Humankind - Ming discussion thread

[Eagle Pursuit]

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1290694367112572928?s=19

Emblematic unit: Rocket Cart
Emblematic Quarter: Grand Teahouse

Affinity: Aesthete

 

[Siptah]

I‘m surprised by the Teahouse and I would have expected builders. Nice touch though. Curious how the rocket cart plays out in the tactical battles - really anticav?

 

[mitsho]

Ming vases is quite stereotypical, so aesthete doesn't surprise me...

I'm actually a bit disappointed since that qas expected. I want something to surprise me on a tuesday evening. Ah, well maybe next week. ;-)

 

[ZarduStar]

Interesting! So to compensate for having zero Aesthete cultures in the Medieval Era, we now have two in the Early Modern Era.

While I could predict the Japanese being Aesthete, I thought Ming would be either Builder or Merchant.

 

[Guandao]

I was predicting either Aesthete or Merchant for the Ming. I saw that artwork before this reveal and was confused by the style of the clothing for the official/or emperor? I'm not sure the thing on his head is appropriate for the Ming Dynasty. If that man is supposed to represent the Emperor, I would have expected him to wear yellow. The only detail that really tells me it's the Ming is the Great Wall.

A Merchant Ming would have been cool, with the artwork showing Zheng He's treasure ship....

I guess the last Chinese culture for Humankind vanilla is the PRC.....They will probably just be called Chinese.

I'm hoping for DLCs to add more Chinese dynasties (Qin/or Han, Tang/or Song, Qing).

 

[notNamed]

Does anyone know what building the Grand Teahouse is based on?
We've seen the building since the very first video but I've always assumed that it was Japanese, given the presence of torii gates and the overall look of the thing.
And now that we have a shot from closer in and at a lower angle, it stopped looking obviously Japanese, but it still lacks any details that would scream Ming period to me. No obvious stone walls, no high angles on roof edges, no intricate and much more city-like wooden walls on buildings. Any thoughts on this?


@Guandao
The guy is wearing this outfit from 衛子夫 (Han Dynasty):

 

[Krajzen]

Not gonna lie, I am disappointed by Ming being Aestethe.
- Chinese are Aestethe twice in a row
- Perfect culture for Builder
- second East Asian aestethe culture in the same era

This one choice is bizarre for me. I'd make them builder, and give aestethe to some medieval culture. A little bit of perfectionism regarding such things as "do Africans get the same affinity three times in a row" or "is every affinity in this era covered?" would be nice.
Especially annoying as Chinese may at some point of the game have 6 incarnations (they have perfectly fitting setup of dynasties) so each of them could have a different affinity...

 

[Narcisse]

(we need our aesthete Franks now )

yes, Builder was expected for me too ... But they looks really great anyway. The artwork, EU and EQ are really clean and solid choices.

In term of gameplay I'm really dubious, I think than a lot of players will try to make culture line / culture chain with cultures related between them (historical accuracy, region, proximity, ...)
It's a little redundant to start with Zhou aesthete, and being later aesthete Ming or aesthete Edo Japenese. It don't help to diversify the runs.
I think than it would be cool to just have a different affinity between Ming and Edo. Hopefully Joseon are here, they will be my first choice.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It's especially disappointing in that, if the Fame Victory Condition is obtained by doing multiple things (they've already indicated that there are 7 'areas' in which to gain Fame, but you can, apparently, only get 3 'Fame Points' from each and you need 7 to advance, so you will have to emphasize at least 3 'areas' to compete in the game) having a string of 'aesthete' (or any other type) Factions means you lock in 3 Fame points and struggle to get any others (no 'Legacies' in any other area).

That's just my first take: the bonuses from the Teahouse or other Emblematic Quarters in the Factions or interaction between othefr Quarters, Buildings and Emblematics might compensate for having a 'one egg basket' trying to play a Chinese-East Asian string of Factions.

 

[BuchiTaton]

The Chinese line that could have been:

Zhou (Agrarian) > Han (Merchant) > Tang/Song (Scientist) > Ming (Aesthete) > Qing (Expansionist) > PRC (Builder)

I mean, it is not as easy as this? A full chinese game each one with their obvious different focus.

 

[Narcisse]

Put a "same" culture in all era is not a good way to envisage this game I think. Whatever the importance of the culture it close a lot of slots for other cultures and made the transcendence system useless.
We can just envisage to have Han in dlc because they are highly demanded by poeple. In a asiatic pack, with other culture different of chinese history.

So you trenscend Han > Ming > trenscend Ming > PRC

 

[BuchiTaton]

Put a "same" culture in all era is not a good way to envisage this game I think. Whatever the importance of the culture it close a lot of slots for other cultures and made the transcendence system useless.
We can just envisage to have Han in dlc because they are highly demanded by poeple. In a asiatic pack, with some other culture.

I dont mean on the base game, but on the long run.

For example Ancient era is the birth of civilizations, Zhou like most of the ancient cultures have a strong agricultural element on them, so is justified to have a couple of Agrarian cultures on base game. At the same time China like India (Harappans) are the two more populated countries of the world that have their roots on their ancient agricultural origins, so a "well know" element of their history could be covered this way.

Have two Aesthete chinese cultures have nothing bad on it, but the lost alternative is obvious.

Is like the lack of East Asian and Aesthete culture on Medieval Era, if they did an Aesthete+Samurai Japan why not put this on Medieval, it work the same way, the Heian Japan also have Samurai and culture, for example the literature of court ladies like Murasaki Shikibu.
Instead of two Aesthete East Asia cultures on Early Modern and neither of those things on Medieval we could have one of both on each era, and seems like they dont have problem with that after see the Sub-Saharan line of Merchant cultures (something that could be different also).

 

[Narcisse]

Yes, by the way, Aesthete is a good and logical choice for Ming, I was just expected a different affinity than Edo and Zhou.
Samurai word was not really used like we are used to before Edo. Heian could be a good addition for medieval, later in dlc, but maybe with a boat EU to fit with the merchant affinity ?

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

Three Oriental cultures in the early modern era and two of them Aesthetes? I'm certainly surprised. I definitely don't think anyone could possibly accuse the game of "eurocentrism" given so much Oriental representation. I'll try all three out eventually, but between the Edo, Joseon, and Ming, I'm probably going to play as Edo first and name one of my Naginata Samurai (if we can name units) "Jin Sakai, the Ghost of Tsushima."

The Chinese line that could have been:

Zhou (Agrarian) > Han (Merchant) > Tang/Song (Scientist) > Ming (Aesthete) > Qing (Expansionist) > PRC (Builder)

I mean, it is not as easy as this? A full chinese game each one with their obvious different focus.

I would want a "People's Republic" of China if and only if we have a Nazi Germany. I want Amplitude to be consistent with its inclusion or rejection of the villainous cultures of recent history. If they want to include a contemporary Chinese culture that isn't engaging in totalitarianism and human rights atrocities, I'd much prefer the Republic of China (even if it's called Taiwan).

 

[Guandao]

@Guandao
The guy is wearing this outfit from 衛子夫 (Han Dynasty):
[/QUOTE]

Oh no....either the artist made a research error, or this artwork was intended for a scrapped Han faction.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

I would want a "People's Republic" of China if and only if we have a Nazi Germany. I want Amplitude to be consistent with its inclusion or rejection of the villainous cultures of recent history. If they want to include a contemporary Chinese culture that isn't engaging in totalitarianism and human rights atrocities, I'd much prefer the Republic of China (even if it's called Taiwan).

Nazi Germany lasted 12 years the PRC is over 70 years old and still going if you want to avoid the name 'PRC' they can always just call it China and use it to represent the Chinese culture since the last imperial dynasty ended in 1912 onward.

 

[Krajzen]

I would want a "People's Republic" of China if and only if we have a Nazi Germany. I want Amplitude to be consistent with its inclusion or rejection of the villainous cultures of recent history. If they want to include a contemporary Chinese culture that isn't engaging in totalitarianism and human rights atrocities, I'd much prefer the Republic of China (even if it's called Taiwan).

There are different stages of breaking human rights, not immediate jump to Hitler, and your standards would make it impossible to add any modern state to the game. China had Mao, Tiananmen and Uyghurs, Pakistan genocided Bangladesh, Japan did ww2 (and is not apologising to this day!), South Korea was human rights breaking dictatorship until 1980s, Thailand is authoritarian, Indonesia did like three separate genocides, Vietnam did massive purges, Iran hangs gays, Turkey does genocide denial, Russia was terrible for an entire century, Germany did ww2, UK did Bengal famines, France did Algerian civil war, Israel did Palestine, and US killed hundreds of thousands of people in its right wing pro - dictatorship coups during cold war. So what, are we supposed to not have any modern cultures? Even Canada and Sweden (paragons of human rights) sterilized and persecuted Indians/Sapmi until like 1970s. Brazil killed a lot of indigenius people, Nigeria had Biafra war, Saudi Arabia is terrible in general, Spain had Franco, South Africa had apartheid... Almost every modern powerhouse did some crimes against humanity in 20th century, often in 21st as well (say hello to US civilian killings in Iraq and Afghanistan). Let's just ban them all.

But more importantly. The game says cultures, not governments, and I think China in the modern age will be simply "Chinese" - particularly because "peoples republic" or any such exact terms would Clash with the freedom to take government forms. So we'll have Chinese, probably with PRC undercurrents running through it, which is natural due to its sheer size.

Such games and an entire genre always "focus on positives" anyway, and try to depict positive side of history and specific factions and things, it's not like we have a game full of (near universal IRL) war rape and slavery with one faction being whitewashed. Everybody is whitewashed, civ5 and civ6 even do have ww2 era military units for Germany.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

First and foremost, let me preface my comment with the disclaimer that I don't believe ethical consumption is possible or worth pursuing whatsoever; it's a quixotic fool's errand. Even if Amplitude were to include modern China as the "People's Republic" and sycophantically present even their worst atrocities in the most glowing light possible, the game still looks sufficiently enjoyable that I'll be purchasing it regardless. That said...

Let's not equate all maladministration by governments as equally injurious. Yes, it was wrong that America had internment camps for Japanese Americans during the Second World War. But it was nowhere near as abjectly evil as the German concentration camps. That even the most free and just governments sometimes do heinous acts does not put them on the same moral footing as authoritarians, despots, and totalitarians, and tyrants. China's censorship, suppression of free speech, global disinformation campaigns, piratical intellectual property theft, maritime aggression, religious persecution, and (to call a spade a spade) genocide of the Uyghurs places them not on the same moral standing of contemporary countries, but rather in a league with the Nazis and other unequivocally evil empires. To draw a distinction between "acceptable" cultures like America and "unacceptable" cultures like Nazi Germany, and then to not lump communist China in with the latter, is to buy into and amplify the propaganda of the Party.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

From the standpoint of a historian, and a military historian to boot, I just have to add two things:
1. NO historical or contemporary culture or polity is 'acceptable' to everyone. No exceptions.
2. Judging historical cultures or polities by contemporary standards is a Fool's Game. For one thing, it begs the question of how people 100 years from now will judge our own 'moral' selves. I guarantee you our beliefs and conduct will be considered 'unacceptible' in some way.

So, IMHO the proper game design is to allow the player to reproduce the morally questionable in history, because it is always there: raze cities, have slavery, suppress the natives, establish dictatorial, totalitarian, Divine Right kings, tyrants of all sorts.
BUT
In the game also inflict the negative results from those actions on the gamer. Slavery seems to give cheap labor - but you need to have a massive 'security apparatus' to keep slaves from revolting, and ordinary labor may be so 'degraded' that your own people won't do it at all without equally severe compulsions. Divine Right kings work fine, sort of, until you get a complete nutter on the throne and discover that there is no way to get rid of him short of Deicide and, frequently, accompanying Civil War and Revolution.
In short, there's always a Downside, and the game has to show that as well as the 'benefits' of nefarious behavior. Properly designed, the game will allow the gamer to build a Nazi slave-holding genocidal euthenastic megalomaniac conqueroring state - and like the Third Reich, it will be completely and utterly obliterated in 12 years

 

[pineappledan]

Three Oriental cultures in the early modern era and two of them Aesthetes? I'm certainly surprised. I definitely don't think anyone could possibly accuse the game of "eurocentrism" given so much Oriental representation.

With 4 eras now mostly revealed, perhaps it is time for me to eat my hat. It’s fairly clear there is a very deliberate focus on singular historic events in each era:

• Ancient - Bronze Age Collapse
• Classical - Rise and Fall of Rome
• Medieval - high medieval Europe
• Early Modern - Imjin War

This focus on ‘scenarios’ certainly wouldn’t be how I would do it, but I’m beginning to see more of the sense in it at least.

I would want a "People's Republic" of China if and only if we have a Nazi Germany. I want Amplitude to be consistent with its inclusion or rejection of the villainous cultures of recent history. If they want to include a contemporary Chinese culture that isn't engaging in totalitarianism and human rights atrocities, I'd much prefer the Republic of China (even if it's called Taiwan).

fair ‘nuff. You straight-up wouldn’t be able to sell the game in Germany if you did that, so it’s not going to happen, but the sentiment is certainly reasonable.