The Culture-Spreading Model

[Jon Shafer]

Right Trip, you've said the evil word 'un-civ' like!!! I'm tempted to say 'talk to the HAND!!!'
That said, how 'un-civ' like do you think the new diplomacy, trade and culture models of civ3 were BEFORE they were introduced into the game? Man, some of the complaints I heard about the seperation of workers and settlers alone would make your head spin! Now, however, we simply accept it as part of the game! The point is that everything starts out as 'un-civ' like until it becomes a part of the game. The developers have already flagged a deeper societal model via the introduction of both religion and civics to the game. My trade model is not fundamentally different from the existing one, with the exception that you would be able to trade food, shields and 'manufactured' food and shields. Culture wars is merely an extension and mild alteration to the existing culture model-hardly sim civ, just Civ+, if you will !!

I agree, perhaps individually each of your suggestions is not too far out of the ballpark, but if you add them all together the liklihood of implimentation decreases. And when one suggestion builds on another which builds on another which builds on another... well, I think you get my point.

I don't see how diplomacy changed all that much between Civ 2 and Civ 3. The new resource engine wasn't really a big addition - you already had resources, already had caravans, etc. they just didn't work like they do now. I will grant you that the culture system was pretty out of the blue, but such sweeping changes are unlikely in more than one area.

My point is that if you have all of your suggestions interwined in order to succeed, then the liklihood of seeing them in the form you present decreases. For example, having your trading, diplomatic and cultural systems all intertwined in order to function properly isn't so good. To dh_epic's credit, his suggestion pretty well fits in with how things already exist, meaning it's more likely to be implimented. Though, of course, I've already demonstrated why I feel that it is a flawed system.

 

[dh_epic]

Sending 10 Missionaries to flip a city is obviously a hostile action - just as hostile as sending 10 Archers. Why worry about declaring war on the enemy civ when war has already been declared? Sending 2 Missionaries will accomplish zip except for a waste of resources.

I wish I'd stepped in sooner before things got out of hand, because I think you're looking at the idea too narrowly. What we're essentially talking about is the prisoner's dilemma. Do you know how the prisoner's dilemma works? Pardon the lecturing, but there's a very valuable lesson to be learned here:

The Prisoner's Dilemma

Two partners in crime are apprehended by the authorities. They are suspected of assault, but the best the authorities can point out is theft. Putting them away for 3 years each for theft isn't enough, and they'd like to be able to put them away for assault. The only way the authorities can do this is to try to get one to rat the other out. They seperate the partners from each other and try to make a deal: if you rat your partner out, we'll give you a shortened 1 year sentence, and nail your partner for 10 years for assault. The partners also know, though, that if they both rat each other out they both get 6 years for assault.

Each prisoner makes a choice: do I rat, or do I keep tight lipped?
- If I rat him out, I'll get only a 1 year sentence!
- But if he rats me out, we both get 6 year sentences
- So maybe I should keep my mouth shut and get a 3 year sentence.
- But if he rats me out, then I get 10 years in jail!

It's obvious, then, that the smart thing to do is to play defencively. You should rat your partner out -- because that minimizes the worst case (6 years) AND maximizes the best case (1 year). It's a no brainer.

Extending the Prisoner's Dilemma

However, that's if you only play the prisoner's dilemma once. Compare two pairs of partners. George and John, versus Bonnie and Clyde. They're going to play the prisoner's dilemma 10 times in a row, and we're gonna see who ends up with the lightest sentence.

George happens to be a lying, untrustworthy son of a gun. He says "I'm going to rat out John to try to get a smaller sentence right off the bat." John says "I'm gonna take a chance and hope my buddy is honest with me." In the first turn: George gets 1 year, and John gets 10 years.

John, aggravated, decides that he'll never trust George again. They both continue to rat each other out each of the next 9 times they are caught (why they work together after that and constantly get caught is beyond me). They both get 6 years each for the next 9 turns, that's 54 years.

For George, that's a total of 55 years.
For John, that's a total of 64 years.

Compare that to Bonnie and Clyde. They make a pact: I will never rat you out. Every single time, they refuse to rat each other out and both get the small charge of 3 years, over ten turns.

For Bonnie and Clyde, that's a total of 30 years each.

Bonnie and Clyde cooperated and did better than even George, who tried to cheat to get ahead. (Poor John ended up the biggest sucker in this deal.)

What does the prisoner's dilemma mean?

This is the foundation for what some people call "Game Theory". Game theory is about relationships between two people where there's no distinct winner or loser. In the prisoner's dilemma, everyone's a loser, but some people lose more and you can minimize those losses. You can translate this to anything. One example is two fishermen.

(I'll make this quick.)

A fisherman can catch 2 fish on his own on a fishing trip.
Two fishermen can handle a net, that allows them to catch 10 fish in a trip.
But one fisherman can take all 10 fish for himself and run away.

You can see that the greedy strategy of screwing your fishing partner is only going to work once (like George and John) and you're going to end up with two guys fishing alone. Whereas two guys who cooperate will split the 5 fish and both turn out to be big winners in the long run. That's only if they can maintain the long-term trust required to be fishing partners.

Missionaries as a Prisoner's Dilemma

A nation can generate a little bit of culture on its own.
A nation can generate a lot more culture by sending a missionary to a neighbour.
If the neighbours betray each other, then there's no chance for missionaries to work.

Imagine this situation: Germany sends a missionary to France, getting themselves a bonus of 20 culture. France decides to send a philosopher back to Germany, in good faith -- and Germany KILLS the philosopher. The two engage in war for the next hundred years. They manage to pump out missionaries, but can only send them around domestically, getting 10 points each.

Now imagine this situation: Britain sends a missionary to America. America sends one back. They are both received graciously. They continue to pump out missionaries for the next hundred years, getting more culture in the world, all while Germany and France are at war.

At the end of the game, Britain and America will be much better off culturally than Germany and France.

The Value of Cooperation

As a small anecdote to show that I'm not just making this up... (although it's a thought experiment. If you follow the logic, it should be self explanatory. I've tried to be brief, if you can believe that.)

An AI researcher did a competition on the prisoner's dilemma. Everyone brought in their own algorithm that was supposed to try to win. There were 200 agents who would interact with each other 200 times each, and they would weed out the agents that did really poorly. They would repeat the experiment with fewer agents -- the one that did well in the last round -- until one algorithm floated to the top.

The AI that tried to cheat all the time actually ended up losing. It quickly became "isolated", and nobody would trust it, and thus it would always get a hard sentence.

The AI that was nice all the time, I don't have to tell you how that went. They got screwed. Badly.

The winning algorithm was something called "TITFORTAT". The program was 4 lines of code:

1. Co-operate by default
2. Store in memory what this person does to you.
3. If they screwed you last time, screw them this time.
4. If they co-operated with you last time, co-operate with them this time.

The Belaboured and Tedious Point

We finally made it. What's the point?

The point is that to win the culture war, you need to be aggressive, but not too aggressive. Sending 10 missionaries in one turn is a sure fire way to make your opponent declare war on you. Another example: scoring with your missionary one turn and then rejecting your neighbour's missionary the next turn is a surefire way to lose someone's trust -- you're "cheating" your neighbour.

But the neighbours that can coexist and engage in this mutual culture-spreading will end up being better off for it. Maybe they'll both be neck at neck in terms of culture, but they'll be light years ahead of the continent where all the nations are at war.

And therein lies the REAL competition, and paradoxically, the REAL reason to get along.

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

We finally made it. What's the point?

The point is that to win the culture war, you need to be aggressive, but not too aggressive. Sending 10 missionaries in one turn is a sure fire way to make your opponent declare war on you. Another example: scoring with your missionary one turn and then rejecting your neighbour's missionary the next turn is a surefire way to lose someone's trust -- you're "cheating" your neighbour.

The problem is in programming the computer to know when the player is "cheating." Cheating is a judgement that a computer is completely incapable of making. This is where player exploitation begins. The player understands completely the implication of his actions and the actions of the computer then uses the computer's inability to act to gain advantage for himself.

The best Civ game is a Civ game in which the player cannot exploit the AI's inability to react beyond the human ability to plan far in advance.

Perhaps the best use of this culture model is to influence diplomancy. Greater culture in foreign nations will benefit you at the bargaining table. Instead of costing 10gpt for a luxury it'll cost only 8 because they are familiar with and fond of your nation. Real life example: US & Great Britain.

Perhaps it would be possible to have negative culture in which it hurts you more. Instead of getting 10 gpt for your luxury they'll only give you 8 gpt. Real life example: Israel & mideast nations. Maybe this would put some more meat on the favored/hated governments that seem to have little to no effect in the current incarnation of Civ.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You know, Trip, I have looked over my model pretty extensively, and I still say that many of my ideas are quite minor when compared to the truly radical changes we saw between civ2 and civ3! For instance, with diplomacy and trade, all I am saying is that in order to have a trade relationship with another civ, you must first have some kind of official pact, like a 'friendship pact'. This opens up your border with them for future tech and resource trades.
As for the relationship between tech research and contact with other civs, that already exists in Civ3, in the bonus you get to recieving a tech if several other civs already have it! All I want there is to tighten things up so that only the civs you have contact with grants you the bonus.
The rest are just minor tweaks to the culture and trade system-so that culture spreads in a more organic fashion, that culture moves with trade (whether tech or resource), and that you are able to trade shields and food (a feature which MANY people have asked for!) I confess that some of my ideas revolve around my expectations of what civics will be, but I am prepared to make adjustments to my model when/if I know more about it!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Dh: That may be true (we don't really know as we cannot test it), but it still doesn't solve my biggest concerns - enemy culture doesn't do anything to help you and your own culture elsewhere doesn't do anything besides a culture victory or a possibly flip which is easy to detect and counter.

Real units are a much better way of coordinating a "strike" or setting yourself up for victory.

 

[dh_epic]

Dwarven Zerker,

Like I said, I think there's evidence that the AI can grasp it. The TITFORTAT algorithm basically tries to match the action of the nearest ally. As soon as a defecit opens up, the computers starts to strike back.

They send a missionary at me? I send one right back at them. They're managing to get an overall 20 culture in my borders per turn? I need to be doing better than that.

The second that there's a defecit that I can't match, that's when I start taking action. He hits me with 4 missionaries, and I don't have enough lying around, that's enough to maybe embargo against him, or to engage in some kind of book burning. Maybe make an endrun for a technology or improvement that boosts my culture or reduces the impact of their culture. He hits me with 10 missionaries, unless I have 10 missionaries lying around, I have reason to believe this is an act of aggression. I can't close this culture gap, so it's time to go to war.

This isn't that different from how culture is perceived in a lot of cases in history. People generally like receiving new culture and new ideas. But when they start to feel like their back is up against the wall and they're being actively assimilated -- they realize the culture they are receiving is anything but friendly. Suddenly missionaries start to be killed inside those borders, and artists are imprisoned -- those new ideas are threatening to their very fabric of life. The "civilizer" nation is startled. "What? We were just trying to culture you." The nation being "civilized" fires back: "You are trying to change our very way of life into the cesspool that is your country. We don't want any."

Trip,

It's been tested.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PrisonersDilemma

http://www.amasci.com/weird/hevolv.html

A quote from the second article:

"Real life is not a Zero-Sum Game where the strong Winners must conquer the weaker Losers. Instead, life is more like a mountaineering expedition: everyone is on the same team, everyone cooperates in reaching a mutual goal, and competitive behavior between the team members is both stupid and dangerous."

Conquest IS the zero-sum game where every city you gain is a city your opponent loses. It is a good strategy and a smart strategy. However, this culture opens up a new strategy that's markedly different -- it's a non-zero-sum game. I need to learn not to be so wordy, so I'll give you an example of the exploit that I'd be more worried about.

What if two friends join a multiplayer game, along with two more strangers?

The two friends cooperate, culturally. They send missionaries back and forth and never declare war on each other. Because of this, both their rises MASSIVELY, but not enough to upset each other. They're friends. The two strangers, on the other hand, descend quickly into war.

When all is said and done, the strangers have less culture than the friends. But not only do I think that is fair, I think that system is self-correcting. The strangers say to each other "look, those guys in North America have run away with the culture game. We here in South America need to get along so we can catch up culturally". All of the sudden there's an incentive for peace -- something that didn't exist in the previous culture model.

If I were to give advice to someone playing this new game, it would be this. Spread your culture out, but don't put too much pressure on any one city or any one nation, unless you can live with provoking a war. You can live with a bit of other cultures in your borders. But if someone starts exploiting your region with their culture, you might want to take more aggressive action.

The benefits of accepting enemy culture are indirect, but are no less real than the benefits of conquering a city.

But if you'd like to have more direct benefits from receiving an enemy culture, I'm all for it. Maybe more culture makes you more happy? Helps you produce more science? Helps you pass through certain cultural threshholds that would take you longer to pass through yourself? I'd love to have this discussion if you're unsatisfied with this whole "TITFORTAT" and "cooperating without cheating" discussion.

PS: thanks for holding off on a vote, both of you. I know it's informal, but I'm glad you have enough good faith in this model to not rule it out, and yet enough skepticism to force me to refine it and ask hard questions.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I don't doubt the legitimacy of the Prisoner's Dilemma (I had it in a philosophy course a couple years back), what I doubt is if it can be properly applied to this situation. In the end the goal is to WIN. As you've said, there is no "winning" in real life. In the end, someone benefits and someone falls. With this system, you just don't know who until the end.

Depending on how much each player sends a civ could be engulfed in a neighbor's culture. Which means you have to build your own cultural improvements to balance out the invading culture which is supposedly "helping."

If someone wanted to stop a cultural invasion they could do so with very little cost. Yeah, they go to war, enemies, etc., but big deal. As a player you either accept incoming cultural invasion when it's no threat to you (no risk of cities flipping) and have no obligation to return the favor, or you attack and destroy the threat if there's a risk of damage. For the recieving civ, the effects range from negligible to negative. You either ignore it or you can fight back (when you are assured to win against this form of combat).

Likewise, I see no real motivation for sending a missionary back if someone sends one to you. If someone is sending me missionaries I would 1) build cultural improvements to defend against eventual encroachment or 2) attack to defend myself when my nation is at risk. Otherwise I would ignore it because there's no reason not to.

That's my concern, which I don't think you've properly addressed. There need to be more tangible benefits than a tenuous victory far in the future when any number of things can go awry between when you send your first Missionary and the end of the game.

 

[dh_epic]

I think you miss a key point -- if I send a missionary into your city, it benefits me. It gets me a lot of culture points I couldn't get on my own, and adds to my sum total culture floating around in the world. If you don't send a missionary towards me, I'll just keep on slipping a missionary towards you now and then, without pissing you off. I'll do this to the ally on my west side and south side, too, and next thing you know, I'll be running away with a cultural victory. ... just so long as I don't aggravate all three neighbours with TOO much culture.

But you don't have to just sit back and watch me rack up the culture -- you can see me sending you a missionary as an opportunity. If you send a missionary towards me, you boost your culture. We keep sending them back and forth, and before too long, we both have a lot more of our respective cultures floating around in the world. (And a side effect is we both become quite similar.)

You're right, though, the benefits may not seem immediate. It is a long term victory, although you can easily take a look at your culture score and see when you've opened up a big lead. That might not be tangible enough, though.

Which, to you, needs to have a more tangible benefit?
- the benefit of receiving a missionary without killing him?
- the benefit of sending out a missionary instead of a Legion?

 

[Jon Shafer]

What about civs that don't want a culture victory nor ever plan to achieve one? You can completely ignore culture, build up an army, then conquer the continent. Culture doesn't help you then.

Which, to you, needs to have a more tangible benefit?
- the benefit of receiving a missionary without killing him?
- the benefit of sending out a missionary instead of a Legion?

Both need to be dealt with, IMO.

Like I said in my previous post, you can ignore culture until it becomes a threat, in which you have no reason to allow it in your cities and you either remove it or you remove your neighbor. If it's 1975 AD and you know your neighbor is only a few turns away from a cultural victory, what do you do? You scrape together some Modern Armor and you go take some target practice at his Monastaries.

Culture may have been a "neat" thing to include in Civ 3, but it's really quite weak. All it does is expand borders (yawn) or win you a victory in 2040 AD if you can survive without someone bashing your skull in. That means between your border expansion and 2040 AD you get NO benefit from extra culture. Yeah, if you can pull off a culture victory while keeping yourself safe until then that's great. But it's a lot easier to defend your domination victory when you control 66% of the world's land, population and economy than if you're busy spending shields sending out Missionaries to every corner of the map. People either laugh you off at wasting your resources or they squash you when you're a threat.

Both need improvement in order to bring some sort of balance to the system.

 

[dh_epic]

Whew! I think you nailed something important that I overlooked, although in all fairness I'd like to think it's not my fault. You're basically talking about problems that existed in Civ 3 -- I'd like to think I solved some of those problems, but you're right, there is a core problem that I overlooked.

Why bother with culture at all? It might get you a victory, and it might expand your borders. But a much faster way to win is with war.

I'd still like to emphasize the importance of what I said before -- it still counts (although it's not enough). Culture is important because you can't go to war with every one of your neighbours at the same time, or it would be more risky to. So while you're at peace with somebody, you might as well try to peacefully exchange cultures along your frontier without provoking each other. And it does get some similarity going, and thus you get an AI willing to side with you should you be attacked by someone totally foreign (from another part of the world).

But you're right, the problem is as follows. Some people will obviously pursue cultural victory just because they want to (that's how it was in Civ 3). But if I'm not gonna go all the way with culture (not going to try to get 80000 points) then why both with even trying to get 10000 points? This problem also existed in Civ 3.

I think we need to compare that with domination, though. If you're not gonna go all the way and conquer 75% of the world, then why bother conquering even one city? The difference is maybe one city feels more rewarding than the abstract "having 100 more culture points floating around in the world". Another difference is maybe the sword is mightier than the pen. So there needs to be a bigger incentive to pursue culture at all.

Are we in agreement so far?

 

[sir_schwick]

Trip, I hear your concerns and will re-iterate my points, plus add an important ammendment.

Ammendment: There will be no cultural units, since part of osmosis is assumed to be unseen cultural units. Also, there would be little ways to stop culture from coming in except total isolationism.

The purpose of my culture is setting up natural alliances of people's, which are not listened to enough now. Assume that we are playing a game where there are three continents with three major civs each. Two of the continents are closer to each other than the third, so they will meet during the middle ages. The third one will have no contact until the early-industrial ages. A and B are the close ones, C is the far one.

Naturally all the civs on the individual continents will start building cross-cultures and lots of culture in each other. By the time A meets B, A and B have much more in common internally then with the other continent. If a civ from B declares war on a civ from A it would not be viewed as aggressively bad by the civs from B. However, if a civ from A now tried to declares war on the civ A already at war, they would be viewed as scoundrels. Of course culture does not hinder trade and diplomacy, just moral legitimacy of armed conflicts.

Now hundreds of years pass and through trade and some wars A and B are starting to mix culture. There is always still animosity becuase A and B are much closer internally then with each other. Now they discover C. The civs of C are extremely about C cultture, because they have not mixed outside that culture. Also, A and B are much closer than to C. Most kinds of war crimes(razing, nerve gasing, etc.) would be acceptable against C by A and B because of their vast dissimilarity. Vice versa would also be true. This would protect C from some things, but make them prone to others, as we will see.

Using this game, I will explore a couple situations where culture allows you to gain territory without the threat of bad WW(which would be a factor for all governments):

A Civ from B gained some territory in a Civ from A during a war that was a hundred years after they met. By then some culture had moved, making the new rulers not as bad, but still intolerable. The part of A gained enough more culture during the conqueres short reing there that it soon was self-perpetuating. Over a couple more centuries cross-culturation and overall growth lead to the presence of a signifcant culture of the Civ from B being present in that region. 500 years after the Civ from B was thrown out, it declares it can annex that region because of the people living there being of their culture. Of coures the current owners from a civ of continent A will object and claim they have rights to the territory for the same reason. Civs from B will appluade the claimaint civ from B's military actions and condemn the civ from A's military resistance. The vice-versa will also be true. Civs from C will only care how that effects the relative balance of power and their own security.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Whew! I think you nailed something important that I overlooked, although in all fairness I'd like to think it's not my fault. You're basically talking about problems that existed in Civ 3 -- I'd like to think I solved some of those problems, but you're right, there is a core problem that I overlooked.

I've been building up to my point.

Yes, the problem was in Civ 3 also... never said it wasn't. But adding a new system that keeps the same problems isn't going to do much for the game.

Why bother with culture at all? It might get you a victory, and it might expand your borders. But a much faster way to win is with war.

I'd still like to emphasize the importance of what I said before -- it still counts (although it's not enough). Culture is important because you can't go to war with every one of your neighbours at the same time, or it would be more risky to. So while you're at peace with somebody, you might as well try to peacefully exchange cultures along your frontier without provoking each other. And it does get some similarity going, and thus you get an AI willing to side with you should you be attacked by someone totally foreign (from another part of the world).

But you're right, the problem is as follows. Some people will obviously pursue cultural victory just because they want to (that's how it was in Civ 3). But if I'm not gonna go all the way with culture (not going to try to get 80000 points) then why both with even trying to get 10000 points? This problem also existed in Civ 3.

I think we need to compare that with domination, though. If you're not gonna go all the way and conquer 75% of the world, then why bother conquering even one city? The difference is maybe one city feels more rewarding than the abstract "having 100 more culture points floating around in the world". Another difference is maybe the sword is mightier than the pen. So there needs to be a bigger incentive to pursue culture at all.

Are we in agreement so far?

The effects of 1 more city can be measured in food, shields, gold and land controlled (including any resources captured). Culture does nothing for you between border expansion and victory. That's the problem. Cities don't work that way.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I will respond to your post later sir_schwick, I have a test to get to right now. Same with any future responses by dh.

 

[dh_epic]

Hmm, point taken. Mind if I get back to you? I really ought to spend more time at work actually working.

Give me some time. Listen to what Sir Schwick has to say, too, he's another one of those guys I trust very much. If he came up with a better model than me, I'd endorse it, or certainly steal the elements I like

But you're right, an extra city has a tangible benefit. It's not just another "point", it's another part of your economy -- food, production, and wealth. Spreading culture really is just a bunch of points.

 

[Jon Shafer]

The key is tangible benefits on both sides - accepting others' culture and spreading your own.

Find a way to solve those problems in a way I like and chances are I will support what you come up with.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Sir_Schwick:

One of the things I like about dh's proposal is that it's "hands on" and gives you something to do. His proposal may suffer from some of the problems I've outlined previously, but I believe there's a good core scheme that he has.

If things are simply done automatically it doesn't really add very much to the game - for the most part you play things the same way.

The things I'm most in favor of are basically new game systems which are fairly simple (like dh's proposal) but also require a new style of gameplay. What you're describing is basically a new way for diplomatic relations to be determined.

You could do that a lot more simply without even having culture involved. Just have a variable which stores how many turns two civs have been in contact with each other and civs who attack more isolated civs suffer less of a diplo penalty. I realize that the variable amount of culture you propose would affect this, but the net result is still mostly the same - you're able to have your way more with distant civs.

To repeat, I would like to see new styles of gameplay that basically fit within the current scheme of things.

 

[sir_schwick]

My model was designed as a background rather than foreground system. The main purpose was to simulate the various natures of conflicts. Also, it would allow for manifest destiny but explain the reconquista but punish US attacking Mexico. Also, wouldn't it be more fun if you could also talk your way into ownign a lot more territory or the idea that everyone has a different view of borders. That is what caused a lot of conflicts in the last half millenia.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I have to admit that I am moving further away from a unit-based culture system, and instead doing what the did to espionage in civ3!
The issue for me is that you would have THREE kinds of culture flow: Passive, Semi-Active and Active.

Your passive culture is what flows via the osmotic effect between cities in your nation, and across open borders-always from high culture areas to low culture areas. If we accept that cross-border flow only involves the city or at best the province CLOSEST to the border, then that would help to explain why the US hasn't 'culture-flipped' all of Mexico ! After all, much of Southern US still has a strong Hispanic community and culture, meaning that the cities or States on the border with Mexico will have a much lower 'net culture' than, say, the Mid-West or New York State. Corruption will also reduce the net culture of your cities AND your overall nation.

Semi-Active culture is culture that flows as the result of active trading and migration. Say 5% of your nations net culture per tech you trade, 2% for each unit of luxuries you trade, and 1% per unit of 'manufactured goods' you trade. This will also occur if you trade manufactured goods, internally, from a high culture city to a low culture city. For instance, a city with 300 culture vectors manufactured goods to a city in its own borders with 100 culture. That city will recieve 3 culture points per unit of goods it recieves. A city might also recieve X% of another nations 'net culture' for every Y immigrants it recieves. The semi-active system would help to explain the real-life phenomenon of 'Americanization' that we see today as a result of the US dominance of trade.

Your Active culture flow is an adjunct to espionage. With gold and points generated by certain improvements you can do a 'create cultural enclave' mission. Success is not guaranteed, and failure loses you the resources you commited. If you succeed, then an enclave is created in the city of your choice, and it will accumulate x% of your net national culture per turn. This amount can be reduced if the other nation raises it nationalism/spiritualism levels. The other nation can also close its borders, declare war or 'expel your enclave' (if they know it exists) if they want to stop the culture flow. Like embassies, though, cultural enclaves could also be established peacefully during diplomacy but, if your relationship sours, then the enclave will probably be shut down.
Anyway, thats how I think it should work.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

Hey Trip, I'd like to resume discussion on how to encourage culture play -- a problem from Civ 3 that is not yet solved in this model. While I haven't come up with a definitive answer, I *have* come up with a few lines of thinking that maybe someone else will help me pursue.

Unitless, Near-Automatic Culture

A unitless mechanism would add next to NO extra micromanagement to the Civ 3 model. It has a lot of appeal to me, and I'd be equally as happy if it were implemented this way. Then your goal really is just to pump out as much culture-producing buildings as you can in your cities, and try to encourage proximity and contact. Trade and diplomacy is key, but the occasional espionage mission would count. (Or some better term for interacting with another civilization without their consent or knowledge.)

I know this doesn't offer them "something to do" the same way units does, but it does reduce the "right of refusal". Culture just spreads. Accept it, or kill your enemy.

Alternatively, Unit Bonuses

Exploring the different cultural unit types gave me some optimism. I've talked about artists, philosophers, and missionaries. Not only could these appear at different times in the game, but there could be more units beyond these. But I'll focus on these three types to show how there might even be competing strategies.

Artists: puts 25 of your CP in enemy city, and makes one of their content faces happy for 20 turns
Missionaries: puts 20 of your CP in enemy city, can "attack" enemy units to "change their heart"
Philosophers: puts 15 of your CP in enemy city, and boosts science production in their city by 10% for 20 turns

The idea is that some of them have different advantages that improve their chance of being received by the enemy. For example, a happiness or science boost makes the enemy say "ooh, an artist, we'd love to have them!" Or some units gain their advantage by an almost military bonus -- the missionary can attempt to induce a conversion or a disbanding, for example. Another consideration is an "invisible" cultural unit, so the enemy doesn't even realize your culture is hitting them. Or a cultural unit that actually has an attack strength.

Just throwing those out as suggestions. They more or less boost the chance you can get your cultural unit to "settle" in one of their cities. I'm sure people might be able to come up with better unit-abilities that would do the same thing.

What you were waiting for: Threshhold Bonuses

This gets right to the root problem. In Civ 3, unless you're going for a cultural victory, there's no benefit to pumping out culture. Borders and culture flipping are a slight incentive, and thus you also need to play defensively and get culture in your border cities so they aren't assimilated. A Civ 4 system with units would make it even more necessary to play defensively. But that might not be enough -- better to include something more.

So maybe there should be culture threshholds. They can manifest themselves in many different ways -- sum of all cultures in your nation, sum of your culture in all nations, sum of all cultures in one city, sum of your culture in enemy city, total cultural units that connected with an enemy city, and so on. The bonuses are what are interesting.

Great Cultural Leader: If you manage to get a culture unit into a city that already has 1/3 of your culture in it, there's a chance of a great cultural leader appearing. They can boost *your* cultural output in any city -- yours or someone else's -- or rush a great wonder, or maybe build an army. Or it's just a 5X culture unit that you can send to an enemy city. Or it's a regular culture unit that still "survives" after it connects with an enemy city, starting again in your capitol until he is killed off. Any one of these suggestions is slightly compelling.

Science Bonus: a city that has a lot of culture, especially a multicultural city, could experience a bonus to science. Such a collection of ideas and a high degree of tolerance lead to incredible innovations. e.g.: if a city hits 100 culture total, then you get one additional beaker of science per turn. Not only does this encourage someone to produce culture in the first place, but it may even encourage them to receive a foreign culture to get them over that important threshhold.

Happiness Bonus: same deal. pass a threshhold and watch the city become a happier city. encourages you to produce your own culture, and even receive foreign cultures.

Growth Bonus: same deal. the more culture a city accumulates -- even foreign cultures -- the more people want to move there. Think New York City.

Luxury Bonus: maybe having X amount of a foreign culture produces an "exotic" luxury bonus, one that you would only normally receive through trade. For example, you get a lot of Roman culture in a Chinese city and find yourself with a small Roman Wine luxury! I knew those Romans were good for something, let's party!

Enable New Buildings (or Units, or Wonders): maybe you could only build a "Museum" in a city that has at least 200 non-domestic CP in it. Or maybe you could only build "Universal Sufferage" if you had at least 2000 of your CP outside of your Nation. Or "United Nations" only if you have 2000 foreign CP in your Nation.

Enable New Gameplay: having 1/3 of the culture in an enemy city lets you spy on it, for example. Or lets your military units heal up in the territory around that city. Or having 2000 foreign CP in your civilization lets you "scapegoat" your unhappiness, draining the foreign CP out, making foreign-national citizens unhappy, but making domestic citizens happier.

Wrap Up

Anyway, these are all just suggestions, and by no means am I saying that we need to do all or any of these. I was more just throwing these out there to encourage people to use culture. You can see that even without this "culture-spreading model" that many of the "threshold bonuses" ideas would be good ways to stimulate culture-production in Civ 3.

 

[General Joey]

Well thought idea, I say yes!