Humankind Game by Amplitude

Catoninetales_Amplitude said:
Honestly, mashing "different map levels" together has always been a problem for 4X games, in my opinion, as the strategic and global empire building level operates at a different scale than the battles between the individual units would.
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Any "4X" or game with the scope of Civilization or Humankind is born with serious Scale Issues. For examples:
An Ancient Battle in Civ VI takes a minimum of 40 years to resolve - one game turn.
An Archer is Civ VI can shoot from one side of a city to the other. That's one heckofa long bowshot, folks!
The cliffs shown in Humankind dwarf the famous Cliffs of Dover in England or Devil's Postpile in California: both major landmarks, but in the game apparently 'normal'.
Assuming the Cliffs act the way they do in Endless Legend, they are could be serious obstacles to movement: going from the top of the cliff to the bottom, even while 'following the river' in the mid-background of the latest Reveal could take a turn or more of detouring!

So, whether we explicitly realize it or not, all of us gamers deal constantly in the games with gross distortions of time, distance, and size scales, and we either ignore them or rationalize them away to get on with the game.

The appropriate question is how the game integrates or otherwise deals with the distortions. The Endless Legend system, adopted by Humankind from reports, of 'playing out' tactical battles in a single turn on an 'expanded' tactical map overlay on the Game map is a good example: the battles still take Years in nominal Game Time, but the 'Feel' is so much more tactical than the Civ VI "On the Strategic Map" battles that spread for uncounted kilometers between cities and may take several hundred years to resolve early in the game.
 
If a game is going to have different elevations, there has to be an esthetic way to display them other than 'cliffs'. And most of these transitional hexes should have insignificant movement penalties.
 
Jaybe said:
If a game is going to have different elevations, there has to be an esthetic way to display them other than 'cliffs'. And most of these transitional hexes should have insignificant movement penalties.
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We have seen more 'gradual' elevation transitions in the reveals, so one would presume that movement across them (or through forests, across rivers, etc) will be handled in some way comparable to the Civ-series games. Cliffs, as far as I can remember, have only appeared in Civ games as part of Natural Wonders (Cliffs of Dover) and so represent a Humankind-Unique terrain type. IF they represent a barrier or semi-barrier to movement, which is certainly what they look like on the map (and they were barriers in Endless Legend which the Amplitude Studio produced previously) then they will be like another Mountain Range in Civ, and could have serious strategic and economic consequences. Like:
1. How Permanent are they as barriers to Movement? Do they only stop, say, certain units from moving, like Siege Engines or Artillery or Chariots/Wheeled Vehicles? Are they only a Barrier until you discover Black Powder or Dynamite and can 'modify' them?
2. Are they also non-military Barriers? can you trace Roads/Railroads across them? Can you trace a Trade Route across them? (IF Trade Routes have distance limits, that could be really, really Important early in the game)
3. Can you fight across them? If you can, does it matter, or How Much does it matter, whether you are at the bottom or top of the Cliff?
4. Does it make any difference if a City is built with parts of it on the 'other side' of a Cliff?

And, referencing those gorgeous waterfalls dropping over the cliff edges:
1. Does a waterfall mean anything besides a Graphic Goodie? Like, IF a waterfall is inside or alongside of a City or part of a city and the game has Mills, is a Mill with a Waterfall more powerful?
2. Does the waterfall change movement along or across its river?
3. Does a Waterfall later provide extra Hydroelectric Power? Are there Dams in Humankind and how do they affect Waterfalls (does loss of a Waterfall affect people's disappointment at losing the Great View?) or how do Waterfalls affect them?

As usual, the system of 'gradual releases' provides more questions than answers . . .
 
My first assumption was that cliffs are barriers to movement and that settling underneath them would provide a tactical advantage vs melee fighters but a weakness vs ranged ones.
 
Not tall enough. I do not like the flatness of those mountains. Just too small.
Let's play Tibet, oh, no, that's 5.000mt with the highest train in the world, without airplanes.
That's scale. And you can't settle on them. Pity.
 
Elhoim said:
I like how in the video you can see the road going alongside the river. It looked great.
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This would definitely be a part of "getting the roads right": rivers tend to make the easiest route anywhere - relatively flat and they make their own paths through the mountains - called "passes" or even "gorges". Anyone who has ever taken the Amtrak from California to Denver can see this graphically: both he Interstate highway and the railroad line share the same canyons of the Colorado River.
Now to see what else they get right about rivers, roads, and travel - better Trade Routes along Rivers? Faster movement along Rivers? Bonuses of some kind to putting cities along rivers? (Virtually infinite Fresh Water in the early game).

I don't care if it is December already, it's still a long way to 2020 in Game Years!
 
Its going to be so fun playing as Babylon enjoying those emblematic options and rather than going into the next era accepting you will now be basically a vanilla civ instead switching to another civ and getting all their bonuses next!

I can definitely see some hair pulling moments when a civ you want gets picked by another player though... All the more reason to choose Goths and go for a pillaging spree I guess!
 
Eagle Pursuit said:
https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1201901463368355842?s=09


Babylon tweet:

Emblematic Unit: Sabu Sha Qashti

Emblematic Quarter: Astronomy House

Lower left says: Scientist
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As mentioned, 'sabu' or 'sabum' is Old Babylonian (Akkadian), means simply 'soldier' or 'member of the host' but, as mentioned, the illustration is Neo-Babylonian, a "Guardsman" of about the 7th century BCE, so actually not Bronze Age, but early Iron Age - and very similar to Assyrian troops, which influenced the Neo-Babylonian military a lot.
On the other hand, Babylonian Astronomy/Astrology and record keeping go all the way back to the beginning of the Old Babylonian kingdom, as early as 1800 BCE, or about 1000 years earlier the the Unit! In fairness, though, the 700 - 600 BCE "Neo-Babylonian" astronomers were the ones who started publishing astronomical ephemerides and 'star charts' and actual mathematical formulae for computing the 'wanderings' of the planet, so if you squint a little, the Building and the Unit sort of go together.

All of which means that they've actually depicted the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom, but back-dated it to the Bronze Age. Given that Old Babylon was one of the first Great Cities in the world (by 600 BCE it had a sewer system and may have approached 1,000,000 population, so it was Rome before Rome was) I can live with that . . .

But where's my Ishtar Gate? Babylonian, about 575 BCE, so would fit right into this 'Faction'. Please tell me we're also getting some kind of 'National Wonders' for the Civs?
 
Boris Gudenuf said:
As mentioned, 'sabu' or 'sabum' is Old Babylonian (Akkadian), means simply 'soldier' or 'member of the host' but, as mentioned, the illustration is Neo-Babylonian, a "Guardsman" of about the 7th century BCE, so actually not Bronze Age, but early Iron Age - and very similar to Assyrian troops, which influenced the Neo-Babylonian military a lot.
On the other hand, Babylonian Astronomy/Astrology and record keeping go all the way back to the beginning of the Old Babylonian kingdom, as early as 1800 BCE, or about 1000 years earlier the the Unit! In fairness, though, the 700 - 600 BCE "Neo-Babylonian" astronomers were the ones who started publishing astronomical ephemerides and 'star charts' and actual mathematical formulae for computing the 'wanderings' of the planet, so if you squint a little, the Building and the Unit sort of go together.

All of which means that they've actually depicted the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom, but back-dated it to the Bronze Age. Given that Old Babylon was one of the first Great Cities in the world (by 600 BCE it had a sewer system and may have approached 1,000,000 population, so it was Rome before Rome was) I can live with that . . .

But where's my Ishtar Gate? Babylonian, about 575 BCE, so would fit right into this 'Faction'. Please tell me we're also getting some kind of 'National Wonders' for the Civs?
Click to expand...

In a tweet depicting a Babylonian city, it appeared to show Etemenanki, so different civs may have several wonders
https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1195023680084029440
https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1195023680084029440
 
Ziad said:
@Boris Gudenuf

Bīt Enūma Anu illil

I recognize Bit as in house..... ilili as in Night

House of Night? :p
Click to expand...

Maybe. It actually shows how continuous "Babylonian" astronomical science was. 'Enuma Ana Enlil" is the name of a series of tablets found in Assyrian records on Old Babylonian and Kassite Dynasty astronomy. Apparently still not all translated, but the ones they have partially translated are on subjects like movements of the moon and planets, eclipses, relationship between phases of the moon and weather, and a lot of Omens based on sky observation - a mix, in other words, of basic astronomical observations with pure astrological Foretelling. The phrase "Enuma Anu Enlil" means something like "(The Place of) or (The Time of) the Gods Anu and Enlil" Anu was the Sky God in the Babylonian pantheon, Enlil dates back to Sumer (at least!) and is a God of Weather, particularly of Weather To Be Avoided like storms, high winds, etc. This indicates that the mass of tablets were on both astronomy and providing predictions of disasters to be dodged, or Omens. Its hard to separate religion and 'science' in that cultural place and time.
It also shows the continuity from Sumerian and Old Babylonian, through the Kassites 'interruption', the Assyrians, and then to Neo-Babylonian. We talk about Sumerian, Babylonian, Kassite, Akkadian, Assyrian as if they were all separate, but in science, religion, and culture there were no sharp breaks: A Babylonian 'Asronomical Text" could reference a Sumerian God, be written down in Akkadian, and stored in an Assyrian 'library'!
 
The "Astronomy House" just looks like the Ishtar Gate to me, or at least its design is heavily inspired by it. Is there any evidence to suggest the gate was used by astronomers, or that astronomers worked in buildings with a similar appearance?

It just seems odd to me the Ishtar Gate was not made a wonder, or that Processional Way was not used as the Emblematic Quarter.
 
Gedemo said:
I was surprised to see that Humankind also had Mount Vesuvius. This is the symbol of Civ Gathering Storm, is it a wink? Although it is a famous volcano, there are plenty of others that could have been chosen ...
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Other volcanos as well known and as associated with ancient human history as Vesuvius? I'm not sure there really are any. At least, I can't think of any.
 
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