Month: August 2024

Revisiting Humankind, three years on

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This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Humankind

Humankind launched three years ago, in August 2021. Since then, I’ve played it many times (on both Game Pass and Steam), and with Civ VII now on the horizon, the time is right for me to revisit my thoughts. I still like Humankind — but I don’t think it ever reached its potential.

What I liked about Humankind…

At launch, I was glowing about Humankind. It was a very good “traditional” and warfare-focused 4X, focused on building an empire, investing in food, production & science, raising armies, and fighting other empires. It featured:

  • Engaging warfare and tactical combat — terrain, technology, unit types, and tactics all mattered. Armies marched as stacks, before deploying to fight. Battles took part over several turns (allowing reinforcing stacks to join the fray), and siege battles felt distinct thanks to the presence of city militia and mechanics such as fortifications and siege engines. Warfare evolved through the eras, especially once gunpowder made its debut.
  • Computer players that could give me a challenge — from my very first game, I had to fight for my life against early rushes.
  • Points-based victory conditions that rewarded doing well across multiple dimensions:
    • Being both tall (building plenty of districts) and wide (geographic size).
    • Succeeding both at peace (having a large population, being scientifically advanced, earning lots of gold and influence) and at war (destroying lots of enemies).
    • Doing well consistently through the game — it was often worth lingering in earlier eras to earn points.
  • Novel mechanics such as choosing new cultures over the course of a game, opening with a hunter-gatherer phase in the Neolithic period, building cities region by region, and attaching outposts to expand cities.
  • A great aesthetic, both in terms of art and music.
Fighting off an early rush in Humankind.
The computer players in Humankind really, really like rushing me in the early game. This contributes to the challenge and is one reason why I consider it a military-focused game.

… and what I didn’t

At the same time, Humankind had its flaws:

  • From a design perspective, anything that wasn’t part of that “traditional” 4X core was vestigial — notably religion & culture. Diplomacy was bland and different computer opponents never felt distinct.
  • From an execution perspective, the late game was noticeably less polished than the early game1. Cool ideas suffered in implementation, such as a pollution system that was too punitive in practice.

The problem is that the game never really evolved from there. In an ideal world, expansions would have plugged the holes in its design; but none of its DLC2 did. As for execution, I think it says a lot that later updates simply disabled pollution by default.

By now, I think it’s unlikely this situation will change. The last DLC, a culture pack, came out nearly 12 months ago (back in September 2023), and the cadence of patches has slowed — there have been none since January 2024, although the developers have said they’re working on an update.

Why Old World was, overall, better

Another comparison is Old World, the other major historical 4X besides Civ. Between the two, Old World is the better game:

At the same time, Humankind is the better-looking of the two, and its familiarity made it easier for me to learn at first.

Conclusions

Would I still recommend Humankind? Yes, with the caveat that prospective players should understand its focus — and its limitations. I still think it’s a good 4X game with great ideas (underscored by how many of them are recurring in Civ VII). It does particularly well at warfare — better than any Civ game probably has in decades — and that makes it well-suited for those seeking military challenges in their 4X games. On sale, it’s cheap enough (90% off!) to justify taking a look. What it does not do well is anything outside that core focus.

Would I replay it? Maybe. I thought I was ready to move on, but writing this article reminded me of what I enjoyed. I’ve yet to try the mod scene, and even without mods, sometimes I just feel like 4X comfort food: something that Humankind offers.

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  1. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the late game never went through the rounds of open beta testing that the early game did. ↩
  2. Humankind received several rounds of DLC that added new playable cultures, plus one expansion, “Together We Rule”, all the way back in November 2022. “Together We Rule” added new diplomacy and world congress mechanics, which I never really understood or enjoyed. ↩

Initial thoughts on Civilization VII’s gameplay showcase video

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This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Civilization VII

Firaxis has released the first gameplay showcase video for Sid Meier’s Civilization VII. The gameplay itself begins at 5:36:

Lots of interesting ideas — many of them from Humankind

My first impression is that Civ VII is the sincerest form of flattery to Humankind. In particular, it adopts Humankind’s signature mechanic, switching civs each era — albeit with differences:

  • Civ VII will only have three ages (antiquity, exploration, and modern).
  • In Civ VII, unlocking later civs will have in-game requirements. In the video (see approx. 17:35), playing as Ancient Egypt has automatically unlocked Songhai, whereas Mongolia would require access to horses.

Settlements beginning as towns, and upgrading to cities over time, also reminded me of Humankind.

Other mechanics also seem influenced by Humankind, although it’s too early to be sure:

This cements a tradition of cross-pollination with Amplitude games — Civ VI’s districts system seemed clearly inspired by Endless Legend.

Finally, some mechanics appear entirely new to the historical 4X genre. These include:

  • The concept of endgame crises from games such as Stellaris, Total War: Attila, and the Total War: Warhammers — here reworked into “end of age” crises.
  • The playable map expanding with each new age; and
  • The ability to sail ships down rivers.

My questions so far

Given how early it is, there is still plenty to learn about Civ VII. A couple of questions that occurred to me:

  • What is the overall design philosophy?
    • For example, Civs I through IV were empire builders, whereas from Civ V onward, the focus switched to specialisation: picking a path to victory before even starting, then choosing an appropriate civ.
    • My guess is that the ages system will shake things up — let’s wait for more detail on how this plays out.
  • How well can the developers execute on their vision? And how well will the computer be able to play the game?
    • The infamous example here is the military AI in Civs V and VI, which was never able to adapt to the “1 unit per tile” rule.
    • This, we won’t know until launch.

Pricing — starting at A$120/US$70/€70/£60

A separate point is the price, which is not cheap.

In Australia, Civ VII will cost (per the headline prices on Steam) A$120 for the standard edition, A$160 for the deluxe, and A$200 for the founder’s edition. SteamDB tells me that in other regions, the standard edition is US$70, €70, and £60. These are the kind of prices I associate with niche wargames and milsims, rather than mainstream 4X games, and I wonder what effect they will have on players’ willingness to buy at launch.

Speaking for myself, I will take a punt on something half or a third that price; for anything close to that, the game had better be very, very good.

Overall thoughts so far

At this stage, I feel curious and hopeful about Civ VII. I’m glad that it has plenty of new ideas on display — I think it’s what the series needs in order to keep feeling fresh. Time will  tell how well the game implements those ideas — and if that implementation is good enough to justify the price.

Links

Most of the available previews contain similar information. I found IGN’s the most informative.

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Musical Monday: Allegro con fuoco from Dvorak’s Symphony No 9

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This week, I’m smuggling in one of my favourite pieces of classical music: the fourth movement (Allegro con fuoco) of Dvorak’s Symphony No 9. It plays in Legend of the Galactic Heroes as alarms blare and a pivotal counterattack unfolds — so it counts!

Below, I’ve linked two versions: one from Youtube (performed by the Orchestre Phiharmonique de Radio France and conducted by Marzene Diakun) and one from Spotify (performed by the Vienna Philharmonic and conducted by Herbert von Karajan).

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Authors worth reading: Megan Whalen Turner (The Queen’s Thief)

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This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Authors worth reading
The six novels of Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series
The six novels of Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series in my Kindle library, presented in reverse order (The Thief, rightmost, is the first book). Not shown: my hardcopy of Moira’s Pen, the side stories collection.

Megan Whalen Turner is the author of the Queen’s Thief series, my newest fantasy discovery (hat tip to Rachel for the recommendation). Her books combine:

  • Adventure;
  • Humour;
  • Vivid and memorable characters; and
  • One of the better depictions I’ve seen of myth and the divine in fantasy worldbuilding.

In the best ways, they remind me of two of my other favourite authors, Dorothy Dunnett and Lois McMaster Bujold. And with the proviso that I’ve read relatively little fantasy in recent years, they’ve been my favourite fantasy reads since The Silmarillion back in 2022.

Now complete, the series comprises six novels, plus a collection of side stories. Driving the action is Eugenides (Gen to his friends), the titular Thief. Like Dunnett’s Lymond and Niccolo, and Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan, Gen is a larger-than-life trickster. By turns, he is hilarious, aggravating, regal, kind, menacing, wily, audacious, and ingenious. The others around him are equally well-written, including two of my favourite queens in the genre, long-suffering guardsmen and courtiers, and some very lowly people who turn out to be much more significant than their supposed betters would think.

Book 1, The Thief, is both the only one solely from Gen’s perspective, and the weakest by far — it reads as though it were aimed at a much younger audience. From Book 2 (The Queen of Attolia) onwards, the series zooms out to include other perspectives and the broader political context. And from book 3 onwards, the perspectives shift again and we mostly see Gen from the outside — often a source of dramatic irony, as by that time the reader knows him better than the various narrators.

The books’ setting is inspired primarily by classical antiquity, which extends to their treatment of the divine. While this is generally a low-magic setting, gods and heroes appear in dreams and visions to advise mortals — this felt consistent with myths (and means the books satisfy my theory that great fantasy gets its power from myth, history, or both).

A final bonus is that these books are easy to read — perfect after a tiring or stressful day.

Overall, I love these books. and I’d recommend them to any genre fans. If they sound interesting, my advice is to stick with them past the first book! Give the series until the first few chapters of the second book. If you do like the first book, even better. And if you pick up the series, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Links

Goodreads

The series on Amazon US / Australia — buy from these links to support this site

Interviews with the author: Readings, (spoiler warnings) Dear Author #1, Dear Author #2

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Musical Monday: “Chasing Daybreak” (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), by Rei Kondoh

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This week is my favourite battle theme from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, “Chasing Daybreak”. When it kicks in, in the game’s second half, it helps shift the mood from “goofy anime adventure” to “high fantasy epic” — an epic I’m close to finishing after five years. Listening to “Chasing Daybreak” is a mighty push to get over the line.

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Building the dream team: the squad system of Unicorn Overlord

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This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Unicorn Overlord

I’m about to finish the excellent Unicorn Overlord, a fantasy strategy-RPG game available on consoles. While its writing is poor even by video-game standards, its mechanics are excellent, and nearly unique amongst modern games in the genre.

Central to those mechanics is the squad system, the focus of this article. This gives players a lot of scope to customise the squads into which the party is divided:

  • First, by choosing the characters who go into each squad.
  • Second, by setting up each character with skills, equipment, and programmable tactics.

Setting up synergies is fun…

Unicorn Overlord inherits its basic mechanics from Ogre Battle, the SNES classic:

  • Each stage is its own real-time battle map.
  • Instead of moving individual characters, the smallest controllable unit on the battle map is a squad of 3 to 5 characters. Eventually, the player can field up to 8 squads, for a total of 40 characters once fully upgraded.
  • Characters come in many different classes, which determine their stats, skills, and available gear.
  • Squads battle automatically, based on the tactics set up by the player.

Much of the fun comes from choosing, equipping, and configuring each squad’s characters so they complement each other. For example, this is my most powerful squad:

Squad 1, centred around Hilda, is my powerhouse.

The key member of this team is Hilda, the wyvern rider. Her spear enables a skill that hits every member of the enemy squad at once. Normally this would take two turns to charge, but see below.

The two other back row characters support her: a witch adds ice damage and the “freeze” status effect to Hilda’s attack, and Selvie the druid gives her a second consecutive turn. This lets her instantly charge up, attack on her first turn, wipe out most of the enemy, and freeze the survivors.

Selvie also casts the Sandstorm spell, which adds the “blind” status effect to the enemy party. Against most enemies this is overkill — Hilda rarely leaves survivors — but better safe than sorry.

The two front-row characters are mostly there for utility, soaking incoming damage, and cleanup. Alain, the game’s main character, gives a bonus to “valor”, the resource used to call in more squads or activate special abilities. I swap the fifth character as needed.

For some time, the weakness of this squad was that it had no healer. I am experimenting with swapping a healer back in before the final battles.

… and so is unleashing them

How does the system play out in practice? I have a roster of squads, mostly designed for specific purposes:

  • Some, like Hilda and friends above, are built for lethality. Their job is to go in, flatten the enemy squad with an all-targets attack on turn one, and then repeat with the next enemy.
    • For instance, I’ve set up another squad along similar lines — it enables a witch to barrage the enemy with one of the most powerful spells in the game on turn one1.
  • Some are meant for support, such as healing friendly squads or clearing obstacles from stage maps.
  • Some are meant for mobility, with lots of fast, mounted or flying characters.

Now that I’m in the endgame, most of these squads are tried and tested. Some I use largely as-is, although I change individual characters’ gear when dealing with enemies who can inflict status effects. Others I continued to tweak late into the game, as new characters joined or as inspiration struck.

Level design does matter — I try to pick the right squads for the map. For example:

  • On a stage centred around lifting the siege of a friendly city, I deployed my fastest squad to secure the palace and protect the NPC there.
  • Similarly, I like to manoeuvre flying squads around terrain to eliminate ballista and catapult crews before they can threaten my main force.
Clive and his cavalry squad move fast and hit very hard. Using a side route, I rushed them into the city to protect the palace, visible at the top.

While Unicorn Overlord’s main game is quite easy, I tweak squads more when playing the optional challenge content. This comes in two main flavours:

  • Scripted coliseum challenges against squads with themed builds. Some of these were diabolically hard — beating them at a low level was probably the biggest impetus I’ve had to overhaul and tailor my squads.
  • An “online” (really asynchronous) PvP mode where players can upload squads for others to challenge, and test their builds against other squads. Refining my tactics, practising my cheese builds, and trying to counter other people’s cheese builds has helped keep me entertained long after release. Whenever someone tries to hit me with an all-battlefield magic spell on turn one, it’s very satisfying to bring a character who can reflect magic.
That must hurt. Reflecting this squad’s magic hoist them on their own petard.

Other benefits (and how Unicorn Overlord adheres to the Covert Action rule)

Taking a step back, it’s worth thinking how the Unicorn Overlord (and by extension, the Ogre Battle) squad system addresses a couple of design issues in the genre.

First, making the basic unit the squad rather than the individual character maintains a manageable limit on the number of units the player has to move around.

Second, it addresses the “large roster problem” in RPGs that only allow the player to use a few characters at a time. While the sheer number of characters in Unicorn Overlord (there are over 60 unique characters in the main game, plus generics) means some still end up on the bench, most have a chance to shine, even if only under specific circumstances.

While replicating this would be difficult, given how it forms part of Unicorn Overlord’s overall design, a handful of games probably would benefit from the squad concept. Expeditions: Rome features a large roster, a mix of story characters & (underutilised) generics, and a rather pointless legion battles minigame that amounts to several mouse-clicks and a few resources going up or down. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to group the available characters into squads for the legion battles?

(There is even a precedent for this — Suikoden III, another game with a massive roster, featured an army battles minigame that grouped up the recruited characters into squads.)

A final question is whether the additional complexity of squad setup is only possible because the battles are automatic. I think the answer is “yes”. In other words, Unicorn Overlord respects the Law of Conservation of Complexity and Sid Meier’s Covert Action rule (“one good game is better than two great ones”). I don’t think the game would work if every stage bogged down into manually controlled battles every time two squads fought2.

Conclusions

For over five months, Unicorn Overlord has kept me entertained, in no small part thanks to the squad system. Over that time, I’ve developed a powerful set of squads — both individually capable and effective as a group. They’ve taken me through most of the game’s content, including its challenge content, and I expect them to be able to handle the finale. After all, I’ve honed my cheese in the PvP meta. What final boss could rival that?

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  1. I wish I could claim credit for this and Hilda’s squad — I found the ideas online. ↩
  2. A very rough analogy might be the Dominions games, where the player doesn’t control armies in combat, but instead sets them up before. ↩

Musical Monday: “Newtonian Approximation” (Terra Invicta), composed by Breakdown Epiphanies

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One of Terra Invicta‘s standout features is its soundtrack, which is enjoyable and great at setting the mood. Pride of place goes to the main title theme, “Newtonian Approximations”, which builds to an optimistic conclusion at 2:20-2:30, before looping. It fits a game that’s about humanity gradually, doggedly coming from behind to fight off an alien invasion. Enjoy!

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