Different Cultures

[The Sixth Wizard]

I have not played Kingdoms yet (though I plan to get it especially for this mod if it comes out) so please excuse my newbiness.

I was wondering, how does the "culture" system work? Is it like religion, with every faction having a different culture? Can there still be culture alongside religion? Does culture affect anything other than unit availability (such as population growth and income?)

If the answer to any or all of the above questions is yes, then here's some ideas.

Elven culture can be stable, only starting to grow when the Elves build a special optional line of buildings in their settlements. This would be good as it would allow the elves to choose their units: a high mannish culture would give them quick-spawning units and a higher population growth, whereas a high elven culture would make the settlement's population decline, but give the Elves access to their best units. If controlled by the AI, the Elves would do what they did in the book, decrease in numbers, defend their key settlements and keep their populations as stable as possible. After all, the Elves are fading and also leaving to Valinor, thus decreasing in power and numbers.

Of course, it is all up to the team whether or not they want to implement this, but it would make the Elves a highly unique faction, and also probably make them stronger in the early game! How's that for a Total War game?

The culture list could be
"Mannish" (giving the factions access to low-level soldiers of men but increasing population growth),
"Elvish" (decreasing population growth but increasing income and allowing good factions to call in skilled Elven units),
"Dwarvish" (neither increasing nor decreasing population growth and increasing build speeds and income for both good and evil factions, this culture increases only slowly even when controlled by the Dwarves) and
"Orcish" (allowing evil factions to spawn orcs quickest and increasing their population growth a lot, while decreasing public order for good factions).

also possibly:

"Numenorean" (this culture decreases very slowly over time and cannot be replenished, but gives quicker building times, strong "pure" units, more elite units for Gondor and Rohan and it decreases public order for evil factions)

I posted this as a thread because I wanted some feedback from you guys, so don't you say I'm spamming another thread.

Faction Hope/Despair coupled with unique cultures = one helluva good TW mod.

[Glorfindel]

awesome suggestions, i think the possibilities of the culture system are endless

a suggestion from me

is its possible (it will, clearly, be cool) if a human city gains 100% Numenorean Culture to have the Powerful Numenorean Units?

i know! lore is "damaged" but it's cool i think

[The Sixth Wizard]

Well as I said Numenorean culture would not be increase-able, but I could see cities such as Minas Tirith and Dol Amroth having upwards of 30% Numenorean culture, losing maybe 0.2% per turn?

[Glorfindel]

why losing?

and maybe if you build some building and maybe some of them VERY expensive you will able to increase it? what do you think?

[Varjon]

My list, though I have posted this somewhere already.

CULTURES:

Men:

Gondor: Dúnedain
Rohan: Rohirrim
Eriador, Dale, Beornings: Northmen
Rhûn, Khand: Easterlings
Harad: Haradrim
Umbar: Black Númenoreans

Elves:

Mirkwood: Silvan or Nandor
Lórien: Galadhrim
High Elves: Noldor or Sindar

Dwarves:

Only one culture simply calle Dwarves.

[Tittils]

Good ideas.
The main thing you need to remember for cultures, is that building pictures, event images and character portraits will be shared between factions of the same culture. So if you generalise the cultures into just mannish, elvish, dwarven and so on, the Gondorian buildings and characters will be the same as the ones for Rohan. And this will of course not be satisfying.
You could instead divide the mannish cultures into different ones. Like barbarian for Easterlings, numenorean for Gondor and so one. This depends on how many different cultures you can use of course.
The different population growths you are talking about could be assigned invidually to each faction in the descr_buildings file to get the desired effects of income, growth, farming and different bonuses.

These are just my thoughts.

[Glorfindel]

i really like the Mannish and Numenorean cultures to be different

Varjon, i don't find better the men having different cultures, it's very "complicated"-Mannish for all isn't good? and Numenoreans with little % for Gondor
you even divided the Dale from Rohirim (i think they are both northmen)

[Varjon]

Are you suggesting that all men factions would have same buildings? Because factions with same culture have same buildings. Rohirrim are different from other Northmen because they have closer relationship to horse and they have builded their whole life around horses.

Besides, I think Dale's culture should be Bardians instead of Northmen.

[Glorfindel]

i think cultures are instead of religions, right?

how many religions there are in the vanilla?

[Varjon]

Catholic, Orthodox, Pagan, Heretic, Islam, that together is five religions.

[Glorfindel]

you suggest like 10

(ccllnply eat that)

[ccllnply]

My list, though I have posted this somewhere already.

CULTURES:

Men:

Gondor: Dúnedain
Rohan: Rohirrim
Eriador, Dale, Beornings: Northmen
Rhûn, Khand: Easterlings
Harad: Haradrim
Umbar: Black Númenoreans

Elves:

Mirkwood: Silvan or Nandor
Lórien: Galadhrim
High Elves: Noldor or Sindar

Dwarves:

Only one culture simply calle Dwarves.

Nice list. I think Umbar would be half Black Numenoreans and half Haradrim.

[Varjon]

I was suggesting cultures, not religions. In Britannia campaign of kingdoms are these cultures: Welsh, English, Scottish, Irish and Norse if I remember right.

[Varjon]

Nice list. I think Umbar would be half Black Numenoreans and half Haradrim.

Yes, that works well. But since Harad and Umbar are united faction and Harad's culture is "Haradrim", that Black Númenorean culture will disappear in time.

[Glorfindel]

ohhhh i thought that cultures were instead of religions

[ccllnply]

Maybe a building could be added to Umbar so a small percentage would stay Black Numenoreans but I think the people of Umbar would have eventually turned Haradrim anyway if Gondor hadn't taken it in the 4th age

[Varjon]

Maybe a building could be added to Umbar so a small percentage would stay Black Numenoreans but I think the people of Umbar would have eventually turned Haradrim anyway if Gondor hadn't taken it in the 4th age

Maybe there must be at least 25 % of Black Númenorean culture to recruit corsairs.

[ccllnply]

Maybe there must be at least 25 % of Black Númenorean culture to recruit corsairs.

Yeah that makes sense. But what happens if Gondor take Umbar? :hmmm:

[Varjon]

Well I don't think that Gondor should be able to recruit corsairs since they had been destroying coastals of Gondor for about thousand years.

[The Sixth Wizard]

If anything the Black Numenoreans would hate Gondor more than the Haradrim, so +unrest by a bit.

I like the Northmen idea, though Rohan is a highly separate culture.

What is the maximum number of cultures? Is it seven like religions?