Humankind Game by Amplitude

[riddleofsteel]

^ This is too much tasty info given that the game isn't coming out until 2021.

 

[CivLuvah]

The video also mentions that some regions will have independent States similar to City-States in civ6 that will either be aggressive or pacifist.

I forgot to include that in my previous post. It wasn't on the top of my head when I typed it.

 

[CivLuvah]

^ This is too much tasty info given that the game isn't coming out until 2021.

This is just a menu preview, I'm willing to wait for the feast

 

[Krajzen]

I am quite happy for once that the game isn't coming out before 2021, as I have a ton of games to play in 2020...

 

[riddleofsteel]

This is just a menu preview, I'm willing to wait for the feast

Haha, normally I would agree with you - if the release was just a few months away and this info came flooding out all at once. Having it be next year is akin to all the gyms that show the food channel on their televisions, or showing porn movies in prison!

 

[Elhoim]

Hopefully their testing program is wide enough so that we can enter

 

[riddleofsteel]

This all looks SO awesome... I can't wait to see if I'm in the lucky ones chosen for the OPENDEV. I have received my confirmation email, but I really feel it just confirms I'm in the list, not that I'm chosen.



I wonder if they might not be going a little in the same direction as Endless Space 2 and the Fleet system. For those who never played it, it allowed you to join together in a fleet a bunch of ship. Each ship had something called (from memory, not altogether sure of the name) Command Points, and your fleets had a certain max number of command points available in its formation. The VERY interesting point about that system was that some research through the technology tree were specifically to increase that Max Command Points to fleet. It allowed you to get much stronger, but you had to spend time and resource to research it first. I could very well envision the same kind of system here,
where the regiment size and strength would be defined by a likewise value that could be increased by teching, or even civics...

@Catoninetales_Amplitude, thanks a lot for all this wonderful info, I'm sure you're all very glad to finally be able to let us get a little more info and play images ;-) Is there any chance you CAN (tm) comment on my previous paragraph ? ;-)

Honestly, this could take the "best" title away from the Civilization franchise for me if it delivers even half of what it supposedly will. Or at least hopefully re-define the genre and force serious changes in whatever ends up being Civ 7.

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, I love the design in this game. The parts themselves are simple (compare HK districts vs CIV VI), but has A LOT of layering that gives you a lot of flexibility in creating an interesting civilization.

 

[How to know]

Really love the art style and the UI of HK. Everything just look better on every aspect than Civ VI aesthetically.

 

[Krajzen]

Really love the art style and the UI of HK. Everything just look better on every aspect than Civ VI aesthetically.

Hell, everything in this game 'looks' better conceptually as well. We will see how this game plays in practice, but if it is half as good as it seems on paper, then Sid Meier has finally received worthy enemy.

Civ5 was my great love and contender to one of the most beloved games of my life (haven't played previous titles). Civ6 is still a good game but it couldn't compare to the old love, was a disappointment overall, mainly because I disagree on goddamn nearly Platonic level with nearly every conceptual and aestethic design decision of this game lol (since the very announcement back in 2016). Humankind so far scares my cynical, weary heart, because it is opposite, on paper it not only fulfills my desires of design, it even invents new ideas I didn't know I needed.

Time will show how it plays, but Amplitude so far has a history of strong and stable releases, realizing their initial vision, and detractors come mainly from people who dislike something about the design in the first place... For example, to be honest I haven't become fan of Endless Legend unfortunately, but that's because ultimately the fundamental idea of "fantasy 4X" didn't work for me at all (tl;dr every second I played this game I loved its world, I just wanted to play RPG game in this setting, not global strategy). But it wasn't hatred or indifference; I could feel this is incredible game with heart, soul and high quality. So I have faith that if Amplitude manages once again reach this heart, soul and high quality but with a game that's core idea is actually appealing to me 100% then I will love it very much.

 

[Siptah]

And here's the IGN interview

https://www.ign.com/videos/how-humankind-differs-from-other-4x-games

I don't think that there is much new info in it, but it shows a bit more footage. For example, coffee is a luxury, and a chariot is seen in action.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

It's looking great but I am glad it's coming out next year as theres clearly a lot of systems that are not even implemented yet such as religion. As my most anticipated video game I want it to be as good as it possibly can!

 

[SupremacyKing2]

One question I have: are the civs each era, picked on a first come first serve basis meaning if you are late in getting to an era, you pick from whatever is left? If they are not picked on a first come first serve basis, then can 2 players pick the same civ?

 

[aguaacrobata2]

One question I have: are the civs each era, picked on a first come first serve basis meaning if you are late in getting to an era, you pick from whatever is left? If they are not picked on a first come first serve basis, then can 2 players pick the same civ?

It is first come first serve. In one of the First Impression video there is a screenshot of the second era culture selection where it can be seen that a culture is already taken and hence not available.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

It is first come first serve. In one of the First Impression video there is a screenshot of the second era culture selection where it can be seen that a culture is already taken and hence not available.

Thanks. I thought that might be the case but wanted to make sure. It encourages player to progress to the next era in a timely manner, if they want to pick a specific civ since waiting too long will run the risk that it will be unavailable.

 

[Siptah]

Thanks. I thought that might be the case but wanted to make sure. It encourages player to progress to the next era in a timely manner, if they want to pick a specific civ since waiting too long will run the risk that it will be unavailable.

There seems to be other incentives to transition quickly as well, namely fame generation. There's more fame for era stars early in an era (starts at 100 as it seems), and the amount of fame declines as the era progresses (the lowest I saw was 40-something). So staying longer in an era to get the low hanging fruit in form of additional era stars that you are close to might often not be worth it. The whole game might be a kind of race, especially on higher difficulties.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

I wonder if they might not be going a little in the same direction as Endless Space 2 and the Fleet system. For those who never played it, it allowed you to join together in a fleet a bunch of ship. Each ship had something called (from memory, not altogether sure of the name) Command Points, and your fleets had a certain max number of command points available in its formation. The VERY interesting point about that system was that some research through the technology tree were specifically to increase that Max Command Points to fleet. It allowed you to get much stronger, but you had to spend time and resource to research it first. I could very well envision the same kind of system here,
where the regiment size and strength would be defined by a likewise value that could be increased by teching, or even civics...

More like Endless Legend than Endless Space 2.

Of course, it also raises many more questions which I suspect will need to "later(TM)" for full replies:

1. How are civic points earned? How does it interact with other game systems, e.g. a completely separate "currency" and diplomatic interactions.

Later™

1. The previous question whether there are downsides to going to extremes in the civic bars. And to what extent one could "reverse course" over the game without first losing all benefits accumulated, i.e. by "going back down" the scale.

As that one screenshot shows, the axes all have two bonuses associated with them, with each being strong at one side and disappearing at the other. And I do think you can reverse course, but it's not a "radical shift" in just a turn or two: You'll have to put in the effort and go back across the bar.

1. What are "unadministered" cities and their counter-parts? The IGN article suggests it's those going over your expansion limit, using a similar mechanism as in ES2. Would also be interesting if there was some interaction between level of control and administration status.

The short version of it is that you only have a limited number of Administrators, and Unadministered Cities are less productive than Administered ones.

iirc the screen in the video said "next civic unlocks in 25 turns" which seems quite a long time if you intend to unlock all 30-something of them.

Yes, 25 turns does sound like a long time, doesn't it?

This also helps us discriminating the Hunnic EQ from the Mongol one. They are hopefully different, as the Hunnic ones does nothing apparently.

With this, much as with the wonder, I would urge you to keep in mind that this was an early version. Not everything is ready yet, and there may also be UI errors. (Those icons really aren't supposed to overlap, for example.)

1. The background music changes once you transition to a culture.

That really shouldn't be a surprise. We had an entire video of Arnaud talking about that.

the fundamental idea of "fantasy 4X" didn't work for me at all (tl;dr every second I played this game I loved its world, I just wanted to play RPG game in this setting

You and what feels like 90% of our fans.

It's looking great but I am glad it's coming out next year as theres clearly a lot of systems that are not even implemented yet such as religion. As my most anticipated video game I want it to be as good as it possibly can!

There are a lot of systems we haven't shown, but there are various different reasons for that: Maybe the UI is not ready (many of you have probably watched PDX streams and know what "Programmer UI" is like, which is not suitable for the digital equivalent of E3), maybe the system is there but not yet filled with content, maybe the AI did not handle the system well yet... Our VIPs can attest there's a lot more already in the build they got to try, but "ready to test" is not the same as "ready to show to the public."

 

[SupremacyKing2]

There seems to be other incentives to transition quickly as well, namely fame generation. There's more fame for era stars early in an era (starts at 100 as it seems), and the amount of fame declines as the era progresses (the lowest I saw was 40-something). So staying longer in an era to get the low hanging fruit in form of additional era stars that you are close to might often not be worth it. The whole game might be a kind of race, especially on higher difficulties.

To be clear, when you get 7 era stars, you automatically progress to the next era. You can't stick around to get more era stars. I think what you mean is that you can delay getting the 7 era stars to try to accumulate more fame.

Games automatically end after a certain number of turns and the civ with the most fame wins. So yes, the game will definitely be a race to earn fame as quickly as possible.

One thing that I find interesting with era stars is that you can earn multiple era stars per challenge but you only need 7 to progress to the next era. As we can see from the screenshot, this means that you can generalize your civ and get 1 star from each challenge +1 extra star or you can specialize your civ and focus on just 3 challenges and get all 3 stars in just 2 challenges and +1 star from a 3rd challenge.

 

[Siptah]

To be clear, when you get 7 era stars, you automatically progress to the next era.

According to the videos, this is apparently not the case. I heard in at least two videos that you can stick around to get 8 or 9 stars if you think the investment (delay your culture pick and be later to the next era) is worth it.

 

[Elhoim]

According to the videos, this is apparently not the case. I heard in at least two videos that you can stick around to get 8 or 9 stars if you think the investment (delay your culture pick and be later to the next era) is worth it.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure as well.