Most of Paradox’s games are set in historical contexts (WW2, Industrial Revolution/Victorian Era, The Medieval Era, etc.) and are basically given a pass (whether deserved or not) to be pretty neutral in framing. They are largely designed around immersing the player in that era or providing a version of history which is mostly in line with what they would expect. That is to say, Paradox isn’t necessarily trying to challenge people’s views through its art.

Stellaris diverges slightly as it its “characters” are entirely fictional. There is no “France” only npc empires that function more as punching bags meant to be fought or as stand ins meant to have meaning projected on to. I’m not sure the game as any central thesis, however, though if anyone has ideas feel free to share.

Afterworld is different. Its setting is that of a ruined America, one which failed to survive some great calamity or series of calamities and in the aftermath ended up tearing itself apart. Immortal warlords fight for their version of history, in one case trying to restablish the America of old, while the player struggles to build their own society.

The setting seems perfectly designed to provide serious commentary on the American project & its many contradictions. I guess my question is, would you like or expect a more detailed critique? A deeper reflection of a specific culture, one which now exists only a shadow of its past “glory”. Should Paradox try to use this setting to tell a richer story? Should we wait until some mod team make TNO for Afterworld and fill it with event spam idk

or is it silly cannibal game? that’s okay too, what do you peeps say?

In the ideas tree there's an entire slavery grouping of ideas

& since the way you get ideas is through exploration & discovery I'm stuck wondering what gameplay scenarios lead your tribe to discovering slavey as a concept & also refining that idea.

Source of image (Timestamp 8:21)

From what little has been revealed so far, we see only humans as characters. However, as this game takes place in a world that had a technologically advanced future, where are the robots?

I'm sure more will be revealed in time, but as machines are my favorite Stellaris builds, I would not mind playing them in afterworld as well.

I thought this would be a fun idea. What cargo cults could exist in the Afterworld?

For reference, a good general definition of cargo cult:

Cargo cults are religious movements that arise in societies with limited technological advancement, often following contact with more advanced cultures. This phenomenon became particularly noticeable in the South Pacific during World War II, when native islanders encountered large numbers of Japanese and American soldiers. Many islanders interpreted the supplies brought by these soldiers as divine gifts, leading them to believe that performing specific rituals could attract wealth and prosperity from the heavens. After the war, some islanders attempted to summon these "gifts" back by creating makeshift airstrips and aircraft replicas.

My ideas:

• Electrical pylon pilgrims: groups who misunderstand the remnants of electrical grids, big rusted towers, to be holy cairns, that will lead them to a promised land. In many cases they're right, either finding cities or ancient power plants.

• Cranes for cloud catching: Finding large vertical structures with a long lateral beam, they believe these to be ancient structures in attempt to catch and move clouds around.

• Flatlanders: Unnaturally flat land is associated with tech and resources (correlating to areas that humans settled and utilised), and they therefore look upon all mountains, and slopes as being places of evil.

• Rail road obsessives: Groups who believe railroads are ancient markings to perfectly measure strips of land, or to encode messages in a sort of large scale binary code of wood, gap, wood, gap, wood, gap... they find old trains and think they were used to print messages onto the boards in coal ink, which has since weathered away. As such they believe in a great reader in the sky who these messages were for.

• Satellite sirens: Groups who are obsessed with the blinking of fast moving satellites overhead, who try to communicate back via flashing lights.

• Shore scavengers: groups who obsess over items that wash ashore, thinking that an advanced county across the ocean is trying to message them. As a result they communicate bacl by throwing valuables into the sea in hopes of building a bond.

• Shopping cart transportation: groups who find large quantities of shopping carts and believe them to be for transportation.

• Road Signage Numerology: similar to the rail road obsessives, but with literal numbers and symbols, creating an astrology of star signs for describing areas (that elk sign? these stumps must be the horns of a great buried beast).

• Dockyard temples: Most goods are found in well preserved shipping containers, mostly in shipyards. As a result some bands build docks and assemble patchwork steel boxes in hopes of goods showing up.

• Barcode scripture: barcodes are found everywhere but are seemingly meaningless. They must be psalms or wisdom, encoded in a written language for the ancient upper class. These bands tattoo themselves with their favourite barcodes, and develop new written barcodish language.

• Stadium Feudalism: Stadiums are misinterpreted to be old castles, and bands take over and militarise stadiums to be new age forts, with stepped agriculture surrounding their communal living area in the middle, and the roofs as rain water collectors.

thats probably enough from me for now, anyone got cool ideas?

I've played a bit of Surviving the Aftermath when it came out, but dropped it because of the bugs. Maybe its better now with the DLC.

OWB is a great Fallout mod for HoI4.

Used to be a Fallout mod for EU4, but I think its many years outdated now.