Has Civ 7 Legitimized Humankind?

[Lazy sweeper]

Humankind is its own legacy, I hope there will be a Humankind 2 in a couple of years, I don't like to play HK more than i like playing civ 6.
I'd rather play civ 3 if I want a tough, satisfying gameplay. Nothing civ 7 can do to change my mind. I will just start HK or civ 6 from time to time,
get bored after a few turns, even if in HK Ai poses a much bigger threat, it's still an abomination on many other levels.

HK has no workers.
Civ 7 has no workers.

HK has switching civs - not mandatory
civ 7 has switching (maybe also not mandatory?) civs

How has civ 7 legitmized HK in any meaningful way?

 

[notNamed]

HK has no workers.
Civ 7 has no workers.

HK has switching civs - not mandatory
civ 7 has switching (maybe also not mandatory?) civs

How has civ 7 legitmized HK in any meaningful way?

I mean as far as legitimizing goes, HK came to the table with the idea of switching civs for 2 reasons.
To prevent the late-game slog and railroaded gameplay inherent to playing a civ with exactly one optimal strategy;
To add more realism and historical accuracy to the largely Children's cartoon takes that Civ has.

Civ 7 tries to address the late-game slog as well and also argues about the realism of not having US catapults battering down Majapahit's renaissance faire.
Though it takes a hardline stance against historical accuracy, doubling down on the whole "if you want history, pick up a book instead" mantra.

Does it legitimize HK? I'd say it's up to interpretation but if it does well, at least Humankind has a good reason to give it a second go in a sequel.


Also, you're forgetting:
Barbarians becoming city-states in their own right,
armies merging into one and unfolding for battle,
districts providing nice looking city sprawl,
fixing the leaders in place and having them represent the civs you play along the way,
city walls spanning all the districts,
unique graphics for all units and generic districts for all civs,
civs being represented by a grand singular drawing during their selection,
leader diplomacy with the two leaders side-by-side emoting at each other,
exploration of another continent with its own civs tied to exploration/early modern era transition,
event-based civics choices with pros and cons,
passing on bonuses from previous civs to the later ones,
and there's probably more that I either missed or we haven't seen yet.

The game is obviously not blind to Humankind... and why should it? Plenty of these ideas were done in the vein of "things we'd have liked to see in Civ".

 

[Zaarin]

Humankind has a good reason to give it a second go in a sequel.

I'm skeptical SEGA would greenlight a sequel.

 

[notNamed]

I'm skeptical SEGA would greenlight a sequel.

I mean, it is SEGA.
For once their utter and sheer randomness and apparent incompetence would be for the benefit of us all. I'd much rather them funnel some resources to Amplitude than another SuperGame money sink like Hyenas, gacha games that shut down after 2 months and cost more to make than Witcher 3, forcing Yakuza designer to make a Sakura Wars sequel against his will and then putting all blame on him when it doesn't pan out,...

Of course, that's assuming Amplitude wants another go at the project rather than just focusing on more Endless games and expanding that universe.

 

[Zaarin]

Of course, that's assuming Amplitude wants another go at the project rather than just focusing on more Endless games and expanding that universe.

While I'd be leery of trusting Amplitude again after Humankind, Endless Space 2 remains one of my favorite 4X games so Endless Space 3 would at least catch my attention...

 

[Elhoim]

You want to try the ideas of Civ 7 early? You have Civilkind!

Steam Workshop::Civilkind

steamcommunity.com

This mod try to experiment with some mechanics from the upcoming Civilization 7 game. In it, you will find:

1) THREE ERAS
Humankind is reduced to only 3 eras (Ancient, Early Modern, Contemporary), with over 25 cultures selectable for each era. Each era requires 14 stars to advance to the next and the goals are generally higher than vanilla, so each era should last longer. In addition, most Emblematic Districts now require techs, so you have to be mindful that later cultures, albeit strong, will powerspike later in the era, while earlier cultures can powerspike earlier and strategize around it.

2) DISTRICT REWORK
Non-Emblematic districts only exploit their own tile, and you need to build the exploitations (renamed as Rural Districts) individually. To build other non-emblematic districts, you must first build an Urban District (which is limited by population) then upgrade it to the district type you want. This leads to less urban sprawl and very different city building strategies, more akin to Civilization than to Humankind's. District costs were also reduced by having rural districts and extractors not increase district costs.

3) COMBAT REWORK
Combat is reduced to only last one turn, so it works more similarly to Civilization 7's method of picking up units, moving them and fighting.

4) BALANCE PASS
Several infrastructures have been rebalanced to work with the new district economy. In addition, money inflation from buyout was removed and the buyout money-to-industry ratio was fixed at 3 money per 1 industry. Pop buyout was also improved. For more details, check the release notes.

 

[RandV]

While I'd be leery of trusting Amplitude again after Humankind, Endless Space 2 remains one of my favorite 4X games so Endless Space 3 would at least catch my attention...

Personally I think they should have another go at it. Endless Legend also had some shortcomings but overall was a pretty good 4x game, was more or less the base template for Humankind and some clear improvements were made. Now a 4x game encompassing all of human history is an ambitious project, and while the end result fell flat I'd still say some solid groundwork was laid down and they're very close.

 

[Zaarin]

Personally I think they should have another go at it. Endless Legend also had some shortcomings but overall was a pretty good 4x game, was more or less the base template for Humankind and some clear improvements were made. Now a 4x game encompassing all of human history is an ambitious project, and while the end result fell flat I'd still say some solid groundwork was laid down and they're very close.

I found Endless Legend okay at best, and Humankind didn't even make it to okay. I think they should concede they're better at space 4X games.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

For one I have actually really enjoyed my playthroughs of Humankind.....in spite of its flaws. To me its major issue was that too many people tried to declare it a "Civ-killer", which it clearly wasn't, and this set some people's expectations way too high. I wasn't expecting it to be a Civ-killer-which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. I actually think it implemented a number of really cool features-even if some were flubbed a bit. The idea of starting your game as a Nomadic Tribe for an entire Era was actually pretty inspired-though it would have been even better if how you reached the end of the Neolithic impacted which Cultures you could start the next era as. This, sadly, was Humankind's biggest failure with regards to the Culture-switching mechanic (a great idea, implemented in a less than great fashion). If the cultures you could pick from were actually informed by how you played in the previous era and/or were limited to ones that were historically connected to your existing culture in real life. It also didn't help that, with a new culture per era, you never got a chance to really feel like that previous culture. This is why I feel that Civ VII's approach is much better.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think Civ7 seems to be doing it in a way that addresses some of the criticisms

-civs seem forgettable
Solution: only 3/game instead of 7 (more time with each)

-civs are first come first serve: hard to strategize/plan for a later one you want without rushing
Solution: everyone picks at the same time, and you need to be able to unlock them

-the permanent leader is forgettable
Solution: permanent leader is historical..and you can “customize level them up”.


I think it’s a good idea that can go badly, and it’s worth a second try. (and many things in humankind were messed up)

Those are all completely fair critiques of how Humankind implemented the systems poorly, but Civ VII seems to be doing it correctly.

 

[Eyswein]

I'd say no. Poor implementation in Humankind. Really, REALLY, wanted to like Humankind, but sadly I did not.

 

[Mezmorizor]

I gave HK my first serious playthrough yesterday (I have it, but never came around to play it :X), and the Civ Switching is like... the least of its problems?

Sure it's very weird and immersion breaking to have an empire that settles Memphis, Thebes, Rome, Capua, Zürich and Buenos Aires, in that order (???), but I think Fame as the only win condition is its real problem. Collecting Fame, at all costs, is all that matters longterm, unless you're playing on a map small enough to conquer everyone.

Also a gazillion of buildings and not nearly enough time to build all of them, vast swaths of territory but a teeny settlement limit (even on huge maps???) so you're stuck with 4-5 massive cities that you need to keep developing or they'll succumb to panic.

Switching Civs is the LEAST of HK's problems, and is hardly a problem at all beyond that the switches happen fairly quickly. Three ages and three tangentially related Civs across one game, into four different Victory conditions, which is what Civ 7 appears to have, amends several of HK's problem.

I don't think HK is a bad game, but it's also not a *good* game either. Age of Wonders and Old World remain the only good Civ-likes that I've played beyond Civ itself.

Civ7 might be HK2, but right now I'd hazard a guess that it will be a much better game.

This is based off of the release patch so maybe it's different now, but from what I remember, you're mostly thinking that because you've only done one playthrough. It's just always correct to juice the neolithic era, pick whatever in what they called the next era because the bonuses in that era are very whatever, and then jamming production civs for fame until you've won and switch to science to actually end the game faster. Beats the highest difficulty every time easily, and the difference between that and anything else is absolutely massive.

And while I do agree that's hardly the only problem Humankind had, having 300 gold, -10 gold, and -10,000,000,000 gold being identical gameplay wise which was also true for many other systems in particular stood out as being really dumb to me, but the civ changing definitely detracts from the game a lot and sure felt like an unworkable system.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Humankind was a breath of fresh air after the clownish artwork of Civ 6, and I was suckered in easily. It still is wonderful visually.

The problem is, despite its many greater smaller features, it's working on what I think was just a badly implemented central premise with the "Fame" system. The core of the game is just broken, IMO. Imagine playing Super Mario and the designers tell you "you need to stomp this many goombas, and break this many blocks, in order progress" and you get an idea of how it operates...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Humankind was a breath of fresh air after the clownish artwork of Civ 6, and I was suckered in easily. It still is wonderful visually.

The problem is, despite its many greater smaller features, it's working on what I think was just a badly implemented central premise with the "Fame" system. The core of the game is just broken, IMO. Imagine playing Super Mario and the designers tell you "you need to stomp this many goombas, and break this many blocks, in order progress" and you get an idea of how it operates...

Its worth noting that it took multiple iterations for Sid Meier's team to get the Civilization formula truly locked down (things like a proper resource system and truly unique civilizations wasn't even a thing until Civilization III). Its disappointing to me how we don't seem willing to give other TBS games the same opportunities.