Dear God, the level of ignorance and cognitive dissonance is off the charts in these discussions.
Firaxis copied Humankind? To paraphrase Potato McWhisky: "if you can find me another 4x game that gets more than 10K players a day then you can talk to me about Firaxis copying other games." The fact is that the entire 4x industry stands on the shoulders of Civilization, the franchise. Everyone, including Amplitude, has copied Firaxis.

If the "intellectuals" who speak so smugly about Firaxis had any ability to think critically, they'd realize that a singular feature, even if it were rotely copied by Firaxis, does not an entire copied game make.

However, we know from the various previews and dev live streams that Firaxis' civ-changing mechanic will play *very* different from Humankind's, just as Civ VI's districts are very different from Endless Legend's district building system. Nobody accused Firaxis of copying EL because of districts.

How many mechanics did Humankind borrow from Civ? Too numerous to list because Firaxis practically made them commonplace.

But all of this is really besides the point because, for anyone who has been paying attention for the last 3-4 years it is very obvious that Firaxis and Amplitude have very friendly relations that goes beyond professional courtesy.
When Humankind was on the verge of launching, Firaxis had come off a hugely successful rolling out of its New Frontier Pass, but when NFP concluded Firaxis went dark on social media even though the devs had hinted that more content was incoming. Humankind launched to middling reviews but Firaxis gave them months and months of space.
While updating Humankind, Amplitude rolled out its community challenges to the game. Later on Firaxis would follow suit on its own monthly challenges, something they'd never done before.
I'll go so far as to say that Firaxis and Amplitude devs have been collaborating and exchanging ideas through back channels. In many ways Humankind was a kind of test bed for both devs to innovate ideas in the 4x space.
Needless to say, it is beyond petty to think Firaxis needs to copy anyone, or that Amplitude literally owns a gameplay mechanic. By this logic, Sega's Sonic "copied" Mario because jumping on an enemy defeats it.
So go ahead Civ IV and V fanboys, by all means continue to hate on Firaxis while you stagnate with the same game you've been playing for 10+ years, your measly opinions do not matter nor do they change the facts that Firaxis is a giant in the 4x space, that they've been so cordial toward Amplitude is a testament to their quality as a developer. Civ VII is going to sell like hotcakes regardless of what you say.