On the Dileniations of Culture

[vorshlumpf]

I guess we'll have to live with disagreement on the matter, then

- Niilo

 

[Grillick]

I think it'd more likely be used (even by the AI) if it was civ specific. Frankly, id still rather build a city......because unless im playing a VERY sparse map, im going to grab every bit of land i can........even horrible maintenance can be rectified over time, and the production capabilities of more cities (even if individually weaker) becomes more and more potent.
-Qes

didn't you learn your lesson about grabbing all the land the first time?

 

[QES]

didn't you learn your lesson about grabbing all the land the first time?

yes, only that its worth it though. True, i ran my civ into the ground, but, that'd not been so bad had i not lost my heros.

HAd i not lost my heros, it'd still be a fair price to pay for owning a continant and not letting anyone on it. Over time it'd build up. Granted......id be ripe for conquereing, but in the beginning its less likly peoples have boats yet.
-Qes

 

[Rankel]

Greetings and salutations Kael

I was wondering how the AI handles choices between culture boosts and building military units?
Right now it seems this is one of very few flaws or possible exploits that you can always (at least up to monarch) pick of the AIs cities by building a few prophets and raising your cultural output in border cities. It would be nice to see some response from the AI either by having it value prophets/great works higher or by actually starting war after you steal too many cities.

Cheers
Rankel

 

[Kael]

Greetings and salutations Kael

I was wondering how the AI handles choices between culture boosts and building military units?
Right now it seems this is one of very few flaws or possible exploits that you can always (at least up to monarch) pick of the AIs cities by building a few prophets and raising your cultural output in border cities. It would be nice to see some response from the AI either by having it value prophets/great works higher or by actually starting war after you steal too many cities.

Cheers
Rankel

Most objects in the game are "flavored" by being given a value for its Economy, Military, Cultural, Scientific, Relgious, Growth or Production value. Then each of the leaders is given a weighting for each of those and leaders will prefer objects that match their weighting.

For exampel lets say a Hunters Lodge is military 5, Growth 3 and a Training Yard is military 10. And lets say Basium is military 5 and the elven Alelanchier is growth 5. In general Basium will prefer the Training Yard (10 x 5 = 50 weighting for it) and Amelanchier will prefer the Hunting Lodge (3 x 5 = 15 weighting for it).

Thats a simple example when both leaders can build both building but in practice it becomes more complex than that since techs are flavored too. So Basium and Amelanchier likely wouldnt research on the same path.

The new tech tree design was based on these flavors and when I talked about making it easier on the AI this was what I was going for. By making each branch generally (lots of exceptions) dedicated to a particular flavor leaders that aren't weighted evenly start rushing techs and researching in the directions you would expect. Dwarves go along the crafting/mining side of the tree, elves go for recon techs, etc.

 

[QES]

IS there any way to differentiate between "types" of culture? ANd i dont mean specifically with religion.

I was just thinking about the similarities between american and european culture, the similarities between mexican and spanish culture in particular, and the utter differences between culture in the "west" and the "east"

It strikes me as an interesting fancy if some cultures had "less" impact on each other because of their general similarities. But "more" impact on cultures of very different styles. I would assume that the major differences in culture would be from "cultureal values" or perhaps the entirety of the civic choices at hand. Perhaps there would be a way to encourage city flipping if the civics differences are much higher, and a lower chance of flipping (and territory loss) if the civics are alot more similar. Perhaps each Difference could be considered 1 point. If a city is stretching out its influence, perhaps a city nearby (of a rival civ) might resist it's influences better if the civics are closer to the same. Where as is if it was WHOLEY different, then the more cultuerally powerful civ would have greater influence.

Would this be possible? Is this even a good idea?
-Qes

 

[Kael]

IS there any way to differentiate between "types" of culture? ANd i dont mean specifically with religion.

I was just thinking about the similarities between american and european culture, the similarities between mexican and spanish culture in particular, and the utter differences between culture in the "west" and the "east"

It strikes me as an interesting fancy if some cultures had "less" impact on each other because of their general similarities. But "more" impact on cultures of very different styles. I would assume that the major differences in culture would be from "cultureal values" or perhaps the entirety of the civic choices at hand. Perhaps there would be a way to encourage city flipping if the civics differences are much higher, and a lower chance of flipping (and territory loss) if the civics are alot more similar. Perhaps each Difference could be considered 1 point. If a city is stretching out its influence, perhaps a city nearby (of a rival civ) might resist it's influences better if the civics are closer to the same. Where as is if it was WHOLEY different, then the more cultuerally powerful civ would have greater influence.

Would this be possible? Is this even a good idea?
-Qes

I hate adding new aspects to the game unless they have a significant positive impact. Not that you can tell that from all the new stuff we are always adding, but we try to limit ourselves.

This strikes me as a mechanic that sounds good and reasonable, it could be implemented but it wouldnt have any significant benifit. No player would be playing along and go "Wow, thats cool!" (ie: no drool factor). Unless there is some features that go along with it, that wouldn't be possible without this mechanic I dont think it would be worthwile.

 

[QES]

I hate adding new aspects to the game unless they have a significant positive impact. Not that you can tell that from all the new stuff we are always adding, but we try to limit ourselves.

This strikes me as a mechanic that sounds good and reasonable, it could be implemented but it wouldnt have any significant benifit. No player would be playing along and go "Wow, thats cool!" (ie: no drool factor). Unless there is some features that go along with it, that wouldn't be possible without this mechanic I dont think it would be worthwile.

I was thinking that Military alliances would follow naturally from "like" cultures, and be more difficult with "unlike" cultures. But i do get your point.
-Qes

 

[Grillick]

Speaking of culture, and I know this has been said before already.

I'd really like to see a diplomatic option, "Give me the city radius around X city."

Would something like that be implementable?

 

[QES]

Speaking of culture, and I know this has been said before already.

I'd really like to see a diplomatic option, "Give me the city radius around X city."

Would something like that be implementable?

Or something that would ****** the continued growth of their culture. I like the idea..but..

I know that boarders are typically drawn up on maps by leaders and ruling bodies. But in CIV IV they wanted to indicate the "peoples" choice. IN this culture represents the bond that individuals 'on the ground' feel toward one civilization or another. We can assume there are non-military boarder disputes between turns, and when the boarder MOVES, it means that a new agreement was reached to keep the people happy. This is a simplification of the process, and lacks in some ways the "flavor" of the boarder dispute, but the simplification process derails the problems that would stem from the differences in cultural-allegence, and national boarder. The 20th century was made up of primiarily these problems. Regardless, the attempts here by the civ iv crew decided that simplification suited their computational needs and mechancial needs for the game. It would be great if there was some function to "fix" the boarder and have any cultural influences affect happiness instead of boarders directly, and only "unfixing" the boarder does this go away. But im not sure how that could possibly be implemented.
-Qes

 

[Sureshot]

When you have teams, borders work as they do normally but with one exception:
If another civ whos on your team has a huge cultural border that would normally take away city yields from one of your cities, it doesn't, and your cities are granted the borders within the city yield radius no matter what your culture versus theirs is.

So i'd think the option is atleast possible to add to diplomacy.

 

[Sareln]

Speaking of the pioneer/cultural generating forts.

I am playing a game as the Khazad right now and with the new implementation of the dwarven vaults, they're rate of expansion is rather slow. I think something that allowed you to start laying claim to land, pre-cities would be really useful to the Khazad, especially to prevent the AI from charging through the gaps of your sparsely packed cities. Would also be more useful in controlling the barbarian threat by giving your "border garrisons"

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

IS there any way to differentiate between "types" of culture? ANd i dont mean specifically with religion.

I was just thinking about the similarities between american and european culture, the similarities between mexican and spanish culture in particular, and the utter differences between culture in the "west" and the "east"

It strikes me as an interesting fancy if some cultures had "less" impact on each other because of their general similarities. But "more" impact on cultures of very different styles. I would assume that the major differences in culture would be from "cultureal values" or perhaps the entirety of the civic choices at hand. Perhaps there would be a way to encourage city flipping if the civics differences are much higher, and a lower chance of flipping (and territory loss) if the civics are alot more similar. Perhaps each Difference could be considered 1 point. If a city is stretching out its influence, perhaps a city nearby (of a rival civ) might resist it's influences better if the civics are closer to the same. Where as is if it was WHOLEY different, then the more cultuerally powerful civ would have greater influence.

Would this be possible? Is this even a good idea?
-Qes

You have to consider that Civ is an abstraction. If God were playing Civ using the Earth mod, Europe, Australia, scattered islands, and all of both North and South America would be inside the light green borders of ... Greece.

Greece the government fell, but the Greek culture lives on. Rome modeled itself upon Greece, the thinking of the great Greek philosophers forms the foundation for our legal and ethical systems. And seeing as the original texts that went into the New Testament were all written in Greek, even Christianity's beginning was shaped and described in terms of Greek expressions and thought.

American culture? No such thing. It's just a version of Greek. After all, once a game of Civ starts, no new civs appear. (Not since Civ II, I think.)

You say, look how similar sone cultures are to one another. Indeed, how true that is. They're all ultimately ... Greek. (When expressed in Civ terms.)

 

[Kasdar]

I know I am jumping in here late, but I really like the idea of being able to manually expand your borders or create a unit that will alow you to build outside your natural borders.

 

[Unser Giftzwerg]

I know I am jumping in here late, but I really like the idea of being able to manually expand your borders or create a unit that will alow you to build outside your natural borders.

You can already manually expand your borders with the Spirit II spell (name escapes me) available to the Order priest units.

 

[Kasdar]

You can already manually expand your borders with the Spirit II spell (name escapes me) available to the Order priest units.

The spirit II spell is Hope. This spell adds to your culture it doesnt actually expand your borders.

I would like to see a way to make a single tile part of a cities area. wether the tile is next to the existing border or otherwise.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Isn't the spirit II divine spell consecrate, which increases your culture? I know the Order priests can get it.

 

[Kasdar]

Isn't the spirit II divine spell consecrate, which increases your culture? I know the Order priests can get it.

Either way the spell only increases your culture it doesnt truly expand your borders in any way.

 

[Sureshot]

isnt hope the one that increases the culture of a city, where as consecrate is the one that allows extending borders (though temporarily) by adding cultural conversion of the tile the unit is on and the surrounding tiles?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Actually, I thought that hope gave a happiness boost or some such, while consecrate does in fact allow temporary expansion of borders beyond what two cities relative cultural level would normally allow. And it works on a tile-by-tile basis, not a city one.