Technology is definitely part of culture, (ie yes to all of those questions) but it is an easily shared part of culture.  (F=ma is a part of American and French culture as well as British culture).  In humankind, because there is a tech tree, the technological parts of the culture (as well as government/civics/ and religious  aspects of the culture...after all Christianity and Limited Monarchy are both a part of industrial era British culture) have been separated out.  It does seem that the Zulu impi is most valuable for an Industrial era culture with Medieval/Modern era technology.  (the situation the actual Zulus found themselves in).  Human or AI players that enter the Industrial Era at a tech deficit may prioritize taking Zulus to get that benefit.

roger212 wrote:

MasterPaw wrote:

Zulu irl would translate in game as a player with techonlogical gap, which goes into zulu and unlock impi

Then he faces British who have more techs and zulu get destroyed before being able to research more techs

Inca didnt have writing, so what era should they be?

And because generic rifle unit in humankind has range attack, you can depict units with melee weapon better, as they could still do damage if they manage to engage in close combat and gain the battle this way, but would be decimated against cannon and machine gun

If you do your research you will find the Quechua did have a writing system, albeit it was based on knots on ropes. I think it is very revealing that it is always the non-european civilisations that are questioned, even if European cultures had moments when they too were behind others in some eras. The Celts had religion but not philosophy and they can still research the tech. They are placed in an era after flood irrigation when they didn't discover it. The list continues. But no one will ever question the inclusion of that culture. I believe letting go off that Eurocentric lens where European cultures are assumed to be the standard might allow you to enjoy the game much more. Cheers

Yeah I know and i dont consider this to be a writing system, its a communication system that leave a trace but not writing

The reason why I took incas (which also used the qipu system) is because i dont think anybody would make them outside of medieval/early modern and so were a good example that wriing isnt relevant to say in what era they should be

I could have chosen celts but they dont really make a good point about what era they should be

I dont think you understood my point which was indeed that using technological status to place cultures in game eras has limitation and drawbacks

I think how science work in 4x might be a bit faulty to these representation too

It doesn't matter whether they're historically relevant, if so many people have a basic knowledge of who Zulu were. I'd say that they're a culture that really fits Humankind's bill of fame winning you the game. Sure, you can make an argument for any numbers of cultures that should have precedence over Zulu, but that can be said for virtually any other culture that got in. At the same time, I don't really feel like any argument against Zulu has any strength. At this point Zulu will make it in by a virtue of being in in the first place, whether Shaka himself, random programmer in the early nineties or screenwriter in the sixties has bigger impact on it is irrelevant.

Who decides what is historically relevant? I'd be cautious using this term. There might be different takes on relevance in this context.

This culture is really bizarre in Industry Era, I think I'll never want to choose it in my games.