Initially, I planned on publishing a new review today but I not only need more time (heh, funny… you’ll see why tomorrow) but I also really wanted to write about HUMANKIND, Amplitude’s magnum opus… which I preordered a while ago. There’s a closed beta available right now and I was super excited to play and… I’m a newbie when it comes to 4X games, so that’s great. Hence, I wanted to write a few posts on this, especially as I’ve got to stockpile posts for the weekend (aka scheduling them for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) and therefore, I’ll write about my experience with HUMANKIND in the next few days some more.
But for starters, what exactly is HUMANKIND? This is essentially a Turn-Based Historical-4X-Strategy game that is heavily stylized and that features a whole lot of cultures, eras, and mechanics. You begin in the Neolithic Era and work through the Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Early Modern, Industrial and Contemporary Era and battle other civilisations… or you befriend them or you trade with them. There are a lot of different win conditions and the closed beta only allows you to play up to the Industrial Era or until the 200th turn, meaning that you can’t win the game just yet… but it gives you a good idea of how the game will play out. In each era, you’ll have to earn Era Stars by hunting animals, growing a population, finding resources, researching things, or building stuff. There are other conditions as well for these era stars and they depend on your culture, too, but in essence, you earn those to advance your civilisation.
And your civilisation isn’t tied to exactly one culture but it can transcend upwards or adopt other cultures traits based on what era you’re in. I started out as a Nomadic Tribe and then went ahead, advancing to the Zhou Culture which allowed me to gather more Stability and build up my influence. I had to fight the Nubians and Babylonians but eventually, I went ahead and adapted my civilisation after winning a few wars to become Carthaginians (mainly because of “Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam”, lol). From then onwards I adopted the culture of the Franks to receive their heavy cavalry but it was all for nought as the English and the Huns were destroying me on two fronts and as I was losing every ally that I previously had…
I still have to learn a great deal about the game but it isn’t as daunting as other 4X titles, to my surprise. I loved it and time really flew by. I only managed to get to Turn 100 and learned a great deal… those four hours, though, were great! I really loved the Closed Beta so far. Next time, I’ll try to get further into the game and to maybe not switch from Aesthetes to Merchants to other Affinities but rather work on having one steady win-condition. I feel like that could help a lot. I’ll also have to get less absorbed into the game and make more screenshots because… I only made one. The next posts will have more screenshots in there!
Anyways, hope you enjoyed this post. With HUMANKIND giving me so much confidence, I may get into the other AMPLITUDE 4X Games again… aka ENDLESS Space 1+2 and/or ENDLESS Legend. I’ve played Legend for a while but it was only the tutorial and I learned so little… I think trying the tutorial is for noobs and I may actually learn a lot more by figuring out things by trial and error or rather by failing multiple playthroughs in a row. I also really wanna get into Stellaris and some other 4X titles that I own, like Age of Wonders, AI War, Sins of Solar Empire, Warhammer (?), Eador and others… I loved Warlock: Master of the Arcane to bits but it’s relatively simple as well. Oh well,… See you next time!
Cheers!
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!
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