Why do you think Civilization is such a huge success with strong staying power? Is it just merely that Firaxis was largely the first to the market and now they have created a familiar product over the course of many years? Is there a brand loyalty that they have built up? Some people seem to think that Civilization is the simplest; designed for broader appeal and that is the reason for their success, but I disagree with that. I do think they are the comfort food of 4x – people know what they are getting. And I maintain that they have the smoothest gameplay flow of all 4x games – both in the upkeep of an individual turn and the pacing of mechanics over the course of a full game. In other words, it feels good to hit “end turn”.

Three reasons to buy Humankind:

- It is the only challenger to Civ, which has had a monopoly for ages. When you have a monopoly, you don't innovate, it's not good for the players.

- Humankind has an exceptional artistic direction (in particular the music). If you like the beautiful, you will like the game.

- Let us trust Amplitude's intelligence to create a game with a deep enough gameplay and high replayability.

What you get here at the very least is an AI that isn't 15 years old at this point. Firaxis is still working with the AI that Civ 4 came with. Can't even call it an AI anymore at that point though, it's really just a massive chain of If-sequences that can become deadlocked and leave the AI unable to act.

А Humankind будет бесплатным?

Prokhor wrote:

А Humankind будет бесплатным?

А почему игра должна быть бесплатной?

Hi all, I'm a long time fan of the Civ series (I started with Civ 2), and I am very much looking forward to Humankind.

One thing I really like about Amplitude, is the focus they place on the community. It's a breath of fresh air to see the developers actively responding to posts, both here and over at the civfanatics forums (Which Firaxis doesn't do). That can only be a good thing for the long term health of the game.

This video helps a lot:

While I regularly play Civ6, I share the opinion that the Civ series has surpassed its peak which was imo Civ4 (Rhye's and Fall Mod 1.18 ... my best Civ experience ever). 

The only issue that slightly concerned me when I first heard about Humankind was whether Amplitude might be making the same mistake as Firaxis by creating a more casual or generic game the appeals more to everyone but less to core fans.

When I do not want to play "casual" nothing surpasses CK2, EL and ES2 imo.

It would be neat if there was a cravers easter egg or an allusion to an endless empire reduced to dust. Amplitude has put a few easter eggs and jokes into previous games so it woudn't be too far fetched to see something in Humankind.