Humankind Feature Focus video #3

[Elhoim]

Also, to answer your other question: Yes, roads are automatic.

Yeah, I guessed so. Hopefully they require some investment, like in EL which you had to build them in as a city improvement, and also that the upgrades are not free.

On the visual side, I hope the interaction with rivers work better than in EL. Many times I saw the road running on top of the river with a several bridges one after the other instead of crossing it

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

My army on my side of the river, your army on your side of the river sounds like a great way to have no battle at all … unless one treats as a battle my troops counting up the number of your soldiers and then high-tailing it out of there as you're fording the river. If the numbers tally to anywhere close, the discussion's going to be more along the lines of "where should we fight? not here, obviously, this river's just going to muck everything up". That changes somewhere around the Napoleonic era, obviously, when battles become more continual and fluid as opposed to set pieces. Will be interesting to see how HK adapts in the later eras where fighting becomes more and more constant along the fronts as opposed to maneuvering for a position where both sides are willing to fight, followed by a one-day battle.

In fact, there are numerous instances in history of two armies eyeing each other and the battlefield and deciding to sit down and negotiate on the spot instead of fighting. The question is, then, the details of the 'Battle Mechanics' in Humankind: is there an option, say, to deploy troops and then before the first 'sub-turn' of Combat go to some kind of Diplomatic Mode, or in extreme cases, the tiny force outnumbered 3 - 1 simply running like Hell or surrendering rather than dying to no purpose? Their previous game, Endless Legend, had an option to Retreat before combat, but it cost you. At least, that option should be in the new game.

Well, while this is true, isn't it likely that people live in the marked areas on the map - and only at these areas on both sides of the river? I would really like seeing this approach in a game, but with non-overlapping territories I don't see any possibility to shape the real-life settlements as you described...

And if there are more political boarders, the marked areas on the map are still looking very strange to me...

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I think this is evidence of another question: How well do the generated Territorial/Regional boundaries reflect historical/geographical Reality? From the samples, they don't very well, and that could be a problem. On the other hand, the examples you picked out are relatively speaking, a minority of the potential problem areas. On yet another hand, they are all related to the positoning of Rivers on the map, which could be a real problem in, say, tracing Trade Routes along those rivers, if they can be blocked by some other Faction occupying a Region/territory that includes one lousy tile of River.
IF they are trying to recreate the 'Robber Baron' castles along the Rhine that stifled trade throughout the late Middle Ages, they've got a perfect mechanism for it, but it will play merry Hell with any Trade-oriented Faction in the area!

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

My army on my side of the river, your army on your side of the river sounds like a great way to have no battle at all … unless one treats as a battle my troops counting up the number of your soldiers and then high-tailing it out of there as you're fording the river. If the numbers tally to anywhere close, the discussion's going to be more along the lines of "where should we fight? not here, obviously, this river's just going to muck everything up". That changes somewhere around the Napoleonic era, obviously, when battles become more continual and fluid as opposed to set pieces. Will be interesting to see how HK adapts in the later eras where fighting becomes more and more constant along the fronts as opposed to maneuvering for a position where both sides are willing to fight, followed by a one-day battle.

We've mentioned it before: Large battles don't necessarily conclude in just one global turn.

On the visual side, I hope the interaction with rivers work better than in EL. Many times I saw the road running on top of the river with a several bridges one after the other instead of crossing it

I can at least say that in my experience, the roads in Humankind run along rivers, not on top of them. (Those bridges in EL always amused me...)

In fact, there are numerous instances in history of two armies eyeing each other and the battlefield and deciding to sit down and negotiate on the spot instead of fighting. The question is, then, the details of the 'Battle Mechanics' in Humankind: is there an option, say, to deploy troops and then before the first 'sub-turn' of Combat go to some kind of Diplomatic Mode, or in extreme cases, the tiny force outnumbered 3 - 1 simply running like Hell or surrendering rather than dying to no purpose? Their previous game, Endless Legend, had an option to Retreat before combat, but it cost you. At least, that option should be in the new game.

If you can see the enemy army, you can know its unit composition (Exceptions Apply...), and decide to run away. Of course, there may be repercussions for that as well...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

We've mentioned it before: Large battles don't necessarily conclude in just one global turn.

Which answers any questions about recreating the month-long battles of the twentieth century: Somme, Marne, Stalingrad, Huertgen Forest - the game already accounts for them by making battle potentially last as long, I assume, as you can keep feeding units into them.
Anybody else think that that could get very ugly, very fast? Or do the last two Eras already have units actually labeled Cannon Fodder?

I can at least say that in my experience, the roads in Humankind run along rivers, not on top of them. (Those bridges in EL always amused me...)

As they should. In the American West, if you take either (Interstate) Highway 70 or the AMTRAK passenger railroad trip through western Colorado, the road and railroad are on opposite sides of the Colorado River for hundreds of kilometers, because there is simply no other route through the mountains that does not require massive earth moving - which the river conveniently already did in the past millions of years.

If you can see the enemy army, you can know its unit composition (Exceptions Apply...), and decide to run away. Of course, there may be repercussions for that as well...

Old Military Rule: the trick is not to get troops to retreat, it is to get them to stop retreating - running is contagious.

And "exceptions apply..." Does that mean there are units that can hide or hide things about themselves? I know you probably cannot answer that yet, but what a great way to show the Real Strength of some Units and Armies! Special Forces in the modern era - you literally don't know they are there until they call in a massive air or artillery strike on you. And I'm reminded of the US Army report about the Comanches - you could be following a kilometer-wide trail left by an entire tribal group - women, children warriors, horse herds, travois and all - and suddenly there was no trail in front of you and not a Comanche in sight anywhere and neither you nor your scouts had any idea how or exactly when they had done it.