Following the example of the pitch for Vietnam (which I wholeheartedly agree with), I'd like to put forth an idea for another oft. overlooked Asian state. North Korea. North Korea could bring a lot of unique gameplay options of the kind Amplitude games are so well known for.

Why North Korea? 

The culture brings with it an option to play as a completely isolated pariah state. Something completely new in the otherwise monotone landscape of rapidly industrialised technology juggernauts which constitute the rest of the modern ex-Sinosphere states. It is also a relative rarity in the world (other examples being Albania or Cuba) as a whole, bringing a unique option even for people not interested in the region. And, of course, it's relatively unheard of in games to be able to play or interact with these people.

What does North Korea offer?

• Playing as a pariah state, willingly cut off from the rest of the world/map in the lategame.
• Unique events to liven up Modern Era.
• Opportunity to have a special "Unification" event with South Korea (if it makes it into the game). Allowing for a unique way of catching up on the other players in the last era of the game. All through coordination with another human player or AI.
• Unorthodox ways to obtain fame unrelated to most Modern Era cultures.
• An opportunity to represent a totalitarian regime without offending people.
• A completely alien style of music for FlyByNo to play with.

Rough culture specific entities:

Unit - A piece of their famous long-range artillery. To keep the check situation in place, North Korea is the biggest user of long-range self-propelled artillery in the world. All aimed across the border at Seoul.

District - Totalitarian tourism. As in the case of Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, the state is happy to show its country to tourists from aborad. But only at a specific time and place. This dictrict would be a new way of obtaining dus... I mean capital without outside trade partnerships.

Bonus - Giving the player's civilisation a pariah status, the bonus would most likely need to be relatively strong to keep people interested. Something along the lines of cheapening all units and buildings across the board, or maybe allowing for easier access to fame stars.

Challenges

As true isolationist states are rare across the human history, the developed systems might end up being specific to this culture alone.

Balancing the isolationist flavour with the game systems seems like a challenge. We know nothing about the diplomacy present ATM, but scrapping game mechanics without adding complexity elsewhere is a no-go.

This culture would represent a radical shift of gameplay mechanics in the very last stage of the game. Unless more cultures get isolationistic quirks across multiple eras, the culture choice might be deemed a niche and confusing way to end the 6th of the game. At the same time, this would be a strength of an expansion culture as it would allow for a radical new experience for players who are not too much into the Modern Era lategame.

Last but not least, North Korea is a touchy subject in South Korea. Handling the topic with a little more care and nuance than normal is, sadly, required.

Conclusion

Noth Korea, in my opinion, has what it takes to enrich the lategame of Humankind. Both from a gameplay perspective as well as a role-play perspective, as cultures taking a turn towards introverted (not expansionalist) totalitarian regimes are common in post-Renaissance human history and all continents have had their fair share of these. Humankind, with its lack of dictinct leaders, has an upper hand in this regard as well because it doesn't need to show and glorify the dictators behind these regimes to add them into the game. Nor does it pinpoint a certain culture as having always been a despised dictatorship across all its history.

Anyway, that's about it. Thanks for reading through my thoughts and I hope that even if North Korea never makes it into the game or its expansions, at least some of the ideas regarding unique culture mechanics, and totalitarian regimes not everyone is proud of being just as much a part of layered human history as any other, resonate with you and may find further use in the game's design or different culture proposals.

• An opportunity to represent a totalitarian regime without offending people.

Nice try, Kim.

Ananashi wrote:

• An opportunity to represent a totalitarian regime without offending people.

In my opinion a modern day totalitarian regime should never be included in a game, especially not as a player faction.
Also there are many people who suffered due to it or have relatives that did, so this would definitely offend people.

Akaelnyl wrote:

Ananashi wrote:

• An opportunity to represent a totalitarian regime without offending people.

In my opinion a modern day totalitarian regime should never be included in a game, especially not as a player faction.
Also there are many people who suffered due to it or have relatives that did, so this would definitely offend people.

Yeah; that's why Firaxis has an in-house ban on adding Hitler to any of their games; even the WW2 mods released with Civ 4 excluded him and had you play as the Vice Chancellor instead.

Although they used Mao for China until Civ 5 for some reason, and had Stalin, but I digress. Plus such a move would legitimize and validate those governments and dictators; imagine the uproar if Rhodesia or the Third Reich was a playable and not-clearly-evil nation in a game.

Ananashi wrote:

Following the example of the pitch for Vietnam (which I wholeheartedly agree with), I'd like to put forth an idea for another oft. overlooked Asian state. North Korea. North Korea could bring a lot of unique gameplay options of the kind Amplitude games are so well known for.

Why North Korea? 

The culture brings with it an option to play as a completely isolated pariah state. Something completely new in the otherwise monotone landscape of rapidly industrialised technology juggernauts which constitute the rest of the modern ex-Sinosphere states. It is also a relative rarity in the world (other examples being Albania or Cuba) as a whole, bringing a unique option even for people not interested in the region. And, of course, it's relatively unheard of in games to be able to play or interact with these people.

What does North Korea offer?

• Playing as a pariah state, willingly cut off from the rest of the world/map in the lategame.
• Unique events to liven up Modern Era.
• Opportunity to have a special "Unification" event with South Korea (if it makes it into the game). Allowing for a unique way of catching up on the other players in the last era of the game. All through coordination with another human player or AI.
• Unorthodox ways to obtain fame unrelated to most Modern Era cultures.
• An opportunity to represent a totalitarian regime without offending people.
• A completely alien style of music for FlyByNo to play with.

Rough culture specific entities:

Unit - A piece of their famous long-range artillery. To keep the check situation in place, North Korea is the biggest user of long-range self-propelled artillery in the world. All aimed across the border at Seoul.

District - Totalitarian tourism. As in the case of Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, the state is happy to show its country to tourists from aborad. But only at a specific time and place. This dictrict would be a new way of obtaining dus... I mean capital without outside trade partnerships.

Bonus - Giving the player's civilisation a pariah status, the bonus would most likely need to be relatively strong to keep people interested. Something along the lines of cheapening all units and buildings across the board, or maybe allowing for easier access to fame stars.

Challenges

As true isolationist states are rare across the human history, the developed systems might end up being specific to this culture alone.

Balancing the isolationist flavour with the game systems seems like a challenge. We know nothing about the diplomacy present ATM, but scrapping game mechanics without adding complexity elsewhere is a no-go.

This culture would represent a radical shift of gameplay mechanics in the very last stage of the game. Unless more cultures get isolationistic quirks across multiple eras, the culture choice might be deemed a niche and confusing way to end the 6th of the game. At the same time, this would be a strength of an expansion culture as it would allow for a radical new experience for players who are not too much into the Modern Era lategame.

Last but not least, North Korea is a touchy subject in South Korea. Handling the topic with a little more care and nuance than normal is, sadly, required.

Conclusion

Noth Korea, in my opinion, has what it takes to enrich the lategame of Humankind. Both from a gameplay perspective as well as a role-play perspective, as cultures taking a turn towards introverted (not expansionalist) totalitarian regimes are common in post-Renaissance human history and all continents have had their fair share of these. Humankind, with its lack of dictinct leaders, has an upper hand in this regard as well because it doesn't need to show and glorify the dictators behind these regimes to add them into the game. Nor does it pinpoint a certain culture as having always been a despised dictatorship across all its history.

Anyway, that's about it. Thanks for reading through my thoughts and I hope that even if North Korea never makes it into the game or its expansions, at least some of the ideas regarding unique culture mechanics, and totalitarian regimes not everyone is proud of being just as much a part of layered human history as any other, resonate with you and may find further use in the game's design or different culture proposals.

Okay, so, as to your "What does NK have to offer" section, there can't be seperate cultures for SK and NK because they're both Korean culturally, NK's just behind by 70 years. So, no unification events or an event chain, as the devs have said the different cultures won't have their own storylines as in Endless Legend, so an NK-only event quest is highly unlikely even if you ignore the fact that they're just one version of modern Korean culture. And, cultures and governments have so far been implied to be two seperate systems, so we could have a single Korean nation as any of a number of governments, such as NK's hereditary absolutist monachy, but without the trappngs of a fake republic. So, creating a Korea a tad similar to NK may be possible, but likely won't be as inept or totally irrelevant as North Korea has been since the 1960s.

Ananashi wrote:

There are several totalitarian regimes all around the world and they are pretty highly prevalent in East Asia to this day. Practically every state therein has had, or still has a totalitarian regime in the post-WW2 era, which I assume is the Modern Era cutoff the game is running with (on which I could, of course, be wrong). Removing them from the Modern Era altogether would run a little against the theme of the game as a galnce on how human civilisation got where it is today.

I think you are mistaking totalitarian and authoritarian states. One not as common as the other.

Ananashi wrote:

ImperatorTempus42 wrote:

Okay, so, as to your "What does NK have to offer" section, there can't be seperate cultures for SK and NK because they're both Korean culturally, NK's just behind by 70 years. So, no unification events or an event chain, as the devs have said the different cultures won't have their own storylines as in Endless Legend, so an NK-only event quest is highly unlikely even if you ignore the fact that they're just one version of modern Korean culture. And, cultures and governments have so far been implied to be two seperate systems, so we could have a single Korean nation as any of a number of governments, such as NK's hereditary absolutist monachy, but without the trappngs of a fake republic. So, creating a Korea a tad similar to NK may be possible, but likely won't be as inept or totally irrelevant as North Korea has been since the 1960s.

The game will have culture-specific event triggers, though. And some sort of unification is really the most "fame-worthy" thing a modern Korean state could do. 

You do strike a pretty good point, though. South Korea was a totalitarian dictatorship until the latter half of the 80s. It is, itself, an example of a successful totalitarian state. North Korea was your standard communist regime much like Vietnam or China are to this day until the 90s. The real isolation from the rest of the world and all things included only started after the fall of the USSR.

China's not properly communist anymore, though, if they're welcoming foreign corporations and abusing their workers at their current level. And, a purely isolationist playthrough in a 4x game can't be done, especially since North Korea is relying on equipment and tactics from a past era. Plus their general incapability to develop new technologies or catch up with even the third world. Everything about North Korea as a state and country would be near-instant defeat in a 4x title, especially in Humankind given they've had barely any impact on history, which is the game's sole victory evaluation rating via the Fame system.

ImperatorTempus42 wrote:

China's not properly communist anymore, though, if they're welcoming foreign corporations and abusing their workers at their current level. And, a purely isolationist playthrough in a 4x game can't be done, especially since North Korea is relying on equipment and tactics from a past era. Plus their general incapability to develop new technologies or catch up with even the third world. Everything about North Korea as a state and country would be near-instant defeat in a 4x title, especially in Humankind given they've had barely any impact on history, which is the game's sole victory evaluation rating via the Fame system.

China is still an example of a totalitarian state. One party holds all power and all opposition is strictly illegal. That's all there is to it.

North Korea is on a technological level comparable to any poor post-socialist country. They lack self-sustenance, not knowlegde.

Likewise, "a purely isolationist playthrough in a 4x game can't be done"... well, Cravers do just that. :)

And unlike Cravers, this is a lategame isolationist culture. You are not isolationist throughout the whole game. You turn isolationist either in hopes of riding out your fame advantage from previous eras or speeding past your opponents in a sort of last ditch high-risk, high-reward move.

Finally, historical impact is not really a requirement for a chosen culture. Indus Valley Civilisation disappeared without leaving any impact on the world at large. Their importance lies in building the "oldest surviving ruins" in what would become one of the main world civilisations. They are still in the game and a fairly good choice at that. During their era, they were a big and intersting entity, even if their civilisation erased itself and nothing of it carried on.

Ananashi wrote:

ImperatorTempus42 wrote:

China's not properly communist anymore, though, if they're welcoming foreign corporations and abusing their workers at their current level. And, a purely isolationist playthrough in a 4x game can't be done, especially since North Korea is relying on equipment and tactics from a past era. Plus their general incapability to develop new technologies or catch up with even the third world. Everything about North Korea as a state and country would be near-instant defeat in a 4x title, especially in Humankind given they've had barely any impact on history, which is the game's sole victory evaluation rating via the Fame system.

China is still an example of a totalitarian state. One party holds all power and all opposition is strictly illegal. That's all there is to it.

North Korea is on a technological level comparable to any poor post-socialist country. They lack self-sustenance, not knowlegde.

Likewise, "a purely isolationist playthrough in a 4x game can't be done"... well, Cravers do just that. :)

And unlike Cravers, this is a lategame isolationist culture. You are not isolationist throughout the whole game. You turn isolationist either in hopes of riding out your fame advantage from previous eras or speeding past your opponents in a sort of last ditch high-risk, high-reward move.

Finally, historical impact is not really a requirement for a chosen culture. Indus Valley Civilisation disappeared without leaving any impact on the world at large. Their importance lies in building the "oldest surviving ruins" in what would become one of the main world civilisations. They are still in the game and a fairly good choice at that. During their era, they were a big and intersting entity, even if their civilisation erased itself and nothing of it carried on.

The Indus River Valley civilization AKA Harappans were the ancestors of later peoples on the Indian subcontinent and spread as west as Afghanistan, so no, they had a measurable impact. And the Cravers are an expansionist and conquering faction, not isolationist. Isolationist means they're intentionally cut off from positive as well as negative contact with other peoples, meaning war as well as trade. And being unable to essentially perform diplomacy or found new cities for the rest of the game would make it an exceptionally useless and self-defeating choice.

To go back to "game design", I believe that North Korea in a game would be a fine example of modern days "barbarians"/pirates.

What the original poster of the suggestion missed about North Korea is the main source of money of the regime, that is people sent in China and central Asia to work, and who have to send most of what they earn to the North Korean governement if they don't want their families to be hurt. NK tourism is just some kind of meme, honestly.

I believe that failed modern countries such as NK or Somalia shouldn't get more representation in the game than Cilicia or Hyksos do. And frankly, outside of specialists or curious people, who know about the Cilician pirates fought by Pompey or the Hyksos invaders in ancient Egypt? I believe that we have a lot of other cultures to represent first, and I disagree strongly with the idea that every modern nation feels the same while NK is some kind of fancy outsider. If we really want them, we have better examples of isolationist people (Sentinelese and several other tribes in Papua or Amazonia), totalitarians (Saudi Arabia, China, Egypt) or alternative "ways of life" in general. Adding to this that the disappearance of the sovient union isn't that old on the grand scheme of things, and could be considered as a "contemporary era" thing. Anyway, if we want to play in an isolanionist way, it shouldn't depend on the culture we pick. 

Second thing, I believe that being distanced in tech isn't something that is included in the cultures you play in Humankind. You just choose a culture and go with it, no matter how technologically advanced you are. We must not think about Humankind's cultures as Civilizations.

Third thing, this isn't Europa Universalis either. We're playing on random maps, not in an alternative history. So it's useless to imagine unification events or anything that needs North Korea to exist in a similar manner as in our world. Keep in mind that we could get to play a culture while having any kind of past, and not just the specific events that lead to IRL North Korea.

And finally, I would totally be offended if North Korea is represented as a functioning country whose unique district is totalitarian tourism. It would be like representing Nazi Germany with unique Universities. Complete nonsense. People in North Korea are starving and the government is literally renting slaves to other countries in orther to survive and make money to spend in casinos. Countries akin to North Korea don't deserve to be more than mere bandits.

Ezumiyr wrote:

People in North Korea are starving and the government is literally renting slaves to other countries in orther to survive and make money to spend in casinos. Countries akin to North Korea don't deserve to be more than mere bandits.

People in North Korea are starving because we're starving them out. Just as Japan, China, Taiwan or South Korea would if you placed a worldwide embargo on food imports into them as they represent non self-sufficient nations due to large populations with insufficient arable land.

Likewise, I proposed North Korea to give representation to the East Asian part of the world in the Modern Era. My argument being that every single nation therein is either a totalitarian (Vietnam, China, North Korea), or ex-totalitarian (South Korea, Taiwan, Japan) state which went through complete devastation (Second Sino-Japanese War, Korean War, Vietnam War), rapid industrialisation under a totalitarian state and transition into a technological giant with a conglomerate based economy. The only exception to this rule is North Korea and Mongolia. Likewise, in a game where we pick different cultures depending on their stark differences, there is sadly no reason to have any more than one of these states. 

But I'm all ears if you find a good way to include more than Japan or China (but not both).

Ananashi wrote:

Ezumiyr wrote:

People in North Korea are starving and the government is literally renting slaves to other countries in orther to survive and make money to spend in casinos. Countries akin to North Korea don't deserve to be more than mere bandits.

People in North Korea are starving because we're starving them out. Just as Japan, China, Taiwan or South Korea would if you placed a worldwide embargo on food imports into them as they represent non self-sufficient nations due to large populations with insufficient arable land.

Likewise, I proposed North Korea to give representation to the East Asian part of the world in the Modern Era. My argument being that every single nation therein is either a totalitarian (Vietnam, China, North Korea), or ex-totalitarian (South Korea, Taiwan, Japan) state which went through complete devastation (Second Sino-Japanese War, Korean War, Vietnam War), rapid industrialisation under a totalitarian state and transition into a technological giant with a conglomerate based economy. The only exception to this rule is North Korea and Mongolia. Likewise, in a game where we pick different cultures depending on their stark differences, there is sadly no reason to have any more than one of these states. 

But I'm all ears if you find a good way to include more than Japan or China (but not both).

You seem to be suggesting that modern China and modern Japan are too similar to both warrant inclusion, but that North Korea is sufficiently different as to warrant inclusion.  If I understand you correctly, I disagree on both points.

Ananashi wrote:

People in North Korea are starving because we're starving them out.

Nice try, Kim.

While I do think that a decent case can be made for adding North Korea as a nation, unfortunately this does not seem to be a game where you play as defined nations. You play cultural groups like the Chinese, the Japanese, the Germans, etc. Not as the state of Germany or the Republic of China. Especially for how limited we are going to be in representing most of the major cultures of the world, it is a pretty hard sell to split North and South Korea despite their political differences when culturally their foundations are pretty near identical. If amplitude is able to fit like 50-100 new cultures easily throughout their continued development of the game then I would definitely be interested in North Korea, but it is not high on my priority list because it is essentially only special as a nation state and less so as a culture. Thanks for the detailed post though! It sparked a good discussion.