HUMANKIND - Amplitude's historical turn-based strategy

[rashiakas]

17% Discount before it's even out. They know it's shit.

 

[covr]

Such discount on release week is something normal. If you haven't pirated every single game you played you would have know this.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

"happened before" and "accepted behaviour" doesn't mean "normal".

 

[Alienman]

Don't get fixated on the ill-conceived labels. Cultures changing and evolving throughout history, sometimes rapidly, is hardly a novelty concept.

Yes, of course, if it was dynamic I would have nothing against it. But picking it for stats just feels lame. What I have seen it's just a pop-up question - You want to change to Greek? YES/NO.

 

[Vault Dweller]

"happened before" and "accepted behaviour" doesn't mean "normal".

I don't recall a game that didn't have a 10-15% launch discount. Every marketing agency we talked to recommended it, so that's pretty normal. Upping it to 17% is clever as it stands out more and only costs you 2% extra.

Don't get fixated on the ill-conceived labels. Cultures changing and evolving throughout history, sometimes rapidly, is hardly a novelty concept.

Yes, of course, if it was dynamic I would have nothing against it. But picking it for stats just feels lame. What I have seen it's just a pop-up question - You want to change to Greek? YES/NO.

You click on each 'card' and get the details:

Basically, you get different variations of militaristic, expansionist, scientific, industrial, merchant, etc civilizations. You pick the one that suits your current goals the most, looking mainly at the stats/units/other bonuses.

I'm guessing the original idea was to take an early culture like the Akkadians and then pick one of the 'next age' cultures in that region, all the way to modern Iran, for example (which you still can do), but then decided to let the players pick whatever they want.

 

[covr]

Apparently it is out already. Will try to be as fascist as possible and post some impressions later.

 

[rashiakas]

Such discount on release week is something normal. If you haven't pirated every single game you played you would have know this.

Are retards on my codex proud of buying full priced shit now? Really? FFS this clownworld gets worse every day.

 

[oldbonebrown]

I tried it out but refunded it after an hour. Nothing major against what little I saw of the game other than that the writing was poor and that the map panning was EXTREMELY slow even when increased in the options. But it just seemed a little dull overall, will check on it again in a year.

The narrator reminded me of CIV 6, the right word is not coming to me right now but its a little snarky and too self aware. I wish the opening cinematic and monologue was on youtube, it's very bad in a way that I fear is reflective of the overall game. It talks about how the universe is just a buncha space junk, but some space junk on Earth became a little bit more interesting, and maybe there's a story to tell here but this cinematic is not going to do anything to set that up - and wow here you are.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I see they yet again failed to implement the option to speed up strategic movement. Worth rating for that alone.

 

[flyingjohn]

I have to say,deer beating up civ v streamers puts a smile on my face.

 

[Mazisky]

this pretty much closes the case about the quality of the product:
"Uses Denuvo. Proof on the store page."

It doesn't. Denuvo was removed from the game way before release.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

but why? we want to have a laugh too.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

I called it Hubynkind.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Should have went with Songhai like Civ5 for something at least somewhat different, and grab bonus points from islamic representation at the same time. Zulus are utterly fucking overused.

Or Ethiopia.

 

[gerey]

I tried it out but refunded it after an hour. Nothing major against what little I saw of the game other than that the writing was poor and that the map panning was EXTREMELY slow even when increased in the options. But it just seemed a little dull overall, will check on it again in a year.

The narrator reminded me of CIV 6, the right word is not coming to me right now but its a little snarky and too self aware. I wish the opening cinematic and monologue was on youtube, it's very bad in a way that I fear is reflective of the overall game. It talks about how the universe is just a buncha space junk, but some space junk on Earth became a little bit more interesting, and maybe there's a story to tell here but this cinematic is not going to do anything to set that up - and wow here you are.

Typical leftist nihilistic shitposting.

We're all space garbage anyway so it's okay to worship Satan and fuck toddlers to death.

Meanwhile...

 

[Ibn Sina]

Lol please post what you said.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I don't recall a game that didn't have a 10-15% launch discount.

Factorio, but that's a whole other pricing strategy.

I don't recall a game that didn't have a 10-15% launch discount. Every marketing agency we talked to recommended it, so that's pretty normal. Upping it to 17% is clever as it stands out more and only costs you 2% extra.

I think the real reason is because it looked like much more. 59,99$ -15% would be 50,99$. Upping it to 17% got them under the 50$ mark (but maybe you meant that with stands out more)

 

[ferratilis]

Oh god, the unit movement speed is so slooow, and the edge panning as well, even when set to max speed. By the time your reach late game, your sanity will slowly disappear.



And there is something about the design of this game's UI and graphics, it's almost like they were designed by web designers, not gamers. Everything looks clean and presentable, but not in a way you'd want to see in a video game. Same with their previous games, and I noticed that in Solasta, as well. I hope it's doesn't catch on.

 

[Zarniwoop]

it takes about 200 turns to reach the end of the industrial age.

wow, that's shit. i hope that's standard speed and it can be slowed down. by a tenfold.

Don't worry, I'm sure one of the inevitable 30 expansion packs will include more ages, more races and more superweapons.

Bored with your Egyptian/Japanese/Dutch/Zulu/American playthrough? Fear not because in the new exciting Vaulters DLC you can become Vaulters and take to the stars in a whole new atomic age (for 20 turns) . Or if that's to boring, switch to the Riftborn in the space age for the next 30 turns. Because why the hell not?

 

[Mazisky]

Oh god, the unit movement speed is so slooow, and the edge panning as well, even when set to max speed. By the time your reach late game, your sanity will slowly disappear.



And there is something about the design of this game's UI and graphics, it's almost like they were designed by web designers, not gamers. Everything looks clean and presentable, but not in a way you'd want to see in a video game. Same with their previous games, and I noticed that in Solasta, as well. I hope it's doesn't catch on.

Exactly my thoughts on the UI. It looks too modern and sterile, just like a german bank website.

And that's a shame because the artworks and illustrations are really cool.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

"pick your avatar". mostly females, the only almost normal average white male looks actually rather mongoloid, both figuratively and literally. but hey, he's blond! a step ahead from battletech.
but wait, it can be edited! not a single normal haircut.
so i've been pretty much forced to impersonate an italian short bald man in a military suit.

 

[Grauken]

"pick your avatar". mostly females, the only almost normal average white male looks actually rather mongoloid

 

[spectre]

So, it's available courtesy of FTL, so I can have a quick look-see. Played ~60 turns, so I'm still learning the ropes, but I think it's enough for a first impression.
That UI is... something else. Sometimes the close button is in the upper right corner (as Lord intended), other times it's centered, for some screens you need to click again on the button that opened it.
My biggest gripe with it is that you really have to strain your eyes to find the important information cause everything looks the same and the logic as to how it's organized is very alien to me.

For starters, it looks very much like the amplitude game, it looks like it inherits a lot of stuff from Endless Space. I like the map, with different elevations etc., even though it makes the world look like a vietnamese terrace farm,
it's a bit more interesting than a typical CiV map.

What I liked so far is how the game handles expansion, the map is divided into regions, you build outposts to claim them, then you either attach it to an existing city, or make a new city, if you can afford it.
I thought the neolythic period is rather clever (other than a bit of eye-rolling at the mighty deer), letting you do some scouting on a mostly empty map, then choose the best spots to settle,
then after a few turns you see all kinds of people settle all over the place.

City management borrows a lot from earlier Amplitude games, basic resources are the typical FIMS (Food/Industry/Money/Science) with the same icons you recognize from Endless Space,
you can build districts (you will be limited by stability) with all the typical stuff like adjacency bonuses, as well as upgrades and wonders, you can also shuffle population a bit to specialize.
I've seen some things that I like here, like being able to make more than one city contribute to building a world wonder.

The game also has event popups which ask you to make some kind of a decision, which is a nice touch to break the monotony of clicking end turn waiting for shit to happen,
to compare, it's much less obnoxious than I remember from Old World.

Haven't done any serious fighting yet, so can't comment on that. Same goes for diplomacy, but the first impression isn't bad. There's a grievance system in place allowing you to ask for compensation for stuff
like minor border skirmishes or grabbing territory near you, or you get an immediate casus belli if they refuse. You seem to get more types grievances based on your civic and religious tenet choices.
When allied, the other guy will drop some vague hints on the map as to what they want to do (e.g. "we need to attack here" or "we have a special interest at this spot"). But as I said, I don't know yet how much of it is really practical.

I like quite a few things that I'm seeing, for example there's plenty of neutral units running to and fro across the map which you can buy out to serve as mercenaries.

The other annoyance so far (apart from the UI) is the narration, which constantly breaks the mood by dropping shit like "soon they'll be worshipping bank accounts" when you're developing your shamanistic religion in the classical period.
The game's relationship with actual history is tenuos at best, but I guess that surprises nobody. Sadly, the overall tone of the narration feels divorced from the game's genre, for example with all this talk of how stories are important you get from the opening slides.
Remember kids, Amplitude tells it how it is, the most important thing about marketplaces is the gossip you hear. Most of the time it's not too bad, or perhaps I just filtered it out after an hour or so, but every now and then you hear something that just sticks out like a sore thumb.