Minor Civ.

 

[attackfighter]

I agree with Chalks.

I don't see any gameplay fun coming from adding complexity here.

Which is the main thing.

Well this is a pretty unsubstantiated opinion - do you really not see anything fun about civil wars, empire management and the likes, or have you simply not put any thought into it?

The fact that different nationalities become naturalised into a culture over time and civilization is a game that takes place over many thousands of years, the only place that nationality is going to be a factor are border cities where there is a persistent influx of immigration, and in recently captured territory.

In my opinion, culture already models this adequately. Over time, the foreign influence in cities is decreased as more and more of the ruling nationality move to and are born in the city.

Assimilation is only one of many outcomes. Sometimes the conquered culture persists indefinately and sometimes it even converts it's conquerors. Imo this presents an oppurtunity for another gameplay mechanic; you can choose to work with the myriad of cultures within your empire or you can attempt to forcefully assimilate them (through various levels of inhumanity (re-settlement, genocide, etc.)) - each option could have varying results.

 

[luke2345]

your writing too much words

 

[luke2345]

that was bad grammer

 

[attackfighter]

your writing too much words

that was bad grammer

Well I'm sorry if you can't be bothered to read 6 lines of writing...

and *gasp* what was I thinking typing in an informal manner on a video game website!? I really crossed the line there

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Its interesting that, with a few notable exceptions (like the Greek view of non-Greeks during the BC period & the Japanese view of non-Japanese people), the idea of nationality seems to be relatively new-not much older than the 17th or 18th centuries. I guess in a world where most people never even left their own village, the idea of what Country you belonged to made very little difference-especially if you were on the border.

That said, I do believe there is a way of implementing the importance of foreign nationals in the game without overly complicating it-the key is already potentially there in the existing game systems (diplomacy, war weariness, culture, social policies, health & happiness).

In a nutshell, your diplomatic relations with other nations might be enhanced if you have a significant proportion of their culture (i.e. their expats) in your cities. By the same token, though, declaring war on a nation could be made more difficult in cities that contain a significant number of that nation's expats in your cities.

Now, as to social policies-how quickly a foreign culture grows or remains in your cities could depend on social policy settings in areas like your attitude towards migration & attitudes to foreign cultures. In the former case, you could have settings anywhere from closed to open borders (different from-but related to-closed/open borders in diplomacy). How you set your policy might alter your population growth rates, but also alter the change in foreign culture in your cities-especially along the border. It could also impact on your relations with your neighbours & happiness in your cities (depending on how nationalistic they are-another potential social policy area).

Attitudes to foreign cultures could range from Multicultural to outright Genocidal. This setting would, again, effect your diplomatic relations & happiness in multi-ethnic cities. It would also impact on the health/growth rate of your multi-ethnic cities, as well as the rate at which foreign culture disappears in your cities.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Aussie.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Other examples of cultures that did not die out over time is Moorish Spain. Despite that Arabic Moors controlled large parts of Spain from 711 and 1492, Spanish culture that derived from the Roman Empire days overwhelmingly persisted. Moorish Arabic culture did make its mark on Spanish culture, it is true, but certainly nowhere near to where the Spanish peoples under Moorish rule slowly became "Arab".

Although, North Africa became Arab. In term of Civ4 (more or less), that would be that North Africa culture wouldn't be enough strong in order to resist Arab one, and Spain culture resisted to Arab one. Now, I really don't know how to make Time play a role in this. Maybe the strenght of a culture would only slow down a conversion, the stronger it is, the more slowed is its conversion, or even, if the culture is very big, it will never convert, but even strenghten with time. The thing is, that i have no clue of how to model a culture mix, because barely what Arab culture left to Spain was only buildings.

EDIT: hard to think that North Africa culture was low by the way. Maybe on a declin?

One thing is sure for me: i would like to scrap this linear growing of culture with Time. Not necessarily annihilate its influence, but make it less linear in the sense it grows invariably stronger with time and wonders. I would like to see: a potential culture growing (and end result) in one period of time, like for example the ability for a young civilization to grow bigger in culture than a more ancient one, without the help of time (or not like it is in Civ4) or wonders. I have no clue of how to model it however. Hints?

 

[LastLegionare]

I think culture and nationality should be split, personally.

Immigration is something I've wanted for a while. The idea that if your country hates your empire due to war, famine, and or government, they can change to a better life in a different nation (Or maybe sometimes your colony). There nationality will be of there mother country, yes, but they'd live as normal citizens in there empire. Now, this could also influence tension, as lets say in a historical example, there are Japanese nationality immigrants in America. America is now at war with Japan, and so some population might turn on them (Or they might turn on you). How, I don't know.

Culture should be ifluenced BY the nationalities living there and aometimes other factors. China Town is mostly occupied by Chinese when they immigrated to San Francisco. China never "occupied" the city, but there culture still presides.

This is a personal opinion, and it's probably WAY too complex, but I like it.