Definitely going to give this a try on my laptop (Xbox gamepass)
Need something different rather than Civ 6.
Need something different rather than Civ 6.
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Waypoint's review by Cameron Kunzelman is down on the game (noting that it's for a specific sort of player that's not him) and it actually really sold me on the gameplay.
www.vice.com
Final paragraph:
Superb read and very informative.
'Humankind' Tries to Reimagine Civilization, but Mostly Overcomplicates It
We heard you like decisions.
www.vice.com
Final paragraph:
Superb read and very informative.
Sounds like there's a lot of depth, a bit much for the casual 4x player.Waypoint's review by Cameron Kunzelman is down on the game (noting that it's for a specific sort of player that's not him) and it actually really sold me on the gameplay.
'Humankind' Tries to Reimagine Civilization, but Mostly Overcomplicates It
We heard you like decisions.
Final paragraph:
Superb read and very informative.
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Rowan Kaiser (who's been down on 4X games for a long time now) did what sounds like a similar review but mostly ended up on the other side. They're probably the strategy reviewer I end up agreeing with the most so I'm glad that the takeaway was pretty strong.
I couldn't find a preload on gamepass, wasn't on «coming soon».
Man those are gonna be some long hours.
on game pass there seems to be no pre load. On steam it has been for a few days.
Oh thanks. Guess I'll check back tonight when the kids are sleeping.
I've played the betas and it is not any more complex than than CIv, but it doesn't have Civ's familiarity (if you've played Civ [x], it's not going to be hard to learn to play Civ [x+1]).
So players will have to get used to the region system, which works very different to Civ's territory system. It limits you to one city/outpost per pre-set region, which can feel like an artificial/gamey limitation.
Diplomacy is not difficult, though war is handled more like paradox games, where you have to end the war and make peace to actually take over territory. Wiping another civ from the map was really hard and requires you to kill every one of their units. This is good, since you usually end up with defeated puppet states/vassals as a buffer between the remaining superpowers, somewhat like real life.
Battles are like Endless Legend. IMO, they are better than Civ. However, terrain and unit composition REALLY matters. Siege battles are quite complicated (I never had enough in my short playtime to really understand them), and city walls can make a big difference if you have enough units to man them effectively. There's always autoresolve for a more Civ-like experience.
I hope they keep some of the beta test battles as scenarios to give you a tutorial on advanced unit tactics.
There are no worker units, which removes one of CIv's tedious bits.
You build districts to exploit/expand territory (a bit like Civ's districts). You build trade routes to auto-create roads.
The hardest part is knowing how to grow cities. You build outposts, and either grow them into cities or link them to a city, essentially making one megacity sharing the same build-queue. It's a big game-changing decision (like city placement in Civ), but it's not obvious what is best. Basically, linking cities means you don't need to build multiple temples/marketplaces or whatever, but you can get stability problems later due to the huge population.
It is much LESS complex than Endless Legend. That was ridiculous, with all the units having equipment upgrades to research and manufacture, plus holy resources and the general unfamiliarity with the fantasy resources.
The trickiest balance issue in the betas was around "stability" which lets you build wide or tall. In one beta, it was a non issue, so you took every region and made (mega)cities everywhere, while picking whatever civics you like.
In the next beta they tried the opposite (intentionally, to get feedback on the balance), so you had to build loads of +stability districts, avoid too many/too big cities. It was too much and you had to be "Both Sides" in civic development to avoid the stability penalties from being too open/xenophobic/progressive/conservative/etc.
I'm not sure what the final release will be like.
There were other balance issues with different cultures, but they are easier to fix (and I know they were going to rebalance these).
The culture development is great, although they need to be careful that there doesn't become an optimal path. Each culture gives you some unique temporary era buildings/units, plus a generic theme bonus (e.g. culture or military) for that era, plus one legacy bonus that you keep for the rest of the game. They need to be careful that some legacy bonuses aren't too overpowered.
In one beta, America was total shit, while the French/Frank cultures had insane boosts, like +50% food, not that the nationality of the devs would cause any bias ;)
So players will have to get used to the region system, which works very different to Civ's territory system. It limits you to one city/outpost per pre-set region, which can feel like an artificial/gamey limitation.
Diplomacy is not difficult, though war is handled more like paradox games, where you have to end the war and make peace to actually take over territory. Wiping another civ from the map was really hard and requires you to kill every one of their units. This is good, since you usually end up with defeated puppet states/vassals as a buffer between the remaining superpowers, somewhat like real life.
Battles are like Endless Legend. IMO, they are better than Civ. However, terrain and unit composition REALLY matters. Siege battles are quite complicated (I never had enough in my short playtime to really understand them), and city walls can make a big difference if you have enough units to man them effectively. There's always autoresolve for a more Civ-like experience.
I hope they keep some of the beta test battles as scenarios to give you a tutorial on advanced unit tactics.
There are no worker units, which removes one of CIv's tedious bits.
You build districts to exploit/expand territory (a bit like Civ's districts). You build trade routes to auto-create roads.
The hardest part is knowing how to grow cities. You build outposts, and either grow them into cities or link them to a city, essentially making one megacity sharing the same build-queue. It's a big game-changing decision (like city placement in Civ), but it's not obvious what is best. Basically, linking cities means you don't need to build multiple temples/marketplaces or whatever, but you can get stability problems later due to the huge population.
It is much LESS complex than Endless Legend. That was ridiculous, with all the units having equipment upgrades to research and manufacture, plus holy resources and the general unfamiliarity with the fantasy resources.
The trickiest balance issue in the betas was around "stability" which lets you build wide or tall. In one beta, it was a non issue, so you took every region and made (mega)cities everywhere, while picking whatever civics you like.
In the next beta they tried the opposite (intentionally, to get feedback on the balance), so you had to build loads of +stability districts, avoid too many/too big cities. It was too much and you had to be "Both Sides" in civic development to avoid the stability penalties from being too open/xenophobic/progressive/conservative/etc.
I'm not sure what the final release will be like.
There were other balance issues with different cultures, but they are easier to fix (and I know they were going to rebalance these).
The culture development is great, although they need to be careful that there doesn't become an optimal path. Each culture gives you some unique temporary era buildings/units, plus a generic theme bonus (e.g. culture or military) for that era, plus one legacy bonus that you keep for the rest of the game. They need to be careful that some legacy bonuses aren't too overpowered.
In one beta, America was total shit, while the French/Frank cultures had insane boosts, like +50% food, not that the nationality of the devs would cause any bias ;)
Bought and preloading.
This is nice to know. I got the hang of EL eventually and started really liking it but the system does still feel overwhelming sometimes.
Stability sounds kinda like the stability system from the Rhye's and Fall mods for Civ4. You'd have to watch your civics, expansion, happiness and warmongering there or you'd lose cities to revolts.
This is nice to know. I got the hang of EL eventually and started really liking it but the system does still feel overwhelming sometimes.
Stability sounds kinda like the stability system from the Rhye's and Fall mods for Civ4. You'd have to watch your civics, expansion, happiness and warmongering there or you'd lose cities to revolts.
Well, I didn't think any of the Endless games were complex at all. Legend had quite a lot of systems with all the DLC included but they weren't complicated by any margin. Reading some of the reviews it seems that a lot of accessibility friction comes from the game not strictly adhering to the Civ blueprint, which is a massive plus in my book. It's the same old "must all space 4X rehash MOO2 to a degree" type of thing.
Maybe it's me being overexposed to the genre but modern 4X are extremely streamlined. Even Paradox games are many times more complex and there are mainstream games that dial that even further (stuff like Oxygen Not Included). I would say most of the actual challenge of playing these games comes from the sheer depth of choices and analysis paralysis, well at least for me.
Anyway, rant off. Complexity = good even if accessibility suffers. Eventually you get past even the worse of learning curves but lack of actual depth kills 4X faster than you can research Animal Herding :p
Maybe it's me being overexposed to the genre but modern 4X are extremely streamlined. Even Paradox games are many times more complex and there are mainstream games that dial that even further (stuff like Oxygen Not Included). I would say most of the actual challenge of playing these games comes from the sheer depth of choices and analysis paralysis, well at least for me.
Anyway, rant off. Complexity = good even if accessibility suffers. Eventually you get past even the worse of learning curves but lack of actual depth kills 4X faster than you can research Animal Herding :p
Do you mean Oxygen Not Included is too streamlined or too complex?
Sorry, English is not my native language. I meant that something like ONI is significantly more complex (at least IMO) when compared to stuff like Civ 6.
Oh no worries, you're English is awesome :) Thanks for the clarification, I've been curious about ONI and it's top in my "games to try" for when I come back to PC gaming or when it releases on console. I became an Xbox peasant since November 10th, 2020
This is a good review if you're curious about the game. It clearly explains what it's about and how it plays.
I preordered this on Epic to play in the early access betas and now feel like booboo the fool with it on Gamepass... but at least it's almost time!
There are, but I'm waaaaaaaaaaay over the refund threshold, lol. 14 days, and even if they counted from today, I somehow put more than a day into the early access periods. Playtime limit's 2 hours.
one more hour until it unlocks (if it's the same as the steam version)
Oh nevermind, it's actually unlocked now
Game Pass page:
Steam version is also unlocked
Buy HUMANKIND™ | Xbox
Discover HUMANKIND™, a Historical Strategy game where YOU will create your own civilization and re-write the entire narrative of human history. HOW FAR WILL YOU PUSH HUMANKIND?
www.microsoft.com
Steam version is also unlocked
Ahh gotcha. Weird they counted the beta though. Still should be worth the money.
Strange, it doesn't pop up in the xbox app, but I'm downloading it now via the store.
Haha yeah this just sold me on the game.Waypoint's review by Cameron Kunzelman is down on the game (noting that it's for a specific sort of player that's not him) and it actually really sold me on the gameplay.
'Humankind' Tries to Reimagine Civilization, but Mostly Overcomplicates It
We heard you like decisions.
Final paragraph:
Superb read and very informative.
I swear xbox game pass used to prompt me on what drive I want to install a game but now they always install on my default drive without asking =/
lol, I thought the same just now. Where did the dialog go? Weird. Maybe because it installed from the store and not the Xbox app? The whole Windows integration leaves so much to be desired
You can move a Windows Store install within windows. Should be in the installed application section of settings.
I know that. I just don't want to always have X amount of gigs free on my ssd because gamepass can't be arsed to directly download elsewhere
Still not on Xbox app, but use Microsoft Store app if you want to install it now if you have Game Pass
If you've played in one of the Open Devs and still have the a folder called Humankind in your Documents make sure to delete it or the game seems to crash on start up.
I only played some betas but calling Humankind complex is,imo, farfetched. THe game's complexity is very similar to a CIV game with expansions.
I can't wait to try!
I can't wait to try!
While ONI is very complex I find it very charming so I tolerate the absurd learning curve
Thanks