What I think is one of Amplitude's biggest strengths is your ability to create unique and balanced Asymmetrical factions.  One of the reasons I don't really enjoy Civ is because all the factions are bland, the bonuses aren't powerful or varied enough to make each faction feel different.

I know that Humankind will be at least slightly asymmetrical, due to players building their own civilizations, but my question is, are the bonuses being designed in such a way where in the late all factions will be on slightly even playing ground no matter what civilization combos you pick, or will civilizations wildly differ by the late game in terms of bonuses and playstyle?

To be fair, I don't think the Endless factions are balanced themselves. I kinda got the impression that they were making them a little more generic, since there won't be special abilities that completely change the gameplay (which makes sense, since all the factions in Humankind are, well, human) but we don't know how conbat really works and thus we don't know how big of a change uniqe units will provide.

I agree humans are boring XD. But I'm at least hoping that creating different culture combinations will make gameplay at least slightly noticeably different.

The difference between the heterogeneity of Civ's factions and Endless Legend's factions is a topic that comes up a lot, but it's worth remembering that in some Civ games (*mainly* Civ V; unfortunately, Civ VI didn't do this well, in my opinion) differentiation between games comes primarily from choices made within the game, and not from the choice of faction that's made at the outset. Social policy trees and ideology choices in Civ V lead to a huge amount of differentiation in playstyle throughout the game, and the cool thing about them is that they're based on choices that players have to make to adapt to their surroundings, rather than just being an arbitrary decision made before the game has even started. 

To me, this is what's so cool about Humankind's approach. You go into every game a completely blank slate. Every decision made is inherently adaptive, and this even extends to faction choice. 

I think it's unlikely that Humankind's factions will show anything like the diversity of Endless Legend's, but I do think we should embrace what they do offer - IMO, EL provided strong differentiation between games played with different factions, but little among repeated playthroughs of the same faction. I'm hoping that Humankind's approach will bridge this gap and lead to all kinds of crazy combinations of different bonuses that will lead to cool, varied and unpredictable strategies in every single game. The only thing that does worry me is that some of these bonuses might synergise a bit too well and overly reward the player who gets to them first.

Huh. So it's more than just the legacy bonus and getting more fame from certain kinds of stars? That's interesting, and I would love to learn more.

I'd love to tell you more, but I'm afraid right now I can't be more specific than "a powerful ability" as mentioned in the devblog, because we're not quite ready to show this off yet, and some of the abilities are related to features we have not revealed yet. I'll double-check if there are any I could (vaguely) describe as an example for you.

I too hope that Humankind will offer really asymmetrical factions or features.

It is the hard way, because it requires a consequent work on Balance. But it's so much better as an end result!
The replayability is sooo better.

We shouldn't worry too much about the "Unbalanced" problem. At best, devs and experienced beta testers will fix the stuff. At worst, a focused modder will do it later.

Hi there!

Most of it have already been discussed earlier but to summarize our take on asymmetrical gameplay for Humankinds: we focus on the crafting your asymmetry along the game.

Unlike in our previous game in which most of the asymmetrical gameplay is defined from the start with your faction choice (you still had some unique abilities unlocked through the game, notably thanks to the main quest), here you’re going to create YOUR unique combination over the course of the game. This asymmetrical experience is built on:

• The combination of the culture 

They bring unique content for the current Era through their Emblematic Building and Units; giving specific advantage for your economy and battles.  Even when you lost the ability to build them, the Emblematic Building will keep providing their benefits. You can thus create interesting combo using Emblematic Building from different Eras.

In addition to that the Legacy Traits, empire-wide effects, will also stack up the game progresses, allowing either to build a specialized or versatile Civilization.

And as Cat-o-nine-tail said, Gameplay Orientation will add some spice on top of that ? As they are bound to your current Culture, you’ll be able to change from one  trump card to another depending on the situation.

• Gameplay choices

Your culture(s) will influence your playstyle and encourage you to aim at specific Era Stars. As in all 4X your choices will thus create asymmetry at some degrees. You will have to prioritize technologies, and even ignore some of them. 

Similarly, you’ll have a limited number of Extensions you can build in a city (based on its population, similarly to Endless Legend); which will force you to make strong choices.

Moreover, some of the unannounced systems are going to also bring strong asymmetrical and exclusive options all along the game, complementing your culture combination.

I am not able yet to detail you the what and how yet, but you should learn more on that as we will get closer to the release ?

Cheers,

So the next question is, will any of the cultures bring significant alterations to gameplay. Like if Wild Walkers suddenly became Broken Lords, so no more food usage. Shaping your culture step by step is definately interesting, but only if those step really matter individually, not like 5% building cost reduction for some culture and thats it. Hope I made my point understandable..

Don't stress too much. As much as we'd love to know what the plan is, the teasing and speculating is fun too.

mamarider wrote:

So the next question is, will any of the cultures bring significant alterations to gameplay. Like if Wild Walkers suddenly became Broken Lords, so no more food usage. Shaping your culture step by step is definately interesting, but only if those step really matter individually, not like 5% building cost reduction for some culture and thats it. Hope I made my point understandable..

It's probably not as signficant as no longer using food or some other abilities in Endless Legend or Endless space, but as mentioned the gameplay orientations do come with some pretty powerful abilities. However, as said, we can't dive into specifics on them yet.