First DLC for Humankind - Cultures of Africa announced.

Meluhhan

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The first DLC for Humankind has been announced. The Cultures of Africa DLC will add one new African culture per era along with new events and wonders of the world. Releasing on 20th January, it is available for pre-order at 10% discount.
The new cultures in order of the eras are the Bantu, Garamantes,Swahili, Maasai, Ethiopians and Nigerians.

Copy of the announcement post from Games2gether:
One of the toughest choices when working on Humankind was which cultures to include. We knew we would only be able to include 60 cultures in the game at release, but there are so many fascinating cultures across the globe and all of history to choose from! So even while we were working on the game, we already knew that we would want to come back after release and add more cultures.

Today, we are announcing the first DLC for Humankind, featuring six remarkable cultures from Africa (no, they are not all Merchant cultures):

So, who are the cultures included in the “Cultures of Africa” DLC?
  • Era 1 – Bantu (Expansionist): The Bantu expansion is a postulated series of major migrations of an original Ntu-speaking group from Central- West-Africa across much of sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Era 2 – Garamantes (Agrarian): The Garamantes emerged as a major regional power in the mid-second century AD. Their growth and expansion rested on a complex and extensive qanat irrigation system (known as foggaras in Berber), which supported a strong agricultural economy and large population.
  • Era 3 – Swahili (Merchant): The rise of the Swahili coast city-states can be largely attributed to the region's extensive participation in a trade network that spanned the Indian Ocean.
  • Era 4 – Maasai (Agrarian): A fierce pastoralist people with a Nilotic (rather than Bantu or Swahili) language. For the Maasai, achieving warrior status meant single-handedly killing a lion with a spear.
  • Era 5 – Ethiopians (Militarist): During the Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia and Liberia were the only two nations that preserved their sovereignty from long-term colonization by a European colonial power. By weaving the natural cliffs and ledges into the creation of their fortresses, Ethiopia was able to fend off most colonial forces.
  • Era 6 – Nigerians (Agrarian): Nigeria unites a wide variety of cultures under the rule of one state. The variety of its terrain and the abundance of its hydraulic resources offer it significant agricultural possibilities and make it one of West Africa’s foremost producers.
In addition to these six cultures, the DLC includes over a dozen new events (and their consequences), as well as five new wonders:

  • Lake Natron
  • Mount Kilimandjaro
  • Victoria Falls
  • Zuma Rock
  • The Great Mosque of Djenne






The “Cultures of Africa” DLC will be available for $8.99/8.99€/£8.99 on Humankind.game, Steam, Epic Games Store, and the Microsoft Store, though you can already pre-order it for a 10% discount between now and January 20th!







We’re excited to hear your stories of these cultures in Humankind,

The Amplitude Team
 
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I really like the new cultures and I am happy they add more agrarian cultures since those were the ones that were taken first most of the time but I kind of was hoping for something that would spice up the game more then just 15 new events.....
 
Hmm, not intending to critizice the new content itself at all (I'm convinced that it will have at least the same quality as the existing - and I like the geographical direction of that DLC, as I feel Africa is still abit underrepresented)...but for me it's hard to get thrilled by it, as long as the current gameplay and balance issues aren't tackled. Ideally, we will get surprised by free patches coming together with the flavour DLC taking care of them...and then I will happily support this approach by purchasing DLCs bringing new civs and wonders. However, currently not missing variation in the available civs is limiting my desire to play the game, rather the puzzle feeling and the fight vs. some of its mechanics...so the instant motivation to pre-order the DLC is just not there yet.

But foremost it is positive at all that HK gets further content and designer attention :thumbsup:
 
Yeah, just saw that and I'm hyped that they go with Africa as their first DLC. I must confess that I didn't play as many games as I'd wishes due to admittedly my time management and my not up-to-par computer, but also because the game can get quite dull and has a lot of useless "you have to click here" things. they could gain a lot by telling you less (!) in my mind.

But I know they will enhance these which is why I am willing to pay for this DLC. After all, they even added the diverse unit images mid-year which they could very well have dumped on a DLC as well.

I like militarist for the Ethiopians, could have gone with one less Agrarian, but well. Like the Bantu and Nigeria the most.
 
Hopefully a patch will come with the dlc.

I love how the Nigerian cities look, I'm interested in playing them. Will also be nice to have a better shot at getting Agrarian cultures.
 
Hopefully a patch will come with the dlc.
It will.

When I first heard that the first DLC will focus on African cultures, I was very happy. It‘s a continent with so many interesting histories and cultures, and sadly tends to be often overlooked. I never thought I would be able to play Garamantes in a game (they should have been in Imperstor though)! It‘s also a big plus that HK focuses on cultures here compared to leaders, so they can focus on known and emblematic characteristics instead of scavenger hunting for bare-known leaders.
 
It will.

When I first heard that the first DLC will focus on African cultures, I was very happy. It‘s a continent with so many interesting histories and cultures, and sadly tends to be often overlooked. I never thought I would be able to play Garamantes in a game (they should have been in Imperstor though)! It‘s also a big plus that HK focuses on cultures here compared to leaders, so they can focus on known and emblematic characteristics instead of scavenger hunting for bare-known leaders.

I am afraid I have some bad news that, if I recall correctly, affect you in particular:
The DLC is not currently considered available for Mac. This is not a problem with the DLC itself (as far as we can tell, it runs fine), but we have decided to not list Mac as supported for the DLC until we can resolve the problem that many Mac uers have reported being unable to access their owned DLC content.
 
I am afraid I have some bad news that, if I recall correctly, affect you in particular:
The DLC is not currently considered available for Mac. This is not a problem with the DLC itself (as far as we can tell, it runs fine), but we have decided to not list Mac as supported for the DLC until we can resolve the problem that many Mac uers have reported being unable to access their owned DLC content.

Thanks for clarifying. I'll just point out, even with the updated G2G announcement, the DLC appears to be Mac-compatible on Epic but not Steam.
 
I am afraid I have some bad news that, if I recall correctly, affect you in particular:
The DLC is not currently considered available for Mac. This is not a problem with the DLC itself (as far as we can tell, it runs fine), but we have decided to not list Mac as supported for the DLC until we can resolve the problem that many Mac uers have reported being unable to access their owned DLC content.

The African cultures look great! (But why not Benin, Ashanti, Songhai, or Kongo in the Early Modern?)

I hope you guys can fix the Mac issues. I had a problem where I bought it for my Mac (which was fully compatible on paper) and it didn't work and I had to return it. :-(
 
It is still early, but there is a developing underlying concept of adapting to changing climate and environment in the Bantu and Garamantes cultures that the videos have emphasized.
 
The lack of activity in discussion forums is disheartening. I remember 100s of replies in heated exchange during first Civ6 DHL release announcement. I find it sad for many reasons, here is one of them. HK got it right where Civ failed: in Civ civilization=empire, in HK civilization=people. If you didn't have a famous empire -- you won't be included in Civ. HK came up with idea of cultures, and it deserves all the excitement and interest. Take Bantu expansion, for example. Roughly 30% of the population of Africa, or roughly 5% of the total world population draw affinity to the original proto-Bantu culture, but because those people did not create one monolithic empire historical strategy players would not relive their story, up until now.
Unfortunately, HK has chosen to distinguish one culture from another very much like civ did: give them a trait, one unique district (ok not a building) and a unique unit. It feels extremely boring when amazing diversity of the mankind ends up being translated into bonuses in 3 exact same instances, plus some graphical skin changes to create an impression we are experiencing a new culture. There has to be more to every culture in order to generate more excitement, the entire array of positive and negative effects, perhaps different rules for different cultures. Using a terminology of a naval combat game, each culture should be different from another the way air carrier is different from a submarine, instead of all cultures being battleships with slightly different speed, armor and guns.
 
Several of the African DLC cultures seem to have place-anywhere districts that you will be able to build off of. I think this is a significant development in terms of how to construct cities, and opens up many new strategies. These seem like somewhat unique rules to me.

I hope that Humankind doesn't have the same issue that Civ always has, where the base game cultures remain the most straightforward and least flavorful. Hopefully, as they release more mechanics and cultures, they can convert the base game cultures to users of those mechanics.
 
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