We decided to give the Americans in Humankind the Expansionist affinity to represent their status as a major power and their global influence, especially during the Cold War with their rivalry with the Soviet Union. While many have made solid arguments that Aesthete and Merchant would be excellent candidates to represent their cultural and economic influence, we settled on the Expansionist affinity for gameplay considerations in the context of the full roster of Contemporary Era cultures.
Thank you (both Cat and the Historian) for the response. This is a reasonable take about USA's influence onto the modern world. Focusing on USA's military power and overall competitiveness during the Cold War would bring something new to the 4x genre - Civ IV and VI have cultured Americans, while III and V has mostly Manifest Density Americans, for instance.
However, there is, sadly, still a dissonance here. The Historian visions American as Expansionist because "their status as a major power and their global influence, especially during the Cold War", which put the emphasis on military strength and diplomatic leverage,
a combination of hard power and soft power. The in-game Expansionist, on the other hand, has a gameplay orientation that focuses on
claiming territory and having a large area of land. Their ability is about land grabbing, and they can get Fame Stars based on territories.
In a word, the in-game Expansionist ability (mostly land grab and inciting wars)
mismatches the Historian's concept of Expansionist (involves soft power expansion). Moreover, if the "Expansionist" in the game does act as what the Historian visions - that is, a hegemon that can have "global influence" - then it would cause conflict with the Aesthete affinity, whose gameplay orientation already focuses on cultural influence. That is not to say Cat stated in the Discord that the Expansionist ability will be stayed at "land grab" because of game engine and production constraints; so the Expansionist
won't become what the Historian envisioned it to be in the foreseeable future.
As a result, there is an obvious dissonance between "
how the game mechanic works" and "
what the concept designers hope the game mechanic is about". This is not good, IMO, as the designers are not going to convey their idea well. For instance, even those who support Expansionist Americans on Reddit and Twitter thought this is because "USA invaded many countries and inciting numerous coups", or viewed the design as a political statement about American Imperialism, instead of reflecting USA's soft power or "global influence".
In any case, I hope the devs can address this dissonance, even if it is hard to balance out. There will always be a mismatch between reality and in game abstraction, and I would say to ease the mismatch out is one of the jobs of the designer - and if the designers can ease them out, it can create a good game.
Personally, in terms of game concept, I would view Americans as an Aesthetic Militarist (or Militaristic Aesthete). We already have designs such as Builder Militarist (Germans), Merchant Builder (Siamese), Aesthetic Merchant (Venetians), etc. and a similar design echoing with the concept of "a major power and global influence" without conflicting with the unchangeable "land grabbing" game mechanic should be possible. Just a personal take though.
, like the focus
, the EB is OK
but the EU is more like a joke
.
