HUMANKIND - Amplitude's historical turn-based strategy

[Ontopoly]

The title sounds awkward, should have gone with Mankind

Peoplekind.

 

[Doktor Best]

Pikemen versus Laserguns

 

[barker_s]

Edit: one more

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Fame is the key to victory in Humankind. Traditionally 4X strategy games have been won through military conquest, cultural growth, and scientific discovery among others.

But in Humankind all these historical deeds earn players Era Stars, allowing your culture to develop and grow. Fame will be awarded for every great deed a player accomplishes, culminating in a singular victory condition.

Humankind is releasing in 2021, although we do not have an exact release date yet. Until then we will be sure to bring you any news on the development of Amplitude Studios' next entry into the 4X genre.

all fine and dandy, but only if with some point of no return amount of turns approaching the ai decides it's time to eradicate your history and cancel it isis-style, with urban guerrilla, media control and monuments defacing.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[TemplarGR]

So, essentially a Civilization mod for Endless Legend. Seems interesting, if it has a Linux port i might get it.

 

[RuySan]

Please please don't be shit. I'm so hyped for this.

Endless Legend only had two problems. The game had no escalation, and we would be using the same troops in the beginning and endgame (but with different gear). I assume that won't be the case with Humankind. And there was a pacing problem with units. They took too long to build and took ages to cross the map.

ES2 fixed the escalation problem, but there were way too many similar system improvements that by the end of the game we would spend most time managing building queues.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

we would be using the same troops in the beginning and endgame (but with different gear)

excuse me, but alpha centauri did the same.

 

[Xamenos]

we would be using the same troops in the beginning and endgame (but with different gear)

excuse me, but alpha centauri did the same.

Looks like someone forgot Needlejets, Hovertanks and Gravships were a thing.

 

[Citizen]

Looks like someone forgot Needlejets, Hovertanks and Gravships were a thing.

EL also has expensive lategame units (guardians) that are only discovered few technological eras after your main roster does

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

give up, he's not going to listen to reason and face reality.

 

[RuySan]

EL also has expensive lategame units (guardians) that are only discovered few technological eras after your main roster does

There are also new units to research through tech, but I always felt that was a waste of research since the basic units with newer weapons and armor is more than enough.

 

[Xamenos]

give up, he's not going to listen to reason and face reality.

The reality that you're "using the same troops in the beginning and endgame" of Alpha Centauri? That "reality"?

 

[Edija]

I took a better look at this now, it's what you would expect from Amplitude, absolutely gorgeous presentation, mechanics seem interesting, "faction" differences. If they don't mess up the AI and oversimplify the game it should be pretty fun.

 

[Space Satan]

I could station simple laser infantry in Alpha Centauri with order bonuses or as a midworm-repellants because morale is what matters in psi-combat. But I cannot win with old units only. Keeping old units viable is a great feature but investments should be made, like Starcraft marines and zerglings - they are great from start to late game. That is still better than constantly replacing units with new ones.

 

[Arnust]

In endless legend (and Space 2) the base is the same, but especially with Strategic Resource equipment, that's where you can make a massive difference in specs. Mobility + Axe with Glassteel armor to say your Dawn Officers can make them excellent punish for archer spam, or they can go shield/spear with Titanium Armor to counter people doing that to you. Minor faction units and special ones (like Scyther robots), on top of the later Urkans seem to be more than enough.

As of Humankind, combat *has* been pretty de-emphasized in the promo material thus far so I do suspect it's taking sort of a backseat, which is all fine by me.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Hellraiser]

My experience with sliders to abstract ideologies is that it results in a simplistic differences between both spectrums of a purely numerical nature (-100 x +40 y for going more left or right) as designers fail to introduce more complex interactions and consequences between the various axes.

Alpha Centauri's social engineering table kind of got around it by making the social engineering ratings interconnected, and thus the cost or penalty for going one way or the other was not purely linear and very situational. That is actually the genius of its design that Firaxis and other fails to recreate. The cost vs benefit relationship for it was not linear as you had multiple ways of getting more industry or unit support, factoring in not just he straight forward penalty on switching to say "wealth" (-2 morale), but also what you lost by switching out of the other choice and what you gained by not suffering the penalties of the other choice. Obviously SMAC did have balance issues with social engineering, but the decision-making process it forced was in theory unrivalled. And of course the AI is dumb and doesn't use a lot of the tools that the player can, which means it never forces you to really go for the "most optimal for current situation" pick. Multiplayer against capable or devious human opponents is different and there the social engineering table's complexity can shine.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Hellraiser]

Customizable religious perks were one of the better things about CiV with expansions.

That video reminded me I haven't followed the cultures they revealed enough to see which ones will be in. Besides the unexpected but rather welcome inclusion of Teutonic Knights as a medieval culture you can also pick Poland in the early modern era. Technically since they are in two different eras you could go Teutonic Knights and then add Polish culture in the early modern era.

I just wonder if combat will be the same shit as in Endless Legends or improved. Combat in Endless 4X games is horrible.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Customizable religious perks were one of the better things about CiV with expansions.

holy (indeed) crap no. either you founded first/second or the best were already gone and your religion was going to be only a burden on yourself.

 

[Xamenos]

Customizable religious perks were one of the better things about CiV with expansions.

holy (indeed) crap no. either you founded first/second or the best were already gone and your religion was going to be only a burden on yourself.

Only in MP. The AI was frigging terrible at picking the actually good stuff and you could get a good religion going even if you were last.

That said, yeah, Civs 5 and 6 don't give a rat's ass about balance.

 

[coldcrow]

I just wonder if combat will be the same shit as in Endless Legends or improved. Combat in Endless 4X games is horrible.

Pretty sure Amplitude will roll with a Civ/General-type combat this time. Why alienate a huge portion of potential customers. Even if they are anal about art and being different/french, by now they should realize that the actual result of their vision for combat leaves alot to be desired. If they are so adamant about taking control away from the player, they should at least add an option to manually control everything.

 

[covr]

As far as I know, the combat is just evolved version of what we saw in EL. It seems to be more strategic, terrain is now much more important, and generally the scale is bigger. There's some combat-oriented scenario to play with the open dev version of Humankind

 

[Infinitron]

Humankind wins best strategy game at Gamescom 2020: