Another go at the infamous modern culture victory eh?
What defines the World's Fair is this idea of humanity coming together, which is contrasted by ideology driving us apart, which is a theme for the military victory. Reclaiming ancient culture and learning common history was one element of that. World heritage in terms of natural history and natural wonders was part of that too. What else brought humanity together?
This should be the thematic basis for the cultural victory. There should be multiple areas of cultural progress that combine together and aggregate into a total culture score. There should be multiple civics that pertain to these different categories, so there's no beeline path to victory, but the more civics you unlock, the more aggregate score you can accrue. So, just taking a swing at it, here's the cadence and categories:
The culture civics will introduce these 5 cultural categories, and also have policies related thematically. Other civics will interact with these, such as a fascist civic to protect national radio yields from aggregating to other players who are culturally dominant. Or having a globalism civic which enhances the acceleration of cultural dominance.
What defines the World's Fair is this idea of humanity coming together, which is contrasted by ideology driving us apart, which is a theme for the military victory. Reclaiming ancient culture and learning common history was one element of that. World heritage in terms of natural history and natural wonders was part of that too. What else brought humanity together?
- Jazz music. Tremendously popular even in place like Germany and Japan, subject to bans, but broke through. A niche musical style invented in the South from African American musical improvisation, but then took over the world. Pre-eminent in the 1940s through the Standards.
- Walt Disney and Hollywood. Adolf Hitler was obsessed with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
- Coca-Cola. Um, well, yeah Hitler loved this stuff too and had access to it during the war.
This should be the thematic basis for the cultural victory. There should be multiple areas of cultural progress that combine together and aggregate into a total culture score. There should be multiple civics that pertain to these different categories, so there's no beeline path to victory, but the more civics you unlock, the more aggregate score you can accrue. So, just taking a swing at it, here's the cadence and categories:
- Natural history unlocks dinosaur bones which any player can collect without them running out, up to a cap.
- Natural wonders unlock with this, but explorers are now diplomatically restricted with an independent option. If leaders accept, you can dig in their territory. If they support, they get an artifact if you get one.
- Archeology should be a separate civic, and its mastery unlocks ancient relics. The race for relics should be adjusted somewhat to not be such a rat race and work more through diplomatic endeavors and influence should be the x-factor, not beelining a civic.
- The science race should produce artifacts as a leveling feature for science chasers.
- This culminates in the World's Fair. The World's Fair blocks research of later civics, and it only needs to be built once for these to unlock for all players. Only one player builds the World's Fair, but excess production for players who failed to build it in time count towards their fair expositions. World's Fair should be buildable around turn 50, and builds concurrent to running around with explorers.
- Each player assigns their great works to their fair exposition, something like a limit of 3 so they have to prioritize. World's Fair builder slots last, and your hammers towards the fair determine rank for other players with artifact number then culture yields as tie-breakers. Slotting artifacts that complement and contrast with other players gains more points.
- Once the World's Fair is held, each player is assigned a cultural rank for the rest of the Age. They may choose, similar to religious beliefs, from a set of cultural traits. Your rank gives you first choice from among these. These tie cultural buildings to other yields, or otherwise boost progress toward cultural victory. World's Fair rank also boosts influence, with the World's Fair builder getting a substantial influence boost. Diplomatic endeavors will be essential to spreading culture.
- Now, a set of civics are unlocked representing different cultural dimensions.
- Music. Multiplier effect if you have cities from other founders in your empire. Radio stations will play either music or spoken word, not specific works, just a specialization.
- Spoken word. Multiplied based on number of religious building and science buildings left over from exploration at the start of the age, or such buildings which remain. Some civs might have modern age "religious" buildings which add to these cultural categories based on religious affinity of cities leftover from exploration.
- Film. Tier 3, powerful, expensive. Movie Studios from among 10 options, like a second belief (MGM, Disney, UFA, Gaumont, Shochiku). One per civ. Then a cinema building. Films become great works which you can slot into cinemas once per age. You can also do diplomatic endeavors to send and receive films.
- Unbranded national products. These are things like Champagne, "Japanese knives". Naturally accrues through trade routes based on your factory scaling and specialization. These aren't specific products, just an aggregate score.
- Branded national products. These are like a third belief, chosen when you build your first factory and have the requisite civic. Introduced via diplomatic endeavor, from then on "demand" builds up with aggregate, causing this category to become more and more sensitive to trade route pressure in an accelerating way. As this particular aggregate increases, your relative radio output will slowly draw away other players' radio aggregate over to you. This can be countered with a civic available to fascist/communist ideologies.
The culture civics will introduce these 5 cultural categories, and also have policies related thematically. Other civics will interact with these, such as a fascist civic to protect national radio yields from aggregating to other players who are culturally dominant. Or having a globalism civic which enhances the acceleration of cultural dominance.
