Culture? not as good as i thought.

Yolky · November 11, 2001, 12:23

Culture was a good idea but not implemented very good.

I mean all you get is numbers that go up the longer the building was there, and once you hit a certian number your borders go up. How is that accomplished in real life? What is it really?

How many abanded warehouses we have in our cites that rot for nothing. Will that give me culture? Will that make the French come over to my civilization? How about the slums. That really makes people want to move in. I think that should be the other way.

Maybe if there was a feature that would let you not pay the full maintance for building, then your buildings would deteraorate and would cause less culture or maybe negative culture and people would actually move. That I could believe in but the way its set up now it dosnt make much sense to me. Can someone explain? I have read the offical posts but is seems rushed. Good Idea though.

your comments?

Davor

squid · November 11, 2001, 13:06

my comments: you missed the whole point

culture allows you to enlarge your borders and thereby acquire strategic resources and territory far from your city radius, potentially even allowing nearby civilizations to realize what a slum they do live in, and cause them to switch allegiances.

now what causes this? History and having lots of civic buildings! Over time, having such benefits in a city provides incentives for the civ to develop it's own culture. The library is not the culture, it induces the culture to develop over time. It does not become more valuable over time, it educates citizens and allows them to improve their own culture. You are thinking too directly.

The Great Wall for example does not magically produce culture, but it has shaped the culture of the given civilization.

Anyhow, the culture inclusion in Civ3 was brilliant and perfectly executed.

Peterk · November 11, 2001, 13:22

Culture rocks man!

The AI civs treat you with respect if you have culture, they deal fairly with you, respect your borders and don't launch stupid wars against you. And every now and then you get to take over a city
without even building a military unit. In my current game, I founded 4 cities on my own, but absorbed 8 more - built my first real military unit at around 1500.

Try starting out your cities with chapels instead of walls/warriors and you'll see what I mean.

Yolky · November 12, 2001, 11:58

the way culture is going there should be negative culture as well. would really make it interesting that you dont have to pay full maintance for your buildings but then pay the reprocussions.

just say the Great Wall of China didnt have proper maintance then it would deteroarate over time and not be as effective. ( i know great wonders dont cost maintance.)

But it goes for other buildings as well. Say the Theater. IF its a dive who would go to it? People would go elsewhere.

Hospitals. With all the cutbacks going on its a perfect example how that would make people unhappy.(at least here in ontario)

What I am saying is they didnt go far enough and should have negative as well.

Any comments?

davwhitt · November 12, 2001, 14:57

While I like the concept of culture in the game I have had major issues with cities reverting due to it. I was playing the Greeks at Warlord level and took over a German city which I garrisoned with the recommended 3 troops. Several *hundred* years later it reverted back to the Germans! I took the city back and noticed 4 out of 9 citizens were Greek (this alone should have prevented the switch). Not only that but my culture is far higher than the Germans and this city is on my continent directly connected to my empire - the Germans are on another continent!

Likewise, when I attacked France to get their aluminum I took over Cherbourg and garrisoned it with the recommended 8 troops. Two turns later it reverts back to the French - this after all resistance was supposedly crushed! I reloaded the game and placed 10 mechanized infrantry plus a few fighter jets and it still revolted! It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't lose every single unit in the city (perhaps the units should be kicked back to outside the city's borders).

I've seen similar instances in different games on different difficulty levels. In one game I had to take over Berlin five times before finally razing it to the ground to prevent it from switching! Every time it was due to the city's residents prefering the culture of their homeland over mine. Culture should have some importance but this is rediculous!

nato · November 12, 2001, 15:46

I don't like culture too much. There is practically no strategy or decision making to it. Build temples, libraries, and so on. Then wait until enough points have accumulated. My culture win was a really boring game.

I was extremely enthusiastic at the idea of culture. However as it is, it takes no thinking, and so is no fun.

Jolard · November 12, 2001, 16:08

Culture is simply an abstract representation of the desirability and cultural dominance of a civilization. The perfect example in the modern world is American Culture. One of Bin Laden's biggest beefs is that the young people of Islam are being brainwashed and seduced by American Culture. While this doesn't purely correspond to the number of temples and libraries in the United States, it is an abstraction of the power of the culture to overcome national boundaries, and make people want to emulate other people. Cities changing sides is a good approximation in gameplay terms of this phenomenon. It works well!

Robert Plomp · November 12, 2001, 16:11

I think culture is a big plus to the game.
I think though that it's a pitty that when you sell a temple / it's destroyed / whatever that all previously generated culture points by that building will be gone.

In some cases (library / university) pherhaps only half the points should be gone, but how can a city have culture value for a building that's not there anymore ?

The Colosus has been destroyed. The city that hosted the wonder in the past doesn't have any benefits from it anymore. (pherhaps a mark in the history books, but HEY, I forgot the city thus it can't be much )

Besides that: Culture is great.

CyberShy

nato · November 12, 2001, 16:16

As a supplement to the normal game I will agree with you, culture works. I would even like to expand it, make it do more, be more complex. At least let more buildings or even player actions generate it. Just have some decision making involved. But as a supplement to the "real" game it is ok.

However, as a way to win, culture is really a failure to me. Cultural victory is plain boring.

So no big deal, I just don't play for it. But as a means of victory I think it is poorly implemented.

Leonid · November 12, 2001, 17:16

city switching solution= raze it to the ground i.e genocide

davwhitt · November 12, 2001, 20:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Leonid
city switching solution= raze it to the ground i.e genocide

I actually did this once at it presented its own problems. I was the Germans on a large island. Every other civ was on a single huge continent except for one, the Zulus, which were on an island about the same size as my own. I sent 3 galleons full of cavalry and conquered then razed every city the Zulus had (they were still using Impi warriors). In addition to having no risk of cities switching sides I ended up with lots of workers. The problem came when those on the mainland, who did not even know the location of the Zulus (they kept asking me for contact with Zulus which I refused) but somehow knew it anyway and proceeded to send boatloads of settlers in a mad rush to colonize the island before I could. I suppose I should have had settlers standing by but it seems kind of odd that the computer knows where to send its settlers even if it hasn't explored the territory yet.