Humankind Game by Amplitude

[WillowBrook]

As for cultural evolution, i also dislike the idea of having free hands to pick just any civ you want for a particular era. Yes, culture change a lot but always in particular contexts, that would be too hard for any game made today to replicate in a meaningful manner.

I wonder if there would be creative ways to limit the choices for the next era based on what happens in the current one. The "one million civilizations" in their marketing material implies that every combination is possible, but maybe only if you play in certain ways? Picking one in ten six times in every game seems like too much choice.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I wonder if there would be creative ways to limit the choices for the next era based on what happens in the current one. The "one million civilizations" in their marketing material implies that every combination is possible, but maybe only if you play in certain ways? Picking one in ten six times in every game seems like too much choice.

It is easy to have millions of combinations possible, as there are in Genetics, but, as in Genetics, most of the combinations are instantly or near-instantly Fatal and so aren't real choices.

In Cultures, it might be possible to have a brilliantly innovative artistic trait combined with a brutal totalitarian theocratic dictatorship of a government type, but it's hard to see how that would work:
"Be Creative or I'll Have Your Heart Cut Out!" - doesn't often work: It just makes people very creative in finding ways to overthrow the government before it gets around to them . . .

We don't really have enough information yet for 'informed speculation', but I'm a bit sceptical on First Glance. There is still a great deal of debate on What Causes cultures to develop the way they have, or not develop in the same way that similar starting cultures developed elsewhere, so that formulating some kind of game rules in which If A, B, and Q then X results is either going to get insanely complicated, or full of ways to 'game' the result you want, or make the end-game 'modern' real-life Cultures either Impossible to Achieve or Impossible to Avoid.
Not saying they can't do it, but it's going to be a Huge design problem to solve well.

 

[AsH2]

It is easy to have millions of combinations possible, as there are in Genetics, but, as in Genetics, most of the combinations are instantly or near-instantly Fatal and so aren't real choices.

In Cultures, it might be possible to have a brilliantly innovative artistic trait combined with a brutal totalitarian theocratic dictatorship of a government type, but it's hard to see how that would work:
"Be Creative or I'll Have Your Heart Cut Out!" - doesn't often work: It just makes people very creative in finding ways to overthrow the government before it gets around to them . . .

The one exception, Kim Jong-il..

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please let us not stray into current events/politics.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

My primary criticism of Amplitude's previous 4x games, especially in comparison to Civ, is that they tend to make the part that should be simple, warfare and combat, overly complicated and make the part that should be complicated, building and empire management, overly simple.

Any 4x game that has unit customization has its priorities backwards.

 

[Elhoim]

Any 4x game that has unit customization has its priorities backwards.

Alpha Centauri would like to have a word with you.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

Alpha Centauri would like to have a word with you.

Alpha Centauri’s mechanics are pretty bad by modern 4x standards. Great presentation, but a lot of misguided mechanical decisions.

 

[CivLuvah]

Could you elaborate on that? Because we both share concerns about evolving cultural traits, i just dont get why you would find cultures dying or being superceeded in a game design like this as impossible to portray. When a culture in real life disappears, it's always due to an outside event like conflicts or disasters, which in games like humankind and civ is portrayed by "player losing their last city". Therefore, culture is gone.

I didn't say it was impossible. I said in the context of Humankind it feels abstract. While I was typing this post a game I know that came into my mind that does this is....

Spoiler :

Civ

 

[acluewithout]

RockPaperShotgun has a summary of what to expect here. There’s also a livestream with Devs on reddit here and here but no gameplay.

It looks like you actually start out as a nomadic people and can’t settle cities until you unlock some tech or ability, which is actually pretty interesting[0]. You also don’t have to mash-up with other Civs. Choosing an additional Civ to mash-up is more like an upgrade, and you don’t have to upgrade if you don’t want to and can instead continue playing with your original Civ through out the game if you want (meaning you’ll remain an “ancient” Civ in some way).

I’m marginally more interested. Guess we’ll have to wait an see.

If we get a 3XP for Civ in 2020, then getting that and this new historical 4x will be all fairly interesting. Not a bad time to be a 4X fan - go figure.

[0] It’s crazy to think FXS has only just experimented with this Mechanic with the Maori, and Amplitude has this baked in as a starting Mechanic.

 

[bite]

This is a still a very early trailer but it does show some promise, and I am always on board for some good 4x

 

[Acken]

Amplitude is usually pretty innovative and make fun games. However its AI is usually even worse than the civ series

 

[acluewithout]

I think the most interesting aspects of Humankind are perhaps the ability to start as a nomadic people and the ability to “upgrade” your Civ by adding or “mashing on” a new culture.

Civ VI doesn’t have anything to represent nomadic people (other than with the Maori, and even that is a bit of a kludge seeing as you can’t build more units until you found a city). That is a potentially big differentiator between HK and Civ because, the way Civ is currently tooled, I can’t see FXS could ever add something like that to Civ VI now.

I’ll be interested to see how the second feature, ie upgrading your Civ, actually plays out. FXS kind of had this with Social Policies in Civ V and, based on nothing but my wild speculation, I could see a Mechanic like that getting re-introduced into Civ VI via a 3XP or DLC. FXS have made very clear that they’re not done with Civ VI, so the question is not how HK compares to Civ VI now, it’s how the two games compare in 2020.

One other small thing that the Endless games have largely done better than Civ is city sprawl. EL’s Cities visually spill out and takeover the land, and it looks like HK will have the same visuals. Civ VI’s Cities don’t really expand mechanically or visually, and so Cities feel very puny and hemmed in. I really think FXS need to improve that part of the game visually, so Cities spill out of their tiles more and just feel bigger and more like seething metropolis.

Anyway. It’ll be at least interesting to see another Studio’s take on things.

 

[Morningcalm]

I think it's odd that a game like this is appearing now, and that it's so clearly a rival with Civ. But competition is good. I like the idea of mixing cultures, though gameplay wise we will have to see how it works (maybe you could get weird combos like Egyptian-Chinese-Swedish). As for the battles, the idea of zooming into XCom/Age of Wonders style smaller battles is an interesting one, and might make combat more tactical and less clunky compared to Civ V and Civ VI's 1UPT system, but we will see. I hope it turns out to be a good game, and secretly Firaxis probably does too (both because they might enjoy playing it, being inspired by it, and because it might get more people interested in the genre).

 

[bbbt]

I'd say I'm still more excited for Soren Johnson's 10 Crown's, whenever that comes out. I'll probably buy this, it if it's like endless legend I'll play ~15 hours and then never touch it again. But maybe it will surprise me. Hopefully they've revamped their combat which I'm not a fan of.

Based on the screenshots - I'd be concerned a lot of the 'customize your Civ thru history' is mostly going to boil down to generic stat boosts (plus one science or plus one production?)! I mean that's all these sorts of games but I'd like to see them dressed up better.

I'd like to see a Civ game of some of the things mentioned here - namely less micro, more exploration.

 

[Uberfrog]

I’m cautiously optimistic about this. There’s plenty of room in the historical 4x genre for more than one franchise, and what I’m interested in is how this game will differ from Civ. I didn’t really get on with Endless Legend, but I’ll keep an eye on this.

I’m a little wary of the pick-n-mix approach to culture, but I’m interested to see it in practice.

 

[Lordoflinks]

Personally, I am of two minds about Humankind.
On the one hand, the map looks so pretty and considering I loved the 'feel' of the map in Endless Legend, I am sure I will love it here as well. I am also looking forward to seeing Amplitude's take on systems like tourism, culture, trade and religion.

On the other hand, some of the mechanics feel a bit... off to me. The Fame Victory condition seems to be a slightly modified score victory and while I appreciate they are trying to make sure everything your civ does counts towards the victory, and there is room for diversification if needed, I am still worried it may turn into a scenario where one player is ahead of all the others by a significant margin and you are just clicking end turn for 50 turns waiting for the turns to run out. There does not appear to be a mechanic to end the game other than waiting for the turns to run out, or presumably, eliminating everyone else.
I am also concerned with how picking civs seems to work- from what I understand you just get to pick from the ten at the beginning of an era, and I feel this may lead to weird combinations like Rome turning into the Aztecs or something like that. While cultures did change over history, and that is something Civ should try to model, they did not magically turn into another one from the opposite side of the globe. I think I would have preferred a system where you gained traits at the beginning of each era that were inspired by civilizations rather than becoming the civilization itself. From what I have heard on the Amplitude discord, you will also be able to produce ancient era units in the modern era with upgraded equipment and I don't like this at all.
I am very wary about the combat system. I have played Endless Legend a fair bit, and I found the combat system to be fairly horrible in that game so I hope they have brought big changes to it to make it more fun.

At the moment, I don't really get the hype for it myself, but I am looking forward to find out more.

 

[Medopu]

From what I have heard on the Amplitude discord, you will also be able to produce ancient era units in the modern era with upgraded equipment

This is horrible. Was this said by the developers? If so, they seriously have to reconsider this, this is just ridiculous.

 

[Gedemon]

This is horrible. Was this said by the developers? If so, they seriously have to reconsider this, this is just ridiculous.

Depends on how it's done visually, and better than ancient Era units still roaming the map without anything being upgraded (apparence, equipment, stats)

 

[Casworon]

It sounds like it will use the Endless Legends model of units. Being able to upgrade them throughout the game by attaching better weapons and Armour to unit templates. Sounds like the templates you unlock depends on your Civ choices through the era's. Though if it is like endless legends it will be seeing people riding on chariots in the modern era. They might have guns but if the template is a chariot they will still be riding a chariot. I guess we are going to see how they are going to do it

 

[qadams]

First question, why do you think Amplitude chose to announce their new game right now? I mean, they said it will arrive "sometime in 2020," so that could be as little as five months from now — or as much as fifteen months from now. Is it typical in the gaming industry to make an announcement like this so far in advance? What do they have to gain by doing that, and what do they have to lose?

Second, how does Firaxis respond to this, if at all, in their own game design? It seems likely, doesn't it, that they'd already heard rumors about Humankind before Amplitude went public, so this may not come as a huge surprise to the Civ developers. But do you think it might influence their plans going forward? Or will they stay the course, sticking to an overall strategy they've previously laid out?