Question - Culture metrics

[Hydromancerx]

Perhaps there could or should be added layers to the cultural groups so as to allow for more generality of branching of our trees and less specificity that then begs that we start making up a ton of cultures that never existed historically to create some balance. Maybe.

Not counting the "punk" cultures, neanderthal or sentient dolphin cultures, this would be an interesting idea. If we do add some we should look upon established alternative history nation in fiction. There so are many to choose from.

 

[Rmi]

Categories shouldn't matter, the above is just a hypothetical.

The code should have 3 requirement slots, as Tbird said. And those slots should all have the same checklist and that list should have all options in it.

That would mean any culture can have any variation of any requirements. Including requiring 3 resources or 3 civics active should we want too.

Do i have this correct?

 

[Rmi]

I agree with your point on the myths. We should only require those that define a culture not just those that fit.

About branching:
I have divided all cultures in three categories already:
People
Historic Powers
Countries (more or less right now)
It serves no function at this moment but i put it there for future ideas.

About 'Punks':
I have not actually considered including 'Punks' in this project. I think those are a well designed bunch on themselves. No intention to change anything there.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Category 1 - Must pick one. May select a second and it counts for the Cat 2 requirement of 2 Cat 2 selections. May pick more for historical value.

• Vicinity Resource
• Another Culture (Currently the Resource)
  
• Myth
• Particular World Wonder or Team Project
  
• State Religion
• Rare Goods Resource access such as what you get from a wonder or a building that requires 2 vicinity resources

Category 2 - Must pick 2 OR pick a second Cat 1. MAY pick as many as you want for historical value.

• Terrain
• Feature
• On River
• On Coast
• Normal Map or Goods Resource
  
• for futuristic ones to be developed: MapCategoryType
• Civic
• Religion Presence
  
• Worldview

There's probably still more possible. Would the stated guidelines work for folks? Obviously the goal would be to make all cultures roughly equally difficult to obtain, with some obvious variation.

Another thought - if you have Flock of Peacocks then it reduces the cost of building some Cultures. This is what the Flocks were designed for btw. Herds already contribute reducing the cost of some religion buildings

I'd like to eventually move towards making culture origin buildings organically sprouting where the conditions are good, aka, autobuilds. However, if we do that with the Ideas project system so it spreads from its origin point, such cost reductions could apply to buildings units that relate to that culture and help to spread it.

Not counting the "punk" cultures, neanderthal or sentient dolphin cultures, this would be an interesting idea. If we do add some we should look upon established alternative history nation in fiction. There so are many to choose from.

Yeah we've been discussing such a tree in anothe thread here of a related nature. So many threads covering these subjects right now I'm not sure which to refer you to. There's some question as to how specific we want to make the tree but we have a historian forum user @FlyingRainbow16 looking at mapping out some of that. Maybe @Rmi has some of that mapping out in mind too.

All still just a conversation. If ya don't agree with anything, speak up and we'll look for compromise!

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Well what happens if you happen to spawn on the wrong side of the globe? Like lets say I pick Chinese civ and I am really wanting to get Chinese culture. If I end up spawning where South America is then I could never get China until I get to that part of the globe. And for all we know Asia could all be ocean on the random map I am on.

I want to make C2C not a historical simulator but an alternative history simulator. One where some things might have gone the same way but you as a player have a choice to make your own unique culture out of many historical cultures. Sure you can play China with Pandas but what if I want to play China where they have Llamas and Giant Ground Sloths instead? This should be possible as long as you have Silk resource there (since that's currently what resource unlocks Chinese culture).

We are moving to have some of the bonuses appear in the "correct" historical location also because of their affect on animal spawns.

I agree with your point on the myths. We should only require those that define a culture not just those that fit.

About branching:
I have divided all cultures in three categories already:
People
Historic Powers
Countries (more or less right now)
It serves no function at this moment but i put it there for future ideas.

About 'Punks':
I have not actually considered including 'Punks' in this project. I think those are a well designed bunch on themselves. No intention to change anything there.

Johny Smith had a good set of Culture B comes from Culture A ie splitting but I have lost my copy and I have not been able to find it in any of his threads or the ones we have here. In this case he was talking about choosing to get a Culture from a number of options available from the Cultures you have, you could only ever choose one branch of this set moving down the tree and forward in time.

 

[Rmi]

The database has a column for current region for all cultures. I added that in case we wanted to pursue this.
Also a lot of the wiki pages on historic kindoms etc. have a sidebox where is says 'preceded by' and 'followed by'. This would help a lot.


If you want to have a testcase for culture branching i recommend.

Iran
Peru
Ethiopia
Tunisia
Egypt
Mongolia

These seem to have a very diverse history of cultures succeeding each other but it's off course not at all as clear-cut as that.

 

[Toffer90]

If we do go for culture splitting/branching, then I feel it's important that almost all cultures that requires a culture also is set up to require an alternate culture.
e.g. Culture "A" requires Culture "B" OR Culture "C" OR Culture "D"...etc.
We should allow competition to acquire a culture to exist for all the cultures, not just the ones that are first in line for the culture tree.

Same Logic would apply if there is a wonder requirement, then there should be an alternate building requirement, be it a wonder or a regular building.
e.g. Culture "A" requires Wonder "A" OR Wonder "B" OR Building "C"...etc.
The thought behind not all of them being wonders is that, it may be that the ones who get the wonder does not fulfill the other requirement for the culture in that city; so a regular building that becomes available at a later tech makes it possible to get the culture later in the game.

 

[Hydromancerx]

If we do go for culture splitting/branching, then I feel it's important that almost all cultures that requires a culture also is set up to require an alternate culture.
e.g. Culture "A" requires Culture "B" OR Culture "C" OR Culture "D"...
We should allow competition to acquire a culture to exist for all the cultures, not just the ones that are first in line for the culture tree.

Same Logic would apply if there is a wonder requirement, then there should be an alternate building requirement, be it a wonder or a regular building.
e.g. Culture "A" requires Wonder "A" OR Wonder "B" OR Building "C"
The thought behind not all of them being wonders is that, it may be that the ones who get the wonder does not fulfill the other requirement for the culture in that city; so a regular building that becomes available at a later tech makes it possible to get the culture later in the game.

Well that's what the whole regional cultures was made for. It is a much wider net than what you propose. Perhaps a middle ground. Somewhere between continent size and culture size. Such as a "sub-region" For instance any Mediterranean culture (Greek, Roman, Carthaginian, etc) could gain access to this smaller "sub-region" of culture and thus have some competition if you got one of the handful of cultures that could possibly get it.

 

[Toffer90]

Well that's what the whole regional cultures was made for. It is a much wider net than what you propose. Perhaps a middle ground. Somewhere between continent size and culture size. Such as a "sub-region" For instance any Mediterranean culture (Greek, Roman, Carthaginian, etc) could gain access to this smaller "sub-region" of culture and thus have some competition if you got one of the handful of cultures that could possibly get it.

Not sure what you mean.

I just said that it is bad practice to have a wonder require a wonder without an alternate unlocking prerequisite. Cultures are atm wonders too.

 

[Rmi]

You cannot have perfect chronically linear culture trees. History does not work that way.
What we can have is a more accurate approach with cultural regions and work from there.


I can provide a more distinct geographical metric for all cultures.
Meso-America and Mediterranean as you said can easily be their own category.

If we want a cultural tree that supports your civs identity we need a framework for it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think you might be ships passing in the dark here but both points make sense to me.

Well that's what the whole regional cultures was made for. It is a much wider net than what you propose. Perhaps a middle ground. Somewhere between continent size and culture size. Such as a "sub-region" For instance any Mediterranean culture (Greek, Roman, Carthaginian, etc) could gain access to this smaller "sub-region" of culture and thus have some competition if you got one of the handful of cultures that could possibly get it.

Perhaps at a point we start thinking too regionally and not enough in terms of layered tree branches. One cultural family leads to another.

Not sure what you mean.

I just said that it is bad practice to have a wonder require a wonder without an alternate unlocking prerequisite. Cultures are atm wonders too.

This makes a lot of sense. I hope it's not too complex to be absorbed as a set of guidelines because it really connected with me. A wonder, or another wonder of a sorta similar nature, or failing that entirely, a building later in the tech tree. Totally. As a greater qualification.

 

[Thunderbrd]

You cannot have perfect chronically linear culture trees. History does not work that way.
What we can have is a more accurate approach with cultural regions and work from there.


I can provide a more distinct geographical metric for all cultures.
Meso-America and Mediterranean as you said can easily be their own category.

If we want a cultural tree that supports your civs identity we need a framework for it.

I think we should be striving to start with no identity at all to begin, and assign the regional by where the settler starts on the map instead of by a civilization selection. Civ selections would be 'Gray Player', 'Blue Player' etc...

 

[Rmi]

You want to define the 'starting region' by the X,Y position of the civ startpoint.
Is this correct?

 

[Thunderbrd]

You want to define the 'starting region' by the X,Y position of the civ startpoint.
Is this correct?

Perhaps when/where they place their first city which is when a culture can be first defined.

On top of that, there was talk a while back about defining earth continental zones and other groupings by 'area' which in the code is a contiguous landmass (and seas have areas as well) rather than by x/y boxes as we do now. For spawning at least. And we could use these same definitions as imparting regional definition to players as well.

 

[Rmi]

Excellent.

How many different regions can be found in the map with this code right now?
And is this number different with map size?

If we can define the region we can attribute a 'culture group' to it. Or a list from where it can pick one randomly.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Excellent.

How many different regions can be found in the map with this code right now?
And is this number different with map size?

If we can define the region we can attribute a 'culture group' to it. Or a list from where it can pick one randomly.

It all depends on how many areas the map creates. The problematic part with this project plan has always been that a landmass like europe/asia and africa would all be defined as one if on a normal earth map because the three aren't completely separated by sea tiles. Some kind of additional biome/culture grouping would be needed to somehow find further definition for cause to be split up.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Not sure what you mean.

I just said that it is bad practice to have a wonder require a wonder without an alternate unlocking prerequisite. Cultures are atm wonders too.

What I mean is right now we have the regional cultures of Africa, Asia, Middle East, Europe, North America, South America and Oceania. We could make a set of sub-regions such as Mesoamerica as a sub-region of North America and South America or Mediterranean as a sub-region of Europe and Africa.

For example ...

Aztec = North America (Region) + Mesoamerican (Sub-Region) + Obsidian (Vicinity Resource) + Jungle (Terrain Feature) + Sacrificial Cult (Tech)

Note this example is not listing a trade good yet.

 

[Taxman66]

As a suggestion...
Ideally you would want initial culture zones built after the map was created, and not based on static x,y coordinates. That is, make it a map feature that follows significant natural boundries and could be based on the predominant terrain.

 

[Rmi]

What happens with Pangaea maps?

 

[Thunderbrd]

As a suggestion...
Ideally you would want initial culture zones built after the map was created, and not based on static x,y coordinates. That is, make it a map feature that follows significant natural boundries and could be based on the predominant terrain.

This is exactly what I'd like to do but I'm struggling to consider how to design the algorithm for this. Questions like Rmi's are a part of it. I think of the current Earth and ask myself how do you define where Europe and Asia and the Middle East split in such a way that you get that sort of behavior on a random map? And how do you get such a split without creating whole new cultural zones previously undefined?