Humankind Challenges Sid Meier's Civilization Series

Humankind rises to the surface to challenge Sid Meier's Civilization game series as its official release date has finally been announced.

4X games, a subgenere of strategy-based board games, has been dominated by Sid Meier's Civilization series for the longest we can remember. Recently, a new game has been receiving spotlight. I'll be talking about Humankind Game and contrast it with Sid Meier's Civilization series (Civilization).

Humankind Challenges Sid Meier's Civilization Series

Humankind is a 4X game being developed by Amplitude Studios and has been open about the game development process for over a year. Amplitude Studios has already won multiple awards on Humankind; the short open beta testing was also a huge success and buzzed the excitement for the game. There have been delays in the official release, but Amplitude Studios announced the final release date was announced in March.

With less than four months until the Humankind game's official release, people have been bound to compare the game to Civilization. The two games has various similarities; Both games are based on world history, and the basic premise is to claim superiority against other civilizations on the map.

Will Humankind be able to take over the throne of 4X games as the new owner? Let us explore how Humankind is different from Civilization.

Character Customization

One of the biggest difference is the leader characters. Civilization has its players choose what nation they want to play. Choosing this determines the looks of the leader, which are real-life people from that nation, and the gameplay style as well.

In contrast, Humankind allows players to customize individual characters that are not bound to the nation. The AI nations that players compete against are also capable of customization, and furthermore, shareable with friends. This is a huge strength of the game. Customization and sharing based on communities are big factors that gamers like to see. Hands down- Humankind made an amazing system here.

Civilization Development

The game process in the bigger picture is different in Humankind and Civilization. In Civilization, eras are based on the cultural and scientific advancement. In Humankind, players are able to choose what civilization they will progress within every era. For example, once players reach the Industrial era, they can choose from multiple countries they want to follow. Zulu is a militaristic nation with its own special traits. There are other choices such as the British who are expansionists, or Persians who are builders. With each era in Humankind comes sub-quests and new cultures.

Victory

Most games all come down to one question- how do you win the game? 4X games are not very different. Civilization has had its struggles to satisfy players with various ways to win the game- although most players would admit that domination is the chosen way more than others.

In Humankind, there is only one way to win the game: fame. Having the highest fame is the single way of victory. Fame is gained by a point system that is obtainable by performing different tasks in every era. The tasks vary from discovering hidden wonders or conducting research.

The single victory system has been discussed over in communities. It is certainly controversial if Civilization's multiple winning systems is better than this. Yet the fame system allows players to work towards a single goal without having overwhelming choices to make.

Land Ownership

The last issue that will be discussed is land ownership. Humankind puts more authority in owning land. Having a city gives a certain amount of tiles, as does Civilization, but this also grants authority over land near the city as well. Other nations will not be able to build close to that city. I can guarantee that every Civilization player has gone through the frustration of another nation establishing a city right next to mine. Humankind prevents these conflicts. I don't know if this is good or not, because there is certainly fun that comes with that tension, but it is what we will have to find out as we play the game.

Humankind is available for pre-purchase on the following platforms at a lower price.

• Steam
• Epic Game store
• Google Stadia