Humankind Game by Amplitude

[KayAU]

Just for the record: if there are going to be people with modern guns and equipment on horse-driven chariots, I will be completely on board with that.

 

[Browd]

Spearman vs. tank, redux.

 

[DavidPBacon]

I haven't seen anyone commenting on that, but It seems to me that the diferentes civ per era is something borrowed from rhys and fall, the mod in civ IV, where during the game, New civ spawn and try to carve their space into the world. If It is that, makes more sense than egyptians turning into Aztecs midgame. And a welcome feat, since i always felt that they should have added that to mainstream civ.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

I like the graphics. That's all I can say for now.
My major concern is repeatability of the game. Dozen of civilization combinations sounds good on paper, but meta will establish just a few most effective ways to earn fame as a win condition and the game can quickly become boring. But I will give a try "The Mankind" for sure.

 

[Casworon]

I haven't seen anyone commenting on that, but It seems to me that the diferentes civ per era is something borrowed from rhys and fall, the mod in civ IV, where during the game, New civ spawn and try to carve their space into the world. If It is that, makes more sense than egyptians turning into Aztecs midgame. And a welcome feat, since i always felt that they should have added that to mainstream civ.

Yeah it seems to be a mix between Rhys and Fall and a more standard Civilization 4x experience. Since Rhys and Fall was super amazing there is no complaints from me here

 

[Stilgar08]

The argument about the too many combinations puzzle me. You DO realize that it will be up to you if you go all over the world or if you stay in your own cultural boundaries, right?
YOU play the game and from what I understood you can even stay purely Egyptian for the whole game (eg).

 

[altayrneto]

I think (by the little information we have) that this “one million civilizations” system means that the civilization may be fully customizable by the player during the gameplay. When you chose a “civilization” at the begging of each era, doesn’t means that you’re going to be the incarnation of that civilization on that period, but would mean that in this era you will be a civilization similar to that one in our real world. You may be able to chose if you will follow the aestetics of the former era or if you will follow the one similar of the civilization you chose.

 

[Gedemon]

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?

Well, after seeing the trailer, my first thought was that now obviously Firaxis must add cliffs on land and waterfalls to civ6 maps as we requested some time back. Seriously, it looks really good there.

My hope is that they're going to make sure they stay ahead when it comes to moddability, I mean players can play multiple games, but I don't know a lot of modders that mod multiple games.

 

[ZimZum514]

A little direct competition can only be good for us as Civ fans. It will hopefully push Firaxis to keep making Civ better, and who knows, we may even get a good game out of Humankind as well.

 

[steveg700]

I like the graphics. That's all I can say for now.
My major concern is repeatability of the game. Dozen of civilization combinations sounds good on paper, but meta will establish just a few most effective ways to earn fame as a win condition and the game can quickly become boring. But I will give a try "The Mankind" for sure.

Well, a 4X game needs to have exogenous dynamic elements that challenge a player to pivot. A player settles into a routine when they feel comfortable in the knowledge that their strategy is never disrupted.

So, for instance, scoring for specific accomplishments can be conditional rather than fixed. If you are going to place fourth rather than first, then so much for that optimal move. Or the map generation may force certain choices on you. I really hope for stuff like this in a historical 4x game.

Don't give a bunch of abilities that are useful for desert survival and then start me in the desert. Start me in the desert, and then by building a desert civilization, I unlock mastery over that terrain. And make the benefits I unlock both varied and exhaustive, so that somebody else can out-master me (like someone beating you to your desired pantheon).

 

[mitsho]

Which is exactly what Civ does? Do you restart when not placed in Tundra as Russia or Canada? Civ is so much about micromanaging the optimal strategy that it loses in the role-playing department. Competing for a wonder, you chop and maximize everything to get those turns left down. But maybe it makes no sense that you just built the Pyramids on the single desert tile and by the way, you are a republic of city states.

I do agree with the post above and hope that this game will bring a bit more of "you have to react to xy" into the playing experience. With that in mind, I hope the map will already be full of people and not endless wilderness as in Civ. The density varied, but humankind (sic!) was already everywhere.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To be clear, my intent was not to say their AI is worse, but rather that it's not particularly better. Given that AI seems to be among the, if not the, highest complaints, my intent is to emphasize that people looking for a competitor for a better AI aren't necessarily going to find that here.

I'm instead putting a small semblance of hope in:

• Serious consideration of the end user with UI design
• Ability to end games that are over
• Fewer automatic decisions

I'm not familiar with Endless Space/Legends, so I have no idea whether this hope is reasonable or would require a miracle to come true. But these are things older strategy games that I've played to death actually managed far better than Civ 6, so in contrast to a strong AI there's reason to expect they can actually happen in a good game.

 

[Naktis]

hmm interesting they even went cartoonish graphic style , which is direct challange to civ 6. Well if they make all eras fun and intriguing then its gonna be good challange.

BTW it seems next year is gonna be stacked with possibly great games.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

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

Just a note to everybody: IRL there ARE people riding around in 'Chariots' with modern weapons - like 120mm cannon, machine-guns, and composite armor.
That's because in French military terminology, the word for 'tank' is 'Chars' - 'Chariot'. Go look up a picture of the Leclerc main battle tank . . .

Well, after seeing the trailer, my first thought was that now obviously Firaxis must add cliffs on land and waterfalls to civ6 maps as we requested some time back. Seriously, it looks really good there.

Long, long, long overdue. The Civ map has been, essentially, flat sea-level or near-sea level land everywhere except the occasional hill or mountain, which has resulted in a map that is, frankly, boring after the first few games. Cliffs, escarpments, heads of navigation on rivers, upland evergreen forests and lush mountain meadows, 'rain shadows' around hill/mountain country - Civ is missing so much terrain-wise.

 

[mitsho]

The map on the screenshots look very fine, but I'm not sure about the scale. To make that look good, you need many tiles and that requires computation power.

I read "you can use ancient units in the modern Era" as follows: instead of a warrior that you upgrade to a swordman there's just one melee unit who's strength goes up with tech. I like it. It doesn't mean that upgrading needs to be automatic and/or free, but it's clearer for the (casual player) and makes more sense visually. Also, we are used to the term infantry, but unit names have brought up discussions in here in the past.

I do like that they do away with leaders, I never saw the point in them.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Which is exactly what Civ does? Do you restart when not placed in Tundra as Russia or Canada? Civ is so much about micromanaging the optimal strategy that it loses in the role-playing department. Competing for a wonder, you chop and maximize everything to get those turns left down.

This is exactly what I mean by established meta. I fully agree the dynamic elements mentioned above are crucial for a Humankind success. And that's why it is my main concern as well. It's not easy to mix water with fire. They can do it badly, they can add to much RNG, they can do nothing at all... This "Civilization combinations" as a standalone feature sounds like a science or civic tree on steroids and is very vulnerable for a one most effective way of play. I am very curious about The Humankind, but I really enjoy Civilization VI now. If only Firaxis would make win conditions more customizable and flexible it would be great.

 

[Icicle]

I'm not sure what the thought process is that says Egyptians deciding to call themselves German after some times goes by is any less historically accurate than the Chinese building the Statue of Liberty after conquering the neighboring Mapuche for converting their cities to Judaism, or for Sumeria to narrowly win a Space Race versus the Aztecs, but here we are.

 

[KayAU]

I'm instead putting a small semblance of hope in:

• Serious consideration of the end user with UI design
• Ability to end games that are over
• Fewer automatic decisions

I'm not familiar with Endless Space/Legends, so I have no idea whether this hope is reasonable or would require a miracle to come true. But these are things older strategy games that I've played to death actually managed far better than Civ 6, so in contrast to a strong AI there's reason to expect they can actually happen in a good game.

Well, I think you have reason to be hopeful with regards to UI design, at least. As I recall, Endless Space 2 did a pretty impressive job on that front.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm not sure what the thought process is that says Egyptians deciding to call themselves German after some times goes by is any less historically accurate than the Chinese building the Statue of Liberty after conquering the neighboring Mapuche for converting their cities to Judaism, or for Sumeria to narrowly win a Space Race versus the Aztecs, but here we are.

Yes. Civ's immortal leaders (etc) are just one flavor of conceit that we allow the game to take in order to make it fun.

Humankind is offering a different flavor of conceit. And it's purely subjective about which one is better or worse. Some players may even enjoy both. I suspect I will.

 

[Casworon]

New video out

In it they mention about how much freedom they have thanks to the fact that they are a brand new IP and so has much more freedom in how to design their game and change things such as victory conditions and civs which established franchises can't do due to possible fan backlash against such huge changes to core mechanics