deo wrote:

I feel like America would probably be expansionist. One of our big ideas back in the day was manifest destiny and I feel like imperalization is a mix of expantionist and military culture which America also really likes doing, to the detriment of places like the Middle East and South America. Warmmonger might fit too, especially from Teddy onward but I feel like that would fit a nation like Germany better.

Compared to nations and empires of the past, Manifest Destiny was child's play. Even though it's popular today to talk about Manifest Destiny because it's one of America's sins (and it was), I don't think it is correct to choose it to be something that identifies the nation.

Science is definitely #1.  There are just too many inventions from the modern era that come from the US.  I think that technology is probably America's greatest contribution to the world.

After this, it's difficult.  Aesthete is a strong choice because modern performance, Hollywood and music, (from jazz, to rock, to R&B/soul/hip-hop) are the next greatest contributions the USA has made. This is ironic because Europeans I think like to poke fun at America for being so puritanical and anti-liberal, yet they still love our music and movies. Aesthete doesn't have to mean liberal arts.

Builder seems to make sense, but honestly, so much of America's early infrastructure was based on a slave economy, it's hard to paint that in a positive light.  

Although America may produce the most amount of wheat/corn/bread in the world (or at least used to), Agrarian doesn't feel right to me. I think that's because Agrarian makes me think of ancient empires only (Egypt), but maybe that's incorrect.

But Expansionist?  No way.  Wars in Cuba, Korea and Vietnam, and the control over the North American continent do not make America close to expansionist IMO when you compare them to other empires' expansionist accomplishments over the centuries (Rome, England, Mongolia, etc).

But Expansionist?  No way.  Wars in Cuba, Korea and Vietnam, and the control over the North American continent do not make America close to expansionist IMO when you compare them to other empires' expansionist accomplishments over the centuries (Rome, England, Mongolia, etc).

Expansion is perfect. Rome and Mongolia might fit as warmongers. It is ironic that we're the result of England's early expansionism, however. England has been kicked out of most of the nations it "expanded" into, while all the nations we expanded over have been erased or economically isolated and contained within our borders. The conflict examples of Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, and the Philippines are good points on why we aren't very warmongering (although still debatable considering the last 70 years alone) and make a better case of why we're more purely expansionist.

But expansion covers the many other points, too.

Science? Not really. We've got the strongest anti-science stance of any other Western nation. Sure we invented the internet, the foundation of the modern world, but did America, really? Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the web protocols that allow Google, Apple, and Facebook to exist is English. Many of the early internet contributors were Dutch and German. Many of our great scientists were immigrants or children of immigrants. Henry Ford was the son of an Irishman and the grandson to Belgians. Expansion gave us plenty of resources to play with and attract talent. Our history of relatively open immigration (expansion, surely) fueled nearly all of our success. A lot of our celebrated inventions got their start in science from Europe or elsewhere (Radio came from Italy, the telephone was invented in England, so was the first computer, Marie Curie was French-Romanian). Edison regularly stole inventions from immigrants and even colleagues by abusing the patent system, expansionist if I ever heard it!

Aesthete? Definitely not. Most of our music came from (and co-opted from) marginalized groups, and while entirely American in the way they came together and mixed, it was actively fought against every step of the way. Jazz, rock, and hip-hop each progressively became the most popular musical form of its day, and each denounced by American authorities as evil and corruptive. Even our liberal admistrations of late rarely push to invest in the arts. Again, it's our expansion that drove into new areas. Even Hollywood was founded by artists escaping the controlling movie trade companies that held New York in thrall, only to have a couple of decades later an even more powerful studio system that snapped up and controlled talent. Plus our economic expansion is why our movies, music, and TV are world famous, not because of any particular investment or quality. Many French, German, or Indian movies I could identify as such with a frame because of a particular style, usually close to the culture. Our movies? The famous ones are generally big and expensive. To be fair, we haven't had much time to develop our own style in much of anything outside of food and music. Yet our cultural products dominate the world, despite our best efforts not to have an interesting culture, because of our hunger for economic expansion (and taking culture from others whenever possible).

Builder could suit us, but mostly because we had the space to build into. A lot of it was and continues to be exploited labor, as rightly called out. But exploitation is the result of an expansionist mindset. Post WWII building was dramatic and would make a good counter point, but largely that was luck of placement and strong anti-warmongering that kept us out of the thick of things. It's easy to build when you've got open valleys that only have the corpses from smallpox and small arm battles a century or more old, rather than landmines and the scars or bombing campaigns.

Agarian also, was something we moved away from quickly (especially once we limited slavery to prison populations), but we remain strong because of the expansion past.

If they define expansion to include economies, we definitely fit the category like no other. Maybe they'll define that more as a builder side of things, then it might be a toss up, even if that means fessing up to the ugly truth that much of our building success comes from getting anyone we can exploit to do the real labor for us.

@Blightcrawler I don't think it's entirely fair to dismiss most of the points on American achievements just because of the methods that were used and such. At the end of the day these were all attributed to the country and that's what matters for the purpose of the game. The Jagiellon dynasty started as Hungarian but you don't attribute the feats of Poland to Hungary.

Anyway Poland being an Early Modern civ is a perfect time frame for them if there had to be only one era they could fit in, this era encompassed so much progress of the PLC as well as its downfall that any number of affinities could be attributed to it. The Unique Unit being the winged Hussar is perfect, and their trait preventing counterattacks is a nice nod to the design of their lances, and how they were so long pike formations couldn't properly defend or counter the cavalry charge, it's great to see that in-game.

The Quarter however I'm disappointed with, a Barbican is rather generic as far as emblematic quarters are concerned, so generic I can even see it being a building every culture can build once they discover the usefulness of firing from overhangs. The ability that prevents nearby tiles from being raided is also ironically funny to me as Poland had many issues with raids during this time period, especially by the Swedish. It also lost most of its use during this exact time frame as artillery became more prevalent and was eventually phased out. I have problems figuring out a suitable replacement that fills the exact same roll and effect however.

As for Affinity I see the reason behind choosing Militarist rather clearly and the legacy bonus further supports this. The Poles were in constant warfare and mostly on the defensive, therefore they were chosen to be a militaristic affinity with a bonus to fortification strength. Let me say I think the legacy trait is too weak as of right now in the game and that 10 bonus fortification amounts to nothing and should be buffed or changed in some way, seriously it's really bad. Back to affinity, the actual military of the commonwealth was rather inconsistent over the course of its lifespan, with a shortage of troops as time went on and an increasing dependence on the nobility as reforms were halted and defending the country became increasingly difficult. The Russian-dominated office at the start of the 16th century restricted the growth maximum size of the army, which made it rather un-miliataristic.

Agrarian I can certainly see, Poland was rather rural compared to other countries and was quite the breadbasket during this time. Aesthete is also applicable as they were known for their swaths of political reforms, culture and even creating the first constitution in Europe. While having some very notable scientists and contributing greatly to the fields of mathematics and astronomy I don't think that's enough to peg them as a science culture, but it's still an important part of the history. Either Agrarian or Aesthete are appropriate replacements however I'd also be okay with Poland keeping its defensive militarist affinity, but having a new Emblematic district instead.

Changes to the Emblematic District are my biggest concern so I think replacing it with the Folwark, as earlier mentioned by @AquilaSPQR  would be a potential good idea. The Folwark is after all a fortified farm, which could synergize with the polish improved defence while also paying heed to their farming capabilities. Possibly providing the existing prevention of ransacking while also providing food and exploiting nearby food tiles. I don't think it'd be too unbalanced, especially considering how weak fortifications are in the current state of the game, so I'd love to see it. As for a 1-1 replacement with the Barbican should the Folwark be dismissed, there's the option of changing its name to the polish version Barbakan to at least make seem a bit more distinct, but I'm still of the opinion it should be buffed, along with the other unique bastion varients in the game such as the cyclopean fortress.