Universal Game Robots

Victoria achieved her cultural victory in 1912.

This is the 4th in a series of blog posts (start here) about science fiction elements in the computer game Civilization VI. There was a wonderful science fiction surprise waiting for me at the end of my game during which I competed to attract tourists to the England Empire. 

As shown in the image to the right, on the last turn of the game, my simulated civilization produced "Rossum's Universal Robots", a science fiction play that was first performed for an audience in 1921... in the real world. Karel Čapek obtained a degree in philosophy in 1915 and would have been 22 years old in 1912.

Karel at Oxford University

In my game of Civilization VI, Karel went to Oxford University and that was where he produced "Rossum's Universal Robots". In this game, when a great story or painting is created, it immediately goes on display in a building of one of your cities. Works of art also generate culture points, which is needed for a cultural victory. In my case, the England Empire was particularly devoted to the collection of ancient artifacts for display in archeological museums.

the goal of the English Empire: cultural dominance

an "ancient artifact"

In the real world, Oxford University became a center for establishment of the Royal Society in 1660 and it was in the 1600's and that I built the Oxford University wonder in the game. As mentioned previously, I was trying to develop science so that I could obtain technologies, particular computers.

It is not obvious to me why computers were made of prime importance for boosting tourism levels in this game. I view this as one of the science fiction elements in Civilization VI. We play the game in an alternate universe where computers magically double the tourism points earned by civilizations.

What was Victoria's Secret of success for achieving a cultural victory in 1912?

Shown to the right is an "ancient artifact" that was found by an English archeologist and put on display in the museum of SpicePearls (one of the large English cities on the continent of North America) where it helped attract tourists.

in the Hermitage

In the real world, queen Victoria died in 1901, but in my game it took until 1912 for England to attract enough tourists to the English cities so that a cultural victory was achieved. It was only at the very end of the game that I began obtaining works of art such as that shown to the right. So, without great works of art, how did England attract so many tourists?

My strategy was centered on a special feature of the English Empire in Civilization VI, the British Museum, a special type of archeological museum. As shown in Figure 1, below, by 1912 the English Empire had many cultural sites available for putting works of art and archeological artifacts on display for tourists. My archeological museums (such as the one in the city OrangePearls) were particularly useful because their ancient artifacts were automatically "themed", doubling their cultural value and the number of attracted tourists.

Figure 1. A Partial list of the many cultural sites in the England Empire.

When the five religions were founded (by turn number)

In Figure 1, in the upper left corner, you can see "The Canterbury Tales", on display for tourists in the Palace of London. England only had a few works of art such as the "Bust of Tsar Alexander" (lower left corner in Figure 1, above). Three of my British Museums were located in the cities of Wheaties, SpicePearls and OrangePearls and each of them held six ancient artifacts. I also highlighted in pink some duplicated archeological artifacts. Sadly, I collected so many artifacts that the game may have run out of pre-programmed artifacts forcing the game software to re-use some of them. 🙁 According to the game AI, the two masks in the Museum of Wheaties were at least produced by two different civilizations.

searching for ancient artifacts: an archeological dig

One of the important decisions that I made early in the game was to not simply adopt the Hindu religion of the Indian civilization. As shown in the image above, England founded its unique religion (AllTogetherNow, red line) a few turns before Hindu was founded by Gandhi's civilization (orange line). I also quickly founded my Holy Site so that I could begin to spread my religion and collect "faith points". However, as shown in the graph below, the Hindu religion spread the fastest early in the game.

Growth of the five religions. Hindu in orange, and England's religion, AllTogetherNow in red

first scene in the cultural victory movie

 I'm not sure why the faith points rate for Poland (white line in the graph, above) was so high from about turn 175 to turn 250. This might be the result of Poland using a poorly documented Inquisition. It is probably a good thing that I'm ignorant of how to make use of an Inquisition. Had I known more, I might have been tempted to make use of my own Inquisition to prevent India from spreading the Hindu religion to my cities, but doing so would have come at the cost of hindering my scientific development. 

The game graph for science is shown below.

England's science accelerated about turn 247; that was when I finished constructing Oxford University.  

another scene from the cultural victory movie

As important as my universities were for advancing science, for a short time during this game I also made use of my alliance with Alexander of Macedonia so that we could cooperate for several Research Agreements. Alexander was a good buffer between me and Egypt in the late game and they fought several wars while I was leisurely winning the game by developing my civilization. However, when playing for a cultural victory, I had to eventually stop simply trying to generate science points and start producing culture at a fast rate (see the graph below).

culture development graph; the horizontal axis is in game turns

in 1912 my culture level was 629

In turn 288 I switched from Monarchy to Democracy and adopted a new policy that boosts culture earned from theater districts 100%. In turn 301 (1860 AD), I adopted the Heritage Tourism policy and from then until 1912 my culture points and number of international tourists in England increased rapidly.

Figure 2. The year 1912. The two cities of Eastern Australia.

an ancient artifact found in 1888

As shown in Figure 2, above, only 3 of my 220 international tourists were visiting destinations in Eastern Australia at the end of the game in 1912. See my earlier blog post for a description of the world geography in this game, including the two parts of the content of Australia. My capitol city, London, was also in the eastern part of Australia, but on the main landmass (Figure 3, below).

I had only just completed a fourth National Park which is visible among the mountains at the upper left in Figure 2 ( 0 ). In 1912, that park was very new, so it had not yet had time to attract tourists. Towards the lower right of the map you can see a seaside resort (near the extreme eastern end of Australia) that had attracted two international tourists. The city center at the top of the image had attracted one visitor to see the city's ancient walls.

Figure 3. The year 1912. London (top left) was attracting 27% of the international tourists in England.

created in 1909

As shown in Figure 3, above, at the end of the game, London was being visited by more than 25% of the international tourists in England (220 total international visitors). The most popular place in London was the Holy Site for the English religion (15 visitors). Tied for the second most popular tourist site in London were Stonehenge ( an Ancient Wonder of the world) and the Palace of London (13 visitors each). The Pantanal National Park was being visited by 12 tourists. Other tourist destinations in London were the other world wonders: Hermitage, Cristo Redentor, Oxford University and the Forbidden City.

One of the Wonders in London.

The Palace of London had time to accumulate a large amount of culture and tourism because it held "The Canterbury Tales" since early in the game. I did not get any works of art (such as the Mikhail Kutuzov statue, image to the right, above) for display in the Hermitage until very late in the game, but by 1912 there were 3 visitors to the Hermitage. One of the wonders I built in London, the Forbidden City, provides a culture and tourism bonus. Because I was building several such wonders in London, I never got around to making a theater district for London before the game ended. 😮

Figure 4. The year 1912: the most popular tourist attraction in England was the OrangePearls Museum ( 20 ).

The newest three cities in England

The most popular tourist destination in England in the year 1912 was the theater district in the city of OrangePearls (see Figure 4, above, upper left corner). OrangePearls got its name from two special resources found in that part of England: oranges and pearls. I constructed my first British Museum in the OrangePearls theater district. Also, by 1912 I had completed a Broadcast Center there, making OrangePearls a major center for culture in England. The city center of OrangePearls was attracting 5 tourists to see the city walls. At the the right side of Figure 4 is the first Natural Park that I built. Delhi National Park was attracting 8 visitors in 1912.

The image to the right shows the last three cities that were captured from India in the Great War. The only thing that these growing cities had to offer for tourists were the ancient city walls of their city centers. However, at the very top of the image the number "4" is showing the number of visitors to the third National Park that I built in the mountains south of Hyderabad.

obtained from a shipwreck in 1908

It was not until 1908 that I finished collecting artifacts for all of my archeological museums. "Kandy" is the name of of one of the City-states on the continent of Australia.

I had to sail to the southeast corner of Australia, next to Egyptian territory, to obtain the silver coin shown to the left. The coin went to the archeological Museum of SpicePearls.

the 4 British Museums of England

At the end of the game, in 1912, I was already committed to building two more British Museums. There were some additional ancient artifacts remaining that I could collect from lands outside of England. I did managed to get one artifact that was on land in Macedonian territory, but that upset my long-time ally, Alexander.

Tourist summary for 1900

Taken together, my four British Museums accounted for 23% of England's total international tourism in 1912. The growth in international tourism in England was very rapid at the end of the game. As shown to the left, in 1900 there were only 116 international tourists compared to 220 in 1912. Civilization, truly the game of exponential growth.

Figure 5. A seaside resort for whale watching was attracting 2 international tourists in 1912.

pearl diving resort

Shown in Figure 5, above, is an example of one of the many smaller tourist destinations in England. This seaside resort was in a great location and even-though it had been built late in the game, it was already attracting some international tourists ( 2 ) by 1912. 

Another popular seaside resort is shown in the image to the right. This pearl diving resort was located near the city of OrangePearls and was also attracting two international tourists in 1912. I had about twice as many domestic tourists as international tourists, so we can imagine six guests at this small, exclusive resort.

A Muscat soldier stands on an ancient ruin for decades.

City-states play a large role in Civilization VI. Some City-states are an important source of culture. During my Great War with India, I hired soldiers from Muscat to help me fight Gandhi's military forces. Near the end of the game, a soldier from the City-state of Muscat stood on an ancient artifact and would not move. During the entire game, units from City-states are constantly getting in the way. Their strategy seems to be aimed at annoying players in an attempt to extort money. 

the well-guarded artifact

The ancient ruins shown in the image to the left (and above) were not very close to Muscat and held an Indian artifact. This must be described as one of the many seemingly random events in Civ VI that annoy players. In Beyond Earth, a higher fraction of the surprise events are beneficial and provide players with interesting choices to make. For new players learning the game and playing on the easiest setting, there should be far fewer times when the City-state units cause trouble. The philosophy behind Civ VI seems to be: always create more opportunities for military conflict. When I was young, I read quite a bit of military science fiction and grew sick of it. My guess is, most adult players of Civ VI will have the same aversion to all the warfare in this game.

Hyderabad National Park

Just to the northeast of where I had the stand-off with the Muscat soldier is the third National Park that I made during this game. Three of the four tiles in this park are mountains located south of the city of Hyderabad. When I made the screenshot shown to the left, there was only one visitor. By 1912 there were 4 visitors. It takes a long time to accumulate enough "faith" points to create a National Park, so this park was established fairly late in the game.

A naturalist approaches Torres del Paine

Right at the end of the game I established my 4th and final National Park in eastern Australia near the city of Paine which was named after the nearby natural wonder, Torres del Paine.

It was a challenge to establish this park. Each successive park requires more "faith" points. The naturalist came from the Holy Site of London, crossed the ocean and arrived in eastern Australia, in a desert south of the Torres del Paine mountains. The four hexagonal tiles of the proposed park are high-lighted in while.

The proposed park was on the outskirts of the city of Paine, which had benefited since its founding from the production bonuses on map tiles near the Torres del Paine peaks. That's a uranium deposit behind the naturalist.

Establishing Torres del Paine National Park in 1911.

In 1911, I created the park while the naturalist was standing on the eastern map tile shown in the image to the left. I expected the park headquarters to be placed on that tile, but for some reason the HQ went on the adjacent tile, next to the forest tile (with a sawmill) in the upper left corner of the image.

I'm not sure what the algorithm is for allowing the computer to decide where to put park headquarters and I'm really confused by the complete lack of an HQ in my Pantanal National Park.

Torres del Paine national park HQ to the left.

This image (to the right) shows the fence around the park after it was established. Notice that the eastern-most tile of the park near the city was still rated "breathtaking". I'm tempted to play additional turns after the end of the game in 1912 just to see which of the 4 national parks becomes most popular.

At the end of the game in 1912, the four National Parks were being visited by 11% of the international tourists in England.

two archeological sites highlighted in pink rectangles

The other "big event" in eastern Australia that happened close to the end of the game was the collection of ancient artifacts from two archeological sites (shown in the image to the left). These archeological sites were far from the locations of my British Museums in western Australia, so I did not get around to sending an archeologist to the two dig sites near the city of Irony until very late in the game.

waiting for the archeologist

A builder unit was waiting impatiently for a chance to build a sawmill improvement on the forest tile, but work could not begin until the archeology job was completed, which would remove the ancient artifact from that tile. Irony had three rice resources and was growing rapidly. The city of Irony increased from size 11 to size 12 at about this time.

I was able to obtain a writer and an artist: Capek and Orlovsky.

Late in the game, most of my efforts were oriented around collecting ancient artifacts for display in my archeological museums. Given the advantages of the British Museum, that was the easiest way to boost my culture level and the tourism rate. 

I had another culture boosting effort which was very minor:  trying to collect famous writings, paintings, sculptures and musical compositions. However, I did not even begin to make progress towards being a patron of the arts until the very end of the game.

Boris in the Hermitage

created in 1910

  Shortly before the end of the game, I obtained the Great Writer Karel Čapek (discussed at the start of this blog post) and the Great Artist Boris Orlovsky.

Shown in the image to the left is one of the works of art that I obtained for display in the Hermitage, just 2 years before the end of the game in 1912. 

I was tempted to use my spies to steal works of art from other civilizations, but I decided that my big war against India was enough dirty dealing for one game. I used my spies to protect my civilization from the theft of money, technology and ancient artifacts in archeological museums.

A Great Admiral (lower left)

There are so many different elements of the game that a player can only fully develop some of them. With my focus on archeology, I neglected the arts and also did not build any new military units after the war against India ended in 1700 AD. 

artifact from the Great War

After the end of the Great War, I only upgraded two military units, my two naval units. Sadly, I did not take the time to obtain either of the two special English units, the Redcoat or the Sea Dog. Late in the game I obtained a Great Admiral and used it to promote my battleship. 

the Gandhi memorial collection

The last of the Great Admirals that I obtained in this game is shown docked at the port of Madurai (image above, right). Soon after obtaining the Great Admiral, my newly-promoted battleship escorted and archeologist to the southeast corner of Australia so that I could obtain the last artifact for display in the British Museum of SpicePearls. That artifact came from a shipwreck.

Collected in 1904

Another shipwreck near Madurai yielded the artifact shown in the image to the left in 1904. It took four more turns for that archeologist to travel along the southern end of Australia and to collect my final ancient artifact of the game.

The mysterious Antananarivo people.

Most of the ancient artifacts were from recognizable sources, but I never interacted with the Antananarivo City-state during this game. Antananarivo is located across the ocean from southwest Australia, on another continent.

The English city Mumbai begins trading with the distant City-state Antananarivo (after 1912).

an archeological dig dialogue box

As an example of a typical dialogue box that is seen when an archeologist completes an archeological dig, see the image to the left. Toronto and Muscat were two City-states located close to this particular archeological site. We can imagine that at some time in the past these two city states had a battle, but both of these City-states were land-locked, so a naval battle seems improbable.

The Toronto & Muscat war.

Shipwrecks are a nice feature in Civ VI, but the strange inclusion of a naval battle between Toronto and Muscat needs an explanation. This odd occurrence in the game reminds me of a science fiction story that I recently read, "The Hierophants" by Margaret St. Clair. 

In "The Hierophants" (published in 1949), a spaceship in need of repairs makes an emergency stop on a planetoid and there just happens to be a derelict spaceship there that can be mined for spare parts. Science fiction stories are full of such unlikely coincidences that appear in the middle of stories simply to advance the limping plot. 

Many game elements of Civ VI also have this feel of having been rushed to completion in order to plug a hole in the game. I have sympathy for game programmers who construct complex games like Civ VI. However, I wish they would forget about things like hiring voice actors and stay focused on the details of the game play. Sadly, they seem the emphasize flashy marketing over substance.

also collected in 1874

collected in 1874

Since ancient artifacts were so important to England's cultural victory, here are some more examples. I had multiple working archeologists from several different museums out in the field collecting artifacts at the same time. Yerevan is the City-state near OrangePearls that I had many interactions with during the game.

I used gold to acquire Melitta before Brazil could.

Fairly late in the game, when I was about to start spending my gold reserves to patronize great artists, I noticed that the great merchant Melitta Bentz was available. Because of the tourism advantages conferred by Melitta, I spent a large amount of gold to bring her to my civilization in 1884.

Having a trade route to a city of another civilization boosts tourism by 25%. Melitta doubles that to 50%. Also, I got an additional trader unit from Melitta.

Built on the sea coast near London.

 

Cultural Victory for England came swiftly while I was still in the process of learning the dos and don'ts of accumulating culture and attracting tourists. Any great science fiction saga is likely to have a sequel and in this case there will be an additional blog post with cultural and technological eye candy from England in the years after 1912.

Next: Nukes in 1938