Humankind Game by Amplitude

[Boris Gudenuf]

Other volcanos as well known and as associated with ancient human history as Vesuvius? I'm not sure there really are any. At least, I can't think of any.

Vesuvius gets all the publicity - shucks, it was even featured in a Doctor Who episode some years ago, and you can't get an more famous than that!
On the other hand, Thera, the mountain that blew up in 1610 BCE (turned a 7000 foot high mountain into the 600 foot high modern island of Santorini) and may have struck a mortal blow to the Cretan Minoan Civilization just to the south.
Tamboura, the volcano in Indonesia that blew up in 1815 and put so much ash and dust into the atmosphere that it blocked enough of the sun's heat to cause a "Year Without Summer" in 1816 all over the world.
Krakatoa, also in Indonesia, who's eruption/explosion in 1883 was so violent that the sound was heard clear across the Indian Ocean in Madagascar.

All those were memorable, but my vote for More Famous Than Vesuvius would be:
(drum roll)
Fujisan, or Fujiyama, or Mount Fuji in Japan. Today everybody thinks of it as the serene white cone hovering over Tokyo, but it last erupted in 1707 CE, or about 300 years ago - a blink in geologic time, and since 1350 BCE it has erupted at least twice with a VEI (Volcanic Eruption Index) force of 5 - the same as Vesuvius in 79 CE that buried Pompei and Herculaneum.
If Fuji goes off with another VEI 5, the human price will be a lot higher than Vesuvius ever managed. And if you want a dangerous and iconic volcano very active at a nominal Start of Game of 6 - 4000 BCE, that would be my candidate.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Another new screenshot:

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1200127384638435328?s=19

The Tweet is a big bluff to Firaxis penchants not to permit players to build cities in the mountains regardless that Andean cities were built atop the peaks (AFAIK Civ6 GS adds Inca with such abilites but no one else can)

 

[Gedemo]

Other volcanos as well known and as associated with ancient human history as Vesuvius? I'm not sure there really are any. At least, I can't think of any.

i agree about the historical aspect but what about the uniqueness, originality, beauty? The natural wonders in games are usually unique places....and Vesuvius seems to be a "banal" volcano, no?

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

ask the residents of pompeii in ancient rome please

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Mount Etna?

I had to google where Mount Etna was, so based on my scientific study of 1 person, I'll say no.

Fujisan, or Fujiyama, or Mount Fuji in Japan. Today everybody thinks of it as the serene white cone hovering over Tokyo, but it last erupted in 1707 CE, or about 300 years ago - a blink in geologic time, and since 1350 BCE it has erupted at least twice with a VEI (Volcanic Eruption Index) force of 5 - the same as Vesuvius in 79 CE that buried Pompei and Herculaneum.
If Fuji goes off with another VEI 5, the human price will be a lot higher than Vesuvius ever managed. And if you want a dangerous and iconic volcano very active at a nominal Start of Game of 6 - 4000 BCE, that would be my candidate.

As you say, "everybody today thinks of it as the serene white cone". Famous, yes? Even more so than Vesuvius. Famous as a volcano? No.

i agree about the historical aspect but what about the uniqueness, originality, beauty? The natural wonders in games are usually unique places....and Vesuvius seems to be a "banal" volcano, no?

We don't know what criteria HK will apply for their natural wonders. Unlike Civ, they're starting with a "blank state", so may well make use of traditional locations that are well-known in popular culture but are now "old hat" in Civ.

 

[bbbt]

i agree about the historical aspect but what about the uniqueness, originality, beauty? The natural wonders in games are usually unique places....and Vesuvius seems to be a "banal" volcano, no?

I mean if they are also including natural disasters, Vesuvius make sense as an emphasis. If they are doing natural wonders, Vesuvius is a little bit of an odd choice I'd agree. At this point I don't think we know if they are including either or both.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Another screenshot of a city.

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1202664018802094080?s=19

 

[Elhoim]

Interesting...
- There's a walled district within the city walls.
- After several city shots, it seems to follow the EL working tiles system, in which tiles around districts are worked.
- The surrounding worked tiles have different visuals. Worked grasslands become farms? Worked forest on the lower right tiles?
- Center district looks like the palace, upper left barracks? Lower right... Temple? The other two seem generic city ones. With the other city screen we can see at least 6 different districts.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Another screenshot of a city.

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1202664018802094080?s=19

This one needs the ol' magnifying glass approach, because it answers some questions (well, MY questions) about Cities in Humankind.
1. We've seen the 'ziggurat' looking structure in the middle before: bet you anything that is the 'Palace' or marker for the City Center. Now the question is, is that standard or does it change according to Era, Faction/Civilization, some unidentified Civic or Tech?
2. There are two apparently identical 'districts' - one to the left of the Center and one behind it. They both have the same low square structure in them. What it represents exactly is impossible to tell: could be a market of some kind, or a granary/warehouse, or a collection of workshops - whatever it is, it indicates that you can have more than one of the same type of District in a city.
3. The entire city has a wall around it, but at this time I don't think we can be sure it represents a separate Defensive Construction or it's just an early-game marker of the city boundary. But note, to the left rear of the Center there is a district with its own, separate interior wall and what appears to be a Fortress in it - bet you anything that is a Military District - barracks/training center of some kind.
4. Note that there are roads leading out of the city on both sides. Are they just 'markers' again or are there Very Early Roads in the game? Note also that on the road to the left of the shot there appears to be a convoy or caravan of some kind (right about at the bridge) - an indication of active Trade Route?
5. Finally, and here's where the magnifier come in, if you look very closely at the roads/streets inside the city, there are what appear to be individuals on the roads on foot. This is a still shot, so can't be sure, but that might indicate In-City animations. Neat!

 

[PhoenicianGold]

It's a slight upgrade visually and I appreciate others tackling the genre but... I don't find this game appealing, for two primary reasons.

1. I'm in the boat that VI was a visual improvement from a game design perspective. I like the cartoony aesthetic, the color coding, the large models. There was room for improvement, of course, but I would rather have less and clearer information on the board than worry about how "realistic" the towns look. While I appreciate the algorithms behind Humankind, I want the boardstate to be more legible and this just seems--purely as a matter of functionalism--to be regressing a bit. I recognize that this point is a bit subjective because players play for different reasons, and some really care about the realism of the mini-models. I happen to be fairly lenient for stylizations made specifically for the sake of playability.

2. I don't like how "civ progression" has been implemented. For one, having only ten civs per era results in a lot of Middle Eastern centrism in the earlier eras (and I've never felt a particular need to represent Babylon and Assyria and the Hittites in any limited historical roster), as well as likely limits the availability globally in later eras. For two, it seems vaguely dishonest to represent, again, Babylon and Assyria as equal starting points in a game which feigns to be "about" the iterative progression of cultures when Assyria at its height was clearly subsequent to and influenced by Babylon. To my mind, a better model would have been to start with about six-ish ancient era civs (Olmec, Norte Chico, Sumeria, Harappa, maybe Egypt, Xia, a Danubian or Steppe civ?), and then slowly add more and more civs to each era, expanding outward in a tree-like progression rather than this arbitrary ten-civs-per-era system.

So far, I like VI more. Maybe Humankind II might iron out a lot of the lazier design choices, but as of now the mere inclusion of topography isn't enough to impress me.

 

[conorbebe]

Maybe Humankind II might iron out a lot of the lazier design choices, but as of now the mere inclusion of topography isn't enough to impress me.

Just because you’re not a fan of the design doesn’t make it “lazy”. Many have said the same thing about Civ VI’s presentation, which is completely false. Whether a player prefers historical accuracy and realism or gameplay clarity when it comes to a game’s graphics is entirely subjective.

Yes I agree that districts are not nearly as clearly marked as in Civ VI, it is possible Humankind’s UI may rectify this potential problem. From what I’ve seen so far, the UI design vastly trumps that of Civ VI, so I’m hopeful it will also include helpful and non-intrusive overlays to help with city planning.

 

[KayAU]

I preferred Civ V's visual style to VI, although I think both look good. As for Humankind, I think the visual style is nothing short of gorgeous. I am not too worried about the map being hard to read. For one thing, I am very happy to see that map is far less visually "busy" than Endless Legend. For another, the last Amplitude game I played, Endless Space 2, did a pretty great job when it came to UI design.

With regards to gameplay, I think it is way, way premature to judge. I have a couple of concerns, namely the region system with its potential city placement restrictions (which would make no sense whatsoever in a game starting at the dawn of civilization), and to a lesser extent how each faction's identity is established in a game where you change who you are every era. That said, I remain optimistic and eagerly await more information.

 

[Cerilis]

I'd like to point out that the "walled in" district does not work its sole outside tile. The tile is clear, no farms or anything.

 

[Elhoim]

About the question in the tweet, a dev just confirmed on Discord that they will have strategic and luxury resources:

"I think I can confirm we have strategic and luxury resources."

Finally, and here's where the magnifier come in, if you look very closely at the roads/streets inside the city, there are what appear to be individuals on the roads on foot. This is a still shot, so can't be sure, but that might indicate In-City animations. Neat!

Check the videos, you can actually see the people walking around.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Just because you’re not a fan of the design doesn’t make it “lazy”. Many have said the same thing about Civ VI’s presentation, which is completely false. Whether a player prefers historical accuracy and realism or gameplay clarity when it comes to a game’s graphics is entirely subjective.

The aesthetic, as I observed, is...fine. I can't quite call it lazy overall, although there are a few small aspects that do invite the description. Like how wonders seem virtually unchanged from VI. That's not the "laziness" I'm referring to.

I'm specifically referring to how underconsidered the civ progression mechanic appears to be (an impression which might be proven wrong, although I'm not holding my breath). It doesn't feel nearly as deliberate and well thought out as, say, VI's roster choices.

I also don't find the "historical mishmash" concept appealing, either. I always wanted captured cities in VI to maintain their previous building styles and improvements to reflect their "history," i.e., how the game-state has evolved over time. This cultural fusion concept seems, by comparison, quite arbitrary and generally conveys less about the game state, and furthermore doesn't really celebrate human cultures like VI does so much as shallowly appropriate them as interchangeable flavors with no past or future. There is certainly argument as to how successful VI is at accomplishing its goal of celebrating globalism--but at least it is self-evidently trying for cultural sensitivity, whereas I don't get that impression from Humankind at all.

(This does make me wonder if Civ VII could introduce a better sort of dynamic civ progression whereby each civ, although led by the same leader, gains different bonuses as it progresses between different eras and polities. Say, Magna Germania, to the Holy Roman Empire, to the Kingdom of Germany, to modern Germany.)

I'm getting huge No Man's Sky vibes from this game. Something that prioritized "pluripotentiality," a million permutations comprised of underwhelming pieces, over actually designing a coherent and compelling experience. That sort of ambition doesn't, de facto, defeat a game, but it does set an extremely high bar for quality that is easy to undershoot. I am not optimistic.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The aesthetic, as I observed, is...fine. I can't quite call it lazy overall, although there are a few small aspects that do invite the description. Like how wonders seem virtually unchanged from VI. That's not the "laziness" I'm referring to.

I'm specifically referring to how underconsidered the civ progression mechanic appears to be (an impression which might be proven wrong, although I'm not holding my breath). It doesn't feel nearly as deliberate and well thought out as, say, VI's roster choices.

I also don't find the "historical mishmash" concept appealing, either. I always wanted captured cities in VI to maintain their previous building styles and improvements to reflect their "history," i.e., how the game-state has evolved over time. This cultural fusion concept seems, by comparison, quite arbitrary and generally conveys less about the game state, and furthermore doesn't really celebrate human cultures like VI does so much as shallowly appropriate them as interchangeable flavors with no past or future. There is certainly argument as to how successful VI is at accomplishing its goal of celebrating globalism--but at least it is self-evidently trying for cultural sensitivity, whereas I don't get that impression from Humankind at all.

(This does make me wonder if Civ VII could introduce a better sort of dynamic civ progression whereby each civ, although led by the same leader, gains different bonuses as it progresses between different eras and polities. Say, Magna Germania, to the Holy Roman Empire, to the Kingdom of Germany, to modern Germany.)

I'm getting huge No Man's Sky vibes from this game. Something that prioritized "pluripotentiality," a million permutations comprised of underwhelming pieces, over actually designing a coherent and compelling experience. That sort of ambition doesn't, de facto, defeat a game, but it does set an extremely high bar for quality that is easy to undershoot. I am not optimistic.

I think you have some valid points, but I think you have missed the biggest single point:
IF Humankind has made a huge mistake in 'fixing' the entire World in each Era into just 10 Civs/Factions and only allowing 1 progression line into the next Era (Romans in the 'Classical' Era, for instance, can only progress to 1 other choice in the next Era, even though in fact Rome was the ancestor to most European Medieval Civs), then Civ has made an equally large mistake by boxing themselves in to Immortal Leaders, Governors and other 'named personages' and locking their Civs in to the same Leader 'effects' for 6000 years. That limits the Civs so much that a large percentage of Mods for both Civ V and Civ VI have been Alternate Leaders for existing Civs, because that mechanic is so grossly inadequate to characterize any Civ except one (like, for instance, the American Confederacy) that only had 1 Leader!

So what it boils down to is which ridiculous and limiting version of historical progression do you prefer: Civs locked into a single Leader and set of Uniques forever or Civs that 'morph' almost completely and apparently with no restrictions except from other Civs 'choosing' first in each Era? I find both to be idiotic, but I'll grit my teeth and play the game if they get enough of everything else right. And, no, no, four times No I am not arguing for a Historical Simulation, but I do think there is a Middle Ground that does not require Artificial Progressions, Artificial Immortal Leaders, or Artificial Eras for you and me to play Historical Civilizations in a game.

And remember, when it comes to the graphic 'look', that is secondary to the graphics as a User Interface, and in that Civ VI was a big step backwards from Cv V: Hills were hard to make out, the original 'Fog of War' was almost indistinguishable from terrain, and in general, in too many places, the Graphic User Interface was a barrier rather than an enhancement to the game. That's such a basic mistake you have wonder what they were doing in the design process besides actually looking at the game.

Finally, we don't really know exactly what Humankind will look like as a game. We've seen carefully manufactured 'screenshots' and short videos that the Amplitude people admit were crafted, not from any game play. So we can't really say how good/bad/indifferent the GUI results will be, where Regional Borders fall and how much they challenge or enhance play.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I think you have some valid points, but I think you have missed the biggest single point:
IF Humankind has made a huge mistake in 'fixing' the entire World in each Era into just 10 Civs/Factions and only allowing 1 progression line into the next Era (Romans in the 'Classical' Era, for instance, can only progress to 1 other choice in the next Era, even though in fact Rome was the ancestor to most European Medieval Civs), then Civ has made an equally large mistake by boxing themselves in to Immortal Leaders, Governors and other 'named personages' and locking their Civs in to the same Leader 'effects' for 6000 years. That limits the Civs so much that a large percentage of Mods for both Civ V and Civ VI have been Alternate Leaders for existing Civs, because that mechanic is so grossly inadequate to characterize any Civ except one (like, for instance, the American Confederacy) that only had 1 Leader!

Your point is somewhat valid, but also to some small extent reductive and missing the point of some of VI's design choices. If the point of VI was to represent cultures just as much, if not more so, than empires, then having a single culture hero "personifying" those cultures actually makes more sense in VI than it did in any prior iteration. This, in turn, strengthens the mechanics, because a well-designed leader communicates their respective civ's ideals, playstyle, and diplomatic tendencies. It allows the player to (in theory, at least) treat civs more as players rather than just obstacles. Whereas in the past, leaders led their civs, in VI to a large extent they are their civs. Tamar personifies Georgia. Gilgamesh personifies Sumeria. (I admit, there are some odd deviations on the roster like CdM, but largely the rule works more often than it doesn't.)

The governors are neither here nor there. They barely have personality, but their design does pretty fairly communicate what their gameplay functions are, and they loosely mesh with the game's globalist agenda. I will agree with you that locking effects throughout gameplay is extremely limiting, and again something I observed could very likely and probably should be built out in later versions of Civ.

So what it boils down to is which ridiculous and limiting version of historical progression do you prefer: Civs locked into a single Leader and set of Uniques forever or Civs that 'morph' almost completely and apparently with no restrictions except from other Civs 'choosing' first in each Era? I find both to be idiotic, but I'll grit my teeth and play the game if they get enough of everything else right. And, no, no, four times No I am not arguing for a Historical Simulation, but I do think there is a Middle Ground that does not require Artificial Progressions, Artificial Immortal Leaders, or Artificial Eras for you and me to play Historical Civilizations in a game.

For me, it depends on what the game is trying to do, and whether that is worthwhile and/or beneficial to the public good, or at absolute minimum benign. I found prior civ games to be rote, masturbatory Western-centrism with fairly low artistic/cultural ambitions and to hold very limited educational value, given that they were largely "pop history" as found in condensed AP World History textbooks. A rut that it seems Humankind is also seeming to fall into. What I like about VI is that, despite having all the limitations and baggage from the past twenty years of the franchise, is trying to open up minds to cultures and people and parts of the world who are often omitted from said pop history media and literature. So, unless Humankind reveals some grander, politically conscious thesis, I clearly will end up preferring VI's nonsense--structured with goodwill and intent--over historical nonsense which has nothing more insightful to say.

And remember, when it comes to the graphic 'look', that is secondary to the graphics as a User Interface, and in that Civ VI was a big step backwards from Cv V: Hills were hard to make out, the original 'Fog of War' was almost indistinguishable from terrain, and in general, in too many places, the Graphic User Interface was a barrier rather than an enhancement to the game. That's such a basic mistake you have wonder what they were doing in the design process besides actually looking at the game.

I agree on fog of war, that was an unequivocal downgrade that could have easily been rectified with a palette shift. Never had too much issue with hills, personally. And I consider the UI to be roughly as complicated as in V haha.

Finally, we don't really know exactly what Humankind will look like as a game. We've seen carefully manufactured 'screenshots' and short videos that the Amplitude people admit were crafted, not from any game play. So we can't really say how good/bad/indifferent the GUI results will be, where Regional Borders fall and how much they challenge or enhance play.

Also fair point. Although I am mostly talking about how the map is modeled and how clearly it conveys gameplay information to the player, not the GUI.

 

[bbbt]

So, unless Humankind reveals some grander, politically conscious thesis, I clearly will end up preferring VI's nonsense--structured with goodwill and intent--over historical nonsense which has nothing more insightful to say.

I mean from the Humankind devs have said, the different 'cultures' making up your empire across the game IS the thesis - that any culture is actually the sum of many different cultures.

You can certainly argue that Civ 6 is attempting to bring some lesser known civs and leader into the light. You can also argue that it emphasizes a largely discredited 'great man' version of history, feeds into stereotypes of innate characteristics of peoples (Germans are productive! Koreans are scientific!), and - as the complaints from the Cree tribe emphasized - are possibly MORE damaging by forcing a lot of those 'lesser known' civs into a explicitly Western model of historical progression, conquest and colonization, and religion that they never abided by.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I mean from the Humankind devs have said, the different 'cultures' making up your empire across the game IS the thesis - that any culture is actually the sum of many different cultures.

You can certainly argue that Civ 6 is attempting to bring some lesser known civs and leader into the light. You can also argue that it emphasizes a largely discredited 'great man' version of history, feeds into stereotypes of innate characteristics of peoples (Germans are productive! Koreans are scientific!), and - as the complaints from the Cree tribe emphasized - are possibly MORE damaging by forcing a lot of those 'lesser known' civs into a explicitly Western model of historical progression, conquest and colonization, and religion that they never abided by.

Eh, I think there is a bit more truth to the "great man" version of history than people give credit to. Case in point, three of the four largest religions, followed by almost 2/3 of the world population, have a pseudo-historical cult of personality at their center. The public generally is more susceptible to "great man" romanticization than I think anyone would like to believe. It's problematic, it's undesireable, but it's not wholly inaccurate. And it's still fairly pervasive in cultural mythos as well.

Stereotyping peoples. Fine. I'll grant that one to you, although it's at least--generally--observing regional and oftentimes global contributions and achievements by specific peoples. It celebrates things in history which were unique to them. And only consequentially stereotypes them, which, on balance, might be a price worth paying depending on context and values. By contrast, I don't see a Babylon-Maya-Arabia-Timurid-Russia-Brazil hybrid having anything decisive to say about any of its constituent parts, and in fact diluting whatever cultural truths could be expressed in that format. What you see as "stereotyping" I see as focusing design, building vertically on specific cultural throughlines, and making every civ feel unique and alive as opposed to just...including the Hittites for a sixth of the game because they were a thing, right? If VI stereotypes, then Humankind is shaping up to be just as bad in a completely different way characteristic of older Civ games, if not worse because these token representations are all stripped of any real-world gravity.

The Cree complaints were, if I recall, based a bit on overall Amerindian pacifist revisionism. The Cree were definitively an aggressively expansionist people, and it is not historically inaccurate to portray them as such. Let's also not ignore the fact that, were it not for the Cree's inclusion in Civ, Poundmaker--in many ways a symbol of Cree-Canadian relations--would never have been posthumously exonerated. I don't think taking an absolutist stance on the general propriety of appropriation/appreciation works in the context of VI which is a) doing the best it can to be respectful and overall succeeding at a level no other developer has bothered to and b) has had some social good come as a consequence of simply bringing problematic aspects of history to light.

I admit to also being somewhat disappointed in how westernized the historical progression model is, but I don't think it is nearly as bad as everyone wants to paint it. Again, every civ included so far had some period of imperialism or expansionism, so "conquest and colonization" is not historically incorrect. Similarly, many tribal religions, although not institutionalized to the same extent as other religions and often protested as being of a completely different nature, are still, de facto, religions, complete with rituals, stories, and holy men. Sure, we can argue that not every civ has shrines and/or temples and/or worship buildings, but these are still thankfully very generic and inclusive ideas. So I would argue it's only the tech trees and certain districts/improvements/units where things start to really get shaky (especially Great People which are heavily skewed toward Europe), but at the end of the day, these progressions still reasonably expressed many of the civs on the roster, if only as a consequence of globalism. At any rate, VI is a massive improvement in terms of representation over prior installments.

 

[bbbt]

Eh, I think there is a bit more truth to the "great man" version of history than people give credit to. Case in point, three of the four largest religions, followed by almost 2/3 of the world population, have a pseudo-historical cult of personality at their center. The public generally is more susceptible to "great man" romanticization than I think anyone would like to believe. It's problematic, it's undesireable, but it's not wholly inaccurate. And it's still fairly pervasive in cultural mythos as well.

By great man version, I mean in terms of seeing history as something that was primarily moved by decisions of leaders (ie great men) rather than differing social/environmental/geographical/etc forces. Civ by it's nature of being closer to a 'God game' than a simulation, personalized by a great leader, this is unavoidable (as it would be in most 4x games).

The Cree complaints were, if I recall, based a bit on overall Amerindian pacifist revisionism. The Cree were definitively an aggressively expansionist people, and it is not historically inaccurate to portray them as such. Let's also not ignore the fact that, were it not for the Cree's inclusion in Civ, Poundmaker--in many ways a symbol of Cree-Canadian relations--would never have been posthumously exonerated. I don't think taking an absolutist stance on the general propriety of appropriation/appreciation works in the context of VI which is a) doing the best it can to be respectful and overall succeeding at a level no other developer has bothered to and b) has had some social good come as a consequence of simply bringing problematic aspects of history to light.

I'd disagree that the cree were "aggressively expansionist". No, they certainly did not shy away from warfare on many occasions. But they certainly were not colonists out for domination and subjugation in the way the English, Spanish, Aztecs (me calling it 'Western' was not accurate), etc were. I took the complaint as less some sort of 'we were a peaceful people' and more that it put them in the league as people who ideally wanted world domination, which was simply not the case. It reframes them from victims of colonization to a rival threat who were justly dealt with and 'lost'. To be blunt, I don't think the Cree were more aggressive and expansionistic then Canada - their colonial 'oppressors' - who are literally portrayed as more peaceful with their 'no surprise wars'.

Similarly, many tribal religions, although not institutionalized to the same extent as other religions and often protested as being of a completely different nature, are still, de facto, religions, complete with rituals, stories, and holy men.

I'd love it if Civ's religion mechanic involved rituals and stories. I'd say the most problematic element is actually the missionary/conversion/religious domination model which completely not the model of most 'tribal' religions or Judiasm for that matter.

So I would argue it's only the tech trees and certain districts/improvements/units where things start to really get shaky (especially Great People which are heavily skewed toward Europe), but at the end of the day, these progressions still reasonably expressed many of the civs on the roster, if only as a consequence of globalism. At any rate, VI is a massive improvement in terms of representation over prior installments.

I absolutely agree Civ is a massive improvement in that respect, and I think the representation is great. I think I'm just really saying I don't think representation alone is the only yardstick to measure by. I.e. that Humankind's a civilization is a sum of the cultures that came before it is arguably more politically conscious than Civ's great leader and monocultural assimilation model. Neither cancels out the other - it's great Civ is more representative, it's great Humankind is (potentially!) a somewhat different cultural model.