Ideas I sent to Firaxis long time ago.

[stormbind]

Scale an organisation's culture up to the size of a country and multiply it by plenty of years and I'm sure there will be enough difference to generate a reasonably distinctive culture difference...

But that's not real!

Sure, if you gave Bill Gates complete control of American way of life... or Mudoc complete control of the UK, you might see some changes.

But it doesn't change the fact that the real US/UK share the same beliefs, and same way of life, which is the definition of culture.

---

It should also be noted that the phenomenon known as brand culture is part of our civil culture. Brand culture just didn't happen in some v.different places on earth - like Mongolia.

 

[Dell19]

Similar cultures, not exactly the same as the culture comes from the people. Different groups, different overall cultures.

 

[stormbind]

The differences you highlight are tiny!! They are smaller than the difference between Las Vegas and the Bronx. Also smaller than the differences in living on a farm in Yorkshire and an apartment in New Castle!

Most British cities would be somewhere between the two, in terms of way of life / culture.

I'm saying... all Britons and Americans enjoy the same way of life. Freedom of the press is another example of the syncronisation. Some of the completely different cultures won't tollerate those things.

 

[dh_epic]

That's not accurate. Those pilgrims have no influence in current American way of life. They were Puritans... Lord Protector Cromwell was a Puritan... Britain was ruled by a Puritan Republic! The histories are so similiar. Puritans don't affect current British way of life either

Not to get into a historical debate... but unless you're saying "living pilgrims have no influence on the current american way of life", you're absolutely wrong. The puritan ethics are abound, not to mention their views of persecution, freedom, and good and evil, and how they helped shape the attitude towards conquering the west (unlike China's reaction to when they discovered America in 1412, which was one of more or less apathy I'd bet).

But strictly in the interest of reflecting gameplay... Nationalism allowed many peoples to resist assimilation. You can say that's a reflection of Palestine now, or the Kurds. I forget his name, but I think it was a Serbian fellow who was one of printing press's greatest success stories.

I dunno, again, sidestepping the historical details. Nationalism is HUUUGE. So much of today's conflict can be understood in terms of nationalism and the lack thereof. It's the reason there's a United States of America -- these states thought they had something in common -- whereas there's no United States of Latin America, or United States of Arabia. The efforts of the intellectuals to promote an idea of "what it meant to be Latin American" or "what it meant to be an Arab" just didn't catch on.

 

[stormbind]

Not to get into a historical debate... but unless you're saying "living pilgrims have no influence on the current american way of life", you're absolutely wrong. The puritan ethics are abound, not to mention their views of persecution, freedom, and good and evil, and how they helped shape the attitude towards conquering the west (unlike China's reaction to when they discovered America in 1412, which was one of more or less apathy I'd bet).

And I said, China-US are different cultures

So how is US-UK any different? They share the same ethics, views of persecution, freedom, good & evil, etc..

And, the UK abolished slavery long before the US, so it seems the US is lagging behind on the things you highlight as making it's culture

But strictly in the interest of reflecting gameplay... Nationalism allowed many peoples to resist assimilation. You can say that's a reflection of Palestine now, or the Kurds. I forget his name, but I think it was a Serbian fellow who was one of printing press's greatest success stories.

Nationalism is not way of life (aka culture).

I dunno, again, sidestepping the historical details. Nationalism is HUUUGE...

See above

 

[dh_epic]

Nationalism is based on finding differences from a rival or parent nation, and similarities among who you call your people.

Sometimes those differences are really small. But if you have the philosophers and poets and artists all firing on all cylinders, and they believe there is a unique people with a unique history, you'll see it start to emerge. And if they take it far enough, it becomes nationalism.

I would agree with you, Americans had a LOT in common with the British. Probably more in common with them then they had NOT in common with them. But for whatever reason, people got caught up in the hype and the movement just pushed forward, Americans are not British.

Ask an average American "what's your impression of the British" and they'll think of some "tea and crumpet" kind of joke. Americans style themselves as more rugged and individualistic, in contrast to British being concerned with tradition and elitism. These probably aren't that true, but what is self perception?

The puritans played a HUUUGE part in the formation of America right up until the end of the 19th century. Not they themselves, but their ideal. There was an old expression, "where the plow goes, so goes the rain" -- something to that effect. They believe it was God's plan for them to go into some of the harshest land, and populate it. The wild, unpopulated, savage west was evil personified. They were the good, and their destiny was self evident.

Of all the things that America could have used as a part of its mythology... the civil war... the revolution... the rough times of colonization... the one thing to really catch on in American consciousness was that of the cowboy. Albeit well after the revolution, but the seeds were there well beforehand.

I'm not saying Americans are actually all that different from the British. But if they couldn't convince even half the people living in America that there was a difference, then they wouldn't have faught. There was an ideal of freedom from persecution -- that America was a home for that. And they could villify the British by conjuring the word "freedom", and that word went on to take on even more meaning in years to come. And like all interpretation, it is an ongoing subject of debate.

 

[denyd]

I put forth an idea earlier that would allow Republic/Democratic Tribes to create state capitals that would function as local Forbidden Palaces. You could have 1 for each OCN / 2 cities you have. What it would do is to reduce the distance corruption value for the cities near the state capital (similar to Civ/PTW effects). It doesn't seem applicable to Monarch, Communist, Fuedal and Facist states who are ruled solely by a central leader/commitee rather both local & central shared leadership.

 

[stormbind]

I'm not saying Americans are actually all that different from the British. But if they couldn't convince even half the people living in America that there was a difference, then they wouldn't have faught.

Infact, they didn't

Note that immediate history was written by the victors, but modern historians think that less than 33% of the population wanted independence and that was mostly due to propaganda (they weren't actually educated enough to know if what was being said was true or not).

See how Saddam Hussein ran Iraq. The wishes of the minority in power can influence entire nations.

The way Congress and private militia treated loyalists was enough to silence many. Who in their right mind would speak out against the idea of revolution (which brewed over time) if it meant losing their home, their property, and maybe their lives?

If the loyalists were in Congress, then it would have looked the exact opposite. Even conservative American historians think it was more or less 33% Republicans, 33% Loyalists, 33% Silenced.

Congress was using taxes to arm Republicans, and confiscate from Loyalists... so it makes sense to think the final confrontation would be unballanced.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Well, the whole idea of Nationalism is one of the most vile things in the world really, as it exists for the sole purpose of dividing people into groups based on ethnicity and ancestral history, ie. Nationalism= Fascism only infinitely more deadly.
As for culture, it is a definite that the world's current way of living will eventually e annhilated as cultures clash and the same broad culture that the West has at the minute spreads inexorably.
As for culture, there are two main groups really, West and East.
In Western society all nations cultures are uterly indistinguishable (if you picked me up and put me ANYWHERE in West Europe, USA, Canada and Australia, there is no way of distinguishing where I would be, except for the language the signs are in).
Then you have the East- a mudle of so many different cultures and ways of living.

Eventually the West and East will fight, indeed Al Qaeda's Jihad is precisely for the purpose of destroying the West's culture, just as the West is attempting to crush the Eastern culture. I mean, when they capture Baghdad- what's the first thing they do? BUILD A MCDONALDS! The West sees the East as barbaric, fundamentalist and primitive, the East see the West as selfish meddling scum, faceless hordes who are systematically destroying their culture.
And thus, we are, although many don't realise it, already in our 3rd World War, onl;y this time there will be no declarations of war- just the East, striking again and again but too weak to destroy the West, and the West, too goddamn stupid to beat the East.

The true problem is though, both sides are evil- there will be no winners of this war- only survivors.

OK- just realised this has nothing to do with the topic... Ah well, neither did the last 10m posts...

 

[stormbind]

Thanks Corsair. I think that is more of less what I was trying to say.

So back to Civ3. The concept of culture in Civ3 has more basis in fantasy than history.

The borders work well, but culture flipping is a weak idea. I think excessive corruption should lead to localised revolutions...

A small empire could be held together with a combination of courthouses, etc.. but when too far away or too large, you need more drastic solutions like (1) Communism, or (2) Commonwealth.

Corruption could lead to a city flip, but culture itself should control city-influence radius.

Migrations would be cool ... Immagine if people who were discontent, got up and walked across the border to a less corrupt country!

 

[Verowin]

The Soviet Union was the largest country in the world. It stayed together under Monarchy and Communistic rule. As soon as it became a "Democracy" it broke up in several pieces. This learns us that the only way to sustain a large empire is to have a strong KGB, (Siberian) prisoner work camps, secret police, widespread corruption and propaganda.

 

[stormbind]

There have been other large empires, some much bigger than the USSR, and with other methods of control.

In the bigger picture, the USSR was not that succesful.

 

[kelvinkay]

lets not get out of the topic fella's
lets make it simple for the game designers.
i suggest a 1 country 2 system like that of china and taiwan.we grant respective cities to teams.teams created by us the players with a specific capital.the teams are countries with the same color,same culture and shared border(no border disputes & no right of passage) meaning not present in diplomacy window.
we will not need to trade resources as we share borders
airbases,troops,units and other physical equiptment are shared.
taxes should be shared & maintenace shared.
science is shared until separation/revolution
seperatist can be neutralised having troops (like civ2) where we will need a reasonable amount of troops in a city to reduce revolt.this will make the game balanced as we the player will not have that much troops to fight due to teh reduced corruption
drafting is still available.
this means everything is still available except for choosing the type of things we can build in a city.this can be done using AI.rushing will still be available and the type of things that will be built will depend on the type of government you choose.

a cultural sepeation/revolution can take place that will split the team to a real country like that of america when there is
1. when the current players culture falls due to anything
2. grant freedom(granted by current player) to the team capital
3. when the team capital is corrupt about 40% of curruption for a long period of time lets say 50 years(corruption can be caused by the type of government chosen by each team, the technology they have, seperatist will increase to one population per turn after 50 turns of corruption.)
this will make the game difficult as you will have to invest in cities and prevent seperatist.
4. when war weariness is beyond control for example 60% of the population.as u guys know each government have war weariness.
5. martial law as was in civ2 to control population of a team for too long(25 years) will cause seperatist movement

this will make the game play balanced,simple and easy to program as i myself am a programmer.


also i would like to see the ability to trade weapons or equiptment as was in civ2. i used to sell all my outdated weapons in civ2 to my neighbours but i didnt like the idea of transfering all technologies to them there should be a limit ie. if we sell tanks then the technology transfer should not be beyond the level of tanks in the research tree any trade beyond that will not be wise.

other than that i find civ3 a pleasure to play as compared to civ2 except for the lack of pirates and barbarians in the game no challenge if i was more diplomatic.

 

[dh_epic]

While I agree with the idea that nationalism has been influenced by propaganda and has divided nations and people aggressively, I think this explanation can only at best be incomplete.

It would be the same thing as saying that religion has only divided people. It has also united people. There's no black or white answer. Latin America, the Middle East, all of them are riddled with failed nationalist movements... and they've historically had trouble dealing with the remaining superpowers as a result.

And as a side note, while Canadians and Americans are pretty similar, being a Canadian it is popular sentiment to be TERRIFIED of the idea of the two nations becoming one. People just believe in a difference, whether it's due to art, propaganda, or just philosophical changes.

But it's true, we've digressed significantly.

The original point I was trying to make was only that the printing press should generate one culture in each one of your cities. And it's this kind of culture that should prevent assimilation by other nations (as well as increase your chances of assimilating others). And historically, that has often been the case. Somehow this tied in with the great museum wonder, but now I forget