Introduction
As I’ve, perhaps excessively, noted Axioms is not a grand strategy or 4x or turn based tactical game or w/e and neither is it really an rpg. I’d describe it as a fantasy novel major character simulator or something like that.
For that reason a major pillar of the game is breaking down the simplistic way that “culture” is used in game design. Whether that is the super bland extra building or military unit of 4x games or Total War or the equally bland different string in the population/province window of a grand strategy game, or even the AoW/CK style 3 of 4 special minor mechanics.
The reason for doing this from a game design perspective is because “culture”, along with religion, is one of the defining differentiators for distinct societies/nations. The difference between the Swiss or the Austrians or the Bavarians or the Prussians is much more than their military policy. It is in their foods and clothing and laws and so on. And that is a comparison of four extremely similar and geographically connected societies. Yet they have very meaningful differences.
Genre Failures
Why do all the fantasy races in AoW feel the same? What about the barbarians in Rome Total War or Imperator? And indeed why do they also feel samey compared to Rome or Greece? Because they are the same, except for that extra building or unit.
Axioms breaks down “culture” into the concrete constituent elements. It has food, clothing, gravegoods, laws, leadership, combat, “population ideology”, social occasions and celebrations, crafts and resource gathering methods, marriage and parenting, customs and tradition, and so on.
It should be noted that this post will be both the longest and most comprehensive and the final post until I am ready to put the game up on Steam for early access. It is not for the faint of heart or the weary of eye and mind. You’ve been warned.
*Note that due to size restrictions from email providers this post will be truncated in email form and you’ll want to click through to read the entire thing*
Religion
It is a widely accepted truth that Religion is the most bland, shallow, underutilized component of a society in basically every strategy game, aside from culture overall.
Insofar as any games address it at all you are either a fantasy god that is primarily defined by combat magic or the game has some sort of shallow modifier stacking system and at best a couple of “special abilities” or something like that.
Creative Assembly, Paradox, Muha, Illwinter, etc. It really doesn’t matter. This is a big failure of the genre/s because Religion, or the lack thereof, is one of the most fundamental aspects of historical or fantasy socities.
Axioms is not a traditional “strategy game” or an “rpg” but a fantasy novel/alt-historical world simulator. For that reason Religion needs to be a meaningful differentiator of societies.And it is.
There are core, concrete differences between the religions of different societies in the game and they impact nearly every “game system or mechanic”. You can read the original Religion design posts here:
All of those three posts were written at a time when a far less comprehensive understanding of Axioms was available to the public. What I’m going to do in this section of the post is both tie those expanations into other parts of the game more intensely and also expand on religion generally.
Flexible, dynamic, and extensive Religion mechanics serve a variety of purposes in Axioms. A key part of that is creating a potential second source of authority that can conflict with secular political authority, although in the case of a theocracy it functions a bit differently.
Religious leaders, generally, derive their authority from a different source than political leaders. Religions are also, generally, not restricted to a single polity. The differences are even more distinct because the game worlds in Axioms are fantasy worlds where deities are real.
Food, Clothes, Gravegoods, And Other Aspects Of “Material Culture”
Material culture is perhaps the most underutilized aspect of culture in games, be they strategy, rpg, or simulation. This is because material culture is so diverse and expansive.
Ironically material culture is one of the best understood aspects of historical culture research. Many of the oldest real life cultures are defined by their material culture. We may not know their name, their gods, or their history but we know them by the consistent set of gravegoods they buried with the dead.
Two examples would be the “Corded Ware” culture, defined by the “core-like impressions” characteristic of their pottery, and the “Bell Beaker” culture, defined by the “inverted bell” beaker style of their drinking objects.
You might ask how this type of thing can be relevant to a video game. That’s a good question. More abstract/high level strategy games probably couldn’t meaningfully deal with material culture even if they wanted to, and they often don’t. Axioms however is not a strategy game, per say, and it contains a detailed citybuilder/player crafting mmo style system of materials, goods, and production. It also engages with “Amenities” in the building system including Architecture/Decoration.
Below are some posts that contain relevant context for “material culture”:
Populations in Axioms will be happier with more/better material goods and building amenities generally, and also with material goods and building amenities particular to their culture specifically.
There is of course some level of abstraction and a degree of randomness in material culture development since Populations, or Characters, aren’t real/conscious and so detailed and dynamic material preferences are only simulated.
While the initial conception and even some early development of Axioms pre-dates Banished by a decent margin, it was inspired by predecessors including Emperor: Rise Of The Middle Kingdom. Populations have desires for material goods like clothes, tools, food, and “culture goods” similar, at a high level, to the “walkers” in Banished, or Emperor. The major difference is that these goods/foods are procedurally generated and dynamic, mostly, rather than hand coded and static.
Civilization 6 is even newer than Banished but their, identically named, Amenities are roughly comparable in concept even if they are more simplistic and not distinct. The distinct Axioms Amenities are Temperature/Insulation, Lighting, Spaciousness, Beauty/Architecture, Cooking/Cleaning/Plumbing, Structure/Stability, Efficiency, and so forth. Different Amenities come from different categories, generally Utility or Aesthetics.
Different Populations with different “Cultures” will prioritize different Amenities and also different materials used for those Amenities. Romans and Greeks loved Marble specifically, Romans prefered aqueducts over wells, and also enjoyed fountains. The Romans actually had plumbing and sewers to some degree, which was rare historically.
Cultures/Populations will initially have no preferences, until Amenities and Goods become available to them, at which point they’ll slowly generate a preference for their early local options.
Axioms has a complex set of systems that simulate what other games call “prestige”, or something similar. Essentially Populations will always be evaluating other nearby Populations and determining whether those populations have it better than they do and this impacts Happiness/QoL and transitively how they feel about their leaders and their own society. They’ll potentially “import” cultural preferences, and other similar things in the game, from those who they view as having a better life.
I’ll briefly detail some of this at the end of the post. “Class Consciousness” in Axioms could in theory fill out an entire separate post but my plan is not to write anymore design blogs until EA so I’ll abbreviate things at the end of the post.
Rituals, Traditions, Customs, And Other Aspects Of “Social Culture”
Social Culture is perhaps a little more relevant to strategy/rpg/simulation games than Material Culture but not by much. This is generally where you have a couple extra “special abilities” or unique modifiers or something to “represent” famous parts of a culture.
The most basic thing for this aspect is that Populations have an “Ideology”. What this actually means is they are scored on roughly 14 “spectra” as discussed in the post in the previous section about QoL; it also covers Ideology. This includes stuff like how militaristic, religious, or ethnocentrist they are. It also covers individualism vs collectivism as well as centralized vs devolved political organizatin.
Populations generally evaluate each other based on how similar they are, including the Ideology, but also factors like jobs, geography, or religion. Populations are divided by some of these factors into distinct entities. Some changes may be made here depending on performance/RAM issues. Currently all members of a Population have the same “job classification” like Farmer. I’m considering which factors should separate Populations vs which should be part of a “subgroup”. Maybe Laberor and Artisan/Craftsman and Farmer are “percentage based demarcations” within the same population.
Populations however evaluate Characters based on their Actions as well as their more static “nature”. They’ll have improved Opinions of Characters who benefit them. This will often involve assigning rights and privileges to Populations with similar traits. Religion, Job, Nationality Of Origin, and so forth.
Populations, and other Characters, will prefer for Leaders to act in line with their own Ideologies. Militarist societies might prefer leaders who lead raids or wars for instance. Other ideologies might encourage lots of feasting, similar to northern germanic tribes in Roman times.
It has lost of bit of the luster now but another key component of this aspect of culture is the Social Occasions system. Another game, which we’ll leave unnamed, just released a similar system although one that is more simplistic and RNG heavy. The link to my early 2022 design post about Social Occasions is below:
Which Social Occasions are most desired, how many you want to have yearly and so on is up to Ideology to some degree. Of course there’s the whole festival/holiday/religious rites aspect as well. I definitely suggest reading the Social Occasions posts to conceptualize how detailed this part of “Culture” is in the game.
Laws, Institutions, Organizations, And Other Aspects Of “Structural Culture”
Structual Culture is often given a decent amount of detail in strategy games, it is the most “strategically relevant” part after all, but that is a low bar to clear. This is an area where Axioms definitely makes some unique contributions to gaming.
“Laws” in Axioms are very unique compared to other games. You can apply a Law to nearly any part of the system. There are, necessarily, a limited number of “verbs” for Laws but almost anything in the game can be the “noun” to which a Law applies. Every individual resource, but also resource types, any Population, multiple Populations based on “meta data” like race(in the fantasy sense), religion, job, caste, etc. Basically anything. I’ve linked the original post on Laws below:
A Law in Axioms probably falls under a similar category, mechanically, to Commitments. Commitments are promises one or more Characters make to one or more other Characters, Populations, or Deities in some cases. Here’s a link to the original Commitments post:
A Law specifically is a formal Commitment, generally public, whereby all those under the polity who passed the Law are held to it. Like other Commitments it creates a higher tier of negative response if the Commitment is broken than the action would generate by itself. Certain Laws will please different groups who have a Personality, if a Character, or an Ideology, for Characters/Populations/Religions/Organizations, that it aligns with. Relevant deities will also have an opinion based on their divine portfolio.
Broadly a Commitment is a declaration of intent. There are a variety of different kinds used for different purposes though generally the type of commitment is defined by the person it is being made to. The target of a Commitment will evaluate whether it is fulfilled in a reasonable amount of time and to a reasonable degree. Sometimes third parties will evaluate Commitments, if they are made publicly, as part of their understanding of the “general reliability/trustworthiness” of a Character.
Promises are a type of Commitment mostly used in Conspiracies. Basically you are saying that you will provide some renumeration for assistance or you’ll achieve a goal as part of the plot/scheme/conspiracy as a condition of assistance. You can of course renege on Commitments. You’ll face a social penalty, depending on the specific commitment and depending on if it is public or private. Different Characters/Populations will view this differently depending on how they feel about the Commitment and who it was made to.
Declarations of war are generally Commitments, though they can be very broad. You’ll typically announce a reason for the war and perhaps a goal. This impacts how other parties will view your actions. Axioms doesn’t have defined and hard coded “casus belli” or “war goals”. Instead it is a more dynamic system and flexible system. There are some cases where intra or inter national law or tradition/custom can replicate the idea of a casus belli or war goal. The Player or an NPC Character could pass a Law defining a certain cause for war as more legitimate.
War goals are totally open as far as what the player can do, but they player has to be careful that their supporters, or neutral parties, or opponents, don’t get mad. Declaring a war for some specific reasons and then doing something that doesn’t follow from those reasons creates a harsher response from neutral and hostile parties and your population or allies/vassals will generally be upset if you made a move they weren’t expecting. Although great success can ameliorate some of that reaction.
Axioms is a game that heavily engages with domestic politics and orgnization. Characters can form Organizations/Institutions for carry out specific tasks or filling specific roles in society. A very recent post was about representative governments and assemblies:
Axioms also provides for administrative/bureacratic institutions:
Leaders of a polity can assign bureaucratic positions to other characters, or in some cases “Units”(a small population with specific duties, similar to the military Units), to fulfill in their stead. In some cases, like the Roman example, these might be legal fixed magistraces with defined powers. Depending on the government form a leader Character may be able to appoint at will or be limited by the formal system.
I’ve discussed some potential administrative actions in the post about bandits and raids as well:
Generally outside of large bureaucratic empires, similar to the real world Rome, ERE, or HRE, leaders have quite a lot of freedom, limited only by their material resources and their political capital, to create government structure. Note that some societies are ideologically more resistant to “reforms” in politics or the military.
I’ve actually written a post about Political Capital and State Capacity already:
Institutions can also include things like Libraries and Academies, where state owned or private as well as the messenger networks and state guard networks discussed in the post on banditry.
Conclusion
Axioms is a game with a detailed and robust representation of cultural diversity and distinction which allows you to experience wildly varied societies where different strategies, for ruling or commerce or war, will depend on local societal factors. If someone made a mod for Rome or the successors to Rome that would be quite a different experience from a generic feudal society or a tribal or nomadic one. A Theocracy would feel like a religion centered polity. Merchant Republics would be, for lack of a better term, merchanty.
I mentioned earlier that I’d detail a little bit of the “class consciousness” which is uniquely displayed in Axioms. Every Population, and Character, is tracking their relative status against their neighbors.
Is average wealth higher or lower, is their access to food variety, can they partake of cultural dishes, what is their relationship to the state, are they literate, are their houses functional and beautiful or ramshackle and shabby? All that kind of stuff.
Does their culture, ideologically or otherwise, value their profession? Think of the status Plato gives soldiers in his Republic. Can people like them rise to high status in the state or clergy? Are they citizens? Can they travel freely?
Populations, and Characters, will experience “cultural shift” if they are low status. They’ll be more likely to accept a new ruling class. They’ll also generally be more radical and press for change.
In any case I hope this post, as insanely long as it was, gives you a better understanding of what “culture” means in Axioms and why it is important, even if it doesn’t get down to the metal as far as variable values or UI screenshots.
I've been following your work for a few years now, and I've really enjoyed the amount of detail in it. I like the richness you show.
Do you have a date set for the release of this possible masterpiece? Even a steam page.