The Culture-Spreading Model

[Tholish]

Some simple, doable, enhancements to culture:
1)culture units, units that emit culture just like a building. Mission, televisor, publisher
2)culture instead of ethnicity; culture is in citizens, not in land
3)migrant units, cost pop, can merge with enemy cities to become citizens of their nation that retain your own culture
4)cultural spies; an espionage option of attempting to convert citizens to another culture
5)cultural hybridization: by doing something, say building a building or researching a tech, you can assimilate another culture to become a new culture that encompasses both. For example, as the chinese you could assimilate the mongol culture creating a sino/mongol culture, and instantly all citizens in all cities which were either chinese or mongol would have a chance to become sino/mongols (the culture you would now be playing for the victory of)
6)you would play a culture, and win when it won, either politically by the usual methods, or culturally by encompassing a percentage of the worlds citizens. you would control the political destiny of all cities dominated by your culture, unless they were dominated by someone's military.
7)new cultures would also spontaneously arise, and sometimes hybridize
8)culture flips would be capable of creating new political entities

 

[dh_epic]

Tholish, the ideas are definitely appreciated. Heaven knows I'd like to go the full mile with this model.

5/7) For Greek-Roman-Spanish culture to suddenly and automatically combine to form "Meditteranean" culture. The game detects that there's a lot of shared culture between the three, so you might as well put it all under one label. Now, Rome has 1000 points of its own unique culture, but 100 points have been grouped into a shared culture "Mediterranean".

6) For culture to give you greater influence on the world that shares or endorses some of your culture. For example, in the middle ages, it might be possible to call for a crusade. A nation that has 33% of your culture would be FORCED to join. A nation with 25% would experience weariness if it didn't join. And a nation with at least 10% would get a happiness bonus if it DID join.

8) For culture to be a factor in producing provincial borders. For example, the Zulus colonize a portion of China. That portion of China is now under Zulu control, but contains a lot of Chinese culture in combination with the Zulu culture. Thus, it is known as "The Zulu's Chinese Province". And if the situation starts to degenerate, it could turn into its own political entity -- forming a new Civ based on a few names in a list. The new political entity could be called "Madagascar".

I'm still looking for my friend Trip. Trip, what do you think about certain bonuses for passing through certain cultural thresholds? Hope I didn't scare you away with too many lengthy boring posts.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Haha, I feel so special.

Give me some time, I've got a lot of stuff to take care of. And no, I love long posts, Sirian will tell you that.

 

[sir_schwick]

6) I do not think the cultural model should be one that forces actions, but rather allows for different kinds of conflicts and justification of those conflicts. A war against 'them' is much more flexible then your classic 'territorial dispute', although the second will be more acceptable to everyone rather than just your territorial brothers. Also, the idea of 'crusadeing' against 'the evil empire' could exist for you against them.

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah, I think I'm more into letting it be a "living, breathing" model where actions aren't forced, but are encouraged through the attitudes of the population heads.

Still, I just wanted to throw that out as an example of how culture could facilitate certain gameplay mechanisms. If you get X amount of culture in an enemy Civ's cities, all of the sudden you can perform a new action ...

... I just don't know what that could be.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey, DH! Do you mean Population Heads as in those ridiculous, and wholly unrealistic, icons they use in Civ1-3 to represent a city's population? If there were one thing I would want to see civ4 remove, it would be that!!! It wasn't a problem in Civ1 and Civ2, but once you have population losses from so many disparate sources as you do in civ3, the inadequacy of the pop head model is exposed! I would much prefer to see a straight out numerical representation of population, with units having specific population costs, and bombardment and disease having variable strengths in terms of the number of people they kill each time they hit!
Anyway, just ny opinion!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

Haha, that's an important topic. You should start a new thread, I'd easily help get on that bandwagon.

 

[sir_schwick]

Pop Heads:
Either do real numbers(kind of a headache to read out) or multiple the current number of pop heads by 5 or 10. That would leave plenty of wiggle room while still allowing people to make strategy guides without using the word millions a lot. Someone has to look out for Ision

dh_epic:
I know exactly what you mean and that was the intention of my model. Accumulated culture would allow you options. Imagine 60% of the people of 8 adjacent cities in a neighboring civs territory have some directi connection to your culture(either it is yoru culture or a hybrid with yours and another culture). One, someone in those cities will demand to be given back to your civ(happens all the time). You can then claim that province in a 'cultural annexation'. Whether that annexation will be honored is another issue, but a war started over an annexation will probably create divsiions. Your supporters will think you are justified and the others supporters the same. All neutral bystanders will decide one way or the other, but overall yoru rep will not take a hit becasue the conflict was justified.

 

[dh_epic]

Interesting! X amount of culture results in a culture flip, maybe... but X/2 culture allows you to claim a piece of territory / demand a piece of territory, and then take it by force if your needs are not met -- thus allowing you to instigate a war without a reputation hit. (Although certainly you might experience an attitude hit with your next door neighbour.)

 

[majk-iii]

i've been thinking about periods of "anti-culture" ...like if for example the Celts were an unhappy, fascist, warmongering-state with a lot of starvation and pop-rushing...
(or people fleeing their cities... flipping, popping up like barbarians or even creating breakout-nations)
...and lets say the democratic nation of babylon interveened taking a city and filled it with luxuries and set it up as an entity called lets say "the free celts" or just kept it and let their cultures blend together... it would'nt be a babylonian-celtic culture but more like an bab-anticeltic culture... at least for a period of time.
The people of those cities would be more joined together by their dissent (however that's spelled?) towards the celtic motherland, than by any particular love for eachother.

Or if the Japanese would finish of the arabs, and sumeria had a few unproductive cities filled with arab culture... either from ancient wars or just filling them with arab units... could'nt the sumerians at a later date set up a small neo-arab state, maybe starting it's first hundred years as a vassal-state, who's culture would not only be a strongly pro-sumerian arab blend, but also strongly anti-japanese... even if sumeria is not.
Then both the state and the culture could grow both more indpendant and diverse as time goes by... even making it possible (depending of how the game goes)
for neo-arabia, after lets say a millennia, to decide to whipe the sumerian cultures off the face of the earth, totally neglecting their once so strong brotherhood.
???
i just thought this up in swedish, and tried to translate my thougths... but you get the general idea of the overall complexity i'm looking for, right?

 

[sir_schwick]

I little complex, but I like how you are thinking. And I disagree with teh concept of flipping occuring at all. If a state wants to join yoru civ, the people will dissent against their current masters and may have a public, rather than diplomatic upcry for secession. This would really justify 'annexation' to the extreme, which is a very important part about European history.

Also, I am hoping territory and cultural territory are different things. National territory is what you can control, cultural territory is what your culture influences. If you can 'liberate' the annexed state then you own it, if not then you do not.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I would definitely like to see culture flipping removed in favour of a holistic 'secession' model for cities. In this, as I stated above, the ratio of your native culture to foreign culture within a city would play an important role in determining of a city tries to secede from your nation. Other factors would be corruption, happiness, current government type, # of troops in your city, distance from the captial and level of libertarianism-just to name a few!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm equally as comfortable with that. Frankly, I think it's pretty rare that a single city just flips culture. It's usually a small region that starts to differentiate itself from a larger empire.

I like Sir Schwick's idea about that region going into rebellion, with the landlord battling the cultural sympathizer for ownership. The landlord says "it's my territory, simple and plain". The sympathizer could either say "no it's mine" or "we share a common thread and believe they should be independent". War could ensure. Or a diplomatic agreement based on a buyout -- the landlord agrees to give that region of land to the cultural sympathizer for a small price and future considerations. Certainly very dynamic and real, and still somewhat intuitive!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Oh, sorry DH, one of the other factors that I included in my original secession model was also the '# of adjacent cities' which have seceeded in that turn. Although it wouldn't play the biggest role, it would be the 'straw that broke the camels back'. This way, if one very unhappy/culturally poor city breaks away, then surrounding cities close to the edge will be tipped over by this factor! This would make it very rare indeed to get a 1 city defection-with a 3-6 city defection much more likely!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rysingsun]

well i sure found this post late

but i love the idea

i dont envy the crew that gets to work out the details of implementing this into code that isnt easy to exploit because of its complexity.

so lets see, i can seal my borders to foreign "culture people" but this makes others despise my own culture. i can do genocide on foreign culture within my borders but it makes others more likely to go to war with me. yes, a lot of tradeoffs - and that's good.

i would hate to see a situation where culture is so strong that it spreads around the world like crabgrass taking a life of its own. then again ... why not? my military is like grabgrass late in the game. excessively weak cultures would lead to the death of the nations that neglected their culture for too long regardless of military strength just like excessive neglect of military matters would lead to the death of a nation even with high culture. greek culture is still all over the place in our world even though "greece" the country is marginalized as a world power. they did great in culture! awesome! woot! way to go greece! but they didnt "win" because they got conquered. heh good try greece ... assyria did well with military for a while but their cultural genocide led to massive alliances against them which wiped them out. if only they hadnt taken the strategy quite so far ... israel got wiped out but left a huge cultural legacy which did spread all over the world. and what do you know? who would have a thought a nation with no cities would get a favorable culture flip due to their tremendous culture and be back in action! and that even though many tried to stamp out their cultural influence within their own borders.

so yes this is quite an idea!

*snicker* ... and coming from dh too ... i feel a synergy here because this topic has been discussed between us before. it looks like you have been busy ... well i tip my hat to you dh because your shot at it was more thouroughly thought out than mine and has gotten some pretty enthusiastic feedback

 

[dh_epic]

Hey, thanks for the support rysingsun. The topic definitely came up in a few other threads first -- I find that's how I can identify new problems and new improvements.

I think this is the key, that you can use culture like "the pen" against "the sword" of conquest. Maybe those barbarians keep raiding your cities, but if you can Civilize/Culture them, you could quite possibly be the victor. The tipping point IS when your culture just takes on a life of its own and starts spreading without much effort. Like after manually pushing water in a certain direction, just by erosion it starts flowing that way automatically. (Bad analogy?)

Aussie talks about another tipping point: where several cities contain a significant amount of a foreign culture... one city falls into unhappiness, and next thing you know, after a quick chain reaction, the entire region changes allegiances.

And yes, the emphasis is on choices. You should be able to put a low emphasis on culture or a low emphasis on military (but don't shut one out completely, or you're dead in the water). This IS the victory mode that Greece accomplishes: if Rome "won" by having 50% of the world's population in its borders at one point in time, then Greece would win by being the archetype for all of Western Civilization.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

How about if military units claim the tile they stand on as a square of culture, and/or have anti-other-cultural effects in a city? These could stand some debate.

 

[sir_schwick]

I like the idea you have to balance cultural and military development.

 

[dh_epic]

A small bump for everybody.

A few talking points, questions for the lurkers:

1) If you get X amount of culture in an enemy Civ's cities, all of the sudden you can perform a new action. What should that action in a foreign city be?

- The idea being that the neighbour's city has a few people who think similar to the way your people do. Maybe they favor your form of government. Maybe they just like the way the Princess looks. Maybe they share some of your religious beliefs. If you make a call for action, maybe they'd listen, just a little?

2) Certain wonders or improvements are enabled by having a lot of culture. Meaning that if you don't have a lot of culture in your empire, you can't build it. What could this culture-enabled wonder/improvement be?

- This could also apply for spreading a lot of culture (having successfully sent out X missionaries, or having 1000 culture points outside your own borders). This could also apply for overall multiculturalism, enabled by receiving enemy cultures peacefully (without letting it tear your empire apart).

3) A cultural great leader could appear after surpassing certain cultural thresholds (every time your city breaks 2500 culture points), or a slight probability when a missionary is installed in an enemy city. What could a cultural great leader do?

Just throwing those out there for discussion.

 

[dguichar]

It's a really good thread. Many of the ideas are quite robust and somewhat easy to implement.

I just dislike to have 'culture units'... why don't keep them in abstract as the diplomatic window did with 'diplomatic units'.

Keep civilized

David