Humankind Game by Amplitude

[FinalDoomsday]

Yes. I'm very curious about the era dates too. It looks like Ancient is pre-600 BCE and Classical is 600 BCE - 600 CE. As for the others: Only Amplitude knows.

I'm especially wondering how the break down the industrial and contemporary eras and who they pick for each. To me it seems like there's a lot of overlap of cultures between those eras.

Heres my theory. Its going to very viable to keep your industrial age culture going through the final era. The contempoary cultures could be geared to players who are lagging behind and offer big bonuses to help them catch up. The end game could be made up of industrial era factions but there will also be contempoary civs which could have bonuses geared to 'catching up' in some form but are less desirable for players who are already in the lead so they will be more inclined to stick with their current civ and get that bonus fame.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The Eras and their titles have been posted:

Since people already instantly reposted it to reddit:
https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1237771669000912898

1. Ancient Era (previously Bronze Era)
2. Classical Era
3. Medieval Era
4. Early Modern Era
5. Industrial Era
6. Contemporary Era

- subject to future change before Release, as with almost everything, and adding the 'preliminary' Neolithic

Relating these to 'generally accepted dates' which is the best we can really do because almost no one agrees on all the start and end dates for the artificial 'Eras', might leave something like this for the game:

1. Neolithic Era - 10,000 - 5000 BCE: earliest Agriculture to earliest copper anneaing and working and start of arsenical 'false bronze'
2. Ancient Era - 5000 - 1000 BCE - earliest organized Cities to start of general Iron Working and horseback riding
3. Classical Era - 1000 BCE - 500 CE - start of pastoral horse-archer cultures to end of Roman Empire
4. Medieval Era - 500 CE - 1500 CE - I'd prefer to put the date back to 1400 CE, but that's not the general consensus
5. Early Modern Era - 1500 - 1750 CE - end dates vary from 1700 to 1800, so 1750 is a compromise
6. Industrial Era - 1750 - 1945? CE - end date is really flexible, ranging from 1880 to 1945, but see next:
7. Contemporary Era 1945 - 2020 CE - 1945 is the earliest date I've seen for this, but some systems assume it did not start until 1970 or 1973. That, however, makes the 'Industrial Era' much too long and too full of everything from flintlock muskets and Frigates to jet fighters and Satellites, so I suspect they will use the very start of Atomics and Jets in 1945 as a cut off.

From what they've indicated so far, the 'Neolithic' is Pre-City, in that you cannot even choose a Faction to play as until you reach the end of that 'Era', which makes it a sort of 'Pre-Era' or Extended Starting Turn for Humankind. It will be interesting to see what elements of game play, like Culture, Technology, or Social Organization are available in this 'Era', if any. It also means that in Game Terms, the end date for Neolithic and Start of Ancient, the first 'real Era' are probably the most flexible of all. If, nominally, it starts when you build your first city (sorta like Civ's traditional 'First Turn') then historically it varies from 6500 BCE (Mesopotamia, Anatolia) or so to as late as roughly 300 BCE (Celtic Gauls), which is a wider range than the total length of any other Era!

 

[BuchiTaton]

I hope they dont use "Industrial Era" in a pure historiographic sense. I mean the game isnt just about militar advancements, but would be weird to have line infantry on the same era with early jets and atomic bombs.

Of course It would never be easy to mark a clear line between the eras, but even if late 19th century rifles with better rate of fire, range and precision forced infantry to take more cover, would be better to see Spanish-American or Russo-Japanese war riflemen units stand shooting than WW1 tanks and planes around them.

I would like to have two main infantry line upgrades on both "Early Modern" and "Industrial" eras, something like: Arquebusiers > Musketeers > Fusiliers > Riflemen
Also ship lines should have more than one upgrade per era on those eras. Similar case tanks and planes need various upgrades on Contemporary Era.

 

[j51]

The Eras and their titles have been posted:
7. Contemporary Era 1945 - 2020 CE - 1945 is the earliest date I've seen for this, but some systems assume it did not start until 1970 or 1973. That, however, makes the 'Industrial Era' much too long and too full of everything from flintlock muskets and Frigates to jet fighters and Satellites, so I suspect they will use the very start of Atomics and Jets in 1945 as a cut off.

I hope they dont use "Industrial Era" in a pure historiographic sense. I mean the game isnt just about militar advancements, but would be weird to have line infantry on the same era with early jets and atomic bombs.

Of course It would never be easy to mark a clear line between the eras, but even if late 19th century rifles with better rate of fire, range and precision forced infantry to take more cover, would be better to see Spanish-American or Russo-Japanese war riflemen units stand shooting than WW1 tanks and planes around them.

I would like to have two main infantry line upgrades on both "Early Modern" and "Industrial" eras, something like: Arquebusiers > Musketeers > Fusiliers > Riflemen
Also ship lines should have more than one upgrade per era on those eras. Similar case tanks and planes need various upgrades on Contemporary Era.

I'm also hoping their "Contemporary" era begins at roughly 1900. Yes, it's more historically accurate to place "contemporary" after WWII or even 1970, but for culture selection purposes the last era needs to extend back further, especially if it's including the Soviets (which is all but confirmed). Nomenclature wise it would be better to just name the last era "Modern" then.

As for the unit lines, I'm wondering if the units might not change names by era, just their weapons, like in Endless Legend. So your basic infantry will always be called "Basic Infantry" or something like that and each era the graphics will change. You'll have to then pay to upgrade their weapons as you research new technologies. For example: bronze spear - iron spear - pike - arquebus - flintlock - rifle.

 

[mitsho]

Early Modern is Columbus til French Revolution, Industrial is French Revolution til World War 1, Contemporary is everything after that. I feel the first World War to be a good starting point, but in reality it's just the point where the switch started and it really took from 1914 up to 1945 for that process to develop and result in a "New World". You can always further distinguish and subdivide it, but rather than an exact cut-off point what really matters is the gameplay. How many units do you want to introduce and how do they relate to each other. If you know stuff like that, you can then again push the era boundary forwards or backwards as needed.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Early Modern is Columbus til French Revolution, Industrial is French Revolution til World War 1, Contemporary is everything after that. I feel the first World War to be a good starting point, but in reality it's just the point where the switch started and it really took from 1914 up to 1945 for that process to develop and result in a "New World". You can always further distinguish and subdivide it, but rather than an exact cut-off point what really matters is the gameplay. How many units do you want to introduce and how do they relate to each other. If you know stuff like that, you can then again push the era boundary forwards or backwards as needed.

I will say it again as I've said before, I don't like the 'Era' system in general, because the Eras all reek of artificiality and start and end dates are so flexible that they can mean anything you want for Game Play - which to me makes them a strictly Game Mechanic abstraction so you can name them anything you want: might as well go back and name them after the Greek Mythological Aes: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron . . .

However, having gotten that off my so-far-virus-free chest, Humankind seems to be built around the Eras as definers and identifiers of the cultures/Factions you are going to be playing, so we're stuck with all the problems of finding periods f time for the Eras that roughly match what we want to do in the game - and the (very rough) way we want to 'divide' the Factions. I suspect that this is going to result in a lot of discussions once all the Factions are revealed, because it's hard to find man Factions/Culture/Nations that changed dramatically all at the same time for a convenient Era Divider. I predct there will be a lot of Factions that actually span more than one Era or straddle an Era in Real Historical Life, but will be redefined In Game to 'fit' into a single Era.

To get a real feel for the historical development of some Civilizations, you are going to need to play Progressions of a culture from one 'Faction' to another through the Eras. I've said before, that's going to be a Field Day for Modders, or DLCs, to provide Prgressions of single Cultures or several.

Just for an instance, a DLC of Post Roman Factions adding Medieval and later Factions all of which have Roman foundations: Byzantium, Visigothic Spain, Lombardy, Ostrogothic Italy, then Franks, Merovingians, Holy Roman Empire - I suspect it's going to Open Season once the game is released.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Personally, I'm more interested in stringing together the uniques associated with each culture into an interesting blend than I am in trying to link historical cultures by the regions in which they arose. A Roman-empire like culture arising on a Mesoamerican foundation should be at least as interesting to play, for me, than the one that happened to arise historically on a Mediterranean foundation.

For that reason, I'm not concerned about the geographic mix of cultures represented, but I am very interested in seeing how they distinguish each culture, and how seamlessly your new bonuses will link to past ones.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I will say it again as I've said before, I don't like the 'Era' system in general, because the Eras all reek of artificiality and start and end dates are so flexible that they can mean anything you want for Game Play - which to me makes them a strictly Game Mechanic abstraction so you can name them anything you want: might as well go back and name them after the Greek Mythological Aes: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron . . .

However, having gotten that off my so-far-virus-free chest, Humankind seems to be built around the Eras as definers and identifiers of the cultures/Factions you are going to be playing, so we're stuck with all the problems of finding periods f time for the Eras that roughly match what we want to do in the game - and the (very rough) way we want to 'divide' the Factions. I suspect that this is going to result in a lot of discussions once all the Factions are revealed, because it's hard to find man Factions/Culture/Nations that changed dramatically all at the same time for a convenient Era Divider. I predct there will be a lot of Factions that actually span more than one Era or straddle an Era in Real Historical Life, but will be redefined In Game to 'fit' into a single Era.

I think we should think of Eras as being the temporal equivalent of HK's pre-defined regions. An artifice, yes, but one that has the potential to augment game play.

There's a reason historians like to break history up into "eras" - it augments story telling. Breaking a stream of "one more turns" up into distinct starting and ending points where new things happen in the game could similarly help keep game play fresh. I miss the lack of "big changes" in Civ 6's game play as the eras progress. I'd like to see the Industrial Era play noticeably differently than the Early Modern era, and I'll accept artificial start and end dates for each era if HK can deliver those changes in game play.

 

[j51]

I miss the lack of "big changes" in Civ 6's game play as the eras progress. I'd like to see the Industrial Era play noticeably differently than the Early Modern era, and I'll accept artificial start and end dates for each era if HK can deliver those changes in game play.

100% this.

 

[mitsho]

I‘ve always argued for basically mini-games. That there should be phases that play differently. It‘s the solution to the snowball-effect. Instead of one giant snowball, you have 3-4 opportunities for them. It‘s better than cheesy catch-up effects a la Mario Kart.

Humankind is already going in that direction by making the start of the game „nomadic“ as in „go explore the map before settling somewhere“. So I hope that developers might learn from that and implement it in later games as well.

The other „natural breaks“ in the game are „climate change and other catastrophes“, trans-oceanic travel, industrialization and Flight/Atomic Bombs. The first one (resulting in large scale Migrations leading to the end of the roman and chinese empires of the time) is hard to model since they got replaced by other empires and it kinda lacked a change in power levels. The others shifted power somewhere else, but they are quite close to each other time-wise comparatively. So they don‘t need to take all of these and I don‘t have a specific idea how to implement these „restarts“ myself either, I just say that I want them.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I‘ve always argued for basically mini-games. That there should be phases that play differently. It‘s the solution to the snowball-effect. Instead of one giant snowball, you have 3-4 opportunities for them. It‘s better than cheesy catch-up effects a la Mario Kart.

Humankind is already going in that direction by making the start of the game „nomadic“ as in „go explore the map before settling somewhere“. So I hope that developers might learn from that and implement it in later games as well.

The other „natural breaks“ in the game are „climate change and other catastrophes“, trans-oceanic travel, industrialization and Flight/Atomic Bombs. The first one (resulting in large scale Migrations leading to the end of the roman and chinese empires of the time) is hard to model since they got replaced by other empires and it kinda lacked a change in power levels. The others shifted power somewhere else, but they are quite close to each other time-wise comparatively. So they don‘t need to take all of these and I don‘t have a specific idea how to implement these „restarts“ myself either, I just say that I want them.

Agree, would be great to experience different objetives and mechanics each era.

For example technological advance was relevant since the Paleolithic, but there was a great acceleration on these advances since Early Modern, then turned to be of special relevance (even of national security) since the 20th century. So would be great to have many upgrades by era on the last three and real "science research race" on the last one.

Other relevant point is the change on the way your people react to dominance and militar actions. The people of medieval monarchies usually didnt care about the nationality of their rulers, while industrial population would have nationalist sentiment.

Even more the people of Contemporary Era should dislike when their country declare war and/or ocupate foreing territory. The way to assert your control on this era should be throught proxies/puppet states, spy actions, ideologies, economic power like coorporations, and of course the threat of your nuclear/militar power.

 

[Siptah]

Even more the people of Contemporary Era should dislike when their country declare war and/or ocupate foreing territory. The way to assert your control on this era should be throught proxies/puppet states, spy actions, ideologies, economic power like coorporations, and of course the threat of your nuclear/militar power.

Really depends when Contemporary Era starts. In the first half of the 20th century, there are quite enough examples of population rejoicing to annexations by their country. And even later, you'll find examples, from Tibet and Palestine to the Krim - maybe make it dependend on the form of government instead of era.

So would be great to have many upgrades by era on the last three and real "science research race" on the last one.

I would prefer all eras to feel really fleshed out and spend a lot of time in, not just the last one. I dislike when you rush through developments, like it often happens in civ VI. Rather less upgrades to units, but make them really matter. What use is a unit if it is outdated 20 turns later?
There's a tight balance here. As Hannibal Barca put it: Too much is too much, but way too much is just right. So either use a limited pool in which upgrades matter and keep one unit (or weapon if they go with the EL/AC approach) per era or really steady changes every few turns. The worst would be the middle ground. So I really hope they stay with a slow upgrade circle, and the tech tree that've seen so far seem to point to that. It also makes EUs matter much more.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think we should think of Eras as being the temporal equivalent of HK's pre-defined regions. An artifice, yes, but one that has the potential to augment game play.

There's a reason historians like to break history up into "eras" - it augments story telling. Breaking a stream of "one more turns" up into distinct starting and ending points where new things happen in the game could similarly help keep game play fresh. I miss the lack of "big changes" in Civ 6's game play as the eras progress. I'd like to see the Industrial Era play noticeably differently than the Early Modern era, and I'll accept artificial start and end dates for each era if HK can deliver those changes in game play.

Okay, I will modify my Anti-Era statement: IF the Eras are unique to each Faction/Country, they approach reality: most of the world did not go through the Classical Era or any Industrialization at the same time, and most didn't go through a Medieval or Renaissance at all. So Humankind's approach, which appears to be that each Faction travels through the Eras at its own pace, is much, much closer to what I'd like to see than the LockStep of Civ's Eras.

Then the question becomes, for both me and thee, just how different is each Era in Humankind in regards to Game Play? IF the Classical plays very differently than the Early Modern, then I'm comfortable with that - especially if my Greeks are in a Classical situation and set of parameters while, say, them Egyptians over there are still thinking and acting according to an Ancient set of 'rules'.

As usual, the Devil is in the Details.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

I will say it again as I've said before, I don't like the 'Era' system in general, because the Eras all reek of artificiality and start and end dates are so flexible that they can mean anything you want for Game Play - which to me makes them a strictly Game Mechanic abstraction so you can name them anything you want: might as well go back and name them after the Greek Mythological Aes: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron . . .

However, having gotten that off my so-far-virus-free chest, Humankind seems to be built around the Eras as definers and identifiers of the cultures/Factions you are going to be playing, so we're stuck with all the problems of finding periods f time for the Eras that roughly match what we want to do in the game - and the (very rough) way we want to 'divide' the Factions. I suspect that this is going to result in a lot of discussions once all the Factions are revealed, because it's hard to find man Factions/Culture/Nations that changed dramatically all at the same time for a convenient Era Divider. I predct there will be a lot of Factions that actually span more than one Era or straddle an Era in Real Historical Life, but will be redefined In Game to 'fit' into a single Era.

As you mention in your later post, the eras do not advance uniformly across the entire game world, but rather individually. (The dates seen on the tech tree poster are just rough reference points for the devs and are never used in game. In fact, I don't think we ever show a date.) Era advancement is also not tied to technological progress.

Regarding the snowballing issue, I think that with proper balancing the Fame and Era Stars system can help with this, but you'll have to wait for those Juicy Details.

I can't tell you how much the gameplay changes over the Eras, though, as I haven't had time to sit down and play a long session in some time, so I am not completely up to speed on the content and balancing.

 

[Siptah]

In fact, I don't think we ever show a date. Era advancement is also not tied to technological progress.

Two very interesting informations here. And I'm glad for both of them.
I just wonder what other options you have for era progressions despite tech (your own or global) or turn number. I think it was said that not everyone settles down on the same turn, or do I remember that wrong?

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

Not everybody settles on the same turn, no. Also, Era Progression is tied to Era Stars, but you'll have to wait for The Details on that one.

While you wait, feel free to try out Endless Legend for free this week to take a peek at our previous terrestrial game. (Yes, shameless self-advertisement. I hope nobody minds.)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Not everybody settles on the same turn, no. Also, Era Progression is tied to Era Stars, but you'll have to wait for The Details on that one.

Which, presumably, means that your 'Era Progression' can be very different depending on what kind, how fast, and how many Stars you accumulate?
Speculating here, but given the Amplitude emphasis on a 'basic set' of outputs and 'currencies', like Production, Science, Food, Gold Influence/Fame, may I bet that the 'Era Stars' are related to those in some way. Therefore, if I'm playing, say, a Farmer Faction I am likely to gain 'Food' Stars faster than a Militarist (unless he can use his military to pillage/loot/steal/requisition Food?) while a Trading Faction may gather Gold Stars faster.
That, I would assume, means that even with the same map and settings, each Era can potentially play differently based on Who you are playing as and what your emphasis in Fame accumuation is?

Exciting prospects for replayability, and even a potential 'Steam Achievement' of How Many Times can you play the same map and settings or how many different sets of Fame Stars can you accumulate from the same map!

While you wait, feel free to try out Endless Legend for free this week to take a peek at our previous terrestrial game. (Yes, shameless self-advertisement. I hope nobody minds.)

Piling on here, but if you haven't tried it, Endless Legend shows just how different from the familiar Civ mechanics a 4X 'planet-based' game can be without throwing in changes just for the sake of being different. Given what they've revealed so far, Humankind's systems of regions/territories, city Quarters (to some extent) and 'expanded tactical battlefields' are all based in mechanics already in Endless Legend, so this would be a good chance to get familiar with them for free.

 

[mitsho]

Not everybody settles on the same turn, no. Also, Era Progression is tied to Era Stars, but you'll have to wait for The Details on that one.

Different Eras for different players, makes sense. Now I'm wondering though how you will name the turns. I presume after years. So will you keep the BC/AD "real world" timeline, which is still very western. I always wanted civ-appropriate calendars, but that isn't an option in Humankind as well.Just curious, so what will the starting year be?

While you wait, feel free to try out Endless Legend for free this week to take a peek at our previous terrestrial game. (Yes, shameless self-advertisement. I hope nobody minds.)

convinced.

 

[CivLuvah]

Imgur album updated to include Mauryans (the extra characters were quite the hassle to copy-paste)

https://imgur.com/a/4cPjGSY

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

Different Eras for different players, makes sense. Now I'm wondering though how you will name the turns. I presume after years. So will you keep the BC/AD "real world" timeline, which is still very western. I always wanted civ-appropriate calendars, but that isn't an option in Humankind as well.Just curious, so what will the starting year be?

We don't. That's what I was getting at. So far, it only shows a turn number, and dates are never mentioned anywhere in the game interface, and I don't think we have plans to change that. I may be wrong about that, though.