Humankind Game by Amplitude

[Krajzen]

You know what annoys me in religion system in civ6? Everything.
Oh.
I mean, everything from immersive point of view. It is fun to design your own religion but government of an empire "designing" new faith for pragmatic purposes is so completely not-how-religions-work, at least if you are not 15 year old internet atheist...
So in my free time I have designed new system to make it closer to reality while still being fun.

RELIGION SYSTEM FOR CIV7
Religions are not designed by imperial governments, they appear in the world as global events around historical dates and every empire can chose one of five gradual attitudes towards them: Persecution, Disapproval, Tolerance, Patronage and State Religion. You can have only one State Religion at time (and switching between them is painful, and very painful the worse attitude towards them). You can also have at most two other religions with positive support at Patronage (three if you have no State Religion).

(The worse is your Attitude the less of that religion will spawn in your territory - from almost zero at Persecution to instant conversion of capital at State Religion. So it's not 'random'. You choose what religion do you get in your empire and what degree.
The downside of this system is unrealistic appearance of religions in faraway parts in the world in the same time (even across oceans) but this would be necessary solution anyway because otherwise it's be unfair if entire continents would be unable to adopt religions due to unlucky spawn in one particular physical location.)

There are eight Global Religions: Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. They appear around IRL founding dates.
Every religion has its own strong advantages and disadvantages which support certain playstyle. For example
Hinduism is very flexible and tolerant, capable of assimilaing other religions and conductive to science but enforces you to use special caste system mechanic which has quite limiting effects on pops and limits your ability to reassign them.

Reformations and schisms happen dynamically (although Christianity and Islam actually have among disadvantages inbuilt enormous tendency to schisms, so seeing Catholic vs Orthodox and Sunni vs Shia is very likely).

There is no religious victory because it's damn stupid idea. Religions provide mechanical changes and impact diplomacy based on your set attitude to other religions (once you set it its hard to change it but its doable).

If you don't want to take one of eight default religions you also have an option of transforming your default blank pantheon (which has no bonuses or penalties) into organized religion. The upside is you can choose some bonuses; the downside is they are not as strong and gamechanging and major religions have additional relations penalty with 'savages' which don't have one of great eight.

There are no physical religious units on the map (I have a feeling most people got tired of this concept in civ6).

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

You know what annoys me in religion system in civ6? Everything.
Oh.
I mean, everything from immersive point of view. It is fun to design your own religion but government of an empire "designing" new faith for pragmatic purposes is so completely not-how-religions-work, at least if you are not 15 year old internet atheist...
So in my free time I have designed new system to make it closer to reality while still being fun.

RELIGION SYSTEM FOR CIV7
Religions are not designed by imperial governments, they appear in the world as global events around historical dates and every empire can chose one of five gradual attitudes towards them: Persecution, Disapproval, Tolerance, Patronage and State Religion. You can have only one State Religion at time (and switching between them is painful, and very painful the worse attitude towards them). You can also have at most two other religions with positive support at Patronage (three if you have no State Religion).

There are eight Global Religions: Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. They appear around IRL founding dates.
Every religion has its own strong advantages and disadvantages which support certain playstyle. For example
Hinduism is very flexible and tolerant, capable of assimilaing other religions and conductive to science but enforces you to use special caste system mechanic which has quite limiting effects on pops and limits your ability to reassign them.

Reformations and schisms happen dynamically (although Christianity and Islam actually have among disadvantages inbuilt enormous tendency to schisms, so seeing Catholic vs Orthodox and Sunni vs Shia is very likely).

There is no religious victory because it's damn stupid idea. Religions provide mechanical changes and impact diplomacy based on your set attitude to other religions (once you set it its hard to change it but its doable).

If you don't want to take one of eight default religions you also have an option of transforming your default blank pantheon (which has no bonuses or penalties) into organized religion. The upside is you can choose some bonuses; the downside is they are not as strong and gamechanging and major religions have additional relations penalty with 'savages' which don't have one of great eight.

There are no physical religious units on the map (I have a feeling most people got tired of this concept in civ6).

That religion system is really good! I just have some suggestions to had:

First, I'm not fan of the random system. Don't get me wrong: it's perfect for smaller events (ala Civ IV) or for environmental disasters (where it's a one-time thing that have not to much consequences for the rest of the game), but for something as important and restricted as religions, it might not be the good thing. Suppose you are a civ or a leader who have religion focus (and there will be: Spain or India, for example), you won't want to be awarded a random religion with bad bonuses (or bonuses not suited to what you're planning) or worse: having all the religions spawning in one place at the other side of the world and not be able to enjoy benefits of a religion until late game.

What could happen is that you could treat religions like wonders: it's like a race to see which one will be the first to let it spawn here. For example, Hinduism will appear in the first city to atteign a population of 10 (or 6, or whatever), simulating the fact that it appears in a fertile, populous region ; Islam could appear in the first city to have trade routes with 4 differents empires (going to or from) ; Christianity could appear when a non-judaist empire conquer his first Judaist city ; and so one. It could be linked to the bonuses, to reality, and it would be more intelligent that just spawning randomly. It might defeat the purpose of "religions just appear womewhere in the world", but religions never appears in the world like that ; there was always some circumstances that make it appear.

With this system, you should (and must) be allowed to too have a civic, or a government, or something, that allows you to adopt Freedom of Religion: religions in your cities can only be in Tolerance, and you can have one in Patronage (simulating secular countries that still have some sort of "state" religion, like UK where you're basically free to worship whatever you want but the queen is still the head of the Anglican Church).

Happiness (or amenities) should be linked to the religion system: in each city, you gain 1 amenity for each follower of the State Religion, 1 for 2 followers of Patronage religions, -1 per 2 followers of Disapproval and -2 for Discriminate.
And diplomacy should be linked too: in Middle Ages and Renaissance era, they should be large maluses/bonuses for different/same religion, but those maluses/bonuses should decrease when you advance in History, replaced by the maluses/bonuses of different/similar government.

But we're making plans on the comet: we all hope for an extansion for civ VI, and we will have to wait a certain amount of time before Firaxis really see Humankind as a threat, then beginning to design it, develop it and finally deliver it.

 

[Krajzen]

That religion system is really good! I just have some suggestions to had:

First, I'm not fan of the random system. Don't get me wrong: it's perfect for smaller events (ala Civ IV) or for environmental disasters (where it's a one-time thing that have not to much consequences for the rest of the game), but for something as important and restricted as religions, it might not be the good thing. Suppose you are a civ or a leader who have religion focus (and there will be: Spain or India, for example), you won't want to be awarded a random religion with bad bonuses (or bonuses not suited to what you're planning) or worse: having all the religions spawning in one place at the other side of the world and not be able to enjoy benefits of a religion until late game.

I explained key concept here badly. When I said 'religions appear in the world' I didn't mean 'they physically appear in one of civs'. Every religion is at first an event choice for all civs. Then you choose an Attitude. The worse is your Attitude the less of that religion will spawn in your territory - from almost zero at Persecution to instant conversion of capital at State Religion. So it's not 'random'. You choose what religion do you get in your empire and what degree.

The downside of this system is unrealistic appearance of religions in faraway parts in the world in the same time (even across oceans) but this would be necessary solution anyway because otherwise it'd be unfair if entire continents would be unable to adopt religions due to unlucky spawn in one particular physical location.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I explained key concept here badly. When I said 'religions appear in the world' I didn't mean 'they physically appear in one of civs'. Every religion is at first an event choice for all civs. Then you choose an Attitude. The worse is your Attitude the less of that religion will spawn in your territory - from almost zero at Persecution to instant conversion of capital at State Religion. So it's not 'random'. You choose what religion do you get in your empire and what degree.

The downside of this system is unrealistic appearance of religions in faraway parts in the world in the same time (even across oceans) but this would be necessary solution anyway because otherwise it'd be unfair if entire continents would be unable to adopt religions due to unlucky spawn in one particular physical location.

This spawning system could be fair, yes, but I already hear all the complaints about unrealistic representation. We already have so much people complaining that "voting on Congress resolutions without knowing anyone" is utterly stupid, so sharing the same religion while being on different continents you will never see until the Renaissance era will bring the same issues.

This is a system that'll need reworking and tweaks, but overall it's a good system. It's new so it's a risk, but let's hope that with Humankind Firaxis will be ready to take somes pretty soon.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

This spawning system could be fair, yes, but I already hear all the complaints about unrealistic representation. We already have so much people complaining that "voting on Congress resolutions without knowing anyone" is utterly stupid, so sharing the same religion while being on different continents you will never see until the Renaissance era will bring the same issues.

At least there's some historical justification, though, for far flung political entities to share (at least partially, if not completely) a set of religious beliefs without having direct diplomatic contact with each other.

 

[Lord Shadow]

You know what annoys me in religion system in civ6? Everything.
Oh.
I mean, everything from immersive point of view. It is fun to design your own religion but government of an empire "designing" new faith for pragmatic purposes is so completely not-how-religions-work, at least if you are not 15 year old internet atheist...
So in my free time I have designed new system to make it closer to reality while still being fun.

RELIGION SYSTEM FOR CIV7
Religions are not designed by imperial governments, they appear in the world as global events around historical dates and every empire can chose one of five gradual attitudes towards them: Persecution, Disapproval, Tolerance, Patronage and State Religion. You can have only one State Religion at time (and switching between them is painful, and very painful the worse attitude towards them). You can also have at most two other religions with positive support at Patronage (three if you have no State Religion).

(The worse is your Attitude the less of that religion will spawn in your territory - from almost zero at Persecution to instant conversion of capital at State Religion. So it's not 'random'. You choose what religion do you get in your empire and what degree.
The downside of this system is unrealistic appearance of religions in faraway parts in the world in the same time (even across oceans) but this would be necessary solution anyway because otherwise it's be unfair if entire continents would be unable to adopt religions due to unlucky spawn in one particular physical location.)

There are eight Global Religions: Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. They appear around IRL founding dates.
Every religion has its own strong advantages and disadvantages which support certain playstyle. For example
Hinduism is very flexible and tolerant, capable of assimilaing other religions and conductive to science but enforces you to use special caste system mechanic which has quite limiting effects on pops and limits your ability to reassign them.

Reformations and schisms happen dynamically (although Christianity and Islam actually have among disadvantages inbuilt enormous tendency to schisms, so seeing Catholic vs Orthodox and Sunni vs Shia is very likely).

There is no religious victory because it's damn stupid idea. Religions provide mechanical changes and impact diplomacy based on your set attitude to other religions (once you set it its hard to change it but its doable).

If you don't want to take one of eight default religions you also have an option of transforming your default blank pantheon (which has no bonuses or penalties) into organized religion. The upside is you can choose some bonuses; the downside is they are not as strong and gamechanging and major religions have additional relations penalty with 'savages' which don't have one of great eight.

There are no physical religious units on the map (I have a feeling most people got tired of this concept in civ6).

Conceptually, not bad. I've a few observations.

Nothing in Civ ever appears around a "historical" date, because our history's timeline is ultimately irrelevant in the game's Randomland salad of civilizations. The emergence of a religion should be somehow connected to what the civs are doing globally, culturally perhaps. The same way historical eras arise due to general research and such.

A religion may have advantages and disadvantages, but they should be mutable through the ages, perhaps guided by the influence the greater faithful civs have on it. The Christianity of today is not the same one as that of 500 years ago, nor that the same of 1000 or 2000 years ago. Same with Islam, for instance, whose modern "weaponization" in certain extremist minorities is more a product of politics than religion.

The proposed propensity towards schisms and reformations of certain faiths is also anchored on precise IRL historical events. It should be more dynamic, and again at least partly tied to religious influence of various parties, and then to what's actually going on in the game world. To connect this with the previous point, perhaps a major mutation (reformation level) in a religion has enough proponents and detractors it generates a schism if nobody budges.

Civilization as a whole is less about reflecting actual history and more about using myriad historical and pseudo-historical elements to redo it in a somewhat similar but ultimately different fashion.

We're still talking about a game in which it's considered normal to have Japan and modern day America as geographical neighbours, one the original founder of Islam and the other in a bitter war with neighbouring Romans, who discovered the combustion engine before the 19th century. Adding to the miracle that the latter actually exist beyond the 5th century, despite our history.

 

[Zaarin]

The worse is your Attitude the less of that religion will spawn in your territory - from almost zero at Persecution to instant conversion of capital at State Religion. So it's not 'random'. You choose what religion do you get in your empire and what degree.

Though it's worth noting that historically persecution often spreads a religion rather than quashes it, unless the persecution is "Albigensian Crusade" level of thorough.

The downside of this system is unrealistic appearance of religions in faraway parts in the world in the same time (even across oceans) but this would be necessary solution anyway because otherwise it'd be unfair if entire continents would be unable to adopt religions due to unlucky spawn in one particular physical location.

We already have so much people complaining that "voting on Congress resolutions without knowing anyone" is utterly stupid, so sharing the same religion while being on different continents you will never see until the Renaissance era will bring the same issues.

On the plus side, religion can spread far quickly. Within the first couple centuries after Christ Christianity made it at least as far as China, and some scholars believe that it went as far as Japan. At the same time it spread like wildfire through Roman Europe and North Africa and very quickly made its way down the east coast of Africa. Granted, no Christian states in East Asia developed, but Christian states in Central Asia did with Zoroastrian/Manichaean Persia sitting between them and the Christian Middle East. NB there are still Syriac Christians from that initial evangelizing spree in India, the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church. There's even a Syriac-speaking church in Malaysia. Now, Mormon beliefs notwithstanding, finding a pre-Columbian Christian church in the New World would be surprising.

 

[Jkchart]

Now, Mormon beliefs notwithstanding, finding a pre-Columbian Christian church in the New World would be surprising.

Perhaps a can of worms that should be left sealed

 

[Imaus]

I don't mind religious units, and I'm a civ IV lover through and through. Remember how missionaries gave you the ability to spy on enemy lands and garner Gold if you spread a religion you had a holy site for? Maybe a vague 'radical' unit can emerge when you're under attack as well?

 

[Zaarin]

Remember how missionaries gave you the ability to spy on enemy lands

To be honest missionaries have been suspected of this a lot more often than it's actually happened--but it does happen.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Okay, little update of commentary here. Got Endless Legend on sale last weekend (even I am willing to 'bet' $10 on a new game!) and have managed to play a few dozen hours. Observations:

1. The city = region concept actually works very well. A City Center can only originally 'work' the tiles immediately adjacent to it, but it automatically works all 6 of them, regardless of total population. That means early cities develop much faster than in Civ, and that's handy because there are no Builders: "Improvements" are all built in the City, mostly in the form of "Extractors" (Read: Farms, Mines, Plantations, etc). They allow the city to use Resources outside the city radius in the region. In addition, "Boroughs" (Neighborhoods, Districts) can be built (in the Production Queue) adjacent to the City Center or each other that extend the tiles that contribute directly to the city. That means a single city can wind up with extra tiles around it and 'working' almost as many as in the extended city radii of Civ VI, and in addition be hauling in Resources from separate tiles all over its region.
Now, if they allowed you to name the separate tiles with Improvements they could also represent the smaller towns 'feeding' the major cities in history. Build Prague in its Region, have a silver mine named Joachimthal. Maybe later be able to build more on top of that original Mine to develop it as a satellite of the major city.

You can also specifiy where population points are being used within the city. This is Huge. It means, for instance, that originally all population points can go to Food to build up the city fast, but shift 1 - 2 points to Production (or Science, or 'Dust'/Gold) and you can Specialize your city before you even start building structures in it. That also means Micro-Management of individual Population Points gets old fast. I had 8 cities averaging 6 - 10 population in one game, and already got very tired of revisiting each city whenever another population point was added. Humankind will have to have some very good City Management automation or it will be Tedious before you ever get out of the Medieval 'Era'.

2. The map, as others have commented, is Gorgeous, but also very cluttered with Resources and features, and gets more cluttered as more Resources appear later in the game. From the preliminary pictures, Humankind's maps are much better graphically, so they've learned. One thing that struck me as soon as I saw a waterfall on the map: there is little interaction between map and building early in the game. For instance, a Waterfall represents an obvious Head of Navigation - should affect Trade Routes traced up/down a river. It also represents a place from which an aqueduct can get water to flow downhill to the city, or a Borough/District built adjacent to the waterfall can include a water-powered mill with a natural fall of water to drive numerous wheels.
Also, I had two 'harbor cities' in which there was a peninsula/headland adjacent to the harbor. Didn't play far enough to find out if this is already in their game, but that would be an obvious place for a Fortress to protect the harbor - as in from Ortygia in Classical Syracuse all the way to the Modern Era, at least.

3. The 'expanded tactical map battles' work pretty well, but the AI is no better at Tactics than it is at Strategy, and after the first 1 - 2 battles they also get pretty tedious - and time-consuming. There will have to be serious Automation Options included throughout Humankind to keep the game from bogging down in Graphic Trivia.

4. Units in EL are almost infinitely Customizable. You can add shields, body armor, leg armor, helmets, distance and melee weapons of all kinds, and go quite mad trying to keep track of what 'unit' is equipped how. Observations:
- Allow units to be custom-named, so that it's easier for a gamer to keep track of 'specialist' units (which they have said they are trying to include)
- Limit the combinations, because many of them actually amount to Unique Units for one 'Civ' or another: an infantry unit in the 'Classical' Era with heavy metal body armor, leg armor, helmet, heavy wood, leather and metal shield and heavy thrusting spear is a Hoplite - and nobody else. He is peculiar to the Social System that prevailed in Classical Greece, so there also has to be a 'non-technical' component to some combinations. This will take some serious thinking and design time, but without it, the game degenerates into Fantasy (which is not a Bad Thing in itself, but is Lying to your Customers when you've marketed the game as 'historical')
- There didn't seem to be any tactical Disadvantages to the combinations. Having heavy armor head to foot, for instance, did not seem to limit anybody's mobility on the tactical battlefield, as it should have.

5. The minor factions in EL have the features of both Barbarian Camps and City States in Civ VI. That is, they can be assimilated to provide special advantages (and units, which is something Civ VI needs) but can also 'spawn' Marauding Armies to harass your regions and population. Aside from contacting them with an army/hero and either conquering them, bribing them, or 'persuading' them to be friendly by fulfilling a Request ('Quest'), there was no diplomatic interaction with them at all , even to the limited extent that Civ VI has with City States. They appear to have gone beyond that in ES2, but I haven't played that yet to check. They definitely need to realize all the potential in the Minor Factions.
It would also be nice to see a potential Disadvantage from conquering/destroying a Minor Faction in one of your Regions, when a related Minor faction in a 'neutral' Region spawns an Invading/Migrating Army and comes to remonstrate with you. In EL, conquering or bribing the Minor Factions is much too easy, at least in the first three 'Eras', which is as far as I played.

6. Diplomacy was pretty simplistic, the options for actually interacting with another 'Civ' were limited, and the graphics were of simply a Representative of the other group. This can be worked on in an Historical context, as we've posted about, to give all sorts of Customization to the faction through the ages, and also 'clues' as to their attitude, politics, etc.

7. The UI in EL sucks like a starving leech. In ES2 I understand it's much better, but there are some very basic things they have to add, like a Mini or Strategic Map so the gamer doesn't have to constantly be zooming to tell what's going on from one side of his Empire to the other. Annoying doesn't begin to describe it.

8. The idea of All Techs within an Era being equally Researchable is intriguing. It's definitely 'gamey', and I'd like to see more interaction between the In-Game Situation and the ease of researching - something like Civ VI's 'Eurekas' or bonuses from type of terrain/region/city placement. Apparently Fame points are being used in Humankind to progress from era to era instead of a 'standard' "Research 9 Techs in This Era" that EL uses. It will be interesting to see what actions give you the 'Fame' points in each Era and for each Faction.

Overall, the game has a lot of nice concepts in it, but feels more 'unfinished/unpolished' in the development of those concepts than the Civ series. That's actually Reassuring, because, presumably, Humankind will give them scope for that development. Making the new game Fun To Play as well as nice to look at will hinge on the interaction of the systems, UI and Automation/Anti-Micromanagement Improvements, and the Victory Conditions they develop for it.

 

[Zaarin]

Allow units to be custom-named

I haven't played enough EL to know if that's a thing there, but it is in ES2.

It would also be nice to see a potential Disadvantage from conquering/destroying a Minor Faction in one of your Regions

I never conquer anyone in either game, but in ES2 there are complications that can come up from having specific races or combinations of races in your empire (including major races!), sometimes certain bonuses. These mostly manifest as quests, but sometimes they manifest as random events. Ruling multiethnic empires can be really interesting in ES2, and that's a feature I really, really, really hope returns in Humankind.

The UI in EL sucks like a starving leech. In ES2 I understand it's much better, but there are some very basic things they have to add, like a Mini or Strategic Map so the gamer doesn't have to constantly be zooming to tell what's going on from one side of his Empire to the other. Annoying doesn't begin to describe it.

The UI in ES2 is much better, but both games need mini maps badly.

The idea of All Techs within an Era being equally Researchable is intriguing. It's definitely 'gamey', and I'd like to see more interaction between the In-Game Situation and the ease of researching

NB ES2 has a tech web, with a certain number of techs being required to move up to the next tier, and with certain techs costing fewer beakers if you've researched a prerequisite tech (but you can skip the prerequisite if you want to).

 

[Imaus]

BE tried the tech web...hmmst

 

[mitsho]

The tech web in BE required learning, it can be much better in a historical setting where we know by intuition what researching "gunpowder" does. It is however even more of a fit in the social policy field, aka governments, where there are different directions to take but no clear progression needed (no need to refine the republic when you go full on into the autocratic mode, but a religious government could go in the middle meaning either of those paths).

The observations from Boris above make me more excited. I'm sure there are ways to refi E the micromanagement traps he identified and the devs are doing exactly that right now.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The tech web in BE required learning, it can be much better in a historical setting where we know by intuition what researching "gunpowder" does. It is however even more of a fit in the social policy field, aka governments, where there are different directions to take but no clear progression needed (no need to refine the republic when you go full on into the autocratic mode, but a religious government could go in the middle meaning either of those paths).

The observations from Boris above make me more excited. I'm sure there are ways to refi E the micromanagement traps he identified and the devs are doing exactly that right now.

There were/are two parts to the BE Tech 'Bush', the web, and the hierarchy. That is, within the web you had 'major Techs' and under each of them several 'subordinate Techs'.
A Pure Web is a very tough thing to make work in a historical context, because it requires an understanding of the alternative paths of development compared to what happened 'normally' and a ferocious amount of research to get the alternatives right. (Been there, tried that)
The 'subordinate' or hierarchal research, on the other hand, is something I proposed as a Civ VI mechanism from BE: 'Applications' of the basic techs to implement specific 'variations'. For example, under Agriculture could be an Application of Cultivated Forest which would allow you to intensively 'farm' the forest areas the way the North American natives did without cutting them down entirely as happened elsewhere in the world. Other Applications under Agriculture would be closer to 'normal' : Plowing, which would represent the 'technologies' of plows, harness, draft animals for open-field agriculture, and Plant and Gather, which would be the cultivation of trees, bushes, and other plants (including such as Olives and Wine Grapes for Luxury/Trade Resources, Fruits and Nuts).
This, to my mind, would allow some of the alternatives and differentiation of the Web while keeping a basically linear Tech 'Tree' that represents more closely the historical 'mainstream'. Combine the Applications with geography-based Eurekas and you would, basically, almost never research everything unless you spread to areas where you needed everything. This would keep the 'Tech Tree' pretty unique for each Civ, at least in the first 1/3 - 1/2 of the game.

Back to Humankind and my comments on Endless Legend: the 'web-like' Tech development within each Era acts very similar to this: because you can research anything within the same Era in any sequence, geography and situation within each game will dictate that the exact sequence will vary in every game, even playing the same Civ/Faction. In addition, because you progress to the next Era after researching only about 1/3 of the 'Techs' in the previous Era, as the game progresses the situation will force/lead you to go back and 'pick up' Techs you missed earlier, thus making the actual research sequence even more varied.

The EL (and, presumably, the Humankind) system is starting to grow on me . . .

And a special thanx to @Zaarin: his comments to my comments on Endless Legend based on the developments in Endless Space2 gave a much better view of the probable development path leading to Humankind. Hope the results are useful to everyone, at least until the next 'reveal' from Amplitude gives us more to obsess over!

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

So Ampltude has a historian on staff for HK (from: https://wccftech.com/humankind-gamescom-2019-interview/2/):

Well, we hired a historian and we work with others. We have a guy who’s like full-time Amplitudian now. They’ve helped us to go through period by period, essentially “Here are your options. Here are the cultures who, at that time, were really doing amazing things and making a mark on history”. Whether or not they were militarily powerful, and conquered a whole lot. We tried not to use that as a metric but things like political influence, religious power, economics, that sort of thing.

Other tidbits from this interview:

We tried to find 60 examples over the course of human history that really exemplify cultures that really left their mark was really particularly important or powerful in that particular era. That’s tough. One thing is that we’ll certainly be releasing more cultures after the release date. We hope people will be modding them in as well. There’ll be modding tools. If a culture is missing, or you don’t like the bonus, fix it or add something, we’re very open to that.

...

we’re bringing you up to the modern-day, maybe a hair beyond. Let’s say maybe 2020, 2030, something like that. We’re not going to take that next leap to the stars.

...

realistic has is a very stretchable word and video game. We want each historic element to be very accurate and very realistic. Then the player gets to combine those into the history of the story they want to tell.

...

There is a very legitimate question about things like climate change and deforestation and where that goes. I can’t say right now when and how that’s going to be implemented. But clearly, it’s something we’re going to look at. Your city centre, buildings and all that is preserved though ... There’s a lot of things that, you know, as responsible 21st-century developers were looking at. We’re figuring out how to put them in the game and what the mechanics will be. You know, we can’t say more about it now. But yeah. It’s all stuff that’s important to us.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Hopefully they are on the monthly news dump schedule and will have another batch soon.

 

[Prester John 2]

About the tech web or linear progression: I always liked the blind research in Alpha Centauri where you could promote research in certain areas but not choose the exact technology. Sure, it takes away from strategic planning but it forces you to improvise and use what you got.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

About the tech web or linear progression: I always liked the blind research in Alpha Centauri where you could promote research in certain areas but not choose the exact technology. Sure, it takes away from strategic planning but it forces you to improvise and use what you got.

Combine that with influences from the map that impact the outcome of your research and you'd have an interesting system, but possibly one that is too far out of the player's control for most tastes? At least, it would be out of the norm for the genre and therefore a disconnect with player expectations going in.

 

[mitsho]

Since we're apparently doing ideas & suggestions here (;-)), there is one simple criterion which will determine the success of the game for me: Does the number of decisions to be taken not increase significantly from the start to the late game? In civ games, there is usually so much petty work to do that once I pause a game because of real life, I will never get back into it. The exploration part is just so much more exciting than administrating building lists and moving armies around. I have high hopes in Humankind that - because there are no eras where your civ has no uniques (as it happens in civ) - there will always be something exciting to do. But they do kinda need to take away choices from you for that to work.