HUMANKIND™

I tried to like this game, participated in Early access and sunk in a few hours recently. I cant recommend it due to simple gameplay loop that i find dissatisfying. There is not much going on, some nation mechanics and diplomacy is not interesting, not enough interactions and some strategies conflict with each other. I also noticed the game isnt really balanced much, but whatever. The ending/victory conditions are quite stale too. My main issue - its rather boring. There are simply better options in the market right now, even from the same developer.

So far, i recommend it, i tried it several years ago when it first dropped and never comes back to it again, now after few DLC's and improvements its way better, coming from a huge Civ6 fan and after 100%ed Civ7 (the biggest slop) i can see myself playing HUMANKIND for longer than i expected.

This is one of those cases I would really like to vote "Meh". Humankind is the 4X that challenged Civ, and failed. It has several unique mini-mechanics here and there (example: all ships can traverse the ocean, but the earlier ones got damaged for staying there), but let's be honest: it is essentially a carbon copy of its famous competitor. The main selling point of Humankind, which is the fact that you can switch culture during the game, only contribute to destroy the immersiveness of the experience and to create confusion, while not actually adding anything to the game. "Confusion" is, in general, what you feel when interacting with this game. For example, the combat system could have been good, but there are so many factors in deciding how the "battlefield" is defined, who can shot who and so on, that you cannot really build a strategy around that. Oh, and by the way, the turns are simultaneous, so you will not actually know if that enemy army you are looking at is going to reach you this turn or not. The graphics compart of the game is stunning but unpractical, while the soundtrack is very shallow and repetitive. The only thing that I 100% liked is the victory condition, that is purely based around points and reasonably well-balanced. All in all, Humankind it is not a bad game, but it is suboptimal in every respect when compared to Civilization (or even Millennia), while not actually innovating anything.

The game is good, but the developers don't care about it at all. Not only are patches incredibly rare, but every patch breaks multiplayer and saves. After the latest update, multiplayer hasn't worked in the game for a month. AMPLITUDE Studios is a terrible company.

Battles and graphics are great. I bought the game a year after release, so my experience has been quite smooth and often bug-free. The gameplay flow feels great (I play on Fast/Normal, Humankind difficulty, Last human standing). However, you can gather era stars and advance quite fast regardless of game speed. I recommend using the More Era Star requirements mod. It slows down the pace, making you stay in an era for more than 10 turns, which prevents you from easily overwhelming the AI with superior forces early on. Trade routes work really well. I love being able to interfere with them or trying to secure safe paths for trading. Diplomacy is fine, and the Congress of Humankind can really spice up the AI. I’ve played with and without it about 50% of the time, and whenever it’s active, things tend to escalate. International crises pop up frequently, often leading to war declarations. This game punishes you heavily if you make mistakes, which is great. This is true especially in the early game, but it carries over to the late game as well. Even in the final eras, you can be overwhelmed by the AI, so the game isn't just an easy stomp (unless you play on lower difficulties, but even then, mistakes are punished, just not as severely). The main downside is the lack of content. The 'Scenarios' don't add much and aren't as replayable as a regular new game. The game would benefit massively from new cultures and slightly bigger maps with a maximum of 12 (or more) competitors. I'd also love to see more customizable settings, like choosing your final Era. Imagine locking the final era to Medieval (adjusting the required stars so it takes as long to get there as it normally would to the Contemporary Era), that would be a lot of fun. And while they are at it, instead of relying on a mod to make Eras last longer, there should just be a built-in option for Era requirements. Also, while major bugs are rare now, there is still an occasional bug where battles won't ever end, softlocking your save. I suggest playing on the largest map with 10 competitors, 1 continent, and 90-100% land mass (max 10% water). This forces the AI to focus more on land units rather than sea battles. There is nothing wrong with naval combat, but the game can feel a bit easy when the AI over invests in ships, allowing you to create an infantry army and just roll over their cities. Humankind 2.0 maybe someday? That would be GREAT.

A better, more functional version of Civ7. Don't by that game. Enjoy this and then just place VI.

so many innovative and cool ideas. civ switching, leverage system, combat, starting as nomads, how you attach parts of the empire. so many mechanics thrown at you, that should spice things up heavily, but in the end nothing feels impressive enough to tip the scale to at least not be utterly boring. its a short refreshing journey if you come from playing civ for years. its cool to get behind the ideas the devs wanted to implement in this game if you have a spare weekend or two. but nothing really clicks. you explore a new mechanic and think its a very nice idea, just for it to be stale very fast. for example religion is really just accumulating faith points, thats it. culture the same. there is absolutely nothing to these two massive aspects from normal civ than accumulating more points than your neighbor. diplomacy has grievances and leverages now. wich is a very nice idea. either gain a demand or casus belli or put the grievances into leverage, with wich you can do all kinds of stuff later on or now. if you want to use it now..cool..you have like 5 options to choose from with the according npc civ. i even forgot what it is, but i remember just activating it and forgetting about the buffs the entire rest of the game , maybe it was sth. like +x% whatever resource. combat is very dynamic idea, but you dont want to bother with it after using it 2 times in manual mode. i mean why would you. i rather heal the troops for 1-2 rounds longer than spending 10 min managing every single movement of 5-15+ troops every single combat. its such nonsense. free city states or whatever the called are such a innovative and cool concept. advance in culture points and you can spend it on those states and benefit from the friendship. each time you spend a certain amount u gain a lvl in friendship and can activate another beneficial treaty. they will just dissapear after 10-30ish turns, so it doesnt really makes sense to bother with it. i played on lower difficulty ok, but no matter what i build, i end up swimming in every resource there is. building mines on special resources cost virtually nothing (1-3 rounds to build) so i do like 7 mines to op special resources in 7 rounds. after that im crazy rich and can build all special units etc. if i have production i just build money buildings in maybe 10 rounds and im rich. if i have money i just buy production buildings and am production powerhouse all game. if i have a lot of food i can do both. every civ game has this problem, but building food snowballs too hard. just build on food and you will eventually have everything bc of passive work fields and science of pops.