Humankind - a Historical 4X by Amplitude (Endless Space, Legend, etc.)

Games
703

I gave up on this “for now”. There are certain parts of it I really really like especially the early game… but I just don’t feel like its a good use of my time right now…that’s the bottom line. I am not tough on games… I like to play just to play and enjoy seeing what happens (hopefully win of course). As Humankind unfolds I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to think about what’s happening. I think the systems and ideas are good but not well implemented. And it feels like it gets very gamey with the fame score, and the great idea of changing civs feels poorly implemented to me. I am mortal enemies of the Assyrians…then the Romans send me a demand because they changed… and what i get for changing just doesn’t seem exciting or rewarding… it just doesn’t draw me in…

I’ll come back to check on progress because I like the overall idea and intent… so i’m still hopeful and I admire the folks at Amplitude alot. So much that I actually bought it even tho i have gamepass…

back to Old World…
Gonna also try Conquest of Elysium 5 this weekend…

704

Man, I know I shouldn’t care as much, and I lived through the 8-bit era, but sweet, feathery, jesus would it kill Illwinter to produce something that wouldn’t look out of place on an Atari 800XL ?

705

Yeah, I find that usually about the time I have enough influence that I’d want to make a new city, the tech tree offers me the room to do so. But if something like an independent or a conquest gives you a city unexpectedly early, it can be an issue.

You can, however, always ransack your own city, then create an outpost on the spot, keeping any already improved tiles. Then you can attach to an existing city, or wait til you have cap room and create it as a city.

706

How do you load men onto a boat? I have my little scouting party in a hex next to the harbor, which contains a boat. I’ve tried clicking and rt-clicking everywhere but can’t get my guys aboard.

707

the boat counts as 1 unit so make sure you dont exceed stack size

708

I’ll have to check, but that might be it

709

I’ve put about 25hrs into this sucker. Civ was my favorite franchise until Civ6, which I despised.

This game is marginally better than Civ6 for me. There are some really interesting design decisions that freshen up the experience.

The nomadic period is a great idea to provide something besides ‘settle in place’. You also get a good early decision to split up your party or keep together to hunt.

Claiming wonders is fun and a good way to make them feel important and also prevent wonder overload. It felt really great to build the Hanging Gardens.

Combat isn’t perfect, but I like the mini tactical screen. The AI is really stupid, but it can keep things interesting with the tactical battles.

The culture changes turned me off initially, because I would plan around a building, and then it was gone… But now I’m really digging it as it keeps a lot of flavor in the game.

The overall art direction appeals to me. I prefer a more realistic look and hated where Civ6 went. The UI, on the other hand, isn’t good.

I’m still trying to figure out the nuances, but I’m digging it. It has plenty of rough spots, but the right framework and I’m excited to see where it goes.

710

You don’t. You walk them onto the water and they embark onto ships, if you have the tech.

711

I played this all day, and I have enjoyed it a lot. I like it a lot better than the earlier build I tested many months ago. It’s not perfect, but it’s a nice mix of old and new ideas.

I really enjoyed the nomadic start, which has a more natural feel than just deciding whether to start your first city here or one hex over. I especially like the star system for advancement. Fame rewards deteriorate as time goes by, so there’s a certain sense of urgency. And the core mechanic of mixing cultures is neat – though so far I’ve just chosen to Transcend my Egyptians into the Classical Era.

The turn-by-turn play is fun too. I’m a builder at heart, and this game seems to allow one to play that way. At the same time, I like not being bogged down with workers and builders and settlers. I like that military units can’t be spammed relentlessly, at least not so far – they cost a precious population. This hurt me early on, as I lost much of my weak army to an independent army – before I bribed them and eventually absorbed them into my empire. I actually kind alike the simple tactical combat. As with Old World, I like that cities are spaced apart. Lots of good things flow from this design decision.

I actually rather like the UI. Lots of nice hotkeys, which are a big priority for me. Someone earlier mentioned pathing. Have you tried the M key? It lets you move the mouse around to various destinations, showing you the best path to each. It works well for me.

Of course there are some things I don’t like so much. Some of the fonts are a tad too small for me, but fortunately there are usually redundant ways to find the info in question. (E.g., fame rewards.) I’ve encountered a few minor bugs; nothing game-breaking, like the tutorial insisting that my latest civic is in fact my first. I do worry about mid- and end-game bloat/slowdown, but I’m not there yet, so we’ll see. I wish techs were a bit more randomized somehow, but I do like that tech choices really matter a lot. I miss the guy who read tech advances in Civ 4. :)

Has anyone tried the beta on Steam? I’m playing on Gamepass, so I assume I don’t have access to it. Supposedly it fixes the oil bug, adds more uranium, and fixes other things.

It’s been a while since a PC game held my interest for an entire Saturday, but this one did the trick. I look forward to playing more tomorrow.

712

This patch actually released today. Load the Windows Store app to grab the update (it wasn’t showing on the Xbox app for me).

713

Oh, awesome! Thanks for the tip.

714

But aren’t cultures a choice during the game itself? If that isn’t balanced, you may as well say things like “I’m not really interested in balance between tiles, or techs, or military units” which seems very wrong.

If there’s no balance, how are such choices interesting? If the choices aren’t interesting, how is that game fun?

715

I don’t think that balance is nearly as clearcut in this game as in games like Civ.

Some cultures are great for dominating your neighborhood, others are great for building an engine for dominating later eras, and others are best at accruing fame this era.

It can be complicated – and highly situational – which culture choice is best going to advance your efforts to end up with the highest fame score. But in the early going, a lot of the analysis around the forums seems to focus on which cultures give the best boosts to Civ-style domination. I think in the end, it will turn out that the question is always, “Which is most likely to give me a triple star in my fame area? And, for the grand slam of scoring, which is likely to give me a triple star in my fame area plus double or triple stars in other fame areas?” But even that may be too simple a way to evaluate cultures. I have read how the internet jury believes the Norse to be among the worst of all choices… but as I see it, the Norse are incredibly good at allowing you to score extremely highly in the following era, after the Norse have found and grabbed up the best part of the empty continent.

All of which is to say I think that the balance between cultures is a lot more nuanced than it appears.

716

I mean, you don’t want the cultures to be completely balanced. The advantage of finishing an era early so you can grab your choice of culture is in itself a balancing factor, which would go out of the window if you made all cultures exactly equal.

Of course you don’t want one culture to be massively better than all others, or it’s weighted too far the other way.

Also, the AI needs to be strong enough to not just pick a culture at random. If there’s a fair chance your choice of culture will still be there however long you wait, why rush?

717

That’s fine. Having balance heavily depend on context is usually the best way.

718

I’m relatively new to this Gamepass business. Where do I find the patch?

719

Here you go. On the downloads & updates bit, usually top right although you might have to click “see more” 3 dots to see it.

720

oops that was meant for @Sonoftgb sorry.

721

Other people said it better than I could, especially as I’m on mobile at the moment. :) What I was meaning is that many cultures are very powerful in different ways. I’m not really concerned if that is somehow perfectly balanced. One of the worst things about balance issues is that it makes your choices obvious and predictable but that isn’t the case here because context is really going to change what is the “right” choice at the moment. On top of that, you don’t always get your pick of your favorite culture from era to era which functions in a similar ready to Old Worlds random tech draw system. You can’t rely on familiar patterns because it might not be an option.

In the first era, let’s say that the Harrapans were objectively stronger than the Zhou if you boiled down each culture into their calorie count. That doesn’t mean that Zhou doesn’t kick ass. If I have a nearby mountain range, I’m going to very quickly have ten times the tech with very little investment. This can provide me with some incredible slingshot opportunities that I can exploit. I can grab irrigation very fast which erodes the food benefit of the Harrapan. I can potentially field stronger military units and raid them. Getting those three science stars is extremely fast as Zhou which rockets up my fame and gets me almost halfway to the next era. Then I can pick the next culture to exploit the current situation and end up dominating the Harrapan, even if they are “the best”.

There’s also tradeoffs between UUs and how the permanent bonuses of the culture can play out throughout the game. A very strong UU or one that doesn’t have resource can be a huge short term advantage. That advantage might be at the cost of “stronger” culture picks based on your situation. You might be able to really exploit that UU for that era and makes it all worth it, or at least make it a viable pick!

That’s what I mean when I said I don’t care if everything is balanced. I don’t want them spending a ton of time trying to make every choice equal, I think that would lead to a much more boring game and I don’t think it’s possible. The only issue I would have is if a culture doesn’t offer anything compelling or interesting, that is something they should look at.

722

That’s kinda what I thought after 25 hours. I’m curious whether you continue like it…let me know!!

I’m still waiting for the first big Stellaris style gameplay patch though.