Some Thoughts on Culture Groups

[Loaf Warden]

I think it was a great idea for them to divide the civs up into different cultural groups, but my opinion is that they didn't go far enough with it. Here are some ideas to make the groups more useful:

-Have a couple more. This is hardly an original idea, but it's good anyway. There needs to be an African cultural group (not to mention more Sub-Saharan African civs, such as the Songhai and the Ethiopians, but that's a topic for another thread), and I think it wouldn't hurt to divide up the Asian group into, say, 'East Asian' and 'Central Asian'.

-Make the look of the units depend on the cultural group. I'm not saying we need a bunch of different unit names or research paths (not for the epic game, anyway--heaven forbid!), but it would be neat to have a European swordsman look different from a Middle Eastern swordsman or a Native American swordsman, and so on. (Eye candy? Yeah, sure. But at least it's more useful eye candy, gamewise, than Wonder Movies or City View screens ever were. And it would help for modpacks and scenarios, too.)

-Have a pool of generic (era-specific, animated) leaderheads for each cultural group. This idea was posted by socralynnek as a solution to my problem of what break-away civs' leaders would look like after a revolution in my Provinces thread, but even if they don't implement even an iota of my Provinces model, having a generic leaderhead pool is still a good idea. It would make life easier for modders and scenario makers. Think of the possibilities! A 'Civs of Pre-Columbian America' modpack with a different Native American leaderhead for each civ. A 'Sengoku Jidai' scenario in which each clan's leader looks different, but they all look Asian. A 'Scramble For Africa' scenario where the African tribal leaders don't all look like Shaka. You get the idea.

-Allow us to set limits on the number of civs per culture group in each game. I had a game recently where every single civ was European. I found this absurd and irritating. On the screen where we're setting the parameters for our new game, we should be able to set a minimum and a maximum number for each culture group. For example, after the game I just mentioned, I might decide that's too many Europeans, and set a maximum of four European civs in my next game just to increase diversity. Or I might decide to set a minimum of two for all the groups to really make sure there's some variety. Of course you could still set some or all of them to random if you don't really care which groups are in your new game, but it would be nice to at least be able to set limits to make sure you can have whatever level of variety you desire without having to specifically say which individual civs you want to go up against.

 

[andrewgprv]

-Allow us to set limits on the number of civs per culture group in each game. I had a game recently where every single civ was European. I found this absurd and irritating. On the screen where we're setting the parameters for our new game, we should be able to set a minimum and a maximum number for each culture group. For example, after the game I just mentioned, I might decide that's too many Europeans, and set a maximum of four European civs in my next game just to increase diversity. Or I might decide to set a minimum of two for all the groups to really make sure there's some variety. Of course you could still set some or all of them to random if you don't really care which groups are in your new game, but it would be nice to at least be able to set limits to make sure you can have whatever level of variety you desire without having to specifically say which individual civs you want to go up against.

I hate when I get all one group, or 7 europeans and 1 asian or something.

 

[Dr. Broom]

I think there are just a lot more European and Middle Eastern civs because they had impact on the world, if you think about it Africans didn't really do much in history niether did Native Americans. History was made by Europe, the middle east, the Orient and north Africa (such as Carthage and Egypt).

 

[Myzenium]

Loaf Warden said:

Make the look of the units depend on the cultural group. I'm not saying we need a bunch of different unit names or research paths (not for the epic game, anyway--heaven forbid!), but it would be neat to have a European swordsman look different from a Middle Eastern swordsman or a Native American swordsman, and so on. (Eye candy? Yeah, sure. But at least it's more useful eye candy, gamewise, than Wonder Movies or City View screens ever were. And it would help for modpacks and scenarios, too.)

Great idea! If Firaxis wants to make eye candy for Civ4, I would definitely prefer the cultural unit art than Wonder movies, the City View, or even the High Council.

 

[Loaf Warden]

I think there are just a lot more European and Middle Eastern civs because they had impact on the world,

I'm aware of that, but that has nothing to do with which civs appear in any particular game. Of course they should have a large number of civs to draw from. Especially for culture groups, like European and Middle Eastern, which have a large number of historically important and easily distinguishable counterparts in real life. I'm not objecting to the number of European civs available. They can add as many new ones as they want to Civ IV, and I'll be happy as a clam at high tide. But that doesn't mean that I necessarily want to play game after game where Europe is the only cultural group that's even present. I usually want more variety than that. As it stands now, the only way to prevent it from happening (short of going into the editor and removing civs) is to select which specific civs you want. And I, for one, don't really like doing that. I don't even like knowing which civs are around until I meet them. I like it to be a surprise, but I don't like the surprise to be, "By the way, this entire world is just Europe." I just think that having sliders available to allow us to set limits on each culture group would be a better way.

 

[GeZe]

Maybe they should have a UU for each culture group? This would add some militiristic strategy for culture groups.

 

[baseballfan45]

Maybe they should have a UU for each culture group? This would add some militiristic strategy for culture groups.

i REALLY like this idea, not necesarily culture groups, but more than one civ
-like carthrage, china, persia, and egypt get elephants
-all native americans get braves or some type of warrior/spearman

 

[dh_epic]

The tricky thing is that culture groups kind of change depending on what happens war wise, not to mention some *wink wink*. But I guess a game with a finite number of civilzations can have a finite number of culture groups. (it's not like new civilzations just get invented)

 

[mitsho]

I absolutely support the ideas in this thread. There is nothing to add! Everything is ok as it's already said.

mfG mitsho

 

[Loaf Warden]

Maybe they should have a UU for each culture group? This would add some militiristic strategy for culture groups.

That's an interesting thought. I could especially see the Knight being turned into a European culture UU. That would make sense anyway, since the very concept of knighthood was specific to Europe and didn't really exist elsewhere. (The samurai was similar, but as that's already the Japanese UU, it's pretty much covered.) That might also satisfy those who are asking for multiple UUs for each civ. Each civ would get its own individual UU, then it would have its second UU by virtue of which cultural group it belonged to. The Europeans could get the Knight, the Native Americans could get a Brave (treats all terrain as roads, maybe?), and so on. I like it.

 

[socralynnek]

Yeah, I also like the ideas (not just the one I proposed...)
And I think it wouldn't be too hard to do...
And I also like the idea of a UU for each culture group, maybe one could set the rules that those units don't trigger a GA, but a little more variety in units sound really nice!

 

[redstang423]

Civ 4 could go even farther with the cultural groups by truly making them meaningful. Currently, it is supposed to be easier to trade with someone in your group, and they are supposed to tolerate you more. This is not always the case in real life. Lets take several examples - Germany did not tolerate the rest of Europe (well sort of) in the WWII era. None of the middle eastern countries really tolerate each other, and have constantly been at war or in extreme tension. The American Colonists, while seperated by an ocean, were still English, but the tolerance for the English wore off very quickly.

 

[socralynnek]

This is not always the case in real life. Lets take several examples - Germany did not tolerate the rest of Europe (well sort of) in the WWII era.

Bad example, they did not tolerate anyone, not only the other europeans.

But you're somehow right, rivalty to the next neighbors is found more often in history than good relations. But if an enemy from another culture group is attacking them, than they fight side by side ( not always, see native americans when the spanish came)

 

[Loaf Warden]

I don't think they need to make it so that civs of the same culture group tolerate each other less. Generally speaking, people tend to prefer dealing with people who are more like themselves than unlike themselves. Of course there's still going to be squabbling amongst the members of the same group, and cooperation between members of different groups, but as a general trend, it remains true that it's easier for people to deal with those who are similar to themselves.

 

[Dr. Broom]

Civ 4 could go even farther with the cultural groups by truly making them meaningful. Currently, it is supposed to be easier to trade with someone in your group, and they are supposed to tolerate you more. This is not always the case in real life. Lets take several examples - Germany did not tolerate the rest of Europe (well sort of) in the WWII era. None of the middle eastern countries really tolerate each other, and have constantly been at war or in extreme tension. The American Colonists, while seperated by an ocean, were still English, but the tolerance for the English wore off very quickly.

Germany did tolerate the English, Hitler actually had great respect for them(he would have hated other culture groups more than Europeans with the whole Aryan superiority deal). Middle Eastern countries tolerate each other as long as they have the same religion, just think of it less as countries and more as religious factions(they all hate Americans and other westerners most anyway). The colonists may have not liked the English but they probably liked the French and Spanish a whole lot and probably couldn't have beat the English without their help(Plus just look how much worse they treated the Native Americans). I agree completely with Loaf Warden that people in general prefer to deal with their own kind.

 

[dh_epic]

I agree completely with Loaf Warden that people in general prefer to deal with their own kind.

Until the modern, or perhaps post modern era... that starts to break down just a bit (fortunately).