[MODCOMP]Cultural Influences

[TheLopez]

Hey Fer de Lance, did you change the configurable options in the middle of a game? Did you change the configurable option "Enable Slow Culture Borders" from True to False in the middle of your game?

This was the only way that I was able to replicate the issue that you reported. Chalid, any ideas why that would happen?

Here are the steps to replicate it:
1) Start a game
2) Go into world builder and found a city.
3) Increase the culture of the city to 5 and then take it back down to 1
4) Change the configurable option in the "Cultural Influences Config.ini" file "Enable Slow Culture Borders" from True to False.
5) Increase the culture of the city and you will see the issue reproduced.

Very strange.

 

[Chalid]

Hmm good find TheLopez. At the moment no clue, but i hope to be finished with the dragon today and will start looking into code afterwards. So i hope to find an solution in the very near future.

I suspect that firaxis worked a bit sloppy and did not use the Culture distance for every case where cultureeffects are calculated. Hmm thinking furtehr about this. I now have at least a clue where to look...

 

[Fer de Lance]

thats exactly what i did. thanks for the help

 

[Chalid]

I checked the code and it seems to be that the only way to reproduce this error is changing between the vanilla cultural borders and the slow growing ones within a running game. So i see no problem there.

 

[Jeckel]

Does the error go away if you switch your settings back?

 

[Chalid]

Its a bit difficult. When your cultural borders expand or collapse each plot gets a flag that tells him if he is within the cultural borders of your city or not. If you start with vanilla plots far away from your cities (teh orginal cultural borders) get that flag set. If you now switch to the slow growing borders those plots still have the flag, but if your cultural influence now grows or shrinks only the plots with in the new cultural borders are updated. So the plots far away are not touched.

The same effect will occur if you switch from slow growing borders to vanilla borders within a game. Than only plots near your cities have teh flag set. If your culture grows now only the plots far a way are updated and you should also get a ring of not possed plots.

So in short: I doubt it that the "differerent way to calculate culture" goes away when you switch back.

Just to clarify once more. You should not see any strange effects if you start your game with the slow growing culture ans stay with it for the eintire game.

 

[Jeckel]

Ah, ok, I understand now, thanx.

 

[Fachy]

A bit of a silly question: What happens when 2 cities "exchange cultures" via trade routes or any other way? Does it affect the borders or city-expansions?

Like, if an English city has 20% of its culture as French, does that affect the tiles it controls to the French favor or something??

 

[TheLopez]

A bit of a silly question: What happens when 2 cities "exchange cultures" via trade routes or any other way? Does it affect the borders or city-expansions?

Yes, city borders should theoritically grow faster

Like, if an English city has 20% of its culture as French, does that affect the tiles it controls to the French favor or something??

Yes, the affected tiles would have 20% french culture.

 

[Fachy]

So in that case, 20% of that English city's tiles would actually belong to the FRENCH!?! They'de be colored in purple or whatever?

 

[TheLopez]

So in that case, 20% of that English city's tiles would actually belong to the FRENCH!?! They'de be colored in purple or whatever?

No, but the culture of the affected tiles would be 20% french.

 

[Fachy]

At the end of the da..uh.. turn, does that make any practical difference?

 

[TheLopez]

At the end of the da..uh.. turn, does that make any practical difference?

Come again? What do you mean?

 

[Fachy]

I mean: what difference occurs due to that operation? Does it give the English city "free culture" so it expands more? Or what?

I'm really totally lost about that culture exchange thing!

 

[TheLopez]

I mean: what difference occurs due to that operation? Does it give the English city "free culture" so it expands more? Or what?

I'm really totally lost about that culture exchange thing!

Basically if the alien culture starts becoming more than the native culture there is a chance that the city will flip to the alien culture's civilization.

 

[The Great Apple]

There are also issues with unhappiness if you war against civilizations with culture in your cities.

 

[Fachy]

Ok, I always turn culture flip off anyway. Now, is there any vanilla method to "inject" your culture into other cities? Or must I use a mod for that?

 

[dh_epic]

I remember when the original idea first came up, it was a means to and end, not an end in of itself. There are several steps, as far as I'm concerned:

1) Add a culture spreading model.

2) Rebalance what culture currently does. Borders are the first thing -- should it depend on your domestic culture, all culture, or something else entirely? But even more important are rebalancing city-flips. This would involve civics that affect your rate of cultural import/export, and perhaps even units (similar to missionaries) that allow some people to play culturally-heavy strategy.

3) Offer new rewards for high culture -- domestically and internationally. Science always gets you something. Gold always gets you something. Culture, there are many times where it gets you nothing.

It's possible. But you'd have to build on the implementation given so far.

Spoiler :

As a couple of other side notes:

1) Sir schwick suggested that in addition to a culture-spreading model, you'd also need a cultural-corruption model. Cities would need to be able to produce 'local culture', which would be more pronounced further away from your capitol. This would create a more realistic model of cultural influence, with far off lands being more different than cities close to your capitol.

2) When examining city-flips, you have to ask yourself how much of a nuisance this can be. This is because you may conquer a city, and find it flip soon after. Civilization 4 tackled this 'nuisance' by by making it so war always trumps culture -- that a city cannot flip back to its original owner after war. This makes culture a worthless pursuit.

The opposite doesn't sound appealing either, though -- where war is always trumped by culture. Finding a balance will take not just a lot of tweaking, but some creativity. You need to envision the kind of gameplay you'd like to create -- when will culture win, and when will war?

I'll be around if you need any more insights.

 

[Fachy]

I loved the immigration mod as a substitute to cities flipping, much more realistic and within the "agreed" balance

 

[TheLopez]

I loved the immigration mod as a substitute to cities flipping, much more realistic and within the "agreed" balance

Thanks, if you downloaded v0.4.4 of the immigration mod then you should download the new version I posted today.