Humankind Game by Amplitude

[God of Kings]

Successful games in a genre will influence other games in that genre, and when a game has its genre pretty much to itself (as, for example, The Sims has) or has a particular corner of its genre pretty much to itself (as Civilization more or less has) then it can lead to stagnation and complacency. When I say "competition," I don't mean that it will hurt Civ's market share; I mean that it will spur Firaxis to make a better and more innovative Civ7. (Also Firaxis is clearly already conscious of what Amplitude does as their influence is already apparent on Civ6.)

Sometimes, even completely new franchises from small developers become much more popular than even very recent iterations of well established franchises. Cities: Skylines killed SimCity. Planet Coaster killed RollerCoaster Tycoon.

Firaxis and Amplitude take cues from each other. The Cultist faction in Endless Legend is obviously inspired by the Venice civ in BNW. Likewise, governors in R&F are inspired by heroes (in their governor capacity) in Endless Legend.

 

[Zaarin]

I had a go at Endless Legend but I find it busy and confusing. I dare say if I worked at it it would become familiar, but It can't see it displacing Civ 6 for me. All the same, for £5.74, it's less than a round of drinks.

Less relevant to Humankind, but IMO Endless Space 2 is the better game. I agree that Endless Legend is cluttery (albeit gorgeous) and has a counterintuitive UI. The screenshots we've seen from Humankind look like Amplitude has kept their style but also learned some lessons from Civ6's cleaner presentation.

Sometimes, even completely new franchises from small developers become much more popular than even very recent iterations of well established franchises. Cities: Skylines killed SimCity. Planet Coaster killed RollerCoaster Tycoon.

Indeed. I'm very much hoping Paralives gives The Sims a nice bloody nose.

 

[heinous_hat]

Less relevant to Humankind, but IMO Endless Space 2 is the better game. I agree that Endless Legend is cluttery (albeit gorgeous) and has a counterintuitive UI. The screenshots we've seen from Humankind look like Amplitude has kept their style but also learned some lessons from Civ6's cleaner presentation.

I remember Endless Legend being more attractive and playable in it's earlier incarnations (2014-15). It lost something along the way, unfortunately.

A patch in 2015 addressed a performance problem with AMD graphics cards by changing the camera angle and depth of field quality (for everyone). Gone was the beautiful, buttery bokeh effect that helped zoomed objects stand out on an otherwise busy map. It was an unsatisfying quick fix that was never revisited.

Th UI remains notably good for one reason though... right-click dismisses whatever window, panel or sub-panel you have open, and the performance is instantaneous. Civ VI is clunky and inconsistent by comparison. So hopefully they've honed their design and bring the better aspects to Humankind.

 

[KayAU]

It's more like smashing all the victory conditions together. You get bonus fame for doing things aligned with your civ in whatever given Age. So a warmonger might get more Fame for conquest while a builder might get more Fame for Wonders, and a Science civ might get more Fame for completing all the techs in an Age or something.

This vaguely reminds me of the old Interplay game Conquest of the New World. In that game, you would allocate points to your faction at the start, like in an RPG character creation screen. Some points would give your faction gameplay benefits, other would affect how many "victory points" you got from doing different things. This basically meant that you chose your own goals before starting a game. It might sound strange, but like most things in the game, it worked rather well.

Another thing I liked about CotNW, is how exploration worked. Being the first to uncover a landmark would earn you the right to name it, and earn you points. For mountains, uncovering the peak would do, for rivers, you had to follow them until you uncovered the full length. Taller mountains and longer rivers gave more points.

 

[Uberfrog]

Sometimes, even completely new franchises from small developers become much more popular than even very recent iterations of well established franchises. Cities: Skylines killed SimCity. Planet Coaster killed RollerCoaster Tycoon.

I believe those franchises were rather killed by their own publishers and developers. Their spiritual successors were merely waiting in the wings.

One would hope that Civ 7 will not be as much a disaster as the last SimCity or RCT were...

 

[Jkchart]

I am actually very curious how Amplitude will handle religion, because it's been there in the lore of their previous games and been obliquely hinted at in mechanics, but they've never directly handled it before. I think most of us agree that Firaxis has not done a stellar job on that front.

The issue being though, how exactly does one handle such a controversial topic as religion well

Lots of room to piss people off.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The issue being though, how exactly does one handle such a controversial topic as religion well.

My answer is to treat it as part of a society's overall culture, which it basically is. The idea of religion as being something that spreads separately from the broader culture that gave rise to it is generally a fallacy except for very unique and short periods in history, such as the schisms in the Christian and Muslim worlds, where new versions of an existing faith duked it out inside of an existing culture.

For most of history, spreading religion is just shorthand for spreading your overall culture. The two items don't often move in isolation. Even when they do, that's no different than any other aspect of culture, which can occassionally be borrowed by other cultures.

If you have a mechnism for spreading culture (big if, as we don't know if HK does) then you don't need a mechanism for spreading religion.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

i sure hope that HK will have lots of different ideas and approaches to the genre than other historical strategy games.
i wouldnt mind getting totally different civ strenghts or unique units or leaders than we are given by the civ series. it would be refreshing and make both game s unique and enjoyable.
it is i guess unavoidable to compare each historical game to civ series but we should not try to get the developpers to make their game more civ like , instead allow them to create their vision and hopefully enjoy it. if enough people enjoy it it will make them a lot of money whereas if we bombard them with suggestions with this good idea of civ or this good idea of hearts of iron etc we actually will prevent them to find their own customers and most of the word of mouth or game reviews will be "like civ or like other games" which isnt a good selling point if you already have the said game in question.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Doing research on Endless Legends I like the look of the minor factions and how they do have more personality than the city-states in Civ 6, such as their own UUs. That's kind of making me want UU for some of the city-states like Hattusa getting a unique Chariot etc. Giving each one a UU might be too much but I think one for each different type and each militaristic city getting one would be nice.
Here's hoping for (possibly) next expansion Nassau can replace Lisbon and adds a Buccaneer UU in addition to the ability Lisbon has already.

Endless Legends does look nice but I'll probably need to wait and see if I can get a better (gaming) computer before I give it a try, though who knows when that will be. Plus Switch games are coming out too. I'm not too keen on sci-fi in general and much more of a history/fantasy nerd anyway, so Endless Space doesn't appeal to me that much. Though it does remind me of Twilight Imperium board game which I own and I'm more of a tabletop game person.

 

[Zaarin]

Th UI remains notably good for one reason though... right-click dismisses whatever window, panel or sub-panel you have open, and the performance is instantaneous.

Yes, but Endless Space 2 has this feature as well with a much more coherent UI.

The issue being though, how exactly does one handle such a controversial topic as religion well

The answer, of course, is you consult theologians (or at the very least people who are actually, I don't know, religious?) and anthropologists about the subject. Civ6's religion system does not even vaguely match how religion works in real life or even how it influences history or diplomacy. I'm not terribly hopeful that Amplitude's approach will be better, but it can't be too much worse...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Doing research on Endless Legends I like the look of the minor factions and how they do have more personality than the city-states in Civ 6, such as their own UUs. That's kind of making me want UU for some of the city-states like Hattusa getting a unique Chariot etc. Giving each one a UU might be too much but I think one for each different type and each militaristic city getting one would be nice.
Here's hoping for (possibly) next expansion Nassau can replace Lisbon and adds a Buccaneer UU in addition to the ability Lisbon has already.

Military City States should have had UUs from the beginning, but ideally they would be tied in with a well-thought-out Mercenary system also.
My candidates for 'Mercenary/UU" Militaristic City States would be:

Berne - Swiss Pikeman, a faster-moving Pikeman that ignores Hill terrain movement limitations
Darmstadt - Hessian Grenadier, a 'Redcoat' - like Melee Unit that increases Production when Garrisoned in a town (the Prussian and other German armies of the 18th century were all garrisoned in towns, not separate Encampments, and the men were only 'at drill' for about half the day, then encouraged to take second jobs: having a regiment or two in town added several thousand strong young men to the work force, many with skills like carpentry, leather or metal-working.)
Sirte - Numidian Cavalry, a Horseman that can move after attacking and has extra Flanking Bonuses. The Numidians were unarmored with a fist-full of light javelins and literally rode rings around the Roman Cavalry when Hannibal used them - so after Carthage was gone, Rome hired them en masse as Auxiliaries.
Port Royal - with your Buccaneer UU
Tongwangchen - Hunnic Horse Archer, Tongwangchen was the capital of the "Huns Who Stayed Behind", out on the western edge of China, but while Attila gave everybody in Europe gray hairs for a few years, the importance is that both the Chinese and the Romans and the Byzantines hired every Hun rider they could for 500 years or so after Attila was dead and gone.

I picked up Endless Legend this weekend on sale, but so far have barely had a chance to look at the Tutorial. Two things jumped out at me, though, which I don't think I've seen discussed in depth in relation to Humankind:

1. The Heroes, which seem to be part of both E Legend and E Space, as a mechanism for Great People, but with more interactivity. As I understand it, you can 'enhance' your Heroes in EL, and what a concept that would be for the sort of Great People Civ VI has: put your Great Writer in a University, or build a Printing Press/Library to spread his Great Works faster, provide a Workshop for a Great Engineer, a Cathedral/Minster/Palace for a Great Artist to decorate - instead of shifting bits of art and literature around, play to the total Output and influence of the 'Heroic Great Person'.
2. The add-ons to the Units - ability to Upgrade units with equipment and weapons to give them new capabilities. We have seen a sniff of this with the GDR in GS and some of us have posted about the idea of a new type of Promotion - a Technical Promotion, if you will - that relied on Technology to enhance units in between complete Upgrades. As soon as I saw that in E Legend, I started thinking about the possibilities: bronze and then iron armor or weapons, Knights with plate armor, Great Helm Upgrades, Musketmen with Bayonet, Flintlock Upgrades, etc. EL seems to be able to have Graphic changes in the unit to reflect the visible changes as well . . .

I have seen only a couple of posts about the Heroes mechanism and how it might apply, but nothing about the Upgrade/Add On feature for the units of EL, which would seem to be a 'natural' to apply to a historically-based game. For one thing, it might solve a lot of the Upgrade Path/Upgrade and technology Speed problems that have plagued both Civ V and Civ VI.

 

[aguliondew]

The issue I had with Endless Legends is that its a complex game, the AI is not to smart and upgrading your troop takes awhile. The lore and quest system is pretty good. I still prefer civ games over it.

 

[God of Kings]

Military City States should have had Cus from the beginning, but ideally they would be tied in with a well-thought-out Mercenary system also.
My candidates for 'Mercenary/UU" Militaristic City States would be:

Berne - Swiss Pikeman, a faster-moving Pikeman that ignores Hill terrain movement limitations
Darmstadt - Hessian Grenadier, a 'Redcoat' - like Melee Unit that increases Production when Garrisoned in a town (the Prussian and our German armies of the 18th century are all garrisoned in towns, not separate Encampments, and the men were only 'at drill' for about half the day, then encouraged to take second jobs: having a regiment or two in town added several thousand strong young men to the work force, many with skills like carpentry, leather or metal-working.
Sirte - Numidian Cavalry, a Horseman that can move after attacking and has extra Flanking Bonuses. The Numidians were unarmored with a fist-full of light javelins and literally rode rings around the Roman Cavalry when Hannibal used them - so after Carthage was gone, Rome hired them en masse as Auxiliaries.
Port Royal - with your Buccaneer UU
Tongwangchen - Hunnic Horse Archer, Tongwangchen was the capital of the "Huns Who Stayed Behind", out on the western edge of China, but while title gave everybody in Europe gray hairs for a few years, the importance is that both the Chinese and the Romans and the Byzantines hired every Hun rider they could for 500 years or so after Attila was dead and gone.

I picked up Endless Legend this weekend on sale, but so far have barely had a chance to look at the Tutorial. Two things jumped out at me, though, which I don't think I've seen discussed in depth in relation to Humankind:

1. The Heroes, which seem to be part of both E Legend and E Space, as a mechanism for Great People, but with more interactivity. As I understand it, you can 'enhance' your Heroes in EL, and what a concept that would be for the sort of Great People Civ VI has: put your Great Writer in a University, or build a Printing Press/Library to spread his Great Works faster, provide a Workshop for a Great Engineer, a Cathedral/Minster/Palace for a Great Artist to decorate - instead of shifting bits of art and literature around, play to the total Output and influence of the 'Heroic Great Person'.
2. The add-ons to the Units - ability to Upgrade units with equipment and weapons to give them new capabilities. We have seen a sniff of this with the GDR in GS and some of us have posted about the idea of a new type of Promotion - a Technical Promotion, if you will - that relied on Technology to enhance units in between complete Upgrades. As soon as I saw that in E Legend, I started thinking about the possibilities: bronze and then iron armor or weapons, Knights with plate armor, Great Helm Upgrades, Musketmen with Bayonet, Flintlock Upgrades, etc. EL seems to be able to have Graphic changes in t he unit to reflect the visible changes as well . . .

I have seen only a couple of posts about the Heroes mechanism and how it might apply, but nothing about the Upgrade/Add On feature for the units of EL, which would seem to be a 'natural' to apply to a historically-based game. For one thing, it might solve a lot of the Upgrade Path/Upgrade and technology Speed problems that have plagued both Civ V and Civ VI.

Finding tribal villages (separate from minor nations) within unclaimed regions would be more interesting. The villagers could give the nation some interesting equipment.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

One would hope that Civ 7 will not be as much a disaster as the last SimCity or RCT were...

It may were well look to be so, seeing how the trend in the AAA industry the past 15 years has been towards Games-As-A-Service, which could very well mean the next Civ game has no modding support, because doing so stands in conflict with streamlining it for an online multiplayer experience.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I love difficult games and having to carefully plan my strategies and seeing how my every choice matters. And if we have eight difficulty settings, there really should be some option for players who want to be challenged, especially - without stupid desperate AI resource cheats. I don't give a damn how hard it is to program 1UPT combat AI, if it is impossible then I'd actually support changing entire stacking and combat system just to give AI a fighting chance. Imagine Civ game with optional difficulty level ...

Options, exactly, this is so important... we need options, like to say allow 1UPT, 2UPT, 3,4,5,6 UPT in the menu.
Regardless, try disable science victory, cultural victory, and the AI mechanics won't change a bit.
There is not even aggression level.
Mods can't work all the time, 2UPT mod isn't working for me. CIV VI needs vanilla options, not another DLC.
Humankind first look has advanced map generation, in single tile diversity... it's like someone has been listening to civ's thread for the last two to three years...
Canyons looks like canyons, rivers forms waterfalls!
6-7 height parameters, mountains can have flat tops, highplains... I am amazed...

But without a complex option panel, it will be pointless, people loves customizing its own difficulty level.
We'll see.

 

[Uberfrog]

It may were well look to be so, seeing how the trend in the AAA industry the past 15 years has been towards Games-As-A-Service, which could very well mean the next Civ game has no modding support, because doing so stands in conflict with streamlining it for an online multiplayer experience.

I’m not terribly concerned that Civ 7 will become a primarily multiplayer game, and so this sort of game-as-service approach would not really apply.

I don’t think there’s much of a problem in Firaxis’ mind with Civ 6’s approach to modding and the Steam Workshop. While mod support (particularly DLL) is still somewhat lacking, it wouldn’t make sense for them to ditch it completely, especially given how they have continually stated the importance of modding to the franchise.

 

[bbbt]

I’m not terribly concerned that Civ 7 will become a primarily multiplayer game, and so this sort of game-as-service approach would not really apply.

In theory some sort of advanced 'machine learning' AI would also likely result in a Civ 7 that was always online and potentially modless. Though that's also pretty unlikely, at least from Firaxis. Folks have suggested that sort of thing might come from a third party in the future.

 

[Jkchart]

My answer is to treat it as part of a society's overall culture, which it basically is. The idea of religion as being something that spreads separately from the broader culture that gave rise to it is generally a fallacy except for very unique and short periods in history, such as the schisms in the Christian and Muslim worlds, where new versions of an existing faith duked it out inside of an existing culture.

For most of history, spreading religion is just shorthand for spreading your overall culture. The two items don't often move in isolation. Even when they do, that's no different than any other aspect of culture, which can occassionally be borrowed by other cultures.

If you have a mechnism for spreading culture (big if, as we don't know if HK does) then you don't need a mechanism for spreading religion.

Yes, but Endless Space 2 has this feature as well with a much more coherent UI.


The answer, of course, is you consult theologians (or at the very least people who are actually, I don't know, religious?) and anthropologists about the subject. Civ6's religion system does not even vaguely match how religion works in real life or even how it influences history or diplomacy. I'm not terribly hopeful that Amplitude's approach will be better, but it can't be too much worse...

I agree with you both, absolutely. Religion should be more hands off rather than a direct tool/invention of the state and another way to conquer the world. I get very tired of the religion system as it currently stands, where some powerful nation randomly comes up with all of these theological ideas in their capital city (or because they built a stone circle lol). The religious system worked better in V where it wasn't another combat layer, but even then isn't quite accurate in how religion works.

I was just stating how easy it is to get people mad enough about the subject.

 

[Abaxial]

I was thinking earlier that I'm not too worked up about Civ 7 - there is still so much to be tapped in Civ 6. As in, what would be like to play X with a map like Y?

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

OK, time to put my 2 cents.
I spent my entire day yesterday and today (nothing to do at work) reading this thread. And boy I knew about Humankind before (huge fan of EL) but thanks to you I learned even more.

My opinion about it:
I'm absolutely thrilled. Being able to play a mutable country is gorgeous. It's something I wanted since a long time. I don't really care about the "realistic historically accurate" setting. Because having Australia being the direct neighbor of Phoenicia is utterly ridiculous. So, for me, the fact that you can choose any new culture at each new era is the best idea.
A lot of people here seems against or, at least, very dubious. But you look at it the wrong way: it's just a wrap to put an easy, recognizable name on a mechanic.

In EL, you can choose a faction and each faction posess several distincts traits. You have also the ability to create your own faction, picking up traits from what you want. I think what Amplitude want to do with Humankind is that kind of thing: create your own culture during the ages, adapting yourself around your neighbors and your environment.

A lot of people seems to see it as: I will be Egyptian, then Roman, then Incas, then Portuguese... It's the wrong way to see it. You better see it as: I will be able to build pyramids, then have better roads, then exploit mountains, then travels the oceans... It's better to focus on the mechanics, on the abilities you will have rather than the name. The mechanics are what's important; the rest is just wrap, design, fashion and fanciness.

In Civ, you don't play Arabia; you play a people that know how to meddle efficiently science and religion. You don't play Canada; you play a country of north farmers that looked upon the beauty of nature and decided to exploit... hem, to conserve it. We just call them Arabia and Canada because what they are able to do are vaguely linked to stereotypes you can have about them in real life.

It will be the same thing in HK. You won't be the Egyptians or Babylonians or Hittites; you will be your own culture, your own country with graphics and names inspired by them, that's all.

It's a dream come true: the ability to really create the country you want... Imagine the storytelling you'll be able to do! The legends, the roleplay! It's clearly not an historical 4X game, nor it's a fantasy game: it's a realistic game who push the "what if" very far and very smartly.

Why should I wait this long to test this! Why????