Humankind Game by Amplitude

[PiR]

Let's say, playing as the French, you'd be able to acquire Napoleon, probably with influence. You could then attach him to an army, giving it unique bonuses. Combat and victories would grant the leader XP, opening new traits. The available promotions could also be unique, making different playthroughs with the French result in a slightly different Napoleon. Alternatively you could place him in a city.

I wouldn't do that.
He would quickly overthrow you.

 

[7daysofwar]

About the avatars, if they added multiple languages to the avatars, they will probably feel less the same to be fair, I watched the humankind livestream from Amplitude studios and got those youtuber avatars and two of them speak different languages ("Shurjoka" speaks German and "Jouer du Grenier" speaks French) and they felt like they had more personality for me then the other avatars who all speaked English. Also it annoys me sometimes when you have a leader with the same voice actor as another avatar in the game. It kind of feels like you are talking to yourself.

 

[Lightjolly]

The game has a lot to improve on. The base is solid but lots of tweaking, balancing and enhancing needs to be done. But one thing I'll defend is culture swapping. Never understood the culture swapping complaints.

Even though the culture are merely most of the time bonuses, where civs in civilization are a bit more unique ( Though Endless Legend still does asymmetry far better), the whole appeal of the mechanic is adaptation and changing of playstyle on the go. Yes in Civ 6 Aztecs play different from the Mali, because they're tailored towards a certain victory condition, but you already know what to expect from them. In HK you never know if suddenly your pacifistic Harrapan neighbors all of a sudden turn into warmongering Huns. The uncertainty of the culture flipping keeps you on your toes and forces you to adapt, instead of "welp I'm playing Korea, just going to go science all game long". Plus I like the feel that you are slowing building towards the contemporary age. When you make it to that last age you kind of look back at all your previous cultures with glee, the building blocks of you civilization, your evolution through time, like how real civilizations function

Someone here said something about adding winter from Endless Legend, as a big EL fan, fudge winter, nothing more annoying than having everyone move 2 squares each turn for like 8 turns

 

[SecretWeapon]

Can you play as the other premade avatars such as Elissa or Gilgamesh?

 

[CivLuvah]

Can you play as the other premade avatars such as Elissa or Gilgamesh?

No, you can only play the avatar you made. You can choose the Elissa and Gilgamesh presets into your avatar.

 

[Zaarin]

My biggest complaint about the avatars is that the era costumes need some polishing and more variety. There are roughly three outfits per era that get reskinned for everyone. Some last for a couple eras. And then everyone wears the same suit in contemporary. Considering how much men's fashion has changed in the last century, we could at least get some variation in the cut of the suits...

 

[Guynemer]

.....that's your biggest complaint?

I love you, Z, but THAT?

 

[Siptah]

My biggest complaint about the avatars is that the era costumes need some polishing and more variety. There are roughly three outfits per era that get reskinned for everyone. Some last for a couple eras. And then everyone wears the same suit in contemporary. Considering how much men's fashion has changed in the last century, we could at least get some variation in the cut of the suits...

I hope for a cosmetics and voice actor DLC ;-)

 

[Zaarin]

.....that's your biggest complaint?

I love you, Z, but THAT?

I mean, I specifically qualified that it's my biggest complaint about the avatars, not the game as a whole. The variety of costumes is too small, and many of the few there are just don't look good.

 

[Guynemer]

Never mind me, I apparently have not had enough coffee today.

Or too much coffee.

Definitely one or the other.

 

[Zaarin]

There's never too much coffee...

 

[Haig]

Honestly, after two games I played, it gets boring easily.

It’s like your civ and the other civs in your game are just this same frankenstein civilisations which gets old very fast. The initial premise is awesome though, not gonna lie, trying a different civilisation in each different eras is refreshing.

But yeah, remember how bad it was with the Huns in Civ5 and their cities names taken from other civilisations? Well, Humankind have this for each players in all of their games making each and every games feel bland and full of frankenstein civilisations.

I have the same feelings, it's hard to get attached to you own empire, even less for the AI ones.

None seem to have a strong identity, like in Civ how you make your Spain from humble beginnings into a global religious superpower, here your Harappan-Hunnic-Aztec-Spain feels like the others.
It's also hard to keep up with all the bonuses you have gained, and I need to check out the empire panel to refresh my memory. At least for me it's more natural in Civ.

Also I don't really get the same feeling toward AI empires, no old nemesises or buddies. The AI leader models are bit weird but I understand that they don't have Firaxis budget for those.
(Some people like to note how in Civ you face against immortal Gandhi for whole game, well here it is an immortal Boudicca or mr Edgar).

I am still having fun with the game but the sort of blandess is my main gripe at the moment (along with the AI..).

 

[mitsho]

Yeah, there are already historical leaders in the game, like Midas, Agamemnon and so on. They just chose not the most famous and biggest Kings and Queens, but lean more into the obscure / mythological. And I don't have the impression that they are bland or repetitive. It's just a hassle to choose them at the start of the game. That screen really needs a random button or a drop down list or a text input box. Either the personalities matter a lot - and you can customize your lineup easily - or they don't - and you can randomize them. As it is, it is weird.

Regardings the next topic, maybe three culture changes would have been enough, combine ancient and classical + medieval and early modern + industrial and modern. That would have allowed for a bit more staying power since the eras can go over really quick, which may be the main problem.

 

[Lightjolly]

Yeah, there are already historical leaders in the game, like Midas, Agamemnon and so on. They just chose not the most famous and biggest Kings and Queens, but lean more into the obscure / mythological. And I don't have the impression that they are bland or repetitive. It's just a hassle to choose them at the start of the game. That screen really needs a random button or a drop down list or a text input box. Either the personalities matter a lot - and you can customize your lineup easily - or they don't - and you can randomize them. As it is, it is weird.

Regardings the next topic, maybe three culture changes would have been enough, combine ancient and classical + medieval and early modern + industrial and modern. That would have allowed for a bit more staying power since the eras can go over really quick, which may be the main problem.

They need to let the players create their own ai avatars People will start making their own Gandhi's and whatnot to fight against. Though the dev ones are higher quality, so it might be preferable for them to make it

Slow and endless speed seem to be good at making each era last a good time before moving on to the next. Standards still a bit too fast

 

[Krajzen]

Me before release: Humankind will definitely be more difficult game for me than Civ6, it will be refreshing to see a 4x game which values challenge and prevents from runaway snowballing. Finally something meaningful, not infinitely stacking yields for the second half of the game.

Me after release, literally third HK game session ever, Empire difficulty (5th out of 7), not even taking the strongest cultures but those which fit my immersion:

 

[DaviddesJ]

The market doesn't reward developers for making strategy games challenging. Make it even a little bit hard and the number of negative reviews you get on Steam is astronomical. People want to be able to crank it up to the hardest setting and win easily even if they aren't very good at these games. :-(

 

[Krajzen]

The market doesn't reward developers for making strategy games challenging. Make it even a little bit hard and the number of negative reviews you get on Steam is astronomical. People want to be able to crank it up to the hardest setting and win easily even if they aren't very good at these games. :-(

I'm not sure about this, XCOM series is very popular and it's really challenging, Darkest Dungeon similarly was a great succcess not in spite of but because of its brutal, challenging, unforgiving nature.

Besides, my problem is not even with the difficulty level itself - I'm sure it wouldn't be so easy if I was invaded early, so it may have been sheer luck, and combat system here is much more challenging than in civ6 - but rather the lack of balance in economic system, which allows on the singularity of expontentially exploding incomes. Either human player or AI may stumble upon that blindly, although humans have an advantage here, and a given player becomes an untouchable God capable of instantly buying everything and instantly crushing any threat.

 

[AntSou]

One little odd thing I just found: if you use page up and page down, the camera moves literally up and down in a vertical line, rather than the slightly angled path it takes when using the mouse wheel.

I haven't found any utility to it, just thought it was curious.

 

[Krajzen]

https://www.games2gether.com/amplit...humankind-gameplay-2gether?page=4#post-329063

Write in this thread founded by developers suggestion how to improve the game.

 

[SecretWeapon]

No, you can only play the avatar you made. You can choose the Elissa and Gilgamesh presets into your avatar.

Can you? I don't see them in the list