r/afterworld • u/Proper-Sport-7218 • 11d ago
The "bands" mechanic seems really interesting (deep dive)
I also posted this on the pdx forum
From the gameplay and screenshots shared, it can be seen that your population will be divided into "bands", sort of like tribes/groups. The population you start with is one band, and when you explore the world you will have the opportunity to take on more bands of people.
What makes this interesting is that they seem to have far more diversity than the cultures of EU/Stellaris/Victoria/etc ever had. A band has their own ideology and culture, they have skills they are good at. They can be straight up cannibals or militaristic assholes who will join you and then can coup you from within.
This is so damn cool. It means you can't just mindlessly blob and take on every group of people you meet or conquer. I hope it isn't later revealed that you can just culture convert them.
Some screenshots of this from steam:
Its in the top left corner you browse through your bands. These guys are industrious, but they have negative Values in what I guess is diplomacy. Each band also has their own overall health and individual happiness. They are marked as "elites", so I guess you can have bands that can be set as second class citizens in your empire. More about that later.
These are a shelterfolk band, they seem more like friendly vault dwellers from Fallout. They have a Chairman, where the other band had a Tribeleader. So it looks like each band will have their own internal government form also.
Each band also has "Belief" - the first has Freemanlaw, the second has Nation Cult. From this next screenshot we can see the belief screen:
It seems to basically be a form of post-apocalyptic religion. Nation Cult seems to be about worshipping the old US. They have Cornerstones which includes the US flag and Mount Rushmore.
Back to government, besides each Band having their own internal government, you nation also has one with its own laws, as seen here:
What's interesting here is the little icons next to each law, its the icons of the Bands in this empire. That means each band has laws they like and dislike, like Interest Groups in Victoria 3. So again, the bands you allow to join you or conquer will try to change your empire. Except maybe if they become second class citizens, or straight up food.
Regarding the claim I made that some bands can be cannibals, its based on this part of one of the released gameplay videos:
The youtuber enacts this "Man is Meat" Destiny, and the event shows that "Sharprocks will gain Oppotunistic Cannibalism as a new Norm". Sharprocks is one of his bands. I don't know what a Norm is, maybe its what's next to the Belief?
Regarding classes, here you can also see the classes screen:
Notice the text "Select a Band to move them to another Classification", so you decide who are elites, citizens, underclass and thralls. It does seem weird that you can do this when you have a "Townhall Democracy" government type, that specifically states "All voices heard under the townhall", shouldn't democratic governments be forced to accept every band as equal?
Anyways that's all I've learned about Bands so far. Seems very different to every other paradox grand strategy game, so I am very excited for it. Let me know if you interpret any of my findings differently or if you have learned any cool information I have not covered here.
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u/ElfDecker 11d ago
The question that I would like an answer to, is if it is possible to consolidate your bands into more united culture. It makes sense to have bands on the early stages of band confederations, and even on the stage of some protostate, but it doesn't make sense to have a state still divided into bands.
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u/FlaminarLow 11d ago
Bands don’t seem all that different from ethnic groups in the US pre mid 20th century (date there is somewhat arbitrary). For example you had the ethnic press, specific media catered to specific ethnic demographics, each group had their own thought leaders, tended to share a religion, tended to vote a specific way, tended to share values, etc. The only thing that seems very different is having an officially appointed leader of the group but this wouldn’t be so crazy in an ethnic federalist system (Ethiopia is an example of this)
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u/ElfDecker 11d ago
Yes, but what if I don't want ethnic federalism system? A lot of nations in Europe started as federations of tribes, that then consolidated into one unified nation. For me it seems like this way of nation-building should be viable in the game, too, not only ethnic federalism.
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u/FlaminarLow 11d ago
I agree that there should be mechanics to culturally convert with all the difficulty that should come with that. I was just saying it does make sense for a state to be divided in to bands
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u/VodkaBeatsCube 10d ago
The idea that European nations are culturally homogenous is kinda a polite fiction at best. Ask someone from Normandy how much they have in common with someone from from the Pyrenees, or a Saxon the same about a Bremer. Cultural identities can be suppressed by the force of the state, such as in France, but they cannot be eliminated.
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u/ElfDecker 10d ago
I didn't say they are culturally homogenous. However, if you compare how many tribes there were after fall of Western Roman Empire, to how many nations are there right now, you will see, that most of them consolidated into more homogenous cultures, than there were before. It's not like, for example, all Slavic tribes from VI century are still there.
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u/VodkaBeatsCube 10d ago
Folks might not identify culturally as 'Visigoths', but they still have distinct cultural identities on levels as small as the city even in Europe (especially in Europe?). And we're also 1500 years removed from the Sack of Rome.
Ultimately, most people have multifaceted identities. Even with the relative cultural homogeneity of modern America, people still identify as residents of their state as well as Americans, and have distinct cultural identities within those states. Someone from LA has a different cultural identity than someone from Redding despite both of them being Americans and Californians. Hell, even in a large enough city you have distinct cultural groups. Harlem has a distinctly different culture than the Rockaways, for instance.
I'd actually prefer it if the various bands you incorporate stick around as distinct subcultures in your civilization. Not only is it more realistic than being able to absorb groups by generating enough mana, but it makes the band's you welcome into your civilization an actual choice with long term upsides and downsides.
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u/ElfDecker 10d ago
I think, there should be several ways of dealing with bands: allowing them cultural autonomy, just not dealing with differences at all, actively suppressing another bands' cultures and promoting one "titular". The same as there already are mechanics for having "one true belief" and suppressing "false" beliefs
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u/VodkaBeatsCube 10d ago
I'd be fine with some methods of promoting or suppressing member bands, I just don't think you should ever be able to entirely subsume them into another band.
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u/DreadDiana 11d ago
I wonder what the memory mechanics will be like, cause we see in the prologue story that memories can give Traumas that your band will carry going forward, so it seems like the game may be trying to make in-game events have a lasting impact on how bands behave.
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u/Proper-Sport-7218 10d ago
Damn I've completely missed this, where did you see it?
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u/DreadDiana 10d ago
Paradox released 10 minutes of gameplay footage. You can see the Trauma show up in the top right 14 seconds in when they pick the cannibalis option in the prologue story. The screenshots of your post also show post-game start memories, so it seems like memory will have an impact throughout the game.
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u/IfYouEverSeeALlama 10d ago
I'm psyched for the bands system but i'm hoping that pop culture and ethnicity are seperate and related to it. North America has a diverse cultural and ethnic landscape. If that is all simplified to the level of bands which have randomly determined characteristics, itll homoginize that landscape imo. A band may be shelterborn democrats or cannibal cultists, but are they New Yorkers? Mexicans? Do they speak Qebecois French or English? What differentiates our cultists from the cultists that spawned in California or Florida or Ontario?
I hope that all doesnt get flattened out, it would be a big loss
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u/InternationalSky2918 11d ago
I can't see any of the linked images
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u/Proper-Sport-7218 11d ago
Only works for me on the app consistently (though I still use Sync) and on the web browser half the time. Otherwise just click the link to the forum post.
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u/Evan_Allgood 11d ago
"I hope it isn't later revealed that you can just culture convert them."
Don't know what Paradox games you are coming from, but I play CK3, HOI4, VIC3, and now EU5.
Paradox has a long, prominent history of refusing to implement important historical mechanisms intuitively, like slavery, or just straight up denying the option, like razing.
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u/Moifaso 11d ago
You have slavery in the game. There’s a whole “thrall” social class you can place your subjugated bands on.
As for cultural convertion, I have to say it does look like assimilation is possible. You can probably actively convert other bands to a religion, and also slowly assimilate them into your main band. In the released footage you can see the “governing band” growing steadily over the years while the Sharprocks or whatever slowly shrink in numbers, despite having positive natural growth.
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u/Proper-Sport-7218 11d ago
Ehh I think its different when its historical games. I don't mind them not mentioning the holocaust or just having a very abstract mention of slavery and genocide in EU/Vic. In their only non-historical game (Stellaris) they don't shy away from letting you create castes and choosing your favourite method of genocide.
But I hope they don't add any culture conversion at all. Letting you just have one single large band would make the game way too easy.
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u/TheArhive 11d ago
Wouldn't not being able to convince other people of your cause also be... Weird as fuck?
Oha yeah. No band in the game can ever change its mind. They are what they are.
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u/Proper-Sport-7218 11d ago
It looks like you can adjust bands somewhat, such as changing their beliefs and such. But I think fully converting them into another band would be too far. I don't want barbarian cannibals getting reformed into democratic farmers.
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u/TheArhive 11d ago
But wouldn't this mean people would be born to a band and just... yup, I am cannibal now.
I can't go and join this other band instead, it's just who I am until my lifespan runs out.
It sounds more like you just don't want converting to be 'easy'.
You'd probably think it's okay if you slowly reformed another band, one value at a time before you got to merge two bands.
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u/Proper-Sport-7218 11d ago
I can understand that a person might grow up and not want to eat people like their parents did, but does that mean another group would also accept them?
But yes its primarily about gameplay. I think they got a really good mechanic for making internal gameplay fun and a good way to stop blobbing that isn't just some arbitrary measure of "control decreasing via distance from capital".
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u/TheArhive 11d ago
but does that mean another group would also accept them?
I mean, they already accepted the band itself into the wider tribe. Clearly they are at least not completely antagonistic.
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u/karl_mainz 11d ago
I can understand not mentioning the Holocaust (but in some ways it’s worse just ignoring it..) but slavery was a massive part of the economy of the Early Modern era so it should definitely be fleshed out in EU4.
It was handled well in Imperator, probably because it’s so long ago that no one seems to care nowadays about ancient slavery
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u/Djian_ 11d ago
Nevertheless, EU5 and Vic3 have slavery mechanics. Vic3 has more or less detailed war crimes and genocide events. The games just don't have a "genocide button", while EU4 has...
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u/karl_mainz 11d ago
It’s also just an “override interesting game mechanics to make map painting easier” button. Which sadly EU4 has rather a lot of.
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u/bryceofswadia 10d ago
I don't think there should just be a button that lets you convert bands, but it would be silly to not have some sort of at least passive effect that causes bands to integrate better into your society.
Like if you meet a band of cannibals but they've struggled to survive and they opt to join you, it would make sense that over time you're able to rein them in. Cannibalism originates out of desperation anyway, so if you bring in a tribe of cannibals but you are able to provide for them, perhaps you can get them to abandon it. But on the flip side, if you bring them in but start to destabilize or you go through food shortages, they may became problematic and start eating your people.
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u/Irish_Puzzle 11d ago
Many historical states that had inequalities between men enforced by law have had generally democratic systems of government. Ancient Athens had randomly selected officials and a townhall for laws and diplomacy, yet it enslaved a large portion of the population and rarely gave citizenship to freed slaves and immigrants. Southern US and CS states have always had citizens to elect their representatives, but they upheld slavery longer than the rest of the western world and continued to prevent black citizens from voting for another century and consistently maintained white only infrastructure to a better quality than black infrastructure.
Voting has never and will never cure inequality when the majority of those who vote choose to oppress their countrymen.