New kind of game : the Cultural Military

**Akka** · 03-09-2005, 22:22

Well, as we all say, playing the same way can become a bit repetitive after a while. So, well, here is a little type of game I propose.

It always seemed quite strange, when I was playing, to be able to replenish my troops wherever I were, and to instantly gain experienced and loyal soldier in freshly conquered provinces. It's particularly true for units that, like most barbarians, eastern archers, desert units and hoplites, came more from cultural traditions than plain training.

Sadly, unlike Civilization, there is no "cultural counter" to determine if the people in the city are of your culture, or are foreigners actually subdued.

So here are the rules for this kind of game : only recruit units (and it includes retraining) in provinces that are culturally yours.

Example : for Greeks Cities, it would be mainland Greece, obviously, Syracuse, Crete, the coasts of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Crimea. A case could be made for southern Italy too.

The goal is to play with the limited military and population supplies of your "core provinces", which hold the people that feel really part of your empire, and are loyal to it.

This main rules can be changed a bit with optionnal rules, I think, like :

Optionnal rule 1 : "Police" units could be recruited anywhere (by "police", I think about the militia-like type of unit, like Town Watch, Militia Hoplite and so on). It can be rationnalized that they represent the "collaborators", or the part of the people who are more interested in order than in nationalism, or the police forces of the city which have to serve the law of the conqueror.

Optionnal rule 2 : After a while, a city can be considered "integrated" into your culture, and the population feels like it's part of your nation (just like, today, Turks feel Turk and not Byzantines ^^). It can be implemented in two ways :
- Way A : the easy way, as the city is considered "yours" (and as such, able to recruit units) once there is no culture penalty. It's easy to see, and as such easy to determine if a city is available or not, but it's usually far too short of a time to be realistic in any way.
- Way B : the hard way, as it requires a lot of painful paperwork. In this case, when you conquer a city, note the date. After a long period of time (about 50 to 100 years, so 100 to 200 turns), the people are supposed assimilated, and the city is available.
If you lose it, each turn you do not hold it count against the time you need (so, for example, if you capture a city, hold it for 25 turns, lose it for 10 turns and then retake it, you will be considered to have hold it for only 15 turns so far).

The recruiting limitations can be implemented automatically, I think, if a hidden ressource is created for each culture, and required to build the units of this said culture. Such implementation, though, would forbid any "assimilation" like the optionnal rule 2.
If there is a way to automatically implement the "way B", I would be greatly happy, but I doubt it.

Well, I hope this idea can give some people some ideas :)

**Somebody Else** · 03-10-2005, 01:11

Several mods incorporate having to buld up the production buildings all over again (Total Realism for example) so that if you conquer a barbarian faction as, say, the Romans, you can't recruit anything until you've built your own structures. If you conquer another Roman city however, same culture, can use their buildings.

**soda** · 03-10-2005, 02:15

Originally Posted by Akka

(just like, today, Turks feel Turk and not Byzantines ^^).

Today Turks feel like Turks but not like Turks

Anyway good ideas. I'd say that the closer the conquered province is to your motherland the faster they naturally intergrate. So in that sense the former Greek colonies in souther Italy get Romanized much faster than Greek cities in Thrace or Anatolia.

**The Stranger** · 03-10-2005, 10:10

i think it's good, but the 100 turns is what i don't like, it's far too long

**Akka** · 03-10-2005, 13:54

Originally Posted by Somebody Else

Several mods incorporate having to buld up the production buildings all over again (Total Realism for example) so that if you conquer a barbarian faction as, say, the Romans, you can't recruit anything until you've built your own structures. If you conquer another Roman city however, same culture, can use their buildings.

Damn, just when I thought I had an original idea...

I really have to try this Realism mod, one day.

Originally Posted by Emperor Umeu 1

i think it's good, but the 100 turns is what i don't like, it's far too long

Well, in game terms, it may seems quite long, but I can't see how, realistically, any culture change can happens with less than a few generations changes. Traditions need a lot of time to be implemented ^^

(ah, if each inhabitant was "culture-flagged", and we could import culture by building peasants in our core cities, and bring them to a previously exterminated city to outpopulate and convert the original owners, then, it would be a different matter, though perhaps a bit controversionnal, if historical anyway, in the application)

**Epistolary Richard** · 03-10-2005, 15:28

Originally Posted by Akka

(ah, if each inhabitant was "culture-flagged", and we could import culture by building peasants in our core cities, and bring them to a previously exterminated city to outpopulate and convert the original owners, then, it would be a different matter, though perhaps a bit controversionnal, if historical anyway, in the application)

That's pretty straightforward to mod as well. One of the approaches that I'm working on restricts your choice of units until you build the next level of governor building. "Taking governance" (so to speak) represents the shift in culture to the conquering faction, caused by births under the new regime, colonising peasants from the faction's heartlands or demobbed soldiers.

Edit: Actually, messing around with core buildings is knottier than I anticipated. But the desired results can be achieved by adding a new 'colony' building as in tommh's Ptolemeic mod.

**Akka** · 03-10-2005, 22:57

Yes, but the problem here, is that it takes a mere 3-4 turns to upgrade the city, which goes against the very idea of cultural conversion on the duration.

**Heretic Apostate** · 03-11-2005, 03:42

I think that, in certain areas, one should be able to recruit local types of units.

For instance, if I conquer Sparta, why can't I recruit spartans? Instead, I'm forced to build only Romans. :(

I'm curious about the RTR mod, but I'm not sure I like all the changes. And I don't know enough about the modding process to know what's changed. :)

**The Storyteller** · 03-11-2005, 04:37

Of course you can't produce Spartans if you conquer Sparta. They'd all be dead from resisting you.

**Malrubius** · 03-11-2005, 05:36

I like this rule. I've been trying to find some Ironman rules for myself to use in future campaigns. Here's a thread with some interesting ones:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index...ic=14355&st=12

I would like the cultural counter, but as you said, it would be heavy on the bookkeeping without computer assistance (maybe for simplicity, you could record the starting population and wait until it's doubled). I've decided to use option 1.

I think Town Watch could represent collaborators who've decided to avoid enslavement or extermination (they may also be protecting their families, cut them some slack

) by cooperating with the new people in charge, but more advanced units would have to wait until the cultural penalty is reduced.

**Heretic Apostate** · 03-12-2005, 04:09

Originally Posted by The Storyteller

Of course you can't produce Spartans if you conquer Sparta. They'd all be dead from resisting you.

Including the 10-year-olds and the 60-year-olds?

There will be a next generation of Spartans...

**The Storyteller** · 03-12-2005, 08:42

I agree there will always be Spartans, but not necessarily trained Spartans. It's not the Spartan blood that makes them Spartans, it's their culture. If you wipe out a generation, who will pass on their training? Also, if it comes to the crunch, everyone will be pressed into the army. Whenever a besieging army attacked a city, everyone, young and old would be called on to fight. After all, it was literally a last ditch attempt at life.

So yes, I think it is realistic that you can't train Spartans even if you conquer Sparta.

**Sas_Legion** · 03-13-2005, 01:28

Originally Posted by Akka

So here are the rules for this kind of game : only recruit units (and it includes retraining) in provinces that are culturally yours.

I agree with your idea . I think it is a mad idea what I am doing is destroing any building from another culture .. except for governer and wall buildings

but it works

. It let me feel I re-make the city culture specally when the culture penalety is gone . So , when can put the following rule " any city has a culture penalety doesn't train any units except peasents and police force like Town Watch " .

**The Storyteller** · 03-13-2005, 11:09

I force myself not to retrain units by taking high tech units with me on campaign.

Basically, I get one and only one army to conquer a faction. This army is recruited only from my original cities. No reinforcements allowed, only retraining. However, because I use high tech units, the enemy faction (especially when I play Roman vs barbarians) doesn't have the buildings needed to retrain.

That means ever so often my whole army has to turn around and go back for retraining in order to survive. On the way back, they usually get attacked by the enemy as well.

I find this also forces me to use spies, because sometimes there will be a reasonably high tech town I will want to take to retrain, even though that means marching through miles of enemy territory.