Possible Future Cultures (Speculations and Ideas)

[King of Zoot]

I think chaos/materium will be pirate themed.

 

[ERICdb]

This is very well thought out. Id say both Devs and Modders alike with capatilise on this.

I was trying to come up with something similar with a japan syled faction with ying and yang (Order and Dark), Knight Faction (Order and Astral) but seeing a chart and break down def makes my thought process easier.

Be curious if you had any additional unique units, spells, research, hero skills etc you had in mind

It's hard to speculate on more specific stuff for cultures, because we don't really even know much about the existing ones. I'd need to see the different research items the culture provides access to, as well as how units are spread among them. But I'll be happy to expand this ideas once we get more info on how the game works overall.

 

[Drage]

After reading the other user's inspiring suggestions, I'd like to input my own speculation about each possible combination, having in mind that most probably, only a handful of new additions will ever be implemented. I think that some would be more interesting than others, benefiting from having a more different potential play style than the base game will offer. Also, there is plenty of room for interpretation on where a specific theme should fall in regard to its composing affinities. This is not a dogmatic, but a speculative chart. Some of this you will recognise form the previous suggestions, which I've shamelessly incorporated.

Really love what you did here with this chart, even if some of my interpretations would be different (like for instance Chaos - Materium being a culture of people living in massive trading caravans, nomadic, as Chaos aspect suggests they wouldn't be inclined to settle in place).

However what I really wanted to share is about this matchup:

• Animist (Astral + Nature) - The culture with ancient totemic/spiritist values. They strive to please and coexist with the magical and natural elements of their environment. Focus on magic summoning and support. Could have an easier time requesting help from magically-inclined neutral parties on the map.

While I don't disagree with your vision of animistic/shamanistic people with that affinity, to me Astral - Nature brings strongly a recollection of the people of Tayledras (or Tale'edras aka Hawkbrothers as they do indeed tend to form bonds with animals, most commonly magical birds) from a series of fantasy novels by Mercedes Lackey (highly recommend!). They are a mystical, highly attuned to magic, secretive, if not isolationist people structured as a clan society, living in a land still suffering from an ancient magical cataclysm/war. They found their settlements in places with the most powerful magical nodes and use that power to help restore the natural state in the area, never claiming lordship over the people that might live there or the land itself, but always feel the responsibility to protect it all.

Heck now that I drew that connection I can't wait to get my hands on the game and roleplay that as closely as possible

 

[Nerdfish]

While I don't disagree with your vision of animistic/shamanistic people with that affinity, to me Astral - Nature brings strongly a recollection of the people of Tayledras (or Tale'edras aka Hawkbrothers as they do indeed tend to form bonds with animals, most commonly magical birds) from a series of fantasy novels by Mercedes Lackey (highly recommend!). They are a mystical, highly attuned to magic, secretive, if not isolationist people structured as a clan society, living in a land still suffering from an ancient magical cataclysm/war. They found their settlements in places with the most powerful magical nodes and use that power to help restore the natural state in the area, never claiming lordship over the people that might live there or the land itself, but always feel the responsibility to protect it all.

Generally native American themed ? could be good.

 

[ERICdb]

While I don't disagree with your vision of animistic/shamanistic people with that affinity, to me Astral - Nature brings strongly a recollection of the people of Tayledras (or Tale'edras aka Hawkbrothers as they do indeed tend to form bonds with animals, most commonly magical birds) from a series of fantasy novels by Mercedes Lackey (highly recommend!). They are a mystical, highly attuned to magic, secretive, if not isolationist people structured as a clan society, living in a land still suffering from an ancient magical cataclysm/war. They found their settlements in places with the most powerful magical nodes and use that power to help restore the natural state in the area, never claiming lordship over the people that might live there or the land itself, but always feel the responsibility to protect it all.

Heck now that I drew that connection I can't wait to get my hands on the game and roleplay that as closely as possible

Never heard of that series but it seems interesting. Of course my idea was just a quick brainstorm, so a culture developed during a whole book would probably be more fun. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[Warboss Aohd]

I want a Both a North and Central/South American Native American Culture.
Also if we are gonna go full crazy, let's go full crazy.
Clown Culture.

 

[bronze Void poison]

I want something African just for it to have a presence, also how is order chaos daoism japanise yin yang is Chinese?

 

[Whiskeyjack-5691]

Honestly, ERICdb's chart pretty much nails everything, I think. Any culture you could think of, it's in that list in some form or fashion. It's top notch! I highly doubt we'll get every possible combination listed on it, but... a man can dare to dream!

A Druidic culture is noticeably absent from all the gameplay we've seen so far, so there's no way to create the standard "Tree-Hugging Knife-Ears" "Wood Elves" or "Arch Druids". I reckon there's a good chance that'll be among the first pieces of new content we get.

A Mercantile culture sounds like it could be pretty fun; maybe it'd have a focus on building tall, maximising income and using it's riches to buy out Free Cities, bribing enemies, or hiring mercenaries.

Bit hard to tell from what we've seen so far, but it looks like the Dark culture will be more straight-up Evil Overlords with a smattering of Rogues in support, rather than a full-on "Rogue" culture (which I guess would be "Criminal" or "Syndicate" culture). King of Zoot mentioned a Pirate culture, and I'm honestly in love with that idea.

A Nomadic culture has been thrown around a fair bit; no idea what it'd look like, but it'd definitely offer a really unique playstyle methinks, so I'm all for it!

 

[bronze Void poison]

I find the lack of a pure nature or pure chaos strange as we need those options not against the line up we have now but getting all the pure blocks out seems the most obvious choice.

 

[Technogremlin]

Some ideas I've had:

Nature + shadow: ranger
Aragorn style rangers with hoods and cloaks.
Focus on ranged damage, stealth, and poison.
Can attune their units to certain environments (maybe by a choice of structure) and those units will get invisibility and increased damage on that terrain type.
Units also get buffs from being in cover.
Their t3 is a mounted archer
Could also be nomadic

Materium + chaos: scavenger
People scavenging from the ruins of a more advanced society. Would make most sense to release this along side a dreadnought style culture.
They would have a scrap/ junkpunk like aesthetic, with some volatile firearms which can choose to do more damage but with a chance to blow themselves up. Their other units are mostly weak but spammable.

Nature + nature: woodfolk
Fairytale gnome/goblin/smurf kinda aesthetic with lots of mushroom and bug imagery.
Very horde based
Could have swarm darters for their archers.
I'm mainly imagining this being used with halflings, goblins, and toads

Sorry if this comes out formatted weirdly. I don't usually use my phone for this and I'm kinda in a rush

 

[GloatingSwine]

I think chaos/materium will be pirate themed.

It'll be that or Science!!!

A culture of madboys and their various crimes against nature and engineering.

 

[Tschobo]

It'll be that or Science!!!

A culture of madboys and their various crimes against nature and engineering.

Sky Pirates? Count me in.

My proposition would also be:

Mystic+Order: Monastic Order, Exalted Society: A more monk and priest based society that focuses more on researching the magic within the laws and force it to obey them.
There two choices could be applicable: Similar to the Templars or similar to a more Shaolin/eastern asian Monk styled aesthetic. Both could work to be honest
Very system-based and efficient
Strong units would be potentially Warriorpriests and Knight Enchanters. Nearly no Cavalry.
Would have issues with Barbarians and Shadowbased realms

Materium+Mystic: Technomancer Society. Tries to combine magic with science with various results. Are rather freespirited and put their researchs before everything.
Colorful cloaks, arcane runes and lots of technical additions (Including prosthetics).
Units that vary from efficiency and can sometimes explode damaging all units around them
Can have Technomagical cannons and magically enhanced creatures and vehicles.
Would have problems with Order-based realms

Shadow+Order: Imperial (and with that I mean the less feudal and more like the Roman Empire in the 3rd Century AD) Highly drilled and trained with focus on
Units should have formation-bonuses as well as formation-uses.
Either go for a late roman empire aesthetic or an early ottoman empire aesthetic. Both have a rather interesting aura on that.
Strong heavy infantry and cavalry, a bit weaker in magic units.
Catapharacts and Legionaries or Janissaries and Armored Horsemen are the powerbase.
Would have issues with Barbarians and any more free-spirited realms.

And as a crackpot
Nature+Materium: Natural Shapers (and not Nomadic, that would be difficult in a game like AoW). While they have a high focus on researching and building up their arsenal they are more inclined to use tools that won't harm their region and even restore damaged realms with forestation and cultivation programs. They also can use specific tomes to boost production like lightning-based tomes as a means of production. Extremely advanced but less coal and steam.
Aesthetitic: Nature and maybe even more leaf and lether-based but with various technological gadgets and trinkets on their clothes.
Units would be rather weak with a few extremely powerful exceptions
Special units can be the electric gunner and the solar glider.
Would have issues with anyone that damages the environment.

 

[bronze Void poison]

Sky Pirates? Count me in.

My proposition would also be:

Mystic+Order: Monastic Order, Exalted Society: A more monk and priest based society that focuses more on researching the magic within the laws and force it to obey them.
Very system-based and efficient
Strong unites would be potentially Warriorpriests and Knight Enchanters.
Would have issues with Barbarians and Shadowbased realms

Materium+Mystic: Technomancer Society. Tries to combine magic with science with various results. Are rather freespirited and put their researchs before everything.
Units that vary frome efficiency and can sometimes explode damaging all units around them
Can have Technomagical cannons and magically enhanced creatures and vehicles.
Would have problems with Order-base realms

Shadow+Order: Imperial (and with that I mean the less feudal and more like the Roman Empire in the 3rd Century AD) Highly drilled and trained with focus on
Units should have formation-bonuses as well as formation-uses
Strong heavy infantry and cavalry, a bit weaker in magic units.
Catapharacts and Legionaries are the powerbase.
Would have issues with Barbarians and any more free-spirited relms.

And as a crackpot
Nature+Materium: Natural Shapers (and not Nomadic, that would be difficult in a game like AoW). While they have a high focus on researching and building up their arsenal they are more inclined to use tools that won't harm their region and even restore damaged realms with forestation and cultivation programs. They also can use specific tomes to boost production like lightning-based tomes as a means of production. Extremely advanced but less coal and steam.
Units would be rather weak with a few extremely powerful exceptions
Special units can be the electric gunner and the solar glider.
Would have issues with anyone that damages their environment.

and consider ations as to the aesthetics of these groups?

 

[Tschobo]

and consider ations as to the aesthetics of these groups?

To make it easier I have added it on the original post of mine. Many thanks I forgot that.

 

[Gyor]

Primeval culture coming via DLC confirmed. How that differs from Barbarians, not sure, but perhaps more Druidish with living buildings, more Celtic feeling, with fey elements. Mushroom castles and tree houses. Nature/Nature or Nature/Dark?

No metal weapons.

Also confirmed is a culture that combines magic and steel in a different way to Industrial Culture. Maybe Astral/Materium?

 

[bronze Void poison]

Primeval culture coming via DLC confirmed. How that differs from Barbarians, not sure, but perhaps more Druidish with living buildings, more Celtic feeling, with fey elements. Mushroom castles and tree houses. Nature/Nature or Nature/Dark?

No metal weapons.

Also confirmed is a culture that combines magic and steel in a different way to Industrial Culture. Maybe Astral/Materium?

I wonder what aesthetic mystic material would even be?

I kinda want an option for all of earth's civilisation sphere so adding east Asia, Indian subcontinent, central and south America, African (not egypt they are there own look) there might be more but I even mixing them up or have forgotten about them.

mostly as earth cultures are cool and pure euro fantasy gets old plus gives representation and such.

 

[Vaelrisian93]

Order + Astral could be Celestial Empire (Imperial China aesthetic), maybe with a 'Mandate of Heaven' special gimmick

 

[Vaelrisian93]

Astral + Materium culture's aesthetic could be an Egyptian-inspired dungeonpunk/magitech style, with magitech automatons modeled on the Egyptian gods and glowing magitech pyramids. Sorta like that playable clockwork Anubis character from Sacred II.

 

[bronze Void poison]

Astral + Materium culture's aesthetic could be an Egyptian-inspired dungeonpunk/magitech style, with magitech automatons modeled on the Egyptian gods and glowing magitech pyramids. Sorta like that playable clockwork Anubis character from Sacred II.

so we are going full stargate then?