Concept: Cultures- mimicking migration mechanics.

[Artfactial]

Hey all,

I’ve been working on a concept for my Tamriel Project for a while and could use some info on mechanics. I’m sure this kind of system can inspire people for other mod mechanics.
The idea is to have multiple Cultures per Race in an extension of the Racial Command mechanics. This would be a minimum of 2, as per the divide in Racial Governance. This way players can choose to side with a certain culture and get more bonuses with the cities and units with this particular culture.

At first I wanted this to be a stackable copy of the Migration mechanics (and hope some of you might be able to propose a work around for that); being that you could introduce a Culture into a city when you already possess a city with that same Culture. This would be regardless of the city's Race, and any city could have multiple Cultures; the more Cultures the more (possibly conflicting) preferences a City will have.

Now, the Migration mechanics are pretty hard coded, yes?
So I have been thinking along the lines of City Upgrades; however, the main thing that bogs me down now is that there are no inter-city upgrade links. I cannot tell the game that a city has a Culture so that Culture can be introduced in another one.
A way of checking this is via
1- Racial Governance: The player will be tied to only introducing Cultures which they have specifically backed in their governance. This is both a nice enticement and a choice limiting mechanic. I’m not a fan of this kind of limitation, so would rather go with option 2, if possible.
2- Player Skill: Through whatever way, the player would get ‘skills’ which allow them to introduce cultures into cities. I would love this to be done by automatically giving the player the Skill when they possess a city with the specific culture. But here 2 problems arise: 1-I can’t find a way for city upgrades to give Skills to players, 2- I don’t think there is a way to take this Skill away from the player once they no longer have any cities with the specific culture.

All in all, the first option appears to be the most feasible but very restrictive.

So, I’d love your input on this concept and how I can possibly work around some of its problems.
Any ideas?

Edit: On the matter of giving player stats via City Upgrades: is it possible to add Alignment points to City Upgrades?

 

[HousePet]

I think you have to go with option 1 or rethink what you would like to achieve, such as possibly removing the requirement of having something else first.

 

[Dr_K]

2- Player Skill: Through whatever way, the player would get ‘skills’ which allow them to introduce cultures into cities. I would love this to be done by automatically giving the player the Skill when they possess a city with the specific culture. But here 2 problems arise: 1-I can’t find a way for city upgrades to give Skills to players, 2- I don’t think there is a way to take this Skill away from the player once they no longer have any cities with the specific culture.

On the matter of giving player stats via City Upgrades: is it possible to add Alignment points to City Upgrades?

Agree with HousePet on the above two issues. There isn't really any functionality that I know of to give a player a property (or alignment) from a city upgrade.

1- Racial Governance: The player will be tied to only introducing Cultures which they have specifically backed in their governance. This is both a nice enticement and a choice limiting mechanic. I’m not a fan of this kind of limitation, so would rather go with option 2, if possible.

With racial governance, you are only stuck with two options to choose from (per tier). The military/economy dichotomy is also hard coded.

However, I'm not sure if the old "choose your bonus" functionality is still in the game from the original design of the Arch Druid's Favored Enemy research. Originally, it gave you an option of which enemy to choose. You might be able to do this with racial governance as well if the functionality is still there to skirt around the 2 player property limit per tier.

Alternatively, you could make the cultures avatar research items, with some mutual exclusivity if the Favored Enemy functionality is still there.

EDIT: That's a lie, they are lists of player properties. I also think I am misrememberring how the Favored Enemy research worked. The more I think about it, I am pretty sure it was just mutually exclusive research items instead of a choice after researching a single item.



Depending on exactly what you want to do with it, there is a third option that comes to mind. Just making the cultures city upgrades. It allows you some control of mutual exclusivity and levels of each if that might be relevant. The city upgrades then could also be used by any race which avoids tying the cultures to racial governance.

 

[Artfactial]

Thank you both!

I think you have to go with option 1 or rethink what you would like to achieve, such as possibly removing the requirement of having something else first.

Having no requirements for Cultural upgrades would mean at least 26 differed cultures to be used by anyone. The Racial Governance option (1) indeed would be preferable.

That's a lie, they are lists of player properties. I also think I am misrememberring how the Favored Enemy research worked. The more I think about it, I am pretty sure it was just mutually exclusive research items instead of a choice after researching a single item.

Oh, I had thought about using the Building Recourses pickup mechanics but had forgotten about the Favored Enemy skill; I'll look into it;s mechanics!^^

Depending on exactly what you want to do with it, there is a third option that comes to mind. Just making the cultures city upgrades. It allows you some control of mutual exclusivity and levels of each if that might be relevant. The city upgrades then could also be used by any race which avoids tying the cultures to racial governance.

I think the Cultures will be city upgrades either way. These can be restricted by player properties so would be the most useful. I'm not really planning on mutual exclusivity; it should be possible to have clashing cultures in a city.

So the basic unlock path for a culture would look like this:
City of X Race > Achieve Required RG Tier: Choose Cultural side > Unlock Cultural City Upgrade in ALL Cities > Build City Upgrade in a City

The City Upgrades, combined with Racial Governance bonuses could provide all sorts of effects TBD.

 

[Rodmar18]

By the way, what about the usual military and economic mutually exlusive RG choices? Are they to be included an mixed into Cultural RG choices?

 

[Artfactial]

Yes, most of the Tamrielic races (with a few exceptions) can be boiled down to an Economic/Progressive vs. an Military/Conservative sort of cultural divide. This doesn't mean I will be using the exact bonuses from the vanilla races (else there would be little point in going through the pains of making the races more culturally diverse), but the same principal of bonuses applies in most cases.

If someone where to do this for vanilla races, cultural traits and upgrades need only be added to the already existing Governance paths.

 

[Dr_K]

So, I have another idea for you. Probably more work, but it could possibly do what you wanted to initially (sort of), the "can't propagate the culture unless you already have it" idea. The crux of it depends on whether you can tie a builder-created structure to a city upgrade, like the Mystical City Upgrades.

Let's assume that is possible, because I honestly don't see why it wouldn't be at the moment. I also don't actually know what happens when you have an MCU built, but then lose the structure from the domain.

Assume that city 1 starts with culture X and the appropriate city upgrade. It then gives a newly constructed builder (or unit of your choice) the ability to construct an "X culture district" on the strategic map. Take that builder to the domain of city 2 and have it build the X culture district. Then the city upgrade will be accessible from city 2. Now city 2 can build builders with the ability to spread the culture.

Not quite as simple as the migration mechanics, but lines up with the initial idea a little better than working directly with racial governance.

 

[Artfactial]

Ohwow, that indeed is a lot more work, but actually manually migrating culture groups and having them be physically present on the city is brilliant!
The 'Cultural Settler' unit can be a great addition to many things too:
-a variation of refugee camps which gives you a random Cultural Settler
-Cultural Settlers as rewards for City Quests
-'Giving' cultures to cities of allied players.

I have been looking into the Empire Quest mechanics as a requirement workaround, but that indeed is a on-time-only flick that does not check afterwards or is able to turn off. Besides it would spam the messages of players achieving Cultural empire unlocks.
Empire Quest can be an awesome tool to build on the world though.

I'm going to test it out and will check back with info.
Thanks a lot for the idea!

 

[Artfactial]

Alright, I set up a template culture to test the Migration mechanic on; here's some findings.

-Yes, it appears to be possible to build City Upgrades via Constructed structures. At least, the game recognizes it as such. As of yet, I can't though.
-I run into some trouble with the Culture City Upgrade. I wasn't aware that there is no such thing as a grouped upgrade, like there is for Unit Properties. So I am not able to have a City name Upgrade which has a standard set of Culture Upgrades. No biggy, those can be added by hand; still annoying.
-The Immigrant unit's only building requisite is to have the Culture Upgrade requisite in the city. Yet, when a city does have this, it doesn't show up in the Unit Production tab. I have given the requisite a string name and description in the hope that would make it show up in the properties tab(which it doesn't); maybe removing those will enable the requisite. The other property added to the city in the same upgrade did work, so that is functional.
-Another test I'd have to do if see if, when I add the District to the city domain via the MapEditor, it does allow me to build the upgrade. Which would be a sad mark against the possibility of using the constructed Structures for city upgrades.

Spoiler: Screenshots

Immigrant Settler.

Cultural District

 

[Rodmar18]

I also don't actually know what happens when you have an MCU built, but then lose the structure from the domain.

For your information, I read a message somewhere in a file, that should be displayed in red when a structure is occupied (or, I figure, lost to another domain), that a MCU is no more available, not unlike when you seize a city from another class's leader and you can't use that class buildings.

 

[Artfactial]

@Rodmar18 Any more info on this? Which file, what message, where do I link it with the Structure? Maybe this is blocking the unlocking of the MCU .

NB: I'm not a fan, but I'm sure that there's a Marvel movies joke in these posts somewhere.

Edit:
Also, my mod pack divide is between game structural things 'Mundus' (races, units, upgrades, mechanics) and world building things 'Nirn' (structures, quests, visuals). In this way the constructed District structure resides in the 'Nirn' packages, while the Immigrant unit and the MCU reside in the 'Mundus' package. The MCU and the construction Ability call for the Structure name, which is part of the Structure entry in the other package. I don't think this should be a problem, is it? The link seems to work fine for the Construction Ability and, at least in theory, the game verifies that the structure ought to allow for the MCU in the city.

 

[Rodmar18]

Sorry, it might not even be related to MCU, after all:

What I was thinking about is in Interface.xml, line 107.

TREASURE_EVENT OCCUPIED_HEADER {STR_structureName} is occupied
an enemy unit disabled your treasure site for one turn
TREASURE_EVENT OCCUPIED_DESCRIPTION An enemy unit occupied {STR_structureName}
an enemy unit disabled your treasure site for one turn

 

[Artfactial]

Hm, I don't think those will be useful right now, although, at the moment, the player has to actually 'explore' the District in order to be able to build the MCU.

Speaking off: I've done it, I can now build the Cultural MCU when the District is present in the domain of the city. It was, of course, a dumb mistake which was bugging it: I had not included the Cultural City Upgrade in the Racial City Link list. I'll do some more tests with activation of properties. Mainly, my plan is right now to have all cities start with the cultural modifiers, which get triggered when the appropriate Cultural Requisite is present.
I'll let you know how things fare.

Edit: Hmpf. Apparently I can't 'require' a player's class or race on individual properties, bummer...
I'm thinking of creating a faux Class/Race Requisite player skill that is always given to the appropriate player (via the Leader Customisation Set?). I'm sure it will be useful for more things. It's a lot of work and it will exlude any vanilla races; but then again, they would have been anyway.

Edit2: Alright, no, that system is way too screwy and defeats the purpose of making the Migration system more elegant in the first place. I'll focus on getting the system in place first then see whatever effects can be applied by it...

 

[Dr_K]

Edit: Hmpf. Apparently I can't 'require' a player's class or race on individual properties, bummer...
I'm thinking of creating a faux Class/Race Requisite player skill that is always given to the appropriate player (via the Leader Customisation Set?). I'm sure it will be useful for more things. It's a lot of work and it will exlude any vanilla races; but then again, they would have been anyway.

Is the idea to have the cultures give different properties/bonuses to the player/city based on the race of the city or the class of the player or possibly the combination of both?

Edit: If that's what you are going for, you might be able to work around it with the following. Not sure if it applies directly to the plan for cultures, but here is an example in terms of AoW3 classes/races, which should theoretically work. I have not actually tested it.

Assume culture X gives the following bonuses for class/race combination:
-- Sorcerer - Human City -> +5 knowledge output
-- Sorcerer - Orc City -> Razorbows get Inflict Stun
-- Warlord - Human City -> +5 production
-- Warlord - Orc City -> +1 damage all units

Mod details:
1. Create a free empire upgrade for each class that indicates the class. ex. "Is Sorcerer", "Is Warlord"
2. Create the appropriate city property for each combination: S-H, S-O, W-H, W-O
-- most types have a "Required Player Property" - link to "Is <classname>"
-- most types have a "Required Race Link" - link to the appropriate race
3. Set the Culture X city upgrade to grant all 4 city properties.

Game play doesn't actually change:
1. Culture X district is created on strategic map ("migrate to city")
2. Culture X upgrade is built in city ("incorporate into city")
3. Only one of the four properties should actually take effect due to the mutually exclusive player/race properties.

 

[Artfactial]

Hey,
yes, that was what I was going for (although, for some reason, a bit more contrived by unlocking the free upgrade through a standard Leader upgrade property).
It works out okay for Classes, yes, and maybe I should do it that way. I'm not a huge fan of having players have to unlock a free skill for game-play mechanics to work, but I can work around it by making it semi-useful and in-lore.
What I would really like is a reaction to the Player's Race, which I don't appear to be able to make an 'Is Race' property for.
A drawback on this system is that it only applies to an owned city. So all can be well and good when you are doing quests for an Independent city, but when you absorb it, it turns out to have major morale modifiers since they don't like whatever you are and do. Any way to have this system affect neutral cities as well?


Also, on the topic of the Districts, I now have it set so a district can be Razed, which is good fun. Is there any way to make this an act of evil or even possibly have an impact on relations with (independent) cities with the same culture?
I've been looking though the applied effect but it appears that all alignment and relations modifier appliers are locked to gameconcepts, is that right?

Edit: as for the city race, I am creating Pro and Anti City Race properties just to be sure, not yet implementing them. I kind of like the idea of penalties for integrating cultures. Culture X dislikes Race Y, so a City Happiness penalty ensues which can be remedied with the usual suppression spells etc.
Also, thus far I have disabled cultural integration for Dead cities.

 

[Rodmar18]

I'd have two questions:

1. Can a district prevent the player to build another one until it get razed/sold. I've always found borderline the fact that in AoW3, a Warlord could build his own class building without razing/selling first the Sorcerer's, a former proprietary. For sure, that feature would make migrating a longer process, but perhaps that would be wanted?
2. Could a Culture affect the "build houses in domain" process, just as a Race currently does?

 

[Artfactial]

Alright well,
1. As it now works, Districts are the physical structure that is build, which allows for the city to produce the designated Culture upgrade. So they are two separate entities, one needing the other, at the moment. I don't think it would be possible to not allow multiple districts in a domain. I think it's a pretty fun way to liven up and urbanise the unused areas. They can be razed at the moment; I haven't tried it out yet so am not entirely sure what effect it will have on the City Upgrade when already in place. You can sell the upgrade, but I am hoping to introduce some kind of penalty for it.
But the plan is to explicitly have multiple cultures at once possible, so I'm not going out of my to make every one of them mutually exclusive (maybe some will be).
2.You mean the Build Houses city action/upgrade? Well yes, right now I have a constructed District give the city an extra 50 Population Growth and i think I'll add minor bonuses for specific Cultures to spice things up. Nothing too big. The production cost of a single Cultural Migrator unit has to be tweaked in this respect as well.
But yeah, once the system is in place, the interacting cultures and districts should give a nice mix of possible bonuses and penalties to take into account.

 

[Rodmar18]

1. So my "concern" about vanilla AoW3 could be solved through modding (class buildings mutually exclusive at same tier (I,II,III) level)?
   
2. I mean the little houses that pop up all over in the domain, that House Begone limits.

 

[Artfactial]

1. I think it ought to, but doesn't the whole Class Building thing stem from the idea that they are invisible to other classes? If the upgrade is invisible, you can't sell it in order to build a new one. I might be possible with some workaround that check if the upgrades are present tough.
I get where you're coming from, it's weird to have such huge structures pop-in and out of existence based on who owns the town.
2.Ah, sorry, like that. Hm, I don't think so, those are dependent on fertile terrain. I think House B-Gone fixes this by simply not giving them a model. Not sure.

 

[Rodmar18]

1. They are not invisible, you see them deactivated (in red) when you captue a city from another class leader. Incidentally, when this leader captured this city from a third leader, you discover that the AI never ever sell those unuseful buildings, even if it could make good purpose of the gold, and you end with deactivated buildings from both classes!
2. But some fertile terrain hexes still have houses on them. Perhaps there's a randomization that is changed (from 100% to 40%, say).
3. Speaking of fertile terrain, we have Toundra and Autumn climates that look like equivalent to Temperate as far as morale is concerned. Perhaps, you could have "dumb" climates with culture-oriented fertile (or other terrains) tiles? At least for the mod maker's usage? Back to 2., in case the little houses are not an overlay and there are two fertile terrain tiles (one bare, one with houses), then you could have cultural little houses, if I'm not wrong. Let's say that there is a Telvanni temperate climate, identical to temperate, but the fertile terrain with houses. Perhaps that would make too much graphical assets?