Humankind - the Civ killer?

[Josephus]

Not sure it's gonna be a Civ killer at this rate: looks like release is now pushed back till August.

[Solmyr]

Maybe they plan to kill Civ 7.

[Josephus]

Maybe they plan to kill Civ 7.

I think they went to the George R. R. Martin Finishing School

[garbon]

I guess it is tricky. If you are taking on Civ probably feel pressure to have a strong launch.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Better they push it off than sell trash. Paradox can get away with that because after 20 years I'm used to it.  Less so with other companies.

[KRonn]

Looking forward to this game. I just want it to be fun, unique and have immersive game play. That looks like what they're going for.

[Syt]

Played the beta that's currently available if you pre-purchased. There's no map randomization, and you can't create your own avatar. You can play for 200 turns up to age of Industry. I dropped the difficulty a bit to learn.

Overall I really like what I see. It feels like a good upgrade from Endless Legend.

Postive

- City management
I liked the district system better than in Civ6 as its less straightjacketed by bonuses etc. There's synergies, of course, but they feel a lot less like a puzzle game to me. On top there's the infrastructure which are benefits that don't require a district (like improving water supply via fountains and aqueducts, or libraries to improve science). I noticed that I paid not much attention to those.

- Outposts and Expansion
The province system from Endless Legend comes back. You can claim a territory by erecting an outpost. Outposts can either be converted to cities, or attached to cities; the city can then build districts in the territory and exploit the resources. Until the territory is attached to a city or becomes one itself, outposts can be raided/destroyed without going to war. Really like this mechanic where you can skirmish for territory and defend your claims in the early game. The system also reduces the city spam of Civ games, meaning less micromanagement later on. Additionally, the game puts a limit on how many cities you can have without penalty (the limit increases with research and policies).

- Diplomacy
You have various "contracts" (different levels of trade, open borders, non-aggression etc.). Although the list isn't huge, it seems sufficient. No research or tech trading, though? Also, there's grievances that you can push (e.g. demanding territory if someone expands near you, or damages if they attack your units) or forgive (and so can the AI). Additionally there's a meter for how ok someone (and you) is to go to war with each other, and during war bringing that meter to 0 lets one side enforce their demands (with a war score system). I liked that.

- Wonders
You can use influence to call "dibs" on a wonder (one at a time) that only you can build, but you don't have to start building right away. Wonders are "joint projects": you build them in one city but other cities can contribute their production to it, speeding up the process considerably. Really liked this mechanic.

- Stability
Most districts you build in a city cost stability. Infrastructure, wonders etc. can mitigate the stability hit. There's a couple other things affecting it, but overall I thought it's a nice little system to simulate the needs of growing cities.

Neutral

- Policies/Edicts
A variant on Traditions, with various policies in several areas where you have a binary choice, bought with Influence (a currency you accrue and need for expansion etc.). These policies give empire wide bonuses and also affect a bunch of sliders, but I didn't feel the sliders affected much? You can change your picks using influence. Could do with some fleshing out, I feel.

- Culture Progression
I really love choosing your theme and focus (expansion, trade, war ...) for each era, picking a combo of (1) Empire bonus (that you keep for the rest of the game, (2) unique building that is only available in this era (but you get to keep those you build), (3) unique units (same as buildings). However, I feel it also loses some flavor. It becomes a bit weird when your Eastern neighbor is alternatively addressed as Babylonians, Romans, and English depending on which era they're in. You're starting to pay more attention to their "avatar" leader to keep track of who is who - and thus I started to pay less attention to the cultures as opposed to the bonuses they give. So it ends up feeling a bit bland. I don't want to lose the mechanic, so not sure what the solution would be - perhaps a more visible mashing of the cultures (though it may be hard to envision what a Mycenaean-Greek-Cambodian-Spanish-French culture in my case would look like).

- Combat
I'm fine with having army stacks again (size of stacks can be expanded through tech). And while I think the tactical on map combat is a nice idea, I mostly found myself auto-resolving, because I didn't find it engaging (I was the same in Endless Legend). Auto-resolve seemed mostly fine, though. Razing outposts can sometimes take a while (several turns), and so do sieges (btw. I like that you siege cities with armies and can assault them or starve them, instead of the bombardment spam of Civ 5 or 6). Overall fine. Neither great nor horrible.

- Events
Occasionally there'll be events popping up, usually giving you multiple choices on how to deal with a situation. Some can have follow up events based on your choices. Generally I like this, but it remains to be seen how many there are, and how repetitive they become over multiple playthroughs, so I put them in neutral for now.

Negative

- Tech progression
The tech tree felt very basic and not very engaging. I admit my favorite tech tree in a civ-like game in recent years was the one in Beyond Earth where you start at the center and work your way outwards through the various paths of the web and had multiple ways to the same tech. It doesn't help that there seems to be placeholder instead of flavor text when you get a new tech.

- Trade
You engage in trade by clicking a resource on the map in a foreign empire and buying it (provided your trade status with them allows it). It's serviceable, but not great. I prefer the trade routes mechanic from Civ 6.

- Districts flavor
I said that I liked district management better than in Civ 6. However, the districts themselves are a tad bland. There's some basic ones that come in flavors of "food", "production", and "science", plus a couple of others like fortresses, harbors, markets etc., but the choices, while making sense, lack flavor IMHO.


Overall I like what I see so far, and I look forward to the full release.

[Tamas]

Thanks Syt, I have been keeping half an eye on this one and been tempted by this closed beta, so I appreciate the review.

[Syt]

One thing that was concerning (and which I hope gets rebalanced) was the speed of advancing in eras vs advancing in tech. I ended up in the Industrial Era (and my policies options matched that), but even though I discovered techs every 5 or 6 turns (there was a bit of a slow down in early game where it might have been 10) I had only made it to knights, quadriremes, crossbowmen etc. ... tech progression felt fine, but I feel the era progression might need to slow down.

[Tamas]

One thing that was concerning (and which I hope gets rebalanced) was the speed of advancing in eras vs advancing in tech. I ended up in the Industrial Era (and my policies options matched that), but even though I discovered techs every 5 or 6 turns (there was a bit of a slow down in early game where it might have been 10) I had only made it to knights, quadriremes, crossbowmen etc. ... tech progression felt fine, but I feel the era progression might need to slow down.

Interesting. Civ6 had the same issue for me around tech progress vs. number of years passed. It annoyed me to no end.

[Syt]

I didn't comment on religion, which is probably a comment in and of itself. It's there, and by gaining faith you can choose tenets of faith that give bonuses. There seems to be a "faith push" like culture push? I didn't really engage much with it, tbh.

[Syt]

Oh, and one final comment - on the whole I liked the tone of the game. It's more reminiscent of earlier Civ titles. Civ 6 is a good game IMHO, but it's also leaning heavily into being a game with its presentation and characters, and stuff like Scots getting golf course buildings and Brazilians having soccer stadiums, plus rock bands and similar. It feels more like it's trying to be more "historic" (which of course it isn't, but it's not wearing clown shoes, either.)

I also didn't mind the lack of settlers, builders, or religious units. Like, at all.

[Tamas]

Nice so for me the only question remaining then if I should grab it now to check the beta out or wait for the 1.0 release in August.

[Syt]

Nice so for me the only question remaining then if I should grab it now to check the beta out or wait for the 1.0 release in August.

I think you can get access to the current beta by linking your Games2Gether account with Twitch:

https://dotesports.com/general/news/how-to-get-humankind-beta-access-through-twitch-drops

Also, take my comments with a grain of salt. I play these games quite casually. Maybe check comments from people who play these more hardcore than I do

[DGuller]

Any good LPs of the latest build?  I used to watch Marbozir when it came to Civ-related content, but he's been running on fumes for years now.