Culture C*ckbl*ck

from Sins Forums
Pardon the blue language in the subject header, but I couldn't resist. It's what was going through my mind the entire time as I gnashed my teeth and shook my fists. My sad tale is as follows.

In a 2v2 game with locked teams, I had a single system as the bottleneck between my side and the enemy side. My teammate and I couldn't really coordinate who got which system, what with him being an AI, and he managed to beat me to the bottleneck system. No big deal, even if he was utterly retarded in building up its defenses. I just parked my fleet there to keep the other guys from getting through. Besides, I managed to get to the juicy terran planet before he did. Ha ha!

As the game goes on, like any evil Vasari overlord, I decided it would be worth spilling a bit of culture out towards the enemy systems on the other side of the bottleneck. After all, I get a damage bonus when fighting in my own culture. Sweet. So I tear down a few installations to make room for my media hubs and I sit back and watch the colored line advance.

Except that it doesn't. Every single phase line with my teammate's planet at the other end was entirely locked to culture. And it's not that his culture was holding me back either. I later discovered that uncouth lout didn't even have any culture! In fact, after maybe a half dozen games, I don't think I've seen so much as a bump on the culture graph for AI players. Does the AI use culture? I've only recently started playing the Hard AI, so maybe their culture will kick in during other games.

At any rate, it seems that culture will not push towards a friendly player. Now I understand the potential complications, but is this intentional? Because every race should have access to Vasari sitcoms such as Everyone Loves Zablar, UnHappy Planetary Rotational Cycles, and You Will Die With My Cold Wet Tentacle Around Whatever Tube You Breathe Through. But it seems like blocking culture is going to add a clunky new dynamic to culture wars in team games.

-Tom
64,604 views 41 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Sounds, slightly awkward, the bad a.i. in particular sounds disappointing. Hopefully, hard a.i. does better. :NOTSURE:
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Hmmm... Most systems don't revolve around a single choke point. What map were you playing?

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I would imagine that the mechanic is designed around unlocked teams, so that you cant spread your culture through allied space and then have them completely screwed over when you decide that they need to die horrible deaths.

The obvious thing is to make the mechanic different in locked team games, but that could be more hassle than its worth. Though personally I would prefer if culture just affected your allies as normal, I always quite liked "attacking" my allies with culture in other games (GalCiv2)
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Seems like it might be to prevent weirdness should the game have not been locked teams and the alliance breaks later. Then again, allowing it to avance all the way to an ally's planet (but not affect it so long as the alliance holds) could be interesting too. The thought of several of your fringe planets suddenly flipping if you break alliances with an ally could be a powerful incentive not to :) And it could bring up some real life diplomacy.

A: "Hey man, I'd appreciate it if you didn't culture creep over me"
B: "..."
A increases bounty on B. A lot.

I hope the culture system has been planned out enough to encourage tactical uses, especially when it sounded like it was one of the Advent's main strengths.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Because every race should have access to Vasari sitcoms such as Everyone Loves Zablar, UnHappy Planetary Rotational Cycles, and You Will Die With My Cold Wet Tentacle Around Whatever Tube You Breathe Through
End of quote

:LOL:

frankly I agree with you tom, although I dont know if it would be such a straightforward fix.

another lovely issue is when two allies culture spam together, and they put my empire right down teh middle of the contested territor, so because its half culture to each none of my planets flip :d
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I'll let Ironclad field this one, except to say that the AI in the release build does use culture. The Advent player was attacking me with it last night...though his fleet is what actually got the job done...  (:( 
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
In a team game with locked teams, wouldn't team culture make more sense than dueling your teammates?
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

I'll let Ironclad field this one, except to say that the AI in the release build does use culture. The Advent player was attacking me with it last night...though his fleet is what actually got the job done...   
End of quote


I thought Tom was playing the release build?

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
He is using a gamma. But even in the gamma, the AI uses culture. But it depends on which AI personality they have.  In my saved game that I had on G4 X-play, I lost a planet to enemy culture.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, I didn't mean to say the AI didn't use culture, but I hadn't noticed it yet in the few games I've played. I was just asking since I wasn't sure if it was something like walls in most RTSs: a tool for human players that the AI couldn't use. Glad to hear that's not the case.

I understand there are issues of culture and teamplay, but it's unfortunate if teammates simply stop cold any culture spread, which seems to be the case right now. It's a blunt solution that could hurt the game balance. I was hoping teams could use strategies such as one player running military interference while another hangs back and seeps out powerful culture. :(

-Tom
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
In a team game with locked teams, wouldn't team culture make more sense than dueling your teammates?
End of quote

who would win the planet?
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
I played a game with the one ally AI and 2 hard AI comps. I was getting the planets in the middle star system where they are 5 stars. I encountered an AI's culture spreading like flys out of one planet. It even had an easy time cutting through my planet with a communication array. When I got there to investigate. The AI actually built 3 communication array on one planet. That was actually a first for me. But i destroyed them in time before it caused some real damage. Though I can't get one of the planets that I bombed from the AI because of the culture being too strong.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, I didn't mean to say the AI didn't use culture, but I hadn't noticed it yet in the few games I've played. I was just asking since I wasn't sure if it was something like walls in most RTSs: a tool for human players that the AI couldn't use. Glad to hear that's not the case.

I understand there are issues of culture and teamplay, but it's unfortunate if teammates simply stop cold any culture spread, which seems to be the case right now. It's a blunt solution that could hurt the game balance. I was hoping teams could use strategies such as one player running military interference while another hangs back and seeps out powerful culture.

-Tom
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1. You can pseudo direct where AI players attack/defend when you have a good enough relationship with them. If you started with him on your team he should be fully 'happy' and you can boss him around (with limits) thus increasing the chances of getting the planets you are interested in. (Click on any AI allied unit and you will see three buttons in the action grid, these also serve as smart, battlefield 2 style pings when its a human player).

2. As described above in numerous ways, yes the AI uses culture. Offensive use of it depends on the faction (esp Advent) + AI personality + other factors. Defensive use of it is based on the enemy threat unless he thinks he has better chance to knock out the facilities.

3. The team culture problem is a hard counter solution to the early beta problems where friendly culture ate into your planets which is far worse. We have been brainstorming culture blending solutions for awhile now but nothing simple and elegant enough yet. We do play team games where one player goes heavy culture and hangs back, we always just make sure he was a single path out of any choke points. Once you know the rule its not a problem but I agree, its not the optimal solution.

4. Btw, Jamie pulled a miracle and the hotkeys are now all organized by category and the expand/collapse all empire tree nodes hotkeys are now available (well in the next build along with a lot of other refinements). Still looking at the market.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
Re #4

AWESOMENESS! :CONGRAT:
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Blair, good lord, thanks! I was totally stymied trying to figure out how to get to those team pings. It seemed that sometimes they popped up, sometimes they didn't! Now I look forward to testing how much I can push the AI around.

We do play team games where one player goes heavy culture and hangs back, we always just make sure he was a single path out of any choke points.
End of quote


Well, doesn't that kind of mean any choke points aren't actually choke points? :) If, say, the Advent player has to leave open a path to his empire, that kind of defeats the purpose of having another player go heavy military to serve as a buffer.

I really do like the culture system and I hate seeing team games partly undermine it. It's a shame there's no provision for team culture, because I can imagine the cool synergy you'd get doubling up culture power and effects. But given how culture is currently modeled, and given that you want players to be able to change alliances mid-game, I understand the problem. It's the sort of thing that makes me glad I'm not a game designer, since I have no idea how you'd solve it. I just know how to complain about it. :)

-Tom
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

It actually doesn't come up that often for us unless we play a tight choke point map like Pandemonium (in which case we usually don't move into culture until someone colonizes the outer sections anyways).

Don't worry, once the mob gets the latest version of the game, they will give us 1000+ ideas on how to solve it, we'll synergize their ideas into awesomeness, implement it and release it in an update.

 

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
yeah "the mob" will solve all your problem :D
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
The mob has been our best friend since March :) The beta testers rock!!!  :CONGRAT: 
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

The mob has been our best friend since March The beta testers rock!!!   
End of quote


Thank you!
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
*grins wildly while sharpening pitchforks*

Yeah... I love mobs too.

*checks the pitch on all my torches*
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
Just don't let the Mob mess with the Union. Bad things will come of it.

No space ponies for one.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

*grins wildly while sharpening pitchforks*

Yeah... I love mobs too.

*checks the pitch on all my torches*
End of quote


flamethrowers >> torches

crowbars >> pitchforks

This goes double if you're wearing a gas mask and tuxedo, so I guess you know my armory.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
I can just imagine striped culture lines indicating allied cultural pushes. And all their broadcasts could begin with "Now in Glorious Technicolor".

Hmm, I wonder, could a new upgrade (call it "Allied Relay" or something) be included to allow friendly culture to pass by to the next lane without affecting your planet? Not sure how this would interact if both people were pushing culture, but it would let one guy culture creep past his ally's uncultured grav wells.

It would allow for the Culture-Player and Military-Player coop scenario described earlier at least.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
nah, i meant instead of your cultures fighting at the borders, yours reinforces your allies', which would clear up the planet-giving issue. Define the borders the normal way, but have your culture's effect reinforce your ally's culture and benefit your ally the same as you, which would clear up schod's objection to the idea.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top

It's official: (and I'm copy and pasting this from the official Sins development source control descriptions that are forever recorded in our eternal records database)

"Culture no longer c*ckbl*cked by allied planets"