Culture (Unit + Quarter) Speculation Thread

[8housesofelixir]

I honestly don't think we have never been in a danger of not having Inca in a game with a metric ton of cultures. They are a staple civilization. They were obviously going to get in. The real interesting question is their affinity and Andean predecessors.

Historically speaking the Incans are both Builder (Qusqu, Sacsayhuamán, Machu Picchu) and Expansionist (the formation of "Inca Empire" under Túpac Inca's and Huayna Capac's expansion).

Personally I favor an Expansionist Inca, for the "Builder Inca" is just far too stereotypical and cliche (see also the good old "Militarist Aztecs") and IRL they did maintain a huge empire.

For Incan's Andean predecessors, I would suggest Tiwanaku State; the were dedicated Builders and Agrarians.

 

[Narcisse]

for Inca, I'm curious for the Era. Medieval expansionist Inca or Early Modern militarist Inca ?

 

[ehecatzin]

for Inca, I'm curious for the Era. Medieval expansionist Inca or Early Modern militarist Inca ?

To me the Inca should be medieval builders or expansionist, I really don't see them in EM, but who knows maybe there's space for both a medieval Inca builder and a Neo Inca militarist.

The EM native culture I'd absolutely love to see is another Maya culture that represents both Tayasal (last Mayan kingdom to fall) and the following Cruzoob rebelion, the caste war pretty much continued on and off well until the XIX century.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

After learning about the Mapuche in Civ I think they could make a great EM Andean culture in Humankind.

 

[8housesofelixir]

After learning about the Mapuche in Civ I think they could make a great EM Andean culture in Humankind.

This is a good idea, although currently I can only imagine a Native American style Huns.

 

[Krajzen]

Mapuche weren't very Andean, they have lived on steppes of central Argentina and central Chile. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DTr-8XuWAAMLkaZ.jpg Not that it matters much, they'd still be cool culture. They'd perfectly fit Nomadic style of Huns.

Tiwanaku can't be predecessors of Incas because they would be also medieval in this game's terms.

Generally speaking, in my opinion game - worthy cultures of Andes look like this (go on and research them)

Ancient: Caral, Chavin
Classical: Nazca, Moche
Medieval: Inca! and besides that, Wari, Tiwanaku, Chimu
Early modern: Mapuche
Industrial & modern: sigh, we can take Peru to neatly conclude the lineup, although let's be honest, it wouldn't be based on its global power
All of those cultures would be either Agrarian, Builder or Aestethe, with the possible exception of Inca if you go Expansionist way (but Agrarian and Builder are so tempting...) and Mapuche which basically have to be nomadic Militarists.

There are also cultures of Colombia. Muisca (medieval) is definitely worthy of being a culture on their own. But I can't decide myself if you could make their Colombian ancestor culture from Zenu, Qimbaya and San Augustin cultures which were nice but really small and "can't tell too much about them". Colombian culture would be okay ("Gran Colombian culture" definitely sounds weird). Argentine and Brazil are obvious. Other South American states are very unlikely.

I honestly couldn't find any Precolombian culture from Brazil and Venezuela that would be big enough and advanced enough to 'feel right' for the scope of the game, but maybe that's just me. Brazil was really 'pristine' and underpopulated even before European diseases and joyful crimes. I mean, few millions of people in the country of 9m km2 is few times smaller density than modern Mongolia, Christ, and that's before smallpox. Did I deduce correctly that the reason it was so sparsely populated was inability to grow maize on a large scale in Brazil's conditions? Because otherwise it's hard for me to explain why did Andes develop so much and Brazil was stuck on hunter gatherer level. There was one exceptional culture I think, covering barely one percent of its area with its tiny civilization lol.

Anyway, we do have 10 cultures for South America before even reaching for Latin American states. Lack of Sid Meier's tyrannic need to find documented leaders for everybody does simplify such parts of the world greatly. Civ is basically forced to take Inca again and again and again, sometimes spicing things with Mapuche or Muisca.

 

[Venceslau Pietro Pietra]

For a "brazilian line" some cultures i could imagine in parrallel with the andean ones are
Classical: Tupi( could fit acutally any era) Militaristic ou Expansionist
Medieval: Marajoara ( i prefer them as a potencial independent people) Builder
Early Modern: Guarani, Aesthete? Militaristic? i realy dont know
Industrial: Caboclos* Agrarian
Modern: Brazilian Agrarian or Aesthete

*Caboclos are a native and european mestizo culture, largely present in the brazilian countryside, i put them as a culture in industrial mostly due to the caboclo revolt against the federal government in sounthern brazil in the earlys 1900s. But could also fit as a generic name for a industrial Brazilian culture since caboclo is very wide definition.
But in my opinion the andean culures are the priority right now in the future dlcs topic

 

[pineappledan]

I would vote for Inca as being an Early Modern culture. The Inca (and the Wari, who the Inca took over for) were very advanced w.r.t. central planning, taxation, and governance, even if they lagged behind Europe and Asia technologically. It really isn't a stretch to put Inca in EM, unless you consider metal-working as the only yardstick for human civilization.

 

[notNamed]

I would vote for Inca as being an Early Modern culture. The Inca (and the Wari, who the Inca took over for) were very advanced w.r.t. central planning, taxation, and governance, even if they lagged behind Europe and Asia technologically. It really isn't a stretch to put Inca in EM, unless you consider metal-working as the only yardstick for human civilization.

Medieval would give you slightly more historical unit options, though.
EM units are Spies, Halbreds, Arquebusiers, Musketeers, Knights?, Mortars and Settlers.
M units, in comparison, are Spies, Crossbowmen, Longswordsmen, Pikemen, Knights and Trebuchets.
Which leaves you with pike and shot Inca armies if you throw them there.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I think Caribs is a good option for Early Modern, they were a big deal on Northen South America from 16th to 18th century, trading slaves with Dutch, French, English and Portuguese while raiding againts Spaniards, Arawaks and basically any other native peoples on the region. By some time Caribs warriors had better guns that the spaniards missions because their trade with the Dutch.

Now the problem with an even temporal distribution of cultures is that there are way more well know and interesting option on Classical, Medieval and Early Modern than the other eras.
- Beyond Middle East, most ancient cultures are just archeological with awful naming options for their cultures, cities, EU and EQ. Harappans for sure are a must for ancient cultures but "Runner" is a good example of what I mean.
- Industrial is mainly european powers basically corresponding to the same cultures that could be on Medieval, Early Modern and Contemporary, and this last is a problem because the homogenization of the world and the more "touchy" nature of represent a recent/current government.

I really hope future DLC could bring an uneven temporal distribution of the cultures, with more for Classical, Medieval and Early Modern and less for Ancient, Industrial and Contemporary.

Anyway seems like the max number of players would not be huge to make mandatory to have the same amount of options on each era. And after all the know cultural diversity along history is kind of:
- Ancient: Few crandle of civilizations from were we could know enough to build a satisfactory in game characterization.
- Classical & Medieval: Way more better records. While big empires and the propagation of religions that have so much weight that start to homogenize the culture on huge regions, at the same time that the expansion to new lands of the way of complex societies and the migration of new peoples over old empires, produced a world full of options.
- Early Modern & Industrial: The consolidation of the big empires and their cultures become a faster and stronger force that the incorporation of new technologies by contacted cultures. European colonial powers and some big asiatic empires dominate over peripheral local powers trying to keep up with a increasingly tide of invasors.
- Contemporary: The world is dominated by the consolidation of a handful of states, while hundreds of local and even national cultures are dying to a globalization process of economic dominance. Complete continents once populated by hundreds of complety different cultures on their way of produce food, construct buildings, unrelated languages, and unique religions are now dominated by few and closely related cultures whose people differs only on who they pay taxes to, how they pronounce the same word and which color dress their olimpic representatives.

I would like to have this representation of the way the distribution of cultures changed. After all the even temporal distribution of cultures is why despite have 60 cultures we would not going to have Incas at release.

 

[Guandao]

Now that Industrial era factions have all been revealed, anyone willing to post their guesses for Contemporary Era factions?

We have very few indications about who is in this era. We know the Chinese are present. Apparently the Soviets are too. And the only South American faction is here (likely Brazil). There's plenty of choices to pick here, including:

Americans
Argentinians
Australians
Canadians
Chileans
Colombians
Cubans
Emiratis
Filipinos
Finnish
Indians
Indonesians
Iranians
Japanese
Lebanese
New Zealanders
Nigerians
Pakistanis
Peruvians
Saudi Arabians
Singaporeans
South Africans
South Koreans
Swedish
Swiss
Thai
Turkish
Vietnamese

Anyone else missing?

 

[ehecatzin]

My guess is:

America
Brazil
China
India
Japan
Nigeria
South Korea
Soviet Union
Sweden
Turkey

 

[Narcisse]

My guess list :

Americans
Australians
Brazilians
Chinese
Ethiopians
Indians
Japanese
Nigerians
Saudi Arabians
Soviet Russians

Now that Industrial era factions have all been revealed, anyone willing to post their guesses for Contemporary Era factions?
Anyone else missing?

Well, even if I doubt to see them because naming, Egyptians (as Arab Egyptians) are a really interesting pick for modern era and north africa. Morocco could be interesting, even if I prefer to see them in early modern era.
Botswana, nicknamed "the African miracle", "the exception of the continent" or "the Switzerland of Africa" (welp, this is their description on wikipedia, the "exception of the continent" looks so connoted as hell, damn. Still, it's an interesting pick, to have this geographical zone, if they don't want to go with South Africa, which always have a lot of scars.

Afghans and Iraq have a really interesting history in the early part of contemporary era, but the more recent events maybe don't match with the sort of tropes we can show in these games.

Koreans, as South Koreans. Jordan. Kenya. Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia

 

[8housesofelixir]

Besides the highly possible East Asian Trio, the Two Poles of Cold War, "new" countries such as Brazil and India, South Africa as a Zulu follow-up - that's already 8 out of 10 - I would also imagine a Vietnam and someone from the Islamic world.

 

[Jkchart]

My guesses:
-Americans (Merchant, Expansionist or Builder)
-Brazilians (???)
-Chinese (Builder or Expansionist)
-Ethiopians (???)
-Indians (Agrarian)
-Japanese (Militarist or Aesthete)
-Koreans (Scientist or Aesthete)
-Saudis (Aesthete or Merchant)
-Soviets (Militarist, Expansionist, or Scientist)
-Swedes (Scientist)

Of course, all conjecture really...but I think perhaps 50% of these are correct.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Here's what I think:
Americans
Brazilians
Canadians
Chinese
Ethiopians
Indians
Japanese
Saudis
Soviets
Vietnamese

Runner Up:
Possibly Australians over Canadians though Amplitude is French
Koreans over Vietnamese
Swedes? I know they were seen earlier but I don't know if they should go in contemporary.

 

[Krajzen]

America - merchant
Brazil - agrarian
China - builder
Ethiopia - agrarian
India - aestethe
Japan - whatever
Korea - whatever
Soviet - expansionist
Sweden - scientist
Vietnam - militarist

 

[grey_Sanzhez]

Let's take away the obvious choices and stop "predicting" them.
Americans, Soviets, Indians, Japanese, Chinese are kind of "confirmed" as well as Brazilians.

We have only 4 extra slots for our predictions, but even there are 2 strong "hinted" cultures - Australians and Swedes.
Asia: Koreans. I would like to see some maritime southeast asians like Indonesians but...
Middle-East+: Saudi Arabians, Israeli, Turkish, Pakistan
Africa: Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa
Europe: Swedes, Suomi, Swiss, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia
America(both): Canada, Argentina

So my pick from former British crown is Australians. I'm hesitating to pick Nigeria, despite it's one of current Africa most prominent powers. I'm not sure about its impact for whole past century. Instead of Egypt I would pick some other Arabian representative like Saudi Arabian. I believe in hints and bet Swedes could came also, but still want to see Finland(as militaristic culture) more that Swedes. Swiss is also good pick. Czechoslovakia as single culture is more likely than Yugoslavia, but still questionable. South Africa without Nigeria is too much. I would bet they put Atatürk Turkey as my last pick and Israel\Korea very close to it. Koreans\Canada\Pakistan\Argentina are good picks, but they could be overshadowed by their neighbours from last era. We missed even Portugal for that reason.
----------------
To comments above: I would never pick Vietnam over Finland as militarist. They withstood USSR(neighbor, troops count, equipment) aggression, it's incomparable to Vietnam

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

To comments above: I would never pick Vietnam over Finland as militarist. They withstood USSR(neighbor, troops count, equipment) aggression, it's incomparable to Vietnam

I think it's reasonable that they would go with Vietnam for other reasons:
1. Amplitude's headquarters is in France and France has had a historical relationship with Vietnam as they ended up becoming a French colony.
2. Vietnam War is very well known.
3. Vietnam is one of the best choices, besides Indonesia like you mentioned, for a contemporary SE Asia culture.

That still doesn't mean Finland couldn't get in as a militarist.

 

[mitsho]

Let's take away the obvious choices and stop "predicting" them.
Americans, Soviets, Indians, Japanese, Chinese are kind of "confirmed" as well as Brazilians.

Good suggestions, my last picks:

- (South) Korea OR Vietnam
- Ethiopia OR Nigeria OR South Africa
- Turkey
- Sweden

I still believe the hints for Sweden are big enough, I‘d agree though that Yugoslavia would be a good pick, but since it‘s controversial (ended in a civil war), it seems like a DLC pick to me. As others, I would put Ethiopia rather in the Industrial, but I can‘t see them leaving them out. This points to a big question for me though, whether this era will be more focused on WW2 or on the Cold War. A weird mixture of both though. From above, I would personally like them to keep South Africa back for a DLC that adds another era named „Current Day / Near Future Era“ based on 2021, because I don‘t see them adding an Apartheid South Africa.