Humankind Game by Amplitude

[Eagle Pursuit]

Any info on how the map is? Is it like civ one big map ? I hope it's an earth map

The do have an earth map. On the announcement livestream they pointed out that a couple of screenshots making the rounds were actually the Italian peninsula as seen from the west and the English channel as seen from France.

I hope they have random maps. I dislike knowing the general geography going into a game.

 

[Patine]

Liked Endless Legend. Love civ. Very much looking forward to this.

The Endless games always look great, but I personally never like the actual gameplay in them. But might help spur some new ideas for future Civ games, and a bit of validation for the genre is always a good thing.

In my case I loved the gameplay and mechanics in EL, but the lore and visuals were what kept me back. Even if there's a sci-fi pseudo justification, the lore felt made by a teenager (So we have this techno vikings, and armored ghosts, and flesh eating insects, and animated cult statues, and BDSM female mages, and DRAGONS!). I always wanted the same mechanics in a Civ type game, so I'm really eager to try this out.

I've never actually even HEARD of Endless Legend. It's existence was unknown to me completely.

 

[Karmah]

My refer

I've never actually even HEARD of Endless Legend. It's existence was unknown to me completely.

My reference for Amplitude would be endless space 2, by far their most accomplished game imho. A game I enjoyed greatly, especially the ambiance. And I'm not even especially attracted by SF, rather the opposite.

 

[Gedemon]

The do have an earth map. On the announcement livestream they pointed out that a couple of screenshots making the rounds were actually the Italian peninsula as seen from the west and the English channel as seen from France.

I hope they have random maps. I dislike knowing the general geography going into a game.

3 tiles width for Italy, if it's not just from an European map but a full world map, we're talking of the Giant Earth scale (180x94)

Which seems way too much unless you can play with 20 or more players.

So I suppose it's a screen from a partial map, or they use a world map with upscaled Europe.

 

[bbbt]

3 tiles width for Italy, if it's not just from an European map but a full world map, we're talking of the Giant Earth scale (180x94)

Which seems way too much unless you can play with 20 or more players.

So I suppose it's a screen from a partial map, or they use a world map with upscaled Europe.

With the way their 'region' system worked in Endless Legend, you usually have a lot less city density than something like Civ.

They also haven't mentioned anything, but EL had 'minor nations' or something like that, so they may end up with city state equivalents filling out the map.

 

[_ViKinG_]

I only play civ on earth map so i really hope they will have a full map and not only regional. Cant play on that, feels like the map is small and missing parts og the whole map

 

[Sherlock]

I've never actually even HEARD of Endless Legend. It's existence was unknown to me completely.

You need to get out more.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

They also haven't mentioned anything, but EL had 'minor nations' or something like that, so they may end up with city state equivalents filling out the map.

They did say something about minor nations in one of the articles I read.

 

[bbbt]

You need to get out more.

I'd say maybe the opposite, that they need to stay in more.

 

[Zaarin]

They did say something about minor nations in one of the articles I read.

Glad to hear it. Minor nations are a great part of Endless Space 2--much better, IMO, than Civ6's city-states (and a good candidate for their inspiration). I really hope this means we also get Endless Space 2's multiethnic empires. (Does this also mean we get the Horatio to gobble them all up please and thank you? I don't care if it's a joke released as a free DLC later. It's not complete without Horatio. )

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Glad to hear it. Minor nations are a great part of Endless Space 2--much better, IMO, than Civ6's city-states (and a good candidate for their inspiration). I really hope this means we also get Endless Space 2's multiethnic empires. (Does this also mean we get the Horatio to gobble them all up please and thank you? I don't care if it's a joke released as a free DLC later. It's not complete without Horatio. )

There's been speculation on the HK forum about whether the Pop system from ES2 will be used, but the devs have not commented one way or the other.

Similarly, there's been no official word I've read re how minor nations will be handled. They're a prominent part of the Endless games, so this could be an area of big change vis-à-vis Civ. It wouldn't take much of a tweak to the Endless handling of minor nations to accomplish some of the things that have been discussed in threads on this board: a more nuanced approach than the barbarians/tribal villages/city state distinctions with their 3 separate set of rules, a world that is populated from day one with expansion arising from displacing or absorbing other peoples, etc. But at this stage we've heard nothing, so I'll park my optimism until we do.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm not terribly familiar with Amplitude's take on minor nations. Could someone fill me in?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I'm not terribly familiar with Amplitude's take on minor nations. Could someone fill me in?

I'm going to miss something, but here's my understanding re Endless Legend. May be different in Endless Space.

• Every region has a minor faction. So everywhere you explore, looking for a new city site, there's already a local people.
• The minor factions don't prevent you from settling your city. Your city and the minor faction can co-habitate the region, so to speak.
• Each minor faction has a number of villages (might always be 3?). You can't work the tiles occupied by these villages.
• If you leave them alone, there's a chance the minor factions may form an army and attack you. It seems to depend on the faction.
• You can pacify the minor factions in a number of ways: conquering all of their villages, bribing them, or completing a quest for them.
• Once pacified, the population of the minor faction will work in your city (if pacified peacefully; if you conquered them, they provide fewer/no workers).
• After they're pacified, you can also assimilate a minor faction. This is a political action and requires influence (the limited resource that governs some political actions in Endless Legend)
• An assimilated minor faction allows you to construct their unique unit, and also shares their trait bonus with you. In the Endless Legends tutorial, the minor faction you encounter there increased healing in that region and provided a special healer unit, as examples.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm going to miss something, but here's my understanding re Endless Legend. May be different in Endless Space.

• Every region has a minor faction. So everywhere you explore, looking for a new city site, there's already a local people.
• The minor factions don't prevent you from settling your city. Your city and the minor faction can co-habitate the region, so to speak.
• Each minor faction has a number of villages (might always be 3?). You can't work the tiles occupied by these villages.
• If you leave them alone, there's a chance the minor factions may form an army and attack you. It seems to depend on the faction.
• You can pacify the minor factions in a number of ways: conquering all of their villages, bribing them, or completing a quest for them.
• Once pacified, the population of the minor faction will work in your city (if pacified peacefully; if you conquered them, they provide fewer/no workers).
• After they're pacified, you can also assimilate a minor faction. This is a political action and requires influence (the limited resource that governs some political actions in Endless Legend)
• An assimilated minor faction allows you to construct their unique unit, and also shares their trait bonus with you. In the Endless Legends tutorial, the minor faction you encounter there increased healing in that region and provided a special healer unit, as examples.

Whoa. That sounds extremely on-point for a game like HK.

However, if it's possible that these minor nations have Emblematic Units of their own that you can acquire, we should be a bit more circumspect about assuming that unusual units we see in screenshots are from new civs.

 

[KayAU]

I'm a little bit disappointed they are going the route of "one city per region" again, it just doesn't seem right for the setting. It basically means the world will start out full of arbitrary borders, with arbitrary gameplay consequences. For instance, say you settle your first city near a region border, 3 tiles to the west of the city center. Then you make a settler to make a new city. Now, if you move west, you can found that city right next to the first one. Move east, and you will have to travel across the entire "region", until you find another border to cross, and the game rules will permit you to settle. How does this make sense?

Games like Civilization VI and Fallen Enchantress also have settling rules, but they can be rationalized:

• Civilization: Cities must be placed no less than 3 tiles apart. This is easily rationalized, as settling closer would place you inside the workable area of the first city, effectively meaning there are not really two distinct cities.
• Fallen Enchantress: Cities have a minimum distance (which I don't remember off the top of my head), and they need to be placed on fertile land. Someone commented that this is basically the same as Endless Legend, but I strongly disagree. The fertility requirement is based on terrain features, and there are no actual borders placed down by the map generator. A little bit further into the game, a spell becomes available which will "revitalize" land, allowing you to settle in terrain which was previously unavailable. Anyway, these requirements are again easy to rationalize, as they represent the ability of the land to support a settlement.

In addition to not making sense, I feel the subdivision into regions thing just takes some of the joy away from exploring. In Civilization or Fallen Enchantress, finding a great spot to settle is a rush, which immediately inspires me to make plans for expansion. In Endless Legend, however, each entire region is just a large board game tile to try and control. The internal layout and terrain is highly secondary, and not something I really notice beyond the FIDS output.

This is actually my chief worry about this game. When it comes to the morphing cultural identities, I think I need to see it in action to know just how it will work. I actually trust Amplitude to be able to pull it off, though.

 

[Buni0ns]

I'm going to miss something, but here's my understanding re Endless Legend. May be different in Endless Space.

To refine your (excellent) summary:

• Every region has a minor faction. So everywhere you explore, looking for a new city site, there's already a local people.
• The minor factions don't prevent you from settling your city. Your city and the minor faction can co-habitate the region, so to speak.
• Each minor faction has a number of villages (might always be 3?). You can't work the tiles occupied by these villages. - It varies, 1 at a minimum can be as many as 3 or 4 I forget.
• If you leave them alone, there's a chance the minor factions may form an army and attack you. It seems to depend on the faction. - Not a chance, this always happens.
• You can pacify the minor factions in a number of ways: conquering all of their villages, bribing them, or completing a quest for them.
• Once pacified, the population of the minor faction will work in your city (if pacified peacefully; if you conquered them, they provide fewer/no workers). - If conquered, you destroy their villages, you rebuild villages to gain workers they provide.
• After they're pacified, you can also assimilate a minor faction. This is a political action and requires influence (the limited resource that governs some political actions in Endless Legend)
• An assimilated minor faction allows you to construct their unique unit, and also shares their trait bonus with you. In the Endless Legends tutorial, the minor faction you encounter there increased healing in that region and provided a special healer unit, as examples.

 

[Haig]

From the preview article, I'm not that excited for the nomadic part in the start of the game. Is it fun after the first five times? And in the end, you basically pick a pantheon (on Civ terms) for your nation.

Until they reveal more features and mechanics of the game, it feels kind of straightforward game, plus the EL battles and AI have me worried. I also kind of like how in Civ you pick a civ in the start and stick to them for the rest of the game,
their bonuses having strenght and weakness for different eras.. gives it personality.

The elevation looks grand as do the images of civs, nice pleasant artstyle.

 

[Casworon]

Do we have a official confirmation of minor factions anywhere.

My gut instinct says they won't be in the game at launch. I just don't really see how they are going to fit in with the other mechanics we have seen.

Maybe its good grounds for a expandion addition but they are being so ambitious with their core mechanics i think the base release might be a bit bare.

I also dont think we will be getting stuff like religion or espionage at release either. But probably with expansions.

I have no proof of this, its just a hunch

 

[qadams]

I'm going to miss something, but here's my understanding re Endless Legend. May be different in Endless Space.

• Every region has a minor faction. So everywhere you explore, looking for a new city site, there's already a local people.
• The minor factions don't prevent you from settling your city. Your city and the minor faction can co-habitate the region, so to speak.
• Each minor faction has a number of villages (might always be 3?). You can't work the tiles occupied by these villages.
• If you leave them alone, there's a chance the minor factions may form an army and attack you. It seems to depend on the faction.
• You can pacify the minor factions in a number of ways: conquering all of their villages, bribing them, or completing a quest for them.
• Once pacified, the population of the minor faction will work in your city (if pacified peacefully; if you conquered them, they provide fewer/no workers).
• After they're pacified, you can also assimilate a minor faction. This is a political action and requires influence (the limited resource that governs some political actions in Endless Legend)
• An assimilated minor faction allows you to construct their unique unit, and also shares their trait bonus with you. In the Endless Legends tutorial, the minor faction you encounter there increased healing in that region and provided a special healer unit, as examples.

I like this a whole lot. It seems much more nuanced than Civ6. Actually it reminds me of an earlier version of Civ (was it 3 or 4?) where new population/immigrants had to be gradually assimilated.

I'm a little bit disappointed they are going the route of "one city per region" again, it just doesn't seem right for the setting. It basically means the world will start out full of arbitrary borders, with arbitrary gameplay consequences. For instance, say you settle your first city near a region border, 3 tiles to the west of the city center. Then you make a settler to make a new city. Now, if you move west, you can found that city right next to the first one. Move east, and you will have to travel across the entire "region", until you find another border to cross, and the game rules will permit you to settle. How does this make sense?

Games like Civilization VI and Fallen Enchantress also have settling rules, but they can be rationalized:

• Civilization: Cities must be placed no less than 3 tiles apart. This is easily rationalized, as settling closer would place you inside the workable area of the first city, effectively meaning there are not really two distinct cities.
• Fallen Enchantress: Cities have a minimum distance (which I don't remember off the top of my head), and they need to be placed on fertile land. Someone commented that this is basically the same as Endless Legend, but I strongly disagree. The fertility requirement is based on terrain features, and there are no actual borders placed down by the map generator. A little bit further into the game, a spell becomes available which will "revitalize" land, allowing you to settle in terrain which was previously unavailable. Anyway, these requirements are again easy to rationalize, as they represent the ability of the land to support a settlement.

In addition to not making sense, I feel the subdivision into regions thing just takes some of the joy away from exploring. In Civilization or Fallen Enchantress, finding a great spot to settle is a rush, which immediately inspires me to make plans for expansion. In Endless Legend, however, each entire region is just a large board game tile to try and control. The internal layout and terrain is highly secondary, and not something I really notice beyond the FIDS output.

This is actually my chief worry about this game. When it comes to the morphing cultural identities, I think I need to see it in action to know just how it will work. I actually trust Amplitude to be able to pull it off, though.

You don't like a setting that starts out "full of arbitrary borders" because you say it doesn't make sense. But isn't that more reflective of the actual historical world?

In Civ, all the land is completely empty at the beginning but for a few random city-states who won't expand and who follow different rules than the major civs. It's empty! In our real world, nearly all the land was inhabited well before the "civilized" nations got there, and then they had to deal with those occupants one way or another. I'd prefer to play a game that more accurately reflects those tensions and accommodations.

 

[KayAU]

You don't like a setting that starts out "full of arbitrary borders" because you say it doesn't make sense. But isn't that more reflective of the actual historical world?

In Civ, all the land is completely empty at the beginning but for a few random city-states who won't expand and who follow different rules than the major civs. It's empty! In our real world, nearly all the land was inhabited well before the "civilized" nations got there, and then they had to deal with those occupants one way or another. I'd prefer to play a game that more accurately reflects those tensions and accommodations.

To each his own, but I don't think these borders are a sensible, and certainly not accurate, way to represent the concept of land being inhabited. I suppose subdividing the map in this way could allow you to say that "this region has this native population, and here are some ways of dealing with that", but I don't know that is what they are doing.

More specifically, though, I don't think it makes sense in terms of settling rules, as per my example above. Just who is it who are enforcing these borders, and how do they compel me to not to settle more than 1 city in a region? If I have a city in a corner of a large region, what is preventing a another power from settling in the other corner? If this is like in Endless Legend, the rule is basically that, at least at the time of settling, there must be a line between one city and another. One of my issues with this is that I don't see what these lines are supposed to represent which could dictate city placement.