Humankind: Someone Else's Civilization V

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Humankind: Someone Else's Civilization V

«‹›3 »

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Hold onto your ~~horses~~ giant mammoths because Civilization has finally got some competition!

Key things to know:

Humankind is a new 4X game by Amplitude Studios
That’s the same guys that made sci-fi 4X Endless Space and high fantasy 4X Endless Legend
Humankind is their attempt to steal the crown of historical 4X’s from the Civilization series
They say it was their plan all along to eventually make this game – the Endless games were just practice
it's out

Here’s the announcement trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDivjMzbLWg

Some choice screenshots:

There's been a lot of open alpha(?) testing and you can watch a lot of gameplay online. Here's a recent video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAcsHoA96YA

Key features (bear in mind I'm writing this from the perspective of a Civ player, though I have played Endless Legend a couple times):

Terrain elevation and inland cliffs (present in Endless Legend, so only to be expected)
An Endless Legend-style combat system (units are stacked until a battle, where they unstack and engage in 1UPT combat) - I believe the first screenshot above shows a battle in progress, but I have no idea what that red line is
Some sort of civilization-flavouring system that allows you to pick a cultural theme (from 10) for each of the six eras, allowing you to mix-and-match styles. So you might have a civilization with Egyptian and French influences, for instance. (The developer is very keen on you knowing this means one million combinations, even though you could get just as many in Civ through social policy and religion picks. I'm a little sceptical.) Not much detail yet on how meaningful these choices will be, but it's not just aesthetic - they will at least grant you access to unique units.
Resources you’d expect: Food, Industry (what Civ calls production), Money (what Endless Legend calls Dust), and Science. There’s also Influence – a resource from Endless Legend that has diplomatic effects and - I believe - somewhat takes the role that Culture has in Civilization for societal development.
Another resource called Fame. This appears to be your "score", and ending the game with the highest score will win it (there are, I don't think, any other victory conditions). Many things contribute towards Fame, and it's possible to score a big batch of Fame early- or mid-game and then hope that carries the day while everyone else tries to catch up.

Here's the website: https://humankind.game/

Here's a great video on how Fame and cultures work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_ZxFMGN8RA

It's probably around now - not terribly long after releasing the second expansion for Civ 6 - that Firaxis are looking ahead to Civ 7. It will be very interesting to see if this pushes them to try something a little more ambitious with Civ 7 and really shake things up.

For now though, I'm really looking forward to this and I might just have to give Endless Legend a go again.

Microplastics fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Aug 20, 2021

# ¿ Aug 23, 2019 20:27

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 17, 2024 14:27

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Now that you mention it there's a few lines on that screenshot. A second red line in the top right, a dotted red line on the left, and a couple dotted white lines in the top left. I think the solid white line is the battle arena.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2019 20:43

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Just spotted this in one of the screenshots

Is... is that a wonder?

# ¿ Aug 24, 2019 10:37

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

I'm now imagining SMAC in the Endless engine. :swoon:

# ¿ Aug 24, 2019 12:49

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Davincie posted:

ew no, score victory is the worst possible one in every 4x

Yes it is, it's garbage, but I've not seen anything yet to suggest Fame is any more interesting. It's like they just included the score victory but renamed it. I'm hoping there's more to it than that.

Did Endless Legend have something like Fame that might provide a clue? It's been a long while since i played it

# ¿ Aug 24, 2019 12:51

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

The Human Crouton posted:

We can certainly make the case that production equals military strength, but there is so much more to it. Alexander and Napoleon certainly had the means to make weapons and get men to the front, but battlefields were chosen based on the most innocuous of terrain, and by what the opposing army was equipped with.

I'd like to see this tried in a 4X:

- Have four unit types, heavy infantry, light infantry, heavy cavalry, light cavalry - perhaps with a the extra specialist categories of seige equipment and artillery

- Have them oppose each other in a sort of rock-paper-scissors sort of way (i can't remember exactly what's good against what, I'd have to refer to my medieval warfare book)

- Stack everything so you can build an army with some combination of the four combat systems, and battles are stack v. stack, with terrain favouring certain combat systems (e.g flat confers a bonus to heavy calvary)

- Have a "tactics tree" not unlike Civ 5 social policies, unlocked with experience and providing things like e.g. "parthian shot" that confers bonus to light calvary, and get rid of unit promotions altogether (so actually a little more like an empire-wide promotion system)

- Have tech and access to resources confer bonuses to combat systems too

- Add in an RNG to spice it up slightly

...and see what happens. (Admittedly this doesn't address all the problems but i basically started with "military is a number" and made it minimally interesting)

# ¿ Aug 25, 2019 19:42

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Super Jay Mann posted:

You pretty much described Europa Universalis's combat system almost down to a T.

I decided to look that up and yeah, I suppose it is!

God I do hate the graphics in EU though. I think I would be a sucker for Paradox games if only the graphics weren't so awful.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2019 08:10

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Ok, it's clear now that the Fame system is way more than just Score and the way it's described in that article sounds amazing, I can't wait to see it play out - especially in multiplayer. Interesting that it's going to be the only win condition, that's a huge difference to Civ. But i'm absolutely in love with the Fame mechanic as it's been described so far.

I actually really like Civ's varied victory conditions (in 5, anyway) but it's never been easy to balance in a way that ensures the science, culture and diplomatic victories all become viable together in the end game. Usually - for the human player at least - one victory becomes viable way before the others do. Amplitude are gonna dodge that minefield altogether.

e: it reminds me of those "point salad" boardgames where you can collect a bunch of points from some weird mechanic in the middle of the game, add them to your pile and then smugly sit back while everyone else scrambles to keep up

# ¿ Aug 29, 2019 13:20

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

There's a fun mod for Civ 5 that disables the Science, Culture and Diplomatic victories and then re-enables one - only one - at random in the atomic era.

It forces you to be mindful of each victory, invest into all three, and make sure you can pivot when the time comes.

I enjoy it anyway.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2019 14:05

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

HappyCamperGL posted:

I hope thisd I'd less.svhiy than can't v 6

God dammit where were you when I was asking for thread titles

# ¿ Aug 31, 2019 07:57

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

prometheusbound2 posted:

I don't think that a strength in world building is wasted in a historical game. Frankly I found Civ 5 and Civ 6 to be a little sterile compared to previous games in the series (even though they had much better graphics, Civ IV is ugly but feels like a better built "world.")

How so? I don't even think Civ 4 is ugly (it's aged really well imo) but I'm not sure how it's had any better a treatment in world-building than Civ 5.

Civ 5 for instance had introductory quotes for each civilisation at the loading screen, Civ 4 did not - that counts as a bit piece of world-building for me.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2019 08:01

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

We don't know the finer points of how it's going to work yet but if it's the only victory condition then we can probably expect it to be well-balanced.

So hopefully there'll never be a situation where after bagging a load of fame you have to grind the next turn button to see the victory screen. You might always be on your toes.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2019 18:09

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

They did a panel at PAX with some sneak peaks at their event system https://m.twitch.tv/videos/474947055?t=02h00m00s

Not terribly exciting, mind. Here are some slides

# ¿ Sep 21, 2019 08:32

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Avirosb posted:

It's a 4X game that is actually a role-playing game disguised as edutainment software but wait! It is actually a choose-your-own-adventure.

^{*mumbles* but I like city builders}

Developer: YES IT'S THAT TOO

For all their bluster about this civ-choosing mechanic, the game is just gonna be a Civilization knockoff and little more. But it's gonna be a good one, a very good one, I reckon.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2019 14:19

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Oh good catch. I'm subscribed to their YouTube but don't have twitter, didn't know there was anything coming out.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2020 15:06

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my OP is up-to-date, except for the concept of Emblematic Units/Quarters

# ¿ Feb 7, 2020 22:08

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

ate poo poo on live tv posted:

what would fame "do" that makes it a victory?

The way I see it, victory is not about your people still existing and your government still in control, but on the legacy your Civ has left.

It's like instead of "last man standing" it's "life best lived". In real life you might say Rome or Ancient Egypt fits the bill for that even though they're dead and buried.

That's a big cop-out if you like your victories to be crushing domination, but that's how I'm interpreting it and it's an interesting spin on victory that I'd like to see in practice. I really do hope it'll be more interesting than a mere score tally though.

I love the idea of failing and being able to pick up in the same world, though. In Civ you invest so much in a alt-history world but if you get stomped you have to leave it behind. A mechanic that allows you to continue with another civ would be awesome. A long time ago i daydreamed about a mechanic like that; you build up a score through "political stability" (which can apply equally to empires big and small) and if you get conquered, you cash in your score to keep playing with one of the other empires on the map, with your score purchase power being the limiting factor that stops you simply picking the strongest.

Something like that would tie nicely with this

GlyphGryph posted:

See how many wins you can rack up with successive powers in a single game sounds like it could be more fun than traditional endgames.

That's a fantasy of mine though, I'm not expecting anything like that in this game.

Microplastics fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Feb 8, 2020

# ¿ Feb 8, 2020 10:45

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

LonsomeSon posted:

I like the idea of building the victory mechanic around not the literal end of history, but on the nebulous idea that the dominance of your civ is the beginning, or the definitional event, of an era.

How the gently caress they’re going to turn that into a 4x game mechanic? I cannot loving wait to find out, because if they pull something like that off really well, it’s going to be pretty loving awesome.

The simplest way I'd do it would be "who's got the biggest score as the ancient era ends? 1 point for you" then repeat for the end of each successive era - tally at the end.

If the points are based on things that don't actually strengthen you and allow you to snowball points later on - like wonders that don't do anything except add to the score - then that could lead to the interesting decision making you often see in many boardgames where you have to balance early point-scoring against later domination.

Civ doesn't really have that, it's all snowballing all the time over there

# ¿ Feb 8, 2020 10:53

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

I started playing a bit of Endless Legend again and i cannot wait to see them demonstrate combat with non-fantasy units.

I know not everyone's that hot on EL combat but I'm proper well excited for that.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2020 21:42

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

KOGAHAZAN!! posted:

I have a lot of time for unit designers and SMAC's in particular but this is a rad idea. I don't know if it'd make much sense for the genre in general but it would have worked great in SMAC.

Isn't that what Endless Legend does? Different units for different factions. I know you can buy some off the marketplace but they end up with pretty different armies regardless. I assume other 4X's do the same (or maybe they just do different visuals for the same units, I haven't played many to be honest).

Whether it would work for a historical TBS 4X is another matter... probably not I guess. Some unique units is probably about as far as that would get.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2020 20:23

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Anyway it turns out there's been quite a fair bit of content on the twitter I'd missed, so here's some. Mostly just really pretty art, showing off the terrain

and cities

but also some UI / mechanics hints, like this one of Vesuvius. I wonder what the little "moon" icon is in the bottom right corner? I mean I assume that's the next turn button, but what's the moon about, and the other moon+city icon next to it?

And this one showing the technology tracker. What is with that icon next to the faction name? In the screenshot above it's swords, in this one a pick-axe. Empire-wide focus or something?

There's also this video from last week, mostly interviews but does have some game snippets, and some oblique angle shots of their tech tree wireframe (mostly unreadable).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlfUtaxkEKE

Very intrigued by that military outpost there. I suspect that does not behave like a Civ 6 Encampment. In fact I can't even see a city in that huge stretch of territory surrounding that encampment :confused:

# ¿ Feb 15, 2020 20:39

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Popete posted:

Are there going to be ages in this like Civ? Like can you reach modern/future era?

This screenshot (and early descriptions, come to think of it) shows there will be 6 eras

And from the latest video, the first four are Bronze, Classical, Medieval and Renaissance. That leaves two, I'm guessing Industrial and Modern.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2020 09:24

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

I was at the London science museum today for their cipher exhibit and it occurred to me that the way combat works in EL could be ripe for some codebreaking abstraction (i don't mean actual codebreaking, but a simple "player A's codebreaking number is bigger than player B's because A put more money into it")

I say this because in combat you queue up actions, without knowing what your enemy is gonna do, and then it all plays out. Would be cool if you could unveil your enemy's actions like this, and conceal your own. Not sure what kinda difference that would make though, guess you'd have to shake up how combat works a little bit (e.g. artillery fires at where you think the enemy will be, instead of where it is)

Speaking of combat, i wonder how airplanes will work. I'm guessing you can't just do find-replace for flying units in EL because that would look like garbage

# ¿ Feb 16, 2020 15:08

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

New video about the terrain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT2hLlCj5z4

Key points I took from it:
- it pretty
- you can name some features if you're the first to find them
- control of natural wonders/landmarks will be quite important for your economy
- it pretty
- a few more different biomes than what you get in Civ. Taiga and savanna for example
- from one screen that flashed by, it looks like each tile will have only one yield type. Not sure how I feel about that

# ¿ Feb 20, 2020 18:45

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Det_no posted:

Geysers seem to give both industry and science while rivers give industry and food.

Oh! Yeah, you're right, I thought those were separate tiles.

I must say I find the FIDSI overlay in Endless Legend way more difficult to read than the yield overlay in Civ5/6.

Krazyface posted:

That video also indicates that they've got a province system similar to Endless Legend, predefined areas to be settled in. There's a nice clear shot of it around 2:35.

Yeeeeeaah I'm really not a fan of this. The provinces barely make sense and you can end up with some really ribbony ones. It also seems so much more restrictive than Civ's plonk-cities-anywhere approach.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2020 23:29

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Jeza posted:

I think if I want them to change one thing, it would be the happiness system. Probably they won't, but playing the harder AI levels in Endless Space/Legends just feels terrible because the AI expand like viruses and blow through their city/colony cap like 5x over picking every garbage tile/planet in sight, while you have to actually be selective in your approach.

I seem to recall this was a problem in Civ 5 at some point, where AIs had such ridiculous happiness bonuses that they could just spray cities everywhere without a care in the world

# ¿ Feb 25, 2020 16:26

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Aerdan posted:

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1229809102836183042

You know what happens when you Aksum

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 21:56

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

AI seems to work best in games of assymetrical warefare no matter how complex it is. Perhaps because you don't get the same sense of "unfair advantages". I like Invisible Inc and Into the Breach for this reason, the AI isn't great but because they get wildly different units and even different win conditions, it's just fun to play against.

But Civ etc. just aren't that sort of game.

I do think, however, that in a 1UPT situation, the advantage that the AI should get is "stronger units" not "more units". More units just makes them worse at the game because of the nature of 1UPT. Civ 5 Vox Populi works on this (though doesn't totally solve it) by giving AI units shitloads of promotions.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 22:01

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

I certainly hope it's unique abilities instead of some modifiers. Or at least modifiers that change the way you play the game (like Rome's "production bonus for buildings already in the capital") Those were always far more interesting in Civ.

Yeah i guess there's a risk of ending up with 6 unique abilities by the end game. But if you really have to put effort into memorising 6 things over several hours, things that you've been using throughout anyway, then i think the problem is you :colbert:

. And who knows, maybe old unique abilities will obsolete as you progress through the game.

Edit: sorry i misread the above post. Yeah, if they give each civ several unique abilities i will not be best pleased. Remembering all those in Endless Legend was a pain in the rear end.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2020 08:18

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Yeah that sounds amazing. I have to experience that.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2020 18:32

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Finally a video about a game mechanic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDGnigR6uQo

Summary:

Pre-defined territories will exist, like they did in Endless Legend
But they'll be dynamic, not fixed - which appears to mean that you can merge territories
You can claim territories with outposts instead of cities
Outposts can be developed into cities, or merged with neighbouring ones. Dude says this is to promote "fewer, but bigger cities"
Districts come in two flavours, "city centres" that visually update with the times, "emblematic quarters" which retain their visuals throughout
Multiple cities can contribute to building a wonder

Microplastics fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Mar 13, 2020

# ¿ Mar 13, 2020 16:07

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

another video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIpBX2RozJk

(i've decided I hate William Dyce, he looks like he's been on a body-language-for-managers course)

Summary:

Fame is the only victory condition
One way to get Fame is by collecting Era Stars, which appear to be like city-state quests from Civ 5 or Eurekas from Civ 6
Rehashing some poo poo about picking cultures that we already knew
"We spoke to some historians"
Cultures have Emblematic Units that replace the common unit and give a mechanic twist (so basically a unique unit from Civ)
Cultures have Emblematic Quarters can only be built by that culture and grant a power until the end of the game
It's up to you how you leave your mark on humankind..!! (kill me)

Still can't wait to get my hands on this game, but these videos are testing me.

The video did come with an intriguing frame:

# ¿ Apr 3, 2020 21:09

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Cythereal posted:

So yeah, the devs were lying and 'emblematic units' are totally just unique units from Civ.

It's actually hilarious listening to them explain concepts in a way that tries to give the impression they're the first to come up with it, while carefully dancing around the terminology to make sure they don't use a word from the Civ series

# ¿ Apr 3, 2020 21:23

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Finally. Humankind has got a little bit Genghis Khan

https://twitter.com/humankindgame/status/1270392774601433088

# ¿ Jun 9, 2020 18:31

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Is there a general 4X thread because that would be good.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2020 08:50

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Make the dead basic 4x boardgame and post it, maybe someone talented will knock up a computer version

E: I'll make a general 4x thread if there isn't one already, throw me some witty titles

Microplastics fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jun 17, 2020

# ¿ Jun 17, 2020 11:20

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Krazyface posted:

IGN's short gameplay demo went up a day early:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azcnslbGBYc

There's some new stuff in it. We get a good look at a bunch of the dilemmas, and how they feed into the civics system. There's a bunch of ~~SLIDERS~~ that reflect your national ideals and customs. We see a little of how the culture-choosing system actually looks and feels, and a look at the natural wonders.

Oh I like a lot of what I'm seeing there.

I'm still bothered by the Endless series' insistence on using numbers for tile yields. Much prefer Civ's "this tile produces three food, so here are THREE food symbols". And the city screen looks lovely and sleek but I can see those giant icons being a terrible design choice when you have a lot of potential stuff to build. It only shows 8 and then fades out the rest, despite there being plenty of room on the screen. These are details though and it's still in Alpha, so good chance it'll improve.

I'm a bit sad that racing wonders isn't a thing (starting one appears to lock others out of it), but I guess that would be cribbing Civ ideas a little too hard. And I guess it was always weird that everyone else had to rip down their pyramids just because someone else finished a pyramid first.

Shame we didn't see much of battles but I liked pretty much everything I saw there.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 18:01

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Deltasquid posted:

Ideally in a 4x game I still think wars should be abstracted in a way that, rather than having individual units, you have a frontline and you can commit resources like manpower or production every turn to make it shift if you commit more of it than your enemy. With shifting the frontline over a river or across an ocean requiring many more resources committed, and the deeper you go into enemy territory the more costly committing becomes whereas you get bonuses the closer the frontline moves to your capital.

And then when all is said and done you sign a peace treaty where you negotiate who gets to keep what.

It would avoid endless shuffling of troop types around while also simulating the idea that it gets progressively harder to hold territory the further you go beyond your own established frontier. The downside is that people will accuse me of wanting to play a spreadsheet, as if having a spreadsheet simulator for economy and science is somehow acceptable but war needs to be this intricate 4D chess board because reasons.

Although i dislike the idea of war being abstracted this far, this is the best description of how it might work that I've read so far. I'd definitely like to see it attempted in a game.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2020 07:26

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Kassad posted:

Rereading that post, it honestly sounds a lot like the culture and borders system in Civ4. Gain enough ~~culture~~ military points, your borders expand. When next to another civ's borders, you can push it back when you gain more ~~culture~~ military points than the other civ (it's actually more complex than that but I don't remember the details).

Now that you mention it, yeah it does. It sounds like it would be a little more involved though, with an ability to push hard on some tiles and relax on others.

I'm not sure how it would play out in the naval/air arenas though. You can project force pretty far with that, i think you'd still need units of some kind.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2020 10:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 17, 2024 14:27

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Clarste posted:

That said, I'm not sure there's going to be a good reason not to just start with the food culture and always pick the new food culture so that you are the best at food and win a food victory.

They are addressing that, though to what effect I'm unsure.

I can't remember the exact numbers, but you basically get X growth if you're pulling in more than 10 surplus food. You only get Y growth if you pull in more than 50 surplus food. So 40 surplus food is just as good as 15 surplus food when it comes to growth.

Now that has two issues as i see it. First it might not address the problem you describe anyway, you might still have an incentive to stack food cultures. And secondly there will be an intense incentive to micromanage if any of your yields are going to waste. Hopefully the city governor is smart enough to not let waste happen.

There might be another mechanism to prevent what you're describing though. It might be the case that food cultures are generally poorly suited to advancing to further eras (after all, it's not all about science) so by the time you get to the next era there might not be any food cultures left for you to pick. It might be that stacking cultures of the same flavourn turns out to be an awful way to play, and mixing it up is optimal.

Time will tell though

# ¿ Jul 5, 2020 09:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Humankind: Someone Else's Civilization V

«‹›3 »