Humankind - Americans discussion thread

[Narcisse]

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1382000713757290497

 

[Jkchart]

Well this is interesting.

expansionist makes some sense but I feel like it would have made more sense in the industrial era? I do know expansionist is also about administering large swathes of territory and the US did aggressively push it’s bases across the world and it’s ideology so i think that can also count.

defense agency is a curious choice but works bc of our crazy military and espionage expenditure.

of COURSE we get a Jet. That was the easiest call

 

[FinalDoomsday]

Jet looks cool, hopefully aircraft are well implemented. Defence Agency I was not expecting but works if they are leaning into military focus.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

So thats one, nine to go.

expansionist makes some sense but I feel like it would have made more sense in the industrial era? I do know expansionist is also about administering large swathes of territory and the US did aggressively push it’s bases across the world and it’s ideology so i think that can also count.

Expansionist ability and even playstyle require you to send armies all over the world so it is not really a bad pick, maybe the annexation part is somewhat strange but that is an issue for any contemporary culture you want to be expansionist, but the rest of what you are supposed to do as an expansionist seems to fit with americans. However we should not see cultures as countries so the annexation part may not really represent annextion in terms of countries but ability to influence or control an area/city or so.

 

[Jkchart]

So thats one, nine to go.


Expansionist ability and even playstyle require you to send armies all over the world so it is not really a bad pick, maybe the annexation part is somewhat strange but that is an issue for any contemporary culture you want to be expansionist, but the rest of what you are supposed to do as an expansionist seems to fit with americans.

Yeah that makes sense, that’s also why i brought up the bases and ideology spread. Works for me, an interesting design so I’m very intrigued to see the rest of the contemporary cultures

 

[Narcisse]

thanks to Rac from the discord for the artwork in large size.

The artwork is amazing for me, probably one of my favorite. So much details.
The affinity is unexpected, I don't know the reflection behind the choice, but my guess is than it's more about their playstyle ? And we could argue than their presence (in term of military bases, armies, administrations, pushing their ideology, etc....) in a lot of territories fit with expansionist ?

I expected an airplane unit, not so much surprise here. The quarter was unexpected to me, so much possibilities for our dear Americans, my bet was any modern museum as the Solomon R. Guggenheim of New York (to refer to the period where Americans builded a lot of very modern museum when they were aware of the high need to preserve and highlight their history). Still, The Defense Agency is totally fitting and in some way , is "honest" because giving some militarist and CIA vibes (in a "good way" too, because preventive defense, cold war and R&D vibes).

 

[Anno]

Interesting. I guess if they wanted at least one of all culture types in the era then there’s really no one better to choose for Expansionist, even though it’ll be more about influence and soft power rather than annexing territory.

The F-35 seems odd rather than a proven workhorse like an F-15. Hopefully it has an enormous upkeep cost and/or randomly doesn’t work.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Interesting. I guess if they wanted at least one of all culture types in the era then there’s really no one better to choose for Expansionist, even though it’ll be more about influence and soft power rather than annexing territory.

The F-35 seems odd rather than a proven workhorse like an F-15. Hopefully it has an enormous upkeep cost and/or randomly doesn’t work.

I think they wanted atleast some contemporary emblematic units to be recent things to make it so that humankind is connected to today.

I though they would have asthete as their ability, but expansionist seems to fit well, keep in mind we are playing as cultures or a group of cultures, not as countries and the expansionist thing may represent dominances over particular areas (and don't require explicit territorial annexation, since as I said before we should not see ourself as playing countries) which fit somewhat well with americans.

 

[CivLuvah]

Personally I find it hard to see why it's "Expansionist", but some of you guys have raised very good and legitimate points for the "Expansionist" ability. I'll be waiting for a response from their historians over at the Discord

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Based on Lucy open dev, I feel expansionist needs a serious rework, the ability was very limited in scope and getting expansionist fame stars gott really hard, more so than any other star type.

 

[Jkchart]

Personally I find it hard to see why it's "Expansionist", but some of you guys have raised very good and legitimate points for the "Expansionist" ability. I'll be waiting for a response from their historians over at the Discord

Yeah, it's not all about territory like Denkt has said. Expansion is more than that.

Also there's a really REALLY good book on this kind of stuff called "How to Hide an Empire" that explores the US's history of imperialism and expansion. Give it a read if you can and everything makes even more sense as to why the US passes the expansionist test.

 

[CivLuvah]

Also there's a really REALLY good book on this kind of stuff called "How to Hide an Empire" that explores the US's history of imperialism and expansion. Give it a read if you can and everything makes even more sense as to why the US passes the expansionist test.

No need. By no need I mean understanding the history of US expansion. Of course I'd like to read the book haha

As a Filipino we live vicariously under the US. We were a US colony until 1946, and even during the rest of the 20th century after independence, we were very close allies with the US during the Cold War. A lot of Filipinos see the US in a very favorable light more than any other country. At the same time the US has bases in our country, and it's always been a thorn on our side with regards to Philippine-US relations.

The thing I personally find trouble with Expansionist at first was that I was thinking of military takeover of territory, not military bases or taking territories using influence. Also I don't know how Expansionist stars work because I haven't played the last OpenDev before as much as the previous ones.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

In lucy open dev the ability was that you could take over other players territories by paying gold and waiting a number of turns, but there was several limits to the ability, you needed to be at peace with open borders (and probably not allied) and the army needed to stand ontop of the city center you wanted to take over. I did not use the ability a single time as the restrictions was too many.

Fame stars, unlike most affinities who could gain fame stars passively, expansionist required you to control an increasing amount of territories, making it probably the hardest fame stars to get, by early modern I had to basically control the whole map to get all 3 expansionist fame stars.

I think expansionist in Lucy open dev was probably the weakest affinity, a hard to use ability and even harder to achieve fame stars and I managed to get all possible fame stars in a single game, 21 stars per era so I think I have a decent idea about their difficulties.

 

[8housesofelixir]

US being Expansionist, as @CivLuvah said, is somewhat reasonable but also a bit confusing from the perspective of the in-game ability.

From what we know, the in-game Expansionist is mostly about land grabbing, taking over territories, while evoke conflicts based on that - instead of military base or exerting influence as IRL US. On the other hand, "US Expansionist" very much fits the popular conception of US on the internet.

Personally, I feel like the reasoning of "Americans being Expansionist" is the same reasoning behind "Joseon being Scientist" - following the popular imagine and niche. It is definitely not "wrong" to follow popular imagine, and the actual ability of the American LT and EQ may be more thematic to US IRL and create good gameplay, but I do feel confusing and a bit disappointed for a game that brands itself as a "Historical magnum opus".

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I doubt expansionist will stay the same form as it was in Lucy open dev, it was pretty much like playing without an affinity. Merchant, agriculture, scientist and aesthete fame stars was also pretty bad due to their passive nature, but as affinities their abilities had some use while expansionist was basically useless and its fame stars was too hard to get, basically require total control over the whole map.

Builder and militarist had the most interesting fame stars, with builder while it had the passive nature gave you alot of options how to get the quarters and militarist required active gameplay to achieve. The rest was basically just a waiting game and then there is expansionist.

Expansionist and asthete would work better if they could be achieved by expanding your religion and influence. Merchant affinity could have some direct ties with trading and resources mechanics. Scientist have something about exploration and agriculture I do not know what it could have.

 

[Jkchart]

No need. By no need I mean understanding the history of US expansion. Of course I'd like to read the book haha

As a Filipino we live vicariously under the US. We were a US colony until 1946, and even during the rest of the 20th century after independence, we were very close allies with the US during the Cold War. A lot of Filipinos see the US in a very favorable light more than any other country. At the same time the US has bases in our country, and it's always been a thorn on our side with regards to Philippine-US relations.

The thing I personally find trouble with Expansionist at first was that I was thinking of military takeover of territory, not military bases or taking territories using influence. Also I don't know how Expansionist stars work because I haven't played the last OpenDev before as much as the previous ones.

Fair!

Oh the book has plenty on that and it was an excellent read to learn about all of it.

 

[CivLuvah]

I feel that the mechanics for expansionist stars will work differently in the contemporary era or at least the game will have a mechanic later as you play in which you can acquire era stars without taking territory or would allow you to have an overseas military presence.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I feel that the mechanics for expansionist stars will work differently in the contemporary era or at least the game will have a mechanic later as you play in which you can acquire era stars without taking territory or would allow you to have an overseas military presence.

It basically have to, having the requirement to be total conquest of the map would be extreme, I think expansionist should have options to gain fame beyond complete territorial conquest, like setting up military bases in other players lands, ability to take control over resources and maybe have the ability to change other players ideology and that is just speaking about gameplay, which cleary showed that the expansionist affinity worked poorly.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

US being Expansionist, as @CivLuvah said, is somewhat reasonable but also a bit confusing from the perspective of the in-game ability.

The thing is you are playing as a group of cultures, not as countries, you are not playing as US, you are playing as americans and the history part go all out of window since you can for example go from zulus to americans which is far more tricky to explain than explaining americans as expansionist.

Affinities seems to roughly mean what the culture was most famous for, I have not looked up Joseon so I can't tell how poor of a choice scientist is, but americans having world wide influence comparable if not surpassing that of the british empire even if it don't look like that on the map. I would have to say expansionist or aesthete is the best affinity choices for americans. The fact you even yourself say that expansionist is a popular imagination of americans tell that expansionism (not necessarily old colonialism style) is a decent pick.

The word expansionism don't nessicarly mean territorial expansion, in Lucy open dev it was just territorial expansion, even if humankind at that point had both religious and ideological expansionism, neither of those gave fame stars, nor had anything to do with Lucy open dev expansionism. Asthete for some reason could change ideology which probably would be more fitting for expansionist cultures like americans and maybe soviets if they also are given expansionist affinity.

Another issue not mentioned yet is Lucy open dev version of expansionism is really similar to militarist, expanionist basically have to use military power, atleast at some point to achieve their fame goals while militarist need to fight and destroy. enemy units to get their fame. Moving expanionism to being influence in many forms would separate it more from militarist.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Love the art , like the focus , the EB is OK but the EU is more like a joke .

By the way I am the only one that think that the more american EU should be a bomber like the B-29, B-36 or B-52 ?