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The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales

5 years ago Mar 13,2020, 15:34:41 PM

Humankind Feature Focus 03: Claiming Territory

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Hello everybody,



We had hinted before how we had itereted on the concept of regions and city development with Humankind, and it's finally time for us to dive into the details of Claiming Territory: Territories, Cities and Outposts, (Emblematic) Quarters, and even Wonders!

Check out the video and blog below for a closer look!




In our previous game, Endless Legend, we introduced the idea of pre-existing regions on the map. Players could claim these regions by founding a city, and expand their city within the region’s borders. We received great feedback on this, so for Humankind we decided to iterate on this idea and make regions more dynamic.

 


To do this, we introduced a new type of ownership. On the one hand we have cities that you can grow and develop, on the other hand we have Outposts. These outposts can be founded by any of your armies in neutral territory, and mark your claim on that territory. However, they are fragile and easily destroyed, so you will need to defend them with your armies.


A Roman Outpost


These outposts can be developed into cities by investing in them, or they can be absorbed by an existing city, merging their territory into a larger region in which to exploit resources and expand your city.


A city Region composed of multiple Territories

 

We also wanted the cities to expand across the map in a way that makes sense for the terrain around them. As a city’s population grows, you will be able to construct additional Quarters to expand the area of your city. These Quarters will exploit the resources on the tiles around them, so you will naturally want to expand your cities in ways that make sense to exploit the resources of your region efficiently. This “organic” growth of your city will lead each of your cities to have a unique shape, a sense of place.


 Multiple types of Quarters

 


We also wanted to reflect the history of the city and the player’s civilization in the city, so we decided that certain Quarters would maintain their appearance even as players change their culture. Both city centers and Emblematic Quarters will retain their central structures even as the architecture of the other quarters around them changes. This way, you will be able to tell just from looking at a city which cultures influenced its development.




Finally, if your civilization is artistically inclined, you may be able to lay claim to a Wonder. However, these wonders are monumental projects, so you may require the contributions of more than one of your cities to build them!




We hope you enoyed this closer look at regions and cities in Humankind!

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5 years ago
Mar 14, 2020, 7:24:14 PM

I guess one Quarter will be an infastructure quater enables stables, main train station, airport, etc. to speed up movement, make trade with consumable recources possible, get tourists and boost the econemy, another might be a gouvernment quater would be cool if it could bring a lot of benefits on one hand and be a wak point one the other ( a civilisation migt be dead or at least havely weekend if thar quater would be destroid).


An unique upgrade for a defence quater could be the Pentagon, for the culture quater the Louvre and Cern for a sience quater.  

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4 years ago
Dec 18, 2020, 7:29:06 AM

If you conquer an outpost, how can you attach it to a city? Says I can't while it is occupied or near an outpost.

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4 years ago
Jul 27, 2020, 8:19:06 AM

I like the idea of fewer cities, Other games like this tend to have a very tedious end game where you are cycling through building in 50 plus cities every turn building things that aren't necessary for your victory.


Also, I am glad that the cities will spill over and not be cut off like in EL if you reach the border.


The district leveling that Sublustris mentioned was that if you surrounded a district with three or four others in EL it became a level 2 district and the yields increased.


Will there be a governer feature?


Thanks for the feedback.

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5 years ago
Apr 6, 2020, 2:28:50 PM
The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Take note: It's a Trades Quarter, not a Trade Quarter. "Trades" in the sense of "professions."

wouldn't Artisans quarters make more sense then? or atleast cause less confusion.

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5 years ago
Mar 27, 2020, 10:59:38 AM
SpacesuitSpiff wrote:

Apparently there's psychological research that shows humans can only do a good job tracking ~7 things in their minds at a time. I certainly noticed this playing EL; maybe 3 of those are reserved for cities, all the others I go to it and think "alright what was the plan here again?". The big cities, not needing their component regions to be individually developed and micromanaged, is an excellent idea in that regard.


I do hope there's something in the UI that sharply draws the bounds of the city when needed. Looking at these screenshots, it's not super easy to tell which tiles are developed at a glance. EL has this problem because you want to visualize the shape to plan what districts level up, but the exploitation tiles aren't always distinct enough from the developed ones.

For me it is a good thing those games are turn-based, I can hardly track more than 2 things at once.


I suppose the visual feedback of cities will be polished and we ll be able to clearly see the districts.

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5 years ago
Mar 20, 2020, 2:22:48 PM

Apparently there's psychological research that shows humans can only do a good job tracking ~7 things in their minds at a time. I certainly noticed this playing EL; maybe 3 of those are reserved for cities, all the others I go to it and think "alright what was the plan here again?". The big cities, not needing their component regions to be individually developed and micromanaged, is an excellent idea in that regard.


I do hope there's something in the UI that sharply draws the bounds of the city when needed. Looking at these screenshots, it's not super easy to tell which tiles are developed at a glance. EL has this problem because you want to visualize the shape to plan what districts level up, but the exploitation tiles aren't always distinct enough from the developed ones.

Updated 5 years ago.
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5 years ago
Mar 17, 2020, 8:25:04 PM

Looks Great! I'd like to thank the devs for sharing this with us!

I can't wait for more details on territorial claiming and how outposts would be contested amoung different powers.


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5 years ago
Mar 16, 2020, 9:02:47 PM

Hi there,


Thanks a lot for posting this interesting feature focus and also for answering a lot of the follow-up questions. I have some as well and hope you are able to share some insights either now or later:


1. Are territory assignments permanent or can they be reassigned later on, e.g. split off territory and found a new city there, or assign to a different city? 

2. What about conquest and territories? Can a territory be conquered independent of the city it is attached to? Could it then be reassigned to one of the victor's cities? From the comment around outposts being fragile, I guess the whole city might need to be captured or at least something more far reaching to wrestle control away.

3. In that regard, what exactly is the benefit to cities of adding territories? More room to expand physically into? Cities in EL could get pretty big and region borders could get in the way of expanding efficiently. Of course, adding a territory also grants access to resources, but I gathered that can also be achieved through outposts.

4. Are new cities only developed from outposts or does the classic settler unit still exist (and work as usual)?

5. It sounds like buildings/city improvemens will apply to the whole city, rather than be build in sectors a la Civ VI, right? Not that it makes much of a difference, if HK follows the EL model of districts not being conquer-able independently of the whole city.


I like the idea of multiple quarters and a soft cap on quarters. Seems like that could allow quite heavy specialisation. I hope that interacts nicely with terrain and avoids wanting to build the same cities everywhere all the time. It's a difficult balance which not all games got right.

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5 years ago
Mar 16, 2020, 8:58:11 AM
Sublustris wrote:

I presume district leveling mechanic is gone for good? At least in the form it was present in EL.

There are synergies between quarters, but I don't recall any "leveling" mechanic with a specific gameplay breakpoint.



Dinode wrote:

The fact that trade and market are separate makes me curious.

Take note: It's a Trades Quarter, not a Trade Quarter. "Trades" in the sense of "professions."



Jojo_Fr wrote:

I am not thrilled with the idea of gigantic cities which absorb regions.

Because :

- A gigantic city is a non-specialized city, which can produce everything (Science/Industire/Military/Trade). It's bad I think, it's better if EACH city have SPECIFIC kind of function.

- From the moment a player can absorb a region, is there real disadvantage to don't do it? The game has to propose decision making, not no brainer decisions which are like candies for the player (like district sprawling or regions absorption).

Absorbing regions is not free, so the decision is when and where to invest your limited resources. As far as city specialization is concerned: Yes, every city will need food and Industry, but with the way that the districts work you will have to adapt to the terrain rather than following an ideal layout as often happened in Endless Legend. The other resources are a different matter, and I haven't experimented enough to tell whether specializing or generalizing is better.

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5 years ago
Mar 15, 2020, 6:21:36 AM
Jojo_Fr wrote:

I am not thrilled with the idea of gigantic cities which absorb regions.

Because :

- A gigantic city is a non-specialized city, which can produce everything (Science/Industire/Military/Trade). It's bad I think, it's better if EACH city have SPECIFIC kind of function.

- From the moment a player can absorb a region, is there real disadvantage to don't do it? The game has to propose decision making, not no brainer decisions which are like candies for the player (like district sprawling or regions absorption).



An advantage that I see:

- The infinite City Spawn is a horrible drift from Civ VI. Where the player is rewarded if he colonizes each km2 of land, and he ends up with 50 cities to manage.



I really like the principle of the Outpost. It is important to create early zones of conflicts, skirmishes between the players. And Outpost regions seems more wild, it's better than having conflicts only in high urbanised aeras.


The existence of multiple kind of district is very good to know. I hope that :

- There is real specialisation in cities. If a city need food/industry to do anything, that's not specialisation. Each city will have ALWAYS the same path of developement.
- These districts can be pillaged or destroyed, like an improvement (like a farm).

I like big cities, they are the way to show my great work! Marvelous!

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5 years ago
Mar 13, 2020, 4:13:15 PM

So you claim a wounder somehow and then you are able to actually build it, is that correct? And what do you mean by " artistically inclined"?

Updated 5 years ago.
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5 years ago
Mar 14, 2020, 1:31:27 PM

I am not thrilled with the idea of gigantic cities which absorb regions.

Because :

- A gigantic city is a non-specialized city, which can produce everything (Science/Industire/Military/Trade). It's bad I think, it's better if EACH city have SPECIFIC kind of function.

- From the moment a player can absorb a region, is there real disadvantage to don't do it? The game has to propose decision making, not no brainer decisions which are like candies for the player (like district sprawling or regions absorption).



An advantage that I see:

- The infinite City Spawn is a horrible drift from Civ VI. Where the player is rewarded if he colonizes each km2 of land, and he ends up with 50 cities to manage.



I really like the principle of the Outpost. It is important to create early zones of conflicts, skirmishes between the players. And Outpost regions seems more wild, it's better than having conflicts only in high urbanised aeras.


The existence of multiple kind of district is very good to know. I hope that :

- There is real specialisation in cities. If a city need food/industry to do anything, that's not specialisation. Each city will have ALWAYS the same path of developement.
- These districts can be pillaged or destroyed, like an improvement (like a farm).

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5 years ago
Mar 14, 2020, 9:42:44 AM

Well then, the video left me with questions and the response gave me even more of those :D


All of this sounds interesting, makes me impatient for, if not playing the game, then at least time when you'll be able to tell more about it.

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5 years ago
Mar 14, 2020, 9:41:03 AM

Yeah, can't wait to nuke right into emblematic quarter

Updated 5 years ago.
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5 years ago
Mar 14, 2020, 1:28:40 AM
The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
buzzkill wrote:

If Emblematic Quarters are tied to the culture/player that built them then will they persist if the city changes ownership?

Yes, they do.

I'm so glad to hear this is the case! No more unnecessary city destruction like in Civilization!

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5 years ago
Mar 13, 2020, 6:40:57 PM

How do I learn how to build these districts  Quarters ? Are they tied to a tech ?

You talk about cities, but is nomadism a thing ? So many very influencial nomadic civilisations...


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5 years ago
Mar 13, 2020, 6:24:19 PM
The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Yes, you claim it, and then you can build it without anybody else being able to "steal" the construction by building it faster. We're not ready to talk about the details of how they are claimed yet, hence the vague "artistically inclined."


EDIT: Since I shared it on CivFanatics when they asked, let me add this information here as well, a partial list of working titles for the generic quarters.

  • Farmers Quarter
  • Trades Quarter
  • Market Quarter

  • Research Quarter

  • Commons Quarter

  • Defense Quarter

  • Harbour

  • and a few others we are not ready to tell you about yet.


Feel free to go wild with your speculation. :)



The fact that trade and market are separate makes me curious.

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5 years ago
Mar 13, 2020, 5:49:40 PM

I presume district leveling mechanic is gone for good? At least in the form it was present in EL.

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