Firaxis has been posting in-character interviews and letters from each of Civilization: Beyond Earth’s faction leaders for a while now. The latest to fall under the spotlight is Hutama, leader of the Polystralians.
Polystralia is a pan-national civ formed from Australia and the Pacific Rim of South-East Asia. They’re a generally less aggressive, more trade-focused empire, and leader Hutama embodies their preference for trade and diplomacy over more straightforward, aggressive tactics.
He began his rise to power as a student activist, leading ”grass-roots campaigns against corruption and cronyism in reclamation projects only to become the dynamic face for a new generation of the Commonwealth.” Now he’s the head of the Polystralian colonisation effort.
In Beyond Earth Firaxis outlines the idea of an ‘Inflection Point’, an approaching moment when humanity no longer has the resources to send a spaceship off to colonise new worlds. Though Hutama is a populist politician generally opposed to propping up the few at the expense of the many, he realises humanity has little choice but to create Freeland, an exploratory expedition of ten thousand souls searching for a new home.
”On one hand you don’t send Freeland; five billion citizens of the Commonwealth suffer privation,” says the man himself. ”On the other hand you send Freeland; four billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety thousand citizens of the Commonwealth suffer privation. But ten thousand live free and well. Maybe those ten thousand figure out how to fix Earth. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they all decide to drink alien kava and play house music. It doesn’t matter.”
In terms of gameplay, an interview with Australian site Gameplanet reveals that Polystralians ”tend to favour policies and gameplay tactics that make them lots of cash.” On the other hand, they’re not quite as fearsome militarily as some of the other factions. One to choose if you like sweet-talking your way out of trouble.
Civilization: Beyond Earth is out this October 24 on PC, Mac, and Linux.
