Hi! After the first news about the game I wonder how a new culture is going to be picked when you shift to the next age. How is it going to be justified?

For example, if you are playing for Egiptians and then pick Romans, how will the game explain this? Romans, as any other culture, have some very specific historic, visual and genetic associations. In order to make such a cultural mix, there might be 3 ways:

1) They are not called Romans. Instead, they are called "Culture of Law" (or anything) and a reference to real Romans is given to justify the visual style.

2) Every time you add a new culture to your civilization, you get a lore text explaining how this inner minority or a foreign nation influenced your civilization to such a scale it completely changed its identity. The problem is that this force had never been represented on the map.

3) Something else I have no idea about.

Well, I am very curious about what the Devs are going to invent in this respect. 

Any other ideas?

Speaking about the game generally, it will be interesting to see what Amplitude will do to make Humankind different from Civilization 6 after so much was borrowed from Endless Legend by Civ :).

They seem to be suggesting its not a sudden radical change so your cities wont transform into marble pillars and bath houses instantly but anything new you build in that age will be Roman but the old Egyptian stuff will still be there.

MasterofMobius wrote:

They seem to be suggesting its not a sudden radical change so your cities wont transform into marble pillars and bath houses instantly but anything new you build in that age will be Roman but the old Egyptian stuff will still be there.

I understand, but it's immersion-breaking too by default.

Sotnik wrote:

MasterofMobius wrote:

They seem to be suggesting its not a sudden radical change so your cities wont transform into marble pillars and bath houses instantly but anything new you build in that age will be Roman but the old Egyptian stuff will still be there.

I understand, but it's immersion-breaking too by default.

Not necessarily! I totally get when they say that today's civilizations are a sum of what came before. You see signs of past cultures all over the place. We shall see how it will look like in-game but I am behind the principle.

twimpix wrote:

Sotnik wrote:

MasterofMobius wrote:

They seem to be suggesting its not a sudden radical change so your cities wont transform into marble pillars and bath houses instantly but anything new you build in that age will be Roman but the old Egyptian stuff will still be there.

I understand, but it's immersion-breaking too by default.

Not necessarily! I totally get when they say that today's civilizations are a sum of what came before. You see signs of past cultures all over the place. We shall see how it will look like in-game but I am behind the principle.

"What came before" did not come from nowhere :). I hope in Humankind these - the most important decisions - will not create blank spots in stories we create.

I suspect you'll need to fill in your own narrative for why your civilization has transitioned to empire X.  I can't imagine the game will supply one.  Players who don't mind the concept of one civ evolving to another likely won't need a narrative.  Players who find the mechanic immersion breaking aren't likely to be won over by a few canned lines of dialogue, I wouldn't suspect.

The whole transition from one civ to another system as described so far is madness.  Absolute madness.  Whether it will also prove to be genius remains to be seen.

I hope it is genius.  I hope it will be as fun as I think it can be, and that as other game mechanics are announced, we can see how the whole of the game ties together around this mechanic.  

But if HK is a commercial flop, it will almost certainly be because of this mechanic. 

I think its genius it could really help keep the game fresh as you progress. You play Romans in civ, early game is great, you get your legions out, you build your colloseum, its all good. Then medieval comes and your legions are obsolete and all you've got is a couple of flavour bonuses to keep you going the rest of the game, you're basically just a vanilla civ now.

In Humankind medieval comes along and okay you're done with the Romans now to go switch to another civ tailored for the medieval! Frankish knights, Viking raiders you're gonna have new bonuses and units that wont just change up how you look but how you play as well. It's going to make eras feel so distinct.

When Firaxis began marketing Civ VI, they were strong on the idea that the terrain affects how you play the game, such that each playthrough may change depending the combination of rivers, mountains, forests, grasslands, and oceans you start by.

But that doesn't hold up well because most civs have a bias to certain types of terrain and a lot of players simply restart until they get an admixture they approve of.

I think the genius of the HK system is that you first get the lay of the the land and your neighbors,  THEN you decide what sort of bonuses best fit your situation. It's like picking your civ as if it were your pantheon. And then you get 5 more opportunities to reevaluate your situation and adopt additional bonuses relevant to your needs. As long as the bonus sets are fairly well balanced, every playthrough is a fresh new experience and you never start a game knowing what to expect. 

 To me, it's the perfect response to what Firaxis brings to the table. I plan to keep playing Civ and play HK too.

Plus you never know who you're getting in your neighbours each era, too.   You explore the early game to find out who you're near, but that will now change up every era.

That part of the game could be as interesting to some players (and annoying to others) as the selection of who you play.  It should shake up diplomatic relations (whatever they end up looking like in HK) without resorting to introducing new mid- or late-game mechanics (like Civ 5's final tier government system).  

Actually, can multiple players pick the same culture? Do players get the new culture at the same time and whoever has the highest (or lowest) score picks first? Or is it a first come, first serve situation? Maybe simply in turn order?

Dinode wrote:

Actually, can multiple players pick the same culture? Do players get the new culture at the same time and whoever has the highest (or lowest) score picks first? Or is it a first come, first serve situation? Maybe simply in turn order?

It's first-come first-served.

It could be possible to finnaly 'play the map' the number of times in Civ 6 i've started next to say a natural wonder that would be great for a religious game but oh, im playing a science civ its not worth the bother. And another example, start on a secluded penisula away from the other players but then I'm the Mongols, a offensive cav civ when really my start would have been perfect for a trading empire or builder.

MasterofMobius wrote:

It could be possible to finnaly 'play the map' the number of times in Civ 6 i've started next to say a natural wonder that would be great for a religious game but oh, im playing a science civ its not worth the bother. And another example, start on a secluded penisula away from the other players but then I'm the Mongols, a offensive cav civ when really my start would have been perfect for a trading empire or builder.

Agreed.  This part's brilliant.  Your culture adopts to the pressures and opportunities around it.

Sotnik wrote:

"What came before" did not come from nowhere :). I hope in Humankind these - the most important decisions - will not create blank spots in stories we create.

Keep in mind, if it helps, that Humankind focuses on the "What if?" idea that if the world had looked different, if cultures had chosen a different path, well, you could have ended up with a world in which a Chinese dynasty eventually came to lead a Western European empire (think of how the Huns and the Mongols basically rolled over numerous kingdoms and displaced entire populations), and nobody bats an eye at this.

I don't think we want to impose a specific idea of how one civilization transitions from a culture to another, but we've seen numerous examples in our own past. With Humankind, we're just shuffling the deck harder, and giving it another shuffle with every game. Hope this makes sense.

Just to say, that in reality the Egyptians were conquored/colonised by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, then the British, so this idea of evolving between cultures is actually a pretty neat one, especially if the buildings from each era change to fit the new culture. It is one of the problems of the Civ games in that everything is mono-cultural, when in reality cultures shifted and morphed throughout history.

Generally they did not choose to be conquered so the system is somewhat odd with reality.

Ashbery76 wrote:

Generally they did not choose to be conquered so the system is somewhat odd with reality.

Only if you view yourself as leading only the older culture, and not the new culture it's evolved into.  As the player, you're making decisions for multiple generations of people inhabiting a particular geographic region.  At era-change times, you get to make big picture decisions on how you want the society to evolve.

Also, it's not just conquest that leads to these big shifts.  Take the Nordic people as an example.  They were boring farmers and fishermen, then world exploring ferocius raiders, then typical European feudal societies, etc until now they're liberal social democracies.  At no point were they conquered, and yet to properly depict their story in the game (a real one, not even dipping into the "what might have beens") it's quite reasonable to tell that story with a bunch of gigantic culture shifts along the way.

Is there any requirement to adopt a new culture? For example, can we become roman from olmec culture ? I believe not for diversity sake and it's fine, but it could be interesting to make such a requirement possible via modding. This way we could have "culture trees mod" for more realistic gameplay. For example : Olmec can evolve to Zapotec or Maya. Things like trade and wars could be requirement maybe, but it is probably best if it is only events giving bonus.

Also i hope there is some representation of traditionnalism vs progressism.

Look forward for this game

werewolflord wrote:

Is there any requirement to adopt a new culture? For example, can we become roman from olmec culture ? I believe not for diversity sake and it's fine, but it could be interesting to make such a requirement possible via modding. This way we could have "culture trees mod" for more realistic gameplay. For example : Olmec can evolve to Zapotec or Maya. Things like trade and wars could be requirement maybe, but it is probably best if it is only events giving bonus.

Also i hope there is some representation of traditionnalism vs progressism.

Look forward for this game

Progress and Tradition are 2 of the known ideologies in the game, although apparently there's no specific requirements for each culture, just to get enough Fame to transition over.

jhell wrote:

Hello,

Having tech requirements on Culture choice sounds quite interesting, but at the moment it's not in our vision. This is something that might become moddable but we can't make promises at this stage.

This comment seems relevant.

Ah, I forgot about that; thanks, PARAdoxiBLE.

I have one question.  When you chose culture second time, can you chose another culture from bronze age? 

rejs7 wrote:

Just to say, that in reality the Egyptians were conquored/colonised by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, then the British, so this idea of evolving between cultures is actually a pretty neat one, especially if the buildings from each era change to fit the new culture. It is one of the problems of the Civ games in that everything is mono-cultural, when in reality cultures shifted and morphed throughout history.

'Egypt' was also conquered by Hyksos, Nubians, and 'subordinate Muslims' like the Ottoman Turks but rather than 'morphing', after almost 5000 years they are still recognizably and distinctively Egyptian.

On the other hand, Celtic Gaul became so completely 'Romanized' that even later invasion and settlement by Frankish and Burgundian Germanic tribes had very little influence on their language or culture: French is still heavily Latin-based and the French culure is still heavily Roman influenced, even to the structure of their civil administration and legal system.

How, I wonder, is the game going to accomodate such different outcomes?

Trdomir wrote:

I have one question.  When you chose culture second time, can you chose another culture from bronze age? 

I think not, although you can select your own culture again.

IvantheTolerable wrote:

'Egypt' was also conquered by Hyksos, Nubians, and 'subordinate Muslims' like the Ottoman Turks but rather than 'morphing', after almost 5000 years they are still recognizably and distinctively Egyptian.

On the other hand, Celtic Gaul became so completely 'Romanized' that even later invasion and settlement by Frankish and Burgundian Germanic tribes had very little influence on their language or culture: French is still heavily Latin-based and the French culure is still heavily Roman influenced, even to the structure of their civil administration and legal system.

How, I wonder, is the game going to accomodate such different outcomes?

That is a good point. Off the top of my head, the best I can think of is the architecture. Egypt built a lot of distinct buildings that are superior to pretty much anything any of their conquerors built, literally leaving their mark on the world. Same with Rome, they built roads and aqueducts and so many other things that even when they were gone you couldn't possiby forget them.

IvantheTolerable wrote:

'Egypt' was also conquered by Hyksos, Nubians, and 'subordinate Muslims' like the Ottoman Turks but rather than 'morphing', after almost 5000 years they are still recognizably and distinctively Egyptian.

Not sure that's true.  The original, ancient Egyptian political, judicial and administrative systems were replaced in their entirety and their culture was so thoroughly eradicated that no one was able to speak or read their rich language, despite living in the same cities where that language was once used.

TravlingCanuck wrote:

Not sure that's true.  The original, ancient Egyptian political, judicial and administrative systems were replaced in their entirety and their culture was so thoroughly eradicated that no one was able to speak or read their rich language, despite living in the same cities where that language was once used.

I stand by my statement. Despite remarkably comprehensive intrusions of language, religion, political control and administration, Egypt is still there, still recognizably Egypt and distinct from every other state in Africa or the Middle East. In fact, it stands as a good example of just how comprehensive 'Culural Changes' or adaptations can be and still encompass a single distinct Group.

Just as, for another example, the France of today would be practically unrecognizable to a Frenchman or European of, say, the reign of Louis XIII or Henri IV, except for the language. Even less recognizable would it be (including the language) to a Proto-Frenchman Celtic resident of Bibracte in 150 BCE.

Dinode wrote:

That is a good point. Off the top of my head, the best I can think of is the architecture. Egypt built a lot of distinct buildings that are superior to pretty much anything any of their conquerors built, literally leaving their mark on the world. Same with Rome, they built roads and aqueducts and so many other things that even when they were gone you couldn't possiby forget them.

I think Visual Distinction in architecture is a given, especially in graphic-heavy video games. On the other hand, simple architectural diversity is a pretty thin plank to support the kind of Cultural/Political/Religious diversity the two examples above illustrate.

Not saying it cannot be done, but I suspect to do it will require implementing a combination of 'built-in' Cultural traits or motifs for the various Civs/Factions and another set of Traits/Modifiers based on In-Game Events and/or Map Terrain.

Just for instance, try to imagine the differences if Egypt never became Islamic, with all the influences from that religion and culture? Or if France never had the comprehensive reform of its judicial and administrative and military systems instigated and empowered by Naopleon I?  - There's a case where a single 'Great Man' had a profound influence on later developments while Egypt's is a case of an 'outside' culture/religion Imposing massive change to a Civ/Society.

One of the most fascinating things about History is the extrreme complexity of all the interactions and the changes they produce, but that also makes composing any fraction of that into a single game massively complex.

As far as I think, I agree that fusion isn't much represented.

This said, I would go on a graphical side more than anything much...or even better we can choose the suits and everything while moving to the next era.

Like, I can choose to keep the togas from the Romans but add a horned helm from Vikings (I know they didn't use it in reality but it's for make an understandable example), call my guards the "Jagellin" (Jagiellon+Javelin, please don't hate me) or..I dunno decide to keep the colors.

Personally I would prefer the first and focus the blending on the leader...and maybe as a side put some details such as castle walls who are dirtied, the option to choose to safeguard some styles (like: you can select to keep a city with medioeval architecture and then decide in the modern era to put an evolution).

And maybe add also something about the ideology, like the more it's a collectivist city, the more the leader's dresses would be modest and simplified, or some civics may implement some look changes. 

On final idea (very "en passant") I would find interesting also seeing a little more personalization in the transitions between eras. Like, if I chose greeks the people in the cutscenes should be greek dressed.