Humankind - English discussion thread

[mitsho]

Eh, I don't think it's any odder than anachronistically and confusingly calling them Germans. There's a reason the Order of Saint Mary are called Teutonic Knights. The name fits in a medieval context just as neatly as Franks do.

Just for clarification, I was talking of the German view. Teutonic and German is Teutonic and Deutsch in German. Get it? It's the same kind of trickery we have with Franks and French. They are essentially the same terms, only slight linguistic changes. And I don't think the Teutons will represent the Teutonic Order, but the German Culture that makes up the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation. They're the same culture, but the basis for the emblematic units are slightly different.

 

[ehecatzin]

Why would that be? The territory of Carthage did not overlap with the Huns or Goths as far as I’m aware? The English and Anglo-Saxons however would.

Oh I meant by time not geography my point is that classical in game covers too much and leads to cultures that seem to far removed. just as an example, I guess my ideal scenario would be, a classical era where you build up as Rome, and then on late classical you can get the cultures that brought it down (and you could trascend as Rome, for an era, then evolve into Byzantium), It's odd to start classical as Rome and get the Huns at the exact same time. It would at least open more slots for classical civs, and some more for other cultural bridges for medieval cultures.

Macedon, Sassanids, Anglo-Saxons, Etruscans, etc.

 

[Guandao]

Welp Tenochtitlan is one fire right now, either they jumped to M for Mexica, got the Celtic order or....Aztecs until early M?

And..surprise England is agrarian! I'm glad they retain a bit of norman flavour

They still haven't revealed the first Medieval faction that they skipped to finish up the artwork. I'm betting it is the Aztecs.

Well, that solves the riddle of that culture card!

Agrarian and the stronghold are a surprise to me. I would have guessed something like an abbey.
I hope the stronghold is not just a defensive quarter, but has some economic bonus as well.

Notice that they changed the guy's "Burger King crown" for the final artwork.
I guessed England in the Medieval era with Agrarian correctly in the other thread!

Perhaps the Franks will be revealed next week, or maybe the Aztecs (if they finished the artwork by then).

 

[ehecatzin]

Yeah It's most likely Aztecs, I'm just being melodramatic, hopefully you are right and they get revealed soon, tho it could be they get revealed last like with the Celts.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Might as well echo the statements that I think that the English would have been better suited for the Early Modern Era as well.
I don't see the Anglo-Saxons showing up in the game at all now even in a DLC.

Honestly Classical and Medieval are so crowded I wish they had a late classical era, or an early medieval one in game.

I'd split the Medieval into Early and High/Late.

 

[j51]

Post-Classical: Byzantines, Chola, Franks, Goths, Huns, Sassanian, Silla, Tang, Tiwanaku, Umayyad. It also frees up two slots in the Classical (Han, Nazca or Zapotec) and three in the Middle eras (Abbasids, Majapahit, both Inca and Aztecs).

 

[Zaarin]

I don't see the Anglo-Saxons showing up in the game at all now even in a DLC.

Agreed. If it had been me, I would have gone for Agrarian Anglo-Saxons in the Middle Ages (change the EQ to a Mead Hall, some kind of warrior for EU), possibly as DLC, and Aesthete English for Early Modern (Elizabethan Renaissance and all that).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

So we get a Medieval "England" with an Emblematic Unit derived from the Welsh and an Emblematic Quarter imposed on them by the Norman Conquerors. Doesn't exactly scream 'There'll Always Be An England' to me, but then my family were German miscreants that escaped to the Americas one jump ahead of the local lawmen in Bavaria and Austria . . .

On the other hand, this is the one certain Non-Naval England: Anglo-Saxon Alfred built up an efficient little fleet, but Norman England was strictly Terra Firma inclined, and the More Firmer the less Terror for them - Willie and his invaders couldn't wait to get out of their ships and on their horses. It wasn't until they had something to sell (wool) and so built up seaborne trade that the English developed the mass of experienced sailors and sea captains that enabled the Renaissance Navy and the start of their technological lead in warships (efficient naval gun carriages, gun ports, the race-built galleon hull, the carronade, iron-reinforced large warship hulls, etc., etc.)

If you want a 'first date' for English Naval Bonus it would be the launch of the first of the 'Great Ships', the Grace Dieu, a 1600 ton carrack, in 1418 CE, right at the very end of the Medieval Era, one of the first cannon-carrying warships (although most of its fighting power was in two huge raised 'castles' fore and aft and a mass of longbowmen firing from them)

 

[FinalDoomsday]

Okay so that culture card was for the English, notice they removed the crown though. I like the look of the culture but the culture card seems a bit naff? It all looks nice and medieval and you got some food in there which is a nod to the agrarian trait but nothing there that makes it look English to me this could be any medieval European banquet from what I can see!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Matter of taste. For me, they would be "wasted" in the early modern era, because there are other colonizer options that I prefer in that era. Spain is a better pick for an expansionist colonizer (the original empire on which the sun never sets, before the British stole the phrase some centuries later), Portugal a better pick for an explorer, and the Dutch a better pick for a colonial merchant culture. Where would that leave the British? A colonial militarist cuture? A science cultures above Florence?

English (Aesthete) Anglican Church/English Renaissance
Emblematic Unit: Sea Dog (Privateer) Same as Civ? Any type of Naval Unit would do.
Emblematic Quarter: Elizabethan Theater

 

[Krajzen]

Agrarian English is unorthodox, but fun idea Not always "great navy wow much water" stereotype. So I guess Khmer are not agrarian but builder? Makes sense.

well the Huns and Goths already feel a bit displaced alongside Carthage for example. Humankind could really use an era between classical and medieval.

Maybe like this:

Classical Era (800BC - 200 AD)
So here fit Etruscans, Carthage, Celts, Rome, Greece, Scythia, Armenia, Judea, Persia, Kush, Saba, Maurya, Han Dynasty, Axum, Parthia, Phoenicia, Funan etc (also still - Babylon and Assyria)

Migration Era (Dark Ages? Transition?) 200 AD - 800 AD
So here fits Christian Rome, Byzantium, Sasanid Persia, Christian Armenia, Huns, Goths (Visigoths, Ostrogoths), Franks, Bulgars, Picts, Ireland, Anglo-Saxons, Lombarda, Avars, Axum, Sarmatians, Kushans, Gupta, Tang Dynasty, Silla Korea, Chenla, Arabs, Umayyad Caliphate, Tibet etc

Feudal Era 800 AD - 1400 AD
So here belongs Charlemagne's empire (however you name it), Scotland, Castille, Leon, Aragon, Portugal, France, Flanders, England, "Vikings", Normans, HRE, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, Bułgaria, Serbia, Kievan Rus, still Byzantium, "Moors", Georgia, Abbasids, Samanid Persia, Seljuks, Mongols, Song Dynasty, Goryeo, Khmer, Pagan, Mali, Swahilli, Vietnam; Japan only really should count from here...
...keep on mind I am not dissecting Americas, India and Africa here...

And next eras are
Exploration (1400 - 1700) with Spain, Portugal, Dutch, Austria, Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, Ottomans, Morocco, Safavid Persia, Songhai, Kongo, Mughals, Muscovy, Ming, Joseon, Siam, Burma, still Japan and France among others...

Industrial (1700 - 1900)
Modern (1900 - 2030) I'm sorry but these two are just too radically different to mash them in one


You know what, I am surprised how well "one more era between medieval and classical" ends up feeling! There really is a different feel to late antiquity (last three centuries of Rome) than to Classical era, or to very early medieval ("dark ages") than to proper high medieval (since around 10th century).

The main problem here is, then HK team would need 70 civs instead of 60 on release

Personally I'd be really fine if they went with "oh and by the way this expansion patch also splits these two eras into three and reasigns some civs" but I don't think thats going to happen.

 

[Jcturmer]

The English may appear in the Early Modern Era as "Pirates" or "buccaneers", in a DLC.

 

[Gwydden]

Just for clarification, I was talking of the German view. Teutonic and German is Teutonic and Deutsch in German. Get it? It's the same kind of trickery we have with Franks and French. They are essentially the same terms, only slight linguistic changes. And I don't think the Teutons will represent the Teutonic Order, but the German Culture that makes up the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation. They're the same culture, but the basis for the emblematic units are slightly different.

My point was that the Teutonic Knights are called that way because they are Teutons. As I said in another thread, "Germans" is a terrible ethnonym even today, more so in the Middle Ages. In the medieval period, the Latin term for Germany was regnum Teutonicorum or regnum Alamanie. "Teuton" also approximates the native "Deutsch" better than any English term other than "Dutch", which Anglophones have also found a way to complicate. I have a lot of pet peeves with AoE2's naming scheme (""Britons""), but "Teutons" was perfect.

 

[Zaarin]

The English may appear in the Early Modern Era as "Pirates" or "buccaneers", in a DLC.

...What? The English hired pirates as privateers, just like everybody did, but calling the civilization "Pirates" is an enormous stretch.

My point was that the Teutonic Knights are called that way because they are Teutons. As I said in another thread, "Germans" is a terrible ethnonym even today, more so in the Middle Ages. In the medieval period, the Latin term for Germany was regnum Teutonicorum or regnum Alamanie. "Teuton" also approximates the native "Deutsch" better than any English term other than "Dutch", which Anglophones have also found a way to complicate. I have a lot of pet peeves with AoE2's naming scheme (""Britons""), but "Teutons" was perfect.

There's "thede," a dialectal word descending from þéod, the English cognate of teuton.

 

[ehecatzin]

You know what, I am surprised how well "one more era between medieval and classical" ends up feeling! There really is a different feel to late antiquity (last three centuries of Rome) than to Classical era, or to very early medieval ("dark ages") than to proper high medieval (since around 10th century).

The main problem here is, then HK team would need 70 civs instead of 60 on release

Personally I'd be really fine if they went with "oh and by the way this expansion patch also splits these two eras into three and reasigns some civs" but I don't think thats going to happen.

So many good options come up once you add an era between classical and medieval. I really hope Amplitude has at least considered adding an extra era as expansion material, I can see how they would want to keep it maneagable for release.

 

[Jcturmer]

...What? The English hired pirates as privateers, just like everybody did, but calling the civilization "Pirates" is an enormous stretch.

I mean, just a representation of the naval power and the sea dogs of the elizabethan period.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

I almost wish they'd gone with ten eras with six (highly differentiated) cultures each. I'm thinking:

1. Bronze Age: >3,000 - 1177 BC (end of the Stone Age to the coming of the "sea people)
2. Iron Age: 1177 - 509 BC (the coming of the "sea people to the foundation of the Roman Republic)
3. Classical Antiquity: 509 BC - 410 AD (the foundation of the Roman Republic to the sack of Rome by Alaric and the withdraw of troops from Britain)
4. Dark Age: 410 - 1066 (the foundation of the Roman Republic to the crowning of Constantine or Battle of Hastings, shortly after Great Schism and shortly before First Crusade)
5. Medieval Era: 1066 - 1492 (Battle of Hastings to the discovery of America, shortly before the Reformation)
6. Age of Exploration: 1492 - 1754 (Discovery of America to the start of the French and Indian War)
7. Enlightenment: 1754 - 1799 (the start of the French and Indian War to end of the French Revolution)
8. Industrial Revolution: 1800 - 1865 (end of the French Revolution to the end of the Civil War)
9. Modern Era: 1866 - 1939 (Civil War to the outbreak of World War II)
10. Atomic Era: 1939 and Beyond

I'd then maybe want the first expansion to expand the latter eras...

8. 1st Industrial Revolution: 1800 - 1865 (end of the French Revolution to the end of the Civil War)
9. 2nd Industrial Revolution: 1866 - 1914 (Civil War to the outbreak of World War I)
10. Modern Era: 1914 - 1939 (World War I to the start of World War II)
11. Atomic Era: 1939 - 1991 (World War II to the end of the Cold War)
12. Future Era: 1991 and Beyond

 

[Krajzen]

I'm sorry but way too many miniscule eras in later centuries.
1) Remember, you want to fill each era with techs, buildings, units, wonders, balance, flavour etc
2) Those eras are extremely specific, tied to specific events on real life timeline (dominated by Western culture). "World war era" and "cold war era" make no sense in radically different alternate history universe where those things simply never happened. It is also perfectly possible for mankind to split atom but don't invent a tank or a plane for next 50 years, or for warfare to move from 19th century battles to "nuclear-paranoia-induced-peace" without gigantic world wars happening in the meantime (I mean, WWI happened three decades before technical possibility of an atomic bomb, so with slightly different geopolitics and some luck we could split atom without two world wars in the meantime, "just" local wars like in the period 1870-1914). World war I wouldn't happen if the assassin of archduke after the first failed attempt did anything other than going for a sandwich in a cafe which just happened to lie on the path of archduke's modified route. History is a mountain of arbitrary butterfly effects.

My point is, eras should represent very general and universal stages of development of civilization, not be tied to real life timeline of arbitrary political events.
For example, the difference between industrial and modern era being summed up as
"From era of steam to era of electricity"
"From era of carbon to era of atom"
"From exploration of seas to exploration of skies"
rather than the difference being precise measure of IRL political events which have no significance at all in the fictional game session where you may have not a single European culture, for example.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Agrarian English is unorthodox, but fun idea Not always "great navy wow much water" stereotype. So I guess Khmer are not agrarian but builder? Makes sense.

We've seen the same traits before in the same era but yes I could see the Khmer being builder as well.

I mean, just a representation of the naval power and the sea dogs of the elizabethan period.

I don't see how it would correlate to England. The English fought against the "Pirate" republics in the Caribbean and the corsairs in the Mediterranean.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

...What? The English hired pirates as privateers, just like everybody did, but calling the civilization "Pirates" is an enormous stretch.

- Unless you're Phillip II of Spain and his minions . . .