r/HumankindTheGame • u/Cato9Tales_Amplitude • 23m ago
News Culture Journey - Southern Europe
Welcome everybody to our first Culture Journey, where we will follow a civilization through several eras to introduce you to some of the Cultures you will find in HUMANKIND 2, and the historical links between them that will guide your path through history. These journeys are by no means exhaustive, as there will be other Cultures and connections not mentioned in them, but they should serve as an illustrative example of the steps your Empire may take along its own journey from the beginning of the Ancient Era to the modern day.
For now, let's turn our attention to southern Europe, or the northern coast of the Mediterranean sea if you will, and follow our people from their early settlement to the end of the Medieval Era.
We start our journey at the beginning, or perhaps even before the beginning, with the question: Where did our people come from? What origin myth shapes their identity and view of the world?
The Great Haruspex
Guided by divine revelation, Tarchon and Tyrrhenus led their people across the sea to settle in the Italian peninsula. They established not only agriculture and a league of twelve cities, as well as the religious principles of understanding the will of the gods through divination.
As this First Tale draws inspiration from their culture, it leads us to the Etruscans once we reach the Ancient Era.
Etruscans
The Etruscans were a culture that rose to prominence in the northern half of the Italian peninsula during the iron age. With a strong agricultural foundation of rural hamlets, their heartland supported a confederation of twelve cities, though other Etruscan cities existed further north and south. Within their villages and cities, their first communal rites emerged, such as funeral rites involving the cremation of the dead, which would develop over the centuries to involve beautiful sarcophagi and tomb complexes.
The largest and most influential of these cities featured advanced infrastructure, were protected by strong walls, and likely contained a complex social structure, but the concentration of wealth among a few families led to an increasingly stratified society. Though the cities were nominally republics, public offices were often monopolized by noble families, whose wealth and power can be seen in the palaces and necropolises they had built.
Romans
Originally a city ruled by a kings, some of which hailed from Etruscan heritage, just south of the Etruscan league of 12 cities, the Romans are probably better known for their later periods of republican and imperial rule.
Under the rule of the Senate, Roman influence expanded across the Italian peninsula and began to reach across the Mediterranean, which brought them into conflict with Carthage. During this time, the Roman legions were drawn exclusively from the three original tribes of Rome, which proved insufficient to protect the vastly expanded borders.
This led to the Marian reforms that turned the roman military into a standing army that drew its soldiers from the entire population instead of just the citizens of Rome. While this may have solved the shortage of soldiers, it eventually led to other problems: Soldiers were increasingly loyal to their generals, who leveraged their military successes into political power destabilizing the political balance and the power of the senate.
The numerous campaigns of conquest in Africa, Asia, and Europe allowed individuals to amass great wealth and political power, until the most powerful and prestigious positions were controlled by only a small number of families, until near the turn of the millennium Caesar and Augustus capitalized on political unrest to usher in the of Imperial rule.
To this day, the Legacy of Rome is visible around the Mediterranean not only in ruins of structures like roads, aqueducts, temples, and other grand buildings, but even in many languages, as Latin was spread to the far provinces by the soldiers who settled there.
Goths
The Goths were a migratory people that likely originally hailed from Scandinavia and settled on the shores of the Black Sea in the first century CE, where they slowly split into the distinct groups of Ostrogoths and Visigoths. They were eventually driven from this new home by the Huns in the fourth century and migrated southwest to settle within the bounds of the Roman empire in northern Italy and Spain. This inevitably led to military conflict, in which they made good use of the speed and mobility of their cavalry, a lesson they had learned well from facing the Huns.
They were eventually granted the status of Foederati, rendering military service to Rome in exchange for land to settle and the right to remain largely self-governed. Rebellions against Roman rule were not uncommon (which led among others to the sack of Rome in 410CE), even if some rulers to a more conciliatory approach. In the late 5th century, King Theodoric enacted a new code of laws including both Roman and Gothic laws to mediate between the two groups, and he also restored numerous Roman monuments in his capital of Ravenna to present himself as a "protector of Roman heritage" in an attempt to reunite the Visigoths and Ostrogoths under his rule.
Given this desire and attempt to carry on the legacy of Rome, the Goths are a natural evolution for the Romans in HUMANKIND 2.
Byzantines
The city of Constantinople was established in 330 by Emperor Constantine I (the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity) as the new capital of the Roman empire, founded on the site of the former colony of Byzantium (hence the name Byzantine). Its strategic location on the Bosporus at a crossroads of trade contributed to its rapid growth of wealth, power, and influence.
The Basileus (the Byzantine equivalent of an emperor) ruling from Constantinople was seen as a representative of God on earth, and as such concentrated considerable political, military, and religious power in one person, even if he was subject to a strict ceremonial code. As the Byzantines held that their emperor was meant to rule the inhabited world, they strongly favored diplomacy and trade, forming a web of alliances and dependencies of smaller powers revolving around them, to them a reflection of divine order.
Beyond just the Basileus, Christianity was at the heart of Byzantine culture and informed much of their art, architecture, foreign relations, and even politics (especially given that the Basileus appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople, functionally the head of the church.) Disagreements over the primacy of the Pope in Rome or the Patriarch in Constantinople, along with other doctrinal disagreements, eventually led to the Great Schism of 1054.
Drawing a direct succession of rulers from the Roman empire and continuing many traditions of (Christianized) Rome, the Byzantines are another natural evolution of the Romans in HUMANKIND 2.
The Goths and the Byzantines are just two possible evolutions of the Romans in HUMAKIND 2. Depending on how far your Roman empire expanded, other Cultures may be available to you, but that will be your choice to make.
HUMANKIND 2 Insiders - First Wave Invites Sent
Good news, everyone! The first wave of invites went out yesterday. If you had applied to be part of the Insiders program, make sure to check your emails (and your spam and promotion folders too, just in case.)
And if you haven't been selected, don't worry, there will be more waves of invitations in the future.
In fact, if you haven't yet, there's still time to sign up for a chance to try the game before release.
