Humankind Game by Amplitude

[Hellenism Salesman]

Yup.



The cultural reveals always have a specific time - Tuesday 1200 in EDT, 1700 in BST, or 1800 in CEST.

Spoiler :

The reveal of Soviets last week was not following the alphabetical order, so next week it can be either Japan or Sweden.

Thank you!

 

[CivLuvah]

Imgur album updated to include the Soviets:

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

 

[Imaus]

Mutual assured destruction (once you attack a nuclear armed competitor you automatically lose the game) would make sense.

It doesn't make sense and it's so boringggg. Just use nuclear weapons as big, city-destroy bombs that might irradiate surrounding tiles. That's much more accurate. MAD occurs by default, sure, if you smother the area and land into complete unproductivity....

 

[grug]

I wonder how nuclear weapons will be represented.

I think I saw this on the subreddit or something but someone suggested a drop in War Support against nuclear-armed Empires after the first bomb is dropped, which I think is clever. War is possible, but your people are aware of the risks involved, so that having the nuclear option is a deterrent. I also hope that Independent Peoples allow for proxy conflicts so that even if you don't have total war against an Empire with nukes, you can have a limited non-nuclear war funding their enemies and giving them covert support, at the cost of grievances.

 

[Narcisse]

if you are interessed there are some journalists / influencers gameplay of humankind with the industrial era spawning on the internet

​

I will probably be a bit late today, so I will not be able to quick post the discussions thread for the next reveal

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I will probably be a bit late today, so I will not be able to quick post the discussions thread for the next reveal

No worries! I just posted the thread. Tell me if I did anything wrong!

 

[mitsho]

Yeah, apparently an embargo has been lifted with the advent of June and there are now "leaks" of all the modern cultures, their emblematics and what their special abilities do on the internet. I say leak because it's from an official presskit, so... also not everything seems to be complete and everything is still subject to change anyways.

PS: also, the train stations look nice.

 

[Narcisse]

No worries! I just posted the thread. Tell me if I did anything wrong!

Everything is perfect sir !

Yeah, apparently an embargo has been lifted with the advent of June and there are now "leaks" of all the modern cultures, their emblematics and what their special abilities do on the internet. I say leak because it's from an official presskit, so... also not everything seems to be complete and everything is still subject to change anyways.

PS: also, the train stations look nice.

indeed, indeed, not a leak, but highly subject to change for some points of design

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

. . . indeed, indeed, not a leak, but highly subject to change for some points of design

I'll keep reminding everybody everywhere in these Forums: they still have over two months to release, and it's really, really easy to change numbers in a computer.

I strongly suspect that anything we saw in the last Open Dev and in the 'presskit' versions is subject to change, except art work - without whips and threats of Grievious Bodily Harm, they are running out of time to get their artists to crank out new units, cards, buildings, etc. But they can always change Factors and Effects of Buildings, Quarters, adjacencies, Units, and probably will until they beat some satisfied responses out of their VIP people. I'm not so sure there's any time left for another Open Dev and to collate responses from one, but I wouldn't rule out more 'presskit' or other 'leaks' of changed elements from the last Open Dev.

 

[DaviddesJ]

It doesn't make sense and it's so boringggg. Just use nuclear weapons as big, city-destroy bombs that might irradiate surrounding tiles. That's much more accurate.

Your "accurate" model doesn't seem to be what actually happened in the last 65 years since the invention of nuclear weapons.

To be accurate you have to make it possible for each nuclear power that has nuclear weapons to quickly build 1,000 or 10,000 warheads, as happened historically. If each country just has a few, that's not realistic.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Your "accurate" model doesn't seem to be what actually happened in the last 65 years since the invention of nuclear weapons.

To be accurate you have to make it possible for each nuclear power that has nuclear weapons to quickly build 1,000 or 10,000 warheads, as happened historically. If each country just has a few, that's not realistic.

What I would like to see is relatively cheap nukes, with expensive projects (infrastructure/Districts) that enable the production of them.

 

[DaviddesJ]

The other historical aspect of things like nuclear weapons is "leakage", the idea that when one country develops nuclear weapons other advanced nations aren't going to be far behind, partly because they can learn quickly from what their competitors do. Ideally, in many areas of research it would be harder to sustain a large technological advantage in the modern era because information spreads much faster.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The other historical aspect of things like nuclear weapons is "leakage", the idea that when one country develops nuclear weapons other advanced nations aren't going to be far behind, partly because they can learn quickly from what their competitors do. Ideally, in many areas of research it would be harder to sustain a large technological advantage in the modern era because information spreads much faster.

The limiting factor in the Modern/Contemporary Eras is not so much the basic research as it is building the Infrastructure required to actually produce new devices/weapons. Last I looked (several years ago) there were an estimated 20 or more countries in the world that had the technical knowledge to build nuclear devices or weapons, but for most of them it would take 3 - 8 years to develop and construct the facilities needed to make the parts needed to build a bomb.

Even without the 'diplomatic factor' that makes acquiring nuclear weapons problematical (Germany has had the technical knowledge for decades, but 'firestorm' doesn't begin to describe the diplomatic consequences of Germany announcing that it was going to build nuclear weapons!) this factor applies in many other areas of advanced weaponry. My two favorite historical examples are Battleships and Medium Tanks.

The Battleship was the symbol of First Class Naval Power all over the world from 1906 to the 1940s, yet out of over 50 countries in the world, only 8 - Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Russia, Japan, Italy, and the USA - ever actually built a Battleship, and those countries built all of their battleships and battlecruisers in a total of 56 shipyards (of which 24 were in Great Britain or the USA alone) - the industrial requirements to build 20 - 70,000 ton ships, big guns, and armor plate by the 1000s of tons was simply prohibitive for most of the world's economies.

The medium tank (21 tons or more with a cannon armament) became the symbol of military prowess in World War Two, but again, out of over 50 countries in the world, by 1945 only 7 - Britain, Germany, USA. Russia, France, Italy, Japan (and the last two just barely) had designed and manufactured medium tanks in any quantity at all. Again the industrial requirements for automotive, armor plate, and artillery manufacturing that went into a medium tank were beyond most of the world. Even in the 21st century. Main Battle Tanks have only been built by 11 out of 200+ nations: USA, Russia, Britain, Germany, France, Brazil, China, Japan, India, Israel and Sweden. On the other hand, and not modeled in Civ at all, main battle tanks, medium tanks, and battleships were all either built for other countries by those that could build them, or sold to them in quantity for various commercial or diplomatic reasons.

 

[Atlas627]

The other historical aspect of things like nuclear weapons is "leakage", the idea that when one country develops nuclear weapons other advanced nations aren't going to be far behind, partly because they can learn quickly from what their competitors do. Ideally, in many areas of research it would be harder to sustain a large technological advantage in the modern era because information spreads much faster.

I think that may more be an effect of the collaborative multinational efforts demanded by the actual historical context than any sort of inherent leakiness of developing nuclear weapons in particular.

 

[Narcisse]

there is currently a Q&A stream about humankind. And an interesting blog post on gamestogether about the victor feedback ! https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/blogs/769-victor-opendev-player-feedback

 

[Atlas627]

They're going to have a lot of trouble just balancing numbers. I thought Science progression was just right. It was slow if you didn't invest into science, which is how it should be. If they change that scaling then anyone who invests in science will be way too far ahead.

They need some more interesting rules rather than just "things give yields. Sometimes they give more yields. Things cost yields." I want to unlock the ability to build off of remote Luxury extractors. I like having to unlock the ability to exterminate enemies, as opposed to always being able to do it. I want to unlock the ability to build a 2nd copy of Emblematic Districts.

Just changing the numbers is going to need a lot more playtesting than they can possibly do before the game comes out. Work on making the rules more interesting to play with first, and tweak numbers after everyone gets access.

 

[Krajzen]

Random post unconnected to anything in particular.

I am currently reading about great medieval intellectuals, and after going through Dante Alighieri, Giotto, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Boccacio and Ucello... You know what, this game really ought to have medieval Aestethe Florentine/Tuscan culture at some point. Also, the fact that Civ series never had an Italian civilization so far is a crime against humanity.

 

[CivLuvah]

I thought Science progression was just right. It was slow if you didn't invest into science, which is how it should be.

In my perspective, based on many playthroughs of the OpenDev, I can't seem to parallel my science advancement with my era progression, even with a science focused strategy. Being in the early modern era but having to have gunpowder units five turns before the OpenDev turn limit ends feels off.

 

[Siptah]

having watched a bit of the press build material, my biggest gripe is that the AI doesn't seem to like settling on the other continent. What surprised me positively is the importance of strategic resources: its absolutely necessary to get quite some coal and oil in the industrial era for most buildings and units - if only late game yield increases would be a bit more important as well.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

having watched a bit of the press build material, my biggest gripe is that the AI doesn't seem to like settling on the other continent. What surprised me positively is the importance of strategic resources: its absolutely necessary to get quite some coal and oil in the industrial era for most buildings and units - if only late game yield increases would be a bit more important as well.

One crafty little thing that I noticed in the Victor Open Dev that will come as something of a shock to Civ players, is that Resources are also required to build some of the mid-late-game Infrastructure, not just Units.
There are several Production-boosting structures even in the Medieval Age (High Furnace, for instance) that require Iron or copper resources, Grain Silos for a Food boost in the Early Modern Age require as many horse resources as Knights, and a Military School to boost the production of military Units requires more different Strategic Resources than any single unit. People who search through the Tech Tree to find unit they can build without scarce Resources may discover that they needed them as much for the structures and boosts from them as they did for Units.