Humankind Game by Amplitude

[Eagle Pursuit]

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1205162951717601282?s=19


New tweet, guess the civ.

 

[Jkchart]

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1205162951717601282?s=19


New tweet, guess the civ.

I'm thinking Olmec since they are showing off Bronze cultures.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm thinking Olmec since they are showing off Bronze cultures.

I suspect that's the case as well.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I suspect that's the case as well.

I'm guessing Maya, not Olmec. The temples look a bit too complex for Olmec based on some googling. Plus, the Maya are generally more resonant and marketable, and pretty low-hanging fruit if HK wants to show off something highly desirable that Civ VI doesn't have--yet.

Regardless, it appears that the biggest clue are all of those smoking houses. The closest thing I can find on Google is recent evidence of Mayan tobacco use. They don't look like sweatlodges and I'm not returning anything on fire pits or smokehouses. So I'm still going with Mayans pending further ideas on what the smoke means.

 

[pokiehl]

I'd say Olmec. If it were Maya we'd have evidence of two cultures combined probably. And the tweet said "culture" singular.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1205162951717601282?s=19


New tweet, guess the civ.

Look at the color. As in, the majority of the city and its 'districts' are a uniform tan-khaki color, including the districts with smoke rising from the buildings - which we've seen in other screenshots, by the way. I put it to you that these are all 'generic' Districts for the Amplitude Requirements: Food, Production, Gold, "Influence".
There are two differently-colored buildings that stand out. One is what now appears to be the 'generic' Palace or Central Culture Building, that looks sort of like a dark brown Mesopotamian ziggurat palace/temple - we've spent hat one before in other Humankind cities, too (sure would be nice if there were variations of that building for different, non-Mesopotamian-based Cultures).

The outlier is the building in left front, brightly colored with what may be a pair of 'reflecting pools' or water hazards in front. Since we now know that the Egyptian Pyramids are Emblematic Buildings/Districts, this looks like a Meso-American Pyramid Emblematic Building, which alone doesn't narrow it down much: Olmecs, Toltecs, Mayans, Aztecs and everybody else in Central America who could pile up rocks seem to have built pyramids. And, while it has the general form of a Mayan Temple-Pyramid, complete with temple on top and staircase, it's nowhere near steep enough. The Mayan pyramids are steep suckers: decades ago I got a chance to climb one of them, and if it were any closer to completely vertical I would have needed a climbing rope and pitons.

On the other hand, the general slope and stepped structure does resemble the largest pyramid ever built anywhere, that of Cholula, which has been tentatively identified with the Olmecs or Toltecs (tentatively because the original appearance had to be 'reconstructed' and may not be entirely accurate, but this graphic certainly resembles the reconstruction).
It would be neat if they decided to include the relatively little-known but bigger than Cheops' pyramid, but in that case this is almost certainly Olmec.

Following up on the recent 'reveal' of the Egyptians, tossing us another 'Pyramid Faction' is also appropriate . . .

 

[qadams]

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1205162951717601282?s=19

New tweet, guess the civ.

A general thought about Humankind maps — in the few screenshots we've seen so far, their landscapes look quite different from Civ 6, more like Civ 5, but something else really stands out to me. There's no fog of war! I wonder if it has been removed for demonstration purposes, or if something like that just won't exist at all. Hmmm....

 

[drakula15]

I'm guessing Maya, not Olmec. The temples look a bit too complex for Olmec based on some googling. Plus, the Maya are generally more resonant and marketable, and pretty low-hanging fruit if HK wants to show off something highly desirable that Civ VI doesn't have--yet.

Regardless, it appears that the biggest clue are all of those smoking houses. The closest thing I can find on Google is recent evidence of Mayan tobacco use. They don't look like sweatlodges and I'm not returning anything on fire pits or smokehouses. So I'm still going with Mayans pending further ideas on what the smoke means.

I think you can see some colossal heads just to the right of the base of the larger pyramid, which to me indicates Olmec

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

A general thought about Humankind maps — in the few screenshots we've seen so far, their landscapes look quite different from Civ 6, more like Civ 5, but something else really stands out to me. There's no fog of war! I wonder if it has been removed for demonstration purposes, or if something like that just won't exist at all. Hmmm....

I suspect it's been removed for promotional purposes.

 

[pokiehl]

I think you can see some colossal heads just to the right of the base of the larger pyramid, which to me indicates Olmec

Good catch!

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I think you can see some colossal heads just to the right of the base of the larger pyramid, which to me indicates Olmec

Ayup. That is distinct. Good eye.

Doesn't rule out an Olmec-Maya or Olmec-Aztec civ, but I now concede that it must be at least partly, if not wholly Olmec.

 

[KayAU]

It's clearly Canada, look at the thatched roofs.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

Eagle_pursuit's suspicion is correct: We turn the fog of war off for these teaser screenshots, along with the UI and borders.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

The problem with immortal leaders is they don't feel consistent and make diplomacy strange. Other civs will hold onto grudges from hundreds of years ago so bitterly that it prevents cooperation so the constantly shifting alliances to deal with present day threats cannot exist in Civ because the leaders are still too hung up on something that happened a long time ago.

If you try to imagine Civ as a game night with leaders across history it makes a little more sense. Of course Cleopatra is going to still be mad at me at that city I took at the start of the game she will probably still be mad about it tomorrow when we talk at lunch. But then why does Peter find rampant warmongering more palatable in the classical age than in the industrial? Does he not have a consistent view on the morality of war?

It feels like the game needs to decide if its a board game against historical leaders or more of a simulation of history and try to simulate the many changing alliances and enemies that occurred.

So I'm quite happy to see immortal leaders being left out. It does make me wonder how diplomacy will be conducted now, I imagine they will still want to give a 'face' to each civ perhaps through a diplomat or emissary type character perhaps using that 2.5D visuals they use for Endless Legend and Endless Space 2.

The grudge-holding and inconsistent motivations would happen with AI regardless of if we had one leader or a dozen per civ. I don't see how having a single figurehead has any bearing on this. It's certainly a massive low point in Civ's overall game design that could use a massive overhaul, but I don't see mechanical issues as relevant to what is largely an cultural and artistic issue.

The one benefit of immortal leaders and indeed the overall static nature of VI's cultural representation is that all peoples, regardless of era, regardless of technological achievement, are treated as equals and have equal potential for growth. Every civ, regardless of when it achieved its heights or how high it reached, starts from ground zero and builds itself up. Even the Mapuche. Even the Kongo. Even the Maori. While the window-dressing could stand to be even less westernized, as I observed before many aspects of the design are not that offensively Euro-centric, and more importantly Civ VI by and large tries not to exclude large and important demographics in its roster simply because they weren't a textbook "empire", and does so without designating any playable civ as "lesser" than the others.

Now, whether or not that scratches your particular itch for a historical game is up to you to decide.

How many Native American peoples is HK representing outside of the western idea of "imperial powers" (i.e. Aztec, Maya, Inca)? How many Sub-Saharan peoples? And would those even be appropriate in a "cultural melting pot" game?

The Civilization franchise has been criticized for years as being too Western-centric in its approach, both in misrepresenting native cultures of Africa and the Americas, as well as generally omitting them altogether. As far as I can see from what you prioritize in your lineup, Humankind may in fact be regressive if the most you care to include on top of Aztec/Maya/Inca are the Olmecs, the Pueblo, or the Mississipians, the Sioux or Iroquois, and even of those options I am not optimistic of their chances of being included at all. Nor am I sure of the political propriety of how native tribes would be implemented and received in a game that is even more insistent on an iterative "edifice" model of civilization than the Civ games are. Can you imagine the pushback of, say, the Cree or the Sioux, being portrayed as an emergence of Assyria or Khmer? It's a bit of a Catch-22.

I understand your Roman/Aztec analogy--I think many of us history nerds find alternative history compelling--but that usually tends to come down to an extremely short list of environmental features: rivers, temperate climates with good farming soil and carbs, domesticable labor animals, ports, etc. Things which VI already covers and gives universal opportunity to every civ, making VI already quite effective at illustrating "what if" a non-dominant culture had developed during different circumstances (or vice versa, loosely, if you settled in area without key advantages). So while the "mashup" idea is superficially intriguing, I don't think it actually encourages any meaningful speculation as to why any of these civs developed differently. Not when the "controlling factor" for such differences isn't environmental, or technological, or societal, but simply because the player clicked a level up button irrespective of any particular board state conditions.

I suppose HK seems fun if you prioritize playing god over historical plausibility or enjoy the very indulgent idea of cultural fusion. But historical fantasy that far removed from reality doesn't scratch my itch; expatriated wonders and religions are about as much as I can tolerate and even still the Great Persons in VI don't sit well with me. I'm sure all of you are working very hard on this and I don't like belittling artists, particularly since HK seems like a massive--imo, too ambitious--undertaking that you all have investing quite a lot in. I appreciate that you guys had new ideas and are trying to make them work, even if from my perspective it seems they were massively diluted and convoluted in the committee design process (and that, I emphasize, is not really your fault, just how the gaming industry tends to operate absent a strong creative lead and a lot of serendipity). Regardless of whether I personally like the direction this is going, I wish you all the success in just getting the product out and turning a profit.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I suppose HK seems fun if you prioritize playing god over historical plausibility or enjoy the very indulgent idea of cultural fusion. But historical fantasy that far removed from reality doesn't scratch my itch

To each their own, of course, but Civ represents the uniqueness of American culture by giving them movie studios and a better-than-average fighter. I don't personally find it historically implausible that such uniqueness might also have arisen from a culture that draws it's historical lineage from the ancient Olmecs.

 

[Elhoim]

New gameplay trailer. The idea is that you create your leader, and "evolve" him through the civs you select.

 

[criZp]

Blue hair... ok.

 

[conorbebe]

Interesting... I guess this is one solution to the leaders issue. I just hope the system has enough customisation options to make avatars unique, but also to allow us to recreate leaders from history.

 

[tedhebert]

Very nice.... but... I must say, having to turn CC on because I can't hear a thing the narrator is saying is NOT great promo... Music was too loud, voice too low.

That being said, I thought it was still great, and still can't wait to try this out !

 

[CivLuvah]

Hmm, I was expecting a more epic trailer.

I'm now curious about how the customization of leaders would work.