This rule does sound kind of ridiculous, and it hasn't been part of any TBS game I've ever played. Mind, the ones I've played were - Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, and Civ6, but not Civ4 or Civ5, Alpha Centauri (but not Beyond Earth), Colonization (the old DOS version, not Civ4 version), Master of Magic, Master of Orion 2, and Call to Power 1.
But I played also Imperialism II, had immensely fun with it and look very pleased forward to say 'Hello again' to "one city per region" & zoom-in for tactical combat resolution.
(In general I find it funny, how Humans insist in having rules, which are in their favor and then later have a lot to say about Bad and "cheating" AIplayers.)
I'm in agreement here. "One city per arbitrary region," makes no logical sense at all. It can't even be extrapolated to make such sense. And I don't recall ever whining about a "cheating AI." The AI "cheats" to some degree or another in every strategy game. This is common knowledge. Otherwise they'd all quickly be walkovers, and only multi-player would ever be worthwhile.
I've never played an Amplitude game with this regions feature, but I feel pretty open-minded about it, particularly with the minor nations worked into it.
It sort of seems like how the various early Anglo-Saxon micro-kingdoms eventually became counties within the kingdom of England.
They have emblematic factions (civs) in Endless Legends, they all play radically different and have rosters that match their faction. To take things a step further you can then use the minor civs to augment your forces with their unique units, and going even further you can customize your unit's equipment. So for instance you can have different variations of the same unit in an army doing different jobs based on equipment issued.
I'm in agreement here. "One city per arbitrary region," makes no logical sense at all. It can't even be extrapolated to make such sense. And I don't recall ever whining about a "cheating AI." The AI "cheats" to some degree or another in every strategy game. This is common knowledge. Otherwise they'd all quickly be walkovers, and only multi-player would ever be worthwhile.
You get valid complaints about AI cheating when it cheats in the literal sense. Civ only has a few examples of this, such as Civ 4's "worst enemy map hack" --> AI could detect trades with civilizations it's never met and penalize other nations for it.
It's worse/more noticeable in other games, such as in earlier patches of EU 4 where it could just straight up ignore military access costing diplo slots and spam them. People also said this about forts in that game, but actually forts are just broken by design and when devs claimed they were WAD they immediately undermined their own credibility as competent developers. The game hides the rules (which are broken garbage) and enforces them in unintuitive/nonsensical ways...but in that case the AI ironically obeys said rules and it only "feels" like cheating because the rules really are that trash.
The important distinction is whether the AI is getting some kind of predesigned bonus or handicap. That's not "cheating". Cheating happens when the game represents rules/constraints, then allows the AI to violate those rules/constraints with no forewarning/indication such that an unspoiled player would anticipate the rule not counting. Bad UI/bugs happen when the game hides the rules or misrepresents them, while the AI doesn't actually violate the real rule.
When games have actual AI cheating it is in fact a significant problem for its design. But this isn't nearly as common as players like to claim.
Honestly I'd prefer if Amplitude borrowed from Civ's playbook this time and have organic border growth, and believe me, this is coming from someone who felt Endless Legend was superior to CiV in nearly every way.
Now, as you say it. I mean, as I played it with great fun, I didn't notice, that "One city per arbitrary region" makes no logical sense at all!
I simply thought something like that a province consists of about 2 dozens tiles in variable shape and that all what is needed to gain and administer all the resources of all tiles of the province is just its capital.
Now I think, that giving up the freedom to settle everywhere (ie. define loosely where a province is) comes on average with more healthy city situations for the AIplayers. (We all know, how easy it is to disturb the AI's city placement ...)
Now, as you say it. I mean, as I played it with great fun, I didn't notice, that "One city per arbitrary region" makes no logical sense at all!
I simply thought something like that a province consists of about 2 dozens tiles in variable shape and that all what is needed to gain and administer all the resources of all tiles of the province is just its capital.
Now I think, that giving up the freedom to settle everywhere (ie. define loosely where a province is) comes on average with more healthy city situations for the AIplayers. (We all know, how easy it is to disturb the AI's city placement ...)
A "province" or equivalent administrative unit is drawn and redrawn by the NATION governing it, and often redrawn again after revolution, conquest, or schism/break-up of said NATION. A "province" is NOT a permanent, inviolable, everstanding thing through the annals of time.
I've never played an Amplitude game with this regions feature, but I feel pretty open-minded about it, particularly with the minor nations worked into it.
It sort of seems like how the various early Anglo-Saxon micro-kingdoms eventually became counties within the kingdom of England.
I've never played an Amplitude game with this regions feature, but I feel pretty open-minded about it, particularly with the minor nations worked into it.
Ill add to that - pick it up the base game if you're looking to be economical and since I own all the expansions once you played a bit, and if you develop a taste for it, I will play some Multi with you. Amplitude has an excellent feature wherein if the host has the DLC and, well hosts, then all players have access to the dlc for that game.
On the region thing remember that the devs say that the borders would be "soft" rather than "hard":
"You will be able to have cities span across regions in Humankind. Where Endless Legend had hard region borders, Humankind's will be "soft". For an analogy, this is the difference between the city limits in the last SimCity and those in Cities Skylines. I'm pretty happy about the way this is turning out and hopefully we can show you more soon!"
I think we need to see how regions actual work before getting too carried away. It may not be too much different to the Continents system in Civ VI if borders are "soft". It's better to assume that systems are going to be at least somewhat different from Endless Legend than the same.
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.
Thinking about this, it occurs to me that the difference arising from the nomadic start to the game isn't just the process by which you gather your initial trait. In Civ (other than Kupe), you're dropped on the map and either settle that tile or a tile nearby. The early turns in HK appear to be driven by doing the things you need to do to acquire a starting trait and be able to found a city, but in the process of doing so you're scouting the map and uncovering possible city site locations. That could potentially maintain the re-playability of the early part of the game.
As others have noted, it makes everyone Kupe, but with goals and objectives other than looking for a city site. But in the process of achieving those goals, you uncover the map around you. In theory, I think that should work. In practice, we'll have to see.
On the region thing remember that the devs say that the borders would be "soft" rather than "hard":
"You will be able to have cities span across regions in Humankind. Where Endless Legend had hard region borders, Humankind's will be "soft". For an analogy, this is the difference between the city limits in the last SimCity and those in Cities Skylines. I'm pretty happy about the way this is turning out and hopefully we can show you more soon!"
I think we need to see how regions actual work before getting too carried away. It may not be too much different to the Continents system in Civ VI if borders are "soft". It's better to assume that systems are going to be at least somewhat different from Endless Legend than the same.
My guess is this is just a reference to the ability to add adjacent regions to an established city. Sort of how you buy adjacent land to continue to expand your city in Cities: Skyline. Rather than being forced to grow a city per region to access the resources of a region, you can develop a megalopolis spanning multiple regions.
I agree that the system is going to differ from the Endless series, but I'm fairly certain that territorial control will follow pre-set regional boundaries, and each region will have a maximum of one city (though each city is not restricted to a maximum of one region).
If the region size is quite small, it's not much different as the 3-tile distance rule from Civ, and with less micromanagement and less chances that the AI places a city in the only possible tile between 4 cities just because.
If the region size is quite small, it's not much different as the 3-tile distance rule from Civ, and with less micromanagement and less chances that the AI places a city in the only possible tile between 4 cities just because.
Based on the one screenshot that actually showed a regional boundary, the regions appears to be roughly the size of a Civ city with all workable tiles plus a little more. But the region shape appears to be irregular.
Another thing I picked up from an article I read last night was that while combat takes place on a cordoned off portion of the map, you can bring in reinforcements.
If the region size is quite small, it's not much different as the 3-tile distance rule from Civ, and with less micromanagement and less chances that the AI places a city in the only possible tile between 4 cities just because.
If it's like Endless Legend, the region size is not that small, but they may have tweaked for Humankind. But you could fit 3-4 civ cities in one.
IIRC though cities worked differently - you basically just started with a city center, and only worked tiles next to that city center (though you could claim any strategics in the region), but you build districts adjacent to said city center to expand and claim more space. So in theory you could fill most of the region.
Another thing I picked up from an article I read last night was that while combat takes place on a cordoned off portion of the map, you can bring in reinforcements.
From what I recall of Endless Legend, it's essentially a 'zoomed in' area of the map where those particular units are (i.e. everyone in say a 5 x 5 tile radius is now fighting on a 15 by 15 combat area in the 'blow up'). And just bringing in new combat troops in t the next turn on the world map into the 5x5 area adds them to combat
Another thing I picked up from an article I read last night was that while combat takes place on a cordoned off portion of the map, you can bring in reinforcements.
Specifically, the initial attack triggers a 3 round battle. If neither side won, then you go back to the strategic map. On your next turn, you can bring in reinforcements, which will then fight in the next 3 round battle.
Unknowns:
Can you retreat on your turn? i.e. pull the units in combat out of battle and skedaddle?
Does a 3 round battle take place on the defender's turn, too, or not until the next attacker's turn?
The HK regions that have been shown so far appear much smaller. EDIT: I take that back. In reviewing the screen shots, the regional borders don't appear to be clearly demarcated. On the Neolithic era screen shots, you can't see regional borders at all. So I'm not sure about the size of the HK regions.
From what I recall of Endless Legend, it's essentially a 'zoomed in' area of the map where those particular units are (i.e. everyone in say a 5 x 5 tile radius is now fighting on a 15 by 15 combat area in the 'blow up'). And just bringing in new combat troops in t the next turn on the world map into the 5x5 area adds them to combat
The HK mini-battle maps that have been shown are also much smaller, but this may be because the tactical map now scales to the size of the forces involved. (EDIT: for clarity, this is speculation. I don't know that the size of the tactical map scales. It's just that if it does, that may explain why early screen shots of small armies fighting are on smaller tactial maps than EL battles, for example).
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article about the mentioned game: Ten reasons Imperialism II is the greatest strategy game ever made 
