Humankind - Preview of the new strategy game from Amplitude Studios

Humankind - Preview of the new strategy game from Amplitude Studios

Talking about strategic games is a bit like talking about a macro-genre in itself: over the years, in fact, many titles have proposed variants of this type of games that are really well done, but above all, all with that original feature that made them unique. . Obviously this has also led to the creation of sub-genres: among the many, the one that is most complete is the 4X. The four Xs stand for eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate and eXplore, four actions that you will also do in this new humankind, a title that aims to become the greatest historical strategy game ever. We had the opportunity to try it in a sort of mission dedicated to the discovery of various features, and we will try (despite the infinite variables that a similar game can offer) to tell you about our experience. However, we can immediately say that this was incredibly positive: capturing attention with a strategic one is something that usually takes hours and hours, while this Humankind is immediate in its complexity, without however getting stuck in terrible traps given by wanting to propose too much gameplay. detailed.



Humankind - Preview of the new strategy game from Amplitude StudiosAnd you, which civilization do you support?

The dynamic that immediately catches the eye in Humankind is there civilization management: in the game in fact, as you advance with the objectives, you will find yourself accumulating stars e passing from one era to another. With the change of these, you can also choose the new civilization to manage: in our test we started from the Neolithic, then move on to the Phoenicians, Romans, Norsemen and finally the Japanese. The five eras we lived obviously did not feature map variations, but only Humankind's dynamics: in fact the game was against other players controlled by a terribly astute AI who, like us, have varied their roots from time to time. The developers promise many choices from this point of view, but even if they were not enough, you will need to know that each of these civilizations will bring with it uses, customs, peculiar characteristics for troops, markets, buildings and even wonders. In fact, when you advance, you can choose a unique wonder to place in your kingdom.



Of course, the game doesn't stop there: we said the goal is to expand, exploit, kill and explore, and that's exactly what you're going to do. If in the first place you will have to look for resources and build a camp, then you will have to maintain your borders, expand where needed, start producing materials and food and try to survive and conquer as much as possible. Speaking precisely of this, therefore, we can divide the game into two large macro-areas: the management of our kingdom and the diplomacy with the others.

Humankind - Preview of the new strategy game from Amplitude StudiosSpeaking of the latter, it is managed through a very simple interface and animations, correlated by dialogues, very funny. You can then declare war, maybe start one secretly, or propose alliances by opening borders, sharing routes for the market or even sharing maps. Of course, diplomacy is fragile, to the point that even building a camp near another player's border could trigger a significant dispute. Obviously with the AI ​​the mechanics turned out to be quite linear, but when you can play online surely we will see some good ones, especially given that you can expand by navigating the seas, propose a vassalage system to other players by becoming superior to them or even tighten strong alliances to attack some enemies together. The proximity to other civilizations, finally, will allow yours to absorb their customs and traditions as an osmosis, adding further variables.

Mi casa es mi casa

The other part of the game will obviously be that of managing your own: in fact, if you can send troops of various types to explore, however you will have to be careful about your cities. Born as camps and developed on the game's hexagonal map, they will allow you to install material recovery areas (ranging from grain to industry, including coins, science and influence) useful for upgrading and expanding. As you advance through the ages, you will also unlock unnecessary but useful uses such as divertissement (maybe rides or circuses) e activity that can make you progress in evolution.



Finally, you will have dozens of variables to manage and functions to learn: you will have to be careful not to overpopulate a city, nor to leave it without people, you can pay to speed up construction, buy or sell materials and in short, manage the game by aiming for what you want to achieve. Counting that victory is not given by mere conquest but by influence points, you can choose the style that suits you best. In extreme evils, you can make deals, sell cities, ask for others, share routes, assemble two small cities by "unifying" them into a larger one, change their names, build stables, mines, monuments and so on and so forth.

Humankind - Preview of the new strategy game from Amplitude StudiosThe game is managed with turns, in which you can do what you want before moving on: the fact remains that constructions and evolution - even those not related to cities such as technological advancement and faith - you will have turns to wait, which you can decrease by conveying help from other cities or by paying with gold. For the troops, on the other hand, you can move them by tot zones for each turn, making them do actions like construction, harassment o battle. Speaking of the latter, Humankind proposes a tactical system that sees the various troops deployed in the battle area: here the tactic becomes important, as having an elevated area or physical supports can change the fate of the fight.


The game will propose finally private events of various types related to science, faith and so on, where you will have to make decisions that could strengthen or weaken your villages. Blocking a person who perhaps screams falsehoods in the square rather than paying him to leave or talk to us to solve it could change the trend and the overall vision of that city, proposing an even higher variability.

Humankind is a vast, massive game, something though instantly gives you access to barrier-free entertainment due to the difficulty: cultural advancement, in addition to defining your games well, is satisfying as regards receiving new buildings and troops, reminding a bit like it happened in Empire Earth. For the rest, we place great confidence in this game which, in a provisional build, has been able to have fun (and will probably still have fun in the coming days). The developers made sure to tell us this was anyway a trial version, does not reflect the final game, and this gives us even more hope to see a title that, really, has the potential to become the best historical strategy player ever.


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