With the recent updates the game is starting to appear much more customizable for the player than it appeared to be at the launch of the game. Currently we have the possibility to modify many of the parameters that characterize a game, adding the possibility to make every turn feel like a completely new one: now we can choose not just our appearance or the one of our enemies, but we can also customize our planet, change the randomness of its generation, and make feel unique each new gameplay, both in the vanilla and in the modded way.

With the running of the time, the devs are slowly (but consistently) reshaping Humankind with the community's advices in order to keep improving it further and further, and they are doing a brilliant work, but... the players are always hungry of news and updates and, although the game has already made big steps forward and is enriching its prospective with his latest DLCs, they are still asking for new original content.

Starting from this premise, and having us made clear the necessity for unique solutions, I am here to present you: HK's Game-modes

They would enrich the gameplay to further frontiers, surpassing the limits of the new scenarios or cultures, allowing the players to improve drastically their possibility to customize the game, creating the new rules for their Humankind's history. They should work in a similar way of the mods, with a dedicated panel and the opportunity for the community to create their own ones, but they should also be a new way to intend the game, a new way to play it parallel to the "historical-vanilla" one, that would allow both the devs and the modders to "introduce" in the game their ideas, especially the most originals/the ones too far from the "game spirit", without deleting the main idea of Humankind.

Personally, this is just a suggestion: I don't even know whether the devs will really care about such proposition, but I am hopeful, and I see this idea as a promising one, although I know that everything requires its needed time.

-Suggestions for some future game-modes:

  (feel free to write yours in the comments)

• Ideology-related one
  • adopting a culture requires as prerequisite to have, at least, a certain position in the ideology axis
  • empires with (very) different ideologies obtain grievances
  • imposing your culture on the other empires gives the most fame (this mechanic should not be related to the influence stars bur, rather, on a deeds-similar one. ex: when another empire replaces one of his civics with one of yours with the "popup" that appears when one of your territory is influenced by another culture, you obtain a "deed")
  • the game ends when an empire influences the whole world

• Religious-related one
  • the game becomes extremely religious-centric (all the "normal" fame gains are reduced, and the main way to obtain fame is "levelling-up" your religion, having the most faith output, winning religious wars, pillaging the Religious districts of territories following other religions)
  • Faith becomes the best way to obtain Stability (every pop, in all known empires, that doesn't follow your religion gives a global Stability malus on all your cities, but every Faith on city gives Stability)
  • converting all empires to your religion ends the game

• Empires vs IPs
  • IPs have greater "freedom" (they can choose their own laws, they can found new cities, expand their territory, capture new cities, and can declare wars on other IPs/players whenever they like, they have their own sphere of influence)
  • bigger empires will struggle more to control their stability and revolutions will be much more common
  • rebel IPs shall "become a culture" (they will take their city/units look, their LT, EQ, EU but will still interact with the player as IPs, they have different treaties from the "normal" IPs, they won't have an avatar/the same interactions that the player has with another empire)
  • IP's will have their own fame score (and will be able to build wonders/ accomplish deeds)
  • IPs need to "pass level" in order to expand their options (at the beginning of the game they will be "normal" IPs, but once they'll have done X thing they will "level-up" and be able to to other things. They won't be able to expand/claim wonder/become cultures/ have a fame score since the beginning of the game)
  • the game shall be feel as a "fight" between the major empires and the IPs to keep their "empire status" and avoid IPs to snowball
  • empires should get a fame bonus whenever they suppress a rebellion/ defeat or "inglobate" an IP

• Trade-focused one
  • signing treaties, keeping trade routes active, pillaging the trade routes of other empires and colonizing the new world shall become the biggest fame-bonuses (if not the only ones)
  • maintaining your colonies in other continents becomes much more difficult
  • winning wars for the signing of diplomatic treaties gives extra fame, and winning battles on the sea/on a foreign continent does the same

• Stability struggle
  • almost everything (ex: changing a civic, winning/losing a battle/war, loosing/gaining too much population) creates a stability imbalance (both positive and negative) and revolts become extremly more common.
  • CQs and Garrisons give less Stability in bigger cities (but reduce the % of the ignition of a revolt)
  • whenever a culture leaves the tumultuous-level of stability it starts a fame and a FIMSI buff on all his cities
  • all empires gain fame when they are not unstable 

• Epidemics and pandemics
  • The (pop) growth rate of cities is strictly limited until the research of some technologies
  • sometimes a city gets an "infected" status that limits its yields and kills its pop
  • armies can spread this status from city to city
  • sieged or low stability cities become "infected" easier
  • cancelling diplomatic treaties (like the "open borders" or the "free resources exchange"), lowers to risk to get infected
  • epidemics grow in infection/lethality exponentially, becoming pandemics once they'll get big enough; the game will end when there won't be enough people in the world
  • infected armies (and the militia units of infected cities) obtain a combat strength malus (that spreads to the units that kill the infected one) 
  • empires can "invest" money and science to "secure" cities, at the cost of other yields

• Deeds-focused one
  • empires can obtain much more fame from deeds
  • many more deeds are added (ex: be the first one to enact a civic, have the biggest city in the era, be the first one to obtain X unit/ to become the patron of X IP)
  • deeds can grant also LT-like effects to the players (everyone that does a certain action will receive it, but surely the first ones to accomplish it will have more time to make use of it)
  • the game shall end once all deeds will be achieved

• Dynamic personas
  • every enemy persona ('s appearance) will stay the same but they will change their characteristics every X time (maybe after performing an action for many times or after they change culture)

A1y0sh4 wrote:

-Suggestions for some future game-modes:

  (feel free to write yours in the comments)

• Ideology-related one
  • adopting a culture requires as prerequisite to have, at least, a certain position in the ideology axis
  • empires with (very) different ideologies obtain grievances
  • imposing your culture on the other empires gives the most fame (this mechanic should not be related to the influence stars bur, rather, on a deeds-similar one. ex: when another empire replaces one of his civics with one of yours with the "popup" that appears when one of your territory is influenced by another culture, you obtain a "deed")
  • the game ends when an empire influences the whole world

I mainly wrote this thread for this suggestion in particolar.

in my opinion it might be a solution to the "culture change" issue

[WHY THE CULTURE CHANGE MECHANIC WAS A BAD IDEA], 

[HUMANKIND - IMPROVE IMMERSION OF CULTURE SHIFTING WITH EVENTS THAT EXPLAIN HOW THE SHIFT HAPPENED]