The timescale is certainly part of the problem. As an example of the problem their timescale creates is that, while the Western Roman Empire declined and well in the early 5th century, the Indian subcontinent was in a golden age under the Guptas. I would rather the designers had just divided things into X year blocks, with blocks of time becoming progressively smaller as the rate of technological advancement increases. The limitations of a game using a 4x format is that: 1) Societies need to be less porous and more distinguishable than they really were in earlier periods, and 2) They must "progress", that is, move towards greater complexity and enlightened thought. Whig history, essentially.  Given the framing of the game and the (European) studio making it, a European frame of time and historiography is defensible, a choice had to be made somewhere, after all. 

The thing I really take issue with, however, is the choices of culture which have been revealed so far which, as Zhugejingqi pointed out, reflect an extremely narrow view of history, even by European standards. Going back to my Mediterranean vs South Asian example, it is worth mentioning that at no point in all of pre-modern history did the Mediterranean ever come close to the prosperity and economic power of either China or India, yet we get 3 Mediterranean cultures and only 1 South Asian in the Classical, and no East Asian culture at all. History, as told by Humankind, is the story of "Civilization" starting in the Ancient Near East, then moving into Southern Europe, then slowly moving into Western Europe, where Civilization will no doubt reside in perpetuity into the late game.

 - In the Ancient Era the breakdown is:

a) Be from the Nile or Fertile Cresent (Babylon, Assyria, Phoenicia, Egypt, Nubia)

b) Be another Mediterranean culture that is heavilly influenced by the Fertile Crescent (Myceneans, Hittites). 

c) Be a culture from one of the 4 remaining cradles of civilization (Harrappa, Zhou, Olmec)

The 3rd oldest cradle of civilization after Egypt and Sumer, the Andeans, are not represented. Tough cookies.   

There is this notion that the design team chose the cultures for each era to emphasize specific points of contact, so that players can re-enact the cross-pollination or conflict that specific culture had with other cultures in that same era, but then made certain concessions to ensure representation in other parts of the world (ie. Mesoamerica with 1 culture off on its own). I find this a deeply unsatisfying explanation for the cultures chosen, because it is very clear that intra-European conflicts were heavilly upweighted in the Classical and Medieval. 

• If this were true, why are the Mongols in the game, but not a single culture that fought the Mongols is? And there are dozens. Abbasids? Khwarezmians? Jin? Song? Hungarians? Poles? etc. etc. etc.
• Why do the Goths, a culture displaced from Eastern Europe by the Huns, who went on to form heavilly latinized kingdoms in Italy and Spain, a culture so insignificant that we have no records of their original religion or language, get a Classical slot? 

It's because, in addition to the Celts, the Huns, the Carthaginians, and the Greeks, they fought the Romans at some point. Thank the Lord for the Roman-Persian wars, or we might not have gotten an Iranian culture in this game at all! It seems the only criteria for inclusion in the Classical age was:

a) Be Greco-Roman (Greece, Rome)

b) Fight the Greco-Romans (Celts, Huns, Goths, Persians, Mauryans, Carthaginians)

c) Token Sub-Saharan culture (Aksum) and Amerindians (Maya)

In the Medieval period, the emphasis is much the same: Be Germanic, or fight the Germanics:
a) Be Germanic (Franks, Teutons, English)
b) Fight Germanics (Byzantium, Umayyad, Norsemen)

c) Token Sub-Saharan culture (Ghana) and Amerindians (Aztec) and now East Asian culture (Khmer)

c) Special extra bonus for the largest contiguous land empire ever (Mongols)

The medieval is where things really break down for me, because this is where adhering to eurocentric Whig history levels up from merely ignorant to overtly racist. Whig history purports that civilizations inexorably progress towards greater technological, philosophical, economic, and moral achievement; time is a march toward a more intelligent, complex, connected, and ethical world. Nowhere in the story of Europe's past does this view of history depart further from reality than in the Medieval. For 800 years, while other parts of the world created great societies and marvels of technology, philosophy, and commerce, the entire continent of Europe regressed to be more violent, ignorant, disconnected, intolerant, and impoverished. And yet, to the European, Whig view of history, even this backsliding is seen as "progress" because only this dark time could see Europe burst forward into a glorious Age of Reason and colonialism. Whig history views Europe today as the pinnacle of civilization, commanding global empires in the 18th and 19th centuries. To do so, it reaches back in time and draws a straight line on progress between classical antiquity and the present day. The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe is justified either as an inconvenient delay of Europe's destined preeminence, or even as progress of a different kind, even necessary; how could any part of Europe's sweeping self-narrative show them falling behind the other places in the world when they are so obviously worthy of the global empires that they have made? Europe's millenium as an insignificant backwater in no way contradicts the self-evident, Scientifically verifiable fact of their innate racial superiority. To say or think otherwise might suggest that Europe didn't deserve to kill, maim, rape, and pillage the rest of the world under the pretext of a grandiose civilizing mission. That the Enlightenment was thanks, in no small part, to Chinese ingenuity, South Asian mathematics, and Islamic philosophy does not even merit discussion. 

So, what could the design team have done? 

• Maybe they could have set out geographical or linguistic "coverage" as a main criteria for inclusion? With this as a priority, perhaps we could have seen an Austronesian, Melanesian, or Polynesian culture in the first 3 eras. Maybe we could have gotten more than 1 culture per era from the two American continents? I have no doubt that if cultural diversity were prioritized, we would have seen at least 1 Andean or Patagonian culture prior to Early Modern.
• Maybe they could have specifically down-weighted the direct cultural predecessors/descendents of cultures that are already present in other eras (Greek/Mycenean/Byzantine)
• Maybe they could have prioritized cultures which had as many inter-cultural contacts as possible, to emphasize the blending and merging of cultures that Humankind seems to market itself on? The Magyars/Hungarians or Srivijaya seem like particularly glaring omissions from this lens. Even from the choice of Medieval Islamic entities, the Abbasids would have been a more satisfying choice, since they were a persianized Caliphate that ruled at the time of the Crusades and the Mongol invasions. This demonstrates to me how heavilly the battle of Tours weighed on the design team's minds when they chose which culture to add. 

No doubt this trend will continue, because the first four eras precede the Industrial revolution, which started in Europe, and catapulted Europe into total global economic and military dominance. The first 4 eras were periods where one could imagine different geneologies; before colonialism and genocide snuff out the alternatives.

TL;DR - These French game designers needed to read some Foucault.

For the very long and interesting thread of pineappledan, there is a lot to say.

It is true that they prioreties european cultures, for the simple reason that they are european. They learned and lived with a certain education that will undoubtedly influence their vision of the world. Simply because in every shcolar system of the world, on history courses you mainly focus on what happened in your country. Of course they will put their own cultural groups. But indeed, it doesn't change that a game called "Humankind" represent mainly Europe. But there is a very important thing for me behind this choices, it is in part an economic and marketing choice. 

Video game is art, and Amplitude is full of talented and invested people, I am sure of that. But no one can denied today the importance of marketing and communication, or the image of your company. It became a huge part of the industry, sadly, but this is how things are today. Your game can fail before it is even realesed. But there is also for me an economic reason behind this choice.

The public who purchase video-game is mainly from north-economic regions. Even if you love history and new things, you want to see your own contry and civilization in the game. You want to be in part on knowed terrain. If there was less european civilization, maybe people will be less intersted or maybe not. 

But when most of the countries where there is no (or very little) censoreship and where most of people have a computer, is in Europe and north America, knowing you game is playable only on one device and aim for a small public, it is an evidence that certains cultural groups will be chosen in consequences.

It could be seen like a bit cowardish or something else, but it is sure they will later had more cultural group. It doesn't excuse that yes, the game is mainly focus on Europe, and that bringing more diversity through DLCs could not be very moral, but they had to make a choice anyway, and I am happy with the choices they makes for now, even if I completly agree that there could be way more asiatic and oriental cultures, espeacially for Middle-Age.

@meganos714

I agree with you. It is a pity that the free access to no information on this issue. It is interesting to look at the numbers on similar games, including TW, which was focused on China. These data would show the economic feasibility, and then pure mathematics. In General, for me the main thing is the game in which the developers put their heart and soul. Absolutely no matter what are of the country and whether there will be my country.

pineappledan wrote:

The medieval is where things really break down for me, because this is where adhering to eurocentric Whig history levels up from merely ignorant to overtly racist. Whig history purports that civilizations inexorably progress towards greater technological, philosophical, economic, and moral achievement; time is a march toward a more intelligent, complex, connected, and ethical world. Nowhere in the story of Europe's past does this view of history depart further from reality than in the Medieval. For 800 years, while other parts of the world created great societies and marvels of technology, philosophy, and commerce, the entire continent of Europe regressed to be more violent, ignorant, disconnected, intolerant, and impoverished. And yet, to the European, Whig view of history, even this backsliding is seen as "progress" because only this dark time could see Europe burst forward into a glorious Age of Reason and colonialism. Whig history views Europe today as the pinnacle of civilization, commanding global empires in the 18th and 19th centuries. To do so, it reaches back in time and draws a straight line on progress between classical antiquity and the present day. The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe is justified either as an inconvenient delay of Europe's destined preeminence, or even as progress of a different kind, even necessary; how could any part of Europe's sweeping self-narrative show them falling behind the other places in the world when they are so obviously worthy of the global empires that they have made? Europe's millenium as an insignificant backwater in no way contradicts the self-evident, Scientifically verifiable fact of their innate racial superiority. To say or think otherwise might suggest that Europe didn't deserve to kill, maim, rape, and pillage the rest of the world under the pretext of a grandiose civilizing mission. That the Enlightenment was thanks, in no small part, to Chinese ingenuity, South Asian mathematics, and Islamic philosophy does not even merit discussion. 

TL;DR - These French game designers needed to read some Foucault.

 Your thesis seems really biased by your very personal point of view.

1) Put all european culture in one bag don't work.The majority of European countries did not take part in the colonial period.

2) Most of the historians in the world thinks now than "The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe" is over exagerrated. Mostly in the Renaissance period. The Medieval Dark Age is for a great part : a cliché. There is the same amount of "ignorance and brutality" in other period of the history or other geographical zone.

3) Europe's millenium as an insignificant backwater in no way contradicts the self-evident, Scientifically verifiable fact of their innate racial superiority

   wtf ... Most of the countries in the all world, on ALL periods of history are convinced of their superiority. It is not a European trait but a human one, coming from communitarism and    nationalism.

4) killing, maiming, raping, and pillaging is not an european invention. And try to justify a mischief neither. It's like slavery, existing since the begin of humanity, all around the world. And the main justification of slavery is mainly to take off poeple which don't have your religion. It's the most common "excuse" for a poeple to enslave another one.

And why speaking about the French designers. They don't entirely decide all of this. They are helped by competent historians.

Yeah it's disapointing to don't have the cultures you wanted in a videogame, but that doesn't justify despising the cultures that interest you less.

You are asking to down-weighted the culture "over represented", but I think they will be even more people disapointed to don't have both of greeks and byzantine for exemple.

Humankind is just a 4X with an historial theme, it don't have the pretension to be the official memorial of the whole humanity. There is a lot more of unhealty games with historical theme to criticize.

Some of your suggestions will maybe be added in the game later with regionally themed dlc. A lot of people want to see the Andeans, the Incas, the Abassids, the Ayyubids, etc.. in the game. But these poeple appreciate the cultures we already have.No need to be so hateful about european cultures. Because, I see a lot of political debate here, more than an historical one

Starbound wrote:
Yeaa I wouldn't go as far as to accuse the devs to be racists.

It's a little more complicated than that... I'm saying the game mirrors a constructed historiography invented in the Victorian Era that persists largely to explain and justify scientific racism and colonialism. It's unconcious, and I'm sure it isn't willful, but this is a historical narrative that is rooted in white supremacy. This view of history makes value judgements: 1) There is a goal, an "end-point" to history. 2) That certain actions like technological advancement count as "progress" towards that goal. 3) The West made the largest single contribution to historical "progress". This has some nasty connotations for non-Europeans, because smallpox blankets is therefore "progress". Smuggling billions of pounds of opium into China is "progress". Killing tens of millions of Irish and Indian peasants in half a dozen separate manmade famines is at best a little oopsie-daisy on the way to "progress".

Starbound wrote:
One limiting thing seems to be their design choice of having exactly 6 eras and 10 cultures for each.

I am saying that with only 10 slots per era, not only are there non-European cultures places that deserve to be included, there are European cultures that certifiably do NOT deserve the spot they occupy. 

Thus, we get cultures like:

• (Ancient) Myceneans - The nucleus around which Greek culture would bloom hundreds of years later, but who were effectively hill tribes living in unproductive, rocky soil, making bad Phoenician fan-fiction and pillaging the more culturally and technologically sophisticated cultures like the Minoans, Luwians, and Canaanites. The Phoenicians are credited with making their alphabet, giving them various gods, and even settling a handful of their cities for them, like Thebes. Anything noteworthy or remarkable about the Myceneans came from somewhere else.
• (Classical) Goths - A small, semi-nomadic tribe that moved from southern Scandinavia into Eastern Europe, who were then displaced/vassalized by the Huns, re-settled by the Romans and hired as foederati in Roman armies. A notable Visigoth commander of a Roman division rebelled, rampaged through Greece and sacked Rome. They were Given kingdoms in the Italian peninsula and Iberia by Rome, under the foederati status, and had such deep admiration for Roman culture that their own religion, culture, language, and ethnicity evaporated and left no historical trace whatsoever. 
• (Medieval) Plantagenet English - A full-blown historical fiction. A combined Norman(Viking)/Anjou/Brittany Duchy of France, ruling over Anglo-Saxon and Danish subjects, among others. 'Englishness' as a cultural/political entity was embryonic; the Hundred Years War was a civil war by any standard. This is why we get a Welsh unit and a Norman quarter in a melting pot pseudo-culture backwater-inside-a-backwater. England is only in this era because the Industrial Revolution would begin in England 2 eras later, creating a post-hoc justification for England's inclusion here, in a period where it barely existed.

Narcisse wrote:
wtf ... Most of the countries in the all world, on ALL periods of history are convinced of their superiority. It is not a European trait but a human one, coming from communitarism and    nationalism.

By acknowledging and emphasizing that "everyone's a little bit racist" as justification for why European cultures are represented at 3-4x the rate of other regions of the world, you are effectively saying that, yes, this is racist, but it's okay because it's white racism. This isn't an excuse for why the game's representation is so unbalanced as it is a tu qoque justification of racism. 

I think that Britain in the Late Modern would have been the best time to include their Civilization, at the height of their power. The inclusion of English in Medieval is an odd decision, but I think the motivation is pretty clear. They are probably going to include British in Early Modern, and USA in both Late Modern and Contemporary. This gives American (US) players a clear path to play the game leading into our own country, following the roots of our language. You can do Mycenaeans > Romans > English > British > USA > USA, which I'm sure a lot of American (US) players would want to do, and it's to appeal to that fanbase to sell more copies.

I'm sure that they will 'fix' it with the DLC by adding in the major missing cultures. Since a culture is a lot less complex than a Race is in ES2 in terms of new game assets, I imagine the DLC will probably add another 30+ by the time the game has run it's course. There will be plenty, I'm sure.

Narcisse I think you're misunderstanding Pineappledan's point. The sentence "Europe's millenium as an insignificant backwater in no way contradicts the self-evident, Scientifically verifiable fact of their innate racial superiority" was not stated as Pineappledan's perspective, that was the perspective he was criticizing. He was saying that by including so many European cultures, the devs are implicitely condoning that line of thinking.

Ok,  I maybe partially misunderstood. But associate the high amount of european cultures with an eventual "white racism" of the devs is a dumb idea. Put all europeans in a "white"  blob is dumb. Associate all european cultures to colonianism is not really smart too.

And the statement about "The ignorance and brutality of Medieval Europe" is so wrong.

For the choice of cultures, we can always discuss. I'm ok with Myceneans, being conqueror of sophisticated cultures need to be represented in the game. I will remind you that's a 4X game, there is militarist/expansionist factions. Because it's needed in term of gameplay.

Goth, I agree than there are not so "important", but anyway, they are here now.

For the English, I suppose than they doesn't take Anglo-Saxon, to make something more different than Norsemen and Slavs. Again just a question of game design, not of historical importance

I'm not as concerned with the idea of Amplitude becoming a mouth piece as much as I'm concerned by what such accusation imply for the dev. First of all i find that funny that you'd criticize the Eurocentrist approach of the dev on the basis of it only taking into account an European lens but then go on to make an affirmation as to which culture should or should not be in. You're not the holder of truth, just as I am not and nobody else is, and the subject is sadly not one that can be looked purely on fact, mainly because the said fact doesn't exist.

Let's take the example of the Myceneans, your argument lie in the fact Myceneans were culturaly and scientificaly not as advanced as other were, it doesn't take into account a variety of other parameters. First of all this game is not about culture it's about fame, it's about being recognized. Considering that, there is certainly an argument to be made that Myceneans might not be the greatest choice, but the opposite might be true too, I don't know about you but I don't have the pretense to live in all countries at the same time and knowing what is or is not considered famous there. However if I consider only my own pov, the one of an European then I can say that Myceneans can be considered famous, more than other that you have quoted ? Maybe not, I would for one said Minoans are better known and Canaanites are as well known but Luwians ? I can say for sure that for the common people it's not a culture that would be more known than the Myceneans. Are they more deserving of being famous ? Maybe you could make this argument, but once again it's not the premise of the game, the game look at culture that ARE famous, not the one that should be. Also the reason for their pressence is also linked to other factors, such as the fact this medium is a VIDEO GAME. As such an important part of the choice is the gameplay. In the game each culture get a legacy traits and one EQ and one UU. It means that culture with little to no archeological evidence that could support the creation of these two unique mechanic would be a no-go from the start, a good example is the Minoans for example that have not much on this front. Not only that but there's also the question of the balance of the game in and of itself. For all we know the dev might have made 15 culture by era and only decided to ship the 10 that made the game fun to play.

@Starbound yeah, but there is no way to "drop" a culture. Goth are in the game now, there is no drop :p We can just discuss about the future additions.