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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joerg Baumgartner" data-source="post: 9605214" data-attributes="member: 6893976">If I assign such classifications, it works more along something like tech level or Universal Planetary Profile as inherited from Traveller.Countries are useful shapes on the map but don't really are the units that define cultures or cultural advances. Language families for instance are shared by cultures.In fantasy, magic and deities/pantheons play a role in defining cultures and phenomena like presented in the "cultural progress" list, although they may be shared by rather different cultures. There can be immortal demigods/sorcerers/monsters ruling over a variety of followers which may heaviily influence their cultures.Postapocalyptic settings will have ancient magic or technology that may influence current technology, although in limited availability or functionality.Primary production (food through hunting, fishing, herding, horticulture, agriculture, hydroculture) will still be a dominating factor for "building" a culture. Agriculture and some pastoralism tend to be the norm, but may come in varying intensity (e.g. terracing of hillsides, irrigation, artificial islands, vertical agriculture or horticulture, co-dependent crops like beans/maize/squash) or practices (e.g. transhumance sending the herds into distant pastures, or semi-nomadic ranching with huge herds sent into steppes or other such wildlands. Magical methods may come into play.Magical forestry might turn forests into highly productive nutritional sources, typically associated with elves, dryads, or other "in-tune-with-nature" species and cultures. Likewise, aquaculture may be driven by aquatic or amphibic species with high productivity.Underground civilizations are somewhat problematic with regard to food and air supply (and water drainage), for whichever real-world-unobtainium is used to keep the underworld habitable.Access to magical countries (other planes, pocket universes, highly magical spots, whatever) will also defy simple classification.Military organisation and what can be mobilized (for internal defense, for out-of-territory missions/campaigns, as source for mercenaries) are another yardstick for these cultures. This includes all manner of magic, whether of direct military use, for intelligence, for healing or possibly resurrection, or for logistics. Low technology units (e.g. slingers) can be highly effective, even in advanced warfare if provided with high technology (or magical) ammunition or other such equipment, or as scouts and partisan forces in wilderness.Availability of beasts (as steeds, for transport, or possibly as defensive or offensive units) may change the rating of otherwise apparently mesolithic cultures.The mix of species and subspecies in the cultures may make classifications like in the original post obsolete, too. Depending on the domesticated beasts available, there might be nomadic cities of high sophistication. Mechanically inclined cultures (e.g. D&D gnomes or RuneQuest Mostali dwarfs) might have mobile fortresses or cities or factories.Traffic opportunities play a big role in the evaluation of cultures, too. Control of a navigable river remains important even in SF settings, and more so in fantasy settings for modern or historical or prehistorical analogs. Road networks (and maintenance thereof, if required), possibly magical roads, possibly canal networks, possibly railways, cable car lines or tunnel highways, maybe even cargo and passenger-capable letter chutes may alter assumptions about sustainability of populations. Magical (or high-tech, possibly ancient high-tech) portals creating shortcuts are rules-changers, too.MMORPG-like dungeon economies might be a factor in world-building and evaluation of cultures, too.</blockquote>

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