Your most/least favourite designs of Cultures (either mechanics or graphics)

Krajzen

Krajzen

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Title. I think this thread should be separate from the general culture thread, so we can focus only on trying to pinpoint our least favourite (or most favourite designs). Certain people observing this subforum could then realize which designs (and what about them) are well received or not that well received.

We can discuss both graphic and mechanical design. I'll start!
Coolest culture images: Babylonians, Olmecs, Celts, Mughals
Least cool culture images: Romans, Byzantines. English, Franks

The former group is full of colour and character.
Roman image is an unusual choice for me, gladiator arena is not the most shining beacon of Roman civilization, I'd rather expect to see Roman military, architecture, cities, imperium or senate.
Byzantine, English and Frankish images do all have the same problem: they are not enough distinctive at all, they don't have much cultural spirit in them. An inn, a horseman, and a building. I'd rather have them based for example on:
- English: longbowmen, castles, Canterbury, King Arthur, Anglo - Saxons, Albion, Richard Lionheart
- Frankish: this one is much harder. Charlemagne, Aachen, Charles Martel, emblems etc.
- Byzantium: Haghia Sophia, Byzantine architecture, hippodromes, Kataphraktoi, Greek monasteries etc.
 
I like the fact than all artworks don't have the same layout, it's cool to have some zoom on poeple, sometimes unzoom on the architectures and a lot of poeple, sometimes a peaceful scene, a merchant scene, ... etc
This avoids a big redundancy and standardization of the artworks.

- Byzantium : I am a big fan of Eastern Romans, and I must admit than the artwork is really good. For me, the artwork is showing the inside of Hagia Sofia (similar fresco), an emperor embraces Christianity through his mother. It's a really strong artwork, it fit perfectly to their singular history.
- English : an austere fanart for English fit really well with their medieval history. Richard Lionheart is pure posterior propaganda and say nothing about English. (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/i08fzf/how_did_richard_i_come_to_be_so_fondly_lionized/)
King Arthur is just a founding myth, as historical as Illiad, and not only related to English.
I think than we don't need to fantasize cultures too. Personally, I'm more sad to not see Norse attacking a modest monestary instead of a huge thing(sort of church-fortress) in their culture card.(not really realistic with their tactics)
- Franks, the only one I have a little problem. The artwork really looking like the Emblematic Unit, so we don't get more informations about the culture. The art itself is nice and clean, could be an excellent art for an event about warfare for exemple.
But there is so much things to tell about an huge blob like Franks to define an identity.

Coolest ? I can't choose, 99,99% of the Humankind artworks are juste gorgeous, I rarely see that in historical videogames, and never in this quantity !

Btw, I think this is so subjective, I prefer more to speak about the historical accuracy of equipements and clothing of avatar/artworks/3D model/architectures... It's more tangible and objective imho
 
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I like the Khmer card artwork because this guy is (still) a mood.

4b9weq.jpg


P.S. I can't submit this to the What If contest because the meme is too random to fit in any of their previous, present or upcoming themes.
 
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you were looking for with this thread but a couple of the cultures look very powerful (perhaps unbalanced? who knows) from the culture cards we've seen so far. I'm specifically thinking about the Mayans and Carthaginians of the Classical Era.

Carthaginians - -50% cost to gold buyouts (gold buyouts were already quite cheap in OpenDev scenario 1)
Mayans - +3 industry on all exploitation (this is absolutely HUGE)

So based on your thread title I guess that could be either "most" or "least" favourite depending which angle you look at it from.
 
danza4x said:
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you were looking for with this thread but a couple of the cultures look very powerful (perhaps unbalanced? who knows) from the culture cards we've seen so far. I'm specifically thinking about the Mayans and Carthaginians of the Classical Era.

Carthaginians - -50% cost to gold buyouts (gold buyouts were already quite cheap in OpenDev scenario 1)
Mayans - +3 industry on all exploitation (this is absolutely HUGE)

So based on your thread title I guess that could be either "most" or "least" favourite depending which angle you look at it from.
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Where can we find these traits ? (like "+3 industry on all exploitation").
 
danza4x said:
Mayans - +3 industry on all exploitation (this is absolutely HUGE)
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Keep in mind that for the most part you will benefit from this only through Makers Quarters and your city center.
That said, if some traits do prove too strong, I'd rather we bring weaker traits up. I would hate to see the LEgacy Trait bonuses become too small to impact your plans.
 
Catoninetales_Amplitude said:
Keep in mind that for the most part you will benefit from this only through Makers Quarters and your city center.
Click to expand...
In scenario 1 I was finding Makers' Quarters to be among my highest priority builds and I only really built Makers' Quarters and Harbours (both of which have industry exploitation) as far as extensions went. Aware this could all change though.
Catoninetales_Amplitude said:
That said, if some traits do prove too strong, I'd rather we bring weaker traits up. I would hate to see the LEgacy Trait bonuses become too small to impact your plans.
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Completely agree. I was actually surprised by how impactful the culture traits appear to be, and I'm very much looking forward to having these new interesting dynamics added to my playstyle six times per game!

EDIT: I should also add that for the most part, I was fairly impressed by how balanced most of the cultures do appear at first glance. And without knowing the details of EU abilities, affinities or how era star acquisition will play out even that doesn't paint a full picture. For example, I struggle to pick any single Ancient era culture from the four on display that seem any better or worse than any of the others.
 
The biggest problem with the English one is it looks like it could be set in any medieval hall in Europe. It also represents the Agrarian trait poorly with just some food on the foreground not a great feast with a game bird.

I'd like to see a Norman castle (seeing as its England not Anglo Saxons) with some sheep grazing (english wool was central to their economy and agrarian trait) with some bad weather or at least overcast (It's true) I think that would really sell it as England.

I'm not opposed to indoor scenes its just the English one is so generic Ummayad and Byzantines had more interesting indoor enviroments.
 
hey, I was looking the culture cards again, and I was thinking about the Greek one. Clean, classic but .... there is a big missed opportunity. Breaking the cliché about these white architecture. They were very colored, same for statues.
Maybe something important to reconsider imho ! :3


 
The Greek culture card art is very grey and simplistic for sure. Would benefit from some added detail in the background I think.
 
As far as balance, keep in mind that:

1) Only 1 player will get to pick the "best" culture, so you don't get to use the most OP thing every game.

2) You may have already been playing in a way that makes the "best" culture...not the best, especially since you may not have had access to the "best" culture in a previous era, so your strategy is forced to change.

3) Having the cultures be unbalanced is much less of a problem, because it encourages racing to the next era instead of waiting around in the current one. Given that this is a decision point, it is not a total failure to have unbalanced cultures.

Really, the problem is only if a culture is SO BAD that even if I am forced to pick them I just have no interest in trying to optimize them. And as long as the bonuses are varied and big enough, that won't happen. Even if I am running a hermit kingdom and am forced to take the Romans, I will go "oh well, even though I don't want to be aggressive I guess I can use this opportunity to have extra scouting parties with the General cap, and claim more territories earlier using a) those extra armies and b) successfully defend them with the defensive districts". But if +3 Generals is a pittance compared to normal play (say 3 extra on 20 total, not a big deal), then I won't be anywhere near the cap and thus being Rome didn't matter for this strategy as much. But if normal is 5 armies and I get +3, hell yeah I'll make 3 more scouts *at least*, because I probably already was at the cap of 5.
 
Atlas627 said:
As far as balance, keep in mind that:

1) Only 1 player will get to pick the "best" culture, so you don't get to use the most OP thing every game.

2) You may have already been playing in a way that makes the "best" culture...not the best, especially since you may not have had access to the "best" culture in a previous era, so your strategy is forced to change.

3) Having the cultures be unbalanced is much less of a problem, because it encourages racing to the next era instead of waiting around in the current one. Given that this is a decision point, it is not a total failure to have unbalanced cultures.

Really, the problem is only if a culture is SO BAD that even if I am forced to pick them I just have no interest in trying to optimize them. And as long as the bonuses are varied and big enough, that won't happen. Even if I am running a hermit kingdom and am forced to take the Romans, I will go "oh well, even though I don't want to be aggressive I guess I can use this opportunity to have extra scouting parties with the General cap, and claim more territories earlier using a) those extra armies and b) successfully defend them with the defensive districts". But if +3 Generals is a pittance compared to normal play (say 3 extra on 20 total, not a big deal), then I won't be anywhere near the cap and thus being Rome didn't matter for this strategy as much. But if normal is 5 armies and I get +3, hell yeah I'll make 3 more scouts *at least*, because I probably already was at the cap of 5.
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I agree. I don't mind slightly unbalanced cultures. Some asymmetry is not a bad thing, it's challenging and forces you to try new things. I'd be OK if they didn't devote a ton of resources achieving the perfect balance (which we all know is never achieved).
 
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