HUMANKIND a Civ VI killer?

[Zaarin]

Maybe they should add the Tower of Babel as a wonder you can build.

They could at least call it Etemenanki.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Oh, yeah. I was trying to state I agreed with you, haha... Oops. Yeah, I don't really understand the correlation between the Tower of Babel and Humankind as well. Maybe they should add the Tower of Babel as a wonder you can build. You could get free Settlers.

Or the person who builds it can see other city names in their actual language.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Maybe they should add the Tower of Babel as a wonder you can build.

The Hanging Gardens wonder in Humankind is of that typical Ziggurat-plus-gardens design. So technically you can view it as Tower of Babel.

I mean, Cleitarchus clearly stated that the Hanging Gardens looks like a Greek theatre, but every modern pop culture depiction of it is basically a Ziggurat.

 

[Sostratus]

Well, given that you choose cultures for each era, it only makes sense to have a proto era where you can scout for a starting location and inform what culture to go for. You wouldn’t want to pick a culture like Harappans without a nearby river, for example.

The little food race is a good way to resolve that inherent system of first come first served culture picks.

this is fundamentally to Civ’s approach of having one Civ for the whole game- although the way civs are designed in 6, letting you scout a large area before choosing your Civ would break a lot of the risks built into choosing before the game starts.

The Hanging Gardens wonder in Humankind is of that typical Ziggurat-plus-gardens design. So technically you can view it as Tower of Babel.

well, HK will definitely not be a Civ6 killer in the wonder art department. The Hanging gardens of civ6 are quite possibly the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Well, given that you choose cultures for each era, it only makes sense to have a proto era where you can scout for a starting location and inform what culture to go for. You wouldn’t want to pick a culture like Harappans without a nearby river, for example.

The little food race is a good way to resolve that inherent system of first come first served culture picks.

this is fundamentally to Civ’s approach of having one Civ for the whole game- although the way civs are designed in 6, letting you scout a large area before choosing your Civ would break a lot of the risks built into choosing before the game starts.

Even if civ did get an era before the Ancient Era, I still think the fundamentals should be the same. You would still pick your civ and leader before the game starts. You just would have a longer wait time before your capital city is founded.
The Maori already have a similar ability already, but making the idea applied to land would be interesting.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Even if civ did get an era before the Ancient Era, I still think the fundamentals should be the same. You would still pick your civ and leader before the game starts. You just would have a longer wait time before your capital city is founded.
The Maori already have a similar ability already, but making the idea applied to land would be interesting.

Sigh. I was so hoping that the Maori "Naval Nomad Start" would be expanded and applied to a land-based Civ or three, but doesn't look like it's going to happen in Civ VI. The 4X Historical Game Universe desperately needs a decent way to replicate the pastoral groups that dominated the plains/steppes of central North America and central Asia, and a means to show the City State polities that were the Majority of all 'Civs' right up to the Renaissance: a uniform 'Empire' was the Exception, not the Only Game In Town for much of Human history.

One reason for having a 'starting Era', whether we call it Neolithic or Prehistoric, before you get to choose a Game-Long Civ to play is that right now playing a Civ with any kind of terrain-based Uniques is a Royal Pain. I almost always have to Restart several times in order to get starting terrain that in any way matches the Unique. It makes absolutely no sense to play, say, Russia with a Tundra bias from a starting position in the middle of the Desert or a rainforest. It begs the question, at least in my historian's mind, of "How The *#$%^ Did They Learn Anything About the Tundra?" - or the Sea, or any other terrain type that is nowhere around where they start. It is one place where I simply cannot accept the Civ Requirement to Suspend Disbelief to play. Immortal Leaders I can accept, battles taking centuries I can live with. England with the extra ability to build special Sea Dog naval vessels and Royal Dockyards when they don't get to the ocean until 4000 years after the game starts, while Sumer has managed somehow to cross donkeys with woolly Mammoths or Musk Oxen to build their War Carts in the tundra, is just too much.

My preference would be for something like Humankind's Wandering Tribe start, but with more ability to Learn Things like Techs and Civics/Social Policies while they wander, and maybe even the ability to settle down temporarily and exploit some Resource from a Camp/Settlement. When you decide to start your first City, based on the terrain within that city's radius, you would get a choice of Civs to start: got coast, you'd have Phoenician, English, Norse or Indonesian choices; got lots of plains/grassland, and Persian, Scythian, Mongol would be among your choices. Surrounded by mountains, Inca would be high on your list. But in keeping with the traditional Civ ability to Try Anything, no choice would be completely restrictive: You could play England from a center-of-the-continent start, but your ideally, then your Uniques might be Longbowmen and Henge Improvements instead of Royal Dockyards and Sea Dogs.

 

[8housesofelixir]

well, HK will definitely not be a Civ6 killer in the wonder art department. The Hanging gardens of civ6 are quite possibly the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.

Humankind also doesn't have a wonder construction animation, even though the wonder will have a construction visual every turn. FXS surely has a larger art department (for instance, every improvement has 2 sets of animations, and every building have a distinct visual in the district) and doesn't have many art constrains Amplitude currently has.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

well, HK will definitely not be a Civ6 killer in the wonder art department. The Hanging gardens of civ6 are quite possibly the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.

Yeah. Watching the wonders be built in a cinematic is so majestic, especially if you have a lot of improvements and districts nearby.

 

[Joij21]

Not saying this will happen with Humankind, just saying that making original games is really hard work. That's why Humankind is the first game I've pre-ordered ever, since competitors to Firaxis have it extra hard trying to break into the market and they need support.

I won't be pre-ordering. Not at least until they release the final product. Very well the devs could be over hyping this like what you mentioned before.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

Humankind also doesn't have a wonder construction animation, even though the wonder will have a construction visual every turn. FXS surely has a larger art department (for instance, every improvement has 2 sets of animations, and every building have a distinct visual in the district) and doesn't have many art constrains Amplitude currently has.

Despite that Humankind has shown to have a lot more cultural distinctions in its units, Japanese musketeers are wearing conical hats and Sengoku style uniforms. The Korean musketeers also looked different from the Japanese ones. Civ musketeers are still for the majority wearing the same European outfits. Norse 'Great Swordsman' look distinctly Viking and use two handed axes.

As for buildings all 60 base game cultures have unique 'town centre' districts the closest thing Civ has is its palaces which were shared a lot between civs until later expansions where they started to hand out unique palaces. However even now I think some civs still share palaces such as Russia and Georgia and I think Rome, Greece and Macedon all still use the same palace. Humankinds city centre districts I think are also more ambitious than Civs palaces they make a large impression some have even been mistaken for wonders!

 

[Narcisse]

well, HK will definitely not be a Civ6 killer in the wonder art department. The Hanging gardens of civ6 are quite possibly the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.

As an architect, I will just say something simple : some wonders are better in HK, some are better in Civ 6.
It's rather subjective, for me the Hanging Gardens in both games are kinda ugly. (I really don't like this sort of interpretations of the Hanging Gardens)

But Civ 6 have a lot more wonders, we don't know how much will have HK at the release. So it's normal than wonders of Civ 6 are more debatable (about their realism, aesthetic, and if it is really a wonder) because there is just more wonders to comment, for the moment.

Really curious to see the final collection of HK wonders. I hope to see cool things we can't have in Civ : for exemple Hagia Sofia as Byzantine wonder without the later foothills, and an Early Modern Ottoman wonder like Topkapi Palace or Sultanahmet mosque. Because both cultures were amazing builders for their periods, and are not really well represented in Civ.

But I appreciate than the HK ones looks more realistic in term of scale and architecture most of the time (again, not all). Like the Temple of Zeus and Temple of Artemis. Or probably Stonehedge when it will be finished. (they said than it's in work in progress and it missed the aesthetic of the relief of the ground in last openDev).

Personally, most of wonders I saw of HK looks really cute. We just don't have the amazing animation of Civ. Objectively this system of animation is georgous, I think they really need to add it in HK.
In both games, I don't like the achievement of wonders being commented with a funny quote, it's most of the time silly and not really educative.

For me moment, I just don't like the HK Colossus : the crown is weird, I prefer the civ one. (-> It's totally subjective)

But, the work on cities and city centers is way better in hk. Their art team, with their budget limitation (a little remember : it's not Firaxis) made an amazing work. Seriously, when I read than "the flavor of Civ is more realistic than HK" about aesthetic on reddit ...
Please, some city visual are a shame in civ, the tower of huts for some culture, the ottoman great bazaar design, some units, etc etc ... Hopefully there is mods *cough*
We can't expect the both games being perfect in historicity, it's life.
Anyway, both games are not ultra realistic and cartoonish in their own way.

Ah, and the artwork team is just top tier. The illustrations of wonders in hk for exemple... I need it as wallpapers.

Despite that Humankind has shown to have a lot more cultural distinctions in its units, Japanese musketeers are wearing conical hats and Sengoku style uniforms. The Korean musketeers also looked different from the Japanese ones. Civ musketeers are still for the majority wearing the same European outfits. Norse 'Great Swordsman' look distinctly Viking and use two handed axes.!

No, sadly, I made a criticism on amplitude forum about that, all great swordmean will have a greatsword. Even the Norse ones.
But yes, the clothings change. But I'm not sure than it's always accurate. Like the Khmer great swordmen don't have enough protections for an heavy infantry. Or the elephant units are debatable (some not really emblematic of the culture (the Mughal canon elephant is more emblematic of Burma) or wrong aesthetic (the siamese one don't have the westernized uniforms and accurate machine gun, sort of fantazied mix of the OG siamese elephant aesthetic with the one of Haw Wars).

 

[Gedemon]

Endless series games and good AI? Uhhh...I think you're letting your disappointment with civ 6 cloud your memory a bit here. The AI is awful in those games (and this is the majority opinion of the playerbases).

That's true, but one of the reasons I'm looking at Humankind as a potential replacement for civ6/7 with some hopes is that the Endless Legend core AI had been modded in a Community Patch.

But a civ killer ?

No, I don't think so, there is room for both in the player base, and IMO some people who like civ6 won't like HK, and not a small number.

And on the modding side, the AI is one thing, but for the vast majority of civ5 and civ6 modders who are not interested in coding, while I still hope that I'll be surprised, I'm pretty sure civ6 assets modding will stay superior to whatever HK will propose.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

No, sadly, I made a criticism on amplitude forum about that, all great swordmean will have a greatsword. Even the Norse ones.
But yes, the clothings change. But I'm not sure than it's always accurate. Like the Khmer great swordmen don't have enough protections for an heavy infantry. Or the elephant units are debatable (some not really emblematic of the culture (the Mughal canon elephant is more emblematic of Burma) or wrong aesthetic (the siamese one don't have the westernized uniforms and accurate machine gun, sort of fantazied mix of the OG siamese elephant aesthetic with the one of Haw Wars).

Weird I could have sworn the great swordsmen for the Norse in opendev were holding axes. Definitely had vikingy clothing though.

I dont know all the details of who wore what, what I do know is they dint all dress as Europeans so Amplitudes effort in this field, accurate or not is welcome. Khemer not having comparable armour to the other versions doesnt really bother me I just like the visual distinctions that bring Humankind's world to life and make the cultures stand out from each other.

 

[Narcisse]

Well, like I explained in the related thread, an heavy infantry is not about carrying a greatsword, but having a good armor whatever is your two-handed weapons. So it need an interpretation for late medieval plate armors for Aztec and Khmer, or for Ghana (it's rather easy, just look heavy equipement of Mali Empire). In first openDev, Khmer greatswordmen were in skirt, without hips protections for exemple, it's wacky. And having a Khmer holding an european two handed sword is not really immersive.
I really hope it's in work in progress, and I always cross my finger for having some cultures with two handed axes, for the norse. I spammed the discord with it.

 

[8housesofelixir]

If I recall correctly, in the Stadia OpenDev developer stream, the Amplitude devs said specifically that their biggest art constrain is about unit visuals. They provided an example along the lines of "the Olmec (or Maya) spear throwers are still using the visual of normal archers".

Not a lot of 4x game developers having the art resources and budgets FXS has, and I fully understand that if Amplitude cannot achieve the same level of artistic details (cf. Paradox Studio don't even really care about visuals and animations).

 

[Joij21]

Well, like I explained in the related thread, an heavy infantry is not about carrying a greatsword, but having a good armor whatever is your two-handed weapons. So it need an interpretation for late medieval plate armors for Aztec and Khmer, or for Ghana (it's rather easy, just look heavy equipement of Mali Empire). In first openDev, Khmer greatswordmen were in skirt, without hips protections for exemple, it's wacky. And having a Khmer holding an european two handed sword is not really immersive.
I really hope it's in work in progress, and I always cross my finger for having some cultures with two handed axes, for the norse. I spammed the discord with it.

It could be because the want the unit stats to reflect a greatsword not a two handed axe. Also by the time greatswords were being used halberds were the two handed axe/poleaxe commonly being used. The Viking Dane Axe is more of an early middle ages thing not a late middle ages/renaissance thing.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

If I recall correctly, in the Stadia OpenDev developer stream, the Amplitude devs said specifically that their biggest art constrain is about unit visuals. They provided an example along the lines of "the Olmec (or Maya) spear throwers are still using the visual of normal archers".

Not a lot of 4x game developers having the art resources and budgets FXS has, and I fully understand that if Amplitude cannot achieve the same level of artistic details (cf. Paradox Studio don't even really care about visuals and animations).

When they said visuals did they mean animations? As in the spear throwers are still attacking like archers rather than throwing spears. That makes more sense to me than the apperance of the model itself and I cant imagine they havent made the models for the units yet at this stage but its reasonable that they havent got the unique animations in yet and are just using archer animations as a placeholder.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

Despite that Humankind has shown to have a lot more cultural distinctions in its units, Japanese musketeers are wearing conical hats and Sengoku style uniforms. The Korean musketeers also looked different from the Japanese ones. Civ musketeers are still for the majority wearing the same European outfits. Norse 'Great Swordsman' look distinctly Viking and use two handed axes.

As for buildings all 60 base game cultures have unique 'town centre' districts the closest thing Civ has is its palaces which were shared a lot between civs until later expansions where they started to hand out unique palaces. However even now I think some civs still share palaces such as Russia and Georgia and I think Rome, Greece and Macedon all still use the same palace. Humankinds city centre districts I think are also more ambitious than Civs palaces they make a large impression some have even been mistaken for wonders!

Good point. I like what I see regarding diverse buildings and units.

If I recall correctly, in the Stadia OpenDev developer stream, the Amplitude devs said specifically that their biggest art constrain is about unit visuals. They provided an example along the lines of "the Olmec (or Maya) spear throwers are still using the visual of normal archers".

Not a lot of 4x game developers having the art resources and budgets FXS has, and I fully understand that if Amplitude cannot achieve the same level of artistic details (cf. Paradox Studio don't even really care about visuals and animations).

Problem with Firaxis is they have too many artists and not enough AI programmers. Prefer a game with less flash and more substance like we got in the older Civ titles. Plus I really never like the Civ VI cartoonish look - hopefully that will be gone in Civ VII.

 

[PhilBowles]

I guess I'm basing it on my assumptions. Yes, I will probably buy both as well (also taking into account Civ VII) but I will probably only play one of them, depending on the one I find the most entertaining. The question is, if Humankind will be a Civ VI killer and if I find Humankind to be more entertaining I will probably not come back to Civ VI. I did not buy NFP because I couldn't see any added value to the Civ I personally was hoping for, so I don't think much is needed to tip me over to a new strategy game that has a "civ feeling" to it, since I still love the franchise but has become a bit dissapointed about the directions Civ VI DLCs have taken. I mean, once I've found interest in a new game in a same genre I tend to abondon older titles.

I'm not saying Humankind will be better. I actually strongly doubt it will be at release. But if it is (or becomes) I will probably only play the best of the two.

Based on the history of the Endless games, Humankind won't be anything like as good as Civilization. Endless Legend was a cult phenomenon because of its well-written story quests, worldbuilding and distinctive factions. It was not a very deep game as a 4x, and while Civ's difficulty level has declined with each entry since at least Civ V it still isn't as easy as Endless X (and for all the complaints about Civ's AI, it's much better than the Endless games' while handling more AI-complex mechanics). It was very accomplished for a relatively small studio, to be sure, but don't confuse the rapturous cult following for Amplitude games with mass appeal. I suspect Amplitude is squandering its greatest asset with a history-based 4x where they don't get to design the world or the factions and if it has to directly compete with Civ on gameplay merit alone I strongly suspect it will fail.

Certainly what I've heard of Humankind has only dampened my initial enthusiasm for the idea, to the extent that I stopped following updates a long time ago. I'll likely still try it out, as I did the other Endless games, but from the muted support Endless Space 2 has received (despite being Amplitude's best game yet) I suspect the bubble has already burst. Right now I find room to play two 4xes: Civ VI and 40k Gladius.

 

[Sostratus]

Based on the history of the Endless games, Humankind won't be anything like as good as Civilization. Endless Legend was a cult phenomenon because of its well-written story quests, worldbuilding and distinctive factions. It was not a very deep game as a 4x, and while Civ's difficulty level has declined with each entry since at least Civ V it still isn't as easy as Endless X (and for all the complaints about Civ's AI, it's much better than the Endless games' while handling more AI-complex mechanics). It was very accomplished for a relatively small studio, to be sure, but don't confuse the rapturous cult following for Amplitude games with mass appeal. I suspect Amplitude is squandering its greatest asset with a history-based 4x where they don't get to design the world or the factions and if it has to directly compete with Civ on gameplay merit alone I strongly suspect it will fail.

Firaxis has the exact opposite experience: beyond Earth had extremely similar gameplay to civ5, without the historical factions, and it went poorly. Historical factions are free worldbuilding, just like the nintendo characters in super smash bros don't need exposition because players presumably already know who they are.

Now, the HK gameplay system does, for many civfanatics, seem to be offering a promising alternative - the economy/districts/settling/tiles/etc could be seen as an evolution of what civ6 did. IMO it will really come down to how players narrate their games - in civ you are one civ for the whole game, in HK you add new cultures to your empire each era. So really you are playing an empire in a generic sense more than a civilization. But many of the things they are doing wouldn't shock me as new mechanics in civ7 - like the outpost and territory system, or the slightly more flexible district system they have.