I think this game is great and I still love Amplitude. There, said it.
Did they tell you how to speed up the animations?
But they’re visually stunning! ;)
I’m also seriously getting into it for the first time, and am surprised by how much I like it. I think when I checked it out on Gamepass last year it suffered because Old World was so fresh in my mind.
I need to revisit this as well.
Like a lot of strategy games, small content variables feel like significant issues. Like, make StarCraft marines shoot for 60 damage instead of 6 - one number changes the entire game (and breaks it in that case).
I think the big issue with Humankind has to do with the size and shape of maps and the density and distribution of AI players. It feels like once you’ve overcome your neighbors there’s a sort of boring middle phase to the game.
I also think the game’s Avatar feature is just half baked. It would have been a blast to share Avatars - we could even create a bunch of Qt3 avatars to share - but even till today I have no idea how to link Games2Gether to the game and make it stick.
Tom’s post on Twitter reminded me to look into this again - I remember thinking when it came out that it looked like it wasn’t a great effort and reviews were pretty mediocre and even poor in some cases, so I figured I’d stick with Old World. Tom got me thinking I should look into this and I see it’s getting pretty mixed reviews on Steam. For someone like @Sonoftgb or @Evil_Steve what would you say to those reviews on Steam that dragged it down and didn’t like the experience of playing it?
Old World is fantastic and such a tight/clever design. I had a blast with Humankind, though. I could comfortably say that Old World is the better strategy game, but I had a lot of fun with Humankind (sorry for the use of the F-word).
I consider myself a “garage” kind of player. I can spend a ton of time tweaking cars/mechs/builds in games. Humankind’s cultures scratched that itch for me, I had a good time figuring out awesome new combos to play with. It was fun finding just how high I could push my score in a given game which is surprising, because usually that sort of thing holds little to no appeal for me.
It seems like something I’d have fun with myself, but maybe not for $50. I’ll put it on my wishlist and let it get a few more patches under its belt while waiting for a discount. Thanks!
I would have to see the specific complaints in the reviews, but for me the two best things are the VP system, which means playing as a pacifist and building tall (my preferred strategy) is just as viable as painting the map, and as KevinC said, mixing up the cultures.
Can everyone stop talking about Humankind until the next patch when they add in the notification options? Thanks.
Same. It’s on my “deep discount” wish list.
I played it a bit when it first hit GamePass, but I would love to give it another go!
That update dropped on April 21:
Added control over notifications, so that only relevant ones are displayed.
Added game options to show or hide themes of notifications.
Added a “show/hide” button directly on notifications.
Well then, y’all may resume your discussion.
If you’re talking about Amplitude’s @humankindgame account on Twitter, they did not tell me how to speed up animations. There is no such setting, there has never been any such setting, and people have complained about the animation speed ever since the game has been out.
The claim they made – before telling me on Twitter there’s a setting to fix it – is that it’s a function of the simultaneous movement structure for multiplayer. I’m not sure which claim is dumber, but I know one of them is easily disproved. :)
-Tom
Well a brief look at the most recent negative reviews looks like ‘bot reviews’, just one line with “I hate xx”, usually something encountered early in the game, such as independents. What I like about the game is that it gives you so many interesting choices along the way, and allows you the opportunity to change your ‘style’ to fit the circumstances of the game as you move forward. It may be that “the AI is dumb” (a common trope leveled against Amplitude), but honestly, I spend all my time in the game thinking about how to stay in it. Good-looking, nicely balanced, interesting choices (from my POV)
I’ve really wanted to love Humankind (metaphorically and otherwise) but I keep going back to Old World.
I think for me, the Civs, Humankind; they lose their allure as we progress through the ages. Things get too difficult. Or too easy. Or just too much to manage. I like that Old World sticks to the basics and the progression is very modest and sort of ‘sensible’.
I like Amplitude games, and i think Humankind has the best opening sequence of a 4X game - given that randomness at the start has such huge effects later on, but that it’s also a single player Amplitude game, so in effect, who cares.
That said basically every Amplitude game puts me to sleep in the middle game, and i don’t know why. I don’t think i’ve managed to get past the mid game in any Amplitude game i’ve played (Endless Space II, Endless Legend, Dungeon of the Endless, Humankind) except with great, deliberate effort. It feels like all their ideas are front loaded. It certainly doesn’t make me want to keep playing.
Though, to be fair, almost every strategy game i play has this problem. I think only the Total War series has figured out how to get me past the mid-game doldrums.
Thinking about it, i wish Humankind leaned into its premise and made every age longer, more complicated and different, ie, every new ‘age’ creates significantly different problems of social organization, economic development, and expansion, rather than just make every Age an opportunity to pick-a-trait. But that’s probably another game.
I think it might be confusion there. I don’t think Humankind account ever said anything about multiplayer, I did and it’s just a guess. I think the specific speed is a design decision: when you tell units to move somewhere you can stop them at any point, which might be especially important with the simultaneous turn resolution. The AI seems to be programmed to not move units you target, so when you order an attack you would get the right result. In multiplayer you obviously need everybody to move at the same speed, so technically they can’t make it a game option but rather a specific game setup option. Why didn’t they do it is beyond me, maybe they thought people in MP might be uncomfortable with a faster speed, and they didn’t want single player to have a different setup. Endless Legend has a similar engine and the same problem. Community Patch mod allows setting up strategic movement speed in game creation options, but not the base game.
Combat speed is different because animations there are just for show, everything is calculated the moment you give an order.