Humankind - Carthaginians discussion thread

[Siptah]

We've seen multiple buildings with water basins in front. I'm wondering if it is something like a generic temple that has a regionally appropriate look.

 

[ehecatzin]

We've seen multiple buildings with water basins in front. I'm wondering if it is something like a generic temple that has a regionally appropriate look.

Yeah good catch, on the Mayan city screenshot there's a similar structure, I initially thought it was a ballcourt, I think we can assume that is a religous quarter and the water basins might be decorative space that can be filled with buildings later on. I hope that if there's the equivalent of shrine-temple, that they have unique graphics for each culture.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yeah good catch, on the Mayan city screenshot there's a similar structure, I initially thought it was a ballcourt, I think we can assume that is a religous quarter and the water basins might be decorative space that can be filled with buildings later on. I hope that if there's the equivalent of shrine-temple, that they have unique graphics for each culture.

We already know that they have distinctive City Center graphics. Enlarging that to distinctive graphics for each Quarter seems like a lot of work for the return, but I could see 'generic' Production and Population/Food (Neighborhoods?) Quarters by Era or part of the world (I mean, how many different versions of a thatched hut or flat-roofed adobe/mud-brick hut are there at this scale?), with distinctive Religious/Temple structures or Quarters.
Depending on how they handle Religion, the distinctions could be by Religion rather than Culture - found Judaism, build a distinctive Synagogue as the center piece in your Religious Quarters, for instance.

And, we can't forget that a certain percentage of the Quarters are going to automatically have distinctive graphics, because they are Emblematic to a single Culture/Faction. However they do it, there is a real possibiity of every city being architecturally distinctive in some way in some of its Quarters.
Exciting stuff.

 

[conorbebe]

I'm pretty sure the middle tile has a fish resource, a resources extractor was built there, so the surrounding tiles are being worked on. I think that just leaving the fishing boats and adding the piers only next to the coast would make it look much better and still being obvious the tiles are being worked on.

View attachment 547461

Or just adding more fishing boats would surely do?

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

The big problem, which has been gnawing away in my mind ever since they first announced Factions like the Harappans and Olmecs, is how they are going to generate any legitimate City List at all for either of those.

It is a problem constantly on the mind of our writers, trust me.

I remember seeing München in one of the videos, so I don't know if city names get "modernized" as eras avance, or if this is going to be an exception and we are going to get a world with its cities names strongly biased towards bronze and classical civs.

No, cities do not get renamed as you advance eras. It is part of our intention to reflect the history of your civilization as you play.

What we have here is actually three cities: one foreground, one upper right, one across the bay in upper left.

Or is it?

That means that older city architecture will remain in place.

For City Centers and Emblematic Quarters, yes.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I wonder if the 'sparkly horses' means that was a Horse Resource

I could have sworn we had shown a horse "deposit" in the last video...

Three polyreme warships in the bay. Beautiful renderings, but lousy depictions of any historical Mediterranean warship. As Phoenician Biremes they are too wide for their length and decked - none of the early bireme or pentekonter (pre-Trireme) ships had decks. IF hey are supposed to be generic Classical polyremes, then they are still too wide for their length: the trireme and its successor quadiremes and quinqueremes were all at least 6 - 7 times longer than they were wide: distinctly different in proportion from the sailing Freight-haulers, which were about 3 - 4 times longer than wide - a lot 'tubbier'.

You were supposed to get a far better look at them with them going in an out of the bay, but I made a mistake and didn't correct their facing. Keep guessing away, and I am glad to year you at least find them beautiful, even if you consider them inaccurate.

Even knowing that these are composed shots to tickle us the terrain and the cities look Incredible, though . . .

They may be composed shots, but they are taken in game (rather than in the Unity Editor), and we always take care to modify the terrain as little as possible to get a good image composition, respect the rules of the world generator and city building, and try to create a city that makes sense within the rules of the game (though as those keep changing, old screenshots may become inaccurate.)

The only thing that looks a bit odd is all those floating piers in the middle of the sea, they don't seem very plausible and look like debris.

I'm pretty sure the middle tile has a fish resource, a resources extractor was built there, so the surrounding tiles are being worked on. I think that just leaving the fishing boats and adding the piers only next to the coast would make it look much better and still being obvious the tiles are being worked on.

The visuals for exploited water tiles are decidedly work in progress and are still under improvement.

We already know that they have distinctive City Center graphics. Enlarging that to distinctive graphics for each Quarter seems like a lot of work for the return, but I could see 'generic' Production and Population/Food (Neighborhoods?) Quarters by Era or part of the world (I mean, how many different versions of a thatched hut or flat-roofed adobe/mud-brick hut are there at this scale?), with distinctive Religious/Temple structures or Quarters.

Yes, the other Quarters receive more shared appearance, rather than each culture having a distinct style, though I am sure our artists would love to add at least a little variety for each culture.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The visuals for exploited water tiles are decidedly work in progress and are still under improvement.

I THOUGHT those Fishing Boats looked like they had construction scaffolding around them - fish and boats both still under construction . . .

 

[Zaarin]

Eh, first civ I am slightly disappointed with. I really don't see the need to make both Phoenicia and Carthage. Both were very culturally similar, their existence was entirely contained within first millenium BC and overlapped (Carthage even sent traditonal symbolic tribute to its mother Tyre), their city list should be identical except Lebanon, and worst of all they are identical to Civ series Carthage.

Define "existence." Punic was spoken at least as late as the 5th century AD (per Augustine) and in all probability until the Islamic conquest; the situation is less clear with Phoenician but it certainly long outlasted the onslaught of Aramaic primacy that took down Hebrew and other local Semitic languages--off the top of my head the last Phoenician inscription in Lebanon is second century AD. Tyre and Sidon are still important cities in the region. Say what you want about nationalism, but many Lebanese think of themselves as Phoenicians. It seems to me that both Carthage and Phoenicia are excellent examples of Humankind's "cultural legacy" concept. (That being said, I would happily have traded Phoenicia for Israel--though at the time Phoenicia was clearly the more important of the two; Israel just had the greater legacy.)

 

[mitsho]

Israel cannot be an ancient era culture! (as the name is reserved for the modern culture, you can call the ancient culture Hebrews )

Just want to say I agree with your post wholeheartedly, @Zaarin.

 

[Zaarin]

Israel cannot be an ancient era culture! (as the name is reserved for the modern culture, you can call the ancient culture Hebrews )

The Kingdom of Israel had its peak in the Iron Age (pre-Classical, therefore Ancient), and its inhabitants as well as those of its southern neighbor Judah called themselves bnay Yisraʾel, "sons of Israel." I don't see a major difference between calling them Israelite or calling them Hebrew, and I'd be fine with either.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: This is the Carthaginian thread, not the Israel thread. Please stay on topic and do not derail this thread.

 

[bite]

It is a problem constantly on the mind of our writers, trust me.

That sounds like a fun challenge