Overthrow a City via Culture...?

[The Leviathan]

Well, as I see it, Civ 4's system represents extending and consolidating cultural, ethnic, etc. influence over an area using stufs like great art as a representation. Sure, the Mona Lisa probably won't get that nearby city over in Germany, but if you use your imagination, it does all right at representing making an effort for extending your indirect influence over an area.

Depending on how you want to see things, stuff like what Civ 4 did has happened historically. Texas, for example, got an absolute flood of immigrants from the U.S. that identified more closely with their homeland than Mexico. Eventually, Texas ended up rebelling, and after a stint as an independent republic, it walked into the U.S.'s hands. I imagine that's essentially what goes on in Civ 4. The people identify more closely with your nation, and, should the other nation's military presence be sufficiently weak, they rebel and join up with you.

Now, diplomatic consequences of accepting land and such that the other government considers its own aren't quite dealt with to the fullest extent, but, y'know...



Wouldn't, by your own argument, it be silly for great art to steal even a few tiles?

It doesn't seem like you can just say, "Well, the Mona Lisa can take some kilometers for you, but not a whole city or nothing." Is great art what's taking that land or isn't it?

So, y'know, food for thought on what culture in Civ 4 actually represented.



The way I consider culture in Civ 4, that's basically how it'd go. You've got your little conquered enclave sitting in the midst of a whole bunch of people who don't identify with your culture, your government, and so on. I mean, yeah, it's unfortunate that you can't hold up a gun and make the nearby folks work those tiles, instead of just sitting there trapped in your starving island-city... but as it goes, it does make some sense.

So, yeah, I'm a little disappointed that you can't culture-flip as in previous civilizations, but I suppose I can get by.

Well realistically it is a a bit silly for an artist to steal land but I don't mind because I understand that it's a game. I understand that culture in IV was an abstractions, however I think it was simply a silly abstraction in IV.

My complaint isn't that culture/influence steals land. Throughout history borders have changed left and right... borders are not static and a country's influence, prestige, and power definitely had a hand in how borders changed. However IV's culture system was simply silly... stealing a million squares and completely surrounding the city making it unworkable and making it flip to your side doesn't make any sense no matter how you try to explain it.

I would have/have no problem with great artist and culture flipping a few border tiles... but nothing to the extent of Civ IV where your city was completely swallowed and useless because of some nonsensical system of culture and influence.

 

[Flavorable]

Actually learn some more facts about the game before you even try have a debate over it.

Really though, I'm looking for a response, do you have me on your ignore list? You haven't offered any kind of rebuttal as to my points.

 

[devilhunterred]

It's turning into an RTS because it adapted the stone age old RTS resource management philosophy: You only need to obtain the gas, minerals, wood, rocks, etc, to build what you need.

In CIV IV players have to juggle between culture, food, health and find a balance between all 3 of them to sustain a city's normal development. Not enough culture and your tiles will be taken over by neighbors, not enough food and your city won't grow, not enough health and sickness will render your citizens useless.

It requires a fine tuning and strategic planing on the players' part.

Note that in CIV 5 culture's role and significance is reduced because it is no longer the primary force behind city expansions, food remains the same, but health is taken out entirely, which means player don't have to worry about pollution anymore and the negative externalities that some buildings may produce.

Basically the whole resource management is dumbed down.

 

[anomaly19]

I'm not sure I prefer the current system or the city flipping but I did have a great experience a few min ago in CiV

I was Siam and Alexander was on my borders. Despite being a large empire I did not have Aluminum, looking around I saw a source of Aluminum in Sparta's territory which was adjacent to my border. Conveniently I popped a great artist and used him to culture bomb Sparta's Al source. This triggered a war (Alex was already getting hostile to me and I noted troop movement for about 10 turns before this) which involved a furious fight along the border and eventually I decided to take and hold Sparta just to secure Aluminum. Now Alex is on the retreat and I am moving troops forward to take out several of his units and strategic resource improvements so I continue to have an edge.

Best experience in Civ 5 so far.

To have more such experiences I think culture bombs should be able to give 2 adjacent hexes rather than one since you have to pop it in your borders anyway.

 

[Sunriser]

uh nevermind

 

[devilhunterred]

WHAT!?

Just 2 hours ago I was playing a game in which I was aiming for a science victory, I was having a rough time keeping with the AI until I unlocked Rationalism, so then I realized that culture was still a huge priority, as it acted as an extension of my science. I don't think I would have come nearly as close if it weren't for Rationalism, and that isn't the only SP that situationally can change the game, Tradition can work wonders if you're losing ground in a war, and Commerce helps dramatically for a diplomatic victory. More than just being fire and forget, all of these Social Policies also required me to rethink my strategies. Commerce required me to adapt and develop a viable Navy, and once I had unlocked the Tradition combat policy I had to immediately ordered my units to retreat within my borders.

They change the game in many dramatic ways, and I think you need to look up the definition of RTS, lol.

Funny, I'm actually mid-way through a game close of winning the scientific victory without unlocking rationalism at all.

I play as Chinese, spam paper makers, spam farms in cities to support specialists, allied with maritime city states to increase food, and unlocked the second patronage SP which gives you 33% of all scientific production that your allied city states are producing.

Once you get great scientist, build scientific academy, once you have a few of those you are pretty much set for a scientific win.

In fact my empire probably has unlocked the least SP in the game, and yet I'm still winning scientifically.

I'm playing as Prince difficulty, and it's widely known that CIV 5 is easier than CIV IV, perhaps I should play a higher difficulty next game.

 

[Flavorable]

We are discussing culture, and you are saying that culture is now only useful for a cultural victory, I'm saying its a more essential element of the game than it was in Civ IV.

Culture is not the driving force in border expansion anymore, gold is. That allows for a greater emphasis on developing a viable economy, however, culture does passively develop borders, which helps in the longterm towards land ownership.

Where culture is now more essential is in how it can dynamically change a player's strategy through Social Policies. Culture in Civ 4 was only good for border expansion, culture in Civ 5 is now an important aspect to any kind of victory because of the tremendous impact of social policies.

 

[The Leviathan]

It's turning into an RTS because it adapted the stone age old RTS resource management philosophy: You only need to obtain the gas, minerals, wood, rocks, etc, to build what you need.

In CIV IV players have to juggle between culture, food, health and find a balance between all 3 of them to sustain a city's normal development. Not enough culture and your tiles will be taken over by neighbors, not enough food and your city won't grow, not enough health and sickness will render your citizens useless.

It requires a fine tuning and strategic planing on the players' part.

Note that in CIV 5 culture's role and significance is reduced because it is no longer the primary force behind city expansions, food remains the same, but health is taken out entirely, which means player don't have to worry about pollution anymore and the negative externalities that some buildings may produce.

Basically the whole resource management is dumbed down.

See this is inane crap to complain about

You still have the same crap to worry about, such as food, happiness, military power, culture, gold, blah blah, etc.. Ignoring culture means that you can't get social policies which a great boost and benefits to your game but culture also helps your borders expand

Now of course buying tiles is the quicker way to expand your borders but that's the point... you actually have to spend valuable gold to buy a tile while if you leave it up to cultural it will expand at a progressively slower pace. You can't rely soley on buying tiles because you won't always have the gold and as you start buying further away, things start to get pretty expensive

Cultural expansion is pretty fast at first but if you only build a monument in your cities and nothing else you're obviously going to start getting tiles slower because as your cities borders grow, price for the next tile begins to grow. Again it's as someone else said, culture in this game is now not only good for border expansion but it's also great for the benefits social policies provide.

 

[Flavorable]

Funny, I'm actually mid-way through a game close of winning the scientific victory without unlocking rationalism at all.

I play as Chinese, spam paper makers, spam farms in cities to support specialists, allied with maritime city states to increase food, and unlocked the second patronage SP which gives you 33% of all scientific production that your allied city states are producing.

Once you get great scientist, build scientific academy, once you have a few of those you are pretty much set for a scientific win.

In fact my empire probably has unlocked the least SP in the game, and yet I'm still winning scientifically.

I'm playing as Prince difficulty, and it's widely known that CIV 5 is easier than CIV IV, perhaps I should play a higher difficulty next game.

And what difficulty are you playing on? I can tell you that, depending situationally on how essential a military and an infrastructure, that social policies help dramatically.

 

[Selous]

im glad to see culture wars gone, it was a terrible dynamic

 

[Smuggo]

The city expansion that culture brings is so laughably miniscule that you can have 2-3 world wonders in your city, I can have nothing but a market and a bank and I can still buy up more tiles for expansion much quicker than you can culturally expand.

And there are 5/8 social policy trees to fully unlock before getting the Utopia Project.

Actually learn some more facts about the game before you even try have a debate over it.

Culture helps you expand in other ways, with the social policies. I've been looking at a domination/science victory, but I also need some social policies to help me achieve that (such as ones to deal with unhappiness etc...)

In Civ 4 culture was pretty badly balanced. You could easily spam culture and flip many cities over the course of a game. It was easier to culture flip them than attack them with your military. I think for tile expansion it maybe could be turned up a little on Civ 5, but it's certainly more balanced than in Civ 4.

 

[Krill]

Culture and Social Policies are just a parallel to the science and tech tree. They both do the same job. They are both the same idea in the meta game.

 

[alphahoke]

Culture and Social Policies are just a parallel to the science and tech tree. They both do the same job. They are both the same idea in the meta game.

Bingo, that hits it on the head. Which means that there isn't the cultural tug of war that Civ4 had. Instead, the game focuses on economics and military domination with the culture trees propping them up.

 

[Sofar Sogood]

Well realistically it is a a bit silly for an artist to steal land but I don't mind because I understand that it's a game. I understand that culture in IV was an abstractions, however I think it was simply a silly abstraction in IV.

Well, think about it this way: what else would have worked to the same effect? The way I see it, most ways to split the art and the culture and the cultural influence in the surrounding areas just make it seem a lot easier to lump it under one thing.

Even if it doesn't make much sense when looked at literally.

making it flip to your side doesn't make any sense no matter how you try to explain it.

Sounds simple to me:

99% of the people in, say, New York, think of themselves as Carthaginians.

Why are they being ruled over by Americans when Carthage is right next door? Revolt and fix this error, then go to Carthage and ask for annexation.

Issue being when the military force is too great to revolt against, which is also handled, to a certain extent.

I would have/have no problem with great artist and culture flipping a few border tiles... but nothing to the extent of Civ IV where your city was completely swallowed and useless because of some nonsensical system of culture and influence.

Useless, I can see complaints about. Especially when you've got a heavy military presence in the area and are willing to point the guns at the farmers and say "farm."

Swallowed up? Still makes sense. Yes, the English own this certain city because they managed to capture it. That doesn't mean that the supermajority of the people living around the city for miles aren't Russian.

Part of the issue may just be that it's kind of difficult to represent the tiles owned by a civ in all of the manifold ways that they require.

 

[orlanth]

I wish they would've kept the ability for cities to have percentages of cultural influence from different civs. That would let you try to gradually assimilate conquered cities instead of having everything permanently be "puppet" or "occupied".

 

[alphahoke]

For anybody still interested in the original question in this topic, I have a little bit of good news:

Although the citizens won't overthrow a city, cultural expansion ain't too bad considering how many more tiles a single city is now allowed to have. Additionally, anyone focusing on culture will most likely have more artists who can "culture bomb" desired tiles.

It's not the same as CIV4...and being able to take cities would be nice, but the culture bomb seems to work alright.

 

[dannythefool]

Cultural expansion can also go farther than you can buy tiles. As far as I can see, you can only buy tiles in the BFH. This can be really important in the late game when you are just one tile too far from an oil resource, or if you play OCC games.

This adds another unknown to the game, if your cities don't produce enough culture then you may find that your next door neighbour beats you to an important resource that you may not even have known about. In Civ IV this is much simpler to flip back. In this game you can still flip it back with a great artist but that'll probably get you a war declaration.

 

[CrimsonEdge]

Culture bombs have given me the tile cash equivalent of a Great Merchant.

 

[stethnorun]

Another good feature removed, and I bet a couple of fanboys are going to be all "I hated that feature, I'm glad it's gone" like with every other removed feature.

Sorry to prove you right, but I hated that feature and I'm glad it's gone. I'm a fan of every Civ game though, not just V.