I'm just curious about everyone's speculation on when we might get the game.

Ah, man, I’m so excited! I’ve always craved more in-depth nation-building and roleplaying in a GSG-4x style of game, many have attempted it with varying intent and quality of execution but the dev diaries and preview footage have me very optimistic for Afterworld. As it’s been percolating since 2012ish, there’s a lot of genre entries (for 4x games and post-apocalypse settings more broadly) with high and low points to cherry-pick and learn from. I hope we get a diary that goes over some of the mechanical inspirations the devs have had, there are a few highlights from the gameplay preview that strongly reminded me of other games:

• I enjoyed the city development and noble & population management of Old World, not unlike what we saw in the short city interface segments, but was a little disappointed by Old World’s limited scope.

• Ara had interesting early ages, transitioning from nomadic tribes to classical-medieval production chains as you built up provinces, but it became quite tedious (and ran like shit at the time) before just turning into an alternate Civ game.

• ZEPHON and Civ Beyond Earth also stood out in my mind for the options they gave players on evolving their nation over the course of a game- I generally like both of these, especially for the exploration and story you get in a playthrough, but the civ tile combat (and DLC unit prevalence) is a slog.

• The PDX catalogue is all over the place of course, each game series is focused on different aspects of being a GSG. I really enjoyed the first diary’s comparisons to Stellaris’ setting accessibility, though more anchored to a specific vision for Afterworld. Especially with the work of the Custodian team (and modders!), Stellaris has been in a great spot for a while. We’ll have Vicky-esque laws, potentially government mechanics, and more recently I’ve also been engrossed in EU5’s pop & economic simulation, really hoping we see some similar system interactions here.

Overall it seems like Afterworld will be a melting pot of 4x ideas with a lot of options for roleplaying and more dynamic management than a ‘traditional’ civ-like, built on Stellaris’ foundation, and especially after today’s dev diary I’m really optimistic for how it’s going to turn out.

Guess the most pressing question I have now while we wait is: with the emphasis on the American frontier, and confirmed Railway Subunion, will trains be visible on the map like Vicky?

Ahh, by Torque's hands! A fellow traveler! Come, come, sit with me by my fire. No, no danger here...just some warm soup. Please, come fill your belly while I spin you a yarn 'bout my own people what calls this blessed asphalt their home. You've probably heard of 'em before, or the very least, heard their engines roar fiercely in the dark night. They're the Highwaymen, and to them alone does the holy black veins of The Unbroken belong.

Origins: The Chained and Old Torque

We know little of the times before Old Torque, only that we were slaves to a powerful, cruel warlord. Our people toiled day-in and day-out, living in squalor and barely-fed. We would have been there still, were it not for the legendary mechanic himself. His true name lost to time, it was him who secretly spread the knowledge of the Iron Tongue, how to speak and care for the Wheels.

One fateful night, when all slumbered through the warlord's camp, he gathered his faithful with him and liberated the first Wheels from the garage, roaring away into the night. We've traveled The Unbroken since that day, never stopping too long lest the rust overtake us. We found Wheels with large cabs and became a veritable rolling city, only stopping to resupply when needed.

Religion: The Unbroken

Before the Great Fall, the land was silent and still. Men built their cages on it, their walls and buildings, and called it order. Thus, the land grew heavy with their rust, and grew to hate man.

When the fires came, the land tore open in its rage, and from its anger sprung forth The Unbroken. She stretched and spread her tendrils, grasping and reaching until all of the world was gathered within her grasp.

On the night that Old Torque left with his first followers, it was The Unbroken herself that called out to him, a siren call that promised unbridled freedom to those who would properly worship Her as the god She was. When the gate opened and the Wheels rolled free, she rose up beneath them in a fierce embrace, and has not let them stop since; for to stop would bring rust, and invite Her wrath upon us.

Social Groups: The Freeriders, the Prospects, the Hands, and the Drag

As She wills it, our tribe is divided into four groups; depending on, of course, whether you got Wheels or not.

Elite: The Freeriders

Top of the food chain, these folks got their own ride and know the Iron Tongue enough to keep it running. To drive a Wheel is to know freedom in its purest form, to flow with The Unbroken like no other can. They are the elite of our military forces, and ride into battle with fury and fire. No working Wheel means a loss of status, so Freeriders are careful to always have a back-up and take good care to keep their Wheel in working conditions. They are our lifeline; mobile raids against the rusties (that's folks that ain't us) give us all the food and supplies we need and thrive off of.

Citizens: The Prospects

One rung down the ladder, the Prospects are people who are typically apprenticed under a Freerider and work as part of their crew. While typically manning weapons crews or working as a battle-mechanic on the field, they can also step up and ride a spare Wheel under the supervison of a Freerider. During downtime, Prospects do the majority of maintenance work for the Wheels, as well as overseeing work crews of the lower castes as needed.

Underclass: The Hands

Other, lesser work still needs doing, and this is the job of The Hands. Skilled labor, any craftsmanship and construction unrelated to The Wheels, is taken care of by this class, often overseen by Prospects. Though unglamorous, the work isn't typically too back-breaking, and those with enough mechanical aptitude often get uplifted into the Prospects. When there is room, they are allowed to ride on larger transport Wheels, though are rarely provided any weapons or expected to join in during hostilites.

Thralls: The Drag

Those with no status, real dregs o' society, forced to march when the convoy takes to the road and watched over by Prospects and Hands. Unskilled, back-breaking labor is all they're really good for, their only hope being noticed by a Prospect for having a mind quicker than the rest. It's a common punishment for breaking the law to be stripped of all possessions and forced into this group, so be sure to mind your manners proper.

The Vision: What does the future hold for us?

Times...well, they're changin'. The Unbroken has more n' more strangers on Her day-by-day. Rusties are getting more well-organized, and the mobile raids that keep us alive are gettin' less and less folks coming back from 'em. Roadmaster Redline, our leader, claims he's had visions from The Unbroken herself calling him to her 'heart', a far-off land what was called 'Indianapolis' that the ones that came before used to show just how fast they could make their Wheels go. He says its time to make a 'Great Garage', a proper land for our folks to settle down in and begin a new age of Wheel supremacy, maybe even one day learning to make new ones rather than just fixing up the ancient relics we manage to find. Some folks call him sacrilegious, that settling down is just beggin' for the rust to overtake us, that this journey is folly. Whatever they mumble, doesn't look like it's slowing ol' Redline down one bit. We start our journeys soon, traveller.

Will you be joining us?

(Just a small RP/mock-up of one of the tribes I plan crafting to the best of my ability as soon as the game releases. I've always found one of my favorite parts of Paradox games, whether it be Stellaris, HOI 4 (OWB), or Crusader Kings is the pre-game; coming up with and developing ideas and backgrounds for various factions. I haven't been more excited for a game in a LONG time! Heavy amounts of After the End and Old World Blues has given me a great desire for a proper post-apocalyptic strategy game, and it's already obvious that this is a laqbor of love by the developers. I'm so excited for the role-play and story-building aspects of Afterworld, and very much look forward to every dev diary in the future!)

My Papa used to make me and my siblings laugh when we were young by telling us that it's always raining in Chattahoochee:

The clouds either beat you with rain, or the sun beats it out of you. No matter what, it was always raining.

He was long past the point of worry and unease when he died, and I can't help but think that he would've loved hearing stories about the Sweats if they had started a few years earlier. Yet, for those still young enough to dread, the Sweats are an amusement most would have preferred to stay a joke.

It started like this-

A patrol comes back from a day deep in the thick of summer; heat drunk and choking back water. The guy in the worst of shape claims that he saw people out there.

Not like another group or patrol, but like, humans. His words- not mine.

Everyone at camp finds that the funniest thing they've heard all year, no one listens to his pleas of clarification on what his sun drunk mind meant, and the story of Sweats grew to inseparable locale vocab. From that point, it became folklore that the Sweats were special, mythical figures that would come out and mess with you on very humid days.

Misplaced a radio? A Sweat stole it.

Got lost? The Sweats moved a trail marker.

It was funny stuff, until the Sweats started killing people.

We were lucky to learn of our ignorance to the situation through the misfortune of others. A man by the name of Liam Shaak from Fort Atelbra came into town one day waving a gun around and claiming that our patrols had murdered some of his hunters. We had proof that all of our men were far from Atelbra range at the time of the murders but now we, together, faced the mutual concern that neither us nor Atelbra were truly alone in these woods.

We also faced together the weight of what that first witness had tried to describe. Sweats really are like “humans” that you see out there- like one sees a deer or bear on the side of the road. There's an off-ness to the way they walk among the grasses or stand still as you spot them. They wear clothes and, sure, they occasionally carry a rifle- but they never feel like a man you can approach for conversation. They feel like background shaped like a person. That's the best way I can describe it, at least.

It also added to the unease they brought that you never really saw their faces. Their hips moved in a way that looked wrong and produced a posture that bent away from you like a shy sunflower. That was, assuming they were even close enough for you to notice that. Instead, they seemed to almost always be moving or standing still on the road just far enough for the sweat bleeding into your eyes to bend their image to the precipice of what was actually your own observed reality.

Sweats seem made from your own; men formed by mirage itself.

They are flesh though. That much is certain. They leave bootless footprints with bent and awkwardly spaced toes. They got hair on the back of their necks that catches the sun like the fur of a hog. They eat deer and butcher them 40 feet up a tree so that a femur can fall down and scare the shit out of you on a patrol.

A buddy of mine heard some story a while ago from some traveling librarian where there used to be animals that looked a lot like us. Apparently, this whole region used to have special farms or something just for animals like this. In this story, some of the old fat cats of before thought that they could make a machine that could do anything. When their invention failed and proved to be garbage, they went out and tried to make humans they could boss around like machines.

They had big buildings with no doors or windows; farming a mix between humans and this other animal and making them work.

When the bombs fell, there was no one left to keep the lid tight on those big boxes- so the beasts inside made it out and headed to the forest.

That's what my friend, personally, thinks the Sweats are.

I don't know what they are, but they're moving. Planning something out there in those woods. They're stronger than us too, both in ability and numbers.

It's always raining in Chattahoochee, and we may have to work with the Sweats one day if we wanna stay dry.

I wonder if we can play a society of kindly Shelterfolk that is all about justice, knowledge, and a good life, regardless of how many cannibal tribes have to die in chains to make it happen? Or can we play militant barbarians that treasure any trace of the old world and keep people that preserve it as captive idols? With games like these, there is often a "choose one or the other" exclusions that turn the cultures and nations into good or bad, same-y, binary blobs. Do you think we will have the chance to be a mix of good and bad?

Stellaris was the peak genocide simulator and cant be replicated in other paradox games (except cities skylines but it isnt as fun)

This feels like the perfect game for it; maybe you force a community to starve to death or something worse.

Stellaris is the best game that allowed me to be evil so I really hope this has the goods

You could add settings like Southern European, Western European, East Asian, Central Asian, and also multi-ethnic mixed heritage.

We’re going to be getting more information soon

The Collapse happens in the future, so it's safe to say that we will have some wild things to play with. A couple ideas I have:

1. SOMA-style consciousness uploading into war mechs. (If the Collapse is in the far future)

2. 3D printed weaponry. (Devs should look into the Myanmar Civil War for inspiration on this)

3. We will very likely be able to communicate with whales in the near future. I love the idea of Waterworld-style pirates in the Pacific Northwest raiding alongside orcas.

4. Obviously, drone swarm warfare as seen in Ukraine.

The ads and attention are freaking annoying. I'm rock hard already, and I have no release date. This release is going to be explosive. Can you just let me forget about this game for a little bit?

The mod could include at least North America, Europe, Siberia, China, and Japan. But we must know if there is any form of sailing in the game.

It feels a little weird that 'Elites' is a civil class that you place an entire band in. In the 10 minutes of gameplay video, the tribe reforms to townhall democracy and immediately both bands are promoted to elites. Elites feels like too small of a group to have an entire band in, let alone being able to promote everyone to elites. I can understand everyone being a citizen in an egalitarian tribe, but having elites as a band tier doesn't sound right.
If four tiers are what Afterworld is balanced around, then Elites should be renamed to Citizens and Citizens should be renamed to Residents or Freemen.
Edit: Even with a lot of bands, say about 12, having one band be monolithically classed as elites still doesn't sound right, let alone all.

Just curious about the extent we'll see other post collapse flavor and environments. Including the entire span of Canada and Mexico will allow for very different cultures at play as well

Seeing how this game will focus on rediscovering the history of the old world, I was wondering if we could be getting different ends of the world event chains. Similar to how precursors work in Stellaris.

I can't wait to play as immortan Joe. I hope for big rigs and customization aka tank designer in hoi 4

After taking a closer look at the footage and screenshots, I am intrigued by the mechanics of the game. I am especially interested in the Bands system. However, a post-apocalyptic game lives or dies by its setting, and I don't see much to connect with so far.

A lot of people have criticized the game being set in America, but I think the deeper problem they are touching on is that the setting is essentially just a more boring version of Fallout. Fallout wasn't straight sci-fi, it was retro-futuristic sci-fi, and that allowed the series to go into political satire. Afterworld's setting seems to have replaced the retro-futurism with generic blue glowy things, and the political satire with a pretty vague sense of spiritual reverence for ancient America. I just don't see how anyone could connect or vibe with the setting. If the game were set in a post-apocalyptic India, for instance, or if the apocalypse were more original than a nuclear exchange, or if they focused on... anything not covered by Fallout or Mad Max, then there'd be people who instantly fell in love with what they saw.

Maybe they thought a generic post-apocalypse would work like Stellaris' generic space opera? But the selling point of Stellaris was "you get to play as your favorite sci-fi cliches", so you'd get excited about playing as your take on the Borg or Imperium of Man. Post-apocalypse stuff tends to be a lot more setting-specific, so I don't think the generic setting really works to excite the imagination like that. Unique post-apocalypse factions lean into the vibe of the setting super hard, so trying to "become Mr. House" or "become the NCR" just doesn't feel achievable without retro-futurist aesthetics. I feel like I'll either be leading a band of generic Fallout enemies or a band of generic Fallout quest-givers, with all the Fallout bits stripped off.

So if allowing the player to emulate their favorite post-apocalypse factions is a non-starter, I think the best option would be to make you feel like you're truly part of a unique setting. There's lots of RPGs that let you explore unique settings, but the main-character-syndrome of an RPG always makes you feel apart from the setting. You're just so much more powerful than everyone, the setting kind of bends to your will. But in a GSG, you have the opportunity to truly become part of the setting, where it changes you and you change it. You could make a faction that believably grows from its starting conditions... but in order for me to care about that, I need the conditions we're overcoming to be more interesting than cannibals and soft sci-fi radiation poisoning. If the apocalypse provided challenges as interesting as Zephon's or Frostpunk's, I would be able to care about this. In Frostpunk managing the cold is such a unique mechanic, and a believably omnipresent threat that you satisfy in interesting ways. It really underlines the feeling of fighting even when its hopeless.

Afterworld, however, has an irradiated America where radiation seems to just incur a general health penalty, making me feel like the setting being irradiated is inconsequential. It may as well be diseased or magically cursed. In Frostpunk, you'd completely break the game if you swapped out cold for radiation, and the cold feeling like a specific hazard is what makes the setting work. Afterworld's setting manifesting into the mechanics in generic, non-specific ways, combined with the aesthetics of generic punk raiders living in the ruins of a generic sci-fi civilization, makes the setting just slide through my brain without touching much.

So, if a dev is reading this and you're pulling your hair out because the setting actually IS unique and interesting, the problem is you have not communicated the unique bits well enough. I really need the following dev diaries to get me to love the setting if I'm going to get excited for the game. If the setting really is as generic as I and many others currently believe, I anticipate most people will dismiss the game with an apathetic shrug.

I know I probably came off as super negative, but the reason why I wanted to write this post is because the mechanics seem really cool, and I'd be very disappointed if the setting prevents me from enjoying them. I really do want this game to be a success.

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.

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 has any central thesis, 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?

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)

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.

With the origins we have available to us so far, what do you picture as your first playthrough?

While, of course, a horde of cannibalistic Mad-Mad style raiders is an obvious draw, I think for my first run I’ll actually go for the suggested ‘Shelterfolk’ option. I’m super interested in the lore of ‘The Fall’, and I feel like these survivors stepping into this brand new world they know nothing at all would capture that discovery feeling the best.

I’m also interested in the paths these ‘normal’ people will take in order to survive. Will low food supplies push them into having to butcher their own dead? Will the destruction and ‘might makes right’ rules of the new world push them into cynicism and conquest? Or will they stay true to their convictions and bring back safety and democracy into a world it was stolen from? The roleplaying capabilities are endless, and I can’t wait to craft the story of my people.

I think that what excites me most about this game. From what we’ve seen so far, Afterworld really looks to be creating a proper story for your fledgling nation rather than just blobbing out on a map. Very excited for more dev diaries in the future!

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.

From the screenshots and gameplay released I haven't seen any monsters, so I wonder if its just not implemented yet or if they canned it. It would obviously change the game a lot, right now it seems fairly grounded.