PC|MAC|STA Humankind

[icycalm]

https://twitter.com/culturevg/status/14 ... 1983320067



Anyone thinking about this? I am not sure what “5 eras” entails. Is that the whole game? How many eras are there? I also wonder if MP will be in.

[icycalm]

lol I actually already own the game on Steam, the Deluxe Edition even. I totally forgot buying that. I was going to buy it on Epic with the €10 off before June 17, but luckily I checked Steam and saw that I owned it.

Still not decided if I should play the “beta”. Note that the game was supposed to be out months ago, so chances are it’s feature-complete. Whether the “beta” will have all features unlocked is another matter.

[icycalm]

Full details on the beta: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021 ... -of-a-game

TL;DR: Six eras in total, so 5/6 in the beta. You get about 200 turns, roughly 20-30 hours per playthrough. You can also get a beta key by watching specific streamers, if you’re lucky. No word on MP yet. New trailer in the link.

[icycalm]

https://twitter.com/culturevg/status/14 ... 2297328658



Trying to find if the beta starts today so I can scramble for an internet connection.

[icycalm]

On the 17th, I'll be online all day to start a MP lobby when the game drops. I think it'll be eight players, so I need seven. Post in this thread to sign up on a first-come first-served basis. If there are empty slots on the day, anyone who's available can join in. If the game needs all eight players to launch, I'll leave my computer on all day until everyone has logged in, then launch it. After that, it'll be normal turn-based play, so people can turn off their computers.

Normally, I am not a fan of this drawn-out slow-drip turn-based play, and I would try to organize Saturdays to play long sessions. But we have Starbase to play now, and soon we'll have D&D, so there's no time for proper Humankind sessions. So I'll be okay making an exception this once, and just playing a few turns of the game every week.


P.S. You can sign-up friends by posting here for them. This goes for all the games we play.

[Q-veta]

I'll be there on the 17th.

[ChevRage]

I'll be there. I'll wait a few days for CULT interest, then I'll start asking friends if they'd like to join.

[Saf]

I'll play.

[Some guy]

I'll be there!

[icycalm]

5/8. Three places left...

[icycalm]

It’ll be on Xbox Game Pass for PC at launch: https://twitter.com/vgc_news/status/1424725491806883842



I already have it on Steam, but for the rest of you it might be a good deal. I even linked a free three-month subscription on Twitter a few days back. It’s given out by a website called Crunchyroll iirc.

Cool new trailer for the Game Pass announcement: https://twitter.com/humankindgame/statu ... 4290480137

At least I think it’s new, it might just be repurposed.

[icycalm]

TEN MOTHERFUCKING PLAYAS!!!



We got five, seriously no more ppl wanna play??

It unlocks in about 12 hours, around 4-5 PM my time. I’ll install and set up a lobby when I wake up, and I’ll be on Discord all day to try to fill the lobby and launch the game. Hopefully we’ll manage that today/tomorrow, but if not then hopefully later in the week. Worst case scenario we can just play a big session on the weekend and then continue turn-based next week.

Early reviews say the AI sucks as with Civ, and if this game is more complex then inevitably it’ll suck more, so for the ultimate experience you need to play MP. The 10-player lobbies tell me right away that the devs are ambitious and want to take the genre to the next level. I’ll be posting some fantastic mechanical details in the main thread that were just released and got people very excited.


Edit:

Humankind Feature Focus 12: Late Game
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 9682892421

[recoil]

I'll join in. If it unlocks in time I should have a good 7 hour stretch to play.

[icycalm]

We won't be able to play a full session. People are in different time zones, and it's the middle of the week. All we want to do is get everyone in the lobby and launch the game, and then it'll be the usual turn-based play, with email notifications, and everyone playing their turn when they can.

I sent an invitation to the director of Age of Decadence and Colony Ship. He's on my Steam friend list, and he has pre-purchased the game. I figured maybe he doesn't have 9 friends to play it with.

So with recoil we have 6. Maybe 7 if Vince is in. Let's see if more people sign up in the next few hours.

[Ciaróg]

I'll join if it unlocks at a semi-reasonable hour. You can put me down as a maybe but if someone else wants in and is more flexible they can take my place.

[icycalm]

A lot depends on how they have set up their lobby system. If players can join the lobby and then leave their computers on while they go to sleep, without needing everyone to hit Ready AFTER all the players are in, then we're fine. But if the system unreadies people when new people join... it'll be a mission to launch a 10-player lobby in the week. We might have to wait until the weekend in that case, and then we might as well start off the game with a big multi-hour session. Plus, in that case everyone will have a chance to play a few hours single-player and learn the game a bit.

Honestly I am okay with both scenarios. Maybe the second scenario is even preferable. On the other hand, I said we'd play Humankind on day 1, and day 1 is in a few hours, and I sure as fuck don't want to wait until the weekend. So we'll just have to wait and see how the system works tomorrow.

[Beakman]

I'm taking an airplane today but I should be available to play after ~19:00 hrs GMT. If everyone is ready at launch in 10 hours (15:00 hrs GMT, when Steam says it will unlock the game) please start without me.

[icycalm]

We don’t really want to launch the game unless we have a full 10-player human lobby. It’s kind of a big deal if we lose a human and have to put an AI in his place, it will seriously reduce the complexity and fun of the game. And since this is the first 4X that goes up to 10 players, it’s worth going the extra mile to try to ensure a full human lobby. So people should keep signing up here, even past the 10-player limit, and once the lobby is up we’ll try to fill it with the signed-up players on a first-come first-served basis.

So you aren’t doing us a favor by saying “Launch without me”, is what I am saying.

[ChevRage]

Just signing up my friend CMDR Black Jack Geary/shino3211, if the game is on Xbox Game Pass, he's in.

I'm not seeing it listed in the app yet though. I guess it'll only show up once it's out.

[Hanged Man]

I'm in. I'll be home at around 7 PM GMT and then I imagine it'll take me about an hour or two to download and install the game.

[Robomoo]

I'd like to play too, if there's still space.

[icycalm]

I think we’re at 11 now. If the lobby is easy to set up, I will go with the order in this thread, and if it’s hard to set up I will take whoever is available when we’re close to filling the lobby and need the last few players to launch the game. Keep an eye on Discord over the next 5-10 hours.

As people get eliminated, they might want to start a new game, so use this thread to make a second team for that after we’ve launched the first game.

[schadenfreude]

I just got the game. I'll be around all day in case you need me to fill the lobby.

[icycalm]

Heads up that you can get the game from here for huge discounts: https://www.g2a.com/search?query=Humankind

Scroll down and look for your region.

I also heard you can find it for 25 euros or dollars somewhere. Not sure exactly where, but several people on Steam were talking about it, though they gave no links because it's forbidden on Steam.

Beware that there are scammers operating sometimes in these grey market sites. Look for sellers with good feedback, etc. You can also buy insurance on the sites sometimes.

Of course there's always also just the Xbox Game Pass deal.

[icycalm]

So I seem to recall that Civ3 allowed up to 15 civs, though I never played that in MP and I am not even sure if you could play with 15 people. I just played SP with 15 civs. Strictly in terms of maximum civs, then, a 20-year game trumps Humankind. It still does better than Planetfall though, which couldn’t even beat the original 30-year-old Civ’s eight civs.

Do the newer Civs allow 15 civs, and can you play MP with that many people?

I somehow doubt it. The genre seems to have regressed in various ways, or at most stagnated since I last looked into it 20 years ago, and the newer players and critics just don’t know enough about the genre to spot these issues—though to me they are unmistakable and blatant.

All these comments should have gone in the game’s regular thread, but I am putting them here because I gushed here earlier about the 10-player MP. I don’t know how praiseworthy this is because I’ve never played MP 4X in my life before, but strictly in terms of the number of civs/opponents allowed, it’s disappointing. It could still be the largest MP ever allowed in the genre though. We need to research it.