If you are writing directly to the devs, it might be a good idea to write in French. But here is the community, writing in French makes us unable to read your article. In my sense, this platform is more about players discussing with each other, rather than the devs. As you can see devs seldom reply.

Honestly we would love to reply more, it's just that we are not fully aware of the communication plan, what is already announced, what is to be announced and what is still 100% secret, so to not spoil everything we let our community guys (Cat and Martennson) answer most of your concern. I hope that after the release we will be able to answer more and discuss of the game with you guys !

Vyks wrote:

DrunkenChoko wrote:

Honestly we would love to reply more, it's just that we are not fully aware of the communication plan, what is already announced, what is to be announced and what is still 100% secret, so to not spoil everything we let our community guys (Cat and Martennson) answer most of your concern. I hope that after the release we will be able to answer more and discuss of the game with you guys !

After the release is already too late, once the core design of the game is there, it's there to stay and we have to either accept it or leave it.

Changes to core gameplay aren't going to happen at this stage anyway.  Anything outside that remit can be altered in post-release updates.

I also really despise huge cities, as represented in civ6 for example. I don't like it, although it could make sense historically, depending on scale. Tenochticlan was described as huge, as was Rome or Beijing. In this game, a huge city could be explained as the city core, and the agglomeration of people taht would slowly gather around it. But a city spreading over half a continent is a turnover for me.

MOREOVER, I hope Nomadism is a full part of the game systems, because nomadic civs (civs that hadn't discovered "Urbanism" for example... I know, I am pushy :-) ) are a huge building block of Humankind's History.

As far as tactics/strategy are concerned, it should be in line with scale. A battle would last a few hours, two days at most ( except siege, of course). If a turn represents, say, 10 years, a battle should not last two turns of course. As for tactics, hopefully, Amplitude will use them, but it is again a matter of scale. If a unit represents an Army, in this case, tactics are "included" in the battle resolution, if a unit represents a tactical unit (heavily armored and long pole equipped riders (you could call the cataphracts, or knights, or whatever, or unarmored, unshielded, light throwing weapons equiped foot infantry ( call them as you want, they were so common...), specific tactics should be included to better define the unit training (well, if you researched the "training" and or "advanced/legendary... training". I know, I am pushy), like tortoise formation (legionnaries), wield charge (crusaders knight), hit and run (any light troop, really), harrassment (any light ranged troop) shield wall (Vikings...), buffalo horn (more of an army strategy actually) (Zulus impis), salvo fire (any trained 18th century army), berzerk charge (most barbaric civilisations), spear wall (phalanx...), caltrops/traps laying (romans, boers..), volley throw (romans again....), "parthan" shot (well, parthes...), caracole (trained 18th century ranged cavalry), mass overhead shooting (english longbowmen at crecy, agincourt... Norman bowmen at Hastings...)... among others...

As for me, the big cities are not a problem until they spread for less than half of a region.

I will be really interested in seeing how the city sprawl is actually implemented... I would hate for the ultimate goal of a city to be to cover its territory completely, kind of a Quality over Quanity/Tall vs Wide scenario. To be fair though, in our current time there are parts of nations where large metropolitan areas are slowly merging together, such as the US North East and some Chinese cities. The clearest example though is Budapest, which was the unification of 3 cities: Buda, Pest, and Obuda in the 1800s. I'm sure we will see a Feature Focus video on this in the coming months.

I translated my message in English for that everyone can underestand it.

Hello.

I admire Amplitude but there are two features that scare me in Humankind: the gigantism of the cities, and the combat system.

The gigantic size of cities:

I know these are just screenshots from a pre alpha game.

I know that screens are there only for aesthetics, not to reflect the reality of the gameplay.

But I would like the devs be in excess, in the quantitative.

Cities that are too big have a lot of disadvantages: it can be boring to manage, it can break the natural aspect of the world, it can make a mess.

In comparison, on the screenshot below, we have a small town there but I find it more pleasant to see:

Remember that the districts in Civ VI are interesting, in that they are limited by the population of the city. Suddenly a big city has in the 4 districts maximum, + some dwellings. It's smarter than having fifteen identical districts in my opinion.

However, Civ VI allows and encourages the Infinite City Spawn (found the maximum number of cities to occupy all the space), and this forces players to found and manage 20 almost identical cities, with no real feeling of city uniqueness, and a lot of repetitive micromanagement. And that is a design failure of course.

I would like the excess of falling in quantity and the gigantism which these screens give the impression to be avoided in Humankind.

The combat system:

It seems obvious that Humankind will use a combat system derived from Endless Legend. It has its advantages and its disadvantages.

On the surface, the tactical complexity of the EL system is there. In reality, it is not. I wrote a guide on Endless Legend and I have 4000 hours of play so I can compare to other 4X: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=635764665 

Main disadvantages:

- The terrain characteristics are binary: choke point zones, favorable to archers, and open zones, unfavorable. Basically, that's it. On the other hand, in Civilization IV, an army which takes position on a wooded hill, is very difficult to eliminate. This allows him to control a limited area of the map even in large numerical inferiority. Something totally impossible on EL.

- The EL army system is a real problem in Multiplayer, because fighting resolution takes a long time, especially in mid-late game. This affects the enjoyment of other players' play. This problem is probably unresolvable, unless the fights are shorter and more decisives in a limited time (which would be preferable, although requiring more intense design work).

In summary, I will find really well if Humankind could make the environment more impactful, the tactical decisions too (army composition, equipment) but by making the fights be shorter and decisive than on EL.

With the hope of being useful,

Jojo_Fr

I think the combat system from EL is a little bit more nuanced than the OP gives it credit for, though I accept that in practice not all of these may matter as much as it seems on paper.

For instance:

- In addition to choke points, I think elevation also matters. Not in terms of how far ranged units can hit, but I do seem to think it impacts morale or chance to hit.

- Similar for forests. I seem to recall that forests give some extra defense, though it may be just specific to Wild Walkers who I played more recently.

- Futher, building on the first point, there is a (rudimentary) morale system. For instance, ranged or support units (can?) get a debuff if next to an enemy unit. Not sure how many other influences there are on morale, e.g. friendly/enemy units killed in battle, odds of winning/losing, being close to friendly units.

- Several units have special abilities that influence how you position your units or sequence your attacks. Broken Lords' Stalwarts and Dust Bishops are case in points, Wild Walker units in forest another one. Arden Mages' flyer can rebirth. So that all leads to different tactics.

- Lastly, some weapons have AoE properties, e.g. claws or hammers. That influences how you want to fit them out and how to deploy/use your troops in battle. And whether you have/want the necessary initiative to make good use of those AoEs.

All in all, I felt it was a good system for giving the player *some* tactical control, while keeping the pace manageble. I got into AoW III a bit recently and fought a single 30 minute battle there (granted, it was late game, fairly large, and tight enough to require careful thinking). It's a great, detailed system and a lot of fun. But combining that with a full-on 4X Civ is just too much of a time committment for me. (And I am not such a huge combat focused player). With that in mind, I hope Humandkind keeps those principles in mind and won't go too crazy on tactical combat. Many players want it, want lots of detail. I am less keen. But let's see what comes of it. Very excited about more news.

The EL Combat system is rather complex as already stated. Morale depends btw for most units mostly on the number of enemies and/or allies around them. The damag- range, critical hits, aoe, linial dmg, evasion and so on are not typical for 4x games in my experience. In e.g. civ V it is mostly about higher ground and less visible/more fortified places if I remember correctly.

The newest post of HK already gives us the information that unit placement on the map seems to matter.

DrunkenChoko wrote:

Honestly we would love to reply more, it's just that we are not fully aware of the communication plan, what is already announced, what is to be announced and what is still 100% secret, so to not spoil everything we let our community guys (Cat and Martennson) answer most of your concern. I hope that after the release we will be able to answer more and discuss of the game with you guys !more sa

Tis statement scares me ! I joined games2 gether becaus I thought that some of the TOGEHER contend woul be created right here, but each passing day I get and more the impression, that the input of this commuity  is worth nothing to the devs.

The EL combat system is well thinked but badly applied I think.
I know him fully, every unit, every piece of equipment.

He has big problems:

- The same units are always used. 1/3 of units are too weaks, or too expensives, to be used.

- There is no complementarity between the units. For example, archers do not need to be protected by infantry. Except in very rare map with narrow choke points.

- The army reinforcements allow to bring too many units. Up to +4 units per turn for each camp. This creates clutter and slow fights, where tactics disappear.

It would be important that the combat system of HK fix these problems, if you please respected devs.

Zaubberer wrote:

DrunkenChoko wrote:

Honestly we would love to reply more, it's just that we are not fully aware of the communication plan, what is already announced, what is to be announced and what is still 100% secret, so to not spoil everything we let our community guys (Cat and Martennson) answer most of your concern. I hope that after the release we will be able to answer more and discuss of the game with you guys !more sa

Tis statement scares me ! I joined games2 gether becaus I thought that some of the TOGEHER contend woul be created right here, but each passing day I get and more the impression, that the input of this commuity  is worth nothing to the devs.

I also find the together part a bit lacking. There is also nothing that we can vote about...

I really hope they have plans to chance that. 

Jojo_Fr wrote:

The EL combat system is well thinked but badly applied I think.
I know him fully, every unit, every piece of equipment.

He has big problems:

- The same units are always used. 1/3 of units are too weaks, or too expensives, to be used.

- There is no complementarity between the units. For example, archers do not need to be protected by infantry. Except in very rare map with narrow choke points.

- The army reinforcements allow to bring too many units. Up to +4 units per turn for each camp. This creates clutter and slow fights, where tactics disappear.

It would be important that the combat system of HK fix these problems, if you please respected devs.

But isn't the fact of morale determined by adjacent units exactly why you'd want to protect your ranged units? Besides, I seem to recall ranged units are less effective attacking targets right next to them.

Also, some units do have specialist roles. For instance, I found it quite effective at times to use high-iniative, high-movement units to block enemy reinforcement points either directly (by standing on them) or indirectly (by engaging an enemy standing on them). That said, you are right that some units just aren't worth the cost. In particular, I find assimilated units really expensive to produce until you have at least a few of their villages under control.

I also agree with your point that battle maps can be quite small for the number of units potentially engaging in it. It's not inherently a system designed for 20+ v 20+ unit battles.

Still, I like it for what it is.

I find that the EL combat system does indeed get much, much more interesting when the world generator is set to have a high density of ridges and cliffs. The system very well can encourage tactical positioning of troops, and things like formation/height advantages do matter quite a lot when all else is equal. It's just that in practice you rarely get the opportunity for stuff like that. You have to do some clever maneuvering of your troops on the overworld map if you want any sort of control over your terrain advantage in the actual fight.

Let me begin by apologizing for not replying sooner. I had meant to reply much sooner but lost sight of this for a while.

Also, thank you Jojo for providing your post in English as well. While I was able to read it with my rusty high-school French, SunshineWings is correct that content posted to the main forums should be written in English so the greatest number of people can participate.

Now, let me finally reply to your concerns (within the context of what we have revealed about the game so far):

The (gigantism of the) cities:

Please bear in mind that one goal of these screenshots is to show off our game assets, so these cities are intentionally large and dense. That is not to say they are unrepresentative of gameplay, as it is possible to create cities like that in game, but they are the result of a dedicated effort in city growth as well as concetrating that growth in one area. There are limits to how many districts you can build in a single city, and you also have opportunities to spread these districts out far more than seen in these screenshots (since in these screenshots, we do have to fit everything we want to show on a single screen) and create multiple smaller "urban areas" scattered across a large region. Covering an entire territory with Quarters is far less likely to happen, though, as a territory has (by my rough guess) around 40 tiles, which would be a remarkably large city any time before the endgame.

Furthermore, the merging of multiple Territories into larger Regions goverened as a single city (even if it may contain multiple clusters of Quarters) is part of how we address the management issue Jojo_Fr mentions in one post: While you could in theory hold a large number of individual cities, this will not necessarily offer you a massive economic advantage over a player who consolidated their territories into fewer cities controlling more territory each.

On the Combat System:

As Shadowhal has already pointed out, Endless Legend had boni for High Ground (+30% Attack), Forests (+50% Defense), Morale (+15% Attack and Defense per Point), effects that interacted with these boni (Wild Walkers Forest Resonance, the High Ground Capacity from equipment, Ranged and Support losing Morale for adjacent enemies, the Glory or Death and Shock Capacities...) While the specifics of the execution of Humankind's combat sytem are different, it will offer a similar range of combat factors from terrain, unit positioning, and unit abilities.

As far as the duration of battles is concerned, I would say they take about as long as they did in Endless Legend (which to me personally always felt like a nice middle ground between entirely stack-based combat with instant resolution, and the enjoyable but very long battles of games like Age of Wonders or Total War). And just like in Endless Legend, you are free to move away and manage your empire while the battle is happening, either because you set it on auto or because your enemy is taking their turn.

On Games2Gether:

We have some ideas for this, but we are not yet at the stage where we can kick those off those, so please be patient with us.

We feel that you have thought about these subjects.

Thank you very much for your answer.

Wish I had seen this thread sooner because these are probably my two biggest make-or-break concerns about the game as well. Anyway, I've seen it now so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts.

On cities:

-It did worry me early on looking at screenshots that a mid-to-late-game map would be so absolutely covered in such thick urban sprawl that it would end up feeling horrendously unrealistic and like there's barely any world left that isn't just city. I do totally understand that modern megapolises can be absolutely huge, so I'm totally fine with there being a couple of really big cities in the lategame that take up a load of room but the vast majority of the map has to still just be wilderness/farmland/whatever (just not urban) even then..... it really wouldn't feel right otherwise and would be a major immersion breaker IMO.

-Cat-O-Nine-Tales seems to have hinted at something here that I've been suspecting for a while. The first dev dairy video showed a brief glimpse of the tech tree and the Chivalry tech unlocks something called "Village Center". My guess watching it then was that this is similar to Kapaku Golem Camps, a district that can be built anywhere in the region and exploit the surrounding tiles without having to be connected to the city (and perhaps additional districts can be bolted onto it). I cannot stress enough how much I hope this is the case, or that Humankind will have something along these lines. Representation of human settlement that isn't just concentrated to a few big cities is something that I feel the 4X genre has been sorely missing since Civ IV. It's always irritated me to no end that I'm supposed to believe my entire huge advanced society is limited to only 4-6 big settlements. And Civ VI was even worse, cities in that game make absolutely no sense whatsoever. They just look and feel comical.

-On a similar note, I'd say that a lot of what we've been shown/told of the game so far indicates quite strongly that there will be a pretty heavy commitment towards avoiding ICS. You can combine regions together and I seem to recall it being said in one of the dev diary videos that they wanted to avoid this kind of gameplay, or something along those lines. I imagine that even a large empire will have a relatively small number of individual "cities" (which may, in fact, look visually like smaller clusters of detached urban areas spread out over a wide area in many cases)

On combat:

-We need to try not to be too ambitious here. There are multiple different competing factors that need to be balanced carefully. Civ IV didn't have the problems other 4X games had in this area purely because the combat wasn't particularly tactical in comparison, which has its own problem that it doesn't have the potential to be as fun or deep. If we're to have tactical gameplay, it has to exist on the same map the rest of the game is played on (a AOW:PF system is the alternative and simply doesn't work in multiplayer). On the other hand, that same tactical gameplay has to not just bog down the game and make it tedious. Both of the two most recent Civ games and EL encountered this problem in different ways. Wars in Civ 5/6 tend to be extremely boring, tedious slogs because of how difficult it is to maneuvre troops and to kill units/cities and the amount of micromanagement involved. I always found EL combat very enjoyable in single player, by comparison, but I have heard there are significant issues with how its tactical system works in multiplayer in the context of simultaneous turns.

-As far as I'm aware, Humankind uses a similar system to EL but with battles spread over multiple turns, and with each turn in the battle taking place over the course of a whole game turn. This has the potential to solve both problems. I am still curious, though, as to whether it will use an initiative system like EL or simply rely on speed of clicking. I seriously hope it's the former.

There are actually several ways in which you could start a new cluster of Quarters, but we'll go into more details later (possibly when we start streaming).

Combat actually features 3 combat rounds per global turn. We'll dive into specifics of the mechanics later, but for now I will say that the system does not rely on you clicking quickly, nor does it use an initiative system, and leave you to speculate with that. :P

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

There are actually several ways in which you could start a new cluster of Quarters, but we'll go into more details later (possibly when we start streaming).

Combat actually features 3 combat rounds per global turn. We'll dive into specifics of the mechanics later, but for now I will say that the system does not rely on you clicking quickly, nor does it use an initiative system, and leave you to speculate with that. :P

I like the sound of multiple ways to start clusters. One of them is probably the outpost, but I do look forward to more on it.

Intriguing regarding the combat system. It's not fully pre-planned moves either, right? I recall that in EL there was an option to have commands only possible every two turns. My impression was that players get more control over units compared to EL, not less. Besides, that wouldn't explain what sequence units move in. Could you maybe confirm at what points the player can give orders? Per round, after any unit has moved? Other?

We've already confirmed that any battle will have three rounds per strategic turn (Well, or less if you win before then, I guess. :-P ), and that you have more direct control of the units, but we're not quite ready to talk about all the details yet.

The drawn out combat system will make this game unplayable online. I expect it to go the same way as EL and Age of Wonders and servers to be empty. Sure it'll be fun in single player when you can save your game and come back to it day after day but would you be able to complete a 4-6 player game online within 3 hours when every battle is drawn out? Also, why the heck would i want to go off and manage my empire while i have units battling? This feels like the battles are secondary and the combat system is secondary in the overall design of the game. We don't just want simcity 2020 we want a complete game that is better than Civ !

He literally just said that combat will not be drawn out. Three actions per turn is not at all like EL or AoW and sounds very reasonable, especially if you can put a timer like 10 seconds per action per unit. You would want to manage your units and empire at the same time so that the other players can still get turns in during your war, instead of waiting for you each time you battle.

You can't have it both ways. Either there is a deep, drawn out combat system like EL or AoW which has the draw back of making the game take longer and other players waiting while you fight. Or you have combat more like Civ where there is a simpler overworld system where you manage empire and units at the same time and other players don't have to wait for you, at the cost of some of the depth. Putting combat in the overworld but allowing three actions per turn is a pretty decent compromise in my opinion. Do you have a better suggestion?

GaelicWarrior wrote:

The drawn out combat system will make this game unplayable online. I expect it to go the same way as EL and Age of Wonders and servers to be empty. Sure it'll be fun in single player when you can save your game and come back to it day after day but would you be able to complete a 4-6 player game online within 3 hours when every battle is drawn out? Also, why the heck would i want to go off and manage my empire while i have units battling? This feels like the battles are secondary and the combat system is secondary in the overall design of the game. We don't just want simcity 2020 we want a complete game that is better than Civ !

I think those 3 actions are a good middleground like Eulogos pointed out. And as Cat pointed out it could make sense to do other things in your empire while the enemy is moving his units. You probably don t have to do it though.

Thanks, Cat-o-Nine-Tails. What I thought I remembered from previously. I look forward to the FF on combat when it comes.

I think this is really where player preferences come in. Some like detailed combat systems as in Total War or Age of Wonders or their space 4X equivalents. Others like a heavier focus on exploitation and empire building mechanics. For the most part, I'm in the latter camp, so a "compromise" combat system sounds great to me. I quite enjoyed EL's limited control system that game some meaningful control, but kept things pacey. I thought the system for ES2 was quite clever in theory, not sure it worked as well in practice. But good to try something new, instead of treading well-wandered paths.

But indeed the devs will need to find a way to make tactical combat work for MP for those who like to play that mode. Seems like quite a conundrum.

Hello mates, Im new!

If I might not be able to bring up interesting stuff myself but I might start a discussion that does. Sadly I never got never warm with endless legend even tho I loved the game design, but I have way to many hours in Civ 6 - a game I play competitively against other people too. 

First of all: The fighting system

I love (I hope Im allowed to compare Humankind with Civ) strategic wars in Civ6 and wouldnt say there boring at all. Of cause in a head to head fight when one player fortifies and the other one dosent have the army and miltary tec to push that might stale out the war, but there are ways around that. The use of the terrain is very essential. At least in Multiplayer that is - In Singleplayer it is quite the grind to fight deity AI.

Fortification is a Key: The use of a defensive settlement on rivers or Mountains. Placing camps to strengthen terrain and protect a unit. Fortifying troops on rough terrain and you might be able to repel tanks with fieldcannons.

The opponent has to stack up a lot of war ecco and tec related Boni to overpower the defender.

In Human Kind I would like to see the serario were a citybuilder or rapid expansion civilization has to fight a nomadic and/or warciv. I like the Idea of rewarding a player to play defensive by maybe making the land harder to pass by building outposts having an army who can take advantage of the fortifications (the implementation of more armor for allies as City defense in endless legend felt a bit weird).

The battlemap in EL was defiantly one of the features I enjoyed most, preventing the Unitblobing and the Initiative handled a fair way to determine who draws when. Way better than the Civ System : Who kicks faster wins, at least if you dont want to play 10 minute long turns for the other mode. I just hope that in Humankind the other Players can still do their turn while two (or more) people are fighting on the battle map.

I really hope the fighting will be a core feature in Humankind. Biggest Army wins would be boring concept there. Maybe give the Player a way to build fortifications improve his Land for Combat advantages. Give Warcivs Pluderunits, who ignore fortification and can evade armies? Give weaker Warcivs hit and run tactics, maybe a huge bonus for destroying/capturing/plundering Outposts. Idk Im curios for the game

I like the gigantic cities. I wish there was a feature where you could zoom into the cities - I'm not sure how the 4k system works - but I like the gigantic cities graphically