Humankind Game by Amplitude

[DaviddesJ]

Often with penalties like this there's a lot of ways to game the system to get an advantage.

 

[Krajzen]

We'll see how it works but so far Humankind dev team seems to have much better grasp of endgame stagnation problem than Civ approach of
"Let's slap a new mechanic every expansion, which half - heartedly aims at weakening dominant empires"
"Wait, we can't make it too unpleasant, or we'd disturb our Casual Low Difficulty No Downsides Only Bonuses Sandbox"
"There, we got new mechanic which doesn't help at all, just adds more points and bonuses. Problem solved!"

Loyalty system which ruins AI expansionism more than anything else and entrenches stagnation, dark ages and their consolation prize which is stronger than the penalty, that eldritch abomination of a world congress, natural disasters with powerful bonus yields (which hit all empires equally anyway)...

 

[CivLuvah]

We'll see how it works but so far Humankind dev team seems to have much better grasp of endgame stagnation problem than Civ approach of
"Let's slap a new mechanic every expansion, which half - heartedly aims at weakening dominant empires"
"Wait, we can't make it too unpleasant, or we'd disturb our Casual Low Difficulty No Downsides Only Bonuses Sandbox"
"There, we got new mechanic which doesn't help at all, just adds more points and bonuses. Problem solved!"

Loyalty system which ruins AI expansionism more than anything else and entrenches stagnation, dark ages and their consolation prize which is stronger than the penalty, that eldritch abomination of a world congress, natural disasters with powerful bonus yields (which hit all empires equally anyway)...

To be honest, as much as I am having fun with Civ6 (and defend it at times), Humankind's way of ensuring there is constant competition within the game up until the end is just brilliant. It's very intriguing and promising in theory. Of course, we have to wait for it to see how it works in practice.

 

[God of Kings]

Humankind would also be great to make Let's Plays from.

Even Deity-level players would not steamroll in Humankind hopefully.

 

[mitsho]

Often with penalties like this there's a lot of ways to game the system to get an advantage.

Thtat is certainly true, but not really a problem. Gaming the system will be needed to compete on the highest level against the AI, it‘s what will make that level challenging. On lower levels, it‘s however a conscious decision by you the player, how much you want to game it. It‘s the same with exploits: Just don‘t use them.

It‘s not possible to avoid such mechanics. They become bad mechanics when you distort your gameplay from the intended one too much. So the question really is how much „gaming the system“ is possible and how long does the game stay enjoyable nevertheless. And since Humankind is much more story focused than boardgame (like civ), I prefer that so very much more over:

We'll see how it works but so far Humankind dev team seems to have much better grasp of endgame stagnation problem than Civ approach of
"Let's slap a new mechanic every expansion, which half - heartedly aims at weakening dominant empires"
"Wait, we can't make it too unpleasant, or we'd disturb our Casual Low Difficulty No Downsides Only Bonuses Sandbox"
"There, we got new mechanic which doesn't help at all, just adds more points and bonuses. Problem solved!"

Loyalty system which ruins AI expansionism more than anything else and entrenches stagnation, dark ages and their consolation prize which is stronger than the penalty, that eldritch abomination of a world congress, natural disasters with powerful bonus yields (which hit all empires equally anyway)...

As yes, that is all true. QFT.

 

[Shadowhal]

Yes, the flexible thresholds for fame stars hit a few objectives at the same time. It also softly penalises over-specialisation and, balance permitting, that could be a great aspect as well. Sure, keep going heavy on science, but you must live with decreasing returns and that, at some point, it may not be very efficient anymore.

I'm also curious how the territories system will work out in practice. Earlier, I think the devs said that one objective was to have fewer management units in the late game while still retaining the flavour of a large empire. So, maybe having both a geographically large territory that feels like an empire, but not having to manage dozens of production queues etc. I guess at the core is the tall vs wide in adding territories to cities as opposed to splitting them into new ones; and administered vs unadministered cities. Look forward to seeing it in action.

 

[Elhoim]

I'm also curious how the territories system will work out in practice. Earlier, I think the devs said that one objective was to have fewer management units in the late game while still retaining the flavour of a large empire. So, maybe having both a geographically large territory that feels like an empire, but not having to manage dozens of production queues etc. I guess at the core is the tall vs wide in adding territories to cities as opposed to splitting them into new ones; and administered vs unadministered cities. Look forward to seeing it in action.

From what I gathered, you can join cities in the late game, so it will be a more flexible balance compared to civ in which the wide vs tall decision is made early and you are locked there. But yeah, I really like how they are handling this, and anything that cuts down the late game chore of managing dozens of cities is a big plus.

 

[Krajzen]

@Catoninetales_Amplitude I am wondering how big maps are in terms of 'free real estate' or rather, territories/cities which a player may found in average conditions, relative to the amount of players.

Let's assume I play a game on a medium map size with default number of players and setting. Should I expect I will be able to settle 5 cities, 10, 15, 20, before uncolonized space ends? Assuming that I want to spam cities ad infinitum, because the question is more about the size of maps rather than "tall vs wide". Although that is a question as well - does HK aim closer civ5 extreme (four cities is a global empire) or civ6 extreme (infinite city spam is recommended).

Also, did I understand correctly, that a map editor won't be on release but maaaybe it will be later, and that we won't get much modding tools on release but they maaaaybe come later?

 

[Elhoim]

From the Humankind Discord.

 

[Siptah]

Ah, this is great. So if two different quarters are adjacent to one tile, two types of resources will be extracted.

But why did they choose the Babylonian, Mycenaen and Egyptian EQ for this example? Does this mean that conquered EQs stick around and this city was conquered two times in antiquity? The canal is a previous unknown quarter right?

 

[Safe91]

Ah, this is great. So if two different quarters are adjacent to one tile, two types of resources will be extracted.

But why did they choose the Babylonian, Mycenaen and Egyptian EQ for this example? Does this mean that conquered EQs stick around and this city was conquered two times in antiquity? The canal is a previous unknown quarter right?

Hi, i'm the creator of this attempt, i'm not belong to Amplitude studio, just a french fan who made a thread about this game as you can see here : https://forum.hardware.fr/forum2.ph...rint=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

my initial intention was to show the interactions between constructions. There are still too many unknowns to make ideal construction templates but we can already start by understanding the effects between neighborhoods and the principle of tiles automatically exploited. And indeed I added the 4 emblematic districts of which I know the effects. So this example is not representative of a culture and will therefore never happen in the game. I was inspired by these data:


Basics constructions :

Emblematics quarters :

Then, an exemple of evrything included :

I try to have this principle diagram validated with certain VIPs on DISCORD, but they don't always have the time / desire to respond. I am nevertheless available to discuss it again.

Best regards.

 

[Safe91]

I tried also to describe existing ALPHA release of the User Interface ( sorry, it's in French ) :

@+

 

[Elhoim]

I try to have this principle diagram validated with certain VIPs on DISCORD, but they don't always have the time / desire to respond. I am nevertheless available to discuss it again.

Going by the description in the tooltip, the farmers quarter don't give +1 food to explotation tiles (the non-quarter ones), but get +1 per adjacent farmer's quarter. What it does is take the food production from exploited tiles, but does not add to them.

As a side note, the commons also get the +5 stability from any quarter, not just commons.

 

[Safe91]

Thank you Elhoim, i fix it with your advice.

Two questions remains for me :
- Does Babylonian astronomy house allow exploitation of science in the 2 adjacent tiles ?
- Does city center allow exploitation of science and money in the 3 adjacent tiles ?

Edit : i had the answers on the discord channel.

just refresh the image above.

 

[CivLuvah]

Just wanting this to come into attention. Might update this if I'm wrong:

No culture reveal on Twitter today when they're supposed to at 11:30 am EDT. Does that mean we're going to have an update on the OpenDev for those of us who have registered?

EDIT#2:

Spoke too soon. The Twitter account just posted their culture reveal.

 

[Uberfrog]

Just wanting this to come into attention. Might update this if I'm wrong:

No culture reveal on Twitter today when they're supposed to at 11:30 am EDT. Does that mean we're going to have an update on the OpenDev for those of us who have registered?

Today is the Bastille Day holiday in France, so I wouldn’t expect any update.

 

[CivLuvah]

Imgur album updated to include the Japanese during the Edo period/Tokugawa Shogunate:

https://imgur.com/a/4cPjGSY

 

[Uberfrog]

I stand corrected!

 

[CivLuvah]

While we wait for the OpenDev invites, I was happy to discover that Humankind has a built-in encyclopedia similar to Civilopedia:

https://www.games2gether.com/amplit...ia-be-included-in-the-game?page=1#post-297720

Hopefully, it'll be miles better than Civ6's Civilopedia.

 

[Krajzen]

Is the game going to contain strategic resources required for units recruitment? If so, did anybody spot what they are?

Despite this feeling like a "fundamental" mechanic, I wouldn't be offended if it wasn't present in this game. At one point I have questioned myself: is it really realistic enough to justify how much problem does it create for AI and human frustration? As they are quite long, my rants are them are under spoiler here:

Iron

Spoiler :

Iron is my pet peeve. It's in civ series as if they said once 'hey you know what's let's simulate bronze to iron age revolution, it's cool' but didn't think it through. Civ has too big scale to contain bronze age, iron age and transition between them anyway, and outside it, it really makes no sense how iron is still a crucial thing in the medieval era. Iron ores are among the most abundant in the Earth's crust. The only problem is having furnaces capable of reaching 1,500 °C, but it is solved at the tech level of, well iron age. Ancient Germanians were at such low level of technology that they had not enough good quality iron to make a lot of swords and body armor IIRC but otherwise that's about the 'strategic' aspect of this thing, as it is on civ geopolitical scale. So, why is one of the most rare ores in the world a super rare "strategic" resource by the classical and medieval era? Even in deep central Africa (I'm sorry for this comparision but you know, isolation) there was no problem with iron weapons past some stage; it is a question of technology, not rarity, at least on a massive 4X games global scale. Civ series devs at some point has completely lost an ability to ask themselves: is this really the problem for a historical ruler/demigod? So you are telling me that the historical justification of the frustrating for human, game derailing experience for AI - is so filmsy? Making iron a strategic resource always ruins balance and AI, as it blocks supposed "basic" units.

Horses

Spoiler :

Horses as a strategic resource are equally as nonsensical just in another way. You see, the game treats damn living creatures like rare precious metals. Literally every country on Earth had horses in smaller or bigger amount at some point precisely because they could were reproduced and introduced to bigger and bigger areas very quickly. Unless there was a tse tse fly over here (Central Africa) or unlucky water separation (Americas, Australia). And both are such unfair aspects of the world history that the game should ignore them anyway, same as "random smallpox from Eurasia wiping out 80% of your population lol". Scotland, Norway, Japan, Indonesia and Ethiopia all had horses quickly, despite all having far from optimal environment for their use, and despite being so faraway. Even goddamn Tibet had pretty good cavalry - good luck imagining worse place for horsemen, and yet they did it. Was it really a problem in massive imperial wars stretching across continents (that's always Civ's scale of warfare) - the lack of damn horses, which can be reproduced? So why not just enable cavalry to everyone, and limit its size in some other way? Or make "war horses" a resource indeed increasing size of cavalry arm of the army, but baseline horse units amount existing even without it? Instead, make resources of Camels, Elephants and Steppe Horses - now they should really unlock special (but generic) unit lines, available to all.

Remaining five resources

Spoiler :

Niter is just a damn stupid and ahistorical attempt to artificially invent strategic resource (an annoying nuisance also crippling AI) for the gunpowder era. That's civ6 development in a nutshell: throw historicity and "less choices but meaningful" mentality out of the window, in order to reach absurd conclusions of outdated questions which should be revised themselves.
Aluminium is literally "the third most abundant element in Earth's crust and also the most abundant metal" by Wikipedia. Yeah sure, a rare strategic resource limiting modern warfare.
Oil, Coal and Uranium actually make sense, but please notice how the latter two have only industrial usage and nuclear weaponry (not really a conventional warfare) and the first one can be reduced to industrial usage as well. Limiting military units by oil is always going to be pain in the arm, because you are always either inconsistent or end up with something unbalanced, because half of military units in a given era rely on one resource. Literally every unit in the modern era (in civ6 it is split into like 15 eras because why not) should be powered by oil to 'make common sense' but good luck balancing that. My intuition says me that people would be really irritated by units not requiring oil, and talking about the 'common sense'. Well then, come and design the game using your common sense, without making eternal hunger for oil fluctuating from turn to turn being a nightmare to micromanage. And anything less than that is already a terrible sin to the common sense as well, so why not just abstract it into something less damaging to the gameplay if it has to be abstracted anyway.

Personally I'd
- Turn iron into a regular bonus yield resource. No unit requires iron.
- Cavalry is more expensive in general, and that is the main limiter, but everybody can field small number of it. To field more, you do indeed need "horses" resource, but it is not that rare, it is present on any larger expanse of a flat land.
- Introduce resources of Steppe Horses (introduces mounted archers), Camels (introduces camelry) and Elephants (introduces generic war elephants, different generic unit in every era between classical and early modern)
- No stupid niter or aluminium resources
- The game is designed that coal, oil and uranium are just THAT needed for industry in last two eras. Also, uranium is needed for nukes and oil increases number of available bombers, battleships, carriers and tanks, but no other units.

Unfortunately, I do expect this tired old feature to come back in Humankind as well. But I do expect it to be done in a different, probably smarter way as well.