Question on the United States

CFCoasters

Riding the Lightning
Joined
Jan 18, 2012
Messages
364
As you all probably know, America's culture is, for better or worse, arguably the most influential culture on Earth. Whether it is our malls, movies, or food, everyone recognized American culture when they see it.

My question is, why is it that American culture in game is rated only one star out of five? If Chinese, Indian, and Muslim culture is at the top of the charts, shouldn't American culture be at the top as well, instead of at the bottom?
 
Uhh... actually, the ratings are based more on the hidden moddifiers, so there's actually a technical basis for them.

most influential culture on Earth

Are you talking about the present day, or considering all civilizations throughout history?
 
Actually America's culture modifier is among the best. I think the stars also express the easiness of a cultural victory, which is hard for them because of time constraints. And immigration illogically reduces American culture.

Also, I'm not sure if I agree with your premise :mischief:
 
Je suis étonné ! Je pensais que le français en Louisiane n'était pas très répandu !
 
As you all probably know, America's culture is, for better or worse, arguably the most influential culture on Earth. Whether it is our malls, movies, or food, everyone recognized American culture when they see it.

My question is, why is it that American culture in game is rated only one star out of five? If Chinese, Indian, and Muslim culture is at the top of the charts, shouldn't American culture be at the top as well, instead of at the bottom?

I think Leoreth answered pretty well. With America starting at 1730 without Turkey's UP it's nearly impossible to get a cultural win with America. Time constraints affects two things - the amount of time it takes to have the buildings and America doesn't get the double culture bonus on early wonders.

Two of your three examples don't give culture, which is probably good. I don't think Malls and McDonalds count as great sources of culture.:) I'm an American so I'm not bashing America. Our food may be everywhere, but maybe we're trading it for GPT?

I admit I don't consider the stars when thinking about a given Civ.
 
I don't think you can argue the importance of american culture on the modern world, but the civs that had 5 stars had not only an outstanding culture that outshined the others during their golden age, but also a long-lasting one. That's why I think america should get maybe 3 or 4 stars.
 
Hi,

could it be that people mistake Western for American culture?

There is no doubt that Western culture has spread worldwide and is quite recognized and sometimes followed even by people from cultures , whose official leaders outrightly reject the Western culture.

Nevertheless even though Americans were quite successful in spreading Western culture by means of military and business they are still spreading Western culture, not American.

Certainly a good amount of plays (wether in theatre, cinema or TV) is produced in US or by Americans, but these plays still draw most from European sources, whether it is Shakespeare, other European classics or the original Greek theatre tradition.

Certainly the Americans have spread certain standards in education and research, but the educational system of US is a modified one-to-one copy of the Greek academia system which was rediscovered during the age of enlightment.
In this same age the Europeans also defined most standards and procedures for research and development (from academic writings standards till standards for creating experimental evidence) which are in place till today and present in US.

Certainly many people worldwide dress the same way as Americans do and they try to emulate American lifestyles. Nevertheless High fashion is even today coming mostly from Europe and Western fashion is in general rooted in the traditions of Europe and the first suburbs were not created around New York, but around London.

From the way how you plan your cities till the way you organize your communities even till the way you define your own values all of this originated in Europe. Whether you draw your inspiration (or just copied) from Parliamentary UK or from Revolutionary France or even from the Senates of Ancient Rome the US are the foremost Western state and American culture is Western culture.

American have contributed invaluable achievements in enriching Western culture due to the influx of immigrating Eastern cultures, but nevertheless your country was founded by Europeans and that is were your culture comes from.

So my point is that real US is just to young a country to be called a distinct culture and is currently spreading a blend of European and Asian cultures (in game mechanics US cities would produce English, French, (German, Russian), Chinese and Indian cultures to certain percentages). As this is not feasible gamewise - the current implementation of US culture of coming late and not getting very large is just fine.
 
I don't think Rhye 'denies' American culture. It's in fact quite simple. The Chinese for example have a high cultural rating because they can find a few religions and have access to some early wonders, so by the time a cultural victory comes in reach, they have a good shot at it. The Americans cannot found any religion nor build as many wonders, so they have a poor starting situation. It's true that more or less any civ can get many wonders / religions / cultural victories if you give them a shot, but it just gives a basic hint. What would the AI do and what would be the result, that's more or less the question. With that in mind I think 1 star is appropriate.

On the topic of actual 'culture': it's just a way you define it. Desperately trying to have greener grass than your neighbour in Phoenix isn't in any way 'civilized', considering side effects...:mischief: An important reason that lots of American products went international is marketing, something Americans are *really* good at, but that has nothing to do with culture IMO.
 
So my point is that real US is just to young a country to be called a distinct culture and is currently spreading a blend of European and Asian cultures (in game mechanics US cities would produce English, French, (German, Russian), Chinese and Indian cultures to certain percentages). As this is not feasible gamewise - the current implementation of US culture of coming late and not getting very large is just fine.

Very true. America is at its core just a big melting pot of cultures. American culture has been completely driven by people from other nations joining the melting pot and as they take a more "american" aspect to themselves, they also change oh so slightly the culture of the entire nation. California Sushi is one example of how this works. A Japanese Chef in San Diego wanted to try and find a way to make sushi like they did in Japan, but with local ingredients. The Rice was easy, as the US was growing rice by that point. Seaweed was a matter of going to the docks and buying some. He needed something to replace the fish they used in traditional sushi. It turned out avocados had a extremely similar texture to that fish. So he used Avocados. The reason the seaweed is inside, not outside was that american customers preferred it that way.

Actually, That sums up a very large portions of California dishes. The term California Fusion Cuisine exists for a big reason. and thats just one example of the melting pot.
Chinatown in San Fran is noted for being a place Chinese from the PRC visit to study pre-PRC Chinese Culture, though naturally it has changed a little bit from being inside the US, and therefor a democracy.

The Term is actually called Hegemonic Empire. In terms of how empires work, this is the most ideal one to have, as it tends to be the most stable, as it gives cultural (cultural hegemony is somewhat harder, internet is making this even harder) and economic (this is easier to achieve today. because of the internet and transportation technologies.)
 
As you all probably know, America's culture is, for better or worse, arguably the most influential culture on Earth. Whether it is our malls, movies, or food, everyone recognized American culture when they see it.

Just because Americans are louder doesn't me they are more cultured.
 
Actually, The American culture in the game is so imba,rather better than any other civs,,, at the end often with 5 cities with 40000+culture or more, it is not difficult to get a culture win .
 
Let's face it, culture in Civ is just a mechanic that doesn't really line up with culture in the real world in any way at all. In Civ 4 American culture is not going to be found anywhere outside the sphere of influence of American cities and is unlikely to outstrip most of the more established cultures before the end of the game. Doesn't do to overthink this.
 
American and western culture is the most influential today, but historically the most influential culture is the Jews (due to Islam and Christianity being in a way directly descended from Judaism). I am not a Jew; I am just saying that the two most influential cultures in the world have been Christianity and Islam (I'm not taking anything away from the hindus buddhists taoists pagans confucianist thought zoroastrians etc.)
 
American and western culture is the most influential today, but historically the most influential culture is the Jews (due to Islam and Christianity being in a way directly descended from Judaism). I am not a Jew; I am just saying that the two most influential cultures in the world have been Christianity and Islam (I'm not taking anything away from the hindus buddhists taoists pagans confucianist thought zoroastrians etc.)

That doesn't make a lot of sense. Judaism is theologically the ancestor of the modern monotheistic religions, but that doesn't even remotely suggest that they all have a cultural attachment to each other. You think that Jews were welcomed as brothers in Europe? Chritianity is not a culture at all. It could be argued that Islam is (because of how it spreads the Arabic culture), but America's culture is definitely the most widespread in history. I've lived in Israel, and we are becoming more Americanized every year. Even Arab countries listen to American music and adopt American fashion trends.
 
That doesn't make a lot of sense. Judaism is theologically the ancestor of the modern monotheistic religions, but that doesn't even remotely suggest that they all have a cultural attachment to each other. You think that Jews were welcomed as brothers in Europe? Chritianity is not a culture at all. It could be argued that Islam is (because of how it spreads the Arabic culture), but America's culture is definitely the most widespread in history. I've lived in Israel, and we are becoming more Americanized every year. Even Arab countries listen to American music and adopt American fashion trends.

In general Jews were accepted in Christian Europe and Jews and Christians in the Islamic world. Of course life wasn't much fun for any of those groups and there were a few lapses here and there, but nothing like the deliberate liquidation that both Christianity and Islam inflicted on pagans (including Buddhists in Islam's case).
 
In general Jews were accepted in Christian Europe and Jews and Christians in the Islamic world. Of course life wasn't much fun for any of those groups and there were a few lapses here and there, but nothing like the deliberate liquidation that both Christianity and Islam inflicted on pagans (including Buddhists in Islam's case).

I... highly doubt those were due to "cultural differences." And Jews were never seen as real Europeans or Arabs by either their host countries or themselves (I am reminded of how Immanuel Kant referred to Jews as "Palestinians living among us").
 
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