Humankind - French discussion thread

I love how the culture card evokes Jules Verne.

I was skeptical of the Exhibition Hall as an EQ for the French, since in my mind I thought the London Exhibition at Crystal Palace. But when I read about the history of exhibitions even more, I find it an apt EQ that goes well with the Scientist affinity.

Exhibitions as we know them today evolved from medieval faires. They start to appear during the French Revolutionary period as a way of attracting people to the new political order by showcasing products of science, industry and reason. As time went on they became bigger and more popular outside of France.
 
Great art design, Scientist is also an interesting choice (which makes me wonder who will get the Merchant trait).

Although the second I saw the art and the "Exhibition Hall" I immediately thought of the Crystal Palace and Great Exhibition instead of Galerie des Machines.
 
Finally, industrial France was not cliched. Industrial France gave the world a huge number of scientists and serious technologies. Therefore, to reduce industrial France for the hundredth time to the Louvre, boring and primitive.
 
Pleasantly surprised by the scientist affinity. Superb culture card (could have used a little more French iconography though, nay? I do see the tricolour flying in the background!), great pick for EQ, and cool EU. Although I wouldn't have minded seeing something like the Guard Horse Grenadiers as the French EU. Having grenadiers in the game at all would be nice, however I could definitely see the unique unit animations getting in the way (like it did for the Tercio and Atlatl Thrower). Hopefully Ethiopia will be added in the future.
 
This is nice! I wonder why I didn't expect them to be Scientist in the first place. I'm guessing this is probably the lone Scientist faction for this era.
 
Having a horse based emblematic unit in the industrial era does point to me that the modern era will be heavily WW2 - and thus a good place to put Ethiopia and the possibility to add a "contemporary" era afterwards. :)

Seems like they focus every European Nation a bit this time: Austrians get the aesthetic orientation, so the French can't have salons, the British get focused on their Empire, while the French get everything regarding scientific discovery. You could easily and logically switch that around! But I like that they didn't choose to give everyone something of everything. After all, in gameplay terms, this is the beginning of the end where specialization should rule over "good-at-everything"-cultures. And since the Germans will be militarist, who now gets to be Builders? Sweden nor Russia don't quite feel right, no?

I do like that the culture cards so far emphasize the industrial aspect of the era - it's one that you rarely get to see in these strategy games and it really emphasizes the lockstep of history. But it does make me miss a truly medieval France - the Frankish culture card is just too much Early Middle Ages/Dark Age, or rather: too drab. We do need that additional era there after all. ;-)
 
Fantastic and atypical (for the genre) civ design for the French by focusing on their Scientific achievements. The industrial cultures are all impressive so far.
 
The Galerie des machines is giving me strong BioShock Infinite vibes. :D
 
What a pleasant surprise! Definitely did not expect Scientific French but everything looks great. Makes me wonder what will the Swedes get then; maybe this era we will get two Scientific cultures?
 
I'm surprised that no one has noted the major lasting legacy of the Exposition Universelle of 1889: the Eiffel Tower was built for it. Overall, a very fitting Emblematic of the scientific/engineering aspects of the Industrial French.

As someone already noted, it could be a good Emblematic for 'pulling' scientific resources from other Factions: just under half of the official exhibitors at the Exposition were foreign.

And the Cuirassiers were the premier French cavalry unit ever since the 1st Empire: Napoleon's Cuirassiers of the Garde Imperial were, after all, nicknamed "The Gods" by the rest of the French Army.

And a little note on the Cuirassiers: presumably Humankind will let us name units, and also presumably heavy cavalry will upgrade/promote/morph into 20th century tank/armored units. That makes the Cuirassier an even more Emblematic French Unit: the heavy tank regiments of the 20th century French Army were all Cuirassier Regiments with new equipment, and the 'armored divisions' of the French Army in 1940 were Cuirassier Divisions.
 
I am so happy to see scientific French.
- Thank God it is not obvious stereotype of Aestethe
- Finally European nation with this affinity
- I like French and I like scientist affinities in all strategy games ever :p
- Thank God someone finally gave scientific ability to French/German/British nation in a historical strategy game. For some reason nations which are among the greatest scientific powers ever - tend to get everything but this bonus. Especially civ series, where major European countries usually get either weak garbage or decent but thematically weird abilities.

Also, Thank God for fresh and fun unique things and graphics. My worst case France was Aestethe, image with Eiffel tower, musketeer unit and chateau building.
 
I am so happy to see scientific French.
- Thank God it is not obvious stereotype of Aestethe
- Finally European nation with this affinity
- I like French and I like scientist affinities in all strategy games ever :p
- Thank God someone finally gave scientific ability to French/German/British nation in a historical strategy game. For some reason nations which are among the greatest scientific powers ever - tend to get everything but this bonus. Especially civ series, where major European countries usually get either weak garbage or decent but thematically weird abilities.

Also, Thank God for fresh and fun unique things and graphics. My worst case France was Aestethe, image with Eiffel tower, musketeer unit and chateau building.

I've said it before, the problem with the Civ design of compressing a Civilization into a single 'snapshot' of 2 - 4 'Uniques' is that you invariably leave so much out. Humankind has the advantage of being much more focused in each Faction. Even so, Aesthete could be very easily justified for France in the late 19th century, but would simply be Incomplete - and, compared to 4X Historical 'snapshots' already done, Redundant.

But notice, as I already pointed out, the Exposition Universelle Emblematic District IRL included the Eiffel Tower, which was as much the physical symbol of the Exposition as the central gold dome on the main exposition building (one or the other or both appear in virtually every photograph of the Exposition). Humankind left it out of the graphics, but does anybody want to bet that Eiffels' Folly won't be an available Wonder for that Era?
 
I mean... at 3:28...

Easy Bet.
Normally I'd make a comment about stuff in pre-game trailers not necessarily showing up in the final Release, but a complete Wonder graphic of the definitive French Wonder by a French game company: who am I kidding, it's a confirmed as anything in the game!

Now I wonder if you get some kind of extra Bonus from building it adjacent to the French Emblematic Quarter?
 
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