Humankind Game by Amplitude
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I can't read everything so I have two quick questions
1) Do we know how are 6 eras named and what periods of history do they roughly cover?
2) If I play as Malinese and switch to Americans, do all my units turn white?
1) Bronze> Classical > Medieval > Renaissance (or maybe Enlightenment) > Industrial > Modern
2) No idea. The way they talk about art style in terms of architecture is that things built previously retain the old style while new things have the new style. If we apply that to units (which has not been discussed) then the units produced as Mali would be darker complected and retain that while your American units would presumably have a variety of skin tones.
Okay so here's my best shot at trying to predict 10 civs for each of 6 eras. Let me tell you, it's real pain for last two eras.
BRONZE
Egyptians, Nubians, Hebrews, Minoans, Hittites, Sumerians, Harappans, Chinese, Olmec, Whatever Andean Civ
CLASSICAL
Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, Celts, Ethiopia, Maya, India, Phoenicia
MEDIEVAL
Koreans, Khmer, Arabs, Aztec, Inca, Byzantium, Swahilli, Mongols, HRE, Vikings
RENAISSANCE
Turks, Mughals, Burmese, Japanese, Ashanti, Spain, Portugal, Russia, France, England
INDUSTRIAL
Germany, Italy, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, America, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Netherlands, Zulu
MODERN
Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Pakistan, Malaysia, Algeria, Finland, Poland
I know some of these may feel really strange but good luck avoiding that feeling when you have to evenly distribute 60 civs between 6 eras.
BRONZE
Egyptians, Nubians, Hebrews, Minoans, Hittites, Sumerians, Harappans, Chinese, Olmec, Whatever Andean Civ
CLASSICAL
Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, Celts, Ethiopia, Maya, India, Phoenicia
MEDIEVAL
Koreans, Khmer, Arabs, Aztec, Inca, Byzantium, Swahilli, Mongols, HRE, Vikings
RENAISSANCE
Turks, Mughals, Burmese, Japanese, Ashanti, Spain, Portugal, Russia, France, England
INDUSTRIAL
Germany, Italy, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, America, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Netherlands, Zulu
MODERN
Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Pakistan, Malaysia, Algeria, Finland, Poland
I know some of these may feel really strange but good luck avoiding that feeling when you have to evenly distribute 60 civs between 6 eras.
Spoiler :
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We actually know all the BA civs if everything we have read from various articles is correct:
Hittite
Egyptian
Olmec
Babylonians
Assyrians
Harappans
Mycenaeans
Zhou
Nubians
Libyans
I think there's going to be a Olmec>Mayan>Toltec>Aztec line and a Libyan>Numidian>Berber line as well as separate lines for England, France, and Germany. There may also be a Kievan Rus>Czarist Russia>USSR>Russian Federation line.
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Oh. So I actually managed to get them 60% right despite not reading articles. I proposed Some Andeans, Hebrews, Sumer and Minoa. Instead we get Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae and Libya.
Mycenae/Minoa and Sumer/Bab+As are close enough anyway
and I was not too attached to the idea of first era Andean civ anyway. The real surprise though is... Libyans?!(I am also slightly disappointed by yet another company not having balls to add Ancient Israel civ to the game
)
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Oh. So I actually managed to get them 60% right despite not reading articles. I proposed Some Andeans, Hebrews, Sumer and Minoa. Instead we get Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae and Libya.
Mycenae/Minoa and Sumer/Bab+As are close enough anyway
(I am also slightly disappointed by yet another company not having balls to add Ancient Israel civ to the game
As per my simultaneous edit: I think Libyans don't make sense unless they are beginning a line of connected northern Sahara civs.
I vaguely recall that some old strategy game that introduced Libyans as one of playable civilizations...
One thing which fascinates me, anyway, is how it seems two BA civs are not 'India and China' but 'Harappa and Zhou'. Does it mean we get different 'incarnation' of India and China' among 10 civs every era? That would be actually very cool (and adequate to their historical crazy size and importance).
I guess it would look like
Zhou -> Han -> Tang or Song -> Ming -> Qing -> China
and
Harappa -> Maurya -> Gupta -> Mughals -> Maratha -> India
Since Humankind have been announced, I'm trying to design how this could be implemented for my mod:
You'd pick a generic civ template on the setup screen (basically just choosing one of the available ethnic artstyle for the game, your colors and an icon)
Then you could select a specific TSL (or TLS-relative on Terra) available for your ethnic Artstyle, or a culturally linked start (ethnic artstyle grouped together) on a random map.
and then you build your Civilization by choosing which of the surrounding "culture groups" are going to influence it the most, the unique units, buildings and abilities in the game being attached to those groups (I've already brought back civ4-style culture group % on each tile of the map)
They would have defined spawn dates and start locations in specific areas on fixed maps or grouped by ethnic artstyle on random maps.
And I suppose I'll stick on civ6 to develop it, even if the base features of HK looks more "compatible" with what I want to achieve, what I've gathered from Amplitude previous game modding capabilities are not giving me a lot of hopes on that front...
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I am expecting that for China and India as well.
PhilBowles
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I can't read everything so I have two quick questions
1) Do we know how are 6 eras named and what periods of history do they roughly cover?
2) If I play as Malinese and switch to Americans, do all my units turn white?
Malian, please. Civ IV got the adjective wrong. I would guess not - the way it was described in the dev interview seems to be that you're selecting the aesthetic and thematic focus of the chosen faction when you change, but it's intended to represent Malians adopting - say - American cultural influences rather than literally becoming American.
KayAU
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I am curious about how they will establish the continuous identity of the competing players. Will it just be "Player 1, Player 2...?". I see some people pointing out that the civ model is not realistic or reflective of how real world civilizations have developed, and while this is obviously true...I don't really see any way around this kind od unrealism in a game with this theme and scope. Yes, it makes no sense to settle a city as Laurier of Canada in the year 4000 BC. Nor does it make sense that Laurier or Canada is still around 5000 years later. But Humankind will still have this kind of unrealism, even if it frames it a bit differently. The civilizations will still be under continuous, planned rule by an immortal entity for thousands of years, and instead of the nonesense of Roosevelt declaring war on the Sumerians in classical times, you will have the nonesense of Babylonians becoming Vikings...while somehow still being the same people. Realism in this regard is probably a lost cause in either case.
The question to me is rather how these things impact the gameplay. Having a fixed civ and leader like in Civilization has the advantage of providing you with a clear identity for all players, and providing variety in gameplay and flavour between playthroughs. Picking up cultural "traits" as you advance through the eras on the other hand, sounds like an interesting game mechanic which allows you to, in a sense, "level up" and customize your civ as you play. I probably wouldn't present it as if you became the new culture, however, but rather that you picked up a trait, developed in a direction, which made your civ more "Nubian-like" or "Viking-like", yet remained essentially an evolved version of the same civ you already were.
The question to me is rather how these things impact the gameplay. Having a fixed civ and leader like in Civilization has the advantage of providing you with a clear identity for all players, and providing variety in gameplay and flavour between playthroughs. Picking up cultural "traits" as you advance through the eras on the other hand, sounds like an interesting game mechanic which allows you to, in a sense, "level up" and customize your civ as you play. I probably wouldn't present it as if you became the new culture, however, but rather that you picked up a trait, developed in a direction, which made your civ more "Nubian-like" or "Viking-like", yet remained essentially an evolved version of the same civ you already were.
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Another thing I find appealing about HK's setup is that you don't know who you are going to play as. I have started many games only to realize that my map would have been perfect for some other civ.
So with HK you get a chance to look around a bit. See what the terrain looks like and how many other tribes are in your area. Then you get to pick a civ based what's there and what is available if other players picked first. It's both exciting and gives you informed agency. Maybe I want to pick a militaristic or trade civ if I have a lot of close neighbors or a peaceful agriculturalist if not.
@KayAU player identity may not even matter if diplomacy resets every age. We simply don't know anything about how it is handled. It kind of makes sense to reset diplomacy because you are going to have a much different relationship with warmongers in one age and traders in the next, even if they are the same group.
So with HK you get a chance to look around a bit. See what the terrain looks like and how many other tribes are in your area. Then you get to pick a civ based what's there and what is available if other players picked first. It's both exciting and gives you informed agency. Maybe I want to pick a militaristic or trade civ if I have a lot of close neighbors or a peaceful agriculturalist if not.
@KayAU player identity may not even matter if diplomacy resets every age. We simply don't know anything about how it is handled. It kind of makes sense to reset diplomacy because you are going to have a much different relationship with warmongers in one age and traders in the next, even if they are the same group.
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KayAU
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@Eagle Pursuit
Diplomacy may or may not reset to some degree, but you are still a continuous entity in the game, making plans which span across ages, and participating in a scoring competition which takes into account all the ages.
Diplomacy may or may not reset to some degree, but you are still a continuous entity in the game, making plans which span across ages, and participating in a scoring competition which takes into account all the ages.
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There doesn't seem to be leaders. Some have theorized that there are representatives (emissaries, ambassadors, etc) of civs for the purposes of interaction and diplomacy. The devs commented on doing placeholder voices for something.
They can always make one 2d nice colourful picture for each civ for purpose of diplomacy. Displaying and emissary, ambassador or leader facing you with some fancy background.
With each civ having short diplomatic theme (or its normal theme adopted for diplomacy). No animations or voice but gives some human face.
Early in this thread I wrotek how it's kind of sad there will be only max 10 civs in the game. But then I didn't know about the option to retain your culture into next era. So now technically it would be possible to have more than 10 civs in game - they'd simply have to be generated in later eras. To be honest I'd love some more civs appearing as game develops.
Another solution would be to just enable player to spawn the world with more than 10 players, you'd just risk some civs repeating in the first era (but not later).
I really hope there will be some way to play with more than 10 civs in the game. Especially as this game has no 1UPT which may potentially significantly decrease AI turn time (far less units moving independently).
With each civ having short diplomatic theme (or its normal theme adopted for diplomacy). No animations or voice but gives some human face.
Early in this thread I wrotek how it's kind of sad there will be only max 10 civs in the game. But then I didn't know about the option to retain your culture into next era. So now technically it would be possible to have more than 10 civs in game - they'd simply have to be generated in later eras. To be honest I'd love some more civs appearing as game develops.
Another solution would be to just enable player to spawn the world with more than 10 players, you'd just risk some civs repeating in the first era (but not later).
I really hope there will be some way to play with more than 10 civs in the game. Especially as this game has no 1UPT which may potentially significantly decrease AI turn time (far less units moving independently).
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WillowBrook
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Well put. I'm looking forward to seeing how this aspect plays out.
I have to say this is something Endless Space 2 does very well. There is no point in the game where exploration ceases to be relevant, because in the late game you'll be looking for new sources of resources and luxuries. Also anomalies make exploration in ES2 very fun. So I hope to see this translate into HK.
I'd say Endless Legends/Endless Space style heroes is exactly what we're looking at.
Libyans are an interesting pick. Surprised they didn't go the route of Phoenicia in the Bronze Age over Libyans and then Carthage in the Classical Age.
I fully expect the Soviet Union to be a modern civ especially since they were a world power house and you don't have to depict a leader. Same goes for modern China.
As for the Americas I think both the Aztec and Inca could fit in the medieval period as they don't necessarily fit in with the other empires of that time with gunpowder. So It might actually go like this as far as Latin America goes: Olmec>Mayan>Aztec and Incan>Spanish and Portugal>Brazil and or Gran Colombia>Argentina?
Trav'ling Canuck
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That comment was very ambiguous. They might as easily have been doing first draft voiceovers for in game announcements, descriptions of historical events, achieving a tech/fame objective, etc.
My sense is Frogsquadron only mentioned it at all because he and/or others found the outcome of their efforts hilariously bad, and like many people wanted to share his funny anecdote. There's no telling how closely it was related to conveying personality through diplomats/emissaries, the specific topic of conversation in which it was raised.
