What is Humankind? Strategy games have an audience that likes to spend time dominating their opponents. These games are individual games, which is the basis of the victory or loss depending on the player’s performance.
If outsiders to this genre were to play, they would be overwhelmed. Strategy is related to city-building, except for the CPU or real opponents you compete with. A rising star of this genre is Humankind, a 2020 release that portrays the story of, well, humankind.
To Dumb it Down…
Humankind’s design is similar to many existing franchises or games. Games like Civilization and Anno have a similar concept of human progression. The difference is that Civilization has unrivaled complexity.
However, Anno is mainly about trade, politics, and naval warfare. Humankind’s core design is about progressing through periods of human development. There are requirements for these advancements, and the win condition varies with the settings.
A subgenre of Strategy is 4X, which means Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate. It was coined in 1993 as a pun for mature media but had wider usage afterward to describe similar games.
Prominent franchises of this formula are Command and Conquer, and Age of Empires. Its definitive characteristics are a map blanketed by the fog of war, and resources to acquire and fight over. With these resources, you must muster the strength to defeat other opponents—this is the 4X genre.
Humankind’s Design
While popular 4X games are real-time strategy games, Humankind is a turn-based game. It allows players to move all at once per turn for good pacing. You can move around units, put down buildings, commission upgrades, and more. With the added layer of politics, you can have alliances, trade deals, and wage wars during the game.
Win conditions can be changed when setting the game up. These include dominion, annihilation, or being the first to go to Mars. There are two kinds of currency in the game, and both are called yields.
The first ones are the FIMS: Food, Industry, Money, and Science, which is used throughout the game. Empire yields are Faith, Stability, and Influence. All these will contribute to your game, and lacking one yield can cripple your empire.
Progression of Humankind
With all the resources you have, where do you go? Follow the 4X formula, and expand and exploit the resources you have in your territories. But, at random times, “wild NPC” factions will make gameplay unpredictable and spawn in random places. Your main task, while juggling all manner of foreign policy problems, is advancing to the next Era.
Collecting Era stars, you need at least 7 of them to advance, but you can stay and gather more fame if you wish. With every era after the first one, there is research to complete. Each of them gives powerful additives to your empire, as you start to negotiate or wage war with your opponents. Remember that the goal can vary, but the important this that your empire prospers.
Humankind Multiplayer Features
Humankind gives a unique addition to the multiplayer feature. One can create a game and play, and come back if they log off. This is possible by saving the game state, and the players can drop in at the time of saving. A feature that saves progress in a multiplayer game is a huge selling point for strategy games. QoLs like this can save the hassle of having to start over due to time constraints.
Apart from all the reasons above, Humankind is a great game to try out. With friends, or by yourself, this game is worth the money. The only thing left for you to do now is to go beyond and soar into the stars.
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