Humankind- Zulus discussion thread

[Sostratus]

What is the upside of having castles/fort beyond just defense?

Also, do we have any conception of how useful “+50% health regeneration” (the rumored Zulu trait) compares to eg +3 strength to artillery? (Germany being the other militarist of the era.)
I have no idea how late game combat changes from the “stick em with the pointy end” of the early and mid game. (By the way, Halberdier units in the renaissance? HYPEEEE)

 

[Narcisse]

Forts are useful for spawning your units too, for exemple in a huge city on multiple territories.
Both traits looks good, the German one looks stronger ? but highly depend of how much artillery units we have.

 

[Elhoim]

What is the upside of having castles/fort beyond just defense?

As mentioned by Narcisse, it's great for spawning units in different parts of your territories. So if you are planning a war with a neighbor, you can plop a fort next to the territory to spawn your new units there (plus having an excellent defensible position). You can select where to spawn your units, so having several forts can be useful. Also, it's the first quarter you can place anywhere in your territory, so you can use it for placing quarters next to it and exploit the surrounding yields.

 

[8housesofelixir]

What is the upside of having castles/fort beyond just defense?

The EQ of Romans, Triumphal Arch, will give +5 influence and +10 ability per adjacent castle. Although a Triumphal Arch surrounded by nothing but castles will be very visually strange, I mean they were built within the city IRL.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The EQ of Romans, Triumphal Arch, will give +5 influence and +10 ability per adjacent castle. Although a Triumphal Arch surrounded by nothing but castles will be very visually strange, I mean they were built within the city IRL.

More than one Castle in any territory would be strange. Maybe edge cases where there are a couple of choke points on different borders. But all grouped together?

On the other hand, maybe Amplitude wants us to be able to replicate the Maginot Line?

 

[8housesofelixir]

On the other hand, maybe Amplitude wants us to be able to replicate the Maginot Line?

Some cultures in the future might have a modern fortification system as their EQ.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

More than one Castle in any territory would be strange. Maybe edge cases where there are a couple of choke points on different borders. But all grouped together?

On the other hand, maybe Amplitude wants us to be able to replicate the Maginot Line?

Concentrations of Castles depend on what the attributes of Castles are in the game. IRL, they tended to cluster like flocks of geese: in the 100 kilometer stretch of the Rhine River south of Koln, there is an average of one castle for every 2 kilometers!

 

[Sostratus]

One thing about the Zulu that seems “iffy” to me is that the Impi are (supposedly) getting bonus Str vs stronger units, and will not need resources. So this is something of a come from behind thing- obviously, you can’t make a resourceless unit that beats stronger, resource units directly (since that would be OP as heck) and presumably by choosing a militarist your plan is to “acquire” other people’s stuff to improve your score.

Maybe I’m projecting too much Civ/pvp onto this but I feel like the Zulu package doesn’t address why you would be in a position to deploy Impi in the first place.


Admittedly we don’t have final numbers, but If I had the power base to do it, I’d rather have boosted artillery and regular industrial units (presuming I’m set on industrial militarism) than resorting to Impi spam. It just seems like you’re fighting an uphill battle.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Admittedly we don’t have final numbers, but If I had the power base to do it, I’d rather have boosted artillery and regular industrial units (presuming I’m set on industrial militarism) than resorting to Impi spam.

The VIP on Reddit said that "[Impi] they're not exactly spammable like in that other game (Civ)".

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

Concentrations of Castles depend on what the attributes of Castles are in the game. IRL, they tended to cluster like flocks of geese: in the 100 kilometer stretch of the Rhine River south of Koln, there is an average of one castle for every 2 kilometers!

I can confirm that. The town I grew up in had 2 castles and a small "palace" in its immediate proximity.

One thing about the Zulu that seems “iffy” to me is that the Impi are (supposedly) getting bonus Str vs stronger units,

And this is why we did not put gameplay information on the culture cards: We're reviewing the ability of the Impi, so this may or may not be true at release. So don't focus too much on specific abilities.

 

[Patine]

Agreed. They're only relevant in that pop culture has immortalized their defeat of a few British armies but ultimately were a local power without much influence.

I'm truly tired of the Zulu being so over-represented. We SHOULD have had at LEAST one merchant option this age.

Shouldn't that reckoning and logic put the Dakota/Sioux on the list, too? :S

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Concentrations of Castles depend on what the attributes of Castles are in the game. IRL, they tended to cluster like flocks of geese: in the 100 kilometer stretch of the Rhine River south of Koln, there is an average of one castle for every 2 kilometers!

Isn't that more analogous to the modern gated community? These weren't true military installations, they're a demonstration of conspicuous consumption by the wealthy of that region, each trying to out-compete the others for who has the nicest digs.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

If Boris is referring to the castles I think he is referring to, then they were very much military installations. They might not have been border defenses against a foreign nation, but they were very much projections of military power. If I recall correctly, they were built at a time when control of the wider Rhineland area was very fragmented (Trier, Cologne, Mainz, the Palatinate...) I'm a bit rusty on all of that, and Boris can probably supply is with a quite informative wall of text.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think the thing that makes Zulu work as an Industrial era culture is the way eras work in humankind.

You don’t need to advance in technology to get to new eras. So a player might choose Zulu because they are going into the industrial era (due do culture, military, money, etc.) with medieval era technology. They should then be able to use their Impi’s to fight off the stronger units of civs that have industrial era technologies.

 

[Jkchart]

Shouldn't that reckoning and logic put the Dakota/Sioux on the list, too? :S

Yes but I don't recall advocating for them either

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yes but I don't recall advocating for them either

Also AFAIK, Humankind is made in Europe, rather than N America.

 

[Jkchart]

Also AFAIK, Humankind is made in Europe, rather than N America.

It is, but I'm not sure what your point is?

 

[CivLuvah]

It is, but I'm not sure what your point is?

I think the point they were trying to make is that because it's mostly based on Europe they wouldn't consider indigenous North American tribes. But that doesn't really explain why the Iroqouis/Haudenossaunee are in the game. In fact it debunks their claim.

Shouldn't that reckoning and logic put the Dakota/Sioux on the list, too? :S

I don't get the point of this either.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Isn't that more analogous to the modern gated community? These weren't true military installations, they're a demonstration of conspicuous consumption by the wealthy of that region, each trying to out-compete the others for who has the nicest digs.

The "Elite Residence" aspect came later, when everybody started building little versions of Versailles or Townhouse Chateaus like the versions in Wiesbaden and Aschaffenburg that are still there today. When most of the Rhine castles were built from 11th to 15th centuries, they were strictly fortified seats of power and many were built specifically to block traffic along the Rhine so they could levy taxes on all shopping/trading. The famous Pfalsgrafenstein castle on an island in the middle of the Rhine was in fact, a river toll booth with towers, built around 1326. And, like most of the "Rhine castles" it never was converted into a residence because it was just too inconveniently sited. To simplify, in France castles along the rivers became Chateaus or chateau sites later. In Germany, castles perched in rivers or on tops of mountains (as along the Taunus Mountains through which the Rhine flows south of Koblenz) were just too hard to get to and maintain, so became ruins until the Romantc Movement of the 19th century started to resurrect them as Tourist sites, which is what a lot of them remain today.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think the point they were trying to make is that because it's mostly based on Europe they wouldn't consider indigenous North American tribes. But that doesn't really explain why the Iroqouis/Haudenossaunee are in the game. In fact it debunks their claim.



I don't get the point of this either.

The point is that to Europeans, the conflict with the Sioux would be less relevant than the conflict with the Zulus in popular consciousness. (despite the same “win some battles v. more powerful adversary that won the overall war” concept in both)

They would still put in N.American cultures...but would be less likely to do so.