The Culture-Spreading Model

[Wonderkid]

I'll respond to the initial article as it seems you lot have this all worked out. I like the idea of this immensly and think it is the way forward however i have one slight issue with the "europeans are the same and therefore would agree" I think in real history there is a common identity between the countries of europe and the culture between them is similar but that doesn't appear to of lead to harmony through the ages?

It was only 60 years ago that Germany was blazing its way around europe beating the sh1t out of everyone, only 200 years ago that Napoleon was romping about doing the same and even further back you have the constant wrangling between the UK and France. The Balkans have been far from stable and the Spanish and English didn't exactly see eye to eye for a long time. Add the view of the Poles to Germany and Russia, Portugal to Spain, Turkey to Greece, English to Irish/Scots/Welsh and you have alot of nations who are similar in culture, identity and beliefs, but have not always got on.

Overall close proximity to each other does promote similar ties and links and culturally you become very similar however there needs to be built some kind of recognition or war as a result because invariably these "close nations" try to outwit each other and use competition to advance in all fields.

I think this rings true in even ancient history and on other continents, take Japan and China, Argentins and Uruaguay, the are all very close, have very similar links to each other and in some cases descened from the same nations/races but they do like to have a fight every now and again to decide who's boss!

I have voted that it shoudl be input into CIV 4, i'd change it to the above though to give it a realisitic feel.

 

[azzacanth]

like dog packs eh? Germany and poland fight over who's top dog, but just let the africans come in and see where allegiances lay then.

 

[Crimson Shadow]

Is this thread dead? As Civ 4 is already out and debate over what culture represent would be almost pointless, unless it is carried over to Civ 5 (hopefully someday )

Well I will just add my 5 cents. (Better late than never. )

Culture (as a whole concept) could be abstracted to religion, knowledge (science) and identity ownership (later with nationalism changes to nation identity).

Identity ownership directly reflects your borders and what zones (or areas) you have under your control. (Zone of Control) With advances and new units you could claim some land for yourself without a settlement nearby. For a resource or to claim land in advance before you make a colony there.

Religion and science are already in the game. But I would expand both principles into a tool of manipulation. (As a Zone of Influence) In positive or negative aspect to other tribes/nations and even to your empire. With nationalism you would get new variable to the table.

I know that (religion as a tool of manipulation) could be itchy situation for many of you, but it is the reality of itself. You cannot deny it.

This directly applies in some abstract way how politic works. That would be some sort of diplomacy engineering toward other nations/tribes and would also affect social engineering of your own empire.

I did not include trade here as it does not affect culture in direct way. That can happen later with nationalism and banking on player demand or interest.

These two concepts, Zone of Control and Zone of Influence are part of "culture" thing. You have total Control and Influence of your empire. But with influence you can affect other cities/tribes/nations. And even you will be affected by others with this.

With strong influence you can get some vassal cities/states. You will not have Control over vassal states but you can indirectly guide them (like through governor page in Civ 3). With bad ruling vassal states will become independent and their own state. With right politic vassal states can become part of your empire with total control of that city.

So unless other nation sells that (troublesome) city to you, that city would go through transition where you indirectly rule the city while nation owning it will have trouble with it (like corruption or city in anarchy). If that happens to one of your cities you will know what is happening and why citizen are disobedient.

Off course, if you don't take care and welfare of your city and there is no neighbor around that city will become independent state.

I know that my rambling is way of yours but it was thought out in last 5-6 hours.

 

[Mylon]

My mod adds quite a few large changes to the cultural model. Anyone with an interest in this thread should check it out.

Changes include: Cities spreading culture according to their nationality. Cities spreading culture via trade (again, according to their nationality). Religion being a means to spread culture. Travelling Performers that spread culture of their owner's nationality. Culture generation according to population (most buildings just modify this as a percent). This provides for some very interesting results.

However, territory doesn't get awarded to a civilization unless it has a city that could count as controlling that territory. This probably applies to cities and their ability to flip as well. I haven't tested this just yet. The mod is still in development so if you have any ideas to help develop it further feel free to suggest them.

 

[dh_epic]

One of the best improvements on the spreading culture model is the notion of cultural corruption. That is, outside of your capitol, your cities generate their own "city-state" culture.

Like, Athens is always 100% Greek. But Sparta can end up 80% Greek and 20% Spartan because it's that far off, doing its own thing.

Why do this? Well, because large empires tend to experience a certain amount of fragmentation. To me, it's all part of the larger experience of making culture more interesting. I think this lays the foundation for a lot of possibilities...

 

[countzero]

I didn't read all the posts, so I'm sorry if what I'll suggest right now has been said before.

The user can build cultural units instead of military units or buildings.

I think cultural units should be built by culture points, not shields.

Culture Flipping

Culture flipping would occur when a city has more than 50% of its culture from another Civilization, and has broken through the 100 CP threshhold. The threshhold would be higher for cities that were either conquered or traded (to prevent instant flipbacks).

I say let them go. A newly conquered city stays with it oppressor only long as there are troops in the city to suppress the civilians (troops in city raise threshold). The invader should keep troops in the city until a) its own culture seeps into the city much enough to keep it staying in the empire, b) other cultural elements are destroyed (by means of genocide, razing, whatever). This would make invasion much more difficult, and realistic. Usually trade the conquered city to the loser civ for a tribute.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think Mylon's mod has given me the greatest hope for being able to create the kind of culture spreading model that we have been trying to put forward here for soooo many months. All that is really needed now is:

1. A way to link 'demand' for luxuries to a nation's culture. Part of this would involve making it possible for a civ to have both a foreign and domestic source of the same luxury. For example-I have silk, but China-who also has silk-has 3x the culture of my civ. This means that a unit of Chinese silk might provide +3 happiness, wheras my own produces +1 happiness. I might trade my own silk, whilst using China's for domestic consumption.

2. Have luxury resources carry a % of the home culture with them. Again, those Chinese silks may produce +3 happiness for all my cities, but they also put 5% of China's average culture of 2500-or 125-into each of my cities every X turns. So, is it worth the risk?

3. A means to remove foreign culture that has accumulated within a city. Mylon's mod has an Inquisitor unit which can 'rip' religions out of a city, and I am wondering if it might be possible to create a unit or building which does the same thing to foreign culture.

4. The ability for mixed culture-when they reach roughly even levels-to form an entirely NEW culture. So, say one of my French cities has been recieving those Chinese silks long enough for one of my cities to to have 1000 points of both French and Chinese culture-then perhaps this might merge into say 500 points of a new Sino-Gallic culture, with 750 each remaining as individual Chinese and French culture.

The question is, how much of what I described is do-able within the limits of the Python and XML systems? I will leave the answer to the true modders out there.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

When I imagined culture spreading, I always imagined it as a tile calculation. For that reason, it seems like it would be a nightmare to mod (for me, with my limited skill). The city is generating 30 culture, so the tile next to it has X culture, and the tile next to that has Y culture, and the tile next to that is another city generating 5 of the other culture, and so on...

There might be a more efficient way to do it, though, with courthouses and roads and so on. Looking at Civ 4, and thinking out loud...

1. Culture is generated proportionally according to % nationality. So if a city generates 5 culture per turn, but has 40% foreign nationality, then 2 of those culture points per turn support that foreign nationality.

ISSUES:
- A city will generate new culture, but its ratio of culture won't change?
- The only way a city's ratio changes is by outside flow?

2. Culture is Transmitted by Trade Routes. "+3 Gold from Athens" also means "+3 Culture from Athens", or perhaps some kind of ratio.

ISSUES:
- What do closed borders do?
- How to make "open vs closed" into an interesting choice, instead of a nobrainer?
- Will this favor too much inflow of foreign culture?
- How to help domestic culture flow?
- What factor does proximity to a rival city have?
- How to calculate the impact of proximity?

3. Culture degenerates according to maintainance costs. Not sure what the ratio would be, but at 1:1 "-2 Maintainance" would mean "2 Culture per turn becomes 'city' culture".

ISSUES:
- Expansionists might end up losing more culture than they generate!
- How to prevent this from being TOO hard on expansionists?
- Just how bad is it to have 'city culture'? Is it as bad as having 'foreign culture'?

Overall: Now that culture spreads, what will it do? Now that culture isn't just generated by a city but flows from other cities and other nations, cities will get culture very quickly, but not necessarily your culture.

ISSUES
- How will flips work?
- How will borders work?
- How will "cultural defence" work?
- What else will culture do?


There are tons of ideas for all of these issues. But it's safe to say that all the effects of culture would have to be wiped clean and redesigned from scratch. And, moreover, civics would need to all deal with culture differently.

 

[Suki]

and then, out of nowhere...

just cross posting this, it's an idea i had reading a thread about "guns, steel and germs", I found more fun things to do with a culture flow model.

Idea:

i like it when one simple mechanic is good for a lot of things, it feels very organic. I've always thought that culture flow model would be good for other things as well, like public opinion, religion, social engineering, or outside the game, development and branching of language, or of species.

now how does this apply here?
what you do is add another layer to the culture flow model that reprisents immune system.
Everwhere you have unhealthyness you have a chance per turn of generating some of this immune-system culture. set it up in such a way that if just a little of one of this type apears somewhere it quickly springs up to the equilibrium value and starts spreading to other cities that are culturally connected, but more often by probablilities than fractions.
because of the way that each culture vector is perpendicular to all the others, all civs start with a similar base, but after the nomadic tribes fragment into civs they start developing into different directions.
each creation of a new dieasease from unhealthyness is in a new direction but because of the 'compression' they talk about in the culture thread, and the way this immuned system culture flows quickly, infects everything it can reach and rises to equilibrium everywhere there's cultural contact, very quickly after being created each new component is compresses into the continental average and disapears. so you never end up with even half as many immunity directions as even cultural directions. but what this does, is keeps a log of how different the immuned systems of two cities have become due to seperation.
now you loose population whenever the 'immuned system' of a city is changing. things like hospitals reduce the loss during the change.

now watch this, if you're following you can see allready how we can recreate the events in these books (sorry, I haven't read them but I have the general idea).
Europe developes technology and starts building big cities, because of overcrouding and other factors there is much un-healthlyness. so diseases pop up -> there is an immune-system response (the disease is actually modeled in the imune response itself) -> people die, but not in huge amounts. because there is so much un-health there are many diseases, so the immune system acumulates a lot of changes.
Meawhile, back in America, there are no sprawling cities, and vast forests and so very little un-health. So while the american continent developes a unique spectrum of diesase it's not nearly as large and varried as the European one.
Meanwhile hospitals are starting to be built in Europe to counteract these problems.
contact is made.
the diseases, remembered in the immune system values flow across. and quickly come to equelibrium, as normal. no problem there, except the europeans have hospitals and the americans have many more immune-system changes to make. As always change is painful, those 'immune system changes' are the diseases rushing in and literally deci-mating (1/10) the local population.

this is reprisented graphically below. i'm supprised how well this seems to me like it would work.

and things end up just like you'd expect. like the example in dune of the fremen and sadukar being the most fearsome warriors in the universe, because they live in harsh conditions, no room for weakness. The same thing happens on the level of biological warfare...

 

[dh_epic]

That's a very interesting application, Suki! Although I'm not particularly into it -- to me, I'm much more interested in Civilization as a story of social evolution, not biological evolution. But I imagine some people would find that to be a very cool feature. After all, some people really are just heartier than others!

 

[Mylon]

The changeculture function, as applied to a plot of land (which in turn affects the nationality of a city) is limited in its inputs to the number of players present. Thus, it's not easily possible in the default game to store these values. One can define their own structures to store additional "cultural" type influences and it probably wouldn't be too hard to adapt the current functions in my mod to use these new structures, but getting the GUI to display these new values could be troublesome. Also, my cultural model slows down the game as is: A 100x100 map with 10 players would, for example, mean ~2,000,000 iterations of the loop to change the plot culture. Thankfully this is all between turns where it's fairly simple, but add in city-specific culture and this could be a nightmare!

Another mod I made, the Buildingless Mod (only v0.01 right now) gives an example of making nearly arbitrary structures that could manage info like this.

The ultimate question is how gameplay would benefit from all of these changes. The goal of my mod is to change it so that if a civilization focuses on culture, rather than achieving an arbitrary cultural victory, citys all over the world start flipping to that nation. Which, of course, could mean that civ can collapse from the upkeep costs and has to lower culture rate, which in turn makes the cultural victory much more interesting. If a civ is successful enough, they flip enough cities to get a domination win through culture.

Once I can achieve that, I don't think any other changes to the culture model will be necessary. I could see applying it to other uses, like diseases and such, but I think other models would probably work better.

As for luxury resources... I think that's getting to be a little too much. That would require a model for citizens to demand a resource from a particular civ (which might be rather silly if the person is not in a position to trade it away) and display this demand. Plus, what would the value be? Would it apply to all cities, or just the cities that really need the extra happiness? I think it's too complex for what it adds. Having open borders already spreads culture.

 

[dh_epic]

The way I see it, the value of a culture spreading model is that it makes culture into an international mechanism rather than a domestic one. Currently, you just accumulate culture, the same way you accumulate gold -- but at least you can trade gold. In the culture spreading model, a lot will depend on your interactions with others, with bonuses and penalties coming from your diplomatic situation.

Luxuries are a part of this. I don't think it needs to be a lot. But the way I see it, creating 'luxury demand' could be key if it's tied to the proper triggers. A luxury is popular if a high-culture civ has it. And a luxury can only be demanded if it's been revealed by the map, otherwise it's considered 'unknown'. And the demand doesn't necessarily have to be in the form of a penalty, but in the form of a bonus. When people demand a luxury, and you give it to them, you get increased happiness and money at home -- thus encouraging you to make that trade.

That's just off the top of my head. But it's not too far off from reality. A nation becomes famous for one of their products and people across the world start demanding them... of course, depending on whether they even like that civilization. Take a look at America and "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom Toast" -- that happens too, under certain civics and in certain diplomatic situations.

But I somewhat agree with the overall goal of "cultural conquest". The problem is how this conflicts with military conquest. As it stands now, military conquest always trumps culture, and a conquered city cannot flip. But the reverse would be even more crappy -- with culture always trumping war, and a culturally loyal city being unconquerable. For this reason, war and culture need to behave fundamentally different in some way. (My idea was to have culture apply to multiple cities, while war applies to single cities. But there's more than one way to tackle this.)

 

[kkkk29]

dh, when are you going to start a big vision for civ 5 thread? I like the way you think about improving on the game. Going back to your original document on civ 4, I especially liked your observations on "land based economy" and "premature climax". While there have been some changes to improve these issues in civ 4, I believe both areas still need improvement.

Land based economy-
Civ 4 is still Malthusian in its logic for economic and social progress. (Malthus predicted the world would run out of food because population grew exponentially but land area for farming and resources are fixed and can only grow linearly.) Today, we know Malthus was wrong because he underestimated the significance of technology. In a game where technology is so important, I don't understand why the developers of civ continue to hold onto a Malthusian economic model. Even at the very end of the game, a civilization is limited by its cities and the tiles in its cities' radii. In civ 5, I would like to see the developers employ the expertise of an economist to help with some of these on-going problems.

Premature climax-
The observation I have here are diplomacy and victory conditions need changes. The effects on diplomacy caused by war or refusal to give help in the past need to reset at some point. I know there are different views on the time line of the game, but this is a major problem. England-US, England-France, US-Japan, France-Germany. All of these civs were historically involved in bloody wars against each other. Yet all are relatively close allies today. In the games of civ3 and civ4, this kind of transition from war enemy to ally is not possible. This fact puts too much emphasis on early game diplomatic actions thereby making the late game less interesting.

The concept of victory conditions itself also makes the end of the game less fun, especially because the AI is motivated by victory conditions. In reality, a civilization is motivated by the happiness of its people (whether "people" means only the aristocracy or the proletariat is irrelevant for my point but could be incorporated in the game). I thought the civics were going to incorporate the will of the people, but instead, most of the civics simply provide a means to win the game.

What I would like to see, are real consequences (such as revolts or lower productivity of citizens) for a player not playing according its civics. AI should also play with the motivation to maximize the happiness of its "people" according to civics. For example, if a civ is using an organized religion or a theocracy civic, maybe one of the goals of the "people" should be to capture the holy city for its state religion (aka crusades). If that civ is not working toward the goal of capturing the holy city, the "people" should either become less happy and less productive, or revolt and force a change in civics. The civic should not just be a pure benefit or means to a victory condition for the civ like a technology or a building.

All of this would serve to improve the later stages of the game because AI and players would be less focused on managing to a victory condition based on the achievements made in the first half of the game, and more focused on just playing. In a sense, the victory condition must choose the player just as much as the player chooses the victory condition.

 

[dh_epic]

kkkk29,

I'd love to put together a Big Vision for Civilization 5 document. But to me, it seems much too premature! I think we can pick apart realism problems, for example, but the game hasn't been played enough to see where fundamental gameplay problems come up.

All of the problems in Civilization 3 came back to a lack of variety or a lack of choice. Often, the lack of variety and choice came from the lack of balance: one choice was so good that it became more important that you do that one thing than any other thing, thus making the rest of the game nearly irrelevent. Civilization 4 is still in flux with patches and expansions, not to mention there isn't a broad consensus where the game gets boring and so on.

In the meantime, myself and a few friends are actually discussing some expansion pack ideas. Things that are feasible with Civilization 4 as a platform that would leave the rest of the game largely in tact -- or that would at least inspire a hardcore modder. It should be interesting to see.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Come on dh, you say that you hadn't enough time to see where the gameplay problems are? I wouldn't see you as a professionnal video game testor. -not that i'm saying those are perfect!

I'm sure that if there were now a topic on civ5, the complaints and idea would flow.

Civilization 4 is still in flux with patches and expansions, not to mention there isn't a broad consensus where the game gets boring and so on.

Oh, because you think Civ4 is THAT different from its predecessors? I didn't play it yet *sic*, but is not war still the only ultimate alternative for example?

 

[Naokaukodem]

Anyway, I like the idea.

Because it could also allow the emergence of new cultures:
Among the different cultures in a city, if one culture is more important than 1/3 of the dominant culture, a third culture begins to grow, symbolizing the melting of the dominant culture and of the claiming one. When the rate of the claiming culture reaches the rate of the dominant culture, there is a chance that the city becomes independant with the favor of a new culture, this is to say a new civilization.

This system may also help to represent the fact that a culture can live within a civilization without the independant existence of this civilization. Example: Greek culture in the Roman/Byzantine Empire.

 

[dh_epic]

Hey Naokaukodem -- I think I can comment on the problems that STILL exist. But I can't comment on the new problems that exist.

Moreover, the Big Vision for Civilization 4 was based on a lot of hard work by multiple people, as well as months of reviewing other suggestions from other people on these here forums. I could easily put something together, but it could potentially be off base from what the real criticisms of Civilization 4 are.

Me personally, I feel like war is still the best strategy. But there are actually even more people complaining that war is too hard and peace is too profitable. It will take a while for the truth to come to light, after extensive testing.

All in all... what's the hurry?

 

[Naokaukodem]

All in all... what's the hurry?

Well in fact I was thinking this more just like a new forum and not like the whole work that you and other persons already did for "Civ4". I just noticed that many ideas were continuing to flow, many of them independant of Civ4 flaws. That's a fact, and I just wanted the forum to adapt to an actual situation. So I am militing for a new forum. Because your task will need a lot of opinions and suggestions, why not begin now to pack them in an area where they would be easily found?

 

[azzacanth]

All of the problems in Civilization 3 came back to a lack of variety or a lack of choice.

The answer to that was the mod RaR. No lack of variety or choice there. Tried to play plain old civ3 again after playing that, and it was toooooooo boring. I mean come on, starting the game with irrigation and mining? Too easy!

 

[dh_epic]

Alas, I'm not in charge of these forums But all in due time. The "Civilization 4 Ideas" forum only came about 2 (maybe 1.5) years before Civ 4 was released. Civilization 5 is a ways off, and like I said, people are still trying to wrap their head around the broad issues with Civilization 4. (To say nothing of the many small fixes that can be done in a patch.)