Humankind Game by Amplitude

[Siptah]

... and don‘t forget the missing Screenshots Analysis Thread

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

... and don‘t forget the missing Screenshots Analysis Thread

Getting that started right would first require culling through all 78 pages of this Thread. Any volunteers?

 

[Matthias Corvinus]

Getting that started right would first require culling through all 78 pages of this Thread. Any volunteers?

There already is a known info thread

 

[Krajzen]

There already is a known info thread

It is also newly created, still poor and rudimentary

 

[WillowBrook]

There already is a known info thread

Which would be appropriate for posting obvious things gleaned from screenshots, but not the wild speculation (or even mild speculation) that regularly occurs in screenshot analysis threads.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

That's why I mentioned the (irrealistic) excess of tundra in civ maps, a couple of pages back.

This is how a map should look to keep the actual proportions of area from the equator to the poles:

https://geoawesomeness.com/after-this-video-youll-never-trust-a-map-again/

But then there's the wrapping problems as somenone mentioned, so I guess we better get used to Mercator's projections.

Using a non-Mercator map, most civs would be squashed in the first top third of the map, as you say, only if you're assuming a True-Earth Map and True Starting Locations. But that's not the reason why such a map never made it into Civ. The reason is just technical, and has to do with the problem of projecting a spherical, continual surface into a 2D area that can be "wrapped". And using this exact map and packing most of the civs into a limited, fertile land, while most part of the planet would be ocean and inhospitable jungle and desert, would create a scenario where the civs would actively compete for the best regions, which, I believe, is exactly what you like.

Anyway, we are talking about civ - we don't know how the game mechanics of Humankind will be affected by the map. So, we'll just have to wait and see,

Bold part added for emphasis. The example map you posted actually nicely demonstartes the issue: Any map that is rectangular and thus "wrappable" for our purposes will ahve severe distortions. See for example the deformation indicatrices on for the Gall-Peters projection you showed:

Spoiler Map Image :

You can see that they are heavily squashed in north-south direction near the poles, and stretched near the equator, so this map would have an excess of equatorial distancecompared to temperate and sub-polar regions. It may preserve areas, but it most certainly does not preserve distances, and nobody likes walking through desert for 10 turns. In the end, something always has to give when going from a spherical surface to a flat map.

The gist of all this is: We don't design a globe and then flatten it, we are trying to design a flat map that will be interesting to play on but feels plausible.

Look closely at the city walls: while they are still 'curtain' walls (European style) instead of the correct Rammed Earth, the towers on the walls have a Chinese-style superstructure and roof.
So, assuming everybody gets to build city walls in Classical/Medieval Eras, does that mean that even 'ordinary' city structures are graphically specific to regions or Factions?
Wow.

I guess proper rammed earth walls would indeed be much wider than these, and this may have been an artistic conceit to keep the walls from occupying too much space on the tile borders. We do have variation of wall styles along with the variation of the "ordinary" city structures, though admittedly there will likely not be 60 distinct styles. However, you can already see some of this comparing the screenshots of Assyrian or Babylonian cities to the one of the Zhou city and the one of the Greek city.

Can we really expect each civ to have its own city centre graphics?

Yes.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

. . . I guess proper rammed earth walls would indeed be much wider than these, and this may have been an artistic conceit to keep the walls from occupying too much space on the tile borders. We do have variation of wall styles along with the variation of the "ordinary" city structures, though admittedly there will likely not be 60 distinct styles. However, you can already see some of this comparing the screenshots of Assyrian or Babylonian cities to the one of the Zhou city and the one of the Greek city.

No apologies necessary. If I hadn't happened to find a thesis on Rammed Earth Architecture from the University of Calgary last year on an obscure academic site I wouldn't know anything about rammed earth walls either, and the 'pagoda-like' towers are graphic enough to proclaim "Eastern Asia" on the map.

Differentiation of city graphics by Civ instead of Era is Stunning all by itself.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Tomorrow, video dev diary #2 or first classical culture?

 

[Siptah]

Tomorrow, video dev diary #2 or first classical culture?

Classical culture tomorrow, dev diary on Friday

 

[ehecatzin]

fingers crossed for Mayans!

 

[Siptah]

fingers crossed for Mayans!

They are revealed alphabetically...

 

[WillowBrook]

They are revealed alphabetically...

So Celts? Or is there a possible earlier one?

 

[pokiehl]

So Celts? Or is there a possible earlier one?

I think some are expecting "Achaemenids" but I'm pretty sure based on posting from Cat O' Nine Tails that they're called "Persians."

IMO Persian is the better choice anyway.

 

[jddods]

The problem with using Persia is that it can apply to other Iranian dynasties.

 

[Matthias Corvinus]

So Celts? Or is there a possible earlier one?

Georgians! As in, Tamar from Georgia!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The problem with using Persia is that it can apply to other Iranian dynasties.

Since Humankind is using a One Faction/Era mechanism, though, in the Classical Era a "Persian" Dynasty could be Achaemenid or Sassanian, or even Parthian, which technically wasn't a Persian ruling house but covered virtually the same territory.

- And I confess I'm getting a little tired of the Civ-Standard Achaemenids, who have been the only In-Game Persians for too many games. I'm really hoping for some Persian goodness from the Sassanids, who after all fought Rome to a standstill, and/or maybe the later Safavids or Afshars.
They could have an interesting 'progression' of:
Classical: Sassanids:
Renaissance: Safavids:
Industrial: Afsharis:
Modern: Pahlevis or Islamic Republic

That's probably "too many Persians" for the Base Game, given that similar progressions could be put together for too many more popular Factions like Germany, England, France, Russia, China, India, Meso-America - even with 60 Factions, once you start making up Progressive versions of the best known historical Factions, you run through most of the 60 'slots' very quickly . . .

 

[ehecatzin]

That's probably "too many Persians" for the Base Game, given that similar progressions could be put together for too many more popular Factions like Germany, England, France, Russia, China, India, Meso-America - even with 60 Factions, once you start making up Progressive versions of the best known historical Factions, you run through most of the 60 'slots' very quickly . . .

I find myself looking at the same problem with mesoamericans, the framework opens itself so easily to wanting every iteration of a culture for every Era. But I would love to see more interations of Persian, Indian and Chinese culture, they always get reduced on civ.

 

[Matthias Corvinus]

I find myself looking at the same problem with mesoamericans, the framework opens itself so easily to wanting every iteration of a culture for every Era. But I would love to see more interations of Persian, Indian and Chinese culture, they always get reduced on civ.

The Olmec, Maya, and Aztec weren’t direct descendants of eachother like the Zoroastrian Persian dynasties, so i don’t think there would be too much of a problem with overlap

 

[ehecatzin]

The Olmec, Maya, and Aztec weren’t direct descendants of eachother like the Zoroastrian Persian dynasties, so i don’t think there would be too much of a problem with overlap

oh but you see...there's a part of me that would love to split the Mayans into at least 2, a classical Mayan and a medieval one with the Mayapan league.

 

[Siptah]

So Celts? Or is there a possible earlier one?

There are also Aksum and Armenia, both at least possible candidates, that would come before the Celts. And in case the Greek culture is called Athens...