Your biggest fears regarding Humankind

[FinalDoomsday]

Well that is one of factors I have failed my first campaign then, the fact that I forgot there is such thing as empire plan because I was playing attention to 20 different mechanics and haven't used it a single time

Yes Empire plan was one of those things I pretty much ignored just spending influence on it when I had it. Once I started setting all my cities population to generate influence a couple of turns before the next empire plan came in place and timing my expansions so they were just after the last plan and so din't hike up the cost it made a difference but for quite a while I was just in generic 4x mode.

I certainly hope theres no UN type thing in Humankind I've felt Civ seems to put too much focus on that when I feel like Alliances and Coalitions are more important to politics between states and have more chances to generate interesting gameplay experiences. How many times have we had some attempt at the UN/World Congress and never had things that could represent Nato, Warsaw Pact or Axis and Allies?

 

[Gwydden]

Endless Legend is my favorite 4X and I have far more hours in Crusader Kings 2 than any other game. I cannot say I relate with having trouble learning the mechanics in either case. To be fair, I did not get all the expansions simultaneously, which strikes me as pure madness. I thought EL's tutorial was adequate and had an easy time of it from then onward. CIV6 seems a much more complicated game to me, to be honest. For CK2, I had watched a tutorial let's play on YouTube, which also convinced me to get the game in the first place. I never bothered with the in-game tutorial and, other than occasionally looking something up in the wiki, I did fine for myself. To this day, I still haven't bothered to figure out the intricacies of the combat; it is entirely unnecessary and one of the least interesting parts of the game. I'm still able to pull off some nifty tricks knowing nothing but the basics.

I started worrying about this kind of stuff when I tried to get my brother into these games. He seemed to pick up EL quickly and liked it at first, but for some reason he did worse in every successive playthrough. Hasn't wanted to play it in a long while. My attempt to get him to play CK2 was an abject failure. Even after I bulldozed over his knee-jerk reaction to the graphics (because the game was free, you see), I soon realized there was no elegant way to explain how vanilla CK2 plus a dozen expansions worked in a matter of minutes, and found myself wishing for a better tutorial for his sake. I'm really excited that CK3 will have an in-game encyclopedia, like CIV's had for ages. I can ignore a bad tutorial because I've never minded learning games I'm invested in on my own, but having to tab out or reach for the phone to check this or that minor detail does become grating.

Actually, that's the big thing I'm hoping for in Humankind in this regard: an in-game encyclopedia, with all gameplay information neatly laid out and explained. I remember manuals fondly, but in this day and age you shouldn't need a separate application to get essential information on how a complex game works.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

I certainly hope theres no UN type thing in Humankind I've felt Civ seems to put too much focus on that when I feel like Alliances and Coalitions are more important to politics between states and have more chances to generate interesting gameplay experiences. How many times have we had some attempt at the UN/World Congress and never had things that could represent Nato, Warsaw Pact or Axis and Allies?

I'm personally of the hope that it's a both/and approach to diplomacy. I want a United Nations mechanically similar to that of Civilization V, albeit perhaps with some types of resolutions that are non-binding, but which confer diplomatic penalties for violating them. At the same time, organizations like NATO and the Warsaw Pact would allow for grand, ideological alliances that are internally cooperative and externally combative against a common threat, which presents a potentially more interesting gameplay system. Combining the two ideas, having an alliance of capitalist democracies oppose an axis of communist dictatorships for control of the United Nations through diplomacy, espionage, and proxy wars would be the best of both worlds.

 

[Krajzen]

I certainly hope theres no UN type thing in Humankind I've felt Civ seems to put too much focus on that when I feel like Alliances and Coalitions are more important to politics between states and have more chances to generate interesting gameplay experiences. How many times have we had some attempt at the UN/World Congress and never had things that could represent Nato, Warsaw Pact or Axis and Allies?

It is beyond my mind how last two civ games have UN-like mechanic (overcomplicated abomination in civ6) but no simple, basic, regular, often happening constant of human history "let's just ally ally each other to support each other in both offensive and defensive wars". That's it. That's the entire concept. Basic, simple and universally human thing, and generates entire layers of depth. Bonus points if alliances may turn into blocs of more than 2 countries - all the time, not just in the endgame, see for example mamy Greek wars, such as the collapse of Antigonus, taken down by the coalition od three other heirs of Alexander the Great.

Civ6 has a ton of overcomplicated, board gamey, arcadey, abstract diplomatic mechanics, utterly disconnected from both intuition and immersion. We get medieval UN which works like slot machine and creates the philosophical paradox of voting contest between parties who don't know about each others existence (what drugs do you need to take to even think of such game mechanic - and then actually implement it). We get emergencies which I can't even explain out of context lol, basically I am suddenly nuked with thousands of gold im exchange for some arbitrary condition. We get like five separate types of "alliance", each with different metters and buckets to fill with points and arbitrary bonuses out of thin air. All this enormous "diplomatic" mess and I still cant see the simplest, most basic concept to happen as a rule of a universe in this game: "Few small frustrated guys conspire to beat one scary big guy together and actually do that". That's it. That's everything I want. No another 50 types of currencies and game systems I have to learn from wikis and lets plays.


Fortunately HK seems to move in the direction of mechanics more grounded in reality and grasped by mind of human beings. But, returning to the core of a topic, I do hope it has some proper in game tutorials to learn them without studying wikis, forums and YouTube lets plays.

Oh and by the way, it really irritated me when some Paradox game has really counterintitive, overcomplicated mechanic and fan's answer is for me to watch lets plays of some youtubers. As if I had nothing better to do rather than sitting for hours watching other people playing the game because it doesn't explain its own rules. There is the difference between hours of entertaining "learning" the game via deliberate design of exploration, experimentation and slowly mastering your skills, and literal studying the game's fundamentals like that college course you didn't attend lectures for and have to scramble some chaotic notes of someone else to try passing an exam.

 

[Gwydden]

Oh and by the way, it really irritated me when some Paradox game has really counterintitive, overcomplicated mechanic and fan's answer is for me to watch lets plays of some youtubers. As if I had nothing better to do rather than sitting for hours watching other people playing the game because it doesn't explain its own rules. There is the difference between hours of entertaining "learning" the game via deliberate design of exploration, experimentation and slowly mastering your skills, and literal studying the game's fundamentals like that college course you didn't attend lectures for and have to scramble some chaotic notes of someone else to try passing an exam.

I don't know if you were addressing me specifically, but to be clear I was not suggesting that it's fine not to have tutorials because of let's plays. It works for me; I cannot afford that many games and so I make it a point to research the ones that interest me as much as I can before committing. I know that "just sit down and watch x hours of someone else playing" is not even remotely reasonable, and there's really no excuse for not having a proper tutorial and keeping it up to date. Better tutorials means more people can get into the game. Everyone wins that way.

Though, I would also push back against something you mentioned. A tutorial shouldn't just teach you to move units and construct buildings, but it certainly should do those things. Gaming literacy is a very real thing, and unless you want to keep anyone from getting into the genre, or the hobby altogether, it's worth it to put up with yet another game teaching you how to move the camera. I got into gaming with RTS and city-builders when I was about five; I loved them but absolutely sucked at them until my teens, when I was gifted a physical copy of Warcraft 3 and could finally get my hands on a manual. Every time someone says they don't play video games because "they're not good at them" (a common excuse) my heart breaks a little.

 

[j51]

It is beyond my mind how last two civ games have UN-like mechanic (overcomplicated abomination in civ6) but no simple, basic, regular, often happening constant of human history "let's just ally ally each other to support each other in both offensive and defensive wars". That's it. That's the entire concept. Basic, simple and universally human thing, and generates entire layers of depth. Bonus points if alliances may turn into blocs of more than 2 countries - all the time, not just in the endgame, see for example mamy Greek wars, such as the collapse of Antigonus, taken down by the coalition od three other heirs of Alexander the Great.

Civ6 has a ton of overcomplicated, board gamey, arcadey, abstract diplomatic mechanics, utterly disconnected from both intuition and immersion. We get medieval UN which works like slot machine and creates the philosophical paradox of voting contest between parties who don't know about each others existence (what drugs do you need to take to even think of such game mechanic - and then actually implement it). We get emergencies which I can't even explain out of context lol, basically I am suddenly nuked with thousands of gold im exchange for some arbitrary condition. We get like five separate types of "alliance", each with different metters and buckets to fill with points and arbitrary bonuses out of thin air. All this enormous "diplomatic" mess and I still cant see the simplest, most basic concept to happen as a rule of a universe in this game: "Few small frustrated guys conspire to beat one scary big guy together and actually do that". That's it. That's everything I want. No another 50 types of currencies and game systems I have to learn from wikis and lets plays.


Fortunately HK seems to move in the direction of mechanics more grounded in reality and grasped by mind of human beings. But, returning to the core of a topic, I do hope it has some proper in game tutorials to learn them without studying wikis, forums and YouTube lets plays.

Oh and by the way, it really irritated me when some Paradox game has really counterintitive, overcomplicated mechanic and fan's answer is for me to watch lets plays of some youtubers. As if I had nothing better to do rather than sitting for hours watching other people playing the game because it doesn't explain its own rules. There is the difference between hours of entertaining "learning" the game via deliberate design of exploration, experimentation and slowly mastering your skills, and literal studying the game's fundamentals like that college course you didn't attend lectures for and have to scramble some chaotic notes of someone else to try passing an exam.

This is 100%. The board-gamey mechanics that are too abstracted from their historical inspirations in Civ 6 have made the game soooo tedious to play. I hope, and it looks promising, that Humankind is steering away from this.

 

[Krajzen]

I don't know if you were addressing me specifically, but to be clear I was not suggesting that it's fine not to have tutorials because of let's plays. It works for me; I cannot afford that many games and so I make it a point to research the ones that interest me as much as I can before committing. I know that "just sit down and watch x hours of someone else playing" is not even remotely reasonable, and there's really no excuse for not having a proper tutorial and keeping it up to date. Better tutorials means more people can get into the game. Everyone wins that way.

Though, I would also push back against something you mentioned. A tutorial shouldn't just teach you to move units and construct buildings, but it certainly should do those things. Gaming literacy is a very real thing, and unless you want to keep anyone from getting into the genre, or the hobby altogether, it's worth it to put up with yet another game teaching you how to move the camera. I got into gaming with RTS and city-builders when I was about five; I loved them but absolutely sucked at them until my teens, when I was gifted a physical copy of Warcraft 3 and could finally get my hands on a manual. Every time someone says they don't play video games because "they're not good at them" (a common excuse) my heart breaks a little.

No, this rant wasn't passively-agressively directed to you, that would be somewhat pathetic
I miss the era of paper manuals.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

(long post about the necessity of good onboarding)

I'm not going to dispute anything you said here.
In general, I think onboarding has been one of Amplitude's weak spots. Case in point, I've been regularly rambling about the need for a proper in-game wiki since the Early Access of Endless Space 1.
I know the team is keen to improve this aspect, but unfortunately I haven't seen the results of those efforts yet, so I can't share any impression of the onboarding.

One of the main problems here is that the interface lies to you all the time when it comes to the trade system (for example what you gain from protecting trade). This is also a fear that I have for HK: civ VI and EU4 often lie to the player when numbers are concerned for reasons that are beyond me. I do not know if EL suffers the same problem, I did not recognize it if it does. Hopefully, HK can stay interesting without this "feature."

I'll freely admit I know of one case where Endless Legend "lies" to you, but this is not by deliberate design but a flaw in the prediction: The "hit chances" displayed at the bottom of the screen when issuing combat orders are not always accurate (which is in part due to them being influenced by factors that only occur during execution, e.g. a charge being longer or shorter than anticipated because the original target hex is now occupied.)
So there's no intentional obfuscation of information, but there is sometimes insufficient UI.
By my guess, the same is true for a lot of the "lies" in the other games.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

. . . I'll freely admit I know of one case where Endless Legend "lies" to you, but this is not by deliberate design but a flaw in the prediction: The "hit chances" displayed at the bottom of the screen when issuing combat orders are not always accurate (which is in part due to them being influenced by factors that only occur during execution, e.g. a charge being longer or shorter than anticipated because the original target hex is now occupied.)
So there's no intentional obfuscation of information, but there is sometimes insufficient UI.
By my guess, the same is true for a lot of the "lies" in the other games.

I'm not at all bothered by mis-information or lack of information up to a point. To quote what might be called a Definitive Source, the German Army's Troop Leadership Manual (HL-100) from just before World War Two starts off with the following:

"War is the province of uncertainty . . ."

So Uncertainty, whatever its Source, is not necessarily a Bad Thing in a Historical (or 'pseudo-historical') Game.

 

[Guandao]

Civ6 has a ton of overcomplicated, board gamey, arcadey, abstract diplomatic mechanics, utterly disconnected from both intuition and immersion.

Considering Ed Beach got his start in board games.....it makes a lot of sense though.

 

[Krajzen]

Considering Ed Beach got his start in board games.....it makes a lot of sense though.

Yeah, I know that and I see massive correlations. In general I have mixed feelings to current civ team. Ed Beach is superhuman who saved civ5 back when it turned out Shafer's initial vision was "problematic" (I mean, civ5 1.0 was incredible chaos ) and manage to salvage the game from dumpster fire to something brilliant, through G&K and BNW. So I do respect that greatly. I am just critical of the direction game took in the next iteration, which really doesn't fit my taste on many, many levels (arcade, cartoonish, board game feel both in mechanics and presentation, disconnected from history and realism; stagnation in many design problems unsolved since civ5 transition to hexagonal 1UPT; and so on). I just disagree with their... Artistic visions.

 

[j51]

Considering Ed Beach got his start in board games.....it makes a lot of sense though.

Yeah, I know that and I see massive correlations. In general I have mixed feelings to current civ team. Ed Beach is superhuman who saved civ5 back when it turned out Shafer's initial vision was "problematic" (I mean, civ5 1.0 was incredible chaos ) and manage to salvage the game from dumpster fire to something brilliant, through G&K and BNW. So I do respect that greatly. I am just critical of the direction game took in the next iteration, which really doesn't fit my taste on many, many levels (arcade, cartoonish, board game feel both in mechanics and presentation, disconnected from history and realism; stagnation in many design problems unsolved since civ5 transition to hexagonal 1UPT; and so on). I just disagree with their... Artistic visions.

Yeah he did a really great job saving Civ 5 and there are some neat ideas in 6, but man he needs someone to whisper in his ear "video games and board games are different media" every couple of days. That, or read some McLuhan.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yeah he did a really great job saving Civ 5 and there are some neat ideas in 6, but man he needs someone to whisper in his ear "video games and board games are different media" every couple of days. That, or read some McLuhan.

It's easy to get so wrapped up in the details that you forget what is Possible in a new or different medium. That's why having a whole new 'Take' on Terrain and Leader Graphics and City-Building coming at you from a new source like Humankind is really good for Civ . . .

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

I've got to totally disagree with the general sentiment expressed above. I would say Ed Boon built upon Civilization V through the expansions, but he in no way saved it, mainly because it didn't need saving. The move from tiles to hexes and one unite per hex were the two most revolutionary changes in the history of the franchise, and unqualified improvements at that. As cool as corporations and other long lost mechanics from Beyond the Sword were, vanilla Civilization V right out of the box was already was better than Civilization IV with all of its expansions.

Moreover, I don't think Ed Boon's board game approach is entirely to Civilization VI's detriment. That's not to say the systems are perfect. Governors are a micromanagement hassle and the World Congress is a way worse implementation than in previous installments, but overall the game systems are at a satisfying balance between simulation and abstraction, making it easy to learn and intuitive to understand. I find the Paradox games lean far to heavily towards simulation, and while I hope Humankind is slightly more of a sim than Civilization, hopefully that difference is very slight indeed.

 

[Elhoim]

I've got to totally disagree with the general sentiment expressed above. I would say Ed Boon built upon Civilization V through the expansions, but he in no way saved it, mainly because it didn't need saving. The move from tiles to hexes and one unite per hex were the two most revolutionary changes in the history of the franchise, and unqualified improvements at that. As cool as corporations and other long lost mechanics from Beyond the Sword were, vanilla Civilization V right out of the box was already was better than Civilization IV with all of its expansions.

Moreover, I don't think Ed Boon's board game approach is entirely to Civilization VI's detriment. That's not to say the systems are perfect. Governors are a micromanagement hassle and the World Congress is a way worse implementation than in previous installments, but overall the game systems are at a satisfying balance between simulation and abstraction, making it easy to learn and intuitive to understand. I find the Paradox games lean far to heavily towards simulation, and while I hope Humankind is slightly more of a sim than Civilization, hopefully that difference is very slight indeed.

Yeah, I love how he implemented fatalities and such

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

For some bizarre reason I feel compelled to pop in and defend "board-gamey" from the negative connotation it's being given here.

Good board game rules are intuitive, simple mechanics. They can't rely on a super-powered computer to make them work, they need to be something a group of (potentially partially-to-almost-fully drunk) humans can handle in a social setting while everyone has fun. They also need to fit together well so that all the mechanics play nice with each other, and with as much consistency as possible from one-to-another so that the learning curve is minimized. A good board game presents the player with only meaningful decisions, and makes the weight of those decisions as consistent as possible over the length of the game, so that each turn in the game is of roughly equal importance to the outcome.

Also, to the discussion about keeping old computer game manuals, I read game rulebooks for fun. I may have issues!

 

[Krajzen]

For some bizarre reason I feel compelled to pop in and defend "board-gamey" from the negative connotation it's being given here.

Good board game rules are intuitive, simple mechanics.

Like what, like world congress in civ6?




I like board games very much, they are just very symbolic, disconnected from reality and have "party fun" vibe, all of which are not vibes I want to get from the majestic epic about the history of mankind. They have also completely different notions of "difficulty" and "immersion" (?). There is for me a disconnect between serious, majestic trailers, music, traditions and taglines of civ series (can you stand the test of time?) and its civ6 incarnations with cartoony shamans shooting lightings at each other, card-like instant effects with no connection to historical theme beyond randomly assigned name, the game no longer even bothering to try to portray enything in the simplified but educating manner, and as for the "standing test of time", well, do whatever you want because difficulty is very low.

At some point the game just stopped cared about gravitas and any pretext and now is a saturday cartoon for reddit teenagers, with empire - conquering rock bands, laser robots, Settlers of Catan economic system utterly disconnected from any sort of real world (all world's best universities are in mountains), Roman air conditioning and laughing from irrational mysticism tech quotes, lack of crabs being main source of human suffering in history, characters being Pixar movie-like caricatures of themselves, international politics being based around "me angry viking like many ships", tourism being strategic resource empires fight for, tornados being imperial scale events and blizzards making snow more productive etc. A whole mountain of dizzying, colourful stupidity.

I know the game built on such premise (well lets generate countless alternate worlds and throw varous elements from 5000 years od real history in them to see how Rome would fight China) cannot be a simulatio, but I still dislike the change of feel brought by civ6.

Maybe I am also impressed how paradox games to certain extent enhance your knowledge of history (or make you empathise with incredibly different modes of human life) and wished civ did this more, instead of this popcultural wacky cartoonish show (rock bands and death robots...)

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Like what, like world congress in civ6?




I like board games very much, they are just very symbolic, disconnected from reality and have "party fun" vibe, all of which are not vibes I want to get from the majestic epic about the history of mankind. They have also completely different notions of "difficulty" and "immersion" (?). There is for me a disconnect between serious, majestic trailers, music, traditions and taglines of civ series (can you stand the test of time?) and its civ6 incarnations with cartoony shamans shooting lightings at each other, card-like instant effects with no connection to historical theme beyond randomly assigned name, the game no longer even bothering to try to portray enything in the simplified but educating manner, and as for the "standing test of time", well, do whatever you want because difficulty is very low and we can't even have true random events or negative effects to scare off the player.

I agree with you for the most part, though I don't see board games as inherently more symbolic or disconnected from reality than computer games. Then again, I've played more than my fair share of board games with 100-plus page rulebooks (only a few of which I'd describe as being a good board game). Computer games have the advantage of being able to crunch a lot of numbers quickly, but at their heart most (all?) games are a combination of immersion-fun and a challenge posed by the allocation of scarce resources, usually with a dash or two of uncertainty thrown in. Too much focus on the simulation can kill the gameplay; too much focus on streamlined gameplay can kill the simulation; your mileage will vary from mine on where any particular game fits on that spectrum.

I don't question your concerns about some Civ 6 mechanics, simply your characterization of the root cause of the problem. In my opinion, those mechanics are just bad game mechanics, and they'd make for a bad board game every bit as much as a bad computer game.

Now I need to figure out why I've somehow turned into an advocate for the board game publishers association ...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Like what, like world congress in civ6?




I like board games very much, they are just very symbolic, disconnected from reality and have "party fun" vibe, all of which are not vibes I want to get from the majestic epic about the history of mankind. They have also completely different notions of "difficulty" and "immersion" (?). There is for me a disconnect between serious, majestic trailers, music, traditions and taglines of civ series (can you stand the test of time?) and its civ6 incarnations with cartoony shamans shooting lightings at each other, card-like instant effects with no connection to historical theme beyond randomly assigned name, the game no longer even bothering to try to portray enything in the simplified but educating manner, and as for the "standing test of time", well, do whatever you want because difficulty is very low.

I agree fully with your characterization of Civ VI, but, respectfully, you've been playing the wrong board games. I started gaming in my teens with the old Avalon-Hill and later Simulations Publications board games, and for hours of gaming intensity and entertainment, AH's old Waterloo or Afrika Korps games rival Civ VI or Civ V any day. And SPI's game of the Franco-Prussian War was and is one of the most elegantly simple but fiendishly intense recreations of a strategic military campaign ever done in any medium.

At some point the game just stopped cared about gravitas and any pretext and now is a saturday cartoon for reddit teenagers, with empire - conquering rock bands, laser robots, Settlers of Catan economic system utterly disconnected from any sort of real world (all world's best universities are in mountains), Roman air conditioning and laughing from irrational mysticism tech quotes, lack of crabs being main source of human suffering in history, characters being Pixar movie-like caricatures of themselves, international politics being based around "me angry viking like many ships", tourism being strategic resource empires fight for, tornados being imperial scale events and blizzards making snow more productive etc. A whole mountain of dizzying, colourful stupidity.

In fairness, among all the colossally cretinous systems and mechanisms in Civ VI, a "mountain of dizzying, colourful stupidity" is not a bad description of the real Human History the game is mangling.

I know the game built on such premise (well lets generate countless alternate worlds and throw varous elements from 5000 years od real history in them to see how Rome would fight China) cannot be a simulatio, but I still dislike the change of feel brought by civ6.

Maybe I am also impressed how paradox games to certain extent enhance your knowledge of history (or make you empathise with incredibly different modes of human life) and wished civ did this more, instead of this popcultural wacky cartoonish show (rock bands and death robots...)

My only additional comment, besides 'Amen!' would be that Civ VI feels to me like a game that the designers have stopped taking seriously as a game. It has become an eclectic mass of trivia dripped over a core game with all the gravitas of a Road Runner/Wiley Coyote Bloopers Reel, but not as well-written or as well drawn.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

Yeah, I love how he implemented fatalities and such

Oops, I meant to say "Ed Beach." But now I do want Fatalities added into Civilization. Gandhi's would obviously involve riding a nuclear bomb Strangelove-style onto his opponent