More specific cultural groups

[mhIdA]

The cultural groups have been maded attended geography, so why not join language and religion as a new forms of make cultural groups?
This is the cultural groups I sugest with the actual civs:
1. Latins- Spain, Portugal, France,
2. Germanics/Protestants - Germany, Dutch., Vikings
3. Anglo-saxonics - England, America.
4. Orthodoxs - Byzantines, Russia
5. Ancient Mediterrain - Greece, Rome, Carthage, Celts.
6. Middle East - Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Persia, Hitites, Ottomans, Arabs.
7. Asia - India, China, Korea, Mongolia, Japan
8. Native-Americans/Pre-Colombians - Maya, Aztecs, Incas, Iroquois
9. Africans - Zulus

If we join some more civs it coul be like this:

1. Catholics - Spain, Portugal, France, Poland
2. Germanics/Protestants - Germany, Dutch., Vikings, Austrians
3. Anglo-saxonics - England, America, Canada, Australia
4. Orthodoxs - Byzantines, Russia, Romania
5. Ancient Mediterrain - Greece, Rome, Carthage, Celts.
6. Middle East - Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, Persia, Hitites, Ottomans, Arabs, Israel.
7. South Asia - India, Thailand, Khmer, Indonesia
8. East Asia - China, Korea, Mongolia, Japan
9. Native-Americans/Pre-Colombians - Maya, Aztecs, Incas, Iroquois, Sioux, Cherokee
10. Latin-American - Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela
11. Africans - Zulus, Afrikaners, Mali, Ethiopia, Hausa

In bolt the new civs

 

[Mewtarthio]

I don't like culture groups as it is. Your people's view of another Civ (which, in my opinion, should be a factor in the next game; rather than simply forcing the AI to abide by certain rules, the people would become unhappy if the player was hostile towards a crowd favorite) should not be affected by the simple matter of who they are. I am completely against making the separate Civs uneven: Civ traits and one Unique Unit apeice is plenty of variety for me. I'd prefer all Civs to not follow the neatly predefined historical path they trod in actuality. A Civ should not be of a certain religion or geographical standing because of a set game term, but because of the player's decisions.

 

[dh_epic]

The culture groups are invisible anyway -- an abstraction that helps place civilizations near each other at the start of the game. If you were a casual civ player, you might not even know exactly what they are.

Plus hardwiring it is kind of lame. It means that you play through the exact same game every single time. And that you can play a game where you're strangely similar to a culture halfway around the world and they seem to share more in common with you than they do their own neighbors.

If cultural similarity is going to have any impact whatsoever, I figure that it should be done largely dynamically -- the closer two civs are to one another, the more similar they should become. That would be one factor. But it's a drop in the iceberg if you actually model some kind of cultural transmission/exchange between friends and neighbors (and differentiation between enemies).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I personally find Culture groups to be very useful, in many ways, but also feel that absolute hard-wiring is best avoided at ALL costs (after all, this is reWRITING history, not reCREATING history). I think that the closeness of 2 nations cultural relationship should 'colour' their opinions of one another, whilst not predetermining the relationship altogether. Things like Government, Religion, Relative 'morality'/'Atrocity' levels, Reputation, and relative military/economic and cultural strengths should play a big role as well.

I do believe that social engineering has a role to play as well. For instance, at the start of a game, most nations will have a low to mid-ranged nationalism. As the game progresses, the AI and human alike can adjust their nationalism up or down-thus determining how important culture groups ARE in the relationship. So, if a nation increases its nationalism, then its peoples opinions of ALL foreign nations will be lowered, but those from different culture groups even MORE. If the player focuses on raising Theism levels, though, then religion will be an even MORE important determinant in determining opinions of other nations.
As for what culture groups should be in, I think North and South America, West and East Europe, Mediterranean, West and East Africa (or Central and South Africa), Middle East, Central Asia and South East Asia. Each culture group might consist of 3-4 major civs, and 6-8 minor civs.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[mhIdA]

I remember this issue seeing a thread of american in american cultural group, but away.

dh_epic
There is a trade-off (I can't get another expression) between pre-assumption features (culture groups, religion, traits) who could implie we seemed the same game over and over and a kind of liberty and flexibility to rewrite history (culture and religion evolves - Arabs become Zoroastrist, Israel Muslim, americans totemists). What the impact of this if culture and religion are more than a bunch of wonders and improvements who give points? Or the differences given if we check/uncheck culturally linked start location, etc.
Civs of a cultural group by meaning are neighbours, and early in history they tend to fight a lot (to mantain they're culture distinct from their neighbors), and only when appear other civs from different cultural groups (christians facing muslims, or confucionists) they tend to forget they're little differences from neighbors to face civs from another cultural group. And by time, in several steps they became a block on a cultural/regional basis (Nafta, EU, Mercosul, etc), wich I'd like to see in Civ4, but since this a fenomena that is recent and far from ended I addressed to a future era or a mod.

Aussie Lurker
I think we should determined culture groups from civs and not the way round, have the cultural groups and then fill it with civs.
If we only tied culture group to geography and don't take in consideration the language and religion we loose some key elements of history (discoveries, colonization, european migration, the independences of colonies), but once again with pre-assumptioned culture groups we have rewrite/recreation history issue. How can we solve this problem? My preference in this case is to recreate history not in definition of culture groups, but give the chance to other culture groups explore and colonize world, by traits as europeans do.
An example: China with a centralized government send an expedition that arrived at East Africa but is the onlyone, but in Europe with several countries Columbus try a expedition in portuguese kingdom and don't succed, then he try to king of Spain and was success. Besizes the advantage of a decentralized govern we must consider the kind of arrogance of middle kingdom in wich world arround must pay tribute.
So how model this features, in a way that other culture groups than West Europe explore and discover?
It just a matter of traits who give the Europeans culture group the ability to colonize Australia or is a thing that Asia Civs could do first?

 

[MRick]

> 5. Ancient Mediterrain - Greece, Rome, Carthage, Celts.

What are doing the Celts in ancient Mediterranean ???

Have you ever opened a real history book ?

The Celtic people used to be widespread in western and central Europe, but not around the mediterranean sea.
Nowdays, the Celtic culture only survives in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, and Galicia.

Also our culture is very different from the greeco-roman culture...

Rome should be in the Latin group, since this is the first Latin civilisation...

Also I don't understand the differentiation between Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic groups, they're from the same culture group... Saxe or "Sachsen" in german, is the homeland of the Saxons, it is still in Germany...


Well the idea of cultural groups is good, but your examples are very approximative to say the least...

Also it doesn't work well with modern civilizations, it's usually agreed that France is a Latin culture, but it' very reductive, it doesn't take into account the old celtic influance (the gauls were one of the celtic people), and the germanic ground.
Most people in France when it arised as a civilisation decend from the Gauls, but their language is form the Romans (Latin), and their aristocraty descend from the Germanic leaders form the Franks tribes... Clovis and Charlemagne didn't speak old French or Latin, they spoke the Frank Language (called "Francique" in French) which is close to German, not Latin...

And what about USA ?
Anglo-Saxon Portestants is only the biggest and politically most influantial minoriy, but it's still a minority, among the Afro-Americans, the Latinos, the Natives and so on...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You see, this is why I have the broad 'West European' culture group-as it includes your Germanic, Gallic and Celtic Peoples, wheras your Mediterranean peoples are your Italians, Spanish, Greeks and Carthaganians.
Eastern Europeans are all the Baltic and Slavic peoples. Your North Africans are your Nigerians, Numidians, Egyptians, Ethiopians and possibly Kenyans. Your South African peoples would be your Rwandans, Congolese and Zulus. Middle Eastern peoples would be Persians, Babylonians, Pheonecians, Herbrews, Turks and Arabs. Central Asians would be Indians, Chinese, Mongols, Japanese and Koreans. Your South East Asian peoples are the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians, Malays and Philipino's.
Your North Americans are your Soiux, Netzpurse, Iroquois, Navajoh, Cherokee and Ananasi. The South Americans are the Mayans, the Incans, the Olmecs and the Aztecs.
Now, obviously this list is NOT comprehensive, but it gives you an idea of what I have in mind in MY cultural divisions!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

That's why I don't bother setting up artificial barriers between culture groups at all. There are relationships and some are more related than others. If you had a good model of how culture spreads between civilizations, then simply by placing the french near the celts, british, spanish, romans and greeks would allow France to naturally develop its mixed cultural identity. And that goes for any civilization at all.

A dynamic culture model would not only better model how some civilizations are on the threshhold between two cultures... but it can model how differences seem huge at the dawn of civilization, and become less significant as ideas and values intermingle. It can also model one civilization slipping from one "culture group" to another over time.

In a lot of ways, specificity is exactly what Civ needs less of. More flexibility is more like it!

 

[deo]

Add those culture groups, research culture or something like that, select a culture you want to have exp. Latin, your Military units are 5% cheaper. Thats how civ should be.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, as you know DH_Epic, I support both Culture groups AND a good culture spreading model-as I feel that they both go hand in hand. The way I see it is that your Culture Group gives a broad description of your 'ethnic grouping', wheras your culture defines your 'national identity'. I guess the best HISTORICAL example of this is England, where the Mediterranean Romans landed in a nation of Western European Celts and, because the two culture groups were fairly closely related, there was strong inter-cultural mixing, in order to create a Romano-Celtic culture. Later, when the Romans were forced to give up its Romano-Celtic colonies, they formed the new nation of 'Roman-Britian'. Of course, later they were conquered by other Western European nations, leading to an even greater cultural intermixing, finally leading to the modern nation we know as England.
At least, thats the way I see it working best !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[mhIdA]

Correction: Afrikaners should belong to germanic/protestant cultural group

Is a matter of choice, given mainly by religion and language.

MRick
Celts is a dificulty I have when choose this cultual groups, but we must think at in time. The celts in game start in marseille region, near Mediterraneo, there also the Cisalpine Gallic, so my choice. But in last case it has no cultural group.
USA spokes english, they valorize their england legacy, as I see it. It shares many social and political features with England, even one are a Republic and other a Monarchy (free market, common law, etc). Do you know the Echelon, a spy sattelite network. It only shares information with others anglo-saxons countries, that their more trust, and so on. Afros and hispanics are minorities.
The latin/catholic group share religion and/or languages derived from latin. The romans are a civ facing the Mediterraneum like Greece and Carthago.

Aussie Lurker
France have really a mixed identity, due franks and celts influence but there are some features who explain my choice. Is the first barb kingdom to embrace christianism, I think and spoke a latin language.
You only related cultuarl groups to geography, wich is very reductive.
Only Mongolia could be a Central Asia civ, the others are East Asia, and India in South Asia.
The Baltic share culture with Scandinavians and all share religion and in a certain level language with germanics, so why put them as Eastern Europe with Slavics?
In Africa there are many people who belong to peoples of bantu language.

dh_epic
The main issue is that there are pre-defined features, wich means cultural groups, or with a dynamic culture model, given by cultural interactions between civs, a civ change from one cultural group to another. And besides this culture evolve in a civ by their own way (philosophy, theatre, religion, movies).

 

[dh_epic]

But in that case, I would make the hardwired cultural groups as vague as possible. European, Asian, "American", African, Middle Eastern. That way you CAN have the idea of mild close relatedness like Rome to England. (Although even then, I'm still really not sure what that gets you. Wouldn't Rome and England share some culture in the dynamic model anyway, because they grew up on basically the same continent?)

 

[mhIdA]

What north of Sudan - Muslim and south of Sudan - Christian-animist have in common and they share the same coutry, the same applies to Nigeria. If in Europe we have catholics, protestants, orthodox by religion and latins, germanics, slavics by language why not made cultural groups based on that and only base that on geography, wich have nothing to do with geography? Of course every european countries have a shared history and culture due they are neighbours.
Modeling the diferent civs by its similarity and when get the results, so you can have an idea what civs belongs to a cultural groups. It means how England and Roman be so similar? And we must compare that with all other civs 2 by 2, and given their historic period. I didn't wanted give a number but 2 civs belongs to same cultural group if their culture is similar at least 75% or 80%. Of course there are mutual influences and thats why civs should appear so similar, specially in last 50 years, but that is only a little period of history. But in the game could and sould vary and this is part of the fun.
Another question is England as countrie appear when Rome as disappeared centuries ago and England born as christian while Rome its evolve from a politheistic to a monotheist religion, so you could say that Rome was christianized due their contact with England.

So, when I want more specific cultural groups, that is only one aspect, because they should be reflected in diplomacy, trade, war, economy and religion during the game. If a civ during the game change from cultural groupa A to B, their loyalty and tolerance also change.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Aside from religious differences, though, there is no great difference between the Sudanse people, any more than there is between the Germans, Dutch and Scandanavians. The point is that religious differences within a culture group are best expressed VIA religion! Just my feelings.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[dh_epic]

There are HUGE cultural differences between, say, India and Pakistan. Or America and France. Or Thailand and Japan. But relatively little "racial" difference.

When you talk about the cultural similarity and difference between nations, you're talking about something totally different from race. I'm more concerned with culture than race, in this case. And I'm wary of confusing the two.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, DH_Epic, I think thats where the real confusion here lies. When I say 'CULTURE GROUP', I am referring to Race or Ethnicity. i.e. two African civs will be more ETHNICALLY similar than an African and Eastern European Civ. India and Pakistan are both a South/Central Asian ethnicity, which is different from South East Asian ethnicity. When I say 'CULTURE', though, I am referring to nationality and tribal grouping. So, though Greece and Macedonia are technically from different 'CULTURE GROUPS', there close proximity to one another means that they identify more closely to one another than, say, Macedonia and Serbia (same culture group). Of course, religion throws another complication into the mix. Roman Catholicism, for instance, 'unites' the Culture groups of South America, The Mediterranian and even Western Europe, and also creates schisms between nations WITHIN the same culture group (France and Germany, England and Ireland).
So, I guess my point is that culture groups serve a useful purpose to the player, in that they are a good 'adjective' for the broad ethnicity of their civ, whilst at the same time not hamstringing the player by pigeonholing them for the rest of the game. So, though your two mediterranean civs get along like a house on fire in 4000BC-and shun the 'evil' Eastern European and Middle East culture groups-as the game develops, one of those mediterranean civs may start to develop a close relationship to an Eastern European civ, and starts to shun the other mediterranean civ instead. This change in relations may come about as a result of increased trade and migration between the two, a shared 'religious experience', or a deepening xenophobia within the other mediterranean civ which causes them to grow apart!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[sir_schwick]

I think groups are a good idea, especially in defining conflicts in terms of what level of groups are at combat. However these groups should evolve through the game, not be pre-determined. Also, lets model Culture, Religion, Ethnicity, and Nationalism. This could create a very unique overlap and web with unpredictable consequences. Basically culture-spreading would make groups of nations that communicated from early on, although developerments later on may make other groups.

 

[dh_epic]

Let's stop talking about culture group and start talking about race, just for simplicity's sake.

The thing with race is it's really just a question of who's a visible minority. An Irishman might be ethnically different from an American, but it's hard to be able to tell. A Persian is definitely much more noticeable, unless he's walking around in Babylon.

I'm comfortable just saying that every Nation is also a "race". That is, Japanese and Chinese are as ethnically different as Japanese and American. It doesn't matter. Everyone is equally different. The advantage to that is not only simplicity, and not only avoiding questions like "is Egypt African or Near Eastern?"

The advantage is that you don't get some bizarre situation where Greece, born in Asia, and Rome, born in Africa, act like they "recognize" each other. Like "man, I like you so much better than my neighbors for some strange mystical reason! It's like in some other dimension, WE should be neighbors!"

In which case I'm either good for leaving race out of it and focusing on Nationality and Culture, the mental attributes... or model genetic-ethnic changes dynamically, kind of like Sir Schwick suggests. Although I'm not sure how you'd do it, or the advantages to it.

 

[mhIdA]

If 2 civs from different cultural groups are in war the main civs of that cultural groups should be abble to try, due their influence forced 2 civs in war sign peace or end hostilities by proposed benefits or don't encourage, denying support to the war. Even initially they give support to the war.