16 civs, yet only 5 cultures???

Nemo · May 31, 2001, 02:54

Ok now i am confused...

Quote:

Civilization III will feature sixteen civilizations and five distinct cultures.

taken from:
http://compstratgames.about.com/game.../ble3civ3b.htm

Can someone please explain how you can have more civilizations that cultures? until now, i thought that culture was more based upon ones country. So, why aren't there as many cultures as civs? i am now suddenly lost on the "culture" concept. what if you take over a cive with the same "culture" ...just becuase they are teh same culture, does that not mean that they will have to be "assimilated" into your nation? or would you not even be able to caputre a city if it has teh same culture? it doesn't make sense (yet)

Zanzin · May 31, 2001, 03:04

Well, I guess they're dividing all the civs to fall into a particular type of culture......i.e. European, Asian, Western.....I think it makes pretty good sense

Rollo_CH · May 31, 2001, 03:13

I think there's 5 distinct cultures and 16 Civs, which could mean: 5 very different culture types and within these 5, a few similar...similar in building style and stuff, but still a different society. So i guess you will still have the same problems to assimilate Civs with similar culture as the ones living across the globe. Example: The Germans and the French....close neighbors but probably not eager to melt into the conquering Civ nation.

bagdar · May 31, 2001, 03:15

Quote:

Civilizations which began close together in the real world (e.g. Greeks and Romans), will be placed in close proximity in the game world. The game world will be more continental in nature, and civilizations which start the game on the same continent will share similar architectural styles and other features.

Civilization III will feature sixteen civilizations and five distinct cultures.

Wars will be devastating to the continent on which they occur. Among other things, trade will be disrupted and culture will suffer.

YEEEES!!!!!!

God, this is very very very promising. It's getting more and more logical, maybe that's where we must be seeking 'realism'. It'll be a disaster when this game is out and my computer turns out be too weak...

Footie Mad · May 31, 2001, 12:04

Maybe there are 5 main cultural styles and then you have different subcultures in them. This would make some sense as I hardly think there is an equally big difference between the English and the Germans as say the English and the Indians.

TechWins · May 31, 2001, 13:56

There are many different cultures when you get down to the small details but there are just a few cultures for 16 civs when you look at the whole culture. Most of the European nations such as England, France, Germany, etc... aren't that different from each other, when not concentrating on the small details.

Ecthy · May 31, 2001, 14:13

Generally, I like the idea of different cultures and Civs that live close together sharing a culture model... hopefully it allows a better historical gameplay on the world map. I really liked to play on the world map, trying to copy Earth's history

Jaguar · May 31, 2001, 14:19

Maybe theyre referring to the Bronze age monolith/far east/medievil/classical city styles

Footie Mad · May 31, 2001, 14:21

One thing that would be great would be to have cultural wars, kind of like crusades against an entire culture.

Ecthy · May 31, 2001, 14:31

That's exactly my point, Wille!

It will be fun, definitely... But then, if starting close togethe rmeans similar culture could mean that the Romans for example might have a similar culture setting as... the Arabs (or so), which would be wrong... but on a world map...

hey, why not allowing players to set "culture borders" on a premade map.. of course, it's hard to set real borders for cultures, but it's more realistic than allowing a mess like that!!

Footie Mad · May 31, 2001, 14:42

The culture of the civ should be decided by the capitals culture, that way Rome would be european. This poses some problems like really large civs such as Russians but for simplicity you should use the capitals culture.

MrFun · May 31, 2001, 15:13

(digging out "Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order")

There are really nine main civilizations in the world today:

1) Western
2) Latin American
3) African
4) Islamic
5) Sinic
6) Hindu
7) Orthodox
8) Buddhist
9) Japanese

This is the author's simplified paradigm. One can make it too complicated by pointing out that there could be more, but in my opinion, these nine civilizations make the most sense.

Now, given that each civilization is based on a distinct culture, in our world today, there would be nine civilizations with nine cultures. But, the author knows that it is more complicaed than that. There are some cultural dissident within each civilization group listed above.

I think Sid Meier and the others tried to find a simple, but effective way to REPRESENT the BROAD CONCEPT of culture -- not to make a literal working model of the true complex nature of culture and civilization.

Ecthy · May 31, 2001, 15:18

Quote:

Originally posted by MrFun
1) Western
2) Latin American
3) African
4) Islamic
5) Sinic
6) Hindu
7) Orthodox
8) Buddhist
9) Japanese

I quite disagree... Orthodox, for example, might be the culture style for Yugoslavia or Russia, yet neither of these countries' politics or culture is in any way based on religion, yet they're the main ones to be mentioned in connection with Orthodox Christianity...

What about Greece? Orthodox Christianity is their confession, yet a member of the EU, therefore Western?!

I don't know about the rest, but least of the world's countries are really led by the religion that many people associate with them., especially countries with socialist experiences... China springs to mind, so do Russia and Yugoslavia/Serbia (and Montenegro, OK

).

Bereta_Eder · May 31, 2001, 15:20

Jesus and Mary chain. This article is a treasury vault of very inspiring information.

This slow leack of awesome features is torturing me with anticipation.

I was wondering, do you feel that war and global conquest (what a boring thing) will be MUCH MORE difficult in civ 3?

I say that's a good thing (if it actually happens that way).

Footie Mad · May 31, 2001, 15:45

Quote:

Originally posted by paiktis22
Jesus and Mary chain. This article is a treasury vault of very inspiring information.

This slow leack of awesome features is torturing me with anticipation.

I was wondering, do you feel that war and global conquest (what a boring thing) will be MUCH MORE difficult in civ 3?

I say that's a good thing (if it actually happens that way).

Havent they made world conquest much more difficult ? I really think this could be an interesting feature and of course it should be balanced so that it does not become extreme........and using sarcasm is just plain mean

Bereta_Eder · May 31, 2001, 15:45

Mr Fun,

Clash of Civilizations is full of unfounded assumptions and it has too many loose ends and contradictions and absolutes to be a point of reference.

The guy who wrote it was the one who masterminded the containment policy of USA towards the Soviets. His theory proved succesful but when the cold war was over he became of no relevance to the State Department of USA.

He came back and wrote this book hoping to get back. But he based his theory on the international scene that existed in the first half of the century...

and is therefore full of flaws because the international system has changed so much.

He nevertheless persists on his theory which is not good for him because he became a folkore figure in the State Department. (no I'm not a spy in USA I just like to be informed of things like that

)

Both USA and EU policy makers do not have use of his theory but most of them respect his legacy of the containment policy in the cold war.

Footie Mad · May 31, 2001, 16:40

A thought just crosed my mind.....what I really would want to see in civ 3 and that bothered me in civ 2 was the fact that I didnt feel as if I was at war with someone. A peace treaty could be signed after a single turn and my relations with the civ would be as good as with any other. I want my wars to be great historic events and they should leave scars for generations, not be forgotten in a couple of years.

MrFun · May 31, 2001, 17:14

But the author IS correct!

To me, it looks like the world is becoming more divided along civilizational lines rather than beween ideological lines. He cites numerous examples of international events that have already happened that shows this civilizational effect.

Bereta_Eder · May 31, 2001, 17:40

Such as?

Captain · May 31, 2001, 18:32

Does anyone know if these distinct cultures are for graphical purposes only or are they part of the 'culture' rating concept? Or are they a completely separate idea?

I hope this does not mean that one civ shares the same culture as another players because of only having 5 to share among 16. If two players share the same 'culture', does this make assimilation easier?

MrFun · May 31, 2001, 18:35

Paiktis, if I find the time, I will create a thread on culture and civilization in the off-topic section.

laters

JamesJKirk · May 31, 2001, 18:36

Quote:

Originally posted by MrFun
But the author IS correct!

To me, it looks like the world is becoming more divided along civilizational lines rather than beween ideological lines. He cites numerous examples of international events that have already happened that shows this civilizational effect.

Yeah, but then he can't explain why the US would intervene in Bosnia, and if it were written more recently, he'd be dumbfounded over Kosovo too. But the basic premise of the different civilizations is pretty good. you were quoting the # in the modern day though, Orthodox, Western, and Latin American are all offshoots of Classical, and I don't see why you have both Sinic and Buddhist listed?
I brought the idea of similar culture for nearby civs up back in the pre-list days, I can't recall if it or anything like it made it in, but I'm excited nonetheless.

I wouldn't be so inclined to say that England is as different from Germany as it is from India, I mean they're in the EU, they speak similar languages, mostly similar values, plus England's descended from Germanics. An Englishperson would be much more at home in Germany than India, I would imagine.

Nemo · May 31, 2001, 19:51

Thanks all, I now see how it is possible. Sort of how in the world there are hundreds of countries but only a handful of truly distinct cultures. There is (for a rough example) European, Asian, North American, South American, Australian, Middle Eastern, Mediteranian, and Affrican cultures ... but within each there are several countries. And I can see through history, how a similar culture does not mean that taking over one's neighbor of a like culture will result in the willingness to subside to the conqueror. This is very great that they are implimenting in this way, now that i understand how it might be related to the real world. This game is going to be deeply realistic...I can't wait!

Jarouik · June 1, 2001, 05:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Captain
Does anyone know if these distinct cultures are for graphical purposes only or are they part of the 'culture' rating concept? Or are they a completely separate idea?

I hope this does not mean that one civ shares the same culture as another players because of only having 5 to share among 16. If two players share the same 'culture', does this make assimilation easier?

I believe that they are mostly for graphical purposes, to differentiate the looks of the cities. However, if they are used for other, gameplay purposes as well, the idea slightly bothers me - how do you divide the 16 nations in Civ III into 5 distinct cultural spheres?

One division would be Western/African/Middle Eastern/Asian/Native American, but this would mean that most of the civilizations would belong to Western culture and the other ones would be used only by one or two civs each, and all the other cultures would be too generic. Another one would be to further divide the Western civilizations into several cultures (Classical/West European etc.), but in this case, if there are only five cultures in all, you might very well end up combining various peoples from vastly different parts of the world such as America and Africa into one, generic 'Native' culture, which definitely makes no sense at all. The problem is that half of the nations included in Civ (at least the French, Germans, English, Spanish, Americans, Russians, Romans and Greeks) belong to a single, Western culture, and only a handful of non-western civilizations is included. Anyone have a suggestion as to a good division into five cultures?

Bereta_Eder · June 1, 2001, 05:44

Ok, I'll give it a try.

1. European - American
2. Asian
3. American Indian
4. African
5. Classical Age?? (roman, greek?)

or?

1. Stone age!
2. Classic
3. Medieval
4. Industrial
5. Modern
??!!

Al'Kimiya · June 1, 2001, 06:24

I think there are four types of cultures with four civs in each, and a fifth culture for barbarian/minor civ.

"western style" - american, english, french, german
"classic style" - romans, greeks, egyptians, babylonians
"oriental style" - indians, chinese, russians?, mongols
"native style" - zulu, aztec, iroquois, ?

MrFun · June 1, 2001, 12:09

Actually, native would apply to any continent or island, with any people. For instance, the original inhabitants of the British Isles would also be natives.

The original inhabitants of Volga region in Russia would be natives too. And so on, and so on . . . . .

Al'Kimiya · June 1, 2001, 13:10

Quote:

Originally posted by MrFun
Actually, native would apply to any continent or island, with any people. For instance, the original inhabitants of the British Isles would also be natives.

The original inhabitants of Volga region in Russia would be natives too. And so on, and so on . . . . .

Yeah, I didn't really come up with a good name... "misc style" sounded a little awkward

Quartz Dragon · June 1, 2001, 14:50

Quote:

Originally posted by MrFun
There are really nine main civilizations in the world today:

1) Western
2) Latin American
3) African
4) Islamic
5) Sinic
6) Hindu
7) Orthodox
8) Buddhist
9) Japanese

This is the author's simplified paradigm. One can make it too complicated by pointing out that there could be more, but in my opinion, these nine civilizations make the most sense.

I don't know what the author was thinking, but this is a list of both general cultures, very focused cultures, and cultures so broad they shouldn't even be here. Orthodox what; judaism, christianity, islamic: every major religion has its orthodox believers, and they all seem to hate the other religions (witness Bosnia, Kosovo , Nazi Germany [kind of], Iraq/Iran)

Iskandar Reza · June 1, 2001, 15:10

these cultures are more than just city representation, right (architectural style)? what about unit types? are culture A's archers the same as culture B's archers?