Question: citizen loyalty?

[Auncien]

Has anyone heard or read anything about whether or not an annexed city will ever assimilate to your nationality?

In previous Civilization games cities gained or lost nationality based on culture, on who owned the city and other factors. Let's say you take a city from your neighbor in CiV. Will the people in that city ever stop causing empire-wide unhappiness (terrible happiness system btw ) or will they continue to grumble and cause unrest until the end of time?

 

[stealth_nsk]

You need to build a courthouse to assimilate them. It can't be rushed.

While I don't think "Courthouse" isn't good name for this type of building, the mechanics itself sounds ok for me.

 

[Auncien]

You need to build a courthouse to assimilate them. It can't be rushed.

While I don't think "Courthouse" isn't good name for this type of building, the mechanics itself sounds ok for me.

Ah. Thank you. So once you build the courthouse the citizens become yours as if they always had been?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yep, another fantastic feature (cultural assimilation) sacrificed on the altar of simplification. Seriously, the closer we get to release of this game, the *less* excited I'm becoming about the game!

Aussie.

 

[Auncien]

Yep, another fantastic feature (cultural assimilation) sacrificed on the altar of simplification. Seriously, the closer we get to release of this game, the *less* excited I'm becoming about the game!

Aussie.

There seems to be far less subtlety and nuance in nearly every gameplay system. The immediate switch-over after constructing a building seems a little blunt and yes, unrealistic to me.

 

[Mercade]

There seems to be far less subtlety and nuance in nearly every gameplay system. The immediate switch-over after constructing a building seems a little blunt and yes, unrealistic to me.

OTOH raging a city now works one pop point a turn and pillaged improvements now remain in order to be rebuilt, so that's new subtleties being introduced.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Actually it's the same "build something to assimilate" as it was in Civ 4, but without all this culture management. Sounds good for me. And as a universal answer - if anyone wants culture-based assimilation, it can be modded. I doubt core game looses anything without it.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually it's the same "build something to assimilate" as it was in Civ 4, but without all this culture management. Sounds good for me. And as a universal answer - if anyone wants culture-based assimilation, it can be modded. I doubt core game looses anything without it.

Seriously, did you actually ever play Civ4, because it certainly doesn't sound like it! Cultural assimilation occurred very naturally-you didn't need to manage it. If you had a strong culture-overall-then you assimilated captured cities quicker-with or without the construction of cultural buildings in the city. 2nd, the system was less binary-which is much better than this oversimplified *muck* they've come up with! If anything, the cultural assimilation mechanic of Civ4 is one they should have *built* on for Civ5-not just removed (easy to do given that some City-States grant culture to their friends, meaning that a mechanic for moving culture between cities already exists). No doubt they have the same lame excuses for its removal as they do for the removal of religion. Oh, & as a part-time modder myself, I'm getting sick of the "don't like it, mod it in" refrain. Why should people like myself be *required* to mod in stuff that should have been in the vanilla game?
I seriously think that you're a little too willing to defend this game, even when its not justified.

Aussie.

 

[Thorburne]

Seriously, did you actually ever play Civ4, because it certainly doesn't sound like it! Cultural assimilation occurred very naturally-you didn't need to manage it. If you had a strong culture-overall-then you assimilated captured cities quicker-with or without the construction of cultural buildings in the city. 2nd, the system was less binary-which is much better than this oversimplified *muck* they've come up with! If anything, the cultural assimilation mechanic of Civ4 is one they should have *built* on for Civ5-not just removed (easy to do given that some City-States grant culture to their friends, meaning that a mechanic for moving culture between cities already exists). No doubt they have the same lame excuses for its removal as they do for the removal of religion. Oh, & as a part-time modder myself, I'm getting sick of the "don't like it, mod it in" refrain. Why should people like myself be *required* to mod in stuff that should have been in the vanilla game?
I seriously think that you're a little too willing to defend this game, even when its not justified.

Aussie.

Excellent points, Aussie! I tire of the "mod it" argument, myself! It just makes the developers seem lazy in that "well, we don't have to worry about this and that because the modders can put it in if they want to. We'll just focus on this and leave that to them!"

 

[bernlin2000]

Seriously, did you actually ever play Civ4, because it certainly doesn't sound like it! Cultural assimilation occurred very naturally-you didn't need to manage it. If you had a strong culture-overall-then you assimilated captured cities quicker-with or without the construction of cultural buildings in the city. 2nd, the system was less binary-which is much better than this oversimplified *muck* they've come up with! If anything, the cultural assimilation mechanic of Civ4 is one they should have *built* on for Civ5-not just removed (easy to do given that some City-States grant culture to their friends, meaning that a mechanic for moving culture between cities already exists). No doubt they have the same lame excuses for its removal as they do for the removal of religion. Oh, & as a part-time modder myself, I'm getting sick of the "don't like it, mod it in" refrain. Why should people like myself be *required* to mod in stuff that should have been in the vanilla game?
I seriously think that you're a little too willing to defend this game, even when its not justified.

Aussie.

Cultural Assimilation might have a nice realism flavor, but it could be a pain in the ass. Cities that didn't directly border your own often starting with a very low percentage being your culture, and it could take dozens of turns before they stopped "yearning to join the motherland". It was easier just to take the entire civilization out, and not deal with all the unhappiness. Have the system be more binary will be much more useful for when you don't want to have to destroy an entire empire, which can take an incredible amount of time and resources, and with the way happiness works now you would likely have to raze most of the cities you conquer to avoid massive unhappiness in your empire.

As a sidenote, however, I think we should play the game first before any of its features are labeled as "muck". Our information on this topic is "mucky" at best.

 

[Thorburne]

As a sidenote, however, I think we should play the game first before any of its features are labeled as "muck". Our information on this topic is "mucky" at best.

Fair enough... but the same should be applied to those that say that the game and its features are the bestest ever! I always hear "wait until the game is released and you get to play it before complaining" but too many praise it as the best thing ever without playing it as well. Yet, when we say the same response to them, you would think we were committing blasphemy!

 

[Semmel]

The culture thing in newly conquered cities was a mechanic to the city crap for you for a while without making it crap for the one who lost it, even when he recaptures it. but from the realistic point of view.. why should be all culture buildings be destroyed when conquering a city? Why should the theatre burn to the ground but i.e. the granary not? Thats not logical either.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

No, the Cultural mechanic was not perfect, but it was something which could have worked incredibly well had it been improved upon, rather than dumped. I simply have problems with any system as binary as "Build a Courthouse & the people love you"-but that's a side-effect of merging several factors into a single happiness mechanic. There is such a thing as OVER-simplification!

 

[stealth_nsk]

Seriously, did you actually ever play Civ4, because it certainly doesn't sound like it! Cultural assimilation occurred very naturally-you didn't need to manage it.

I always managed it with buildings. Not sure what you're talking about.

Anyway, let's look at the bigger picture.
Culture assimilation as it was in Civ 4 was part of culture wars. Now tile acquisition was greatly reworked with new features, so culture wars are over and introducing culture percentage just for assimilation will be overcomplication. So they introduced something to simpler, but perfectly fitting the new system.

I tire of the "mod it" argument

The reason why this argument comes again and again is simple. The Civ 5 looks (at least for me) as robust, logical and finished system. Adding alien elements (even from previous civs) just don't fir without rebuilding a lot of aspects. And I don't want to see a chimera game, nor I want to see rebranded Civ 4.

 

[Tomice]

The biggest pain in Civ4 was how you needed to have tons of culture to make captured cities close to your enemies remaining cities (or even any other civs city) useful.

This might have been accurate in ancient times, but in the lategame it seemed weird that 50 years after peace was declared the borders where still changing regularily. And why did some tiles go to a third party not involved in the war?

Regarding the city itself, a more gradual approach would have been better for Civ5, I admit. But it seems the weird border issues are gone, making me feel positive about the new game.

 

[sensual benny]

No, the Cultural mechanic was not perfect, but it was something which could have worked incredibly well had it been improved upon, rather than dumped. I simply have problems with any system as binary as "Build a Courthouse & the people love you"-but that's a side-effect of merging several factors into a single happiness mechanic. There is such a thing as OVER-simplification!

The people won't love you as soon as you build a courthouse -- annexed cities still generate massive unhappiness, the courthouse just allows you to maintain order and control their decisions.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The people won't love you as soon as you build a courthouse -- annexed cities still generate massive unhappiness, the courthouse just allows you to maintain order and control their decisions.

That's not what we've heard. Unless you make the city a puppet, it will generate massive unhappiness *until* you build a courthouse-at which point they become part of your empire. If you've heard differently, could you please cite your source?

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I always managed it with buildings. Not sure what you're talking about.

Anyway, let's look at the bigger picture.
Culture assimilation as it was in Civ 4 was part of culture wars. Now tile acquisition was greatly reworked with new features, so culture wars are over and introducing culture percentage just for assimilation will be overcomplication. So they introduced something to simpler, but perfectly fitting the new system.

And I don't want to see a chimera game, nor I want to see rebranded Civ 4.

That's a completely nonsense argument-I'm not asking for a rebranded Civ4, but nor do I want a Civ Rev for PC-which is increasingly what its sounding like we're going to get. Civ4 had a *very good* culture/assimilation system which could have easily been incorporated into Civ5-& SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVED UPON. Instead they've opted for a binary mechanic which, whilst excellent for war-mongers, does not really appeal to a builder/diplomacy player like myself. Indeed, an improved form of culture modeling (such as the movement of foreign culture into cities via trade) could have improved the diplomacy mechanism still further. Yet as its becoming increasingly clear that diplomacy has taken a back seat to war in Civ5, I can see why they abandoned the existing culture model from Civ4.

Aussie.

 

[moopoo]

erm i'm pretty sure the courthouse is built to stop the unhappiness of an annexed city, not to initiate cultural assimilation. as in, the stupid, arbitrary period where you couldn't build anything in your city and had to just wait.

 

[stealth_nsk]

That's a completely nonsense argument-I'm not asking for a rebranded Civ4, but nor do I want a Civ Rev for PC-which is increasingly what its sounding like we're going to get. Civ4 had a *very good* culture/assimilation system which could have easily been incorporated into Civ5-& SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVED UPON..

There are 2 reasons why culture wars were removed from Civ 5:

1. With more loose cities and improvements to tile gathering, actually pushing cities culturally became much less possible. So if culture wars were implemented as they were in Civ 4, they would be much less important and limited to resource tile wars. Since these things could be done in Civ 5 with GA's cultur bomb, the culture wars loose their importance at all.

2. There ais another and much more fun system to encourage cultural civilizations - social policies.

So, if you look at the game as the whole, nothing is removed or simplified, it just done differently.