By the way, art style is extremely similar to 7 Wonders, which is superb boardgame and has this element of forging abstract ancient culture.
I’m very curious to know what this podcast was
To be fair, gamejournalist use “like XCOM” to explain anything remotely tactical to wide audience. Just like open world is like Skyrim and higher difficulty means it’s like Dark Souls.
It is a podcast called the “Fall of Rome”. The author had one episode describing the Roman economy to give a baseline along with another describing the impact of the fall of the empire on the economy of the successor states/kingdoms.
Awesome, thanks! I’ve got a new podcast for my commute.
If you like this kind of stuff, you really need to listen to “Rome” by Mike Duncan, sort of the godfather of history podcasts :)
Once you get really good, you can perhaps predict tactics based on what your opponents have chosen. If they have sea ports unique to a culture that has sea-based bonuses, you can infer that they are, therefore, playing the sea. Even when you take over a city, it keeps its history. Common buildings will be replaced by your civilisation, but emblematic buildings won’t.
“You will be able by looking at the map to identify who built the city and at which time, basically,” said Voleu. Moris added that it’s meant to be like visiting real cities, like how “if you visit the south of France you will still find remains of the Romans,” the same as you do in Bath in the UK. This will, hopefully, make them stand out in the field against well-established heavy hitters like the Sid Meier-shaped elephant in the room, the Civilization series.
Pretty cool.
Amplitude ideas are often very cool. (The ideas in Endless Space 2 were fantastic, and many aspects really should be picked up by other 4X developers.) Execution, however, sometimes falls flat.
Hoping this clicks for me at least as much as Endless Legend. That’s a game I frequently think about going back to, whereas both Endless Space games didn’t do much for me. Granted, I haven’t actually been able to get into a space 4X since the first two MOO games, even though I’ve tried a bunch.
So far I don’t know how far this will really feel like it falls from the Civ tree. People like to talk about how stale the Civ formula is, but so far the things they’ve announced as different for Humankind don’t sound substantially different from what Civ is willing to play with between versions.
I’m hoping this works out, because Civ6 fell so flat for me. The art style is much better at least, less cartoony.
Still, the Endless games have always felt barren of character to me. Yes, the factions were always distinct and cool - but the game and its hooks always felt hollow. I never felt the ‘one more turn’ itch that I crave in a 4x. Hoping this is different.
As someone said earlier, it’s surprising there haven’t been more challengers to Civ since “Call to Power” all those years ago. This one looks very promising. I think each Amplitude game has been better than its predecessor, and I hope that arc continues.
Paradox games are indirect challengers. They give a different view of history but also a different idea of empire building itself. They don’t have that competition aspect to it while still making the world a ruthless place.
Just going to drop this here as well, if no one minds:
I’m definitely optimistic about it - I’ve been following Amplitude since Endless Space 1 and I’ve been playing their games on-and-off - they’re not my ‘go-to’ games but Endless Legend definitely does some neat things in the 4X space.
At the very least, I can’t see this being anything less than a very legit alternative to Civ, even if it doesn’t wholly revolutionise Civ-style games. Hopefully the prospect of real competition with give Firaxis a bit of a kick as well.
I am optimistic too.
Endless Space 2 turned out to be a sandbox that fails to give you a reason to learn mechanics apart from the joy of learning mechanics, but I don’t regret time spent with it.
Very much this. I’ll still buy their games from a tourist point of view since they have so many interesting concepts, but the games are always so much less than the sum of their parts for some reason. Endless Legend was better for me than ES2, so I’m curious to see how this one pans out.
So true.
With EL, amend the sentence so that “mechanics” becomes “racial gimmick,” and you sum up my experience with it.
Not to be that guy but what games would you hold up where the gimmick became a mechanic?
Maybe I wasn’t very clear when I wrote what I wrote.
I’ll try again, paraphrasing and expanding on why I quoted.
Endless Legends turns out to be a sandbox that fails to give you a reason to learn mechanics, specifically racial gimicks/mechanics, apart from the joy of learning mechanics, because once learned there is little to nothing to enjoy about the game, no secret combo or overlooked aspect, as opposed to several other games where repeated playthroughs reveal hidden aspects, and where one can enjoy the game for the game’s sake.
Or put another way, the only fun I had with EL was cracking the code with each race and, once done, the rest of the game was dull for me.
I SIBCERELY hope Humankind turns out differently however, given that ES 2 had many of the same issues, but was more novel for me on account of being space based, one is inclined to ascribe a pattern, or modus operandi here.
No i get it, but can you give an example of a game that does what you want?
Saying that you can’t enjoy EL or ES2 games for the “game’s sake” is a bit opaque to me.
That’s not what you said earlier…
And I never said I wanted anything…
I’m wondering if we’re talking to each other or past each other?