Perspectives on Humankind as it relates to Civ VI

So I played Humankind during the Open Dev process they had, and I know many here are interested in what that game is/may be so I thought I would give some perspectives about it and how it directly relates to Civ VI. To stay on topic, I want this to be focused on how each of these areas relate to Civ directly, not just about Humankind as a game itself.

First to get it out of the way right off the bat. I think Humankind is a good game, but I don't see reaching the appeal to the mass (or myself) as Civ does. So the any thoughts that this may be a "Civ killer", I don't think anywhere close. I think this game is going to hit on things that a lot of people here really like, but I think at the end of the day most will still prefer Civ.

Additionally, this is all based on PRE ALPHA stuff, so any and all things can change, but I think the core is pretty well set in stone for them.

To start the look of the game. It is pretty, like really really pretty to look at. The maps are gorgeous and terrain look beautiful. My favorite thing, the art of the units. Wow, in game, when you click on a unit the art that jumps up on your screen is this hand drawn thing that is totally at odds with the 3D renders and yet still fits. I love that so much. The models of units themselves could use some love, and I expect them to get some, but right now are just kinda "meh". That said (here comes the turn), for as nice as it looks it reads horribly. Telling terrain apart is difficult if you are zooming around the map quickly. The terrain melts into one another nicely and in a screenshot is great, but during the game when you are moving and planning and thinking it just makes it all harder. Bringing up city tiles and trying to tell what is happening all becomes super busy and the entire time I was longing for those crisp clean tiles Civ has. I know there is some debate on the simplicity of the tiles in Civ, but this may end that. I can see a Civ map and know everything I need right away, in HK there is so much detail that the gameplay really suffers. Additionally, POI (point of interest) on the map and resources all have unique symbols but size, shape and color are all the same, so they just look like the same thing. While I would expect some changes to these as dev continues there are enough design elements here that I wouldn't expect this to be massively different by launch. So end of the day, while the game looks great, I think it will end up being a much busier visual field that you will have to move slowly on and really study to understand properly. Not like the instant information that a Civ map can provide.

UI. Hands down the UI is far superior in HK than Civ. Civ has always had a bit of a UI issue, but this game points it out far more. Controls are swift and simple, and menus feel clean. I didn't have time to engage with the UI a ton during the Open Dev period, but everything I saw was much better than Civ's (and I mostly don't mind the UI in Civ) and felt great. One little thing on note that I loved, zooming all the way out just jumps you into the strategic map mode, and zoom back in just as easily. Transitions were quick and clean and felt great.

Gameplay, probably what most of you would be most interested in. If you want to experience what the game plays like best, get your hands on a copy of Endless Legend, it is so clearly built on top of the mechanics in that game (which makes sense since that is the same studio). However, I will give you my take on some of this stuff.
Combat. Combat is a mixed bag, on the one hand it is FAR more strategic and engaging than the combat in Civ. There are a ton of cool things from how battles start and move to a different tactical map so where you attack from may literally change the battlefield, there are multiple win conditions in a fight like you can eliminate them or rout them, you can pull in other units if the battlefield would include their tile, and battles can last multiple turns so the game carries on while your units are engaged. There is a lot to love here, and there are many here that would love a lot of this stuff. The downside, however, this can really bog the game down and requires a ton more micromanagement. Yes it is great to have a massive siege where you set up the perfect flank and your knights arrive over the hill at the exact right time, but you need all this planning for everything. So you get bogged down into a tactical map and units get dragged into fights when you are clearing out a moose encampment or just dealing with a random straggler.
If you love the idea of way more tactical combat you should be very excited for this, but if you are more of a builder than a fighter, this can add a new level of slog you will hate more than love, and even for warmongers, this adds a lot of micro to rapid conquests.

Building. Building was not an enjoyable experience for me. The cities are these sprawling beasts, which is very cool. It feels like the district system on steroids, these cities really interact with the map. But outside of working directly with the city I had trouble really understanding what the city was. Again the game has put beauty before functionality, so while the cities can look cool I couldn't know what was going on at a glance, I had to dive into it. Then there was what you built. A lot of the building was basically improving the yield on a district. So basically add a food to a tile, add a sprocket, etc. Then you had the multiplier ones, so like add 2 science for each adjacent sprocket improvement. What this amounted to, in the end, was a lot more micromanagement. Every interaction with a city seems more tedious than in Civ, but also the improvements were always so normal that I never felt the added micro was worth it.

They really didn't deal with the era changes during this time so I never got to interact with them, but they do sound cooler than what Civ has done with those regards.

I felt that HK was closer to playing EU IV than playing Civ. Ultimately I enjoyed my experience with HK, but it adds so much micromanagement to the game. I never really felt like any one turn was all that fun, much like how I feel playing EU, the penultimate experience is fun but its a long slow burn. With Civ I think the focus has been on a "fast" playing game that is far more fun in the moment. That "one more turn" feeling is because of the small achievable goals set out in the game and more instant feedback. With HK the goals and rewards are obscured by extreme planning and reading the game state is so so so more important. For a huge part of the Civ audience and for many of the more causal fanatics I don't expect HK to be a game that they really enjoy or want to take the time to learn the intricacies.

Hopefully, this gives any Civ fan some perspectives on the next historical 4x to hit the market, and (while I encourage anyone who may be interested to try it out when they can) maybe adjust your hype up or down. More competition in this genre is always a great thing as they can learn from each other and it keeps a genre that we all love alive and thriving.

 

I found combat in HK rewarding, but it takes a very long time. For all the complaints that people have had about Civ and its lack of a strategic vs tactical combat view, I actually found the combat micromanagement more intense in HK than Civ. While you can move units as a mini-stack through the map, once you're in position for battle, it's way more clicking. In the 3rd scenario, for instance, I just wanted to leave my longbows in defensive, high-ground spots as wave after wave came after me, but the tactical screen forced me to deploy them there for every single battle. It also adds a lot of micromanagement around the exact tiles you approach from, which can drastically change the layout of the battlefield. While the AI performs well on the tactical map, I suspect that it will be weak when it comes to these considerations. Cities were also really easy to take, even without siege units. Cavalry can just leap over walls and kill defending peasants.

I disagree on this. You have to keep in mind that they've eliminated builders; the city districts double as builder improvements for the surrounding tiles. So it's definitely less micromanagement on the whole. I also liked the way that you claim outposts, attach territories, and found cities using any unit and gold instead of building settlers. Forts serve an economic purpose as well as a military one, as they exploit the tiles around them and allow you to set up new separate district hubs. It's a much more organic approach to city-building and I can tell there's a strategic trade-off between clustering districts for their own adjacency and spreading them out to exploit more tiles. The approach has a learning curve and is going to take some adjustment, but I think it will offer interesting gameplay. You aren't going to get the yield porn of Civ though. I also hated the way that the growth tiers make micromanaging citizens after each population growth essential.

I liked how HK has increased the resolution of the map. Units have a base movement of 4 and cities really sprawl out in a way they don't in Civ.

We'll see how the singular "fame" victory condition approach ends up feeling. The game devs have claimed it will make later eras matter and tamp down on snowballing potential. But I can easily imagine it resulting in even more "next turning" at the end of the game than Civ, without even being able to optimize for fast finishes. Imagine if every game of Civ6 were a score victory based mostly on cumulative era score...it doesn't sound great.

 

Possibly I didn't engage enough, but for me it certainly felt way more micro, if for nothing else, the builds were all much faster. It is certainly a trade-off, it is more control over the city, but I think over a longer time just way more things to manage, and then that grows exponentially, for me I would dread a 20 city empire all with trying to remember what I put where.

I would disagree on that initial thought I think it is well designed for what it is trying to do, but it is not trying to be Civ, although it clearly has used some inspiration from them. First if you have ever played endless legend, this is clearly a modification of that game reskinned as a historical instead of fantasy. That being said, I was never a huge fan of Endless Legend for the same reasons I disliked parts of the Open Dev process. It has (and so does this) fallen in a weird spot, a game between EU and Civ. Taking these big over-the-top 4x ideas and then trying to meld in the grand strategy. And to their credit I think they do a really good job of it. My issue is when I play I would rather be playing either end of the spectrum. If I wanted some more intricate micromanagement grand strategy I would fire up EU, but if I wanted some more board gamey abstracted take I would play Civ.

And so I agree that this is not the "Civ Killer" some suggest. This will definitely be SOMEONE'S favorite game, but it doesn't have the complexity to beat EU in that role and doesn't have the accessibility to beat Civ in that role. Either way I am very glad to see a new challenger enter the ring. There are some great ideas in here that can help make Civ better and vice versa. I think Friaxis has done a commendable job in never really letting complainant behavior over take their game design (that isn't to say everything they had done was great, but the mistakes, I never thought, were out of them being lazy about design), but that isn't to say that it would never happen. Glad to have more people take some shots at the king, even if they might miss.

 

As someone who switched over to EU IV after being disappointed with the NFP so far (I wish I had done it a lot sooner - I really like it), I don't see similarities to such as being a bad thing. I really, really enjoy the map in HK. While the eXterminate part of 4X games is the part I least enjoy, I enjoyed combat. As for it being a CIV killer, meh - this is just silly talk, to me, like it is elsewhere with other popular franchises across genres. There is more than enough people gaming around the world to have multiple successful franchises within a genre. Furthermore, given this is pre-Alpha, the quality of what is presented is a good sign to me. I also take it that if they deliver, that will be a good thing for CIV.

 

I dont think anyone expects it to be a 'Civ Killer' even if it turns out to be a much better game (which so far I believe it will) you don't take down a giant with a single blow.

I think such a huge reversal can only happen when the larger series makes a major mistake like EA's handling of Sim City that saw it tumble so far down that Cities Skylines is now the go to city builder in the genre.

 

Well... It is hard for me to agree with your post but it is true that not everybody has to like HK.

Just a couple of things... On the readability of the map: Yes, it is harder to read but how long have you played the OpenDev? I think it is just a matter of adaptation, and the more hours you play HK the more you will get usted to it.

On city micranagement: totally disagree, I believe Civ VI has a lot more of micromanagement, and apart from that, it seems to me that in HK you will build a lot less cities.

And on battles: The game forces you to build armies, so I don't expect much 1v1 fighting, so there will be fewer battles than in Civ. And they are working on an autoresolve button.

I do agree that this is not a Civ killer, but a welcome addition that will add much needed competence to the genre. In fact, lurking on Twitter i've seen a couple of the Civ-devs "liking" HK posts. There is plenty of room for more historical 4x games.

 

hey, who need a war in the 4X-verse ? Personally, my most recent 4X are offworld trading company, Civ 6 and shadow empire. And I want to try Imperium Greek wars and Old World when I can. Sadly there is not so much high budget 4X games, it's a "niche" genre.
The good thing about HK is simple, having an healthy competition and an alternative (in term of high budget historical 4X)
Even some Amplitude Devs said they like Civ and playing civ. Seems obvious for me than they are 4X lovers, their games are hexagon 4X or space 4X ( exception of Dungeon of the Endless)

The purpose for me it's not to stop playing Civilization because there will be Humankind. I already enjoy Civ, and I hope I will enjoy HK, and than I will play the both games, because I just love historical theater (the main purpose for me to play Paradox Games) And I must admit I need some fresh air, it's the sixth Civ and it's a long time since the Endless Legends release.

For the main question of this thread, my opinion is :

- Having less micromanagements of single units but having some great stacked armies with decisive but longer battle is an interesting alternative to Civ. For me it's not better, or worse; but it's sure than people which don't care about tactical gameplay will maybe hate it, but some people like me which like game like Age of Wonder are happy to have some tactical influence on battles.
>BUT, OpenDev was about warfare feedbacks, it don't mean the released game will be all about warfare.

- Disclaimer : It's pure speculation. But I think we will don't have this painful civ 6 micromanagements of religious units and trade routes building in HK.
It's subjective : I don't like it, it's unnecessarily too complex (in terms of gameplay) for the little that it offers.

Amplitude made some gameplay mistakes from my point of view in Endless Space 2, but some of their core gameplay were really solid, as the political system : I found it really nice for a 4X game.
I'm really curious to see what they will offer for the trading and religious gameplay.
Already, the civics gameplay (seen in video) looks really fine and it's enough different from Civ 6.

- For me, if you don't look the universe of these games, Endless Legends was less different from Civ than Humankind. Imho, Civ is really emblematic compared to other hexagon 4X because the leaders system, and I'm happy than they remove it in HK (in contrary of EL which have the classical leader trope). For me a 4X with leaders system is really just a Civ-like. (but EL was unique with other aspect of the game obv)

The Era/Culture thing is really interesting. Again, it's not better or worse, it's just an interesting alternative.
I like Civ Leaders system, but it's Civ : having the same homogeneous culture from the start to the end, with all this funny and weird mix of Wonders and Great Poeples, it's the identity of the licence.

> In HK, I hope I will love to emulate a culture which have multiple influences and aspects. And not just being a monolythic bloc, which stay the same archetype all the game. (exemple : I'm Genghis Khan, so my Mongolian culture will be perpetually warmongers and yurts until the end of time).

> And the Era/Culture thing give the opportunity to HK to have some cultures we will never or rarely seen in Civ. We already have the Myceneans, Assyrians, Hittites, Harrapans, Mughals, Goths, Zhou, Franks, Ghaneans, Haudenossaunee, ... at launch
and having really distinct cultures, for exemple the Islamic cultures, I really love the fact to have Ummayads, instead of the Saladin and the Arabian culture blob. We can hope to see the Abassids, the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, the Seljuks, etc ... later in the game, it's really cool with this system. (Hey, I really like the DLC choices of Civ 6, but I was really disapointed of the roster of the launch. Only Kongolese and Scythian were a cool and unexpected surprise for me. )

- For the Ui and visuals of the game, HK is beautiful, but there is some part of the Ui / readibility whose we need to be used to, BUT another part which need to be improved.
I like than they have done their own and unique aesthetic, it seems evident for me than it is a quality.

And personnaly I like so much to speculate with my friends about the upcoming cultures on Civ, and I have the same love with HK when I speculate here on the forum or the discord.
It's really healthy for the both game, I really like to see the choice of Emblematic things for a same culture present in the both games. And compare their historicity, it's really funny.
Sometimes I was so used to some Civ choices, that I never questioned them. ^^

 

Yeah, I was totally thinking of that situation. But yeah, the "X game-killer" schtick it's just a journalism/marketing thing that's basically "This will be a very good game that's similar to this one that ruled uncontested for years.

Mostly my thoughts as well. I was surprised to read in the OP about HK having more micromanagement. Sure, now we can play Civ VI blindfolded, and HK has some UI/Readability issues, so it's normal it takes some time to adjust. But the core, underlying design is built around less micro. Civ gameplay is based completely on tiles: culture grabbing a tile at a time, workers improving them, placing citizens to work them, moving every unit by itself, etc. Humanking works in a more high level (territories/armies), so a lot of the busywork is skipped, specially in the lategame. For example:

- Getting a resource outside your territory in Civ: Build a settler, move the settler 2 tiles a time until at least 3 tiles from the resource. If placed next to it, have a builder build the improvement, if not, expand your borders tile by tile using culture or money.
- Getting a resource outside your territory in HK: Move any unit/army to the territory 4 tiles at a time, place outpost anywhere inside it. Use money to produce the extractor.

- Moving 8 units a long distance in Civ: Move them one by one at a small pace each turn through a crowded map.*
- Moving 8 units a long distance in Civ: Move them in 1 or 2 armies depending on the era, at a high pace in a map that's not filled with units.

* If you make a long movement that's outside your territory, sometimes they might stop if the tile is occupied, even if they are 8 turns away from reaching it, having to reselect a destination tile again. Hopefully for Civ VII they implement something like "move to closest if occupied".

And all of that is made worse in Civ in the late game, with dozens of cities and lots of units to move around. Humankind can have cities absorb territories and even other cities, and seems to be balanced to have around 8-10 cities in the lategame (with working options for OCC and ICS if that's your cup of tea), and around 15 armies you need to move around in late game. OTOH, Humanking can feel a bit less "hands-on" than civ in terms of being more menu driven, but late game seem to be way more manageable than the chore civ becomes.

 

This was exactly my thought when I played battles in the OpenDev scenarios. In Civ, sometimes it feels like chess but without the tactics. It's just churning out units (or hoping to churn out units), even when you're defending your city during war, and hoping they survive once they're out into the world. Even in EU4, I always feel like I have to churn more units in order to win a war. In Humankind, it really feels like you're doing an actual battle, and you know how your units are going to fare and what they'll actually be doing. In addition, you know that even though the odds are stack against you, you might win because you can simply understand the bonuses and take advantage of the terrain.

For me, the city management was quite easy to understand on the surface. It was only when I wanted to optimize my yields and exploitation that things started to become a bit murky, so I hope they'll fix that.

Just to comment on what the OP has said, I think it's a matter of what people are already used to. People who loved Civ5 most probably didn't like Civ6 when it was released. Heck I can assume a significant group of them still don't like it. But hey, who am I to judge if people don't like Humankind because they like Civ more?

This is a very good point, especially since this is how I feel about playing Civ - I get to set and achieve small goals while looking at the bigger picture. I hope Humankind gives this same feeling when I'll play it, although in light of this there is this worry that the small era star goals might feel a bit forced because they're now a concrete mechanic, but we'll have to see.

 

My input: so far I greatly prefer what was shown of Humankind.

1) After playing Humankind, civ6 feels so horribly slow, clunky and overcrowded. Rough terrain everywhere, units moving essentially one tile per turn, constant traffic jam everywhere. War of conquest is pure pain with cities and encampments shooting at you every few tiles and borders being fill to the brim with a chaotic set of units.

Meanwhile Humankind felt so
C L E A N
S M O O T H
T A C T I C A L S P E E D
M A N E U V E R

2) Also I have already been in the Territories camp of map generation, but I am even more after going back to the abomination of civ borders. Those ugly clamps of borders, growing as fungus, tightly constricting city space, making early eras not feel like empire building but like random growing blobs of land...

3) Civ6 generally has too much of everything. Literally everything. Tons of resources, special map features, disasters, city states and their unique bonuses, great people and their unique bonuses, religion building, districts, improvements, housing, amenities, congress, special units, corps, adjacencies, diplomatic favor, alliance metres, era points, loyalty, tourism, archeology, great map density filled to the brim with units, ton of random agendas and
diplomatic actons - TOO MUCH. By "too much" I mean "too much tedious or pointless choices, piles of bonuses, instead of macro scale strategic dilemmas".

Look at how Humankind does warfare. You get few simple rules - high ground, rivers, forests, sight, Simple special abilities, walls - and those simple few rules create a lot of tactical depth. A choice between settling a new city, resource outpost or attached outpost? Simple and yet such a major strategic choice. Less but more.

 

"CIV killer" is marketing hyperbole, of course. It is enough that Humankind provides an alternative to CIV. Personally, Endless Legend is my favorite 4X and I never got much into CIV5 or CIV6, so the game is looking great thus far. I find it strange that someone would consider EL more complex than CIV6, or anywhere near Europa Universalis' level. Like Krazjen said, CIV6 has a veritable glut of mechanics. Even something as basic as civ bonuses is difficult to keep track of, because there are so many tiny situational abilities. By comparison, EL (particularly vanilla) is downright minimalistic.

 

I was very skeptical of the Region/Territory mechanic for the map in Humankind, even though I had played it with pleasure in Endless Legend. It simply appeared to me to be another 'artificial' game mechanism, along with Eras, rigid progressions in Faction by Eras, and rigid attributes for each Faction. I feared what were to me some of the worst features of Civ were going to be perpetrated and expanded in Humankind.

Having observed a fair amount of play in videos and Open Dev and commentary on same, I am marginally relieved. I still think the rigid territorial boundaries and Eras and Faction progression are all 'gamey' features, but their implementation appears to be very well thought out and melds into a very playable system. As has already appeared in this Forum, the Era-specific Factions give the Mod community the same wealth of potential Mod opportunities that the Leaders, Alternate Leaders, and Civs give in the Civ series, with even more potential variety.

And I absolutely LOVE the Combat System compared to anything that has ever appeared in a regular Civ game. It may need some tweaking to encompass things like modern ultra-long-range weaponry, air and naval support, but the basis and basic rules are stunningly well done.

One thing to remember: Civ VI has "too much of everything" because things have been added to it constantly in a whole series of DLCs and Major Additions, including the NFP going on now. And all of these are Additions - does anybody remember the last time a DLC of any kind Removed something from the game?
The same thing could happen to Humankind once it is the subject of several years of 'development'. The risk is always there in any commercial game, because there is always a commercial/business reason to 'add something' that can be sold to the gamers. The good thing is, given Amplitude's extremely good communication with the Community (us and the Games2gether grognards) we can keep an eye out for that and remind them when they risk buying the clean mechanics of the Release game under a surplus of 'bells and whistles'.

 

Having many mechanics itself is not the problem, the problem is when they don't add depth or macro strategy, just a ton of insignificant micro tedium.

There are many civ6 mechanics which do not connect with each other (loyalty having nothing to do with amenities, religions and governments, pointless tourism etc), half of them can basically be ignored, and those that DO matter are all about infinite micromanagement.

 

I agree almost 100% with OP. Re combat it was weird. I absolutely loved the tactical depth. But then I would get extremely impatient. And there was a part of me that thought, "OMG, if all battles take this long and require this much thinking, will the game ever end?" On the other hand, there are ways to allow battles to autoresolve - and if that requires more units than usual (b/c you are relying on AI) I think that's actually OK with me. It reminds me of Total War 3K -- i have ended up not enjoying the battles but I autoresolve 90% of them, only delving in when I think it'll make a difference. I think I'd be OK with that in human kind. Also keep in mind OpenDev gave you super strategic battles on purpose. The vast majority may not be like that at all (think in the first OpenDev scneario fighting animals, i automated that immediately).

Buildings - I agree Civ is better here. I truly hate the # of buildings in HK and Endless Legend. There is just so many buildings -- and NONE of them are represented on screen -- the just feel like abstract blobs on a FISD excel sheet. I did ask them to at LEAST show in more detail when you mouse over the FISD exactly what building is contributing what instead of "Infrastructure = 10" or whatever. Like, what infrastructure? And how are those yields affected by # of territories or whatever (some building are based on that). Some effort at immersion would be helpful. And in this respect, Civ is just as bad. The tourism indicator does not nothing but indicate how much tourism you're getting. No interesting breakdown of where things are coming from. And the number of times you see "Modifier = +1" or whatever. Like, WHAT IS THE MODIFIER? This is something in 4x games that drives me extremely crazy.

Strategic depth - it's hard to put into words but i think HK beats CIV when it comes to long term strategic depth. It feels like every decision has long term consequences and there are macro trends like stability (and soon, culture and civics or whatever) to keep track of. In that sense, I enjoy HK b/c i feel more like an actual ruler.

But my big area of agreement is visual clarity. I agree with you 100% on this. Civ beats HK hands down when it comes to visual clarity. Not being able to tell *immediately* what my city actually consists of was quite frustrating in HK. I'm zooming in, scrolling around, clicking things just to figure out what buildings my city has, what districts are doing what (though the district lens is marginally helpful), etc. However I think HK designers are actually quite aware of the visual problems and have commented on the HK forums that they are working on it. I have faith they can keep the visual quality while also making things a lot damn clearer.

 

Yeah, it all comes down to how many armies there would be around, IMO. They commented that instant resolution will be available, at least for simple fights, and there's still the auto-combat (which you can leave running while you do other things, no need to watch it).

I agree that breakdowns are pretty bad currently BUT it's early alpha, and tooltips is something you focus on once the design is settled. Hopefully they are more clear in the final game. My main annoyance there was not the buildings, which are clear once you start knowing them, but the lack of breakdowns for negatives, like how much food the next pop will eat, or how big is the stability hit on attaching a territory.

Yeah, that's the main annoyance I have with Civ VI design, in which everything adds up without counterbalance. The only limits are the amount of positives you can have, but very little things have drawbacks, and if they do, they are meaningless.

 

I was reluctant for a long time to post in this thread, mostly because the opening post is a giant wall of text and I didn‘t get what the main points were. And I had no free time. But now, after ruminating for some time, I think I got something to add:

- Civilization is a boardgame, a 4X where you play to win.
- Humakind is a role-playing game, a 4x where you play to experience a story

The tactical battles help with that goal, the quite fancily designed random events do as well, the limited expansion options due to regions limit your freedom. All that brings the player on a narrative path - and mostly, it makes the game slower. And slower games means you will play less games. In civ, the player knows which buildings he or she has to place to optimize for a victory type - he or she just plots them down and moves on. Background information is tucked away in the Civilopedia, the leaders make dumb jokes. In Civ, you play a game from start to finish: I have only very occasionally loaded a save in Civ, I much rather start a new game since i‘ts probably finished.

I do believe I will load games in Humankind: The regions make it easy to get an overview, the limited number of armies shows you the state of the war easier, and the new era brings a fresh set of cultures for you and your enemies. I will also play way fewer games in Humankind than with civ. After around 15 games I will have experienced every culture at least once after all and I will not read the beautifully designed card about that flood anymore. But I do think I will enjoy those 15 games more than my last games of civilization.

So, yes, Humankind will not be a civ killer, it aims at a different sort of player. And I believe one that so far didn‘t have a game to play, as Europa Universalis is much more Excel&Micromanagement and Crusaders Kings pushes the individual RPG-angle too much and is confined to one era. Humankind will split the civ fandom in half and that will hurt civ/firaxis who then will go even more after the casual player (vampires). I know where I will stay - even though I have nothing against vampires.

PS: And yes, I know I wrot a Wall of Text myself. I am sorry, I just can‘t help myself - I vow to be better next time though.

 

You know, it's the most simple observation in the world, but only after your post I have realized just how much does it add to the late game fun when both you and your opponents are going to unpredictably culturally evolve.

What kills civ6 for me is how static and linear it truly is. Everything about its design is about good start and then entrenching yourself and just slowly crawling to victory via endless accumulation of small, linear bonuses. Every aspect of this game's design helps to make it this slow, unbearable march of incremental yield bonuses forever, with no dramatic changes of the world, of opponents, of mechanics.
Real life geopolitical history was so much more dynamic and dramatic than civ6. Cultures evolved, changed, collapsed, declined, others suddenly exploded in power, giant changes swept the world, world wars, dramatic ideological conflict, industrialization flipping the table of power, constant fluctuation, constant chaos, constant challenge to stay on top - nothing of that is present in civ6.

Just slow linear growth forever - and I suspect victors in this game are heavily predetermined by geography from turn 0, due to the fact just how terrain decides everything.

If real life worked like civ6, then the strongest countries in 2020 would be literally Sumer, Egypt, Olmecs, Caral, Mycenaean Greece, Harappans and the first neolithic Chinese culture (those exact cultures and languages too). The only possible variable would be maybe Sumer conquering Egypt or Mycenae conquering Sumer.

The most worrying thing is the fact that actually we have downwards trend here, with civ5 and civ4 doing much better late game dynamism. Civ5 ideologies and the way culture worked was a brilliant way to shake the world, not to mention the fact that the lack of loyalty and more agressive AI meant great wars even in the modern age.

 

Honestly, I personally dislike that kind of hyperbole as well. We may be calling Humankind our Magnum Opus, and we are ready to admit it is in a way a challenge to Civilization, but I don't think we've ever presented ourselves in such aggressive terms. In the end, though, "the new Civ-Killer" just makes for a more striking headline than "a new historical 4X game."

 

Yeah, it’s obvious. I expect the last era to have crazy catch-up abilities because it‘s possible and it might freshen up the game.

The challenge though is how to link up the enemy-players through the ages. They have presented the avatars to display the other players and I expect around 10-20 of those pre-made to display the (recurring) AI-players. I do hope that every other player also gets a symbol though, because just a colour would be reductionist a you immediately remember the Egyptian-Greek-Khmer-Dutch-British-Indians as „Team Blue“. Animals would fit quite well: Eagle, Lion, Horse, Bull, Wolf, Swan, Fish, Tiger, Elephant - Add in some symbols like Stars, Sun, Moon, Cross, etc. and you would have a unique signifier throughout the eras. But I think they already opted for culture-specific symbols in each era which I find a pity.

 

"Humankind is Dark Souls of historical 4X games"