Settings for Realistic Culture Spread

[Snofru1]

In general I like the Realistic Culture Spread that is part of the game options. The only thing is that I find it is way too slow. In my last game on Marathon it took 40 rounds just to get to the 2nd tile.
Is there somewhere in the XML a file where the amount of culture needed for the area growth can be adjusted?

Edit: I just found the file CIV4CultureLevelInfo.xml. Should I change all the iThreshold values here or is there another setting somewhere else which would have an effect an all the settings in game?

 

[BlueTemplar]

What kind of terrain is it balanced around ?
(To have the same tile spread growth/culture as without the option.)

 

[Toffer90]

Terrain, feature, and river can slow down culture border expansion with RCS.

What kind of terrain is it balanced around ?

Hmm, if any, then grassland with no feature and no river.
There are more cultural levels with RCS than without as well.

 

[BlueTemplar]

Yes, I assume that on grassland with no feature and no river you would get a similar culture spread compared to one without the option, except faster, since IIRC the levels are cheaper.

So then, what kind of (average, same in all directions) terrain/features do you need for those more frequent cultural thresholds to result in the same speed of cultural coverage than the normal cultural thresholds that you get without the option ?

 

[Toffer90]

It doesn't have to be the same, RCS is supposed to be slower for a city settled in the middle of a swampy jungle, with rivers all over, but it should be refined so that you actually get some plots (a forced minimum) at each culture growth.
Also.... I think features should perhaps be made to not matter, as those can change... either that or the code has to allow cultural border changes to happen at any turn if for example a forest is cleared making a previous plot that was invalid at culture pop into a plot that should have been valid at the last culture pop.

 

[raxo2222]

It doesn't have to be the same, RCS is supposed to be slower for a city settled in the middle of a swampy jungle, with rivers all over, but it should be refined so that you actually get some plots (a forced minimum) at each culture growth.
Also.... I think features should perhaps be made to not matter, as those can change... either that or the code has to allow cultural border changes to happen at any turn if for example a forest is cleared making a previous plot that was invalid at culture pop into a plot that should have been valid at the last culture pop.

Jungle could slow it hard - first civilizations didn't start in jungle.

 

[BlueTemplar]

Heh, the new "(known ?) resource tiles are cheaper to acculturate" feature can result in funny situations !

either that or the code has to allow cultural border changes to happen at any turn if for example a forest is cleared making a previous plot that was invalid at culture pop into a plot that should have been valid at the last culture pop.

Yeah, what's the integration with RevDCM's Influence Driven War ?
Wasn't there a way to show how much culture each plot has accumulated, just like for the Properties (Air Pollution, Crime...)

 

[Toffer90]

Yeah, what's the integration with RevDCM's Influence Driven War ?

None in particular afaia aware.

Wasn't there a way to show how much culture each plot has accumulated, just like for the Properties (Air Pollution, Crime...)

Should be displayed in debug mode at least. ctrl+shift+D, if that is not deep enough debug level, hit shift+Z afterwards.

 

[BlueTemplar]

First shortcut shows Debug Menu window with a bunch of tabs and checkboxes (none of which seem to be about that), the second shortcut does nothing. (I already have debug mode "chipotle" enabled.)

P.S.: Maybe RCS just doesn't work by spreading culture into actual plots ?

P.P.S.: But then what the interaction with Wooden Palisades and better ? (+X Culture for owner in plot.)

 

[Toffer90]

Oh, wait, you don't need any debug mode, the number 96 here is how many culture points the plot has:

P.P.S.: But then what the interaction with Wooden Palisades and better ? (+X Culture for owner in plot.)

Again, none as far as I know.

 

[BlueTemplar]

Oops, my bad !

Huh, did I misremember it being displayed like Properties, including the ?

But in this case, these numbers are off, because I'm getting numbers in my city and in the 8 tiles around it slightly more than 4 times the culture accumulated in the city ?

 

[Toffer90]

But in this case, these numbers are off, because I'm getting numbers in my city and in the 8 tiles around it slightly more than 4 times the culture accumulated in the city ?

The culture code in general is due for an overhaul, it has pretty much remained unchanged since RCS was originally implemented in C2C.
I've barely looked at the code dealing with culture myself.

 

[Snofru1]

To me it seems that something with RCS goes totally wrong. I play it in combination with the 1-tile city start. I switched between RCS on and off in the Worldbuilder. I also started new games to be sure that the Worldbuilder has no effect.

This is what I found out:
Using RCS with 1-tile city starts means that for every growth you need exactly the same time than you would need in a standard game. And only if there is a culture enhancement (from poor to fledgling and so on) owned land grows. Shouldn't it grow in between the full culture steps?

Let me show it this way: 1 tile =(with 40culture grows to)=> 9 tiles and so on:

no RCS, start with 1 tile: 1 =(200)=> 9 =(1000)=>21 =(5000)=> 37 =(20000)=>
RCS, start with 1 tile: 1 =(200)=> 9 =(1000)=> 10 =(5000)=> 11 =(20000)=> 12
no RCS, start with 9 tiles: 9 =(200)=> 21 =(1000)=> 37 =(5000)=>

Growth with RCS is as slow as without, that doesn't make sense.

And then: If I have RCS and start with 9 tiles I have no culture growth at all when poor culture is reached from none. Just stays at 9, only starts growing when fledgling is reached! I tested this with a new game.

Oh, and btw, I don't see any effect of the terrain on the growth with RCS. Next level is reached with culture 200 => 1000 => 5000 and so on, in all the different games I have tested (in one game I once had the growth of 2 tiles with one culture level).

For me it seems that RCS currently is totally broken, at least with my settings! Or there is something terribly wrong with my game here in general...


Or in short: With RCS turned on you need as long to get one single tile as you need for a full ring of tiles in a non-RCS game.

 

[BlueTemplar]

I play it in combination with the 1-tile city start.

Ah, right, this would in the best case scenario end up as slightly different balance anyway...

Shouldn't it grow in between the full culture steps?

Well, maybe not, otherwise the most important aspect of culture levels becomes meaningless ?
OTOH, that's kind of what RCS is already pushing towards (but then non-claimed yet tiles should slowly accumulate culture before they flip, this doesn't seem to be happening now - and why would it, if the mechanism is completely different from that ?), and it was already muddled by RevDCM's Influence Driven War and Culture from Forts ? (And indeed maybe due to landscape changes during the game.)

RCS, start with 1 tile: 1 =(200)=> 9 =(1000)=> 10 =(5000)=> 11 =(20000)=> 12

And then: If I have RCS and start with 9 tiles I have no culture growth at all when poor culture is reached from none. Just stays at 9, only starts growing when fledgling is reached! I tested this with a new game.

What kind of landscape though ?

Oh, and btw, I don't see any effect of the terrain on the growth with RCS.

You can see it in my screenshot above.

Next level is reached with culture 200 => 1000 => 5000 and so on, in all the different games I have tested

Yes, landscape isn't supposed to have an effect on the culture levels ?

(in one game I once had the growth of 2 tiles with one culture level)

But it *is* supposed to have an effect on what tiles you get with each new level !

 

[BlueTemplar]

no RCS, start with 1 tile: 1 =(200)=> 9 =(1000)=>21 =(5000)=> 37 =(20000)=>
[...]
no RCS, start with 9 tiles: 9 =(200)=> 21 =(1000)=> 37 =(5000)=>

This looks like a balance issue with the 1-tile city start option, is it really supposed to lag a whole level behind the 9-tile city start ?

 

[Snofru1]

Sorry for being unclear! There is a terrain effect on which tile will be the next to be part of the city but not on the speed the city area grows (at least none to speak of).

RCS doesn't make sense if the city grows only by one tile each culture step. There are only 12 culture levels between poor and monumental. How do you really want to get the full fat cross for a city if it only can grow by a maximum of 12 tiles?

I still think that RCS is broken and probably has been so for a long while.

 

[BlueTemplar]

Well, yes, culture levels have other effects than just border spread, so why should they be (directly) affected by terrain ?

RCS, start with 1 tile: 1 =(200)=> 9 =(1000)=> 10 =(5000)=> 11 =(20000)=> 12

Your city borders growing by only 1 tile/level after the 2nd one is probably just a coincidence. (Also why I asked for your landscape.)

 

[Snofru1]

I tried out a number of new games on different maps and with RCS the growth is always way too slow. I'd love to be able to speed the growth of city area considerably. Changing the values in CIV4CultureLevelInfo.xml doesn't really help as it is still only single tile growth per culture level and in the end the last level will be reached way too fast.

But I have already spent way too much time on RCS, I will live happily without it...

 

[raxo2222]

Is your terrain very hilly?

 

[Snofru1]

Is your terrain very hilly?

Mostly yes, but there is also a lot of ocean and some flat areas. But I can't really remember the many maps I have tried in detail.