Your biggest fears regarding Humankind

[Atlas627]

My biggest fear is that controlling the combat will be frustrating like in Endless Legend, and that in order to take advantage of unit composition I'll have to do the tedious micromanagement of unit customization like in EL as well.

I prefer Civ's style of combat on the same board as the economy, but certainly one thing that is nice with EL is that you can automate the combats, saving a ton of time in multiplayer. I wonder if there is a way to allow this without having the half-automated half-controlled "manual" combat be so frustrating to 'control'.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

My biggest fear is that enemy factions will be lacking a strong flavor, that they'll all blend together as indistinct. Consider the following scenario:

My player civilization progresses from Mycenaeans -> Greeks -> Byzantines, maintaining a continuity of culture that conforms to the real civilizations around the Aegean throughout early history. There's an overarching "flavor" that they share.
A.I. Player #1 progresses from the Nubians -> Goths -> Koreans.
A.I. Player #2 progresses from the Zhou -> Mayans -> Vikings.

I fear that it'll feel like the only other cultures I'm interacting with are "the blue bordered civilization" or "A.I. Player #2" and that this will hurt the immersion. It won't feel like I'm creating a counterfactual history.

 

[Gwydden]

I fear that it'll feel like the only other cultures I'm interacting with are "the blue bordered civilization" or "A.I. Player #2" and that this will hurt the immersion. It won't feel like I'm creating a counterfactual history.

I think the customizable avatars are meant to alleviate this problem by giving each civilization a face regardless of their current culture.

 

[Siptah]

I'm curious if these avatars will have names, and if so if they change according to cultures. In the later civ games, the immersion relies very much on these leaders, as the whole concept of "other civs" is based on them instead of on the culture or anything on the map, really. I don't think this is necessary to have an immersive opponent leader figure (see EU4, AoE2 or Stellaris, for example where you don't care for other leaders at all). We don't know yet how this is done in HK. It might be that for every cultural transition, a bunch of characteristics are half-randomly assigned to each culture that define how they interact with other civs and which part of the game they focus on. There is this small chance that with a concept like this, we end up with a more detailed diplomatic and leader interaction system than a civ game ever dreamed of that is far more unpredictable and less stale. I think that the CK2 traits system and diplomatic interactions should be the standard to aim for here, not civ.

Even without having played a second, I think that "regionally correct" culture transitions are overrated - it might often be a bad decision for the state the faction is in, and the required culture might often be taken by someone else. Based on which parameters the AI chooses its cultures will be an interesting thing to see, but I actually hope that "regionally correct" doesn't have much weight. Chances are that it is a huge handicap to play like this, and will weaken the AI.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

My biggest fear is that controlling the combat will be frustrating like in Endless Legend, and that in order to take advantage of unit composition I'll have to do the tedious micromanagement of unit customization like in EL as well.

I prefer Civ's style of combat on the same board as the economy, but certainly one thing that is nice with EL is that you can automate the combats, saving a ton of time in multiplayer. I wonder if there is a way to allow this without having the half-automated half-controlled "manual" combat be so frustrating to 'control'.

We've mentioned it a few times before: You're in full control of your units during battle in Humankind. Of course, there will still be an automatic option for players who prefer not to manage the battles themselves.

I think the customizable avatars are meant to alleviate this problem by giving each civilization a face regardless of their current culture.

While I don't know the details of how the AI will work as it changes Cultures yet, this is indeed one of the goals of the Avatars, providing a consistent reference point for the player.

 

[Atlas627]

We've mentioned it a few times before: You're in full control of your units during battle in Humankind. Of course, there will still be an automatic option for players who prefer not to manage the battles themselves.

That is wonderful to hear, and I don't know how I missed that since I've been carefully following everything I can find!

That being said, I assume in multiplayer one player can choose automatic while the other chooses manual? Then it would basically be like a fight vs the AI for the manual player?

And I hope I don't have to micromanage my unit composition like in Endless Legend or Endless Space. Choosing which units to produce is already a good decision without having to customize the units to very specific degrees.



Thank you SO much for being so responsive and forthcoming with info that you can share. I appreciate it and I'm sure everyone else does too!

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

That being said, I assume in multiplayer one player can choose automatic while the other chooses manual? Then it would basically be like a fight vs the AI for the manual player?

And I hope I don't have to micromanage my unit composition like in Endless Legend or Endless Space. Choosing which units to produce is already a good decision without having to customize the units to very specific degrees.

Basically yes, if you select automatic you give control of the battle to the AI and can do something else, but the battle still runs its course normally. (If you feel like it, you could even just sit back and watch.)

We won't have unit customization like in Endless Legend. That would be very difficult to achieve without sacrificing the "authentic building blocks" we want the units to provide.

 

[ehecatzin]

I'm also worried about the lack of personality for AI, taking in account that the other opponents are as well, a mix of many different cultures. The player at least has the customizable avatar to go around, I wonder if the same will happen with the AI, maybe their character will change depending on their culture choices?

 

[ehecatzin]

Discussing the English this came to mind:

-That the transition between Classical and Medieval will feel crowded and chronologically inconsistent.

Due to Amplitude's deisgn philosophy of playing and evolving cultures it opens the gate to a whole bunch of cultures that would be unthinkable in civ. but this is also a double edge sword specially if you stretch an era too much and end up trying to cover too much time with only 10 cultures.

Maybe they know this and an era between Classical and medieval is an expansion posibility?

 

[mitsho]

The argument makes total sense from a viewpoint of storytelling and categorising. But do you have enough techs, units, buildings and so on to fit in this additional era? What are the defining gameplay changes between Ancient, early classical, late classical and medieval? Doesn't the whole game then not get too long? Cause they cant have the player skipping cultures every five turns.

You see, I agree with you, Carthage and the Huns in the same era is weird. An intro into european national identities would be nice. But i guess, the game is full enough already.

 

[ehecatzin]

The argument makes total sense from a viewpoint of storytelling and categorising. But do you have enough techs, units, buildings and so on to fit in this additional era? What are the defining gameplay changes between Ancient, early classical, late classical and medieval? Doesn't the whole game then not get too long? Cause they cant have the player skipping cultures every five turns.

You see, I agree with you, Carthage and the Huns in the same era is weird. An intro into european national identities would be nice. But i guess, the game is full enough already.

That's why I only mentioned the chronology, I agree with you, there should be a reason gameplay wise to add more eras not just culture hoping. So far eras seem to have a bit of a theme, for me, late classical could be a moment to either consolidate or shake things up in a big way, to me that's were you put the migrating tribes and hordes and take the oportunity to go knock your neighboors big time or use your resources to withtsand and build up even stronger...sort of zerg vs protoss.

we still don't know a lot of how many mechanics even work, religion for example, I guess we'll have to wait until we have more information to be able to especulate about what a late classical era could look like gameplay wise.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

Honestly I'd be happy with a game like this ending in Reneissance or Industrial and have those earlier eras fleshed out much more. At least Humankind is not bloating the modern era that civ has (Industrial-Modern-Atomic-Information-Future Really?!)

I cant see them just slotting a new era in later trying to make that work would be a heck of a task. I just hope these eras are feel long enough although I have no idea what game length Humankind is going for. Endless Legend/Space 2 both played quicker than Civ so I wonder if it will be similar or longer considering this is a game with a huge scope.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The argument makes total sense from a viewpoint of storytelling and categorising. But do you have enough techs, units, buildings and so on to fit in this additional era? What are the defining gameplay changes between Ancient, early classical, late classical and medieval? Doesn't the whole game then not get too long? Cause they cant have the player skipping cultures every five turns.

You see, I agree with you, Carthage and the Huns in the same era is weird. An intro into european national identities would be nice. But i guess, the game is full enough already.

There's a reason why none of the traditional Era divisions divide up the 'Classical' Era the way some of them divide the 'Medieval' into Early, High, and Late: Technologically and Politically the Classical Era doesn't divide anywhere.
Technology? You had iron weapons and armor, sailing ships, multi-banked oared warships, mounted archery, simple Mechanics applied to construction and architecture from start to finish.
Politics? You had multi-cultural Empires from start (Assyria, Persia) to finish (Rome, Han China).
Science? You had lots of speculation about mathematics, astronomy, natural sciences from start to finish. You applications of astronomy (astrology, navigation) and mechanics from start to finish.
Religion/Philosophy? Karen Armstrong wrote an entire book on The Great Transformation, because the start of most of the Great Religions is almost simultaneous in the early Classical (6 - 8th centuries BCE) - Buddhism, Judaic Monotheism, Greek Philosophy, the teachings of Lao Tse (Taosim) and Kong Fu Tse (Confusianism), and the compilation of the beliefs that became classic Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.

In other words, there's no good place to sub-divide the 'Classical' Era.

As for simultaneous Carthage and Huns appearing to be 'wierd', I'd just point out that mounted horse archers were already dominant on the entire Eurasian Steppe up to 500 years before Carthage started confronting Rome, and Carthage itself hired large quantities of missile-armed fast-moving light cavalry - the Numidians - who literally rode rings around the Roman Equites in every battle - until Rome basically hired them away. Given that Rome also ended up with lots of auxiliary units labeled 'Huns' in their Late Empire, any wierdness is relative and no wierder than Huns becoming a naval power in a game of Civ because they happened to found their first three cities on the coast!

 

[FinalDoomsday]

Yea, you can basically use Huns and Goths as stand in's for the nomadic horse peoples and germanic tribes that existed throughout the Classical period like Scythians and Suebi.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

I think the customizable avatars are meant to alleviate this problem by giving each civilization a face regardless of their current culture.

It's be cool if you could create and save numerous Avatars and even give them "personalities."
One option would be that your Avatar with the Amish chin-strap beard has an 'Agrarian" personality that makes him more likely to choose cultures with the Agrarian trait.
Another, which I'd prefer, would be to pre-select which cultures that Avatar would gravitate towards. For example, making a black Avatar who always selects Nubians and Askumites if no other player has selected them first.

 

[ehecatzin]

I wish they went a bit more in depth into how and when you transition between eras. I think they mentioned era advancement is independent for each player, so it may not be so weird to have a player pick Rome early, and somebody else going Huns later.

which brings me to this point...do you think certain cultures will be better at catching up or bringing a runaway player down? because then, cultures like say, the Huns or Mongols, might not be your best choice if you are ahead but might be a perfect strategy if you want to wreck havoc and end up on top.

I'm with the others, I just hope eras feel long enough to have this moments of having to restructure your strategy midway because a neighboor just entered your era and picked a horde.

 

[conorbebe]

I do think that at the end of the day, Humankind is a video game just like Civilization, so naturally we should expect a lot of gamification and warping of timelines to fit mechanics, which personally I’m okay with so long as the changes aren’t egregious, offensive, or entirely out of the realm of possibility.

The Huns and the Carthaginians co-existing might seem strange, but we’re not talking Babylon and Brazil here. The ancestors or descendants of these people likely did occupy the world simultaneously, as did their cultural identities.

Humankind does allow us to roleplay and simulate real historical events, but ultimately it is sandbox containing historically-sourced toys that can be played with inside the boundaries of the 4X genre. The more the game tries to conform to reality, the less freedom it gives the player to create their own alternate history.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I wish they went a bit more in depth into how and when you transition between eras. I think they mentioned era advancement is independent for each player, so it may not be so weird to have a player pick Rome early, and somebody else going Huns later.

which brings me to this point...do you think certain cultures will be better at catching up or bringing a runaway player down? because then, cultures like say, the Huns or Mongols, might not be your best choice if you are ahead but might be a perfect strategy if you want to wreck havoc and end up on top.

I'm with the others, I just hope eras feel long enough to have this moments of having to restructure your strategy midway because a neighboor just entered your era and picked a horde.

Agreed, they need to give us some more details on the Era/Faction Progression, because it is so far the most innovative and Different aspect of the game design. As far as I can tell:
*it is first come, first choice of Factions, so you may or may not get precisely what you want in any game.
*it is one Faction each per Era, so no matter how many great sites or situations there are for Huns, only one Hun can play.
*You can choose to keep the Faction from the previous Era - and apparently, keep that Faction for several Eras, so you can wind up as Medieval or Modern Myceneans.
*There are 'bonuses' associated with each Affinity which 'carry over' to subsequent Eras and apparently can be applied even when you are playing a different Affinity later - so your Militaristic Modern Faction can still get an Ancient Aesthete bonus of some kind.
*I don't know if that 'carry over' applies to Emblematics. That is, can I keep building the Assyrian Enblematic Unit or Quarter even when I move on to another Faction in the Classical Era or later? While Emblematic Units will presumably be pretty obsolete after an Era or so, this appears a bit much for Emblematic Quarters - and might lead to Modern Cities composed of nothing but Emblematic Quarters from all your previous Factions!

Relative to Emblematic Quarters/Units, we don't, as far as I know, know anything about Promotions or Upgrades for Units - so, is your fantastic Emblematic Unit from the Classical Era going to do you any good by the Early Modern? Is there any mechanism for Upgrading a previous Era's units to better ones? (One presumes so, but what happens to all the special attributes of Emblematic Units?)

My tentative conclusion so far is that in most games and most situations, playing a series of Factions from the same culture (like China or England/Britain) will be much less important than playing the Affinity most useful in the game situation you face. So, I might start Ancient Era as Myceneans, but instead of playing Greeks in Classical Era, if when my time comes to choose I've got half my cities/regions/territories on the coast, playing a 'naval' Faction like Carthage would be a better choice, or if my nearest neighbors are all Militaristic Factions, finding a Faction with a really good Emblematic military unit or Emblematic Fortress Quarter might be my major priority, regardless of any semi-historical 'progression'!

 

[FinalDoomsday]

I believe emblematic quarters are no longer buildable once you transition but any pre-existing ones will continue to provide their full benefit. So you might have to decide between transitioning to ensure you get the next culture you want or waiting a bit longer and building more EQ's.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

Agreed, they need to give us some more details on the Era/Faction Progression, because it is so far the most innovative and Different aspect of the game design. As far as I can tell:
*it is first come, first choice of Factions, so you may or may not get precisely what you want in any game.
*it is one Faction each per Era, so no matter how many great sites or situations there are for Huns, only one Hun can play.
*You can choose to keep the Faction from the previous Era - and apparently, keep that Faction for several Eras, so you can wind up as Medieval or Modern Myceneans.
*There are 'bonuses' associated with each Affinity which 'carry over' to subsequent Eras and apparently can be applied even when you are playing a different Affinity later - so your Militaristic Modern Faction can still get an Ancient Aesthete bonus of some kind.
*I don't know if that 'carry over' applies to Emblematics. That is, can I keep building the Assyrian Enblematic Unit or Quarter even when I move on to another Faction in the Classical Era or later? While Emblematic Units will presumably be pretty obsolete after an Era or so, this appears a bit much for Emblematic Quarters - and might lead to Modern Cities composed of nothing but Emblematic Quarters from all your previous Factions!

Relative to Emblematic Quarters/Units, we don't, as far as I know, know anything about Promotions or Upgrades for Units - so, is your fantastic Emblematic Unit from the Classical Era going to do you any good by the Early Modern? Is there any mechanism for Upgrading a previous Era's units to better ones? (One presumes so, but what happens to all the special attributes of Emblematic Units?)

My tentative conclusion so far is that in most games and most situations, playing a series of Factions from the same culture (like China or England/Britain) will be much less important than playing the Affinity most useful in the game situation you face. So, I might start Ancient Era as Myceneans, but instead of playing Greeks in Classical Era, if when my time comes to choose I've got half my cities/regions/territories on the coast, playing a 'naval' Faction like Carthage would be a better choice, or if my nearest neighbors are all Militaristic Factions, finding a Faction with a really good Emblematic military unit or Emblematic Fortress Quarter might be my major priority, regardless of any semi-historical 'progression'!

Let me add some clarifications and additional information:

• As mentioned before, you can enter the new era as soon as you gain your 7th Era Star, but you don't have to. This is independent of your research and technologies.
• As you correctly say, it's "First come, first pick" and every Culture can be present only once, so delaying carries the risk of limiting your choices.
• You can indeed keep any Culture all the way into the modern era. Each time you do, you'll gain a modifier that increases your future fame gains.
• The bonuses you keep, called Legacy Traits, are not associated to the affinities, but the individual Cultures. You will retain the "Ancient Zhou" or "Ancient Olmec" bonus, not a shared "Ancient Aesthete" bonus.
• The affinities come with a core ability (most of them actively used), as well as some passive bonuses, but both are lost if you adopt a Culture of a different affinity.
• When changing Cultures, you immediately lose the ability to build the previous Emblematic Quarters, but the ones you did built will still provide their effects.
• As far as I recall, you retain the ability to build your old Emblematic Unit until you unlock an upgraded unit for them. Upgrading the units will lose their previous special attributes, and how long you might get use out of them of course depends on the specific unit.
• Yes, you could probably build nothing but Emblematic Quarters in your cities, but that is probably Not A Good Idea.