It is a truly flourishing period for the 4X genre, with several high-quality titles that are attempting the assault on the castle, i.e. the domination of the serie Civilization by Firaxis Games, which has always represented the model to deal with. The formula created by Sid Meier still appears so fresh and perfect today that it is difficult for Firaxis to find a way to rejuvenate it.
Yet human history still has a lot to say and the possibilities for reading society and its evolution are innumerable, as demonstrated a few months ago by Soren Johnson's Old World, who has seen fit to inject a bit of Crusaders Kings into its gameplay. , and as it demonstrates humankind by Amplitude Studios, the subject of this review, which tries to completely change the cards on the table, interpreting different aspects of the history of human civilization in a decidedly original way.
After all, who but the study of Endless Legend, another excellent 4X, could have succeeded?
The gameplay
Once the game is started, the game must be created. The available options are the classic ones: you can choose the size of the world, that is the map, the difficulty, the conformation of the territory, the duration and so on. Do you want a world with four continents, many rivers and a temperate climate? Take a seat. Do you like the idea of developing your empire on islets rather than on huge masses of land? You are served. Basically you can do a little bit of everything. Over time, you will also be able to download maps created by developers and players. But let's not run too fast.
Il gameplay by Humankind begins as expected: we are at the dawn of civilization and we lead a group of hunter-gatherers grappling with the dangers of the vast world. The first thing to do is not found a city, but find enough resources to create a camp in a certain territory, so as to claim possession (a system similar to the one already seen in Endless Legend). In a subsequent phase, influence points can be spent to develop the inhabited center into a real city but, unlike what happens with other games, the result is not obvious, in the sense that it is not said that all camps become immediately cities and, above all, that they do it where they were founded (if you want you can move them). Also because as the number of cities increases, the amount of influence points to invest in developing the next one also increases.
In this sense, the first phases are much more dynamic and less obvious than what has been seen elsewhere, where what matters is to choose the foundation box of the capital well, in such a way as to have suffered enough resources not to perish to external threats. In Humankind the focus of the primitive phase is above all on exploration, with our hunters having to look for the remnants of ancient populations that have now disappeared to accumulate resources and make sure that they can reclaim other territories, so as to outline the shape of our future empire. The main dangers of this first phase are wild animals, which we can also hunt for other resources, and other civilizations, some far less friendly than others.
La map in itself it is very reminiscent of that seen in other titles of the genre, divided into hexagons and dotted as it is with indications on available resources, in particular relating to the collection of food and production. There are also special assets, some known immediately, others that will be revealed when the right scientific discoveries are made to exploit them. The exploration is strangely satisfying, with the hills providing a better view of the surrounding territories (so more boxes are revealed) and the various points of interest that are only visible when a unit is actually in their range. With technological development some of these limits will disappear, but it must be said that when you have tanks you will not go around looking for herbs.
Culture
Humankind's goal is obviously to follow the path that leads from the Stone Age to the most modern technologies in the technical, social and cultural fields. Amplitude Studios has decided to manage progression with an objective system that rewards stars for reaching certain milestones. The stars allow you to move on to the next era, but also to adopt new ones culture. And this is where Humankind differs most from the Civilization model: where the canons established by Meier want the culture to be determined at the beginning of the game, often during the creation of the game, Humankind chooses to make it a dynamic element and to give the player's choice of how to develop his people as they grow.
Thus in the course of a game it becomes possible to choose to embrace different cultures (ten in total), all with different influences on the population and its vision of the future, if we want to call it that. Despite the distance with what we have been used to playing up to now, it must be said that the system works well and gives a great variety to the games, differentiating certain aspects in a clear way. The point of arrival is always to have a type of society set up in order to reach certain goals, such as a peaceful victory based on scientific development (entrusted to the usual tree with selectable research), or a military one in which force crushes everything. the rest.
Let's say that in this case the novelty lies in the way in which a certain road is made, not in the road itself. If we want it is also a more sensible representation of human development, given that a civilization capable of maintaining a certain culture from the Stone Age to the contemporary one, without undergoing influences or strong changes, is an absurdity dictated by the need to simplify. the trial for play purposes.
Humankind offers a brilliant alternative, in terms of game mechanics, which creates natural and fascinating cultural mixes. Do you want to boost production? Select the Egyptian culture. Do you need more food? Then select the Celtic one. Such a dynamic cultural system also has another decisive function: that of giving the player more options to tackle the most contingent problems more effectively (and sometimes quickly). For example, it may happen that you find yourself fighting with a very aggressive civilization, which requires an increase in production to have more efficient troops, or you are in trouble in scientific research and need to improve in that direction. Cultural flexibility therefore becomes very important for the conduct of matches and to embrace certain models and face certain circumstances.
Religions and political system
Humankind is a very complex title, as you may have guessed, and it is not possible to account for all the systems that make it up in a review (unless you rewrite the entire manual). However, there are some that deserve to be treated more specifically. The first is that of Religions, which functions more or less like the one seen in Civilization 6, with the various creeds that develop from an original nucleus and then give rise to a more complex theology, with its own articulated hierarchy made up of units that deal with the conversion of the population and influence populations of different creeds.
All this translates into a series of bonuses or malus for the production of the different resources, which intersect with those provided by other systems. Honestly, it's not exactly the best in depth, but for now there are no valid alternative models, at least for this type of 4X (if you want something more articulated in this sense, look at Crusader Kings III, which however offers an experience of completely different game).
Il political system, or civics, instead allows you to make choices related to society, responding to dilemmas that are posed to us during the game, which influence not only certain founding values of the same, but also its ideology. For example, you can choose between natural and divine law, increasing the value of progressivism in the first case, and that of traditionalism in the second.
All civics put together form a kind of very complex tree, which determines the type of society we want to create. To influence ideologies we also think of the events that happen from time to time and that require us to make important decisions, which can shift the bar towards this or that ideology. Maybe it is preferable to hunt a villager who has appropriated a mushroom reserve, or to exploit it by making him study them until he lives? The individual choices seem simple, but if we mix all the systems involved we find ourselves faced with a very articulated picture, in which our vision of the game is questioned every time: we will decide for the collective good, to stay in line with what have we professed with our actions or to obtain productive advantages?
Cities and territories
As we have mentioned, the development of the city in Humankind it is different from that of other 4Xs, because it is linked in a double way to that of the territory where they are located. Each city has its own center, with the immediately surrounding squares exploited for production purposes. With the development it will therefore be possible to build internal buildings or structures that occupy an entire square, altering their values. There is no shortage of special buildings, those elsewhere called wonders, which provide different bonuses depending on their function. So far, however, the model doesn't seem too different from that of a last generation Civilization.
The difference, however, is precisely in the very concept of territory: capturing a city means capturing the entire region in which it was founded, which translates into very different evaluations than those made in Firaxis titles when it comes to attacking or defend yourself. Another difference from the competition is the fighting, which can be automatic or hand-operated, with the deployed troops moving in turn.
The latter system is particularly useful when facing very large wars in which the forces are in substantial balance. Of course, managing everything directly significantly lengthens the times of the games, so after a while we tend to entrust the clashes with the most obvious results to the CPU.
Il diplomatic systeminstead, it is not very different from that seen elsewhere and allows to discuss treaties and alliances with other civilizations, as well as to declare war or make concessions for peace. From this point of view, a title like Old World, which has introduced a system of relations in the style of the Crusader Kings, turns out to be much more complex and satisfying, even if it must be said that it is deficient from other points of view. However, diplomacy always remains one of the most controversial elements of 4X, since it is really difficult to manage the CPU.
Other merits and some problems
For those wondering, theartificial intelligence by Humankind performs really well, especially on higher difficulty levels. Let's say that it is often the AI that dictates the pace of the games, forcing quick responses to its decisions and putting in place interesting tactics. After all, Amplitude had already shown that it knows how to do it from this point of view with Endless Legend, so Humankind is only a confirmation of the capabilities of the studio.
An applause also goes tointerface, very clear and easy to use, despite being very different from the classic models. Let's say that also in this case the experience made by the studio with other titles was decisive and the result is a modern and captivating style, overall minimalist, which however does not give up clarity and functionality. Be that as it may, in case of problems, there is a very clear tutorial explaining all the main functions. Of course we are talking about a 4X, so there is still a little bit of study needed before you begin to fully understand what you are doing. But these are trivia that fans of the genre will surely take for granted.
One of the problems more relevant than Humankind is certainly the pace of play, sometimes too high. We tried to play fast games and very slow games and, if in the second we managed to enter our civilization without problems, in the first many things seemed too hasty, so much so that we lost some units on the road and we were forced to run continuously.
Obviously, this can be remedied by avoiding creating games that are too fast, or by doing it only after having tried complete games, so to speak. Another small flaw of the game system is paradoxically found in the system of cultures, which can be adopted by only one civilization at a time to the cry of "who comes first". The thing has its own meaning from the point of view of the development of human history, but put it this way is another invitation to the race so as not to lose the opportunity to choose the desired culture, on pain of having to fall back on something else. In particular, these two problems weigh on the medium game, where you risk losing more than what Humankind has to offer.
From a technical point of view, however, Amplitude Studios has done a great job: the maps are always detailed and varied, as are the units and animations. We are on a high level for the 4X genre, which is not usually mentioned for its technical virtues. It is important to underline that in the many hours spent with the game, we have never had stability problems and we have not encountered any particular bugs, a sign that the many months spent in beta have done him really good. On the audio side, in addition to the beautiful accompanying soundtrack, which does its job and nothing more, it is worth mentioning the nice narrator who underlines some key moments, including the foundation of our empire. This is an apparently irrelevant extra, but it serves to dilute the seriousness of certain mechanics, putting what we are doing in a slightly different and more fun perspective.
Comment
Tested version PC Windows Digital Delivery Steam Price 59,99 € Resources4Gaming.com9.0
Readers (31)8.0
Your voteHumankind is a Civilization for those who want to try something different in the 4X genre, while not giving up on a certain general vision of the genre. We reiterate what has already been written in the article: only a studio like Amplitude could be able to join the excellence of the Firaxis series, at the same time bringing innovations that should not be underestimated. This makes it a little gem that deserves to be played, perhaps even by some newbies who are curious to understand what grand strategy has to offer.
PRO
- The new mechanics are great
- Very clean and very attractive interface
- Several original ideas
- The pace of play is not always optimal
- Some systems could be explored more
